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“Dead men!” I may have shrieked it

“Al off branches in scores I would have bet against even a blade of razor-honed Builder-steel carving through like that Again, another huge loop I lunged away, stopped only by Ron’s blunt head, blocking the path we’d forged Snorri sang noordless song, or perhaps a language lay behind it, but not of men, and he carved a space, ever more wide, until he strode from one side to hack deeper and then four paces to the other, five paces, six The stumps of trees, soh through drifts of fallen tiht-blue and cradling the evening star, it was darker than the forest And the darkness trailed his axe

“Wh—what?” Snorri caht had taken on a new quality The sun had set Aslaug confined once more to whatever hell she inhabited He looked down at his weapon “It’s not a wood-axe! Gods damn it!”

I stepped closer, sht reach for me from the darker shadows

“Make a light, Jal Quick”

So with Snorri standing overthe trail, I fumbled in my pack, whilst all around us branches broke and pale men moved between the trees

“Come out I’ll bet you cut easier than wood,” Snorri called to the I’d never heard before I think the forest unnerved him more than the ene to drop both in the darkness, finding therew around us, strong and sickly, al

I struck spark to tinder as Snorri swung at the first of the men to rush from the trees Branches snapped on all sides, lance upwards showed thehosts in the direat furrow through the creature frout, ribs, sternue despite being used to cut timber Still the pine- as the stuff oozed from his bloodless wound At the last he tripped on a stump, crashed down, and became snarled in a mess of loose entrails and stray branches By then Snorri had plenty of other problems to worry about

Success! Spark becalow became smoke became flaet the saing and grunting above ed to transfer the fire to one of the pitch torches I’d bought back in Crath City, offered there for exploring the extensive municipal catacombs

“Burn it!” A pale, twitching limb landed beside my foot

“What?”

“Burn it!” Another grunt and a head dropped close by A pine-man leapt onto Snorri’s back

“Burn what?” I shouted

“Everything” He fell backwards, ier on several stumps

“That’s madness!” We’d burn up too

Snorri’s enius in the short ter free of the trees to enter the clearing, htened me more than the fire I shoved the pitch brand into the mass of broken branches before me

Flames rose up almost immediately The pine-, each with their face to the fire Behind roan “Follow the horses!”

Already the fla as needles popped in the heat and the fire raced along desiccated branches, quickened by pine-men’s blood Terrified out of whatever wits horses possess, Sleipnir and Ron bolted, sta Snorri had carved, scattering both pine-ed to follow Snorri’s exa myself on a couple of inch-thick stumps

The two horses punched their own passage through the trees I hoped they’d avoid being blinded, but it seeave chase and I stu in their wake Behindand the pine-ony

For a brief while we left the fire behind us, plunging unseeing along the horses’ path Asback, saw the whole forest lit frolow, countless trunks and branches in black silhouette “Run!” I shouted uselessly, thereafter saving my breath to better follow my own order