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you to be a freeman now, and so do I.”

Snagi flapped one hand in disdain. “Oh, the master tried to set me

free many times, but I wouldn’t go. This is my place and my father’s

before me and my grandfather’s before him, and on back I don’t know

how long. I’ll stay at Dallir for as long as I live.”

In the morning, Fridmundr was still breathing at slow, shallow

intervals, and the alf-light had faded to a soft glow. His eyes were

open, but he made no sign of seeing anyone who came into the room.

Snagi sat beside him, dozing lightly from time to time. Around midday

he sent word to the outside servants to start collecting the wood for

Fridmundr’s funeral pyre. Word was also taken to Fridmundr’s old

friends, Einarr the Elder and Young Einarr, Latvi, Birki, and the other

old Alfar who had known Fridmundr.

Gotiskolker slept on, as limp and unconscious as he had

been the night before. Thurid glared at him resentfully, still hopeful,

until at last the sun was low in the west, and the time had come to

depart.

Leifr wore his old clothes, feeling quite at home in them. He

looked disreputable enough that Raudbjorn scarcely glanced at him

slinking out of the gate like some wandering beggar. Leifr headed down

the ravine toward Gliru-hals.

He met Thurid behind the horse stable as they had agreed.

Gliru-hals was stirring around them, with the scavengers

creeping out of their hovels to beg, the troll-hounds setting up an eager

yammer from their kennels in anticipation of another night’s hunt, and

the Dokkalfar slipping furtively from shadow to shadow, their voices

raised in quick, heated argument.

Thurid and Leifr climbed onto the roof and lay in the shadow,

waiting until it was fully dark. Of his plan, Thurid would say nothing,

keeping it rather smugly secret.

“You shall see,” was all he would say. “Stay here and watch.

You’ll have a splendid view.”

“If anything should go wrong, just shout for me,” Leifr said

uneasily. “I can hear you in the hall from here. Are you sure I shouldn’t

get closer?”

Thurid glanced over his shoulder. “That way lies our escape

route. Stay close to it and hope that the moon gives us plenty of light.”

With misgivings, Leifr watched him climb down off the roof and

disappear into the shadows, which were increasingly populated with

skulking Dokkalfar and scavengers. As the smells of cooking food

drifted from the main hall, followed by the sounds of the Dokkalfar

feasting, the beggars crowded around the doors, waiting for the

leavings. Leifr watched them closely, suspecting that Thurid had

insinuated himself into their midst and was plotting a secretive entry

into the hall by one of the doors.

The Dokkalfar finished their meal and threw out the scraps to the

scavengers, then laughed coarsely to see them fighting over their

meager fare. Ten Dokkalfar saddled their horses and rode away

purposefully, while the others sat round gaming, sharpening weapons,

or whispering in tight knots of four or five, eyeing other knots of

conspirators with suspicion and loathing. Six Dokkalfar saddled their

horses and went hunting with the troll-hounds. Leifr saw nothing of

Sorkvir. Only the highest ranking Dokkalfar did not gamble,

quarrel, conspire, or hunt; they stood upon the porch, talking

seldom, their grim presence alone enough to quell the most avaricious

of scavengers and discomfit the most determined of the conspirators.

Leifr still saw no sign of Thurid and was beginning to hope that

Thurid had gotten inside the hall somehow. Then one of the nondescript

watchdogs sounded the alarm, leaping off the porch with several others

following, all barking furiously, and the lot of them tore away up the

lane past the stables. The Dokkalfar glanced up suspiciously from their

grooming, polishing, and sharpening.

A lone rider paced slowly down the lane, guiding his horse

fastidiously away from the squelching mud holes. At a single word, he

silenced the barking mongrels and sent them cringing away to hide in a

barn. The Dokkalfar forgot their work and stared blatantly as the

strange Dokkalfar rode into the yard at a dignified pace, scarcely

glancing right or left. His black cloak, turned back to display its red

lining, sparkled with embroidery and bright bits of metal and glass, and

his ceremonial headdress incorporated the wings of an owl. He wore a

scarlet mask trimmed with owl feathers and stitched with an owl motif.

The ceremonial shield he carried bore the owl symbol and more feathers

and talons. His horse ornaments glittered with gold nails and owl

motifs, leaving no doubt that the stranger was a Dokkalfar of

importance.

The stranger halted his horse to gaze around at the Dokkalfar in

silent contempt a moment. Then he barked in a harsh voice, “When

you’ve got your fill of staring, scraelings, you can send word to Sorkvir

that I wish to see him. I’ve come all the way from Djofullholl to see

about this alog of his.”

Laden with scorn, his tone lashed at the other Dokkalfar, startling

them into action. Three hurried away at once toward the hall with the

message, two edged forward cautiously and offered to attend to the

stranger’s horse, and one held his stirrup for him to dismount. The

others cast knowing glances at one another and whispered covertly until

the stranger rounded upon them suddenly.

Shaking his beaded whip in one hand, he snarled, “You slime

are the worst of the Dokkalfar worst. Djofull knows about your

defection, and he’s not pleased. He is your warlord, and none other.

The Dokkur Lavardur has spoken to him.”

“The Dokkur Lavardur!” someone whispered. “He knows!

Sorkvir is doomed!”

The stranger raked the assemblage with another disdainful

glower. “Little do you suspect the harm you have done in Solvorfirth,

and I don’t refer to your infantile wrecking of farms and killings of

innocent Ljosalfar. Your plunderings have awakened the wrath of a

great wizard, whose powers have been sleeping since the last of the

Rhbus. Now he is stalking you with all the might of the Rhbus and

the wrath of the Fire Wizards’ Guild. His name is Thurid, and he has

marked you for destruction.“

With a billow of his red-lined cloak, the stranger strode away

and mounted the steps to the porch.

