The tracks led them into a deep ravine, dense with fir and hornbeam, a trickling rivulet almost lost among the stones and dead leaves in the bottom. After drinking, they slanted up the other side and followed a ridge top where pines and birch clumps formed an open stand. They continued along the crest for about five kilometers, and the tracks showed that the raiders had not stopped except, like themselves, to drink.

"Look!" Leif Trollsverd spoke quietly but clearly, without stopping his horse, pointing down the slope on the east side of the ridge. Angling toward the top was another line of tracks, of leaves scuffed and indented by hooves. The northmen quickened their mounts again until the second set of tracks joined those they'd been following. Sten Vannaren, who was in the lead now, slid from his saddle and walked back down the second set, half-bent.

"At least five," he said. "Maybe eight or nine. Hard to tell in the leaves." He came back and swung his big frame into the saddle again. "Looks as if they came along after the others had passed." He urged his horse ahead, leaning forward and looking past its neck. "And look. Here they trotted their horses as if to catch up." He stopped and looked back. "What now, Nils?" The blond giant stared ahead thoughtfully for a moment. "They are more of the same, and enough to let be."

Sten, somewhat the oldest of the four, nodded and swung his horse off the trail. Without further words they urged their horses at an angle, southeastward down the ridge side.

They had ridden several kilometers through cleared farmland, the road now rutted by wagons, when they saw the village ahead, the bulk of a small castle standing a short distance past it. The huts were typical-of logs, with thatched roofs. As the road entered it, they saw that here the peasants were bolder. They didn't scurry away as had those at the smaller clusters of huts between there and the forest, although they still drew back from the road. Beside the inn the stable boy gawked at them until a brusque word jerked him to duty, and looking back over his shoulder, he led their horses into the stable.

The rim of the sun was an intense liquid bead on the forested ridge top to the west when they pushed open a door and entered the subdued light and complex smells of the small inn. The babble of conversation thinned to one beery voice, and then that face too turned toward the large barbaric-looking foreigners. The place fell still except for the slight, soft sound of their bare feet and the sounds from the kitchen. They steered toward one of the unoccupied tables, Nils's eyes scanning the room looking for the psi. He spotted him, a solitary young man sitting near the wall, the hood of his homespun Brethren cloak, faded dark-green, thrown back from a lean, strong-boned face. His eyes, like everyone else's, were on them. His mind was on Nils, recognizing his psi, and suddenly started in recognition. He knew of this barbarian, had been given a mental image of him by someone with whom he shared special affinity.

"You are Ilse's next oldest brother," Nils thought.

"Yes, I am Hannes. And you're Nils, the northman who came to her hut after the Great Storm, the one she had foreseen in a premonition."

Nils's mild, calm mind validated his knowing.

"Stories have passed among the kinfolk about the things you've done since then, you and your people. Incredible stories. Is it true that you yourself killed Baalzebub?"

The innkeeper was standing beside the table. Nils ordered for himself, scarcely pausing in his silent conversation. Sten ordered for the other two, who spoke no Anglic.

"Yes, I killed Kazi, or Baalzebub, if you prefer. Now I've come to find Ilse."

"She's had your child."

The northman's mind did not react. It was a datum.

"And she's still at her hut."

"That's not good," Nils responded calmly. "There are horse barbarians in the hills."

Now that the alarming-looking strangers were sitting quietly, the peasants had returned to their conversations and beer. Suddenly Nils began to speak aloud, in Anglic, so that they could hear, while Sten interpreted in an undertone for the other two warriors. "Brother Hannes! The horse barbarians have come to the district-a strong force of them, we believe. They are scouting the countryside from the hills. What defenses are there here?"

Across the room the sun-browned psi stood up slowly, surprised by this unexpected speech. Conversations had died abruptly as worried faces turned toward the neovikings. Hannes spoke carefully so that the peasant with the most uncertain knowledge of Anglic could follow his words. "The baron here is Martin Gutknekt. He is a mild and honest lord, but well known for his skill at arms. He keeps a dozen knights, and since the battle on the Elbe he's kept a few dozen other armed men at the castle as well."

"And who will protect the peasants if the horse barbarians come suddenly, like rabid wolves with curved swords for teeth, to attack the villages? Maybe a hundred or more of them?" Nils's mind caught the shock of fear from the peasants.

Irritation flashed through Hannes. "Why did you say that? It was vicious," his mind accused. But as he thought it, he realized there had been no tinge of viciousness or sadism in the northman's mind. And the character pattern he read would not support that interpretation. But he neither corrected himself nor apologized. Either would be redundant to another psi. Instead, he stood there, gazing with his mind at Nils's. "Ilse described what you are like," he said at last. "Now I see more clearly what she meant."

Nils smiled slightly, and as the innkeeper approached with roast meat and a stew of vegetables, he returned to the point. "We've seen signs of two bunches, one of nine and the other possibly as large. They behaved more like scouting parties than like vagrant bands. They didn't even stop to rape the woman they caught." His mind pictured the wagon for Hannes, with the two cloaks and the dead man, a picture more precise than any intentional memory Hannes had ever seen. It was as if the northman had complete access to his memory bank and his subconscious. His sister's mind was the finest he'd ever seen before, but it wasn't like this one.

Nils's calm thoughts continued relentlessly. "That suggests a strong force of them nearby. And they are fighters by nature. As individuals they're as good as your knights. A village is a better place to winter than in the forest, and they're reckless men. If there are as many as fifty of them, they can easily take and hold the village against the force your baron has. The knights are far too few to drive them out, and outside the castle walls the men-at-arms are no match at all for horse barbarians. Will the castle hold all the peasants?"

Hannes' mind thickened in the face of the problem. It had been generations since there had been such a need, and castles had not grown with the population.

Night had fallen and the air already felt frosty. The moon was two nights past full and would not rise for a while. In the darkness the northmen rode slowly on the short stretch of unfamiliar road between village and castle. Their horses' hooves, thudding softly on the earth, emphasized the stillness now that summer's night sounds had passed. In front of them the castle stood black against a star-strewn sky. Only a few windows in the gate tower showed lights above the wall.

Nils reached out and sensed the minds of the gate guards. As he came beneath the wall, he was near enough to see the spots on the cards through their eyes and the rough plank table. He sensed thoughts and voices in German without knowing their meaning, felt their emotions which were quiet and poorly defined. At the gate he drew his sword and hammered the hilt sharply against the timbers three times, calling in Anglic, "Open the gate."