The Anglcyn worshipped a god of the sun: would that make a difference? Would it help them, under so much summer light? He had never thought such a thing before, and he didn't much like thinking about it now, but he'd never been among Jaddites, either. Rabady Isle seemed very far away; their farm at the village edge, even the straw in the barn behind Arni Kjellson's house. He kept glancing around as he rode, an unceasing sweep of the wide lands to his left.

The signal flares had been farther east, and Aeldred's course had lain on the far side of the river—to begin with. There was nothing to say the king hadn't split his riders in the night, sending some of them this way. Bern, feeling more alone than he had since the night he'd left the isle with Halldr's horse, had a painful sense that the king's men would be very good at knowing where the Jormsvik ships might be.

Gyllir was tired, but there was no help for that. He leaned forward, slapped the horse's neck, spoke to it as a friend. They had to keep moving. For one thing, his might be the only alert the others could get. They had to have five ships offshore before two hundred men came sweeping down upon them. The gods knew, the men of Jormsvik could fight. It might be a close battle if the fyrd came. They could easily win it, but if enough of them died, or if the ships were damaged, there was no meaning to such a victory. Glorious or not, they'd die in these Anglcyn lands when Esferth and the accursed burhs Aeldred had built sent out the next waves of men. He wasn't quite ready, Bern realized, to go to Ingavin's halls.

He looked east again, no longer into the too-bright sun. Past midday now, the mist had long since burnt away. No hilltop signal fires in this bright daylight. A beautiful afternoon. Birdsong from the forest west, a hawk overhead, circling.

He had no idea what was happening elsewhere. Could only hasten to the sea. His father had done this too, Bern thought suddenly. Had done more, in fact; that journey alone across the Wall and the breadth of the Anglcyn lands, when he'd escaped from the Cyngael after the Volgan died. And now Thorkell was back here. Had even been among the Cyngael again, taken by them a second time. Bern wanted to think of something derisive but couldn't.

I got you out of a walled city. Think on it.

The quiet, assured voice. And a blow to the head when he'd spoken too fast, as if Bern were still a boy on Rabady. But his father had known about Ivarr, had guessed what Ragnarson would say. How did he always know? He cursed Thorkell, as he had so many times since his father's exile, but without fever or fire now. He was too tired, had too many things to think about. He was hungry and afraid. He looked left again, and behind him. Nothing there, a shimmer of heat coming off the ripening fields. Gyllir would have to drink soon. He needed water himself. Not quite yet, he decided. It was too exposed where they were right now.

He didn't recognize the landscape nearly well enough, couldn't tell how far he had yet to ride, though they'd come this way going north to Esferth, he and Ecca, on the other side of the river. There had been a number of people on that road, heading for a royal fair the Erlings hadn't known about. Third year of the fair, someone told them. They hadn't been hiding on the way north, had pretended to be traders. They'd carried sacks on the horses, purporting to hold the goods they'd trade. Ecca's anger had begun on the road, with what they'd heard. If this was the third year of a summer fair, then any tale they'd been told about Esferth being empty was hollow as an emptied ale cask. Ivarr Ragnarson, he'd said to Bern, was either a fool or a serpent, and he suspected the latter.

Bern hadn't paid enough attention on that ride and was suffering for it now; all the endless shallow dips and folds, up and down, up and down, looked exactly the same. The farmland across the river seemed an unimaginable expanse of fertile soil to someone raised on Rabady Isle's stony ground.

He turned in the saddle to look back again. A constant fear of pursuers behind him. The farms began just across the river; anyone in the near fields could see him, a single horseman passing between river and wood. Not alarming in itself, unless they were close enough to see what he was.

The trees on his right were dark, no tracks or paths into them. Sunlight would fail here. There were woods like this in Vinmark. Untamed, unbroken, stretching forever; gods and beasts within them. This forest would be pretty much impenetrable, he guessed, wild and dangerous, an unbroken density of oak and ash, alder and thorn, marching west to the Cyngael lands. Ecca had said that on the way. A better wall than the Wall was the saying. And the woods went right down to cliffs above the strait. They'd seen those cliffs from the ships.

The Anglcyn would know all this far better than he did. They'd know the Erling ships had to be east of those sheer bluffs, in one shallow bay or another.

They were. There weren't so many choices and they hadn't been overly subtle about choosing one. Too many mistakes on this end-of-summer raid. Ivarr Ragnarson's raid. They'd anchored, taken hasty counsel, sent Bern and Ecca north to look at Esferth. Ecca had done this many times, knew what he was about, and Bern had a young, reassuring countenance. Brand Leofson had also agreed to let Guthrum and Atli lead a small sweep east, to see what they could find or take while they waited for the report from Esferth, and Ivarr had gone with them.

Bern was the report from Esferth now.

Ivarr Ragnarson would kill him, Thorkell had said, if he learned who Bern's father was. Suddenly, and much too late, Bern understood. Think the rest of it out while you ride, he'd been told. And, He wants to go back west. Back west. Ivarr had just been there, then. In the Cyngael lands.

And Thorkell had been with him. That was how his father knew what had happened. And about poisoned arrows. Something had happened there… Thorkell had been taken again. Or else…

There was never enough time to think things through. The world didn't seem to work that way. Maybe for women weaving and spinning, maybe for Jaddite clerics in their isolated retreats, waking in the night to pray for the sun. But not for a bound servant on Rabady Isle, or a Jormsvik mercenary, either. Riding towards another gentle, grassy rise, almost identical to the one before and the one before that, Bern heard the sounds of battle ahead of him, across the river.

The riders Guthrum Skallson had sent made it back to the ships early in the morning. The help Guthrum requested was dispatched without hesitation by Brand, who was commanding the raid. You didn't leave men behind. It was one of the things that marked Jormsvik.

The riders had spoken feverishly, interrupting each other, more unsettled than raiders ought to be. They told of a clash between Guthrum and Ivarr Ragnarson over the death of an Anglcyn earl. Brand shrugged, hearing of it. These things happened. He'd have sided with Guthrum-earls were worth a great deal, unless out of favour—but sometimes, he had to admit, you just needed to kill someone, especially if it hadn't happened in a long time. That came with the way they lived, with the dragon-ships, with the eagles of Ingavin. And he knew for a fact that Guthrum Skallson had done his share of killing prisoners over the years. They'd sort this when everyone got back.

Forty mercenaries ought to have been more than enough to meet and protect Guthrum and Atli's small party from any likely Anglcyn response, fight their way back to the ships if they did encounter anyone. Brand ordered three ships offshore, to be safe, left two anchored in the shallows, lightly manned, for the returning parties to board and row.