SNAFU: Hunters

Only Stones In Their Place Christine Morgan

“We ride!” cried Kjarstan. “We ride for slaughter, for wealth, and for glory!”

His men shouted in answer, voicing great cheers. They rattled spear-shafts on shields in a drumming wooden thunder. Their banner, a white sword on a triangle of red, flapped from the pole Kjarstan’s nephew held aloft.

“Our king has sent summons!” Kjarstan went on, his stallion’s hard hooves striking up muddy splashes from the soft, thaw-soaked earth. “He has need of us, those good and loyal, oath-sworn! Need of our sword-might, our strength and our courage!”

Heartier still were the cheers to greet this. Even the humblest of peasant-horses, seized from plow’s purpose, tossed their heads and snorted like proud battle-steeds.

“Shake from your limbs the weight of this long winter’s weariness! Rouse your blood and war-fire! When we are old men, white-haired and wizened, we may sit by the hearth-stones… those of us not yet then gone to gold-shingled Valhalla! For now, there are foes to be cut down and plundered!”

Oh, but their blood and war-fire were roused. They’d struck at Pedham with the ending of autumn, when the harvest was in, the livestock butchered, the smoke-houses and granaries full. Once they had taken the village, there’d been little to do but wait. Wait, tend their weapons, gamble, and talk.

Under such circumstances, even the best of men would grow restless. The simplest squabble, a dispute over dice or rivalry for a woman, an ill-spoken insult or ill-timed jest could flare into violence as an ember into flame.

Now, though…

Kjarstan grinned, teeth a broad flash through his face-plate and a blond bristle of beard. His mail-coat, helm, and arm-rings gleamed in the morning’s thin light. It was a grey day and clouded, the land wet from recent rain and snow-melt, and the wind off the sea carried a damp, heavy chill … but spring had come.

Spring had come, as had the summons.

The king’s messenger went by ship around the headlands and along the coast, bringing word wherever allies could be found. But there were not ships enough to carry them all with their war-gear and horses. Kjarstan had sent Udr and Anbjorn, two of his own best warriors, back with the messenger as proof in good faith of his oath and intent; the others, almost sixty strong, would meet them again in a matter of days.

And then they would put an end to the armies of Gunnleif Guthnarsson. Gunnleif the outlaw, the traitor, the oath-breaker and kin-slayer.

“What say you?” Kjarstan asked his men now. “Are you rested and ready? Do your swords thirst and your axes hunger?”

Many throats as one bellowed back their affirmation.

“Will you see our foes flee before us, and fall to our fury?”

Again, they bellowed, and louder — so loud the skies shook.

“For Earl Kjarstan! Kjarstan and the king!”

“The king!”

“King Jorfyn!”

“For Thor, Tyr and Odin!”

“Death, death to Gunnleif and his craven piss-dogs!”

Yes, they were eager, they were rested and ready, and they would ride!

“We will have victory!” Kjarstan told them. “Victory and rich reward! Let us fatten our purses on Gunnleif’s stolen silver! Let us earn generous gifts, our king’s gratitude in gold! We’ll drape our women in amber and jet, and bring jeweled trinkets as toys for our children!”

Further back, where hovels and thatch-houses huddled around a log-timbered hall, the surviving villagers looked on with dull, beaten eyes. They would be hungry in the weeks to come; Kjarstan and his men had feasted well from their larders, drained dry their ale-barrels, and depleted their stores.

But such was their lot. They were farmers and swineherds, not warriors. Those who’d fought back had been slain. These remaining could count themselves lucky enough. They still had their lives, their homes were un-burned, and some even had their families intact.

If, of course, a few young widows and daughters would not be staying, preferring to follow those whose furs and fleeces they’d warmed through the cold nights…

If, perhaps, a promising youth or two had decided to forsake farm and field in hopes of proving his worth alongside the men from the north…

Well, such it was and so it would be.

“And,” Kjarstan said, slowly drawing his blade from its scabbard with a scraping hiss of metal, “we will make name for ourselves!”

His men roared their approval.

“Make name by action and deed, such that the skalds will long sing of us and see us never forgotten! To honor our fathers and theirs before them; to leave lasting legacy of pride for our sons and their sons and their sons’ sons after!” He swept his sword in a shining arc.

“Kjarstan! Kjarstan!”

“To battle and slaughter and glory!”

“We ride, my war-brothers…” He tugged on the reins so his horse reared up high, fore-hooves lashing the air. Then he kicked his heels into the beast’s side and set off at a gallop. “We ride!”

On groaning hinges, the door opened. Its draft flickered the candlelight and stirred dark wisps of hair escaped from the long plait hanging over Hreyth’s mail-clad shoulder.

She glanced up from the table, where was spread a wolf’s pelt with rune-marked bones scattered upon it. They were old, those bones. Time-worn and hand-worn, ivoried with age, shaped and polished. The runes set into them were blood-red, soot-black, and gold.

Egil stood in the doorway, his wide shape filling it. He was not a tall man, nor fat, but big just the same. Slab-thick with muscle, barrel-chested, brawny and strong. His leather coat seemed ever to strain at the seams.

“It’s happened,” he said. His voice was like that of millstones taught to speak — grinding and gritty, crushing the grains of thought into the flour of words.

Dread moved in her heart. Dread, but no surprise. “Where?”

“Along the high-hill river valley between Pedham and Langenvik.”

Her fingers brushed through silver-soft fur as she swept up a handful of rune-bones and poured them, with brittle clicks and clatters, into their bag. The bag she tied at her belt, which held also a sheathed seax — her short but sharp stabbing blade.

“How many?” she asked.

“Fifty.”

“Fifty?” At that, surprise did come, flavoring the dread, enhancing it the way salt enhanced the taste of a broth.

“At least.”

Hreyth touched the ash-wood amulet of Yggdrasil, the World-Tree, hanging around her neck on a cord.

Fifty at least.

She looked at Egil, the craggy outcrop of his nose, the knotted jut of his jaw, the broken expanse of his brow. His skull was bald, scar-gnarled, and misshapen. When he gave over to his battle-rage, there was no warrior more ferocious and feared, and his sword Life-Breaker had sent many men to the corpse-halls.

But his eyes, meeting hers, shared her unease.

“We must be quick,” she said, and reached for her cloak.

Kjarstan’s boldness and boasting, his promises of war-plunder and wealth as they brought death to their enemies, had carried them well through the first days of their ride. They talked and laughed, joked and sang. Every man of them, they knew, would win glory and fame.

