Mikkel and Michael's Midnight Misadventure

A Madsen Family Picnic

Four Eggs for Uncle Ernie

Turning Fourteen

“Michael, where is your brother?”

Fourteen-year-old Michael Madsen had three brothers, but that question from his father, in that tone, could refer only to his twin brother, Mikkel. “I don't know. I haven't seen him for days. I've been out here. What's he done this time?” Obviously Mikkel was in trouble again; he managed to get in more trouble than all five of their other siblings put together.

“He's chopped off Pettar's leg.”

Michael's mouth fell open in shock. “But — but —” Pettar was their cousin and Mikkel's best friend. Mikkel would never harm him.

“They were chopping firewood. He brought Pettar back to us half-dead, and he was babbling about grosslings and quarantines, and you know good and well there are no grosslings on Bornholm, and I had to take Pettar to Axel, and when I came back he'd run away.” Morten Madsen ran his hands through his hair in distress. “I thought he might have run to you.”

“No, no, he wouldn't — he couldn't —”

“He did. He's gone too far this time. And I've got to find him.”

Michael pulled his scattered thoughts together. “If Mikkel saw a grossling —”

“If! There haven't been any grosslings on the island since before you were born. Who knows what he saw! You know how he is!”

And Michael did know. There was nothing wrong with Mikkel's eyes; their parents had tried every test they knew, confirming that he could see near and far with either eye and that he had normal color vision, yet somehow he seemed to have difficulty grasping what he saw. He might think something was near when it was far or far when it was near, or confuse two things that were close together. Still … what could he have possibly confused for a grossling?

“If Mikkel thought he saw a grossling, he would take Pettar to safety and then go back to deal with it. That's where he's gone.” That was so obvious that he couldn't understand how his father had missed it. Unlike Mikkel and Michael, and for that matter Morten, Pettar was not immune and Mikkel had had to see to his safety, and then of course Mikkel had gone back. Only — what could have possessed him to chop off Pettar's leg?

“Are you wearing your dagger? Good, come along then. Help me find him.”

They stopped by the house and Michael watched in increasing distress as his father strapped on his dagger and pistol and slung his rifle over his shoulder. If his father didn't believe there were any grosslings …

“Dad, Mikkel wouldn't hurt us —”

“Michael, an hour ago I would have said Mikkel wouldn't hurt Pettar. Look, you love your brother and I love my son. But he's done this thing and he's still out there. And he still has that axe.”

Michael could think of nothing to say to that. It was impossible! Mikkel couldn't have attacked Pettar! And Mikkel would never harm them!

Morten quietly drew his pistol and checked it before leading the way. They followed a trail of bits of string tied to twigs: Mikkel's work, because he tended to get lost. A few hundred meters from the farm, they found the blood where Mikkel had stopped to apply a tourniquet, and from there they could follow the trail of spattered blood. Then there was a clearing ahead and they could see a pile of firewood.

They stopped in shock. Scattered around in the middle of the clearing were an unbloodied axe; the severed lower leg, savagely torn just above the boot; Magnus, the oldest of the farm's cats, mangled and clearly dead; and a thoroughly smashed long thin thing which was undeniably a grossling.

But Mikkel was not there.

Michael recovered first. “Mikkel! Mikkel! Where are you?” After a moment his father joined him.

There was no answer.

Still calling, Michael began to prowl around the clearing, peering into the forest for any hint of where Mikkel had gone. Surely he would have marked a trail!

“Look there,” his father said suddenly. “There's something on the ground.” It was another grossling, with yet another beyond it. These seemed to have started their existence as squirrels and had also been thoroughly crushed. Beyond these, they found another clearing and in it several more dead grosslings, vermin beasts, no threat to immunes like themselves but deadly to non-immunes like Pettar, and …

“Mikkel!” Michael fell to his knees beside his brother and put an arm around his shoulders. Mikkel was sitting against a tree on one side of the clearing, his arms wrapped around his legs and his face hidden against his knees. “Are you hurt?”

“No.” Mikkel's voice was muffled since he had not raised his head from his knees.

“Mikkel,” Michael chided softly, looking at Mikkel's torn trousers, smeared with grossling slime and spattered with so much of Pettar's blood that Mikkel's own blood could not be distinguished.

“Is Pettar …?”

“He's with Axel,” Morten put in, holstering his pistol and gently stroking Mikkel's bowed head for a moment. Axel was the local healer, the closest thing they had to a doctor. “Your mother's arranging the quarantine.” Michael looked up in surprise and, glancing over at him, his father added in an apologetic tone, “We couldn't take any risk even though, well … But where did these come from? There haven't been grosslings on the island in so long!”

“Maybe one got stuck somewhere, all these years, and then the rains these past weeks freed it, washed it down here …” Michael suggested, waving at the rain-swollen creek that bordered the clearing.

“Maybe. This could have built up to real danger. If they hadn't come down here for firewood …” He frowned down at Mikkel for a moment as there was no reason for the two young men to have come so far from the farm for firewood. They had obviously taken advantage of their assigned task to explore for a while.

“Get up, son,” their father ordered. “Both of you. We've got to get back to the farm, call in the Hunters, and” — he looked around sadly — “bring in the Cleansers to burn the forest.”

Mikkel hunched his shoulders and didn't otherwise move.

“Dad, go on. We'll follow you soon.” Their father looked over at Michael, seemed to consider answering him or saying something to Mikkel, then sighed and left.

Michael shifted to a sitting position, his movements awkward since he would not remove his arm from his brother's shoulders. “Tell me.”

“Too slow. Too clumsy.” Mikkel shook his head without lifting it from his knees.

Michael leaned his head against his brother's. It was so unfair! They were identical twins, so identical that when they were babies, their mother had tied a string around his wrist so she knew which was which. But somehow he'd gotten all the speed and grace and Mikkel had gotten … nothing. By the time they were old enough to try to fool their mother, she could tell them apart just by the way they moved. Michael would have given anything to be able to share his gifts with his twin.

“It was going to bite … I couldn't reach it. I could reach Pettar … but I think I was too late, even though I did … that. ”

“You did what you could. And you don't know. We don't know.”

“Mette hates me.”

“No —”

“She said so.” And that had to hurt terribly, Michael knew, for their littlest sister had idolized Mikkel.

“She doesn't know, Mikkel. She saw what you'd done” — Mikkel flinched — “but she didn't know why you did it. Dad will tell her. I'll tell her. Pettar will tell her.”

“If he lives.”

“Yeah.” Michael looked around. What were they doing, sitting and talking in a grossling-infested forest? How long had Mikkel been sitting here? “We need to get out of here.”

“All I see is the blood.”

“I know. I wish …” That was the curse of the eidetic memory which they shared. Once seen, an image was difficult to escape. “But we need to get out of here before something bigger shows up.” He stood, pulled his brother unresisting to his feet. He should have expected it with Mikkel sitting with his face against his befouled trousers, but still it surprised a laugh out of him: “Oh, Mikkel, you've got slime all over your face!” And if the flesh about his eyes was red and puffy, that was due to the slime, of course.

Mikkel started to wipe at his face but fortunately saw the state of his gloves in time. Crossing the clearing in a few strides, he fell to his knees by the creek and plunged his head into the water. Michael, a step behind him, started to object, for what might be hiding in that water? — but he was too late and all he could do was stand guard while his brother washed his gloves — the rest of his blood-soaked clothing would have to wait — and scrubbed at his face. To Michael's relief, nothing charged out of the water at them, and when he thought Mikkel's face adequately clean he pulled his twin to his feet again and pushed him back towards the farm.

In the farther clearing, the leg, the axe, and Magnus were all gone and the grossling had been kicked aside. It occurred to Michael that they had not seen Mikkel's axe.

“Where's the axe?”

“I threw it away. Over there somewhere.”

All tools were valuable. Michael went to retrieve it, pausing to wipe it clean of blood as best he could, and when he returned, Mikkel was collecting firewood. Michael opened his mouth to tell him to forget the firewood, then closed it again. Suddenly he felt much older than his twin: the kid was terribly shaken, and if gathering firewood made him feel better, well, let him gather firewood. It didn't take that long for him to gather all that he could carry, and they went on.

They walked in silence until the farmhouse was in sight, and then Mikkel said suddenly, “I want to take over as cowherd.” The cowherd job was one of the least popular with the gregarious Madsen family, for it meant staying alone in a hut out by the pasture, watching over their immune herd. Michael had been assigned to do it for the next couple of weeks, but trading jobs was an established family tradition, so if Mikkel wanted the job, no one would object if he took it.

“Sure.” And then Mikkel was carefully stacking the firewood, watched wide-eyed by several young cousins who dared not approach: word had gotten around that Mikkel was dangerous and Michael couldn't deny that he looked dangerous, covered in blood as he was. Michael knew that their fear hurt his twin, who loved his cousins; he wanted to do something about it, but what? Before he could speak, his brother was running away to the pasture and solitude.

Two weeks later Pettar came out of quarantine; he had not been infected with the Rash. In the split second he had had to act, Mikkel had indeed saved Pettar's life.

“I don't need another job, Dad. This one's fine, and no one else wants it anyway.”

The worst of it was that Mikkel was right. No one else did want the job as cowherd. His father looked at him with a mixture of frustration, worry, and — hopefully concealed — shame.

The frustration was for the boy's sheer stubbornness. No, not the boy, for in this the seventh decade of the Rash, resources were too scarce to indulge the luxury of a long adolescence. At fourteen, almost fifteen now, Mikkel was a man and Morten had no authority over him except the moral authority of a father and, as the official owner of the Madsen farm, the authority of an employer. Neither of these seemed to be very effective against Mikkel at the moment, but he had somehow to get his son back among the family!

Mikkel's twin, Michael, had been assigned the cowherd job for three weeks, but Mikkel had taken over after he'd served only a week. When Mikkel had been out here for two weeks, Morten had sent his nephew Nils out to take the job. Mikkel had convinced Nils to trade jobs, and had remained. After three more weeks, Morten had sent another nephew, Filip, and Mikkel had likewise traded jobs with him, and had remained. It didn't help that both of his young cousins were too frightened to argue with Mikkel.

And that was the most worrisome part of all this. When Mikkel staggered in carrying the wounded Pettar, gasped out the news of grosslings in the forest, and then ran off while Morten carried Pettar to the healer, several of his siblings and cousins saw the whole thing. In the hours between Mikkel's blood-soaked appearance and Morten's return reporting that there really were grosslings in the forest, the whole family had buzzed with speculation.

Since no one had believed there were any grosslings, there had been two theories: Mikkel was lying to avoid punishment for a prank gone disastrously wrong, or Mikkel had gone mad and brutally attacked his cousin. Either way, Mikkel was dangerous. Despite Morten's efforts, and Michael's, and even Pettar's, the perception among many of their extended family members remained that, even though there were grosslings in the forest, Mikkel had grievously and perhaps unnecessarily harmed his cousin, and therefore Mikkel was dangerous.

But Mikkel loved his brothers and sisters and cousins, had always loved them. That his littlest sister had screamed that she hated him, that his cousins flinched away when they had to talk to him, those were daggers in his heart, and he had stayed out here to watch the cattle alone and escape them. That was the wrong thing to do, Morten knew, and so he'd come out personally to talk to his son after Mikkel had stubbornly held onto the cowherd job for six weeks.

Morten had terribly misjudged his son. He had been one of those who thought — or at least feared — that Mikkel had gone mad and he had searched for his son with a pistol in his hand. Only he and Michael knew that, and Michael would never tell because it would devastate his twin to learn. Just knowing it himself filled Morten with shame and had kept him from approaching his troubled son for all these weeks.

“Mikkel, this is the wrong way. You can't stay hiding out here. You have to come back.”

“I'm not hiding! I've done a lot out here. Come and see.” And then Mikkel was striding away and Morten was looking at his back and blinking in surprise. Why — his son was a man! Mikkel had inherited the family height as Morten himself had not, already topped his father by several centimeters, and was still growing. But six weeks ago he'd still had the look of a boy shooting up too fast, and now his shoulders had broadened and his biceps thickened: this was a powerful man who strode before his father.

The cowherd's hut stood on the far side of the pasture. It kept the rain off and not much more could be said for it. But beside it …

Beside the hut, Mikkel was building a log cabin, about six meters square. The walls were not very high yet, not even waist-high, but there were logs lined up beside it in various stages of preparation: branches removed, bark removed, hollows carved, in some cases even holes drilled. Piled beside the logs were rough-hewn square pegs and several good stainless steel pipes.

“Mikkel,” his father asked in astonishment, “where did you get all this? I mean, not the logs —” Another look at Mikkel's muscular physique told him exactly where the logs had come from. “But these pipes and … you must have tools …” Tools. Tools and Mikkel had never played well together.

“The pipes and most of the tools came from that farmhouse over there.” That ruined farmhouse, Morten knew, was over a kilometer away. “The, the … axe … was here. Michael brought me the drill. And took it back, too.” Michael had volunteered to bring Mikkel supplies every week. Morten had not known he was bringing other things too.

“I'm impressed,” Morten said honestly. “I never imagined …!” But the tools … he had to ask. “Mikkel, let me see your hands.”

Mikkel immediately put his hands behind him, reminding his father painfully of the little boy he had been. He caught himself, reluctantly held out his hands for his father's examination. He was wearing gloves, as his father was, even in the summer sun. In this age of the Rash, it had become rigid custom to wear gloves at all times outside, even when alone. Morten pulled off the patched, stained, gloves carefully and found what he'd expected: both hands were crudely bandaged.

“Let's go in the hut. Let me take care of this.” Mikkel obeyed silently.

“Which is worse?” Mikkel hesitated, lifted his left hand. Of course it would be his left; Mikkel was left-handed and it was harder for him to treat injuries to that hand. Morten unwrapped the bandage, put it in his pocket. Boiled, it would be reused, for they were not so prosperous as to be able to discard anything usable.

It was a wonder that his clumsy son had never managed to lose a finger — Morten stopped himself from thinking about pieces being chopped off. Mikkel had cut himself in several places, but the worst was a gash across the heel of his hand. He had taped that back together but “This needs stitches. Stay there.”

The first aid kit had a curved needle and thread, and after Morten had poked up the fire, got some water boiling, dropped everything in to sterilize, and fished everything out again, he sat back down to address his son. Mikkel had not spoken while his father worked, but sat staring off into the distance. Starting the first stitch, Morten searched for a neutral topic. “You need a new shirt. That one's about to split.” His shirt was really too small for him, stretched across those broad shoulders.

“I take it off when I work.”

“Hmm. Do I understand then that this has already happened once?”

“Uh.” Mikkel was caught.

“That's what I thought. You need two new shirts then.”

“Michael —”

“Is not a good model for you right now. You've put on a lot more muscle than he has. You'll have to come in so your mother can measure — do not suggest that, Mikkel. She will not humor you by coming out here.” Mikkel closed his mouth. That was of course exactly the request he had intended to make.

“You have to come in. If nothing else, when you drive the cattle in this fall …” His voice trailed off as he thought of the snug log cabin-to-be. “No. No, Mikkel. I will not allow this. Michael will not allow this. We'll tie you up and drag you back bodily if it comes to that.”

“No one wants me there. They're afraid of me.”

“I … won't deny that some of your cousins are afraid. Once they see you, once you're around them again and you're just as you always were, they'll get over it. And anyway your mother and I, and your brothers and sisters —”

“Mette —”

“Yes, I heard. Mikkel, she's four years old. She saw you, she saw Pettar, she saw all the blood, she didn't understand any of it, and she didn't mean it. Let it go, son. Come back, and she'll throw herself in your arms because she's so happy to see you. Please come back. Please. We miss you.” And you need us, but that's the wrong thing to say right now.

Mikkel stared at his hands, unspeaking. Morten finished stitching and bandaging, took his right hand and rebandaged that too, waited silently. Eventually his son would have to answer.

“Two weeks,” Mikkel said huskily.

“Of course. You must finish the job. It's your duty. But I'll send someone to take over, and you will let him.”

Mikkel nodded without looking at his father.

Two weeks later Mikkel skulked back to the farmhouse. Mette threw herself into his arms with squeals of joy.

“Hop on, Mikkel,” his father invited. Mikkel, just turned fifteen, pushed his sweaty hair out of his face and looked up. His father had scooted over to leave space for him on the oxcart.

“Uh … no. I've got to fix the floor of the loft.” Morten regarded him thoughtfully for a long moment and then nodded and tsked at the oxen to get them moving. The other carts fell in line and they all went off to market. Mikkel had loaded his father's cart with twenty-kilo sacks and then moved on to help his cousin Filip load his while his father supervised loading of the other carts. Filip had stepped uneasily away and let him finish alone. That had hurt, but Mikkel kept his face impassive and just did the work. The loading itself had been easy for him; he was still growing taller, still filling out, and still getting stronger.

“Mikkel! You need to change clothes! You can't go to the harvest festival like that!”

Mikkel did not turn around, instead carefully removing the nails and the eyescrew he'd been holding between his lips and telling Michael, “I'm not going. I need to finish this.”

“It's a chicken coop. It doesn't matter if you finish it today or next week. Come on, you're slowing us down!”

“I'm not going.”

Mikkel could feel his brother glaring at his back for a long moment, then the other sighed. “Okay, have it your way. Have fun working while I get to meet girls!” At the previous harvest festival they'd been fourteen and much too shy to talk to girls. Well, not girls outside the family anyway. They had three sisters and lots of girl cousins, but that was different.

Mikkel finally looked over his shoulder, saw that Michael was gone, and heaved a sigh of his own. His father had ordered him to come back from the cowherd job, and he'd done it, but the past few months at home hadn't been any fun at all. At least his cousins had mostly stopped flinching from him.

Pettar was in town. Once he'd recovered, he'd gone in and gotten an apprenticeship with a weaver, the kind of job he could do with a wooden leg. They weren't best friends anymore. It wasn't that Pettar blamed him; in fact Pettar had strongly defended him against the whispers that he was dangerous. But it was hard for Pettar to face the man who'd chopped off his leg and it was even harder for Mikkel to face the man whose leg he'd chopped off. It didn't matter that he'd done the only thing he could; it was still a terrible thing.

With Pettar in town, the word had undoubtedly spread: Mikkel Madsen was dangerous. If his own cousins had believed it, strangers would believe it even more strongly. It had been bad enough to face it here, among relatives who'd actually cared about him … once … and he wasn't ready to face it among strangers.

He put the nails and eyescrew back between his lips, pushed one nail into the hole he'd prepared for it, and pounded it in. Retrieving the eyescrew, he screwed it carefully into the wood at the next location and then twisted it back out. The eyescrews were the very best thing he'd salvaged from the ruined farmhouse a kilometer from the cow pasture. They'd been in a plastic package that had never even been opened! The people of the Old World had been so wealthy that they'd had treasures like that and hadn't even used them!

There'd been several different sizes of eyescrews in the package, and one size was just the right diameter for these nails. He could screw one in, unscrew it, push a nail in the hole, hammer the nail in the rest of the way without risking his fingers. He hadn't hit his thumb in weeks! Of course, this was a secret. He didn't want even Michael to know how he had to work around his clumsiness.

He struck the latest nail but the hammer hit a little crooked and despite the prepared hole the nail bent, flew out, hit him in the cheekbone, and drew blood. It had hit below the protective goggles that he wore, plastic lenses of the kind that could no longer be made, a little age-clouded but usable, mounted in a small wooden frame that was tied on to his head with string.

Mikkel cursed, not because the nail had cut him, but because it had bent. He would straighten it, of course; nails were valuable. But when you straightened them, they were never quite as good as if they had never been bent. They were like relationships that way, his thoughts ran on, and he rested his forehead against the wall, closing his eyes. Pettar would never be his best friend again. He would never have the same relationships with his family members as he had had before. Before he did … that. But there had been no choice, and if he could go back, he would have to do it again.

Life was unfair. Mikkel picked up the bent nail, put it on a board so it would not get lost, pushed another nail into the prepared hole, pounded it in.

Sixteen-year-old Mikkel had spent the morning of market day in a pleasant haze of exertion, loading heavy sacks into his wheelbarrow and taking them out to the carts. As he brought out the last load, he heard his father asking on the other side of a cart, “Where's Mikkel?”

His father would invite him, again, and he would have to make an excuse, again … Mikkel dropped the handles and ran, sprinted past the barn, doubled back to the other door, and swarmed up into the loft. Anyone who'd seen him pass the barn would suppose he'd kept running.

Mikkel lay in the fresh hay and listened while the laden oxcarts trundled away. He just … couldn't … force himself to see strangers. Things were a lot better on the family farm after over a year, almost as if it had never happened, but the axe and the blood featured nightly in his nightmares.

And no one ever gathered firewood with him. Not ever.

Mikkel climbed down from the loft. There was surely a fence or something to be repaired.

“Mikkel, come on! You missed last harvest festival, don't miss this one! The barn will wait!”

Mikkel hated to see Michael's disappointment, but he couldn't. He shook his head, turned back to the pulley he was repairing.

“But there's a girl. I want you to meet her. Her name's Alma, isn't that a pretty name? And I'm going to marry her!”

The screwdriver slipped, just missed impaling his hand. “You're … getting married?” Of course young people married, but Michael! His own twin! “You didn't — you didn't tell me —”

“Well, she doesn't know yet. I mean, we met at last year's festival, and her family has an inn in town, and I stop in whenever I run into town, and she's so sweet and so beautiful, and she's the third child so she won't mind moving out here, right?”

After the Great Dying, what remained of Denmark had reinstituted primogeniture: the first child inherited and the later children did not. It was meant to keep the farms and businesses that supported the population from being subdivided to the point of being economically infeasible. The first child was supposed to provide for his or her younger siblings, and they were in turn supposed to break new ground or start new businesses. Or a younger sibling would remain forever as second-in-command. That was the role to which Mikkel was born and he embraced it, but marrying the first child of the Madsen family might appeal to this Alma.

“Does she know you're, um, courting her?”

“Not exactly. I mean, probably not. I've never said anything.” Mikkel thought Michael's emotions were written on his face in large and glowing letters and couldn't imagine how anyone could miss them. But then, he could read his twin brother better than anyone else. “I'm going to talk to her at the festival and, and, I'd really like you to meet her.”

Mikkel closed his eyes and rested his head against the ladder to the loft. “Please don't, Michael. Please just go. I have to work.”

“Mikkel …” There was a long silence before Michael clumped out of the barn.

The wedding was in the early winter, and it was held at the Madsen farm because the bride was moving there. Her family was small by the standards of the Madsens, so the barn, which had been thoroughly cleaned out for the occasion, sufficed for the entire wedding party. Alma really was beautiful and very sweet and kind to her groom's many siblings. Michael's sisters loved her. Mikkel put on his best impassive face and attended the wedding and celebratory supper for several hours before fleeing to the log cabin by the pasture.

Mikkel had not completed the cabin. Others had completed it with his salvaged tools and his logs, but it was very nearly his, and it was warm once he'd built the fire. He sat outside late into the night watching surprisingly bright Lights dance across the sky.

“Mikkel, tomorrow is market day. You are going into town with me.”

“No, I have work —”

“There is always work, and you do far more than your share. You're going.” Mikkel started to turn away and Morten clapped hands on his shoulders. Finally full-grown at seventeen, Mikkel was taller and far stronger than his father; he could easily knock aside his father's hands, but he was a good son and would never do so. He was trapped.

Listen to me, Mikkel. I wouldn't let you build a cage for yourself by the pasture, and I'm not going to let you turn the farm into a cage either. Now stop turning away and look at me.

That's better. Now listen. When it happened, yes, we were all talking about you and worrying about — will you stop that! Hold your head up, you've done nothing to be ashamed of!

Agghh, you're hard to talk to. Yes, we were worrying about you because you're ours. You're part of us. We care about you. You matter to us.

When Pettar went to town, word got out. There was no way to prevent it. Yes, people talked about you. Maybe it's better that you stayed away that year.

Didn't I tell you to hold your head up?

Mikkel, what I'm trying to say is that there's close to a thousand people in town. They heard the story, maybe, but it's more than two years ago now. They've heard so many other rumors of so many things since. They don't remember your name. At most they remember that there was something about Pettar's cousin, but he has lots of cousins and they don't know it's you. You're not one of them, you're not part of them, they don't care about you, and you don't matter to them.

They've forgotten, if they ever knew. There's no reason for you to be afraid of them.

Don't shake your head. Do you think I don't understand? Do you think I made you face your cousins because I didn't care? You did a terrible thing — don't hang your head! Do you want me to get Michael in here to talk to you? Or your mother?

Didn't think so.

You did a terrible thing because you had no choice. No one condemns you for it except you. You are letting it wreck your life. You are making it wreck your life.

And I'm not going to let you do it. I've been very patient, but I'm not going to allow you to do this any longer. You cannot use my farm as your cage. You will go to town with me tomorrow. You will go to the harvest festival. You will go out into the world and have a happy life.

Is that very clearly understood?

Mikkel swallowed, nodded, felt very small before his father.

Mikkel drove an oxcart to town the next day. Under his father's stern eye, he held his head up and kept his face impassive. No one flinched from him, no one treated him any differently from the rest of the Madsen family.

His father was right. He really didn't matter. It was a liberating feeling.

Michael stood in the doorway, scarcely breathing in his effort to keep quiet. Mikkel was cradling the baby — two-month old Mila — in his arms as he rocked back and forth in the rocking chair and softly sang a lullaby. How long had it been since Michael had heard his brother sing?

Something — perhaps the pressure of Michael's gaze — caught Mikkel's attention and he fell instantly silent, getting to his feet with unwonted grace. “So, you're back.”

“So I am. How'd you end up babysitting?” Mikkel passed his niece to her father with practiced ease. As the oldest members of their generation, they had cared for quite a few young cousins and even their own youngest sister.

“I came to tell Dad the old sow's not looking good and I don't think we should feed her for the winter. But he's escaped and gone into hiding somewhere, and Alma tapped me to babysit so she and Mom can go talk Maja down again.” The twins rolled their eyes identically at the thought of their oldest sister, who would be married in three days and was panicky at the thought of the marriage ceremony. “We ought to adopt one of those really ancient customs and just have them jump over a fire together or something.”

The baby made a noise and both brothers sniffed. “Perfect timing,” Mikkel said with a grin as his brother started for the changing table.

Mikkel was headed for the door when his brother said suddenly, “Mikkel, I want you to have what I have.”

Mikkel assumed an expression compounded of greed and extreme stupidity. “Really?” He pointed at the baby. “Well, I'm not taking that until you finish changing her.”

Michael laughed as his twin had intended. “You idiot!” If Mikkel had been within reach he would have mock-punched him. Sobering, “I mean, I want you to have a family.”

Mikkel's expression transformed instantly into the impassive mask that he adopted with strangers and, more and more, even with Michael. “I have a family.” He turned away.

“You know what I mean! Why aren't you seeing Astrid anymore?” Michael was changing the diaper with, again, practiced ease.

“She slapped me and told me she never wanted to see me again.”

“Well, that's impressive. What did you do to cause that?”

“I told her she was ignorant and insular and sounded like something that crawled out of some stupid romance novel about the pre-Rash world.”

“Why would you say such a thing?”

“She said … she said we're safe here on Bornholm and we should just try to forget about the outside world, keep to ourselves, have lots of kids, and tell them they should never, ever, leave.”

If he hadn't been busy pinning up a fresh diaper Michael would have buried his face in his hands. “Oh, Mikkel, you realize she all but proposed to you, right?” Picking up his daughter and turning around, he was not really surprised to find that Mikkel was gone.

Mikkel walked through the farm looking around for tasks. The harvest was in, the livestock were driven into their winter quarters, the barns and other outbuildings were as weather-tight as he'd been able to make them. Reaching the cow path leading to the pasture, he started along it and was halfway up before he stopped. His father had demanded and received his word that he would not retreat to the log cabin. If his father had only ordered him to stay away, his rebellious nature might have led him to go anyway, but he had given his word. He stood on the path for a long moment and then turned away.

Well, there was one task he could always perform.

Though his bits of string were years gone, he didn't need them. The Cleansers had burned the forest, but trees are evolved to survive forest fires, and they still stood, gold and red and brown with the remains of their autumn raiment, or broodingly dark with their evergreen needles.

Mikkel stopped in the clearing and looked around. It had happened over there, and he had returned, kicked the grossling off of Magnus and stomped it to death … right here. But he'd been too late for the old tomcat. He'd still been stomping on the dead grossling when he spotted the others, vermin beasts, no threat to him.

He walked on to the second clearing. Half a dozen more vermin beasts had rushed him here, and he'd kicked and stomped until nothing at all moved. The scars from their teeth and claws were hardly visible anymore.

He should gather firewood, and he would. He just meant to sit for a little bit.

Mikkel sat with his back against a tree, wrapped his arms around his legs, and stared off across the clearing.

Oh, Mikkel, you realize she all but proposed to you, right?

Yes, of course he realized that. He'd realized it when she said it. That's why he'd answered as he had. What she offered was an illusion, a seductive life of pretense. He didn't know what he wanted, but he knew it wasn't that. The world was out there, the Rash was out there, and it could reach into their comfortable lives at any time and rip them away. Nothing could ever let him forget that. He hid his face against his knees.

The clearing was full of moonlight when Michael knelt and put his arm around his brother's shoulders. “Mikkel, let's go home.”

Michael Madsen was rocking his two-month-old daughter, Mila, in her cradle when his wife, Alma, bounced in.

“And how did we do today?”

“Well,” she said judiciously, “I prevented your esteemed mother from strangling your beloved sister — twice — and we've agreed to drown her tomorrow. Would you like to join us for the festivities? You can throw her in and we'll hold her head under.”

“Mikkel said we should reinstitute one of the really ancient marriage traditions and just have them jump over a fire together.”

“I imagine that would work well with her gown.” Alma pulled him to his feet and pushed him over to their large chair.

“The gown probably isn't part of that tradition. We should have them do it … what's the word? … skyclad.”

With him comfortably seated, she sat in his lap, right arm around his shoulders and her legs over one arm of the chair. “Oh, Maja'd love that. Hilmar too.” Hilmar was Maja's Icelandic husband-to-be. “How big a fire? I think your mother would go for a bonfire.” They were both chuckling now. “But it's all right, dear heart. She's just so anxious that we not look like country bumpkins to the inlaws-to-be.”

“And running into the unfortunate truth that we are in fact country bumpkins.”

“Perhaps we can hide it long enough to get the young man into our clutches. Um … has Mikkel managed not to call him 'insular' so far?”

“Not him, no.”

“Oh, dear. Who…? Ah, I see. We've learned why he's not seeing Astrid anymore. What happened this time?”

“He called her ignorant and insular and something about trashy pre-Rash romance novels, and she slapped him and told him never to darken her door again.”

Alma buried her face against his shoulder and slowly shook her head. “Your brother has a remarkable way with women.”

“To be fair, she's the first one to slap him.”

“Kerith threw a drink in his face.”

“But only the drink and not the mug, so it doesn't count.”

“I think I'm out of girlfriends to introduce him to.”

“Just as well. The next one would probably stick a dagger in his ribs.” Michael sighed. “I'm sorry you have to deal with my siblings.”

“Not at all! I told you, I didn't just marry you, I married your whole family! Your over-dramatic sister is my over-dramatic sister! Your messed-up brother is my messed-up brother! Sweet Mille — how'd she get into this family anyway? — is my sweet sister! Your obnoxious little brothers are my obnoxious little brothers! Your wild child baby sister is … hmm.”

“That's Mikkel's influence. Mette's always adored him. I can't imagine why she adores him rather than me.”

“He's better looking,” Alma informed Mikkel's identical twin brother, and pulled his hair. “What is it with him and 'insular' anyway? He knows we live on an island, right?”

“I'm pretty sure he knows. I mean, he reads everything he can get his hands on and he's pretty smart.” He gently pulled her hair in retaliation. “I think he means that we're … cut off from the real world. That we can ignore it. That we do ignore it.” He sighed again, thinking of his brother. “And he can't.”

“Yeah.” She sobered. “When I was coming back I saw him wandering around the farm looking lost.”

“He's looking for something to work on. The slow season is always hard on him. I guess I'll talk to Dad, see if he'll let him build another chicken coop, maybe.”

“How many do we have so far?”

“Four, at last count.”

“Do we need five?”

“Not as such, no.”

Alma looked away and then looked back at him with an expression of delighted inspiration. “I know! I'll burn one down! And then he can rebuild it, and I'll burn down another one. We can keep it up all winter!”

“Bit hard on the chickens though. And Mikkel's pretty smart; he'd figure out what you were doing after you burned down three or four.”

“Details,” she answered airily. “Though I do prefer my chickens properly cleaned before they're roasted.”

“Also dead.”

“Ideally.” She pulled his hair again, drawing him in for a kiss. Sitting back with a fond smile, she abruptly looked away as if someone had called her. Michael followed her gaze, saw nothing, and watched her with both patience and concern. “Michael, I … about him … he needs to get a job. In Rønne.”

Michael straightened in alarm. “You can't mean —”

“What? Oh! No, no, no! I'd never say to send him away! No! That would kill him! No! It's just —”

She was so honestly distressed that Michael had to pull her close for a reassuring hug. “I'm sorry. Of course you didn't mean to send him away. But, uh, then what did you mean?”

“You remember that I told you my great-grandmother in the female line was an Irish woman who got trapped here when the borders closed?”

“Uh, yes.” This seemed like quite a random conversation but her loving husband was willing to follow it.

“I'm a good Dane, myself, so not superstitious at all but you know, the Irish, and especially Irish women, were supposed to have, um, powers.”

“Okayyy … and you being in the female line …”

“I might have inherited something … extra. Sometimes I have, well, premonitions. Like when I first laid eyes on you I knew you were my husband.”

“What?”

“At the harvest festival. You'd just gotten off the cart with your dad and you turned around and … and I knew. Just like that. And I was right, wasn't I?” She pulled his hair again.

“Okay, um, that's good to hear. I'm slow; it took me a whole half hour of talking to you to know —”

“Dear heart! But I just wanted you to understand … that it's real. I don't want you to laugh at me.” She bit her lip and the rest came out in a rush. “Michael, just now, just when I thought about Mikkel, I had the strongest premonition I've ever had. Mikkel is important —”

“Well, yes.”

“Not just to us. Mikkel is important, but his destiny does not lie here. Not on this farm. Not on Bornholm. Mikkel's destiny lies over the sea. He can't stay here.”

“Alma, it's his home. We'll never —”

“You'll never send him away. I know. I don't mean that. I mean … I mean his destiny will force him to leave us. And … I don't think it's good for him to stay here. Destiny has a way of making you act if you won't act on your own.” Her eyes widened. “Sort of like a grossling getting stuck somewhere and then just happening to get loose years later just in time to attack a young man who might otherwise have been … insular.”

“Your premonitions tell you that was his 'destiny' trying to push him along?” He tried with limited success to keep skepticism out of his voice.

“No, they're not that informative.” He could see her consciously tamping down her annoyance. But what did she expect? Of course he was skeptical. “Okay, let's put aside this premonition. You said he's looking for work to do. You can't — you shouldn't — try to fob him off on make-work. He can get a job, maybe in Rønne, just for the slow season, just so he isn't so … lost, and then he'll come back, if he wants, in the Spring. All I'm asking you to do is suggest it to him. That's reasonable, isn't it?”

Michael considered. It really was reasonable. Mikkel would have work, real work, and even some money in his pocket. He'd never really had any money; none of them had as long as they stayed on the farm. But away from his stern father and his, to be honest, over-protective brother …

“I don't know,” he said slowly. “Mikkel's never been away from the family. He's never slept a night away from the farm. All alone in Rønne —”

“You have to let him go, Michael. He has to make his own way. And his way is not here.”

Michael sighed. “I'll suggest it. If he says no, that's the end of it. And don't breathe a word of this to Dad. Or anyone. Dad might decide that he needs to be … pushed again. And if he thinks he is being sent away, if he thinks he is being exiled …”

“Understood. I'll keep quiet. But do you know, I think he'll say yes.”

The baby cried and required changing and nursing, and then there was supper and all the details of a household, and so to bed.

Michael woke with moonlight in his eyes and the knowledge that he had forgotten. He slipped out of bed carefully, dressed quietly so as not to wake his wife or daughter, carried his boots outside before putting them on. He stopped by the bunkhouse first because after all he didn't know, but of course Mikkel's bunk, the one which he had chosen when he was twelve years old, was quite empty.

Michael turned and strode away. He did not even glance up the cow path to the log cabin which Mikkel had started and others had finished, for he knew Mikkel had given his word to stay away.

Premonitions or no, Alma is right. Mikkel shouldn't be here. It's too easy for him to be … caught … again. Maybe a job in town, close enough for us to … protect him? But no, Pettar's there, he can't go there. Rønne really would be better, but Mikkel, all alone … Still, I said I'd ask. Tomorrow. Or I guess it's today now.

There was no path; Mikkel didn't go down there often enough to make a path. Still, Michael knew the way. He did not hesitate in the first clearing nor hasten, keeping the same even stride, but he stopped when he reached the second clearing.

His memory showed him grosslings, crushed, dead, and Mikkel sitting against a tree hiding his face against his knees. The burnt forest and Mikkel in the ashes, against the same tree. The undergrowth returning in the bright summer sun, and Mikkel … He pushed the images away.

The clearing was full of moonlight when Michael knelt and put his arm around his brother's shoulders. “Mikkel, let's go home.”

There wasn't really any place from which you could get a good look at the farm, though this hill was the best he'd ever found. In Spring or Summer, with the trees in full leaf, it was no better than anywhere else, but now, with the deciduous trees having only remnants of their Fall foliage, Mikkel could see the original Madsen farm, off to the west.

That farm had belonged to Kirsten Madsen, and her brother, the first Michael Madsen, had found sanctuary there when the borders closed. He'd been followed soon after by Signe Sørensen, whom he'd met on the ferry, who'd also been trapped on Bornholm, and who'd known no one else on the island. They two had married but, Madsen personalities being as they were, and Signe's personality being as it was, in the fullness of time Michael, Signe, and their infant son Magnus, had relocated to the adjacent Andersen farm, it being undeniable by that point that the Andersens would not return from their visit to Copenhagen on the occasion of the birth of their daughter's first child.

Mikkel gazed for a moment at the distant original farmhouse, then turned back to what had been the Andersen farm, trying to see it not as his home, but as a new place seen by a stranger.

There were the fields and pastures and barns and chicken coops, of course; there was the farmhouse where Mikkel had been born, enlarged several times over the generations; around the farmhouse was a scatter of cottages and the bunkhouse. It was … not really a farm anymore. It was, in fact, a small village, a village of Mikkel's cousins.

There a cousin brought a horse to their blacksmith — another cousin — to be shod; beyond, a cousin was slopping pigs; over there several little cousins were playing tag; everywhere his cousins were at work or play. Mikkel had close to a hundred cousins: first cousins, second cousins, even third cousins. If he wanted to, he could pull up the family tree which his mother kept up to date and work out how he was related to each of them, but it didn't matter. They were all cousins, all Madsens.

In the first terrible decades after the Great Dying, over three-quarters of the population of Bornholm died. Famine stalked the island as fishermen died or refused to go to the monster-haunted sea and farmers struggled to relearn farming without modern equipment or chemicals; Madsens went hungry, but they did not starve. Diseases — dysentery, typhoid, hepatitis, and more — decimated cities and towns much too densely populated for sanitation systems cast abruptly back to the Eighteenth Century; Madsens drilled their wells, sited their outhouses carefully, and suffered no such disease. Many survivors ran mad from grief and terror; Madsens with their sharp tongues and sharper wits kept each other relatively sane.

The Madsen farm was safe, and generation after generation, most Madsens remained on the farm. They married, and their spouses came to live on the farm and became Madsens as well. As adjacent farms were found to be empty for one reason or another, Madsens moved in and joined them to the family farm. When the national government was re-established and had the resources to check on the rural areas, the Madsen farm was found to sprawl over half a dozen former farms, but possession is nine points of the law, and there was, after all, no one to dispute their ownership.

And Michael had proposed that Mikkel leave the farm.

“No!” Mikkel's first reaction was a violent denial and his second was fear. “Is Dad — am I —”

“No!” Michael's answer was almost as violent as Mikkel's. “It's not Dad's idea, I haven't suggested it to him, and I won't. It's just a thought, just a job for the winter. If you don't want to go, that's your decision and I won't bring it up again.”

Mikkel shook his head, intending in that moment never to leave the farm. His brother clapped him on the shoulder and repeated, “Just a thought. Don't worry about it.” And then Alma was calling and Michael ran to her assistance and Mikkel ran the other way, up to the cow pasture and beyond to the hill overlooking the farm.

Maja went to Rønne and came back. She was gone almost a year and she came back with her Icelander … I should talk to him and welcome him to the family or something, with the wedding in two days. She doesn't really want me to though. Doesn't want her crazy brother to scare him off. Mikkel rubbed his face, finger-combed his hair for a moment. He's come all the way from Iceland, though, over the seas. He knows. Even if he's an Icelander.

What am I, after all? A Dane. Another islander. Of course I know, how not, when I've seen the Rash reach for us … but I'm still living here, on the farm, on Bornholm. I've never been five kilometers from the house I was born in. How insular is that?

And Rønne has started a library.

The Madsens had few books inherited from their ancestors from the time of the Great Dying, just some well-used cookbooks that often called for ingredients no longer obtainable. They had some pre-Rash devices called ebooks, and family legend said that Signe's ebook had held over a thousand books. Mikkel doubted that, supposing that the number might have grown somewhat over the generations, but it didn't matter anyway. The things had died when the power died, their batteries had corroded and ruined their circuitry, and whatever books had been contained in them were lost forever.

Those long-ago Madsens had had plenty of paper, reams of the stuff for some reason, so much that their descendants still had some left, and the adults had tried to write down everything they could recall from their pre-Rash educations. Mikkel had learned to read from the cookbooks and those handwritten notes. The family had acquired more books over the generations, though not many; so many had been burned either as fuel or in a kind of revulsion against the world that had given birth to the Rash. The thought of a library — dozens or maybe even hundreds of books — was a potent lure for Mikkel.

But … going away. Being alone. No family to help me … or guide me … or … or smother me with their protection.

Where did that thought come from? I don't feel smothered … exactly. Dad or Michael is always with me when I have to go into town; they don't hover over me, but they're there in case things go wrong. I've always thought that was a good thing, but is it? How will I learn to deal with people outside of family if they're always there to keep me out of trouble?

I've never even found my own girlfriends! Alma's so kind to introduce me to her friends, but how well has that worked out? She isn't me. Michael isn't even me. They don't know exactly who would fit … not that I do either. But in Rønne … there are lots of young women in Rønne. I could … maybe I could … there might be one …

Mikkel was seventeen and, despite his so-far unhappy relationships with young women, he really would have liked to have a girlfriend or even … but to have a wife was just a dream. He needed to start with a girlfriend.

Mikkel looked out over the farm that had become a village. He didn't know exactly when he'd made the decision, but it was there, bright and hard-edged before him.

Mikkel Madsen was going to Rønne.

“No, baby sister, you can't come with me.”

Mikkel swept her up and held her tight, carrying her to his workbench and setting her on his knee. His clothes were packed in a duffel bag by the door. Since Dad hadn't given her a duffel bag, she'd packed her clothes in a clean flour sack, now leaning against his bag.

“Why not?” Mette asked reasonably. “You're going, Maja went. Why can't I?”

“Because I am seventeen and you” — he bounced her on his knee as he hadn't in years — “are seven. And I'll have to work in Rønne.”

“I'll help you!” She always helped him whenever he was building something or fixing something. For as long as she could remember, she'd followed him, carrying a sack of nails or his screwdrivers or the other hammer or anything else he might need, always wearing the goggles he'd made for her just like his own, slightly age-clouded plastic in a wooden frame that she tied on by herself now. He'd only yelled at her once, when she'd come too close to his elbow, and then he'd hugged her tight and told her never, never, never to approach him when he was working because it was too dangerous. She'd been careful ever after, because there was something, some vague memory of blood and screaming, that his words seemed to conjure up.

“You can't help me there,” he said gently. “They won't let you. They're not family.”

“Then why are you going?” It came out as more of a wail than she'd intended.

“I've fixed everything I can fix here. There's nothing to work on and, and — O Best Beloved, remember I'll be back in the Spring!” He'd gotten that term of endearment from one of those books he'd bought from a traveller in town.

“Spring is so far away,” she said miserably. “I'll miss you so much.”

“You have your lessons, and Hilmar can teach you Icelandic. My Icelandic is terrible, he assures me, but you, you, my clever baby sister, will be teaching me Icelandic by the time I get back. And think of all the awful things you'll teach me to say because I won't know what they mean!”

They laughed together, because Mikkel had once gotten hold of a book of jokes. Jokes of a sort, anyway, and he'd taught his six-year-old sister some of the … tamer … ones, which she had innocently repeated for their new sister-in-law, Alma. Mikkel had been sent to sleep in the barn for a week after that, and she had been forbidden ever to repeat them again. She now understood that there were jokes which meant one thing to a little girl and something entirely different to the grown-ups.

“Pranks won't be any fun without you,” she said mournfully.

Their latest prank had been Mikkel's demonstration of the principles of the pulley; this had involved his carrying off Mille's dresser and Mette's using the pulley to raise it into the loft of the barn. Mille had, of course, known exactly who was the culprit and had charged into the barn shouting furiously at him. Mikkel had cringed away in pretended terror, shielding his head, while Mette jumped in front of him to protect him. Not even Mille could keep a straight face for long and soon they were all laughing and Mette had demonstrated raising and lowering the dresser several times. Mikkel had —yet again— been sent to sleep in the barn for a week and Mette had been sent to bed without supper for the same week. Every night Mikkel had climbed up the tree outside her window and passed half his supper to her.

“You're my clever baby sister and you'll think of your own pranks,” he assured her. “And then you can tell me all about them when I come back. You won't forget me, will you?” He looked so anxious that she had to hug him in reassurance.

Mikkel set his little sister back on her feet and handed her the sack of clothes. “One day you'll go to Rønne, sweetling, but not tomorrow.” She took the sack and went back to her own little bedroom so she could cry all night without his seeing her.

“Be very careful, Mikkel, and come home safe!” Freja hugged him with all her strength, her little boy who'd somehow grown into this large and powerful man, and he hugged her back, careful not to crush her.

Freja was a Madsen by both birth and marriage, the great-granddaughter of Kirsten Madsen, second cousin once removed of her husband, Morten. She had lived her whole life on the Madsen farm, never going so far as five kilometers from home. Since the birth of her first child, Michael, and minutes later Mikkel, she had not left the farm at all. The farm was safe and the outside world was strange and dangerous. Only look what it had done to Mikkel when he'd ventured just a kilometer into the woods south of the farm! And now he was going away to far distant Rønne, the second of her children to do so.

Freja stepped away, letting Mille say her goodbyes, and only wiped her eyes when she was sure Mikkel was looking the other way.

“Your destiny awaits!” Alma told him cheerfully, and then hugged him goodbye. He gave her a puzzled look followed by one of his rare smiles and then Malthe was punching his shoulder and he had to turn to defend himself against his little brothers.

Alma stepped away, hoping she'd done the right thing. She hadn't had another premonition, not about Mikkel, or Michael, or even herself, to reassure her.

Alma and Michael had never had a fight; they'd argued and been annoyed with each other at times, of course, for it was impossible for two people to live together full time and never argue, but they'd never fought. It was her idea to persuade Mikkel to go, and quite possibly none of these oblivious Madsens would have thought of it. It was best for him, she thought, even putting aside the premonition, but if anything happened to him in Rønne … if Michael's twin brother was hurt, or worse, because of her …

It didn't bear thinking of. She hugged to herself an old family saying: if you are born to be hanged, you will not drown in a hundred shipwrecks. Mikkel couldn't die in Rønne because his destiny lay over the seas. He was safe. As long as he stayed in Rønne. As long as he didn't take it into his head to travel further.

Mikkel swung his duffel bag up onto the carriage and boarded with a final wave at his family. The carriage took him away to his destiny.

The journey to far distant Rønne was a matter of a couple of hours at the carriage-horse's easy trot. Mikkel could have walked it; indeed, he intended to sling his duffel bag over his shoulder and walk back in the Spring. His father had insisted on sending him in the carriage, arguing that he shouldn't arrive tired on his first day in the city, though Mikkel rightly suspected that his father wanted to make sure he did arrive in the city without getting lost along the way.

The driver, Alfred, was a cousin about a decade older than Mikkel, shorter, dark-haired, and taciturn. He lived in one of the other farmhouses and cared for the horses, and though Mikkel knew him, as he knew all his cousins, he didn't know him well. Alfred was unmarried, an oddity in their family, and kept to himself and his horses, making the trip to Rønne once or twice a month in his hand-built carriage to pick up sundries for the family. The carriage was a patchwork, the frame mostly wood but also metal pipes, and the sides parts of old vehicles, cut down and reshaped to fit. The seats were also from an old vehicle, re-covered over the decades with leather from their own cattle, and quite comfortable, but Mikkel preferred to sit on the box beside the driver.

Alfred's company was pleasant. He'd greeted Mikkel politely enough but otherwise left him to his thoughts. Mikkel meant to learn the route so well that he could walk back without hesitation, so he concentrated on landmarks: those hills, that ruin, this pile of rocks. He needed only to regard each for a second or even less, giving his eyes time to deduce the distances from him to each object.

I'm so tired of being worried over. Okay, I have handicaps, but only slight handicaps. I'm slow and clumsy and my vision … but there's nothing wrong with my eyes, nothing wrong with my vision, nothing wrong with me. I just need to take a little extra time and care about things. On the other hand, I'm strong and I'm smart, and I do have this ability to remember images. I will use these advantages.

The old world was full of maps, and if I can just get a look at one, I should be able to get around without getting lost. Especially if I can get hold of a compass. A compass, and one look at a map, and I'll be able to navigate as well as anyone else. Better!

Such thoughts cheered him as Socks, the big glossy black horse with white feet, trotted along. Mikkel had thought — even feared — that he would find himself forced to turn back, that like his mother he would be unable to face the strangeness of the world away from the farm, but instead he found himself exhilarated. There were new places to see, new jobs to do, and new people, people who knew nothing of him or what he'd done, people who knew nothing of the Madsens and expected nothing of a Madsen son.

In Rønne I will become myself.

Rønne was a new city. The city itself was old, of course, dating back centuries before the coming of the Rash, but much of it was rebuilt, having been burned down by Cleansers just under twenty years earlier in the last — or perhaps it would be more accurate to say the latest — Rash outbreak on Bornholm. At that time the city had been the main port for Bornholm and had had a quarantine center, and there had been a breach after one of the expeditions returned from the mainland. The outbreak had been stopped before it spread beyond the city — or so it had been believed.

Despite the fires, despite the cordon, despite the Hunters and their cats desperately searching, something had escaped. Something — some small infected animal — had escaped from Rønne and made its way almost to the Madsen farm before becoming trapped somewhere and remaining so for over fifteen years. And then it had gotten loose.

Mikkel shook his head. Would everything remind him of that? Could he never escape it?

“Beer?” Alfred's question broke into his thoughts.

“Sure.” They jumped lightly down and Alfred passed the reins to a stableboy. Mikkel watched the way they nodded at each other, realizing that these two were long acquainted. Entering the inn, Alfred received nods of recognition from those within, led the way to an empty table, and waved at the young woman server. “Two, Carryn,” he requested with a smile, and, “This one's mine,” he added to Mikkel.

“Then the next one's mine,” Mikkel replied. His father had given him a wallet of kroner and a list of reasonable prices for various things, trying to ensure that his unworldly son was not cheated nor overcharged. Mikkel understood that he was inexperienced and needed guidance, but all the same it was annoying to be worried over. A couple of beers would not materially reduce his funds and, after all, he intended to find work within a day.

The two young men clinked their mugs together, more of a clunk, really, for the mugs were thick old plastic, and drank in companionable silence while Mikkel looked around. The inn was new construction, of course, mostly timber with whitewashed brick. The bar and shelves behind it looked to have been built by someone with real skill, as did the half-dozen tables and the chairs around them. An open wooden stairwell to their right led up to the rooms for let. At this hour, mid-morning, there were few in the inn, just blonde Carryn the server; a tall brunette leaning against the bar and chatting with the older, balding innkeeper; three large older men and two older women, all workers by their worn and sturdy clothing, sitting together at a table, drinking and chatting.

“So, I'll be back in three weeks, unless something else comes up,” Alfred said. “You want to see me, come here about this time of day. You can leave word, too, if you want. These people know me. That's Arne behind the bar, and his daughter Saffi.” Mikkel nodded silently. “Doubt you'll need anything, but if you do, they'll help you. Good people.” Mikkel nodded again. They finished their beers, Mikkel waved to Carryn for another for each of them, and they finished those too.

Alfred rose, tossed a coin on the table. Mikkel examined it, pulled a like coin from his wallet and threw it in too, drawing a smile from his cousin. They walked out together and Mikkel stepped aside, careful not to block the door, and blinked in the bright sun for a few seconds. Another man might have waited those few seconds to allow his eyes to adjust after being inside; Mikkel was doing that, but he was also giving his eyes time to sort out near and far, to show him single-story or two-story wood and brick buildings across the road, carts with the patient horses standing in their traces before the buildings, people hurrying to and fro between carts and buildings, a child darting out into the street to sweep away horse droppings.

“Going to the docks then?” Alfred asked.

“Right. I reckon they'll have work for a strong back.”

“Reckon they will. Follow this street west. It'll take you there. Good luck.” They shook hands, Alfred turned away to run his errands and collect sundries for the farm, and Mikkel strode off to the west.

It was an easy walk to the port itself — it had become a local port since the outbreak, all international traffic now going to an offshore quarantine island — but it was still a very busy port, as most shipping to and from Bornholm passed through Rønne. There was indeed work for a strong back; in fact Mikkel found himself employed as a dockworker by the first foreman he approached, at a wage which, according to his father's notes, was entirely acceptable. Bjorn Jensen was a very reasonable man and Mikkel thought they would get along well.

As evening shadows grew long, Bjorn pointed him to the Griffin Inn, built on the ruins of the old Griffen Spa Hotel. Maja had stayed in the Griffin Inn during her almost-year in Rønne and the innkeeper, Mariela Jensen (no relation to Bjorn, she explained with a grin), well remembered her, welcomed her brother, showed him to the same room which she had had, and offered him the same terms, which he accepted.

Sitting on a strange bed, in a strange room, listening to the noises of a strange city, Mikkel allowed himself to wonder, just for a moment, what he'd gotten himself into. But he had a job and a place to stay, and he was hungry. He trotted downstairs to seek his first meal in Rønne.

After working hard moving crates for six days, Mikkel had a day off and decided to use it visiting Hilmar's friends whose names he'd been given as people who would be happy to improve his Icelandic. Mikkel had learned Icelandic from notes written by his great-grandmother Signe, who'd done a remarkably good job of writing out grammar and vocabulary lessons, but since he'd never heard a native speaker before meeting Hilmar, his accent was terrible.

Margrét Haraldsdóttir was delighted at the chance to talk to him and correct his pronunciation. Indeed, she was so enthusiastic that after several hours he pled that his brain was full, and fled. After a couple of beers he conceded to himself that she really had improved his accent. It helped that, though he could read and write Icelandic quite well thanks to Signe's excellent lessons, he'd never actually tried to speak the language to anyone before meeting Hilmar and consequently had not ingrained his incorrect pronunciations in his memory. Listening to Hilmar and now Margrét was also training his ear about the sounds to expect.

In short, with intensive lessons for a few hours once a week for several months, he thought he should be able to become quite fluent in the language though he would never sound like a native; he was too old to completely shed his Danish accent. He was satisfied with this plan.

Margrét's a nice girl, really. Smart. And she has that long red hair and beautiful green eyes … but she's really enthusiastic about correcting me. Not just my accent but … everything about me. My clothes, even, like I have anything better to wear. Hmm. I'd like a girlfriend but … I think … not Margrét.

His job as a dockworker filled Mikkel's days. Mostly he moved crates, but Bjorn quickly realized that he could be trusted to make deliveries as well, and so he began to be sent around the city pushing a wheelbarrow with some important item aboard. He had asked for and gotten a look at the old map of the city in Bjorn's office; though the city had burned, the rebuilt city had largely used the old streets. Mikkel had not obtained a compass yet, but within the city he didn't really need it; he paid careful attention to landmarks and soon was able to travel anywhere in the city without hesitation. By the end of each workday he had tired himself out so thoroughly that he wished only to eat and crawl into bed.

Once a week, without fail, Mikkel visited Margrét or another of Hilmar's friends, Gunnar. Gunnar was less helpful than Margrét in some ways and more so in others, for he preferred talking to listening and had a great fund of stories, none of which Mikkel thought would be appropriate to repeat back at the farm. Still, listening to Gunnar trained his ear well.

And so the weeks passed, and then the months, and quite suddenly Mikkel realized that it was Spring. He had told Bjorn that he would leave in the Spring and so it was no surprise that he did, though Bjorn assured him that he would be welcome to return anytime. Mariela, too, let him know that he'd be welcomed back. Margrét and Gunnar were sorry to say goodbye, but they did both assure him that his Icelandic was much improved and that he would not embarrass himself in speaking to his brother-in-law.

Mikkel slung his duffel bag over his shoulder and set forth in the morning, carefully comparing what he saw around him to the landmarks he'd memorized, and by afternoon he was walking up the lane to the Madsen farm, with all the familiar sights and sounds and smells around him. Mette had been watching for him every day for two weeks, and she all but bowled him over as she charged down the lane and threw herself into his arms.

It was good to be home.

It was good to be home.

Mikkel's mother, Freja, welcomed him home as if from the jaws of death, and the whole family had a picnic the next day, with strict instructions to all parties that there would be no pranks and no food-fights, and indeed there were none. The bunk which Mikkel had chosen when he moved into the bunkhouse at age twelve was still waiting for him, and there were fields to plow and sow, baby animals to tend, and storm damage to be repaired, plenty of work for him to throw himself into. Much as she loved him, Mette seldom followed him about these days, for she now had her own vegetable and herb garden to tend, but they did find time to visit her favorite frog pond now and then through the Spring and Summer, and the occasional frog rather mysteriously made it into Mille's bedroom.

Hilmar agreed that Mikkel's accent was much improved, but also that he needed more practice, so Mikkel arranged to spend an afternoon with Maja and Hilmar once or twice a week, speaking Icelandic. Mette joined him, of course, expressing great regret that Hilmar had refused to teach her any unfortunate stories to pass on to her innocent big brother. Mikkel chuckled at that, remembering all the stories that Gunnar had taught him, none of which he would repeat to his baby sister.

Malthe and Martin, Mikkel's little brothers, now fourteen and eleven, had declined to learn Icelandic over the winter, troubling Mikkel. Three quarters of the human race spoke Icelandic and most of those could not understand Danish at all. The long isolation of Madsen farm was coming to an end, Mikkel thought, and his generation needed to learn to communicate with the majority of the human population.

Mikkel's suggestion to his little brothers that they should join him and Mette in learning Icelandic was met about as he should have expected: Martin kicked his feet out from under him and the two of them pounced on him, trying to wrestle him into submission. He was taller and heavier than they were, years more experienced, and stronger than both brothers put together, but he was already tired from working all morning and the battle was two to one, so they were all three panting by the time he managed to pin their legs with his body and grip a pair of wrists with each big hand.

“Yield! I yield!” they cried together, while Mette, smaller than any of them and wise enough to stay back, cheered shrilly for her champion. Mikkel stood up with a brother under each arm, carried them still struggling breathlessly to Maja's cottage, deposited them unceremoniously in front of their sister and brother-in-law, and announced straight-faced that they had decided to learn Icelandic. An attempted escape ended with Mikkel pinning their wrists again, and they concluded that learning was the better part of valor.

The next attempt at educating his little brothers worked out similarly, and it quickly became a regular event, and occasionally the boys even won. The penalty then was that Mikkel was required to read “Just So Stories” to them all afternoon. As they began to gather an audience of young Madsens, Mikkel insisted that, if he won, they all had to go learn Icelandic, and if he lost, then he would read to them all. Shortly Hilmar found himself running classes once or twice a week for half a dozen young people and, of course, Mikkel.

It was good to be home.

For about six months.

Leaning against a tree, Mikkel watched the falling stars above the cow pasture. The fixed stars glittered in the clear, moonless sky of late Summer, the Great Bear spread out before him. A trace of the Lights shimmered off to his left.

A star fell.

Mikkel shifted a little. He'd been sitting there for hours watching the sunset and then the falling stars, and his left leg was starting to go numb.

I shouldn't have lost my temper.

“Alfred's got a line on an immune colt, and if we get it, he says in a decade or so the whole herd can be immune.”

“And how much is this colt? How likely is he to grow up healthy? And what kind of problems are we going to run into with inbreeding?” Michael's voice was deeply dubious.

“Well, uh, … Alfred thinks —”

“Mikkel, what would we do with an immune herd?”

“We could sell them to Norway or Sweden, just as we do the cattle.” In the early weeks after the borders were closed, government agents had dropped by the Madsen farm to test for immunity. It turned out that Michael and Kirsten had both been immune and, surprisingly, so had one of Kirsten's heifers. The family had immediately set to work breeding from that heifer to produce their immune herd, which was highly valued for export to the continental nations.

“Horses don't travel as well as cattle. Sending them overseas probably wouldn't work.”

“Okay, yeah, so we can keep them here, sell them on the island …”

“We don't need immune horses on the island. The island is safe —” Michael broke off, realizing he'd said exactly the wrong thing to his brother.

“It's not safe! What if there's another one out there?”

“There isn't. We burned the forest, and the Scouts —”

“They say there aren't any! They said there weren't any before! What if we hadn't stumbled across it? There are vermin all over the place! What if vermin beasts had gotten in with the livestock?” Mikkel's voice had risen to a shout. “What if the horses — or the pigs — or, or the dogs — what if they get infected? How can we protect the non-immunes when we're surrounded by non-immune animals? How many more —”

“Stop it!” Michael was shouting too now. “It's over! Let it go! It was a fluke and —”

Freja ran between them. “Don't fight, please don't fight! Michael, don't shout at him!”

Mikkel looked down at his mother, her head not even reaching his shoulder, and then back at Michael, betrayed. He'd thought Michael — at least Michael — understood. He spun away and ran.

Leaning against a tree, Mikkel watched the falling stars above the cow pasture. He hadn't broken his word to his father, for he'd only given his word that he wouldn't retreat to the log cabin and it was — he looked to his left — a good thirty meters away.

Another star fell.

Mikkel liked to watch the skies, day or night. His eyes needn't struggle with distances or shapes, and could just see.

There was a glow to his right, someone coming up the cowpath. Michael would be looking for him, of course. Mikkel turned his head away, closed his eyes to protect his night vision. Footsteps beside him, the clink of the lamp being opened, the candle blown out.

Mette sat down and leaned companionably against him. “Why do stars always fall on your birthday?” He'd turned eighteen just three days before.

“I don't know. Grandma Anne says they always fell in mid-August, even before I was born.” He put his arm around her shoulders.

“Do they ever fall around here? I'd like a falling star all my very own.”

“If I ever find one, I'll bring it to you.”

Another star fell.

“Michael's mad at you, you know.”

“He has every right to be. I shouted at him.”

“Well, he shouted at you too. And Mom's mad at Michael. And Dad's mad at both of you.”

“They shouldn't be mad at Michael.”

“What did you mean? About vermin beasts?”

Mikkel closed his eyes in the starlight. So far as he'd been able to tell, she really didn't remember anything about it. “Well. When you were just a tiny little thing, there were some vermin beasts deep in the forest, very far from the farm. I found them when I was exploring and … and I killed them all. They're all dead. And then the Cleansers burned the forest to make sure, and the Scouts come out in Spring and Fall to make even more sure. So there aren't any vermin beasts.”

“But you said —”

“Dear heart, maybe I don't always think too clearly about vermin beasts.”

She leaned over to throw her arms around his neck and hug him with all her eight-year-old strength. “Did they hurt you?”

“No.” There was so much more to say; there was Pettar, and there were the nightmares, but — no.

She sat back. “I'm immune too.”

“I know.”

Another star fell.

They watched together quietly, Mette leaning her head against his shoulder and occasionally murmuring comments on the Lights or the falling stars. After a while he saw that she'd fallen asleep.

I should take her back to the farmhouse. You never know … but I'm here to protect her. He lifted her into his lap and wrapped his strong arms around her, resting his chin on top of her head.

Another star fell.

When Michael came searching for them in the morning they were asleep, Mette still in Mikkel's lap, wrapped in his arms, and Mikkel's cheek atop her head. He gazed at them with mixed annoyance and affection, but affection had the upper hand when he turned away to return to the farmhouse and report to his parents that Mikkel and Mette were safe and had spent the night stargazing.

Mikkel stopped hammering immediately when the light in the chicken coop was reduced. He turned to find Maja standing in the doorway.

“Mikkel —” Her face crumpled in grief and she began to sob.

“Maja!” He dropped the hammer on his foot, kicked it aside, and hastened to her, drawing her into his arms. And now she was crying against his shoulder while he peered past her, looking for problems, listening for alarms. But all seemed quiet so … “Maja, what — who?”

“It's, it's … Margrét. And Gunnar. They tried —”

“To go home,” Mikkel finished for her softly. She nodded miserably, sobbing harder.

In the first decades after the Great Dying, nothing ventured out to sea but warships, and they went in convoys, but the oceans are wide and deep, and sharks are always hungry. There had been many poisoned sharks, but there were also few surviving leviathans. Even still, though, a ship might be lost every year or two out in the deep ocean.

It's happened again. The monsters reached out and attacked innocents again. And I'm here fixing chicken coops when I could be … could be …

He hugged Maja gently. “Does Hilmar know?”

She shook her head, tried to pull herself together. “He's … he's up at the cow pasture. Alfred came back from Rønne and told me …”

“Do you want me to tell him? I'll go if you want.”

“No.” She sniffed, pulled away, wiped her eyes. “I'll tell him. She —” Maja had to stop for a moment. “She introduced us.”

“I'm sorry, Maja. They were really good people. They were my friends too.”

“I know.” And then she was gone, running away, still wiping her eyes.

Mikkel slowly picked up the hammer and began to pound in the nails. He would finish the task.

“I'm going away again.”

Mette looked at him sadly. “And you won't take me with you.”

“No, I can't. I'm sorry, baby sister.”

“Will you come back?”

Mikkel winced. She hadn't asked when he would come back, but whether he would come back at all. So she felt the same thing he'd come to feel, that he didn't belong to the farm anymore.

“I'll come back when I can. For a while. I don't know when that will be. I'll send word to you …” He didn't know when he'd be back, what he'd be doing, or even where he'd be going, but he had to do something.

He had to find a way to hit back at the monsters.

Mikkel owned very little, just his clothing, the books he'd acquired over the years, and his salvaged tools. The clothing he crammed into his duffel bag; the books and tools he left with Michael to be lent to anyone who wanted or needed them, all but his precious eyescrews which he carefully divided, taking half with him and leaving the rest with Mette to keep safe. She of course knew how he used them to compensate for his clumsiness, having followed him around for years as he worked, but she would keep the secret.

To keep goodbyes from becoming too painful, Mikkel explained to all, truthfully if perhaps not completely, that he was going to Rønne for an indefinite time but would try to come back to help with the Spring planting, four months away. To his cousins in the bunkhouse, he added that he was giving up his bunk. If that surprised anyone, they said nothing.

His close family felt his separation from the life of the farm more keenly, hugging him as if for the last time. Mette had done her crying during the night and got through the goodbyes with mostly dry eyes, and it was his mother, Freja, who cried that morning, holding him tight until his father gently pulled her away into his own embrace and told Mikkel, “Just go now, son.” And so Mikkel went, riding with Alfred in the carriage on one of his regular journeys to the city, in unusually warm and pleasant early winter weather.

Alfred and Mikkel were quiet people and neither felt the need to fill the silence of the journey with idle chatter. After the initial greetings, they scarcely spoke until they reached the Old Soldier Inn and Alfred, swinging down off the carriage, suggested, “Beer?” and Mikkel agreed, “Sure.”

Once they were settled with their beer at the same table they had used before, Alfred took a deep draught and sighed with pleasure. “Need any help?” he enquired.

“No. Thank you.” Mikkel sipped his beer more slowly.

“Planning to stay for a while?”

“Yes.”

They drank together in silence, and Mikkel signalled for a second round.

“Be careful, cousin,” Alfred said after a while, his second beer half gone. “This city is not our home and these are not our people.” Mikkel nodded his understanding, there being nothing to say about that. After a minute or two, the older man continued, “The women … the women will steal your heart and laugh at your pain.” Jumping to his feet, he threw a coin on the table for his round. “Work to do. Good luck, Mikkel.” Before Mikkel, also on his feet, had fumbled out his own coin, Alfred was out the door.

Mikkel slowly sat back down and began to sip his beer again. Between his undeniable trauma, his isolated and sheltered upbringing, and the natural self-absorption of youth, he had not before considered that other people might have suffered traumas as devastating to them as his own was to him. He wondered, now, what had happened to Alfred in this city and, selfishly, what he himself might suffer.

He thought about Michael, who had lost his heart to Alma the day he met her, and what might have happened to him had she rejected him and laughed at his pain. He thought about the young women to whom Alma had introduced him, especially Kerith and Astrid. They had not stolen his heart, nor had he given it to either of them, and yet he had cared for them. Astrid had slapped him and he accepted that, for he had deliberately insulted her for reasons which had seemed good at at the time. Kerith had thrown a drink in his face and that had hurt and humiliated him. It still hurt him, for he hadn't meant to insult her; he'd been trying to explain how he felt, how he was. And the women here, in Rønne? Would they too hurt him?

As he sipped his beer, Mikkel built another wall around his soul.

Finishing his beer, Mikkel waved off the server, Carryn, and approached the inn-keeper, Arne. “I'd like a room for the night, and maybe more nights; I'm not sure. Lunch and supper today, breakfast tomorrow.”

“Going to work at the docks again?” Evidently Alfred had told the man about Mikkel.

“I hope not. I hope to join the Guard.”

“Ah.” Arne patted a well-worn truncheon that lay on the bar. “I can deal with a few ruffians myself, but the City Guard is good for picking up the pieces when I'm done.”

“Not the City Guard. The Rash Guard.”

“Oh!” The inn-keeper looked him over. “Yes, you're a likely-looking young man; they could use you. Not enough volunteers for that job, I fear, for all it's essential. If I were twenty years younger … but then, I'm not. So, room and board for tonight, and we'll see about later.” The price was less even than Morten had specified, and Mikkel was glad to take the room and gladder still, when Carryn brought him his lunch, to find that Saffi's cooking was superb.

With his duffel bag safely stowed in his small rented room, after lunch Mikkel left the inn, oriented himself by visible landmarks, and set forth confidently to the Guard headquarters.

“Mikkel Madsen,” the Guard Commander said thoughtfully. “There was the Madsen Farm Outbreak three or four years ago. Your family?”

“Yes, sir.” The Madsen name was common enough that a random individual with that surname might not have belonged to Mikkel's family.

The Commander examined him narrowly. “You were the immune on the spot,” he concluded.

“Yes, sir.” Mikkel did not allow his gaze to waver as he answered.

The Commander stood, extended his hand to shake as Mikkel hastily stood as well. “Welcome to the Rash Guard, Mikkel Madsen. We can use a man who thinks on his feet and does what has to be done.”

Just that quickly, Mikkel was a member of the Rash Guard, one of those who protected the island of Bornholm, the last redoubt of Denmark, against the grosslings that might make their way across the seas. Of course, he couldn't just set to work; there was training to be done.

After a week of shouting invective at him, the marksmanship trainer concluded that since his stance and positioning were correct yet he still couldn't hit anything he aimed at, it was impossible for her to train him further, and she gave up. Mikkel did have some useful skills, however; years of searching for strayed cattle and pigs had made him a good tracker, and so he was assigned to the Shore Guard, those who patrolled on-shore for any incursions, while the Coast Guard sailed off-shore to try to prevent any grosslings from getting as far as the shore.

After staying two weeks at the Old Soldier Inn, Mikkel bade a reluctant farewell to Saffi's cooking and departed to receive his duty assignment.

Checking in at the Guards headquarters in the morning, Mikkel was assigned to a squad of eight, two women and six men including him, responsible for a stretch of the southern beaches. Issued a knapsack, good hiking boots, a warm heavy coat, and two uniforms of sturdy black trousers and gray shirts, he returned to the Old Soldier Inn to ask Arne if he might store his duffel bag at the inn. “Of course, a small favor for Alfred's cousin,” the other said at once, surprising Mikkel, who had not known how good a friend his older cousin was to the inn-keeper. “Good luck in the Guard.” And with that Mikkel picked up his weapons, a shotgun, pistol, and flare gun, in addition to his own dagger, and departed for the southern beaches in his new uniform.

Arriving at the squad's bunkhouse around noon, Mikkel stepped inside quietly to find a modest room with four sets of bunks along the walls, a large wooden table in the middle with half a dozen chairs, and at the back a pot-bellied stove which kept the room pleasantly warm, a counter, various cooking gear, sacks of supplies, and a floor-to-ceiling cabinet. The room was lit by high narrow windows above the bunks.

Four bunks were occupied; to his left as he entered, the top bunk was occupied by a woman, average height, short-haired, dark blonde or light brunette, curled on her side with only her face showing from under the blankets; the bunk below held a large man who was curled up turned away from Mikkel, so that all that could be seen of him was his roughly-cut black hair. To Mikkel's right the two bunks were empty but made up; beyond them was another empty pair, of which the upper bunk lacked any bedclothes. Presuming that was his, Mikkel quietly placed his knapsack on it and turned to regard the last pair, which were occupied by two men, both much smaller than Mikkel with short dark hair. Little else could be seen through the blankets.

There being nothing else to do inside, Mikkel went back out and slowly circled the bunkhouse, the outhouse some twenty meters away, and a second outbuilding which proved to be a washroom, looking for loose or damaged planks or anything else he might repair, but concluding sadly that given a hammer and some nails, he could fix every problem he saw in little more than an hour or two.

Studying the snowy forest beyond the beach, he was interrupted by the crunch of footsteps from his left and turned to greet the newcomers, a tall blond man, taller even than Mikkel himself though much lighter in build, and a red-headed woman slightly above average height and slender, both wearing uniforms similar to Mikkel's own and bearing rifles slung over their shoulders and pistols and daggers at their hips. Both were right-handed based on the positions of the pistols. The man wore a ginger cat draped across his shoulders.

The two introduced themselves as Noah Jensen and Sara Thomsen, and the cat as Dusk. “We're the west-daylight team,” Sara explained. “We patrol for about eight kilometers to the west of the bunkhouse from six in the morning to six in the evening. You'll be on the east-daylight team with Mathias Møller; he's patrolling alone right now so you need to catch up with him over there.

“And — Mikkel, did you say? — Noah and I are partners, in every sense of the word. So are Lucas and Rikke. Is that clear? Don't even think of trying anything.”

Mikkel blinked in surprise. His romantic life had veered from unhappy to non-existent, but he didn't think any part of it justified that sort of response from a woman. Still, “Understood,” he assured her. “I, um, guess I'll go find, ah, Mathias now.” He hurried away from the two, passed the bunkhouse, and headed along the beach, following the footprints of the other Guard. Within perhaps fifteen minutes, he saw the man ahead of him, striding along studying the sands, a large tabby cat draped across his shoulders.

Calling “Hi!” Mikkel jogged through the fine sand, being careful to stay in the churned-up path so as not to obliterate any suspicious prints. “I'm Mikkel Madsen,” he explained hastily as he caught up with the man. “I'm supposed to join your team.” He watched the man uncertainly, worried that this man would exhibit the same hostility as the previous team.

“Mathias Møller. This is Dawn. We're very pleased to meet you. Really need two sets of eyes for this job.” They shook hands, Mathias having a stronger grip than Mikkel had expected from this slender man a head shorter than him. Mathias was another dark blond, with blue eyes, a faint scatter of freckles across his tanned cheeks, and a nose slightly crooked as if broken once upon a time. The cat, Dawn, deigned to sniff at Mikkel's fingers before yawning widely and closing her eyes again. “Come along, then. We'll go slow for a couple of circuits so you can learn the landmarks. You want to watch the shore there, just above the waves; look for any kind of tracks coming up.

“We haven't had a grossling come ashore in the two years I've served — well, almost two years. The Coast Guard is good about getting them before they reach us but those boats can't be everywhere. I'm told that sea-grosslings are going to be slow on land. Hope so, anyway, so they can't make it to the trees before we get them. Hate to think of grosslings up there in the forest.” He paused, looking up at the secondary growth that lined the limit of the sand.

Mikkel looked up at the trees and bushes as well, thinking of grosslings in the forest. That was nothing he wanted to remember so he pushed away the images, studied the trees only long enough to pick out landmarks: an oddly-shaped branch here, a fallen tree there. They moved on.

“Is there some reason that Sara Thomsen … doesn't like me?” Mikkel asked after they had walked in silence for some time.

“Oh!” The other actually laughed. “Did she tell you not to try anything?”

“Yes, in just those words.”

“Ha! She said she would! It's not you though. As soon as she heard the replacement was another man, she said she was going to tell him that. And she did!”

“But why?”

“Nobody told you about Bjorn? Bjorn Hansen?”

Mikkel searched his memory. “I don't think I know that name.”

“Well, you're replacing him. You're replacing him because he quit. Because he was asked to quit. Asked quite forcefully, in fact. He got the idea that Sara needed a new partner, and he didn't want to take no for an answer. We don't need any more of that.”

“Oh, there won't be any more of that,” Mikkel assured him fervently. Given prior experiences, he had no intention of approaching any woman who came equipped with dagger and firearms.

Mathias laughed again, punched him lightly on the shoulder, and told him, “I think we'll make a good team, Mikkel Madsen. Welcome!”

“The other four?” Mikkel asked after a bit.

“Frederik Larsen is the squad leader. He and Malthe Petersen are the west-night team. Both been in the Guards a while, four years and almost four, I think. Lucas Nielsen and Rikke Frandsen are the east-night team, both in the Guards three years. You don't get the night watch till you have some real experience. Lucas and Rikke are partners; I'm sure Sara made that clear.”

“Oh, yes. Very clear.”

“They're all good people. Good Guards. Tidy. I hope you're tidy?” He glanced at Mikkel sidelong.

“I'm very tidy,” Mikkel assured him. Mikkel wanted nothing so much as a place for everything and everything in its place, properly cleaned up and in good repair. Falling in with a squad of equally tidy people would be a genuine pleasure for him.

Mathias's early chatter was merely a nervous reaction to a new teammate, Mikkel supposed. Once they'd walked their assigned patrol from one end to the other, they fell into a comfortable silence as they began another patrol.

They were on their way back from their last patrol of the day when they encountered Lucas and Rikke heading out for their first patrol. The two teams stopped so that Mikkel could meet the night team, with Lucas, the large, dark-haired man Mikkel had seen before, doing his unsuccessful best to crush the new man's hand while dark-blonde Rikke smirked at the two men, clearly enjoying the silent contest but having no desire to join any hazing. The teams parted with casual waves, Mathias passing Dawn over to ride on Rikke's shoulders, and Mikkel and Mathias returned to the bunkhouse, having a few hours of free time before taking to their bunks.

Frederik and Malthe were gone as expected, but Sara and Noah were not there. Mathias waved a casual hand toward the forest to their north. “Those two are often late coming in,” he half-explained. “Take a look in here.” He gestured at the cabinet at the back of the room.

Spare bedclothes for all bunks were in the cabinet, one shelf of which was assigned to each squad-member. Mikkel was pleased to see that they all kept their spare clothes neatly folded and organized on their shelves, just as he liked his own clothes. He was also pleased to find a hammer, goggles, and a small box of nails, all of which he appropriated as soon as he'd stowed his clothes and made up his bunk.

“What do you want with the hammer?” Mathias asked.

“Loose boards. Repairs to be made.” Mikkel was impatient to get to work during the brief hours when everyone was awake and he could hammer without disturbing anyone.

“Okayyy. You're not really obliged to take care of that your first day, you know.”

Mikkel shrugged on his way out the door. It wasn't a matter of obligation.

Mikkel fit well into the squad. They were all quiet people who walked their patrols diligently even though none of them had ever actually spotted a sea-grossling, and they generally played cards in their free time. They taught Mikkel a variety of card games including poker, though they never played for money, instead playing for sea shells so as to avoid the risk of bad blood if anyone lost heavily, as Mikkel did at first.

When, a week after his arrival, Mikkel found his bunk short-sheeted upon his return from patrol, he was pleased rather then annoyed, for it indicated both that he was accepted as part of the team and that pranks were permitted. As the juniormost team member, however, he didn't feel he should engage in any major pranks. Not yet, at least.

Three weeks passed in a pleasant fashion and then they had a week's vacation when they were required to leave and make room for the “stand-in squad”, as they were called, a squad of highly experienced Guards who moved from bunkhouse to bunkhouse, relieving the regular squads. A duty cycle was five weeks patrolling and one week off, but Mikkel's first duty cycle was short since he had joined two weeks in, replacing Bjorn Hansen after his sudden departure.

Hiking back to Rønne with Mathias, Lucas, and Rikke, Mikkel considered what to do for a week. He could return to the farm, of course, but to return after only five weeks, in the middle of Winter … no, he didn't think he would do that. There was the library in Rønne, but after three weeks of spending his free hours sitting around playing cards, he didn't think he could sit still and read for a week.

Reaching the Old Soldier Inn, Mikkel paused outside, regarding the building narrowly. The problem with his vision was that objects didn't naturally form gestalts for him and he often had to concentrate to force them to do so. A side-effect of this was that he tended to see details quite well and a crooked or discolored board stood out prominently for him. He walked slowly around the Inn and its stables, noting every problem, and then went inside to talk to Arne.

“There's several days' worth of repairs that the inn could use,” he began. “Since I have a week's vacation, I would really like to work on that.”

