Crowbone by Robert Low

stricken, for Grima and which of them did him honour for what he had once been. There were others and he watched them closer still, the ones who hung at the back and shifted from one foot to the other, trying not to look at each other and make it obvious they were plotting.
    Grima burned, hissing and crackling, throwing shadows and lurid lights over the strand. Crowbone stepped into the blooded ring it made and held up his hands.
    ‘You are the Red Brothers of Grima,’ he said loudly. ‘You have travelled as one, fought as one. You have rules for this and I want to know them.’
    Men looked one to the other and Crowbone waited.
    ‘None may steal from another,’ said a voice and Crowbone knew who it would be, had already marked it and turned to where Mar was.
    ‘Or?’
    ‘Death,’ answered Mar. ‘Unless mercy is shown, but Grima was not a merciful man.’
    There were grunts and a few harsh laughs at the memory of what Grima had been. Mar folded his fingers, rule by rule, to mark them.
    ‘Equal shares for all. If a man loses a finger in battle, he gets an extra share, but if he loses two he gets no more shares, for one is a sad loss, but two is careless.’
    Orm would not have grown rich here, Crowbone thought, thinking of the three lost fingers on the Oathsworn jarl’s left hand.
    ‘If a man loses a hand, all the same, he gets a share for every finger and thumb on it, provided it was taken off with a single blow, for a hand removed by more than one blow shows the owner of it was not fighting well or hard enough.’
    Crowbone nodded, but said nothing. These were good rules and he would remember all of them, though they consisted mainly of what a man got for losing pieces of himself. Death gained him nothing, though it was expected that the jarl would pay weregild to any family, if they were ever found, out of his own wealth.
    ‘If one man kills another,’ Mar went on, ‘there is no crime, provided it puts no-one else in danger, or sends the ship off course. Another may claim the right to settle blood-feud on such killing, but if there is none to right such a wrong, then no wrong has been done. If a Brother insults, offends or otherwise does you injustice, you may kill him for it, unless he kills you first.’
    There were more, which were all the same matters, Crowbone noted – those with sharp edges and skill were in the right. Those with dull blades and fumbling were in the wrong.
    Mar stepped back respectfully, leaving the flame-dyed space to Crowbone and the lifting sparks that whirled Grima to Odin’s hall.
    ‘The Red Brothers die here. We are the Oathsworn,’ Crowbone said and it was clear he meant all of them assembled, not just the ones who had come with him on the
knarr
. ‘We have no such rules and need none, for we have an Oath. We will all take this Oath while Odin is close, watching Grima come to him as a hall-guest. Those who do not take it will leave at once, for if they are nearby and in sight come dawn, anyone may kill them.’
    He stopped and the fire hissed and the sea breathed.
    ‘Be sure of your mouth and your heart, where these words come from,’ he said and suddenly did not seem a stripling any longer, seemed to have swelled so that his shadow was long and eldritch. There was flickering at the edges of vision and those who believed in such things tried not to look, for it was clear that the
alfar
were close and those creatures made a man uneasy.
    ‘Once taken, this Oath cannot be broken without bringing down the wrath of Odin,’ Crowbone went on. ‘You can take it as a Christmann and stay one if you can – but be aware that the Christ god will not save you from the anger of breaking this Oath. This has been tried before and those who did so found all the pain of their suffering a great regret.’
    ‘God will not be mocked,’ said a voice and Mar turned to see it was Ozur, one of Balle’s men. Langbrok – Long-Legs – they called him and Crowbone listened to all of what he had