Too long had they sat idle, wintering in their seized hall, feasting and fucking and throwing dice. Too long since they’d felt the crisp wind on their faces, heard the ring of steel and the clash of shield-walls. Too long since they’d slashed and stabbed, hewn and hacked, heard the screams of their enemies, smelled the blood-stink and shit-stink of gutted entrails.

Oh, there was joy in it — joy in war, joy in slaughter and carnage. A joy and a passion and a fire like nothing else. Whatever delights a man might take from riches, from meat and mead, or in the arms of a woman… only when he confronted death could he truly be most alive.

And if he should be struck down? If he should be pierced by sword-blades or spear-points, cut by axes, fall and be killed? A man could hope for no better end! Who would wish to die old and infirm, weak and feeble? To die of sickness, or drowning, or foolish mishap? A man must die well to earn his place at Odin’s table!

Away from the sea, into the high country, they rode. The coastline fell away behind them. Creeks tumbled down rocky clefts. Vales lay open, bleak and muddy, but beginning to green. Twigs budded. New grass grew. Snow lingered in the lee-shadows of ridges, dirty ice-patches un-reached by the sun. Now and then, hares scampered or a scrawny deer stepped. Once, they glimpsed a bear, lean and hungry, but not so hungry as to dare menace men and horses.

They made camp by night, building fires, setting watches, sleeping bundled in blankets and cloaks. Jugs of sour barley-beer they’d brought with them, bread and hard cheese, smoked fish. To those who’d come from Pedham, the few youths and women never before gone far from home, it was both a frightening and exciting adventure.

Soon, they reached the high-hill river valley, long and slope-sided as if scooped in a trench from the earth. Above it rose rugged peaks, white-topped the year ‘round. The river itself, fed by many more rushing creeks, flowed fast and full. Stones and boulders littered the ground, strewn like pebble-pieces of some giant’s game.

Clouds drifted in. The day, not warm to begin with, cooled and grew damp. Mists whirled in ghostly skeins along the water. The horses’ breath billowed steamy vapor. Men and women pulled their cloaks more tightly around their bodies; beads like dew-drops collected on the fur trim of hoods.

The red banner hung limp and dispirited from its pole. Stefnir, Kjarstan’s nephew, swiped moisture from his forehead and wrung it from his fair hair, then cursed as some trickled down the nape of his neck.

The talk, laughter, jokes and singing dwindled. Soon they went on in silence, a sodden silence broken only by the plodding squish of hooves, the creak of straps, and the faint jingle of mail.

The mists thickened. Or a fog rose. Or the clouds lowered. Or all of those, together and combined. The world turned to greyness, dreary and blurred. The snow-peaks vanished, the land lost its edges, the trees faded to suggestions, and the boulders became indistinct. The river, off to their left, was a liquid whisper more felt than heard or seen.

“Stay close,” said Kjarstan, his voice both oddly loud and oddly muffled. “No one goes straying, no one gets separated.”

So he said, but when each of them could only see a few horse-lengths to either side, such words proved less than reassuring.

“It will clear soon,” Kjarstan added. “If it does not, or this Hel’s-gloom worsens, we’ll stop for a while and wait it out.”

The horses trudged on, heads low, manes and tails dripping. Everything smelled of wet wool and leather. Unwelcome thoughts insinuated their way into minds. Hel, as Kjarstan had mentioned… Hel, goddess in whose bleak realm resided the miserable dead who had not won their way to Valhalla…

Someone did try to bolster their spirits with another song, but the sound of it was a dirge and was soon let trail away. The silence returned.

Stefnir gripped the banner-pole with a half-numb, clammy hand. His other held the reins, though slackly, his horse following that of Rikolf, just ahead.

How suddenly their moods had changed… how distant in memory seemed the smoke and hearth-fires and cheer of the hall… or the fervor of riding to battle… how far and distant and impossible…

His horse stopped. Stefnir saw that Rikolf’s had stopped as well, though he could barely make out more than its hindquarters. Not even Rikolf’s red cloak was visible.

From somewhere behind him came a sudden low gasp, or cough. Stefnir turned his head, but only grey fog and vague shapes met his gaze. He opened his mouth to call a question — was everyone all right? — but his skin prickled with unaccountable gooseflesh before a single word passed his lips.

With his knees, he nudged his horse a few paces forward, meaning to bring himself up alongside Rikolf. He would ask the older man before bleating like some frightened little lamb–

Rikolf’s saddle was empty. His horse only stood there, head down, reins dangling.

A cry wavered out of the mist — a woman’s cry — over almost as soon as it began. He heard a man’s grunt, and a thump.

His nerves shrieked.

“What is it? Who’s there?” he shouted.

No one answered.

“Kjarstan?”

There still was no answer.

“Anyone!?”

And still, no one answered.

The silence returned again.

The silence returned again, and was complete.

Kjarstan would not, would never, break his oath.

This, Udr Udarsson knew as well as he knew his own name, and the names of his father and grandfather before him. This, he knew as well as he knew his own heart.

The very implication was an insult, the kind of insult only answerable by blood. To suggest Kjarstan had not only broken his oath but utterly betrayed his king and kindred by joining with that yellow piss-dog, Gunnleif? For that, even blood would not suffice.

Yet, when the expected day of arrival came with no sign of his banner… when a second day passed the same, and a third… when possible explanations for delay wore thinner and thinner…

What else were men to think?

Udr and Anbjorn told them what to think.

“If Kjarstan is not yet come as promised,” they’d said, “it is because some ill fate or fortune has befallen!”

They, two of Kjarstan’s best and most loyal warriors, had accompanied King Jorfyn’s messenger to Langenvik as proof of intent. Their earl — their friend, and war-brother! — would not lightly cast them aside as hostages.

“On my life, I so swear it,” Udr had said. “On my life and my sword.”

“Both of which,” a dour old lord called Olla had retorted, “will fast be forfeit if you are proved false.”

“It is that misbegotten whoreson Gunnleif you should give blame,” Anbjorn said. “If his dogs struck Kjarstan by surprise in the hills—”

Back and forth they had argued — Jorfyn’s advisers voicing their doubts, Udr and Anbjorn their protestations. Finally, with harsh words about to turn to harsher blows, the king intervened. A small group of swift riders, he declared, would go out in search of Kjarstan’s missing men. A dozen, no more. To seek sign or answer, and return with news.

“We will ride with them,” Anbjorn had said.

“Madness!” cried Olla. “If they are to stand hostage against treachery, do not let them leave!”

“Do you say,” asked Anbjorn, with a dangerous hush, “that we would turn against our own king?”

“I say,” said the old lord, “that you would be loyal to your earl.”