The innkeeper frowned at him. “Have those sharks been teaching you to play poker?”

“Well, yes, they — oh! It's not that I'm out of money; we played for seashells. It's just that I, I don't want to sit around idle for a week. And there is that work to be done.”

“Hmm. All right. Go ahead if you wish. When you finish, we'll talk about your pay.”

“No, I, I don't mean to push you to pay for repairs that you didn't mean to make —”

“As you say, the work does need to be done. Go ahead. We'll talk about it later.”

And so Mikkel spent a happy four days carefully straightening boards and replacing those that were damaged, and was rehanging a shutter when he heard Arne say, “You see?”

“He does have that reputation.” That was Alfred's voice, amused, and Mikkel just missed stabbing his hand with the screwdriver in his surprise. Looking over, he called, “Just a moment, Alfred.”

“Don't hurry on my account, cousin. There'll be a beer waiting for you when you finish.”

Mikkel didn't hurry. Haste always made his clumsiness worse and tended to cause injury. With the shutter properly rehung, he climbed carefully down from the ladder and carried it and all his tools to the proper storage in the stables before joining Alfred inside the inn.

“How's the Shore Guard?”

“Quiet.” Mikkel took a deep draught of his beer. “My partner says there hasn't been an incursion in years. We still have to patrol though. If one got through …”

“Understood.” After a contemplative sip, Alfred went on, “Partner?”

“Teammate. Nothing more. There are women in the squad but they have found partners — in all senses — already.”

Alfred nodded. “Just as well, really. Wouldn't want jealousy in a squad like that.”

“No. That's how my predecessor on the team got himself asked to quit.”

Alfred nodded again, took another sip, and they finished their beer in silence.

Signalling for another round, Mikkel asked, “How are things on the farm?”

“Quiet. Waiting out the Winter. I lost a good mare. She stepped in a hole somehow, broke her leg. Nothing I could do.” He sighed in genuine grief, downed a third of his beer.

“Sorry.” After a moment Mikkel went on, “What about that immune colt? I've earned some money; maybe we could — you and I could — get him anyway?”

“No, not him. Already sold to someone else. But if his sire and dam threw one immune, they may throw another. And even a mare would help. She'd be less expensive, too.”

“Any luck on other animals? Pigs? Dogs?”

“Not on the island, not that I've found. We'd have to send to Norway, probably. And even together we don't have the money for that.”

Mikkel sighed. “No, I suppose not. But we need them!” He didn't know if Alfred was immune; he had never asked. At least the older cousin understood the need to surround non-immunes with immune livestock, even if he himself was immune and therefore safe.

“I know. Morten and Michael don't see it that way, though.”

They finished their beer in silence and then it was time for Alfred to go back to the farm while Mikkel took a sponge bath, scrubbed his work clothes, had an excellent supper, and prowled around the inn some more, looking for anything that he might repair.

Having repaired everything he could, Mikkel accepted Arne's offer to forgive him the fee for room and board for the week in exchange for his work, and spent the remainder of his vacation at the town's library. The library was not a lending library; books were now so rare that such institutions no longer existed. Mikkel was permitted to take a single book to a desk within the library and read it, returning it for inspection by the librarian before he was permitted another. If the book proved to have been damaged by his hands, he would be banished from the library. He was, therefore, extremely careful with the books.

After a week, Mikkel returned to the bunkhouse on the beach and took up his duties once more.

Three weeks of spending his evenings playing cards had been more than enough for Mikkel; five weeks would be unendurable. Approaching the squad leader, Frederik Larsen, he asked hesitantly if he might be permitted to join the west-night patrol for a few hours each night, so as to become familiar with the terrain and the process.

Frederik favored him with an amused smile. “You just can't sit still, can you? Well, I do understand. Sure, come along with us. Three sets of eyes are better than two, after all.”

They spent several days patrolling in comfortable silence before Frederik asked, “So, Mikkel, why did you join the Guards?”

Mikkel gave him a surprised look, thinking the answer obvious.

“Well, yes, of course you wish to protect the island,” Frederik answered his unspoken thought. “But most Guards are from the coastal cities, not from the interior like you. So how did you find your way to the Guards?”

Mikkel looked off into the darkling sea beyond the reach of their lanterns. “My sister married an Icelander. Two of their friends — my friends — died when their ship was lost to a leviathan last summer.”

“I heard of that,” Frederik said somberly. “It was an Icelandic ship with an Icelandic naval vessel as escort so we didn't get the full story, but what I heard was that it was an equipment failure. The sonar failed.”

“It's a wonder any of them still work at all,” Mikkel observed. “And one day they won't work any more.” The surviving population was simply too small to produce new electronics in addition to everything else required for survival, and so all their electronics were relics from before the Great Dying, eight decades old, maintained by cannibalizing some to repair others as they failed.

“There's a scientist in Sweden,” Malthe put in, “who says the victory of the Rash was so complete in the Great Dying that there are no non-immune mammals left anywhere in the world except where we humans protect them. And since grosslings don't — can't — breed, the grosslings that are out there now are all the grosslings there will ever be. So every one we kill now is one step towards the ultimate conquest over the Rash.”

“Yeah, it's a race between the rate at which we kill the leviathans and the rate at which the sonar devices fail,” Frederik answered.

“We'll lose,” Mikkel replied bleakly, thinking of the vastness of the oceans and all the life within them.

“It's not completely hopeless,” Malthe told him sharply. “You don't have to use electronics to detect grosslings in the sea.”

“Cats don't have the range,” Mikkel objected. Cats had a strange sense for grosslings, not understood but known not to be based on sight, sound, or scent. Still, their sense had a limited range.

“I don't mean cats. There are supposed to be mechanical devices that will work. I'm not a mechanic, but that's what I heard. Scientists are trying to find solutions that our population can produce and maintain instead of relying on what's left from the Old World.”

Mikkel looked over at him respectfully. Malthe didn't talk much but when he did, he was always informed and interesting.

There being nothing more to say, they continued to patrol in silence.

For five weeks Mikkel spent twelve hours patrolling with Mathias and several more hours patrolling with Frederik and Malthe before scrubbing his uniform and hanging it on the end of his bunk to dry, playing a few hands of cards with the other three members of the day teams, and then falling satisfied into bed.

Returning to Rønne for a week, Mikkel moved back into the Old Soldier Inn and went to the port to check with Bjorn Jensen to see if he had any work. As indeed he did, Mikkel worked for him for that week, spending his free time at the library.

The Guards had a policy of moving squads around so that each Guard could become familiar with each area and thus could be reassigned as needed, so Mikkel's squad was reassigned to western cliffs for the next tour of duty. As he had come to be a bit bored with the beaches, this was a great pleasure for Mikkel. The days were getting longer, but were still shorter than the nights; he looked forward to the equinox, after which he would be able to actually explore alone by daylight.

For the one week break, he simply walked home to the farm and set to work. There were fields to prepare and livestock to care for, keeping him happily as busy as he desired. Despite the efforts of his sisters Maja and Mille to find him a girlfriend, he remained unattached. His tact had improved and he managed not to insult any of the young women he spent time with, but somehow he seemed unable to form any emotional connection to them, and at the end of the week he trotted back to his duty station, still alone.

That was the pattern of Mikkel's life for the year 75 of the Rash, and into the year 76: he served in a new location every few months, working in Rønne during his winter breaks, and on the farm during the breaks in the rest of the year, and remaining forever alone.

In July of the Year 76 of the Rash, Mikkel was back on the beaches, still teamed with Mathias, but now as the west-daylight team. Dusk preferred his shoulders to Mathias's rather narrower shoulders, and so she was riding on him in the late morning when the teammates stopped in their tracks, staring at churned-up sand.

“That's — that's —” Mathias began.

“Something came out of the water and went up to the forest,” Mikkel stated grimly. He pulled out his flare gun, loaded it with a red flare, and fired. The flare produced a flash of red light and a cloud of red smoke, indicating a grossling on land. He also had yellow flares, indicating a probable grossling, and green flares for all-clear.

“It's not that sure …” Mathias said hesitantly.

“Nothing else in these waters would go straight up the beach into the forest.” Mikkel had his shotgun ready and was following the trail across the beach. “It's got a bunch of legs, or maybe there's more than one. Or both.” Behind him, Mathias fired his own red flare and then hurried to catch up. Mikkel paused to set Dusk down, and his teammate moved ahead, being the senior by almost two years.

There are grosslings in the forest. It was the nightmare brought back to reality, and Mikkel all but vibrated with tension.

It all happened very fast. Dusk screeched suddenly and charged into the bushes, Mikkel spun toward the sound, Mathias was focused ahead and was slow turning back. Mikkel's involuntary cry of “Dusk! Stop!” saved Mathias's life, for the troll charging out of the bushes lunged towards Mikkel and so slammed sideways into the other man, throwing him aside.

Mikkel's shotgun spoke, the troll fell dead just meters in front of him, another movement caught his eye, and the shotgun came up and spoke again without conscious thought on his part. The two trolls were relatively small, perhaps fifty kilograms, each with six multijointed legs and a long tentacle that stretched forward like an elephant's trunk above a powerful beaked mouth. They had multiple eyes scattered about their misshapen skulls.

Mikkel turned in place, reloading his shotgun without looking at it, scanning bushes and trees for motion. The birds, silenced by the shots, began to twitter once more; Mathias lay in a crumpled heap, unmoving. Mikkel knelt beside him, gently felt his head and along his spine; he had hit his head against a tree and was knocked out but apparently otherwise uninjured.

There are grosslings in the forest. I've got to find them … but … but he's hurt. I've got to take him to safety. I can't leave him here unconscious or they will find him and kill him … but I can't let them escape …

The decision was made for him by the sound of whistles off to his left. Someone had responded to the flares and smoke; someone was on the beach. Mikkel scooped up Mathias, laying the smaller man over his shoulder, and ran.

He had just reached the beach, two men there ahead of him, when something grabbed his right foot with a grip of agony and yanked backwards. Flinging Mathias away so as not to fall on him, he crashed face first into the sand and found himself being dragged towards the forest. Voices were shouting at him: “Stay down! Stay down!” Twisting around without sitting up, he brought the shotgun to bear on the massive troll that was reeling him in and fired twice while rifles cracked behind him. Though the troll was similar to the first two, it was much larger, close to two hundred kilograms, and its beaked mouth was big enough to take off his leg with one bite.

The terrible pull stopped as the troll fell forward, its beak a bare meter from his foot, but its tentacle, wrapped around his right leg from ankle to knee, did not release its grasp. As the troll wasn't moving, he tried to pull the tentacle away, was rewarded with a stab of sickening pain as his flesh tore. Feet were running towards him; a voice he did not recognize asked “Are you all right?”

“I'm okay. See to …” For a moment he couldn't think of the name of the injured man; it wasn't Pettar, no, it was … “See to Mathias. He hit his head.”

“The tentacle?” Mikkel had his dagger out and was sawing through the thing at his ankle.

“Barbed spines. I'll deal with it later. See to Mathias.” On his feet now, he glanced over at the young men who had responded to the flares. They were not the east-daylight team from his squad as he had expected; rather, they must be from the next duty station. His own squad should arrive soon, he thought, and then the Hunters, but with them watching Mathias he was free to pursue the grosslings. He limped into the forest, utterly focused on the trail and his surroundings, not even hearing the questions and objections that the two called after him.

Mikkel was actually quite a good tracker, partly because of his peculiarities of vision. A broken twig, a crushed leaf, anything out of place, stood out prominently to his eyes. He moved methodically, scanning the trail, the ground on both sides, the bushes and trees around. Finding the point where one of the trolls had veered off, he followed its trail carefully until he found the place where it had hidden and then charged at them. Ahead lay the first troll; to his right lay Dusk, her body crushed and torn. He paused to regard her sadly, then turned to follow the trail back to where the others had moved on.

Somehow there was blood and sand in his mouth; absently swiping at his face, he banged his nose, broken and bleeding. Feeling it for a moment, he understood the problem and dismissed it. He could breathe; he could track; nothing else mattered. His eyes were blackening and his eyelids were beginning to swell, making it difficult to keep his eyes open, but that too was irrelevant. He went on.

Here the second troll had turned back; he followed its track until he reached its body. Again he turned back to the main trail and continued. The trail veered to the left but perhaps thirty meters on he stopped to study the ground to the right of the trail. His gaze tracked disturbed litter that led to a larger tree and not beyond. After a moment he limped carefully towards that tree, his shotgun raised and his finger on the trigger. Not to his surprise, once he got close to the tree, a troll dropped from it, attempting to land on him. Leaping back, he stumbled over his injured right leg and fell, still getting off a shot that hit the troll off-center. Wounded, it lunged at him and met another shot that struck it squarely; it fell dead before him.

Mikkel pulled himself painfully to his feet, looking around warily. The birds had fallen silent at the sound of the shotgun but were beginning to cheep tentatively. After a careful study of the forest floor he turned back to the first trail, following it until he found the dead troll with the beach beyond it. The two Guards were sitting with Mathias, who was now awake and sitting up, and all three were keeping watch, mostly on the forest but checking the beach and the ocean itself at intervals, occasionally blowing their whistles, their firearms ready.

Mikkel stood for a long moment, torn between an irrational but powerful urge to go back into the forest and wait for the grosslings to find him, and the understanding that his duty was to join the three on the beach. He had not seen any trace of additional trolls or grosslings and yet, and yet … He rubbed his forehead as he tried to think.

What decided him was Mathias's act of blowing his whistle again. They're acting as bait! They understand! They know that there are grosslings in the forest and that we must be bait to lure them out! He limped out to join them, more falling than sitting down. Allowing his abused eyelids to close, he settled back to wait for the grosslings. Behind his eyes, images flickered of the grossling attacking Pettar, of the axe and the blood, but he pushed them aside, focusing on images of Mathias rescued, sitting up, alive.

A strange rattling noise behind him seized Mikkel's attention as he sat on the beach, making him twist around to see what might be creeping up on them. The two Guards from the next station had left when Frederik and Malthe arrived with Noah and Sara; the latter two had taken over the patrol while the former two remained to guard — that is, to act as bait — with Mikkel and Mathias. The other three looked around just as Mikkel did but all four immediately turned their attention back to the trees lest something charge at them while they were distracted. The rattling noise had come from a sailing ship dropping anchor: the Hunters had come at last.

The adrenaline that had sustained Mikkel for over an hour drained away leaving him suddenly exhausted. He didn't raise his head as a dozen Hunters ran past accompanied by several dogs and a Class A cat, looking up only when a woman shook his shoulder.

“What's your name?” she asked, studying his battered face.

“Mikkel Madsen,” he answered automatically, studying her in turn and seeing an older woman with short blonde hair going gray and faded blue eyes, a uniform like his own but with a white band around each sleeve bearing an embroidered red cross. A medic, then.

“What year is it?”

He had the lunatic impulse to answer “I don't know” or “Fifty-six” (the year of his birth) or “Blue and white flowers”, but he forced it away and answered correctly, “Seventy-six.” She was obviously evaluating him for a head injury and he probably shouldn't make things difficult for her.

“Where are we?”

“West beach of station four.” He let his abused eyelids close.

“All right. Do you have a headache?”

“No.”

“Look at me.” He opened his eyes as far as he could. “Do you have double vision?”

He looked at her and then over her shoulder at the forest. “No.”

“Look to the left. Double vision? Pain?”

“No.”

“And to the right?”

“No.”

“I'd ask you to look up and down but that's not going to work with that swelling. Okay, I guess that's good enough for now. What is this — is this a tentacle?”

“It's just … it's got barbed spines. It has to be cut out.” If he'd had to, he'd have torn it away along with whatever flesh the barbs took with them, but he hadn't had to and a surgeon could free him with less permanent damage.

“Can you stand? Can you walk? Do you need a stretcher?”

“No, no stretcher. I can walk.”

They stood together, she led him limping to the rowboat that had brought the Hunters, and the two sailors who had rowed it in helped him to board and then pushed off, the medic remaining behind as they rowed him out to the ship. Being hauled up onto the ship in the rowboat, swinging back and forth with the waves, the still intense pain from the tentacle, and the taste of blood in his mouth, were all too much for him. He just made it to the rail of the ship before losing his lunch.

He was hanging over the rail giving some consideration to simply falling in when a hand tapped his arm and a young voice urged him, “Here, rinse your mouth with this.” A very young sailor, surely no older than fourteen, with straw-blond hair raggedly cut, his blue eyes focused earnestly on Mikkel's face, stood beside him holding out a mug half full of water. Accepting and using it, he returned the mug and the younger man held out a small ball of wilted vegetable matter. “This is good for seasickness. It's kind of bitter but just chew it up and swallow it. Oh, and focus on the horizon. That's supposed to help.”

“Thank you.” Mikkel obeyed, shuddering a little at the taste of the herbs, which were far more than just “kind of” bitter, and forcing his eyes to stay open and look at the horizon. “Are you a medic?” The kid seemed young but maybe …

The sailor laughed. “No, I'm a very junior sailor and I get to scrub the deck, so I really appreciate your leaning over the rail before spewing. It's my job to keep our guests from going over the rail, too. The captain says that nobody dies of seasickness, even though you probably want to, so, you know, it really will get better.”

“What's going on?” Mikkel asked, startled, as there was a rattling sound off to his left. “Is that the anchor again, or what?”

“They're pulling up the anchor. We're setting sail to take you to Rønne.”

“But what about the Hunters?”

“Oh, they'll be busy for hours, and Maria's there, she's the medic. You've met her. Anyway, this is what we were ordered to do: bring the Hunters, collect the injured and take them back, go back to support the Hunters. Since you're the only injured, we're taking you. Um, would you like to sit down? Your leg looks kind of bad.” It was still bleeding slowly into his boot.

“Yes, thank you.” Raised always to be polite, he offered a hand to shake. “Mikkel Madsen. Am I keeping you from your duties?”

“Alberte Holm.” They shook, and the young sailor grinned widely. “My duties are whatever someone senior orders me to do, but as long as I'm taking care of you, no one will order me to do anything else.”

Miserable as he was, Mikkel chuckled. He had been a fourteen-year-old boy once, some subjective decades ago, and so allowed Alberte to lead him to some crates lashed down to the deck and settle him where he could still see the horizon. There were shouts and rattles and other noises around him, but he tuned everything out and just focused on the horizon for the endless time until the ship entered the bay of Rønne.

The anchor rattled down and Alberte showed up to assist him. “We radioed ahead and there's a carriage waiting for you,” he explained, leading Mikkel limping to the gangplank. The promised carriage was indeed there, practically on the end of the gangplank, and Mikkel climbed in painfully as the young sailor wished him good luck. The carriage was soon on its way, taking its passenger through the streets of Rønne to the Guards headquarters and their clinic — it could hardly be termed a hospital.

The driver, a man as big as Mikkel himself, with close-clipped dark hair and dark eyes, wearing a Guards uniform, offered his aid in climbing out and Mikkel regretfully accepted it as getting out was more difficult than getting in. A stern older man in white jacket and trousers stood by the door of the clinic, watching disapprovingly. “Okay, inside,” he ordered Mikkel, who obeyed with a sigh, not liking being ordered around. Inside, he was guided through a small waiting room and into a back room. “Sit on that gurney,” the man directed before poking around in a cabinet and coming up with a bottle of blue liquid from which he filled a shot glass which he held out to Mikkel, who accepted it and regarded it dubiously.

“Yes, yes, I know,” the man said irritably. “You're a rough and tough Guard. But I'm not into torture, so I'll fix your nose without anesthesia if that's what you want, but I won't tackle that troll-thing without it. So you can sit there and finish bleeding to death, or you can take your medicine like a sensible young man, have a nice nap, and let me clean up the mess you've made of yourself.”

“I didn't make this mess,” Mikkel answered with dignity before swigging down the blue stuff and stretching out on the gurney to wait. It was not long before he was fast asleep.

Mikkel awoke and opened his eyes as best he could, finding something white at close range between them. Lifting his left hand to touch and investigate it, he was stopped by a small hand on his wrist and a girl's voice: “Don't touch that.”

For a moment he thought it was Mette, but no, turning his head he saw it was a girl of about her age with hazel eyes and chestnut-brown hair in a long pony tail, wearing a white shirt and gray trousers. “Okay,” he mumbled indistinctly, then tried again more clearly. “Okay. I won't.” Now that he was fully awake, it was obvious what the thing was: a splint for his nose, taped to his face.

“Good! I'll go get Dad. I mean, the doctor.” She was out the door immediately, and he took advantage of the opportunity to sit up and dangle his feet over the edge of the gurney, finding himself to be wearing a white smock and nothing else. After gathering together his sheet to allow himself some modesty, he studied his bare right foot, turning it, extending and flexing his ankle, wiggling his toes. His leg hurt still, though not so badly as before, and everything seemed to be working normally. He hesitated to count the number of small, stitched, lacerations that wound around it from knee to ankle.

“Stop that,” the doctor ordered as he entered the room. “To answer the question you haven't asked, your tendons and ligaments are undamaged and, as I am quite a competent surgeon, all the cuts I made to extract that thing are with the grain of the muscles and will heal cleanly.” He looked Mikkel over with some admiration. “I wish all my patients were as well-muscled as you are. It would make things easier for me.

“However. I've stitched up the wounds, and if you use those excellent muscles of yours very much, you're likely to tear the stitches out. You need to stay off that leg for at least three weeks if you want it to heal properly. You do want it to heal properly, don't you?”

“Yes, sir,” Mikkel agreed.

“Right. I did think you were a sensible young man.”

“May I have my clothes?” Mikkel asked with some urgency.

“Oh, yes, certainly. Your trousers were beyond repair, of course, and you have no idea how difficult it is to come up with trousers for a man of your size on short notice, but we've managed and we've also managed to get the rest of your gear cleaned. There are some stains that won't come out though.”

Not wanting to interrupt, but very much wanting some clothing, Mikkel waited until the man stopped speaking and asked again, “May I have my clothes, sir?”

“Yes, yes. Anna! Fetch the lad his clothes!”

The girl — Anna — must have been waiting just outside the door, for she darted in at once with an armload of clothing which she deposited on the bed before giving him an encouraging smile and darting out again.

“Do you need help dressing?”

“No, I, I can manage. I'll be very careful of my leg.” He hadn't needed help dressing since he was a small child, and didn't really want this severe doctor — or worse, the daughter! — to assist him.

“Good. Dress. Here are your crutches.” The doctor brought over a pair of crutches which had been leaning in a corner and Mikkel regarded them with some dismay. Three weeks on crutches! He did not complain; his condition could have been much worse. They might have had to amputate. He shuddered a little.

The doctor looked him over once more, seemed satisfied, and left him alone to dress in a clean uniform and boots. The process was slow and awkward, but he managed it without tearing any stitches and was soon crutching across to the door. Carefully opening the door and edging through it, he was so intent on his actions that he did not at first realize that there was someone in the room.

Turning to see who was there, Mikkel was shocked to find that it was the Guard Commander in person, leaning against what appeared to be the doctor's desk. “Sir!”

The Commander regarded him thoughtfully for a moment. “Mikkel Madsen,” he said, and slowly shook his head. “Tell me, Mikkel Madsen, what is the role of the Shore Guard when an incursion is detected?”

“They — we — use flares to give notice and then stand watch until the Hunters arrive to deal with it,” Mikkel replied, remembering his initial training. This will not be a pleasant discussion.

“Whose idea was it for you and Møller to run off into the woods instead of standing watch?”

“Mine, sir.” It was true and, given what he'd done afterward, he could hardly damage his position further but might be able to help Mathias by taking as much blame as possible on himself.

“Møller says he went first.”

“He did, sir. When he saw I was going into the forest, he took point because he was senior.”

“Why did you go in at all?”

“Because —” there were grosslings in the forest “— because it might take hours for the Hunters to arrive and the trolls could go a long way in that time if they didn't notice us on the beach. We were on the spot and I thought we could kill at least some of them before they could spread the infection. Sir.”

“So you went in, with him leading. And then the troll knocked him out.”

“Yes, sir, and killed Dusk. That was our cat.”

“I knew Dusk. You shot two trolls. Why did you run?”

“Mathias — that is, Møller — was unconscious. I couldn't leave him unguarded, I couldn't fight while carrying him, and … if I just stayed with him the trolls might get away. The other team was on the beach, so I took him to them so they could protect him.”

“And then you were attacked but you went back into the forest anyway, alone and injured.”

“Yes, sir. I could still track and I could still fight. And I thought there were more trolls in there. There was at least one.”

“So far as the Hunters have been able to determine, there was only one, the one that climbed a tree, the one you shot. The Cleansers are burning the forest right now, and we'll have Scouts and Hunters assigned there for years, but it does seem that you stopped the incursion.”

Some of the tension went out of Mikkel. Whatever happened to him, at least he had stopped the incursion and Mathias was all right.

“If you go out on patrol again and you find tracks again, will you pursue the trolls? Or will you stay on guard on the beach?”

Mikkel kept his face impassive, looked the man directly in the eye. The word “if” troubled him — would he be dismissed for this incident? — but he would not lie, not about that question. “I will pursue the trolls.”

“I thought so.” Did Mikkel imagine that the Commander smiled, ever so slightly? “You do realize, Madsen, that, informal though we are, the Guards are a military organization.”

“Yes, sir.” Mikkel straightened as best he could, standing on one leg and his crutches, and still regarding the Commander steadily despite his badly swollen eyelids.

“We rather disapprove of disobedience to orders.” Mikkel said nothing. “It's an interesting point, however, that it doesn't seem that anyone ever ordered you — or any other Shore Guard — not to track a grossling incursion if you could.”

Mikkel blinked, thinking back on his training. It was true that he hadn't been ordered not to track grosslings.

“That being the case,” the Commander went on, “what we have here is a Guard — a pair of Guards — who exercised initiative and stopped an incursion. You did lose a good cat though.”

“Yes, sir,” Mikkel agreed regretfully. Dusk had been a very good cat.

“Unfortunately, few battles are bloodless. And, of course, you yourself are injured. According to Doctor Norgaard you need at least three weeks to recover. You will have six weeks' leave.” Seeing Mikkel's dismay he added, “With pay, of course.” That wasn't Mikkel's concern but he didn't argue with the Commander. “Now then, as I said, we are a military organization. As such, we have medals.”

The Commander picked up something from the desk, held it up for Mikkel to see: a gold-trimmed ribbon horizontally striped with red, white, red. Within the white stripe were four stars: gold to the left, two silver in the middle, a bronze at the right end. A small gold disk hung beneath it; Mikkel could not make out the writing on the disk. Mikkel looked at the medal, then back at the Commander in surprise.

“Yes, Madsen, you get a medal for killing trolls. A gold star for the unassisted kill; silver stars for those when Møller was with you since we consider those assisted kills; the bronze star for the assist on the one on the beach. Andersen and Sørensen — the two from the other squad — argued that you should be credited with an assisted kill for that one, but the thing was so shot up that it's impossible to tell who really killed it.” He pinned the medal to Mikkel's jacket as he spoke. “You're not required to wear the medal,” he added, rightly suspecting that Mikkel would not do so, “but it's yours. Good work, Madsen.” The Commander shook his hand formally. “Now, I have other duties. Your cousin is waiting outside to collect you.”

With that, the Commander left and Mikkel was alone.

Mikkel unpinned the medal, staring at it for a long moment before tucking it into the inner pocket of his jacket and making his way across to the outside door. He expected to find Alfred waiting for him outside and was most surprised to find Arne instead. The innkeeper looked him up and down with a slight smile and observed, “You don't look as bad as I expected. Wait here; the cart's down the street.”

As the older man strode away, Mikkel visualized his mother's diagram of the family tree and tried to figure out where Arne Larsen could fit in. He was still puzzling over this when the other returned on the inn's cart, swung down, lowered the back of the cart, and began arranging crates to form shallow stairs for Mikkel to navigate on his crutches.

“Wondering how we're related?” he asked, gesturing for Mikkel to climb the makeshift stairs into the cart.

“Yes. I don't see how —”

“We aren't. I'm not your cousin; I'm Alfred's cousin. Second cousin on our mothers' sides, to be exact. But Alfred isn't here, so I'm taking care of his duties. Up you get now.”

Mikkel obeyed, mounting carefully into the cart and finding that Arne had laid out a blanket atop piled hay so that he could lie down. He glanced back at the innkeeper and said, “I really feel okay. I'd rather sit up on the box with you.”

“As you wish.” The older man loaded the crates, swung up onto the box, and watched narrowly as Mikkel made his careful way across the cart and managed to settle himself on the box without banging his injured leg. “Your face is a mess, by the way.” Mikkel looked at him in surprise. “Besides the nose, you have two rather glorious shiners. Scrapes and scratches too.” He smiled. “You look like you've been in a brawl.”

Mikkel sighed. “I should've realized that, as hard as it is to open my eyes. Can't be helped, I suppose. How did you know to come look for me?”

“The story's all over the city that there was an incursion and the Shore Guard shut it down. You haven't been named, but when I heard about it, I just assumed you'd be in the middle of it. I have my sources in the Guards, so I checked and found out you were wounded.” He shrugged. “I haven't sent word to your family, not even Alfred; I thought that should be your decision. Still, other people do travel and the story may reach them soon.”

“You have sources in the Guards?” Mikkel frowned. “Are you, yourself, the 'old soldier'?” It was a question he'd wondered about before.

“No, that was my grandfather. He really was an old soldier — he was a soldier of the Danish Army at the time of the Great Dying, and already old at that time. I was a sailor in the Coast Guard, like my father. That's how I have sources.”

Curiosity satisfied, Mikkel went on, “So what's the plan now?”

“Up to you. If you want to stay in the inn while you recover, we'll be happy to have you. We'll put you in the boy's room.” The “boy” was Arne's seventeen-year-old son, Poul, and his room was a storeroom with a cot, but it was downstairs, unlike the guest rooms which were upstairs. “He'll sleep in the stables; they're nice and weather-tight these days. Or I'll take you to your family. Up to you,” he repeated.

Mikkel considered, though there was really no option. There was little he could do at the inn, but at home on the farm there would always be something he could do. If nothing else, he could babysit the youngest children while parents and older siblings worked at the endless jobs of summer. “I'll go home but I can't ask you —”

“You aren't asking. In fact, you aren't being given a choice. You want to go home; very well, we'll go by the inn to get your duffel and then I'm taking you to your family.” He gave Mikkel a thin smile. “I haven't been out to visit Alfred in years.”

There obviously being no point arguing, Mikkel nodded acquiescence and settled back for the ride.

Mikkel's homecoming was the subject of delighted stories in the Madsen family for years.

When the cart reached the Old Soldier Inn to pick up his duffel, Mikkel was flagging from a combination of stress, blood loss, and drugs so, with some urging from Arne, he consented to lie down in the back of the cart and sleep. As a result, when Mette ran out to greet the cart in the farm yard, she found her beloved big brother appearing to have been beaten unconscious. Protective as always, she meant to punish whoever was responsible, starting with Arne, and was joined in this determination by her brothers Malthe and Martin, who rushed to her assistance.

The shouting both awakened Mikkel and brought out the heavily pregnant Alma who, seeing Mikkel injured, sent the nearest child running to find Michael. As Alma and a somewhat befuddled Mikkel settled things down, Morten rushed up prepared to defend his family against whatever marauders were causing the commotion, quickly followed by Freja, who was distraught at the damage to Mikkel's “beautiful face” (only his mother could have ever regarded Mikkel's face as beautiful) and only slightly reassured by Mikkel's repeated insistence that “everything will heal”.

As more Madsens came to investigate the uproar, Mikkel's efforts to explain while downplaying the events that had led to his injuries were gleefully undercut by Arne, who insisted loudly that Mikkel was a hero who had risked his life to save his partner and had personally stopped a troll incursion. That all this was in fact true made it difficult for said hero to argue.

No sooner had Morten and Freja managed to get their wounded son comfortably placed in a large chair in the old farmhouse with the various overwrought family members quieted down enough to hear his story, than Michael arrived at a dead run, ready to lead an assault on the murderous population of Rønne, again starting with Arne.

By the time Michael was calmed down and order restored, Arne had escaped and driven to Alfred's cottage where the cousins spent the rest of the long summer evening drinking beer and laughing, Arne sleeping that night in the back of his cart on the bed he'd made for Mikkel.

Mikkel moved into the unfinished cottage that would be Mille's since he wasn't permitted to climb the stairs in the farmhouse, his argument that he would be quite comfortable sleeping in the barn being summarily dismissed. For three weeks he dutifully used crutches and cleaned the stitches twice a day with alcohol from the family still. As he had expected, he was assigned babysitting duties and kept young Madsens quiet by reciting fairy tales, Icelandic myths, and Just So Stories, firmly declining to tell them anything about his experiences other than “A troll tripped me and my friends killed it.”

Despite the forced idleness, the inconvenience of crutches, and the embarrassment of family members who wanted to regard him as a hero, Mikkel was happier than he had been in years. He slept better, was less troubled by nightmares, and felt less driven to fill every waking hour with work.

And yet …

And yet he felt a restlessness, a urge to do something, but he didn't know what. In the late afternoon just days before his twentieth birthday, when the three weeks were finally over and he had pulled out all the sutures and put aside the crutches, he thought he understood. He knew he should not, knew it would distress his twin, but he nevertheless made his way through the forest to the first clearing.

He gazed around silently, the images clear behind his eyes: Pettar dropping the firewood he'd gathered; Magnus, the old tom cat, racing in from the left; the grossling racing in from the right; the axe in his hand; the blood; his father's horrified face and Mette's terrified face … He walked on. In the second clearing the other grosslings had attacked him and he had not even drawn his dagger, killing them with his hands and feet, accepting their bites and scratches. There was the tree where he had waited for the rest of the grosslings, grosslings which would never come.

But this was the wrong place.

Mikkel turned away and made his way back to the farm.

He stood for a while at the edge of the forest, watching the activity of the farm, but his attention wandered to the lane which led away, down to the town. He had never in his life been to their town alone, though he had lived alone in Rønne for months. There. I need to go there. He walked down the lane. Reaching the town, he drifted slowly down the main street, not consciously knowing what he was looking for, until he came to the weaver's shop and stopped.

Mikkel stood for a long time before the shop, finally taking a deep breath and entering. The man working at the loom off to his left glanced around, saying, “Oh, hi, Michael, long time — Mikkel! You are Mikkel, aren't you?”

Mikkel nodded uncertainly. “Pettar.”

“Mikkel, I — Josefin! Mikkel is here!” Pettar leapt to his feet with such ease that, had Mikkel not known otherwise, he would have believed the man to have two good legs. They were close in height though Mikkel was much more powerfully built, and now they stood face to face, unsure of what else to say.

“No, Pettar,” came a woman's voice from the back, “What are you —” She stopped in the doorway from the back of the shop, a short and slender woman with green eyes and golden blonde hair in a pony-tail, a little boy of perhaps two riding on her hip. “Oh! Pettar, is this — is this Mikkel?”

The child was looking back and forth between his parents in confusion and his mother patted his head absently as she came forward to greet their guest. “Mikkel, I'm so glad to finally meet you. Welcome, welcome to our home! Please, come back and have a beer with us.”

Pettar hurried to close the front door and follow his wife and a hesitant Mikkel into the back. Once they were comfortably seated in the family's little kitchen, and the adults all had their mugs of beer, Pettar lifted his son into his lap and said, with an expression that wavered between proud and nervous, “Mikkel, this is my son, Mikkel Lars Madsen.”

Mikkel nearly dropped his mug in his lap. “You — you — you named him after me? But I — but —”

“Mikkel? (No, not you, son.) Don't you understand? All my life, everything I've done or felt since then, is because you did what you had to do. My beloved Josefin, my little boy, the new one on the way: all because of you.

“This —” he waved about the shop “— this is not what I intended before that day, but now that I have it, I would never give it up. If I could go back in time, and tell those two boys not to go exploring, Mikkel, I wouldn't do it.

“Except for what it's done to you. That is what I regret, that is all I regret.”

“I — I didn't — I —”

“It was hard at first to see you, I won't deny that. It was all hard. But you see I've adjusted, I've practiced; if people don't know, they don't even suspect. My life is good, Mikkel. I should have spoken to you before but … I didn't know how to start.” He set his son on the floor and pushed him gently forward. “Go, little Mikkel. Say hi to your cousin, big Mikkel.” The boy toddled timidly forward, looking up into the man's face, and when Mikkel offered his hands, the child allowed himself to be lifted up.

Mikkel closed his eyes, bounced his namesake on his knee, let go the haunting burden of guilt, and was healed.

Why Mikkel joined the Army

Rebar

After Kastrup

“Madsen, you said your cousin was reliable!”

Mikkel turned to his supervisor, Kári, with a slight frown. “He is. What's wrong?”

“He didn't show up for work this morning. We were giving him a chance because of you — okay, yes, he's done well this past month but still, if he can't be bothered to show up —!”

Mikkel had vouched for his cousin to the Icelanders, and if Knud proved unreliable, that cast doubt on Mikkel himself. And Mikkel didn't want any doubt cast on himself, for General Trond had ordered him to take this job and keep his eyes open. “Something must have happened. I'll find him this evening and sort things out.” He was less confident than he sounded about whether things could be sorted out. Knud had been doing well, but the man was miserable, still grieving about the disaster at Kastrup. Well — admit it — Mikkel was miserable himself, but he was holding on. He'd thought they both were. But if Knud had stopped working … “I'll find him.”

“You do that. And he'd better have a good excuse, or he's not coming back!”

Mikkel nodded, turned back to his work, good, hard, physical labor that let him turn off his thoughts and focus only on avoiding injury.

“No, he didn't sleep here last night. Didn't come back at all. But he's done something bad! A Guardsman was here earlier today, asking about him. Asking about you. This is a good clean rooming house, I told you that. If you've brought a criminal in here — if you two are criminals — I'm throwing him out! I won't have that sort in my house!” The landlady was a good thirty centimeters shorter than Mikkel, and probably forty years older, but she managed to be credibly threatening.

Mikkel had arranged for Knud to live in her rooming house precisely because it had the reputation of a good clean house, much better than the rather disreputable place he'd landed in. He didn't want his cousin thrown out. “Knud's not a criminal. Nor am I. I don't know what's going on, but I'll find out.”

A Guardsman asking about Knud! Mikkel had been imagining something along the lines of Knud taking his month's pay, drinking himself into a stupor, being too hungover to make it to work, and he'd been prepared to chew the man out in his best big brotherly tones, but if his cousin was in trouble with the Guards …

Well, if his cousin was in trouble with the Guards, the logical first step was to visit their headquarters.

“Knud Madsen? You're a relative?”

“Cousin.”

“Oh.” The woman stared at him, backed away slightly, as if he might transform into a troll at any moment. “He's under arrest. For murder. Double murder.”

Mikkel simply stared at her in disbelief. This was far worse than he had imagined. In fact, it was impossible, unthinkable. “I must speak to him. You must — Where is he?”

“He's injured. He's at a clinic we use. We're civilized people, Dane, and we'll patch him up even though … Anyway, here, here's the clinic.” She pointed it out on the map hung on the wall. Mikkel studied it for a moment, filed away the image, turned and left without a word.

When Mikkel wanted to, he could stride surprisingly quickly with his long legs. He passed through the evening pedestrians as if moving through an obstacle course, reaching the clinic in a matter of minutes.

Taking a deep breath, he calmed himself, opened the door gently, and stepped inside. The usual smells hit him: disinfectant, herbs. But no blood. At least there was no blood.

A woman, hardly shoulder-high to him and perhaps a decade older, dressed in somewhat worn white clothing, approached. “May I help you? I'm Elísabet Kládíudóttir, the doctor for this clinic.”

“I'm looking for Knud Madsen. My cousin. I'm Mikkel Madsen.” That was the wrong order. He'd allowed himself to be shaken after all.

She nodded, regarding him sadly. “Ah, he's back there.” She gestured him towards a hallway. “I'd take you back there but, ah, I can't talk around him.” At his surprised look, “he can get … well, agitated when he hears my voice.”

“Knud would never hurt a woman!”

“No, no, he wouldn't, he wants to protect me, it's all right. He's … well, he has a concussion and he's very confused when he tries to wake up. He also lost a lot of blood.” Seeing Mikkel's imperfectly concealed distress she added, “He's going to recover, I believe. I've treated a lot of injuries like this, and I've got a very good healing mage backing me up.” Mikkel was too distracted by his worries to even express doubt about the “healing mage”. “Look, Jökull's back there, you need to talk to him.”

Mikkel nodded, hurried down the hallway and to the door she had indicated. Once more consciously calming himself, he opened the door and checked the room.

Knud lay on a gurney, dressed in a grayish white smock, covered by an equally grayish sheet which was turned down to his waist. He wore a broad black headband decorated with intricate circular patterns picked out in red and white, and several straps ran across his body and arms. His right arm was bandaged from wrist to elbow, and his left showed a large black and blue bruise. A Guardsman was sitting to his left studying some paperwork.

Mikkel was across the room in a few strides, hand gripping his cousin's shoulder, glaring at the Guardsman defiantly. The man was half a head shorter than Mikkel and a good thirty years older, in good shape but still carrying some extra weight; Mikkel was a big man, immensely strong, a construction worker just three months out of the Danish Army. He thought he could overpower the man if he caught him by surprise, even though the Guardsman was armed with both pistol and dagger. The woman should be no threat; she hadn't even been armed and, as a medic, likely wouldn't fight anyway. He could simply push past her with his cousin in a fireman's carry …

But that was only a fantasy. They were in Iceland and he had no way to get off the island in a hurry. Whatever was going on here, he couldn't rescue his cousin by force and would have to deal with things on the Icelanders' terms … only Iceland was run by bureaucrats. There was a common saying, “I would rather fight a hundred trolls than a single bureaucrat.” Mikkel had fought a hundred trolls and all in all he'd rather fight a bureaucrat, but it was a very near thing.

“Ah, you would be Michael,” the Guardsman said with a smile, coming to his feet.

“Mikkel,” he corrected. “Knud is not a murderer.”

“He did confess,” the Guardsman answered mildly.

Mikkel stared at him, bewildered. Knud had confessed? Knud had confessed to murder? It wasn't possible. He looked down at his only blood-kin in Iceland. “I don't — I can't believe —”

“He was quite insistent.”

Mikkel shook his head, trying to understand. “There must be a mistake. He's not — he's not —”

“Ah, well, that was cruel of me. No, Knud is not a murderer. Or at least,” he corrected himself with a smile, “not that I know of. He really was mistaken.”

“But … but he's under arrest. And the straps.”

“Well, you see, as long as he is my prisoner, I can consent to care for him. But if he weren't, I'd have to let him go. Since he's in no shape for that, I'd have to turn him over to the bureaucrats at Danish Embassy. Or to a family member, if I could find one. I was looking for you all afternoon. No one seemed to know where you were, so I came back here to see if he was able to help me.”

The situation was becoming somewhat clearer. “You mean — you just want me to take care of him? I will, of course.”

“Exactly. So, he is no longer under arrest.”

“The straps, then?” He reached for the strap around the patient's waist and the Guardsman raised a hand in warning.

“I'll admit, initially we did think he was a murderer, and we strapped him down for our protection. Now, well, he comes to every so often, but only partially, and then he thrashes around and could hurt himself if not strapped down. It's best to leave the straps until he recovers some, but he's not a prisoner. You have my word on that.”

Mikkel was still trying to get the situation straight in his mind. “But, but, then why did he confess? Or did you, uh …”

“Just make it up? No. He did confess, quite insistently. As to why he did it, I would say that he is a law-abiding young man who confessed because he didn't remember much of what happened, and he didn't understand what little he did remember, and the only explanation he could find in his confused mind for what he saw, was that he had murdered two men. You can let go, you know,” the Guardsman added. “We won't take him away from you.”

Mikkel looked down at his cousin, realized that he was gripping the man's shoulder so tightly that his fingers were white, so tightly that he would leave bruises in the shape of his large hand. Relaxing his grasp, he answered, “Since it seems that I won't be snatching my cousin and fleeing the country after all, maybe you could explain what did happen to him.”

“Ah. Well, it's something of a long story," Jökull began, “so let's sit down like civilized people, and I'll tell you.”

“Guards! Guards! Murder!”

The woman was elderly but hale, dressed for the weather, so she hadn't run out of her house in a panic. Indeed, she wasn't panicky at all, but rather excited and only a bit fearful.

Dropping a hand on his dagger, Guardsman Jökull Friðgeirsson looked around for threats. “Where? Who's murdered?”

“I don't know them. Two men. I saw them lying d-dead. And I think the murderer is still there!”

That seemed unlikely to Jökull. “Where are they?”

“Back that way, through that archway. They're just inside the courtyard.”

“Okay. Where do you live? I want you to go somewhere safe.”

“Oh, I don't live off that courtyard; I was just out walking …”

Hastily getting her name and address, he sent her on her way. This was a bad neighborhood for an evening walk, and she was probably running some errand she would prefer that he not know about, but two murders were far more important than whatever she was up to. Probably the elderly woman herself had not murdered two men, and if she had, well, he had an excellent memory for faces and she would not evade him for long.

Two younger Guardsmen, Arnar Jónsson and Kristófer Gunnarssen, having answered his whistle, the three of them headed for the archway and the courtyard, hands on pistols. Murders were rare in Reykjavík and often a reported murder turned out to be suicide, suicide being a serious problem for every nation in this year 80 of the Rash. Still, two dead suggested something more nefarious. And if the murderer was, for some reason, still hanging around … well, the Guardsmen had to be ready for anything.

Brightly lit by the streetlight in the courtyard, there were two very dead men, one sprawled against a brick wall to their left, clearly having been flung against it with lethal force, and the other on his back to their right, his crushed throat showing the cause of death. Between them was a big man, powerfully built, kneeling with his hands over his face. A mess in front of him, and a distinct stench of beer, proved that he had vomited.

Jökull approached warily, pressed his pistol against the back of the man's head, and told him very firmly, “You're under arrest. Don't try to resist. I will shoot you, or the other two Guardsmen will shoot you, if you resist or try to escape. Do you understand?”

Silence.

After a moment, Jökull pulled the man's dagger from its sheath, noted that it was clean and unused, and dropped it in an evidence sheath. A bloody dagger lay to the man's right; the Guardsman collected that as well. “I'm going to cuff you now, and I don't want any trouble. Understand me?”

Silence.

He wondered if the man might be deaf, or possibly didn't understand Icelandic. Still — holstering and securing his pistol after a quick glance to each side to ensure the other Guardsmen were ready, he pulled out his handcuffs, relics of the Old World lovingly maintained, and snapped one over the man's left wrist, pulling the man's arms behind him and cuffing them together. The man's gloves were bloody, so he pulled them off and added them to his evidence sack. The spring evening was chilly but not cold; the man would suffer no injury from going without gloves.

In all of this the man had offered no resistance, remaining utterly silent with his head bowed. Jökull frowned, finally moved cautiously around him, while the other two Guardsmen holstered their pistols but remained alert for any attempt to escape. Kneeling carefully to avoid the mess, Jökull put a hand under the man's chin and tipped his face up to the streetlight. “Open your eyes.” No response. Jökull flicked the man's nose with a finger, startling him into looking up vaguely. The Guardsman was not really surprised to see that his prisoner's pupils were unequal in size. That and the vomiting meant a concussion, no doubt incurred in this battle. As soon as he removed his hand, the man's head dropped once more.

Pulling off the prisoner's thick woolen cap and stuffing it in in his evidence sack, the Guardsman checked him over quickly for skull fractures. Nothing that he could feel, no soft or depressed spots, but a large knot forming on the left. So, the man on the left had gotten a lick in before he died. A length of pipe near the dead man's hand was the probable weapon. The prisoner remained silent and passive through the examination.

Jökull always played Good Cop; it matched his personality. Now, he tipped the man's face back again, gently wiping it with one of the rags he carried for exactly that purpose, drunks having a habit of vomiting, and asked kindly, “What happened here, son?” He thought the man was barely in his twenties, three decades younger than himself.

“Murder,” the man mumbled. Even in that single word, Jökull could hear a thick Danish accent, and he sighed to himself, thinking that he definitely had not wanted to end his patrol with an international incident.

“Who is the murderer?” He kept his voice kind and gentle.

“I, I … two … murder … I murdered … Ahhh …”

That was helpful, Jökull thought. The Danes couldn't very well argue that their citizen was innocent when he had confessed. “Why did you do it?” Still gentle.

“Men … they were men …” The big man shuddered, seemed to try to shrink into himself.

“Did you kill them because they were men?” That made little sense, but then hanging around after committing murder made little sense as well.

“No —” The man started to shake his head, doubled over in pain, retched. Jökull retreated to avoid splashes, but apparently the prisoner had already given up the contents of his stomach, and was down to painful dry heaves.

“Why did you do it?” Jökull persisted, his voice even softer than before.

“Trolls …” The man's voice trailed off, and Jökull decided this conversation wasn't going anywhere useful.

“What's your name, son?”

“Knud. Madsen.”

“All right, Knud. I can see something bad happened here, so we're just going to take you with us, and we'll get this all sorted out. All right? Now let me help you up.”

“Murderer,” the man muttered, offering no resistance but little help as Jökull pulled at his left arm.

“Arnar, get his other arm. Help me get him up.” Kristófer shifted so as to be ready to block an escape as the other Guardsman moved in to help. So far the prisoner seemed to have no desire — or perhaps ability — to resist, but that could change, of course. “Kristófer, you'll follow. Arnar, stay with the bodies.” The prisoner needed care, but they weren't too far from the clinic. So long as he was able to walk, it would be quicker to walk him there than to send one of the others for an ambulance.

Once on his feet, the prisoner simply stood, head bowed, until Jökull tugged him forward, whereupon he followed obediently, stumbling and weaving. Standing, his sheer size was rather intimidating as he was over two meters tall, broad-shouldered, and powerfully built. Jökull had no trouble imagining him throwing one man into a wall and smashing the throat of another.

Trolls. A Dane of about twenty mumbling about trolls. He's a soldier, then. Somehow he survived their disaster and he's turned up here, in my city, with two dead men. Oh, gods, I did not need this.

“The girl,” Knud mumbled after a minute or so of silence.

“What girl? What about the girl?” Was there a dead girl somewhere, too? Jökull earnestly didn't want to believe that. Kristófer moved closer, still behind the prisoner.

“She screamed,” Knud answered in a puzzled tone.

Jökull looked into his face, found that his eyes were closed. It was no wonder that he stumbled. “Why did she scream, Knud?” No answer. “Did you make her scream?”

“I don't … I think …”

“What did you do to her? Tell us!” Kristófer shouted abruptly, shoving the Dane roughly forward. The man tripped, fell to his knees, was saved from falling flat on his face only by Jökull's catching him.

“That's enough,” Jökull told the other Guardsman firmly. There were limits to the Bad Cop act. “I think he's trying to cooperate. He has a concussion, and he's very confused. It's all right, Knud,” he added in his most fatherly tones, “you can tell us what happened to the girl.”

“She screamed.”

“I should shoot you.” Kristófer was genuinely angry, the older Guardsman saw, and he wondered why the prisoner's words had set the man off so badly.

Knud didn't answer, kneeling where he had fallen.

“That's enough,” Jökull repeated. “We need to get him to the clinic, get him some care, and then maybe we'll be able to question him. You're not going to find out what happened to the girl if you shoot him.”

Kristófer glared at the prisoner, but nodded and backed away. As Jökull started to help the man up, the other Guardsman said, in a quite different tone, “There's blood on his hands.”

“He's admitted that. There's no need —”

“No, his hands, look at his hands!”

Jökull looked at his prisoner's cuffed hands in surprise. When he'd arrested the man, there'd been blood on his gloves but not his hands. Now there was blood on both hands, particularly the right, dripping slowly from his fingers. “Oh, gods. Knud, are you injured?”

Silence. Jökull was beginning to feel like shooting the man himself.

No, he has tried to cooperate, he did confess, he's just hopelessly confused.

But the girl. What did he do to the girl? Who is she? And where is she?

The man was clearly injured; the question was how badly. Jökull wanted to kick himself for not checking the man over more carefully.

“Knud. Knud Madsen. Wake up. Tell me where you're hurt, Knud.”

“Right arm,” Knud mumbled.

“Okay. Now I want you to behave.” Jökull gave Kristófer a significant look, and the other Guardsman readied himself as Jökull removed the cuffs. The prisoner let his hands fall limp as the older Guardsman pulled his jacket off him. I should have noticed these cuts in the jacket. Take the sweater off too … this sleeve is soaked! Now the shirt … gods, that looks nasty. Those are defensive wounds … and the other arm too, look at that bruise. These scars — a soldier, certainly. His evidence bag being too small to take the man's clothes, he tossed them over his shoulder. More stains for this uniform. Maybe after this evening I'll finally be issued a new one.

The Guardsman frowned down at the prisoner, considering. They were close to the clinic, another couple of minutes perhaps, but the man's arm was slashed in three places and bleeding badly. Deciding that a tourniquet would be safe for those few minutes, he fished out his first aid kit and applied one. As Knud had begun to shiver, Jökull put his jacket back on to him before cuffing his hands once more behind his back. Though the man had thus far made no effort to resist, the Guardsman feared he might take it into his head to do so and, injured and confused though he was, he was still a formidable individual.

Back on his feet, the prisoner staggered worse than before and after a minute or so fell once more to his knees, retching helplessly.

“Come on, Knud, just a little further and we can get you some help.” Jökull wished, as he had so frequently over the years, that the City Guard could afford to equip every Guardsman with a handheld radio. His grandfather, who'd been a policeman before the Great Dying, had said that was common in his day. Too much had been lost, though, too much had been destroyed, and the remaining small radios were reserved for the Army and Navy.

If he'd realized the man was so badly injured, he would have sent one of the others for an ambulance. Now, though, it was quicker to keep going. “Just a little further. You can do it, Knud.”

Kristófer glared at the man's back for a moment then, having checked that his dagger and pistol were impossible for the man to grab, stepped up to help pull him to his feet. Half carrying the big man between them, they got him, finally and with relief, to the Guards' clinic.

The doctor, Elísabet Kládíudóttir, being busy in the back, they were met by her son, Dagur, a boy barely in his teens but nevertheless a confident assistant in the clinic. “Back here,” he instructed. “What have we got?”

Hiding a smile at the boy's officious manner, Jökull answered, “Concussion and lacerations of the right arm. I believe that's everything, but you'll have to check him over. He's in no shape to tell us of injuries.” The man was barely standing now, held up by the two Guardsmen.

“All right, we'll just —” Elísabet began, coming up behind the three men, when to everyone's surprise, the prisoner jerked away from his captors, turned, cried out, staggered forward a few steps before collapsing. Once again, only Jökull's quick action prevented him from crashing face first to the floor.

“What on Earth?” At the sound of her voice, the prisoner tried weakly to get to his feet, muttering.

“Don't say anything more,” Jökull ordered her, holding the man down as he spoke. “He'll hurt himself trying to reach you.”

“He's going after her, too now?” Kristófer snarled.

“No. Didn't you hear what he said?”

“I didn't understand it. Was that Danish?”

“Yes, it was. He said, 'Run, girl, trolls.' ”

Knud having passed out while they were talking, the two Guardsmen and Dagur lifted him onto the gurney and began strapping him down, Jökull explaining the situation as he went. Elísabet gave the prisoner a startled look when the older man named him a murderer, but nodded her understanding as to precautions. Though murderers were rare in Reykjavík, she had dealt with them before, and was aware that appearances could be deceiving; she would take no risks with this one.

Gesturing for Kristófer to follow, the older Guardsman led the way to the entry. “That was unprofessional of you.”

“I know, yes, sir. Sorry, sir. It won't happen again.”

“Why did it happen at all?”

“I have a sister, sir. She was in a bad relationship, and her daughter … A big man like that, he could hurt a girl without even trying. And if he wanted to …”

“I understand. No harm done, I suppose, and if he'd been a little more with us, maybe your approach would have gotten us some information. But, Kristófer … be careful playing Bad Cop. It can get into your soul, make you truly bad. I've seen it. Go now, finish your patrol. I'll take care of the paperwork.” He sighed at the thought, and the younger man gave him a sympathetic smile before departing.

Waiting for the prisoner's remaining clothing, Jökull went through the garments he'd removed. Shirt: probably bought in Reykjavík; nothing significant but several slashes and a lot of blood. Sweater, likewise. Jacket: old and well-worn, heavy leather which had probably spared the man worse injury. In an inner pocket, a wallet. The Guardsman pulled it out, examined the contents. The prisoner had a surprising amount of money on him, probably a month's wages for a laborer.

It's the end of the month, he was probably just paid. The muscles on the man, the callouses on his hands: probably a construction worker. Makes sense. He shouldn't have been walking around with this kind of money in that kind of neighborhood. If anyone saw it, he might have been mugged for it.

Jökull frowned. There was something nagging at him about that. Waiting for inspiration, finally dropping the thought, he considered the man's words.

“Why did you do it?” “Trolls.” “She screamed.” “Run, girl, trolls.”

Oh, gods. He was delusional. He thought the men were trolls, and he killed them to protect the girl, the girl who screamed. Does the girl even exist? Or was she part of the delusion too? Did she scream here and now, in Reykjavík, or months ago and far away in Silent Denmark?

He rubbed his forehead. Bad enough to be holding a Danish murderer; the man had to be turned over to the Danish authorities, and he didn't even want to think about the paperwork involved. But holding a Danish madman who was also a murderer …

The thing is — well, the thing is, that I rather like the man. He wanted to protect the girl, whether or not she was a figment of his imagination. When he came to, or however you say it, and he saw that he'd killed men rather than trolls, he gave up immediately. He was waiting for us to come get him, and he confessed as soon as we did. Confused as he was, he tried to tell us what happened.

But …

But there's something missing in this.

He couldn't think of what he'd missed, and when Dagur came out with the rest of the man's effects, he went through them quickly, finding nothing of interest, and made his way to headquarters to check in the materials he'd gathered. For now, he skipped the paperwork, just arranging for the bodies to be collected and noting the man was under arrest for murder. He needed to investigate, and evidence might be lost through delay.

It came to him as he was striding purposefully back to the courtyard to look for witnesses.

There were two daggers. I took one dagger from his sheath. Clean. Unbloodied. I just assumed the other dagger was his too, that he'd slashed at the man on the right before dropping it and smashing that man's throat with his fist. No time to check the bodies with him like he was, but I should have.

The dagger was to his right, so I thought he'd been using it. Most people are right-handed; I didn't even think that he might have tended to use his dagger with the other hand. But he had only one sheath, and it was on the left; he's left-handed. His injuries show that he was blocking the other man's dagger with his right arm; the blood on that dagger, the blood on his gloves, was his.

He never drew his dagger.

Why didn't he draw his dagger? What kind of soldier would fight trolls without drawing his dagger? Why would he fight two trolls with his bare hands?

Those bruises on his left arm, a big bruise on the inner side, and that narrow bruise on the outer side … Those are defensive wounds too. He got his arm up to block the blow, but not enough, and his arm was slammed down on his own head by the force of it.

Why didn't he draw his dagger?

Jökull was not an expert investigator. Indeed, there were no expert investigators left in the Known World. In the desperate struggle to fortify the few safe areas against the Rash, in the violent riots as a horrified populace struck back against the civilization they believed had somehow caused the Rash, in the terrible famines that had swept away half the nation, the police had had the highest mortality of any civilian group. Their institutional knowledge lost, their training books burned as fuel or in the riots, the police force, revived as the Guardsmen decades after the Great Dying, were relearning what their predecessors had known.

Jökull was one of those relearning how to investigate, and he had never been more conscious of his ignorance and lack of ability than now. He was certain that he was missing something, that the undrawn dagger was telling him something important, but he could not draw it out of his unconscious.

There was nothing for it but to talk to witnesses in the buildings around the courtyard.

No one had seen anything, of course; no one knew either the dead men or the prisoner. That last was the only answer he really believed. Guardsmen were not entirely welcome in this neighborhood at the best of times, and with a double murder, no one wanted to be involved, but Jökull continued doggedly knocking on doors, making his way from building to building, floor to floor.

It was near midnight when he finished and trudged home to his dark, empty apartment.

His first stop in the morning was the clinic, where he found the prisoner completely out of it but learned that the man had half-roused twice and thrashed around, pulling out a couple of stitches. Dagur, who'd slept in the room to keep an eye on him, had had the bright idea — of which he was inordinately proud — of telling the patient that “the girl is safe”. The man had immediately quieted down each time. Still, there would be no information gained from him this morning.

His next stop was the morgue. The attendant, Beinteinn Grímarsson, a short, poorly-shaven man who always smelled a bit of formaldehyde, looked up from the tools he was cleaning as the Guardsman came in. For once, the man was almost cheerful. “These two yours?”

The Guardsman looked them over. Cleaned up, laid out on their backs in the bright light of the morgue, they were as like as brothers. “Yes, from a fight last night.”

“You've got a dangerous killer out there,” Beinteinn replied with a happy grin. “He killed those two with a single blow each. One-hit kills.”

“I have him in custody. He's very strong. Uh … what do you mean, did he only hit them once? No other bruises or something? No defensive wounds?”

“Exactly! Oh, they have bruises — rough lives those men had — but not from last night.”

“Wait. Did they, could they, keep fighting after he hit them?”

“This one didn't. You reported he was thrown into a wall? He hit that wall and never moved again. The other one, well, maybe he could have fought a little. Maybe. Very briefly. I doubt it, though.”

“Could he have slashed with his dagger after that hit?”

“Possibly. Not likely. Your killer's good.”

“You said they had rough lives. Rough in what way?”

“Oh, they were street fighters, those two. No doubt of it. And your man took them both out. One-hit kills!”

Jökull nodded a little uneasily at the man's enthusiasm, thanked him, left as quickly as he could.

He has defensive wounds from both men; they have none. At least the one on the left couldn't have hit him after being thrown. Which means that man hit him first. And he partially blocked the strike at his head and still took a heavy blow. If he hadn't blocked it, it would have killed him. And the other most likely hit him first as well.

Is this a case of self-defense?

But he thought they were trolls. And he confessed to murder.

Examining the courtyard by daylight, Jökull stood where the man had knelt, slowly turning in place to study the scene.

Why was he in here in the first place? He doesn't live here or know anyone here, that much I believe of what the witnesses told me. But he came in, and there was a fight …

But not right here. No, the man on the left, the pipe man, landed there against the wall. If Knud was here … no, he had to be closer to the archway. Right about … here.

So he was just a couple of meters or so inside the courtyard when the pipe man struck him and he grabbed the man's arm, or collar, or something, and threw the man into the wall.

The other man, the dagger man, fell there, and given his injuries, he couldn't have moved far, so the fight occurred very close to there. He dropped the dagger and it bounced, leaving the hilt more towards Knud. The dagger man too was just inside the courtyard.

Knud was facing into the courtyard when the pipe hit him. He could have been facing the pipe man, I suppose, and turned his head away while blocking the pipe, but even then, he couldn't have been facing out. Could he have just entered? Why were they here anyway, right by the archway, on either side of him?

Were they waiting for him? They struck first …

But for all I know, he could have chased them in here, shouting about trolls, and they split up to try to take him down. Or he cornered and killed the pipe man, and the dagger man ran up to try to stop him.

Only he didn't draw his dagger. Dammit, Knud, why didn't you draw your dagger?

There were no answers. Knud had entered the courtyard for some reason, and there had been a fight just inside; Jökull could discern nothing more.

In the street beside the courtyard, Jökull paused and looked around.

Poor madman, wandering around believing himself in the ruins of Silent Denmark and beset by trolls, no one reporting him or trying to help him, until he finally chased two men into the courtyard and killed them, and was shocked back to sanity by the sight, or by the blow to the head …

Except that's not how it happened.

He frowned, narrowing his eyes in concentration, and a couple of young men who had been strolling by took one look at his face and decided their errands were best carried out elsewhere. Jökull didn't notice.

He'd been working. Probably construction if I'm any judge. He picked up his month's pay and he drank his supper. Jökull was entirely too familiar with drunks and the former contents of their stomachs. But he didn't drink much. Just a beer or two, three at the outside. He wasn't drunk and this was no drunken brawl. The Guardsman was likewise only too familiar with drunken violence. And he'd drunk the beer recently, not long before this happened. So he was sane enough to order and drink his beer and then he came down here and …

Jökull looked up and down the street again. The man had drunk his supper shortly before the fight. Therefore, he'd drunk it right in this area. The Guardsman set out to check the local inns.

“Stop.” The Guardsman's voice rang through the inn, and everyone in it froze. Jökull was, among other things, a hunter, and a hunter's eye is drawn to movement. In particular, to someone ducking her head, turning aside, and hurrying for the back door.

“Ah, Helga,” the innkeeper said, “stay and talk to the Guardsman.”

She turned reluctantly, dragged her feet as she approached. Much as she kept her head down, he could see that her eyes were red with crying.

“I require a room,” Jökull instructed without taking his eyes off her.

“Of course, of course, just right over here — a storeroom is all right, isn't it? Yes?” The innkeeper was practically wringing his hands with anxiety.

“Yes.”

The young woman followed him, neither speaking until they were within and the innkeeper had closed the door.

“You screamed,” Jökull stated.

She began to sob. Watching with pitiless eyes, the Guardsman evaluated her tears. They were unfeigned, or at least mostly so, and certainly she had been crying at some point before he arrived.

“Helga, two men died yesterday, and the third may not make it. I need to know —”

“Knud? I thought he was, he was …” her voice trailed off as she looked up at his face.

“So you knew him. Say what happened yesterday. Start with when he came in here for a beer.” His voice was grim; he wasn't playing Good Cop now.

“He — he came in, like he does. Like he did.” She began to sob again, sniffed, pulled herself together. “I had to leave early because Katla — my little girl — was sick. And he was so kind. He was always so kind. He always gave me a tip for Katla.”

“Go on.”

“He gave me a tip even though I was leaving because he … he wanted her to get well. And he had money, he had so much money … But I didn't mean him any harm! I just wanted to make Aron feel bad because he doesn't do anything for Katla!”

“Aron is your man,” Jökull stated.

“He was. Oh, he was!” She was crying again, and he waited patiently for her to get herself back under control.

“You told him about Knud, and about Knud's money.”

“Yes, I, I did. But I didn't mean him any harm! I wanted Aron to go to work, just like Knud. Then we could have all the nice things … Only Aron and Viktor and Jón — they're — they were — his brothers, they got together and talked, and then they said we were all going for a walk, even me, even though I didn't want to because of Katla, and Aron … Aron threatened me.” She looked away, at the floor, at the walls, anywhere but at Jökull.

“Look at me.” She looked at him, wincing. “Say it again.”

“Aron threatened me.” He thought she was telling the truth.

“So you went with them.”

“We went to the courtyard, and Aron told me to stay with Jón, he's the youngest, and Viktor picked up a pipe and Aron went out on the street. Then he ran back, and he waved, and Jón told me to scream. He twisted my arm and he said he'd hurt me if I didn't. And so I, I did. I screamed.”

She bowed her head, sobbed some more; Jökull waited. When she didn't continue, he finished the story. “Knud heard you scream and ran in to help you. Viktor swung at him with the pipe —”

“He got his arm up in time. I don't know how. It all happened so fast. I thought he'd be okay. Aron was trying to stab him, but he was — blocking him somehow, and he was shouting. And then he threw Viktor against the wall, and Aron went down, and Jón let me go, and he ran, and I ran … Jón told me this morning that Aron and Viktor were dead.”

“What did Knud shout?” It was a formality, of course.

“I, I don't know. It wasn't Icelandic. It was sort of like —” Her memory was only fair and she butchered the vowels, but the answer was unmistakable.

“Run, girl, trolls.”

“So you see,” Jökull concluded, “I suppose he did go a little mad for a few seconds, with the head injury and suddenly finding himself fighting for his life. It bothered me all along that he never drew his dagger, but I think he was just so stunned by the blow to the head that he forgot about it. Because he didn't start the fight believing he was fighting trolls.

“Anyway, after just seconds he came out of it and found he'd killed two men. Since he really only remembered fighting trolls, and apparently little or nothing about how the fight started, he leapt to the conclusion that he'd gone mad, taken them for trolls, and murdered them, which is what he tried to tell me.

“He remembers the girl who screamed, but not well. At least, I don't think he recognized Helga, since he just says 'girl', and I'd rather not tell him that she betrayed him that way.

“My conclusion, which I will put in my report, is that he was lured into an ambush and killed two men in self-defense and in defense of another, since he did believe that he was protecting the girl who screamed. He is innocent of any crime.”

Mikkel stood, went over to look at the unconscious patient. “What will you do about her? And the other brother?”

“About her? Nothing, I suppose. I won't charge her with anything. She wasn't a willing participant and she didn't have any idea that they would try to kill him. She wanted to help Knud and she did give me a good idea of where he was rooming, so I could talk to the landlady about him and learn about you, his 'brother Michael'. Anyway, Helga did try to help me and I'll give her some credit for that. She set the whole thing off, and her man was killed as a result, and she'll have to live with that. Punishment enough, I think.

“We'll look for the other brother, though. He was a willing participant.” After a moment, he told Mikkel's rigid back, “Elísabet believes Knud will recover fully. And then —”

“Not from this. Not from a head injury like this.”

“We have a very good healing mage. You see the headband? That is powerful magic.”

Mikkel turned, gave him a stare of disbelief. “Your doctor is relying on magic.”

“Well … yes. Oh. Danes are skeptics, right, I was forgetting. But, you know, I am reliably informed that the magic works whether you believe in it or not.”

Mikkel gave him a stare, level, unreadable, before turning back to his cousin.

“When he recovers —” the Guardsman persisted.

“If he recovers, to whatever extent he recovers, I will send him home.”

“Do you have that authority?” Jökull was intrigued by lines of authority in Danish families.

“No,” Mikkel answered without looking around. “But if he won't go, I'll send for his wife to fetch him. It's time for him to go home.”

“He has a wife? Why is he, ah, here?”

“Because he couldn't go home,” Mikkel answered bleakly. “Not when so many others … didn't.”

“And you, Mikkel? Can you go home?”

Mikkel didn't answer. But then, no answer was needed.

Mikkel at Sea

The world ended not with a bang, nor yet with a whimper. The world ended with a rash.

The Rash began as a discoloration of the skin, an itch, a mere blemish, and ended in agonizing pain, limbs maimed and twisted and deformed, madness, coma, and merciful death … for the lucky ones. For the unlucky ones, it ended in transformation to a ravening monster, so hideously deformed as to be unrecognizable as human, whether mentally or physically. It was contagious not just to human beings, but to every mammal with the strange exception of cats.

And no mammal that contracted the Rash ever recovered.

The Rash was contracted from the breath of the infected for a week or more before any symptoms showed, from any bite, even from a scratch inflicted by the appendages of the infected, no longer even identifiable as hands or feet.

There were those, both human and animal, that were immune to the Rash. And there were those who, though not immune, survived by chance or by swift action, escaping to islands or mountain fastnesses which could be defended against the infected. Iceland closed its borders very early and survived almost without infection; the Danish island of Bornholm closed its borders later and suffered great losses before the infected were destroyed, and even then small pockets of infection remained. In the other Nordic countries, Norway, Sweden, and Finland, villages survived here and there where they could be defended. Several brutally cold winters ravaged these survivors but at the same time the bitter cold kept the infected at bay while more defenses were built.

The world was lost to the Rash. Humanity was reduced from its teeming billions to little more than a hundred thousand in the Known World.

And nine decades passed.

Mikkel Madsen was annoyed. He stared forward across the tank at the tiny lights on the dashboard and was annoyed.

Above him, mere centimeters above his broad shoulders, was Tuuri Hotakainen's bunk. Tuuri, twenty-one, was short even for a woman, the shortest of all of them, and a bit overweight. Her ash-blond hair was cut short around the sides but longer where it lay on top, and her eyes were a blue so pale as to appear silver. While she did not snore, he could hear a quiet buzzing of breath and occasional movements. He was annoyed at her not for those noises, but simply for her presence. She was not immune! Unlike Mikkel and the others, she was vulnerable to the Rash which had exterminated human life on the mainland. What could have possessed her to volunteer for this project, and what could have possessed her sponsor to accept her? She was so vulnerable that she required an escort even to go outside to relieve herself. Sigrun had done the honors that evening, but when she was busy, one of the men would have to do it, and Mikkel had the dreary certainty that the man in question would be himself.

Granted, she was a linguist. In addition to her native Finnish, she spoke both Icelandic and Swedish, though with a heavy accent that was unsurprising given that she had never met a native speaker of any Scandinavian language until a few days earlier. She also read, though of course didn't speak, two of the common dead languages, English and Deutsch. That would be useful in their quest for books, since Mikkel didn't read those languages.

She was also their mechanic, and supposedly quite a good one. Her file described her as having “a mage's touch with machinery”, which he presumed was a translation of some Finnish exaggeration. She was also their only driver, though not a very good one from the day's experience. He hoped she would improve. She would have to improve, as the collapse of the Øresund bridge meant they were now trapped in the Silent World for who knew how long until a rescue could be organized. Also, besides her driving, they really needed her as the only one who could communicate with their scout, her cousin Lalli Hotakainen.

Lalli was taller than Tuuri but still quite short; Mikkel topped him by a head. He was slender, with long, wiry arms and legs; his face, unlike his cousin's, was narrow and tapered to his chin and his eyes were violet. His ash-blond hair was very straight and longer than his cousin's, and was such a tousled mess that Mikkel wanted to take him aside and comb it for him, as he would for a young sibling or cousin. But at nineteen, Lalli was no child; moreover, he was no kin of Mikkel and they had no language in common. The older man would have to put up with looking at the scout's hair as it was.

Mikkel was annoyed with Lalli too. On reading the scout's file, he had seen that Lalli's only listed language was Finnish. He had assumed — and more fool he! — that the notation meant that Finnish was his only fluent language, but that he understood basic Swedish or Icelandic. Surely his cousin would have taught him a bit, and surely his sponsor wouldn't have allowed him into a team with which he couldn't communicate! But here he was, and Tuuri had innocently agreed that he did not speak or understand a single word of any language but Finnish.

Furthermore, he had been dramatically motion-sick in the tank, vomiting out a window until he was down to dry heaves and passed out in a miserable ball in the nearest bunk. But there was nothing at all in any file about motion-sickness! Having an eidetic memory, Mikkel had reviewed every file related to the project while lying sleepless in his bunk, and had confirmed that he had not missed any reference. If he'd known he'd have gone to his mother and her very well-stocked herbal pharmacy. She'd have had something as an anti-emetic, he knew. But he hadn't, and there was nothing anti-emetic in the first aid kit he'd been provided. Lalli would simply have to suffer when riding in the tank.

Lalli wasn't in the tank now, however. He was running around in the monster-infested darkness, scouting their route at Sigrun's insistence and, Mikkel suspected, as an escape from the tank and its associated misery.

Sigrun Eide was sleeping in the top bunk above Tuuri. Sigrun, thirty-two, was very tall for a woman, perhaps ten centimeters shorter than Mikkel himself, slender, red-headed, fair-skinned without the freckles that red-heads often have, with dark violet eyes. Her hair was cut short, not even reaching her shoulders, but was wavy enough to flare out around her face. Daughter and granddaughter of troll-hunters, she had grown up in the same close-knit Norwegian community as General Trond Andersen who had recruited both her and Mikkel. She addressed him as “Uncle Trond”, and Mikkel regarded her as the General's kin though the records did not reflect this.

Sleeping, Sigrun breathed even more quietly than the other woman, but Mikkel was annoyed at her too. In the original plan for this expedition, they'd needed to move out and start scavenging immediately as they had only two weeks before they needed to head back to the base. With the collapse of the Øresund bridge, that plan should have been discarded and they should have stopped for a day to communicate with the sponsors and figure out a new plan for rescue. Instead, Sigrun had proceeded with the original plan, sending out their scout immediately to find a good route through the remains of civilization in search of books to scavenge.

Mikkel hoped he could persuade her to work on a plan for rescue, or at least let him work on it, but — this was one of the matters annoying him — though they'd gotten along well earlier, yet ever since the bridge collapse she had disregarded his suggestions, ignored him, even talked over him when he tried to suggest a plan of action. He wasn't hurt by this — not at all hurt — but he was annoyed. He was, after all, the only person on the team, and one of the few now living, who had ever been here before. He did know where some supply caches might still be, though what condition they'd be in ten years after the disaster that had annihilated the army … well, perhaps that wasn't entirely useful.

Perhaps she had read his file, if not the others, or the General had told her something of his history of insubordination and practical jokes. Being fair about it in the dark night, he had to admit that she did have some reason to view his contributions as of dubious value. Given that they were now trapped together until rescue could be arranged, which might take weeks or even months, he would have to prove himself more reliable. Come to think of it, that meant he needed to bring an end to the prank he was playing on Emil.

Emil Västerström snored. The Swedish Cleanser, nineteen, had bright green eyes and straight blond hair, perfectly clean and shining with brushing, that fell in a mane to his shoulders. He was as short as Lalli and more sturdily built. Sleeping on the bottom bunk along the other wall, perpendicular to Mikkel's bunk, he'd at least arranged himself with his head as far from the others as was possible in such close quarters. Mikkel wasn't annoyed at the snoring, as sleeping in the family bunkhouse with siblings and cousins, or in a tent with half a dozen soldiers, had inured him to such noises in the night, and Emil wasn't even very loud compared to some he'd heard. He was annoyed rather at Emil for putting him in an awkward position before they even met.

Mikkel watched with Sigrun and the General as the small group of travellers congregated on the walkway above. The blond, Emil, was saying something to the short woman and behind him, Mikkel could see a couple of his friends, former soldiers who'd stayed on as laborers on the base, stiffen with anger.

As the travellers made their way down the ramp, the laborers followed with obvious hostile intent. Sighing quietly, Mikkel flashed them an army signal: “Leave this to me”. Both glared at him but backed off, just watching for now. Clearly Emil had said something offensive so Mikkel thought a prank would be an acceptable response. But what prank? He considered this while meeting the team, as the laborers trailed along after the team, signalling “Hurry up” once or twice.

The team found their tank and time was running out. He had to do something or lose face before his friends and he thought he'd found a good prank. It appeared Emil had offended someone else earlier and been beaten for his pains, so Mikkel thought he could make use of the young man's facial bruises for his prank. His initial efforts failed due to the language barrier as Emil spoke only Swedish, but the young man came back to him, the medic, at almost the last moment, worried that his pretty face would suffer a scar.

At last! Mikkel solemnly expressed his concern that the bruises might lead to “face cancer”. The prank almost failed again because Emil didn't understand him, but the word “cancer” was clear enough. Emil hastily agreed to whatever treatment was offered, so Mikkel fixed him up with a ludicrous bandage that made him look like one who had barely survived a grossling attack.

Glancing over at the laborers still hovering nearby, Mikkel got a hastily concealed grin and a quick thumbs-up. There was a tense moment when Admiral Olsen almost gave the game away as he recognized not only Mikkel but the “face cancer” prank he'd pulled before, but fortunately Emil couldn't follow the Danish shouting.

Mikkel sighed softly in the darkness. Pulling a prank on a teammate was not the best way to have started this project. In the morning he'd have to put an end to it.

Mikkel was annoyed with himself as well. What was he doing here with this crowd of strangers? What was he doing here anyway, when it was only by chance that his body hadn't been moldering away here for the past ten years? Sure, he'd been without a job since Summer, and he'd been bored with supervising his nieces and nephews and caring for the livestock, but still … there were plenty of other jobs he could have found on Bornholm or even the Öresund base. (Well, perhaps not the Öresund base. It seemed that Admiral Olsen remembered him from the previous visit.)

Why come here, to deserted Denmark, deserted for nine long decades since the Rash had swept through and destroyed the Old World? Why risk his life just to look for books that had probably rotted away in the decades of neglect? What did he care if no one ever explored the mainland again?

Ah, but the General had offered the job, assuring him that there'd be a good salary and bonuses enough that he could seriously consider purchasing the Pedersen farm close to the Madsen farm, allowing him to consider marriage and children. And the General had never steered him wrong.

Mikkel stood at the railing, gazing out to sea. Far over the horizon was Bornholm, to which he'd be returning on the supply ship's next run.

“Mikkel Madsen?” came a voice behind his right shoulder.

“I'm Madsen,” he answering briefly, turning despite his reluctance to interact with anyone. He swiftly assessed the small man behind him: Norwegian army uniform with a general's insignia, wearer balding and probably in his late forties or fifties. Mikkel straightened automatically, but stopped himself from coming to attention as the man was not in his chain of command.

“I'm General Trond Andersen. I understand you've been broken down to private and are being shipped back to Bornholm.”

Mikkel simply stared for a moment in disbelief, then turned back to look out to sea. He didn't want to discuss this with anyone, and certainly not a random Norwegian, general or not.

“Well, now, you could go back to Bornholm in disgrace and spend the next two years digging latrines and peeling potatoes. Or … you could agree to detached service. With me.”

Mikkel hesitated, but only for a moment. He turned.

He listened.

He agreed.

Some wealth and a good farm would be necessary for marriage, Mikkel believed, for without false modesty he considered himself unattractive. At near two meters tall (six foot four in the old measures forgotten since the Rash came) and powerfully built, he tended to intimidate rather than attract. His face — broad and ruddy with a twice-broken nose and eyes of a dark indeterminate color that could appear grayish, greenish, bluish, or even brown — was far from classically handsome though surrounded by the hair that was his one good feature, being thick but not coarse, falling straight to his ears and wavy from there to his shoulders, a deep, dark blond that verged on chestnut. He had moreover magnificent sideburns which he kept neatly trimmed and combed. He was capable of growing an equally magnificent beard and mustache but the thought of hair in contact with food disgusted him and he kept himself clean-shaven with a pearl-handled cutthroat razor that he'd found in a little shop in Reykjavík.

He sighed again. Annoyance was a waste of time and energy. Whatever their reasons, however sensible or otherwise he considered them, they were all in the Silent World together and he would have to do everything in his power to keep them all alive until they could be rescued.

And he would.

He slept.

