was restlessness around them. The war band now depended on the guidance of the sorcerers but were very uncomfortable in their presence. Some men paced back and forth. Some went and sat deeper in the trees. Only a few stayed to watch the chanting woman spin a web of sound through the forest.
Hugin felt something move in his head, as if his brain had acquired a terrible asymmetric weight and was far heavier on one side than the other.
Images rose in his mind and he knew his sister was taking his thoughts to use for her magic. Hugin had his own magical abilities, gained through privation, ritual and contact with the gods, but he was a man and he could never have what Munin had — runes, the symbols that express and shape the energies of creation. Her strength was so much greater than his. She concentrated on the symbol that grew within her, feeding off her and feeding her, sustained and sustaining. Hagalaz, the hail rune, symbol of destruction and crisis. Hugin felt its presence as his sister touched his mind — the driving wind, the sting on his face, the vision dying under the needles of ice.
As the coldness entered him, he knew that he and his sister were becoming one person, the division of their flesh an unimportant detail, nothing beside the unity of their minds. He saw a boy in the water, helpless, his lips blue and his flesh pale with cold. No, it wasn’t a boy; it was the woman, the one they had been following. They had known she would be in the church, so their visions had suggested, but they had been unable to see what she looked like. All they saw when they tried to summon her image was the jagged rune, the Wolfsangel, with its three meanings, storm, wolf trap and werewolf. Now Hugin had seen her and Munin could see her too. In her mind Munin was not blind, and Aelis was as clear to her as if she had been standing in the firelight in person. The sorceress looked into the lady’s pale blue eyes. Then she breathed in the scent of the ash fire.
The ash was the world tree on which all creation sat, gnawed at by the serpents that writhed in the earth beneath it. She said their names in her head. Nidhogg, the malice striker, Iormungand, Goin, Moin, Graftnitvir and Graback. But one was missing, the one she was looking for. She saw the world tree towering above her, and her mind seemed caught like the moon in its branches, a shining thing that spread its silver light over the trunk as it searched for what it needed. She let herself sink, falling through the leaves and the loam and the roots to the unstill earth beneath. She seemed to drop through writhing bodies, feel coils around her, things that crawled and crept over her skin. Then she had it, the one she was looking for.
‘Svafnir,’ she said. ‘The masked one.’
Hugin and Munin felt the serpent writhing in the cavern of their shared consciousness, squirming through their thoughts like a worm in the soil, curling around the thin bars of the hail rune that enchanted it. Then it was as if something had gone wild inside them, thrashing and turning. Images of hate and death sprang up, Danes and Franks with twisted faces dying under Hugin’s sword, a body found cold in the morning, a woman weeping with only the mocking call of a crow for an answer.
A raven descended from the tree.
Blood, by blood begot. Hugin could not tell if the words were in his head or were spoken aloud.
The bird hopped up onto Munin’s shoulder and pecked at her ear, drawing blood.
Hugin heard his sister’s voice in his head, addressing the bird: You shall find her.
A second bird dropped onto her other shoulder and drove its beak into her neck.
Fire by fire begot.
A gout of blood ran down her breast.
You shall mark her. Munin to the other bird.
Now a third, a black leaf dropping from a branch. It too drew blood on her neck.
Death by death begot.
The bird sat looking at her, as if waiting for instructions.
And you shall carry the blood of the serpent to where she rests.
The first raven gave out its cracking cry and flew up into the night, the other two calling after it as they chased it into the dark.
Hugin felt the heaviness in his head shift. He was cold, tired and vulnerable, though he still got to his feet. ‘The birds will do for her?’
The woman said nothing but Hugin nodded anyway. ‘Then I will go to make sure. Grettir’s men will burn the earth to find her.’
‘Take forty men to the farms to the south, and if you cannot find her there, she will no longer be your concern. You have business elsewhere. The girl has been seen. If she can be killed then I will kill her.’
‘And if she can’t?’
‘Then a hard road opens to us. We must find the wolf and contain him.’
‘So where for me?’
‘The road east to the dead lord’s well. The wolf will seek the god’s trail there. We must see him at least, to know how to act.’
‘How shall I summon him? I am a man, not a woman. My magic is a weak thing.’
‘Yes.’
‘So?’
Munin’s head bowed for a second. ‘You know who is in the hills and streams of Aguanum. You know what he wants. Give it to him until he reveals the wolf to you. The waters of the temple are hungry. It is up to you to feed them.’
‘How many?’
‘How many what?’
‘How many deaths?’
‘All of them,’ said Munin.
Hugin breathed out and glanced towards the men in the trees. ‘You will not come with me?’
‘I will stay here and try to kill the girl.’
‘What of the rest of the war band?’
‘They will travel with me to track the girl. If I cannot kill her by magic they can do it by more usual methods.’
The Raven bent down and squeezed his sister’s hand. ‘It’ll be all right,’ he said. ‘We will survive this.’
‘That doesn’t matter,’ she said.
‘It does to me.’
‘The god must live.’
‘And you too, my sister, and you too.’
The woman said nothing, just felt for a bundle of yellow rags at her side and pushed it into Hrafn’s hands.
He could feel something solid beneath the cloth. He shook it and heard liquid. He touched his tongue to his lips.
‘All of them?’ he said.
‘All of them.’
Hugin kissed his sister on the forehead. He went to the men waiting among the trees and told them they were to split into two groups. The two hundred-odd who were to stay with Munin gave a cheer and tall Grettir himself shouted that they had a powerful witch on their side and that their fortunes were now secure.
‘We will have our boats back!’ he shouted.
Hugin nodded. ‘She will help you get into the camp,’ he said. ‘If you take twenty men you can get your boats. Then head down the Seine and meet your main force there.’
‘When will we be reunited?’ said Grettir. ‘I am lending my men, not throwing them away.’
‘You will be reunited,’ said Hugin, ‘before the year is out. You have my word. My sister can find me through her art.’
Grettir smiled, though Hugin noticed some concern in his eyes as he glanced towards his sister.
‘She is a good woman,’ Hugin said, ‘and you will prosper by her side.’
He raised his arm as a signal to his chosen men to follow him. The forty hurried to shoulder their shields, to be out of the presence of the torn and tattered thing that sat by the fire in the woods relaying messages from their gods. Then they followed Hugin as he walked into the forest night.
