Blood Will Follow by Snorri Kristjansson Page B

sky and grew into a river of light flowing silently across the vast black expanse.
    Audun and Bjorn stayed with the horses, waiting for a second howl that never came. Whatever it had been was gone, hunting elsewhere.
    The road under their feet changed from well-traveled highway to trodden path and back as it snaked across fields and over hills. Audun walked at the rear of their modest caravan, beside one of the carts. In front of him, Bjorn shuffled alongside the other cart with the economy of a born traveler. Occasionally they passed under the wooden kings of autumn with their golden crowns and torches frozen in midflame. Mostly, though, they walked, face forward, onefoot in front of the other, existing in a constant state of slow movement. Bjorn and Breki proved pleasant enough, but the rest of the party kept communication down to grunts and nods. From the glances they shot him, Audun could tell that the decision to invite him along might not have been approved by everyone.
    He couldn’t care less.
    After the first night, he woke up feeling ill, but he’d ignored it and volunteered to look after the horses. In the past he’d taken the animals for granted; they were just there, they served a purpose, and someone else made sure they didn’t die. He’d shoed a few but never gone out of his way after that kind of trade.
    Now they were his best bet for silent company.
    It was also quite reassuring to watch someone who knew what he was doing, and Audun found himself trailing Bjorn, observing him work around the animals. During the first couple of days, he had started learning the order in which to groom them, when to brush or dust them down, how hard to apply the comb, how to pitch his voice when they were skittish. It was something to do, and it kept him from thinking too much.
    The cart ahead of him slowed. “Look there,” Bjorn said.
    “What?” Audun said.
    “The Otra.”
    Audun pulled gently on the reins, and the horses stopped. He walked past them and to Bjorn’s side. “What do you—? Oh.”
    They stood on a small rise. Below them, the road wound down to a ferryman’s shack next to a small pier. The river itself was at least sixty yards wide. The other bank was a good six feet above water level, with a forbidding wall of pine trees all the way to the edge of the water.
    Audun whistled softly.
    “Yep,” Bjorn replied. “Can you swim?”
    “I suppose,” Audun said. “Didn’t know I’d need to.”
    “You might not, but it means I can stand you next to the edge, if need be.”
    “The edge of what?”
    A big, ungainly raft bobbled into view around the river bend, apparently floating upstream. Four bargemen stood on it, one in each corner, poling the craft toward the pier.
    “The edge of that,” Bjorn replied. “That’s our passage down to the Sands. You’re going to learn a lot more about tending horses real fast, Fjolnisson,” the tall man added. Audun wasn’t sure, but it almost looked like he was amused.
    “I’m never, ever going on one of these again,” Audun muttered.
    “What’s the matter, big man?” Breki said, slapping him on the back and grinning. Audun scowled, but he did not notice. Bjorn’s older brother did not appear to worry overly about other people. “No stomach for the waves?”
    “You can say that,” Audun replied, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Too much movement.” The river churned beneath them.
    “That’s what your mother told me!” Breki said. He laughed heartily at his own joke. Audun saw another couple of smirking faces. “Whoa!”
    The barge heaved under them. It was only just big enough to fit the two carts side by side. The rest of the party had squeezed in behind them at the back. The bargeman and his three flat-faced, thick-necked cousins had posted themselves one on each corner and were barking orders to one another in some kind of strange river language; only the occasional word was intelligible. Audun glanced at the one closest to him.