Rurik's Arc

Chapter 22 of 22

The horn from the north faded, but the dead still jammed the gap. Rurik pulled his men back from the choke and turned to face the tower behind them. He had put off one debt too long. Bjorn stood at his shoulder, Rurik's belt-knife still hanging at his hip. The gold Rurik owed him sat locked in the enemy's war chest, sealed inside that stone tower, and the tower's iron doors held fast. Until Bjorn was paid, his men fought without heart, and the alliance strained thin. "Your gold's behind that door," Rurik said. "I mean to break it open now." Bjorn folded his arms. "You've said that before." "I've never had the key before." Rurik held up the captured officer's iron ring. He had taken it when he blackmailed the man for the battle plan. "He guarded the chest. He kept the key." Gunnar worked the lock while Thorin watched the north. The old dwarf pressed his palm to the ground, reading the enemy's approach through the stone. "They're close," Thorin said. "You've got no time to count coins." The lock gave. Inside sat the war chest, bound in iron bands. Gunnar split the hasp with two blows. The lid fell back on a heap of Viking coins, worn and stamped, gleaming dull in the tower dark. Bjorn stared at it and said nothing. Rurik dug both hands into the pile and dropped a heavy fistful into Bjorn's palm. "That's your gold. And the price of your clan's sword, paid in full." He held out his hand. "My knife." Bjorn weighed the coins. His face did not change. He drew the belt-knife and set it in Rurik's palm handle-first. "Debt's closed," he said. He did not soften it. Then he turned to the men crowding the tower door. "Rurik pays what he swears. Now we fight for pay, not for promises." It was the most Rurik had heard him say at once. Kjell shouldered through with his mountain men behind him, teeth and claws swinging in his beard. He looked at the open chest, then at Bjorn's full fist. "Good," he said. "Men fight harder with silver in their belts. Mine will." Rurik sheathed his own knife at his hip and felt the weight of it, back where it belonged. He filled a sack with coin and threw it to Kjell for the mountain men. The alliance that had cracked all night pulled tight again in the space of a breath. Thorin's hand came off the ground. "They're at the gap. Now." The horn sounded a second time, closer. The main column had reached the choked dead and begun to climb over their own fallen. Rurik gripped his knife and turned from the empty chest to the door. His debt was paid. His men were his. But the enemy was already inside the pass, and the last fight for Greyspine had come to him.