Under the oak tree at the edge of the wood Kari was digging, making a small pit with his knife in the moist soil under the leaf drift. Around him the night was silent, the wood a dank, rustling mass of darkness, rich with the smell of moss and wood rot.
When the hole was deep enough, he took a pouch from his belt, felt about inside for one of the small bone counters, and dropped it in.
“The last?” a voice croaked above him.
“Two more.” He straightened, stamping the soil down quickly, rubbing it from his hands. “One more to close the ring. Near the shore, somewhere.”
The moon glinted on his hair and face as he pushed through the tangle of bush and underbrush. Rowan saplings sprouted here at the wood’s edge, thorn and hazel and great fronds of bracken between them, chest-high. In the dappled silver light fat stems cracked and snapped under his feet. He struggled through, noticing the frosted crisp ends of the leaves, already dying. About him the night whispered; the dream wind brought him voices and murmurs and crystals of snow; two dark shapes drifted above him from tree to tree.
Then he paused and looked back.
A small boy stood in the wood, watching him. Caught in the moonlight, the child seemed faint, pale as bone. Kari took a step toward him; the boy backed away. Dirty tearstains smeared his face.
“You’re the Snow-walker,” he muttered.
“I won’t hurt you.”
The boy looked up, bewildered, at the high, rustling trees.
Finally he came forward. His hand reached out to Kari’s sleeve. “I can’t get back in,” he whispered. “I can’t. And none of them can see me anymore. No one talks to me but you. Father tells me to wake up but I can’t. I’m outside.”
Kari crouched in the mud beside him. “I know that,” he said gently. “Your name is Halmund Gunnarson, isn’t it?”
The boy nodded, rubbing his face. “I was feeding the hens—”
“You will get back,” Kari said urgently, “but I don’t know when.”
“My father keeps calling me! And I’m cold.” He shuddered, and looked around. “And the others frighten me.”
“Others?” Kari clenched his fingers. “People you know? People from the hold?”
“No. Shadow people. I don’t know them. They’re worn thin, like ghosts. And there are wolves that flicker between me and the moon. Ships out on the water…”
“Have you seen a girl?” Kari asked quickly. “Signi. You remember her?”
“She fell asleep.”
“That’s right.”
The boy shook his head. He took a step back, through a trunk of birch. “Has that happened to me? Am I dreaming this? I want to get out of the dream. I want to go home.” Suddenly he turned and ran down among the trees to the hold, sobbing. Kari watched him go, fading to a glimmer of moonlight. Then he dropped his head and stared in despair at the leaf litter on the ground. His silver hair hung still.
“Not your fault,” a dark voice said.
“In a way it is,” he said without looking up. “She wants me. I should have gone with her when she asked. I knew she would never leave them alone.”
He jerked up and pushed his way through and out of the wood, the two birds swooping above him, then ran down to the shore, where the black water lapped silently.
In the shingle he gouged another hole and dropped a bone disc in, then covered it with tiny stones and sand. A large boulder lay nearby; he tried to shift it but couldn’t. “Help me,” he muttered.
They came, one on each side of him, tall, dark men, their long taloned fingers tight on the rock. Together they dragged it over the buried talisman. Then Kari straightened wearily.
“That’s it.”
He looked back and saw the ring he had made around the hold, felt its power throb and tighten. The dream spell was held inside; none of it could escape. “The last should be left in the hall. A secret guardian over the sleepers.”
He walked quickly through the sleeping hold, by shapes he knew, that lurked at the corners of the houses. Coming to the hall he went straight past the watchman, opening the door and letting himself in softly, blanking the man’s mind and releasing it as soon as he was inside. The man scratched his hair, seeing nothing; the dog at his feet watched silently.
In the hall Kari moved between the sleeping war band to the roof tree. The ancient ash trunk rose high over him, the snake mark already half planed away by Wulfgar’s thralls. Two raven shapes drifted after him through the high windows.
