Bjorn felt Hrafn’s surprise as his eyes focused on the rustling bushes and he felt the faint notion that the bird did not expect its plan to actually work. Though Hrafn did not say anything, he stared intently at the rustling bushes on the far side of the goblin camp and Bjorn watched as well, through Hrafn’s eyes.

  A flash of tightly braided, long blonde hair peaked out of the green foliage for less than a second, then she was upon them.

  Ullr pounced out of the bushes, twin seaxes primed and raised. One was held in a standard grip, the other in reverse grip, and she spun through the air, a twirling cyclone of a death.

  Smashing into the nearest goblin, Bjorn’s eyes could barely keep up as pink mist sprayed across the encampment and the dancing goblins all halted, turning towards the carnage. Ullr did not give them a moment to act. Immediately after cutting through the first goblin she was vaulting over its corpse and slashing viciously at the next one.

  She pounced from one to the next like a frenzied wolf, using their dance circle and close proximity to one another to brilliant effect. Scarlet blood sprayed all around the encampment and the goblins did not even have time to react before she had slaughtered the lot of them.

  Her speed was hard to track; Bjorn could barely keep up with it through Hrafn’s eyes. Though her cuts were shallow and unlikely to sever torsos like his sometimes could, they were faster than was easily blocked. As she stood panting in the still night, sweat coating her glistening skin, her eyes bore the yellow hue of the Ulfhedinn, just like Horick’s had when Bjorn had fought him at Jomsborg.

  “I sure am glad that she is on our side,” Hrafn squawked, then he was taking off the branch, flapping wings and Bjorn’s ability to see through his eyes faded as he fell into a deep, all-encompassing, dreamless sleep.

  ***

  “He is waking,” Ullr said and Bjorn heard her voice as his eyes unstuck themselves from the sleep which clung heavily to his lashes.

  “Took him long enough,” Sigurd grumbled as Bjorn sat up, leaning back on his haunches.

  He looked down at his body to see a fresh wrapping over the wounds on his femur and stomach, he also saw that strange, green mulch had been spread across the other cuts which lined his torso and arms.

  It was bright in the clearing and the fire was still burning, casting a dry heat upon him as Ullr sat tending to it with a pile of dried branches and seax-scarred kindling. Sigurd was laid against a tree trunk on the other side of the fire. His legs were bright red, blotches of swollen, puss-filled bumps decorated them and his face was a patchwork of bruises, the colouration blending purple, black and red. He did not look travel ready.

  “My thanks,” Bjorn said through a crackling, dried throat and Ullr passed him a waterskin which he drank deeply from. She did not reply, likely due to present company, but she nodded: a sign of her acknowledgement, and Bjorn knew that they would have much to discuss later. If the weave did allow for communication between himself and his oathsworn then he would need to practice with it, use it in battle.

  “You will never believe how we found you, brodir,” Sigurd said. “That pigeon of yours found us, led us here. I did not know that you had trained it so well!”

  “He is a raven,” Bjorn replied. “I do not think they can be trained.”

  “Damned right!” Hrafn agreed heartily.

  “Well, either way,” Sigurd continued. “It is a good job it stumbled upon us when it did. You had one foot in Asgard when we got here.”

  “And from the look of your legs little brodir,” Bjorn replied. “You have stumbled halfway to Helheim.”

  Sigurd’s face flushed crimson, though it was hard to tell underneath all the bruising. He squirmed a little, then sighed, looking at Ullr with glinting eyes.

  “I have your Ulfhedinn to thank for my rescue,” he said earnestly. “A group of small, green galkn ambushed me. The savages tried to boil me in a pot. I would be bloating their bellies if it was not for her.”

  “It seems that we found ourselves in similar situations, brodir,” Bjorn said. “Except I managed to kill my ambushers.”

  “And nearly succumbed to your wounds in the process,” he retorted. “Your Ulfhedinn saved you as well as I. That wound on your leg was beginning to fester. She cleaned and bandaged it and made a salve to bring the swelling down.”

  “She has a name,” Ullr said, glaring at Sigurd who squirmed beneath her gaze. Then she turned towards Bjorn. “Honestly, what kind of fifl cauterises a would with a battle drenched seax? You are lucky the infection had not set in before I got here.”

  “I have to say, brodir,” Sigurd added. “It takes some hefty stones cauterise your own wound, but to do it twice...”

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  “I had little choice,” Bjorn shrugged. “I cannot die yet. Father still needs to be avenged and on that note, it is time that we found our fleet.”

  ***

  “This is not how I imagined my first day in England,” Sigurd grumbled. “Being carried like a sack of potatoes over your shoulder, brodir. Ivar will never let me forget about this.”

  “Assuming we find him,” Ullr said sullenly.

  With his leg wound wrapped up tightly, Bjorn had opted to carry the crippled Sigurd who could not hold his own weight on his half-boiled legs. Taking Hrafn’s advice from the previous night, the three had followed the swan-road deep into the forest but there was no sign of their fleet.

  With her Ulfhedinn form an ever-useful tool, Ullr had attempted to pick up a scent multiple times to no avail and though Hrafn’s scouting ability would probably be useful to them, Bjorn had opted to keep him close instead.

  After the night’s events, he was wary of further goblin ambushes and with Sigurd so injured, wished to avoid a fight. To that end, Hrafn was scouting the immediate vicinity, keeping an eye out for any would be attackers so that Bjorn would have time to get Sigurd to safety before fending them off.

