He was a big man, though not as tall as Tarass, his body thick. His hair was gray and he wore it in a braid. He wore the cloth, furs, and hides of the Norsemen. His face was like a leathery mask wrinkled from the harsh winters of the far north. Looking past it, Tarass could see that he once had fine features, but he didn’t recall ever meeting the older man.

“You wonder who I am,” the man said, his voice strong enough to be heard between the distance that separated the two men.

“Where’s my wife?” Tarass called out.

“In time,” the man shouted.

Tarass feared the delay was for a reason that could have this meeting end far differently than he’d hoped.

“What do you want? Why does a man I don’t know want to harm me and my family?” Tarass asked with a strength that could be easily heard.

“It would be over and done if you had been with your parents at the Sandrik village.” The man shook his head. “It took me a while to realize it was better that you weren’t there. That my revenge would be much more satisfying with you alive. That I could take from you what was taken from me and leave you to suffer as I have done all these years.”

Fear twisted Tarass’s stomach and he roared out, “Where’s my wife?”

“Not yet,” the man returned with his own roar.

Tarass never prayed, but he did now, silently, for his wife’s life. If for some reason his father had taken the life of the man’s wife, it meant sure death for Snow.

“What was taken from you that left you filled with such vengeance?” Tarass asked, a dread falling over him.

“Everything!” the man roared once again.

“Not everything,” Tarass called out. “You’re still alive.”

“Would you feel that way if I took everything from you? Your wife and the bairn growing inside her? Your whole future?”

The dread that had fallen over him felt as if it choked Tarass, it squeezed at him so tightly.

“You would hate, feel jealous, and want revenge as well,” the man called out, anger exploding from his every word.

“My father never would have killed a woman and child,” Tarass argued, fear for his wife’s life growing his muscles taut.

The man laughed, though it wasn’t with joy. “It wasn’t your father who took everything from me. It was your mother.”

Tarass was shocked speechless. He was aware that his mum had been a skilled warrior, but he had never expected his parents’ deaths was because of something his mum had done.