Anbjorn might then have struck him, respected elder or not, if Udr and Jorfyn’s skald hadn’t intervened.

Again, the arguments raged with much shouting, until the king decided one would go while the other stayed behind. It satisfied none, but mollified enough, and so the matter was settled. The king then had them draw lots. Udr was chosen to ride.

He rode with a handful of others selected by the earls and from the king’s own guard. They set out for Pedham, back-tracking the route Kjarstan should most likely have taken. On rare occasion they ran across spies or scouts from Gunnleif’s army, dispatching them with ruthless efficiency of sword and spear.

Now they had reached the high-hill river valley, and something was not at all right. A strange mood crept over them, a strange apprehension. Talk died away. Men tensed in their saddles and twitched alert at every bird-call or noise. More than one checked to see his blade rested loose in the scabbard, ready to be drawn.

Udr himself felt uncommonly jumpy; his sack tight, his skin crawling. Nothing he could see, hear, or smell gave any reason for such skittishness.

The valley ahead lay peaceful, dusted fine green from the new-growing grass. The river flowed smooth in its course, disturbed only by the silvery leap-flicker and splashing of fish rising to snap at skate-flies.

Still, his palms clutched, sweating at the reins as he guided his horse through the random scatter of stones. He found himself wishing the lots had drawn differently, with him the one to stay behind at the war-camp where it was safe.

Which was no sort of thought for a warrior… a wrong sort of thought in more ways than one… and he could not say why.

Further on, one of Jorfyn’s men gave a shout of discovery. When the others neared him, they saw he’d found a horse. Udr recognized it as one of the horses from Pedham, wandering saddled and bridled but riderless among tall grey standing stones, nosing at the tender green shoots to graze on the new grass.

“It bears no wounds, nor bloodstains,” someone said. “Where is its rider?”

“Look, there’s another, by the river there, drinking.”

“Riderless as well, with panniers and packs untouched.”

“Why would they abandon their horses yet laden?”

“They did not abandon their horses,” Udr said. “They must have been attacked.”

“Well, if they were, why would the attackers not have—?”

“Here!” called another man, amid a jumble of stones. “See this.”

They rode to him as he stood over a bright splash of crimson that Udr first took for blood then he recognized it as a crumple of cloth, white on red. A white sword on a red field, attached to its pole but lying forsaken on the ground.

Udr sprang down and bent to it. “Stefnir never would have let drop his uncle’s banner.”

“Then where is he? Where are they?”

“Dismount. Spread out and search.”

They did so, anxiously, their former apprehension creeping again along their nerves.

“I see a shield.” A man pointed. “And a spear beside it.”

“Broken?”

“No, not broken, not so much as scratched.”

Without any order given, they gathered together, forming a defensive circle as if in anticipation of attack. Udr shivered, and by no means was the only man to do so. The air had gained a sudden chill.

And when had the sunshine given way to this fog?

The war-camp of King Jorfyn consisted of tents and huts surrounded by trenches, thorn-brambles, and angled rows of stakes hewn to crude points. The banner of the king — three white serpents interlocked on a triangular green field — flew accompanied by the banners of other earls and battle-chieftains.

Njoth, Jorfyn’s skald, brought Hreyth and Egil into the makeshift wittan-hall, where gathered the king and his advisers.

It was a small assembly, a half-dozen earls and war-lords seated on benches by a stone-ringed central hearth-fire. Apart from them stood a young man with a dark beard; he was unarmed and his posture declared his resentment of that fact.

The king himself — of middle years, greying but not wrinkled, hale and hearty — wore a tunic of green wool with white wyrm-work embroidery at collar, cuffs and hem. He held across his knees a scepter, a long whetstone below topped by a piece of whale-ivory carved into entwined serpents. His cautious, intelligent, war-weary gaze fell upon the newcomers.

Two other women were also in attendance. One, red-haired and curvaceous, sat near the king’s side, nursing a babe at a plump, freckled breast.

The other, immense and imposing in shining battle-glory, stepped to block Hreyth’s way. The sword strapped across her back must have measured four feet in the blade. Its grip-worn leather hilt proclaimed it was by no means just for show.

“I am Valhild,” she said. Her helm hung on a strap at her side, leaving her bare-headed with myriad thin, close-woven blonde braids. A scar sliced her chin. “First among the king’s guard.”

“Hreyth of the Grey Cloak.”

“So, you are the rune-witch Njoth’s been going on about?”

“I am.”

“Hmf. I expected some haggard old crone.”

“It seems we are both of a sort to defy expectations.”

“True enough.” Valhild’s gaze swept Hreyth’s mail-coat, and the sheathed seax at her hip. She grinned. “Mine’s bigger.”

Hreyth smiled, touching Rook-Talon. “Mine gets the job done.”

Valhild roared a laugh and clapped Hreyth on the shoulder hard enough to make her stagger. “I like this one,” Valhild told the king, then turned to Egil — she towered over him, but he did not back down. “And who’s this?”

“Egil Einarsson,” Hreyth said. “Or, Egil Splitbrow, as men call him.”

“I can see why.” Valhild inspected the scarred, fissured dent at the front of his bald, lumpy skull. “You must have a hard head.”

Egil looked up at her, mouth unsmiling, eyes flat. “It gets the job done.”

Again, the big woman laughed, louder than ever. She slugged him on the arm. The sound was like that of a mattock meeting a bull’s carcass. “I like this one as well,” she said to King Jorfyn. “You’ll do worse than to put your trust in them, I think.”

With that, she stepped aside and let them pass into the circle, where spaces were made for them on the benches. Further introductions were made. The angry, resentful young man apart from the rest was called Anbjorn, who followed Kjarstan, the missing earl.

There had not been much in the way of serious confrontation between their armies as of yet this spring. The sides were too evenly matched, neither leader wanting to risk a direct assault, neither having the numbers to make a proper siege. So, they sat across the bay and tide-plain from each other, with occasional scout-parties and skirmishes, negotiations, insults, raids, and harassment.

“Fifty men more or less,” said Jorfyn, “may not seem like much in a war. But these are Earl Kjarstan’s men of which we speak. Among the best, each worth any three of Gunnleif’s.”

“Any five,” Anbjorn said, earning him not a few glowers.

“And in battles such as we face here,” the king continued, undeterred, “every man counts. If Kjarstan had come as intended, we would have taken the town by now.”

“But, if Kjarstan has joined Gunnleif,” put in an old earl, Olla, he of the sourest, expression. “Those same fifty men, whether worth five or three, will slaughter us like wolves upon lambs.”

