Perhaps the guide was Thor himself. The god wore many guises; even so did he delight in walking among mortals. Eyvind stripped off his clothes, wondering vaguely if he might die of cold before he got anywhere near any wolf. The axe: he would take that, surely Thor would approve—or maybe a spear, for at least that allowed the security of striking from a distance. But no. Your weapons, only those that he himself possesses. Teeth; claws. A sharpened stick. A little knife. No choice but to hold one in each hand, since he hadn’t even a belt to decorate his nakedness.

By the very edge, beyond the glowing coals, the ashes had lost their heat. Fire is your only cloak. He smeared the fine powder on chest and arms, on brow and buttocks. It would mask his scent, if not quite smother it. Then, small weapons in hand and blood racing, he set off up the hill along the line of torches. The robed man followed, silent. And beyond the light, the others came, others that now seemed to move on scampering paw and prancing hoof and slithering belly, that seemed to merge and emerge, part substance, part shadow. Their eyes shone red in the firelight, and yet when he glanced across they seemed no more than holes of blackness in the blank masks of their faces. It was so quiet he could hear the cautious progress of his bare feet on the carpet of needles beneath the firs, beyond the farthest torch now, under the trees, into the darkness.

“Go forward,” his guide murmured. “Go onward, Eyvind. A blind man does not fear the setting of the sun. Hear with the creature’s ears; scent your prey as he does. Be of the earth; be of the night. You have learned to hunt. Learn now to be hunted.”

The path led upward, narrow between great rocks, precipitous and quite without light. The blind man…he does not fear the dark because he knows the dark, thought Eyvind; he finds his way not by sight but by hearing, and smell, and something else, the something else that sends a forest creature into hiding before ever the man’s foot cracks a twig, or his alien scent is borne across the hillside by the wind. Step by step Eyvind moved forward, balancing his body to keep safe footing yet maintain silence, counting his breathing to make it slow and quiet, listening in a way he already knew. He had been a hunter many seasons, for all he was but barely a man.