“No,” cut in a third man, “do not speak. I will tell you why he is the Boneless. It is because he is like the wind, which comes from anywhere. He could be behind us now.”

“You are all wrong,” said Dolgfinn. “I am not a Wayman, but I have friends who are. I had friends who were. They say this, and I believe them. He is the Beinnlauss, right enough. But that does not mean ‘boneless.’” Dolgfinn held up a beef-rib to point out which of the two meanings of the Norse word he meant. “It means ‘legless.’” He patted his own thigh.

“But he has legs,” queried one of his listeners.

“On this side, he does. Those who have seen him in the Otherworld, the Waymen, say that there he crawls on his belly in the shape of a great worm, a dragon. He is not a man of one skin. And that is why it will take more than steel to kill him.”

Experimentally, Shef flexed the two-foot-long, two-inch-wide strip of metal that Udd, the little freedman, had brought him. The muscles on his arms stood out as he did so: muscles strong enough to bend a soft iron slave-collar by main force alone. The mild steel gave an inch, two inches. Sprang back.

“It works on the shooters all right,” offered Oswi, watching with interest a ring of catapulteers.

“I’m wondering if it would work for anything else,” said Shef. “A bow?” He flexed the strip again, this time putting it over one knee and trying to get the weight of his body behind it. The metal resisted him, giving only a couple of inches. Too strong for a bow. Or too strong for a man’s arms? Yet there were many things that were too strong for a man’s arms alone. Catapults. Heavy weights. The yard of a longship. Shef hefted the metal once more. Somewhere in here there was a solution to his puzzle: a mixture of the new knowledge the Way sought and the old knowledge he kept on finding. Now was not the time for him to work the puzzle out.

“How many of these have you made, Udd?”

“Maybe a score. After we refitted the shooters, that is.”

“Stay in the forge tomorrow. Make more. Take as many men and as much iron as you need. I want fivescore—tenscore—as many as you can make.”

“Does that mean we’ll miss the battle?” cried Oswi. “Never get a chance to shoot old ‘Dead Level’ once?”

“All right. Udd chooses just one man from each crew to help him. The rest of you get your chance at the battle.”