The proximity alarm woke them all up but Sigrun was fastest out of her bunk, darting to the door to check the intruder. “All right, the door's open. You can come in,” she informed the door in Norwegian. “Scout's back,” she added for the benefit of the others, returning to collect her outer clothing. Mikkel, who had resolved in the late night's darkness not to become annoyed, became annoyed. He had already pointed out once to her that Lalli didn't understand any Scandinavian language.

Suppressing a sigh, he put on a neutral expression and merely answered, “Good. Stay put. I'll make sure he's decontaminated.” Scooping up the decontamination equipment, he opened the door for Lalli, who had not thought to try to open it.

The scout was almost preternaturally perceptive, and one look at Mikkel's face told him the other was annoyed. He cringed and tried to rush past to the safety of the main section of the tank, being brought up short as Mikkel caught him by his collar and pulled off his jacket, spraying it with the decontamination chemicals while simultaneously fending off Tuuri, who had worried long into the night about her young cousin and now earnestly wished to fling her arms around him in joy at his safe return. She had, at least, put on her mask before approaching but was about to pull it off when Mikkel stopped her, pointing out that they didn't know what might be on his clothing.

“Oh, come on,” Sigrun objected, “what do you think she'll do, run over and lick the jacket? I'm pretty sure nobody in the history of humanity has become infected just by breathing near possibly compromised clothing.”

Mikkel knew this was likely true; nine decades of tragic experience and cautious experimentation had shown that the Rash survived less than five minutes on a surface if exposed to the sun and less than twenty in the shade in warm weather, and even less in cooler weather such as they were experiencing. The Rash could not attack through intact skin and so was dangerous only if it could get into the mucous membranes of the nose or mouth or into the bloodstream through a cut or bite.

Still, it was important to him — important to all of them, he believed — that Sigrun view him as competent, reliable, and willing to follow orders. The sponsors had set out a protocol for dealing with anyone who had been out of sight of the tank and he meant to follow it until Sigrun, as captain of the expedition, ordered him not to. “Doesn't matter. It's protocol. It's either this or we make him stand outside in the sunlight for an hour.”

Lalli didn't understand any of the discussion but clearly understood what was expected of him. He stripped off his outer clothing and passed it to Mikkel to be pushed into the UV cabinet, submitted to being sprayed with decontamination chemicals, and even submitted to Tuuri's welcoming embrace as Mikkel departed to fix the team's breakfast.

Stirring the porridge, listening with half an ear to Tuuri and Lalli discussing the map in incomprehensible Finnish, Mikkel thought about the Rash as he had so many times before.

The Rash was not terribly contagious. It was nothing like so contagious as measles, a disease he knew of only from reading as the surviving communities had been too small and too widely separated to sustain it and it had gone extinct within months after the Rash appeared. The Rash was not even so contagious as smallpox, he thought, which the Old World had managed to eradicate decades before the Rash struck.

If the Rash had only infected humans, he mused, the Old World could have survived through quarantines and curfews; it would have been badly damaged but it could have survived. It was their misfortune that the Rash had infected every type of mammal except, strangely, cats, and it had been impossible to stop its spread through mice, rats, squirrels, and the rest of the mammalian class. The only non-immune survivors were human beings and their domesticated animals on a few islands and in mountain fastnesses — and even they could survive only through rigorous and often brutal quarantines.

If the Rash had merely killed every creature it infected, the Old World would surely have fallen, but the survivors could have returned from their refuges to the mainland a few generations later. The Danes would not have needed to send an army to reclaim Denmark, Mikkel thought, and the army would not have perished. He checked his hands, and they were not shaking. Not shaking at all.

Mikkel looked at his hands. They were shaking. He was so cold, and so very tired, and dawn was still over an hour away. He had been on the night watch for ten days now and he was weary.

He rested the shotgun on the barricade and cautiously flexed the fingers of one hand and then the other. They were cold and stiff but he could fire the shotgun if he needed to. He couldn't hit the broad side of a barn — he had failed every marksmanship test — but when a swarm of grosslings attacked, he had only to point the shotgun in the right direction and he was sure to hit something.

Movement caught his eye and the shotgun twitched toward it. A fireman had tossed an incendiary on the body of the latest grossling and was sprinting back to the barricade, but something with far too many legs had lunged out of the woods, moving fast enough to catch the fireman before it was in range of the shotguns —

Crack!

Even through his earplugs the marksman's rifle was loud. The grossling staggered a few more steps then collapsed, and the fireman ran a few more steps himself, stopped, turned, and bravely ran back to toss an incendiary on that body too before racing back to the barricade. A cheer, audible even through earplugs, rose from the soldiers who welcomed him back.

The soldiers stood guard behind a chest-high barricade that surrounded the base; outside the barricade was a moat of light and ashes. The light came from large arrays of powerful bulbs mounted on wooden towers and powered by generators, and the ashes were the results of three weeks of nightly grossling attacks. While grosslings generally stayed wherever they happened to be, they were attracted to loud noises such as those caused by the construction of the base during the day and the fighting by night. The captain claimed that they had lured in and wiped out every mobile grossling within ten kilometers … but still more grosslings attacked every night. Some of the soldiers believed that they were also attracted to the artificial lights, that in some dim way the grosslings remembered when such lights meant home. Mikkel shuddered at that thought.

The klaxon sounded behind him: the lookouts had spotted a swarm. Mikkel flexed his fingers again, checked his shotgun, peered out at the woods beyond the lights. Things were moving there; things were crawling, slithering, oozing forward into view: masses of corruption both horrifying and pitiful.

The marksmen were firing now, but there were too many for them and the swarm was moving into shotgun range. With the rest of the soldiers, Mikkel opened fire.

Tuuri and Lalli were quiet now and Emil was regarding him oddly. He had missed something, Mikkel realized. Sigrun held out her bowl: “Well?” Ah, the porridge was ready. He served them all except Lalli who seemed to have fallen asleep, and the team settled down to breakfast and the new day.

Sigrun had chosen spot number 24 as their first scavenging spot. Mikkel would have preferred spot number 11, but his one tentative attempt to suggest this was utterly disregarded. He schooled himself to accept this, acknowledging that he had spent decades building a reputation as frivolous, insubordinate, and unreliable, a reputation which could not be undone in a day. Then too, he reminded himself, they didn't really know whether 24 or 11 or any other spot would have a salvageable collection of books, for the records on which the sponsors relied were old and fragmentary, and nine decades of neglect could have ruined any or all of the supposed collections. Besides, there was the grim fact that they had lots of time to scavenge, much more than had been originally planned.

More than his problems with Sigrun as captain, he was becoming concerned about Emil. The younger man's file was … odd. It contained the basics: date and place of birth, parents' names, and then nothing until he started school at age sixteen. Apparently he'd been taught at home prior to that, though not very well as he was a poor student and, reading between the lines, Mikkel thought he was unpopular with both other students and his teachers. He dropped out midway through his second year to join the Cleansers, but he didn't fit in well there either.

The Cleansing job did not require advanced education but did require some physical prowess, and Cleansers tended to join quite young, usually at fourteen, the Swedish age of maturity. Emil was older and better educated than his peers in the Cleansers when he joined and, again reading between the lines, Mikkel thought he had offended both peers and superiors by expecting to advance more quickly than he had. He had not received a promotion in his two years of service, though he seemed to be a good Cleanser for his file described him as “a wizard with fire, able to do more with less than any other Cleanser I've trained.”

Cleansers, however, were not Hunters. Their job was to burn down anything that might give shelter to a grossling after the Hunters cleared out everything they could find, so they seldom encountered a live grossling and when they did, they tended to run away and call the Hunters back to deal with the problem. Watching and listening to Emil's muted responses to Sigrun's bloodthirsty enthusiasm, Mikkel feared that he would be one of those who were incapable of facing such horror. There had been not a few soldiers who had had to be sent back to Bornholm for that very reason, and that would be very unpleasant for them now, with no way to escape for weeks or possibly months.

Sigrun offhandedly asked Mikkel to radio back to base, which he greatly appreciated; he'd thought they should start the sponsors working on a rescue plan the night before, but better later than not at all. Before that, though, he felt Lalli needed recognition for scouting all night. How to do it, though, with no language in common?

Ah, but there was one language everyone shared. He had a cache of cookies which his mother had sent along, and he was certain that Lalli would understand one as a reward. He shook the weary scout awake, handed him a cookie, and told him, “Good job,” in the warmest tone he could manage. This worked less well than he expected as Lalli simply stared at the cookie, turning it around and around and even sniffing at it. Had the Finn never seen a cookie before?

Mikkel watched for a moment, then shrugged and turned away. Eventually the scout would think to taste the cookie, or he wouldn't, and in either case, there was work to do. As he seated himself at the radio, he did not see Lalli's ecstatic expression at the taste of the cookie, nor did he see or hear Lalli's stealthy investigation of his satchel and removal of a handful of the cookies.

For a moment, Mikkel thought he would be able to contact their home base. The radio emitted a pleasant buzz and then —

Static. Loud static and getting louder; he could almost hear words in it.

Mikkel ducked into the radioman's tent to ask, “Christensen, do we have word on when the ammo will be sent?”

“No, I haven't been able to get through to the base. The static is bad today.”

“Static? How is that such a problem?”

“Uh … well, it's loud.” Private Anders Christensen flipped a switch and the tent was full of static. Mikkel listened, frowning — were those words? — but then Christensen flipped the switch back and the tent was silent.

“Wait, I thought I heard — turn it on again!”

Christensen didn't move. “Corporal — no — it's not safe — ”

“What are you talking about, man?”

“The voices, you heard the voices. They're — they're the voices of the damned souls and if you listen too long — if you listen too long they start to make sense and then you're damned too.”

Mikkel stared at him for a long moment. Then he nodded curtly. “Keep trying to get through. We need that ammo.” He turned and left the tent.

Mikkel was a practical, rational Danish soldier, not a superstitious Norwegian. He didn't believe in souls, damned or otherwise, and he didn't believe for a moment that the static could hurt him. That was definitely not why he switched off the radio immediately and went back to report to Sigrun that they would have to try again elsewhere.

The tank was on the move again, Lalli was curled up under Mikkel's bunk with a bucket thoughtfully placed near at hand by Mikkel himself as he didn't want to clean up any messes, Tuuri was driving, and the other three were crowded together where they could see out the front. Approaching the barrier which the Danish army had built with so much effort, Tuuri asked, “Um, is this from when your people tried to reclaim your land, Mikkel?”

“Yes, this is as far as we got. These defense mounds here are officially a decade old. They weren't of much use, to be honest. The winter was too mild, and the noise we made clearing the airport nearby eventually stirred up too many things in the city. All our defenses were taken out during the span of a single night.”

“Wow, yeah,” Emil drawled. “I didn't understand most of that, but what I did understand was … sooo lame.”

Mikkel glared at the brat. What did he know about life and death? “A lot of good people I knew died,” he stated, making a conscious effort not to grit his teeth.

Mikkel was in Sweden when they got the word. The Danish army in Kastrup had fallen to the grosslings with no survivors.

Once, Mikkel knew, the Swedes and the Danes had fought each other, even killed each other's soldiers, but in the Year 80 of the Rash, all such hostility was forgotten. The loss of over three hundred immune men and women was a terrible blow not just to the Danes but to the entire human race, and the Swedes around him were nearly as shaken as he was. That the Danish government had “stockpiled the men's genetic potential”, as they expressed it in their bureaucratic fashion, was little consolation for their families and friends.

Mikkel went out and got drunk with the General.

“Oh, uh, right, I mean …” Emil stammered, “… n-no offense?”

Mikkel grunted, forcing down the responses that came to mind. There was a strained silence.

“Did you work here?” Tuuri asked hesitantly, trying to change the mood. “During the time of the attack. I mean, I know you served in the army around that time, but …”

“Oh, oh no. I did serve here, but I was — uh — relocated a week before that fateful day.”

Sigrun chuckled and stage-whispered to Tuuri, “That means he was fired, right?”

Dawn had driven the grosslings back to their lairs and the soldiers of the night watch were policing up their shotgun shells for reloading. No one had died during the night and only one had been injured; the grossling swarms were fewer and smaller now as if they had, at long last, cleared out most everything within earshot. At the same time, the soldiers were more widely separated on the new defensive line and they really needed more troops.

“… not be allowed to vote, much less breed,” Captain Knudsen was lecturing his aide as they approached. Mikkel ground his teeth. He had had just about enough of this. “The future is ours, after all.”

That was enough. “Not everyone comes from an immune family,” Mikkel stated, glaring at the captain. “My sister is non-immune, and she's in the army —“

“Back on Bornholm with the other Darwinian losers,” Knudsen sneered.

“Back on Bornholm patching up soldiers so they don't die,” Mikkel retorted. “She's got one bad gene, but she's just as good as any immune, and better than some.” His glare made it perfectly clear whom he considered “some”.

“'Sir',” Knudsen prompted, glaring right back.

He shouldn't have said it. He knew he shouldn't say it even as he said it. “Don't 'sir' me. I work for a living.”

Knudsen's fair skin went scarlet with rage. “Pack your kit, Private Madsen. You're going back to Bornholm.”

“Either way,” Mikkel said, staring straight ahead and refusing to acknowledge Sigrun's whisper, “we're the first humans venturing this far since the dawn of our time.” That put an end to the discussion, and they rode in silence for some time.

The Old World had died, but it had gone down fighting. A steel fence stretched from building to building as far as they could see, separating them from their goal. It would have stopped most grosslings — the smallest could have gotten through but they would have been dealt with by cats — but something had created a large gap in the fence. At Sigrun's gesture, Tuuri stopped the tank long enough for Sigrun to examine the fence carefully through the window. “Did a giant do that?” Tuuri asked in a dismayed tone.

“No,” Sigrun answered thoughtfully, “that was cut, not torn. Humans did this.”

“Mikkel, did your people come here?”

“No, we —“

“Nah, this is old. See the rust, there and there? The cuts must be as old as the fence, or nearly.” Mikkel subsided. Sigrun did not require his input.

“You mean, they put up this big fence and then cut through it?”

“Somebody did. You see a lot of strange things in Old World cities. Things must have got kind of crazy at the end.” Sigrun shrugged, dismissing it. “Drive on.” Tuuri drove on through the gap in the fence.

Unlike some of the other streets they'd passed, the street beyond was neither clogged with decaying vehicles nor cleared by something pushing or even hurling vehicles out of the way. No, this street had been kept clear with vehicles neatly parked to either side, and Mikkel wondered if there simply hadn't been any attempt to flee the city along this road, or if someone had kept it clear in hopes of … what? Return to normal life? Escape? Rescue? There hadn't been a lot of escapes or rescues when the cities died, but there had been a few. He resolved that, if he made it back to Bornholm alive, he'd try to find out what happened here.

They kept to the north, sunny, side of the street. Many of the buildings had lost their roofs or even collapsed, which made them unlikely to harbor grosslings. Still, there were a few … Emil was focused on something in a window. Mikkel couldn't see what it was: a grossling? A tree growing up through the floor? Just a shadow?

Impossible to tell.

The tank had been made as quiet as possible, but still its treads clattered over fallen pieces of vehicles and buildings so Sigrun ordered Tuuri to drive fast in the hope that, “By the time some grossling might get the great idea of trying to attack us we'll be long gone. Out of sight, out of mind. And if something does start following us, me and Emil will jump right out and take care of it! Isn't that right, Emil?”

Emil's response, “Uh-huh. Yeah,” was good enough for Sigrun, but Mikkel privately thought he'd better be ready to back up the younger man to whatever degree he could. It was perfectly clear that Sigrun believed Emil a warrior like herself, and also perfectly clear that she was wrong.

Site number 24 was a large, solid building in relatively good shape, even boasting an intact and locked front door, though Mikkel's crowbar made short work of the lock. The interior was a disappointment as some of the walls near the door had partially collapsed, forcing Sigrun to scramble over fallen beams to enter. The windows were crusted over from years of dust and leaves, making the interior gloomy and requiring flashlights even in the bright sunshine.

Sigrun entered alone at first, leaving the three men hovering by the door. “You stay there. I'll make sure the place isn't a total death trap. I'll be back in a heartbeat.”

Mikkel watched intently, trying to spot what the experienced Hunter was checking. One day he might have to do this himself, or Emil might with his help. She seemed to be particularly checking for potential points of entry, and for any disturbance of the debris on the floor.

“Looks clean enough. I don't see anything that points to a nest. We can carry on. First, ground rules! Number one: we stay together! No wandering off on your own and getting lost in there. Number two: firearms are our last resort weapon. A cold blade through the brain is just as effective as any bullet, and most importantly won't wake the whole block. If your life really depends on it, sure, dish out some lead. But that also means the gig is up and we all better start running out and to the tank! Got it?”

“Got it,” Emil mumbled. Lalli said nothing, as one might expect since he hadn't understood a word of her announcement.

“That's all the rules! Stay together, blade before bullets! Let's go!” Sigrun finished.

Mikkel was torn. Respond enthusiastically (or at least as enthusiastically as Emil) to her call for action, or present what he thought was a better plan. He needed to be seen as a reliable subordinate, but still …

“I believe I should stay outside,” he answered her quietly.

“Oh good, you think so too. I wasn't sure if I should bring this up. I mean, you would be useful for carrying whatever we find. But with your size I'm worried that you'll get stuck in some doorway and block us from getting back out.”

Mikkel stiffened and allowed himself to grind his teeth briefly. He was certainly larger than the tiny scout, and both taller and broader than Emil or Sigrun, but he suspected that he was stronger than all three of them combined. There was not a kilogram – well, not many kilograms – of fat on him, and he most assuredly wasn't stupid enough to get stuck anywhere.

“Yes, thank you for your concern,” he replied as evenly as he could manage. “I personally think someone should stand guard out here and also keep Tuuri company.”

“Great, so we have many good reasons to leave you out here. Glad we got that resolved. Bye now!” Sigrun replied cheerfully, having apparently completely missed his body language. It seemed that hunting grosslings didn't offer a lot of training in social interaction.

Mikkel fumed, watching her charge back into the building. At any other time, he'd have been plotting pranks against her, but he couldn't, not here and not now. He consciously tamped down his emotions then turned to Emil. It was time to end that prank as part of his resolution to be a good subordinate.

“Let's get that bandage off. We wouldn't want you to be distracted by it in there,” he said as clearly as he could in hopes the Swede could follow his words.

“Off? You think that's wise? It's only been on for a day. I don't want to risk cancer.”

“Bruises don't cause cancer.”

“… Huh?”

“I made that up.”

“Why?!”

“It was a joke,” Mikkel replied, removing the bandage and thriftily pocketing it.

“It's not a joke if it's not funny!”

“Well, I was amused.”

Emil glared at him for a moment, then grabbed Lalli's hand and dragged him along in Sigrun's wake, muttering as he went, “It wasn't funny!”

Mikkel watched them go, hoping that Emil was the forgiving sort. He needed to do something to make it up to the man he had humiliated, for hostility between the team members could imperil them all. With a sigh, he turned back to survey the street. It was only later, when they were scrubbing their clothing in a stream, that he would learn what happened during the next two hours inside site number 24.

In the meantime, he waited by the door, occasionally pacing a hundred meters or so either way and peering in through broken windows, doors, and walls. Each time he passed the tank, he and Tuuri waved at each other. She was clearly bored — so was he, come to that — but she was following orders, sitting in the driver's seat with her mask on, ready to flee at the tank's rather pitiful top speed if the time came.

Eventually the others came rushing out, Sigrun and Emil beaming with joy and loaded down with books, books in good shape! Even though he'd agreed to come along in hopes of salvaging such things, Mikkel hadn't really believed, up to that moment, that they'd find anything truly valuable. They piled the books in his arms and dashed back inside to gather more. The books went into the decontamination section of the tank, cruelly tempting Tuuri as she could see them but was not permitted to enter and touch them, for Mikkel was still sticking with the protocol laid down by their sponsors.

What they were doing in gathering books was not illegal, so far as Mikkel knew, but all of the paperwork on the expedition from the Nordic Council described its purpose as exploration, with no mention of collecting books or indeed anything else. Since Admiral Olsen had laughed in talking to Torbjörn about "unauthorized looting", Mikkel had gathered that the entire expedition was a pretext set up by the sponsors to profit by sale of salvaged books, and that that part of the project had been kept a secret from the Council which was financing it. As he didn't like authority, particularly in the form of the Nordic Council, he had no great objection to working behind their backs.

The explorers made several more trips and Mikkel had put together three tidy piles in the tank when there was a long delay. He hesitated in the doorway, wondering if they might have run into trouble — but surely the three of them could handle anything in there. Sigrun wouldn't have led the young men into too much danger … would she? And how would she react if he ran in to help them? Especially if they didn't need help?

He had almost decided to run in anyway, when the ground shook and smoke and debris burst from the windows and doors. An explosion! Mikkel shouted to Tuuri to start the engine because they were leaving immediately and had just turned back when Sigrun and Emil stumbled out, choking. “Why are there only two of you?! Where's Lalli?!” he shouted urgently.

“Wha —? Where is —? Lalli! We have to go back in and —” Emil had only gotten that far when a crack overhead prompted Mikkel to spin around.

A body falling — his arms out to catch — the impact driving him to his knees. He stood, cradling Lalli in his arms. If not for the deep drift of dirt and dead leaves that cushioned the pavement, he knew he'd certainly have broken something. As it was, his knees would be black and blue for days before turning interesting shades of green and yellow.

Lalli jerked out of his arms and the four of them ran for their lives to the tank which Tuuri had already set in motion along the predetermined path of retreat. In the decontamination section, Mikkel had scarcely confirmed with Tuuri that she could find the retreat spot on her own, when another crisis arose.

Sigrun was absolutely thrilled! Being chased by grosslings and having a building blown up around her was the sort of thing that a Hunter like her lived for! In her excitement, she embraced Emil, crying, “Wasn't that the awesomest!?! I had my doubts, but there's some viking in you after all! We'll make a great team! You and me and the little forest mage guy! We'll wreck this old city up real good, and take everything we find! What do you say?! Are you with me!?!”

The other three were not thrilled. Lalli cringed into a corner as far from her as he could manage; Emil tried to smile and be brave before the stress overcame him and he lost his lunch on the floor. Mikkel decided he had to take a hand, telling Sigrun quietly, “I say it's time for us to wind down,” and pushing her gently but firmly into a corner to wait while he tried to organize the cleanup.

The vomit had to be cleaned up first, as he didn't want the stench to set off anyone else (especially himself), but their clothing was a problem for Emil in particular was filthy, covered from head to toe with grossling slime, and Sigrun wasn't much better. The Rash wouldn't live long even under those conditions, but following protocol and stuffing such befouled clothing in the UV treatment chamber would smear slime all over the chamber and anything else that went in, while spraying it with decontamination chemicals would likely exhaust their supply.

Mikkel pulled off Emil's jacket and hesitated, trying to think what to do. “Forget protocol,” Sigrun said, sounding tired now as the adrenaline high wore off. “There's a stream at the retreat site. We can scrub it and him and me there. Let everything dry in the sun and we're good to go.”

Mikkel nodded, hiding his satisfaction. He could skip the protocol devised by paranoid Icelanders who had no idea what they were facing, without being insubordinate. It had only taken one day to reach that point, and they had many more days to go.

As he sorted gear and clothing and got the others settled rather uncomfortably for the ride, Mikkel stopped for a moment. Here was Emil's Cleansing belt with its small pockets for incendiaries and explosives, four of which were empty. Mikkel called up his memory of Emil as he went into site number 24: those four pockets had contained incendiaries. He checked over the other gear, matching it against his memory. Four incendiaries, one flask of flammable oil, and a flashlight. That was all that was missing.

Mikkel intended to get the story from Emil when they reached the retreat site.

Mikkel only allowed Emil to shampoo his hair once. As shaken as the younger man was, Mikkel suspected that he would continue to shampoo it all afternoon if permitted to do so. As it was, Emil had rinsed it four times by Mikkel's count while the two of them (mostly Mikkel) scrubbed all the befouled clothing as they knelt by the stream.

“What exactly happened in there, Emil?”

“Uh … where's Sigrun? I expect she could answer better —”

“She's looking around for herbs we can use. We're not well provided for in terms of medical supplies, you know, and maybe she can find us an anti-emetic herb.”

“What's a … anti-emmy … what?”

“An anti-emetic keeps you from vomiting.”

“Oh — I'm sorry about that. It was, just —”

“Not for you. For Lalli.”

“Oh, right. Yeah, he's had a tough time.”

“Just so. Now, what exactly happened in there?”

Well, at first I found some books but they were all rotted and I thought we'd come all this way and got stuck in the Silent World for nothing, but Sigrun wasn't worried at all, Mikkel, she never turned a hair at anything that whole time, even when —

Well, I'll get to that. We couldn't talk to Lalli and he couldn't talk to us so we just had to look at him and try to figure out if he was worried about anything. He's a good guy and all and I'm sure he's a great scout, but … Anyway, there were bodies in there, well, bones at least, like they'd brought all these sick people in and they just died there and they were just lying there all those years until we came in …

Yeah, but it was okay, nothing to freak out about. Not them. They were just dead guys and all. Sigrun said she saw stuff like that all the time, and Hunters get used to it. It didn't bother me at all. They were just dead guys.

But then we found the library! And it was all closed up and nothing had leaked in or grown in there at all! It was so great and I was so happy. Except for the dead guy though. He was just lying in the middle of the floor like … like … so that's where we got all those books we brought you.

And we were going to go back and bring you in to help carry the books, but … but then Lalli started freaking out at stuff dripping out of a vent, and we knew there shouldn't be anything dripping, and Sigrun said we had a “visitor”, and I knew she meant a grossling. We thought it was just a little one, to fit in that vent, you know, and we didn't want to just go off and leave all those books — there were enough to fill the tank!

So Sigrun said we'd split up, just to check for the thing and meet back in a few minutes. I was supposed to stay with Lalli, or he was supposed to stay with me I mean, but I looked away and he was just gone! I don't know where he ran off to or why, maybe Tuuri can find out, but he was gone! It wasn't my fault at all!

I went looking for the grossling like I was supposed to and I heard it and I was going to kill it, only … oh, Mikkel, there was a thing on the ceiling and it drooled on me …

Yeah, I ran and the other grossling ambushed me and I cut off some pieces but it was on top of me … Sigrun just ran up and killed it! Then we ran but they were chasing us and she said there were a gazillion of them so I threw a bottle of oil and some incendiaries behind us and …

And the building blew up.

“You threw a bottle of oil and four incendiaries at some grosslings and the building blew up.” Mikkel prompted.

“Four? I thought it was more but … there must have been some gasses built up down there or the grosslings were sort of explosive … that happens sometimes,” Emil muttered.

Mikkel dropped the subject. He was, however, quite certain that any gasses in the building would have dissipated decades earlier, and no grossling he'd seen had ever exploded, though he'd seen a lot of grosslings during his service in the army. Emil was a Cleanser who could “do more with less”, indeed.

It was evening in the tank and all was well. The decontamination section had been thoroughly scrubbed (mostly by Mikkel); the explorers' outer clothes had been cleaned (mostly by Mikkel) and hung up to dry; Mikkel had tried yet again to use the radio and had gotten nothing but static.

Lalli was sleeping under Mikkel's bunk instead of in his own bunk, for reasons that no one understood or wanted to get Tuuri to ask about. While Sigrun guarded Tuuri as she used the latrine, Emil chopped wood both as fuel for the tank and to burn off the stress of the day, and Mikkel went through their haul of books.

When Sigrun and Tuuri returned, Mikkel enquired courteously, “I'm quite curious, Sigrun, did you put any informed thought into which books you chose to bring out to me?”

“Naah. Books are books, they're all worth something, right? We just took whatever.”

“Mmm, I was suspecting as much.” He'd heard that Norwegians, unlike Danes, didn't have a tradition of scholarship; this seemed proof, at least in her case. He held up a garishly colored book. “How much do you reckon a book about golf is worth?”

“I dunno? What's 'golf'?”

“It's a game.”

“Like hide and seek?”

“No. It's a game where one repeatedly hits a small ball in order to get it into a hole in a field of grass.” He had heard of the game as part of a family story for his great-grandfather had played it before the coming of the Rash and was said to have complained frequently about losing the sticks used in the game. It was, perhaps, unfair to expect Sigrun to have the same knowledge.

“Yeah, that does sound kinda dumb, I suppose.”

“To be fair, they aren't all bad. This one here, for instance, seems to be rather … interesting.” It was a journal or diary with handwritten pages and numerous photographs stuck between the pages. Faded though the pictures were, they clearly depicted someone suffering the Rash, which made them instantly intriguing to him. “I'll definitely need to take a closer look at this one tomorrow.”

“But that's my job!” Tuuri interjected in alarm.

“Don't fuss, little fuzzy-head! We'll go get you more books!” Sigrun assured her condescendingly.

“Tuuri.” Mikkel hastened to draw her attention as she appeared about to object to Sigrun's tone. “I've put these books aside — they look valuable and they're all in Danish so either of us can read them. These three over here though, I think they're in English. I can't read it myself. Will you take a look at them and see what you think?”

Overjoyed at having a task, Tuuri picked up the thickest of the books and read the title: “The Sil – ma – rill – i – on.”

“I got that much. What does it mean in Danish? Or Swedish, I mean.”

“I … don't have any idea. I've never seen this word before.” She opened the book to a random page in the middle and studied a page thoughtfully. “It's definitely English. Seems to be some kind of adventure. People fighting … There are a lot of names here.”

“We can keep that one for the skalds.”

“I'm a skald!” she flared.

“Of course, and a very good one,” he answered both soothingly and truthfully.

“Huh.” She was not entirely mollified.

“But I know skalds, and if you start to study that, you'll get so engrossed you'll forget to eat. Sleep. Maintain the tank that keeps us alive. That sort of thing.”

“Oh. Yeah.” She looked longingly at the book. “I guess I'll just put it aside for when we get back.” She hugged it to her, then put it away forever.

“Mikkel,” she asked after a moment, “aren't you a skald too?”

“I'm a farmer,” he said flatly.

“But you were a soldier?”

“Years ago.”

“You're a medic, though?” Sigrun put in, turning from the window where she'd been keeping an eye on Emil.

“That too. Sometimes.”

“Well, that's useful. Sometimes.”

After Tuuri and Mikkel finished stowing the books so they would not shift while the tank was moving, Tuuri went off to her bunk and dropped off immediately, and the two older team members waited quietly for Emil to wear himself out and seek his own bunk. Once the three young people were safely abed, Sigrun and Mikkel had one last conversation.

“Now I've seen what my crew is made of so I say we go hit the really juicy spots deep in the city next!” Sigrun said enthusiastically.

“Really?” Mikkel asked, trying to sound neither astonished nor horrified. “You really think those two are ready for that? What I witnessed today came across as very disorganized and impulsive behavior.” He regretted the words at once. If she took them as an unjust criticism, that might damage the fragile rapport they had achieved.

But Sigrun took them in good spirit. “Well, yeah, maybe they're not totally up to speed yet. But nobody died! That's a pretty good sign of potential if you ask me. And from my experience I'd say we've got a pretty nice setup going for us here. You'll see. As long as we don't get hit by too many curve balls, this'll be great!

Mikkel mumbled something not too discouraging and turned to his own bunk. She was an experienced grossling hunter and recommended by the General. Perhaps what looked like disorganized and impulsive behavior to his tidy mind was the sort of flexible behavior that you needed when you entered grossling lairs.

He hoped so, anyway.

The next morning Mikkel again tried to radio back to the base, and again got nothing but static which he switched off immediately. As he started out of the tank, he nearly bowled over Tuuri and Lalli behind her.

“Oh! Is the radio not working still?”

“Just static. I'll try again later.”

“Well, we, me and Lalli, we might be able to get through. Lalli's a mage, you know.”

Mikkel blinked. Certainly Lalli's file had described him as a mage but he had thought that Tuuri, as a skald, would be less superstitious than to believe in magic. But what did it matter? She was a mechanic; maybe the radio just needed adjusting or something.

“Fine, give it a try. Don't — ” It was foolish but he felt just a little uncomfortable about letting her listen to the static. “Uh. Don't spend too long at it. If you can't get through, you can't.”

“Sure. And what should I tell them about the books?”

“Tell them we have about a dozen.” As she opened her mouth to object, he held up a hand and continued, “I know, we have more. But only about a dozen really good ones. Those others we'll bring along, but I think they're worthless and I don't want to get the sponsors' hopes up.”

“Okay, I'll do that,” she answered cheerfully, backing up to allow him to exit before she and Lalli entered and closed the door.

Mikkel's morning campfire was not burning well, and snide comments from Emil about how slowly breakfast was progressing didn't help. Sigrun, at least, was mercifully silent, keeping watch and listening to their surroundings. All three leapt to their feet when a thunderous boom seemed to emanate from the tank itself.

“Did the radio explode now?” Sigrun called shakily.

“No, no, everything is fine!” Tuuri called back. The three looked at each other uncertainly and slowly sat back down as Lalli let himself out and dropped wearily to the ground a few feet from Emil. Mikkel went back to trying to poke up his fire, but somehow the stick that should have been prodding at a log hit one of the legs of his cooking tripod, and somehow that leg had been set right on the edge of a rock, and somehow — somehow — the whole thing went over, taking the pot and the half-cooked porridge with it.

Mikkel's sotto voce comment would have gotten him a stern lecture from his grandmother Anne, matriarch of the Madsen farm. They had just three weeks food which could be stretched to four by which time, he hoped, they'd have either rescue or resupply. Losing a single meal was unfortunate but survivable, he supposed, but he could have kicked himself for his clumsiness. They needed the whole team at its best.

“We're starving!” Emil whined.

“I'll check the back for something quick to prepare,” Mikkel answered with a sigh, hurrying to the storage section of the tank.

As he pried at the lid of one of their two crates of food, he could hear Torbjörn Västerström, Emil's uncle and sponsor, who had obviously just heard about their limited collection of books: “Do you think you could return there and pick up the rest? If there really is a ton of books, then —”

“Oh. No,” Tuuri interrupted in some embarrassment. “Emil set the place on fire. I'm sorry.”

“I see,” Torbjörn was saying just as Mikkel raised the lid of the crate and, to his horror, found himself looking at an entire crate full of … candles. He didn't even hear the rest of the conversation as he pulled the first crate off, opened the second, and found it too full of nothing but candles.

Mikkel closed the two crates and restacked them, giving himself a moment to rest his forehead against the upper crate in despair. His pendant felt very cold against his chest.

“Mikkel, what kind of prank are you playing this time? Michael says you said you're going back to the Silent World!”

“No prank,” Mikkel said quietly.

His eldest sister, Maja, continued, “I don't think it's funny and — what!?”

“No prank. I've signed up for an expedition to —”

“Have you gone mad!? It's only by the kindness of the gods that you weren't there at …” Her voice dropped to a horrified whisper, “Kastrup.”

“I wasn't there because I was insubordinate and insulted my captain.”

“Well, the gods told you to do it just in time!”

Mikkel muttered, “I don't recall hearing them say anything.” He frowned at her. “What is this talk of gods? You sound like Hilmar.” He did like his Icelandic brother-in-law, but there was no denying that the man was superstitious and invoked his “gods” entirely too often for Mikkel's taste.

Her pale face reddened. “He makes a lot of sense, Mikkel. He says the gods sent the Rash because we forgot them, and you can't deny that the Rash isn't like any other disease ever, ever! It isn't natural at all and the Icelanders that went back to worshipping the gods are the ones that survived! He says —”

“They survived because they live on an island and they closed their borders early —”

“Leave it, Mikkel. Tell me why you would — why anyone would — want to go back to the Silent World.”

“For the books, Maja. There were lots of books there and our sponsors think they've pinpointed some that could still be intact —”

“For books? You're going to risk your life for books? What's wrong with you! What do you think Hilmar's doing!?”

“He's translating Icelandic books. Icelandic books, Maja. They aren't ours. And anyway, all they have are the books that they didn't burn when they decided to go back to their old … religion.” He caught himself before saying “superstitions”. She was upset enough without his insulting her husband.

“Well, we burned our books too so that's why we don't have them!”

“Our ancestors burned books because there was no fuel and the alternative was freezing! The Icelanders didn't have that excuse. They still don't, come to that. Look, let's not argue. This won't be like Kastrup. It's a very small expedition, one tank, very quiet, and we won't try to build anything and we won't stay in one place long enough to attract grosslings. We'll run instead of fighting, and if it's too dangerous we'll just turn back. It'll be all right, really, I'm sure.”

She bit her lip, looking at the ground for a moment. Finally she looked up at him, pulled her pendant from around her neck, and offered it to him. “Then wear this. For me. It's — it's made from the stone of the Thorsmork — ” Seeing his dubious face, she added, “It doesn't matter if you don't believe; it can't hurt. For me, Mikkel?”

Mikkel hung the pendant around his neck.

Mikkel pulled out the pendant and looked at the small polished stone hammer. He didn't think it had helped at all. They were trapped on the wrong side of a collapsed bridge, and now they were out of food. On the other hand, he supposed that Maja would say it had helped since they hadn't gone into the sea with the bridge. He tucked it back in his shirt, straightened his shoulders, and went forth to handle the latest disaster.

“May I borrow the radio for a second?” He asked Tuuri quite courteously.

“Oh, of course, go ahead.”

“Hello, this is Mikkel Madsen speaking,” he stated in his most professional tones.

“Well, hello, Mikkel! How are you doing?” Torbjörn answered in some confusion.

“I'm quite well, thank you.” As Torbjörn started to respond politely, Mikkel added, “We're out of food.”

“Uh … what?” That was Torbjörn.

“What?!” That was Emil outside the tank.

“What!?” And that was Sigrun charging into the tank.

“Yes. But we do have a surplus of candles.”

“No panic, this can be fixed,” Torbjörn said hastily. “Let's do this: You drive back here, we restock the supplies, and tomorrow we start anew. Yes, that will work.”

By this time Sigrun and Mikkel were both crowding Tuuri into the radio. “Yeah, except no, it won't,” Sigrun snarled. “The bridge is broken.”

“You … broke the bridge!?”

“WHAT?!!” All three in the tank recognized Admiral Olsen's bellow. Years of supervising heavy work on his base without adequate ear protection had left him largely deaf, and he tended to shout as if others were too.

“Nnnoo? It was already broken when we got there,” Tuuri quavered.

“N-no sir, it was already broken when they got there!” A woman's voice, speaking Swedish. Siv Västerström, Torbjörn's wife, then, Mikkel deduced.

There was more that the three in the tank could not make out, but the Admiral's answer was loud and clear: “HOW SOON?!! I COULD ARRANGE THAT TODAY! BUT SECURING PERMISSION FROM THE NATIONAL SECURITY OFFICE WILL TAKE … FOUR WEEKS!!”

Mikkel closed his eyes for a long moment. Four weeks. Exactly as long as they would have been able to hold out, if they'd had the food. Why hadn't anyone checked the crates as they were loaded? Why hadn't he checked the crates as they were loaded?

“Wait …” Torbjörn was puzzled. “If the bridge was already broken, how did you get across it?”

“I dunno,” Sigrun answered innocently. “I guess we should get off now.”

At her gesture, Tuuri cut the connection. They went back out of the tank and sank to the ground in a discouraged silence. There would be no exploring today.

The team waited in doleful silence. Tuuri remained by the radio, her head in her hands. Sigrun had taken out her dagger and was methodically sharpening it. Emil sat beside her staring at the fire which Mikkel had so laboriously built and which was now crackling merrily, perfect for cooking the porridge which they no longer had. Lalli sat to Emil's right, gazing blankly into the distance. Mikkel studied his hands, so large and powerful and yet so useless now.

But they were survivors and descendants of survivors of the worst catastrophe to have struck the Earth since the end of the Cretaceous. After a few minutes, Mikkel hauled himself to his feet, stalked into the tank, and searched every single locker, drawer, and cabinet, of which there were many. He was rewarded with a package of emergency rations which appeared to have been left behind and forgotten the last time the tank had been used some ten years before. He passed them out to the whole team including himself.

Lalli accepted his share without looking at Mikkel and slowly began to gnaw at the time-hardened bulk. Emil complained, of course: “If this is all we'll have to eat from now on I want you to shoot me.” Sigrun was not much more enthusiastic: “It's not that bad. Complain once all we have left is what nature provides. Like dirt and stuff.”

Mikkel had just opened his mouth to snap at them both when Tuuri shouted, “Sigrun! Come! Hurry! They've found a way to save us!”

The whole team rushed into the tank, even Lalli, and as the last one in, Mikkel closed and sealed the door. There was no sense risking anything sneaking up on them while they were distracted.

The General himself had taken over the radio and gave their instructions. “There's an outpost pier not far from your current location. A supply dock built during the Danish reclamation attempt. If you miss it you're blind. It's the one with the lighthouse. There the ship will be able to drop off your replacement crates.”

Tuuri acknowledged and signed off, then waved the others to silence while she spoke to Lalli, finishing with a question. Lalli nodded and answered briefly, and she replied in a firm tone.

Lalli turned to the door without further response, and Mikkel opened the door and stepped back out of his way and, not coincidentally, out of sight of the others. Lalli stepped down and found one large hand blocking his path and the other offering Mikkel's share of the rations. He paused for a moment, looking back and forth between the hands, then hesitantly accepted the food. No longer blocked, he dashed away down the street. Mikkel climbed back inside. The tiny scout had not a gram of fat on his slender body and Mikkel had a kilogram to spare. Perhaps two.

Tuuri was explaining to the others, “He said the lighthouse was close, so close we'd see it if there weren't buildings in the way. It's just there's a lot of stuff in the streets and he'll have to find a way for us to get through.” They all nodded. In theory the tank could push most vehicles out of its way, but in practice no one trusted it to hold together if they tried that.

“Okay, then!” said Sigrun happily. “Let's pack up and get out of here!” Tuuri stayed by the radio in a far better mood, and the other three clambered out to get to work.

Mikkel's fire had flared up and was now threatening to escape the circle of rocks that served as his fireplace. He rushed to throw a bucket of water on it. His cry of “Emil!” brought the other around just in time to catch the empty bucket, and one look sent him rushing to the stream for more. Mikkel hastily gathered his cooking gear and looked up at Sigrun in annoyance at her failure to help.

Sigrun's dagger was out and she was staring intently at the back of the tank. Just as Mikkel turned, she darted past him, pounced on something behind a bush, and came back out grinning and cleaning her knife. “Troll,” she said cheerfully as she came back still scanning the surroundings. A troll was a grossling that had once been human, and they were dismayingly common in cities. Only perhaps one Rash victim in a hundred became a grossling, but there had been unthinkable numbers of humans in Old World cities. That was why Cleansers like Emil simply burned cities instead of trying to clear them out or salvage anything from them.

The Cleanser returned with his bucket and poured it carefully on several spots which hissed and smoked in response, then dumped the rest in the middle of the crude fireplace. “All out,” he said confidently.

“Good. Get all the gear together and dump it in the tank. We'll sort it later. Then come help me with the firewood.” They both got to work and had the tank loaded and provisioned within minutes. The two men and Sigrun then each independently circled the tank looking for anything that might rattle or come loose, before jumping inside and locking it up.

“So, let's get going,” Emil urged.

“No, we're waiting for Lalli,” Mikkel answered, carefully stowing a pot.

“But then — what was the hurry? We could have taken our time!” He twisted, wincing. In the rush to store the firewood as fast as possible, he had lifted much more weight than he was accustomed to.

“Hurry up and wait, Emil, that's a warrior's life,” Sigrun said philosophically. “We're ready to move whenever the twig shows up. In the meantime, we can just rest.” She suited actions to words by hopping up and stretching out on her bunk.

Two hours later, Sigrun was asleep, Tuuri was in the driver's seat gazing dully ahead with half-closed eyes, Emil was trying to stay awake beside her, and Mikkel was attempting to read the journal they'd found the previous day. It was hard going, for it was hand-written and the writer's hand was not terribly neat to begin and got worse as time went on, but that didn't really matter so much since Mikkel's eyes were looking at the page, but in his mind's eye he was reviewing Lalli's file.

The Finn was an experienced scout, having begun six years earlier at age thirteen, the age of majority in Finland. His files described him as a “mage”, and his cousin did the same, but Mikkel sincerely doubted the existence of magic and thought that this notation just meant that he was very skillful and, so far, very lucky. But sensible scouts didn't enter cities and Mikkel wondered and worried whether Lalli's wilderness scouting skills really translated well to city scouting. He tried not to selfishly wonder what the rest of them were going to do if his skills didn't translate well and their guide didn't come back.

The proximity sensor made everyone jump. “Lalli!” Tuuri cried joyfully. Mikkel took a moment to put the journal down carefully, with the result that Sigrun nearly kicked him in the face jumping down. The two of them rushed forward to see Lalli signalling “this way” to the tank. Tuuri put the tank in gear and they were finally on their way to get some food.

Lalli had found them a way through the city to the lighthouse, but it was not easy. Twice the tank barely scraped through between a vehicle and a wall, and after the second time, Sigrun jumped out of the tank muttering something in Norwegian which Mikkel did not recognize. Sitting as he was behind Tuuri, he saw her flinch and then slump in dismay. Sigrun hopped back in and announced cheerily, "Well, I really doubted her back in the base" — Tuuri sank deeper in her seat — "but she's done really well!" — Tuuri sat up and started to turn with an eager expression — "She scraped past that Old World thing and there's hardly a scratch on her!" — Tuuri turned away, shoulders slumped once more, and concentrated on getting the tank moving again.

Mikkel frowned but immediately schooled his face to neutrality. He needed to avoid offending Sigrun, though at the same time Tuuri needed encouragement. She was physically the weakest of them all; he'd shaken hands with her on first meeting and knew she was strong for her size, but her size was tiny. Also, of course, she was not immune and a small bite or scratch which the rest of them could survive would doom her to a horrible death. All the same, she was vital to the team: she was their only mechanic (Mikkel could make some repairs if they just involved the application of brute force) and their only driver (Sigrun's file showed her to be able to drive the tank, but her bewildered expression when she was asked to do so implied that whoever made out the forms had made a serious mistake, whereas Mikkel himself had never driven anything more complicated than an oxcart) and she was a skald who could read two languages that Mikkel could not. Mikkel resolved that he would do something to reassure her later.

The causeway to the lighthouse was too narrow for the tank, so Tuuri parked and all the immune team members piled out and started across. When Tuuri jumped out too, Sigrun immediately moved to block her. "Wait in the tank, fuzzy head!"

"Lalli!" Tuuri shouted, followed by much Finnish to and fro. "Lalli says there are no grosslings anywhere nearby," she continued in Swedish.

"Oh, all right. It's on your heads though. Come on!"

As they hadn't broken out the winter clothing yet, the cold and windswept lighthouse platform was a miserable place to wait. Nonetheless, only Emil complained and he merely muttered under his breath, ignored by the rest. It was the scout, of course, who first spotted the sail of their relief ship and pointed silently out to sea while the others cheered.

The ship would not approach, of course. Instead, the crew fired a harpoon sturdy enough to take down a leviathan, driving it quite accurately into the wooden door of the lighthouse, and then used the ropes trailing behind it to ferry over two crates, each on its own small boat. They then cut the ropes as a woman shouted in Icelandic, "Tell your Norwegian friend that if he ever contacts me again I will DESTROY him!"

Sigrun, who knew no Icelandic, shouted back, "Thank you!" while Mikkel chuckled. He knew what that meant.

"Why do you even want me on your team, and why would the army be willing to transfer a Danish soldier to a Norwegian team?"

"To answer your second question first, you've thoroughly destroyed your career as a soldier. You have a reputation all the way to the top for insubordination and resistance to authority. Bluntly, the Danish army just doesn't want you anymore. As to your first question, I want you because you're a big, dumb, Danish farmboy." The General chuckled. "... your face!" Sobering immediately, he went on, "Put on workmen's clothing, pretend you don't understand Icelandic, and that's exactly what the Icelanders will think you are."

"Ah … so I am to spy on the Icelanders?"

"On individuals. As big as it is, Iceland decides, well, everything. For us as well as them. Some of us think Iceland is excessively cautious, even paranoid, but we can't change their policies or persuade them to change their policies. We can, however, sometimes persuade individuals to … bend … their policies a bit. And you will help with that."

Mikkel opened one crate with Sigrun and Tuuri "helping", while Emil and Lalli took care of the other. Sigrun pulled out a bunch of carrots and sneered, "Really? They couldn't send us some real food?"

As mildly as he could manage, Mikkel replied, "Vegetables are important, Sigrun. Perhaps we won't develop scurvy now." As he spoke, a certain tension in Lalli's stance drew his attention. When something moved in that crate as Emil raised the top, Mikkel responded instantly and instinctively, pushing Tuuri behind him so as to shield her with his body.

Emil slammed down the lid of the crate, shouting, "There's something in the crate!"

"What?! SHOOT IT!!!" Sigrun shouted, while Mikkel was frozen, his mind working frantically: A grossling in the crate – it didn't latch on as the crate was pulled across — someone nailed a grossling into a crate —

"I … think it was a person!" Emil shouted back.

"Then DON'T shoot it and let it out!"

Mikkel muttered, "Stay!" to Tuuri and dashed forward. A person who would try to sneak into the Silent World could be even worse than a grossling.

There is a certain instinct to run after a crowd. This crowd seemed angry rather than frightened, and was running away from the village rather than towards it, so Mikkel followed out of curiosity, assuredly not due to instinct.

As he jogged up, last of all, he saw that the gate to the Outside was standing open and the hounds which had led the charge were growling and bristling but well-enough trained that they did not cross the Wall. Just to the left of the gate, a man lay face-down in a pool of blood, a stocky, gray-haired man kneeling beside him. Mikkel hurried over, panting, "I'm a … medic …" but the older man waved him off, saying sadly, "No use."

A young woman darted into the guard's hut but immediately ran out, shouting "Broken!"

The older man looked around hastily, then pointed at Mikkel: "Close that gate! Bjorn, you help him! Everyone else, defensive positions!"

The gate was well-balanced, or Mikkel's strength, great as it was, could not have moved it even with the assistance of the young man evidently named Bjorn. They pulled at it until it started to move, then leapt quickly out of its way as it swung to with a clang that made everyone jump. Mikkel turned to find the crowd had sorted itself into two semicircles, apparently the non-immunes with their backs toward the Wall and the immunes before them. The hounds-keeper had her hounds back on their leashes and was leading them in a search pattern starting at the gate.

Mikkel joined the immunes, standing next to the gray-haired man who was clearly the leader and, he saw as he examined the man more closely, also the man he had come to see, Erik Larsson. Larsson glanced over at him and muttered, "Good of you to help us."

"What happened here?" Mikkel asked, already fearing what he would hear.

"A murderer." Larsson shrugged uncomfortably. "We'd had questions before — 'did so-and-so come through your village' — and so we suspected there was a murderer around — somewhere — but not in our own village! Not my own cousin Henrik!"

"How did you find out? I mean, this —"

"He got greedy, I guess, snatched two women travellers, killed one, but the other got away, hurt, escaped to the village —"

"I'm a medic —" Mikkel started again.

"No need, my wife's a doctor. She'll take care of the poor woman. But anyway, we went to his house, tried to catch him, but he'd run for it, killed poor Arvid before we could get here … and now he's in the Outside. Well, he's not immune. It's a worse death than we'd have given him."

Mikkel shuddered at that thought, but he knew his duty and asked, "Are you Erik Larsson?" At the other man's nod, he added, "I'm told you have an inn and you serve a mighty fine wine."

Larsson gave him a hard look, then answered, "That I do, and you may want a glass, or four."

"All of that, and a round for the house," Mikkel answered. With the sign, countersign, and acknowledgement all given, he knew that by morning he'd have the papers he was sent for and would be on his way back to Mora. He had only to wait until the hounds-keeper confirmed that the hounds found no trace of intruding grosslings.

As Lalli, Sigrun, and Mikkel crowded around, Emil lifted the top of the crate again to reveal a very tall, very thin young man with an extraordinarily long, thick, red braid. Sigrun took one look at him and ran for the water's edge, shouting "Wait! Come back! Man overboard!"

The young man asked hesitantly in Icelandic, "Excuse me, is this Bornholm?"

"No," Mikkel answered slowly, "definitely not." The other looked harmless enough, and Mikkel didn't see any sort of weapon. He directed the stranger's attention to the ruined city not far away, studying his face carefully for any hint of danger.

"Ummm," the young man quavered, "I — I — I think I maybe got off at the wrong place."

His expression, dismayed and frightened, convinced Mikkel that, whatever strange decisions had led him to hide in a crate, the Icelander was not an escaping murderer. They need not fear him.

"Yes," Mikkel replied, "I believe it's safe to assume as much." More kindly he continued, "What's your name?"

"I — ah — Reynir," the stowaway stammered. "They'll come back for me, right?"

At the same time, Sigrun sprinted up to them shouting furiously, "Move, people! We need to get a message to the base five minutes ago!"

Mikkel tried to calm things down, saying soothingly, "There's no use hurrying, they won't be able to —"

"They better get this nuisance off our hands today!" Glaring at Mikkel, she added, "We can come back for the food later." Pointing to Emil, she ordered, "Emil, you're in charge of the prisoner!"

"Aye-aye!" Emil answered obediently while Lalli and the stranger, neither of whom had understood any of the shouting, looked around helplessly, shrugged, and followed Sigrun along the causeway to the tank, Emil marching behind them.

"He's not our prisoner, Emil," Mikkel tried to explain in Danish, the only language he knew which Emil had any chance of understanding.

"Yes, yes, prisoner! I got it," Emil answered, and Mikkel gave up for the moment. Clearly Sigrun, and perhaps also Emil, had heard of murderers fleeing to the Silent World and of course they had not understood anything that had passed between him and the Icelander. Possibly, Mikkel thought suddenly, they had heard of the very murderer, Henrik Larsson, that he had pursued! It had happened in Sweden, after all, and there were very few murders anywhere in the world in the ninth decade of the Rash …

"Hello!!? Help!!! We're out of food again!" Sigrun shouted into the radio.

"W-what? They didn't drop off the supplies?" That sounded like Torbjörn, Mikkel thought.

"One crate filled with garbage food! And a second one mostly filled with a person who is going to eat all of it!"

"Uh — but — oh. No. Nono nooo! What is this? Why is this happening to us?!" The voice over the radio wailed. Mikkel shook his head in amazement at the man's self-centeredness. "Just — just hold on! We'll call someone! If it's a civilian I'm sure anything possible will be done to get them to safety as soon as possible!" Mikkel sighed and turned away. He knew very well that there was nothing possible to rescue the stranger, any more than there was to rescue the team. He left Sigrun and Tuuri to deal with the radio while he tried to sort out the situation with their … well, call him their guest.

The situation in the sleeping quarters was every bit as bad as Mikkel had feared. Emil was ostentatiously standing guard while the stranger cowered, bewildered, on the floor. Completely baffled by the situation and frightened by all the shouting, Lalli had climbed into his bunk, the very top bunk, and was peeking fearfully over the edge. With a sigh, Mikkel started with Emil.

"The prisoner is under control," Emil announced in his best military voice.

"He's still not our prisoner," Mikkel stated as simply and clearly as he could.

"Wait … did you say he's not a prisoner now?"

"As I said before: NOT a prisoner. No. N-O!"

"Why — why didn't anyone tell me?" Emil wailed. "I wouldn't have acted this way! We're mortal enemies now!"

There was nothing much Mikkel could do about his distress, so he turned to the Icelander in an effort to straighten things out and, of course, to find out what the young man was doing in the crate in the first place. "So you were trying to get to Bornholm, were you?" he asked politely, as a way to break the ice.

"Ah, yeah. It's a funny story actually. I —"

"Thank you, there's no need for that," Mikkel interrupted. "I only came to see how you're coping with staying here."

"Oh, no, they'll notice I'm gone soon. They'll send someone for me."

"They won't," Mikkel answered bluntly. The other needed to understand his situation as quickly as possible, with no false hope.

"What?"

"I doubt you're immune." That was a safe bet with any Icelander. "There's no system in place for retrieving possibly exposed civilians such as yourself from high risk areas. Merely arranging for a quarantine vessel to be sent here would take weeks."

"But — but —" the younger man stammered.

"The final verdict," Mikkel went on remorselessly, "will surely be that we're in charge of you until our mission is complete and we can all be safely extracted in accordance with proper protocol."

The stowaway collapsed in despair. That wasn't the response Mikkel wanted, so he tried to make a better connection with him: "What about that funny story of yours?"

"It's not funny anymore. It's stupid. I'm stupid. I just … I just wanted to … to visit a foreign country. Just once." He sighed deeply. "Like my older brothers and sisters do. They have the best jobs, and get to travel everywhere all the time! They're all immune, because my parents took part in the Dagrenning program when they had them. But not stupid me!" He lowered his voice to mutter, "I was probably a mistake."

Mikkel knitted his brows in puzzlement. He knew of the Dagrenning program: harvesting eggs from immune women, fertilizing them in vitro with sperm from immune men, and implanting the resulting embryos in the wombs of non-immune women on the theory that the surrogate mothers would feel greater attachment to babies to which they had given birth than to babies they had adopted. Like most non-Icelanders, he considered it a foolish waste of resources, but the Icelanders were the wealthiest people alive and could indulge themselves. Even so, a family that could afford at least four Dagrenning children must be extremely wealthy or extremely powerful, and so what was their son doing hiding in a crate?

"They barely ever visit home, a couple times a year maybe, but when they do, they always have the coolest things to tell! As a kid I loved the stories, but after a while they only made me realize just how boring my life was. Really, really boring! And I didn't even have the option to leave, because of that dumb ban on non-immune people travelling internationally!"

Now Mikkel was frowning in earnest. During the decades when Iceland cut itself off from the rest of the world, the other four surviving nations had established their own trading arrangements, and, given their limited populations, they were forced to allow non-immunes to participate. They had worked out reasonable quarantine procedures so that there had not been a single outbreak caused by trade after the first decade or so. But when the Icelanders came out of their island fastness, they largely took over trade due to their much larger population (three times that of all the others put together) and their greater wealth, and they were therefore able to impose their own paranoid restrictions on non-immunes. But that was the one policy that the other nations had, finally, been able to get them to reverse. Mikkel liked to think that the General had had a hand in that.

"At least, that's what I thought. That's what Mom and Dad told me. But then my brother told me that I could leave any time I wanted to because the ban was lifted, oh, years ago! And … that means they lied to me." He shrugged his shoulders uncomfortably. "I guess they wanted at least one of us to stay at home. That's what my brother said, anyway. I understand, I mean, if we were all in danger all the time …"

Rubbing his jaw in a seemingly thoughtful pose allowed Mikkel to conceal an incipient smile. The boy's parents lied to him for years? Suddenly Mikkel thought there was a good explanation for four or more "Dagrenning" children.

"Well, anyway, the military for sure wouldn't take me; they weren't about to take a non-immune, but my brother said that a trade ship might, though he said I should just go to Reykjavik instead of going abroad. Of course someone who's been abroad would say that! After that I planned my escape, packed my things, and left! I didn't care what my parents thought!" His expression as he said that spoke louder than his words as to his regrets.

"I caught the stagecoach to Reykjavik and it was awesome! I'd never been more excited in my whole life! Well, Reykjavik was pretty neat I suppose." His expressive face showed his disappointment. "But there was no time for sight-seeing! I had to get down to the docks and find a ship going somewhere even neater! There was only one ship leaving that day, but it was going to Bornholm! In Denmark! The most southern place in the whole world! Sun and warmth and colorful flowers and palm trees! Whatever palm trees are," he added uncertainly.

Hiding his smile was getting more difficult for Mikkel. Bornholm was home and he loved it, but the other's excitement was — well, if he had made it to Bornholm, he would have been profoundly disappointed. If they got out of the Silent World alive, Mikkel could try to take him to Bornholm to see the family farm. His mother's garden did have colorful flowers, in season, even if it had no palm trees.

"At first they didn't want to hire me onto the ship. They said they were fully staffed so I said I'd work for nothing, just to get experience, you know. So they said they'd take me on to do kitchen stuff like washing dishes. I could barely believe how easy it all was! The very first ship I tried accepted me on board!"

Mikkel thought the crew had seen him coming and taken advantage of his naiveté to get free work.

"Only then the cook told me that they didn't have a license to let anyone ashore in Denmark. They just unload in the harbour and head back out, and I couldn't go ashore at all, not even though we'd be quarantined going back to Iceland. So … I thought that was it. I surrendered to the boring work and the thought of going back home again to face my mom and dad … and then these guys came in and they said they were unloading two crates. I thought we were there already even though it seemed like the trip was shorter than they told me, and … well, it seemed like such a good idea at the time to just … just … just hide in a crate and go ashore. I'm really sorry I took out all those cans of tuna. There's still some left though … and so I thought they'd find me when they opened the crates in Denmark and then they'd be mad at me, but I really didn't hurt anything … and you know what happened next."

Mikkel shook his head in amazement at the boy's innocence and foolishness. If he had made it to Denmark inside a crate, he'd have arrived on their quarantine island, been slapped immediately into quarantine, and been shipped home to Iceland on the next ship that would take him, never having seen Bornholm. That would very likely have ensured that he would never be permitted to set foot on another ship. But it was pointless to bring that up now.

"I'm really sorry," Reynir ventured, "I promise I won't eat a lot. And if you need help washing dishes or anything —"

"It's quite all right. I'm capable of working around situations such as these." Mikkel had never actually been in a situation quite like this, but there had to be something he could do. "And in a worst case scenario, we can always eat you."

"That's … fair, I suppose," the younger man answered, looking dolefully at his feet as Mikkel departed to see what he could do in the radio room.

The situation in the radio room was no better than before. Cringing between a furious Sigrun and the radio itself, Tuuri was holding her ears while Sigrun shouted, "Nono no! NO!!! I refuse to keep him! The last thing we need is a useless pet!"

Mikkel nudged her gently aside and tapped Tuuri on the shoulder, gesturing for her to come along as the radio sputtered, "I'm sorry! There's nothing else we can do now!"

"Tuuri, his name is Reynir," he said over the continued sputtering of the radio. "I think he speaks nothing but Icelandic, so I'm going to rely on you to help me deal with him." Tuuri perked up a bit at the thought of being useful. "I think he comes from somewhere in the interior of Iceland and has led a very sheltered life, so there's a lot you can tell him about the world." There, that made her feel better, and had the advantage of being entirely true. "He's not immune so he'll need to use your spare mask whenever he leaves the tank, I suppose, so you both need to be very careful with the masks. Before you deal with him, though, your cousin is very upset, maybe even frightened —"

"Oh no! He would be! A stranger, and Sigrun shouting ... I'll talk to him. I'll tell him to go out scouting. That'll make him feel better … uh, what should he scout for?"

"Ask him to look for a camping place closer to some of the promising spots. We've lost a whole day and Sigrun will want to get back to work." Not that it mattered. They were clearly stuck here much longer than the original plan, and there was plenty of time to do any scavenging — if they didn't starve to death first. Still, the busier they were, the less they'd be thinking about their situation. "And — Tuuri, does Lalli know how to set a snare?"

"A … snare? Oh! A snare! Sure! He and Grandma — uh — yes, he can set a snare."

"Good. Ask him to set a snare or two out near the campsite. Maybe he can get a rabbit." Or a squirrel. Or even a rat. Mikkel wasn't particular at this point.

Unfortunately, there hadn't been any wildlife here in the city when the Rash struck, and whatever had been in the surrounding fields and woods had been hit hard by the Rash. After that, well, grosslings didn't need to eat, so far as anyone had been able to tell, for they could sit for years in a kind of stasis if no food were available, but they wanted to eat, and the immune survivors and their descendants would have been under constant threat from grosslings. Thus, they wouldn't have increased their numbers, or migrated into the city, as much as one might have hoped in ninety years.

Mikkel was actually a little unhappy at having to reduce the surviving wildlife population further, but when the alternative was starvation for himself and his teammates …

"I'll tell him! That's a great idea!" And she darted off to the sleeping quarters while Mikkel went back to their storage area and picked up a candle, carefully peeled back the wrapper, and scraped off a bit to taste.

Tallow. Mutton tallow, he thought. Edible. He didn't want to do this. He really didn't, but he was going to have to cook the things. They would keep the team alive, but no one was going to like it and, as designated cook, he'd take the blame. He sighed and sat on the floor for a few minutes, listening to the end of Sigrun's conversation with the radio.

"Maybe find a way to make him useful," he heard faintly.

"Yes! He will make an excellent troll decoy," Sigrun snarled.

"What? No, what? No! Please don't do that! Just … just … keep him alive. Please."

Lalli returned an hour or so later, gave instructions to Tuuri, and stumbled back to their sleeping quarters, crawling under Mikkel's bunk and immediately falling asleep. Watching, Mikkel saw Reynir's nose wrinkle as Lalli passed, and was suddenly conscious of the fact that only Sigrun and Emil had bathed in the past few days and that all of them except Tuuri had been doing hard physical labor. They were all grimy and they all smelled to varying degrees, Lalli most of all. The saying that "Cleanliness is next to godliness" had been long lost since the Rash, but the sentiment remained. As Tuuri put the tank in motion, he approached Sigrun.

"Sigrun, we need to get everyone washed up."

"Huh? We'll wash our hands before eating."

"No, I mean our whole bodies. We're dirty."

"Mikkel, do you know how cold that stream was?"

"Yes, and I'm sorry about that, but you really needed running water to get all that grossling slime off of you. We don't have to do that now. The tank has a water heater. We can pump water in, heat it, and have a reasonable amount of hot water for each person."

Sigrun's expression went a little distant. "Back home we had a sauna, and we'd get completely clean and purified after every troll hunt …" Captain Sigrun was back immediately. "Good idea. It'll take fuel, though, and you'll have to chop more. I don't want you chopping wood in the evening and maybe attracting grosslings in the night. We'll bathe in the morning. Before dawn, even. The days are getting short and I don't want to lose daylight."

Lalli had chosen a good campsite with a stream nearby and plenty of fallen branches. The immunes immediately set to work at their assigned tasks: Lalli collected firewood, Emil dug a latrine in a spot sheltered from view, Mikkel gathered stones to place around his campfire, and Sigrun prowled around, on guard.

As usual, Mikkel had difficulty getting the fire started. Not wanting to damage their flint-and-steel in his clumsy efforts, he called, "Emil! Light this thing!"

The Cleanser was, indeed, a wizard with fire. He struck once, a spark leapt, and first the tinder then the smaller branches burned merrily. He sat back on his heels, face blank, staring into the fire until Mikkel, a little unnerved, nudged him. "Go help Lalli with the firewood. We can't chop any right now, but the more you can gather now, the less work there'll be in the morning. In the dark."

As Emil dashed away, Mikkel chopped up two candles and hastily dropped them in the pot. Best if no one else saw that. Chopped vegetables followed and he sighed at the absence of any form of seasoning. Worse, the snares had been empty (not surprisingly), so he was not looking forward to the complaints when the team tried his soup.

The soup had just started to bubble when Lalli appeared beside him and dropped a dead rabbit in his lap. "Thank you!" Mikkel exclaimed in unfeigned delight.

"Okay," Lalli answered.

Mikkel blinked. He'd heard those syllables in some of Lalli's discussions with Tuuri, but he'd assumed that was a coincidence of sounds. Lalli actually knew the word? "Okay!" Mikkel answered enthusiastically, and Lalli looked directly at him for probably the first time, lips curling just a little in something almost like a smile …

"Lalli!" Tuuri called, and the scout spun away and dashed to her side. Obviously Sigrun was giving instructions for the night's scouting.

Mikkel found himself smiling as he skinned, cleaned, and butchered the rabbit. The meat went into the pot, and in fact no one complained about the rabbit stew.

Tuuri took the first bath in their primitive tub (a large basin) with Sigrun standing guard, Mikkel and Emil chopping wood, well-separated at Mikkel's insistence, and Lalli prowling around keeping an eye out for grosslings. With Tuuri safely in the tank, Sigrun took her own bath, followed by Emil while Mikkel finished up provisioning the tank. Mikkel then had to order Emil out, discovered that the water heater was completely empty, and resumed chopping wood until there was hot water for his own bath.

"Tuuri, tell Lalli it's his turn."

Much Finnish back and forth. "Um, he says he won't. He says he smells right for the forest."

"But we're not going to be in the forest. Tell him —" Mikkel stopped himself. Telling Lalli that if he didn't bathe he'd have to sleep outside would probably encourage him in his intransigence. "Tell him if he'll bathe I'll give him a cookie."

More Finnish. "Okay, he'll do it. But, uh, you'd better hurry before he changes his mind."

With Mikkel giving instructions and Tuuri beside him translating with her back to Lalli, the deed was done. Lalli obediently if unenthusiastically washed his hair, scrubbed behind his ears, and submitted resentfully to having a bucket of warm water dumped over his head to rinse him. In the end, Mikkel not only gave him a cookie, but gave Tuuri one too in gratitude. His stash was oddly low and he supposed he had miscounted.

By the time everyone was dressed in their only change of clothes and Mikkel had all their laundry together, it had begun to drizzle. Sigrun glared at Mikkel accusingly. "It would have rained even if we hadn't bathed," he pointed out mildly, making her sigh deeply through her nose and turn away.

The rain was coming down harder and the Sun still had not showed itself above the horizon. Bundled up in her winter coat and wearing her protective mask, Tuuri was taking some time to carefully transcribe the log which Mikkel had found so interesting. She and Mikkel had agreed that that particular book might well not survive being hauled around in the back of the tank.

Tuuri gasped in shock as half a page came away in her hand despite her delicate touch and Mikkel, passing by, hastened to reassure her, "That's … all right. As long as we can still read it —"

"Wait, what?" Sigrun interrupted from behind him, "Nobody told me we had to read any books!"

"We don't," he answered patiently. "I asked Tuuri to make a transcript of one of them for me."

"Sooo," Sigrun drawled, "you're gonna just read stuff … voluntarily, is what you're saying?"

"It's one book that I happen to find particularly interesting," he replied rather less patiently.

"Whoa, hey! No judgement here! To each his own, you know?"

Mikkel didn't answer. He had work to do and it didn't include arguing with illiterate Norwegians.

At dawn, Tuuri moved the tank a couple of miles closer to the next scavenging site; the new location was less secure but there had been no noise to attract grosslings there. As even Sigrun had seen that Lalli was less helpful than she'd hoped in scavenging for books, she readily agreed with Mikkel that the scout should be left behind to sleep off his exertions of the night before. She didn't offer, and Mikkel didn't ask, that Mikkel himself join the scavengers, so she and Emil left together in a brief break in the rain.

"Please try to be selective and not bring back too much trash," Mikkel called after them. Sigrun's casual "Okie-dokie" didn't fill him with confidence.

Tuuri waved goodbye and turned back at her typewriter, Lalli crawled under Mikkel's bunk to sleep, and Mikkel began the tedious process of scrubbing clothing and bedding. It was fortunate that heat from the engine could be diverted to dry the wash, because it certainly would never dry if hung up in this dampness. Their new team member, Reynir, was somewhere inside, out of Mikkel's way.

"Um …" Mikkel heard Tuuri's voice after an hour or so. "Is there anything I can help you with?" She was speaking Icelandic, so addressing Reynir rather than Lalli.

"No, actually. Is there anything I can help you with? I can be helpful, I promise!"

The rapid clatter of the typewriter stopped entirely. "Thanks, but … maybe later? I don't think I need any help. Right — right now, you know?"

"But I wouldn't need any fancy tasks!" The Icelander was almost begging. "I was thinking I could do things like sweep the floors or dust the … walls? Or organize papers! I see you have lots of papers!"

"No, really I —"

Mikkel wondered if he should intervene. Perhaps it was like introducing a new dog, though; you had to let them work out their relationship by themselves, or you'd be sorting things out for them forever.

"Aww, how cute! Is this a picture of you and your brothers?"

The picture, Mikkel knew, was one of the few things which Tuuri had brought with her, and was set up next to her typewriter.

"Uhh, yes. Or, no. The big one's my brother. Lalli is my cous—"

"Ah, I know! I could help you by fixing the broken frame!"

Pausing to listen, Mikkel wondered how he planned to do that with the glass cover broken.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have promised that. I can't fix glass. I'm so stupid …" Mikkel was feeling sorry for the kid. He'd have to find something for him to do … but not today. Even he was weary from chopping and hauling wood, and now scrubbing the laundry, and he didn't have the energy to train an assistant.

"H-hey," Tuuri stammered, "I just thought of something for you! Could you fetch my bag from the other room? That'd be great!"

"Bag? From over there?" Reynir sounded so eager that it hurt.

"Y-yes, go get it!" It wasn't really a surprise that Reynir's rapid footsteps were immediately followed by the whir of the heavy internal door sliding shut. Mikkel shook his head sadly.

"Hey, I think the door might be closed," Reynir ventured after a moment.

Faintly, "Yeah, I know, the wind blew it shut! A-and it has this weird lock that takes a really long time to wiggle open s-so …"

She really needed to work on her lying, Mikkel thought as he wrung out one last shirt, hung it up, and climbed into the tank while Reynir answered dejectedly, "Oh. Oooh, I got it. I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry," came faintly from behind the door.

"And I'm sorry to see you wandering around without supervision," Mikkel told the younger man, one large hand on his shoulder turning him around. "You'll stay where I don't have to keep an eye on you, and you might as well get some rest. You clearly didn't sleep well last night." Mikkel, who never slept well himself, had heard the other moaning and thrashing most of the night. "It is very common to have nightmares the first time sleeping in the silent lands."

Corporal Madsen had three new soldiers fresh from Bornholm. He'd been lucky: none killed in the past month and only three injured seriously enough to have to be evacuated. Those three would not return, he knew. Some injuries you just didn't ever really recover from.

These new soldiers, though, they were so young … had he ever been so young? Some days he felt like he'd been fighting grosslings for decades, centuries, even. Actually he'd been in the Army for two years, having joined up when they announced their intention of reclaiming the lost mainland, moved by an impulse which he could not explain even to himself. At twenty-one, he'd been older than the average recruit but not much older; the Army did not accept recruits younger than eighteen, ostensibly so that the recruits would have achieved their full growth before joining. As they accepted only immunes for this expedition, Mikkel suspected that in fact they wanted recruits to have time to marry and produce children, keeping their immune genes in the population even if the worst happened to them. That hadn't worked out for Mikkel himself, a fact that he put down to his looks, rather than his abrasive, somewhat arrogant, personality and a love of practical jokes which could verge on, and sometimes crossed over into, the cruel.

These three recruits hadn't complained about anything so far, at least not to him. They accepted the tent, which was at least rain- and wind-proof; the cots, which were uncomfortable but kept them up off the dirt floor; and the food, which was nutritious and filling if not tasty or even warm. It could be worse, had been much worse when the army first set foot in abandoned Denmark.

They didn't complain, but the first night they woke the entire tent repeatedly with screams and moans and weeping. The nightmares were bad, very bad, though none of the three could describe exactly what they'd dreamed.

Mikkel was patient. He'd been through it himself, the terrifying, looming, shapeless thing that stalked through his dreams, and he'd seen it with every soldier he'd been sent. They'd … get used to it. If they didn't, if they simply couldn't sleep or let everyone around them sleep, they'd eventually have to be sent back to Bornholm.

In the end, he only had to send back one of the three. The other two managed to sleep reasonably well until grosslings tore them apart in a breakthrough some months later.

"It's fine," Reynir answered, "I didn't have nightmares. I never do. I don't even dream like — ever."

"Everyone dreams when they sleep. The only difference is whether one remembers their dreams or not." He wondered briefly what Reynir had started to say before breaking off. He didn't dream like … who? Well, no matter.

"Huh. I didn't know that," the Icelander answered with a puzzled frown. As Mikkel shook out a fresh blanket for him, "Hey, wait, I could help you! That way you'd know where I am and have less work yourself."

Mikkel was tired of dealing with other people, especially this useless Icelander. With Sigrun and Emil out, Tuuri locked away with her book and her typewriter, and Lalli and Reynir sleeping, he could have some peace! He turned and left without answering. "No?" Reynir tried, "Okay, I'll stay here."

Time passed and the rain fell. Mikkel finished scrubbing the laundry, dried it in the warm air from the engine, folded it and put it away, finally had time to climb into the tank and examine the pages that Tuuri had transcribed for him. She'd started at the beginning, when the writer, an intern (whatever that was), was pressed into service treating a large number of sick patients alone, the hospitals and doctors being overwhelmed. He didn't yet know, Mikkel could tell, that the disease was always fatal … or worse.

Was that a shot? Many shots? Mikkel listened hard. The rain was still hammering on the roof of the tank. Perhaps that was all he'd heard. After several minutes of listening hard and hearing nothing but rain, Mikkel tried to get back to reading, still on edge.

Reynir had slept quietly but was now awake and wandering into the radio compartment where Tuuri had set up her typewriter. "Ohhh, you're awake," Tuuri said, making an effort to be friendly, "So, ummm, did you at least sleep well, or …?"

"I suppose I did," the Icelander began, rubbing his eyes. "I did sleep well! I had an awesome dream!" he continued excitedly, "Your brother from the picture, he was in it! And your cousin Lulli too! I told your brother that you're fine, and then we were all hanging out together and having a super great time!" His expression drooped a little. "Then I accidentally left."

"That's a … nice dream, uh-huh. A little weird, maybe. And his name is Lalli, by the way …"

"Wooow, you know what? I think I might be a —"

"Help! Mikkel!!!" came a cry from outside the tank. Emil! "Emergency!!!"

He had heard shots! Why hadn't he acted before? "You two into isolation now until the situation is cleared! Tuuri, you know the drill," he ordered as he grabbed what he could from their pathetic first aid kit. Dashing out into the rain, he shouted, "Who here needs medical attention?" At least they were both there and on their feet but …

"Cats do!" Emil shouted back. He was holding something protectively in his hands and Sigrun was cradling something else. Neither seemed injured except some long, bleeding scratches on Sigrun's face. Cats, Mikkel thought, bewildered, where had they found cats?

"She is cold and wet and sick!" Emil stated, holding out a tiny, bedraggled kitten. "You have to fix her."

There was only one response Mikkel could give to Emil's determined face: "I see. I will dedicate my time and effort to revitalizing this wild and feral animal you found."

He thought Emil's kitten might make it if she could be persuaded to take solid food. The cat that Sigrun had brought, though … She was too weak to resist as he carefully examined her wounds. "Hush, shh, it will be all right," he murmured, stroking her head gently, then turned to the first aid kit. He knew that drug would be there. Every first aid kit in the army had included it.

The grosslings were dead at last. They couldn't be driven back; they never retreated; you just had to kill and kill and kill …

Mikkel knelt beside his friend Christer Olsson. They'd fought side by side ever since they landed in Rash-infested Denmark, but now … Christer was still alive, Mikkel saw with horror. A medic making his way along the line joined Mikkel on the ground.

"Are you hurt?" he asked. For a moment, Mikkel thought he was asking Christer, and wanted somehow to laugh at the absurdity of the question. But no, he was asking Mikkel. Mikkel looked at himself and quite suddenly felt the pain of a gash down his left arm.

"A little — some — but my friend —"

The medic had pressed a syringe against the injured man's arm. As the drug went in, Christer took a last agonized breath, sighed, and went limp.

"That's going to make her feel better?" Emil asked, looking up from drying off the kitten.

"Yes," Mikkel said flatly, injecting the entire contents of the syringe. The cat flinched for a moment and then relaxed as Mikkel stroked her flank kindly and crooned, "There, there."

"Really? That's it? So I just wasted my time carrying her here," Sigrun complained as he gathered up the corpse a few moments later.

"You gave her a better way to go." It was the only comfort he could offer.

"What?" Emil objected, shocked. "You didn't even try!"

Mikkel looked down at the torn body in his arms, seeing another lying on the bloody ground. "Trying isn't always a beneficial course of action, Emil."

"I tried so hard! A lot! Earlier!" Emil was truly distressed.

"Hmm. Perhaps giving the cats a proper burial will give you a sense of closure. How does that sound? Emil?"

Emil wouldn't look at him, concentrating on wrapping up the kitten in a warm towel. Four limp bundles of fur lay on the table where he'd laid them after pulling them from his pockets.

"Sigrun, you try it. I can't tell if he understands what I'm saying or not." Emil had been doing a lot better at understanding Danish, but still …

"Sure," Sigrun replied in Norwegian. "Emil! If we bury the cats will you stop moping?" That wasn't exactly what Mikkel had had in mind, but at least she got an answer.

"I don't care," Emil muttered in Swedish, in a tone that said that he very much did care, "… do what you prefer."

The four immunes trooped outside into the rain, digging a small grave for the cat and her four kittens and covering it with a cairn of rocks, the heaviest Mikkel could find.

"There we go," Sigrun said, patting Emil's shoulder consolingly, "you feeling any better yet?"

"… Said I don't care," he muttered. There being nothing more to do or say, Sigrun tapped Mikkel on the shoulder, indicating the tank with her head. Leaving Emil staring at the cairn and Lalli standing guard, the older two went back inside.

"You saw only one cat?" he asked as he applied surgical tape to the clawmarks on Sigrun's jaw. They were not so deep as Mikkel had feared and required no stitches, just some surgical tape to hold them together as they healed.

"Yeah. She was up a pole and didn't want to come down. There was a grossling around that went after Emil. He shot it, or shot at it, maybe. We should ask him if he hit it."

"But there were five kittens? And they were all together?"

"Yeah, in a hole that was filling with water."

"But five? And only one cat?"

"Weird, isn't it? But the cat was feral, you said it yourself. Maybe they're different."

They'd have to be different, Mikkel thought. He knew from a few old Icelandic books that before the Rash, cats had been very different. Not very smart, not very trainable … and they had so many kittens that they were often surgically sterilized to keep them from breeding! Modern cats, well, they were so smart that the smartest could almost talk, but they bred almost as slowly as people: one or possibly two kittens in a birth, one birth every couple of years. Not infrequently, they were born sterile. Cats were immune, yes, and apparently always had been, but they had been affected by the Rash, no doubt about it. And yet this mother cat, surely exposed all her life, had produced five kittens. He wished there had been any chance of saving her.