Jorfyn raised a hand to forestall an argument. Or, rather, to forestall the rekindling of an argument that had already gone on far past its welcome — Anbjorn protesting his lord’s loyalty, Olla doom-mongering, the others debating how those fifty men could turn the tide and which way, and so on.

“I cannot move against Gunnleif without knowing what’s become of Kjarstan,” the king said, addressing Hreyth and Egil directly. “I need him with me. More vitally still, I need him not against me.”

“Your spies at the town?” asked Egil.

“Have heard nothing beyond that which we know.”

“Would be hard to keep so many men secret.”

“Agreed,” Jorfyn said. “Regardless of where matters lie with his loyalty — which I have never before had reason to doubt — I cannot believe he could be with Gunnleif and we’ve no word of it.”

“Nor would they have deserted,” Valhild said, which brought fervent agreement from Anbjorn. “We’re not speaking of Saxon farmers running back to their fields, or dirt-eating Britons skulking in the bushes.”

“Then there’s the matter of the riders we sent out,” Jorfyn went on. “A dozen men, hand-chosen by myself and my earls.”

“And Udr, my war-brother,” Anbjorn said. He shot Olla a look like an arrow. “Unless you think Udr betrayed them, led them into a trap.”

“They have not returned,” said Olla, uplifting his palms as if that itself proved enough.

“I’ve told you, something happened to them. Something strange.”

The old earl scoffed. “Armies of men don’t just disappear. It isn’t as if they were at sea, where they could have been sunk, lost, and drowned, ship and all.”

“Folk do vanish,” said Njoth, the skald. He was lamed, absent a leg at the knee, getting about on a stout wooden crutch. “Not only at sea.”

“My grandmother would tell me of farmsteads, or villages, or whole halls abandoned,” Jorfyn’s wife said, lifting her babe and patting its back to draw up a milk-burp. “As if overnight, leaving work half-done on the loom and unfinished meals upon the feast-tables.”

One of the other earls nodded. “Mine would tell me of travelers venturing into dark forests or over high passes, never to be seen again.”

“But not,” Olla said firmly, “whole armies out of thin air! Grandmothers’ tales? We’ll be talking of dark-elves and seidr-magic next!”

“Aren’t we already?” Hreyth asked. She rose and moved near the glowing hearth, turning in a slow circle to let them all see the strangeness of her mis-matched eyes — one blue as the fjords, one amber-gold. “Is that not why I’m here? Your king’s skald, in his wisdom, sent for me because folk do disappear, or worse.”

No one answered. Only a few — Valhild, Anbjorn, Njoth, and the king most among them — could long withstand her gaze.

“We may think we are mighty, with our kingdoms and oaths, our laws and law-speakers,” she went on. “We forget there are older places, and things, of this world.”

Njoth nodded vigorous support. “If they trespassed on a giant, a dwarf-cave, a troll-den… if they woke a dragon from its slumber… disturbed a grave-barrow…”

“There’s no knowing what they might have unleashed,” Hreyth finished for him. “And whether it will be satisfied with whatever it’s already done, or will come looking for more.”

In the town was the army of Gunnleif Guthnarsson, whose banner — a snarling yellow dog on a triangle of black — waved from the top of the walls. Shields hung there as well, round shields painted half black and half yellow. Spears leaned ranked against the ramparts, an iron-tipped forest.

But no one came out to challenge or follow as their company of eight rode from Jorfyn’s war-camp beside Langenvik’s broad bay.

With Hreyth and Egil were Valhild, of course, and Anbjorn, and four other warriors chosen by the earls.

The day was brisk and clear, the wind off the sea sharp as a blade’s edge. Eventually, as they rode amid idle conversations, a burly swordsman named Atli asked Egil what someone always seemed eventually to ask.

“Does she lay with you?” he whispered. “Is she your woman?”

He no doubt intended discretion, but Hreyth’s ears were keen. She hid a smile as Egil made his usual growling reply.

“Ask such again, and my fist will give answer.”

There was then a moment of cautious, considering silence. Then one of the others — called Thrunn — mentioned he’d heard it likely they’d see a rainy spring, and his friend Osig replied that a rainy spring meant a fair summer, and so the subject was safely changed.

Valhild, who’d also heard the exchange, grinned wryly at Hreyth and made more distance fall between their horses and those of the men. “Will your fist give answer if I ask you the same?”

“Oh? Have you an interest?”

She snorted. “Not in you. I only fight and drink like a man.”

Hreyth’s eyebrows rose.

“He seems tough,” said Valhild, as if by way of explanation.

“The toughest.”

“But that wasn’t my question.”

Hreyth released her reins with one hand, and made a fist — a rather small one. She looked at it, then looked at Valhild, and chuckled. “To what end, breaking my fingers?”

“You might land a lucky blow.”

“I’ll not chance it. As for the question beyond the question, Egil was brought orphan to the hall before I was born, and is as a brother to me.”

Again, the big woman snorted. “There’s a story told often enough. If I’d a sack of silver for each lovestruck fool I’d seen crying over his mead because of some girl who held him as brother or friend…”

“Tyr’s truth in that,” Hreyth agreed, rolling her eyes. “But, in this matter, it is as I say.”

“Very well, then. How came he by his distinctive scar?”

“When he was brought orphan. His village fell under attack. His family was slaughtered, he himself injured and left for dead, only a child. My mother tended him, took him in. She was a healer… of sorts.” She frowned; speaking of her mother was not something she often did, or found pleasant.

Most folk, realizing as much, let it pass. Not so Valhild.

“Of sorts?”

“She brewed potions. Both helpful and… otherwise. They say she poisoned her husband.”

“Did she?”

“I believe so. I was too young to know at the time. I remember he beat her, and they hated each other, and when he died, his kin accused her of murder.”

“Your mother murdered your father?”

“No,” she replied. “That’s why her husband beat her.”

“Ah,” Valhild said, nodding in worldly-wise comprehension. “What of your true father, then?”

Hreyth shrugged. “Of him, I can say only what was told to me, and it sounds the most terrible arrogance.”

“I like terrible arrogance.”

“You would.”

“Don’t make my fist give answer!” Valhild hefted hers, the knuckles callused, a design of Thor’s hammer marked into the skin with needle and ink.

They both laughed.

“As I was told it,” Hreyth said, “during a long year when the men and their ships were away a’viking, a stranger visited the hall. A lone wanderer who wore a grey cloak and a strip of cloth bound over his lack of an eye. He sought to discuss seidr-magic with my mother, staying three days and three nights as her guest.”

“And when he was gone…?” Valhild made a rounding gesture in front of her belly.

“And when he was gone.” Hreyth mimicked the gesture.

