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One of these three noticed us and walked over, a brown-haired old woman in a nondescript gray robe.

“What news, Runewalker?” said the woman beside me.

“We’re certain the brazier is the key to it all. We believe there’s some sort of supernatural entity lurking in there.”

“Can you isolate it?” my host said.

“With time, we believe so.” This “Runewalker” turned toward my surely bemused face. “So this is our inventor,” she said. “I am honored. When Soderland commands the air, it is you we must thank.”

I bowed, and she returned to my brazier.

I turned to my host. “So. You intend to use my craft for purposes of your own.”

“What would you do, Haytham, if an unearthly vessel crashed in your lands, a craft beyond your ken, one that might as well have arrived from another world?”

“I would study it, of course. And I would detain its occupants if I could. I would press them for information. Perhaps I would charm them with a lovely companion.”

“You would be wise.”

“Are you ever going to let me leave?”

“You must think us barbarians. I admit you have reason to. But fear not. We will let you go, but there will be a price.”

“You are not the squire’s wife.”

“When did you know?”

“Only now, for certain. But you have shown a distinct lack of interest in the business of this farm and no distress as to the disruption of its routine. Meanwhile you have flirted with me outrageously. And while I have the requisite amount of male pride, I don’t believe I could so easily turn your head.”

“Trust me, Haytham, if I were truly flirting with you, you would know it.”

“Even learned men have trouble learning when they are truly wanted.” He sighed. “And what is this price for freedom, whoever you are?”

She smiled, and the smile put me in mind of the icy peaks that had nearly destroyed our craft. “Why, once this craft is ready to fly again, you will take me with you.”

In that moment I first feared the iron grip of Corinna, crown princess of Soderland.

(
This concludes the first section of
A Journey to Kantenjord)

CHAPTER 10

SKALAGRIM

“Are we not going to a slave market?” Bone asked, once he and Yngvarr’s other prisoners were led beyond the town walls. In response he was swatted with a thick branch.

“Shut up,” said a foamreaver. “This isn’t some Oxiland Althing.”

“Of course,” Bone said, having no idea what that meant.

Fresh snow collected fast upon the ground. A bitter wind whipped the flakes in mad whorls as they ascended into the fjord’s high country, and Bone shivered. Upon a hilltop stood a great wooden hall, bright with red pillars and golden dragons, overlooking several farms below and the town beyond.

The foamreavers stopped the line beside a cliff opposite the great rune-carved doors.

The doors opened.

“Be honored, rogue,” Yngvarr told Bone in Roil, “for you are to be offered to the Gull-Jarl himself. Behold his son, Skalagrim the Bloody.”

The beefy man who approached, big as the astoundingly massive Yngvarr, had a fitting epithet. He wore a red beard, a red robe over his byrnie, and a spiked mace with hints of red on the points. He inspected the slaves with a grunt, pausing now and then to poke a man’s muscle or stroke a woman’s chin. At all times he bore himself with a casual disdain. Bone had grown accustomed to the body language of countries far to the East. He found Skalagrim’s studied insolence appalling in such an important personage. Insolence belonged to such as Imago Bone—greatest second-story man of the Spiral Sea!

As if sensing Bone’s thoughts, Skalagrim hesitated beside the thief. The look he gave Bone was at first as dismissive as that of a fisherman tossing back a minnow. Bone might have made a brave remark, but not chained, not in range of that mace.

Skalagrim said something Bone could not understand but that seemed to please the foamreavers. Brief haggling commenced, obviously tilted in Skalagrim’s favor. Soon Skalagrim handed over a bag and turned the slave-gang over to his men.

They were about to drag Bone past, but suddenly Skalagrim’s eyes narrowed and he raised his hand. Skalagrim said something quick and incomprehensible, and Yngvarr answered something in kind. Bone could do nothing but look at Skalagrim evenly, so he did.

Skalagrim squinted. “You have self-possession,” the warrior said in Roil.

“That,” Bone said, “is exactly what I lack in this situation.”

“But not much sense. I have a gift, you see. Ever since the dream of the shadows on the strait . . . never mind. All you need to know is, I can see into men’s spirits. There is something of age and winter in your sinew. And there is a great darkness within you.”

“Well, I personally wouldn’t claim it’s a
great
darkness,” Bone said, “more of a pretty good darkness—”

Skalagrim slapped him with a mailed hand. It would have never happened had Bone not been chained. But that was little consolation for the ringing in his head and his blood dripping onto the snow.

Skalagrim grabbed Bone by the throat and shoved him to the very edge of the cliff. As Bone was still roped to the other prisoners, three of the slaves joined him in dancing at the crumbling divide between survival and cold, bloody death. A couple of people on the line screamed. Bone might have joined them, but the grip silenced his throat.

“You amuse me,” Skalagrim said. “But only so much. We’ll see if you last on the farms, and then we can test your other skills. But save your jests for your equals, not your masters.”

They dragged Bone off.

I am a fool
, he thought as they followed a winding path through the snow toward one of the farms below. Bone’s swelling face testified to it. His bravado would not serve him here. He must bury it like an ill-gotten gem. He was a thrall.

No, think the word in your own tongue. Savor the meaning. “Slave.”

