The Liar's Key (The Red Queen's War 2)

“Snorri!” The shout burst from me without permission. I clapped a hand to my mouth in case any more foolishness might emerge. The last thing I wanted was for that awful head to turn my way. To my horror I found that I’d stepped into the doorway—the absolute worst place to be, silhouetted by moonlight, blocking the exit.

“To arms!”

“To the hall!” Cries from all directions now.

Behind me I could hear the pounding of many feet. No retreat that way. The Norse will string a coward up by his thumbs and cut off bits he needs. I stepped in quickly to make myself a less obvious target, and edged along the inner wall, trying not to breathe. Vikings started to arrive at the doorway behind me, crowding to get through.

As I watched the wolf, a hand, looking child-size against the scale of the creature, slid up from the far side of its head and clamped between its eyes. A glowing hand. A hand becoming so brilliant that the whole room lit almost bright as day. Exposed by the light, I did what any cockroach does when someone unhoods a lantern in the kitchens. I raced for cover, leaping toward the shelter of a section of table fallen on its side partway between us.

The light grew still more dazzling, and half-blinded I staggered across a torso, fell over the table, and sprawled forward with several lunging steps, desperate to remain on my feet. My outstretched sword sunk into something soft, grating across bone, and a moment later an immense weight fell across me, taking away all illumination. And all the other stuff too.

FIVE

“. . . underneath! It’s taken six men to get him out.” A woman’s voice, tinged with wonder.

I felt as if I were lifted up. Carried away.

“Steady!”

“Easy . . .”

A warm wet cloth passed across my forehead. I snuggled into the softness cradling me. The world lay a pleasant distance away, only snatches of conversation reaching me as I dozed.

In my dream I wandered the empty palace of Vermillion on a fine summer’s day, the light streaming in through tall windows overlooking the city’s basking sprawl.

“. . . hilt deep! Must have reached the heart . . .” A man’s voice.

I was moving. Borne along. The motion halfway between the familiar jolt of a horse and the despised rise and fall of the ocean.

“. . . saw his friend . . .”

“Heard him shout in the doorway. ‘Snorri!’ He roared it like a Viking . . .”

The world grew closer. I didn’t want it to. I was home. Where it was warm. And safe. Well, safer. All the north had to offer was a soft landing. The woman holding me had a chest as mountainous as the local terrain.

“. . . charged straight at it . . .”

“. . . dived at it!”

The creak of a door. The raking of coals.

“. . . berserker . . .”

I turned from the sun-drenched cityscape back into the empty palace gallery, momentarily blind.

“. . . Fenris . . .”

The sunspots cleared from my eyes, the reds and greens fading. And I saw the wolf, there in the palace hall, jaws gaping, ivory fangs, scarlet tongue, ropes of saliva, hot breath . . .

“Arrrg!” I jerked upright, my head coming clear of Borris’s hairy man-breasts. Did the man never wear a shirt?

“Steady there!” Thick arms set me down as easily as a child onto a fur-laden cot. A smoky hut rose about us, larger than most, people crowded round on all sides.

“What?” I always ask that—though on reflection I seldom want to know.

“Easy! It’s dead.” Borris straightened up. Warriors of the clan Olaaf filled the roundhouse, also a matronly woman with thick blond plaits and several buxom younger women—presumably the wife and daughters.

“Snorri—” I started before noticing him lying beside me, unconscious, pale—even for a northman—and sporting several nasty gashes, one of them an older wound sliced down across his ribs, angry and white-crusted. Even so he looked in far better shape than a man should after being gnawed on by a Fenris wolf. The markings about his upper arms stood out in sharp contrast against marble flesh, the hammer and the axe in blue, runes in black, trapping my attention for a moment. “How?” I didn’t feel up to sentences containing more than one word.

“Had a shield jammed in the beast’s mouth. Wedged open!” Borris said.

“Then you killed it!” One of his daughters, her chest almost as developed as his.

“We got your sword out.” A warrior from the crowd, offering me my blade, hilt first, almost reverential. “Took some doing!”

The creature’s weight had driven the blade home as it fell.