‘Don’t worry,’ added Bjartr. ‘We’ll all see Axe-Time soon enough.’

‘And Shrieking when Davith gets his cock out.’

There was laughter at the punning, for Axe-Time and Shrieking were two of the All-Father’s Death Choosers who might swoop down to take their spirits back to Valhöll, where they would train and fight among the Einherjar, and never die again before the final battle that was Ragnarökkr.

Orange flame-light showed at the holy men’s tower.

‘They’ve seen us,’ said Fenrisulfr.

‘I thought I smelled someone shitting themselves,’ said Ivarr.

‘That was me,’ Fenrisulfr told him. ‘Thinking about Davith getting his weapon ready.’

Chuckles accompanied the loosening of blades, the hitching of hammers and axes, the hefting of spears by their balance points, the rolling of shoulders and jogging on the spot, shingles crunching, to get ready.

The way to negotiate was to be ready for slaughter.

*

There was a tonsured holy man – chief of the holy men – and a village leader who began by saying they wanted peace, and were prepared to pay tribute to such mighty men of the sword. Ivarr and Thóllakr looked at Davith and smirked, while others tried to keep a straight face. Chief Egil and Bjartr glanced at each other and nodded, then turned to Fenrisulfr who did likewise.

‘Your terms are well offered,’ he said to the holy man, who spoke the Tongue. ‘We accept them warmly.’

Many of the raiders possessed a smattering of languages, but in matters like this it was best for someone fluent to translate. Fenrisulfr knew enough of the local tongue to understand that the holy man translated correctly, while the relief on the village leader’s face was answer enough.

As the tribute arrived, Egil directed some of his men to take it to the longboats, rather than make the locals carry it all the way. Fenrisulfr understood the reasoning: allowing the locals to see the vessels up close would lessen their fear; best that the prow-beasts remain like waiting dragons, redolent with danger.

All went well until Thóllakr cut himself on an unsheathed blade: a gift, part of the tribute that he should have known how to handle properly. Fenrisulfr felt like killing him on the spot, for showing such ineptitude; but dissent within a force is also a sign of weakness. Fenrisulfr forced his fury down.

‘We have healers,’ said the holy man. ‘Let us help.’

‘I should hamstring the whelp,’ muttered Brökkr, behind Fenrisulfr’s shoulder. But for the locals, those words were drowned out by Bjartr’s loud acknowledgement of their kindness.

Fenrisulfr hoped that the healers’ ministrations, whatever they were, would burn like the flames of Surt, the Fire Giant who ruled hot Múspellheim.

Ivarr and Knótr helped Thóllakr – at least he had the sense not to whimper – follow the holy man back to the village by the sacred tower, or whatever it was.

In broken Tongue, the villager said: ‘We feast. Now. You join?’

They would need to keep watchful and go easy on the mead or ale, but eating well would be a good thing after the voyage.

‘We will feast with you,’ said Bjartr Red-Tooth.

And so they did.

When he had eaten enough of the local fowl, and drunk a horn of watery mead, Fenrisulfr clapped several of his men on the shoulder, then went outside. In the wake of the storm, the night smelled fresh beneath a white full moon, strong enough to cast shadows.

He felt good, and knew there was a small task left undone: telling Thóllakr what an idiot he was. Fenrisulfr grinned, since the young warrior’s clumsiness seemed to have done no harm; but he would use harsh words nonetheless.

Someone was throwing up in the stinking middens. On the way back, he would check that it was not one of his own band, whom he expected to maintain discipline. The locals seemed cowed, but there was always an element of doubt in an unknown country, the possibility of allies secretly summoned and moving through the night – it was bright enough to travel by – for a dawn attack.

Possible, not likely.

And then he heard it.

Dah, dah-dum, dah-dah-dah-dum, dah-dah.

The nine-note sequence was faint, not as if the darkness were distant, but as if it had grown weak. And what of that? A weakened enemy was easier to kill, that was all.

It’s been fifteen years.

So it was possible the tainted spirit belonged to someone other than Stígr; but as the berserkergangr roiled within Fenrisulfr, begging to take over, he knew it did not matter: whoever this was, they were going to die.

He hefted his twin war-axes, lately his weapons of choice – he wore his sword as status symbol and back-up weapon, along with a dagger, while the crystal-tipped spear remained at the longboat, guarded – and set off at a jog, following a flattened path through moonlit silver grass, towards a large roundhouse inside which an orange fire burned. If his quarry was warm and relaxed, so much the better, for cold wind and chaos would enter along with him, the hell-wolf, and destruction would follow.

Ready.

His foot smashed the door in, and he was inside.

Stígr!

The one-eyed man was there, mouth opening—

NOW!

—as twin axe-blades cut down through his collar bones and into his chest, cutting his heart so that unconsciousness came instantly, but that was not enough because the spirit might yet feel agony before it left the body, and this one deserved to suffer, so in his berserkr rage Fenrisulfr continued to cut and smash, to kick and hew, smashing the dead thing into butchered parts, over and over—

Done.

—and then it clicked off, the berserkergangr, as only he could manage, and Fenrisulfr was a man once more, only a man.

The inside of the roundhouse was wet, all dripping red, painted by Stígr’s blood. A warrior knew, as a non-warrior could not, just how much blood might spray and gush from a human body; but even so, it was spectacular, the scarlet decoration of the interior: ceiling, curved walls, the table and cots, and the spattered clothing and faces of the people staring at him, shocked.

Thóllakr, his wound bandaged and wrapped with a poultice, was the first to speak.

‘Chief? Why, uh . . .?’

Fenrisulfr answered: ‘He was possessed of the darkness.’

A holy man was there, not their chief but a relative youth, along with a young woman who looked to have been holding Thóllakr’s hand: under other circumstances, Fenrisulfr would have thought Good for you. But there was the aftermath of destroying his enemy to deal with.

‘He prayed,’ said the young holy man in passable Tongue. ‘For many years, he prayed to weaken the demons that tortured his spirit. And the darkness is weak, he said. It can only touch men’s spirits, and that barely, and makes do with that because it cannot move worldly objects directly, so it really is not mighty but very, very weak . . .’

He seemed to realise he was babbling, but could not help spilling more words: ‘Stígr said the dark powers needed a bridge that was not Bifröst. That everyone forgets Múspellheim in their schemes. And he said only you would understand that.’

‘You’ve never seen me before.’ Fenrisulfr shrugged, spilling blood from his axe-heads. ‘You cannot know me.’

The holy man wiped his face, then looked startled at the sight of his hand, as if he had thought he was wiping off sweat instead of dead man’s blood.

‘Stígr said a wolf from hell would come for him.’

There was more the young holy man wanted to say, but though his mouth worked, his throat seized up; and then he turned away, making a mystic gesture – hand to forehead, stomach, then either side of his chest. Fenrisulfr had seen it before, as far east as Byzantium, and now here in the west.

The scrape of blades withdrawing from scabbards came from outside.