Fate's Needle by Jerry Autieri Page B

the ax from his belt. Knowing they had little time, Ulfrik addressed Runa and Yngvar in low, clipped tones. “Yngvar you look out for Grim, and try to stall him. I only need a moment to get to the hall. I’ll make noise and draw attention my way. Use that to make your own get away. Runa, you will be my look-out.”
    The two nodded and he waved them to action. Yngvar stepped into the light and headed toward the main hall. Ulfrik and Runa joined him, but kept to the shadows thrown by the thatched eaves of surrounding buildings.
    Grim, flanked by two mail-clad hirdmen, stepped into Ulfrik’s path. Grim carried a horn in his left hand. Torches held aloft destroyed the shadows, washing the blackness of Ulfrik’s hood with flickering light.
    The moment tightened, becoming a frozen instant in which Grim’s stout body directly opposed his own, as if the Fates themselves compared the two. No sign of recognition or comprehension flickered in Grim’s coal-black eyes. He seems happy—even elated , Ulfrik thought, involuntarily weighing the ax in his hands. It would have been easy to hurl it straight into Grim’s chest, yet he delayed. No matter what had happened, Grim was still his brother. Looking at him now, Ulfrik couldn’t see Grim as the mastermind of two murders, his own included.
    Runa broke the moment, darting from Ulfrik’s vision as everyone turned to Yngvar, who charged from the left, his sword raised. The blade took the hirdman to Grim’s right straight in the neck. Yngvar crashed against the man, ramming Grim and his other hirdman aside.
    Grim reacted faster than Ulfrik expected. Recovering from the jostle of the melee, he put the horn to his lips and let it blare. His other guard, equally collected, tossed aside his torch and drew his sword, placing himself directly in front of his lord.
    The rain became fiercer, mirroring the violence as the standing guard screamed and leaped at Ulfrik. With rain in his eyes, he barely sidestepped the plunging blade. An ax was the wrong weapon for this fight; there were no shield walls to crack, no supporting spear or sword to help him. Even a knife would have been better than an ungainly ax. Ulfrik stepped through the guard’s thrust and raised the ax for Grim’s head.
    “Traitor,” Grim screamed. Throwing aside his horn, he then reached for his scabbard.
    “Murderer! You poisoned our father! You’ll answer for that, dog!” Ulfrik’s strike quailed as his thoughts flew away from the fight, to Orm’s death.
    Grim ripped out his own sword to deflect his brother’s blow, but his defense was inept. Ulfrik’s ax clanged off the inside of his younger brother’s blade and swiped Grim’s broad face, where it caught in his mouth, wedged in his teeth as blood gushed from Grim’s jaw.
    Partly from the tangled confusion and partly from the force of Grim’s deflection, Ulfrik lost his grip on the ax. Grim took the ax with him as he splashed facedown into a puddle, blood pouring from between his fingers as both hands clasped his face.
    With a bellow, Yngvar yanked Ulfrik aside, nearly tripping him as he pulled him away from a strike by Grim’s recovered hirdman. The hiss of a sword sounded an inch behind his neck. “Run, Ulfrik, or we’re trapped!”
    Ulfrik swung about and saw the truth of it: men with spears and shields tumbled out of the barracks, their heads turning in the direction of the danger. Several were already slogging toward the fight. Ulfrik heard men shouting that raiders were attacking. Yngvar intercepted the remaining hirdman as Grim began to scream, as if only now realizing his pain.
    The hirdman pressed Yngvar so furiously that he could not disengage. Ulfrik dove at the guard’s legs, tackling him, hearing the crack of bone as the force of Yngvar’s blade struck the guard’s trunk. Then Ulfrik flipped over and bounded to his feet.
    More men closed on them. Ulfrik and Yngvar fell back, between the buildings, into the dark. It was the wrong direction,