“A one-eyed wanderer in a grey cloak, eh?” She whooped, drawing the attention of the others. “You’re claiming Odin All-Wise himself —?”

“I do not claim so, only say as I was told, and I warned you it sounded a terrible arrogance.”

Just then, Anbjorn signaled urgently. “Tracks,” he said. “Hoof-prints. They must belong to Udr and those who rode with him.”

“Let us investigate,” said Valhild, testing how her great sword rested in its scabbard. She winked at Anbjorn. “Remember, if you’re leading us to some trap or our doom, I’ll cleave you from crown to crotch.”

“I assure you,” he told her earnestly, “I’ve not forgotten.”

They crested a rise and beheld the broad river-valley, green and peaceful, dotted with dark, coarse boulders and smoother grey standing stones. No carrion-crows circled, no scavengers roved, no stench of decay reached them on the mild spring breeze.

All that moved was the rippling current of the water, shining like glass; a few fish leaped, a few birds flew. Here and there, horses grazed.

Horses… many still saddled and bridled… the buckles glinting in the sun… other glints and flashes of metal showed from the grass… as if from sword-blades or bright-polished helms.

“I see no corpses,” Valhild said.

“I see no one at all,” added Osig. “They aren’t here.”

“But they were,” Anbjorn said. “I know these horses. I know this gear. That’s Kjarstan’s war-stallion! And, there, his banner, by those stones! Stefnir would never have let it fall so long as his arm held strength.”

“Unless they fled,” said Inglar.

“They did not flee!”

“What, then? Did they surrender? Were they taken, meekly, without a fight?”

“I’ll give you a fight, you—”

“Come and try—”

Valhild nudged her horse between them, a one-woman shield-wall with a dangerous scowl. “Settle it later,” she said. “Or I’ll settle it now.”

There were no corpses, no indications of struggle, only wandering, riderless horses; shields and spears and a banner-pole as if carelessly cast aside, dropped swords or cloaks simply strewn here and there among the random scatters of stones.

“Could they have…” Thrunn trailed off, as if unable to bring himself to utter the words.

“Vanished?” Egil suggested.

“Pff, vanished,” muttered Inglar, then subsided as he caught Valhild’s look.

“They were here,” Thrunn said, in a slow but solid sort of reason. “Now they aren’t. So, they must have gone somewhere.”

“Then, Freya’s tits, where?” Anbjorn flung up his arms in frustration.

They dismounted, one by one, warily. Hreyth last of all swung down from her steed. This was not what she had expected to find, no monster’s slaughter-yard, no grave-barrows or rock-hewn giant’s halls. Some other mischief seemed at work here, a subtler magic, seidr or sorcery.

“Someone lost a boot,” Osig said.

Anbjorn held up a helm, undented, undamaged. “This is Udr’s. He had it from his father. He wouldn’t have left it, not while he lived.”

Atli stooped to a twinkle in the grass and came up with a jeweled brooch in his hand. “And who, winning such a battle, would walk away without taking plunder?”

“This was no battle,” Egil said. “There’s no blood. Not a drop to be seen.”

“The king sent skilled warriors,” Inglar said. “Are we to believe none of them so much as wounded a foe?”

“Or fought foes that did not bleed,” Anbjorn said.

Osig eyed him dubiously. “Every living thing bleeds. Man, beast, or monster.”

“And men plunder,” said Atli.

“Living or dead, men plunder,” Egil agreed. “And beasts devour, and monsters do both.”

“But, whatever did this, did neither.” Valhild frowned, shaking her head. “I don’t like it.”

Hreyth unfastened her cloak as the others continued their search. She spread the heavy grey-wool cloth on the ground and laid the wolf pelt upon it.

“It’s as if they did vanish, plucked from their very saddles as they rode.” Anbjorn turned his friend’s helm over and over in his hands.

“And from their very boots?” Thrunn glanced uneasily around.

“While leaving the horses untouched?” Inglar added. He had not joined in the searching, but stayed near Hreyth, watching her.

For those questions, none of them could offer answer.

Onto the silver lushness of the wolf’s fur, Hreyth cast a fistful of rune-marked bones from the bag at her belt. They landed with rattling clicks, some atop others, runes showing blood-red, soot-black, and gold. She studied them, the patterns of them, the arrangement they’d made, their meanings and messages.

Earth-Smoke-Man-Stone-Breath-Change-Theft-Danger.

She rose slowly, gaze sweeping over their surroundings. The peaceful river valley, green with new grass… its sloped sides curving up toward rugged, rocky peaks… the spring-blue sky overhead now gone pearly-pale… skeins of mist lingering in dark fissures and clefts, wafting in curls around the bases of the many tall and scattered standing stones…

The stones.

The standing stones, akin to those erected by the Old People of half-forgotten days, but these not towering huge and set in henges with altar-slabs and crosspiece lintels.

These, of smoother texture and lighter hue than the rocky peaks above or crag-ridges and dark boulders jutting from the earth; these were each at the most not much taller than a man, and of a random, straggling-line order… but for the cluster, almost a ring, near to where Anbjorn had found his war-brother’s helm…

The stones.

An apprehensive silence had fallen, creeping with the same soft, insidious stealth as the fog seeping from the shadows. When she spoke — “The stones!” — her words came louder than intended, a sharp cutting of that silence. Everyone started, some gasped, and several hands went to hilts.

“By Odin, woman!” Inglar thumped a fist against his chest, as if to correct his heart in its cadence. “Are you trying to shock us to death?”

She turned her gaze upon him, and judging by the way he blanched, whatever Olla’s man saw in her mismatched eyes made him regret his choice of words.

“Stanvaettir,” she said.

“What?” he asked, scowling at her.

Egil’s own eyes widened beneath his scar-creased brow. “Creatures of the deep earth.”

“Breath-stealers,” Hreyth said. “They draw out the life of men, transform them, and leave only stones in their place.”

Another silence fell, this one filled with dread and understanding. Even Inglar, hand still held over his heart, showed a reluctant, dawning comprehension.

“Are you telling us,” Anbjorn began at last, his voice low but shaking, “that these… these stones all around us… are… my earl, my war-brothers, my friends?”

Before she could reply, a whirring rain of arrows smote into their midst.

One struck Thrunn in the shoulder, piercing through his mail-coat. He shouted with mingled pain and surprise. Another nailed Inglar’s wrist to his torso; he fell back, uttering a strangled cry. A third grazed Valhild’s leg, slicing the leather and the skin beneath.

“Shields!” the big woman bellowed.

Egil raised his, stepping in front of Hreyth as another volley flew. Arrows thunked into heavy limewood or buried their iron heads in the grass.

