There was a tiny sound behind him. Eyvind spun around, axe in hand. A green-clad warrior stood ten paces away, bow drawn, arrow pointing straight at his heart. Burn bright for me, son, sang the voice of Thor in his ear. Eyvind’s response was automatic: Biter flew from his hand in a spinning, glinting arc toward the islander’s leather-capped head. And, as the axe danced through the air, Eyvind looked into his opponent’s face. He saw the blanched cheeks and terrified eyes of a boy, perhaps twelve years old, no more, a lad who had danced at his sister’s wedding in summer with a grin on his face and a spring in his step, a boy whose sister had died by fire, with her children in her arms and her man by her side, her man who had been a Wolfskin. He saw the trembling of the youth’s hands where they gripped the bow, he saw the furious set of the young mouth, and then Biter found its mark, true as always, and its quarry fell lifeless to the ground. Eyvind had always prided himself on a clean kill.

He stood immobile. Something was wrong. Everything was wrong. Thor had called him, and he had answered, he had answered in his bravery and skill, he had answered by his actions and thought he had done well. But Thor was silent now. The voice, which had roared in his ear, which had guided him forward all these years as a father does his son, as a great leader his warriors, was gone as if it had never existed. Eyvind reached down and pulled Biter from the boy’s skull. He wiped the blade on the grass. The broken bodies of the islanders lay all across that hidden glen, and now he could see that many of them were mere lads, and many more were old men, gray-bearded, white-haired. Such children, such ancients had no business making war. It was foolish. It was not right. Farther up the valley, his own men were yelling now, shouting and stabbing and kicking at what lay on the ground in their midst. This was not a battle, but a rout.