They took another glancing blow. The boat careened the other way as the current sucked them forward. The noise of the spray and breakers filled their ears; the knarr was pitching all over like a child’s toy boat. Adalrik was on his knees, tying down what he could. Erlan glanced beside him at his ring-sword, Wrathling. Some instinct made him close his hand over its sheath. ‘Aska – to me!’ he called. The dog’s head turned, but beyond him the prow rose up like a rampant stallion. Aska’s bony shoulder blades braced; Leikr cried out.

‘Hold on!’ Erlan shouted, feeling his stomach lurch. For an instant everything hung motionless. . . still. . . then the bows plunged down with the force of Thor’s Hammer. Down and down as the waters thundered, a hurricane of blinding spray and crashing waves and cracking wood. Splinters spat in Erlan’s face and then he was flung into the seething river, whirling and spinning in a torrent of foam, smashed and buffeted till he’d lost all sense of up from down, and his lungs were screaming for air. . .

CHAPTER FOUR

Ringast was a week cold in his grave when his brother arrived. Word reached Lilla from the King’s Firth where Thrand’s ship anchored that misty morning.

It had been a long and lonely week, during which grief had sunk its sinuous roots deep into her heart. But she was ready for Thrand all the same.

She received him seated on her father’s old throne, swaddled in furs and dwarfed by the oak carvings adorning its high back.

‘Hail, sister!’ Thrand boomed, advancing up the Great Hall like a bear at the charge, several of his retinue in his wake. She recognized Haki Cut-Cheek and another, Toki the Fair. Not a pretty crew. ‘Gods in Asgard, you look like Frigg herself up there!’

Lilla had forgotten how deep Thrand’s voice was. Forgotten, too, the size of the man – like a lean bull-bear with his shag of oak-brown hair and beard as thick as gorse. He looked nothing like his brother. He strode up the hall so fast he was up on the platform and kneeling in front of her before the ice had thawed out of his beard.

‘Welcome to Uppsala, brother. Our hearth is yours. I trust your journey was—’

‘Miserable as Hel! But thank Ægir, it’s over now. Come, is this any way to greet your brother?’ Before she knew it, he’d plucked her from her high-seat and was crushing her against his chest. She smelled ale and musk.

Thrand finally set her down. ‘So how is the lad? We heard he was sick.’

She looked up at him, knowing her eyes must betray her, red-rimmed from her mourning. ‘He is dead.’

‘Dead?’ The blood drained from his ruddy cheekbones. ‘No.’ He shook his head, eyes staring like a child. ‘No. Ringast cannot die.’

‘He’s gone, brother. I’m sorry.’