With a weak feeling in his knees, Leifr slipped off the roof

and found a hiding place nearer the hall by the kitchen door. A group

of scavengers waiting there for a few last tidbits eyed him

unwelcomingly, but he sat down in their midst anyway, his eyes upon

the door. He knew with a deadly certainty that Thurid was going to need

him. Thurid’s natural vanity had carried him too far already.

As he pondered his means of getting into the hall, a disturbance

commenced in the yard behind him. Looking around cautiously, he

beheld Raudbjorn picking his way through a blockade of jeering

Dokkalfar, his gaze fixed upon the main hall, as if the Dokkalfar were

nothing but a shoal of malicious puppies chewing at his bootlaces.

When he reached the doors, however, two of the Dokkalfar put their

backs to it and presented their swords defiantly.

“You can’t go in there, you blundering ox,” one said derisively.

“Sorkvir has an important visitor.”

“Raudbjorn has important news,” the thief-taker rumbled with

a lowering scowl. “Move Dokkalfar carcass, or Raudbjorn spill your

guts.”

“Get out of here,” the guard retorted. “If you bother Sorkvir now,

he’ll spill your guts. What is this great news you have to tell him,

anyway? I could take it to him later, perhaps.”

Raudbjorn’s eye gleamed cunningly, and he shook his head. “My

news, not yours.”

Turning his back, he returned to the yard to wait, squatting down

on his hams and leaning against the side of a barn to rest himself. The

Dokkalfar took amusement in throwing small bits of sticks, dung, or

pebbles at him, grinning wolfishly behind their hands when he opened

his eyes to glare around at his tormenters. From his position by the back

steps, Leifr could see Raudbjorn’s ire rising. The roach of hair atop his

head bristled like the back of a mean-tempered old boar. One long lock

of his hair dangled down in an ornamental topknot, with a few favorite

teeth or bones fastened to it, and one of the Dokkalfar had the

misfortune to reach over and give it a tweak.

With a roar, Raudbjorn was on his feet, with one huge hand

gripping the Dokkalfar around the throat, lifting him off his feet

completely. Instead of breaking his neck, Raudbjorn gave him a toss

over the wall into the rear yard, where the scavengers scuttled to get out

of the way. When another Dokkalfar rushed at Raudbjorn, he threw him

over the wall to land upon his friend. Raudbjorn glared over the wall

and growled, “Learn to fight, Dokkalfar. Sneaking little rats. Trolls in

black cloaks.”

Raudbjorn uttered a loud snort of disgust and was turning away

when his eye lighted upon Leifr crouching next to the steps, trying not

to attract any attention. “Fridmarr!” Raudbjorn started to climb over

the wall, his eyes gleaming.

“Fool Raudbjorn a little while with old clothes. Raudbjorn not

so dumb. No beggar went in Dallir, so how a beggar come out?

Something evil in your mind, Fridmarr. Better come away from Gliru-

hals.”

Leifr leaped onto the porch, shoved open the kitchen door,

and slipped inside, pressing the door shut with his back. Some

house thralls and women were cleaning up after the meal and they

turned and looked at him suspiciously.

“I’m a new house thrall,” Leifr improvised. “They sent me

around here to make myself useful.”

The housekeeper put her fists on her hips and eyed Leifr from

head to foot. “You look better than some I’ve seen,” she said

reluctantly. “We don’t need you in the kitchen. You can go stand watch

by the hall. Sorkvir doesn’t trust these Dokkalfar not to kill him. You

keep them away from him and follow my orders and you’ll be a good

thrall. Otherwise, you’ll be out there with them.” She jerked her

grizzled head toward the scavengers and went back to her goose-

plucking.

Leifr did not wait around for. more of her acrid speech; he dived

into the nearest doorway and found himself in a long, dark corridor. No

sooner had he disappeared than he heard a heavy knock at the

back door and the slow bumbling buzz of Raudbjorn’s voice being

overridden by the shrill clatter of the housekeeper’s irate tongue; then

the door slammed shut with a decisive bang.

Leifr grinned in the darkness, hoping Raudbjorn’s rout by a

shrewish housekeeper had been witnessed by the Dokkalfar, particularly

by the ones the thief-taker had thrown over the wall. Creeping down the

long passageway, Leifr passed doorways into stables and dark, damp

places that smelled of rats. Presently, he reached a closed door with

light showing beneath it. He was fumbling discreetly for the latch when

a couple of Dokkalfar strode importantly into the corridor, almost

colliding with him in their haste.

“What are you doing here, thrall?” one demanded. “You’re not

allowed in Sorkvir’s private rooms!”

Leifr backed out of the way, chilled by the atmosphere that

surrounded them. The nails studding their armor glowed with a dim

phosphorescence, and their eyes shone with a feral, red gleam.

Remembering belatedly to cower, Leifr got out of their path, keeping

his head covered.

“They wanted the doors open because it’s too hot,” he muttered.

The Dokkalfar flung open the doors and stalked into the

room beyond, leaving Leifr a perfect view. It was a small hall, used by

a chieftain and his elect companions to provide a refuge from the

restlessness of a larger room crowded with warriors. He saw Sorkvir

seated upon the dais with Thurid in his outlandish disguise. A cup of ale

sat on the table near Thurid, untouched, and Thurid still wore his mask.

The two Dokkalfar bowed respectfully to him and seated themselves

below, looking grim and stiff.

The atmosphere in the hall was also grim and stiff. Thurid turned