A cat like that would be a prize above any book.

Having submitted to Mikkel's ministrations, Sigrun yanked off her warm outer clothing and clambered into her bunk. Like any good soldier, she could drop off to sleep in minutes, and did.

Cleaning up and putting away, Mikkel was interrupted as Lalli came in yawning, making straight for his usual spot under Mikkel's bunk, and Emil followed, visibly shaken. There was blood on his right sleeve.

"Stop," Mikkel commanded. Emil looked at him, bewildered, then down at the sleeve to which he was pointing. "Oh, oh no," he moaned, but obediently pulled off his jacket and jammed it in the decontamination chamber.

"What happened out there, Emil?" Mikkel asked in concern.

It … it … there was a dog. A dog Beast, I mean. I killed it. I mean, I shot it back at the school …

I'm mixing this up. We went to a school and we got some plastic books and gramophones — they're over there. There was a whole bunch of deer! Healthy deer! Not grosslings! Sigrun said we should shoot one for food but that was after they'd all gotten away.

Then we got the books and things and I heard something. I thought it might be a deer again and I could get us some food but it wasn't. It was a dog … I thought it was a dog. It looked normal … and then I saw the eyes …

It had the cat treed on that post and I wanted to shoot it. It wasn't a dog, it was a grossling … it was suffering … they suffer, I'm sure of it. I tried to shoot it cleanly in the head but it lunged at me! I hurt it and it changed! All these extra legs —! And it chased me until … I don't know what happened. It was chasing me and all of a sudden it just stopped and the legs, I dunno, kind of pulled back into its body, and it just … walked away. Whimpering. I didn't get the rifle reloaded in time …

So I thought it was gone and then there was the cat and the kittens, those poor drowned kittens. At least I saved one. We'll feed her and she'll be okay, right?

Yeah, what happened just now, right. You guys went inside and Lalli saw something. I thought it was a grossling … well, it was. It was the dog. He was all normal again and he just … lay down in front of me like he was so, so tired.

So I killed him. That was his blood on my sleeve. I promised I'd bury him in the morning. And … I think I just want to go to bed now.

It had snowed during the night and was still snowing by morning. Lalli had gone out scouting around midnight and come back empty-handed as even he couldn't find prey in this. There was no way around it; Mikkel prepared candle soup and hoped for the best.

"This is perfect!" Sigrun cried, "Awesome and great!"

"The food?" Emil's tone was utterly disbelieving.

"No, the weather! The food looks disgusting. Just saying," she added, glancing at Mikkel.

"The food is fine," he answered coldly, stalking back into the tank.

"Pity about all the snow, though," he heard Emil observe behind him, "We'll just get stuck somewhere.'

"The snow is great! It'll dull our sounds. This is our chance to go straight for the heart of the city! Mikkel!" she shouted, changing the subject, "Is this poison ready for eating yet?!"

"Yes!" There was no sense getting annoyed. The food really did look disgusting and really did need to be eaten before it cooled and congealed.

"MIKKEL!! Did you melt candles into this sludge?"

"Surely I would never!" he answered in an offended tone.

"What did he say?" He heard Emil ask, and "That he didn't," Sigrun answered. Well, technically he hadn't actually said no.

While they fixed bowls of the mess he'd prepared for breakfast, he went through their haul from the previous day. Silvery disks? He knew approximately what they were. The Old World had had devices that could pull pictures and sounds out of such disks, but the last such devices had succumbed to age long before he was born. He held up a disk, thinking of the marvels that were hidden within that shiny surface … but they couldn't pull them out. No one could and, according to Icelandic scientists, no one would ever be able to. The things were useless. He carried them out of the tank and dumped the lot in their trash heap.

"So, farm guy," Sigrun addressed him as he stepped out, "I've decided that we will — Whoa, really! Calm down! I'm sorry I called your food death in a bowl, now stop raging!"

"I'm only disposing of this garbage."

"Ohhh, I see. You didn't know what old world gramophones look like, so you became confused and thought they were trash. Don't feel bad, I didn't know what they were before Emil told me."

He did know what gramophone records looked like, and there were a few devices able to reproduce sounds from those, if they weren't too badly damaged. "And I'll have you know that I've seen Emil's educational records, and we'd all benefit from disregarding any wisdom he chooses to share." He could have kicked himself. Things had been going so well with Captain Sigrun …

"First of all, I know you just called my right-hand warrior stupid." Apparently she'd got the gist of it but at least not the whole thing. "Second of all — you're stupid." That did it. He gave her a polite nod and returned to the tank. There was plenty of cleaning up to do.

Sigrun was eating off by herself. Emil had taken his own breakfast and Lalli's to a low wall some ways away from the tank, where Lalli had for some reason chosen to sit. Tuuri was keeping Reynir company between the tank and the two boys, leaving Mikkel in blessed solitude. Something was going on, though. In the still, cold air, Reynir's voice came to him perfectly clearly: "Do you know what your cousin is doing?" And hers: "Oh, that? Don't mind him. It's just mage stuff."

Mikkel looked out briefly to see if he needed to deal with whatever was going on, but all he saw was Emil holding his breakfast bowl, a bloody mess in the snow before him (just how violently had he killed that dog Beast?), and Lalli for some reason well up in a tree. Nothing that required him to take a hand.

"Did I tell you that I think there's a 99 percent chance that I'm a mage too?" Reynir was asking excitedly.

"No, what, really? What can you do?"

"Well … nothing really." Now there was a statement that Mikkel could entirely agree with. "Yet! But I'm sure I'll figure out a skill soon!" And there was a statement that he sincerely doubted.

"No offense, but you're probably not a mage then."

"That's fine, you don't have to believe me. I'll ask your cousin to teach me something cool next time we talk, then I'll be useful and great!"

"Okay," Tuuri answered cheerily.

"Mikkel —" Emil, distressed, had the shovel in one hand. "— I promised to bury him this morning but, but, but the ground is frozen and I can't do it and Lalli —" His face twisted into a strange mixture of distress and outrage "— I don't know what he thought he was doing! He mutilated it!"

Taking the shovel, Mikkel guided him out of the tank. "It's a mage thing, according to Tuuri. We'll bury — uhh! — ugh — I see. Yes. Well. We'll bury it anyway." There was blood on the snow, the dog Beast's head had been carved up and, without taking time to look closely, Mikkel thought the skull was missing.

The ground was hard, but not nearly so hard as it would become after days and weeks of freezing. Within an hour, Mikkel had an adequate if shallow grave into which they gently lowered the Beast. As Emil shovelled the dirt back over the pitiful corpse, Mikkel collected more heavy stones for this second, much larger, cairn. He sincerely hoped that this was the last cairn he'd be building.

The snow continued, more heavily now, and Sigrun was getting increasingly impatient by the time Mikkel and Emil returned from the burial. "What's the problem? What's the stupid forest guy doing up in a stupid tree? Why can't we get him down?"

"He's doing a mage thing," Tuuri put in. "It doesn't take too long, I think. He has to come down before he freezes … I mean, he has to …"

"Oh. Umm. Yeah. Mages do what they have to do, but I wish he'd hurry up!" That last she shouted in the general direction of Lalli in his tree. "Oy, little puffy-hair," she went on in a more conversational voice, "Call the elderly folks and let them know that we're heading way far out today! Got to keep them in the loop too."

"Right away!" Tuuri spun and darted into the tank. Mikkel followed and paused by the radio compartment, listening. He was not, of course, concerned that she would listen too long to the static and perhaps hear the voices in it. That was a silly superstition. No, his concern was that she should get back to transcribing the journal if she couldn't get through. No point wasting a lot of time if the radio wasn't working.

Tuuri's repair, whatever it had been, had apparently permanently fixed the fault in the radio, for she connected immediately back to base. Mikkel released a breath he hadn't really been holding and went back out of the tank to pack up, having everything stowed by the time Lalli returned stumbling with weariness and more or less guided by Emil for whom concern had replaced outrage. The scout's outer clothes were smeared with dried blood and Mikkel thought there were even streaks of the stuff in his ash-blond hair. Emil obviously thought the same, as he led Lalli over to the hose from the water heater, gave his jacket a tug, and handed him a bar of soap.

Getting the clear message, Lalli pulled off all his outer gear, dropped it in a heap, and dutifully scrubbed his face, hair, and scalp, and even, with a quick glance at Mikkel gathering his clothes, washed behind his ears.

"Finally!" Sigrun grumbled as Mikkel passed her with the clothes to be cleaned, Lalli hurrying behind to get out of the cold. Emil took the time to roll up and stow the hose before making for the tank himself.

"Message delivered successfully!" Tuuri exclaimed to Sigrun at this point, offering something that resembled a military salute but getting only a dismissive "Good" in response as Sigrun moved to the front of the tank to take her customary seat behind Tuuri. "Lalli," Tuuri continued with a spate of Finnish to which he gave unenthusiastic answers.

The bloody clothes would have to be washed in the tank, Mikkel thought. He didn't want to keep them around until evening in their current state, and Sigrun obviously intended to move out immediately. A minor crisis then arose as Reynir leapt back and cowered against the bulkhead as far as possible from him. "I'm sorry, but am I the only one who thinks that's a deadly health hazard?" he quavered.

Behind him, Tuuri and Lalli were heading for the front of the tank. That required immediate action! "Yes, you are," Mikkel stated curtly, dumping the clothes in a corner and hurrying to the first aid cabinet. Inside was a small jar of fennel compounded with angelica, herbs which Sigrun had found two campsites back. It should be an anti-emetic, he thought, if he remembered his mother's instructions correctly. Unfortunately, an eidetic memory didn't translate to perfect memory for sounds. Lalli had managed to avoid riding in the tank while conscious ever since Mikkel had prepared the herbs, but now it seemed evident that Tuuri was going to have him riding up front.

A small ball of herbs in his left hand, he hurried forward, tapped Lalli on the shoulder, and held out the herbs while pantomiming putting something in his mouth. Hesitantly, Lalli took the herbs, sniffed them, gave Mikkel a wary look, and then, with a resigned expression, popped them into his mouth, chewed and swallowed, grimacing slightly as he did so. "Okay," Mikkel told him, then ducked back in the back and brought him a small bucket as well. Just in case.

Tuuri got the tank under way without hitting anything, and they moved out into the city as the snow continued to fall.

With the bunks folded up and fastened to the back wall, the sleeping compartment was relatively roomy. The water heater had a connection inside the tank as well as outside, so Mikkel soon had a tub of warm water set up in the middle of the compartment in which to scrub Lalli's befouled outer clothing. As he dipped Lalli's jacket in the soapy water, he checked around to see that the kitten was safely ensconced on a folded towel on top of the UV disinfecting chamber, Emil was leaning against the forward bulkhead staring glumly at his feet, and Reynir had backed against the starboard wall, hard against the doorway to the front, watching with frightened intensity.

"Mikkel, can I ask something," the Icelander ventured, "About that blood? You see, my parents kind of led me to believe that being this close to any infected material would make my skin fall off and then I'd die."

Mikkel grunted in reply. He'd been enjoying the peaceful silence.

"So … that's not about to happen?"

"To the best of my knowledge, no, it's not."

"Are you two talking about me?" Emil put in, being unable to understand the Icelandic conversation. Mikkel gestured dismissively with one soapy hand, and Emil subsided, returning to his brooding.

"Once something is dead," Mikkel continued, "its bodily fluids won't retain its infective qualities for long. Especially not in the cold, or with exposure to daylight." Ninety years of bitter experience had proven that beyond doubt. Still, he couldn't resist tweaking the younger man. "On the other hand, I could be misremembering. Happens now and then. Let me know if your face starts melting off."

"I … will," the younger man managed fearfully. Mikkel lowered his head to conceal the smile that slipped briefly across his face. There was silence once again while he finished washing, drained the tub, and used the last of the warm water to rinse.

Mikkel had the clean clothes in his arms and was just standing to hang them to dry when the tank abruptly dived downwards. The other two, already against the front wall, threw out their hands to brace themselves while Mikkel, off-balance, fell forward, dropping the clothing and sliding forward almost into Emil's knees. Just as Mikkel was staggering to his feet, swearing like the soldier he had been, the tank lurched upwards, throwing him and the other two, along with everything else not fastened down, against the folded bunks on the back wall.

As the tank came back to level, Mikkel pulled himself up and roared, "WARN US NEXT TIME —" but he managed to clamp his mouth shut over the next words. Bellowing insults at Tuuri wouldn't help matters.

There was dead silence from the other five. They had never heard Mikkel's voice at full volume before, and in the metal confines of the tank it was stunning. After a few moments, Tuuri managed a weak, "Sorry, sorry, sorry …"

Mikkel closed his eyes, got a firm grip on his temper, and repeated in a more normal voice, "Warn us next time, please. You nearly got a tub of wash water all over your controls." His voice was trying to rise to a shout again, and he stopped himself, surveying the compartment.

Reynir had pushed the tub off of himself — fortunately it was lightweight and he seemed to have avoided injury — and was helping Emil untangle himself from the wet clothes, most of which seemed to have landed on top of him. Hastily stowing the tub before anyone tripped over it, Mikkel moved to rescue the clothes, still relatively clean, when Emil asked urgently, "The kitten! Where's the kitten?"

Even Reynir understood that question. All three looked at the floor, dreading to find a small smashed body. Three men (and a tub) crashing around the tank with one little kitten …

Reynir picked up the towel which served as the kitten's bedding and displayed it to the others. "No blood …"

"Mew!" The men looked around wildly, the echoes making it difficult to localize the source, until Emil cried, "There!" and pointed her out.

The kitten had inherited her mother's instinct to seek high ground when in danger. Having somehow scaled the folded bunks, she was now firmly attached to the very top left corner of Sigrun's bunk. With a heartfelt sigh of relief, Reynir went to lift her down.

The kitten dug in her claws and clung like grim death to the bunk.

"Leave her," Mikkel ordered with a chuckle. "She's safer there while we put things to rights." Most things had been properly put away and fastened down in case of rough roads but they still had to inspect each cabinet since no one had expected anything quite like that. They found a few messes but fortunately nothing was broken.

Petting and cajoling didn't work, and in the end they broke out one of their precious cans of tuna fish to lure the kitten down. She'd lapped up her candle soup that morning with apparent pleasure, but tuna fish was something else! Giving her a respectable quantity for a kitten, Mikkel divided the rest into six (very small) portions. Emil and Reynir slowly savored each morsel as he went forward to pass out the other shares.

"Real food at last," Sigrun muttered ungratefully, and "Oh, thank you, I'm so sorry!" Tuuri exclaimed, scarcely glancing at him as she accepted the bowl he offered. Lalli was curled up in his seat sleeping the sleep of the exhausted, and Mikkel didn't have the heart to disturb him even for food. "I'll keep his share for him," he told Tuuri, thinking that Lalli's share would be safe enough in a jar with a lid, securely fastened down in case there was any more … excitement.

For the first time since going forward, Mikkel looked out the windshield and then through the side windows and blinked in surprise. They were driving through a full-scale blizzard.

The blizzard raged around them, winds twisted by the broken buildings to strike them from one side and then another, so that sometimes they could see their path and other times they seemed to be buried in pure white snow. Tuuri's knuckles were white as she clutched the steering wheel, while Lalli slept the sleep of the exhausted in the seat beside her. Emil had braced himself beside Lalli's seat and was trying to help Tuuri steer by calling out when he saw obstacles to their right. Sigrun leaned against Lalli's seat, watching ahead and cursing the blizzard occasionally under her breath, while Reynir, behind Tuuri, was praying alternately to Odin and Thor.

Mikkel, behind all of them, leaned forward to ask Sigrun quietly, "Should we turn back?"

Equally quietly she answered, "We can't. You felt that big jolt — that bridge or whatever you call it that Lalli sent us down — it was breaking under the tank's weight even as we crossed. It won't hold us again." She sighed. "We've broken another bridge behind us." But Sigrun's natural high spirits could never be suppressed for long. "There are other bridges! Lots of bridges! And with winter coming on, in time we'll be able to drive across rivers if we want. In fact … doesn't the sea freeze sometimes? We can drive to Sweden!"

Even in their current situation, Mikkel was cheered a little by her attitude. She was right. The sea did sometimes freeze, and it was at least theoretically possible that in the deep winter — if they survived that long — they really could drive to Sweden.

But the problem for now was surviving this blizzard. They couldn't stop where they were, deep in the city and surrounded by buildings, for though few of the grosslings could venture out into a blizzard, few did not mean none and, given the number of grosslings likely to be lurking around them, the risk of an attack was simply too great. If they couldn't go back, then they had to go on.

And so they went on, scraping against a vehicle or a building now and then, but successfully staying on the route that Lalli had marked out for Tuuri on their map. The blizzard blew itself out over the next couple of hours, and they found themselves in a city transformed. In places the blizzard had built up drifts against the ruined buildings, in other places it had swept the roadway clear, and everywhere it had plastered snow against the buildings, concealing the marks of fire and decay.

Everyone relaxed just a bit once they could see where they were going, and Tuuri sped up a little, eager to reach their next camping spot. Mikkel was looking back into the tank, considering what to do about lunch, when the tank tilted upward and Sigrun shouted, "Stop stop stop! You'll get us stuck here!"

Mikkel turned to see the problem and was astonished to find that they confronted a drift that blocked the road from one side to the other and loomed higher than the tank itself. Sigrun was already jumping out of the tank and perforce everyone else followed except, of course, Lalli, who demonstrated a scout's ability to sleep through anything.

Mikkel wondered how powerful the blizzard had been here. The drift hadn't been here the night before when Lalli scouted their route, so just how much snow had fallen? But there was no time for him to consider the question, for already Sigrun was talking to him.

"It's just a snowdrift! If I give you a shovel, how fast can you dig us through here, Mikkel?"

At least she recognized his strength and endurance, but even he could not do the impossible. "In a week," he guessed, looking at the mass of snow before him.

"What if I help you out?"

"Half a week." He wondered if they even had two shovels.

"Okay, let's not do that then."

Emil was studying the drift as well and proposed, "If we make a huge bonfire here, we can melt the snow away in no time."

"I like the sound of that," Sigrun answered thoughtfully.

Mikkel shook his head. They didn't have enough wood for such a bonfire and though they could scavenge some from the surrounding buildings, that risked grossling attacks. No. They had to retreat and find another way around the drift.

At this point Lalli climbed wearily out of the tank, pausing to survey the drift from one side to the other. Mikkel thought his normally emotionless face showed a trace of shock at the sight. Seeing him, Sigrun turned to Tuuri, "Tuuri, I suspect your cousin did not think of the possibility of a snowstorm and forgot to scout us a backup route. Any thoughts?"

"He — he has a plan. Always. See? He's figuring something out, right now. There's no way he forgot to think about the weather. I — I'll ask him."

As Tuuri began an animated discussion with Lalli, Mikkel turned back to the snowdrift. How had the thing even formed? Lalli would not have directed them along this street if there had been an obstacle across it. Were they on the wrong street altogether? Had they gotten lost in the storm?

His thoughts were interrupted by the increasingly passionate Finnish discussion to his left. Tuuri was shaking Lalli, who had stopped answering her at all and simply endured the shaking and then covered his ears — no, Mikkel thought, actually boxed his own ears — and stood motionless, the picture of dismay as Tuuri now spoke to him apologetically. Mikkel was at a loss as to what to do about the situation, and Emil's only contribution was to grab a blanket from the tank and drape over Lalli's shoulders. As Lalli was not wearing his outer clothing, this was probably a good idea to keep him from freezing but perhaps not otherwise meaningful.

"Okay," Sigrun put in, "I don't know what that was, but it wasn't helpful.'

"I'm so sorry," Tuuri answered miserably. "You … were right. There's no plan. We can't go through here. I'm sorry! This was a mistake. Again, I'm so sorry!"

"I believe our only option is to go back," Mikkel put in.

"I hate backtracking!" Sigrun objected. "I'm always ambushed by something!"

There wasn't much for Mikkel to say to that. They couldn't actually get back to the previous camp site, but they couldn't stay here either, blocked by the drift ahead and with buildings — probably grossling-infested — on two sides, and they couldn't simply strike out in the city at random. Their only hope was to backtrack and look for a defensible position close to their route. Perhaps there was a park, or an area that had burned to the ground. There had to be something!

Mikkel shrugged his shoulders uneasily and the little polished stone hammer shifted. He wore it against his skin under all his clothing where it would not be seen when he pulled off his jacket, as he didn't want the others to think that he shared their superstitions. Now it had grown so cold from standing outside that it almost felt as if it were burning him. He put a hand to his chest as if to warm it and then took his hand away. He couldn't reach it, and anyway it would warm up as soon as he was back in the tank. He started that way at once.

Tuuri addressed Lalli resignedly while the others turned toward the tank, but Lalli answered abruptly, clearly insisting on something. The others paused. "Translation?" Sigrun asked.

"Ahh … umm … he says he could find another path, but I think he might be too tired to — "

"Yes! Awesome! That's exactly what I like to hear! You have the correct attitude, little pipsqueak!" Sigrun slapped the small scout on the shoulder encouragingly, rocking him backwards. While Tuuri conveyed the message to Lalli, Mikkel stepped into the tank to gather Lalli's second set of outer garments and his rifle. He rather suspected that Sigrun in her enthusiasm would have sent him off unarmed and inadequately dressed, and that Lalli in his meek obedience would have gone. Lalli accepted his gear with a muted "Okay" and Mikkel returned to the tank.

"We've got plenty of day left," Sigrun announced to the others as they climbed into the tank, "let's put it to good use!"

As Tuuri struggled to turn the tank around without hitting anything too hard, the drift shuddered, a little snow falling from its crest. After a moment, one end of the drift jerked toward the tank, the snow breaking apart and falling in chunks. But the tank was moving away, and no one saw.

On the move again, Sigrun was cheerful. "Don't you run over the scout, now!" she warned Tuuri humorously.

"That's not really a risk," Tuuri answered seriously, "we're not fast enough to do that. And … I still think he might be too tired. Maybe we should go back and start fresh tomorrow."

"Nahh," Sigrun shrugged dismissively.

"I'm sure there isn't a hundred percent certainty that we'd run into an ambush, if we did go back —"

"110%. Trust me. I know these things. And at least two of you would end up dying. Let's avoid that this time, shall we?"

Mikkel looked over at her thoughtfully. "This time"? He hadn't had a lot of contact with the Norwegian troll-hunters as his journeys for the General had kept him mostly in Iceland and Sweden, and he had not thought much before about what horrific memories might hide behind Sigrun's exuberant exterior. Perhaps he should be more patient with her.

Turning back to the window, frowning out at the city, he worried about Lalli. The scout was tired and should not be running around the city all day after scouting all night. He hadn't even had lunch — none of them had, actually, but the others were riding in the tank, not running around in the cold.

And yet — and yet — what else could they do? They couldn't have stayed dead-ended against the snowdrift, hemmed in by possibly grossling-infested buildings; according to Sigrun, they couldn't retreat down their backtrail looking for a defensible position without risking an ambush; and they couldn't strike out into the city on an unscouted route that might lead them into another dead end or a collapsed roadway … or worse. They had to send Lalli out to scout.

But what if anything happened to their only scout? Perhaps it was a selfish thought but … the three remaining immunes were none of them trained scouts, and none had experience in cities. Their only hope would be to work their way out of the city and into open land where they might hope to defend themselves, and where would that be? Kastrup?

Mikkel shuddered slightly at the mere thought. They had surely attracted and killed grosslings for many kilometers around their camp, but something had massacred the entire garrison. The two brave scouts who ran in the next day to investigate the sudden cessation of radio signals had found nothing but the dead, but they had hardly stayed to search the camp. The killers could have been lurking there — surely had been lurking there, for there was no reason for them to leave — and were likely there still.

So, not Kastrup. Then where?

His thoughts were interrupted as they came to an intersection where Lalli's tracks showed he had checked every direction and then formed a clear arrow in the snow directing them to the south. Sigrun frowned at this sign.

"If he wasn't sure he could lead us somewhere, he would let us know, right?"

Tuuri bit her lip before answering nervously, "I hope so … I mean … I don't really know him that well. I'm not sure what he does under pressure. We never really worked or spent a lot of time together back home. And before we moved to Keuruu he was always out training with Grandma so … um … I suppose we have to trust him to make the right call."

"Oh. I see." Sigrun threw a hand in the air in disgust, then turned to Emil. "It was nice meeting all of you, and I hope we can meet up in Valhalla to chat some time."

Mikkel shook his head but said nothing. Tuuri was right; they did have to trust Lalli. This whole misbegotten mission, not to mention their very lives, depended on Lalli's ability to find a safe path for them. What had he been thinking to agree to it?

Tuuri steered the tank carefully along Lalli's trail but halted when Sigrun put out a hand to stay her. "I don't like this," Sigrun said slowly. "Anyone with a mask on, stay here. The rest of you, follow me." Mikkel and Emil piled out behind her and the three of them studied the situation.

Lalli's tracks led into a building which was shadowed and, after a dozen meters, clear of snow. Turning around slowly, shining his flashlight into the dark recesses and up to the ceiling, Mikkel said softly, "I know what this is. It's called a parking garage. The people of the Old World left their vehicles here when they weren't using them."

There were no vehicles here. It was nothing like the parking garage at the airport.

The scouts came back in high spirits. They had been to the airport and identified possible grossling nests, but best of all, they had found that the parking garage still stood solid despite nine decades of neglect and was completely full of vehicles. The vehicles on top and around the edges were badly decayed, rusted and rotting from decades in the weather, but those further in were in good shape and could be recycled.

The whole garrison would get a bonus for this find but the scouts, of course, would get a larger share than others. The soldiers were already excitedly discussing what they would do with the bonus when Captain Knudsen called them to attention and gave them their orders. Christensen went to work on the radio, informing the base of the find; other soldiers were sent to hook up tanks with flat-bed trailers, as the vehicles were in no condition even to be towed; and Mikkel, among others, was assigned to check in and around each vehicle for grosslings.

Mikkel was deep within the parking garage, flashlight in one hand, crowbar in the other, and his shotgun slung across his back, when he found the skeleton. It was small, just a child, and the delicacy of the skull bones made him think it a girl. She lay curled on her side in the back seat of a four-door car, with a pink blanket drawn up to her shoulders. Her left hand, savagely deformed by the Rash, lay atop the blanket and her legs and feet could be seen under the blanket to be likewise deformed. Her face and head, though, were untouched by the ravages of the Rash.

It is a peculiarity of the Rash — and evidence to some that it is utterly unnatural — that victims who die of it do not decay normally. Their flesh seems to melt away into thin air, leaving the skeleton still held together by tendons and ligaments, and it is long and long after that before natural processes dare to attack the remains. Mikkel was familiar with normal decay, as farm animals occasionally strayed and were not found until well after they had died in whatever trap they had blundered into, and the perfectly preserved skeletons of Rash victims invariably made his skin crawl.

Who were you? he thought. Who tucked that blanket so tenderly around your maimed and twisted body? Why did they bring you here and where did they think to flee? Why did they leave you here, alone, to die?

But of course he would never know the answers to his questions. She had been left behind and she had died, and now Mikkel would mark the vehicle as safe and Captain Knudsen would have her skeleton dragged out and thrown on the midden with the rest of the trash. Knudsen cared nothing for the non-immune dead.

"No." Mikkel was startled when he said that aloud, but he meant it. The girl would not be thrown out as trash.

To his surprise, the car door was unlocked. After a quick glance over his shoulder, he eased it open, mindful that the hinges might have rusted through. As it seemed able to stay open without tearing loose, he left it that way and pulled out a scavenging sack which had been tucked in his belt. Gently tugging the skeleton toward him with apologies that he recognized as foolish even as he repeated them, he forced the bones together so that they could be packed into his sack. The sack was disturbingly light when he finished, not more than five kilos for the last remains of a child that someone had once loved and cherished.

Mikkel eased the door shut again and chalked a circle on the trunk to show the team coming behind him, dragging the vehicles onto the flat-beds, that there were no grosslings in the vehicle.

In the excitement, no one noticed that Mikkel had scavenged something in the garage and in his free time after his shift ended, he had no difficult scrounging up enough wood for a small pyre. The pyre was burning well and the bones almost consumed when Captain Knudsen — of course — turned up to demand to know what he was doing.

"I'm celebrating, sir," Mikkel answered promptly, having considered how he would deal with his superior. "You see, it's the first new moon after the solstice, which we would celebrate in my family anyway because my great-grandmother always said the festival was something she brought over from the mainland — and we're here on the mainland so it really should be celebrated — and then we had this great find in the garage, which is clearly because of the good luck from the new moon, so I built this fire to celebrate our good luck in hopes that it would continue because —"

"Yes, yes, yes, very well, carry on." Mikkel had noticed before that Knudsen seemed baffled by floods of words. He was careful to scrub any trace of mockery from his voice, face, and manner as he replied, "Yes, sir!" and saluted as the Captain turned away.

Sigrun was leading the way cautiously through the garage and Mikkel had to hurry to catch up. They all stopped short, though, when they found the first grossling, a troll of which the head had been crushed to a pulp. Taking a deep breath, Sigrun signalled Mikkel to her left and Emil to her right, so that they advanced in a small wedge, ready for a fight.

There had been a fight here, without doubt. Strewn about the floor, walls, and even ceiling were the remains of an extensive nest of trolls. They must have been somewhat resistant to cold as they had been able to nest here, so it was fortunate for the team that they were apparently all dead … but what had killed them? Mikkel found it hard to believe that the little scout had done it, which meant …

"There's something big lurking around here," Sigrun murmured, "It got these and —" she gestured at a small splash of fresh red blood visible in the midst of the carnage, "— who wants to tell the driver that her cousin might have been eaten?"

Emil stared at the blood in horror. Of all of them, he was closest in age to Lalli and had worked the hardest to form a relationship with the reserved scout. Crying "What? No!", he took off running through the garage, heedless of possible grosslings, the other two pounding behind him. When Sigrun caught him and yanked him back with an armlock, he pointed wildly ahead, gasping, "He's not eaten! His footprints lead right through and out of the building!"

Sigrun released him as they all studied the footprints in the snow which had blown in on the south side. Indeed, Lalli had passed through the building and nothing had followed him out, but there were still occasional splashes of blood. Disturbingly, however, he had not returned.

The three turned to study the remains of the nest again. Was it possible, Mikkel wondered, that there had been a fight between grosslings earlier, and Lalli had passed through after the victor had departed? But there was the blood …

"At least these look dead enough to me," Sigrun concluded finally, "I suppose we'll have to tell the driver to follow the scout."

"We can't know if they're all dead, especially not with this many husks around," Mikkel pointed out. And especially not with the blood. But before he could continue, Lalli himself came rushing back into the garage, blood on his face and down the front of his jacket, and passed them without a word.

Sigrun and Mikkel looked at each other and then out of the garage along the scout's backtrail. "He would have yelled something if there were danger," Sigrun said, as if trying to reassure herself, and "He didn't look frightened," Emil ventured uncertainly, and "He's hurt," Mikkel pointed out practically. With no grosslings in the offing and Lalli vanishing into the gloom of the garage, the three of them shrugged as one and followed him back to the tank.

Leaning wearily against the map table, indeed practically collapsing on top of it, Lalli explained their course to Tuuri. Upon her agreement that she understood, he heaved himself up, turned away, and ran squarely into the solid bulk of Mikkel. Accepting the warm, damp washcloth that Mikkel held out, he cleaned the blood smeared aross the lower half of his face and, with a quick, sly glance at the other's face, swiped carefully behind each ear before returning the washcloth and stripping off his outer clothing.

Before Lalli could dodge past him, Mikkel took him firmly by the chin and tilted his face up. No visible injuries, and the blood had all been on the lower half of his face. A nosebleed, then? Apparently. "Look at me, Lalli," Mikkel ordered, and followed up with a two-finger gesture at Lalli's eyes and then his own. The younger man didn't quite look him in the eyes, but he turned his gaze close enough that the medic was able to see that both pupils were dilated equally. Flicking on his flashlight with his free hand, the medic brought it up to point at the scout's eyes. Lalli winced, but he kept his eyes open and the other could see that his pupils contracted equally. Satisfied, Mikkel released him, patting his shoulder gently, at which the exhausted scout muttered "Okay" and fled to his bedroll, asleep almost as soon as his head touched his pillow.

As Mikkel rolled the jacket carefully to keep the blood from staining anything else until he had a chance to clean it, he paused for a moment, thinking of Lalli's sly glance. Did Lalli — could Lalli — make a joke?

With everyone safely in the tank, Tuuri and Sigrun went to the front to get the tank moving while Mikkel rechecked that everything was properly stowed in case of more rough roads, Emil lay down on his bunk out of the way, and Reynir scooped up the kitten and took her forward with him for company while he watched over Tuuri's shoulder.

As they moved through the remains of the grossling nest, there was a grinding noise as something dragged across the top of the tank, followed by several resounding crashes behind them. Emil leapt to his feet while Mikkel instinctively ducked and shielded his head. When nothing else happened, they looked at each other with identical embarrassed expressions. Sitting back down on his bunk, Emil paused, frowning at Lalli who had not responded at all to the sound, and turned to Mikkel worriedly, “Is he hurt? I mean … concussion … or something?”

“No, there's a field test for concussion and I checked. He's okay, just very tired. Let him sleep.”

If either had gone forward at that moment, or if Sigrun had turned to look back at the other passengers, someone would have seen the kitten, eyes wide and all her fur standing on end in the instinctive feline response to the nearness of grosslings. Reynir, from the safest country in the world, failed to recognize the meaning of her response, thought she was merely alarmed by the sound, and whispered soothingly to her. If one of the others had seen her before she relaxed as the tank carried her away from the grossling, however, later events might have played out quite differently.

Or perhaps not. Perhaps some events are simply fated. Only the gods could say.

Lalli's new camp site was not far from the parking garage, a large eight-sided plaza with a statue in the middle, buildings on four wide sides, and broad avenues leading out through four narrow sides. As soon as Tuuri brought the tank to a stop (only slightly bumping into one of the bollards around the statue), Sigrun instructed her, “Hey, fuzzy-head, go ask your cousin if he saw anything of concern in those buildings.”

Emil and Mikkel watched somewhat anxiously as Tuuri shook Lalli by the shoulder, but he came awake and answered her whispered question before rolling over and pulling the covers up around his ears. Mikkel was just a little relieved by this response, not that he'd actually doubted the field test, but it was still reassuring to see that the younger man was in fact sleeping and not unconscious. Emil was likewise relieved as he hadn't really trusted Mikkel's casual dismissal of possible injury in the first place.

As Tuuri reported nothing alarming, the five conscious team members piled out of the tank into the snow, just under knee-deep even on Tuuri, and Sigrun, surveying the site, concluded, “All right then. This place looks good enough, I suppose. The little mage guy's got us four escape routes and a clear field of fire. Too bad there aren't any book spots around here, but maybe there's something in one of those buildings that the elderly folks didn't know about. We might as well take a look since we're here.”

Behind Mikkel, Reynir and Tuuri speculated in Icelandic about the riches within the buildings, while Sigrun more practically speculated about whether anyone would have been likely to stay in them during the Great Dying, the last days of the Old World as it succumbed to the Rash. Mikkel doubted that many would have stayed — even the people of the Old World surely didn't keep working when they were sick — but not many did not mean none, and there was always the possibility of a wandering grossling seeking shelter, or even a patient in a makeshift clinic that didn't quite die.

Reynir interrupted them, grabbing Sigrun's shoulder and pointing urgently at the westernmost building. “I saw something move over there!” Sigrun of course did not understand his words, but on the simultaneous translation from Mikkel and Tuuri, she simply sighed and directed Emil, “You protect the helpless ones while we check it out.”

Mikkel ducked into the tank to grab his crowbar then joined Sigrun in following Lalli's tracks to the offending building. The large picture windows, surprisingly unbroken, were crusted with dirt but still let in enough light for their investigation. Dagger drawn, Sigrun stepped to the side and then, when Mikkel shoved the half-open door completely open, jumped in, ready for anything.

But there was nothing. She stood still, Mikkel's bulk at her back, and peered about, listening and even sniffing the air. After several seconds, she murmured, “Okay, I see nothing that points to recent activity in here, except little guy's footprints. You spot anything?” and “I do not,” he murmured in reply.

They found themselves in a large high-ceilinged lobby with several doors opening off of it, but even in the dim light from the windows, they could see undisturbed dust in front of those doors. The middle of the room was taken up with multiple gurneys with sheet-covered skeletons. Such sights were familiar to them; like so many public places of the Old World, it had been converted into an impromptu hospital, for even as their civilization collapsed, the people of the Old World had tried to provide proper care to the afflicted. Signaling Mikkel to go right as she went left, Sigrun led a rapid search of the room, checking under each bed and looking suspiciously up at the ceiling. But again, there was nothing.

Sigrun returned to the large front door to shrug elaborately at Reynir, still waiting anxiously by the tank, but rather than being reassured, he pointed so urgently behind her that she and Mikkel both spun around, weapons ready, expecting that something had crept up behind them. Still, there was nothing.

Giving Mikkel a disgusted look and an eye-roll, Sigrun gestured to Reynir to come look for himself. With the expression of a condemned man, the Icelander crossed the plaza, mounted the steps, and peered inside, still cuddling the kitten as if he had forgotten that he had her. “I – I'm sorry,” he quavered, “it's just … ghosts?”

“Ghosts,” Mikkel repeated in Danish, putting a hand to his head. We have a scout who thinks he's a mage and mutilates grosslings and hangs out in trees in the freezing cold. Our driver agrees he's a mage. Our Cleanser can blow up a building with a few incendiaries. And our stowaway thinks he's a mage too and he thinks he sees ghosts. Can this situation get any more silly?

“Ghosts?” Sigrun repeated. “Ask him if they look mean.” Yes, the situation can get more silly. Our captain believes in ghosts too. As he turned to Reynir, his pendant shifted, still very cold. Oh, and who am I to talk? I'm wearing a Thor's hammer for protection.

Mikkel sighed. “Do the 'ghosts' appear hostile?”

“Uh … no? They just kinda sit there and flicker a little.”

“He says no.”

Sigrun frowned slightly, clearly perceiving that there was somewhat more to the answer than that, but then shrugged and turned away. If the ghosts were no threat, then they were also of no interest. Reynir seemed to suddenly recall the kitten in his hands, gave her a kiss, and whispered reassurances to her.

The skeletons had caught Sigrun's attention and this in turn drew the attention of the two men. “Did they all die from the illness?” Reynir asked in appalled tones.

“No,” Mikkel stated positively, “Remains from victims of the illness have plenty of prominent identifiers, most notably calcified tissue remains and deformities of the joints. These individuals look too clean. They were, however, ill at some point. See these small structural anomalies of the bone? A relatively early stage of the illness. But no, they did not die from it.”

“Huh,” Reynir acknowledged.

Sigrun had, of course, followed none of the Icelandic conversation, but from their gestures she had a pretty clear idea of the topic. “So hey, you,” she asked curiously, “what do you think these guys died from?”

“Euthanasia” was the word on Mikkel's lips, but he caught himself in time, remembering that Reynir would recognize the word. Icelanders, he knew, were sensitive about that word since their ancestors had “euthanized” (that is to say, killed without warning) anyone who approached their island for decades after the Rash struck. “Other causes,” he thought, was the safest response.

“And that's scientist speak for …?”

“It means I don't know,” Mikkel answered coolly. It was true, of course, that he didn't know. History was clear, but he didn't know about this specific case. “And I'm not a scientist,” he added, rightly expecting to distract her.

“Scientist, doctor, same thing as far as I'm concerned,” she observed, and he wondered anew at her failure to read any of the team's records. Perhaps, he thought, she'd expected this team to have been as carefully selected as those made up of her friends, family, and neighbors, and even the experiences of the past few days hadn't quite conveyed to her just how poorly the expedition had been organized.

“Also not a doctor.” He didn't want to go into the details of his brief medical training.

“Ssooo … veterinarian then?” She sounded more curious than displeased. Given the sort of injuries they might expect, he supposed a veterinarian might well be as useful as a doctor. But he wasn't that either, to be honest.

“I have assisted in several cow births back home.” That at least was true.

They were there to check out the room, and he turned to examine some interesting medical supplies. If they had had a supply line, he would have packed up the syringes to return to Bornholm for cleaning and sterilization, for though Bornholm could produce them, still they were in short supply and valuable. Without the necessary tools, though, he couldn't risk using them. He sighed and returned them to their boxes.

“Okay, look, here's what I'm really asking: If something needs to be amputated, can I count on you or does someone else have to do the chopping?”

He did not answer for a moment.

The Madsen family was lucky in being mostly composed of immunes, but even they had their non-immunes. The immunes usually did their best to shield the non-immunes, but Bornholm was quite safe these days, safe enough that non-immune Petter was permitted to go out collecting firewood with slightly older Mikkel and an old tomcat. They were both strong young men and Mikkel could even chop down trees so long as no one stood nearby (and no one did!) so the arrangement worked well for weeks.

It worked well until the day that something long and thin, that perhaps decades ago had been a weasel, streaked out from under a root directly at Petter. The tomcat was too old, too slow, and the Beast sank its teeth into Petter's ankle just above his boot. Mikkel whirled and struck by instinct, grabbed the fainting boy, and ran while the tomcat dealt with the Beast. Mikkel thanked all the gods that he didn't believe in that for once his aim had been true, taking off Petter's leg just below the knee.

Petter lived, and he didn't suffer the Rash. He and his parents had thanked Mikkel with tears in their eyes. There are far worse fates in the world than going through life with a wooden leg, but still —

Mikkel didn't like to think about amputation. He schooled his face and voice to reveal nothing, and answered steadily, “I don't need credentials to be a decent healer and medic. I'll amputate as needed.”

“Good, I'll trust you.”

Not that she had much choice, he thought, as he was the only person on the team with any real training. “Thank you.” He looked down at the next box of medicines and realized that it was different. The label was handwritten and difficult to read, both because it had faded over the decades and because it appeared to have been written in haste. “Now this here is interesting,” he mused. Nearby was a loose piece of paper, set out as if to draw attention. “And this.”

He lifted the paper and began to read, the faded ink making it difficult. “If any of you wake up, don't be alarmed, we didn't leave you for dead! But the food has run scarce and we've received word that the troops at Kastellet have decided to abandon their cause and move on. We need to venture further out to find supplies, but we're not giving up on you, not now.”

“And then they never came back. Good story,” Sigrun shrugged.

Mikkel didn't answer. Sigrun could find grossling nests with the best of them and had an enviable record of wiping them out, but she had an entirely straightforward way of looking at the world. She had never spent time trying to understand the assumptions that people of the Old World had held. She didn't see what Mikkel saw in that short note.

It had been written late in the Great Dying. Troops were retreating, food was scarce. They knew by then that Rash patients didn't wake up, not ever. But the writer thought that these patients might. That meant something, Mikkel was sure. And the last words — “not now” — why had the writer written that? What was happening there, then, during the Great Dying? And what did the patients die of, if not the Rash nor, it seemed, euthanasia? Mikkel slipped the hand-labeled box into his satchel for further examination as Sigrun lead the way back out of the building.

Reporting on the event that evening, Mikkel acknowledged that they had allowed themselves to be lulled into complacency by the weather, and that it was only the alarm raised by the kitten that had saved them. He passed over in silence the fact that Reynir's background was so sheltered that he had no idea how cats reacted to the presence of grosslings. Fortunately no one asked Mikkel to explain what the non-immune civilian was doing investigating a building, carrying a kitten or no.

It was the most pleasant day they'd had so far in the Silent World. The air was cold but tolerable in the absence of wind, and the sun sparkled on the fresh snow, unmarred by any but their own tracks. It was a rare time when even the non-immunes felt safe outside.

”She's doing this again,” Reynir commented in a puzzled tone. Looking back at the kitten, which was exhibiting extreme alarm, Mikkel and Sigrun both went on alert. Even Tuuri and Emil, chatting by the tank, saw their response and began looking around for danger. Studying their tracks, Sigrun nudged Mikkel, pointed to disturbed snow beyond the tank, and whispered, “Something's followed us here.”

It was immediately obvious that the building behind them, though closer than the tank, was not defensible as any large grossling would likely be able to break a window, and in any case their party was too small to risk splitting their forces. Standing still was likely to be suicidal, but at least they could be silent, or nearly so, in making their way back to the tank. Mikkel mentally kicked himself for letting protocol slip to the point that Reynir and Tuuri were outside but not wearing their masks. At least they had their masks around their necks, and he was able to remedy the situation at least partially by putting Reynir's mask on properly. He didn't dare draw attention by shouting at Tuuri to put hers on and could only hope she would think of that by herself.

They had nearly made it to the tank when the grossling, a flat monstrosity resembling a multi-legged manta ray, lunged at Reynir from its hiding place in the snow. Of course it lunged at Reynir; grosslings always knew who was not immune. Mikkel spun, yanking Reynir back and away, but knew he was too slow … and Sigrun thrust her arm in the monster's maw, falling backward into Reynir but still having the presence of mind to slam the creature into the tank.

Emil had truly grown into a troll-hunter for he ran forward firing into the grossling as it retreated, while Mikkel, seeing that Reynir's jacket was torn, yanked up his sleeve to check for injuries. Reynir's skin was unbroken and he had merely been spattered with blood — Sigrun's blood, but possibly contaminated. The cold air and the bright sun would kill the virus, Mikkel knew, so he muttered something reassuring and shoved Reynir into the tank behind Tuuri, who had wisely put on her mask and retreated to the tank. Mikkel knew there was no time to lose as he ran to help find the creature, which had disappeared again in the snow.

Sigrun was back on her feet and had snatched up the kitten, crying in the snow where Reynir had dropped her. Despite being untrained, the kitten had good instincts and alerted toward the hidden monster. Emil and Mikkel ran toward it, Emil still firing and Mikkel with his crowbar raised to strike.

Somehow it happened again as it happened so many times to Mikkel. He knew where he was aiming, where Emil was, where the grossling probably was, but somehow, somehow, his crowbar went to the left instead of the right and he felt and heard it strike Emil's leg.

Emil fell, yelping in pain, Sigrun shouted at them both, and the grossling erupted from the snow with a screech and fled.

”You broke his leg?” Sigrun shouted in disbelief.

”I —”

Mikkel was on Bornholm. Petter was down and howling in pain, the ax was heavy in Mikkel's hands, the grossling was ripping at the severed leg even as the tomcat pounced on it, and the blood …

Mikkel was in Copenhagen, Emil was on the ground holding his leg, and the blood was from the grossling. “— no,” Mikkel managed. “That is highly unlikely.”

”At least it's injured,” Sigrun snarled. “Corner it and stomp it to death, maybe then you won't miss!”

”I —” Mikkel began, but there was really nothing more to say. “— yes. Will do.”

The grossling was fleeing across the snow now, too injured to burrow, making for the nearest shelter, the door they had left open. Mikkel and Sigrun were close behind, with Emil trailing along on his painful but not broken leg. The grossling had left smears of blood as it sought shelter under the cots and they had no difficulty following it.

”Did it just die?” Sigrun asked in confusion. They all knew that grosslings were exceedingly hardy and generally survived any injury that didn't destroy the brain, yet this one seemed to have curled up in death throes.

Mikkel took no chances, immediately stomping hard on every bit of the grossling. If it wasn't dead before, it certainly was now. Sigrun had seen and killed many grosslings and stated casually when he finished, “Well, that's handled. I'm getting hungry, let's go eat.”

As Mikkel and Sigrun turned and departed the makeshift clinic — now ancient morgue — she observed, "I think my arm needs a stitch." Looking at the jagged rip in her jacket sleeve, Mikkel answered drily, "You may have more than one."

They were going down the steps when Mikkel realized that Emil was still inside, staring with mingled horror and sorrow at the sheet-covered skeletons. "Emil, are you coming!?" Mikkel called impatiently. "Ah … yeah," the young Cleanser replied, falling in behind them.

"So, are we going to lose the nuisance?" Sigrun asked quietly.

"No, I don't believe so. He was wearing his mask and his skin wasn't broken — you took the brunt of the attack and his jacket stopped the rest. He's okay."

"Good. I don't want him, but I don't want to lose him that way."

They were greeted at the tank by Tuuri, peeking around the door and still wearing her mask. "Where is Reynir?" Mikkel asked immediately.

"I'm sorry," she apologized nervously, "we didn't know what to do so I quarantined him in the office."

Well, that was as good a place as any for him, Mikkel thought, though he assured Tuuri that quarantine was unnecessary and she was in no danger. For now, cleaning and stitching Sigrun's arm was the highest priority. She was immune to the Rash, of course, but there were plenty of other infections that could set in on an open wound. "We have anesthetic —" he began, but she gestured dismissively. "Just sew it up. Keep the anesthetic for when we really need it."

"I hope you don't mind a couple of scars from this. Stitchwork isn't one of my strong suits."

"It's fine, I don't care," she answered, looking away as he set to work cleaning and disinfecting the wounds. It had to hurt, he thought, but she scarcely winced. Several other scars on that arm bore witness to the rigors of her troll-hunting life. Mikkel set to work with needle and sutures, doing his best to be neat and careful, but his traitor fingers always seemed to push the needle in a little away from the intended spot.

After stoically enduring the stitching for several minutes, Sigrun observed, "Freckles thinks he's about to die. Handle that for me, will you?"

Mikkel looked over to see Reynir sitting on Mikkel's own bunk, staring at the floor in a pose of utter dejection. "Reynir!"

"Yes?" The Icelander barely raised his head but his innate politeness forced him to respond.

"You're not about to die."

Reynir sat up in surprise. "But!" he began, and Mikkel interrupted, "The bruise you have on your arm did not break the skin; the illness cannot enter your body through the tissue. In case your arm looked like this," he raised Sigrun's injured arm for display, ignoring her annoyed grunt, "your worries would be warranted."

"But I was so close to it —"

"Does not matter," Mikkel stated firmly, "Your mouth might be a gaping wound so far as infectious particles are concerned, but that's not a concern with a mask on. In conclusion: you are safe unless you went ahead and licked your arm. Did you lick your arm?"

Reynir's expression shifted rapidly, shocked, then relieved, then almost giddy, before finally settling into a confused frown as he listened to Mikkel's long-winded explanation and question. 'Uh... uh... No,' he finally managed to reply.

"Well done." To Sigrun Mikkel added, "And this is finished."

Looking down at the rather untidy stitches, she answered with some disbelief of her own, "So you were not kidding, you suck at stitches. I mean, I've had worse, but still!"

As she, slightly smiling, showed off her latest war-wounds to Emil, Mikkel turned away to stow the medical supplies in their poorly-equipped first aid kit. "They will serve their purpose regardless," he stated, "We only have to make sure the wounds stay dry and clean from now on." To Emil he added, "I'll start heating supper and then take a look at that leg of yours."

Walking away, he hid a smirk as Emil, still looking at Sigrun's ragged stitches, winced and said, "Yeah, it's okay, I don't need that. My leg is fine."

It didn't take long to reheat the soup from the morning and the meal was accepted with little enthusiasm, Tuuri and Reynir offering polite but not effusive thanks, Emil grimacing without comment, and Sigrun grumbling. They all recognized that, however distasteful they found vegetable soup thickened with tallow, it was somewhat better than starvation.

"Lalli?" Emil called softly, "You're missing … um … food."

"Let him sleep," Mikkel advised. "There's plenty more for when he wakes up."

Emil looked at his half-empty bowl, shuddered slightly, and continued to choke down the contents.

Fueling himself without pleasure, Mikkel listened to Reynir and Tuuri chatting.

"I kinda wish I could ask your cousin something," Reynir said.

"I can ask him when he wakes up. What do you want to know?

"Oh, there's these odd ghost things out there. Just curious what they are."

"Mmh, Lalli mentioned seeing something like that earlier. I doubt he'd know; he calls things 'weird' when he has no clue." That was a surprise to Mikkel. Lalli had seen "ghosts" too? That was strange and troubling. Mikkel didn't believe in ghosts, but if two people who could not communicate both saw something they interpreted as ghosts … but Reynir was talking again.

"Well, that's a pity."

"Wait … so you saw them too?"

"Maybe your brother would know!"

"Uh, um, maybe. I can't ask him though so … you know …"

"That's okay, you don't need to." That seemed to end the discussion, and Mikkel had nothing to distract him as he mechanically spooned soup into his mouth. He thought wistfully of his mother's herb garden. Any sort of spices would help, even just … "Salt," he breathed. Salt is a mineral and doesn't rot or decay, he thought. It's just as good now as it was decades ago, or even centuries! If we can find some … if Lalli can find some …

He would have to talk to Tuuri about asking Lalli to check into restaurants or food shops. There would be salt in houses, of course, but grosslings were far more likely to be lurking in houses than in more public places. He restrained himself from bringing it up with Tuuri immediately. There was no hurry with Lalli collapsed in exhaustion, and no sense getting everyone's hopes up.

In the morning, Sigrun was eager to get back to work seeking out books to scavenge. Tuuri had been able to identify a location thought to be lucrative, and between them, the two women had worked out a somewhat roundabout route nearly all of which Lalli had scouted. Mikkel would have preferred that the captain remain with the tank for at least a day to give her wound a chance to start healing, but as that was certainly out of the question, he persuaded her to allow him to rig a sling for her injured arm.

“There, that should keep it in place,” he stated, finishing up the makeshift sling constructed from bandages. “You merely need to make sure that the stitches are not disturbed.”

“So I don't have to be careful as long as the arm stays still?”

Mikkel paused, somewhat at a loss. “You … don't have to be, but I would highly recommend it.”

“Okay, thanks. I'll grab my buddy and we'll get out of your hair!”

“Yes, about Emil … I have a suggestion. Perhaps, due to his injury, it would be preferable that he stayed here today, and instead I —”

“EEMIIIL!!!” Sigrun shouted, not even glancing at him.

Mikkel looked around to see Emil in the sleeping compartment, frowning down at the still-sleeping Lalli and questioning Tuuri as she passed carrying the book she intended to work on. “I don't get it,” the Swede said, “Is he ill?”

“Oh, you could say that,” Tuuri answered casually. “He'll just need to rest up a bit.”

“Okay …” Emil said hesitantly and, turning toward the door to join Sigrun, looked back to tell Lalli, “Feel better, I guess.” To Sigrun, he said with a fair imitation of enthusiasm, “I'm ready to go!”

“Great. We'll be back in time for food, bye, keep safe!” she told Mikkel, who still hesitated beside her.

“Sigrun! I have to insist!” he said, putting a hand to her shoulder to keep her from leaving. “You're both injured, while I am not. So I propose that Emil is allowed to rest up here today and I —”

Shrugging off his hand, she stated firmly, “Let me stop you right there: No.”

“My leg does kind of hurt a lot …” Emil put in.

“No it doesn't. Stop being a crybaby about it.” To Mikkel, she concluded, “Nothing personal! I just have zero faith in your fighting skills!”

Humiliated, Mikkel stood silently watching the two explorers — Captain and Cleanser, Norwegian and Swede — trot off into the grossling-haunted city. Inwardly he raged at himself.

Why did I say it again after she dismissed me the first time? When has she ever changed her mind at my request?

But she's injured! She needs someone able-bodied to guard her back! And I'm an experienced soldier, not an unlicked cub like Emil. I've fought grosslings at dagger-point, yes, and I have the scars to prove it.

I didn't exactly cover myself with glory yesterday — why did I swing the wrong way again?? — but Emil didn't really either. The only good shot he got off was reflex when I … well … when I hit him.

If she doesn't come back … If they don't come back … If Emil can't guard her back because he's injured … because I injured him …

He cut short the thought. My duty is to take care of the tank. I will do my duty. He turned and climbed into the tank. First things first: they needed water.

As he pulled a bucket out of a cabinet, Reynir approached him nervously. “Can I help? Can I do something to help?”

“No.” But the young Icelander was so sincere that Mikkel couldn't leave him with a curt negation. “I'm going to gather snow to melt for water. You can't help me with that; it would be more trouble to guard you while you do it than to do it myself.”

The redhead looked crushed. “But I want to help — I'm eating your food, and Lalli has to sleep on the floor so I can have his bunk, and Sigrun — Sigrun got bitten —”

Mikkel held up a hand. “First off, no one likes the food so no one begrudges it. Who knows how long we have to stay here, and whether we'll run out of food? One person more or less doesn't make much difference. Anyway, we agreed that if we ran out of food, we'd eat you so we might as well keep you healthy.” The other looked uncertain as to whether Mikkel might actually be serious.

“Lalli has slept on the floor since the expedition started. I don't know why, but he doesn't want his bunk so you aren't displacing him. And as for Sigrun —” How to put this without seeming to criticize her? “As for Sigrun, she was bitten because you were away from the safety of the tank. And that was not your decision,” he went on hastily before Reynir could apologize as his face clearly showed that he wished to do. “You saw … something … that you thought was dangerous and you warned us — as you should, as any of us would. It was our decision to call you away from the tank to examine it more closely. And you salvaged the situation by bringing the kitten. If you hadn't done that …”

The Icelander looked very thoughtful. “Still,” he said, “I want to help. I want to do something.”

About to refuse him again, Mikkel was struck by a thought. He turned back to the cabinet and pulled out the second bucket that was stored there. “Okay. You stand by the door with this bucket. You don't put a foot outside the door, you understand that? Tuuri!”

In her surprise at being addressed, she nearly dropped the book she was holding. “Uh … yes?”

“Get the kitten and stand by the door with Reynir. I'll bring a bucket of snow and swap buckets with Reynir —”

“And I'll dump the snow in the water heater!” Reynir finished in delight.

“Right, and Tuuri, if the kitten alerts, you yell and close the door. You yell while you close the door. Don't wait for me! Are we agreed?”

They were certainly agreed, and Mikkel set to work, heading out to collect clean snow well away from footprints and the crude latrine they had set up behind the statue. Toiling back and forth, packing snow in the bucket at one end and swapping buckets at the other, Mikkel had plenty of time to think.

As the Old World died, the beleaguered survivors on Bornholm — in between organizing quarantines and patrolling the shores for infected sea-going mammals — listened to its death throes on battery-powered, and later hand-cranked, radios, their power having failed quickly in the absence of fuel deliveries. Professional radio stations soon ceased to broadcast and there was nothing left but ham radio operators powering their transmissions with private generators, but one by one they too went off the air and there was only silence.

The survivors heard a mixture of news, rumors, and outright fantasy brought on by a situation of unparalleled horror and terror. It was said that the Rash was an escaped biological weapon, that it had fallen from the stars, that it was a judgement on sinful humanity — and it was said that the Americans had a cure, or perhaps it was the Chinese, or the British, or … the Danes.

All this went through Mikkel's mind as he worked. He remembered that his grandmother Else had believed to her dying day that Denmark had found a cure. She had been a small child when the Rash struck; she had been visiting her grandmother on Bornholm, and her mother, being a doctor, had returned to Copenhagen to help, leaving Else behind with her father and brother. Mikkel himself had never believed in the Danish cure, which had come to be called the Danish Salvation; indeed, he had never believed in any cure. After all, if there had been a cure, there should have been cured survivors and there were not. Not one.

And yet — “We're not giving up on you, not now.”

Suppose there was a cure, he thought. Any surviving patient would find himself in the middle of thousands — even tens of thousands — of grosslings. At Kastrup, hundreds of immunes, well-trained and heavily armed, were massacred with no survivors in a single night. What chance would a civilian have?

And yet — those patients weren't killed by grosslings. They presumably weren't euthanized either. What did they die of?

The job went faster than expected, and in less than an hour the water heater was full of melted snow. Dusting snow off and thanking the other two, Mikkel thought that fuel would be the next problem, but elaborate buildings such as surrounded them were sure to have wooden furniture somewhere that they could break up.

“Is there something else I can help with?” Reynir asked eagerly.

“Soon. There's a stack of bedding and clothing to be washed but I need to sort it out first. You go help Tuuri while I do that.”

As he passed the radio compartment with an armload of sheets, he caught the sound of his own name and paused to listen to Tuuri talking to Reynir. Tuuri had intended to continue transcribing the journal they had found, and it seemed that she had observed something.

“Mikkel was right, this journal is important! See, this looks like that. Doesn't it?” He looked around the door to see that she was holding up one of the vials that might or might not have once contained a cure, and comparing it to a flier tucked in the journal.

“I … guess,” Reynir answered uncertainly.

Undeterred, Tuuri went on, “The label is blank, and the flier in the book doesn't say much. Just that these'll be distributed to treatment centers 'as soon as possible'. I don't think this doctor ever got them though. He didn't write anything about it. But … maybe …” She paused, gazing at the flier as she thought. “Eee!” she exclaimed excitedly, jumping to her feet, “Maybe someone did come up with a vaccine and they were trying to give these out to people!”

“I did consider it to be a possibility,” Mikkel put in, forbearing to explain the difference between a cure and a vaccine.

“Didn't seem to work too well,” Reynir muttered. “Those skeletons in there were really, really dead …”

“We've got to find out where they came from!” Tuuri pressed her knuckles to her mouth, staring down at the flier as if by staring she could compel it to answer her.

“The package is too degraded to tell the origin,” Mikkel said, holding it up and tilting it back and forth in an attempt to see any details. “But this label does say these were distributed from the Kastellet fort. It's very close by.”

“Tell Sigrun! She —”

“Left and will not be back for a while,” Mikkel reminded her.

“Well, then we need to go check it out ourselves. We just have to be careful! This is too important to postpone another day!”

Mikkel patted her shoulder soothingly. “No, it is not. I'm interested too, but it can wait. We have our respective tasks to attend to here.”

There were plenty of things to think about other than the possible cure. When Mikkel tried to take Lalli's blanket and top sheet — meaning to return the blanket immediately along with a fresh sheet — the scout clutched the bedding tightly and rolled away from him, muttering something in an annoyed tone.

Mikkel stepped back, frowning. It was a good sign that the little Finn resisted losing his bedding, but he'd more than slept the clock around and evidently meant to go on sleeping. Granted that he had been exhausted, but this seemed extreme. The medic in Mikkel was troubled, and he took a few steps back to the radio compartment where Tuuri was happily transcribing the journal.

“Tuuri, I'm worried about your cousin. This sleep —”

“It's a mage thing,” she said casually and then, glancing up at his expression, went on a bit defensively, “I know you don't believe us, but it happens. He overused his powers — he didn't explain exactly how, but it was for us and you shouldn't be angry at him for it. He just has to rest now and he'll be fine. Really, he'll be fine,” she finished as if to reassure herself.

Mikkel frowned, but there was nothing to be done short of dragging the boy out of bed and slapping him awake … which the medic would do, if the situation were dire enough, but it was not dire now. Let him sleep.

With Reynir's sometimes bumbling assistance, the wash bucket was set up in the sleeping compartment and Mikkel went to work scrubbing bedding and then clothing while his young assistant wrung out each article and hung it to dry. At first the Icelander tried to carry on a conversation, but the Dane's brief and unenthusiastic answers soon silenced him.

The stowaway was another problem. He had nothing but the clothes he stood up in, and there were no spare clothes to give him. Each member of the team had exactly two suits of clothes so they could wear one while the other was cleaned or repaired. This reminded Mikkel that he needed to fix Reynir's jacket. The weather would be getting ever colder, and the other couldn't keep going outside in a ripped jacket. Besides, it offended Mikkel's tidy mind to see damaged clothing.

Reynir's clothes were clean enough for now, but they would have to be washed soon if he were to avoid slowly becoming filthy. Considering this, Mikkel supposed that the young man could simply wrap himself in a blanket and wait while Mikkel washed and dried his clothes. That would do, given the lack of alternatives.

But even these thoughts could not wholly distract him from thinking of the cure. And thinking of the dead patients.

What happened to them? They didn't die of the Rash — I'm certain of that. Did the cure itself kill them? But no, surely not. The authorities would release a cure that killed a few patients; that's a tragic fact of medicine, that sometimes cures can kill. But they wouldn't release a cure that killed every patient, and those are all really, really dead, as the boy said.

So what could have killed them? Okay, let's think. They were unconscious and their doctors — or medics or nurses or caretakers or whatever they were — left them unattended. Not willingly of course. Who knows, maybe one of those doctors was Grandma Else's own mother …

He paused at that, his thoughts derailed by memories of elderly Else's eyes shining as she spoke of her mother bravely going back to Copenhagen to fight the Rash: “And we never saw her again, but she was so smart, and I know she went back to work on the cure, I know she must have helped find it! It's out there – the Danish Salvation! If we were only brave enough to go back and get it, we could be free of this scourge!”

But those patients are all dead. Why, if the cure is real?

Okay, unconscious patients, unattended in a dying city.

In the winter.

In the winter! It was cold, and the power had failed, and there was no one to keep the fire going … Did they just freeze? Could it be as simple as that?

And then too, this was a cure, not a vaccine as Tuuri called it. If it was anything like an antibiotic, it needed repeated treatments. With the doctors gone, there would be no more treatments. So the cure succeeded in stopping the progress of the disease, but the patients didn't get enough to actually reverse the damage and bring them out of their comas, so they just faded away.

That could be. It could be! They are all dead, but that doesn't prove that the cure doesn't work. It could still be out there, the Danish Salvation that Grandma Else dreamed of. We haven't found a cure in nine decades of research, but they had more researchers than we have people, many times more, and they had billions of patients to examine and tools that we can't even dream of because we have no idea what they even were or did.

He had reached this point in his thoughts just as he finished mopping the floor. The kitten, who had been taken outside several times to relieve herself since they first adopted her, trotted back in from the mud which Mikkel had churned up just outside the door. She pranced across the freshly cleaned floor, leaving a trail of muddy paw prints, her tail held high as if proud of some accomplishment.

Seeing this, reaching for the mop he had just put away, Mikkel muttered to himself, “A thankless job.”

The Icelander, who could have no idea what the Dane had muttered, said brightly and sincerely, “Thank you for letting me help,” just before noticing the kitten's actions, scooping her up, and hastily cleaning her paws with a freshly laundered washcloth.

Mikkel sighed and put away his apron, turning to look out the door. The sun was high in the sky and there were hours to go before the adventurers returned or darkness fell. Stay here, do odd jobs, talk to the children? Or go out and look for the Danish Salvation? He wasn't conscious of making the decision, but the decision was made.

I'm here, Grandma. I am brave enough to go get it .

It was not so simple as deciding and just walking out the door, of course. There were the non-immunes to consider. He would not take them with him into danger so they would have to stay in the tank until he returned after several hours, and if he didn't want to clean the chamberpot, he needed to escort them to the latrine before he left. When he offered without explaining his motives, they readily agreed.

From the beginning of the expedition he had dreaded the prospect of escorting Tuuri, but thanks to their fortuitous adoption of the kitten, the situation was much less fraught than he had anticipated. Standing a dozen meters beyond their primitive latrine, he scanned the surroundings before him and to either side, confident that he need not look back towards Tuuri as the kitten would give the alarm if anything came from that direction. Once she was back in the tank and he escorted Reynir, modesty was less of a concern but he thought the younger man too appreciated being given some privacy.

At last he thought his duties had been carried out and he could be considered to be off-duty. He surveyed the interior of the tank with a critical eye: was he missing anything? Ah, the kitten, curled up on her blanket. He was immune to the Rash, of course, but not to physical attack. It would help to have her along to watch his back. “Come over here, kitten,” he said, scooping her up and dropping her in a pocket, “we're going for a walk.”

“Ah — you changed your mind?” Tuuri asked uncertainly.

“You could say that, yes. I had time to think — and I see no reason why I should be required to wait for Sigrun when I'm perfectly capable of inspecting a location without aid.” That came out more harshly than he intended; Sigrun's dismissive attitude rankled more than he'd consciously realized.

“Yes! Exactly! Let's go!” the Finn cried, leaping from her seat and starting for the door.

“No,” he answered, blocking her with one large hand, “you are safer here. Keep the door closed and wait for my return.”

“So, what!?” she asked, deflated. “You get to break the rules but we don't?”

“I'm doing no such thing. I haven't been ordered by anyone to stay, but I'm ordering you to. Have a good day.” He opened the door.

“Hold on!” Tuuri grabbed him by both shoulders, having to reach up rather far to do so, given the disparity in their heights. “You are breaking the rules if you go. You can't leave two non-immune people alone in the field without an immune person around for protection.”

Mikkel was taken aback for a moment. Technically she was right about the rule, but as a practical matter, if anything turned up that could endanger them inside the tank, it would certainly be far beyond his ability to defend them. In that case he'd be as useless as —

He looked down at Tuuri, who was now smiling triumphantly. “There is your guard,” he said, pointing at her sleeping cousin. “Keep each other entertained during my absence.” And he was out the door before she could raise further objections.

He had only just closed the door and turned to go when he put his hands in his pocket and discovered that the kitten was missing. Looking around hastily, he concluded that she had jumped out inside the tank and was not lost outside. Rather than face Tuuri again, he decided to simply go on. It was a bright, sunny day, quite a bit colder than the previous day, so he just had to check his backtrail frequently, he thought, and he'd be safe enough. He set forth across the plaza.

Clambering over or detouring around collapsed walls, ducking under branches that had grown unchecked across the roads, pausing to study open doors and windows with alert suspicion, Mikkel still had time to argue the case back and forth in his mind. There had been no cured survivors — well, that could be explained by the vast number of grosslings in the immediate aftermath of the Great Dying. The patients that he knew were treated with something had nevertheless died — that too could be explained perhaps by neglect. He could devise explanations, but were they really explanations, or was he making excuses?

But if there really is a cure — there would be no more Petters. If I'd been just a split-second slower — if the ax hadn't struck just before the Beast sank its teeth in — The mere thought made him shudder. If there was a cure, we could have just run for it together, and he'd have gotten the cure and all would have been well. And just think! What kind of army could we put together to reclaim our homeland, if it weren't restricted to immunes!

He was jarred from these happy imaginings by a sound.

Mikkel paused, listening. Had he heard something? Was there something behind him? He saw nothing, but his view along his backtrail was blocked by bushes. As he moved to get a better view, he heard them —

“Mikkel!” Tuuri called, and she and Reynir came into view, the kitten held forward as a propitiating offering. At least they were both wearing their masks, Mikkel thought. “This was Reynir's idea,” Tuuri said immediately. “I tried to stop him.” And Reynir agreed hesitantly, “Y – yup, my idea.”

Mikkel was familiar with this sort of conversation, having had to tend over the years five younger siblings, various other young relatives, and any number of recruits. Rolling his eyes, he groaned, “I will never not be a babysitter.”

“Oh, you won't have to babysit us,” Tuuri assured him, “we'll just follow you around.”

He turned on his heel and stalked off, unwilling to attempt conversation. Behind him, Reynir said anxiously, “He did get angry. Now I feel bad.”

“It's okay,” Tuuri responded, “He didn't yell at us, which means we didn't cross the line.”

Mikkel was angry at them. I'm so close! If I give up now, I might never get another chance. And the cure has to be investigated! No more Petters — But there might not be a cure. I mustn't get my hopes up. Those patients were really, really dead —

Still, the authorities distributed something, and in those desperate final days, what would they have distributed but a cure? What else mattered at that point but a cure?

The children followed me in defiance of a direct order. They got themselves here in one piece; they can keep on fending for themselves. They can follow me if they insist; it's what they want. I don't have to deal with them. I will go on.

After a dozen steps his sense of duty overcame him. They were not immune and he was. It didn't matter that they'd disobeyed his orders; it wouldn't have mattered if they'd been total strangers. They were not immune and it was the duty of immunes to protect non-immunes, always.

He turned back to the other two. “All right, you're here. Tuuri, you're in charge of the kitten. If she alerts, you two yell and get behind me. If it looks like I'm losing, you run for all you're worth, and you keep running until you're back in the tank. I'd tell you to stay away from your footprints so you don't get ambushed, but if you do that you'll get lost. So you just follow your footprints back. Do you understand?”

Accepting their meek agreements, he strode away with the two young people trailing along behind him.

Crossing the bridge to the King's Gate of Kastellet Fortress, they saw it was still relatively intact, the door closed. To either side, the embankment was overgrown with tall grass — now dead and snow-covered — and volunteer trees. Mikkel pushed hard on the door and was rewarded with a creak.

“Should we just climb over the embankment?” Tuuri asked.

“Not necessary. According to the note, this fort was abandoned. I doubt anyone wasted time barricading a place they intended to leave for good.” He hoped he was right; he had not brought his crowbar.

Heaving against the door with his full weight and strength, he forced it open against its badly rusted hinges and a certain amount of debris, allowing the three to squeeze through. As soon as they were inside, he waved the others to shelter behind him while he studied the snow that lay before them.

Abundant animal tracks. Squirrels, rabbits, even a fox. Bird tracks. All this told him that there were no grosslings within; in nine decades, such would have slaughtered everything in an enclosed area including the birds. He concluded that it was safe here and forced the door closed again, as he always felt better with a barrier between him and the perilous outside world.

As they started forward, Reynir too paused to study the snow. “Ah, so many critter tracks! Is it weird that there's this many animals here?”

“Not at all. The fort is protected by water on all sides, making it a relatively safe sanctuary. At least for animals. Small immune colonies are known to thrive in spots like these. But still: don't stray!”

In their decades of isolation, the animals seemed to have largely lost their fear of man, retreating initially but then stopping to study the intruders. Later, Mikkel remembered this and could have kicked himself for being so focused on the cure that he didn't think to try hunting them. A rabbit or two would have been a welcome addition to their distasteful diet and might have served to mollify Sigrun. But that was later.

He was methodical, entering and briefly inspecting each building in turn. Most doors stood open, evidence of hasty evacuation; others he was able to force open against rust and debris. At first he found nothing at all and began to fear that it was all in vain, that even if the cure existed, the departing soldiers had taken the evidence with them, and he would never ever know the truth.

“What exactly are we looking for?” Tuuri asked finally, tired of trailing after him in silence.

“We are not looking for anything.” He could not conceal his annoyance at their presence, and didn't especially wish to.

“Right. What are you looking for.”

“An address.” He peered into the cockpit of a helicopter that stood deteriorating in the middle of the fort. Why was it left here? It doesn't seem to have crashed — oh, fuel. It must have taken a lot and couldn't carry many people. They left on foot or in land vehicles that they could cram more into.

“Those vials were certainly not manufactured here,” he went on, leaving the helicopter to its slow dissolution, “but there must be information about their origin tucked away somewhere. If only I knew where to begin searching.”

“Medical building?” she suggested, pointing through the trees to a building with the faded remains of a giant red cross painted above the door. They were speaking Icelandic so as not to exclude Reynir but he seemed to have nothing to contribute. At least she's trying to be helpful, Mikkel thought sourly.

Leading the way to the medical building, Mikkel was so focused on his goal that he did not even glance at the snow in front of the building. If he had — if he had noticed that not a single one of the many animal tracks criss-crossing the snow strayed within a dozen meters of the building — if he had declined to enter — the future would have turned out so very differently. And yet, who can say if it would have better in the long run?

“Stay here,” Mikkel ordered. The others had been good about staying out of his way so far, but the impulsive young woman might well rush in and disturb any clues, and he wanted to see the place exactly as it was left.

The door to the medical building stood open, half off its hinges, allowing the winter sunlight to clearly illuminate the inside. He stepped in and stopped, staggered as if by a physical blow. Not unexpectedly, the entry room was full of gurneys.

And every gurney bore a skeleton.

“Come on, let me just have a little peek,” Tuuri whined behind him. Still trying to take in this change in his expectations, he gestured her forward without looking around. “Oh. N-never mind. I'll stay.”

He didn't even notice, trying to think. These patients are really, really dead too. The cure didn't work here either. There never was any cure. Why did I even let myself hope there was? Stupid!

But no — think about it — the cure comes into Kastellet. They start using it on their patients, and the other medics, just walking distance away, come get some and start using it on their own patients. But things are bad — the other medics are hungry, starving even if they were willing to brave the grosslings — so the soldiers here abandon their post, take their medics with them — by force even, I think — and leave their patients to their fate. The medics over there don't abandon their patients; they go out and get killed. So for the patients in both places, treatment started and ended at about the same time, and they were all left to freeze, or starve, or die of thirst at the same time.

There could still be a cure. But I mustn't get my hopes up. There might still be a cure.

As he took a few more steps into the room, looking around for boxes of medicine, he heard Tuuri calling bossily, “Reynir! Quit playing with the birds and come here! Mikkel told you not to stray.”

“Sorry.” It's Reynir's favorite word, Mikkel thought distantly. Perhaps I should teach the boy to say it in Danish so that Sigrun can enjoy it too. Or teach Sigrun the word in Icelandic. That would work ... But the thoughts were only an attempt at distraction. He took another step forward.

“Reynir!”

“Right — ahhh …”

“Never seen real skeletons before,” Tuuri observed not very sympathetically.

“Ummm, Mikkel?” Reynir's voice actually shook with fear, which seemed odd to Mikkel as the Icelander had seen skeletons just the day before. Intent on checking cabinets, he didn't even turn around.

“Can we leave? There's those shadow things in here and I don't think we like them a lot.”

Oh, joy. Ghosts again. “There is nothing in here, don't fret. We'll return to base soon.”

“Now?” Reynir insisted.

“No, soon.” This drawer was resisting being pulled out, squealing with the friction, but it felt a bit heavy. Maybe there was something in here, something overlooked in the evacuation. “Don't rush me. We have nothing to show for this detour yet.” The drawer was open and there was indeed a box inside, filled with vials like those used for the presumed cure. Better still, protected as it had been from light and moving air, it had a readable address. Mikkel allowed himself a rare smile.

Reynir was actually moaning in fear. “Hey, relax,” Tuuri tried to reassure him. “You don't have to be afraid. Look at kitty, she's calm.” The young man continued to moan softly.

“You can stop that now,” Mikkel told him, pushing past him in annoyance, “It's time to head back. With any luck, we'll return before Sigrun does.”

Reynir rushed out of the building past him, dragging Tuuri along as fast as he could. “So, spirits again, huh?” she asked once he allowed her to slow to a walk.

“You don't believe me,” he answered in a resigned tone. “That's okay. It's okay.”

“Oh, ah — It's not that I don't believe you. But you know — they're probably harmless. I've heard most spirits barely even notice humans.”

Mikkel didn't comment. He agreed that they were probably harmless since he didn't believe that they existed in the first place. But Lalli and Reynir had both seen something that they identified as ghosts. What had they seen?

“Be honest,” Tuuri said, smiling behind her mask, “us tagging along wasn't so bad! At least you had company.”

“It was a bother,” Mikkel answered grimly. She'd endangered herself, which was bad enough, but she'd endangered Reynir as well, and he didn't mean to pass it off casually. “If you decide to do something of this nature again, at least refrain from pressuring Reynir into joining you.”

“Um …”

“Did you assume I wouldn't know what a manipulative younger sibling looked like in action?”

“S-so … you've got a younger sibling? A brother or a sister?”

“Changing the subject immediately. Very good.” It was not praise.

“No, I really am curious! Brother or sister? I've got a brother, but you already knew that.”

In his annoyance, Mikkel had no desire to exchange personal information. “I have enough of both kinds.”

“And you're the oldest?”

“I'd say so. Well, technically …” Technically he was younger than his twin brother Michael by a good ten minutes. He wasn't entirely sure how he would have finished the sentence, being an honest man but at the same time not wanting to get into a discussion, but he was relieved of the need to finish it when they came around a corner and nearly ran into Sigrun.

In the moment before she reacted, Mikkel was impressed to note that she was carrying a stack of books balanced on her head. The sling was gone, the bandages unravelled, and Emil smeared with soot. It seemed something had burned again.

For a long moment, Sigrun simply stared at the three truants and they stared back, though Mikkel could hear a slight shuffling as the younger two tried subtly to hide behind his bulk.

“Mutiny,” Sigrun finally stated.

“No, no,” he said soothingly, raising his hands in a gesture of surrender. “I assure you, I have no such intentions. Let me explain.”

And he explained. He went over the whole story twice, including emphasizing that he had ordered the two non-immunes to stay in the tank, with Tuuri's reluctant agreement the second time. “So you see,” he finished, “by investigating this lead myself, I simply saved you a day's worth of work.”

“What do you want, a pat on the back?” Sigrun growled, “Because I'm leaning towards straight up firing you right now.”

“I see,” he replied as dispassionately as he could manage. “Well, I believe you don't possess the authority to do that.” He was hired by the team back in Sweden and only they could fire him.

“Oh shut up!” she snarled, “I have the authority to leave your ass behind in a ditch somewhere.” She was truly angry and he feared that all his efforts to form a good working relationship had gone for naught. And what did he have to show for it? Maybe a cure that demonstrably hadn't saved the few patients he knew had received it?

They stalked along in silence for a while, Tuuri and Reynir running ahead as soon as they saw the tank and Emil trailing along far behind. None of the others wanted to be anywhere near the quarrel.

“By the way,” Sigrun finally broke the silence in a calmer tone, “I need some fixing with my arm bandages.”

“Yes, I noticed.” Perhaps she was one whose anger was like a summer storm, quick to blow up and quick to blow over. He hoped so, at least.

As he climbed into the tank, Tuuri was already at the radio chattering away in Finnish, of all things. A man answered in the same language, and Mikkel, rebandaging Sigrun's arm in a mutual stony silence, deduced that it must be her brother, Onni. He had believed Onni to be in Finland and had had the impression that there was some reason Onni could not join the expedition. Still, he was in Sweden now and that might be helpful. At least, it would give Lalli someone to talk to besides Tuuri, not that Lalli had demonstrated any desire to talk to anyone at all.

There were indistinct voices in the background and then the General stated clearly, “That's the cue for non-essential personnel to clear the area.” This was followed by another voice: “This is Torbjörn! Who am I speaking with?”

Tuuri stepped aside, offering the chair to Mikkel with a big smile after her talk with her brother. “Mikkel. Good evening,” Mikkel told the radio.

“Ah, hello, Mikkel! How are you all faring?”

“Very well, nobody is dead or dying,” and that was no thanks to Tuuri, he added silently. “And we do have an interesting find to report, and a suggestion for a location to visit. Do you have a map of Denmark as a whole at hand?”

