The Lords of the North by Bernard Cornwell Page A

idea that he was screaming as he came down the

slope. The rest of Guthred's household troops followed him, but it was Clapa who led, all

clumsiness and savagery. He had forgotten to untie the scrap of torn blanket that

protected the edge of his sword, but he was so big and strong that the cloth-wrapped sword

acted like a club. There were only five men with Tekil, and the thirty young men came down

the steep bank in a rush and I felt Tekil's knife slice across my cheekbone as he rolled away.

I tried to seize his knife hand, but he was too quick, then Clapa hit him across the skull and

he stumbled, then I saw Rypere about to plunge his sword into Tekil's throat and I shouted

that I wanted them alive. 'Alive! Keep them alive!'
    Two of Tekil's men died despite my shout. One had been stabbed and torn by at least a dozen

blades and he twisted and jerked in the stream that ran red with his blood. Clapa had

abandoned his sword and wrestled Tekil onto the shingle bank where he held him down by brute

strength. 'Well done, Clapa.' I said, thumping him on the shoulder, and he grinned at me as I

took away Tekil's knife and sword. Rypere finished off the man thrashing in the water. One of

my boys had received a sword thrust in his thigh, but the rest were uninjured and now they

stood grinning in the stream, wanting praise like puppies that had run down their first
    fox. 'You did well.' I told them, and so they had, for we now held Tekil and three of his men

prisoner. Sihtric, the youngster, was one of the captives and he was still holding the

slave shackles and, in my anger, I snatched them from him and whipped them across his skull. 'I

want the other two men,' I told Rypere.
    'What other men, lord?'
    'He sent two men to fetch their horses,' I said, 'find them.' I gave Sihtric another hard

blow, wanting to hear him cry out, but he kept silent even though blood was trickling from his

temple.
    Guthred was still sitting on the shingle, a look of astonishment on his handsome face.

'I've lost my boots,' he said. It seemed to worry him far more than his narrow escape.
    'You left them upstream,' I told him.
    'My boots?'
    They're upstream,' I said and kicked Tekil, hurting my foot more than I hurt his mail-clad

ribs, but I was angry. I had been a fool, and felt humiliated. I strapped on my swords, then

knelt and took Tekil's four arm rings. He looked up at me and must have known his fate, but his

face showed nothing. The prisoners were taken back to the town and meanwhile we discovered

that the two men who had been sent to fetch Tekil's horses must have heard the commotion for

they had ridden away eastwards. It took us far too much time to saddle our own horses and set

off in pursuit and I was cursing because I did not want the two men to take news of me back to

Kjartan. If the fugitives had been sensible they would have crossed the river and ridden

hard along the wall, but they must have reckoned it was risky to ride through Cair Ligualid and

safer to go south and east. They also should have abandoned the riderless horses, but they

were greedy and took them all and that meant their tracks were easy to follow even though the

ground was dry. The two men were in unfamiliar country, and they veered too far to the south

and so gave us a chance to block the eastward tracks. By evening we had more than sixty men

hunting them and in the dusk we found them gone to ground in a stand of hornbeam.
    The older man came out fighting. He knew he had small time left to live and he was

determined to go to Odin's corpse-hall rather than to the horrors of Niflheim and he

charged from the trees on his tired horse, shouting a challenge, and I touched my heels to

Witnere's flanks, but Guthred headed me off. 'Mine,' Guthred said and he drew his sword and his

horse leaped away, mainly because Witnere, offended at being blocked, had bitten the

smaller stallion in the rump.
    Guthred was behaving