“Here,” he said quietly. “This will be the place where the last of them gather. Whoever’s still awake. This is the heart of the hold.”
He took something small from the pouch and held it up for a moment, the moonlight glinting on its brightness. Then he bent and found a small slit in the seamed trunk, and pushed the shining fragment well inside with his long fingers. “Guard them,” he whispered. “Till the time comes.”
For a moment he stood there, winding it with spells and runes of protection, filaments of hope. Then he looked up at the birds. “I think you should stay too.”
One of them seemed to laugh, a harsh grating sound. “We go with you, Kari. What could we do here, with these sightless men?”
“They see well enough. Differently from us, that’s all.” He pushed his hair away wearily. “Now I’ve done all I can for them. Her power is here already, though. Nothing can change that.”
As he said it the tapestries rippled with a faint breeze. Some of the sleeping men turned uneasily in their fleeces and wraps. He watched them for a moment, tasting their dreams, then went quietly upstairs.
Brochael sat up as the door opened, his face a warm glow.
“All done?” he asked quietly.
Kari sat on the end of the bench and tugged his boots off.
“All done,” he said.
They looked at each other, a flicker of understanding.
In the cold morning Jessa tied her bundle more firmly to the packhorse and swung herself up onto her own pony.
“Yes, but why not go by sea? At least to start with.”
Skapti was picking at the upturned hoof of his horse with careful fingers. “Because of the ice.” He put the beast’s leg down and gave it an encouraging slap. Then he looked at her across the saddle. “If you sail around the coast, beyond Trond, beyond all the fjords, the coast starts to turn north, yes, but after a week or so, even in summer, you reach the ice. I’ve spoken to a few men who’ve tried it. Great floating bergs of ice. And if you manage to avoid them and sail on, the ice becomes thicker, smashed plates of it, jagged and sharp. The winter’s teeth. Many ships have been eaten by them. Beyond that, they say, you reach a wall of ice, unbroken, higher than the Jarlshall. No one has ever crossed that.”
Jessa laughed. “I’m convinced.”
“Good.” He swung himself up. “Are you all armed, Jessa Two-knives?”
“All armed.”
She watched Kari come down the steps in his dark coat. He looked bone pale in the wan light, and tired, as if he had not slept. Brochael was behind him, the huge ax under one arm.
They climbed up onto their horses and waited, the courtyard an agitated clatter of hooves, whinnying, shouts for those who were missing. A drum beat quietly from the corner of the hall; an old man in a shaman’s coat of feathers chanted luck songs and charms in a quavering voice.
Hakon came running around the corner with a bundle falling from his back and the precious sword under his arm; he fastened them both hastily onto the restless horse. His friends from the war band mocked him, and he got flustered and did the straps up wrongly. Watching him, Jessa saw how he had grown since he had been here. As a thrall he had been thin—now his arms were strong, his eyes quick from long sword practice with Wulfgar’s men. As he scrambled up she said, “We thought you weren’t coming.”
He grinned at her. “Jessa, you won’t get rid of me. This is my first real adventure, my first journey! I’ve dreamed of this for a long time.”
She nodded, thinking
that it was dreams they were escaping from. He was the only one who seemed really happy. Wulfgar, on his black horse, looked morosely around. Then he nodded to Brochael. “We’re all here.”
And he turned the horse and led the company out of the hold, riding proudly between the houses, past the ships on the fjord, scattering chickens and a bleating, long-eared goat. The holders watched them go, muted and somber; only the children waved and shouted, dancing alongside.
Jessa turned in the saddle and waved back to them sadly. She tried not to think about whether she would ever see them again.
Or they her.
She knew she was going too far to come back unchanged.
Seven
Men tread Hel’s road.
They rode north, along the fjordshore. The path was broad, well used; it ran through the fringes of the woods and out over the wide grazing land of the Jarlsholders.