Atli and Anbjorn raised their shields as well, overlapping their rounded edges, forming a line to either side of Valhild and Egil. Thrunn, swearing ferociously, ripped the arrow from his shoulder and joined them. Blood gushed from his wound, coursing over and dulling the shine of his mail and his bright silver arm-ring.

Blades sang from their scabbards. The nearest horses, no longer placid, whinnied and ran, stirring whorls and eddies in the low, rising ground-mist.

“Inglar?” called Valhild.

“Down but living,” Osig said, crouching beside the wounded man, then seizing his other wrist as he reached for the protruding arrow-shaft. “Don’t pull it! You’ll just die all the sooner.”

Inglar coughed. Red bubbles burst on his lips. He fumbled at an awkward angle with his left hand for a spear, unwilling to face death without a weapon in his grasp.

“Gunnleif’s yellow-dog bastards!” Atli peered through a gap in their small shield-wall. “Behind the ridge by that broken boulder… fifteen, maybe twenty.”

“Outnumbered and they have archers,” said Valhild. “The gods must have thought we needed more of a challenge.” She eyed Thrunn’s blood-soaked mail. “How’s your arm?”

He grimaced. “Still attached, and it’s only my left.” In his right hand he held a short-handled ax with a wide, sharp double-blade.

“They’ll be coming for us,” she said, after another flurry of arrows struck their shields.

“Let them come.”

“Then why aren’t they?” asked Anbjorn. “They’ve stopped shooting.”

“No sense wasting arrows on limewood,” Osig said.

“Come on, you ass-sniffing curs!” Atli shouted at their foes. “Fatherless bitch-whelps! Come and fight! Come and die!”

“They’re afraid,” Egil said.

“They should be,” said Thrunn.

“Not of us.”

“They should be!” he repeated.

“They suspect something,” Hreyth said. “They know something is wrong here.”

From behind the ridge came a man’s voice. “Drop your swords and surrender!”

“Fuck your sister!” Atli retorted.

“We want to talk!”

“We want to fight!”

Anbjorn nudged Atli with an elbow. “They might know what happened.”

“They might shit amber, too, but I wouldn’t bet on it.”

“Enough,” Valhild told them. She lowered her shield enough to poke her helmed head up over it. “Talk, then!”

“We’re looking for some missing men.”

“As are we, but there’s no one, only horses.”

“Do you take Ulfvir Sneasson for a fool? We know Earl Kjarstan was coming this way.”

“We’ve not found him, either.”

A pause followed, no doubt marked by hasty conference behind the ridge. Then the man — Ulfvir — spoke again. “But we have found you.”

More bowstrings twanged, more arrows flew. So did a hurled spear, which struck, shaft quivering, in Valhild’s shield.

“So,” said Atli as they hunched behind their limewood wall. “We talked.”

“You didn’t tell them about the stones,” Hreyth said.

“You didn’t finish telling us about the stones,” Anbjorn said. “What about the stones?”

“Forget the god-fucked stones!” Valhild ducked a second spear then hefted her great sword, its long blade sheened silver in the fog-dimmed sunlight. “Stand ready!”

Gunnleif’s men charged with their yellow-and-black shields held high, weapons drawn, uttering full-throated war-cries. As they came, Egil and Atli stepped forward and met the first two with a tremendous crack of wood and iron.

Then the battle was upon them.

Thrunn reared back and flung his ax; it spun whickering through the air and caught a brown-haired man squarely between the collarbones. Valhild’s sword swept in a deadly arc. Her foe shield-turned the blow, leaving his body exposed, and Anbjorn sank his blade deep into the man’s belly.

Ulfvir, the leader of the enemy, the one who’d said he wanted to talk, wore the shaggy yellow-brown pelt of a dire-hound for a cape. Its forepaws were knotted at his neck and its head, still with skull and jawbone and muzzle of snarling teeth, jounced on his shoulder as if snapping to bite. He, like Thrunn, carried an ax. Unlike Thrunn, he did not throw it, but brought it down in a furious slash that cleaved Atli’s shield into kindling — and Atli’s arm at the elbow.

Atli screamed even as he thrust his sword at the dog-pelted man’s face, but missed, and stumbled to a knee with his stump gouting crimson and the fingers on the severed portion twitching and clenching convulsively in the grass. Ulfvir again lifted his ax, meaning to take Atli’s head, but Egil bashed his shield’s boss into the man’s chest, making him stagger.

A younger man, lean and lithe and quick, darted around his companions, perhaps thinking to get past Valhild and Anbjorn, and strike from behind. But Valhild, for all her size, was almost as quick as him. She side-kicked, shattering his kneecap, tripping him. He went sprawling near Hreyth, who gripped her seax two-handed and seated it hilt-deep in the small of his back, the blade’s edge grating against his spine.

“You were right,” Valhild said with a grin. “It does get the job done.”

“We haven’t time for this,” Hreyth told her. “We’ll disturb the stanvaettir, and end up stones ourselves!”

“You’re the rune-witch!” Whirling, Valhild swung in another great slicing arc, shearing mail and leather like thin cloth, opening a foe’s torso from shoulder to hip so that his entrails bulged obscenely from the gore-purple cut. “Think of something!”

The chaos and clangor filled the world. Sounds rang, echoing strangely in the gathering mist. War-cries and death-cries trembled the air. Osig fell with his thigh slashed to the bone, the blood a torrent. Anbjorn dodged a sword-thrust then went reeling from a helm-cracking blow to the head.

Think of something. She was the rune-witch; she must think of something.

Inglar had somehow gotten to his feet, despite his right arm still arrow-pinned to his body. He’d shed his shield and picked up a spear in his left hand, and now ran at their enemies, shrieking like a berserk out of legend. He ran at Ulfvir, the dog-pelted leader, who’d retreated already from Egil’s relentless defense of the stricken Atli; Ulfvir scrambled back further, his courage deserting him in the face of Inglar’s ferocity.

Another of Gunnleif’s men moved to meet Inglar’s charge. The spear-point rammed through yellow-and-black painted wood, splintering both shield and shaft with loud cracks, fouling them entangled and useless. Still like a berserk, Inglar ignored the man’s desperate sword-strokes. With another enraged shriek, he flung himself full on his foe. As they crashed together to the ground, Inglar tore free his arrow-pinned arm from his chest — the dark jet of heart’s-blood leaped in a fountain — and buried the arrowhead in the other man’s throat.

The mist roiled, the mist churned.

