Up into the hills that rise north of the Scanian lowlands came a small troop riding. At their head fared Braki Halldorsson, chieftain in Yvangar and thane of the Dane-king Gram. He was a burly, weather-beaten man, his beard gray below shaggy brows and blunt nose. A byrnie hung rustling and darkly gleaming from his shoulders. Behind him went a youth of fourteen winters, more lightly clad, the king’s older son, Gudorm. Unhelmeted, his hair shone in the woodland shadows like another spot of sunlight. Rearward of him rode a young thrall-woman who clutched a suckling babe to her breast. Her eyes were wide with fear.

A half score of men wound after them. Few had other armor than a helmet, a wooden shield hung at the horse’s rump, maybe a leather coat with iron rings sewn on it. Most bore axes or spears, not swords. They were sons of yeomen, called by the chief of their neighborhood to follow him. Withal, they were tall and strong; their legs reached down around their shaggy little steeds almost to the ground. No robbers or roving Norsemen would have attacked this band.

Yet uneasiness was upon them. It grew with every step forward. None let himself seem daunted, but glances flickered to and fro. Often somebody ran tongue over lips or swallowed hard. The only sounds were from hoofs on earth and wind in boughs. When suddenly a raven croaked, men started and knuckles whitened over spearshafts.

They had reached wilderness. The path was hardly more than a game trail, writhing upward. Brush hemmed it in beneath trees, gray-barked beech, gnarly oak, gloom of fir, granite boulders strewn among them. Where for a short span the wood thinned out, sight swept across slopes, ridges, and dells murky with growth. Wind shrilled cold. It harried clouds over a wan sky, making the sunlight blink. It soughed through leaves going yellow with fall. Most wanderbirds had already flocked south; a hawk wheeled alone aloft.

The wood again crowded thick where a great branch stretched high above the path. Nailed to it, bleached by many years, the skull of a bear grinned downward. Braki drew rein, lifted a hand, twisted about in the saddle, and said through the wind noise, “I know this mark. We near the giant’s house. Hold still when we get there and make no sudden moves. You’re too few to withstand him. Let me talk.” He clucked to his horse and trotted on.

His men set their teeth together and followed. Regardless of the words, Gudorm could not keep hand off sword hilt. The thrall wench whimpered. When the babe cried out, she bared a breast and held him tightly to the nipple as if it were she who drew warmth and strength from him.