All through that first day the sun warmed the riders, and quiet warbles of birdsong filled the branches about them. Bees and maybugs and long, glinting dragonflies hummed over the shallows of the still water; occasionally a fish snapped upward, sending a plop of tiny ripples racing to the shore.
Twice they passed fishermen out on the blue water in their flimsy craft, who paused over their nets and watched the cavalcade pass, curious. On the fellsides goats and the long-haired sheep lifted their heads and stared unmoving. This was rich pastureland, owned by men who were respected, Wulfgar’s firmest supporters. And it was still midsummer here, the air tinged with the scents of the innumerable flowers, so that the horses waded in clouds of blown seed and spindrift, and the crushed scents of water-mint and warm thyme.
If it could all be this easy, Jessa thought, struggling out of her coat and laying it across the horse in front of her. She laughed at Skapti; daydreaming, he had almost jerked from his horse as it stumbled.
Far ahead Wulfgar rode with Kari. They were talking, close together. Looking back, she saw Brochael joking with the men; they all roared with laughter. Hakon was just behind her.
“He’s telling them horrible stories,” he muttered. “I don’t think you should listen.”
Jessa grinned. “I expect I told him most of them.”
She laughed at his shocked look, then watched a line of swans skitter down on the rippling water. “It’s easy to forget, out here.”
“Forget?”
“Signi. And the rest.”
He nodded, brushing the swinging leaves away from his face. “I can’t understand … how can her soul be gone?”
“Kari says so. He knows about these things.”
“And what’s to stop Gudrun doing that to us—to any of us?”
She looked at him. “Only Kari, I suppose.”
Uneasy, he said, “It makes me feel useless. I’m only a swordsman, not even a very good one. Sorcery makes me shiver. Why did Wulfgar send me?”
For a moment she said nothing. Then she shook her head. “Kari needs us, just as we need him. Maybe more. Wulfgar knows that.” Seeing his worried look, she laughed. “Anyway, maybe the Jarl wanted to get rid of you for a while.”
He laughed with her quietly.
Late in the afternoon, with the long blue twilight barely beginning, the fjord had narrowed to a thin strip of water, the meadows on the other side drawn close. They stayed that night at a hold called Audsstead, the woman Aud riding out with her sons to meet them. Jessa went to bed early, yawning, leaving the talk and laughter in the great hall.
Next day the land began to change. They rode uphill now, and inland. The slopes were steeper, the grass short and sheep-nibbled, studded with boulders that broke the turf as if they were the land’s bones, under its green skin. Here and there the slopes were boggy; the horses’ hooves sank deep into soft peat, masses of lichen and bright moss matting the treacherous ground.
At last they stopped to eat, high above the fjord. Looking down, Jessa thought the sliver of water was a flooded crack in the land, as if the hills floated above reflections of sky and pale, passing clouds.
Brochael nudged her arm. “All well?”
“Just daydreaming.” She snuggled up against him. “How long before we reach the road?”
He shrugged. “We’re on it, Jessa, more or less. Only a path is left here, no masonry. We go over this hill ahead and down into a place called Thorirsdale. Beyond that, in the forest somewhere, the road divides. That’s as far as Wulfgar will come. From then on, we’re on our own.
She was silent for a moment. “Will we get there today?”
“Tomorrow. Tonight we’ll stay at Thorirstead. I know Ulf. He used to beat me at wrestling, when we were boys.”
Amazed, Jessa looked up at him. “You mean he’s bigger than you?”
“He’s a giant. He likes to boast he’s the descendant of those who built the road. I, for one, believe him.”
“I hope not!” Looking around she said, “Where’s Kari?”
“Off with the ravens.”
There was the hint of something odd in his voice but she had no time to pin it down; Wulfgar was telling everyone to mount up. He came and stood looking down at them.
“Comfortable?”
Jessa grinned. “Very.”
He smiled, but briefly, and she knew the thought of Signi was weighing on him, and the dread of what he might find when he went back. She scrambled up, wishing she hadn’t said anything.
