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knew that Stormurbjarg was where Ljosa had gone.

As they passed the last barn, Leifr’s horse suddenly shied

violently away, and a huge, dark shape stepped out into the path.

“Halloa, Fridmarr,” the voice of Raudbjorn rumbled.

Leifr gripped his sword hilt. “Get out of the way, Raudbjorn,”

he said in a menacing tone.

“No. Fridmarr surrender to Raudbjorn.” He hefted his

halberd with a creaking of his armor.

“Move aside, or you’ll regret it, you swine,” Thurid said,

summoning a glow to the end of his staff.

Raudbjorn shook his head. “Sorkvir wants Fridmarr alive. Mostly

alive good enough for Raudbjorn. Try and remember not to kill you all

the way.”

“There’s no time for this,” Gotiskolker said.

The voices of the troll-hounds rang out from the fell, baying their

chilling, direful hunting cry.

Gotiskolker suddenly lashed his horse forward, plunging against

Raudbjorn and knocking him off balance.

“Get out of here!” he snapped at Leifr, who immediately clapped

his heels to Jolfr’s ribs and lunged away at a gallop, brushing past

Raudbjorn on the other side and giving him a spin in the opposite

direction.

Thurid was chuckling when Leifr heard the deadly hiss of an

arrow coming from behind. There was no time to dodge or twist away;

the arrow struck Leifr in the shoulder, its shock nearly overbalancing

him in his saddle. With his right arm completely numb, he scrambled

frantically with his left for a grip around Jolfr’s neck. With a toss of his

head, Jolfr dumped him back into the saddle and galloped on, his eyes

upon Thurid and Gotiskolker ahead.

When they reached the lower pasture, where the ground trembled

with quagmires, Thurid motioned Gotiskolker one way while he took

the other, glancing over his shoulder and calling something to Leifr

in an irritated tone. Leifr gritted his teeth and followed Thurid, too

stubborn to let the others know that he was wounded, fearing that all

of them would be captured if they slowed down to favor him.

He lost Thurid after Jolfr balked at leaping a wall,

necessitating a hasty search for a low spot to climb over. The

Dokkalfar came flogging over the crest of a hill at that moment and

the troll-hounds spied him, giving chase with a great bellow of

triumph.

Jolfr arched his neck and sprang away at a gallop, as if he had

been awaiting such an opportunity all evening. Before long, the

Dokkalfar were left behind, and the troll-hounds lost the scent when he

doubled back to a river crossing and followed it upstream toward

Stormurbjarg. His strength was failing, and his wound ached with

fiery intensity. Realizing that their course was tending slightly

downhill, he turned his horse more often to the upside of the slopes,

hoping to approach the shieling from the high trail.

Rounding a shoulder of stone, he heard the startled snort of a

horse and a man’s muffled exclamation. To his dismay, he recognized

the huge bulk of Raudbjorn blocking the narrow path along the rocky

face of the scarp.

“Halloa, Fridmarr,” the thief-taker greeted him amiably, hoisting

his halberd into battle readiness. “Narrow path. You back up, then we

fight.”

Leifr drew his sword. “You back up, Raudbjorn. I’ve got twenty

Dokkalfar not far behind me. We could fight here, but one or both of us

is likely to go over the edge.”

Raudbjorn chuckled. “Water long way down, Fridmarr. Better to

go to Gliru-hals and live awhile longer. Raudbjorn not let you escape

this time. Need to prove talent to Sorkvir.”

Leifr raised his sword, wincing at the pain the movement caused.

“Back up, Raudbjorn, and count yourself lucky I don’t have enough

time to carve you into bacon.”

Raudbjorn and his outsize horse did not move. He shook his head

ponderously, rattling the trophies dangling from his neck. “Sword arm

no good, Fridmarr. Arrow went through it. Time to give up.”

“No one is taking me to Sorkvir alive,” Leifr said.

“Then Raudbjorn glad to kill you. Sorkvir has spells for dead

carcass and tortures for live bodies. Better to be dead.” Raudbjorn

grinned with infantile glee, taking a firm grip on his murderous

weapon.

Leifr shifted his sword to his left hand and tightened his

knees to urge Jolfr forward. Behind him he heard the Dokkalfar horses

clattering over the stony mountainside with triumphant shouts.

Raudbjorn heard them also and made his move to lay claim to the honor

of capturing Fridmarr. Swinging the halberd around his head, he sent his

horse plunging forward.

Leifr turned Jolfr’s head toward the black void below and gave

him a smart whack with his whip. Obediently, the horse leaped outward

into the blackness of the gorge waiting below.

The horse somersaulted, and Leifr kicked free of the stirrups

barely in time to hit the water upright. His first reaction was gratitude

that he hadn’t landed on rocks, and his second was the breathtaking

agony of plunging into icy water. Floundering and gasping, he

thrashed to the surface. Jolfr’s head and outstretched neck glided

past him, and a shoulder bumped him solidly, followed by a scrape

from the saddle. Frantically Leifr groped for a handhold, finding

nothing but sleek, wet horsehide churning past him. With a desperate

lunge, he caught Jolfr’s thick tail floating out behind on the water and

he held on grimly while the horse pulled him to solid ground,

depositing him on a rocky shoreline and clambering upward with

flailing hooves to the turf and scrub above. Covering his head with his

arms, Leifr lay half in the water, waiting for the rocks and earth to

stop clattering down on him. His shoulder burned with an aching

numbness that reached all the way down his arm; from the hot sensation

of his skin, he guessed that the wound was bleeding again.

From far above came a thin, echoing shout. “Fridmarr! Ha-lloo-

aah!”

