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“Yes” I didn’t, but lying is easier than listening to explanations I wasn’t even that interested in their boat, but it looked as though Imyself to it, and sooner than I wanted to Twice the size of their snekkja still didn’t sound like a big ship—but the strength of the North had always been in swift boats, and many of thes were at least seaworthy

We drew up stools around a long bench, several locals wisely deciding to relocate to other tables Snorri called for ale and sat at the head of the table, looking out across the length of it at the snekkja’s sails flapping above the harbour wall The sky behind the rain, but all lit by the slanting rays of the afternoon sun

“Valhalla!” Snorri swiped the first foaht them out

“Valhalla!” A pounding of the table

“A warrior fears the battle he ht he can one, that ended without hie” Snorri had their attention He paused to drink deep and long “I didn’t fight at Einhaur, but I heard the tale of it froht word can coue”

The crew of the Ikea exchanged glances at that, ht made it clear they shared a low opinion of the Broke-Oar

“The battle at Eight Quays I fought in A massacre more than a battle My survival shaain, and told the story

The sun dropped, shadows stretched, the world went by, but unnoticed Snorri held us under the spell of his voice and I listened, sipping h I had heard it all before All of it until he reached the Black Fort

• • •

When Snorri first saw the black spot he thought it part of dying, his vision failing as the wilderness clairew as he staggered on And in time it became the Black Fort

Built of huge blocks carved from the ancient basalt fields beneath the snows, the Black Fort sat in squat defiance of the Bitter Ice, dwarfed by the vast and rising cliffs of the ice sheet just fiveyears of the fort’s existence the ice had advanced, retreated, advanced again, but never quite reached those black walls, as if the fort stood as iants

Strengthened by the sight, Snorri journeyed closer, drawing his sealskin cloak all about hi across the ice, picking up fine dry snow and driving it in eddies and streaale, the last scraps of war to end in a huddle fro

When the fort’s bulk blocked the wind, Snorri almost toppled, as if his support had been snatched away He hadn’t seen that he was so close, or truly believed that he would ever reach his goal Nobody watched from the battleuard waited on duty at the great gates Numb of hand and brain, Snorri stood, uncertain He had carried no plan with hiht Quays and what should have ended there He had outlived two children He had no desire to outlive Egil or Freja, only to battle to save them

Feeble as he was, Snorri knew that he would only groeaker waiting in the snow He could no more scale the walls of the fort than he could climb the cliffs of the Bitter Ice He took Hel in both hands and with his father’s axe he beat upon the doors of the Black Fort

After an age a shutter high above broke open, scattering ice and snow upon Snorri’s head By the time he looked up the shutters had closed oncehis s, but unable to think of an alternative

“You!” A voice froh “Who are you?”

Snorri looked up and there in wolf furs, leaning out for a better look, Sven Broke-Oar, face unreadable in the red-gold swirl of his hair

“Snorri” For a moment Snorri couldn’t summon his full name to numb lips

“Snorri ver Snagason?” the Broke-Oar boomed in amazement “You vanished! Fled the battle, men said Oh, this is most fine I’ll be down to open the doors ain”

So Snorri stood, white hands tight around his axe, trying to let his anger war strength, sapping will and even ue It coils around you, a living thing, a beast that means to kill you, not rath, not with tooth nor claw, but with the entle into the long night after such a burden of pain and misery