“Why, yes we do! Trond, would you be a kind soul and fetch one of the atlases?”

“No rest for the old and weary ...” the General grumbled and Mikkel hid a smile. As he'd gotten older, the General had gotten more crotchety and less tolerant of foolishness.

Distractingly, there were other conversations going on around Mikkel as he explained what he'd found. In Icelandic, Reynir was asking Tuuri whom she'd been talking to, and in Swedish, Emil was trying unsuccessfully to awaken Lalli and complaining that no one else seemed to be worried. Mikkel was worried, but he had no idea what he should do about the situation. The scout had suffered no visible injury and Mikkel had no real medical skills beyond patching up injuries and preventing or treating infections.

“It's the site of an ancient hospital,” Torbjörn said, having been supplied with a map. “Quite a ways off your trail, but potentially reachable. This is a nice find, Mikkel!”

“Thank you,” he answered smugly, while Sigrun in the background grumbled, “Wooow, somebody give this guy a medal already!”

“Just imagine,” Torbjörn went on, “how valuable would an ancient formula for a cure or vaccine be?!”

“Hrmh … I would like to underline that we have no solid information about what the vials contained.” No sense getting everyone's hopes up. And those patients were really, really dead. “ A working cure seems unlikely as of now. I'm judging purely from the abundance of human remains at the location, as I do believe the ideal for any treatment is to not end up with many of those.”

“That's still all right!” Torbjörn said enthusiastically. “If it was distributed it must have been good for something. Even a half-finished vaccine would be an invaluable asset to the research program in our country.” Somewhat indistinctly he added, “Isn't that so, honey?” Mikkel recalled that Torbjörn's wife, Siv, was a medical researcher.

Her voice was faint but Mikkel could still make out what she replied. “Are you saying that anything they find would be better than what we currently have, since the last half a century of research has been an utter waste of time and my job has been pointless?”

Even Mikkel wanted to say something reassuring to that. “N-no, I didn't mean it like —” Torbjörn began, but “Because that would be correct,” she finished sadly.

“Well, there you have it, might be worth changing your itinerary just a tiny bit. I'm assuming you all aren't terribly opposed to the idea?” Mikkel looked around to see Tuuri barely suppressing the urge to jump up and down in joy while Sigrun stared sourly out of the tank. “We'll pay overtime, of course!” Torbjörn went on, “... somehow.” The expedition was running on a shoestring, Mikkel knew, and he rather doubted that promise. Still, they had permission to go straight for the cure, and that was enough.

At the other end of the radio conversation, Torbjörn was talking again to someone away from the microphone: “Taru, what's your take on checking out the place? Yes or no? … You mean, yes?”

That would be Taru Hollola, Finnish, the sponsor (and some kind of cousin) of Tuuri and Lalli. Her second answer was more audible to Mikkel. “No. No. Overextending in a situation with limited resources while in uncharted territory is simply moronic, and unnecessarily 'checking out' far-flung places might as well be the definition of overextending. Stick to the plan, pick up some books, be back home before spring, the end. My professional opinion.”

“I hate to be negative,” Siv's voice came faintly, “but I'll have to agree with Taru. “

In a tone of surrender, Torbjörn offered, “Maybe it's wisest to bring the information back and just let a better equipped expedition investigate it in the future. What's there now will still be there in a decade. Or two.” Tuuri stared at the radio with a betrayed expression, all her previous excitement drained out of her. “But I suppose it's your call, Sigrun,” he went on, “What do you think?”

“I think you're sounding a little wimpy there,” she answered, surprising Mikkel, who had thought she would nix the suggestion just because it had come from him. “We're already out here eating inedible sludge, might as well make it count for something. There's zero reason to back down from a challenge, even babies know that. I say we go!”

“I'm going to assume my advice was disregarded,” Taru put in dryly.

“That's what I hoped to hear!” Torbjörn rejoiced. “It's decided then! Tuuri, are you ready to take some notes for the drive?”

“All ready!” Her enthusiasm was back in full. With everything settled, Mikkel stood to go, commenting as he passed Sigrun, “I'll go warm up that inedible sludge for us.”

“Now hold on just a second,” she ordered firmly, blocking his path, “We still have a problem here unless you know what to say.”

Suppressing a sigh, he stated, “I'm sorry, and I swear not to do anything outside the range of assigned profession without permission from you.” Back home, or dealing with an employer, or really any situation that he could escape and that wasn't life and death, he would have twisted that promise so thoroughly that whoever demanded it would have heartily regretted asking for it, but not here. Not now.

“Good. And I admit that your dumb stunt ended up being not all dumb.”

“Thank you.”

“I'm keeping you on my mutinist risk list though.”

“You have a list?” He'd actually begun to doubt whether she could read and write.

Smiling smugly, she held out a slip of paper on which his name was printed in careful block letters. After examining it for a moment, he observed with a touch of humor, “Most people tend to include more than one item when they make lists.”

“Sounds to me like most people need to start making more focused and less stupid lists,” she answered, her smile widening. “Now chop chop, food!” It seemed he was forgiven.

They passed a quiet evening. No one complained about the food, which might have indicated that they had become resigned to it, but Mikkel thought it more likely that they were just excited about the plan to seek for the cure. Tuuri in particular was so excited she could hardly sit still, for if they had a cure then she and people like her would be free of the horror that lurked at the back of every mind. If they could have, they would have set out immediately, but she had to settle for obsessively going over the map, picking out possible routes for Lalli to scout.

The only troubling issue was the scout himself as he had been sleeping now for more than a full day. No one commented aloud on this, but Mikkel caught Tuuri casting a few anxious glances at her cousin, and Emil alternated between worriedly watching the scout sleep and giving Mikkel accusing looks. But what could Mikkel do? This unnatural sleep was not anything he'd been taught about in his brief career as a medic.

As the light failed, Mikkel thought the day had gone well, even with the dust-up with Sigrun.

His pleasant thoughts were interrupted by two events which happened almost simultaneously.

First, his pendant, which had faded into the background of his sensations, suddenly became painfully cold. Bewildered, he turned away from the others and tried to pull it out without attracting their attention, not wanting to give the impression that he was as superstitious as they were. But what was happening to it? How could it be so cold?

Second, Reynir, who had been leaning on the dashboard watching Tuuri planning their route as he ate, sat up straight and told her urgently, “We need to go.” When she didn't move, he went on, “Remember those spirits? At the place? Well they're here now and I dreamt that they were going to kill us and you need to drive us away from here! To somewhere else!”

Tuuri's voice was nervous. “Umm … calm down. First of all, the sun is setting, it's not like we can go anywhere. But we might relocate tomorrow, so just —”

“No no no, not tomorrow! They're coming to eat us right now!”

“But we —”

“We've got to go now!”

Mikkel thought he ought to intervene, but the pendant was caught on his shirt and was so cold it burned. He had to get it out.

“Tell Sigrun!” The Icelander ordered.

“Uhh, Sigrun?” Their little linguist had switched to Swedish. “Reynir has a question … he says there are ghosts coming, so he really insists that we drive somewhere else. Tonight, not tomorrow.”

“I … don't understand the question. There wasn't even a question in there. Is the question 'is he a moron?'”

“The question is: can we go somewhere now?”

“No! Are you a moron? Have you noticed that it's evening? Tell him to tell the ghosts to go away if he's so bothered by them!”

Mikkel had the pendant out now and was examining it. It didn't feel at all cold in his hand; why had he thought it was cold against his chest? It was all the superstition around him, he thought, making him start to believe crazy things, like a pendant that was cold and then not. He dropped it a bit warily back inside his shirt. It felt normal, quickly warming with his body heat.

“Sorry,” Tuuri said in Icelandic, “Try to get them off your mind, they're really probably not dangerous. Sigrun says we're not going, no matter what.”

There was a brief silence leading Mikkel to think the whole thing had blown over, before Reynir grabbed Tuuri's hands and forced them onto the steering wheel, commanding, “Drive anyway! Who cares what Sigrun says!? You're fine with breaking orders!”

“Quit that!” Tuuri yanked her hands away. “I think you should go to bed.”

Reynir stepped back, fists to his cheeks, the picture of desperation. Mikkel took a step forward; this had gone on long enough and he needed to calm things down. Even as he opened his mouth, Lalli, who had been quietly sleeping, suddenly began to make inarticulate, strangled noises.

“See?!” Emil called, “Now he's choking! Would someone who knows what to do get over here?”

Mikkel turned back that way — at least he knew how to clear an airway — but he had taken only a single step when the sleeper began to howl. The three in the front of the tank spun in alarm, Sigrun shouting, “Hey! Shake that guy awake! We can't have a blasting siren like that!”

“I'm trying! He won't wake up!” Lalli seemed to be trying to pull himself up, grabbing at Emil's hair and arm, though his eyes were still closed.

It's definitely time to drag him out and slap him awake … the medic thought as he stepped forward, Sigrun saying “Well, try har —” Mikkel put his hands to his head; was that a voice thundering in his ears? “— der …” Sigrun managed as she and Mikkel fell first to their knees and then to the floor.

It was only minutes later that Mikkel sat up carefully, rubbing the back of his head where he had toppled backwards into the wall. Across the tank, Sigrun was sitting up and feeling her nose, which was bruised but fortunately not broken, and back in the sleeping compartment Emil was picking himself up from where he had collapsed next to Lalli, who was now mercifully silent.

What on Earth happened? It took him a moment to realize that the humming he now heard was not in his head like that … voice … but the sound of the tank fleeing at its miserable top speed. Sigrun caught on quicker, dashing forward to the front compartment, pushing aside Reynir where he knelt in the doorway.

“Don't be mad!” Tuuri said fearfully, “I had to! I'm sorry!”

“Stop talking and focus! Find us somewhere to camp before the sun is down! And before you make us the target of every single living thing in this city!”

“Th-that's what I'm try—” Tuuri quavered before breaking off at the sight of two giant legs that stood just to the right side of their path. There was no time to stop, no way to dodge, and the tank struck the legs with a crunch.

The creature looked like nothing that had ever walked the Earth before the Rash: two long, multi-jointed legs each ending in a pad-like foot equipped with a wicked-looking spike, and at the other end, a kind of transparent globe enclosing the brain of the thing and two independently mobile eyes, all within an organic gel which splattered as the thing crashed to the ground. But there were more, many more, like it closing in on the tank.

Mikkel had never seen or heard of anything like these. They were clearly trolls — that is, grosslings that had once been human — since Beasts, which were grosslings that had been animals, tended to keep a semblance of their original form. That there were many alike was not entirely surprising; he had heard rumors that though trolls tended to take random shapes, if one person transformed into a troll, then other sick people around him had a greater chance of becoming trolls and, if they did, would transform into similar shapes. All these similar trolls, he thought, must have come from a hospital ward or some such.

“Keep driving,” Sigrun ordered as the tank drove over the downed troll's legs with hardly a bump, “We need to get out of the city now.”

“Seems to me like you added the wrong person to your list of mutineers,” Mikkel put in, unable to resist tweaking her even in this dire situation.

“Shut up, Mikkel! Do something useful!”

“I don't understand what's been happening!” Emil cried from the sleeping compartment.

“Shut up, Emil,” she ordered, “Nobody else does either!” But then, looking at the mirrors and the gang of trolls following them, she went on, “Ready to bash some monster skull if I need you to?”

“Uhh, yeah, s–sure.”

They waited in silence as Tuuri drove on into the setting sun. Following some train tracks, they found themselves on a fairly clear street with a canal to their left and a block of relatively intact buildings to their right.

“Umm … ” the driver said uncertainly, and then fearfully “Eee —” as she put the tank in reverse and tried to back away from a vast number of tentacles that completely blocked the road, rising from the canal and clinging to the wall.

“No, stop!” Sigrun ordered. “No turning around! We're going through here.” She had no desire to turn back and tangle with the two-legged trolls or anything else that might have been roused to follow them.

First, of course, they would have to remove the obstacle so Sigrun, Emil, and Mikkel went forward to see what could be done. With a deep breath, ready for anything, Mikkel brought his ax down on the first tentacle, completely severing it. There was no reaction from the rest of the mass. “Yes, this is dead,” he said, finding himself able to breathe normally again, “We'll have a gap cleared in no time.”

“Good,” the captain answered, looking over toward the sun, now nearly to the horizon. Turning, she added, “Emil, go keep watch out on the road, make sure nothing sneaks up on us while we take care of this. Feel free to kill anything you see.”

“Okay, I can do that I guess,” he answered hesitantly as he turned away, running his hand over his flamethrower and touching his rifle as if to reassure himself.

“But no gunshots, please and thank you.”

“Okay.” As he walked off, Mikkel could hear his dubious “Ooookay” slowly fading.

The chopping was going well and they were almost through, Sigrun chopping thinner tentacles one-handed with her dagger and Mikkel thicker tentacles two-handed with their only ax, when it all went wrong.

The ax struck deep, deep into a thick tentacle and drew blood. Before either of the explorers could move, most of the remaining tentacles jerked backward to the ice-covered canal, sweeping Sigrun with them. Her eyes met Mikkel's for just a moment and then she vanished into the water with a splash.

He leapt forward, falling to his knees to search for her, just as she surfaced crying “Oy! Hey! Mikkel!” There couldn't be a hint of desperation in the troll-hunter's voice, surely. “You're a pretty strong guy, you'll be able to pull me up with something, right?” There was no way he could reach her where she trod water below him, so he answered immediately, “I'll fetch a rope.” As he turned and ran for the tank, he heard her add, “Hurry up, it's getting a bit chilly down … here...”

Something had distracted her, he could tell, and he urgently wanted to pull her out before it — whatever it was — became more than a distraction.

“Mikkel!” she shouted again, and this time there was definite desperation in her voice.

“I'm on my way, hold on!”

As he threw the rope to her, Sigrun, always the captain, instructed, “Tell Tuuri to start driving and get some distance between the tank and this place right now.”

“Are you certain?”

“Yeah, yeah, we'll catch up on foot. A nice little evening stroll will be good for us.” She was halfway up, climbing the rope as she spoke.

“Drive!” Mikkel shouted to Tuuri, watching in terror from behind the wheel of the tank, “Follow the direction of the train tracks, they'll lead you out of the city. Go!” he added, as she continued to hesitate.

“And don't stop until you find a place to camp!” Sigrun shouted, almost within Mikkel's reach.

The tentacle swept up and smashed down on Sigrun, ripping her off the rope and almost pulling Mikkel in after her. He fell backwards as the weight came off the rope, but immediately leapt to his feet, peering over the side in complete disregard of the danger of more tentacles. Where was she?

She came to the surface for a moment, was promptly struck again, went under, came up, was struck, went under, and did not surface again. Mikkel hurled pieces of paving at what he could see of the troll. “Hey, you, you … monster!” he shouted, “Look over here! Please...”

He couldn't swim. He didn't know if Sigrun could, though she had come up twice, so maybe … He took a deep breath, steeling himself to jump into the freezing water, when a pebble struck his head from the right. Confused, he turned to see Sigrun climbing a metal stair that led down into the canal, coughing and hacking but very much alive. Greatly relieved, he quite unconsciously reached for her, beginning to say, “We have to —” but then they both heard the grinding, tearing noises as the massive troll began to pull itself up the same stair.

It was time to run. “Emil!” he shouted, but as they turned to flee that way, they found Emil running towards them, a dozen of the biped trolls chasing after him, all of them on fire.

Mikkel looked around wildly. Canal to the south, unbroken walls to the north, water troll west, flaming trolls east — It is the end. At least we are all together. We did have a good run. I hope they find the cure. He pulled Sigrun to him, swept Emil in with his other arm, and prepared to die.

It was all very loud. The water troll was emitting a kind of bubbling roar, so deep that they felt it in their bones, while the two-legged trolls were shrieking at a pitch that felt like needles jabbing in their ears. Looking up, Mikkel saw the water troll raising its powerful tentacle and pulled the other two tight against him as if he could somehow shield them with his body.

The tentacle slammed down … into a flaming biped.

Mikkel blinked, shocked to find himself still alive, but, soldier that he was, immediately looked around for opportunity in this unexpected event.

There!

As it moved to strike the two-legged things, the water troll had slithered slightly south, leaving a gap between its bulk and the wall. “Behind us! Run!” he shouted over the uproar. The other two spun around, reacted instantly, ran for their lives, Sigrun first, then Emil, and Mikkel taking rear guard. Emil stumbled on the broken rock, started to fall, and Mikkel simply caught the smaller man by the collar and hauled him along until he got his feet under him.

They ran for perhaps a hundred meters before Sigrun stopped, doubled over, coughing and gagging. “Can't run!” she gasped.

Mikkel looked anxiously back down the street. The battle was ending — the outcome had never been in doubt as the two-legged monsters were already dying on their feet, burning alive — and the water creature was striking down the last few. Still, he thought, the thing was so ungainly that it probably couldn't move fast on land — probably — and they should be able to stay ahead of it at a walk. If the worst came though, well, it wouldn't be the first time he'd carried a wounded comrade as they fled from grosslings.

They walked.

The sun set and they walked by moonlight, the sky fortunately bearing few clouds, and those high up and thin.

The water troll followed, pulling itself along with its burned and lacerated tentacles, bleeding as the weather-warped street tore at its underside, but mindlessly determined to rend and tear the uninfected beings that it perceived before it.

“How do we handle the big one?” Emil asked, looked back fearfully at the enormous thing.

“Keep walking,” Sigrun answered wearily. “We'll kill it the easy way.”

They walked.

The water troll followed ever more slowly until they walked through the burned remains of a warehouse where nothing was left but beams standing in the ruins. The water troll pulled itself in but could get no further, and the monster was left behind, straining uselessly against the beams.

“There,” Sigrun said, “stuck and stranded. Now it'll freeze or dry to death eventually. That's how we take care of the sea beasts back home that are too large to hack to death.”

“That seems a bit cruel to be honest,” soft-hearted Emil observed.

“Yeah, it's not super great. Doesn't have any of the honor of chopping your foe's head straight off. It's why I didn't go into the seafaring business myself.”

They walked.

“So if fuzz-head is driving to the edge of the city, how far away would that be?”

Mikkel called up his memory of the map, estimated how far they'd come from the canal. “No more than ten kilometers.”

“Great, so … two hours of walking? Cool.”

“Sounds about right. … Here, give me your jacket and take mine. It's dry, at least.” They traded jackets, Mikkel carrying Sigrun's sodden jacket and Sigrun wearing Mikkel's, which was nearly big enough to wrap around her twice. The medic was seriously concerned about hypothermia, and further concerned when he saw her scratching her arm. That would have to be looked at, he thought. A wetting like that was not good for such wounds.

Not long after, Emil quietly offered to take Sigrun's rifle, which had remained slung on her back through all the excitement and would, therefore, need a thorough cleaning before it could be used. She equally quietly passed it over. There was little more that they could do for her, though Mikkel began to consider offering to carry her. He suspected, however, that she would have to actually collapse before she would even consider such an offer.

They walked.

They had only made a couple of kilometers when Mikkel saw his companion's eyes were nearly closed and he was torn as to what to do. Call a halt, build a fire, hope to survive the night in the grossling-infested city without the shelter of the tank? Or keep walking, trying to guide her around the rougher parts of the street so she didn't break an ankle on top of everything else? Or try to carry her, probably over her objections?

He was spared making that decision as he perceived a light up ahead in the dead city where there were no lights. The tank! Even Sigrun perked up at the sight and called up all her reserves of strength. In a matter of minutes, they were approaching the tank and Tuuri was already apologizing: “I'm sorry! I know you said to keep driving, but I couldn't just go and —”

“Calm down,” the captain said in an exhausted tone, “you're forgiven. This time. Don't ignore my orders again, thanks.”

With all inside, Sigrun's wet clothes dumped in a corner to be cleaned and herself tucked into warm blankets (Mikkel gave her an extra blanket without mentioning that it came off his own bunk), Tuuri resumed the interrupted journey to a field outside of the city which she and Mikkel agreed was their best bet for a safe camp.

The long day ended at last, with everyone peacefully sleeping and the tank safely parked in a calm field.

Mikkel, Tuuri, and Reynir were up early, as was their wont. Emil slept in, as was his wont. Sigrun, on the other hand, slept most unwontedly late, and Lalli, of course, remained … asleep.

“Tuuri, what happened back there? With the … ghosts?”

I didn't really see anything. I mean, I can't see ghosts anyway. But you fell, and Sigrun, and Reynir fell to his knees, and the kitty wet herself…

It was so scary — you both falling down like that — that I just started driving. I thought we were all going to die. The ghosts didn't come until the sun was setting, so I thought it would be best to just drive toward the sun. Keep the sun shining on me as long as I could, I mean. I didn't know what would happen when it set.

Reynir was talking to the ghosts, begging them to please go away, and the kitty was yowling, and then Reynir said something strange. It was like he was telling someone, 'I need help!' And then I … heard … it was almost like I heard my brother talking. I couldn't quite make out what he said. Just his voice. It made me feel so safe, even then … and there was something like a flash and a crash … oh, it's hard to explain because I didn't really see it or hear it. I felt it inside me. And then you were all waking up again and Sigrun was yelling at me.

Of all of this, Mikkel knew for sure that he and Sigrun had collapsed and that the kitten had left a puddle on the floor. In the turmoil of the escape, it seemed everyone had stepped in it and tracked it around. He would not have believed that one little kitten could produce enough urine to contaminate so much of the tank. The rest of it, though … a flash that she didn't really see, and her brother's voice that she didn't really hear…

He wasn't a superstitious Finn. He didn't believe in magic or ghosts. But something had certainly happened. He had collapsed, Sigrun and Emil had collapsed, and he'd heard that … voice … but like Tuuri, he couldn't make out what it said. Maybe it was one of those voices that you shouldn't listen to, like the voices in the static. But no, that was silly. And yet — something had happened.

“Reynir, tell me about the ghosts.”

“You … don't believe in ghosts.”

“Maybe not. But I want to know what happened. Tell me what you saw.”

They came — the ghosts. They don't look like, um, people. Just shadows of people, I think. But they have eyes that look at you with such hatred …

Okay, yes, the ghosts came. They came in the tank and I told them to go away. Like Sigrun said I should, I told them to go away. Only they didn't go. They were — I see things differently sometimes. In my dreams — I dream here in the Silent World — I see things differently. It's a field like at home and there're sheep, and there's my dog … he was there with me and the ghosts were like, like, like a giant spider, reaching down on us. Reaching down on you. I knew they would suck the life out of you — out of all of us — if I didn't somehow make them go away …

So I thought of Onni. He's the only other mage I know. I met him in my dreams. So I thought of him and I told him, “I need help!”

The ghosts were closing in, pressing down, I knew we were all doomed, and then he came. Onni. It was like he was this giant owl, ripping the ghosts up with his claws — talons? — only I knew it was him, and he chanted something, and there was this lightning and thunder, and the ghosts were just thrown away from us. And he flew away into the light.

Then I kind of … came back into the world, and you and Sigrun were waking up.

Mikkel sat back, frowning. There were points of agreement between Tuuri and Reynir. Something had happened, but what? Did he really have to believe in ghosts?

After a moment he shook his head, baffled, and went to get the mop. He needed to clean the tank.

After mopping up the mess from the previous night, Mikkel tugged experimentally at the little scout's blanket and was rewarded with a grumble and the other rolling away from him clutching the covers.

So he's no worse. Still, it's been a day and half. More, even. I've got to do something, but what? That miserable excuse for a first aid kit lacks any 'stay-awake' drugs, even if they'd work, which I don't know. Emil couldn't wake him up by shaking him, though there was all that craziness going on … Maybe shaking would still work. I've thought of dragging him out and slapping him awake, but he's no soldier; that'd be like child abuse. And I really doubt Tuuri'd stand for me beating her cousin. He regarded the scout for a moment, considering.

Then what? Is it worse to just leave him like this? Tuuri's no help; she says it's a mage thing and she isn't a mage … wait! Her brother! Isn't he supposed to be a mage? Whatever this is, if it's something that 'mages' suffer, or maybe just Lalli suffers now and then, surely Onni will know something about it. And he's in Sweden, I can talk to him! After breakfast, I'll get him to help me.”

With that resolve, Mikkel turned to Sigrun, studying her face as she slept. Color is good … breathing is even … I should check her temperature, feel her forehead, but no, that would wake her up. Best if she sleeps. That wound though, it needs cleaning. I'll bet she pulled out some stitches too. I should have done something about it last night but she was so tired and so cold … Well, something else to deal with after breakfast.

Turning away, he quietly gathered his cooking materials and climbed out of the tank. The other two, who had been talking softly in the front compartment, immediately tried to follow him but were waved back until he had circled the tank completely, studying the snow around them.

“All clear,” he told them, and they piled gratefully out of the tank and into the clean, cold air.

Quiet as they had all tried to be, they had awakened Emil, who came out yawning and stretching but set to work at once on his accustomed tasks, digging a latrine, gathering firewood, and dragging the hose over to a little stream so as to refill their water tank. Mikkel took escort duty for the latrine, sparing Emil's blushes, and afterward set to work chopping vegetables for their unpleasant breakfast. Given the trauma of the previous evening, he decided to throw in a can of tuna fish. Maybe even two.

Chopping industriously, he glanced over at Emil, standing beside him and watching the two non-immunes playing with the kitten. “Emil, tell me what happened last night.”

“But … you know. I mean, you were there …”

“I know what I … experienced, but I don't know what you experienced. So tell me.”

“Uh …”

“Start with Lalli screaming.”

“Okay. Uh. He was choking — or sounded like it — so I yelled at you and then he started screaming. I did try to shake him awake, but he just … grabbed at me. Like a drowning man. He pulled my hair! And then he banged my head into the bunk. See this bruise? And it won't turn into face cancer so don't even try!” That last was said with a broad smile, and Mikkel knew he was forgiven. More soberly, “I guess he knocked me out … but didn't you and Sigrun fall down?”

“We did. Go on.”

I passed out or, or something. I couldn't see anything — it was all dark or maybe gray, I'm not sure — but I heard the roaring of a huge fire. I thought the whole city was burning and I was trapped in the tank, baking alive … it was awful!

And then I woke up, I guess. Sigrun was yelling at Tuuri and we were driving off somewhere — well, you know this part.

We ran into that thing —

A “biped”? That's what it's called?

Okay, we ran into the biped troll and then we got stopped by those tentacles. I thought we could burn them out of the way so I brought my flamethrower. I do understand why Sigrun didn't let me burn them, I do. I'm sure she thought it'd take too much fuel — though it wouldn't — and, yeah, a fire like that would attract a lot of wandering grosslings.

Anyway, Sigrun sent me to guard the rear, and pretty soon one of the biped trolls showed up, and a lot more behind him. It. I wanted to put it out of its misery and its brain was right there where I could see it — ugh! — but I'd have to shoot and that'd have alerted everything. I didn't really want to burn it alive — I mean, I did, but I didn't want to.

Well, I didn't have much choice. It kicked at me, tried to skewer me with that spike on its foot, so I gave it a shot of flame. Just one! You can look at the fuel if you don't believe me!

I wish I'd got some of that goo, though. It's a great accelerant! The flame went right up its leg and then its, um, head caught, and the poor thing was staggering around and bumped into a couple of others, and they caught fire and bumped into others and pretty soon they're all stumbling around on fire!

It would've been funny if they weren't all screaming like that.

So they all charged at me and I ran back to the tank, only the tank was gone and it was just you two and that big troll coming up behind you.

And Sigrun! I don't think I'll ever be a real troll-hunter like her. She knew they'd fight, and she just looked impatient, like she wanted them to just fight and get it over with. And they did!

Me, I thought we were all going to die.

Thank you for helping me when I tripped, by the way.

Mikkel digested this information silently, scraping the vegetables into his pot and opening a can of tuna fish.

“What about you, Mikkel? I mean, you fell down …”

I also experienced a period of darkness and loud noise. I have some experience with burning buildings and I think I would have recognized the sound of a large fire. It wasn't that. I thought it was a voice.

No, I don't know what it said. It was so loud that I couldn't understand it at all. It just … hurt …

And then I woke up on the floor with a puddle from the kitten next to my hand. Sigrun was already getting up, and you were stirring at least. Lalli was quiet again.

So, the tentacles. They all seemed dead — they mostly were dead — until I hit one that wasn't. When I chopped into a live tentacle, the troll woke up, yanked its tentacles back, and dragged Sigrun into the water. I tried to pull her out with a rope, but it knocked her off and she swam away to a stair with it flailing away at her the whole way. She climbed up and it climbed up after her. It's just as well, I suppose, that Sigrun had us chopping the thing instead of letting you burn it, because when the troll climbed out, it would probably have been bad if it was hitting us with flaming tentacles.

We were going to run back your direction, and that's when you came running up with your fiery friends.

For some reason he found himself disinclined to describe the events in his usual detail.

It was at this point that the captain herself climbed out of the tank to join them. “Hey, big guy, this bandage is going to need some work!” Since it was hanging half off and stained with fresh blood, the medic readily agreed and ducked into the tank for their limited first aid kit. It was already low on bandages and, checking them, he rather grimly supposed that he'd soon be tearing up sheets for the purpose. But that was a problem for a later day, and he climbed back out with fresh supplies including sutures as it was clear he would need to repair his stitchwork.

“Oy, you two! You missed all the fun!” Tuuri and Reynir came over to her at once, their faces showing their doubt about her definition of “fun”.

So me and the big guy over there fell down when the ghosts attacked. That was a really weird feeling, like I was under a waterfall and it was roaring down and just hammering away at me. But then it stopped, just like that. I don't know what happened there so it's not part of the story.

Anyway, I woke up and little fuzzy-head, here, was getting us out of range of the ghosts just as fast as the old tank could carry us. She just ran right over that funny long-legged …

“Bipod”? No? “Biped”? Okay, he calls it a biped troll, and he knows because he's a scientist.

It's my story and I'll tell it my way!

The driver runs over the biped troll — crunch! — and just keeps going. We see these railroad tracks and Mikkel says to just follow them since none of this is scouted 'cause our dumb scout's been out of it for days.

Okay, little fuzzy head, it's a mage thing and I shouldn't complain. Won't complain. On with the story!

The tracks lead us right to where this water troll's got its tentacles all over the road, and if that isn't enough, some more of those biped trolls are back there somewhere. Along with anything that might have woke up as we went by, so we're not going back, we're going through!

Mikkel starts chopping into it, and it's dead, right? Not a twitch out of it. I'm chopping too, and my little viking pal is rear guard with his flamethrower. We're almost through when it's suddenly not so dead as we believed.

The big guy chops into this tentacle and everything that isn't dead jerks back into the canal, and takes me with it! Well, ol' Mikkel's big enough and strong enough to pull me out, so he grabs a rope and gets to pulling. That's when I told you to get out of there, Tuuri. No sense having you two hanging around while I'm hanging around …

Ha! Got you to laugh!

But the water troll doesn't give up that easy! It wouldn't be a challenge if they just gave up, would it? So it knocks me off the rope and keeps whacking at me and trying to drown me. I finally just swim away to a ladder and climb out. And my buddy's over there throwing chunks of the street at it! Splash! Crash! It was great!

Then the thing climbs right up after me, tears the ladder right off but not before it gets up on the street. Okay, we're going to run back the other way, detour a block, and just bypass it, let it get stranded somewhere and die. Or not. I mean, who cares?

But here comes my favorite Cleanser with a whole pack of them biped trolls all on fire and all chasing after him! So we can't go that way, and we can't get by the big one! Doomed!

And then the water troll starts whacking at the burning-up trolls instead of us! Fire and water, what do you think!? Mikkel's a spoilsport, he won't let us stay and watch the fight, so we run away while the trolls are distracted.

Who won? Water always wins over fire in the end, everyone knows that.

But the big dumb water troll crawls after us until it gets stuck, and then we just keep going to the tank.

The end.

Man, the gang back home is going to be so sorry they missed this vacation!

By the time she finished her rendition of the previous night's events, Mikkel had her arm disinfected, stitched up, and bandaged. Giving him a grateful look, she eased her arm away, much less animated now that she'd finished the story. The small audience applauded, Reynir somewhat behind the others as he had to wait for Tuuri's translation to finish. It would be a good tale to tell on long winter nights in the troll-hunters' hall, and it had certainly lightened the mood with the whole team.

No longer raptly listening to Sigrun, Tuuri held up the kitten. “We really ought to name her. I mean, she's part of the team; we can't keep calling her 'the kitten'. She's been really helpful, too. Even without any training, she warned us about the troll that went after Reynir and bit Sigrun too. So she needs a name that's cute, but also great. And a bit intimidating too, maybe?”

“How about 'Gräddnos'?” Emil proposed. “I think it'd fit her well. A classic name for a classy cat.”

“No, stop,” Sigrun objected. “The cat will not get some dumb Swedish name!”

“It was just a suggestion,” Emil replied easily, almost impervious to offense. “I'm trying to get the ideas ball rolling here. And I don't hear anyone else coming up with better names …”

The subject of the discussion yawned extravagantly.

“Are there any good multinational cat names?” Tuuri enquired practically.

“I'd say 'Magnus',” Mikkel put in. “A proper name for any good cat.”

There was always a cat named 'Magnus' at the Madsen home. According to family legend, the first Magnus had saved the life of Mikkel's great-grandfather Michael Madsen, and led to Michael's meeting his wife, Signe, a stewardess on the Bornholm ferry. Michael was taking the cat to Bornholm to stay with his sister while Michael travelled on business, and the three of them — Michael, Signe, and Magnus — all ended up trapped in the relative safety of Bornholm when borders began to be closed all over the world in a fruitless effort to stop the Rash.

“No, dumb,” Sigrun shot it down. “Also it's a boy name.”

Shrugging, Mikkel concentrated on stirring for a moment until a shadow on the pot caught his attention. Lalli, on his feet and fully dressed, stood before him staring doubtfully at the mess intended for breakfast.

“Oh! You're awake at last,” the surprised Dane stated somewhat foolishly, both because it was obviously true and because the little Finn wouldn't understand a word of it. Mikkel turned his head, started to call for Tuuri, and saw Lalli simply walk away. Mouth still open, Mikkel could think of nothing to say but, “Don't wander too far, the food is almost ready.”

He's been out for the better part of two days. He'll want some serious privacy to take care of, well, personal matters for a few minutes. He's immune and an experienced scout; he won't get in any trouble around here. Let him be. I can tell the others after he's had some time to recover. I'll need to feed him up some though, and make sure he drinks enough …

“This whole discussion is dumb,” Sigrun said, “It's a kitten. I'm going to keep calling it 'Pusekatt.' ”

“You know,” the Icelander commented, having been filled in on the discussion by Tuuri, “after all this time I probably couldn't stop calling her kitty. Hi, little 'Kisa'!”

“ 'Kisu',” Tuuri corrected.

“ 'Kissekatt'.” That was Emil's proposal.

“ 'Missekat',” Mikkel offered, spooning up some of the food substance, letting it dribble back into the pot, and grimacing. “Time for breakfast.”

As the others approached and held out their bowls to be filled, Mikkel kept an eye on the woods into which Lalli had disappeared. Soon the little scout returned, stopping to lean on a tree close enough to allow him to stand guard, or to join the others in fighting if such became necessary, but not close enough to interact. Mikkel supposed that was understandable, given that the Finn couldn't communicate with anyone but his cousin. Still, the scout needed to eat, and soon.

“So what do you say, Sigrun, are we starting our journey towards Odense today?” he asked as he poured soup in her bowl, trying to ensure that she got plenty of tuna fish.

“I sure would like us to. But we really need to get our scout up on his feet somehow before we go anywhere too far.”

“Well, you are in luck,” with a gesture toward the scout.

“Oh, neat! That's that taken care of then.” He was put off a bit by her indifference to the other man's well-being, but then reflected that he hadn't done anything for him either. What could either of them have done or could do now, given that the scout seemed disinclined even to approach the group?

“Do you know what the terrain up ahead is like?”

He reviewed the maps he'd seen. “Not too well. It's largely former farmland, that is the extent of my knowledge. We'll certainly want to stay on paved roads when possible to avoid sinking into any potential mud pits.”

“Ehh,” she shrugged, “sounds like something we can drive through without getting stuck. We should at least test it a couple times.”

“We should not,” he countered, dismayed. If they got the tank stuck …

She gave him a rather wicked grin and addressed herself to her soup.

Emil, having overheard the conversation and peered about until he spotted Lalli, picked up the remaining bowl and brought it to Mikkel to be filled. “Well done,” the cook muttered to himself as the Swede went off to offer breakfast to their scout.

Mikkel was looking the other way when it happened, listening to Sigrun finish telling Tuuri a story about troll-hunting, and it was so quick and quiet that he didn't even turn around. He only realized what had happened when Emil returned holding his own bowl and covered with the contents of the other, now empty, bowl.

Sigrun, who had likewise not noticed the incident, smiled at her appreciative audience and instructed, “Hey short stuff, be a dear and herd your cousin to work for me.”

“Y-yes, right away,” Tuuri answered with her almost-military salute and a very uncertain look at the soup-covered Swede. Detouring to Mikkel, she asked nervously, “Do you have something I can offer him? Some food? That he can't throw on me?”

“Something healthy … hmm … here, take this potato. And this can of tuna fish …” He hated to give up one of their few cans of tasty protein, but if that was what it took to get the scout straightened out … “Here's the can opener. I want it back! If you lose it we'll be opening cans with our daggers!” As she accepted the offerings with a doubtful expression, he surrendered, climbed into the tank, and returned with a cookie. “Go find out what's wrong with him.” What's wrong now, he didn't say.

Returning a few minutes later, she handed back the potato and unopened can, then gave him a shocked look, pawed at her pockets, turned away as if in dismay, but immediately turned back, unable to suppress her grin as she returned the can opener. He shook his ladle at her as she left.

“Can I help?” Reynir asked. “Can I put away the cooking things?”

“In a few minutes. You can clean the bowls. Except that one. Leave that one.”

As he had expected, it was not long before Lalli slouched out of the woods, hesitantly picked up the remaining bowl, and held it out to be filled. “You throw soup at me,” Mikkel growled as he ladled soup into the bowl, “and I'll turn you over my knee and paddle you. Do not doubt me on this.”

Whether he understood the tone of voice, or hunger had overcome pique, the Finn accepted the soup and returned to his tree to eat in solitude.

“Reynir! There is something you can help with.” The Icelander was at his side instantly, eager to do anything that was asked. “Go fetch a mug of water for me, there's a good … lad.” He managed to stop himself from saying “good boy”; there was no need to be demeaning.

Soon enough, Lalli came sloping back, holding out his bowl for a refill. Mikkel took it away, replaced it with the mug and, as the scout accepted the mug, told him pleasantly, “If you throw that water at me, I will knock you down and sit on you.” Refilling the bowl, he passed that over too and, as Lalli retreated to the woods, began the task of readying his cooking gear, including the remaining soup, for travel.

As he carried his gear into the tank, Lalli following at a careful distance, Sigrun was talking to Torbjörn on the radio: “Oh, yeah. No, we're all super stoked for going right away, isn't that right, Mikkel?”

“Yes,” he answered briefly, unwilling to express too much enthusiasm and yet longing to be on their way. He wanted to know.

“Excellent!” Torbjörn exclaimed with enough enthusiasm for the whole team, “This makes us very glad to hear!”

A voice in the background, and Torbjörn added, “Check back in any time.” This was followed by something in Finnish, at which Tuuri muttered something in a dismayed tone and Lalli backed away to the far side of the tank.

“Psst, Mikkel,” Tuuri whispered, “I need a favour! Could you help me with my brother for a while, please? Sometimes he becomes very need— um, chatty when he's worried, and I have to work with Lalli right now. Maybe you could distract him? But don't make him feel like I'm snubbing him!”

“Oh course,” he agreed, delighted at the opportunity to exercise his skills at confusing people.

“Thank you!” Heartfelt.

“Hello, I'm speaking with Onni Hotakainen, I presume,” Mikkel said cheerily to the radio in Icelandic.

“Who is this?” The other's Icelandic was heavily accented, much worse than Tuuri's.

“This is Mikkel Madsen, one of your sister's co-workers. She is too busy to speak with you right now and I'm here to distract you. So … what were you hoping to discuss?”

There was a silence as the other seemed to be struggling to translate his words.

“Can't remember what was on your mind? That is quite all right, happens to the best of us.” Mikkel was in his element, confusing another with a flood of words. “So, tell me, how has your day been? Would you say that … you …” Someone was distracting him, tapping on his head.

“Hey! Mikkel!” It was Reynir.

“Yes?” This was annoying when he was just getting started.

“Is that Tuuri's brother on the line? Can I talk with him?”

“Wait your turn, we are currently in the middle of a riveting discussion.”

“No you aren't! Please, please, please, let me use the radio! I need to ask some … things.”

“Let me speak with him,” Onni commanded.

With ill grace, Mikkel relinquished the radio and went forward to see what he could interfere — that is, help — with. There being nothing, just the cousins discussing the map in Finnish, he went back outside to check around for grosslings or for anything that might have been overlooked. Sigrun, equally bored with watching a conversation that she could not understand, followed him out.

“Thanks for getting the twig back on his feet.”

“I'd take credit, but he got up by himself. I don't know what was wrong or what brought him out of it, to be entirely honest.”

“Huh! So … you think we'll find the cure?”

“We'll find something. I'm reluctant to say it's a cure when there were so many dead who were presumably treated —”

“Then why are we going at all? I mean, if it isn't a cure, why bother?”

“We don't know it isn't a cure. There are other explanations for the dead … Anyway, we're here eating inedible sludge, as you said, so why not go to Odense? We can collect books that way too. One direction is as good as another, given that we don't know the condition of any of the book caches.”

“Hmm.” There was a brief silence before she went on, “So, what do you think happened last night?”

“We were attacked by ghosts and got away when Tuuri drove off.”

“I thought Danes didn't believe in ghosts.”

“We don't. Generally,” he added to be fair, thinking of Maja who most certainly did believe. “But we were attacked by something and Reynir, who warned us that an attack was about to happen, called it 'ghosts'. So 'ghosts' it is until I have a better word for it. Whether I believe they are the spirits of the unquiet dead —”

He broke off in alarm as Reynir himself jumped out of the tank and trotted toward the woods. They were in a safe location but no outdoors location was truly safe. Pettar! ran through Mikkel's mind and he had just opened his mouth to call back the non-immune when the other stopped, his back to them and began to speak nervously.

Uhh, hello and good morning to anyone up there, Odinn, or, um, Freyja?

On the off chance that one of you is listening, I'd like to request some good luck and a bit of protection. Thank you, and bless you.

Oh, I'm not insinuating that I have the power to bless you! You blessing me is what I was getting at.

Wait, that sounded way too demanding! I didn't mean to! I just —

Forget I said anything!

I'm sorry I bothered you! Please don't smite us because of this, I'm so sorry!

And the Icelander fled into the tank as the older two watched, Mikkel amused and Sigrun bewildered.

“What was that all about?”

“I believe you religious folk would call it praying.”

“Well, tell him not to be so wimpy about it; the gods hate weaklings.”

And so does she. I must keep that in mind. “I'll certainly pass on the advice.”

As they climbed back into the tank, Lalli passed them, ready to scout their route but stopping to stretch muscles tightened by his long sleep.

They were on the move again.

In one sense, it was easier to move in the cities than in the countryside. There were more grosslings in a city but also many streets, so if one was blocked, there was usually one nearby that could be used, but this was not so in the countryside.

On that first day, this was not too much of a problem. They encountered a place where the road was blocked by fallen trees, but Lalli, who seemed to understand precisely the dimensions and capabilities of their tank, had blazed a trail that wound between trees, sometimes with mere centimeters to spare, taking them safely back to the relatively clear road. Mikkel and Emil, seeing their opportunity, followed behind the tank picking up fallen branches for fuel, with Sigrun, kitten on her shoulder and rifle in hand, accompanying them as guard.

Back on the road again with a treeless, marshy area to their left, Sigrun commented, “I'm beginning to get creeped out by that soulless horizon over there. I heard there'd be no mountains, but I didn't expect the view to be this disturbing. I don't understand why any ancient folks chose to live in places like these.”

“Believe it or not,” Mikkel answered from his vast store of knowledge of Danish history, “flat fertile land was highly valued by many.”

“Hmph. Apparently they didn't care about how hard that is to defend.” She held up the map. “Driver, how long is this trip going to take?”

“Well, if we're lucky we can travel on the big roads most of the way, once we get to them. There's only a couple of cities that we need to drive around. And the big bridge should still be there, according to some naval sightings.”

“Sooo … you're saying it'll be a quick ride. A couple of days? Yes? No? Yes?”

“Ah … maybe? I'll do my best.”

Mikkel resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Given ninety years of neglect, he doubted even the big roads would be entirely passable.

Just as twilight began to fall, they reached the campsite which the scout had chosen, and a snare with a rabbit was a welcome surprise. Although the nearby pond was frozen over, the ice was not too thick and Emil soon had a hose set up to refill the tank's water supply while Mikkel prepared a better supper than they had become used to. With an abundance of both fuel and water, they took advantage of the opportunity to bathe — or rather, everyone but Lalli took advantage of the opportunity, and Lalli acquiesced in a bath in exchange for a cookie from Mikkel's dwindling supply. Afterwards, Mikkel cleaned Sigrun's wound with alcohol and rewrapped it. So far, it seemed to be healing well.

“How's it looking, big guy?” Sigrun asked with a grin.

“Healing,” Mikkel replied, his tone neutral. “Let me know if you notice any increased pain or redness.”

Sigrun waved off his concern with her good arm. “It'll be fine. I heal fast.”

The second day was much harder. Several trees had fallen across the road and Lalli had been unable to find a passable route through the surrounding woods and marshes. Given a choice of either backtracking or chopping their way through, Sigrun chose to chop through. Or rather, she chose for Mikkel to chop through, a process which took most of the short day. As they had only one ax, he did the chopping while Emil used their hand-saw to gather more fuel; Tuuri and Reynir made themselves useful inside the tank by washing all the bedding and preparing their meals; Sigrun sat atop the tank, rifle ready and kitten dozing in her lap; and Lalli slept off his exertions of the previous night.

The sun was high in the sky, the tank fully provisioned, and Emil standing guard, when Sigrun finally called a halt for lunch and Mikkel laid down the ax with concealed relief. Immensely strong though he was, he was not a lumberjack and chopping through tree trunks for hours had put an unaccustomed strain on his back and shoulders. Consuming the oily mess of soup in weary silence, he suddenly realized that Tuuri and Reynir were watching him anxiously. “Well done,” he stated. “You did as well as I could have done.” It was not high praise — it was impossible to truthfully offer high praise to a vegetable soup thickened with tallow and without any semblance of seasoning — but it was honest and they knew it. Both relaxed and the rest of the meal passed in companionable silence.

All too soon, the Dane pushed himself to his feet and retrieved his ax. He had to keep going lest his muscles stiffen with inactivity, and he had to — had to — finish before dark so they could drive at least some way away from this location where the noise had surely alerted every grossling that there was prey available. He resumed chopping through the fallen trunks.

By late afternoon the road was clear enough for the tank to work its way past the obstructions, and Mikkel was unwontedly exhausted. As he returned to the tank, he was intercepted by Emil, who took the ax from his shoulder and directed him to the back. Too tired to object or even question, he trudged back and clambered in, finding within two buckets half-full of hot water steaming in the cold air, one soapy and the other clear, and beside them a towel, several washcloths, and his spare clothes, all freshly laundered. Pulling the door shut and latching it, he leaned against it just for a moment. Much as he wanted to lie down, the promise of being truly clean first was irresistible. Stripping off his clothes, he began a thorough sponge-bath as the tank moved on.

By the time he was dressed again, the water was mostly on the floor so he opened the back and, after a careful look around for following grosslings, swept it out with the towel, justifying this to himself with the thought that the towel would need to be laundered anyway — by him! — before it would be used again. Then he stashed the empty buckets in a cabinet so they wouldn't fly around in case of another “rough road”, bundled together the clothes and other items, and climbed out carrying them. It was tricky — in fact it was impossible — to latch the back door from the outside one-handed, so he was forced to drop the clothes, latch the door, go back for the clothes, and then jog forward to the door into the main compartment.

That door opened before he could reach it and Emil, waiting just inside, took the clothes from him before stepping out of the way. “Good job,” Sigrun called from the front, getting only a wave of vague acknowledgement before Mikkel kicked off his boots and sought the blessed comfort of his bunk. He did not throw himself wearily onto the bunk fully clad as that would set a bad example for the young people; instead he pulled off his outer garments, tossed them at the foot of the bunk as usual, climbed in, covered up … and fell instantly asleep.

Mikkel dozed atop the sacks of grain in the back of the oxcart while his father drove the oxen. At eleven years old, Mikkel was already as tall as his father and nearly as strong, so he had loaded this cart by himself, heaving in twenty-kilo sack after twenty-kilo sack, while his father directed the loading of the other carts. The boy had been to market several times and looked forward to it again, for he chafed at the quiet life on the Madsen farm.

The cart jolted from side to side and his father was talking … no, not his father, it was his mother. But that was wrong, for she never came to market, never left the safety of the farm. And she'd never had such a villainous accent — why, she sounded like a Norwegian!

Mikkel came awake instantly and completely. The tank was moving, and Sigrun was talking to Tuuri in front. Tuuri's bunk was folded down just above him, and as he rolled over and crawled out, he saw that all the bunks were folded down and their covers in tangles. So it was morning, but how late? Standing, he automatically began making up the bunks, Sigrun's first, then Tuuri's, Reynir's, Emil's, and his own, folding up each as he finished, except his own which he left down so as to protect Lalli from being stepped on.

That done, he went forward and found only the two women. “Where are the boys?” he asked, puzzled. “And where are we? That doesn't look like a road.” Indeed, they were following a trail blazed through the woods, winding among trees.

“Emil's doing escort duty. And we're detouring. Another problem with the road.” Perceiving his dismay despite his efforts to keep his expression impassive, Sigrun went on, “It's a washed-out bridge. Nothing you can do anything about. The little mage guy found us a ford so that's where we're headed.”

“Ah. Good. Well, I'll step out a bit myself.” Suiting actions to words, he turned back to the door, but stopped as it opened. Emil and Reynir climbed in, red-faced and decorated with splashes of snow proving that escort duty had included a snowball fight or two, the kitten riding on top of Reynir's head. They both ducked away, shamefaced, at the sight of the older man, who merely chuckled and climbed out of the tank, pleased that they were interacting in a somewhat friendly fashion. He had been concerned about Emil's standoffish attitude toward Reynir.

It took all day to work their way down to the ford and back up to the road, in sum advancing less than two kilometers toward their goal of Odense. As they reached the road in the late afternoon, their captain gave a deep sigh and instructed Tuuri to stop at the next clearing she saw and count this day as lost. She herself scooped up the kitten, her rifle, and her dagger, climbed out of the tank, and disappeared into the woods. The others looked over at Mikkel as if he might understand her intent, but he could only shrug and begin organizing matters for the evening camp.

The “clearing” which their driver soon found was, Mikkel thought, actually a parking lot with a badly decayed shop of some sort at one edge. This he investigated with Emil's aid, both relieved to find it devoid of grosslings of any type. The Cleanser suggested that it should be burned down at once and, after a moment's hesitation, Mikkel agreed, thinking that if something did attack during the night, it was better not to offer any kind of shelter to it. There would be no difficulty in burning it; Emil could get anything at all to burn with little effort.

The shop was burning nicely and Mikkel was simmering their supper over his campfire when Sigrun returned and dropped a rabbit next to him, ducked immediately into the tank, and returned with Tuuri, who had been waiting with less and less patience for her escort to the latrine. The big Dane heaved a sigh of relief: at least he didn't have to escort her without even the kitten to assist!

One rabbit between six people and a kitten wasn't much, but they had all learned to be grateful for whatever they got, so they welcomed it gladly. Mikkel took Tuuri aside to explain his request for salt, and she promised to pass it on to Lalli before he went out scouting again.

As Mikkel checked Sigrun's arm that evening, he found it was no worse, but no better. She waved off his concerns, insisting that it felt better even if it didn't look better.

The evening and the night were quiet, and in the morning they set forth again.

The fourth day seemed to start out better. Lalli reported via Tuuri that the road was passable all the way to and through a small town where many buildings were in good shape, including, importantly, something that looked to him like a small library. The team responded with enthusiasm as they hadn't collected a single book since the attack of the ghosts, and it was in the back of their minds that payment for this terrible expedition critically depended on bringing back salvaged books.

They were about halfway there when the tank veered sharply to the left. “What!” Sigrun cried from the right-hand seat where she rode, and the three men playing cards in the back jumped to their feet in alarm. Even Lalli rolled out from under Mikkel's bunk and rose to a crouch, rubbing his eyes and peering about.

“I don't know — it's — I think the left tread stopped responding!” Tuuri was working the controls and had brought the tank back to face straight ahead, but her effort to move forward just caused it to turn toward the left again. “Um … go back in the back. I need some room to work.” Pulling a toolbox from its mount on the back of her seat, the Finnish mechanic lay down on her back, pulled herself under the dashboard, and began to take things apart. Sigrun retreated hastily to the sleeping compartment, having no desire to interfere with technological things that, to her, were just one step removed from magic.

“Mikkel, Emil, we need to secure the area. No telling how long we'll be stuck here, so you take the kitten and make the circuit. I'll get up on top again. Remember — blades before bullets!”

“What about Lalli?” Emil asked, gesturing at the scout.

“Let's leave him here for now. We can't talk to him anyway. If little fuzzy-head has to go outside to fix this, he'll be her guard. At least she can talk to him.”

With that settled, the two men grabbed the kitten, their daggers, and their respective weapons, and climbed out of the tank. Mikkel frowned as he watched Sigrun climb up the tank, noting how she favored her left arm, touching the ladder with her left hand as little as possible and wincing when she finally made it to the top. Despite what she said, the wound wasn't healing as it should. Perhaps it was time to use an antibiotic in addition to cleaning it with alcohol. He made a mental note to check it again thoroughly when they stopped for the night.

“Okay, based on what we saw before, the kitten seems to have a range of around twenty meters, so we'll go out about fifteen meters and make a circle. Once that circle's clear, we'll go out another fifteen. Good?”

Emil slung his rifle over his shoulder, swallowed, and nodded. Taking pity on him, Mikkel placed the kitten on the younger man's other shoulder where she made herself comfortable, purring loudly in his ear. They were none of them immune to the kitten's charms, and Emil even managed a slight smile as they set out.

They were perhaps two-thirds of the way through the first circle when the kitten abruptly stood up, hissing. Emil froze, looking over at Mikkel in alarm. Mikkel, on the other hand, studied the kitten, followed her gaze, and pointed. “That bush. It's in or behind that bush. Get ready. You go left, I'll go right.” The Swede drew his dagger, the Dane held his crowbar at the ready, and the kitten continued to hiss and spit as they approached the bush.

The grossling went for the smaller of the two of course, hitting Emil in the chest and knocking him down, sending the kitten flying. If Mikkel had been a religious man he would have prayed, but as it was, he could only direct an unspoken plea to his traitor hands: Don't hit the kid! Please don't hit the kid!

In the moments that it took him to dash to Emil's aid, however, the other had rolled over, pinning the thing under his weight, and was stabbing wildly over and over into the mess that had been its head while he cursed continuously under his breath. Mikkel almost chuckled aloud, thinking that the Swedish Cleansers had much to learn from Danish soldiers in the art of imprecation. As Emil at last got to his feet, the kitten jumped atop the mangled grossling and did a kind of war dance before leaping not to Emil's shoulder but to Mikkel's, an impressive feat for such a small cat.

The Swede knelt by a snowdrift and began frantically scrubbing his gloves and jacket with handfuls of snow, scraping the grossling slime off of him. Seeing Mikkel's shadow as he approached, Emil looked up and asked desperately, “My hair! Mikkel, did I get that slime in my hair?”

Yes! Emil diving headfirst into a snowdrift! Emil running back to the tank in a panic and washing his hair all afternoon! Hilarious! … No! This kid — no, this man — is one of just five people that I'll be living with for weeks. Maybe months. Quite possibly for the rest of my life, or of his. I will not mock or humiliate him or any of them. Weeks later, he was very glad of that decision.

“No,” he answered firmly. “None in your hair, none on your face.”

“You're not — I mean,” the other bit his lip, “you're sure?”

Knowing that attempting to reassure him of sincerity would merely convince him that Mikkel was pranking him, the Dane instructed him, “Turn around, let me take a good look. Tilt your head back and turn around again … yes, I'm sure. None in your hair or on your face.”

“Oh … okay.” Emil looked away, then squared his shoulders, clearly deciding to act as if he believed even if he didn't quite, and set forth again to finish their circle in silence but for the kitten's loud purr.

As they began their second circle, Emil began to talk softly, almost to himself. “We came down to the Öresund base on the train, and we were attacked by a giant.”

“No surprise there. That train has never made four trips in a row without an attack. Why the stubborn Swedes keep sending —”

“We're a stubborn people,” Emil interrupted. “But the giant forced its, um, limbs into the train and some of them had viable … heads.” He swallowed and took a moment before continuing. “Most of the giant must have been smashed when we went into a tunnel but one of the heads was still alive. It … pawed at me. It had tentacles like hands … I smashed its head and killed it.”

“Well done,” Mikkel answered politely, wondering why Emil was thinking about this now.

“But it … it spoke to me.” Mikkel stopped, staring at him, and Emil perforce stopped too. “I know that sounds crazy, but it made this … grinding, crackling sort of noise and I thought I heard words in it. I thought it said … I thought it said, 'Help me.'”

Mikkel didn't answer, caught in his memories of Christensen telling him not to listen to the voices in the static. Were there voices in the static? Did trolls make the static?

“So, I, I, I'm not sure we should talk when we're near them. I think maybe trolls might understand us. I think maybe they're kind of still in there, somehow, suffering.”

“You did help it,” Mikkel managed finally, the only thing he could think of to say. “You ended its suffering —”

“Oh, I know that. I don't feel guilty. I mean, not at all.” He looked off into the distance, as if he could see the town ahead. “I don't really know why I joined the Cleansers except maybe because I'm good at starting fires … no, honestly, because I like fires. But now, now I really want to burn it all down. I don't want them to have to burn — I don't want to make them suffer — but if they have to burn to end it all then I want them to burn. I want to burn them all.”

Mikkel nodded silently. He wanted to burn it all down too.

They finished the circle with no further grossling encounters, and found Tuuri working on the left tread while Lalli stood guard. He half-saluted them, one guard to another, as they passed, but he never looked away from the woods.

The short day was near ended before Tuuri crawled out from under the tank, called her various guards inside, and started the tank down the road again, Lalli at her shoulder instructing her on a good campsite, though not the one he had originally picked out. Mikkel applied one of his limited selection of antibiotics to Sigrun's arm. Their supper was quiet and discouraged, and they were not disturbed during the night.

“Big guy, let's go check that library.”

Mikkel was pleased at the request, thinking that Sigrun had begun to recognize his abilities as a soldier, but his hopes were quickly dashed.

“The scout says the door's jammed and he couldn't open it, so I need you and your crowbar. Oh, and he says there's a troll inside. I'll deal with that.”

He made no complaint, simply retrieving the crowbar from the cabinet where it was stored and offering an “after you” gesture, but inside he sighed with disappointment. Well, at least she valued him for something more than his ability to cook inedible sludge and scrub the laundry.

“Windows intact,” Sigrun observed as they approached, “good sign.” The windows were the ancient nine-light style, and the small thick panes had survived their decades of neglect. The door, on the other hand, was swollen and jammed, and it took some effort even for Mikkel to force it open. Inside, they found an entryway with a hallway leading off on the left and double doors straight ahead. From the hallway they could hear a rather squishy thudding as something threw itself against a solid surface. Crowbar raised, Mikkel cautiously led the way down the hall.

To their right was a blank wall, the pictures formerly hung there having fallen and smashed; to their left were a pair of restrooms, then the door behind which the grossling was mindlessly trying to escape. The creature's problem was immediately evident: the door was a good, solid wooden door which opened inwards.

Timing his actions carefully, Mikkel twisted the knob and kicked the door open exactly as the troll started to back up for another run. The monster, looking something like a giant spider with tentacles rather than jointed legs, went flying across the room and was immediately pounced upon by Sigrun, who stabbed each lump which looked like it might contain the brain. The third stab hit the brain; the thing's limbs shot straight out and then went limp. The troll-hunter stabbed it a few more times to be sure, then rose.

Mikkel, meanwhile, had charged in, crowbar ready, then stopped to study the situation. The room was a shambles, well coated in grossling slime as far up as the troll could reach, which was somewhat above the tall Dane's head. The creature had not been strong enough to tear apart the heavy wooden desk, but it had torn down the shelves formerly on the walls and reduced the other furnishings to piles of debris. There was nowhere in the room where another monster could hide, not even the ceiling, which he could clearly see in the dim light that seeped through the grimy windows. Thus, when Sigrun stood, dripping dagger raised, he simply shrugged and gestured at the door, and the two departed, leaving the troll to its long-delayed rest.

The solid wooden double doors out of the lobby were also jammed, and as they opened inward, Mikkel had to slam his shoulder against them several times in an inadvertent imitation of the now-deceased grossling. Once the doors were open, the problem was very evident: much of the roof had fallen in.

“Dammit! The twig said this was in good shape!”

“This damage wasn't visible from the outside,” Mikkel pointed out reasonably.

Sigrun growled something inarticulate — she hated it when he was oh-so-reasonable — then waved dismissively. “Okay, we're here. Look around. Maybe there's something.”

The collapsing roof had brought down most of the stacks in a splintered heap, and weather and small animals had made a thorough mess of the fallen books. There was clearly nothing to be salvaged there. Nevertheless, well in the back of the large room, they found shelves that had not collapsed, with some books on the top shelves still in relatively good shape. Sigrun greeted them with indifference — “Books are books, let's take them” — and Mikkel with excitement. They were science books!

By the standards of his time, the Year 90 of the Rash, Mikkel was a well-educated man, mainly self-taught through reading everything he could get his hands on, but his science education was largely limited to biology, mostly as it pertained to medicine. Few other sciences had survived the frantic efforts to save not just civilization but the human race itself, and once some parts of the population were secure enough to resume research, nothing but the defeat of the Rash was important enough to study.

It had never occurred to Mikkel, nor did it occur to him now, to wonder why the books that embodied all other sciences had come to be burned “as fuel” by the survivors in the desperate early days. His understandable pride in his own people left him with a blind spot that prevented him from perceiving that, not only the Icelanders but all of the survivors had deliberately burned science books in a revulsion against technology spurred by their terror and horror.

Carrying his books as priceless treasures, Mikkel followed Sigrun as she stomped and kicked her way out of the library, muttering under her breath about incompetent scouts. A short hike through the snow brought them back to the tank, where Tuuri and Reynir were playing with the kitten in the snow and Emil stood guard, rifle slung ready and one hand on his dagger. Mikkel was pleased to see that Emil was scanning his surroundings rather than watching the others and that his tracks in the snow showed repeated patrols around the tank. The Swede acknowledged the returning adventurers with a wave, and the other two scooped up the kitten and climbed into the tank. The non-immunes had been grateful for the opportunity to be outside in the unseasonably warm weather, but everyone was quite ready to move on.

The two scavengers clambered into the back of the tank, segregated from the non-immunes, and stored the latest books. Their second sets of outer garments were already waiting for them, so they pulled off their befouled clothing and changed even as the tank started moving. A couple of bangs on the forward wall and a shout to the others in front, and the two jumped back out, locked the door and jogged forward to enter the main compartment.

Lalli's snares were empty at the campsite, so they endured a meatless supper with minimal complaint. As life went in the Silent World, it had been a good day.

The blizzard started that night. Lalli went out scouting around midnight as usual but returned early and ordered Tuuri to turn the tank to face east; he then raided the back compartment for some of their large supply of rope. In the morning, the others found what he had done: a rope tied to the tanks treads led through the blinding snow to their latrine; attached to it by loose loops were two “leashes” to which the latrine's visitor and an escort could fasten themselves so as not to have to hold onto the rope. The snow was falling so thickly that one could get lost just a few feet from the tank.

It was clearly impossible to drive under these conditions, so the team spent the next two days in the tank but for necessary visits to the latrine and, in the case of the immunes, occasional careful trips to the back compartment, the first made by Mikkel with one shoulder firmly pressed against the tank at every step, and the subsequent trips made by the others following a rope which he had rigged similar to Lalli's. The back compartment offered the immunes the opportunity to escape the close confines and echoing noises of the main compartment. Tuuri and Reynir, on the other hand, could only retreat to the radio compartment or sit in the driver's seat and stare helplessly at the snow.

Without the kitten to play with and the opportunity to escape for a hour or so at a time, Mikkel thought they might have gone mad in those days. He included a can of tuna in every meal — at least they could have something (somewhat) tasty — reluctantly concluding that he could not spare any cookies even for morale purposes. His stash was running very low and he needed what remained for purposes of bribery. Tuuri and Reynir, and even Emil and Mikkel at times, played cards. Sigrun regarded this pastime with amused disbelief, and Lalli caught up on his sleep. Mikkel worried silently over Sigrun's wounded arm; though she insisted it felt better, the bite was still red, swollen, and tender, and new tissue hadn't formed to close it. Still, it didn't seem infected, and he continued to clean it with alcohol and apply an antibiotic twice a day.

When the storm finally blew itself out, they all, even the non-immunes, came out to marvel at the results. On the left (north) side of the tank a drift reached almost to the roof, while the rest of the tank was buried up to the top of its treads, but for where they had kept paths somewhat open to the latrine and the back compartment. Downed branches stuck up out of the snow here and there, and Mikkel and Emil immediately began gathering them for fuel, as the tank had burned quite a bit keeping them warm. Water was no issue; once the non-immunes were safely inside, Sigrun and Lalli gathered snow nearby while the kitten sat and shivered on top of a tread.

With the tank reprovisioned, Mikkel prepared another unpleasant meal and Lalli pulled a pair of skis from the back compartment and set forth to scout by daylight. By the time he returned, it was getting dark and there was no possibility of continuing.

The tank was too heavy to ride on top of the snow, the way the passengers could walk on top with the snowshoes they pulled from storage in the back compartment, but it was able to push its way through slowly with the aid of a crude snowplow which Mikkel and Emil assembled from logs under Tuuri's direction. Even with this assistance, it moved more slowly than people walking alongside. As the driver, Tuuri couldn't join the walkers, but the others, even Reynir, took advantage of the opportunity to stretch their legs. Reynir, of course, walked next to the open door of the tank with the kitten on his shoulder and one of the immunes beside him.

That first day, they made it into another town where they investigated a private dwelling identified as a possible book source by the team in Sweden; they did indeed find a dozen more intact books and, to Mikkel's satisfaction and everyone else's later pleasure, a box of salt. Camping only a few hundred meters out of the town, they worried about grosslings following after them, and set guards, but they were again undisturbed.

The next day they moved into open fields where the snow was less deep, largely blown away, and Sigrun nodded sagely, observing, “That blizzard was directed at us. But we are undefeated!” She ignored Mikkel's indulgent smile and the worried looks turned on her by Tuuri and Emil, instead taking their map and trying to work out how close they were to the next possible book source.

And so they continued slowly on their way to Odense for another week. There was, after all, no hurry since they could not be rescued for weeks anyway, so they detoured as necessary, forded streams as necessary, and stopped to scavenge books when possible, all with a minimum of complaints. Sigrun's arm refused to heal, and Mikkel grew increasingly worried despite her shrugging unconcern. The snow began to melt as the weather warmed, but they knew there would be more snow before the winter finally ended.

Once reached, the major roads which they had thought to use proved impassable, not because of neglect, though that was a problem, but because they were filled with the decaying relics of uncountable vehicles, abandoned (or not) in the final traffic jam as the Old World died. The tank could, in theory, simply drive over a small car or even a larger one that had collapsed into debris, but it would surely have suffered irreparable damage if they had tried to drive over an entire road full of vehicles. They were forced to grind along beside the road, with the immunes jumping out every so often to remove the worst obstacles they faced.

The biggest problem was the major bridge: though it had not collapsed, it too was filled with decaying vehicles. The river was not frozen and while the tank was waterproof to a point, it was not balanced for floating in flowing water and would likely turn turtle and sink if they tried to “swim” it across. They had to get across the bridge itself.

After studying the problem for a bit, they concluded that there was nothing for it but to send all four immunes forward to throw over the side anything they could lift, and then use the tank with their primitive snowplow to force the larger debris out of the way. This was a nerve-wracking undertaking, as not all the vehicles had been abandoned, and among the many skeletons there were half a dozen trolls that invariably charged exactly when the workers had their hands full.

Lalli was invaluable in these days. Though he was not strong, he seemed always to be the first to notice trolls and several times killed them himself before the others had their weapons out. No one was injured by trolls, but everyone suffered cuts, bruises, and strains, and Mikkel feared for some time that Emil might have broken bones in his foot by dropping an unidentifiable piece of debris on it in his haste to grab his dagger. Well-bandaged, the foot proved painful but intact, and Emil hardly whined at all about being called out to work again the next day.

In the end it took three days to get the tank across the bridge, and they felt lucky to have managed it that quickly. They'd had to post guards and deal with trolls both nights, fortunately just one troll at a time and easily heard approaching, for the loose debris rattled and crashed with every movement.

Though he had been working with the others every day and had not had a chance to scout at all, once they were on the other side and off the road, Lalli ran ahead and returned an hour later with news that he had found an acceptable camping spot. It was full dark by the time they reached it but they nevertheless took the time to gather wood by moonlight and flashlight and to hook up a hose to the water supply, for they'd had no water for half a day and the tank was almost empty of fuel. If the arduous journey across the bridge had taken any longer, they would have had to cross on foot and carry back fuel to keep the tank moving.

Exhausted, the four immunes collapsed in their respective bunks and left the non-immunes to keep watch. Fortunately there were no attacks during the night.

Standing guard while the other three immunes scavenged in the nearby town, Mikkel leaned for a few moments on the hood of the tank, his trusty crowbar in his hand but down by his side, not at the ready, and his dagger sheathed, though his eyes never ceased searching the overgrown fields around them for possible enemies. Once he glanced up at the kitten, who had found that she could jump onto the hood and from there to the roof, where she had settled herself atop one of the two large triangular driving lights, standing guard in her own way.

Tuuri, sitting on the hood with the map in her lap, commented, “We'll definitely be there soon, no matter what. In a couple of days, at most!”

“Interesting. I do seem to recall 'a couple of days' being the estimate a good while back,” he answered, smiling slightly.

“I don't think it was,” she muttered, reddening a little, and Mikkel kept quiet, reminding himself of his resolution not to mock or humiliate his few teammates.

Somewhat to his left, his other charge, Reynir, was building a flock of foot-high snow sheep. The Icelander had four ewes already and was carefully adding twig horns to his ram when all three came alert at the sound of a distant explosion.

Mikkel took several steps forward then stopped himself, looking at Tuuri who looked back with wide eyes and an expression of mingled excitement and fear. “Get in the tank,” he ordered, and to Reynir, “Get the kitten and get in the tank.”

“But —” Tuuri objected “— Lalli said we can't get the tank into the town. We can't —”

“We may have to run. Get in the tank.” When she continued to hesitate, “Go!” She went, and Reynir hastened to scramble down with the kitten and follow her in.

Mikkel stared in the direction of the town, hidden behind a low ridge. What if the others don't come back? What if they were hurt or trapped in that explosion? Will I really order Tuuri to drive away this evening and leave them? Never know if they could have been saved? He had come to think of the non-immunes almost as soldiers under his command, and so it did not occur to him to wonder if Tuuri would obey an order to drive away.

Those two are safe enough in the tank, as safe as they'd be with me here. If there's anything big enough to damage the tank, I can't stop it. I can go to the others … no. If they … don't come back … that leaves me as the only immune. If I go into the town and get killed too, these children are doomed. Two non-immunes trying to find their way to the coast and wait for rescue, with no scout and no immune to gather fuel … no.

I have to stay.

I know my duty.

He shook himself and forced his feet to take him around the tank. Diligently studying the surroundings for anything that might be sneaking up on them, he still couldn't stop himself from looking again and again toward the hidden town while part of his mind tortured the rest with images of his teammates — no, his friends — injured and unable to move when he could carry them out, or pinned under a fallen beam that he could lift and they could not.

And so time passed for almost an hour.

Someone was climbing over the ridge, coming his way. The sun shone brightly on golden hair and Mikkel recognized Emil … alone. His heart sank as he started forward to meet the other.

Fortunately the Swede didn't keep him in suspense for long. “Mikkel! Get the others and come on! Lalli found a treasure trove and we need you guys to help!”

Relief all but staggered the Dane. It took him a moment to pull himself together and run back to the tank, gesturing for the others to come out. Emil ran alongside him, explaining, “It's an antique shop and it's in really good shape and the windows aren't broken and we can see it's full of books and lots of other things! It's the best place we've seen yet! And Lalli says there's no danger so there shouldn't be any trolls and Sigrun says Tuuri and him can come help.”

He breathlessly repeated the whole story to the non-immunes while Mikkel thoroughly checked the security of the tank. He didn't want to come back and find a grossling inside or even nearby without the alarm warning them.

As they started back to town, “Emil, we heard an explosion, what was that? We were … concerned.”

“Oh, um, that. The stash we were supposed to check on. The door was locked and jammed and we couldn't open it, so I got out my smallest explosive — it was really little, Mikkel, it should have just blown the door off but … um … maybe there were gasses built up inside or something … anyway, the whole building just … blew up. Sigrun likes explosions though, she thought that was pretty cool even though we lost the whole stash … but it doesn't matter because Lalli was scouting around and found this other place that's even better!”

“Wait, you said Lalli said there's no danger? I mean, Tuuri wasn't there …”

“Oh, yeah, I guess she's taught him a little Swedish or maybe he's actually been listening to me when I try to talk to him … Anyway, he knew how to say 'no danger'. Kind of. I mean, we understood him. I tried to tell him 'good job' like Tuuri taught me, but I guess my Finnish is worse than his Swedish, because he stopped me. Oh, well. But the stash! Wait 'til you see it!”

They fell into proper order as they hiked to the town, Emil leading the way, Tuuri and Reynir, kitten on his shoulder, in the middle, and Mikkel as rear-guard.

“What's wrong, Reynir?” Tuuri asked. “You look worried.”

“Oh, I … I'm thinking about ghosts. All these empty houses … there might be more. In that store even.”

“Emil said Lalli said it was safe. And he can see the ghosts too, so if he says it's safe, it is.”

“Is it? He didn't warn us about the ghosts before … well, okay, that's not fair. Those first ghosts didn't seem mean, I guess. He didn't see those … others.”

“Mmm … well, you can warn us if you see any. It's broad daylight so we can get away.”

“Maybe … during the blizzard I kind of worked on something that might help … maybe …” His voice trailed off. Tuuri gave him a quizzical look then shrugged, seeming to dismiss the whole subject. Mikkel thought it was a good thing that Emil couldn't understand Icelandic, for he already had a low opinion of their newest teammate, and that discussion would not have helped.

The stash was everything the Swede had claimed. Just looking at it through the window, Mikkel was overcome with a kind of greed, not for the money which all those books represented, but for the knowledge that was hidden within their pages. He wanted them. He wanted them all. So distracted was he by the thought of all that knowledge just out of reach and the problem of getting the door open without damaging anything inside, that he really didn't even hear Sigrun explaining her decision to send for the rest of the team until he realized that she was talking about him.

“... and the fact that you can carry as much as three random, boring dudes. I like that about you. So what I'm saying is: you're really good at muscles, which is great.”

He straightened from examining the door lock and turned to her with a slight, courteous smile. “I'm flattered,” he said, with only a trace of sarcasm leaking through.

They were interrupted by Reynir approaching with a sheepish smile and tapping Mikkel's shoulder gently with a slightly torn piece of paper. Mikkel accepted the paper and examined the intricate drawing in puzzlement while the other pushed similar papers into the hands of the rest of the team. “What is this?” he asked finally.

“It's a protection rune that I made for us. Pretty cool, huh? I remembered seeing one that was used to keep the sheep from wandering too far from the rune, and I thought …” He hesitated for a moment at the sight of Mikkel's skeptical expression, but ploughed gamely on. “... if I switch things around a little, it could instead keep ghosts from wandering too close to the rune, and to us.” He tried an apologetic smile while Mikkel turned away, not wanting to be seen rolling his eyes.

“Does it work?” Tuuri asked with interest, while Emil and Lalli, who had understood none of this, gave their copies looks of confusion and stuffed them into pockets.

“Uh … maybe? Possibly! It's better than nothing, at least. What do you think?” He added, turning anxiously to Mikkel.

“It's a very cute piece of decoration,” the skeptical Dane answered as kindly as he could manage.

“It's a little bit more than just decoration,” the Icelander returned defensively.

“It's decoration.” There was a limit to how far he would go to humor the other.

Sigrun had understood none of the discussion, but she recognized the type of drawing. “I like the effort, but as far as I know, stuff like this works way better when drawn in blood; the gods love blood. Just saying. I'm not an expert or anything.”

Reynir turned to her and then back to Mikkel. “What did she say?”

“Switch your drawing medium to blood in the future; your gods are very fond of that.” He managed to say it with an almost straight face, reminding himself not to mock or humiliate his teammates. But really, how could one not mock this silliness? Bits of paper to defend against … he remembered the voice, and the pain. None of this fit in his tidy understanding of the world, so why not bits of paper?

He put the drawing in his pocket and turned away as Reynir gulped and replied, “No, that's … gross.”

There were no ghosts in the shop and the kitten, peering around with interest, made it clear that there were also no grosslings. The air smelled stale but there was no tinge of rot, and Sigrun offered a gleeful high five to Mikkel.

“Hey, how do I say 'good job' in Finnish again?” That was Emil, talking instead of examining books.

“I can write it on your hand, if you're having trouble remembering …” Tuuri wasn't examining books either, Mikkel thought. What kind of skald could look at this and be interested in anything else?

“I'll remember,” Emil answered impatiently, turning at last to the books while Tuuri wandered over to talk to Lalli, who was fascinated by the globe which took pride of place on one table. Mikkel hoped he wouldn't want to take the globe; such things existed in Iceland, at least, and they had little enough room for the books. But at last Tuuri too began to examine the books.

“Exercise judgement,” Mikkel instructed. “We can only carry so many books —” and how he hated to say that! He wanted all of them! “— so we need to take only the most valuable.”

Even Reynir began to examine the books, but he soon said, in some confusion, “These are some really odd runes. I don't think I can use them.”

“Do not touch anything, Reynir,” Mikkel ordered. The Icelander was not really part of the team and Mikkel didn't entirely trust him to be careful.

“I know what that language is,” Emil put in. “It's called 'Kung fu'.”

“Actually, it's called 'Chinalandic',” Tuuri corrected incorrectly. “Gosh,” she added, awed at the thought of an entire book in a language of which only a few pages survived in Finland.

“Mandarin, most likely,” Mikkel added, having seen one of the rare books in Iceland.

“No it isn't,” Sigrun argued. “Mandarin is a fruit.”

“The word can refer to that too,” Mikkel answered, turning to her with a raised eyebrow. “I'm impressed you'd know such a thing.”

“Oh yeah, we get a ton of fruit sent over from the greenhouses in Iceland. I know all the fruits! A mandarin tastes like a lemon that killed itself!”

Boggled by the image, Mikkel made no reply and after a brief silence, Tuuri said wistfully, “Do you ever think there might be other people like us out there, far, far away? And maybe they've found a book in one of our languages, and they're now thinking 'huh, what a weird language. I wonder if people who spoke it are still out there?' Wouldn't that be cool?!”

“Yep, would be cool,” Sigrun answered, “but that's way unlikely.”

“How so?”

“Simple: the poor sods didn't have anywhere to go, they didn't have big forests, islands and mountains to hide in in the rest of the world like we do. They had big cities and fields.”

“I'm pretty sure there's mountains elsewhere too,” Tuuri answered with a grin.

“Dunno about that …”

“That right there looks like mountains people could live in, and it's definitely not from around here.” Tuuri pointed at a painting hung — still hanging! — on the wall. The entire team turned to admire the painting.

Too big to take back with us, Mikkel thought. Oh, so many treasures to be left behind! I'll have to fasten the door shut as best I can … maybe nail it? Surely we can find some boards and nails … the next expedition must come clean this out!

His thoughts were interrupted as Sigrun turned to him. “Hey, you think that's a picture of an actual place that exists, or …”

“I have no reason to believe otherwise.”

“Let's go check it out then! If there might be a whole other nation out there we've got to at least go say hello! We're on a detour anyway, how long will it take for us to get there?”

He admired her enthusiasm and regretted the need to throw cold water on it, but he had a pretty good image of the European continent in his memory, and he knew just how small Denmark was in comparison. “Well, assuming we are able to keep this pace … a decade …”

“Okay, let's not do that right now then. What is it, the other side of the world or something?”

“Figuratively speaking, yes.”

And so the conversation ended, Sigrun went to the door to watch for intruders, and Mikkel went back to examining the books, picking out those he would take and, with a pang every time, returning to the shelves those he would leave behind. He focused on science and history, rejecting anything that looked like fiction or in any way frivolous. But someone will return for you, he told the books silently.

Reynir wandered about, hands in pockets, scrupulously not touching anything. As he put the last few precious books in his pack, Mikkel heard a crash and tinkle of broken glass and saw Reynir holding a broken picture frame.

“I believe this is all we can carry today,” Mikkel told the others, heaving his pack to his back.

“Mikkel, what's this?” the Icelander asked with a strange urgency.

“It's —” Mikkel hastily brushed the other's gloves clean, fearing possible damage which would be difficult for him to fix, “— pieces of broken glass! What did I tell you earlier?!”

Reynir turned away in silent disappointment as Sigrun asked cheerily, “Everyone ready to head back?”

They didn't quite leave immediately. Tuuri sent Lalli to find boards, nails, and a hammer and, in a remarkably short time, he returned with the required supplies. As he nailed the door closed, Mikkel presumed there was a hardware store around somewhere. “Secure,” he stated, hefting his pack again, and they started on the hike back to the tank.

