In a world where dead men walked, unborn rose from fresh graves, and the people of the pines haunted forests, I could hardly dispute his claim.

On the final stretch of the road we passed three or four hammer-stones set on the verges to honour the thunder god. Snorri checked for rune stones around each but found only a stray black pebble, river-smoothed and wide enough to cover his palm, bearing a single rune. Perhaps local children made off with the rest.

“Thuriaz.” He let it fall.

“Hmmm?”

“Thorns.” He shrugged. “It means nothing.”

• • •

The town boasted no wall, and nobody save a handful of sorry-looking merchants watched the entrance—not that there was an entrance, just an increase in the crowding of houses. After weeks of rough living and hard travelling, even a place such as Den Hagen has its appeal. Every piece of clothing on me still held its measure of rain from the storm that had lashed us for two days across the moorland fastness surrounding Skilfar’s seat. A man could have slaked his thirst on what he could squeeze from my trews. He’d have to be damnable dry to risk it, though.

“We could pop in there and see if the ale tastes any better here?” I pointed to a tavern just ahead, barrels placed in the street before it for men to rest their tankards on, a painted wooden swordfish hanging above the door.

“Maladon beer is fine.” Snorri walked on past the entrance.

“It would be if they forgot to salt it.” Foul stuff, but sometimes foul will do. I’d asked for wine back in the town of Goaten and they’d looked at me as if I’d asked them to roast a small child for my meal.

“Come on.” Snorri turned towards the sea, waving away a man trying to sell him dried fish. “We’ll check the harbour first.” A tension had built in him as we approached the coast, and when we first saw the sea from a high ridge he had sunk to his knees and muttered heathen prayers. Since the troll-stones he’d been walking with such purpose I had to nudge Sleipnir along to keep up.

Several boats were tied at mooring points along the dock front, amongst them one that required neither loading nor unloading.

“A longboat,” I said, spotting at last the classic lines that Snorri must have recognized from the coast road. I slipped from Sleipnir’s back as Snorri strode towards the vessel, breaking into a run over the last fifty yards. Even a landlubber like myself could see that the ship had been through rough times, the mast broken some yards short of its proper height, the sail ragged.

Without slowing Snorri reached the harbour’s edge and dropped from sight, presumably onto the unseen deck of the longboat. Cries and shouts went up. I prepared myself for the sight of carnage.

Making a slow advance and peering over the side, with the caution of a man not wanting a spear in the forehead, I expected to be met with a boat full of blood and body parts. Instead Snorri stood amidst the rowing benches grinning like a loon with six or seven pale and hairy men crowding around him, exchanging welcome punches. And all of them trying to talk at once in some godforsaken language that sounded like it needed to be retched up from the depths of a man’s belly.