The mare bore deep scratches all along her neck, chest, and shoulders from our escape the night before. I’d spent much of the morning digging out splinters and cleaning the wounds. Both her eyes were scratched and thick with rheum. I did what I could with them but thought she might lose the left in time. Later I dug a good number of splinters from my own arms and two particularly painful ones from under my fingernails. I may not be much of a man but I count myself an excellent horseman, and a horseman takes care of his mount before himself. I’m not given to praying, but I said a prayer for Ron out on the grass and I’m not ashamed to say so.

In the distance the sky held an ominous yellow cast. “Some city?” I asked. Crath City stained the skies with the smoke of ten thousand chimneys, and that had been in summer, just cook-fires and industry. I hadn’t thought the North held such cities, though.

“The Heimrift.”

“Oh.”

“You don’t know what that is, do you?”

“I’ll have you know I was educated by the finest scholars, including Harram Lodt, the famed geographer who made the world map that hangs in the pope’s own library.”

“Do you?”

“No.”

“It’s a set of volcanoes.”

“Fire mountains.” I was pretty certain that’s what a volcano was.

“Yes.”

“Finest scholars. Very clever men.”

• • •

A mile or two along the track we passed a hammer-stone, a crude representation of Thor’s hammer hacked from a piece of rock about five foot high and set by the road. Snorri seemed more interested in the pebbles lying around it. He bent to investigate, and I had to rein Sleipnir in or leave him crouched by the verge. Pride kept me there, waiting in the middle of the track rather than go back to see what the hauldr had found.

“Interesting rocks?” I asked when he finally deigned to join me.

“Rune stones. Wise men and völvas leave them. It’s a kind of message system.”

“And you can read it?”

“No.” Snorri admitted it with a grin. “But these ones were pretty clear.”

“And?”

“And our friendly dream-witch seems to have been right. The stones say Skilfar is at her Maladon seat. It’s been many years since that one came south.”

“If she’s the Silent Sister’s twin, we should stay well away. She’s nobody we should have dealings with.”

“Even if her blood could break this curse?” He reached up for me with his palm open and I shrank back.

“You don’t believe that?” I said. Sageous had no reason to tell the truth, and some men’s tongues are burned by truths in any case. They tend to leave mine a little sore, I’ve found.

“Believe she’s the twin . . . and her blood might help us. Believe she’s not the twin and your reasons for fearing her go away. Both ways mean we should see her. Even if every word Sageous spoke was false, Skilfar is a völva of vast renown. I know of none more famed. If she can’t break this curse, then no one can. And even if she can’t break the spell, she will know about the necromancers and their doings at the Bitter Ice.” Snorri ran a finger along the blade of his axe. “Charging in didn’t serve me so well last time. Knowledge is power, they say, and I may need a better edge than this.”