That wasn’t me.

All three Zajinets were pulsing in time, forcing their words into everyone’s awareness.

<<Darkness so raw.>>

<<He saw it and fought.>>

<<Saved us, saved all.>>

<<Honour this Pilot.>>

Slowly, the officers straightened up. One of them dissolved her visor, stared at Roger, then turned to Tannier. ‘You sounded the alert, Captain.’

‘Yes, and he’ – Tannier pointed at Roger – ‘saved us, the Zajinets as well as Rhianna Chiang here. And me.’

Roger, still trembling, spoke as if freezing: ‘H-Helsen is gone.’

The officer in charge, her face hardening, looked at him.

‘She’s the suspect responsible for this?’

‘Yes,’ said Tannier.

Opacity covered the officer’s eyes, then her smartlenses cleared.

‘City-wide lookout, here and Deltaville both,’ she said.

‘Good,’ said Tannier. ‘I hope your people are all right, Lieutenant.’

‘They will be.’

The others were still focused on Roger, but the lieutenant in charge walked over to Rhianna, and stared at her now-revealed obsidian eyes.

‘Pleased to meet you, Ms Chiang,’ she said. ‘You look a little different from your usual public appearance.’

‘You know how it is,’ said Rhianna. ‘Can’t stay in party best all day long.’

‘Hmm.’

The lieutenant stopped in front of Roger. ‘So. Pilot.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he told her.

Some of the supine officers were stirring.

‘You saved your worst for the terrorist,’ she said. ‘Otherwise, you’d not be standing there.’

He nodded.

‘Interesting lives you celebrities lead,’ she added.

‘I’m not famous,’ said Roger.

‘You are now. In certain circles, anyway.’

FORTY-ONE

EARTH, 778 AD

Waves smashed against rocks, down below to Ulfr’s right. Wind rippled across the promontory’s grasses. The salty ozone smell heightened his awareness as he turned, looking for his enemy, ignoring the troll-spirit that glimmered in the air beside him.

‘Where is this place?’

He spoke but did not care about the words. Finding Stígr was the thing.

No ravens.

Those same dread notes sounded in sequence, their origin far off, yet he could not tell their direction. In the distance, the tall stone building stood but did not call to him. Stígr was somewhere else. Inside the crystal point of Ulfr’s spear, the enclosed rune continued to shine red.

There.

Beyond a rolling hill, he had glimpsed what might have been a shapeless hat, and perhaps the top of a walking-staff. Instead of following, Roger walked off to one side, looking for a better perspective.

‘There’s a cottage, I think.’

Some kind of shelter anyhow, its inhabitants waiting to be betrayed and destroyed by this word-twisting, soul-knotting bastard of a poet.

<<Kill or save.>>

<<Save and kill.>>

<<Blue brother, there.>>

<<Kill, fight.>>

The troll had yet to speak clearly, but this seemed a call to action.

‘Yes,’ said Roger.

Spear horizontal at his thigh, he loped forward, reached the top of a low hill – Stígr was making for a round cottage, for sure – and ran downslope. He sped up at the lowest point of the dip and pounded up the next gradient, while the troll-spirit floated along, keeping pace. Could it not just appear in front of Stígr? Perhaps the journey carrying him, Ulfr, had exhausted the troll.

Then it stopped, hanging in place as if afraid to advance.

Thórr’s balls, you coward.

Ulfr ran on.

Cresting the final rise, he saw Stígr pause, glance back from the cottage entrance, then duck inside. This was the time for Stígr to die, remembering Eira and Jarl and everybody else he had betrayed and killed with twisted words, causing others to deliver the blows.

In heartbeats, Ulfr was at the entrance, ready to plunge in.

Shit.

There was no sign of weaponry, but Stígr would be in a defensive position, so Ulfr threw himself inside, yelling, leaping deep into the darkened space – no, there was a source of light – and spinning to see Stígr drawn back against one wall, lit by the blue glow from the other side of the cottage, from a thing glowing like sapphire but stained here and there with blackness. Bound by the darkness, held in place.

Troll-spirit.

Not the one that had brought Ulfr here, but the one that – it was obvious now – had borne Stígr from place to place with its sorcery. Even now, Stígr grinned as darkness-within-shadow curled around him, and sapphire sparks twinkled as the air itself revolved.

‘No!’

Twice before, Ulfr had launched an attack as Stígr was disappearing by sorcery, but this time the source of the magic was right here, and Ulfr yelled as he whirled and stabbed deep into the troll-spirit with his spear, the rune blazing scarlet as he struck, and a massive crash or perhaps Thórr’s hammer flattened him, making the world go black.

It might have been a handful of heartbeats later when he pushed himself upright on the damp, mossy floor. Neither Stígr nor the captive troll-spirit were there. The cottage interior was in shadow. Though his spear lay intact, its point was quiescent, the rune invisible.

He crawled out of the cottage, every muscle sore.

‘You.’

The scarlet troll-spirit hung there, darkened in places. Perhaps it had fought a battle of its own, holding off the darkness that was powerful enough to imprison a fellow troll-spirit and make use of it.

‘I killed your … friend.’

<<Yes.>>

<<Yes.>>

<<Yes.>>

<<Yes.>>

Finally, a clear response. Whether it felt anger, he could not tell.

‘I’m sorry.’

No further words came. Perhaps it mourned its dead comrade. Perhaps – Ulfr felt this insight come upon him – the troll-spirit’s death had been a release from torture, as Jarl’s death had been. Or perhaps that was a self-serving delusion with no meaning for the troll-spirit that survived.

‘Did it – your friend – transport Stígr away from here?’

For a moment, it shone in silence, then:

<<Stopped it.>>

<<No.>>

<<One-eye is near.>>

<<Too late.>>

Ulfr snapped back to awareness, looking in every direction, all pain forgotten.

‘He’s here still?’

The troll-spirit bobbed, then rose to a level higher than the cottage roof before descending to hang level with Ulfr.

<<Come.>>

<<Wounded.>>

<<Come while possible.>>

<<Come.>>

So it meant to carry him to Stígr’s side while it still could.

‘Yes.’ He transferred the spear to his left hand, and drew out his sword. ‘Yes.’

His name in Runic adorned the blade, soon to be drenched with the poet’s blood.

<<We go.>>

<<We go.>>

<<We go.>>

<<We go.>>

Halfway through the swirling, Ulfr knew that he had misunderstood the troll’s words, or perhaps he felt the enormous distance that the sorcerous spell reached across; but though he tried to yell, no muscle could move until the magic’s work was done.

Damn you!

Then he fell onto high ground once more, to the place he had enjoyed so much before Eira’s decision to step into space, and death.

‘Damn you.’

He was back on Heimdall’s Point, and the wounded troll-spirit was rotating out of sight. Ulfr’s home, his village, lay below.

Stígr leaned against his staff, sobbing. His cloak was torn, and damp shit caked his inner thighs. Even his ravens had deserted him.