Ingolf swung into the saddle and drew in beside Rudi.?Think we should have tried to finish them off?? he said.

Rudi shook his head, looking out through the thickening snow.?Too risky. There were still more of them, if they rallied. Now their spirits will be… dampened, I think.?

Major Graber looked down at the body of the High Seeker. The shaven-skulled face was blue with cold, and a slow trickle of water oozed out of its mouth, glittering in the torchlight that drove back the night a little. Snow hissed into the burning wood. Somewhere a man sobbed and then shrieked as their surviving field medic went to work. ?We could try resuscitation,? his lieutenant said. ?After more than an hour in this water? No, the Ascended Masters have welcomed his lifestream-?

High Seeker Dalan opened his eyes with a jerk, as if they were pulled up by fishhooks. Then turned his head to vomit out a stream of water. His breath rasped in, then out, and then he coughed-a curiously mechanical sound, like a forbidden engine was working in some mill of the unbelievers. ?I-see-you,? he said, and smiled.

TheSwordoftheLady

?Stop the sled,? the old woman said, peering out from under her wolfskin hood.

The bricks under her booted feet were cold again now and so was she, even beneath her winter gear and the thick bearskin traveling rug. The wind was rising, hard as the teeth of Hella, full of a hard mealy scent. It flicked kernels of dry sharp snow through the laden branches of the pines, and the bare fingers of the sugar maples and birch writhed. At least it was at her back and the arched cover of the sled broke most of it. ?Are you sure, Heidhveig?? Thorlind said, speaking a little loudly to be heard over the storm. ?Of course not!?

She regretted the snap even as the words left her lips; but she felt the cold in her bones, more every year, an ache that never quite went away. The sun and warmth of her girlhood suddenly came before her, for the first time in years.

The Berkeley hills would be green now, after the first rains. The wind chilly but just enough to make a coat welcome, and the Bay blue, with gulls over Alcatraz, and the smell of eucalyptus…

For a moment her eyes teared with longing for a world as legendary now as any hero tale; then she blinked and with the discipline of long practice shut those memories away. ?Sorry,? she said.?Just… a feeling.? ?You don?t just have feelings,? Thorlind said.?Not you, and not just.?

The girl?s no fool, she thought. Then: Girl! I am getting old! She?s a grandmother this year!

Thorlind pulled on the reins with a whoa! The two shaggy horses slowed and stopped as she threw the drag lever and the claw dug into the hard-packed snow, and the outriders drew rein and swung down from their mounts.

Heidhveig let them help her down; Thorlind handed her the staff, and one of the guards brought the lantern from its hook at the rear over the baggage compartment. It shone for a moment on the silver cat?s heads on the front corners of the sled, the jet glitter of the raven?s heads behind, and the intricate carving that laced the wooden panels of its sides with intertwined figures of elongated gripping beasts, wolves and dragons and birds. In a sudden moment of doubled vision she saw the Oseberg wagon in one of the books she had pored over so diligently when she was young-probably one of H.R. Ellis Davidson?s. And now she was the seeress in the wagon…

It was the kind of dizzying juxtaposition she used to experience often when they were building Norrheim, after the Change.

Why should it happen now? I thought I?d become more like the youngsters, living the legends and not thinking about them.

The winter?s afternoon was already growing dark, and the gathering snowstorm gusted, sometimes clearing for an instant and then cutting visibility to barely beyond arm?s length. The woods ended here-the solid forest, at least-giving way to rolling fields and scattered shaws, hidden now in the storm but letting the wind run free. She could just see the high white bulk of the barrow. Before it was an upright slab of granite, roughly shaped, a carved tangle of gripping beasts bordering the runes. The light was too dim to read them, but she didn?t need to. She murmured them aloud: ?Bjarni Eriksson raised this stone to the memory of his father Erik Waltersson, called Erik the Strong, he who led his people north through the great dying and got this land for them through his luck and craft and drighten might. Here he lies, to watch over the land he won for his blood and folk. Thor hallow these runes.? ?Hello again, Erik, my old friend,? she added softly.?You built well. Watch over us all indeed.?

In the first years after the Change they had expected Ragnarok every winter, and looked to see the gods themselves come riding down the sky, for surely trolls and etins walked among men. But the heroes they had were men like Erik, the godhi of an Asatru kindred who had tried to get closer to the old Gods by studying the old ways. He had the skills they needed for survival and the will to inspire or bully others into using them. Folk had followed him, growing like a snowball rolling downhill around that first core until Norrheim stretched mighty across leagues of field and forest, an island of life in a sea of wilderness and death.

Skis hissed in the dimness, and three bulky figures appeared on the edge of the light cast through the lantern?s bull?s-eye lens. They were muffled in fur and quilted wool until nothing of them showed save their eyes, but they moved with easy unconcern in the gathering storm. All of them kicked the toes of their boots out of the ski loops as they stopped and jumped to their feet, agile as cats. One had a long bow in his hand, one a great bearded war-ax with a straight four-foot helve, and one a spear; all had double-edged swords and seaxes at their belts, and round shields slung over their backs. ?Who comes to the steading of Godhi Bjarni Eriksson on the sacred eve?? one said importantly, hardly even waiting to halt before he spoke; his voice was a young man?s.?All who come in peace and fellowship are welcome to share the Gods? feast, but reivers and evildoers and troll-men stay wide of our land, if they?re wise. If not, they get a warm welcome and an everlasting bed to lie in.?

The guards bristled and fingered the shafts of their broad-bladed spears. Heidhveig braced herself upright on her staff and Thorlind let the light shine on her, so the Eriksgarth men could see clearly even with the storm in their faces. ? One comes who saw you all in your cradles, and crawling and squalling butt-naked beneath the benches,? Heidhveig said tartly. ?You, Roderic Karlsson, and you, Thorolf Pierresson, and you too, Olaf Davesson!? ?Ah… sorry,? Roderic said, and sounded as if he was, or at least embarrassed.?Ah… welcome, welcome, holy seidhkona. The Chief will be pleased and honored; we didn?t think you?d be here this Yule!? ?If I?ve made it every Yule Eve for twenty-four years, I can do it once more,? she said.?This is the godwoman Thorlind Williamsdottir. And these are men of Kalk the Shipwright?s garth, Sven Jacobsson and Ingmar Marcellesson, who swore to see me safe here for the festival.? ?Come, come, lady Heidhveig,? Roderic said.?And all of you. Let?s get you inside, and a guest cup inside you, and your beasts fed and stabled!?

She started to nod-right now a cup of hot cider or mead sounded very attractive-when she felt a sudden sense of pressure, no, of Presence. They stopped, staring, as she flung out her hand to silence them. The wind blew louder, the low throbbing rising to a screech, and for an instant it tugged at her cloak until the ends flew forward like wings. The cold cut like a knife, a white pain that seemed to light the land around her. She could see every flake of snow and dead leaf and pine needle, hear the very thoughts of the martins and mink and the bears curled sleeping in their dens.