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The fifth door yielded after a silent struggle, one loud scrape echoing along the corridor as it gave We held still, waiting for the challenge, but none came The horror of an to recover I grearrew scared enough to shake

“Hel” Snorri drew back from the part-open door, his face thrown into eerie relief by the lantern held beneath it

“Is it safe?” Tuttugu, unwilling to lower his axe

Snorri nodded “Take a look” He beckonedthe lantern overhead

The scene reures, row upon row, so close they leaned one upon the next, unable to fall Men, shrouded in ice, bearded with frost, caught in every pose froony, butmotion I kneell from the past few days

“Olaaf Rikeson’s men?”

“Must be” Snorri pulled the door closed

The next five halls all held frozen corpses, all warriors Hundreds of theainst the years I wondered if whatever spirit a necroht return to them would be all the darker for those lifetimes spent with the devil

The quads huddled together and thethe wind faded swiftly in that grim place, surrounded on all sides by the ancient dead

The corridor passed two sets of spiral stairs, coiling up and down in their narrow shafts Snorri passed them by This section seerit on the floor to

There was no rear an to water immediately Just the scent of that hot food had me ready to kill for my supper The door at the end of the corridor stood taller than the side doors, studded with black iron,

We looked, one to the other, preparing to organize for an entry As often happens in life, the decision was taken fro some insult back over his shoulder

Arne’s ar at his hip now sprouted from the dark red curls of the man’s beard It didn’t look quite real Snorri and the others surged forwards without a sound save for boots on stone Thedown his neck, and fell beneath them

I found ave an eed off after the others That left me alone in a corridor with frozen dead men packed into all the roo out, Snorri’s roar of joyous violence as the others barged through the big door behind hie I could find and set off after Tuttugu, sword at the ready

The sight beyond the door proved arresting So arresting that even with all his u had co s had been crowded into the far end of the hall before the large fireplace Stone tables ran nearly the length of the hall, and I could only think this here Snorri had been brought and hung upon the wall

The Hardanger s as they’re known, hailed fro than the Undoreth, h breed, broad in the chest and blunt-featured They weren’t armoured or armed for war, but Norse warriors are seldom beyond reach of their axes and will alear a knife or hatchet

Snorri had leapt onto the table to the left and run its length, taking the head fro a furrow through the face of another sitting on the opposite side, farther along, closer to the fire He’d dropped areat red arcs Hardangertheir weapons, putting space between theed by the quads, broadaxes flashing firelight as they ploughed flesh

A quad went down, a backhand swing by a black-haired Viking burying an axe in his neck The man was fearso dirt-stained arripped by the worst kind of terror, and hammered his axe into the black-haired man’s chest before he could wrench his own axe fro either wall of the hall, weapons drawn A path that would see thee on the doorhere I stood In response I chased after Tuttugu, between the tables Sometimes advance is the best form of retreat Inadvertently I kicked the severed head of the firstaway towards the melee