There was a snatch of verse in his head as he went. One his wife used to sing, to all three children when they were young.

He put it out of his mind. Too soft for tonight, for any night.

+

He is coming. She knows it. Is waiting within the trees, across the stream. He is mortal and can see her. They have spoken under stars (no moons) on the night she took a soul for the queen. He has watched the Ride go through their pool in the wood. Then dropped his iron blade and very nearly touched her by the trees on the slope above the farm. It has not left her, that moment, from then until now. No quietude, in wood, in mound, crossing water under stars with the music of the Ride all around.

She trembles, an aspen leaf, her hair violet, then a paler hue. She is far from home, one moon in the sky. A glowing at the wood's edge, waiting.

Ingavin and Thünir were many things, but they were soul-reapers before all else, and the ravens that followed them, the birds of the battlefield and the banners, were emblems of that. So was the blood-eagle: a sacrifice and a message. A vanquished king or war-leader stripped naked under the holy sky, thrown on the ground, his face to the churned earth. If he wasn't dead he would be restrained by strong warriors, or with ropes tied to pegs hammered into the earth, or both.

His back would be carved vertically with a long knife or an axe, the bloody opening pulled wide, his ribs cracked back on each side and his lungs drawn out through the opening thus made. They would be draped upon the exposed cage of his ribs: the folded wings of an eagle, blood-crimson, god offering.

It was said that Siggur Volganson, the Volgan, had been so precise and swift in performing the ritual that some of his victims remained alive for a time with their lungs exposed to the watching gods.

Ivarr had not yet been able to achieve this. In fairness, he'd had less opportunity than his grandfather had enjoyed during the years and seasons of the great raids. Times changed.

Times changed. Burgred of Denferth, viciously cursing himself for carelessness, nonetheless knew that none of the other leaders at court or of the fyrd would have taken more than seven or eight riders to investigate the rumour of a ship, or ships, seen along the coast. He'd had five men, two of them new—using the ride south to assess them.

Three of those men were dead now. Assessment rendered meaningless. But no one was raiding the Anglcyn coast these days. How could he have expected what he'd found—or what had found his small party tonight? Aeldred had burhs all along the coast, watchtowers between them, a standing army, and—as of this summer—the beginnings of a proper fleet for the first time.

The Erlings themselves were different in this generation: settlers in the eastern lands, half of them (or something like that) were Jaddite now, trimming their sails to the winds of faith. Times changed, men changed. Those still roaming the seas in dragon-ships pursuing sanctuary treasures and ransom and slaves went to Ferrieres now, or east, where Burgred had no idea (and didn't care) what they found.

The lands of King Aeldred were defended, that was what mattered. And if some Erlings remembered this king as a hunted fugitive in wintry swamplands… well, those same Erlings were humbly sending their household warriors or their sons with tribute to Esferth these days, and fearing Aeldred's reprisals if they were late.

None of which unassailable truths was of any help to Burgred now.

It was night. Summer stars, ocean breeze, a waning blue moon. They had camped on open ground, less than a day's ride from Esferth, between the burh of Drengest, where the new shipyard was, and the watchtower west of it. He could have reached either place, but he was training men, testing them. It was a mild, sweet night. Had been.

The two on guard had shouted their warnings properly. Thinking back, Burgred decided that he and his men had surprised the Erling party as much as they'd been surprised themselves. Unfortunately, there were at least twenty Erlings—almost half a longship's worth—and they were skilled fighters. Disturbingly so, in fact. Commands had been barked, registered, implemented in a night skirmish. It hadn't taken him long to realize where these men were from, and to accept what life and ill fortune had doled out tonight.

He'd ordered his men to drop their weapons, though not before the two guards and one other of his company—Otho, who was a good man—lay dead. No great shame surrendering to a score of Jormsvik mercenaries mad enough to be ashore this near to Esferth. He had no idea why they were here: the mercenaries were far too pragmatic to offer themselves for raids as foolhardy as this one would be. Who would pay them enough to even consider it? And why?

It made too little sense. And it was not a puzzle worth having more men die while he tried to solve it. Best surrender, much as it burned to do that, let them sell him back to Aeldred for silver and safe passage to wherever they were really going.

"We yield ourselves!" he cried loudly, and dropped his sword on the moonlit grass. They would understand him. The two languages borrowed from each other, and the older Jormsvik raiders would have been here many times in their youth. "You have been foolish beyond all credit to come here, but sometimes folly is rewarded, for Jad works in ways we do not understand."

The largest of the Erlings—eyes behind a helm—grinned and spat. "Jad, you say? I think not. Your name?" he rasped. He already knew what this was about.

No reason to hide it. Indeed, the whole point was his name, and what it was worth. It would save his life, and the lives of his three surviving men. These were mercenaries. "I am Burgred, Earl of Denferth," he said. "Captain of King Aeldred's fyrd and his Household Guard."

"Hah!" roared the big man in front of him. Laughter and shouts from the others, raucous and triumphant, unable to believe their good fortune. They knew him. Of course they knew him. And experienced men would also know that Aeldred would pay to have him back. Burgred cursed again, under his breath.

"What are you doing here?" he asked, angrily. "Do you not know how little you can win along this coast now? When did the men of Jormsvik begin selling themselves for small coin and certain battle?"

He had spent his entire life, it seemed, fighting them and studying them. He was aware of a hesitation.

"We were told Drengest could be taken," the man in front of him said, finally.

Burgred blinked. "Drengest? You are mocking me."

There was a silence. They weren't mocking him. Burgred laughed. "What fool told you that? What fools listened to him? Have you seen Drengest yet? You must have."

The Erling planted his sword in the earth, removed his helm. His long yellow hair was plastered to his head. "We've seen it," he said.

"You understand there are nearly one hundred men of the fyrd in there, over and above the rest of the people inside the walls? You've seen the walls? You've seen the fleet being built? You were going to attack Drengest? You know how close you are to Esferth here? What do you have, thirty longships? Forty? Fifty? Is Jormsvik emptied for this folly? Are you all summer-mad?"

"Five ships," the Erling said at length, shifting his feet. A professional, not a madman, aware of everything Burgred was saying, which made this even harder to understand.

Five longships meant two hundred men. Fewer, if they had horses. A large raid, an expensive one. But not nearly enough to come here. "You were led to believe you could take that burh, where our fleet's being built and guarded, with five ships? Someone lied to you," Burgred of Denferth said flatly.