  Because of this, their chosen path was a slow one. Still, he was surprised that they had not seen a single sign of the fleet. Perhaps they had been washed further away from the army than he had first thought.

  “There is something up ahead,” Ullr said, raising her hand and crouching low.

  Bjorn did the same, squatting down and trying to ignore the protesting in his thigh, compounded by the heft of Sigurd who lay over his shoulder. Moving slowly towards the Ulfhedinn, he tried to follow her gaze.

  Hovering lackadaisically above the treeline was a swirling line of thin, grey smoke: a telltale sign of the living.

  “Do you think it is the others?” Sigurd asked in a loud whisper and Ullr shook her head.

  “Have you ever known a vikingr army to be so humble?” She asked.

  If it was my great heathen army the smoke would be thicker, and we would be able to hear the boozing from here, Bjorn thought.

  “Goblins then?” Sigurd said.

  “Maybe,” Bjorn replied. “Or it could be Saxons. Hrafn, scout it out for us please?”

  With a curt nod, the raven took off into the air, heading in the direction of the smoke.

  “Brodir,” Sigurd began. “How exactly do you expect your pigeon to communicate who is underneath that smoke?”

  “I speak Raven,” Bjorn replied dryly.

  “Haha, very funny,” Sigurd said glibly. “Of course you would choose now to finally gain a sense of humour.”

  With a high-pitched squawk and the flapping of wings, Hrafn soared over the trees, returning to the group. He landed on Bjorn’s head, his claws digging in a little sharper than usual.

  “I have found evidence that something has passed through this area, perhaps your army, perhaps not,” he said. “You should take a look for yourselves.”

  ***

  A thick scent of fresh ash mixed pungently with the stench of death and decay as they approached the source of the smoke trail. A small hamlet stood decimated by the edge of the swan-road. Steadings had been turned into husks, their blackened, caved in walls smouldering gently in the breeze. Corpses laid everywhere.

  Where once there had been bright green grass, now there was only blackened hay splashed with dried, crimson blood. Flies swarmed the dead who lay still in the centre of the hamlet, soon to be fertiliser for the earth. Bjorn saw the ripped dresses of desecrated maidens sticking to their bloodied corpses. The men folk were hacked to pieces, their bodies lying near hoes and pitchforks.

  “What kind of town was this?” Ullr asked impassively as they strolled through the carnage. “I do not see a single weapon.”

  “Saxons are weak,” Sigurd spat over Bjorn’s shoulder. “That is why it is so disgraceful that they managed to slay our father.”

  Churned mud splashed at Bjorn’s boots as they walked further into the area, following in the footsteps of hundreds of footprints. The villagers did not stand a chance.

  “Still,” he said. “I wonder how these farmers protected themselves from the goblins in the woods if they did not possess any weapons. Even in this weak, Saxon land I find it odd.”

  “Maybe they made a pact with them?” Sigurd said with a dry laugh. “Perhaps they give their first-born children to the goblins in exchange for their lives.”

  “If that was the case then there would not be so many children among the dead here,” Bjorn replied grimly as his eyes caught a glimpse of a small, charred body. “I hope their singular god is more forgiving than the many of ours.”

  “Singular god?” Ullr asked, turning towards him with a frown on her lips. “Is that a joke?”

  “I do not know much about it,” Bjorn shrugged. “But father told us that the Saxons worship just one god, a peace-loving martyr who was nailed to a cross eons ago.”

  Ullr opened her mouth to respond but stopped, she must have heard the same thing Bjorn was hearing. The sound of many galloping hooves.

  “Brodir, did we bring horses on the boats?” Sigurd asked.

  “We did not,” Bjorn replied.

  Looking towards the hill above them, Bjorn saw the first silhouette of a rider. Clad in metal armour and holding a large shield, much larger than Bjorn’s, he appeared to be looking right at them.

  Without wasting any time, Bjorn set Sigurd down on a half-broken wall which was on the side of the hamlet closest to the hill. It was made of small stones but should do the job he needed it to. He passed his bow and a quiver of arrows to the man who nodded with a thin smile as he took them.

  “H?een!” The rider on the hill shouted in a strange tongue and the world paused for a moment.

  New Skill Acquired:

  Foreign Tongue

  As you conquer lands in the name of Skuld you will come across many strange languages. The weave has granted you the ability to understand them.

  Any lands I conquer will be subjugated in my own name, Bjorn thought as he read the floating runes. But I will not say no to a new skill.

  Time resumed and the rider on the hill shouted again.

  “There they are! The heathens who sacked the village. Attack!”

  Heathens, Bjorn thought. An apt description and one your kind will do well to remember.

  Thunderous hooves shook the ground as vibrations climbed Bjorn’s boots. Then dozens of armour-clad warriors on horseback were galloping over the crest of the hill, swords raised high, their screams melding with the sound of horseshoes.

  “Why can I understand them?” Ullr asked.

  “Likely your oath to Bjorn, just like with Huginn’s Favour, it seems Foreign Tongue can also be shared,” Hrafn answered with a squawk

  “Are you ready?” Bjorn said to Ullr as he drew his spear and his axe.

  Ullr turned to him, drawing both seaxes, then she smiled, allowing her fangs to elongate slightly as they dipped over the crest of her lower lips, her eyes turning wolf yellow.

  She nodded.