I took a deep breath, grabbed the deer by the head, and pulled his throat toward the hollowed out receptacle in the rock. The deer gave me a panicked look. “Sorry, boy.” Kate raised her knife and cut its throat. The deer kicked, but I clamped it down. The scent of blood, hot and fresh, washed over me, kicking my senses into high gear.

Kate shook the runes, holding them loosely in her hand, and I saw tiny bursts of lightning between her fingers.

“I call you out, Håkon. Come from your grave. Come taste the blood ale.”

A sibilant sound came, made of old bones crunching underfoot, leathery mummified muscles creaking, and eerie evil whisper. I smelled the sickening stench of decomposition, the earth, the dust, and the liquefying flesh, as if someone had thrust my head into a grave. Magic washed over us, dragging freezing cold in its wake. Frost slicked the ground by my feet.

Out from beyond the clearing, the mist streamed at us, thickening as it came. It moaned, like a living thing, its voice full of torment, flowed into a manlike shape, and faded, leaving a thing in its wake.

Six feet tall, it was made of dried gristle and that particular, leathery flesh one usually saw on vampires, except his was tinted with blue-gray. Not a cell of fat could be found on its sparse frame. It wore chain mail and metal pauldrons, and neither fit him well—they hung off him, slightly askew, obviously made for a much thicker body. The draugr raised his head and looked at me. Its face could’ve been used as an anatomy model—each muscle in it so clearly drawn under the thin layer of skin, it looked revoltingly alien. Its cold eyes stared at me, pupil-less and flat.

The undead lowered its head and started licking the blood and beer mixture.

Nausea jerked my stomach. There was something so wrong about this unnatural undead thing sucking up the blood of a creature that had been alive a few moments ago.

“You’re done for now,” Kate said.

The undead raised his head, its face bloody. His mouth moved, and I saw the leathery cords of his facial muscles slide and contract. Ugh.

Its voice was chilling, hoarse, and ancient. “I know you. I know your scent.”

Kate stared it straight in his face. “I brought you blood ale for a boon.”

“Foolish meat. Foolish, foolish meat.”

The draugr went down for the ale.

“No,” Kate snapped.

The draugr leaned on the stone. “I’m Håkon, son of a jarl, scourge of the seas, devourer of flesh. What is it you want, meager meat?”

“I want to see your shield,” Kate said.

The draugr turned his head. “My shield?”

“The shield you bore when you sailed here from Vinland to take the gold from the Southern Tribes.”

“The skrælingar,” the draugr said.