Hreyth ducked the wild swing of a black-bearded man’s blade. She heard Egil shouting, and Valhild’s war-cry as the big woman’s great sword claimed another quick kill. Hreyth heard screams and insults, and Ulfvir demanding their deaths. She saw bodies writhing in pain amid motionless corpses.

She saw the mist, a thick fog now, not rolling in from the sea or river but issuing like cold smoke creeping and seething across the earth. Wisps flowed down from fissures in the rugged rock-ridges, and a billowing undulation from the broken boulder’s wide rough-edged cleft.

Stanvaettir, she had thought, but she had been wrong.

A black-bearded man swung again, hilt-first for her temple as if meaning to stun her senseless. Hreyth caught the blow with her left forearm — she felt the snap reverberate all the way to her toes — and Rook-Talon’s sharp, sturdy blade stabbed up through the man’s beard and chin-underside, scraping teeth, cleaving tongue, to impale his brain through the roof of his mouth.

He collapsed in a violent, blood-vomiting gurgle. Hreyth wrenched Rook-Talon loose, the seax dripping. She tried to raise her left hand to swipe the scarlet mess from her face but it would not obey her. She blinked, shaking her head frantically, clearing her eyes.

With one, that of blue, she saw only what anyone would — the fog, wafting thick to surround them.

With the other, that of gold, she saw more.

Things moved in the mist, shapes and forms, lines and symbols, dancing like wyrm-work embroidery, a glow of strange colors pulsating the way embers waxed and waned through a coating of ash.

Not stanvaettir, no.

Something else. Something bigger, something more.

And it was coming, coming for them. Caring nothing for which lord, king, or earl they might serve.

The others, friend and foe alike, did not notice. Their sole concern was the battle, fiercely fought and costly on both sides.

Think of something, rune-witch, think of something!

Rune-witch.

She spun. There, undisturbed amid the combat and carnage, was her grey cloak, laid out on the ground with the wolf-pelt spread upon it. No one had trampled or trodden upon it. The rune-marked bones seemed faintly to flicker with their own inner light. The air above and around them was clear. Even as she watched, tendrils of eddying mist wafted near to the bones then curled away.

“Gather!” Valhild bellowed, standing over Anbjorn — whether he was dead or merely unconscious, Hreyth couldn’t say. “Gather, fall back, and shields!”

Those who could, did. Egil all but carried Atli, who had bled to a whey-water pallor from his severed arm. Thrunn came limping, fending off two warriors, many small wounds making him resemble a hound-harried boar near the end of the hunt.

For Osig and Inglar, there was no question; they had gone to the mead-benches of Odin’s golden hall. Gone, but with glory, and far from alone. If Ulfvir had led twenty, he’d lost more than half. But he, and his remaining men, looked largely unhurt, and still outnumbered the paltry defense of Valhild, Egil, and Thrunn’s three-shield wall.

Hreyth could have picked up Anbjorn’s shield and joined them, for what little good it might have done. Instead, she ran for her cloak through the thickening mist. It swirled about her legs, made her mail-coat glisten silver, and cooled — chilled! — her flesh.

“I’ll take your heads back to Gunnleif in a bag,” snarled Ulfvir. “We’ll set them in a row and piss on them in turn.”

“You’ll have to come get them,” Valhild replied.

“With pleasure,” he said. Yet he and his men hung back, hesitant to again throw themselves against the formidable strength of Valhild’s and Egil’s swords.

“Hreyth?” Egil spoke with low urgency.

“I’m here.”

For a terrible moment, she felt the fog congeal dense and heavy against her skin, weighing on her limbs like damp wool, and she thought she was too late. But another step brought her into the clearness. She bent and seized the edges of the wolf-pelt, scooping its contents into a bundle as best she could with one hand.

“What’s happened to the sun?” someone asked, one of Gunnleif’s men, anxious.

“Never mind the sun,” Ulfvir told him. “Kill them, or I’ll bring your heads back to Gunnleif!” He raised his sword, and howled. “Kill them!”

As they howled in return, emboldening their spirits to renew battle, Hreyth ran back to the close cluster of her companions. She let go an edge of the wolf-pelt, casting the rune-marked bones in an arc at their feet and hoping it would be enough.

Then Egil swept her behind him, and their small shield-wall braced for the overwhelming charge.

The overwhelming charge did not come. It ended in a dark whorl of mist, a chill breeze, a shiver, and a sudden hush.

Hreyth, who had closed her eyes in wincing anticipation, opened them. Valhild cautiously lowered her shield. The others did likewise.

At their feet lay the rune-marked bones. Around them, already, the mist was lifting, dispersing, giving way again to mild spring sun and clear blue sky.

In front of them, mere paces from their line, several tall grey shapes jutted from the earth at canted, slanted angles. By some, shields painted half yellow and half black had fallen. By some, swords and spears.

Crumpled at the base of the nearest was a dire-hound’s shaggy pelt, knotted at the forepaws.

No one spoke. Their throats worked as they swallowed, their mouths faltered at forming words, but no one spoke.

The dead, those slain in the battle, were as they had been. Unaffected. So too were the horses, nosing in the grass. Atli barely clung to life, and Anbjorn was little better.

Of Ulfvir, and his men…

Only stones left in their place.

Valhild found her voice first, looking at Hreyth. “Your runes protected us?”

“I hoped they might.”

A nod, and the firm squeeze of Valhild’s big hand on Hreyth’s mail-clad shoulder, conveyed her thanks. Then she stepped toward the group of stones, though made no move yet to touch.

“Wh-what happened to them?” stammered Thrunn.

“The stanvaettir stole their breath,” Egil said.

“Not just stanvaettir,” Hreyth said. “Another power.”

“And it did this?” Valhild indicated the valley. “All this?”

“With each theft, growing stronger. Growing hungrier, more ravenous.”

“How do we kill it?”

“Kill it?” Thrunn gaped. “How?”

“That’s what I’m asking,” she told him. “Can it be killed?”

“I don’t know,” Hreyth said. “Perhaps.”

“If not?”

“If not,” said Egil, “this valley won’t contain it long.”

Hreyth thought of farm-steads and villages… of Jorfyn’s war-camp and Gunnleif’s forces at the town — two armies, and more men arriving every day in answer to the summons of their earls.

“It emerged from those fissures in the rock, and that broken boulder’s cleft,” she said. “There must be something under us, underneath the ground. A cavern, pit, or tunnel.”

“A lair,” said Valhild with a grim smile.

“My runes stopped it once. If I can find where it came from, I might be able to block its way and trap it in the earth.”

The grim smile widened. “Well then, what are we waiting for? It’s gorged itself and gone to rest; let’s finish this before it wakes again.”