“I think we can agree that with the collection we have managed to accumulate, we may all be proud upon our return to civilization,” he told Sigrun in quiet satisfaction.

“Mm-hm. Good vacation. I'll miss this.”

They had to move the tank, of course. The explosion would surely have awakened any trolls nearby, and while few trolls would venture out in the bright sunshine, they would be out and hunting by nightfall. A few kilometers down the relatively passable road, Lalli pointed out a good campsite next to a battered road sign which informed them that Odense was just three kilometers further.

Although there had been no grossling encounters that day, Mikkel still put Reynir to work scrubbing everyone's clothes; it kept Reynir busy and happy, and with only two suits of clothes for each of the original team, keeping their clothes acceptably clean was a constant chore. Mikkel had scrubbed Reynir's clothes just that morning while the Icelander sat inside wrapped in a blanket, and felt that the other's one suit of clothes was passable for now.

Supper was vegetables and tallow, somewhat improved by the addition of salt, but was accepted with only slight grumbling, for everyone was excited at the nearness of their goal.

Everyone, that is, but Lalli. His posture as he departed to scout their route into Odense was so unhappy that Mikkel was moved to ask Tuuri what was wrong.

“Oh, he's homesick. I told him Trond was working on a quarantine ship for us, but he just really wants to go home.” They watched the departing scout for a moment. “Well, he'll be all right, and we'll be going home soon.” She shrugged and climbed into the tank.

Turning to follow her, Mikkel paused for a moment, gazing out into the cold, dark, silent landscape. It was his ancestral homeland, but it was not a human land, not now, and probably not again in his lifetime.

I want to go home too.

But the cure comes first.

Mikkel jolted awake, heart pounding from a nightmare, the worst he'd experienced since … well, since Kastrup. Swarms of grosslings and something dark and evil behind them … he shook his head in the darkness, dismissing the memory, and listened to his teammates.

Tuuri and Sigrun slept quietly, their only sounds their breathing and occasional movements. Emil snored as always, and Reynir was muttering in his sleep, almost as if he were carrying on a conversation. Mikkel couldn't make out what he was saying, and didn't much care anyway. He took a deep breath to calm himself and sought to return to the comfort of sleep, rolling over and closing his eyes.

It was long before he slept.

Lalli returned from scouting in the morning when the others had finished their breakfast. As Mikkel stowed gear in preparation for their next journey, he listened with half an ear to Tuuri as she conveyed the scout's report to Sigrun. Lalli was concerned about the level of grossling activity in the hospital that was their goal, but Sigrun merely shrugged, “It's cool, that's what weapons were invented for.”

Mikkel shrugged too, though no one saw. They were in the Silent World, and anywhere they went there were likely to be grosslings. Indeed, he thought they'd been quite lucky in the few encounters they'd had, but then they'd stayed out of the cities for the most part, and it was very cold.

Siv Västerström's voice came over the radio as he passed, a stack of bowls in his hand. “Hello? Hey! Is the radio broken?”

“Ah, hello, you again. What is on your mind today?” he asked courteously.

“May I talk with anybody else please?”

Mikkel chuckled but leaned out of the tank to gesture at Tuuri. Much as he would enjoy playing word games with a captive audience, he wanted to get moving into Odense.

As he picked up the last bowl, which the returning scout had emptied hungrily, he saw the three boys (as he thought of them) standing together looking out at the road. They were not, of course, conversing since no two of them had a language in common, but he was pleased that they were, at least, interacting to some degree. Even as this thought occurred to Mikkel, Lalli froze, staring at something, and Reynir, Emil, and Mikkel off to the side of the three, all went on alert, following his gaze — but there was nothing there.

Or at least Mikkel saw nothing there. Lalli's intent expression and Reynir's horrified expression implied that there was something. The little Finn stared for a long moment, then turned to say something in an annoyed tone to Reynir, who of course did not understand the Finnish comment but replied reassuringly in Icelandic, “Don't be afraid! I think … that looks like some kind of omen. It can't hurt us.”

Mikkel studied the two “mages” for a long moment, then sighed and turned away. He didn't believe in omens, not really, not even after his experiences on this expedition, and in any case, from what he knew of superstitions relating to omens, they served no real function but to disturb people. It didn't matter if you continued as planned or if you changed plans in an attempt to avoid whatever the omen presaged; whatever it was, it would find you anyway.

Sigrun, who had seen none of this, came over to tell Lalli, “Hey, I'll need some scout eyes once we get there, make sure to sleep for a few hours. Bed. Do you understand 'bed' yet?”

As Lalli simply stared at her blankly, she said resignedly, “Nope, no understanding happening here. Translator!”

Tuuri hastened out of the tank, heard the command and passed it on. With one last circuit of the tank to be certain that everything was put away and secured, the whole team climbed aboard, and they were at last on their way again.

Inside the tank, seeing Lalli's deeply depressed expression, Mikkel pulled a cookie from his stash and held it out. To his surprise and concern, the scout simply pushed past him and walked to the back of the tank, where he stood staring out of the window. When Emil followed him, Lalli said something sadly in Finnish, and Emil replied, “You were supposed to go to bed, you know.” It didn't really matter what either of them said, Mikkel thought, turning away, for they had no language in common. The Finn's attitude concerned him greatly but he knew of no way to help him. Perhaps he would be happier once they got through collecting the cure and were on their way to rescue.

There were grosslings in Odense. In the cold, clear light of morning, they stayed hidden, out of sight but not out of range of the kitten's strange senses. Despite Emil's soothing and petting, she bushed out and hissed repeatedly as the tank ground its way through the town. The tank made good time, for the route Lalli had found for them was clear.

Remarkably clear, in fact. As they proceeded, Mikkel began to suspect that the way had been cleared, or at least kept clear during the panicky time as terrified people fled uselessly from the towns. That something special had happened here became apparent as they moved out of the residential area and saw before them a cleared area and a crude barbed-wire-topped stockade that surrounded the hospital for which they had travelled so far. Fortunately one of the concrete panels used to form the stockade had fallen in — or had it been pushed? — and so they were able to pass through.

The instructions which Tuuri had received that morning were very clear, and she was quickly able to identify the building they sought. All of the immunes piled out, along with the kitten, to examine the situation. The kitten bushed out and hissed at the building, but her warning was … not disregarded, but merely accepted. Of course there would be trolls in a hospital. That was a given.

“Looks good enough,” Sigrun stated, “the place isn't collapsing or anything. Gimme a second and we'll go in.”

Mikkel grunted in answer, his attention on Lalli. “You are not resting enough,” he told the scout. “We'll have to do something about that after this.” Lalli stared at him uncomprehendingly, dark circles under his eyes, while he turned to Sigrun and checked the bandages on her wounded arm. She rolled her eyes at him — she did not want to be fussed over — but allowed it.

“Are we ready to carry on?” Mikkel asked, coming around to check on her just too late to see the problem.

“Sure!” she replied, and then “All right, let's get going!” To Lalli, “I want you with me; your eyes are useful.” To Mikkel, “And you, you're good at reading.” And finally to Emil, “Not you.”

“What did I do?” he asked, worried.

“Nothing, you're fine, buddy. Someone needs to stay behind and watch over the helpless babies. We can't make big guy here do it. What would he do if a troll showed up? Stomp on it?”

“That is indeed what I would do,” Mikkel put in coldly. Undeterred, the captain told Emil and the non-immunes “Bye” and the three explorers put their shoulders to a revolving door and entered the hospital. Left behind to help guard the non-immunes, the kitten continued to hiss.

The hospital was in fairly good shape. Many ceiling tiles had fallen and much plaster had peeled away from the walls, but the structure seemed sound. The three explorers stopped just inside to look, listen, and even smell the air before proceeding. Broken windows had admitted rain and snow, producing large patches of mold and rot, and abundant birds' nests proved the hospital to be a good sanctuary for the smaller birds. The three saw and smelled no trace of grossling slime, and the building was quiet but for the whisper of wind and occasional skittering noises as rodents sought cover from the intruders.

An ancient but still readable map on the wall drew their attention, and they made their way carefully through the debris to examine it. “So, where to?” Sigrun asked.

“An archive of any kind is what we want,” Mikkel replied, studying the map and drawing out a route on one precious sheet of paper. “I reckon searching by the laboratories will be our best bet. Let's hope that they didn't rely solely on the computing machines to store their information.”

“Hey, if you're worried about that,” Sigrun answered cheerily, “let's just bring one with us! I bet some smart people know how to dig stuff out of them.” Suiting actions to words, she scooped up a monitor from a nearby desk … and it simply broke apart in her hands. “Well, obviously we'll need to find one that isn't a broken piece of garbage like this one,” she finished, dropping the pieces and kicking the debris under the desk.

“I suggest we focus primarily on finding written records,” Mikkel advised drily, “for the time being.” He rather doubted that there were any “smart people” who might be able to dig information out of computing machines, even if there were any in a condition to be used. But written records – well, according to histories, there were once written records that survived still readable despite being lost for millennia. Unfortunately those records were not brought along by the desperate refugees from the Rash, and so had been lost again.

“Yeah, sure, why not?” she answered as Mikkel showed his drawing to Lalli, who led the way through the ruin.

The lobby where they entered had been fairly well lit by the windows, but as they moved further in, the building became darker and darker until they could see only by the light of their flashlights. Finding the stairwell which they had thought to use, they discovered that the doors opened outward, had no exterior handle, and fit so tightly that Mikkel could not force his crowbar into the gap between them. As Mikkel and Sigrun struggled to find any way to get them open, Lalli wandered away, soon returning to clear his throat for their attention and to lead them to the elevator shaft.

Those doors were much easier to pry open, and inside they found that the elevator itself had fallen down to the basement over the decades. By piling furniture on top, they were able to construct a somewhat rickety “stair” to the next floor. Sigrun, as the experienced troll-hunter, went first and, once she quietly signalled “all clear”, Mikkel followed and then Lalli.

All three were on edge, and before they'd even gone ten meters, the older two stopped and turned at the sound of Lalli drawing his dagger. The little scout slipped soundlessly back to the elevator shaft, dagger raised, and peered cautiously inside. After a moment he withdrew with a puzzled expression, shrugged, and turned to follow the others.

They went on.

As they passed patient room after patient room, Mikkel realized that the scout was trying to peer through the small observation window on each door but, being so short, he was straining up on his tiptoes each time. Thinking to be of assistance, the big Dane simply lifted the smaller man up to a level where he could easily see.

Quick as a snake, the Finn jerked himself free and threw a rather feeble punch at the other. “I'm sorry,” Mikkel said sincerely, taking the punch without flinching, “I misread the situation. It won't happen again.” The Finn was not family, he reminded himself, and could not be treated as a younger cousin might be.

Sigrun looked back impatiently and Mikkel made haste to catch up with her. Lalli snarled something uncomplimentary in Finnish and stalked ahead of the other two, still on guard against grosslings.

They saw many dead trolls and many patients who had succumbed to the Rash, cruelly deformed but obviously having died without transforming into monsters. Mikkel began to feel uneasy about the cure; if they'd had a cure, why had there been so many advanced cases? But then, he reminded himself, they hadn't had a cure initially and would have had to study who-knows-how-many cases to find one. These then were the early failures. Thus reassured, he followed the other two.

From the second floor it was possible to get into the stairwell and they were able to get up to the third floor without incident. That was the floor they had been seeking, and they soon found the laboratory which seemed most promising. This door required the application of Mikkel's crowbar, but they were soon within and the two older explorers hurried toward the shelves of records visible ahead in the dim light from unbroken windows.

They were halfway down the hallway when Lalli made them both jump by shoving the door shut. In the silent building, the sound struck them like a thunderclap. It being impossible to ask him why he had done that, though they could guess, they simply looked at him and then at each other, shrugged, and continued.

“All right,” Sigrun ordered, “pick all the important ones you can carry and let's get out of here.” The silence and Lalli's evident unease was getting to her.

“Slow down, this is going to take a moment.” It would take more than a moment, he thought, for there were an amazing number of records. But at least they seemed to be categorized, so if he could just work out how the cure would be filed … “The vast majority of these binders are most likely of no interest to us. I will have to look for some that are worth carrying out. It is unlikely that I would find something right away in the very first cabinet.”

Picking up a binder, he read its topic: Measles outbreaks 1980-2000. “Huh, look at that,” he muttered. Measles, an extinct disease, had once produced outbreaks so severe that this major hospital had kept records of them.

“So, you did find something right away?”

“Nope. I suggest you make yourselves comfortable.”

Lalli was clearly not comfortable. He prowled along the hallway, peering suspiciously up at the ceiling, at vents, through the small window on the door. Sigrun alternated watching him and watching Mikkel pull out binders and put them back.

Fortunately the Rash had been so called almost from the beginning, and it was not long before Mikkel found binders so labelled. With a sigh of genuine relief — he'd begun to fear that they were in the wrong place and that he'd be fruitlessly searching for days — he gathered up all he could carry, choosing those from late in the epidemic, and stacked them in a box. Arms full, he turned to go. “There, that'll have to do. I think I've gathered the most important ones.”

“Good,” Sigrun answered with a glance at Lalli, disturbed by his obvious unease. “Let's get out of this building then. At least we still have plenty of daylight left.”

Lalli stopped them before they reached the door. Hand out in a pressing gesture to keep them back, dagger drawn, he opened the door and stepped through.

The troll lunged at him from his right. It was low to the ground with numerous multijointed legs, but it was able to heave itself upward, its head almost waist-high. One savage blow, and his dagger went all the way through its head. It was dead before it hit the floor.

“You are one useful pipsqueak to keep around, you know,” Sigrun observed with pleasure. “I might have to steal you and put you in my unit back home when we go back.”

But she spoke too soon. While they were distracted by that troll, a second one had scurried rapidly along the ceiling behind them and was about to drop on the two older explorers when Lalli, turning, cried out a warning. Mikkel spun, saw the gaping maw coming at him, and, hands full, jammed the box of binders into the thing's jaws. The troll, apparently thinking it had gotten a good bite of the intruders, darted away.

“Time to get out of here! Grab the stuff and let's go!” Sigrun ordered. Mikkel spread his empty hands helplessly, furious at himself for his instinctive reaction.

“It —!” Sigrun began, but cut herself off. “Catch that thing!” she ordered Lalli, pointing, and “You handle the stupid papers!” to Mikkel. Humbly, he knelt to gather the papers scattered along the monster's path.

The three pursued the creature through the hospital and up two flights of stairs, Lalli far in the lead, Sigrun behind him, and Mikkel half-crouching even farther back. “Where did that little ferret run off to —!” Sigrun began, reaching an intersection. Without warning, the troll came charging toward her, knocking her to the side but in effect slicing itself apart on her raised dagger. Mikkel, running to her side, immediately pried the dead monster's jaws open to remove the box and the remaining records. “Lalli!” he said sharply. “Where's Lalli?”

Alarmed, she started down the hallway to look, but the scout himself came running back, dagger in one hand and more rescued papers in the other. He stopped in front of Sigrun with a desperate expression. “What?” she asked, “Is there another one coming?” Speech was useless; he attempted gestures. “It's really big?” she guessed, “With lots of arms and fingers! Sharp fangs! And angry crazy eyes!”

It was obvious that this wasn't working. Pulling himself together, the Finn tried one of his few Swedish words. “Gha — Ghosts!”

“Oh,” she answered. And then, “Oh! Right! That's our cue to be somewhere else. Not even us can beat up ghosts, I think.”

“Hmm,” Mikkel replied. In an effort to lighten the mood, “And it's time for lunch and dinner anyway.” With a quick look around for any papers he'd missed, he followed Sigrun, Lalli trailing along almost dancing with impatience. If his hands had not been full, Mikkel would have pulled out his pendant, for it was uncomfortably cold again.

Emil was waiting outside, his face a study in confusion. He opened his mouth, but before he could speak, Sigrun leapt into the tank and shouted, “Step on it, more annoying spirits incoming!” As Tuuri acknowledged the order, the others scrambled inside and the tank pulled away at its rather dismal top speed.

Back in the tank, Lalli put his hands to his head and gave a low moan of pain, but when Emil, thinking to show concern, patted his arm, the little scout elbowed his hand away with a growl and stalked off to a corner. Reynir, meanwhile, had retreated to the corner farthest from the others and was all but shaking with fear despite the protection of his mask. Mikkel turned to assure him that he was not in danger, but was interrupted by Emil.

“Hey. You. You're a sensible person, like I am. You don't really believe in this … superstitious stuff, right?”

“I do not know,” Mikkel answered honestly. What did he really think about the craziness that they'd experienced? He didn't think he believed in the unquiet dead, whatever Reynir might say. Still … “I have never seen definitive proof. But I did work temporarily with a Norwegian crew once, alongside a spiritual healer of theirs. It did seem as if the wounded she tended to recovered to a degree comparable to my own patients. It left me pondering.”

Emil considered his answer for a moment. “Soo …” he replied, “If I understood correctly, you're saying that your medical treatment might be as effective as basically doing nothing?”

“That is the other possibility,” Mikkel acknowledged.

“Congrats, all, on successfully not dying during our last stint together!” the irrepressible Sigrun put in, “Time to order a pickup boat?”

“I will fire up the radio,” Mikkel replied. The pickup boat should have been already in the works, but he suspected that someone back at home base might have found it convenient to delay it a bit until the cure was secured. He wanted the cure at least as much as they did, however, so he did not object to that.

“Think about it,” Sigrun said happily, “Not only are we returning with riches, we might even have a recipe for a vaccine. Or a cure! We're going down in history, boys!”

Mikkel gave her a distracted smile. Now he finally had time to examine the rescued papers while they made their way to the camp site.

“Yeah,” Mikkel said heavily.

The team back in Sweden wanted to know if he had answers for them yet. Sorting the scrambled records, deciphering the stained and sometimes torn pages, he had missed lunch and left his dinner cooling and congealing beside him. But he had the answer.

The team in the tank had read the answer on his face and responded in their own ways. Lalli had wolfed his dinner and gone to bed. Pragmatic Sigrun had finished her dinner and settled down to watch out the windows, her impatience shown only by her hands, which she clasped and unclasped continually. The other three picked at their dinners, casting occasional covert glances at their medic. No one spoke.

As Mikkel cleared his throat to begin, Reynir put aside his bowl and joined Tuuri, his translator, putting a comforting arm around her as they listened.

“There's a lot here that may be useful. Case studies, reports on their research, reports on research in other countries … but the most important for us is this.” He briefly lifted the folder he held. “It's the minutes of the final meeting of the Rash Research Group, which was coordinating all Danish research on the Rash.

“The main researchers reported that they did have a working cure.” There was a slight stir in his audience. “But the cure had an inevitable side effect: complete and irreversible brain death.” The audience sighed softly. “The researchers said they needed two months to identify the problem. They were given two weeks and dismissed. The meeting was adjourned.

“The Steering Committee continued to meet. The Director ordered that in two weeks the cure would be distributed even if — even though — it would kill every patient. Killing every infected person was their last, desperate hope to stop the plague.

“But it was already too late.”

Beside him, Tuuri bravely translated for Reynir in a voice choked with unshed tears. As she finished, the Icelander pulled her close and she buried her face against his shoulder while he rested his cheek on top of her head. The three immunes looked away, unable to face them. The immunes had hoped to bring home the cure for their families, their friends, the world; they had hoped for fame and fortune. The non-immunes had hoped for freedom: freedom from the fear that ever lurked in the backs of their minds; freedom from the laws and customs that both protected and smothered them; freedom just to visit the latrine alone.

But all their hopes were crushed.

“Really?” Sigrun said finally. “They couldn't put up a sign outside that said 'don't waste your time coming inside, we have nothing useful in here'?”

“I'm going to assume future explorers stopping by was not a major concern of theirs,” Mikkel answered drily. “Apologies for the less than celebratory news,” he added in Icelandic for those listening on the radio.

“It's quite all right,” Torbjörn answered with a sigh, “we all knew finding a cure was a long shot. You have salvaged a marvelous collection of books, so as a whole we can easily say this mission has been a success. We've already arranged for a ship with proper quarantine facilities to come pick you up.”

“Finally,” Onni put in from somewhere near the radio.

“It'll be a while before it reaches you, somewhere north of twenty days, they said, but you should be able to reach the pick up location in just a few days. It's one of the coastal outposts set up during the failed reclamation efforts, and there will be still-edible canned goods over there. And fairly comfortable lodging, as far as military shelters go, I've been told.”

With that they had to be content. Mikkel picked up his neglected dinner and began to fuel himself. They had little enough food, and he was unwilling to waste even a single bowl.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

The team forgot their disappointment, leaping to their feet. “It's the scout!” Sigrun said in surprise, gesturing at the perimeter monitor and throwing open the door. Indeed, it was Lalli, who had gone scouting very early, saying only that he felt he'd missed something, and was now returning, banging on the tank with a branch as he ran.

“Translator!” Sigrun called for Tuuri with a broad gesture which nearly smacked the Finnish woman in the face as she was already running forward.

A frantic exchange and, “We've got to go! We're about to be overrun!” Tuuri started for the driver's seat and then hesitated, looking back at Sigrun for permission. Pulling the door to and latching it, the captain ordered, “Go, go, drive!” As the cousins ran for the front of the tank, she pointed to Reynir: “Baggage! Out of the way!” Her thumb jerked over her shoulder needed no translation, and he scooped up the kitten and retreated to the far corner of Mikkel's bunk. “Get ready,” she added to the others unnecessarily as she too ran for the front.

“Sh-should we really try to drive through the night?” Tuuri asked, “What if they catch up to us?”

“I'm sure they will,” Sigrun answered grimly. “We're not trying to escape them. We need a better place to make our stand. Trees are useful for hiding, but garbage if the trolls already know where we are.”

It was late in the day and the night would be the dark of the moon. The tank had powerful driving lights mounted on top for driving at night, but they were fleeing through unscouted terrain. Anything that trapped them, even just delayed them, like another deadfall, a stream too wide to ford, or an overgrown ditch, could be fatal. They had to pick their battlefield before the choice was taken from them.

The sun was near the horizon when Sigrun pointed off the right. “This field here is good enough. Stop here.” The field had recently suffered a wildfire and was quite barren, giving a clear view in all directions.

As soon as they stopped, Mikkel and Emil leapt out and ran to the back compartment to collect more gear. Mikkel was armed with his shotgun, crowbar, and dagger, Emil with his rifle, dagger, and flamethrower, but the Cleanser also had explosives in back with which to rig traps. Sigrun and Lalli would rely on rifles and daggers. The tank was armored but not armed, for the expedition had been organized on a shoestring and it had not been feasible to arm it. The expectation had been that they would only be in the Silent World for a couple of weeks, and if they ran into anything the team could not handle, they would run back to the Öresund base for its protection. All of that had fallen by the wayside with the collapse of the Øresund bridge and now only the skill and courage of the team could save them.

As the sun fell toward the horizon, Mikkel and Emil worked together to rig a perimeter of incendiaries which would light simultaneously when a grossling touched a tripwire. This would, they hoped, burn some, blind or dazzle others, and illuminate all for the gunmen. The tank had perimeter lighting, and Tuuri had been instructed to watch for the incendiaries and, when they were ignited, activate the lighting and retreat to the main compartment, locking the door to the driving compartment behind her, for though the windows were heavy glass, they were weaker than the steel walls and doors which should, they all hoped, suffice to protect the non-immunes.

Sigrun and Lalli were standing guard while the incendiaries were set, but when Mikkel looked up from the work, he found that Lalli was guarding Reynir. Leaving Emil to finish up, he rushed to the Icelander's side, shouting “Why are you outside? In! Now!” Seizing the younger man by the collar, he all but dragged him to the tank and threw him in while the other stumbled towards an explanation: “I — runes — might help —”

“Idiot child,” Mikkel growled, closing the door and checking that it was locked. If the grosslings had come while the non-immune was outside … he saw the so-called protection runes drawn in the ashy mud of the field outside Emil's perimeter and shook his head in disgust.

“That's all we can do to prepare,” Sigrun concluded, studying their preparations and shrugging at the runes. “It's time we assume battle positions and ask the gods to let us see tomorrow.”

On that cheery note, the four climbed on top of the tank as the sun began to set.

The sun set in glorious banners of red and gold that would have held every eye in normal conditions, but no one glanced at it, their attention focused on the landscape around them, particularly to the south. They showed no light, made no sound, as they waited in the growing darkness. It was possible, though not likely, that the grosslings would lose track of them.

As he sat alert and silent, sightless in the darkest night, Mikkel sought to understand what was happening, but had only questions. Where did these grosslings come from? Did they follow us from the city? From the hospital? But it was broad daylight! None of us saw them, so they were far back … how did they follow us? Trolls are mindless – get away, hide, keep quiet, and they will often forget you were there. Why — how — could they follow us so far? A pack, staying together for kilometers … what is happening here? Could they have become … intelligent, here in deserted Denmark, undisturbed for near a century? And if they are, here in this little part of the continent, what is happening further south in warmer weather where the monsters are presumably more numerous and more active?

His anxious thoughts broke off as fire flared before them. “But … I … did not set up explosives over there,” Emil said, bewildered.

“Start picking them off while they're startled by the fire!” Sigrun was far too practical to worry about what had caused the flames. Suiting actions to words, she opened fire and the other three joined her.

It was just like Kastrup for Mikkel: more and ever more grosslings flowing in, climbing over the bodies of the fallen, mindlessly bent on killing. Too many to shoot, too many for the incendiaries and explosives, the grosslings kept coming. The tank had to be protected, so the four defenders jumped down, Mikkel landing with his heavy steel-shanked boots squarely on top of a wide multi-legged troll. They spread out, trying to shield each other's flanks, but there were really too few of them for the task.

Dimly lit by Emil's dying flares and the tank's lights, the scene was a vision of Hell, and the sound was indescribable, shrieks and squeals, moans and roars; bubbling, grinding noises. Trolls and Beasts flooded in, and it was only their lack of coordinated attacks that allowed the team to survive. The creatures got in one another's ways, pushed one another aside, spoiled one another's attacks, and all the time the humans were killing, and killing, and killing. Between attacks, Mikkel tried to keep an eye on Emil, off to his right, and Sigrun to his left. Lalli was behind the tank, and he could only hope the little Finn was still alive.

Mikkel saw Sigrun stumble, drop her dagger, hold her arm; a troll struck at her but its blow was deflected by another troll lunging in; he saw her knocked flying towards him; another troll turned to attack …

His body moved faster than his mind. In the space of a single thought, he was there, his crowbar took the troll's head off, his heavy boots smashed another, and he was pulling her to her feet.

“Did you get the slithering one?” she asked urgently over the uproar.

“I've gotten a fair number of them,” he answered grimly, turning immediately to deal with another. “Not anywhere near enough to thin the herd, it seems.” He passed her his dagger since she had lost her own. “We might be slightly outnumbered here.” She might not have heard over the cacophony, and in any case there was nothing for it but to keep fighting.

They separated again, seeking to keep the grosslings away from the tank and themselves, Mikkel again trying to keep track both of Sigrun, fighting once more, and of Emil, efficiently setting monsters afire, conserving fuel as best he could. And so Mikkel was looking directly at the Cleanser when it happened.

A gout of flame belched forth from the flamethrower, causing Emil to stumble backwards with a cry. The flame grew … and grew … and grew. Before them loomed a vast bird of flame, twenty meters across or more, which circled once ponderously around the battle, chanting in a voice like the tolling of a great bell, while below its wings the grosslings shrieked and burned and died.

Mikkel stood still while his skeptical worldview shriveled and died along with the monsters. His mind and body seemed paralyzed and he could do nothing but watch the firebird in awe.

The circle complete, the firebird sprang into the sky, higher and higher until it was a mere spark. Then it was gone and Mikkel stood in the real world of flickering light and stinking smoke from burning monsters.

There was a shot from behind him: Lalli, then, still fighting. Mikkel pulled himself together as best he could, looked around for live enemies, saw the other two doing likewise. Stunned as they all were by the awesome intervention of the firebird, they had to attend to the mundane realities of survival. But only the humans were left alive on the battlefield.

Feeling a tugging at his sleeve, Mikkel turned sharply to find Lalli pulling at him with an expression of desperation on his normally impassive face. They ran together back to the tank.

Mikkel clung to the door for a moment, his knees threatening to fail him at the sight, a sight that would return to him in many dark hours: the heavy oaken floorboards thrust apart by great force; the long, sinuous troll stretched dead across the floor, head-shot by Lalli; the kitten still tearing at it in feline fury; Reynir cowering against the back wall; … and Tuuri.

Tuuri staring at him with wide, terrified eyes, her right hand holding her left shoulder, and the blood ...

The medic, the soldier, stepped up. “Lalli, get Sigrun. Reynir, are you hurt?”

“N-n-n—”

“Go to the radio compartment and close the door. Keep your mask on. Tuuri, child, are you bitten?” He had to force out the last word.

“S-scratch —”

That was … slightly less terrible. Bites always carried the Rash; sometimes scratches didn't. Sometimes.

“All right. Move your hand away, don't touch anything, let me take care of this.” His body moved without conscious control, pulling out the first aid kit, cutting away the sleeve, anesthetizing, cleaning, disinfecting, and stitching the wound, while all the time his mind struggled to deal with the situation.

Trolls followed us, hunted us, hunted Tuuri … oh, Tuuri … and the firebird! I saw magic, magic in the world, magic with my own eyes!

It was a miracle, but we need another miracle, Tuuri needs a miracle …

All my skepticism — I was a fool and Maja and Hilmar are right … are they right? Does magic imply gods? If there are gods, please, please, any god, every god, please send Tuuri a miracle!

Oh, none of this can be happening! It's a bad dream, it's a nightmare, it must be, and I'll wake up in the morning and shake my head at the thought, and Tuuri will be fine …

Only it's not a nightmare, no, no, it's all too real …

The work was finished, the best job he'd ever done, every stitch precisely placed. As he turned to draw a bowl of warm water, Tuuri began to speak in a stunned monotone. “We heard you fighting. Kisu tried to warn us, but, but … and it came up through the floor. She jumped on it, she fought it, she distracted it, she saved us … or … or … Reynir … its feet … I tried to duck but my shoulder … and then Lalli was there. And then you …”

He took her right hand in his and gently cleaned it, scrubbing under the nails, removing every trace of blood, disinfecting it carefully, as if he could wash away the truth. Behind him, Sigrun and Emil had dragged away the carcass and Emil was placing the top of a crate over the damaged floorboards.

There was nothing more that anyone could do. No one even spoke. The mystery of the troll behavior, the desperate battle, the miracle of the firebird, all was forgotten in the horror of Tuuri's injury. Lalli did not go out scouting, instead sitting silently beside his cousin, shoulder to shoulder. Finally the exhausted fighters fell into their respective bunks and the non-immunes did the same, but it was long before anyone slept.

Mikkel served breakfast as always. Despite what had happened, they would have to move on, and to do so they would have to eat. They picked dolefully at their food, but they did in the end eat it all.

It was Tuuri who broke the silence. “Lalli said that Kokko saved us last night.”

“Kokko?” Sigrun asked.

“The firebird, the eagle of flame, Lalli said you all saw it.”

“Oh, yeah! I didn't know the name. It was amazing! The most awesomest thing I've ever seen! It burned up all the trolls …” Her enthusiasm trailed off a little as she remembered that the firebird hadn't burned up quite all the trolls.

“I wish I could have seen it. Kokko hasn't manifested in … oh, such a long time. And to manifest here, all the way across the seas! What a wonder!”

It was a wonder, Mikkel thought, and a miracle that I shouldn't question, but couldn't it have gotten the one that was slithering under the tank after the non-immunes? … slithering? Someone said 'slithering' … who was it? Someone last night … Sigrun! Sigrun asked me if I'd got the 'slithering one'. And I thought … no, I didn't think. I just went on … I could have … I could have, should have, done something!

The realization was too much for him. He stood silently, walked outside, paced around through the ashes for a long time. So many ashes.

So many ashes. Corporal Madsen walked though the ashes beyond the barricade in the bleak mid-Winter day. The second soldier had died just an hour before, though Mikkel had truly believed he would make it. As Corporal he had arranged return of the body to Bornholm where the man would be cremated, like so many others. His body could not transmit the Rash, that was known, but the fear had been passed down, generation to generation, since the Great Dying. Those killed by grosslings were always cremated.

So many ashes. Within the barricade, the Cleansers had burned down every building. It was standard practice: the Hunters killed every grossling they could find and the Cleansers burned down anything that might shelter a grossling through the cruel winter. It was standard practice and it worked and they had no better way, but still they were burning down everything that their ancestors had built up through centuries of struggle.

So many ashes. These were the ashes of the grosslings. They were mostly trolls, and so had once been innocent men and women, transformed by a merciless disease into ravening monsters. Had they known what they had become? Impossible to guess, but surely they were at peace now, and properly cremated.

So many ashes.

Duty can be neither delayed nor denied.

I made a mistake, yes, and Tuuri is paying for it. But she is alive and so are the other four, and we cannot count on another miracle to keep them that way. If we are to survive, we must all do our duty. No matter the guilt I bear, I must do my duty.

And I will.

Mikkel took a deep breath, straightened, looked around for the other members of the team. Lalli, returned from scouting, stood nearby … but not too nearby … alert, on guard, doing his duty. Emil, heavily armed and carrying the kitten, prowled around looking for live grosslings. Close to the tank only the humans had survived, but farther out there were grosslings still living, burned, maimed, menacing … suffering. Sigrun was leaning against the tank, staring at the ground; she required his attention. The non-immunes inside the tank, however, were his first responsibility.

He climbed into the tank, muttered to Reynir, “Put on your mask,” and led him to the sleeping quarters. Behind him, he heard Torbjörn on the radio telling Tuuri, “I'm so sorry …” The medic in him felt guilty that the patient had had to break the news, but the man in him was relieved that he had not had to do it, which thought of course made him feel more guilty for his selfishness. Firmly squelching the emotion, he efficiently stripped Reynir's bunk, passed the bedclothes to him, rolled up the thin mattress and, arms wrapped about the bundle, led the way to the back compartment.

Fool! I should have opened this door as I passed it. I'm slipping … I must pay better attention … we must all pay attention if we are to survive. Since both men's hands were full, he had to put down the mattress in the least filthy nearby spot in order to open the door. Brushing off the ashes with distaste, he spread the mattress with the grimy side down, and gestured for Reynir to make it up. Mournfully, wordlessly, the Icelander set to work. This would never do.

“Reynir, stop acting so gloomy. We know nothing for certain, and a low morale will only distract us.” Those words were meant for himself as well. “For now, we should act under the assumption that Tuuri is well.” Pulling out a roll of duct tape — duct tape had, of course, survived the end of the world — he began to seal up seams between the front wall of the compartment and the walls. As the expedition was being organized, the wall had been hastily added so as to form two compartments, allowing possibly contaminated explorers to be separated from non-immune Tuuri, and the rushed job had been less than careful. If she was indeed infected, her very breath would become a threat to the other non-immune some forty-eight or so hours after infection. “And for your protection, you will stay on this side of the vehicle, and Tuuri will stay on hers. When you need to go outside, let me know, and I will make sure the two of you do not cross paths.”

“Um, so … we're really acting under the assumption that she's not okay, then?”

“One can act under two assumptions at once.”

Leaving the younger man to contemplate his new quarters, Mikkel set out to check on Sigrun, who was leaning morosely against the tank, holding her arm in pain.

“How's the arm?” Receiving only a grunt in answer, “Allow me to examine it," he half-asked, half-ordered. Gaze still fixed on the ground, she slipped off her jacket, offered her arm wordlessly. Pulling up the sleeve, he found that just since that morning, the flesh around the wound had turned an angry red, swollen, and hot to his gentle touch: with pain, the four classic symptoms of infection.

"It's gotten worse, fast.”

"I missed that troll," Sigrun said. "It was right in front of me and I dropped my dagger! I dropped it! Like the greenest recruit!"

"And you told me about the troll, and I didn't go after it. I didn't realize —"

Sigrun sighed. "It's not your fault. Trolls all around us, no time to think … it's not your fault."

"Nor yours. You can't fight well with a wound like that." He clenched his fists in frustration. "It just isn't healing. I don't know why not. We've been so careful with it. I have another antibiotic; we'll have to try that, but I don't know …"

"Damn it! I can't believe this stupid infection happened now, of all times. And the poor kid —"

"What matters now is taking care of Tuuri and getting that infection under control."

Sigrun closed her eyes and hung her head. "Talking about it won't change what happened. We just need to go on."

She strode away, leaving Mikkel alone with his own lingering guilt. He should have got that troll, whatever Sigrun said. Through the open door behind him, he heard Tuuri, still on the radio: “Sigh. Okay, let me speak with Onni now.”

“Uh …” That was Torbjörn again. “I — I don't know how to tell you this, but … we think your brother was struck by lightning last night … somehow … inside our house.”

“He clearly wasn't hit by lightning.” That thick accent had to indicate Taru.

“He's in stable condition, but unresponsive. I'm so sorry.”

“Oh … Good!” Mikkel was roused from his thoughts to turn and stare into the tank at Tuuri's response.

“Huh?” That was several voices, and Mikkel's might have been one of them.

“N-no, no, I didn't mean that Onni being 'hit by lightning' was good! It's just that … he doesn't handle worrying news well. It's better if he doesn't know. Actually, if he wakes up, please don't tell him. I'll tell him.”

Bang! Emil and the kitten had found a live troll. Looking up, Mikkel saw Sigrun stalking up to the Swede. “Are you still not done cleaning up?”

“Excuse me?”

“Give me the cat! I'll scan the place twice as fast.”

“No, I'm doing my job. And your yelling is scaring her!”

Alarmed by the angry raised voices, the kitten struggled from his arms and fled to … Lalli. The scout, who had never wanted anything to do with the feline, muttered something irritable to her, but then picked her up and buried his face in her fur. Sigrun turned on her heel and walked away toward the surrounding trees while Emil looked around and began the slower process of scanning for live grosslings with only his own senses.

Watching all this, Mikkel sighed. It would take a lot to pull the team back together.

What is Sigrun thinking? She must accept that things just went wrong for which Tuuri is paying the price. Not her fault that she dropped the dagger. And in the heat of battle, massively outnumbered, perhaps this would have happened anyway. Or even worse; perhaps something else could have slipped through that killed both of them.

I must talk to her again. She can't … we can't … function well while flaying ourselves with guilt.

The talk would have to wait, however. Lalli had scouted a path for them, and they had to get moving.

Moving was easier said than done. Attempting to drive, Tuuri found that neither tread responded to the controls: the troll had ripped through the wiring on its way into the tank. Sigrun took charge of Reynir, allowing him to spend some time outside his tiny quarters, while Lalli stood guard and Mikkel, Emil, and Tuuri worked to repair the damage.

Half a dozen severed wires in her hands, Tuuri shook her head, telling Mikkel, “Those don't look like the right ones either. Do you see any others?” Looking down into the hole, seeing an abundance of broken wires, all much alike to his eyes, Mikkel obediently taped his current handful of wires to the side of the hole, and fished around inside some more.

“I'm sorry!” she cried in frustration, “This is going to take so long to fix!”

“It's quite all right,” Mikkel told her patiently. “It's quite all right. We'll approach this one step at a time, and it will come together.”

“Can I leave?” Emil asked, “I have no idea about any of this.” Mikkel dismissed him with a wave and pulled up another wire. As that too was rejected, he taped it down and tried again. And again. And again.

“That one!” she said triumphantly, and he passed her a wire identical to those she had rejected. With the first connection made, the next followed fairly quickly. Hours later, every connection made, Tuuri tested the tank and confirmed it to be repaired, but with the sun already setting, it was impossible to depart.

How did she know which wires to join? They all looked the same to me … her records say she has “a mage's touch with machinery”; is this what they meant? I didn't believe it … but then I didn't believe in magic. Not then. But magic is real, I know it since I saw the firebird. Maybe she really is a mage, like her cousin and brother.

Her brother. Onni, the Finnish mage. Onni who was “struck by lightning” inside the house, the very night that the Finnish firebird saved us. That is not a coincidence. Somehow, some way, Onni summoned the firebird. I owe him my life, for what little that is worth, and the lives of the others, which are so infinitely precious. Somehow, somewhere, someday, I will repay him.

And perhaps Mikkel too had a touch of magic in his soul, because he was right and he did repay Onni one day, but that was much later, in such a place and under such circumstances as he could never have imagined.

“It's my watch. Go away.”

“No, I think we should talk now that the others are asleep.”

“The scout's not asleep. He's running around out there somewhere.”

“True, but he can't understand us so it doesn't matter if he overhears.” Mikkel took a deep breath. “Please.”

“Okay, whatever. Talk if you want. It doesn't matter,” Sigrun answered, turning away with a miserable shrug. Still unable to move from the site of the battle, they hadn't been willing to rely on Lalli and the tank's sensors and had set watches for the night, so she was standing the second watch.

“We made mistakes last night. But there have been a lot of mistakes, starting with the sponsors allowing Tuuri to come in the first place —”

“She wanted to come.”

“Of course she did; we're all volunteers. But she should not have been allowed. Putting that aside, the bridge should have been inspected and repaired before we were ever sent across it. And, given the condition of everything in the Silent World, there should have been some kind of rescue plan.”

“Yeah, well, lots of stuff went wrong. So what's your point?”

“Just that the mistakes last night wouldn't have mattered if not for a whole series of mistakes before that. Many of which were not even our mistakes.”

“You want me to say it wasn't my fault? That I didn't drop my dagger when it counted? Is that what you want? Then just go away, because it was my fault, and I know it.”

“Look, I think I understand why you didn't complain when the infection got worse so suddenly. You're a troll-hunter, and a troll-hunter doesn't whine about injuries on a hunt, does she?”

“No …”

“And she especially doesn't whine about injuries to a … non-combatant.”

“Uh …”

“A non-combatant. Like me.”

“I … didn't trust you as a fighter. Last night you fought good. As good as the others. I should have listened to Uncle Trond. He said I could trust you, but Dad read your records and he said you weren't a good soldier.”

That actually surprised a chuckle out of him. Nearby, invisible in the forest, Lalli paused at the sound. The big man and the captain were talking and they weren't angry anymore. That made him feel a little better, and he slipped silently away on his patrol.

“Oh, I wasn't a good soldier! But not because I couldn't fight,” he added soberly. “I … didn't obey orders very well.”

“What, you were a mutinist risk for them too?” There was just a hint of amusement creeping into her voice.

“Just so! They kicked me out after a while for that. But you see now that I'm not a non-combatant. And Sigrun, this isn't a troll-hunt. We're stuck here for a long time, and you must trust your teammates — trust me — to do our jobs. Telling me you're hurting isn't whining. It's letting me do my job. You can't just rely on yourself.”

“Yeah, okay. But last night … Tuuri …”

“The mistakes last night wouldn't have mattered but for a series of mistakes and unforeseen events. Who ever heard of grosslings hunting people for kilometers and hours in broad daylight, in the winter? A crowd like that should have broken up, wandered off, retreated into shelter, squabbled, long before it reached us. If they'd acted like grosslings have always acted, none of this would have happened. It was not a mistake to expect them to act as they have always acted before.

“And I'm worried, Sigrun. For decades everyone has known how grosslings act. We were all taught as children, we all teach children, that if you run into a grossling, you hide, stand still, stay silent, and it might well forget you and wander off. But if they aren't acting that way anymore, if they're starting to organize as these were organized … how can the human race stand against them?”

“There are so many of them,” she whispered in horror, looking directly at him for the first time. “They'd overwhelm us. We're only able to kill them because they're alone or in little groups.”

“If they're able to organize, we might be driven off the continent entirely. We might not be able to hold anything but Iceland and maybe Bornholm.”

She stared at him for a moment and then managed a chuckle of her own. “You know, you're the only guy I've ever met who could cheer me up by telling me that things are worse than I ever imagined! So, you've made your point. Are you going to bed now?”

“No, no reason to. I have the next watch and a few minutes sleep won't help.” And I'd probably have nightmares anyway. “I'll just watch with you. If you don't mind.”

She didn't mind, and they finished her watch in companionable silence. As she left him to his watch, there was a slight bounce in her step that had been missing all day.

Having officially relieved Sigrun, Mikkel quietly prowled around the tank, every sense alert. He could see, though only for a short distance as the perimeter lights, normally kept off at night so as not to attract grosslings, were set very dim and red in the profound night of the dark of the moon. His sharp ears caught the sound of small things moving in the underbrush and he raised his crowbar, ready for battle, but they scuttled away. Normal animals, then, and harmless.

Faint and far off, he heard the howl of a wolf and the answer of another. Once, a man alone in the darkness, hearing those howls, would have feared them. Mikkel found comfort in them. Fellow mammals, alive here in grossling-haunted Denmark, were a sign that the world was not lost.

Not yet at least.

And, of course, that thought brought him back to the battle, and Tuuri. He'd meant what he said to Sigrun, and he knew in his head that feelings of guilt were unwarranted and would only make his job more difficult. Nevertheless, he could not shake the sense of guilt even as he repeated to himself what Christer had told him long before.

Viktor Nordin was dead. Mikkel had been fighting the troll to his right, and a troll had slipped by to his left. He had turned too slowly, struck too late, and Viktor was fatally slashed across the throat. Mikkel killed that troll, and the next troll, and so many more, but he couldn't bring Viktor back.

After the battle, Mikkel sat lost and silent on his cot, asking himself over and over why he hadn't turned sooner, why he hadn't seen the thing approaching …

Christer sat down beside him. “Blaming yourself?”

“My mistake.”

“No. In a battle, you can't see everything at once, you can't fight everywhere at once, you can't save everyone. If you'd seen the troll heading for Viktor, maybe you wouldn't have seen the troll headed for you. Maybe you'd both have died, or maybe we'd all have died, who knows? No one knows. No one can know. All you can do in battle, is do your best. And you did that.”

It helped, a little, but Viktor's eyes — bewildered, beseeching — still accused him in his dreams. A week later, Christer died too, and his agonized face joined the parade of nightmares.

Mikkel turned away from the memories, looked out into the darkness to the south, hoped just a little for a grossling that he could actually fight … but there was nothing. He continued his patrol.

Dawn was just beginning to break as Emil came out, yawning. Seeing Mikkel, he hurried over as if to speak, but then hesitated.

“What's on your mind?”

“Well … ah … we're reasonable men, you and I … but what happened …”

Mikkel waited patiently.

“I don't … I don't understand. I don't know what to think. The firebird — Kokko, she called it? — that was magic. But magic … isn't real. I've always believed it isn't real … only it is real. I saw it. Mikkel, what am I supposed to do? Should I be putting out offerings for the Good Folk? Throwing salt over my shoulder? Drawing pictures like Reynir?” He gestured toward the tank and, in the dim light of morning, Mikkel saw runes drawn in charcoal. “Who or, or, what should I thank for Kokko saving us? Should I be making sacrifices to Kokko? Or to Odin? If magic is real, are all the gods real and all the superstitions true?”

“I don't know about gods, but I certainly don't believe that all the superstitions can be true. And don't waste any of my salt; that was hard to come by. I can tell you whom to thank for Kokko: Onni sent it.”

“Onni …” The younger man was clearly trying to place Onni in his dimly-remembered pantheon.

“Tuuri's brother.” At the other's doubtful look he went on, “When Lalli collapsed, Tuuri told me he'd overexerted his mage abilities. Onni's supposed to be a mage too, and that night when Kokko came, he collapsed. That can't be a coincidence. He sent Kokko to us.”

After a thoughtful pause, Emil responded, “I suppose it's good to know that that … entity … was sent by a human. Better than thinking that gods took action, I guess. I mean, if gods helped us then we'd … have to do something … I don't know.”

Mikkel resisted the urge to pat him on the head consolingly. He had no real idea what to think either, except that magic was real and Onni was a powerful mage. Therefore Lalli and Reynir were mages as well, and therefore …

He turned to look again at the symbols drawn on the tank, comparing them mentally to the scrap of paper which Reynir had given him as protection against ghosts. Similar, but not quite the same, he thought. Was Reynir still attempting to protect them against ghosts? Or against grosslings?

“I think I'd better let Reynir out before Tuuri comes out,” he said finally and, suiting actions to words, headed to the back compartment.

Reynir had the back door open and was watching for him with a worried expression. “Is it all right for me to come out? Is … everyone okay?”

“Yes, yes. Come along now.” As they headed for the latrine, “Did you think something might have happened?”

“Well, the ghosts … I was afraid the runes might not entirely protect us.”

Mikkel firmly squelched a lifetime of skepticism. “Why so? You drew them last night.”

“I did but …”

“You need to explain this to me. I need to understand what's going on with the ghosts.”

“I thought you don't believe in ghosts.”

“I don't believe. I accept, on the basis of clear evidence, that there are … entities that you and Lalli can see, that the rest of us can't see, but that are capable of harming us. You call them 'ghosts' so we'll use that word. If we've run into more of them, I need to understand what's going on. And especially how we can fight them.”

“I don't think we can fight them. At least I can't.”

“All right, look, take care of business and we'll go back to your quarters, and you'll tell me the whole story.”

It started in Kastellet — well, no, it was before Kastellet, when I saw the ghosts in that first place, the plaza. That night I dreamed … it was the kind of dream that I've started having here. It was like home, and there were sheep … and there was the dog.

The dog wanted me to follow so I did and he took me to the tank. I turned around and the ghosts were there; they attacked me — it was so scary — and I woke up.

Then you went to Kastellet and we followed. When you went into that building, I saw them. They were ghosts like the first ones but so angry and hate-filled. They were reaching for you, but you were in the sunlight; they couldn't quite touch you, but I was so afraid that you would go farther in …

Anyway, that evening I saw them coming through the shadows just like in the dream and, well, you know all that.

We got away and I thought it was all over. Except … after a while I started having that feeling you have, you know, like someone's looking at you, and it kept nagging at me, just a little more every day. It was during the blizzard that I realized what it was: the ghosts were following us. I think they have trouble crossing running water — that's what the stories say, anyway — so I guess that slowed them down a lot. That's when I came up with that first rune but it didn't work very well.

Um, I found that out later.

Anyway, after we raided the antique shop I had another dream. My dog led me to this old temple and I got Onni to come with me because I thought it might be dangerous alone. But it wasn't dangerous at all. It was all full of light, and there was this nice old priestess lady there. She said she was dead but she was waiting for someone, waiting to lead them on to where they should go. The afterlife, I mean. So she can help me with the ghosts if, well, if I can find her. I've been watching for her temple but I haven't seen anything like it. I'm sure if we got close to it, then I'd know but we haven't …

Right, the ghosts. I felt they were getting closer and closer, but crossing the big bridge slowed them down more than us. Then we got to the hospital, and Lalli said there were ghosts in there, but when he tried to use my rune, it just caught fire. And Emil's rune was in his pocket and it caught fire too!

Oh, yeah, I forgot you'd know about that. Of course you'll be fixing it. But it wasn't his fault at all.

Anyway, then we camped and we had to move and all. Lalli dragged me out — it wasn't my idea to be out there, really! — and he wanted me to draw runes, so I did, all around the tank. They'd catch fire if the ghosts tried to cross, and it seems like light and fire keep them back so that would help even if the runes didn't really drive them away.

Trolls? No, the runes wouldn't catch fire if trolls touched them. Only ghosts. But once they were burning, they'd burn trolls too, I guess.

Lalli was so scared that I thought you guys wouldn't be able to stop them, and then you couldn't fight the ghosts anyway, so I tried to warn Onni we were in danger. By magic, I mean. I couldn't tell if that worked, except he must have sent the firebird, so it did.

During the battle, I … felt … the ghosts from Kastellet. It's like … it's like when you hear someone's footsteps, and you know who it is even though you can't see them. I know the ghosts from Kastellet were there. Maybe others too. But all the fighting and then the firebird must have driven them off.

Then yesterday Lalli gave me a bunch of paper and a pencil, and he had this little drawing of what he wanted. It wasn't real clear except he'd drawn this fire with a big X through it, so I reckoned he wanted a rune against ghosts that wouldn't catch fire. I mean, the rune wouldn't catch fire. So I drew a bunch of runes as best I could, and he took them away. He came back with just one and gave me a charred stick, so I drew that one on the doors to keep the ghosts away.

But then last night, the ghosts … spoke to me. They said the rune wouldn't protect us forever and they'd take everyone around me and follow me forever … I won't be able to go home …

I tried to find the old priestess lady but I couldn't, and Onni said he couldn't help either, and I don't know what to do …

So here we are and that's what's happened with the ghosts and that's why I was worried about you guys.

Leaving Reynir in his quarters, Mikkel set to work preparing breakfast, but his mind was far away.

Magic is real, mages are real, and Reynir … Reynir knew the ghosts were about to attack. I have to believe that Reynir is a mage, and that his perceptions are valid. He says his runes wouldn't respond to trolls, but I saw a fire flare up beyond Emil's perimeter.

He checked his memory of the location of Reynir's runes and the location of that first fire. Yes, to the best of his ability, he could confirm that the fire had corresponded to a rune.

There was no grossling close to that fire. I didn't think about it then, with grosslings flooding in on all sides, but there certainly was no grossling there. But then … that means there was a ghost there. Ghosts with the grosslings. Ghosts that followed us all the way from … Kastellet.

Ghosts that I stirred up in Kastellet! I! Quite suddenly his mind made one of those intuitive connections that had made him so valuable to the General.

The grosslings didn't follow us. The ghosts followed us and drove the grosslings before them.

The ghosts that I stirred up in Kastellet drove the grosslings to attack us and to infect Tuuri.

Overwhelmed by guilt, Mikkel stared blankly at the woods, his thoughts whirling while his hands continued mechanically to chop vegetables.

I, in my arrogance, went to Kastellet and stirred up these murderous ghosts. All my fault …

Mikkel was, as Emil had said, a reasonable man. After several minutes he managed to pull himself together and think more clearly.

But … if I had not gone that day, someone would have gone the next day. Sigrun, of course, and either Emil or me. We weren't persuaded to bypass Odense; we couldn't possibly have been persuaded to bypass Kastellet, and there was no reason that we knew of to bypass it anyway. Even if we'd thought of ghosts as a possibility — and why would we? — we'd have thought them as harmless as the previous batch.

If Sigrun had gone, if we'd officially explored Kastellet, Reynir most certainly would not have been allowed to go. Without Reynir begging me to leave, would I have stopped when I found the package? Or might I — or one of the others — have gone farther in? Gone in out of the sunlight? Gone where the ghosts could reach us?

Guilt wrestled with reason, and reason slowly achieved a fragile victory.

We could not have anticipated this. I could not have anticipated this. Kastellet was a trap, a trap that we would inevitably have fallen into, being who and where we were. I fell into it, yes, and all of this has followed, but if I had not fallen in, the result would have been the same or maybe worse. The ghosts would still have been stirred up, and maybe they could have attacked someone then, without Reynir to call upon Onni for help.

Beating myself up over something that would have happened anyway, will only make it harder to do my duty. And I will do my duty.

With new resolve, he looked down to find the soup simmering, almost ready, and his hands, his traitor hands with their dozens of scars old and new from mishaps with knives and even forks, uninjured from his inattention. He was distracted from this surprising sight as Sigrun and Tuuri emerged from the tank, and his heart ached to see Tuuri, formerly an irrepressible fount of cheer, sad and quiet. Unable to look at her, he began setting out bowls and spoons. His first duty was breakfast.

Their progress to the pickup point was very slow, the tank never moving much faster than walking and often slower. They had dismantled one of the crates and used the pieces to cover the damage to the undercarriage, but that was now a weak point that had to be considered at all times. Tuuri drove slowly, watching for anything that might catch and tear, and the immunes had sometimes to remove obstacles or carefully guide her around those that could not be removed. On occasion they simply had to backtrack, unable to work their way through.

Mikkel cleaned. He cleaned everything, the team's clothing, the bedclothes, the interior of the tank; chores gave his hands something to do and allowed him to forget himself for a while. He organized baths on those days when their camp had plenty of water and fuel, and the team gladly took advantage of the opportunities, except of course for Lalli, who nevertheless silently acquiesced without being bribed. Mikkel was unsure whether the little scout had decided to follow the customs of the team or was simply too discouraged to object.

Lalli's snares seldom caught anything, all the tuna fish was consumed, and Mikkel was becoming worried about malnutrition. Both Sigrun and Lalli made bows for themselves and went hunting when the tank was going particularly slowly, but game was scarce and it was cause for celebration when either of them came back with a squirrel.

Sigrun's arm was not getting much worse but not getting much better either, and Mikkel was worried about the possibility that the infection might not be vulnerable to the antibiotics that they had available. Malnutrition and overwork wouldn't help there either.

Lalli was exhausting himself, scouting ahead, hunting, and checking their back trail. Both from him (via Tuuri) and from Reynir, Mikkel learned that the ghosts were still following. Occasional grossling attacks seemed to be normal encounters; the ghosts appeared to have run out of grosslings. The runes on the tank were renewed every evening by Reynir.

Besides gathering fuel at each campsite, Emil appointed himself Reynir's keeper and, taking the kitten with him, let Reynir out several times a day, the two of them walking behind the tank for hours when they could. Mikkel joined them when he could find no chores to deal with, offering his services as translator, but to no avail as they seemed to have little or nothing to say.

After the first couple of days, Tuuri managed a forced, somewhat fragile, cheer that resembled, if one didn't look too closely, her old attitude. The rest of the team did their best to avoid any topic which might distress her, which under the circumstances meant that no one talked much at all.

And so the days passed.

They were five days out from the attack when the tank broke down again.

“Tuuri, please ask Lalli to go into that town and look for fishing gear.”

“I'm going to fix this!”

“I know that,” Mikkel answered, trying to soothe without sounding like it, “but we're completely out of tuna and the hunting hasn't been good. That river over there had a reputation as a good river for fishing. I'd really like Lalli and Emil to catch us some fish while you're working.”

“I … I suppose it will take that long to fix. I'll tell him.” Lalli departed without complaint, but when he returned empty-handed several hours later, Mikkel had not the heart to send him forth again.

Having crawled under the tank and spent all day checking and repairing connections, Tuuri reported unhappily, “It still won't start. There must be more damage farther forward, but I'll fix that tomorrow, really.”

“That's all right,” Mikkel told her gently. “I don't believe anyone else could have kept it running this long, and I do believe that you will get it running again.”

“Keep at it, kid,” Sigun put in somewhat encouragingly, while Emil simply shrugged and addressed himself to his supper. Though they set watches for the night, they were undisturbed.

The next morning, Lalli presented Mikkel with a scrap of paper on which he had drawn a crude sort of building with a blank rectangle above it. Swiftly grasping the intent, the Dane had to stop and consider before responding. After a moment, in the rectangle he carefully printed the Danish word for “sport”, and in a second rectangle, the word for “fish”. Lalli examined the result, nodded, and departed at a run. Mikkel turned to scrubbing the pots and dishes.

Lalli returning an hour later with some ancient but usable fishing gear, the young men were sent off to the river and came back that afternoon with a bucket full of fish and Emil hooked in the back. Disinfecting the wound, Mikkel was only relieved that neither had been hooked in the face, and at least they had several days' worth of fish.

“There you are,” he told Emil, slapping a small bandage on the injury.

“Why do we have to do this?” the other asked plaintively, twisting uncomfortably. “Are we about to run out of food?”

“No, no, there is no need to worry about that,” Mikkel answered almost truthfully. “I only need these to supplement the portion of conventional ingredients in our meals.”

“What … does that even mean? What exactly are you putting in that?” Emil glared suspiciously at the pot simmering innocently over the campfire.

“I guarantee that nothing I feed you is inedible.” And supper will be much better, he thought, with fried fish instead of — well, in addition to — this awful soup.

Emil accepted his lunch with a grimace; Lalli simply ignored his share, turning toward the tank. This was not to be tolerated. Mikkel took the last remaining cookies from his stash and, seizing the little scout by the scruff of the neck, forced them into his mouth.

“I'm well aware,” he lectured in Danish, which might as well have been Martian for all the Finn understood, “that you've been entering some level of depression as of late, but if you think I'll allow you to express that by not eating under my watch, you're gravely mistaken.” Too shocked to resist, the scout swallowed the cookies, accepted the bowl that was pressed into his hands, and began numbly to spoon soup into his mouth. Any urge he might have felt to throw it in Mikkel's face was deterred by the big Dane's stern expression.

The tank was still not fixed, and Tuuri was still tracing wires, trying to find the fault. She accepted her share of lunch and consumed it rapidly without looking away from the engine, then immediately turned back to her task.

Taking Reynir's share into the back compartment, Mikkel found the Icelander lying on the floor, staring blankly at the ceiling. “Lunch is ready,” he announced, “There you go.” The other accepted the bowl, thanking him politely as always but in a very subdued tone.

“I will take you for a walk in three hours.” Emil had not been available to escort Reynir and so he had been cooped up in his cramped quarters since early morning.

“Sure,” Reynir answered glumly, staring at his soup without making any effort to eat it.

Mikkel waited, but when the other said nothing more, he prompted, “Am I to conclude that you too are now depressed?”

“What? No! I'm not depressed! I've just had so much time to think. And I've realized that everything would have been different if I had just stayed home, and now all I feel is crushing regret and helplessness.

"That's all.”

Unfortunately Mikkel couldn't truthfully argue with that. The younger man would have been better off if he'd stayed home. “I'm not a psychologist, so you will have to endure that until we have you back among your own,” he answered somewhat callously.

“Okay.” As Mikkel departed, the other muttered, “If I can go back …” There being no reasonable response to that, Mikkel merely said “Take care now” and closed the door.

Having finished choking down her lunch, Sigrun wanted to talk. “Okay, listen,” she told him, “It's been several days, and that thing is still busted. At some point we've got to admit that it's not getting fixed. I say we start preparing for maybe having to walk.”

“I don't believe it is time for that yet,” Mikkel answered mildly.

“I'm not missing that boat!” she snapped. “We need to get on plan B!”

“No!” Tuuri cried, raising her head from the innards of the motor and all but banging her head against the raised hood. “I'm almost finished, I swear! I just have to get it to … start.”

“Don't feel pressured,” Mikkel assured her, “we still have plenty of time.” To Sigrun's glare he added, “You don't need to worry. I have already thoroughly considered the possibility of an eventual trek. I'm never opposed to having a plan B.”

As she turned away in disgust, he began cleaning the pots and dishes, already planning how best to fry the fish with the gear he had available.

He had only started preparing dinner when it began to rain.

Bang! Bang! Bang! “Mikkel! Mikkel!” Hammering and shouting came muffled from the back of the tank. Mikkel, kneeling to fry fish while Emil rigged a tarp to protect him and the fire from the rain, muttered “Now what?” and to Emil, “Watch the fish,” as he got to his feet and ran through the rain to the tank.

“What's happened?” he called through the door, reluctant to open it while Tuuri was outside.

“The runes! The runes will wash away!” Mikkel took a few steps back, studied the runes. They were washing away.

The old Mikkel, the Mikkel who strode so confidently into Kastellet, even the Mikkel who entered a bit less confidently into the hospital less than two weeks before, would have dismissed Reynir's concerns and told him he could fix his decorations when it was convenient for him to come out.

“Put on your mask and wait,” Mikkel ordered, reaching for the awning which would protect this end of the tank. The flimsy cloth awnings had been attached to the back and long sides of the tank at some point in the tank's long career with the army, allowing soldiers to sleep in relative comfort outside the tank. The team had seldom used them, being much safer inside.

“Tuuri!” Mikkel called to her, but she was leaning far into the engine and did not respond. Turning to the fire, he moved the frying pan to the side — neglected, the fish would absorb too much grease and become soggy, so he would eat those himself — and ordered Emil, “Go stand by Tuuri. If she comes up for air, tell her to stay there. I need to let Reynir out.”

“You want me to stand there in the rain?”

Mikkel ignored the complaint, searching for a stick with a nicely charred end, and Emil reluctantly obeyed. While Reynir worked on renewing the runes on the back, Mikkel pulled down the awnings on the two long sides. The runes on the east side were intact; those on the west side were half washed away. He looked uneasily over his shoulder as he worked, feeling exposed to an enemy he could not fight nor even perceive.

Mikkel was uncomfortable with allowing both Reynir and Tuuri to be outside at once, and considered ordering — well, asking at least — Tuuri to go back into the tank, but they needed her to get the tank running as fast as possible, and there was still daylight enough for them to make a few kilometers if she did. Staying in one place for a second night risked another grossling attack.

He won't come within three meters of her, and she's out in the rain. Rain will wash away any infectious particles, and he's wearing his mask … he should be safe. Should be.

Uneasy, reluctant, he allowed Reynir to repair the runes on the sides of the tank while he stayed between the Icelander and Tuuri, watching them alternately. It was with relief that he saw Reynir finish the task and head to the back of the tank. “Wait, Reynir. Stand in the rain, let it wash away any, ah, anything that might have fallen on your clothing.” He joined the other in the rain; contamination could not harm him, but could in theory be transferred to the non-immune just by brushing past him. And anyway, if Emil and Reynir were both standing out in the rain on his orders, the least he could do was join them.

After several minutes, he permitted Reynir to climb gratefully back into the tank, and assured the other that he would keep an eye on the runes during the night. Though the moon was waxing near full, he knew that, with the rain, they would need the perimeter lights for the watch.

Returning to his task of preparing supper, he put aside the soggy fish and fried more batches. A very wet Emil, back under the tarp, accepted his share with genuine gratitude and even volunteered to take Sigrun and Lalli's shares to them in the safety of the tank, and Tuuri's share to where she still worked on the engine in the rain. Mikkel himself took Reynir's share to him before consuming his own share and starting a second round for everyone.

After everyone had received seconds, and Emil reported that Lalli had consumed both his portions without visible reluctance, Mikkel served out bowls of vegetable (and tallow) soup to fill them up and provide some additional vitamins. Those were received with considerably less enthusiasm.

“Mikkel,” Reynir asked a bit plaintively, “will you stay and finish supper with me?”

Mikkel could hardly deny such a simple request, and he did feel sorry for the isolated young man. He himself would have been quite happy sitting for days alone with their haul of books, but the books were mostly in Danish, a handful in English, and the Icelander could not read them. Leaving Emil on guard, and fetching his own bowl of soup, Mikkel joined Reynir in sitting on the floor of the compartment. It was, at least, out of the rain.

“Reynir, why draw the runes on the outside, in the rain? Why not in here?”

“In here? No, that wouldn't stop the ghosts from coming in. It might stop them from going out once they were in!” The younger man shuddered at the thought.

That made a certain amount of sense, Mikkel supposed, though it was unfortunate. Struck by another thought, he asked, “Have you considered drawing these runes on paper for us as you did before? This would permit us to enjoy the protection of the runes even while we were away from our noble steed, such as when we stood watch or visited the latrine or gathered firewood or engaged in other such necessary activities.”

“Hmm … I don't think they'd work very well in your pocket …”

“I see … I believe that we could devise a protection for the non-mages among us, however, if you were to give us two runes, that one which catches fire around ghosts and this one which you say drives them away. If the one were to catch fire, then whoever bore it would know to pull out the other and display it to the attacking apparitions.” And put out the fire too, but a little burn and some clothing damage is a lot better than than going through that attack we suffered …

“That could work … yes, I suppose that would work. I'll do that! That's a great idea! I can help!”

With his own pair of runes in his pockets, and pairs for the other four tucked into his jacket, Mikkel set out to distribute runes and instructions. Emil gave his pair a doubtful look but, apparently remembering the rune that had caught fire in his own pocket, gave no argument and separated them in his pockets. Tuuri received them with gratitude, praising Reynir's ingenuity, and immediately dived back into her task. Sigrun, lying on her bunk with her eyes closed, simply accepted them and pocketed them as instructed, saying nothing. Mikkel stood for a moment, unconsciously biting his lip in concern, before turning to Lalli, who was still dutifully if slowly spooning his soup into his mouth. The scout accepted the runes, examined them narrowly, nodded, and stuffed them in separate pockets. Presumably he understood the concept, Mikkel thought, and in any case he would see the ghosts and didn't need the fire rune to alert him.

Protected by the runes, shielded by the tarp, Mikkel scrubbed every plate, bowl, pot, and pan, until the sun began to set. “Tuuri, you must stop now.”

“No, no, I've almost got it!”

“It's raining and it's getting dark. You must go into the tank.”

“No —”

“Even if you are able to start it, we can't go anywhere now. I will not allow you to exhaust yourself like this. You will go inside and get a good night's sleep. I have confidence that you'll be able to fix it in the morning. Now go!”

She went.

Sigrun had the first watch and Mikkel the second, but when he followed Tuuri into the tank and found the captain asleep, he quietly turned around and climbed back out, standing both watches himself. It rained all night, but there were no attacks.

Mikkel woke, as he had so often recently, with his heart pounding as if he'd been running for his life. It was the old nightmare, something vast and evil that pursued him through a trackless wasteland. With a suppressed sigh, he turned over and peered forward to see the dim light of dawn through the windshield. Morning, then, and there were chores to be done. Rolling out of his bunk carefully, so as not to kick or step on Lalli, he found Emil's bunk and Tuuri's both empty, and Sigrun still sleeping.

He watched her for a moment, hesitating. This prolonged sleep was a bad sign … or was it? Was it a reaction to the infection? Or to the antibiotics? If it was the antibiotics, there was really nothing he could do, as he had no others and the infection could not be allowed to progress unchecked. At last he reached out and gently touched her forehead. Though his touch was feather-light, she muttered something in her sleep and rolled away.

Her forehead was warm, feverish, but not dangerously hot. He knew that within limits, fever helped fight infections, so this seemed, if not a good sign, at least not a very bad sign. With a resigned shrug at the inadequacy of his abilities, he quietly made up the empty bunks and left the tank.

It was still raining. Tuuri was already working on the engine, the kitten sitting on top of the engine, protected from the rain by the open hood, and Emil was patrolling, finishing the third watch. Seeing Mikkel, the younger man gave something like a salute and announced his intention to escort Reynir to the latrine. “Good man,” Mikkel murmured before beginning his own patrol. When Emil and Reynir returned and the Icelander was safely back in the tank, Mikkel left Emil to guard while he himself began preparing breakfast: fried fish and more vegetable and tallow soup. The fire was already burning nicely with a stack of firewood beside it; Emil had been busy while the others slept.

Sigrun appeared before breakfast was ready and sat cross-legged beside the fire, warming her hands.

“You didn't wake me for my watch.”

“You needed the sleep.”

“We all need sleep. I don't like being treated like a baby!”

“I'm not treating you like a baby, I'm treating you like a patient. And like any patient, you need to rest and build up your strength. In your long career as a troll-hunter, you have been injured before; I saw the scars on your arm. I find it impossible to believe that a sick and injured troll-hunter is permitted to stand watches night after night.”

“Well, no, of course not. We don't stay out night after … oh. You're talking about soldiers again.”

“Indeed I am. I would not permit an injured soldier under my command to stand watch when there were others —”

“Stop right there! I'm not under your command! You're under my command! And I haven't taken you off the mutinist list!”

“No, no, of course you're not under my command. Hence my use of the word 'would' rather than the word 'will'. I am your second-in-command and have no desire to be otherwise. However, I did accept the role of the team medic, and in that capacity, and under these circumstances, I believe it is incumbent upon me to protect an injured team member from further injury to the degree that this is within my power.”

“Uh … did all that mean that you'll still stand my watches?”

“Yes, that's what that meant. It is your duty to rest and recover so that we may have a healthy troll-hunter as our captain in these dangerous environs, and it is my duty to do what I can to assist you.”

“Oh.” Her shoulders slumped and she stared unhappily into the fire. “I did need the sleep.” After a long silence, “Thank you.”

He might have answered, but at that point Emil came around the end of the tank and sniffed hopefully in the direction of his breakfast, and the moment was lost.

Finding Tuuri leaning against the tank, holding her head and near tears, Mikkel judged that she needed a break from struggling with the repairs. “Come along now,” he urged gently, “have some breakfast, give your mind a rest. Many people find that a task is harder if they focus exclusively on it, and easier if they think about something else for a bit, allowing ideas to work their way forward which might have been pushed aside in concentrating on the task.”

“Yes, but — it shouldn't be so hard!”

“If it can be fixed, I'm sure you will fix it. You've kept it running this long, which I don't believe any other mechanic could have done. You have a mage's touch with machinery, after all.”

“Oh, Onni says that, but I think he's just trying to make me feel better because he's a mage and Lalli's a mage and I'm just … me.”

“You are a very fine person being just you, and immensely important to this team. Now come, sit under the tarp, enjoy the fire, have your breakfast, think about other things, and go back to the engine with a fresh mind.”

She allowed herself to be led to the fire and accepted her fried fish. Mikkel studied her face as she ate then, recognizing what he was doing, turned his gaze away and concentrated on his cooking. Before long, however, he was watching her again: the firelight on her lashes as she looked down at her plate, her brave smile when Emil greeted her, the curve of her cheek as she looked over at the tank …

Mikkel stored each image away in his memory against the long dark years to come.

Wrorum! Wwrorourrggh!

Mikkel, chopping vegetables for lunch, was on his feet, knife raised in defense, before his mind caught up with his body. It was the engine! Tuuri had started it!

Sigrun, who had been leaning against the tank, watching, leapt to her feet, slapping Tuuri on the back hard enough to stagger the much smaller woman.

“I did it!” Tuuri cried in astonishment. “I'm … I'm … so amazing!” Mikkel smiled a little to himself. Drawing her away from the task, encouraging her to take a break, had worked.

“That is my new favourite sound!” Sigrun added in delight as the engine continued to growl irregularly.

Emil, running forward from his position guarding the tank, asked uncertainly, “Uh, you don't think that sounds … uh … really crappy?”

In an excess of happiness, Sigrun slapped him on the back too, knocking him into the side of the tank. “Yeah, sure, but at least it sounds like something! Every meter it's able to carry us forward is one less meter that we'll be with no shelter.”

Tuuri closed the hood and ran for the door while Sigrun and Emil hurried to take down the awnings and Mikkel gathered up his gear and supplies. Within minutes, the tank was grinding slowly away and nothing was left of their campsite but a drowned campfire. They were on the way again at last, with Mikkel manfully resisting the urge to point out to Sigrun that he was right that they did not need to implement a Plan B.

Not yet, at least.

The rain continued all day, turning to sleet and then to snow by nightfall as the weather turned cold again. As soon as they stopped for the night, Mikkel and Emil set up the awnings to protect the runes and Reynir hastily renewed them. Since they had driven far enough from their previous campsite that they felt safe relying on the perimeter sensors rather than standing watches, Mikkel was able to catch up somewhat on his sleep, though he woke frequently to listen to his teammates' breathing, and his dreams were again nightmares.

The tank broke down again the following day, but Tuuri tackled it with renewed confidence and they were moving again within an hour. This set a disturbing pattern, as the tank broke down again that day, then twice the next day and three times each on the following two. Tuuri was able to get it running each time, but it was obviously a race against time to reach the outpost before the tank failed completely. At least it was still snowing, so they had little trouble with grosslings in the nights.

The radio had failed along with the tank itself, and it was only on the third day that Tuuri managed to track down the short, enabling them to report in. “… and we're presently on course to be there in only a few more days,” Mikkel finished more confidently than he really felt.

“We're very pleased to hear that!” Torbjörn replied, enthusiastic as always. “Some good news after all that happened. Uh … Speaking of which, … any update on what level of, uh, medical attention we should tell the ship to prepare for?”

Mikkel regretted that Tuuri, peacefully eating her supper beside him, could understand Icelandic. He would have preferred that she not hear such discussions. “Still only quarantine and general injury treatment. I will inform you immediately if the situation changes.” Without looking at Tuuri, he added, “One way or another, we will know soon enough.”

Mikkel glanced around, considering conditions in the tank. Sigrun was dozing in her bunk. Emil and Lalli were in the back compartment with Reynir, having taken him his supper and then, under orders from Mikkel, remained to keep him company for a few hours as it was not good for him to be alone for so long. Although the three young men lacked any language in common, the team had made some efforts at teaching each other their languages, and Mikkel hoped they would pick up that project. Or perhaps they could just have a snowball fight. It seemed there was nothing more to be reported about the team's situation, but another question had to be asked.

“How is the state of the older Hotakainen?” He suspected that was another painful subject since Onni had still been unconscious at their last radio communication, and had not joined this one.

“Not worse. The doctor still stops by every morning for a check-up. And he's yet to find anything physically wrong with the poor sod. All we can do is hope for best now.”

Would Onni ever wake up? Mikkel glanced over at Tuuri, who was very obviously concentrating on her supper. Could a mage die from overuse of magic? Did he dare ask?

His thoughts were interrupted by shouting from the back compartment. “How can you just sit in here doing nothing and not go insane!” Reynir cried. “I can't go out there looking for that woman! Don't you understand that you're the only one who can?

“If we don't find her neither of us can go home without those things following us! We can't let that happen! I won't let that happen!”

Mikkel signed off abruptly. He needed to intervene … there was the sound of a scuffle, then Emil: “Okay, let's … all calm down and not act insane …”

Emil acting as peacekeeper? Mikkel stopped at the door, frowning. Go back and break it up, or let the young men work out their differences alone?

“Tuuri!” Lalli called, following with a spate of Finnish. She replied in kind and then went on in Icelandic, “Oh, okay. Hi, Reynir! What are you yelling at Lalli about?”

“Tell him I dreamed of a woman, an old dead priestess lady, who can lead souls to where they belong in the afterlife. I know — I know — she's the only one who can save us from these ghosts. He knows they'll follow us forever. I'm sure they told him so just like they told me. He must have heard them. We have to find her. We have to find her temple. And I can't go out there looking for it! He has to find it! For both of us! For all of us!” By the time he finished he was shouting again.

“Okay, okay, let me tell him.” She continued in Finnish, and then translated Lalli's answers called through the door.

“He said he knows about the ghosts but he thinks he can resist them. And he said he doesn't know anything about how to find some old woman, or any place where old ancient women would be, whatever that means. Oh, and then he said he can't help you.”

“Of course he did. Everyone says they can't help me.”

“Maybe … maybe I can help you?”

“You can't help me,” Reynir answered dolefully.

“Hmph. Do you need to talk then?”

“No, it's fine.”

“You need to talk! Tomorrow, when you're not in a mood.”

“Okay.”

Mikkel stepped back, deciding that he should not intervene and feeling a need to scrub the supper dishes. He was hardly started on that task when Emil and Lalli climbed into the tank, and the Swede approached him, shame-faced.

“Mikkel, you … ah … should probably go check on Reynir. Lalli sort of … bit him. And I, well, I punched him. Not too hard! I just wanted him to let go of Lalli! He was shaking him and yelling at him, and scaring him …”

“You know, I wanted you to keep him company, not get in a brawl with him.”

“He started it!”

From what Mikkel had heard, he believed that was probably true, so he merely nodded, collected his first aid kit, and went to the back compartment.

“You want to tell me about it?” he asked, examining Reynir's bruised cheek and then pulling up his sleeve to check the bite. Lalli had not drawn blood, but the Icelander had very clear tooth-marks on his fair skin.

“No — I — I just couldn't stand it anymore. I can't go out there and look for her. He can, but he won't.

“Oh, maybe he couldn't find her anyway. I don't even know what her temple looks like today. I think I see it as she sees it, the way it was when she was … alive.

“But I feel like I would recognize it if I saw it, no matter how much it had changed. I would know it …”

“So, then, tell me about the temple.”

“It was a huge room with a very high peaked ceiling and many big arched windows. It was so full of light … and there were benches, high-backed benches, rows and rows of them facing away from the door, on two sides of an aisle. At the end of the room was a … hmm … a cabinet, I guess, and there was a bunch of pipes running up the wall behind it. On the cabinet was a cloth with a symbol on it, kind of like a T —”

“Wait, a symbol like this?” Mikkel drew it on the floor with a finger.

“Yes, like that! You know what it is?”

“That's a cross. It's a Christian symbol. You were in a Christian church.”

“Ah! Does that help? Do you know where a Christian church would be?”

“Unfortunately, yes. They're all over the place. There were many Christian churches here. There's probably one or more in every town we've passed.”

“Oh.” Reynir's hopeful expression faded. “Onni said something like that, I guess. But then … even if Lalli did go looking for her temple — her church that is — he wouldn't know which church was the right one.”

He sat back, leaning his head against the wall in despair. Mikkel hesitated, then packed up his things. “I'm sorry I'm not more help. Those bruises will heal quickly, I think.” And he made his escape, back to the main compartment.

Late that evening, in the close quarters of the tank, sitting in the front watching the snowfall, Mikkel with his sharp ears still heard Tuuri and Reynir talking as they sat back to back with the wall between them, Tuuri on Mikkel's bunk and Reynir on a crate.

"Sooo … you're sad, huh?" Tuuri began.

"Sure. I guess."

“It's a bit odd hearing you like that,” she observed, “ You haven't come across as one of those pessimistic people so far.”

“Yeah, it's .. new. I've never had to feel like this. Like someone who has to figure something out alone. It's making my thoughts … bad. I tried to find the old priestess lady but I couldn't, and your brother said that sometimes there's just no help for bad things because the world is a terrible place.

“And after talking with him, and thinking about what he said, I'm just feeling less and less hopeful that I'll be able to fix anything. Maybe thinking is the problem; maybe I'm not suited for that.”

“Heh, it's so weird, that you've been able to talk with my brother, when I'm stuck here on the other side of the coma.” She paused, and then turned in alarm as if to face Reynir. “You didn't tell him what happened to me, did you?”

“O – of course not!”

“Good. That's good. He shouldn't know until it's over, and we know that I'm in the clear. Or not. Either way, he doesn't cope well with uncertainty. This is better.”

“But what about you? You're the one that's in the 'uncertain' situation. How are you not more worked up about it? I for one wish I had just listened to my parents and never left home, ever. Don't you regret coming out here too, now that you know?”

Tuuri considered for a long moment before replying.

Not really. It's been my dream to go on an adventure like this ever since I can remember. This is the one opportunity I've been given! Without it … I would have just gone out on my own eventually, I'm sure of it.

