The Norseman paused, slipped his grip to the end of the axe haft and to the head, and used the weapon as a lever to twist the spearman’s wrist. Bones snapped with loud retorts, tendons gave, flesh tore. Leaving his axe in the broken hand, Snorri bore his foe to the ground and proceeded to pulp the grinning face with a large chunk of rock.

Released, I rolled clear, struggling for air. The hand that had held me now rested on two blackened arm bones jutting from the dead man’s forearm. Even now my breath wouldn’t draw. I fell into unconsciousness, reflecting rather abstractly that I’d never even known that there were two bones in a man’s forearm.

FOURTEEN

“Wake up.”

I don’t want to.

“Wake up.” A slap this time. Perhaps there had been one the first time too.

Not if I’m still on that sodding mountain. Someone had packed my throat with brambles and my chest hurt.

“Now!”

I opened one eye. The sky still kept an echo of the day though the sun had set. Already the cold had rolled down from the peaks. Damn. Still on the mountain. “Bugger.” The word came out in thin slivers. Snorri let my head slide back onto my pack and moved away.

“What are you doing?” Not enough of the question emerged for him to respond. I gave up and let the air wheeze back into my lungs. A charred hand rose before my face and I yelped, flinching from it before realizing it was my own. The strange disconnected feeling persisted as I edged into an upright position and started to pick pieces of blackened skin from my palm. Not my skin, but fragments from the dead thing that had tried to kill me. The pieces of skin, part crispy, part wet, fell amongst the rocks, too heavy for the wind to take. Memories of the attack were just as broken and unwelcome. Trying not to think about it didn’t help. I kept seeing the light bleeding out from beneath my hand, blinding and without heat. How did it burn without heat?

“What are you doing?” Perhaps Snorri would distract me. My voice came louder this time, and he looked up.

“Cleaning the wound. Damn thing bit me.”

I could see teeth marks in the flesh above his hip. “The sword cut looks worse.” A red furrow sliced through the ridged topography of his abdomen.

“Bites are dirty wounds. Better to be skewered through the arm by a sword than bitten on the hand by a hound.” Snorri squeezed the damaged flesh again, producing a rush of blood that ran down over his belt. He grimaced and reached for his water flask, tipping some of our last reserves over the injury site.

“What the hell happened?” Most of me didn’t want to know, but apparently my mouth did.

“Necromancy.” Snorri took a needle and thread from his pack, something he must have acquired at the circus. Both were covered in an orange paste. Some heathen conceit to keep ill humours out of the wound, no doubt. “No unborn here,” he said. “But a powerful necromancy to return the dead so soon after death.” Another stitch placed. My stomach lurched. “And for the necromancer to not even be present!” He shook his head, then nodded to a spot behind me. “I expect our friend knows more.”