all volunteered to come out and meet you.”
The first red-yellow tendrils stretched to the sky from the roof of the old longhouse by the harbor as the fire reached upward, ever upward. In the spreading night it was an explosion of light and color. Within moments the whole roof was aflame, first backlighting and then biting into the huge wooden cross that someone had fastened to the front of the longhouse. Someone had stuck a horse’s head on top of it, facing New Town.
Finn and Gunnar watched the conflagration in silence. They saw the shadowy figures move like ghosts in the flickering light, drifting toward the forest.
The last one to leave the pool of fire was nothing more than a streak of moving darkness, but Finn thought he could feel the man’s gaze. Something in his bearing had a black promise.
Beside him, Gunnar snapped out of the flame trance and shouted, “I’ll rouse the men! We’ll go after them! They’re going to—”
“No,” Finn said, his voice flat. “This is their land, and they will cut you down. You will double the watch at all times and send no one out of the town without armed guards.”
“But—”
“But what?” Finn snapped.
“Why? Where are they going? What—what will they do?”
Finn sighed. “Just double the guard. Double the guard on the wall at all times. And no one goes into the woods. Ever. Did you get that? No one.” He was pretty sure he’d figured out what had happened in Stenvik while he was away, though he hoped and prayed that he wasn’t right.
On Huginshoyde, high up above Stenvik, a tall, white-haired man adjusted his broad-rimmed hat and smiled. Two large dogs lay at his feet. Below him the fields stretched to meet the tree line. “You’re not wrong, Finn Trueheart,” he muttered. “I really wouldn’t go into the woods. You never know what you’ll find.”
The scent hit both dogs at once and they scrabbled to their feet, but their throaty growls quickly changed into a high-pitched, keening noise as they backed into the old man’s legs, their heads low to the ground.
The old man did not move. “I thought you might make an appearance,” he said.
“You decided to meddle in my games. I’m surprised you didn’t . . . see it coming.” Smugness dripped off every word.
The old man turned and closed his one good eye. The other, milky-white and almost too big for its socket, stared unblinking at the black fox that was perched on a ledge above his head. It looked impossibly sleek, and its posture suggested more shapes than the eye could comprehend. “Games?” he said, sighing. “Is that all this is to you? A game?”
“No,” the fox said, “though it’s fun, too.” This time the smile revealed teeth. “Mostly because I know how the game ends.”
“And how does it end?” the old man said with a sigh.
“More battle. More death. More souls to Valhalla. More belief. More power. More of everything. And then, because no one really believes in you anymore, I’ll rule. See? Fun.”
Now the old man smiled, too. “I tend to win at games,” he said. “And you haven’t beaten me yet. I will stop you, Hell-spawn. I will right my wrongs.”
“We’ll see,” the fox said. “Although I admit that the trick you just pulled was quite clever. But those two are not going to be enough. They’re old, just like you.”
“We’ll see,” the old man said. “We’ll see.”
Without sparing the fox a second glance, he walked away, leaning on his staff. The fox watched him stride down the hill, followed by the two dogs with their tails between their legs. When the old man had left, the fox sprang down from the ledge, stretched in midair, pushed into spaces that weren’t there, blurred, and changed. When he landed, he was a tall young man with silky-black shoulder-length hair and smile wrinkles around green eyes that sparkled with mischief. “And how are you going to get there, old man? By walking? Parents. They’re so . . . boring.”
Grinning, the green-eyed youth turned and leapt off the cliff edge. Moments later the silence was broken by the beating of newly formed wings and an unnaturally large raven ascended, borne on the wind, heading north.
TRONDHEIM, NORTH NORWAY
EARLY NOVEMBER, AD 996
Valgard exhaled and watched his breath rise in a pale-gray cloud toward the rafters of the barn. His chest was tight with worry; it had been ever since he woke up. From his vantage point by the door he watched