Which probably wouldn't have ended well either!

I remember wishing so hard to see the outside world, even way back, years and years ago … back when I was little. But of course where I lived only those who were immune could leave the town freely, which was only a few people. In our family, only my grandma and Lalli were. Grandma was also one of the first mages around, and she'd leave the island often to handle nearby troll reports. Eventually she started taking Lalli with her for training, and I was so jealous!

She was real strict with him — she was strict with all of us, even my mom and dad, whenever she was home, but she was most strict with him. Still, I wouldn't have minded if she was strict with me, if only I could have gone with her.

Mom and Dad were always busy — they worked so hard! — and so Onni always took care of me, ever since I was tiny, almost like he was my dad too.

I told him once — but only once — how much I wanted to steal a boat and go explore another island with him. He shouted at me and made me cry, because he said horrible things would happen to us. I thought he was a coward, and I said so. That was cruel of me, I know now, but I didn't know then, and he told me that there were … things … out there that he could hear and I couldn't. Terrible things.

He didn't understand — he still doesn't understand — why I would want to leave in the first place. Wherever we are, he thinks we have everything we would ever want. Everything … except the world.

So that's what I've been dealing with my whole life. But I knew one day I'd be able to do what I wanted … and so in a way I feel like I was destined to end up on this expedition. It was just too perfect of an opportunity.

“Maybe you should try to think about your situation that way too,” she added, “You'll feel better!”

“R – right. Well, except … I really never wanted to go to anywhere dangerous. All I wanted to do was visit Bornholm. And now I'm here.”

“Oh. Right. I completely forgot about that part. Well, now you'll have to keep up your spirits and make sure to get back safely, so that you can try again.”

“Heh, yeah, I guess so. But if I get home I'm never leaving again! And I'll let everyone know that there's just as much rain and snow this far south anyway.

“And that there are no palm trees at all!”

The following day started out well, but by mid-afternoon the tank broke down again. Tuuri, Emil, and Mikkel, all jumped out and ran to the front as had become their habit: Tuuri to fix the problem, Mikkel to provide heavy lifting if necessary, and Emil to guard them while they were distracted. Tuuri had become quite adept at quick repairs.

This time, however, as soon as Mikkel raised the hood, the engine burst into flames. All three jumped back in shock. Mikkel recovered first, ran for the door, yanked out a bucket, half filled it from the tank's external tap, and ran forward to pour water onto the flames. Choking smoke poured out. As the three stood back, watching in dismay, Sigrun and Lalli rushed out as well.

“I — I don't think I can fix it anymore,” Tuuri told her captain despairingly. Looking at the mess of melted insulation and severed wires, Mikkel had no doubt of that.

“Time for walking now?” Sigrun asked Mikkel.

“Yes.” Pulling out a list he'd made in the evenings over the past days, he went on, “We have two weeks left until the arrival of the boat, but I have prepared the plans for this event, and you can all be at ease. We were fortunate as we're not too far away from our extraction location. A lightly equipped person in good condition could cross the distance in two days, with ease.” Looking around at the others, he added, “Which means we should be able to do it in a week.” And that was very fortunate, he did not say, because they had, at best, a week's worth of food left, and that would be at short rations if Lalli was not able to bring them some game.

Behind him, Emil muttered to Tuuri, “Don't look at me. I didn't even breathe in that direction.”

“What do we do with the books?” Sigrun asked somewhat plaintively, clearly fearing the entire expedition was a loss.

“All taken into consideration. We will not be leaving empty-handed.” Turning to the others, “First, Emil, we need you to take your friend with you and go on a shopping trip to that commercial patch we just drove past. Hopefully you two can salvage a couple of useful items for us. Here's your list. More important ones are at the top. Return before nightfall.”

“Sure,” Emil replied, glancing uncertainly between Mikkel and Sigrun. As Sigrun said nothing, he shrugged, accepting Mikkel's authority, and began to study the list.

“If you feel well,” Mikkel went on, turning to Tuuri, “you can help me prepare the books and meals for transportation.”

“I – I will. I feel great!”

“And you,” he added to Sigrun, “should go back to 'guard duty'. We need you to be in as solid a shape as possible when we depart.”

“Not gonna lie, I'm probably just going back to sleep. I'm feeling sick like a dog.”

“Yes, that is what I was alluding to.” Sweeping his gaze over the assembled team, he finished, “The day is still young. With proper organization we will be ready to embark on our trek tomorrow morning.”

He started toward the tank; he needed to make arrangements for Reynir, who, come to think of it, probably had no idea what was happening. But first …

“Why are you still here?” he asked Emil in some annoyance.

“I don't understand half these words,” the Swede replied, and Mikkel was forced to describe each item — wheelbarrow, plastic jugs, sleeping bags, tent, etc. — so that the other could identify them in his own language. Properly informed, Emil gestured “come along” to Lalli, and the two set forth together.

Back inside the tank, he stripped Tuuri's bunk, leaving the bedclothes bundled together on the floor and tying the rolled-up mattress for easy transport. Tuuri in the radio compartment gave up fiddling with the equipment, telling Sigrun, “The radio is out.”

Of course it is, he thought, it's shorted out again and this time the wires are surely melted.

“Bummer,” Sigrun answered briefly.

“But … we won't be able to let the base know that we're still on our way.”

“Doesn't matter, the ship will be there for us. Losing contact with a team in the field happens all the time. You still send out whatever help you've promised, that's how it's always done.”

“So you don't think they'll be really worried?” Tuuri asked in relief.

“Oh, no. They'll think we're dead.” And that was the end of that conversation.

Now it was Reynir's turn. Mikkel found him sitting anxiously on the floor of the compartment, mask on and the back door open. As soon as Mikkel came in view, the Icelander hastily explained, “The compartment was filling up with smoke and the sun is shining so I thought it would be okay …”

“It's fine, it's fine. That smoke would not have been good for you, certainly. That was the result of the engine catching fire. As the tank is irreparable, it will be necessary for us to walk from here.”

The other looked around uncertainly, making a vague gesture at the books.

“Yes, the books. I have many things to do, so I want Tuuri to go through them to pick out the most valuable.” He was stripping Reynir's mattress as he spoke, and once more handing the bundle of bedding to the younger man. “That means she needs to be back here tonight, and therefore that you need to be in the front compartment. We don't need her up there to drive anymore …” That was a rather sad thought, but he continued with only a moment's hesitation. “I need to let the tank air out for about an hour before I will feel safe moving you in there, so you will wait outside with me for that time.”

Rolled-up mattress in his arms, Mikkel led the way to a camp stool that he had set up beside his intended fire site. Once Reynir was seated, he piled the mattress on top of the bundle of bedding, the other naturally taking hold of it but asking plaintively in a muffled tone from behind the mattress, “I have to sit like this for an hour??”

“Just for a few minutes. Be patient. I'll be right back.” Two trips from the front compartment to the back moved Tuuri's mattress and bedding to her new quarters; she would only be there one night, but there was no reason for her to suffer any discomfort. With a last mournful look around the radio compartment, she followed him on his second trip and stood surveying the book collection with a critical eye as he left.

With that done, two more trips into the tank sufficed to move Reynir's mattress and bedding, though the man himself had to stay outside for the time being. Mikkel placed the kitten in his lap to provide an alarm, but still stayed close while gathering firewood and lighting a campfire.

When the scavengers returned with all he had requested, including plastic jugs, Mikkel's first priority was to prepare all of the remaining food so that he could simply reheat soup for each meal rather than engage in the time-consuming task of peeling and chopping vegetables. And candles, of course. Reynir joined in the effort, glad to be of assistance, and in fact he stayed out of the tank for hours without complaint.

Sigrun and Emil joined Mikkel beside the campfire for supper, while Reynir took his share inside, announcing his intention to draw runes on the tents; Mikkel took Tuuri's share to her compartment so that she need not interrupt her work in sorting books; and Lalli, as usual, took his share and sat far off — but not out of sight — on a fallen tree.

As Emil helped Mikkel pour fresh soup into plastic jugs, Sigrun observed drily, “You managed to make it look even more disgusting.”

Looking at the soup through age-clouded plastic, Mikkel rather agreed, though it wouldn't do to say so. “It will sustain us all the same.” He had decided very early on that he would not argue the merits of the soup, as it had none but for nutritional value.

“Hey, I'm just making observations.” Mikkel shrugged, and the three of them settled down to their supper.

Mikkel was glad later, in the way that one can be both glad and miserable at the same time, that he had built his campfire at the front of the tank.

Tuuri was outside, Mikkel saw with some alarm, without even the kitten, which when last seen had been in the back compartment with her. She should have called for an escort … He was on his feet, about to go to her, when he saw that she was merely going to speak to her cousin. That was safe enough, surely, he thought as he sat back down, since Lalli would be scanning his surroundings for grosslings at all times. The two Finns spoke quietly for several minutes and then Tuuri returned to the tank, Mikkel watching closely until she disappeared around the back of the tank. If she wished to visit the latrine, he expected that she would call for an escort, but she did not, and he supposed that she had returned to her task, sorting books.

He returned to his own task, studying the wheelbarrow thoughtfully and considering weights and volumes. He knew what he had planned to take, but as the wheelbarrow was somewhat larger than expected, he could take more. More books, of course, but perhaps the team would be more comfortable if he brought along the pillows; they were rather thin and he could pack them tightly …

His thoughts were interrupted as Lalli abruptly leapt to his feet, ran behind the tank, ran back, shouted something urgent to them, turned, raced away. All three were on their feet and running after him at once, Mikkel pausing only to shout at Reynir, “Close the door!” And then he was behind the tank and saw two sets of running footprints, leading away … and a discarded mask.

Mikkel stumbled in his horror, recovered. The others had not seen the mask … They were all chasing after Lalli, who was far outpacing them, but even when they lost sight of him, they had no trouble following the footprints. They had not far to go.

The sea was ahead of them.

Lalli knelt helplessly on the shore. Out in the waves, Mikkel could see something white. Something that did not belong in the sea. He could not swim, nor could Emil. In fact, only Sigrun could …

He turned just too late to stop her from sprinting into the water.

“Stop! Don't! What —!” Words failed him as he ran in after her. He was waist-deep in the freezing water when she, a far better swimmer than he'd expected, swam back toward him, towing the limp body behind her.

She was trying to get to her feet in the rough waves when he reached her, pulled her to him with one arm, pulled her burden to him with the other. Slogging back to the shore, carrying one woman and mostly carrying the other, he saw both Emil and Lalli on their feet, starting into the water.

“Stay out! Emil, keep him out!” He didn't need two more hypothermia cases.

“Mikkel, hurry! Maybe there's still time! Hurry!”

Hurry? What hurry was there? His thoughts seemed to be coming slowly, struggling to grasp the meaning … oh. Drowning victims could sometimes be revived, if they were treated quickly enough. And if they drowned in icy water, then there was more time.

He did not look down at his burden. He knew what he would see, and he did not want that image to follow him down through the years. There was only one explanation for Tuuri's actions, and he would not allow her choice to be taken away. “No,” he said flatly.

“But — but —”

And then Mikkel was on the shore and Lalli was pulling Tuuri away from him, cradling his cousin in his arms with surprising strength, running away. “Go with him, Emil. Make sure he gets back.” Emil ran.

Mikkel was supporting nearly all of Sigrun's weight now, and her head was lolling forward. Hypothermia, then, and soaked to the skin himself, he wasn't much better. Forget dignity!

He scooped her up, cradling her in his own arms, and ran, stumbling a little, wavering back and forth a little, but warming and reviving himself by the exertion. It was a measure of the effects of the icy water that it took her some time to object. “Put me down!”

“No. Be still.”

“You can't —!”

“Do you think … this is the first time … I've carried … a wounded comrade? … At least … we're not … being chased …”

Then they were back at the tank and Emil was pulling the door open for them. Reynir was on his feet, alarmed, bewildered, the tent spread out on the floor in front of him. “Radio. Close door.” The Icelander got the message and was out of the way before Mikkel set down his charge. Behind him, the door of the tank closed with a reassuring thud.

Mikkel knelt, pulled off Sigrun's boots, gloves, jacket, and was working on her outer trousers when she revived enough to push him away. “I'll do it.”

“Good.” He turned away, fetching her change of clothes from a cabinet along with a couple of towels and dropping them beside her. “Take them all off, dry off, dress in these.” He stood with his back turned, listening. If she stopped, he would have to finish the job despite his reluctance. Though he had undressed injured patients before, more than once, they had all been men. Also, in those cases, he had generally cut their clothes away, but with no spare clothing …

He began to shiver as adrenaline and exertion wore off. He would have to change too, and quickly, but Sigrun came first. She seemed to take much too long but actually worked rather quickly despite her hands, clumsy with cold.

“Done,” she said weakly, and he turned back. For a moment he thought to carry her, but — no, he would not offend her again. He pulled her arm over his broad shoulders, held her tight with an arm around her waist, and half carried her from the tank to the campfire. There were camp stools set up for both of them, and as soon as Mikkel had settled her, Emil was folding her hands around a mug.

“What's that stuff?” Mikkel asked, making a conscious effort to keep his teeth from chattering.

“Warm water. One for you too.” Mikkel accepted it, drained it quickly, and returned to the tank. He could trust the Swede to watch over her, and he had to dry off and change before he too became a patient.

While Mikkel and Sigrun thawed, Emil took charge, bringing Reynir out of the tank, pushing him onto a camp stool, and ordering him, “Tend the fire!”, backing up the command by pointing to the firewood and the fire itself. That taken care of, he rigged a clothesline near the fire and hung up all the soggy clothes. With the tank inoperable, there was no other way to dry them.

Reynir turned to study Lalli for a long moment. The Finn was kneeling, holding his cousin close and crooning something. Turning back, glancing back and forth between his bedraggled elders, the Icelander asked quietly, “This was not an accident, was it?”

“No,” Mikkel answered equally quietly. He had no desire to explain, and anyway the other appeared to have worked it out himself.

“Odinn and Freyja,” Reynir said very softly, “Tuuri …” He stumbled over the name and continued in a voice choked with unshed tears. “My sister Tuuri could not fight but she came to the battlefield, this battlefield, full willingly. She was struck down by the monstrous enemy and fell … and fell defending us, defending me in the only way she could. I ask nothing for myself, but I beg you to welcome my sister to Valhalla.”

Mikkel said nothing, wishing that he believed in gods, wishing prayers would console him. And so they sat in silence while Emil, the only immune left on his feet, patrolled with the kitten on his shoulder.

After a while, Mikkel roused himself to say, “Do you know anything about Finnish funeral customs?”

“Uh, me?” Reynir gave him a puzzled look. “No, I don't know anything at all about the Finns.”

“We have to do something. We can't just walk off …”

“Oh … I … well, I have an idea. Lalli drew a picture of what he wanted me to do. I could draw a picture — pictures, I mean — and if I got it right, then he could just point at what he wanted. Or, you know, if I didn't, he could draw his own.”

“That's … a really good idea. Go draw … hmm … a grave, a pyre, and a cairn. If he doesn't want any of those, at least he'll have an idea of what we want to know.”

The other was on his feet and running back to the tank almost before he finished. Mikkel shook his head, feeling very old and very, very tired.

Lalli tried to wave Reynir away, but the Icelander was persistent, holding the drawings before him one after another until he reluctantly reached forward, pointing first to the pyre and then to the cairn.

“Well, now we know,” Mikkel told Emil heavily. “Start gathering wood for the pyre. I'll gather stones.” He forced himself to his feet by sheer will. The exertion will warm me up. This has to be done. And then we'll need to set watches … Already his mind was working more quickly, turning to planning. They would need to set watches for the night, and that would mean just him and Emil. And then there was the packing to finish because they couldn't stay …

The pyre burned all night, much hotter than mere wood since Emil had used his incendiaries with a liberal hand, with Lalli sitting by it through the long hours, watching over it. By morning, the fire had burned down sufficiently for them to lay the gathered stones over it, Lalli and Emil handling the smaller stones and Mikkel the larger. Sigrun watched silently; Reynir, overcome with grief, remained inside cuddling the kitten. When the cairn was complete, Lalli turned away and ran off into the forest. The other three stood gazing at the cairn, unable to proceed and yet knowing they could not stay.

At last Sigrun, captain of the team, broke the spell. “We need to go. We can't spend another night sitting like troll snacks over here.” Looking around, she spotted Lalli in the woods, kneeling with his face pressed against a tree. “Lalli! Come on!”

He waved a hand in dismissal, made no move to rise.

Sigrun stared for a moment in disbelief. “Lalli!” she shouted with remarkable volume.

“G – go!” He managed in Swedish.

The other three looked at each other uncertainly. “I think …” Emil ventured, “he's trying to tell us to go without him.”

“Thank you, I understand words!” Sigrun snapped. “It's not happening! I'm not leaving anyone to his own devices, especially not a scout I can't even communicate with! Mikkel,” she added, “go fetch him.”

“I am sorry,” Mikkel said gently, “but you have to come with us.” He offered his hand to help the other to his feet, but the little scout slapped it away and ran off a dozen meters or so, stopping to raise his fists as if challenging the big Dane, and shouting something in Finnish, ending with sorrowful tones.

Mikkel did his best to adopt a non-threatening posture, patting the air soothingly, while the other two caught up.

“I bet he's still not happy with the burial ritual,” Sigrun said in some frustration. “I've seen mages be very specific about these things before. Emil, you talk to him and figure out what more he needs.”

“Uh … I think you're over-estimating my language skills here …”

Lalli stood staring at them in helpless grief. He could understand nothing they said but he clearly wanted something. Mikkel tried to think how to handle the situation while Sigrun continued to instruct Emil.

“Fine! Then how about you let him know that if he won't cooperate we'll tie him to the wheelbarrow!”

“I can barely say 'good day'! How did you think I'd ever get that across?”

Mikkel studied the forlorn Finn. He didn't seem to want them to do anything; indeed if anything he seemed to want them to go away and leave him. But surely he didn't intend to stay in the Silent World by himself! Maybe he just needed a little time … Now there's a thought!

Mikkel pulled his ancient watch from his deepest, most waterproof, pocket and offered it to the scout, holding his breath in hopes that the Finn was familiar with clocks and could tell time. The younger man studied it, reached out, pointed to the 1:00 marking. “Okay,” Mikkel told him, and turned to the others. “He only needs two or three more hours to resolve whatever is causing him this distress.”

“That's too long!” Sigrun objected. “We're not waiting! Two hours will be the difference between us making camp in a safe spot or in the middle of a troll nest.”

“We can allow him to stay, and let him follow our tracks.”

“Again: I'm not leaving the scout on his own if I can't make sure he understands orders.”

“I'll stay with him,” Emil volunteered nervously, “We'll catch up with you fast.”

“They will,” Mikkel agreed, “we won't be moving very fast.”

There was a long silence, and then Sigrun nodded. “Fine. But I still don't agree.”

“I'll leave you a map and something to eat,” Mikkel advised Emil. The two older people collected Reynir and the kitten from the tank and departed, Mikkel pushing the wheelbarrow, heavily laden with all their gear and the most valuable books.

Reynir turned back to wave goodbye. Mikkel did not.

They walked.

Mikkel led the way, pushing the heavy wheelbarrow and bearing on his back the largest backpack Emil had found, heavy with books. Reynir followed close behind, his own backpack much lighter, filled with bedding and one of the tents. Sigrun came last as rear guard. Mikkel had vetoed her suggestion that she wear a backpack and she had not argued.

He was deeply worried about her. Her arm looked no worse, or not much worse, despite the exertions of the previous day, but she was not recovering and seemed weaker every day. He knew that, before the Great Dying, there had been antibiotic-resistant bacteria, the result of irresponsible use of antibiotics; that was a cautionary tale told to every doctor, veterinarian, and medic. In the decades of desperate struggle after the coming of the Rash, there had been no antibiotics, and it was generally supposed that the antibiotic-resistant bacteria had died off, out-competed by normal bacteria or simply deprived of their human or mammalian prey.

But what if they hadn't died off, here in deserted Denmark? What if they'd been in that canal? What if — oh, gods — what if they'd been in the streams when he'd organized those baths?

He pushed the thoughts away. There was more than enough to worry about here and now. They had no scout and he worried that he would lead them into a pitfall hidden under the snow, or that another grossling would lunge from some fallen building, or — any number of disasters. The vast cold silence of the deserted city unnerved him; the sound of the wheelbarrow grinding through the snow, the crunching of their footsteps, even the purring of the kitten, riding on top of the overloaded wheelbarrow, seemed to echo weirdly in the ruins.

They walked.

It was cold and getting colder. His pendant seemed to draw in the cold, freezing against his skin. He wanted to pull it out but that would require stopping, letting go of the wheelbarrow. Damn this thing! How does it get so cold? It's done this before … it did this before the ghosts —!

He stopped, turned, looked around in alarm. There was Reynir, but Sigrun … Sigrun was not in her position! There she was, sneaking off to the side, dagger ready, focused on a stag which stood looking the wrong way, distracted by something out of their sight.

“Sigrun!” he called in a harsh whisper. “Come back! We've got to get out of here!” She looked back, annoyed. “Come back! Something's wrong!” She looked away, took a step toward the stag. The pendant was burning him, searing into his skin. “Please! Quickly!”

With one last regretful glance at the stag, she returned to her position as rear guard. He yanked up the handles, all but ran from that place. He soon had to slow down lest he leave the wounded captain behind, but he pushed the pace as much as he dared. The pendant warmed slowly until it was just a stone hammer again.

“I really wanted that venison,” Sigrun said sadly, breathlessly, a few hundred meters later.

He stopped, giving them all a few minutes to recover, looking warily back the way they'd come. “So did I.”

They walked.

It began to snow again shortly after noon, and Mikkel had a new worry: what if their tracks were covered? What if the boys (as the older man thought of them) couldn't find them?

But no. Lalli was an experienced scout and Emil had the map with their course marked; Mikkel didn't need it, of course, being able to examine it in his mind's eye whenever he wanted it. If their tracks were covered, the boys would simply follow their course until they met up. Indeed, he thought he should be more concerned that the boys would get ahead of them and he would be trying to find the tracks of the other party. He could do nothing about those worries and pushed them aside.

They had to stop for lunch; it was impossible to keep walking endlessly in the cold without food. He did not light a fire as gathering wood would take too long, so it was necessary to scrape the soup out of a jug into the bowls, and scrape it out of the bowls to be eaten. Watching his companions consume the mess uncomplainingly, Mikkel was struck with painful memories of Emil grimacing and whining about the horrible food. Would they ever meet again?

“What was wrong back there?” Sigrun asked, still a bit annoyed. “The kitten wasn't upset, Braidy didn't say anything … And I really wanted that venison.”

“I'm … not sure.” He was reluctant to mention the pendant as he hadn't mentioned it before and he now felt a bit ashamed of his skepticism. Magic is real and my pendant warns me when … when what? He needed time to think about it. “It just felt … wrong. The stag was looking at something …”

She regarded him narrowly, then shrugged. “Okay. I get that. But if there's one deer, there must be more. Maybe we'll get another one.”

They walked.

As evening drew on, Mikkel pitched their tent — only one — in a ruin which provided two walls to block the wind and a partial roof to keep off the snow, with plenty of debris around to burn. Normally he would have hidden the fire from possible grosslings, but in the cold weather, hoping for the other party to show up, he judged it best to let the fire be seen.

But the boys did not come.

“It is too early to worry,” Mikkel told Sigrun, who was staring into the snowy darkness as if by sheer willpower she could bring the others to her. “It's not a terribly cold evening” — not killing-cold, at least — “and the scout will know how to find a safe place to overnight if need be. Don't go out looking for them tonight,”

“I'm not going to! I'm not an idiot! But I'm backtracking tomorrow morning, if they don't show up.”

“I can accept that. Only … go around that place where the stag was.”

She grunted in acceptance, looked away, and the three sat in silence for a while. At length, Mikkel rose to answer a call of nature out of sight of the others, but Reynir ran after him. “Wait! Stop!”

“I need to take care of business,” Mikkel answered, strangely uncomfortable discussing this in front of Sigrun, even in a language she did not understand.

“Not over there!” The other was actually pushing him back — or trying to, at least, since the big Dane substantially out-massed the slender Icelander. “The ghosts set up camp over there.” He waved toward the wreckage of a large vehicle. “They're just waiting …”

Mikkel stared at him with concern and just a little residual skepticism. The ghosts were that close? Held back only by the runes drawn on the tent?

“What is going on?” Sigrun called, “What is he saying?”

“He's letting me know where the … spirits are.” Even now, he could not keep a little skepticism from his voice.

“Then you listen to him! Him and that stupid cat are our only lines of security now!”

He surrendered. “Where may I go?”

“That direction is fine.” As Mikkel departed in “that direction” for a little needed privacy, he heard Sigrun grumble to Reynir, “I cannot believe you're our lifeline now …” Fortunately the Icelander had no idea what she'd said.

“I don't understand this,” Mikkel told Reynir after staring long into the fire, pondering. “Tuuri —” he managed the name only slightly choking, “said that ghosts were generally harmless. And presumably she'd know with two mages in the family. So why are these so hostile? And so powerful?”

“Onni said he'd never heard of ghosts hanging around more than a few years, certainly not ninety but he thought they'd be very angry and dangerous. And they are!”

“But that doesn't make sense! Billions of people died all over the world ninety years ago, including in Finland and everywhere else that people still survive. Why aren't there ghosts like this everywhere? Why only in Denmark? Why is Denmark diff —” Intuition told him the answer quite suddenly. “Denmark had the cure. It was the cure. The cure created the ghosts.”

“Are you … sure?”

“We found ghosts where the cure was used, and the cure where the ghosts were.” The enormity of it staggered him. “They released the cure to spare people pain, and instead condemned them to … whatever the ghosts are experiencing.”

They stared at each other for a moment, then turned as one to look over at the vehicle where the ghosts hid, visible only to Reynir. Sigrun, sitting wearily by the fire, had not looked up at the sound of the conversation, and Mikkel thought it best not to translate.

Soon the others turned in, sharing warmth under a common blanket in the small tent. Mikkel banked the fire as it was too late for the boys to come. He stared into the moonlight, thinking about the pendant. When did it do this? In the tank, when the ghosts attacked … but not much at Kastellet. So it doesn't respond to the presence of ghosts specifically, not even hostile ghosts. Because they were hostile, even then. When else …? In the hospital, I think, but we were running away. So — according to Lalli those ghosts were after him. After us. Does it only respond to attacking ghosts? Maybe — but does it always? Was it cold on the night of the attack? I don't remember … we were preparing to battle for our lives. Could the thing be … aware? Could it have realized that I didn't need a warning and didn't need to be distracted?

He pulled it out, gazing at it with something close to awe. You warned me today, and I paid attention. Thank you. I will always pay attention. He turned it over and over in his hand. What should he do to thank it? If it was aware … but he could not imagine what a stone hammer would even want.

Maybe I should give it to Sigrun. Now there's someone who needs a pendant that burns her when she's about to go into danger! But — would it work for her? There are superstitions … maybe it only works for me because Maja gave it to me with her love. And could I give it to Sigrun with — No. Oh no. Mikkel broke that thought off hard.

Rising, he took the kitten — almost a cat now — and prowled around the campsite, scrupulously avoiding the vehicle sheltering the ghosts. There were no grosslings within range of her feline senses, but that was not to say that they could not attack during the night. Or that the ghosts might not go find some and drive them against the party. He resigned himself: he would have to stand watch all night.

Surprisingly, however, as he stood wakeful, leaning against a wall beside the tent in the wee hours, Reynir slipped out of the tent and tapped his shoulder. “Sleep. I'll watch.”

“You can't. You're —”

“Not immune. But not stupid and not a child. I'll have the kitten, and if she alerts, I'll wake you. I'll wake you both. There's no reason I can't stand watch. And you need to rest.”

Mikkel stared at him in the moonlight. Reynir was right, of course. It had been drummed into Mikkel so thoroughly and for so long that he must protect the non-immunes that it simply had not occurred to him that the non-immunes could do anything to protect themselves. He had been treating Reynir as a helpless child all these weeks, and he was wrong.

“Yes. Thank you. It is your watch. I stand relieved.” As he ducked into the tent, he thought the Icelander stood a little straighter, a little more proudly.

Breakfast was reheated soup. The three took their time getting ready, stowing the bedding, striking the tent, drowning the fire … but the boys did not come.

“I'll backtrack,” Sigrun stated, getting wearily to her feet.

“No —” Mikkel began.

“I can't go off and leave them without knowing! I've never left a man behind and I'm not starting now!”

“No, I meant, I'll go. I'm —”

“No! Stop right there! You're staying with the nuisance! That's an order!” They glared at each other, his rebellious nature rising to the surface. “Listen to me, Mikkel. I'm sick as a dog, but I'm still a troll-hunter and you're not. I can spot and dodge trolls. You can't. And I'm the captain. It's my duty.”

“We can all go back.”

“We can't take a civilian into any more danger than we have to, and we can't leave him here alone. This is the only way. You know that.

“I must go and you must stay.”

Mikkel glared at her, wanting to argue, wanting to deny her words. At length his shoulders drooped and he turned away. Sigrun trudged off into the deserted city.

Hours later, Mikkel and Reynir leaned against the walls of their shelter, lost in their thoughts. Mikkel was thinking again about the pendant, and whether he should have at least tried to give it to Sigrun before she left. What if she ran into whatever it had warned him about? What if she took the short way past it, too sick and too tired to circle around a danger she couldn't perceive? What if …

He was torturing himself with such imaginings when he saw her returning.

Exhausted.

Alone.

The men leapt to their feet as she stopped, not looking at them. “No,” Reynir breathed, disbelieving.

“They were caught,” she said flatly. “Nothing to do about it. Time to move. Our duty is to deliver the books to the pickup site. And the tag-along.” She glanced at Reynir, saw him shaking his head in stunned negation. “This has been a disaster of a mission. The least we can do is make sure we don't lose a civilian too.”

Unwilling to press her for details, in silence Mikkel heaved up the handles of the wheelbarrow and led the way to the distant outpost, and rescue.

They walked.

It was very cold, but at least it was not snowing and the winter sun glittered brightly on the fresh snow around them. There were no tracks of animals or grosslings, only the tracks which the travellers left behind.

No one spoke.

The kitten chose to sprawl comfortably atop the baggage tied to the wheelbarrow. Mikkel was uncertain as to where she should be: up front, where she would detect any grosslings that they approached? Riding on Reynir's backpack, as she sometimes did, where she could alert them if he, the non-immune, were threatened? Riding on Sigrun's shoulders, to give warning if something crept up behind them? All choices were potentially bad. He let her choose her own position.

Lunch was cold congealed soup, which no one wanted to eat at the best of times, and which this time they merely picked at. Even Mikkel could not force himself to consume it. In the end, he scraped it into a ditch and they went on, not even feeling hungry in their grief.

They walked.

Mikkel trudged stolidly forward. Every ripple in the snow drew wary attention; every sound brought his head around to check for danger. Reynir followed close on his heels; Sigrun was farther back, still serving as rear guard.

Thomp.

Mikkel and the kitten both looked around. It had come from behind them … Mikkel looked back to find Sigrun far behind them, face-down in the snow. Had she passed out? Why hadn't he attended to her more closely?

“Stay there!” he ordered Reynir as he ran to her. He didn't need the well-meaning Icelander in his way.

“Sigrun!” he said sharply, anxiously, reaching for her hands. “You've overexerted yourself! I will carry you the rest of the way on the wheelbarry.”

“No,” she said feebly. “Leave me behind. I'm not supposed to make it back. I became weak, and failed as a leader. It's clearly my punishment to die here in disgrace. The gods will it.”

She hid her face against the snow.

Mikkel stared at her, his thoughts whirling. He glanced over his shoulder; Reynir was standing obediently by the wheelbarrow. Mikkel was glad he'd told the civilian to stay back, for this crisis of confidence was something between soldiers. This was the fever talking, fever and grief and sheer exhaustion. She wasn't thinking straight and so … He picked up a large handful of snow, yanked up the back of her jacket and inner shirt, and shoved the freezing mass down her back.

She yelped, jerked away, rolled over trying to extract the snow, crying, “What is wrong with you?!”

Following up, he grabbed her by the collar, shook her much more gently than his immense strength would allow, and demanded, “Are you thinking straight again?”

“Uh …” she managed, caught between trying to extract the snow and trying to escape from his grasp.

“Now you listen closely,” he said sternly. “This is not the time to give up! You need help, and I'm here to provide it. I will bring us all to the end, one way or another, and that is final.”

“Uh … okay,” she answered weakly, her energy exhausted.

He scooped her up, cradled in his arms as once before, carried her to the wheelbarrow and laid her gently across the baggage. “Are you sufficiently comfortable?”

“Yes, this is fine,” she murmured. “An embarrassing enough place to die.”

“I understand. It's been a heavy day. We'll set camp soon enough.”

The one good thing about all this, he thought, is that Reynir hadn't understood their conversation. He would tell the Icelander later that she had just collapsed from the fever.

They camped outside the city in a ruined cabin: two walls and part of a roof, plenty of firewood. Mikkel pushed Sigrun to wear his spare jacket atop her own, wrapped his spare shirt around her neck to keep her warm, and led her outside — or to the other side of the wall, inside and outside being rather nominal in this case — to rest quietly, her rifle beside her at the ready. While she rested, he built a fire, melted snow for wash-water, and washed what he could of their gear. Leaving Reynir to tend the fire and watch the soup, he set up a clothesline and began hanging things up to dry.

“Are you feeling any better?”

“Hmph. I'm serious! I'm at death's door. The infection has gotten worse today, way worse.”

“No, it hasn't. It's better than it was yesterday.” And yet she was weaker, despite all his efforts to get her to rest and eat. She should be getting stronger!

“Not everyone knows this,” he went on, “but our health is affected only 10% by the physical state of one's body. The remaining 90% is all about what is going on in here.” He tapped his head.

“You think I'm just imagining being sick?” she asked with a mixture of resentment and dismay.

“No, not at all. The infection is still quite bad. But your mind governs how the rest of your body copes with it.

“I once worked alongside two men as a cleaning crew on a fishing boat. One of them had a mind made of steel, the other was certain that something would end his life during the deployment. One day a particularly vicious sea beast leapt out of the waves and onto the deck, and shredded the first man's stomach. Afterwards his innards were placed back into his body and everything was sewn up, and the following week he was back to working. The second man got a bad paper-cut one day, and the next week he died from multiple organ failure.

“True story.”

He studied her face for a moment. “You must have seen it happen yourself, the way people will themselves to survive. Or not to.”

“Yeah,” she answered after a long moment. “I have.”

“Pick up your spirits, then! It's in your power to fight this! Or … I can't help you. And you know that.”

She looked away, silent. There had to be something he could say …

“I'm a little surprised to see you reacting so poorly to what happened,” he said at last. “I was under the impression you were highly experienced in the field.” But then he had to look away himself, unable to face her tortured expression. He was highly experienced as a soldier after all …

“I've … never experienced failing my crew mates so horribly.”

“Never?” He had understood that the lives of troll-hunters tended to be disturbingly short.

“Not like this! Not like … this. Yes, warriors die when hunting trolls, or when raiding a nest. Everyone knows that; it's going to happen. But that's not what this was. It's like … this was a test. A test to see if I'm worthy of my role, when I'm not surrounded by my highly trained compatriots.

“And I failed it.

“My only purpose here was to protect everyone. If someone had to die, it should have been me. How can I go home now when they … can't.” She bowed her head, holding back the tears.

Mikkel knew survivor's guilt. He and survivor's guilt had walked together for a long, long time. He had no cure for it, but he could not stand by and let her tear herself apart. He had to do something!

“Look,” he said at last, and waited until she reluctantly looked up. “I highly disagree with all of that. I don't even think you were a real leader before.” She stared at him, shock and anger mingling with grief. “You can't be a real leader if you haven't faced defeat, and proven that you can overcome it. So maybe you're right: what has happened is a test.

“But the actual test is right now. If you choose to give up on everything … then I agree. You weren't cut out for the job after all.

“It's your choice.”

He forced himself to face her betrayed expression. He had struck at the foundation of her being, her image of herself as a leader of troll-hunters. Was it enough? Would she fight to prove him wrong? Would she fight him?

“I …” she began, but could find no words. He waited.

“Well, I'm still going to be a burden to you two. I'm too woozy to walk as fast as you, and I'll be useless at aiming my gun properly. I'll slow you down if you have to keep pushing me on that stupid wheelbarrow.”

Some of the tension went out of him. “That's quite all right,” he said gently and sincerely, kneeling so as not to loom over her. “I don't mind pushing you along. You've barely slowed us down at all. Truth be told, you weigh virtually nothing!

“Come now. Let's go have some supper, and turn our gaze towards tomorrow.” He stood, extended a hand to help her up … and she seized her rifle and pressed it into his hand.

“Oh, of course. I'll carry your gun for you too.”

“No, you buffoon! You need to use it if I'm unable to guard us.”

“Oh, no. No.” He didn't even want to touch it now. “Let's not be silly. I should not be the one to aim a weapon.”

“Don't you be silly! I know you have at least some training; nobody is allowed to work in the military without it.”

“It's not a matter of training,” he said, thinking back on many instructors who had tried quite hard and with much invective to train him. “It's a spatial awareness issue.”

“Blah, blah, no excuses! If I promise to try not to die, you have to be up for this. Here! Fire some rounds into that fence pole, the one in the middle. Come on, show me what you've got!”

He sighed, accepting the inevitable. Considering what he'd just put her through, a little humiliation was his just deserts. Taking the rifle, he held it exactly as he'd been taught, aimed carefully, fired multiple shots … and hit nothing anywhere near his target. He waited, not looking at her, as she examined the results.

“Well. You're not too bad for a blind man.” That was less insulting than the usual response to his lack of marksmanship.

“We will simply have to rely on our stealthiness,” he said resignedly. Or maybe Reynir can use it. I'll ask while she's sleeping. “Supper now?”

“Sure.” The worst of the storm seemed to have blown over, and she merely looked tired.

Reynir was staring dolefully at the soup simmering on the campfire.

“How are you holding up?” Mikkel asked politely.

“Oh. All's fine. I'm just sitting here thinking … about how I'll never get to see my family ever again. I still have no idea how I can stop the spirits from tracking me, so I'll have to let them take me. It's the only way to prevent them from following me to Iceland and taking everyone I love too.

“So, that.”

Mikkel stared at him, all the recent events falling on him at once: the failure of the tank, Tuuri's death, the loss of the boys, Sigrun's collapse, Sigrun's despair, his own guilt and despair, having to demonstrate his incompetence, and now this …

He bonked the Icelander hard on the head, though not so hard as he easily could have.

“What did you do that for?!”

“For making you think about something else. I can't manage both of you having a breakdown at the same time. One existential crisis per day, please.

“We're all exhausted after today. Our minds will be clearer tomorrow.”

Grief sets many ambushes.

Mikkel stopped at an intersection to compare their position with their intended course. They had made excellent time; though he had estimated that it would take a week for them to walk to the outpost, in fact he believed they would make it by the evening of the fourth day.

Of course, they'd made better time than he'd estimated because he'd expected that Tuuri would be with them. Little short-legged Tuuri who never in her brief life had been permitted to walk in the woods for hours. Beloved Tuuri. Little sister. Lost forever.

And that thought brought him to the food. He'd expected to be on short rations, but that was because he'd expected to be feeding six rather than three. He'd expected to be feeding Emil, who griped and complained and whined, but competently stepped up to do whatever needed to be done. A well-loved little brother. And Lalli, quiet, quirky, homesick Lalli, with his rare flashes of humor, scouting tirelessly for them every night, and as often as not helping in the day as well. Another well-loved little brother.

All lost.

The images forced themselves before his mind's eye: Tuuri as he first saw her, Tuuri worrying for her cousin, Tuuri laughing … Tuuri in so many moods. Emil wearing a stupid bandage — oh, it hurt to remember that cruel prank — Emil covered in grossling slime, Emil grieving for the dog Beast, Emil laughing … Lalli's face, peaceful in sleep; Lalli swiping behind his ears when there was no need, just to tweak Mikkel; Lalli taking Tuuri's body from him — No! You may haunt my sleep, but you will not interfere with my duty!

His dead retreated. They always did, in the face of implacable duty. They would be back in the night.

Mikkel opened his eyes, found his hands gripping the handles of the wheelbarrow so tightly that his fingers were white and bloodless. Loosening them, he checked his team: Sigrun had fallen asleep, draped across the baggage; Reynir stood behind him, gazing at the ground, lost in misery. Neither had seen his moment of weakness.

He heaved up the handles and began pushing the wheelbarrow to the outpost.

Reynir trailed behind, the kitten riding on his backpack as the best rear guard available. Reynir trailed far behind, and Mikkel had frequently to call to him to catch up. The Dane lacked the energy even to be annoyed at him.

Lunch was cheerless, mere fuel to keep them going in the bitter cold. As before, there was no conversation for there was nothing to say.

They were in a rural, wooded area, when Sigrun roused herself enough to look around, pay attention to the journey. “Still okay there?” Mikkel asked, seeing her awake and getting only a grumble in response. Gazing vacantly back the way they came, after a while she lifted her head to say, “Freckles is starting to fall behind.”

“Reynir!” Mikkel shouted at the Icelander, who was much too far behind. “You're supposed to be walking right next to us.” How many times had he said that?

“Sorry,” the other mumbled, ran to catch up, but soon fell behind again. After several minutes he called to Mikkel, “H–hey! Animal tracks!”

Mikkel had been focused on the woods, always seeking for grosslings, and had missed the animal tracks in the snow parallelling his own course. “Hmm. Would you look at that.”

Sigrun, much more alert than earlier, answered, “What's this? Those look way too fresh for comfort! We've got a dog beast nearby. Or possibly a wild dog. Or a wolf! Either way, it's a real threat. Keep your eyes open.”

“Yes,” Mikkel answered patiently.

“If it shows up, start shooting like a madman!” she ordered. “You only need one bullet to hit.”

“Or I will incapacitate it with a swing to the head,” he observed. A rifle was really just an awkwardly shaped club in his hands.

“I'm not sure what that word means, but it sounds good to me,” she answered with a sigh, animation draining out of her.

“I'll be vigilant,” he assured her, “You won't need to worry.”

Reynir ran to him, staying just behind his shoulder. With a slight smile, Mikkel asked, “Not too keen on trailing behind now?” “No,” the Icelander answered fearfully. They trudged on, Mikkel scanning the woods with heightened alertness.

Some minutes later Sigrun, looking back again, sighed, muttered, “Unbelievable. Attention span like a pigeon.” Shouting: “Chop chop, long-legs! Hurry up or we won't be responsible if — Aaaah!! No! Stop!! Mikkel! Get him!"

Mikkel whirled, saw the Icelander vanishing into the trees far behind them, dropped the handles, ran after him.

Mikkel was not a sprinter. The other was soon out of sight, but his footprints were clear to follow. It was a dreadful reminder of the previous chase.

What am I doing, chasing this idiot? If he wants to go off and get eaten, let him! But my captain ordered me to get him, and I obey. And he's non-immune; it's my duty to protect him! Isn't it? As he pointed out, he's not a child. He is stupid, though, clearly.

Tuuri, Lalli, Emil, all dead. Only Sigrun left alive and she's hurt and sick. Because of him! Because she stuck her arm in a troll's maw. For him! And I left her alone, helpless, undefended, prey to the first grossling that comes along. For him!

But I'll haul him back as ordered.

The thought was diamond-bright, diamond-hard.

If she is dead, I will kill him.

And then myself.

He was forced to slow down, was jogging rather than running, when he cleared the trees and saw it ahead of him: a church, glowing in the golden sunlight.

The church was in remarkably good shape, having a roof largely intact. Mikkel paused for only a moment, seeing it. Reynir had said he was looking for a church, and he'd found one. Whatever that meant, Mikkel meant to haul him back to where he belonged.

He charged in, gasping for breath, and saw the truant standing witlessly off to his left. Furious, frightened for Sigrun, he yanked the Icelander up by the scruff of the neck, shouting at him, “You insolent little child! Why did you run off like that? Sigrun is already ill and I left her undefended! Because of you!" He was so angry that he forgot his Icelandic and shouted in Danish; he was shaking, resisting the impulse to slam the other repeatedly against the nearest wall.

Motion behind him; he turned: it was Sigrun! He dropped the Icelander quite suddenly.

She grabbed Reynir by the collar, jerking him to her, and shouting, “What is your problem, you brain-dead moron?!! You almost gave Mikkel a heart attack!"

Seeing her not only alive but on her feet and running, Mikkel locked away emotion, was quietly efficient once more. “Let's not resort to hyperbole. Everyone calm down.”

“You do that again and I'll cut off your braid! Then I'll make sure you —!”

Reynir knocked her hands away. She jumped back in sheer surprise, and Mikkel was instantly beside her. If the brat dared to strike her …

“I'm sorry I ran, okay, but this is important! I've seen this place in a vision. No, in two visions! It holds the key to banishing the spirits. I'm not going anywhere. Mikkel, tell her.” He turned and stalked away into the nave.

Mikkel translated his words, finishing, “Thus he is quite elated about this place.”

“Riiight,” she answered dubiously. She started after Reynir, following him into the nave. “So what he's saying is — whaaat is going on here?! Did everyone in town just come here to die?”

They both looked around in horror. The pews were full of skeletons.

Mikkel recovered first, studying the place dispassionately. “From my brief observation, I believe this church served as a last stand infirmary to the afflicted. And here we have something familiar,” he added, carefully picking up a discarded syringe. “The faulty cure we came across in Copenhagen.” Turning to Reynir, he added in Icelandic, “Should this not signify the presence of more of those troublesome spirits?”

“It should, I think. But there are none. Everyone is gone.” He glanced back to the corridor to the left of the nave, where he had been standing when Mikkel burst in. “Well. Everyone, except for one soul.”

Sigrun followed his gaze, focusing on a door. Grossling slime had oozed out around the edges. Rifle in hand, determined, she stalked forward. “No! Stop!” Reynir cried, seizing her shoulder. “You can't kill her! We need her.”

Mikkel was there, looming, and the Icelander, feeling the menace, let her go. Satisfied, Mikkel explained, “He doesn't want you to kill whatever is in there.”

“Yeah, I get that from context. Why?”

Mikkel passed on the question. “She was the main mage of this house of worship,” Reynir replied, “and she's not a danger to us.” He held up the kitten, who was unimpressed with the human excitement. “See? Kitty doesn't think she's a threat. She must be able to guide old world souls to the afterlife. That's why there are none left in this place.

“We're staying here for the night.”

Mikkel shrugged, finishing the translation. “So, I suppose I can knock him out and tie him to the wheelbarry, or we can stay here for the night.” He looked around. “It seems like a good enough place to stay.”

“Yeah, I guess. I don't want to camp out here though.” She gestured at the skeletons and, there being no debate about that, they explored the church, finding an interior room that had been closed up long before. Protected from weather and vermin, it was as it had been left but for the dust. It featured a long couch, several high-backed wooden chairs, a heavy wooden table, and a shorter couch which they did not know had once been called a love seat. It even had a fireplace. “If this thing still draws,” Mikkel commented, “this room will be quite cozy.”

“Oh, it draws,” Sigrun replied. He looked at her in surprise. “Hey, we were brought here by visions. There's no way we're going to be run off by a cloud of smoke.” He blinked, took her word for it, left her with Reynir, and went off to collect the wheelbarrow and bring in firewood.

The fireplace drew perfectly.

“So … you believe Reynir knows what he is doing?” Mikkel asked as they sat in high-backed wooden chairs by the fire.

“No clue. All I know is that I have no better ideas. Honestly, I haven't been too happy with the idea of leading a horde of ghosts to our pick-up ship. And you? You think this is a terrible idea that'll end horribly, huh?”

“Hey now, I'm a glass half full kind of man! I will give anything a chance. Especially when I'm outnumbered two to one.”

“At least we can say we tried even if braid-head turns out to be wrong. And you were right earlier. It's not acceptable to give up and die without trying.”

“Then … how do you feel? I was … surprised to see you on your feet. Running.”

I feel … pretty good. I mean, my arm hurts, and it itches, but I feel better than I have since … since the battle. Since then I've felt like … like the way you feel when you have a bad wound and you feel your lifeblood draining away. Except it was my strength draining away. I ate everything you told me to, slept like you told me to, and still my strength just kept draining away, all the time.

Except once. Yesterday, when I was backtracking, starting off I felt really weak. I knew it was my duty, not yours, but I … wasn't sure I'd make it. At first. But then … I felt stronger. Like somebody'd bandaged up the wound and it wasn't bleeding anymore.

So, I found the stag. You were right that we had to get away. It was half-digested … and the building behind it was torn apart. There must have been a giant in there.

So, my little viking pal and the scout ran away from the giant. They ran all the way to the sea and, and, and the giant followed them. And all their tracks went into the sea. And none of them came out. None …

Yeah, but, as I was saying, I felt stronger, even though I felt horrible for them. Poor kids, they … Anyway, I felt stronger all the way back and then … and then I just wanted to fall over. And I did fall over, later. All my strength was draining away again.

And then … it was about the time braid-head saw the dog tracks … I felt stronger. Like somebody'd bandaged up the wound, but even better, like strength was finally flowing back into me. And so when you ran off unarmed, I just ran after you.

Mikkel looked down at his scarred knuckles. “I'm never unarmed.” After a moment, “And you still feel like the wound is bandaged up?” At her nod, “This is not a medical problem. I don't know how to … keep it that way.” She nodded soberly. “I know.” They watched the fire for a long time while Reynir slept, stretched out on the long couch.

The wooden chairs were not terribly comfortable, and with Reynir on the long couch, they moved by common consent to the short couch, pulling it close to the fire to keep them warm during the night. The kitten happily sprawled across both laps.

When Sigrun began to nod off, Mikkel told her quietly, “Sleep now. Get your strength back. I'll watch.” She agreed, and when she rested her head on his shoulder, his left arm naturally went around her shoulders. He watched the fire, meaning to stay awake, but the utter peace of the church enfolded him. He had not felt so safe since he was a boy in his own bunk in the family farm. He laid his cheek against the top of her head and slept. Soundly. Dreamlessly.

RRUMBLE

They were shocked awake by the sound. The entire building was shaking and plaster was falling on them from the ceiling. Mikkel used one large hand to shield Sigrun's head, the other to shield his own. She was trying to hold and protect the kitten, who was howling in terror. If something larger than plaster fell …

Things were crashing down in the rest of the building. Mikkel tried to imagine a path to escape, but if the building was collapsing, they might be safest where they were. He was about to pull Sigrun across the room and under the table when everything quite suddenly stopped.

They held each other, scarcely breathing, for several minutes. Nothing more happened, and finally Mikkel licked his lips and asked, “Can we both agree not to investigate what the source of that was before sunrise?”

“Yeah, sure, no objections here.”

Sigrun fell asleep again at last, and Mikkel sat wakeful the rest of the night. The peace of the church had been shattered.

Reynir had slept through the whole thing, a gentle smile on his face.

As they cautiously worked their way out through the now-ruined church, Sigrun paused to say, “I guess we can count ourselves lucky not to be crushed under a piece of roof. Unlike some others around here.”

The room which Reynir had so determinedly guarded was laid open, the walls fallen away, and a massive beam had fallen, smashing the troll that had hidden within.

“Our new mageling has turned out to be fairly useful, huh?”

“I wouldn't be able to dispute that,” Mikkel answered with a slight smile.

“I still can't believe I agreed to set camp with that in the same building!” They stared for a long moment at the enormous troll.

“It is time we continue on,” Mikkel said finally. As he turned away, “So, are we in the clear now? You were successful in ridding us of our … pursuers? You and Sigrun can stop worrying about that?”

“Yeah!” Reynir answered happily. “I mean, uh, technically I didn't really do anything, but yeah! All taken care of!”

“Good. Let's go then.” But even as he and Sigrun walked out the door, side by side, the Icelander was once again left behind. “Reynir!”

“I'm coming, I'm coming!”

“You'd better stay close to us from now on. No more falling behind!”

“I will! I promise! There's no reason not to anymore.”

The soldier-medic and the troll-hunter captain walked together. They did not speak of the night that Sigrun had slept in Mikkel's arms.

They walked together, Reynir to Mikkel's left, Sigrun to his right. It was not the recommended configuration for travelling through grossling country, but the sun shone bright and it was bitterly cold. Very few grosslings would be out and about in this, and Mikkel was reluctant to make Sigrun serve as rear guard.

“How are you?” he asked, his breath a cloud.

“I'm fine, don't fuss over me!” Then, soberly, “I'm not 100%. Not even 50%, really, but better. And I can shoot any troll that shows its stinking face!”

“So do you feel the … wound … remains bandaged up?”

“Yeah, I do. I just feel like I always do when I've been hurt bad and have to heal up. Forget that. What happened last night?”

“You …”

“Ask him”

I told you about the first dream, the vision, of the church and the priestess lady. Onni came with me, and she gave us cake … she was so kind. She said she could lead lost souls to the afterlife, but she didn't remember where she was or even who she was. I knew I'd just have to find her.

And then there was the second dream, the second vision. It was the night before … before … Tuuri …

Uh …

Okay, I'm okay. In the vision, I saw this weird track in the snow, with footprints around it. I didn't know what it was, then, but the dog, my dream-dog, ran alongside it for a while and then stopped and turned to the side. And he told me he'd helped, and he disappeared and so did I and the vision ended.

I didn't know what any of that meant.

So then we started walking, and the ghosts were close, very close. It was only the runes on the tent that kept them away, and at night they caught up to us and they … spoke to me. They threatened me. They told me they would take everyone around me …

I thought if they took me then they'd leave my family, my friends, alone. I thought they'd leave you two alone. But I knew you'd never let me stay behind for them to take and so I … I thought if I could run away into the woods, then you'd have to leave me. I didn't think you'd ever leave Sigrun to follow me! Only, by myself in the woods, the grosslings might get me first, and then the ghosts would take you anyway. So I, I was trying to find a way to get away from you and still be safe. From grosslings, for long enough.

And then I saw the dog's track. I didn't recognize it just then, and Sigrun said there might be a wolf, so I thought I had to stay with you.

You didn't see, because you were watching for grosslings, but the dog turned away and the track just … stopped. Like the dog had just disappeared! And then I remembered, and I knew what it was in the vision. The weird track was the wheelbarrow and the footprints were yours. And the dog's track, that was the dream-dog's track, right there in front of me!

He'd turned toward that opening in the forest, that old road, and the sun was glowing through it like it was … like it was welcoming me. I had to go there. I had to! I thought you'd just go on, take Sigrun to safety, and I — it didn't matter what happened to me after she led the ghosts away.

So I ran. And the church was like I remembered it, sort of, only there were all those skeletons! Ugh! And then she … spoke to me. I opened the door and she was there.

Oh, Mikkel! It was the most horrible thing I've ever seen! That sweet, kind, old lady turned into that thing and, and, oh, the worst of it was that there was enough left of her face that I recognized her. And she knew me, even then, even like that …

I'm okay. Really. It's just, just, thinking of her like that, all those years …

And then you came, and Sigrun.

Oh, I don't care about that. Of course you were angry. You didn't know. You couldn't know.

And then I lay down to sleep because that's the only way I could talk to her, and she was there! She was herself, not a “ghastly abomination” like she said. And see, they had the cure – I mean, what they thought was a cure – but she didn't take it because they didn't have enough and she didn't think she was worthy of it! She! Who waited so long and managed to still be herself even like … that!

She told me to say goodbye for her to Onni, because we wouldn't meet again after that night. She knew already what would happen, I guess. And she was happy about it. She said it was a very good thing.

And then we waited. She told me to hide, stay away from the ghosts, and I did. They came …

The leader was … he'd turned himself into something like the ghost of Sleipnir. He had a horse's head — or skull, I mean — and all those legs but they all had hands! The others were mostly just like shadows of people. He — he shrieked at her — he grew until he was as big as the church and he shrieked at her — he said they were abandoned and suffering and they would make the world suffer with them. So you were right not to leave me for them. Even if they'd taken me, they would have gone on and taken you too and everyone, everyone!

It's so terrible that they released the cure because they wanted to spare people suffering and maybe becoming trolls, they wanted people to just die in peace, only they didn't, they just stayed and stayed and stayed as ghosts! All those years …

And she, she wasn't afraid at all, she welcomed them! He couldn't touch her and she just stood before him, so small and so brave! And she asked him, that terrible thing, if he wasn't tired. Because she was tired, from waiting all those years for them. And he – he was tired too. They all were. And they … they stopped being horrible shades, he stopped being a monster of bones and shadows, and they became … just little lambs! Just little lambs like play in the fields at home!

She told them they could go home, into the light that was there on the altar. And they went into it.

The dream-dog came to me, and he said this was a sacred thing, a sacred place, for the dead and not for me, so he led me out a side door and up a hill, and we watched them go up the light and into … wherever their afterlife is. And they were sorry, they were sorry for the terrible things they'd done. They told me so.

There were thousands, tens, hundreds of thousands – I don't know. They must have been every ghost in Denmark.

And she was the last. She said goodbye as she went. She remembered who she was.

Her name was Anne.

Just about lunchtime, they came upon a collapsed building with ample bits of lumber lying about. Mikkel judged they would reach the outpost well before nightfall, even if they stopped to make a fire. Perhaps he was only making excuses for himself, but he thought they would make better time after a hot meal.

As he struggled to light the fire with his stiff cold fingers, the images rose before his mind's eye: Emil effortlessly lighting fires with a single flick of flint-and-steel; Emil soot-smeared from burning down another building; Emil bringing him a load of firewood; Emil — He forced the images away, knowing they would return in the night. Pastor Anne had not been able to take his ghosts to their long home.

Sigrun watched him as he silently fed tinder into the weak flames, building it up slowly. “I'm glad we hung onto the nuisance,” she said pensively. “I don't want to lose another non-immune. I never lost one before.”

He added larger sticks, built it up, sat back, staring at his scarred knuckles. The words wanted to come out.

I have.

Three.

I was a courier for the General, taking a message to one of those mountain villages in Sweden. The road was patrolled and safe — they said — and I joined a party as a guard. It was good cover for a courier.

There were three non-immunes and five immunes, six counting me. We didn't have a tank, of course, but still we should have been safe. A swarm like that should have been detected and destroyed. A lot of things should have been.

I was asleep. It wasn't my watch and I was asleep when all the screaming started.

They went for the non-immunes, of course. I tried to cut my way through to them but … but I was too late. They were torn apart …

And then we were fighting for our own lives, and when all the trolls were dead … so was everyone else.

I built pyres all day and the patrol finally showed up late afternoon. They burned the trolls at least.

I went on to deliver the message. It was my duty. And then … and then I went home to Bornholm.

He didn't tell her that he'd fought the last trolls with his bare hands, his dagger stuck in a troll's head, that he'd torn them apart as they'd torn the non-immunes apart in front of him. Troll-hunter though she was, there were some memories that she didn't need to share.

He didn't tell her that he never meant to be the only survivor of a party, not ever again.

“And so you became a farmer?”

“I grew up on the family farm. I just went home. But, well, I'm not a great farmer. I get bored.” And the nightmares come when I don't have duty to drive them away. “So I get a job every so often, but always somebody does something idiotic, and then I'm insolent and insubordinate about it, or I pull some prank on some jerk, and then I get fired.

“Oh, don't worry about it. It's something of a family tradition to be fired. They'd probably be disappointed in me if I managed to hang onto a job for a year.

“The family farm is large, but there are a lot of us. If I ever want a fa— a farm … of my own, where I can be my own boss, I have to buy one. And land costs a lot on Bornholm. This expedition is supposed to earn me enough.”

She stared at the fire in her turn. “I thought this expedition would be a nice vacation. I'm an idiot.”

“No. If the bridge hadn't collapsed … if we'd had enough food … if Reynir hadn't shown up … if we hadn't been blocked by that drift and had to go to that plaza … there are a lot of ifs. It could have been a nice vacation and we could have …” He couldn't finish. He couldn't say, “We could have all gone home.” The hurt was too new, too raw.

He busied himself with fixing their lunch.

As Mikkel had planned, they reached the outpost well before nightfall. He had to cut paths for them through the fences, which weakened their defenses but they didn't have much choice. There was likely wire inside that he could use to repair them. For now, he simply pulled them back together as best he could. The kitten went in first, prowling around diligently, and when they saw her sit down to clean her paws, they knew the outpost was clear.

They moved into the first bunkhouse they came to, and it had everything they had longed for: a fireplace; a shower; bunk beds; the incredible luxury of indoor plumbing; a generator that just needed some firewood for fuel …

While Sigrun and then Reynir took long hot showers, Mikkel set to work cleaning everything. The bunkhouse, with a decade's accumulation of dust and bugs, needed cleaning; so did all of their outdoor clothes along with their filthy indoor clothes. With a sigh, he also washed Emil and Lalli's spare clothes which he had brought along because, well, they were already packed. When the others were done and he'd taken his own shower, he even bathed the kitten, who was less than enthusiastic about the experience.

With everyone clean, their boots drying by the fire, and all their wet clothes hung on a clothesline strung across the room, he investigated the food situation. Though he had more soup, he would not serve that unless starvation was imminent. Fortunately the army had left cabinets full of canned food. Canned tuna fish. Nothing but canned tuna fish, now a decade old. Mikkel had a feeling that even his soup might possibly look … well, not good, but at least edible, after they'd been eating old canned fish for a few days.

Opening a can, he had to wrinkle his nose at the stench but, as he explained to Reynir, “The taste might have deteriorated a fair amount, but it should still be edible.”

Digging in enthusiastically, the Icelander exclaimed, “After what I've had to eat on this journey, this tastes better than the best of summer feasts! Uh …” remembering to whom he was speaking, “N–no offense.”

“None taken,” Mikkel answered with resignation. The food had been terrible. To Sigrun, already stretched out on a lower bunk, “And you. You need to eat something too, before you drift off. Food first, then rest. Your body can't heal without its nutrients.” But it seemed as if her body was healing and she wasn't losing strength to an invisible wound. She had walked beside him, without excessive rest stops, all day long.

Intuition struck him abruptly. It was the ghosts. Somehow, it was the ghosts. They got their hooks in her somehow in the battle. We all assumed they were able to follow us because of Reynir, but it wasn't him. It was her! They'd latched onto her!

He turned to look at her, dutifully spooning tuna fish into her mouth. Maybe he shouldn't bring that up. Let her recover fully, and then they might talk about it.

When Sigrun finished her can of tuna fish, he immediately gave her another. With an annoyed glance at him — she did not like to be fussed over — she set to work on it. Halfway through, she paused, looking blankly at the wall. “I can't stop thinking about the two little guys.”

Mikkel, working on his own first can, sighed. “I know. It will be a while before any of us come to terms with losing them.” She wanted to tie Lalli to the wheelbarry and bring him along by force and I persuaded her not to. We left Emil with him because I persuaded her. If we'd tied him up … he'd have got away, I'm sure, and maybe gotten killed anyway, but at least Emil would still be alive …

“That's not it! I mean, I keep feeling like I've left them behind and they're still out there!”

It was a terrible thought. Had he left them to die? “You … think you might have been mistaken? About their fate?”

“No, I don't. There's no way they survived the scene I found. There were no tracks leading away from it anywhere. They were either eaten, or crushed, or drowned. Or all three. I know that for sure in here. But I feel like I'm wrong in here.”

She'd pointed at her head for her knowledge, but she'd gestured at the right side of her chest for her feelings. Before he could stop himself, he corrected, “Your heart is on the other side.”

She gave him a look of mingled annoyance and dismay but obediently moved her hand to the left side and continued, “In here. I can't get rid of that feeling.”

There was nothing much to say but, “I'm sorry. I'm sure it will fade over time.” She shrugged and went back to her supper.

Reynir, having wolfed down his third can before Mikkel finished his first, sighed heavily.

“Why the sighing?”

“Sorry, I just can't stop thinking about Emil and Lalli.”

“That seems to be on all of our minds now.”

“Yeah, I've been hoping that they're still alive, somehow …”

There was even less to be said to that. They were gone. Mikkel gave the rest of his can of tuna fish to the kitten in addition to the one she'd already had.

The evening was very quiet, and they all fell asleep early in the luxury of actual bunks. Mikkel woke from nightmares several times to listen to the others. Every time he awakened, there were still only two of them.

Mikkel was up early, as was his wont. His mind immediately turned to safety.

I set the sensors last night … but I didn't test them! Ten years of neglect, will they even work? I can't test them now; it'll wake the others. I didn't repair the fence either. And I didn't stand watch. We could all have been eaten in our sleep!

That'd be a good ending to the expedition, wouldn't it? Lose half the team back there, and the other half here, when we ought to be safe?

I'm slipping again. I've got to do better. I've got to protect them. At least I can fix the fence.

He slipped out quietly in the early light of dawn, armed with a roll of wire and his wire-cutters, and began to repair the fence, working quickly, pulling the cut sections together and rejoining them with twists of wire, tight enough that a grossling could not open them by pushing or pulling, but not so tight that a human being of ordinary strength could not undo them. It was only when he had finished and surveyed the result that he consciously realized what he'd done.

He rested his forehead against the fence, gazing blankly out into the cold silence of deserted Denmark. They've got me doing it too. Thinking the boys are still out there. Fixing the fence so they can still get in.

They're not out there. It would take a miracle for them to be still … there. I think you only get one miracle in a lifetime and mine, mine was the firebird. Sending the firebird may have killed Onni and it didn't save Tuuri or, in the end, Lalli and Emil. At least it saved Sigrun and Reynir. But that was my miracle and I won't get another.

Images rose before his mind's eye: Lalli and Emil. He allowed them for a few minutes before forcibly stopping himself and returning to his duties. Stepping back, he reached for a twist of wire and paused. It doesn't matter. A strong troll can break through this fence anywhere. A giant can step over, and a swarm will just pile up against it until they spill over the top and just keep coming … He cut off that memory.

There are no grosslings around here. Look out there: the Army burned down everything within half a kilometer. There's no shelter out there for anything bigger than a kitten! The ghosts are gone; they're not going to drive a swarm against us. This place is as safe as any in the Silent World.

Very well, the fence is fixed. Now what? I have to do something.

He turned to study the compound. There were six bunkhouses, all the same size and presumably much alike. If our sensors don't work, maybe I can find some that do. If I try to cannibalize one to fix ours, I'll probably just break them both … well, if I feel a need to cannibalize one, obviously they're broken anyway.

He started toward the nearest bunkhouse, then abruptly hastened his step, struck by a thought. The Army didn't feed us well, but they definitely did better than tuna fish for every meal! Maybe the other foods are in the other bunkhouses!

When he returned to their bunkhouse empty-handed, Reynir was already awake. “This place was provisioned by the Navy!” Mikkel growled. Pulling out a can of tuna fish and handing it to the Icelander, he added, “We have an ample supply. You may help yourself to whatever you want, whenever you want.”

To Mikkel's surprise, their sensors worked perfectly. He felt some relief in knowing that they had not been in grave danger despite his lapses.

By noon, Mikkel and Reynir had scrubbed the bunkhouse so thoroughly that it would have passed the most rigorous military inspection. Sigrun had folded and put away their spare clothes, forbidden by Mikkel to overexert herself in cleaning. They had all enjoyed the luxury of long hot showers, and a breakfast of tuna fish. After a lunch of more tuna fish, Mikkel proposed that the day would pass more quickly if they napped, and the other two, already feeling post-prandial sleepiness, readily agreed. Mikkel himself remained awake, watching over them in silence.

Perhaps an hour later, the kitten sat up, looking out the window beside the door. Mikkel was instantly alert. She wasn't reacting to a grossling, so what …?

He looked out, blinked, shut off the sensors without even glancing at the controls, and stepped out the door. He waited.

They were completely filthy, appearing to have rolled through several mud puddles; their faces were drawn with hunger and strain; he could smell them from ten meters away. Since he was standing in the doorway, in their way, they perforce stopped before him, Emil to his left and Lalli to his right.

“So does this place have like a —” Mikkel pulled them to him in a bear hug that threatened to crack ribs. His heart was so full he thought it might possibly explode, and for once in his life he was utterly speechless.

In some lives, there is a second miracle.

Mikkel hugged the two young men to him, not a single coherent thought in his head. When Emil began to make strangling noises, he loosened his grip somewhat but did not release them. He had the irrational fear that they were not quite real, and that if he let them go, they would silently vanish away. Behind him, Reynir was mumbling their names over and over in an awed monotone.

“So does this place have like a bath or something? I need one now,” Emil complained a bit breathlessly.

“Hey, who's letting in all the cold air?!” Sigrun called from the other side of the bunkhouse. “I'm trying to mourn here! And what is that stink?!”

He could not answer, was still struggling to make himself believe the miracle.

Reynir could not understand Sigrun's words, but her tone told him she did not know of the return of the lost young men. “Sigrun! It's Lalli and Emil! They're alive!” She could not understand his words either, but the names brought her off her bunk to peer over Mikkel's shoulder.

“Big guy,” she said, stunned, gentle, “let go. Let them come inside.”

Mikkel lifted them effortlessly, turned, set them down inside, and by an exercise of will, made his arms release them. He remained in the doorway, unable to shake the feeling that they would vanish away when not held to this world … but they would not vanish through that door.

“Little Viking,” Sigrun addressed Emil in wonder, holding his shoulders so she could examine his face, “I should never have doubted you.”

“A bath? Something?” The Swede tried again.

“Oh — shower. Over there.” To his rapidly retreating back, she added, “We have clean clothes for you too.”

Reynir, meanwhile, had offered a chair to Lalli, who had gratefully, and gracelessly, collapsed into it, holding his head. “Ugh,” he said succinctly, a sound comprehensible in any language.

“Mikkel, help! I think he's sick!”

Mikkel made himself step away from the door, pulling it to and locking it, forcing himself to be rational, to be a medic once again. Lalli was looking increasingly green and Mikkel, seeing what was about to happen, pulled the smaller man to his feet and propelled him rapidly to the toilet. They made it just in time.

“Reynir, look in the baggage, find a jar with balls of herbs. I need that. Sigrun, please bring a mug of water. Two, in fact.” To Lalli, “I imagine you're dehydrated and probably very hungry. We'll start with an anti-emetic to settle your stomach, get some water in you, and then introduce food carefully. I hope that will get you back on your feet. Oh, and if your friend ever gets out of the shower, we'll get you cleaned up. I doubt you enjoy this filth any more than I do.”

Lalli hung his head in abject misery. He had, of course, no idea what Mikkel had told him.

Some minutes later, Emil came out dressed in his clean, dry clothes, his hair brushed and shining. “Your turn,” Mikkel told Lalli, urging him gently to his feet. The little scout stumbled in the direction of the shower and Mikkel moved to follow, then stopped himself. He's not a child, and Finland may be primitive, but it's not that primitive. He doesn't need to be shown how to work a shower! And, indeed, the water soon started again.

After finding clean clothes for the two, Sigrun had more or less collapsed onto a chair, overcome with emotion, and was simply watching them all. Reynir had set the table for two, laying out open cans of tuna fish and mugs of water, spoons, even, Mikkel saw with some amusement, towels to serve as napkins. He had three cans each ready and was starting to open more when Mikkel stopped him. “Just three, Reynir.”

“You said we have plenty!”

“We do, and we'll feed them all they want, but it would be unwise and possibly dangerous to overfeed them at this point. We'll start with three and then, once they've had an opportunity to digest that meal, we'll provide more. You will be responsible for refilling their mugs, however. I expect that they are quite dehydrated right now.”

“Oh … okay.” The Icelander sat down to watch Emil, his eyes just a little watery.

Emil sank heavily into the offered chair, turning to look worriedly in the direction of the shower. “If he falls again …”

“The shower stall is not large. He should not fall far enough to hurt himself.” Mikkel listened for a moment to splashing noises. “Has he fallen before, then? Is he sick? Injured?”

“No, not … not injured, exactly, or I guess not even sick. Man, it's a long story.” He looked down at the food laid temptingly before him. “We haven't eaten since you left.”

“I gave you some food,” Mikkel answered, puzzled.

“Yeah, well, I lost that.”

“Then eat now.” When Emil looked back towards the shower, Mikkel thought he understood the problem. “Lalli will not be any less hungry if you deny yourself. Eat now, and he will have a chance to eat while you tell us where you've been, what happened to you and how, how you came back to us, how you are alive. I don't believe Sigrun can wait much longer for the story.” And neither can I.

Emil ate. And drank, Reynir attentively refilling his mug each time it got low. By the time Lalli reappeared, dressed in his spare clothes, his hair towel-dried and sticking out in all directions, Emil had finished his share and leaned back with a sigh.

Lalli joined them, dropping into the offered chair and immediately setting to work on his tuna fish. Emil watched him for a moment, then turned to the others, who were possessing themselves in patience with great difficulty.

It's going to sound pretty crazy. I thought I was crazy, there for a bit, but it, it really happened.

So, you guys left and Lalli did whatever it was he was doing for a couple of hours, and then we started off following you. We made good time before I sort of fell into a hole in the street, and then … and then that's when the giant came charging out of a building, dragging half the building along with it. We ran for our lives, out onto the ice, only the ice wasn't thick enough; it wouldn't hold me.

Lalli's so light the ice held him; he could have got away, only he came back to protect me and …

I don't even know how to describe what happened, what he did. He held up his hands and there was … like … a shield of golden light and a sound … like when you strike a crystal goblet, I think, it was so loud and so sweet … and the giant kept coming … and then everything exploded: the giant, the building, all the ice … and Lalli fell down. He was unconscious, I tried to wake him up but …

Everything had exploded, all the ice except what we were sitting on, and by the time I looked up, we were being carried away by the current.

So I, I … there was a piece of board floating nearby, and I snagged it, paddled us to shore … we got there finally, and I carried Lalli as far as I could, to a house that still had a roof, and then I built a fire and tried to warm us both up.

I meant to keep watch, Mikkel, truly I did, but I was so tired I just fell asleep and I dreamed … it's a dream that I have a lot, when I was a boy and we were still in the old house … well, anyway, I dreamed, and Lalli was there. I thought I was just dreaming about him, you know, because I was worried about him, and he said he didn't know what had happened but he'd be there a while.

When I woke up, he was still unconscious, but he told me we had to get moving. In my head. He told me to get moving and I thought I'd gone insane from worry, but, well, I hadn't. It was really him.

I made a travois and I started walking, pulling him along. I don't even know how long I was walking; it all runs together like this nightmare of walking and cold and damp clothes and hunger …

Lalli said he'd watch for grosslings, even when I was asleep, and I was so tired that I did sleep every night, and every night it was the same dream and Lalli was always there.

And once I, I saw what Lalli sees, heard what he hears all the time. It was so terrible! There was a giant in a house. Lalli told me not to look, but I, I did, and I saw the giant's … spirit, I guess. And it saw me and it called me. All its heads, they were all calling me, begging me, pleading with me to help them …

It was like I couldn't stop myself. I was going to leave Lalli there, helpless, and go in there all by myself and start shooting … Lalli stopped me. He … he knocked me down somehow, made me see that they were controlling me, pulling me in so they could kill me … and then I was able to walk away and leave them, it, stuck in that place. He said he hears those voices, calling, begging, all the time. He said all mages do. But he's strong enough to resist them, and I'm just … weak.

Lalli said I was only able to see and hear them because he was there, in my head. He needed to get out, get back to his body somehow, but he didn't know how. He was afraid of what would happen to his body without him, um, inside it.

I took really good care of him, Mikkel! I made sure I didn't bump his head, ever, and I made sure his fingers and toes and face were covered up and warm. He didn't get frostbite, not anywhere!

Then yesterday … yesterday I did something so stupid I almost got us both killed.

I was walking and this, this, this thing said “Hello.”

It did, it said “hello”, and then it called me “food”. It wanted to eat me! I, I've always known that trolls were really people once, and they … but I never imagined a person turning into this cannibal thing and still talking!

It was like one big mouth on little short legs and it had sort of a shell that protected it from the sun, and Lalli said it was a “duskling” that could be out even in the day, in the shadows. He told me we had to keep going but I, I, I couldn't stand to have that thing following me, talking to me … and so I shot it. Lalli wasn't fast enough to stop me.

The shot woke them all up. Dozens, hundreds, I don't know, all hungry, all following me, all calling me “food”. Us. And Lalli said I'd have to outrun them, only I couldn't, so he said to shoot him in the head and leave him for them to eat! While I got away!

He thought — he thought I'd do it!

I'm, I'm okay.

I almost did sh–shoot him, but that was later …

So we found a pretty sturdy house to fort up in; we were going to try to live through the night and then run away again. I barricaded the door, and the windows were double-paned; I thought they'd be okay.

And then we waited. And then they found us.

They couldn't pound through the barricade, so they tried to control me, make me open the door. And I'm so weak! I was going to do it! So Lalli knocked me down again, but then we were both helpless. If they'd gotten in …

So he said he had to get out of my head, it was only him giving them a way to control me. He did get out, the things' voices went away … only he didn't get back to his body. He was still unconscious.

They gave up on the door and started smashing their bodies, their faces, into the window, and it was cracking. I pulled Lalli into the bathroom and I thought …

I knew I'd have to shoot Lalli. I couldn't leave him to be eaten, even like he was. But I c–couldn't … couldn't bring myself to do it. I was going to shoot him as soon as they broke through the door, and then go down fighting.

I'm sorry. Just remembering how it felt …

It was … so close.

Lalli woke up. He was so woozy and sick, but he was awake and I thought at least he could go down fighting with me and I wouldn't have to …

I'd looked out the window and seen all those dusklings out there, but when Lalli looked out, the last of them were running into the house. We climbed out the window and ran. I thought we weren't any better off, though. I couldn't run all night to outrun the dusklings and Lalli was throwing up and falling down … and they saw us and ran after us, screeching.

Then Lalli took a couple of my explosives and threw them in this building, then he knocked over this big barrel-thing, and I thought he'd lost his mind. Then he crawled into the barrel and I — I saw the dusklings coming and crawled in after him. We held the lid tight and the dusklings were crawling all over it and talking and trying to pull the lid off …

And then the thing, the giant that Lalli woke up with the explosives, came stomping up and ate them. Oh, it was awful! I could hear them shrieking, and the blood splattering on the barrel, and all the time thinking it might just eat the barrel too …

The giant went away, and the dusklings were all dead, and we just slept there last night. And in the morning we started running again and …

Here we are.

As Emil told his tale and Mikkel translated quietly to Reynir, Lalli finished his meal, looked around the table for more and, finding none, rose and went off to the bunks. All eyes followed him even as the two continued to talk. The scout studied the eight bunks, only three of which were made up, and then, decisively, pulled the blanket from Mikkel's bunk, wrapped himself in it, and rolled under the bunk to sleep. Sigrun, across the table from Mikkel, glanced over at him, then covered her face and turned away from them all, her shoulders shaking. Mikkel did not know if she suppressed sobs or laughter. Perhaps both.

Finishing the story, Emil sighed heavily. “I am so tired. I could sleep for a week.”

“You may do so if you wish,” Mikkel answered, rising and digging through their baggage for more bedding.

Reynir was by his side immediately. “Can I help?”

“No, I'll do this. Or — yes, you can help. We'll have to wash their clothes before the stench permeates the building and renders it uninhabitable.”

“Uh … yes. I'll wash their clothes.”

Mikkel made up a bunk for Emil, pulling back the covers, and the younger man was there, throwing himself into the bunk and exclaiming gratefully, “A bed! A real bed!”

Mikkel pulled the covers up over him, murmuring, “Sleep now, Emil. You have done your duty bravely and well.”

But Emil was already asleep, and did not hear.

Sigrun, still not entirely recovered and worn out by the emotional whiplash of the past few days, also went to bed. Reynir set to work scrubbing the two boys' filthy clothes while Mikkel retreated to his usual position where he could see the whole room and everyone in it. He watched over them in silence until the Icelander commented, “I had almost given up on them.”

“Almost?”

“Yes, well … when I dream here, it's like there's this ocean that goes on forever and ever, but in the dream I can walk on water and there are … places in it. Lalli has a place, and Onni, and Anne had her church but it's gone now … I don't think I should describe Lalli's place. I think it's something very private. He doesn't even want me there but, well, I just found him that first night, when I discovered that I dream here. I wonder, will I still dream back in Iceland?

“Anyway, that's where Lalli should have been when he was sleeping. I looked for him there, every night, but he wasn't ever there and I started to wonder if his place could still be there even after he was … dead.”

“And Onni? Is he still there?”

“I went to see him, to tell him about, about Tuuri, but he already knew. He was really angry at me. I told him we were separated from Lalli, and he threw me out. He put up a wall against me. So I can't talk to him anymore, but the wall is still there, and I guess he's still inside.”

A little tension went out of Mikkel. At least he's still alive. He has to be alive, because I haven't repaid him for sending the firebird. He sniffed, then wrinkled his nose.

“My clothes need to be washed too. They picked up some of the filth off the boys. But I've got to fix the fence again, and there's no sense wearing clean clothes for that. Do you remember how to set the sensors?”

“Yes, I'll do that!”

Mikkel got to his feet more easily than he had in days. He seemed to have laid down an immense weight that he'd been carrying all unknowing. “You're well protected,” he said, looking over at the three sleeping immunes: none of them was in good shape, but all together could certainly defend the bunkhouse. He took up the wire and wire-cutter and left.

This time he twisted the wires so tightly that any other man would require tools to remove them, paying careful attention to what he was doing, with the result that he drove the heavy wire halfway through his left hand. Swearing, he yanked out the wire, flexed his fingers to be sure he could still use the hand, and kept going, blood dripping slowly from his glove.

With the task complete, he pulled off the glove to look at the damage. Not too bad. It'll heal. Just another scar. And some blood.

“The gods love blood.” Who said that? Oh, Sigrun, at the antique shop before … before the hospital. Before the attack. Before everything.

Still looking at the wound, he pulled the pendant from under his shirt. Clasping it in his bleeding hand, he turned to stare out through the fence at the distant woods.

