"The war is over now," Ragnar told him. "Understand that. The Pretender has won. The Old House is in eclipse. There's no more reason to fight. Only a fool would."
Bragi got the message. He wasn't to waste his life pursuing a lost cause.
He had had fifteen years of practice reading the wisdom behind Ragnar's terse observations.
"They'll abandon him as quickly as they flocked to him. Eventually. They say... " A shudder wracked his massive frame. "They say there's a demand for Trolledyngjans in the south. Over the mountains. Beyond the lands of the bowmen. Past the reeving kingdoms. There's war a-brewing. Bold lads, bright lads, might do well while awaiting a restoration."
Itaskia was the lands of the bowmen. The reeving kingdoms were the necklace of city states hugging the coast down to Simballawein. For half a dozen generations the Trolledyngjan dragonships had gone out when the ice broke at Tonderhofn and Torshofn, to run the gauntlet of the Tongues of Fire and plunder the eastern littoral.
"Under the shingle pine, beside the upper spring. The northwest side. An old, broken hearthstone marks it. You'll find the things you'll need. Take the copper amulet to a man called Yalmar at the Red Hart Inn in Itaskia the City."
"Mother—"
"Can take care of herself, I said. She won't be happy, but she'll manage. I only regret that I won't be able to send her home."
Bragi finally understood. His father was dying. Ragnar had known for a long time.
Tears gathered at the corners of Bragi's eyes. But Haaken and Soren were watching. He had to impress them with his self-control. Especially Haaken, on whose good opinion he depended more than he could admit.
"Prepare well," said Ragnar. "The high passes will be bitter this time of year."
"What about Bjorn?" Haaken demanded. The bastard child that Mad Ragnar had found in the forest, abandoned to the wolves, was not too proud to reveal his feelings.
"Ragnar, you've treated me as your own son. Even in lean years, when there was too little for those of your own blood. I've always honored and obeyed as I would a birth-father. And in this, too, I must obey. But not while Bjorn Backstabber lives. Though my bones be scattered by wolves, though my soul be damned to run with the Wild Hunt, I won't leave while Bjorn's treachery goes unrepaid."
It was a proud oath, a bold oath. Everyone agreed it was worthy of a son of the Wolf. Ragnar and Bragi stared. Soren nodded his admiration. For Haaken, terse to the point of virtual non-communication, a speech of this length amounted to a total baring of the soul. He seldom said as many words in an entire day.
"I haven't forgotten Bjorn. It's his face, smiling, pretending friendship while he took Hjarlma's pay, here in my mind's eye, that keeps me going. He'll die before I do, Haaken. He'll be the torchbearer lighting my path to Hell. Ah. I can see the agony in his eyes. I can smell the fear in him. I can hear him when he urges Hjarlma to hurry and establish the Draukenbring trap. The Wolf lives. He knows the Wolf. And his cubs. He knows that his doom stalks him now.
"We'll leave in the morning, after we've buried old Sven."
Bragi started. He had thought that the old warrior was sleeping.
"A sad end for you, friend of my father," Ragnar muttered to the dead man.
Sven had served the family since the childhood of Bragi's grandfather. He had been friends with the old man for forty years. And then they had parted with blows.
"Maybe they'll be reconciled in the Hall of Heroes," Bragi murmured.
Sven had been a sturdy fighter who had taught Ragnar his weapons and had followed him in his southern ventures. More recently, he had been weapon master to Bragi and Haaken. He would be missed and mourned. Even beyond the enemy banners.
"How did Bjorn warn them?" Haaken asked.
"We'll find out," Ragnar promised. "You boys rest. It'll be hard going. Some of us aren't going to make it."
Six of them reached Draukenbring.
Ragnar gave the steading a wide berth, leading them on into the mountains. Then he brought them home from the south, down a knee of the peak they called Kamer Strotheide. It was a pathway so difficult even Hjarlma and Bjorn would not think to watch it.
Hjarlma was waiting. They could see his sentries from the mountain.
Bragi looked down only long enough to assure himself that Hjarlma had indulged in no destruction.
His mother's witchcraft was held in great dread.
He did not understand why. She was as compassionate, understanding and loving a woman as any he knew.
Slipping and sliding, they descended to a vale where, in summer, Draukenbring's cattle grazed. They then traveled by wood and ravine toward the longhouse. They halted in the steading's woodlot, a hundred yards from the nearest outbuilding. There they awaited darkness and grew miserably cold.
The inactivity told on Ragnar most. He got stiff.
Bragi worried. His father had grown so pale...
His mind remained a whirl of hope and despair. Ragnar believed he was dying. Yet he went on and on and on, apparently driven by pure will.
It darkened. Ragnar said, "Bragi, the smokehouse. In the middle of the floor, under the sawdust. A metal ring. Pull up on it. The tunnel leads to the house. Don't waste time. I'll send Soren in a minute."
Sword ready, Bragi ran to the smokehouse, stirred through greasy sawdust.
The ring was the handle of a trapdoor. Beneath, a ladder descended into a tunnel. He shook his head. He had known nothing about it. Ragnar had secrets he kept even from his own. He should have been called Fox, not Wolf.
Soren slipped into the smokehouse. Bragi explained. Then Haaken, Sigurd and Sturla followed. But Ragnar did not come. Sturla brought the Wolf's final instructions.
The tunnel was low and dark. Once Bragi placed a hand onto something furry that squealed and wriggled away. He was to remember that passage as the worst of the homeward journey.
The tunnel ended behind the wall of the ale cellar, its head masked by a huge keg that had to be rolled aside. It was a keg Ragnar had always refused to tap, claiming he was saving it for a special occasion.
The cellar stair led up to a larder where vegetables and meats hung from beams, out of the reach of rodents. Bragi crept up. Someone, cursing, entered the room over his head. He froze.
The abuse was directed at Bragi's mother, Helga. She was not cooperating with Hjarlma's men. They, after the hardships they had faced in the forests, were put out because she refused to do their cooking.
Bragi listened closely. His mother's voice betrayed no fear. But nothing ever disturbed her visibly. She was always the same sedate, gracious, sometimes imperious lady. Before outsiders.
Even with the family she seldom showed anything but tenderness and love.
"Banditry doesn't become you, Snorri. A civilized man, even in the house of his enemy, behaves courteously. Would Ragnar plunder Hjarlma?" She was overhead now.
Bragi could not repress a grin. Damned right Ragnar would plunder Hjarlma. Down to the last cracked iron pot. But Snorri grumbled an apology and stamped away.
The trap rose while the doeskin larder curtain still swayed from Snorri's passage. "You can come up," Helga whispered. "Be quick. You've only got a minute."
"How'd you know?"
"Ssh. Hurry up. Hjarlma, Bjorn and three others are by the big fireplace. They've been drinking and grumbling because your father has taken so long." Her face darkened when Haaken closed the trap. Bragi had watched her hope die by degrees as each man came up. "Three more are sleeping in the loft. Hjarlma sent the rest out to look for your camp. He expects you to come in just before dawn."
The others prepared to charge. She touched Bragi, then Haaken. "Be careful. Don't lose me everything."
Helga was rare in many ways, not the least of which was that she had borne only one child in a land where women were always pregnant.