Sometimes, someone came who knew what he was doing. They'd all gotten in that same way, hadn't they? Sometimes you could die outside, and then the gate swung open and a new mercenary was welcomed under whatever name he gave—they didn't care in Jormsvik, everyone had a story in his past. He'd be told where his pallet was, and his mess hall and captain. Same as the man he'd replaced, which could be unpleasant if the dead man had friends, which was usually the case. But this was a fortress for the hardest men in the world, not a warm meadhall among family.

You got to the meadhalls of Ingavin by dying with a weapon to hand. Time then for easiness, among ripe, sweet, willing maidens, and the gods. On this earth, you fought.

Bern was aware that he'd made a mistake, almost immediately after stooping through the low door of the alehouse outside the walls. It wasn't a question of thieves—the fighting men of Jormsvik were their own brutal deterrent to bandits near their gates. It was the mercenaries themselves, and the way of things here.

A stranger, he thought, a young man arriving alone in summer with a sword at his side, could only be here for one reason. And if he was going to issue a challenge in the morning, it made nothing but sense for any man in this ill-lit room (which was nonetheless bright enough to expose him for what he was) to protect himself and his fellows in obvious ways against what might happen on the morrow.

They could kill him tonight, he realized, rather too late, though it didn't even have to come to that. Those on the benches closest to where he'd sat down (too far from the doorway, another mistake) smiled at him, asked after his health and the weather and crops in the north. He answered, as briefly as he could. They smiled again, bought him drinks. Many drinks. One leaned over and offered him the dice cup.

Bern said he had no money to gamble, which was true. They said—laughing—he could wager his horse and sword. He declined. At the table they laughed again. Big men, almost all of them, one or two smaller than himself, but muscled and hard. Bern coughed in the dense smoke of the room. They were cooking meat over two open fires.

He was sweating; it was hot in here. He wasn't used to this. He'd been sleeping outdoors for a fortnight now, riding south into Vinmark's summer, trees green and the young grass, salmon leaping in the still-cold rivers. He'd been riding quickly since he'd surprised and robbed a man for his sword and dagger and the few coins in his purse. No point coming to Jormsvik without a weapon. He hadn't killed the man, which might have been a mistake, but he'd never yet killed any man. Would have to, tomorrow, or he'd very likely die here.

Someone banged down another tin cup of ale on the board in front of him, sloshing some of it out. "Long life," the man said and moved on, didn't even bother to stay to share the toast. They wanted him rendered senseless tonight, he realized, slack-limbed and slow in the morning.

Then he thought about it again. He had no need to challenge tomorrow. Could wake with a pounding head and spend the day clearing it, challenge the day after, or the morning after that.

And they'd know it, he realized, every man in this room. They'd all done this before. No, his first thought had been the wiser one: they wanted him drunk enough to make a mistake tonight, get into a brawl, be crippled or killed when there was nothing at stake—for them. Should he be flattered they thought he was worth it? He wasn't fooled. These were the most experienced soldiers-for-hire in the north: they didn't take chances when they didn't need to. There was no glory in winning a wall-challenge when the sword rune was drawn, only risk. Why take it, if you didn't have to? If the foolish traveller came into an ale room the night before, showing his sword?

At least he'd hidden the horse, among the trees north of town. Gyllir was accustomed to being tied in the woods now. He wondered if the stallion still remembered Thinshank's barn. How long did horses remember things?

He was afraid. Trying not to let them see it. He thought of the water then, that dead-black night, guiding the grey horse into the sea from the stony beach. Expecting to die. Ice-cold, end of winter, whatever lay waiting in the straits, under the water: what he'd survived. Was there a reason he'd lived? Did Ingavin or Thünir have a purpose in this? Probably not, actually. He wasn't… important enough. But there was still no need to walk open-eyed into a different death tonight. Not after coming out of the sea alive on a Vinmark strand as a grey day dawned.

He lifted the new cup and drank, just a little. A bad mistake, coming in here. You died of mistakes like that. But he'd been tired of solitude, nights alone. Had thought to at least have a night among other men, hear human voices, laughter, before he died in the morning fighting a mercenary. He hadn't thought it through.

A woman stood up, came over towards him, hips swaying. Men made way in the narrow space between tables for her, though not without squeezing where she could be reached. She smiled, ignored them, watched Bern watching her. He felt dizzy already. Ale after not drinking for so long, the smoke, smells, the crowd. It was so hot. The woman had been sitting with a burly, dark-bearded man clad in animal skins. A bear-warrior. They had them here in Jormsvik, it seemed. He remembered his father: Some say the berserkirs use magic. They don't, but you never want to fight one if you can help it. Bern saw, through fire smoke and lantern light, that the man was watching him as the woman approached.

He knew this game, too, suddenly. Stood up just as she stopped in front of him, her heavy breasts swinging free beneath a loose tunic.

"You're a pretty man," she said.

"Thank you," Bern muttered. "Thank you. Need to piss. Right back."

He twisted past her. She grabbed deftly for his private parts. With an effort, Bern refrained from glancing guiltily at the very big man she'd just left.

"Hurry back and make me happy," she called after him. Someone laughed. Someone—big, blond, hard-eyed—looked up then, from the dicing.

Bern slapped a coin on the counter and ducked outside. He took a deep breath; salt in the night air here, sound of sea, stars overhead, the white moon high. The nearer ones in the room would have seen him pay. Would know he wasn't coming back.

He moved then, quickly. He could die here.

It was very dark, no lights to speak of outside the inns and the low, jumbled wooden dwellings and the rooms where the whores took their men. A mixed blessing, the darkness: he'd be harder to find, but might easily run headlong into a group of people, trying to make his way north and out from this warren of buildings. A fleeing stranger, Bern was certain, would be happily seized to be questioned at leisure.

He ran up the first black alley he came to, smelled urine and offal, stumbled through a pile of garbage, choking. Could he just walk, he wondered? Avoid being seen to be running from something?

He heard noises behind him, from the alehouse door. No, he couldn't just walk. Needed to move. It would be a sport for them. Something to enliven a night outside the fortress walls, waiting for a new contract and a journey somewhere. A way to keep in fighting trim.

In the blackness he bumped into a barrel lying on its side. Stooped, groped, righted it. No top. Grunting, he turned it over, sweating now, and clambered up, praying the bottom was solid enough. He stood, gauged distance as best he could in the dark, and jumped for the slanting roof of the house above. Caught a purchase, levered a knee up, awkward with the sword at his hip, and pulled himself onto the roof. If there was someone inside they'd hear him, he knew. Could raise an alarm.