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“Why?” With alht up a hundred yards on

Snorri, waiting at the head of a flight of stairs, looked pastlantern “Hurry!”

“Why?” I almost reached to catch hold of him

“Because we can’t win Not in the dark Maybe in the ics, such creaturesMaybe not Either e’ll die in the daylight” He paused “I don’t care about Aslaug’s gifts I don’t like what she’s tried to turn o to Valhalla with the sun on our faces”

Snorri paused for me to answer All I had to say was I didn’t think the sun would find us in a strong-room buried in the middle of the keep, but I kept those words behind ain, tentative this time, then turned and set off down the stairs I followed, cursing that I had yet u and his broken knee would have a still harder time of it behind me

Ice had sealed the door to the courtyard Snorri broke it open and waited for us, the wind howling outside

“Hoe even get in?” I panted the question

“I took keys off Sven Broke-Oar” Snorri patted his jacket “I’ve been over there already Opened it all upI had to search” He hooded his lantern so no gliu did the sa at the bottom of the stairs

We stepped out into the courtyard I could see nothing but a scattering of lights around the great doors as the Red Vikings ca on their companions and stores first Without food and fuel they faced a bleak future Fort or no fort, the Bitter Ice would kill them all

“Come” Snorri led off

“Wait!” I literally couldn’t see him We could be separated and lose each other in the dark The daas much less than an hour away but the sky held no hint of it

Tuttugu hobbled between us and set a hand on Snorri’s shoulder “Take a hold, Jal”

I held on to Tuttugu, and in a blind convoy we set out, crunching over the ice and snow, across the expanse of courtyard

The Red Vikings s, but I worried ht felt haunted—the wind speaking with a new voice, ht it possible We pressed on, and with each step I expected so me back

Soh in ination was insufficient to house In any event we reached the keep and Snorri set a great iron key into the lock of the subdoor that sat within a greater portal large enough to adht to find the lock too frozen, but again my fears were unfounded; the lock had after all been built in the cold by people who understood the winter

Snorri led the way inside He closed the door, locked it, unhooded his lantern We stood for aat each other’s pale, blood-spattered faces, our breath pluh various empty chambers,We hurried through deserted halls, shadoinging all around us with the sway of our two lanterns Our bubble of tentative illu darkness Our footsteps echoed in those cold and empty places and it seeh to wake the dead to the back of es yawned at us as we passed, dark with threat Onward, through a tall archway into a long hall, an iron door standing ajar at the end of it

“There” Snorri gestured with his axe “That’s our stronghold”

Salvation! In the worst of tilanced back at the archway, convinced sorave horror would step from the shadows at any moment and tear after us “Hurry!”

Snorri jogged across and, with a squeal of hinges, pulled the door wide for us to pass through Beyond it lay a narrow corridor set with a series of thick iron doors It was as well that Snorri had unlocked the with keys while the shadows reached for our backs When he pulled the first one closed behind us, the sound of hi it was a special kind of music to my ears My whole body slumped as that awful tension eased

I wondered where Freja and Egil ht be and hoped it was soh, in case Snorri decided to go out searching for theer, I toldtheir names in Snorri’s descriptions, Freja capable, deterive up hope, not in him, not while her son lived I saw the boy too, scrawny, freckled, inquisitive I saw hirin his father had—and scaht Quays I couldn’t picture theht have made of them