I am not a slave!
the thief in him rebelled.
This is a ridiculous accident! I am a free man
.

You are a man
, said the husband and father in him.
But your condition, now, is “slave
.
”

They reached a large farm, hidden from view of Gullvik by the Gull-Jarl’s hill. There a woman named Gunlaug greeted them and spoke for a time in Kantentongue. Then he and the others were led to a barn, where their bonds were loosened and they were offered porridge and cheese. The man next to him spoke in Roil, briefly dispersing the gloom of Bone’s thoughts. “You did not understand Gunlaug.”

Bone shook his head.

“We are to be well treated if we obey. If we do not, they may employ starvation, beating, isolation, and torture.”

Bone grunted.

“If we try to escape and fail, we will be maimed. If we try to escape and succeed, we will be branded outlaws.”

Bone shrugged.

“You may not understand the Kantentongue flavor of that word. If one is outlaw, one loses even the meager protections a thrall can enjoy. We will be in the same class as murderers. Any person can, and probably should, claim the life of an outlaw, in any manner that suits them. The Gold-Jarl might offer a reward. But in the Bladed Isles, bloodshed is its own reward.”

Bone smirked.

“Now I have helped you as much as I can,” the man concluded. “You have spirit, and I wished to honor that.” He spoke no more.

Bone lowered his head, the mists closing once again about his brain. It was all too much.

No, it is not too much
, a hard, stony voice said deep within him.
You will carry on. For fate is fickle and it can tire even of horror
.

At sunset Bone and his work gang staggered back into the barn, escorted by three armored men with axes. A haggard, straw-haired slave with a Kantening accent showed them to patches of straw and brought them stew that made Muninn Crowbeard’s seem a royal feast. “The first days are the hardest,” the man said. “They want to make you tired. And to see how futile escape would be. They want to make you grateful for the few comforts you get. When they’re more sure of you, they’ll ease up. It’s not so bad after that.”

That’s what I’m afraid of
, Bone thought, though what he said was, “Thank you.”

As night fell, Bone tried to gauge the number of warriors who guarded this part of the Gull-Jarl’s domain. His ears were sharp, and he tried to catch their tread, their grunts, their snatches of conversation.

But the slave-holders’ methods, though simple, were effective. His skills did not matter if his body was too exhausted to employ them. Oblivion dragged him under.

He dreamed of horses. Not the fjord ponies of the farm but huge wild beasts of the Forbidden Steppe, magnificent animals of many hues, whose galloping feet never seemed to touch the grass. They had names that could be rendered as
Dawnracer Windneigh Maneshake Laughswish
or
Springjumper Wildgroan Headtoss Backkick
, though such names could only touch the shape of the horses’ natures, as a cloud is only approximated by its shadow upon the steppe.

He awoke from visions of free horses of the grasslands to a reality of old straw in a smelly barn.

Bone and his gang saw to the livestock. Bone learned more about cows, chickens, geese, and pigs than he’d ever known possible. Later they were engaged in gutting, cleaning, and salting fish, and in carrying the family wash. None of it was terrible, but all of it was wearying, and none of it was chosen.

After a lunch of dry salted fish they broke stones for a new path up the hill to the Gull-Jarl’s hall. This was the toughest work yet, and perversely unnecessary, as two perfectly good paths already led there.

One of the new thralls said as much, and a guard rushed to tell Gunlaug. Soon she could be seen ascending one of those perfectly good paths. The thralls were uncomfortably silent. The man who’d spoken up, a garrulous Swanislander named Alder, kept looking toward the great hall.

Presently Skalagrim descended. “One of you has questioned your betters’ choice to build a new path,” he said in Roil. “Let me explain the matter. Nine Wolves walk the world, men unafraid to mete out gifts and pain. Men fit for the coming Fimbulwinter, not the simpering womanish cowards who hide under the wing of the White Swan. Nine will come—I have seen it in a vision. For I am one, and you have met Yngvarr, another. The future is ours. And so there will be nine paths. But you—Alder, is it? You see the paths as unnecessary. You are a discerning fellow who likes simplicity. I will honor your thinking. You surely don’t need the little fingers on each hand. They are unnecessary!”

Men seized Alder, who struggled and kicked, but they held him down, spread out his right hand as Skalagrim readied an axe.

“No!” shouted Bone. “Is this Kantening courage? This man is no outlaw! He grouses as workers grouse everywhere!”

“I was correct,” Skalagrim said. “You
are
possessed of spirit. We will speak again, you and I. But interrupt me again and you will die for it. Alder, my hand is sure, but if you continue struggling you may lose all of yours. Ah, good.”

Skalagrim’s hand was sure. Twice.

When Bone returned to the barn, the darkness in his mind made the darkness in the sky superfluous. Alder was moaning under a blanket, hands wrapped in red-stained cloth. Bone gave Alder some of his share of food and water, and checked the bandages. Gunlaug had wrapped the maimed hands adequately, but Alder would need watching.

The one tending Alder should not be an exhausted thief.

Many things should not be.

Bone lay himself next to a whistling gap in one of the barn’s floorboards. He could hear the guards converse outside and could make out the words
nithing
,
troll
,
frykt
. Then sleep took him like a falling axe.

He dreamed of horses.