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Snorri ver Snagason stepped into view “You!” he said

The hooded robe he’d been wearing when I ran into him was half-torn from his shoulders; blood splattered his chest and arms and dripped from the scarlet sword in his fist More of the stuff ran down his face from a shallow cut on his forehead It wouldn’t be hard to mistake hiht, blood-clad and with battle in his eyes, it was quite hard not to

“You?” The eloquence Snorri had demonstrated in Grandmother’s throne room had wholly abandoned him

He reached fortable was in the way As that big hand cale on my cheekbones, my lips, forehead, like pins and needles, a kind of pressure building He felt it too—I saw his eyes widen The direction that had led me, the destination that had drawn me onit was hist Maeres’s nized it now

The Norseers an inch or two fro withso to find out ould happen if he touched me skin to skin The hand withdrew, returned full of knife, and before I could squeal he set to cutting my bonds

“You’re co with me We can sort this out somewhere else”

Abandoning st loops of sliced rope, Snorri returned to the doorway, pausing only to stamp on someone’s neck Not Maeres’s, unfortunately He ducked his head through, pulling back i hissed past the entrance, several sos

“Crossbows” Snorri spat on Daveet’s corpse “I hate bowlance back at me “Grab a sword”

“A sword?” The st the overly hairy folk of the North I castbehind the table Cutter John lay sprawled, the stuly wound on his forehead No sign of Maeres I couldn’t iine how he’d escaped

None of them had any weapon er within the city walls just wasn’t worth the trouble froer and kicked Cutter John in the head a few times It really hurt

I hobbled back round the table holdinglook from the Norsee it Whilst I hopped onnasally, Snorri quickly hacked the legs froe shield, advanced towards the corridor “Get my back!”

The fear of being left behind, and finding ain, spurred ether we propelled our shields into the corridor before stepping between them Crossbow bolts thudded into both ih

“Which direc—” Snorri was already too far away to hearhis battle cry He’d stormed off down the corridor behindto hold the door acrossover my shoulders to hold the door in place Shouts and screarips with his hated bowot there it was all blood and pieces The ore Several more bolts hit the boards across my back with powerful thuds, and another skipped between ap Fortunately I had just ten yards to reach the exit With the door scraping the floor behind ers exposed, I broke out into the night air My traditional ain was curtailed by a muscular arm that reached from the darkness and yanked me to one side

“I’ve got a boat,” Snorri growled Nor it’s just a turn of phrase, but Snorri really put so feral into his words

“What?” I shook , neither of us liking the burning needling sensation where his fingers gripped me

“I’ve got a boat”

“Of course you do, you’re a Viking” Everything seemed rather surreal Perhaps I’d been hit in the face one too rab for me in the opera house only an hour or two earlier

Snorri shook his head “Follow Quick!”

He took off into the night The sounds of ive chase We crossed a wide space stacked with barrels and crates, passed dozens of hanging nets, the sails of riverboats poking up above the river wall beside us By ht we crossed a quay and descended stone steps to the water, where a rowing boat lay tied to one of the great iron rings set into the wall