“Where’s Kari?” he asked Brochael.
“About.”
“We’d better find him.”
“There’s no need.” Brochael heaved his bag up onto the horse and fiddled with the saddle straps. “He’ll come. He’ll know we’re waiting.”
Wulfgar shook his head as Kari came over the brow of the hill just then and waved at them, the birds wheeling joyously around his head.
“Sometimes I wonder if there’s anything he can’t do.”
“He can’t steal souls,” Brochael muttered. “At least, not yet.”
When they rode over the hilltop they saw before them the green plenty of Thorirsdale, a wide valley, its tiny silver streams gushing down noisily. This end was pastureland, and they could see the smoke from the farmstead rising near the narrow river. Beyond that the land rose again to deep woods, dark against the sky.
As they rose into the valley the light lessened; the shoulders of the hills rose about them. Down here the air was warm and hushed, the last of the evening birdsong fading over the fields. By the time they neared the hold, the purple half-light had begun, and the weak sun was lost behind the hills.
There was a long low building which looked like the farmhouse, roofed in green turf to keep in the warmth. Smoke rose from a hearth hole near its center; Jessa smelled its sharpness. Other buildings clustered around it, barns and byres, all very quiet and dark under the rising moon.
The horses’ hooves crunched down the narrow track.
“Perhaps they’re all asleep,” Jessa said.
“Not Ulf,” Brochael muttered.
A dog barked ahead, then another. After a moment a slot opened in the dark house; light and smoke and cooking smells streamed out. The great bulk of a man clogged the doorway; then he strode out, others behind him.
“Who have I to welcome at this time of night?”
He glanced out at the riders through the eerie night mist, taking them in quickly, their numbers and strength; a tall, heavy man, his hair shaved close, a long sword held easily in his hand.
Wulfgar dismounted. “Me, Ulf Thorirsson.”
“Jarl!” The holder turned, surprised. “What’s happened?” he asked quickly, seeing Wulfgar’s face. “What’s wrong?”
“Plenty,” Wulfgar said grimly. “But it’ll keep until we’re inside.”
Ulf nodded, passing his sword back to a thrall. “My house is honored. In now, all of you. My men will see to the animals.” He swept around and collided with Brochael, who had been standing close behind him. Halfway off her horse, Jessa giggled at the look on his face, half amazement, half deligh
t.
“Brochael?” he breathed.
“Come for a rematch, Ulf.” Brochael folded his arms and looked his old friend up and down. “You’ve been overeating. Running to fat.”
Ulf grinned. “There’s been no one here to challenge me.”
“Until now.”
They gripped hands, and Ulf slapped Brochael with a palm that would have made most men crumple. “It’s good to see you,” he said warmly.
The hall was small, and heavy with smoke. Food was cooked here over the central hearth. The women of the farm were thrown into cold terror by the sight of the Jarl and all his war band descending on them out of the night, until Ulf ’s wife, a tall, gaunt woman called Helga, gave quiet, efficient orders.
The high table was cleared; Wulfgar sat in the center, his friends on each side of him, Kari next to Jessa. She knew he was uneasy. Once the excitement of their arrival had died down the people of the hold were only interested in him. They stared frankly, like animals, until he looked up, and then their eyes slid away.
“Center of attention,” Jessa whispered.
He nodded, silent.
She trimmed the meat with her knife. “You must be getting used to it.”
“You never do.” He picked listlessly at his food. “It’s not the way they look, but what they feel. Fear. Gudrun’s shadow.”
There was no denying that, she thought. In the silence that followed, she began to listen to Wulfgar. He was explaining what had happened at the Jarlshold, and Ulf was listening gravely. Brochael had been right; this man was enormous, a head higher than anyone else, even Skapti, his neck thick as a sapling. The coarse wool of his shirt strained over his broad back. Jessa saw that the chair he sat in was huge and old, its legs carved like wolves, their backs arched to bear his weight.
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