Blood Will Follow (30 page)

Epilogue

SKANE,
SOUTHWEST
SWEDEN

DECEMBER,
AD
996

The burning twigs crackled and snapped in the center of a faint circle of light and heat. Cold mist drifted in over freezing ground and over the piles of leaves that had drifted against thick tree trunks. Above the treetops the vast black winter night stretched endlessly, dotted by white points, snowflakes that would never fall.

Audun sat on a rock, wrapped in an assortment of rags. “Did you do that thing? Home?” he said.

“Yes,” Ulfar said. Leaning up against a big trunk, he was almost invisible in the shadows.

“How did it go?”

“I’m alive,” Ulfar said.

“So not too bad,” Audun said after a moment’s pause.

“Not too bad,” Ulfar agreed.

Audun sat still for a while, looking into the fire. “What now, then?” he said.

“Valgard killed Geiri. He’s with King Olav’s army. We’re going up north to kill him.”

Another pause. “Oh.” Then, after a while, “Where, exactly? And how many men does he have? And how are we going to do it?”

Ulfar emerged from the shadows and came to sit down by the fire. “No idea,” he said.

Audun noticed the shift in the darkness; Ulfar smelled the blood. They both jumped when the dead deer landed with a thud at the edge of the light.

A familiar voice spoke from the darkness. “The bony bit on your arm’s your elbow. The one you were sitting on is your ass.” The glade was suddenly alive with quiet, soft movement. Silent, hardened, gray-haired men emerged from the trees all around them. Five, ten, twenty, thirty. They made no move, drew no weapons.

Two men walked through the group. One of them held a big ax.

The other one grinned at Ulfar through a thick white beard and stuck a curved dagger in his belt. “Sounds to me like you’re going to need some help, son.”

THE END

Blood Will Follow

Dramatis Personae

V
ALGARD’S
STORY

A
UDUN’S
STORY

U
LFAR’S
STORY

Acknowledgments

As usual, this has not been a solitary enterprise. If it weren’t for super-agent Geraldine Cooke, it wouldn’t even be an “enterprise.” This doubly counts for editor, publisher, and all-round wonder woman Jo Fletcher, who not only publishes my merry Vikings but also makes my writing look approximately 93 percent better (numbers = truth = science). My fledgling writer’s soul would be crushed but for the tender ministrations of Nicola Budd, Tim Kershaw, and Andrew Turner, key cogs in the lean, mean publishing machine that is Jo Fletcher Books.

I owe thanks to the good people of Southbank International School—first and foremost librarians extraordinaire Christine Joshi and Ian Herne, who have given me enough encouragement and research for a football team’s worth of writers—but also every single student who has stopped me in the corridors, asked “how the book is going,” read the thing, and complimented me on the horrifically inappropriate swearing. You know who you are. I sincerely hope that none of you are actually intending to read this one, because it’s a fair bit worse.

To my dearest friends who read and even liked the first one—I am still stunned, frankly, by the reception. Thank you for putting up with me before, during, and after. I would promise to make more sense and tell shorter stories in the future, but we all know that’s not happening.

To Dagbjört at Nexus Books in Reykjavík for giving me my first-ever book launch—thank you. To kings of Viking Metal Skálmöld for the credits and the music.

To Nick Bain, who taught me to write. Technically, all of this is your fault.

To my mother, father, and brother—you are still the most terrifying readers I’ve ever met. Without you, this wolf would be a poodle.

And finally, most and always—to my wife, Morag. You are probably the most patient woman in the world, and I love you dearly.

Snorri Kristjansson

Hitchin, Hertfordshire

March 2014