Rurik's Arc

Chapter 13 of 22

Rurik pocketed the coins and stepped into the yard. The captured camp lay quiet around him. His men sat where they had fallen when the fighting stopped. Some slept. Some stared at nothing. They had taken the camp and the tower, but the night had emptied them. The southern host would come up the ravine at dawn, and these hands could barely hold their axes. Thorin found him counting the sleepers. The old dwarf's chainmail hung heavy, his knees stiff from the long night. He said what Rurik already knew. "They can't fight like this. Half will die before the riders reach the flank." "Then we don't fight tired," Rurik said. He looked past the tents. The enemy had built a brewing hall on the high ground, stone-walled, its chimney cold. Barrels lined the front. Inside waited what an army stores for the night before a march: mead, bread, salt meat. "Their stores are ours now. Feed the men. Two hours' sleep in shifts. Half rest, half watch." Gunnar came from the hall already, soot on his hands, a mead cask under one thick arm. He set it down hard. "Full," he said. "Grain sacks in back. Enough for all of us." He pried the cask lid loose with his hammer. "They meant to drink after they killed you." Kjell moved through the camp like he tracked something. He kicked sleepers awake, pointed them to the hall, sent them back to their posts. "Eat standing," he told them. "You sleep when I say." He turned to Rurik. "Wyrm's spent too. It hasn't fed since the birds." The iron-scaled wyrm lay coiled against the tower wall, its serpent body dull, one gold eye half open. Rurik knelt and pressed a hand to its cold scales. He had leaned on it all night, for the doors, for the signal, for the birds. He could not spend it dry. "Meat," he told Kjell. "Whatever they salted. Let it eat and rest." Bjorn watched from the hall door, blood dried on his arm. He had ridden here on a promised sword and a hostage knife, and he trusted little. "You feed them and they'll sleep too deep," he said. "The host won't wait for us to wake." "Two hours," Rurik said. "Then they'll stand." He held Bjorn's stare. "Fed men hold a line. Starved ones break." Bjorn looked at the sleeping warband, then at the mead. He said nothing more, which from him was agreement. The warband ate in shifts. They drank one cup each, no more, and Kjell counted the pours. Men closed their eyes against the stone and the wyrm drew warmth back into its blood. When Rurik walked the line again, the sleepers woke faster. Hands gripped harder. The exhaustion had not left them, but they could fight. He climbed the tower and looked south. Torches moved in the dark, forming into wings. The host was marching early. His men were fed and standing, but the enemy would reach the ravine before the two hours ended.