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“I have” Snorri passedon into the remnants of what had once been Compere
Weour eyes and ht was upon us and Snorri proved unwilling to press on At least we didn’t have to choose between the risk of a fire and a cold ca beds of ereat heat
“I’ve seen worse” Snorri repeated hiht Quays the Islanders made sork and moved on At Orlsheim, farther up the Uulisk, they took their time”
And in the ruins Snorri oncehis tale around the night
• • •
Snorri followed the raiders’ tracks through the thaw Their ships had gone, perhaps to some secluded cove to shelter fro a return to collect the Drowned Isles necro the interior was an inhospitable place this far north The Broke-Oar would have told theht be on the ships and how many with the raiders, Snorri couldn’t tell The raiders, though, he could follow, and eventually they would lead him to their ships
Orlsheie of the Uulisk where the fjord started to taper and pine forests reached alht Quays The Brettans had left a broad trail, burdened as they were by many captives Apart from Emy there had been only a handful of dead: three babes in ar and left to bleed out Snorri guessed any others killed in the fighting would just have been added to the ranks of the necro ahead to Orlsheiuess, but it had at least saved hi death
Where the settleht Quays had been stone-built, the houses of Orlsheis and wattle, others clinker-built of planks like the longboats the the weather with the sas’ ships offered the sea Snalled Orlsheim’s destruction even from the doorstep of Snorri’s hoined the fire to be so all-consua Salt had left no hteen pillars each thicker than a a tales, all devoured by the flames
Snorri pressed on, leaving the Uulisk shores when the raiders’ tracks turned to skirt Wodinswood, a dense and unwelco forest that reached for fiftydefeated it Men called Wodinswood the last forest Turn your face north and you would find no more trees The ice would not admit them
And on the ins of that forest, where he had so often come in search of the reindeer who browse the tree moss, Snorri found his eldest son
• • •
“I knew him the moment I saw him,” Snorri said
“What?” I shookmyself of the dream the Norse a response, de—perhaps just my company in this moment of rediscovery
“I knew hih he lay far ahead There’s a deer trail up alongside the Wodinswood from the Uulisk, broadened into mud by the raiders, and he lay sprawled beside it I knew him from his hair, white-blond, like his il and Eirl I knehen I wasn’t hter We weren’t but children, but we made a child”
“How old?” I asked, not really knowing if I meant him or the boy
“Wehi into his fifteenth year” The wind changed and shrouded us in thicker smoke Snorri sat without motion, head bowed over his knees When the air cleared, he spoke again “I rushed to him I should have been cautious A necro them But no father has that caution in him And as I came closer I saw the arroeen his shoulders”
“He escaped, then?” I asked, to let him take his pride in that at least
“Broke free” Snorri nodded “A big lad, like ht too rew I said he’d always be the better h I never said it to him, and I wish now that I had They’d had them in iron shackles, but he broke free”