Hallgrim wanted to know, "Why the hell are we doing this, Grim? These people don't know who we are. We should get down on the regular road. Just be some guys headed east."

Hallgrim's argument made sense. But the god voices inside Shagot would not let him acquiesce.

"This is bullshit," Finnboga insisted. "I'm about ready to take off on my own."

"It'll get easier once we get to the country they call Ormienden."

It seemed to take forever to get there, though, because Shagot spent so much time asleep. And, after they reached Ormienden, Shagot still refused to travel normally.

Svavar, Hallgrim, and the others became increasingly mutinous. While Shagot became more and more unable to be anything but "a huldrin mouthpiece for a gang of lunatic gods who ain't relevant no more," according to Shagot's own brother, Svavar.

A week into Ormienden, Shagot wakened to find himself alone except for his brother. The way Svavar hunched as he cooked told Shagot that something was seriously wrong.

Horses were missing.

"They left, Grim. They couldn't take it no more. But they left all the stuff."

Shagot could not get an emotional handle on what had happened. "I don't understand."

"You won't listen, will you? They been telling you and telling you."

"You're still here."

"I'm your brother. But if I thought you could keep yourself alive on your own for a week, I'd be gone, too."

Shagot did not resume traveling that day or the next, sure the others would recover their senses and return.

Svavar did not push. Svavar no longer believed in any mission from the gods. But Shagot was family.

Svavar had concluded, after all he had been through since Erief's murder, that it might not be a bad thing if a few gods died, too.

In time, Shagot pulled himself together enough to get up on his hind legs and start traveling again.

"Where are we headed, big brother?" Svavar wanted to know.

"For now, the Old City. Brothe. I don't know why. That's where they want us to go."

Shagot was puzzled with himself. He had no drive left But for the nagging of the god voices in the back of his brain he would have headed home himself.

Asgrimmur, for his part, began to see his brother as a holy madman. Those were rare in northern tradition but the notion of the insane having been touched by the gods was entrenched. In Shagot's case there was no doubt.

THE GODS OF THE NORTH WERE SPITEFUL, CHILDISH, AND PETTY. A great many gods, across the earth, went way long on the famine, pestilence, and war, but came up short on characteristics their worshippers would find congenial.

Finnboga and Hallgrim, Sigurdur and Sigurjon, encountered the malice of the Instrumentalities of the Night just two evenings after abandoning Shagot and Svavar.

They were sheltering for the night beneath an old stone bridge spanning a stream less than six yards wide. The river was low because of the season. It had snowed that afternoon. Now a brisk and bitter wind muttered around the old bridge. Gusts whipped their little fire, threatening to kill it.

This shelter had served travelers for centuries. Numerous fires had burned on the same spot, surrounded by the same blackened stones. Another fire burned on the north side of the stream, where half a dozen southbound travelers huddled against the cold.

Hallgrim grumbled, "I'm getting old. Ten years ago this would've been a spring breeze. Now I'm thinking about emigrating to Iceland."

His companions grunted. None had visited Iceland but they had heard about the geysers and hot springs and magical vents that defeated the most ferocious winters. When the cliffs of ice crossed the Ormo Strait to begin devouring the New Brothen Empire, Iceland would still be warm.

Sigurjon observed, "Things could be different out there, though. If it's part of one big kingdom and those black crow priests run things."

Finnboga inquired, "How hard could it be to kill a few priests?"

"How hard?" Sigurdur snapped. "Look at us."

Sigurjon said, "It must be harder than it looks. Otherwise, why would those lilies be in power?"

Sigurdur said, "You're right. They are in charge in these parts. And it don't look like there's much chance of that changing. Shit!"

"What?"

"I've got to crap again." It was the sixth time that day. Sigurdur had begun to worry. A man who lost control of his bowels could end up shitting himself to death.

Sigurjon told him, "Well, take it downwind. That last load was so foul the flies dropped dead."

Stomach cramping, Sigurdur stumbled away, headed for a spot he had scouted before darkness fell, anticipating this emergency.

He located the twin stones, fumbled with his trousers, urgently willing them out of the way before the explosion came while dreading me crude bite of the wind on his buttocks.

He managed in time, voided the first nasty charge. He indulged in a little self-congratulation even as he bent over a fresh, more ferocious set of cramps.

As that departed in a rumbling gush Sigurdur realized that he was not alone. And that whoever was there was not one of his traveling companions. He could see his brother, Hallgrim, and Finnboga huddling close to the fire, making jokes at his expense.

He eased a hand toward his knife.

A shadow drifted nearer. The campfires cast just enough light to show him a woman wearing a hooded black cloak. The cloak's hem dragged the ground.

He could see nothing but her face. It was a beautiful face, much like his mother's must have looked when she was young.

Sigurdur thought, you heard about this sort of thing all your life but you were never ready when it happened. You never believed you would attract the interest of the Instrumentalities of the Night.

The woman opened her cloak. She wore nothing beneath. Her body was perfection. It exuded warmth. It could not be resisted.

It was too late even for the wary.

SIGURJON BEGAN TO WORRY. "WHAT'S TAKING HIM SO LONG?”

He's always been full of shit, but… gods."

"Maybe he's trying to get it all worked out in one grand-daddy load."

"He'll get frostbite on his ass if he fools around too long." Sigurjon rose. He yelled. His twin did not respond. He sat back down, sure that if there was any real trouble he would sense it through their twin bond.

Half an hour later Finnboga and Hallgrim were troubled enough to go out searching, shouting, leaving Sigurjon by the fire.

They found nothing.

"We'll look again after it's light. We can't find anything now. Let's cast lots for first watch." That would have been Sigurdur's job.

THEY FOUND THE PLACE WHERE SIGURDUR HAD EMPTIED HIS bowels. Then, despite the tracks they had left all over while searching in the dark, they discovered the trail Sigurdur had left when he headed upstream, beside the river. They found Sigurdur himself half a mile from camp, half in and half out of the river, naked from the waist down. They never found his trousers.

"He died happy," Hallgrim said.

But Sigurdur's skin was as pale as the snow, not because he was dead but because all the blood had been drained from his body.

The frozen mud retained footprints made by a woman's small, bare feet.

The tale was not hard to read, just hard to believe. You heard the stories but you never really believed.

But the things of the night were as real as cruel death. And every bit as wicked as the stories claimed.

The survivors made no immediate connection between Sigurdur's misfortune and their having turned their backs on their gods.

When they returned to camp they discovered that they had been plundered by their neighbors. The villains had left them with little more than what they wore and the weapons they carried. Which they had come near ruining while hacking out a shallow grave for Sigurdur.