Snorri set me beside Tuttugu and we met each other’s gaze, both of us too weak for talking. The Viking, who had been pale to start with, now lay as white as frost. Snorri pulled Tuttugu around, moving him without effort despite his girth. He tugged Tuttugu’s hand clear of the stomach wound and drew in an involuntary breath.

“It’s bad. You’ve got to heal this, Jal. The rest can wait, but this will sour. The guts are cut inside.”

“I can’t do it.” I’d more easily stab a knife through my hand or put a hot coal in my mouth. “You don’t understand . . .”

“He’ll die! I know Arne was too far gone, but this, this is a slow death—you can stop it.” Snorri kept talking. It washed over me. Tuttugu said nothing, only watched me as I watched him, both of us lying on the cold stone floor, too weak to move. I remembered him on the mountainside overlooking Trond, telling me he would run from every battle if only his legs were longer. A kindred soul, almost as deep in his fears as me, but he’d gone to war in the Black Fort even so.

“Shut up,” I told Snorri. And he did.

Ein came to join him, moving with an old man’s care.

“I can’t do it. I really can’t.” I pointed my gaze towards my free hand. The other still clutched my sword for some reason; it was probably glued on by all the gore. “I can’t do it. But no man should go to Valhalla with brothel rash.” Again, pointing with my gaze.

Finally Ein took the hint. I screwed both eyes shut, gritted my teeth, clenched what could be clenched, and he grabbed my forearm, setting my hand against the rip in Tuttugu’s belly.

It made healing Ein seem like a simple thing.

TWENTY-EIGHT

I woke before the heat of a fire. My side ached like a bastard, but the heat felt wonderful and if I didn’t move a single muscle it was almost comfortable.

Gradually other hurts made themselves known. A throbbing pain in my thigh, a stabbing pain in my arm, a generalized wretchedness from all the muscles I could name and many I couldn’t.

I opened an eye. “Where’s Snorri?”

They’d laid me out on one of the long tables at the end closest to the hearth. Ein and Tuttugu sat before the fire, Tuttugu binding a splint about his knee, Ein sharpening his axe. Both had cleaned and stitched their wounds, or had the other do it.

“Burning the dead.” Tuttugu pointed towards the far door. “He’s building a pyre on the wall.”

I tried to sit up and lay back cursing. “There’s not enough wood, surely? Why not leave them to freeze?”

“He found the wood store, and he’s been knocking doors off hinges, ripping down shutters.”

“But why?” I asked, not sure I wanted an answer.

“Because of what will be coming from the Bitter Ice,” Ein said. “He doesn’t want the bodies raised against us.” He didn’t say that his last three brothers lay amongst them, but something in his face told it anyway.