Leifr maintained his silence, gazing upward and trying to see the

ledge where Raudbjorn was standing. It was too dark and misty—a

thick, cloying mist that seemed to be mostly behind his own eyes. He

closed them and rested his forehead against a rock until Raudbjorn gave

up shouting for him. Dimly, he heard the Dokkalfar arrive, shouting

back and forth with Raudbjorn until everyone seemed to be satisfied

that he was dead. Leifr was more than half inclined to agree with them.

Achingly, he crawled out of the water to the turf, where his horse was

standing with his ears flattened dejectedly, his back arched under the

slipped saddle. Nickering hopefully at Leifr, the horse stretched out his

neck and shook himself briskly, showering Leifr with an icy deluge of

water.

Leifr wiped his face again and hobbled over to Jolfr’s side to pull

the saddle into the right position. To his dull surprise, he lacked the

strength to pull it up from below the horse’s belly; somehow he

couldn’t find the end of the girth in the mass of sodden leather and

swollen straps that, under normal circumstances, was regarded as a

saddle. Very weak, he leaned against the horse, appreciating the

warmth, until his knees threatened to buckle under him. Knowing he

had to keep moving, he fumbled for the reins and staggered away

down the rocky gorge, leaning frequently on Jolfr’s neck for support.

The path, rocky and treacherous enough at best, merged with a small

icy stream; presently Leifr found himself floundering along in half a

foot of water liberally strewn with rocks of all sizes, and Jolfr seldom

had a place to put his feet without sliding and stumbling. Snorting

impatiently, Jolfr butted Leifr repeatedly and tried to scramble up

the steep bank on either side; finally losing all patience, Jolfr

planted his feet firmly and balked. Wearily, Leifr sat down on a

mossy hummock and rested his head in his hands, too exhausted to

continue until daylight, when he could at least see the rocks he was

stumbling over.

Pale dawn found him stretched out on a mossy bed of wet rocks,

his feet still in the water, and his head pillowed on a tussock of moss.

Jolfr stood faithfully nearby, nibbling at the close-cropped grass and

kicking occasionally at the dangling saddle under his belly. His ears

swiveled around, catching the familiar sounds of sheep bells, the whine

of a dog, and the tap of a shepherd’s staff on the stony earth. Since he

was hungry, Jolfr whinnied in the direction of the familiar, comforting

sounds and watched hopefully as the shepherd came into view.

The shepherd stood still a long moment, then came forward

slowly to the prone figure in the streambed.

Leifr awakened at the first soft crunch of wet pebbles. A shadow

stood between him and the barely risen sun. Reaching reflexively for

his sword, his movement awakened the furies in his shoulder. With a

groan, he rolled over and sat up, ready for once to admit defeat.

“Fridmarr, you are an endless idiot.”

He looked up in astonishment at the voice, squinting into the

sunlight at the dark, hooded figure before him. In the shadows of

the heavy hood he saw Ljosa’s face, but he was certain he must be

seeing the hopeless visions of a doomed man.

“You tried jumping off that ledge before and broke your leg,

don’t you remember? It seems to be the curse of your life that you

never learn from your experiences.”

Ljosa stood before him, scolding him with a tremor in her voice.

She helped him crawl out of the stream onto the soft turf, where he

collapsed and shut his eyes, basking in the warmth of the sun after his

cold night in the creek.

“What are you doing here? You ought to be Raudbjorn or a

Dokkalfar.” He looked waveringly at the shepherd’s staff in her hand,

thinking it might look like a weapon.

“This is Stormurbjarg, my home,” she told him. “What are
you

doing here, with your disreputable companions barging into my house?

Of all people, you should know you are the most unwelcome here.”

“Stormurbjarg,” he croaked. “Then we all made it?” “Yes,

although I don’t know why you chose my house.”

“I didn’t,” Leifr replied, shutting his eyes. “It was Gotiskolker’s

idea.”

“Well, you can’t stay here. I don’t want to get outlawed for

helping you escape. I heard about the sword.”

Leifr tried to sit up, but the sky darkened and his head roared

sickeningly. “We won’t stay long. No one will know we were here. I

don’t want you involved, either.”

Ljosa gasped. “You’re hurt! Lie still; it’s bleeding.” “Go get

Thurid. He’s got powers. He’ll help me.”

“Thurid?” Ljosa queried. “I don’t know what powers you’re

talking about. Thurid is too far away to help now. You’ve got to move

from this spot, because you’re perfectly visible from the ledge, if any

Dokkalfar come back for another look. I’ll get your horse, and you try

to sit up without fainting.”

She strode away to catch Jolfr. In a few moments, she had the

saddle set to rights and tightened it properly. In the meantime,

Leifr had fallen asleep, warmed by the sun.

Exasperated, Ljosa scanned the cliffs above the pool in case

someone was watching. She shook Leifr cautiously and failed to

awaken him. For a moment she looked toward her house, debating

asking her uninvited guests for help. As she hesitated, a dark figure in a

tattered cloak watched her from the thickets on the steep slope of the

narrow gorge. After seeing her difficulty, he stepped out of the shadows

and limped toward her, coming around the horse’s heels with one hand

touching Jolfr’s flank to avoid startling him.

Ljosa started, however, at his sudden appearance and quickly

averted her eyes.

“He’s completely out,” Gotiskolker said after a brief attempt

to awaken Leifr. “Between the two of us, I think we can get him across

the saddle. Three arms are better than two, even if one of them is

mine.” He darted her a quick, dark glance. “I’m pretty disgusting, aren’t

I?”

“Yes, very,” she said coolly, trying not to inhale too deeply

around the smell of his old cloak. “But I suppose it’s kinder to believe

that you can’t help it.”

“Wrong. I go out of my way to make myself disgusting. It