Egil shook his head. “We cannot all go. We have injured men.”

“And the king must be warned,” Hreyth said. “Gunnleif, too, for that matter; they’ll have greater worries if this evil descends.”

“You heard them,” Valhild said to Thrunn. “Get horses. Take our wounded, and the bodies of our dead, and ride for Langenvik.”

Egil bound Hreyth’s arm with two sticks, and strips cut from her cloak. “You’re hurt,” he said, tying more of the grey cloth into a sling. “Are you certain?”

The pain was considerable. It gnawed the way the wicked squirrel Ratatoskr gnawed the bark of Yggdrasil as he ran up and down its great ash trunk, but she could not let it dissuade her.

“I work the runes. It must be done.”

Valhild approached, settling her helm securely in place. “Thrunn’s off,” she said. “Gods willing, Anbjorn and Atli survive the journey, and the tale be believed when they get there.”

“Gods willing, we survive our journey as well.” Egil donned his own helm and helped Hreyth to her feet.

“What a tale we’ll have to tell if we do!” Valhild clapped him on the back. “Over mead-bowls in the king’s feasting-hall! Hailed as heroes, shining with silver and gift-given gold, our names long remembered in saga and song.”

“And if we don’t survive?” asked Hreyth, clutching her bag of rune-marked bones in her sling-bound hand.

The big woman laughed. “Then I trust you’ll put forth a good word to the All-Wise All-Father for us, so that even if we do not fall in battle, we’ll still tell our tale over mead-bowls in his feasting-hall!”

They’d left their three horses loosely tethered with some that had belonged to Ulfvir and his men, and proceeded to the rocky ridge from behind which the first hail of arrows had come… and from fissures in which Hreyth had noticed the curling, coiling, issuing mists. The broken boulder reared there, cracked nearly in half to reveal a narrow crevice running throat-like into the earth.

Its wound looked recent, perhaps frost-made over the past winter, perhaps sundered by tremor-quakes as Ymir stirred in his giant-god sleep. Scree and shards gritted underfoot at each step, stone chips and flecks sifting loose as they passed.

“I go first,” Egil said in a tone brooking no argument.

Hreyth followed him, and Valhild brought up the rear. The way was narrow indeed and grew narrower still, until Valhild could not even have drawn her great blade. Her shoulders and Egil’s scraped the rough passage walls. The air was cool, heavy with moisture. Thin shafts through the rock let in weak threads of sunlight; otherwise, they went in a deepening darkness.

Until Hreyth, with one of her mismatched eyes, again glimpsed the waxing and waning strange glow, etching lines not unlike runes themselves in the misty shadows opening ahead.

Here was a roundish cave-chamber of tapering formations, joined columns, and shallow ridge-lipped pools where drips plinked and rippled. At the heart of it brimmed a well — a well rich with power, seidr-magic.

This, yes, this was the source of it. This cousin to Mimir’s Well, where Odin had made sacrifice in exchange for knowledge. This well, which drank rather than quenched, which took rather than gave, which stole and consumed rather than bestowed.

Across its glass-black surface, images seemed to whirl and flow… images, visages, spirit-faces; bodies drifting, floating weightless as if in liquid, trailing hands and limbs and hair…

“Do you see them?” she whispered.

“I see only water,” said Egil.

“As do I,” Valhild agreed, adding, “What do you see?”

“Later. I’ll begin setting the runes. Be ready.”

“For what?” Valhild asked, eyebrows lifting.

“I wish I knew. But, if anything comes up from the well, hold your breath.”

Their expressions suggested they found this scant comfort, and Hreyth felt the same. Held breath against a power such as this? A power that had drawn life from so many men, leaving only stones in their place? Dotting the river-valley with them, silent standing warnings of an incomprehensible danger; and she had come, a young rune-caster of uncertain parentage, armed with little more than her witch-queen mother’s lore…

But she had come, and as she’d told Egil, it must be done.

She reached into her bag of rune-marked bones — old and worn smooth, ivoried, rolling and clicking beneath her fingers. One by one, she brought them out and set them in a ring around the well’s rim.

The spirit-fraught glassy surface heaved in a sudden, terrible bulge as her circle neared completion. Hreyth sprang back, gasping. Her heel caught on the lip of a shallow pool. The last rune-bone clattered to the cavern floor.

Mist plumed from the well, wreathed her hand, gloved it, wrapped her arm, and pulled. It was insubstantial yet solid, mist made iron, iron made mist. It had her to the elbow, to the shoulder, to the throat.

From somewhere sounding far away, she heard Egil call her name, and Valhild shout a battle-cry.

The gasp she’d taken, she held. Struggling to do so, locking jaw and mouth, lungs already throbbing with a burning ache. The mist engulfed her head and chest.

She felt a tug at her belt — Egil, anchoring her with one hand as he groped along the floor for the fallen rune-bone. His boots slid as he, too, was inexorably pulled toward the hungry well.

Then came a violent, striking crash — metal on stone, steel on stone, the steel of Valhild’s great sword-blade, hewing and hacking at the cave ceiling’s formations. Sparks flew. Again and again, the strong steel struck, until stone cracked and shattered. Huge fanglike chunks of rock, some broken off in pieces and some at the root, smashed down.

The solid mist released abruptly. Egil and Hreyth pitched backward. As his free arm flailed, she saw the rune-bone in his fist and grabbed for it.

A heap of rubble filled the well, mounded there like some crude and makeshift cairn. Valhild stood astride the pile with her sword-hilt in both hands and the blade poised for a downward thrust.

Around the well’s rim, the rest of the rune-ring was — by god-miracle, praise Odin! — undisturbed. Hreyth slid the last bone into place. The rune upon it flashed an almost blinding gleam that raced around the circle in a line like fire.

The chamber’s air changed with an odd, pressuring pop. The cave walls shook; more rock-chunks fell from the ceiling and water sloshed over the lips of the pools. There was, for a moment, the sense of a vast, gusty sigh, an exhalation from the very lungs of the world.

The sense of seidr-magic dwindled to a fading echo, then was gone.

Hreyth released her long-held aching breath. Her gaze found Valhild’s in the gloom, then the familiar crags and outcrops of Egil’s scarred features beside her.

They had done it. They had lived. They had won.

Tales over mead-bowls, feasting-halls, hailed as heroes, shining with silver and gift-given gold, names long remembered in saga and song.

Through the half-collapsed passage, they picked their bruised and battered way back to surface and sunlight. The high river-valley spread green and peaceful before them, horses grazing in the new spring grass.

But, although the spell had been broken, it had not been unmade… and where so many brave men had once been, still remained only stones.