Thorgar's Arc

Chapter 5 of 13

The crew was his. The route was open. But Thorgar had no destination worth the risk. Twelve men had struck the table for a raid, and he did not know where to point the bow. A blind voyage north would drown them for nothing. He sat in the stone brewing hall the next morning, sharpening one axe against a whetstone, turning the problem over like a dull blade. Harek dropped onto the bench across from him. Ash streaked his beard and hands. He had lost two fingers setting rivets, and the gap showed when he set his palm flat on the table. "Tide's right in three days," he said. "Where do we sail?" "I don't know yet," Thorgar said. Harek did not soften it. "Then we sail nowhere. Or we sail to die." Kjell came through the door then, the man whose word had bought Thorgar his crew. Teeth and claws hung in his braided beard, the count of things he had killed. He set a hand on the table and pulled a cloth pouch from his belt. He poured it out. Old coins spilled across the wood, worn at the edges, stamped with runes gone soft from handling. "Found these on a draugr's corpse," Kjell said. "Years back. Never spent them." Thorgar picked one up. The runes were strange, but he had read the like before, carved into bone in the dark. "These aren't Ironholt marks." "No." Kjell tapped the largest coin. "A dead lord's hoard-mark. Northern make. The ones who stamp these bury their gold deep and guard it with worse than men." He looked at Thorgar. "I know where a hoard like this sits. I've circled it twice and never gone in alone. It's two days past the drowned cave. Ice and cliff. No sane man sails it." Harek leaned forward. His eyes moved over the coins. "How much?" "More than any crew has hauled back to these shores," Kjell said. He closed his fist over the coin. "But the guardian is why I never spent these. It doesn't die from being stabbed." Thorgar set his whetstone down. Here was the target. A destination he could name to twelve men. A prize worth the crossing. He had killed one thing in the dark already. He knew now he could do it again. "Then that's where we point the bow," Thorgar said. Kjell held his gaze a moment. Then he pushed the coins across the table. "Keep them. Show the crew what waits. They'll row harder for the sight of it." Thorgar swept the coins into the pouch. The blind voyage had a name now, and a shape, and a reason. He looked at Harek. "Ready the boat." "Two days past the cave," Harek said, standing. "I'll set the ribs for ice." He was already moving toward the door. The course was set. But the hoard had a guardian that would not die easy, and Kjell had never faced it alone for a reason.