I never had to shoot a comrade. I never even came very close. But Emil — kind, generous, thoughtful Emil — had to make up his mind to do it. He almost did do it. That's going to be hard for him to remember. But he didn't do it and he brought his comrade to safety alive and well. He did his duty.

Emil's young yet. I'll take him back to his people, and he'll go on, and the nightmares will leave him in time. Probably.

Blood dripped from his fist.

Lalli. He's so small, and he can't understand me, so I've treated him like a child, all this time. I haven't meant to, but I have. He isn't a child; he's a man, and an astonishingly powerful man at that. When he was unconscious and I thought of slapping him awake, I thought it would be like child abuse and that Tuuri — dear lost Tuuri — would have stopped me.

He smiled slightly. Given his powers, more likely he'd've splattered me all over the inside of the tank!

The smile faded. He's used his powers twice that I know of and been incapacitated for days both times. Powerful as he is, he needs protection. Well, that's why I'm here. I'll guard and protect him, feed him, and deliver him back to his cousin safely.

Or die trying, of course. There's always that option.

Frowning, he rested his forehead against the fence and the slanting light cast the shadow of wires across his face. Where had that thought come from? It was true, of course, but according to the plan the quarantine ship would take them to Iceland, Onni was to meet them there, and Lalli would be delivered to Onni as soon as they arrived. It was unlikely to be necessary to die trying.

His knuckles were white as he clenched his bleeding fist around the pendant.

Then there's Reynir. The kid never even wanted to be here. He just wanted to go to Bornholm to see the palm trees. We're lucky he was here, though. If he hadn't been … we'd have gone to Kastellet anyway; that was inevitable once we found the cure at the plaza, at Amalienborg. But we wouldn't have known about the ghosts, and without him to call to Onni for help, they'd have killed us that first night.

There was something about that thought, something that was missing. He waited, but the answer did not come. After a moment he shrugged.

He's grown up, though. When I think of the scared kid cowering away from Emil, and then Reynir standing up to me, when I was … despairing …

If Sigrun hadn't come in just then …

But he stood up to both of us and got rid of the ghosts, the ghosts from all over Denmark. And even before that, he was protecting the team from ghosts with his runes. I couldn't have protected them. A soldier can't fight against ghosts.

He frowned again. There was still something nagging at him. He studied the woods; had he seen something, some flicker of movement, not consciously recognized? There was nothing. He shrugged, losing himself again in his thoughts.

I'll keep him safe, take him home to his own people, and maybe he can come to Bornholm in the Spring, see Mom's garden when it's blooming.

And Sigrun. I'll take her home to the crazy Norwegian troll-hunters, and she'll be a better captain for having passed through the darkness and into the light beyond. She'll be rich, too, though I don't know what use money is to her. And then she'll have all the stories to tell in the long winter nights!

Yes, Sigrun will be happy. All I have to do is guard and protect and care for her for a little while longer.

His fingers were white and bloodless while blood still dripped from his fist.

And I … I'll find something. I don't think I'll buy that farm after all. I'm not really a farmer anyway. There will be something, there always is. Maybe there's a ship that will take me. Maybe the General needs a courier again. Maybe the Army will take me back.

He blinked, straightened, looked sharply towards the woods as if someone had called his name.

I'll tell them what happened at Kastrup.

It all came together at once.

A scout came across ghosts, but he couldn't see them, no more than I could. They followed him back to the base, as they followed me, and attacked in the darkness. The soldiers couldn't fight them, couldn't even see them. Then the swarm arrived, maybe driven by the ghosts or maybe just another swarm attracted by the lights and the noise, and the soldiers, dead or dying, trying to fight the invisible, were easy meat.

I should have died at Kastrup. I should have died with the rest of them. But I was not there, and maybe Maja is right that the gods prompted me to be insolent that day. Because I was not there at Kastrup, I was there at Kastellet. Maybe someone else would have gone, but maybe if I hadn't been here the whole expedition would have failed earlier or perhaps never gone at all. Only the gods can say.

But I was there at Kastellet and the ghosts pursued me and all the long trail of horrors followed. And yet, in the end, the ghosts are gone and … Kastrup is avenged.

Tuuri — was Tuuri the sacrifice, because the gods love blood? Because the gods demand blood?

It should have been my blood.

He pried open his fingers, regarded the pendant, red and slick with his blood. He gripped it again, meaning to hurl it from him into the Silent World, but after a long moment, he dropped it back under his shirt.

You didn't get heart's blood, not this time. But wait there. You'll get it, in time.

It wouldn't do to return with his hand dripping with blood. That was a little too literal for him. Mikkel rubbed it in the clean snow, trying to stanch the blood at least for a while, and forced it back into the glove, already sticky with drying blood.

Back at the bunkhouse, he found that Reynir had laid out his clean clothes beside the shower stall, and he gratefully deposited his befouled and smelly clothing for the other to launder while he washed up. He took the left glove and the pendant with him into the shower as there was no need for the Icelander to deal with his blood. He hung the pendant where it would not get wet; after he'd gone to the trouble to give it a blood-offering, he really shouldn't wash the blood away.

His hand was still bleeding after the shower so there was no help for it; he poured alcohol into the wound and bandaged it.

“You're missing a glove,” Reynir pointed out, puzzled, as he came out in his clean, dry clothing. Mikkel handed over the wet glove in silence. “Hey, there's a hole — you're hurt!”

“Trivial,” he answered curtly, returning to his usual place to stand watch over the team. The other wisely dropped the subject and returned to scrubbing clothes.

Emil woke after an hour or so and came over to the table. Leaping to his feet, Reynir brought him two cans of tuna fish, opening them after a glance at Mikkel for permission.

Starting on the first can, “Don't we have anything else?” Emil grumbled, looking at the can with distaste.

“Nothing but soup.”

“I'd rather starve … or keep starving … rather than eat any more of that.” He took a few bites, looked speculatively at Reynir, again working on the laundry. “Didn't you say we could eat the useless one if we got hungry?”

“Indeed. But I'm afraid the authorities know we have him, and they would certainly have questions.”

“They know we had him, but they don't know what's happened since the radio broke. You might have lost him along the way.”

“Very true.” Mikkel eyed the Icelander thoughtfully. “Sigrun would go along with us … Lalli's the problem, though. We couldn't tell him the cover story.”

“He'd figure out, I'm sure. He's pretty smart.”

“Hmm. I'm afraid, however, that he might have some qualms about murder and cannibalism.”

“I suppose.” Emil heaved a theatrical sigh and addressed himself to the tuna fish.

Emil returned to his bunk, grumbling a bit at its condition but quickly falling asleep again. Lalli woke, consumed a couple of cans of tuna fish without complaint, crawled back into his nest under Mikkel's bunk.

“I guess he feels safe there,” Reynir commented. “He feels like you'll protect him.”

“I will,” Mikkel answered with absolute conviction.

The Icelander looked up at him, blinked, turned back to his task.

Sigrun woke, sat silently on her bunk. After several minutes Mikkel, concerned, came to her side. “Are you all right? Are you feeling feverish? Are you feeling … drained of strength?” Asking the troll-hunter if she felt weak did not seem to be a good idea.

“I'm fine, big guy, don't fuss. It's just that … it's hard to believe they're really here. I feel like it's a dream and I don't want to do anything to make it end. I just want to sit here and see them … alive.”

“I understand.” He returned to his post.

After a while, Reynir had cleaned and hung up all the clothing and was looking about for something to do. Mikkel studied him thoughtfully.

He needs to understand orders from Sigrun and Emil even if I'm not available to translate.

Wait, what am I thinking? We're going to Iceland and I'll hand him over to the loving embrace of his family, and Lalli to Onni's … well, not loving embrace, if I understand Finns correctly, but at least Onni's company. Then I'll take Sigrun home to Norway and Emil home to Sweden, and we'll probably none of us ever see each other again.

He doesn't need to understand orders.

All the same, “Come here, Reynir. I'll teach you some Danish.”

Mikkel did not teach conversational Danish. He taught useful Danish, phrases such as “Get behind me” and “Run for your life!”

And so the day passed, and everyone fell into bed early. Emil and Lalli were exhausted by their grueling journey, and the other three by the emotional stresses of the past week. Mikkel lay awake, listening to Emil snore and the breathing of others coming slow and regular in sleep. At last he picked up his blanket, crossed the room silently, wrapped himself up, and lay down across the threshold so that nothing could get in to harm his team, and none of them could go out into the cold and the dark and the silence, and be lost.

He slept, and his dead left him in peace.

A week passed while Mikkel kept watch by day and slept across the threshold by night, the others in their various ways recuperated from the journey, and everyone except the kitten suffered through the tuna fish.

The quarantine ship came for them at last, a cargo ship that happened to be in the right place with sufficient quarantine facilities. The paranoid Icelanders had decreed a four week quarantine in individual glass-walled cells with virtually no privacy.

And the food was even worse than Mikkel's cooking.

The Mask Slips

A Gift for Mikkel

I will go mad.

Mikkel Madsen sat, eyes closed, on a cot in a cramped glass-walled cell in the quarantine unit of a cargo ship. The cell held only the cot, a chair, and a small table. To his right was the heavy glass door, locked for the next four weeks, and below it an airlock for passing in provisions. To his left was the mercifully solid door to the facilities, but he'd been warned that it was alarmed, and if he stayed in there for more than half an hour, they'd come for him … because, of course, they thought he might transform into a troll in there, despite being immune to the Rash. Paranoid Icelanders.

Behind him was another glass cell containing Reynir, and beyond it an empty cell. Before him was Sigrun's cell, where she was already pacing, a few steps this way and then back again, over and over; beyond her was Emil's cell, where he sat on his bunk with his head in his hands; and beyond that was Lalli's cell. Lalli was invisible to him, but he knew where the little Finn was: he was under his cot.

The Icelanders had even quarantined the kitten, and that went well beyond paranoia into sheer insanity. The humans might be lying or mistaken about their immune status; blood tests could conceivably be wrong; but cats were always immune. No one in his right mind would quarantine a cat, but then, on this topic Icelanders were not in their right minds.

The cells were equipped with microphones and speakers for each of the other cells, all of which they could control. The others could hear him if he left the microphone live and they wished to hear, and he could hear them likewise. They had all left their microphones live and he could hear Sigrun's footsteps and various sighs. He knew their voices so well that he knew that bored sigh was Reynir and the frustrated sigh was Emil.

I have no duties, nowhere to go, nothing to do, no one to guard, nothing to fight. For four weeks. I will go mad.

He'd been in quarantine before, of course. When he entered sensible countries, which is to say, not Iceland, he would sit in a room for a few hours while the authorities tested his blood to confirm his immune status, and then he would go through a decontamination shower, his person and possessions would be scanned by cats, and he would be on his way. When he entered Iceland, as he had half a dozen times, the paranoid Icelanders would put him in quarantine for two weeks anyway. Cells on Iceland's quarantine island were much bigger than this, though, big enough that a man could pace properly.

And every cell had a punching bag so a man didn't have to pound on the walls.

Mikkel regarded the glass walls speculatively. Thick glass. He'd smash his hands to bloody pulps before those shattered. On the other hand … he studied the chair.

Those legs are probably bolted on. I can tear one off … or if not, I can just use the whole chair. I can break out if I have to. I can break them out if I have to.

But I don't have to. They're safe here.

His thoughts drifted back to the week at the outpost.

Each morning Mikkel woke to find Lalli sitting cross-legged on the floor beside him, waiting. With a nod to acknowledge the other's watch, he took his shower, gave Lalli his tuna fish for breakfast, then opened cans for the others. While they endured the meal and took their showers, the scout went out to check for incursions that might have occurred during the night. Though Mikkel knew the Finn was a powerful mage and was out in daylight, still he was on edge until the other returned and told them in his very bad Swedish that there was no danger.

After that the whole party ran out in the cold and the bright winter sun, and Mikkel stood guard while Emil fueled the generator with well-aged firewood and then Emil, Sigrun, and Reynir had snowball fights until they were tired, or Emil and Sigrun built snowmen and Reynir worked on his flock of snow-sheep. Lalli stood near, but not too near, also on guard. When the shadows grew long, they all went inside and suffered a supper of tuna fish, and Reynir washed their clothes so they would have clean clothes in the morning.

When they were all asleep and Emil was snoring, Mikkel took his blanket and stretched out across the threshold so that nothing could get in to harm his team, and none of them could go out into the cold and the dark and the silence, and be lost.

Mikkel Madsen sat, eyes closed, on a cot in a cramped glass-walled cell and listened to his team.

There was a new sound.

Mikkel's eyes snapped open.

It was just an attendant in sealed protective gear, pushing a cart. Lunch-time, then. After a week of old tuna fish, and before that Mikkel's miserable candle soup, he was looking forward to something edible. The attendant pushed a tray into each airlock, and Mikkel waited until he was gone before attempting to open the airlock; he suspected it would be locked while the attendant was in the room. Sigrun's frustrated grumble told him he was right.

His tray had not only a covered dish of food, but a book. The Icelanders knew that quarantine was hard and they tried to be kind to their captives. They offered alcohol or sedatives, which Mikkel declined because he'd seen too many soldiers crawl into a bottle and stay there; that was the easy way out. And they offered books, which he eagerly accepted. In quarantine in Iceland, he'd been given history books, which he had devoured for hours on end. Here though, he'd been told, there were no history books except those the team had brought, and those were too fragile and too valuable to be given to him.

The book was a collection of sea stories. “Adventures on the high seas!” the back cover promised. Well, that could wait. He lifted the cover of the food and found …

It was a mass of gray, glutinous, glop. There was no other description for it. It smelled terrible, and there were little black flecks in it. He watched them carefully, suspecting that they might attempt to crawl out. Finally he took a spoonful and put it in his mouth.

Spitting it into the toilet and rinsing out his mouth, Mikkel deeply regretted leaving behind the decade-old cans of tuna fish.

He carefully replaced the cover on the dish and returned the tray to the airlock. He wondered how the Icelanders ate it, as the processes of starvation would have to be well advanced before he could.

So, the book. He looked it over thoughtfully; looked at Sigrun, who had made her own hasty trip to the facilities after trying the … food. He thought the troll-hunter would soon be bored enough to start pounding on the walls without something to distract her. As her second in command, it was his duty to prevent that.

Duty.

Mikkel opened the book and began to read aloud.

Mikkel read aloud all afternoon and Sigrun and Emil sat back on their cots to listen. He glanced over once to see that Reynir had fallen asleep, smiling slightly, lulled by the sound of his voice, and he wondered if Reynir was walking on the waters of the dream-ocean that went on for ever and ever, and what he found there. But that was not a question to be asked before the Icelanders who watched and listened to them, waiting for one of them to transform into a ravening monster.

Supper arrived, and Mikkel removed the tray from the airlock with trepidation. When he cautiously lifted the cover, he found a bowl of … something … which was not identifiably animal or vegetable, and possibly not even mineral. The smell dissuaded him from even attempting to eat it. As he replaced the cover and shoved the tray back into the airlock, he wondered if the cook was trying out recipes for stewed grossling.

“Old canned fish,” Sigrun said yearningly, and “This stuff's worse than your soup!” Reynir exclaimed, and “Mikkel, how long will it take me to actually starve to death?” Emil asked.

Mikkel rested his forehead against the glass wall. After due consideration, he answered, “I believe it would take at least a month for you to starve to death. I am concerned that it will take Lalli less time, however.”

“Mikkel,” Sigrun said finally. “Tell them we can't eat this muck. Tell them they have to give us real food.”

He sat on his cot, addressed the air in Icelandic.

“We subsisted for the past week on canned tuna fish left behind by the Navy a decade ago, consumed straight out of the cans. Before that we were reduced to using candles for nourishment. We do not require elaborate meals. I presume that you have either canned or dried food from which this … substance … was produced. We would prefer to receive opened cans or dried food. It is not necessary to cook or otherwise prepare it for us.

“Thank you.”

The team slept hungry, and breakfast was two cans each of tuna fish which smelled even older than that from the outpost. “This is –” Emil began in a complaining tone.

“It isn't stewed grossling, so you can eat it and you won't starve,” Mikkel cut in. “Don't complain or we may get something worse.” To the air, in Icelandic, he added, “Thank you. This is satisfactory.”

By the end of the quarantine period, they would have cheerfully chosen stewed grossling, poisonous though it was, over more tuna fish.

The book was modern, worn, scuffed about the edges, and water-stained here and there. The name written inside the cover showed that it had not come from the ship's library (presuming that the ship even had a library), but had been offered to him by a crewmember. Mikkel treated it as the well-loved treasure that it was.

All morning he read aloud about terrible storms and ice in the rigging and tentacles snatching men into the deeps, and Sigrun and Emil sat back on their bunks listening, gasping and cheering at the appropriate moments, and Reynir dozed as the voice flowed over him, and if they were not happy, they were at least free for a time from the misery of confinement.

Lunch was more tuna fish.

After they had choked down their food, Sigrun said, “That last story reminded me of the time the Finns hired my team –”

“Sigrun,” Mikkel interrupted, “please turn off the speaker from my cell. You too, Emil.”

“Why?” Sigrun was both puzzled and annoyed.

“I want to translate for Reynir, and with the speakers, you'll hear me as clearly as he will. It will be very distracting.” As she and Emil reached for the switches, he turned to Reynir, staring in utter boredom at the ceiling. “Reynir, turn off the speaker from Sigrun's cell.”

Reynir asked no questions, complied. As he sat back down, Sigrun began her story again and told war stories all afternoon. She spoke, Mikkel translated, Emil and Reynir listened in fascination, and Lalli, hiding under his cot from the horrible bright glassy strangeness, listened to the two familiar voices and was comforted, just a little.

Supper was more tuna fish.

Mikkel woke several times in the night, heart pounding, and listened to his team for a long time before he slept again.

Breakfast was, again, tuna fish. Emil was complaining; even Sigrun and Reynir were grumbling; and Mikkel rested his forehead again the glass door and tried to remember how long it took to develop scurvy. He didn't think that information had actually been in the summaries he'd been given in his brief training as a medic; the presumption was that he would know what scurvy was and take measures to prevent it. He was afraid, though, that it occurred within a month of poor diet, and they'd already subsisted on tuna fish for ten days … Finally he told the air, “We need something else. We need something green.” Realizing the options that left open for the demonic cook, he hastily specified, “We need green vegetables, vegetables which are green in their natural state.”

When the attendant returned to remove their trays, he presented them with a deck of cards. “We have only one to lend you, which one of you wants it?” he asked.

Sigrun looked at Mikkel. “Well, I certainly don't!” In their time in the tank, she'd made it clear that she not only did not know any card games, she thought the concept was stupid.

“I guess I'll pass,” Emil said hesitantly, looking over at Lalli under his cot.

“Give the cards to Reynir,” Mikkel ordered, pointing in case the attendant didn't know which was which.

When the attendant had gone, Reynir removed the cards from the airlock and looked helplessly at Mikkel. “What am I supposed to do with these?”

“Do you know any solitaire games?”

“Solitaire games?” Reynir echoed blankly.

“Ah … yes. I will teach you.”

And so Mikkel spent an hour teaching solitaire card games to Reynir while Emil tried to coax Lalli to talk to him, trying to teach him Swedish or get him to teach Finnish, and Sigrun paced, a few steps this way and then back, over and over. At last Mikkel sat back to read aloud and Sigrun and Emil listened while Reynir tried out the unfamiliar games.

Lunch was something green.

“What is this slop?” Sigrun demanded, and “It isn't tuna fish,” Emil said resignedly, and “I believe it is spinach,” Mikkel said finally. And they ate it, because they strongly suspected that any alternative would be worse.

In the afternoon, Emil went back to trying to learn Finnish or teach Swedish and Mikkel, listening, wondered why he bothered.

Onni will take Lalli back to Finland where he belongs, I'll take Emil home to Sweden, and very likely they will never meet again. Why is he doing this? But then, I taught Danish phrases to Reynir as if he might need them … do we all have this feeling that this is not over?

He couldn't ask, of course, not with the Icelanders listening to every word. And so he left Emil to his endeavors and tried to teach Sigrun to play the ancient game of Battleship. They had paper and pencils, so they drew grids and he explained the concept.

“Now, you color in three squares in a row or column; that's your battleship. I'll do the same, and then we take turns naming the squares the way we've marked them. If I name a square that's part of your battleship, then you tell me it's a hit, otherwise you say it's a miss. And the same when you name a square on my grid. If I hit all the squares of your battleship, then it sinks and I win. And if you …”

“So you have a leviathan?” she asked, puzzled.

“What? No, I have a battleship. So do you.”

“But … no, that doesn't make sense. You have a leviathan attacking my battleship, isn't that right?”

Mikkel saw it abruptly. The five surviving nations all had navies, for they had to patrol the coasts by land and sea as you never knew what might ooze out of the waves, and they had to patrol the sea-routes, for though any vessel that put to sea was either very small and very fast or very large and very well-armed, still some sea-grosslings were too tough for anything less than a battleship to tangle with. But it might more accurately be said that there was only one navy with several uniforms, for any naval vessel would come to the aid of any ship, and every navy had the same weapons, tactics, goals … and enemies. No battleship had fired upon another battleship since the Great Dying.

She's an innocent Norwegian troll-hunter who has no idea of the inhumanities of man to man. And I'm not going to disillusion her.

“Yes, I have a leviathan and it's … throwing grosslings around the ocean trying to hit you while you fire the battleship's guns trying to hit me.”

So they played Battleship, and Mikkel always had a leviathan and Sigrun generally won because Mikkel cheated.

Dinner was cans of spinach.

Sleep was as fugitive for Mikkel as ever.

And so the days passed. Meals were tuna fish or spinach, depending on which one they were most sick of.

Mikkel read aloud every morning. When he finished each book, another was supplied, and he was at pains to thank the air for the generosity of the crewmember who had lent the latest book. He did not know that the crew had begun to spend their free hours sitting beside the monitoring booth, listening to him read.

Reynir played cards when he was not napping or staring at the walls, while Emil continued his efforts to teach and learn from Lalli, who had gone so far as to crawl out from under his cot and crouch on the floor to talk. Sigrun and Mikkel played Battleship, and after a while she began to cheat too, so he cheated more, and soon their games devolved into arguments about whether their targets were or were not in various places, and they didn't mind because it made the games last longer.

At night, Mikkel spent many hours listening to his team sleep.

And so the days passed.

And at last the quarantine was over.

They were freed from quarantine just an hour before the ship docked, as tug boats pulled it to its berth in Reykjavík's harbor. Their own clothes were returned to replace the quarantine outfits which had been supplied for four weeks. Putting them on, Mikkel found that all of his repairs had been carefully picked out and restitched by someone with genuine talent, and that the clothes were cleaner than they had been since the expedition first set out so many weeks before.

Leaving their cells to Sigrun's ecstatic cry of “Freedom”, Mikkel was handed their kitten in a carry cage, and Lalli, with great relief, received back his rifle. All their other gear, and the all-important books, had been left isolated in a cargo hold under UV lights until a few days earlier, and then packed for them. That luggage was supposed to be delivered to them once they had established lodging.

Reynir's brother Bjarni, a crewman on that very vessel, joined them. He had visited Reynir for a matter of minutes in quarantine, but his heavy protective gear had prevented Mikkel from even getting a look at him. Seeing him now, Mikkel understood that the other — shorter, dark-haired, with a square face and dark brown eyes — was unlikely to be his teammate's biological kin, but they greeted each other with brotherly affection. A surprising number of other crewmembers turned out to say goodbye and offer to shake Mikkel's and Sigrun's hands. He supposed that their experiences in the Silent World had been a major topic of conversation for bored crewmembers during their quarantine.

And so they came to Reykjavík.

Mikkel had been there before, of course. He had been to nearly all of the major cities of the Known World. He did not really like visiting Iceland, for the civilians seemed figuratively, not just literally, insular. It was understandable that they viewed their island as the center of the world, for indeed it was. It was the home of three-quarters of the surviving human population; had maintained a relatively high technological base thanks to its geothermal power; was well-defended from grosslings by its powerful army and navy that patrolled its coasts by land and sea; and had proven its ability to survive without contact with the rest of the world for a generation after the Great Dying.

Yet Mikkel thought that Iceland was the past, and that it was the little nations which were the dynamic future of humanity. It was they who were pushing back the grosslings, restoring what had been lost. The Swedes were the pioneers there, and had designed the protocol which Norway also used and Denmark, in the form of Bornholm, had meant to use.

The Army set out with heavy earth-moving equipment to build a wall which they then patrolled. Behind the wall, teams of Hunters swept through, searching out every grossling nest that had been left within. After the Hunters came the Cleansers, who burned down anything that might offer a grossling shelter from the bitter winter winds. After a couple of years in which scouts and Hunters made sure the land was truly cleared, the Reclaimers came in to plow the fields for farms. In a generation or so, they did it again with a new wall. The city of Mora was now behind three such walls and surrounded by fields, pastures, and little farming villages.

It was a slow process but it would accelerate. More land supported more population, and more population could reclaim more land. No one now living would see Sweden reclaimed, nor Norway, and certainly not Denmark, but the people of the little nations had faith that one day their lands would be cleansed and normal life — mammalian life, not just human life — would live without fear once more.

But the Icelanders had no part in that great effort.

The team had gotten their sea-legs in their weeks of quarantine, all but Lalli who was, of course, sea-sick for days before the Icelanders realized the problem and supplied him with anti-nausea drugs. As they finally set foot on solid ground, the others were somewhat unsteady while the Finn staggered, stumbled, and fell.

Without a word, without even glancing at each other, his team surrounded him protectively until he was able to stand. They did not offer assistance, though they would gladly have helped him, for they all understood that he wanted no help if he could do without it. When he was back on his feet, they all proceeded somewhat slowly toward the city center following Reynir and Bjarni, who were animatedly catching up on their recent experiences.

“Oy! Over here!” They looked around at the Swedish call. “Welcome back to civilization! So glad to see you!” It was Torbjörn Västerström, joined by his wife Siv, Taru, and Trond.

Emil endured the embrace of his aunt (“Oh, little Emil, you're okay!”) while Sigrun was less respectful to the General than Mikkel would have preferred (“Still alive, huh, old man?”). Mikkel lost track of Lalli for a moment, and scanned around in alarm, finally spotting him standing against a wall, well away from the others, beside another man, older, half a head taller, stockier of build, and squarer of face, but withal so similar in features that he might have been the younger man's brother. So this was the cousin, the mage: Onni.

Reynir's parents, meanwhile, had caught up with him, a short blonde woman who threw her arms around him and sobbed in relief, and a red-haired man who was a taller, broader, older, version of Reynir.

“My perfect, sweet, little —” Reynir's mother began, then pulled his hair hard. “Stupid idiot child! You insolent brat! If you loved me you would never have done this!” Mikkel backed away, trying not to listen in to the family reunion, while Reynir said weakly, “Mom … Mom …”

She turned on Bjarni next. “And you! You always get your little brother into trouble! I know you played a part in this!”

Her husband patted her shoulder soothingly. “That's enough now.” And to Reynir, “How could you do this to your mother? Do you have no heart? Or brain?”

Their penitent son could only bow his head and murmur, “I didn't mean to, I just — sorry.”

His father turned away, disgusted, and addressed Trond. “Thank you for bringing back my very unintelligent son. Without you he never would have returned from the Silent World.”

“Sure,” Trond agreed, dutifully shaking his hand. “He wouldn't have been there in the first place.”

“I have to repay you!” The Icelander announced to the team. “You all must be in need of a room while you are here, and I have plenty of those in my home. My family would be honored to be your hosts for your stay.”

Reynir, somewhat recovered from his scolding, smiled at them hopefully.

“What's he saying?” Sigrun whispered to Mikkel.

“Free lodging,” he replied succinctly.

“The carriage to my town departs in a few hours,” their host finished.

“Ahem,” Mikkel cleared his throat, extending an open palm to the General, the man who'd gotten him into this mess with a promise of pay. “Paycheck, please.”

“Talk to him,” the General answered briefly, pointing to Torbjörn, who immediately answered, “Of course! Let's go to the bank!”

“You guys have money already?” Emil was confused.

“Yes, we do!” Siv told him enthusiastically, “Several collectors reserved and pre-paid for books based on the item list we were sent. The rest are on their way to an auction held by the Nordic Council. But we already have enough to pay you all! With bonuses!”

“I had been under the impression,” Mikkel said thoughtfully, looking back at her, “that the collection of books was … unofficial.” He had, in fact, gathered that the entire expedition was a pretext set up by Torbjörn to restore his family's fortunes by sale of books, and that that part of the project had been kept a secret from the Council which was financing it.

“Well, ah, once you had your problems, everyone was really interested in the expedition, so we said the books were just part of the exploring, you know, seeing what might be out there that people would want to recover. And then you found that antique shop, and everyone was really excited about that. So, you know, we just sort of … glossed over our plans. And the Council will get their money back, so everyone's happy.”

Mikkel had not been terribly disturbed when he first understood that the expedition's sponsors were probably defrauding the Nordic Council; he didn't much like the Nordic Council and anyway had a problem with authority in general, but it was good to know that they weren't at risk of arrest.

They were, however, at risk of ambush by news creatures. Their trip to the bank was interrupted when an older man stuck a microphone in Lalli's face and attempted to question him. Onni's response was admirably simple, in Mikkel's opinion, for he simply shoved the man aside and kept walking.

Sigrun exclaimed, in something between dismay and excitement, “A horde of reporters! There's three of them!”

“Good evening from Bæjarbladid newspaper!” A reporter told her in Icelandic. At her blank stare, he continued in Norwegian, “Madame, would you like to share your exp—”

“Yes!” she cried enthusiastically, disappointing Mikkel, who'd wanted to take Onni's approach to reporters.

Beside him, a woman had approached Emil, saying in Icelandic, “Sir, tell me all about your journey!”

“I don't speak Icelandic,” he answered in Swedish, trying to catch up to Mikkel.

“Swedish? I can do Swedish,” she persisted.

He answered in stumbling Finnish, and she replied in what sounded like even worse Finnish, at which point he gave up. “Fine! You got me! Swedish!” Mikkel thought Emil should have taken Onni's approach too, but then Emil was smaller than Onni.

The first reporter, undaunted by Onni's reception, now approached Mikkel. With Sigrun happily describing their adventures and the third reporter dragging reluctant answers from Emil, the big Dane couldn't just knock the man down and keep going, so he resigned himself to the situation.

“Tell me about the white clover, Trifolium repens,” the man began. “Is it true that it thrives in soil with troll remains and is taking over all the land?”

Ah, just the sort of opportunity Mikkel welcomed! “Yes, I vividly remember all the Trifolium repens,” he answered with every indication of sincerity. “On the roads, all over the walls, everywhere!”

Before he could expatiate further on botany in the Silent World, the General interrupted, shooing the reporters away without even knocking them down. “Thank you, that is enough. We have bank business to tend to!”

Mikkel accepted his envelope of money, at something of a loss. When he'd joined the expedition, he'd thought to use it to buy a farm, try to find a wife, try to have a family. At not yet thirty-five, his twin brother Michael had five children, and was expecting his first grandchild. The people of the “little nations” — those other than Iceland — grew up fast, married young, and had a lot of children.

And yet, somehow all of that had missed Mikkel.

Life in the age of the Rash was very hard. The nations outside of Iceland were short of fuel, short of raw materials, most of all short of people. All of the little nations together would have formed a small city before the coming of the Rash; Sweden was the largest, with a little more than twenty thousand people; Finland had barely half that in all its territory. Denmark was not much bigger than Finland, and Norway a little bigger than that.

Farming was done with muscle power, human and animal, and that inevitably meant accidents. Yet in all of Denmark, there was not a single trauma center, not even one professional surgeon, and very few full-time doctors. Transport was generally by ox-cart or horseback, so if anyone was injured, he got whatever care happened to be available in the area and he lived, or he died, as his luck would have it.

When Mikkel Madsen was fourteen, he was considered a man in all the little nations. When Mikkel Madsen was fourteen, he chopped off his cousin Pettar's leg.

Mikkel did not leave the family farm again for three years. He threw himself into the innumerable tasks of a large farm. He built fences, and barns, and stables. He broke ground for new fields. He cared for the livestock. He was still growing, and the work filled out his frame and hardened his muscles. He became immensely strong.

The family had seen Mikkel returning, blood-covered, carrying his unconscious cousin in his arms, the tourniquet applied just this side of too late; he'd saved his best friend's life, but at terrible cost. The family knew Mikkel was troubled but did not know how to help him, so they let him work as he wished. His father encouraged him to leave the farm, to go into town on market days, at first very gently and then with increasing sternness as the years passed, and at last he gave in.

Mikkel was tall, powerfully built, if not handsome at least not actually ugly, brilliant, a son of the prosperous Madsen family, and immune. Of course the young women were interested in him. But Mikkel had never learned to flirt and it didn't fit his nature anyway. Moreover, his peers, male and female alike, struck him as insular and fundamentally unserious. They knew the Rash was out there — as how could they not in the age of the Rash — but it was out there. They simply didn't imagine that it could reach out to them in their comfortable environment and try to snatch them away. In the arrogance of youth, he thought they were quite stupid, and sooner or later, he inevitably said so.

So Mikkel drifted while his siblings found love and formed families, until he was twenty-one and the Army announced their intention to reclaim the mainland. He signed up the next day.

And at Kastrup, Mikkel Madsen learned that the world was far more terrible than he had ever imagined.

Mikkel put the money away. He would think about it later.

Fortunes in hand, the team split up to their various activities. Lalli departed with Onni and after a moment Emil followed them. Reynir, who didn't get a share because he was not a formal member of the team, went off with Bjarni. Mikkel got directions from Árni, Reynir's father, to the best restaurant in Reykjavík, and he and Sigrun went there in search of lunch.

After their miserable diet for the past months, they would have eaten broiled hockey puck and been grateful. Their lunch was, on the contrary, a genuine feast. They had soups and salads, crab cakes and lobster tails, lamb chops, vegetables, fresh fruit, even bread, and everything, everything, was properly prepared and seasoned by someone with a delicate hand and exquisite taste.

When all the food was eaten and the dishes cleared away by the attentive staff, when the two sat back with their eyes closed, sipping the last of the wine, Sigrun said it best. “We won't eat better in Valhalla.”

Mikkel could have stayed there forever.

But, of course, they couldn't stay forever. The carriage would be leaving soon and they had to hurry to the station. The team piled into a carriage together, joined by Onni and Bjarni, while the rest of the party took a second carriage.

Their weeks in the Silent World had affected them all. In prior visits, Mikkel had never thought about the many buildings in Reykjavík. They might be in use, or not, and if they were empty, then they were just part of the remains of the Old World, left to decay or be pulled apart for materials. But now … all of the immunes were looking around uneasily, unable to entirely shake the feeling that something might lunge out at them.

“Lots of empty houses around this city,” Sigrun muttered.

“Reynir,” Mikkel asked, “do you know if any of those buildings are in use?”

“Ah … no. They're just there. I think there used to be way more people living here back in the day. But people moved from the city, because of like … food and stuff. A lot of towns away from the shores didn't even exist before that. Like ours! You'll all love it!”

Mikkel's translation for Sigrun and Emil, and what was probably Onni's translation for Lalli, did nothing to relieve anyone's uneasiness. The buildings really were empty and so …

But at last they were out of the city and the team was able to relax a bit. They slept, but for Onni who remained awake, alert. Even Mikkel dozed off and on, lulled by the motion of the carriage. Hours passed, and it was late evening by the time they reached their destination: Brúardalur.

Reynir's home really was very large. It proved to have no fewer than eight bedrooms (one of which was serving as a sewing room for Reynir's mother, Sigriður, but was hastily cleaned up). The three young men of the team, Reynir, Emil, and Lalli, were sent to sleep in Reynir's room. Sigrun and Taru got the rooms normally used by the two daughters, Guðrún and Hildur, while Trond got the room of one son, Ólafur; Siv and Torbjörn got one spare bedroom; and Onni got the erstwhile sewing room.

Mikkel (“Oh, Mikkel, you saved our son, you're family now!”) had the opportunity to share Bjarni's room. His insistence that he would be perfectly comfortable on the floor was waved away, Bjarni taking a mattress on the floor and Mikkel being given the bed. Before they could shut the door for the night, the kitten, or rather the cat at this point, joined them.

Even through two closed doors, Mikkel could hear Emil complaining. “Hold on a second! All this time trudging through hell and I only asked for one thing! A private room and a bed, how is that too much?!”

Mikkel chuckled – that was a familiar tone – and betook himself to bed, if not in a private room, at least in a real bed. He slept badly, as usual, but every time he woke up, their cat — Missekat as he called her — was purring beside his head.

Breakfast was another genuine pleasure. There was milk, and there were eggs, and there was toast with butter and jam. As they ate, Mikkel asked the sponsors curiously, “You have any plans for how to use your profits?”

“We do!” Taru answered enthusiastically in Icelandic, “We're going to look into building an expeditions agency. With the rising acceptance of ventures into the Silent World, there's going to be a demand for teams for hire.”

Siv picked up the answer in Swedish for Sigrun's benefit. “We'll be able to hire plenty of people right off the bat! Scouts, hunters, medics, everyone needed! So many people are interested after the publicity of your journey! Of course, all of you get priority, if you'd like a job at the agency. We'll pay well, too. Interested at all? Sigrun?”

“Mehh. I think I'll go back home.” Mikkel suppressed a sigh of relief. It was his duty to bring them all to the end, one way or another, and he would do it. But it would certainly be much harder to deliver her safely home if she signed up for another expedition.

“And you, Mikkel?” Siv persisted.

“Hmm. Well. I will be in need of a new job, in time.” Once they were all home safe …

“Why don't you come with me?” Sigrun offered. “There's always jobs in my town. Wanna be a brick layer? Butcher? Mail-man? Food taster?”

“Your town has positions for food tasters?”

“There will be if I tell my dad we need them! At least one.” He met her eyes, then looked away. This was not a conversation they should have.

“Well,” Siv put in, “you know you will always have a place with us, if you need it.”

After breakfast, they all went out to stretch their legs. After four weeks in quarantine, they were desperate for fresh air and a view without walls. “So … are we allowed to just go wherever? Freely?” Emil was uncertain in this strange place where he did not even speak the language.

“Bye, kids, we'll see you later if we see you! Go wherever you want!” Sigrun called cheerily as she and Mikkel strolled away, the cat in hot pursuit. When it began to rain, they bought umbrellas and the cat rode sprawled across Mikkel's broad shoulders.

“We should get her trained,” Sigrun commented.

“That will take time.” She shrugged indifferently. “We have to decide, you know,” he went on, “where she goes. She's our cat, the team's cat, but when we all go home …”

“Yeah …” she answered slowly. “I hadn't thought of that … but training takes a month or so, so we'll all be here for a while, and we can decide later!”

They walked around the village in the rain until it was evening and, as they approached, Sigriður called to them, “You're late for supper!”

Mikkel had stopped, courteously allowing Sigrun to go in first, when a hand fell upon his shoulder. He spun sharply, hand rising to strike … but it was only Onni, a satchel slung over his shoulder. Knowing that the Finnish mage had even fewer possessions than he did, few enough to fit in the satchel, Mikkel said, puzzled, “You look like you've gotten ready to leave.”

The other ignored the comment. “You're the one they made me talk to on the radio all the time.” Well, it wasn't quite all the time, but it probably felt like it, Mikkel thought a bit remorsefully, replying, “That's correct.”

“You sounded fatter.” Well, that was the famous Finnish tact at work.

“What do you want, Onni?”

“I need a favor. You're decently dependable, right?”

“Depends,” Mikkel answered warily. He owed this man for the firebird, he needed to repay him, but he had other duties as well …

“I'm going back home to Saimaa, and I don't want Lalli to follow me. There's nothing for him there.” The Finn held out an envelope. “Give this letter to him tomorrow. It'll be too late for him to run after me.” Mikkel accepted the letter and Onni hesitated before continuing, “And another thing. That Swede is the first person he's managed to make friends with. I need you to make sure Lalli sticks with him when they leave Iceland. I don't want him to be alone. Can you do that?”

“Yes, I –”

“Thanks. Goodbye.” And the Finn was walking away, leaving Mikkel standing on the doorstep with the envelope.

Mikkel blinked at Onni's retreating back. This was all very strange, but Mikkel did owe the man and if that was what he wanted …

He had just entered when Reynir rushed out the door, obviously in pursuit of Onni. He made a mental note to ask Reynir later if he'd learned anything from the Finn, and turned to consider Emil and Lalli.

They had been walking in the rain as well, and they had not had umbrellas. Mikkel saw Sigriður's hand at work in the fact that they were sitting wrapped up in blankets beside a roaring fire. Emil, he knew, spoke only Swedish and a little Finnish; Lalli spoke only Finnish and a little Swedish. If Onni wanted Lalli to stay with Emil and did not want Lalli to return to Finland, then logically Lalli would have to go to Sweden with Emil.

“Emil,” he began. “What are your plans for after you leave here?”

“I dunno … I'm going back to being a Cleanser? Try to get a promotion maybe.”

“Would the Cleansers accept a new recruit that didn't speak Swedish?”

Emil looked sidelong at Lalli, already seeing where this was going. “Uh, yeah, they don't exactly have standards.”

“Good to hear!” Mikkel patted the Swede on the head. “You're going to take Lalli with you and have him sign up with them also. This is an order.” Pushing the two towards each other in hopes of conveying to Lalli that they would stay together, he told the Finn firmly, “Okay.”

Obedient as always, Emil nodded and, as Mikkel walked away to seek his supper, turned to Lalli to say, “Uh … I hope you enjoy looking at things burn?” Lalli stared at him blankly, having understood none of this.

With Onni gone and his guest room vacant, Mikkel was immediately moved into it. Having not had actual privacy in months, he felt on the one hand grateful and on the other hand somewhat unsettled, unable to hear anyone breathing, though at least he could hear Emil snoring. When the house was very quiet – but for snoring – he sneaked into Reynir's bedroom and laid Onni's note on Lalli's chest.

He heard no more about Onni for quite a while.

The next week passed quickly. The team hiked every day, now all carrying umbrellas, for they needed exercise to recover from four weeks of enforced idleness. Siv and Torbjörn left after a couple of days, and Mikkel and Sigrun took the cat for training the next day. As she had to have an official name for this purpose, they agreed to call her 'Pusekatt', her Norwegian name. As they left, Sigrun grumbled to Mikkel, “Too old for grade A training! That cat's a grade A if I ever saw one! Idiot Icelanders!”

With Siv and Torbjörn gone, Emil begged to be allowed to take the empty guest room, and was at last able to experience a real bed, and privacy of a sort, as Lalli chose to sleep under his bed as he had once slept under Mikkel's.

Reynir's remaining three siblings, two sisters and a brother, all came home to see their little brother. Emil and Lalli were banished back to Reynir's room after enjoying the guest room for only a couple of days, so that Taru could still have a private room. The two daughters, Guðrún and Hildur, then shared Guðrún's room and Ólafur shared Bjarni's.

After a week, General Trond also went home. When Árni told him, “Thank you for your service. It was an honor having you here,” Trond was characteristically irascible. “Stop being polite because I'm old and in the military!” Relenting a little, “But thanks for the hospitality.”

Offering his hand, Mikkel said only, “Safe journey, General.”

The General shook his hand, looked him in the eye. “Good job in difficult circumstances. Well done.”

“Thank you,” Mikkel answered quietly. It was quite the highest praise he'd ever received from the General.

Ólafur moved back to his own room, to the great relief of Bjarni, as Ólafur was even larger than Mikkel and snored worse than Emil.

Mikkel could not sit idle, nor even hike with Sigrun all day. He offered his services to the shepherds, and after a certain amount of argument (“You do not owe us for hospitality!” “I can't just sit around!”), he was permitted to build and repair fences and barns, and even help with the sheep. His family had never had sheep so he was unfamiliar with their care, but he was a quick study.

Though he would never have admitted it to himself, the end of the expedition had knocked him far off his normal equilibrium, and the long, safe, quiet sojourn in Iceland did much to restore him. He slowly lost the impulse to stand watch all night, telling himself repeatedly that the entire Icelandic army and navy were standing watch over his team. The first few nights alone in the guestroom, he slipped out in the darkness and ghosted down the stairs to check the outside doors. Not that he actually meant to sleep across the threshold, no, none of that …

He found that two of the family's big sheepdogs were sleeping across the thresholds. This seemed a bit odd, since there were no grosslings, but he reminded himself that the family was rather wealthy, and in every human community, there could be thieves. He made his way silently back to his assigned room and slept less poorly than usual. He did not know that the dogs had been brought in at Emil's request, conveyed through Siv, for his benefit.

Sigrun established a shooting range in a safe location and began working on Emil's marksmanship. As Lalli trailed along with him, she thought he might want training as well. This idea was abandoned after the Finn put three shots in the same hole at a hundred meters. Some of the young people of the town wandered by, curious, and she offered via gestures to train them also. Several took her up on this, but they used her rifle, never bringing their own. When Mikkel asked Árni about this, he was told that, to the best of the Icelander's knowledge, there were no rifles or other firearms in the village.

“But –” Even Mikkel was somewhat speechless at this.

“There are no grosslings here, Mikkel. There are no wolves, and no one would let their dogs kill sheep. There's nothing we would want to shoot.”

Mikkel translated for Sigrun and Emil, and the three, the children of the little nations, looked at each other in some amazement at the concept of such complete safety. Denmark, which is to say Bornholm, was the safest of the three, but its army and navy were proportionately much larger than those of Iceland and its dangerous coasts much closer to the population. Firearms were common in all the little nations and most people had at least some training.

“Well, uh …” Sigrun said finally. “Some of those kids do want to learn, and I don't want them using my rifle. If they don't have their own … would it be very hard to buy one, just one, for them?”

Árni answered the translated question thoughtfully. “I've never tried to buy a firearm, but I suppose we can send to Reykjavik for a rifle. There's no law against having one so I don't know why we couldn't.” And so it was arranged, and so two days later Sigrun was teaching three young people from the village with the “village rifle”.

They didn't see Reynir for the next couple of weeks, as he had enrolled in a “comprehensive expedited summer course in magic”, held in a larger town an hour's ride away.

Pusekatt's training finally ended after they'd been in Iceland for a month, and Mikkel and Sigrun went to fetch her. She was, as predicted, officially assigned to grade B, and Sigrun told her delightedly, “You're coming home with me!” The cat seemed to agree, purring in Sigrun's arms, and Mikkel nodded silently. She had to go with someone; Reynir had no need of a trained cat; Emil and Lalli would be with the Cleansers, which had their own cats; and he himself … well, no telling where he would end up. The captain of troll-hunters was the logical person to take the cat.

“What exactly did she learn to do?” he asked.

“Well, she was already very skilled at noticing the simulated presence of trolls, by scent and sound.” He suppressed a smile. As a mere kitten, she'd saved Reynir's life by detecting a troll under the snow. “But she now knows how to properly inform any nearby humans. No more hissing! But she will demand treats; we weren't able to wean her off of that.” He suppressed another smile. The kitten had subsisted on a diet of candle soup and regarded tuna fish – even decade-old tuna fish – as a treat. It would not be difficult to keep her supplied with acceptable treats.

Reynir came home that evening. He was properly trained in “farm magic”, but bitterly disappointed that he was not, nor ever would be, trained in battle magic; as a non-immune, he could never qualify to be a mage in the Norwegian military as he desired. As he related this, Mikkel frowned thoughtfully at him. He had not known that the Icelander wished to go to Norway with Sigrun. He rather suspected that Sigrun had not known that the Icelander wished to go to Norway with her. But then he shrugged. It didn't matter. Reynir would have to stay in Iceland and that was the end of it.

The next day was a day of departures. Ólafur left for a fishing expedition; Bjarni had a mechanic's job waiting for him; Hildur, being a nurse, couldn't take too much time off. Guðrún did not leave, and Mikkel overheard her telling Reynir that she had a beau in town, a man nearly as big as Mikkel himself. Reynir's response was troubling: “Huh. I guess Mom won't rely on having me around that much then …” But surely the boy wouldn't run off again. Surely he'd learned his lesson.

Taru was the last to leave that evening. Departing, she reminded Mikkel, “Let me know if you change your mind and do need a job. I should take a swing by Keuruu and see if I can recruit Onni too.”

“That's not where he went,” Mikkel answered, frowning.

“Oh? But he said –”

“I spoke to Onni just as he was leaving. He said he was going to Saimaa. And Reynir spoke to him too. He told Reynir the same thing.”

Lalli, sitting quietly, looking out the window, stood, asked Taru something that included Onni's name. Her answer sounded puzzled. Turning back to Mikkel, “Maybe you remember wrong? I can't think of a reason why he would go back there.” Mikkel shrugged. He knew little about Onni and not much more about Keuruu – a military outpost – and Saimaa – an immense lake system dotted with small islands.

“Well, I really have to go,” Taru finished. “I'm sure we'll run into each other again.” And she was out the door and gone.

And then it was night, and in that night there were events of which Mikkel knew nothing, but which were to profoundly affect his life.

Lalli hardly ever spoke; indeed, since their liberation from quarantine, Mikkel had heard his voice only a handful of times, though according to Emil Lalli continued to participate in language lessons, however reluctantly. If Lalli seemed unusually subdued at breakfast, Mikkel did not notice, for the Finn was always subdued, and in any case the Dane was thinking about a barn he was repairing, and what he needed to finish it.

After breakfast, they separated, Mikkel to his barn, Sigrun to her shooting range, Lalli and Emil to a long hike, and Reynir to use his new farm-magic knowledge to renew runes around the pastures. Mikkel did not return for lunch, his meal – a small loaf of coarse bread and a chunk of cheese – being brought to him by one of his fans, a boy of perhaps six who remained, watching him adoringly, until the boy's mother called him sharply back for other chores.

Finishing his meal, Mikkel regarded his handiwork thoughtfully. It was good work, and when he completed it that evening, the barn would stand sturdy against the winter storms for many years. Idly he wondered if his pay from the expedition would allow him to buy a farm here, in this beautiful valley with these kind people and all these sheep …

But no. It's safe; there would be nothing to threaten, nothing to guard against. I would get bored – I'll be starting to feel it soon – and then I would say or do something to hurt these good people … no. I have to go. We have to go. Missekat is trained and there's no reason to stay longer. I must take Sigrun home to Dalsnes, and then Emil and Lalli to Sweden. I've neglected my duty for too long.

That evening, the barn finished and its owners' thanks ringing in his ears, Mikkel returned to Árni and Sigriður's home, and supper. If Lalli was subdued, no one noticed, for Mikkel proposed that it was time for them all to move on.

“Yeah, I need to get home,” Sigrun said. “It's almost the start of hunting season, and I need to get back to my … team.” The hesitation was only slight, but Mikkel heard it. “We can sightsee a little in Reykjavik first though, right? Just for a day? I didn't get to when we went through there.”

“I guess I'd better get back to the Cleansers,” Emil added. “They're – we're – going to start back to work soon. I can't miss that if I want a promotion.” He glanced at Lalli. “And I guess he needs some training, too.”

“Then we're agreed. We could leave … tomorrow?”

There being no disagreement with that, he advised their hosts of their plans. Sigriður urged them to stay just a little longer, but Mikkel thought her husband looked a bit relieved at the thought of sending the four guests on their way. Reynir regarded him with sad, betrayed eyes which the Dane did his best to ignore.

Their last night in Brúardalur was very quiet.

Mikkel was up before the others, as always, but Sigriður was already up and had prepared a feast for their breakfast. Sigrun wandered down unusually early since, like him, she felt ready to move on. She was peacefully sipping her herbal tea when Emil came down the stairs holding out a piece of paper.

“Hey! Lalli wrote me a note. Someone needs to parse this for me.”

Someone was, of course, Mikkel. Sigrun would not even try to decipher handwriting. “If it's in Finnish, I don't –”

“No, it's in Swedish. Kinda?!”

Mikkel accepted the paper, attempted to read it aloud. “'Hello, here paper. Movement home, is important doing. Was nice know. Butter good. Lalli.'”

He and Emil looked at each other, shrugged identically. “Did you by any chance pick up a Finnish-Swedish dictionary during your sojourn in Reykjavik?”

“Yeah, I, I thought it would help because he can read, but …”

Reynir came down the stairs, looking around. “Uhhh … is Lalli gone? Do you know what this is about?”

“I … I think so,” Mikkel said slowly. “When Taru left the other evening, she said she'd look for Onni in Keuruu. He told her that was where he was going. But he wasn't going to Keuruu; he told me he was going home to Saimaa, and he told you the same thing. Lalli heard us talking …”

“Saimaa! That was the name! I couldn't remember when Lalli asked me –”

“What are you two talking about?” Sigrun and Emil asked almost together.

“In a minute,” he waved them to silence, and to Reynir, “Lalli asked you?”

Yeah, he wanted me to meet him in, well, in our dreams. I mean, he thumped me on the forehead and then himself, so I got the message. He never wanted me to before. He didn't even want me around his, his place –

Right. Night before last, it was, we went to sleep and I met him there, me and my dog, my dream-dog. We can talk in dreams, so he asked me where Onni went and I couldn't remember what Onni said, but I remembered there was an 's' in it. And Lalli got really upset because he said Onni lied to him and he said Onni never lies.

But people do lie. When they care for you, I mean. My parents lied to me, but they only wanted to keep me safe, to keep me here …

Anyway, I tried to take him to Onni's place. I've been there before, several times. I can walk on the dream-sea, but it seems like Lalli and Onni can't, not unless they're with me. So he needed me to take him there, only, only, I can't find Onni's place anymore. I feel like it's there, but we walked a long way, and we got into these, like, tall rushes, and my dog was scouting ahead, and then he came back. He looked real scared and he didn't want to go that way anymore.

So I told Lalli we had to go back, we couldn't go on, not if the dog was scared, because he knows things. He warned me about those ghosts, and he found Anne for me. Well, sort of …

Uh, yeah, but that's the end. Lalli wanted to go on, but I made him go back with me and then the dream ended.

And now he's gone!

Mikkel summarized the story for the other two, fell silent, tried to think.

Lalli left during the night. Why didn't the dogs stop him? Because they're guard dogs, idiot! They'd raise the household if someone tried to come in, but if a member of the household wanted to leave, they'd just wag their tails. If I'd been on watch … but he wasn't a prisoner. In the Silent World, maybe we could tie him up to keep him out of trouble, but not here. Here, if he wants to go somewhere so dangerous that Onni lied to keep him out of it … so dangerous that Onni used me to keep him out of it … I can't stop him.

The answer was obvious. So then I have to go with him, help him, guard him, take him safely to Onni. Or die trying, of course. This is how I repay Onni for the firebird.

“Well,” he said aloud, finally. “He's trying to go back to Finland, to Saimaa, to find Onni. He'll need my help to get passage. The Finns don't travel much, so I doubt he'll find a single Finnish-speaker in Reykjavik. Yes, he'll need my help.”

“I'm going with him,” Emil stated firmly. “He's my friend and I won't let him go into danger like that, alone.”

Sigrun was studying Mikkel's face. “You're not just helping him get passage. You're going with him.”

He could not deny it.

“Then I'm going too. You two can't go into some weird place chasing after him and his nutso cousin without even a troll-hunter along!”

And then of course Reynir wanted a translation and Mikkel had to explain. “If you're going to Reykjavik, I'm going with you,” the Icelander answered, and there wasn't much Mikkel could say to that. They couldn't tie up Reynir to keep him out of trouble either.

They ate breakfast, of course. Sigriður had gone to a lot of trouble for them and they couldn't just run out without doing justice to her work. Lalli had a head start of hours, but given his linguistic limitations, Mikkel did not believe he could find passage before they caught up with him. Even if he did manage to find a ship going the right direction, well, a Finn trying to book passage in Reykjavik would leave a broad trail and they would surely be able to trace him.

At least, Mikkel hoped so.

A Finn trying to book passage in Reykjavik had left a very broad trail indeed. By the time the team arrived, several hours behind him, he seemed to have wandered all over the port, showing a little drawing to anyone who would give him a moment, even stevedores and dockhands. Mikkel gathered it was simply a drawing of a ship going to a piece of land marked with the Finnish flag.

Some had not understood at all; some had understood and tried to help; others … Had he been alone, had he had the time, Mikkel would have found a way to make them regret making a fool of his lost and helpless teammate. But he was not alone and there was no time. Lalli had not found passage, but he was no longer at the port, and they needed to find him.

Sigrun's sightseeing in Reykjavik consisted of going from inn to inn, hotel to hotel, searching for anyone who might have seen a lost Finn, but after inquiring at half a dozen locations, they had found no one who had seen him. “Face it, big guy,” Sigrun said finally, as evening shadows grew long, “he's gone to ground somewhere in this maze and we'll never find him. But he'll be back at the port tomorrow, and we'll catch up with him there.”

That was however Mikkel's concern. Reykjavik was the most populous city in the world, not merely larger than any of the little nations, but larger than any two of them put together. If he'd actually “gone to ground”, there were any number of places the scout could have hidden himself away. Mikkel had never seen him climb, but was certain the little Finn could climb like a squirrel. He could be hiding, alone and fearful, down an alley or on a roof … and though Reykjavik was considered quite safe, there was always that possibility, very small but real, that he could have run afoul of someone dangerous.

Yet they could not wander aimlessly through the city searching for him. Mikkel allowed himself to be persuaded to stay in a hotel for the night, deeply worried though he was. He would have been greatly relieved if they had just gone on another block, for he would have seen Lalli staring broodingly out the window of the hotel where he had found rest.

Bright and early in the morning, the team was back in the port, scattered around so that they would see Lalli wherever he appeared. It was Mikkel who first heaved a sigh of relief on seeing his teammate, alive and apparently uninjured. Lalli had returned with a more elaborate drawing which he was showing to an utterly baffled clerk. “Don't mind him,” Mikkel told the man, coming up behind Lalli as he struggled to make the clerk understand. “He just got lost from the rest of the group. I'll take care of him.” The clerk, who was one of those who had tried to be helpful, was himself relieved to see the little Finn in good hands.

Mikkel kept a hand on the little scout's shoulder, not that he really thought the man would run off, but he'd heard from Emil just how fast Lalli really was and didn't want to risk losing him again. “Come here,” he told the other, “I've travelled from here several times. I know where to buy the tickets.” Lalli of course had no idea what Mikkel was telling him, but he trusted the big Dane to help him and he did not try to run.

Sigrun caught up with them first. “Your relative bailed on you, eh? Well, I hope you appreciate getting some help tracking him down. I was ready to go straight back home already but Mikkel really wanted to help you out first for some reason.”

Emil joined them next. “Seriously?! You couldn't just ask for help instead of leaving a note?”

And finally Reynir was there, the cat standing on his shoulder with her forepaws on his head, enjoying her view of the big city. He simply smiled sheepishly at the little Finn.

“This is the office for the 'Krabben' lines, correct?” Mikkel asked another clerk.

“Mmm,” she answered, bored, sipping her herbal tea.

“Four tickets to Bornholm, please.”

“Five tickets,” Reynir put in.

“Four tickets. Reynir –”

“I'm not staying behind. You get five tickets, or else you get four and I get one.”

Knock him out, tie him up, leave him behind … Mikkel thought longingly. But such solutions did not work in the Known World. He turned back to the clerk, who had observed the interaction with no sign of interest. “Five tickets, please.”

“Mmm. Boarding ends at 19:00. Don't be late.”

The Krabben line ran large ships from the Old World, lovingly maintained, heavily armed, equipped with actual cabins with bunks and private facilities. The team had two cabins, one for the young men and the cat, and the other for Mikkel and Sigrun. “Now this is good!” Sigrun observed to him as they boarded, “This is how you're supposed to travel!” In their cabin, she threw herself on her bunk with a sigh of pure pleasure. “This has the old tank beat all hollow!”

Mikkel looked around. Clean and roomy, certainly it seemed better than the tank, which had been crowded, uncomfortable, noisy, smelly despite his efforts to keep it clean, unreliable, and dangerous … but in the tank they'd had the ability to defend themselves. Here … if a leviathan attacked, they'd live, or they'd die, according to the skill of ship's defenders. He said nothing.

The ship's food didn't compare with the best restaurant in Reykjavik, nor even with Sigriður's cooking, but it was good. In their first meal aboard, Reynir was full of praise: “Man, I should have saved up money last time and travelled like this to Bornholm! This is great!” Emil, who had not understood any of that, grumbled, “Hmph. Really would have preferred a private cabin …” And Lalli, of course, was queasy, Mikkel's remedies not having kicked in yet.

“Sooo,” Sigrun said, “are you gonna let me know why you suddenly care so much about the pipsqueak's family reunification?”

Mikkel hesitated. If she did not feel the … debt … to Onni that he felt, then he should not pass it on to her. “It's not complicated. I promised I wouldn't let Lalli wander off on his own. And I don't appreciate people pulling shenanigans around me. The older Hotakainen better have a good excuse.” He owed Onni for the firebird, but that meant Onni had no business running off into the wilderness to get killed without him.

“So after that we can go straight to Norway?”

“Yes,” he replied, and he felt an unaccustomed warmth at her words.

But there were other problems. “Reynir.”

“Yeah?” The Icelander looked up from trying to show the cat the view out a porthole.

“I heard you tell your parents you were only going to Reykjavik.”

“Oh yeah, I did say that. Don't worry, I left a note with my sister. I might not be able to officially join the Norwegian army, but there's plenty of places out there that need a mage. Bought some protective gear and I'm ready for a cool gig! If nothing else, after this, I'll follow Emil and Lalli where they go and ask their employer for a job. Farm maging isn't my thing, you know.”

Emil and Lalli looked up at the sound of their names, but Mikkel thought it best not to translate that statement. He wasn't sure there would be an “after this”, especially for the non-immune, but there seemed to be no way to prevent the others from following him … and he had to go with Lalli.

The ship was only attacked once, by things with long beaks and spindly hands, which leapt out of the water at the ship but were immediately harpooned by their naval escort. As travel went in this year of the Rash, it was a very peaceful trip.

And so they came to Bornholm's quarantine island.

“Do you want to go home?”

Mikkel was gazing out the thick, heavily reinforced, windows of the observation deck. Passengers were not permitted on the upper deck; indeed no one went out on the upper deck if they could help it. It was rare that something would reach out of the waves and snatch away a sailor, but it did happen. He looked over at Sigrun.

“In time. I was home for over three years. I doubt they miss me yet.”

“Do you miss them?” She half-laughed. “I don't even know if you have brothers or sisters!”

“I have three of each. And you?”

“I don't have any. Something … went wrong when I was born.”

“Ah. I am sorry.”

“Oh well. It was long ago. I've tried to be … all that they would want. And I have lots of cousins.”

“As do I.” He returned to gazing out the window at his distant, invisible, home. “Bornholm is filling up. In a generation, maybe two …” After a pause he went on. “The Icelanders think Danes are nostalgic, that we went to the mainland out of some foolish misplaced emotion. But Bornholm is filling up. We'll need land, and soon, and we have nowhere to go except the mainland. We're not like the Swedes, or even you Norwegians. We can't just reclaim land around a city. That's why we went to Kastrup. We have to build a base, we have to be able to supply by sea.”

“And Kastrup …”

“We knew how to fight grosslings. We know how to fight grosslings. No one ever understood how all the soldiers of Kastrup could have fallen to grosslings in one night with no survivors, but of course they didn't.”

“No?”

“I couldn't see the ghosts. I don't know if any Dane could. Maybe it's something special about Icelanders and Finns. But even if they could see the ghosts, they didn't have Reynir along to protect them with his runes. So, a scout wandered into a place where ghosts were gathered, they followed him back, and they attacked. As they attacked us. The soldiers had no chance.”

He fell silent as they both remembered the night at the plaza, at Amalienborg, when the ghosts attacked them.

“But the ghosts are gone now. Reynir led them away. And we know how to fight grosslings. We can go back, try again.” He sighed. “Not soon. I can tell the Army about the ghosts, but they won't believe. I wouldn't believe without my experience. They won't try again just on my word. The loss at Kastrup was … devastating. There are few families that were unaffected. I lost two cousins.”

He was silent again, as his cousins, his soldiers, his war-time friends, so many dead, crowded in on his mind's eye.

“But they will try again, surely. They won't just give up.”

He looked over at her, letting her face drive away the memories.

“They will. They'll have to. Bornholm is filling up. And if nothing else, the Orphans will want to honor their fathers' memories by retaking Kastrup.”

“I hadn't thought of the orphans,” she answered, a little ashamed of having missed that.

“Oh, there were many orphans. But there are more. There are the Orphans of Kastrup.” He turned his gaze back to the empty sea, unsure if he wanted to go on.

We've lost so much technology, but we've not lost all. We have – the Army has – a, uh, a sperm bank. Every immune man who joined was required to … contribute. I did. We all did. The idea was that if a man died, his widow, his girl friend … any woman with a claim on him … she could … give him what immortality comes of children.

And then there was Kastrup. After that, it wasn't just widows and such. Any immune woman who wanted to honor the fallen … so there are well over a thousand Orphans of Kastrup. They're still being born. I have two nieces and a nephew who are Orphans. They know of their fathers' fate and they want to go back, they want to avenge them. But the oldest of the Orphans are only nine. It will be a decade or more before they can possibly return.

But they will return. And they will prevail, because the ghosts are gone.

Our expedition was not in vain. We achieved better than we knew. Better than we could ever have dreamed.

“Then you … do you have, ah, any …”

“No. I did not die at Kastrup so I have no Orphans. I have no children or, well, my brother Michael has five, and as we are twins, they are mine as well.”

“Wait, you're a twin?!” She stared at him wide-eyed in mock horror. “There's two of you?!”

Mikkel laughed – actually laughed, and how long had it been since he managed more than a chuckle? “No, Michael's not like me. He's a farmer, and a good one, and happy to be so.”

“I want to meet him someday.”

All humor left him. They were going to Finland to face … whatever it was that Onni, powerful mage that he was, feared so greatly. She would go with him; he could not make her turn back. He had no idea if he could protect her. He could only hope that she had a someday left to her.

“Someday,” he answered somberly, and gazed out the window in silence.

“Reynir.”

The Icelander turned from the window, face eager as always. “Yes?”

“We'll reach Bornholm tomorrow. You've come the long way round, but you've finally made it. My family is large. I'll give you a letter to them, and they'll host you for as long as you wish to guest with them. They will show you all of Bornholm! We don't actually have any palm trees, but my mother has a colorful flower garden which will be in bloom now. There is a two-week quarantine but it's much better than those four weeks we endured.”

“Oh, that's great! I'll do that as soon as we get back!”

“No … no. You're staying on Bornholm. You're not going with us.”

“I am. You can't leave me behind. I'll follow you.”

“Reynir,” Mikkel said sternly, “listen to me. I don't know what we're walking into, but Onni does. Onni clearly does not expect to return. He lied to Lalli to keep him away, and he enlisted me to take charge of Lalli and see that he isn't left alone. Onni is a powerful mage, we know that. If he's going into something too dangerous for him, then it's much too dangerous for you.”

“You're going into this, this danger, whatever it is.”

“Lalli is going and I can't stop him. I would if I could. Since I can't, I will go with him and protect him.”

“Emil –”

“Is going because he is Lalli's friend. Because he is Lalli's only friend. I can't stop him either.”

“They're my friends too!”

“But they're immune. We all are. You are not. Wherever we're going is undoubtedly grossling territory – almost all of Finland is – and we will not have a tank this time. We'll be camping out, and it is far too dangerous for you.”

“I'm willing to risk it.”

It was cruel, but it was his last card to play. “Tuuri was willing to risk it. Tuuri died from risking it. You never wanted to go to the Silent World in the first place.”

Reynir winced but did not waver. “I want to go now. I'm going with my friends.”

“Foolish child! Do you not understand? We're likely none of us coming back! I don't want you to throw away your life with ours!”

“I do understand! And I think you're more likely to come back if I'm with you. I'm going!”

Mikkel glared at him in frustration. They were almost of a height, Reynir only slightly shorter, but beside the big Dane, the Icelander looked like a stripling. Yet strength availed him nothing here. He couldn't stop the non-immune. He couldn't stop any of them.

Mikkel turned on his heel and walked away.

Lalli was first off the ship, desperate to reach solid land, with Emil close behind and Mikkel and Sigrun on his heels. Missekat, unsatisfied with Mikkel's broad shoulders, had draped herself comfortably across his head. Sigrun was happy as always to see a new place. Reynir trailed along last of all, looking around with interested excitement.

“Wait,” Emil complained, “we're not even on Bornholm! This is some fake island!”

“Yes, that is correct,” Mikkel replied. “You can't go there without quarantine, much like Iceland. This is the international trade and travel hub.”

“Whatever, it's not like anyone wanted to go there.”

Reynir, behind them, stopped unnoticed, looking around in dismay. He'd thought he would at least manage to set foot on Bornholm.

It was perhaps surprising that Mikkel, world-traveller that he was, could count on the fingers of one hand the number of times he had passed through this island.

Mikkel joined the Army at twenty-one, having joined up when they announced their intention of reclaiming the lost mainland, moved by an impulse which he could not explain even to himself. He was completely hopeless at marksmanship, but he was enormously strong and the Army had not so many recruits that they could turn him away. Assigned to construction, he helped build supply docks, including the one where, much later, his team received supplies.

When a swarm of grosslings broke through the guards and Mikkel, armed with a reinforcing bar and his steel-shanked boots, demonstrated his devastating effectiveness at close-quarters fighting, the Army realized what they had, handed him a shotgun, and reassigned him to guard duty. For his competence and leadership, he received promotions; for his insolence and resistance to authority, he received demotions. Thus, he spent much of the next two years as a Corporal, often lower but never higher.

In two years he was badly wounded twice, once when his left arm was laid open from elbow to knuckles, and again when he was thrown aside by a giant, suffering a compound fracture of the right leg and lacerations of both legs. The first time, he spent his brief convalescence in the Öresund base hospital reading military history books. The second time, refusing a wheelchair and demanding crutches since he could still use his left leg, if carefully and painfully, he requested and received medic training. When he recovered, he did not request reassignment as a medic but instead returned to guard duty with his soldiers.

A man like Mikkel could not avoid coming to the attention of higher officers. He had his detractors who thought he should be discharged as unsuitable, and his defenders who thought his merit as a fighter outweighed his issues as a soldier. When his most powerful defender passed away from a heart attack, Mikkel Madsen's army career hung by a thread.

Being the man he was, Mikkel inevitably severed that thread.

Demoted to private and being sent back to Bornholm in disgrace, Mikkel accepted detached duty with the Norwegian army in the form of General Trond Andersen. A week after he was sent away, the army at Kastrup, Mikkel's soldiers and many friends, was wiped out to the last man in a single night.

Mikkel did not return to Bornholm for almost seven more years.

Mikkel led the way, having gotten vague directions from the crew on the Krabben ship. At the Tukkitukku office, he enquired in Icelandic, “Hello, is this the docks to Finland?”

“What does it look like?” Well, that certainly sounded like the sort of clerk one would find at the Finnish company's office. He took it as confirmation.

“Did a surly, stocky, mid-twenties young man with ashen hair travel through here about four weeks ago?”

“What am I, the remembering man? Nobody remembers people from weeks ago!”

Off to Mikkel's left, Lalli had pulled out a small package, carefully wrapped and sealed, from which he extracted a folded photograph. Showing it to a Finnish dockhand, he got an answer and immediately turned to the clerk, clearly ordering a single ticket, for he held up one finger as he spoke.

Mikkel blocked the little scout's hand and ordered “Five tickets to Saimaa.”

The clerk looked at Lalli and then Mikkel. “You people work out your differences elsewhere.”

“Five tickets to Saimaa,” Mikkel ordered sternly. “The young man will go with us.”

Grumbling, the clerk accepted Mikkel's money and handed over the tickets. Lalli glanced at the Dane, surveyed the others. With genuine sympathy Mikkel told him, “I don't know why they're with us either.”

They had several hours before their latest transport, a lumber carrier, would depart, so they went looking for food. Reynir trailed along behind as usual. “Reynir,” Mikkel called, “don't wander off.”

Wait, what am I doing? Let him wander off. Let him get lost. Let him miss the ship. There are plenty of Icelandic speakers here; they can help him go on to Bornholm as he wishes, help him find my family … but no. He'll follow us anyway. And if we've gone on without him and he tries to follow us into danger … no, he has to stay with us, under our protection.

Mikkel was accustomed to controlling his circumstances, but somehow he seemed to have completely lost control of this situation. Onni had run off into deadly danger; Lalli would follow Onni; Emil was determined to stay with Lalli and that was to some degree Mikkel's own fault, for he had told Emil to keep Lalli with him; Sigrun would not allow the three of them to go into danger “without even a troll-hunter”; and Reynir was convinced they needed him along with his farm-mage skills. He would have taken Emil, Sigrun, and Reynir to their homes and left them there if he could – though taking Reynir to his home and leaving him hadn't actually worked – but he could not.

They were all going to the Silent World together and he would have to do everything in his power to keep them all alive until they returned.

And he would.

The food at the Bornholm quarantine station was good, a relief to Mikkel since Bornholm was his home and he would not have liked it to show poorly to the others. Reynir did not get lost after all, and in the early afternoon they boarded their ship. Emil, predictably, complained: “We're back to travelling in rusty trash cans again, huh?” Mikkel glanced around, but it seemed no one in the area understood Swedish, so he let it pass without comment.

Their ship was not a passenger ship, or rather carrying passengers was not its primary purpose. It was a lumber hauler, but also transported soldiers and workers between Finland and Bornholm. It had no cabins, but only bunks in the open hold, and the team joined a couple of dozen others in choosing bunks, for the journey would take two days. It was as well that the team had much experience with crowded, uncomfortable, smelly accommodations.

The team scored bunks close to each other along one wall, Mikkel in a lower bunk, Sigrun in the bunk above him, Emil in the bunk at Mikkel's head and Reynir in the bunk at his feet. Lalli took a blanket and rolled under Emil's bunk, where he remained for the rest of that day and the next, coming out only for necessities.

None of the crew spoke anything other than Finnish, but their duties required little conversation. They provided food at intervals without any need of ordering, there being no choices. The food, mostly a kind of hash, was edible even though the team's standards for edibility had been raised somewhat over the past month. Some of it might even be called good. Emil brought Lalli food after each meal though the Finn ate little of it as neither Mikkel's herbal remedies nor the anti-seasickness drugs they'd picked up at Reykjavik were doing much good.

Sigrun and Mikkel were eating supper on the first day when Sigrun glanced casually to her left, then tipped her head slightly that way. “Big guy …”

Mikkel glanced to his right equally casually, murmured, “I see them.”

“Try not to start a brawl.”

“I don't start brawls.” He stood, approached the four men who had gathered together giving him and Sigrun hard, suspicious looks. “Is there something you wish to discuss with us?” He asked in Icelandic, the language they were most likely to understand.

There was a mutter of Finnish among the men, and more drifted over to join them. The situation was rapidly becoming more dangerous as Mikkel found himself facing eight or nine hostile, tough-looking men, all younger than him.

“Why are you following Lalli Hotakainen?” The question was asked in badly accented Icelandic by a man who appeared to Mikkel to be a soldier by his bearing.

“Lalli Hotakainen was entrusted to my care by his cousin, Onni Hotakainen.”

As this was translated to the others, their hostility was largely replaced by confusion. Such informal guardianship arrangements were common in the age of the Rash, legalistic formalities having been jettisoned by the surviving communities, small, widely separated, and under deadly threat as they were. If someone needed some help in dealing with the world, as Lalli did, other members of the family would provide it, and if no family member was available, such care would be provided by a trusted friend. That, in itself, was no surprise to them. What was a surprise, not just to the Finns but to Mikkel himself, was that Mikkel Madsen was the best Onni could do for a trusted friend.

“But – you don't speak Finnish!”

“I don't. I spoke Icelandic with Onni. I never met Lalli or Tuuri before the expedition.” Although they might have inferred from his words a longer friendship with Onni than he'd actually had (assuming he had had a friendship with Onni), all his statements were true, and he doubted Lalli would or could dispute them.

“The expedition?” There was more Finnish discussion. “You were part of the expedition to the Silent World?” At Mikkel's nod, “You should not have let her go.”

“Onni couldn't stop her.”

“Well, that's true. She was always willful. So you went along to protect them.”

“To protect them all.” Lalli might be aware that Mikkel had not been sent by Onni, but he could not know exactly why the Dane was there in the first place. That answer would be safe enough even if the scout chose to answer questions from the other Finns.

“Lalli doesn't appear happy about your care.”

“He isn't. He wants to return to his cousin. Since Onni did not forbid him to do so, nor charge me to keep him away, I will not stop him. However, he remains in my care until we find Onni.”

“Don't look for Onni at Keuruu. He resigned from the army weeks ago.”

“We know. He's gone to Saimaa. We will find him there.”

“Then what about these others?” The soldier gestured at Sigrun, who was watching with an assumed indifference, and Reynir and Emil, sitting together. Reynir, Mikkel saw in a quick glance, was holding Emil down with a hand on his shoulder as the Swede seemed to be considering jumping to Mikkel's side.

“They were also part of the expedition. We are a team. We are escorting Lalli as a team.”

The translation of this answer drained away the last traces of hostility. Men drifted off as casually as they had approached. “Then the gods grant you all good fortune,” the soldier answered formally, and they parted amicably.

“Well done,” Sigrun told Mikkel as he returned to the table. “What was their problem, anyway?”

“They wanted to know what business we had with Lalli.”

“Lalli sicced those guys on us?”

“Oh, no, I don't believe so. The man I was talking to was a soldier. He is acquainted with Onni and Tuuri, so I suppose he just recognized Lalli and was concerned about him. I imagine those men tried to ask him what was going on and he wouldn't talk to them. You know how little he talks to anyone. Although … it occurs to me that Lalli himself doesn't know why we're here.”

“What? I mean, you promised not to let him wander off on his own. End of story.”

“I promised Onni that. But Onni never told Lalli that, and none of us can talk to him. Not about anything that complicated, at least. I think that explanation is well beyond Emil's linguistic abilities. So no, I don't think he does know. All he knows is that he can't seem to shake us off. Maybe those men could tell him … although they won't because they'll assume that Lalli already knows and I don't think I'd better ask them to.” Mikkel sighed. “The older Hotakainen has a lot to answer for, here.”

Emil and Reynir had come over for an explanation of recent events, but they were distracted as heavy shutters began closing over the portholes. “What's going on?” the Icelander asked Mikkel nervously.

“These are dangerous waters. These little lumber ships rely on running dark, silent, and fast to get through. We'll have to be very quiet until the shutters are open again.”

“Don't we have an escort?”

“No. There aren't enough warships for all these lumber ships, but the Danish navy patrols these waters, and they even have sonar. Sit quietly now.”

The fact that the Navy still had sonar was a testament to generations of diligent efforts. Though knowledge of the technology had not been lost, the surviving world population was simply too small to build complex electronics on top of everything else they had to do simply to survive in their menacing environment, and so devices such as sonar were kept working by cannibalizing parts from failed devices to keep others running.

In time there inevitably would be no more sonar but for now, Mikkel knew, there were warships with sonar out there hunting for sea monsters to protect this ship and others. Still, behind his neutral expression he all but vibrated with tension. Not only were they on a poorly armed vessel, not only were they dependent on the crew or unknown warships for protection, but they wouldn't even be able to see danger approaching. Working for the General, he had hated going to Finland for that very reason, and now it was not only himself that was in danger, but his entire team. This was going to be a nerve-wracking journey.

Reynir produced the pack of cards given to him in quarantine but no one other than Mikkel knew any game to play with him, and the Dane was prowling silently around the enclosed deck, listening to the muffled noises of the engine and trying to hear any activity in the waters around their ship. The Icelander began to play solitaire and Sigrun and Emil, for lack of anything better to do, came over to watch despite having no idea what the rules were.

The situation being intensely boring, everyone drifted down to their bunks early and caught up on their sleep. The quiet of the hold was broken only by the sounds of the engine, muffled as much as possible, and the breathing of the passengers. Anyone who snored or sleep-talked was immediately pounced upon by one of the ship's cats. Mikkel could pick out the sound of Sigrun's breathing, since she was above him, but not that of the others. He slept very badly.

The ship was not attacked that night, nor the following day and night, and by mid-morning of the next day it was in more protected waters and the shutters were opened again. Even Lalli dragged himself out of the hold to crowd with Emil and Reynir at a porthole to look at his homeland. Sigrun and Mikkel, who had both taken this trip before in their varied careers, merely glanced out a porthole now and then. It was, as Lalli had once told Tuuri, just trees for ever and ever, with the occasional ruin.

That afternoon they reached the canal, which the Finns had, with extraordinary pains and much loss of life over generations, cleared and fortified. It could not be said to be safe, but grosslings seldom managed to get into it, and those that did were small. There were hints of things peering out of the dense forest that surrounded the canal, and Emil and Reynir glanced respectfully at Lalli, remembering that he had been scouting alone in that forest since he was thirteen.

And so they landed at last at the ship's port in the Saimaa lake system.

Mikkel and Sigrun stood by one porthole, looking out at the hilly islands around the ship, while the other three crowded by a second porthole. There was yet another announcement in Finnish and the rest of the team looked over at Lalli for a hint of what was expected, while the scout continued to stare out at the islands. After a moment Mikkel shrugged, thinking the announcement was unimportant, but the soldier to whom he had spoken earlier came over to him, saying in his badly accented Icelandic, “We arrive at the docks in half an hour. Take your things with you.”

“Thank you,” Mikkel replied politely in the same language as the other walked away with no further acknowledgement. The Dane passed the word on to the other three with whom he could communicate, trusting Lalli to have understood without his contribution.

It didn't take long to collect their things. They no longer had their uniforms, Mikkel and Sigrun having shipped theirs home to their families, Emil having sent his to his cousins via Siv and Torbjörn, and Onni having taken Lalli's away and somehow disposed of them. Mikkel had doubted at the time that Onni would have done anything so sentimental as shipping them home as souvenirs, and as things stood now, it was quite clear that he had not done so.

In any case, all the uniforms were gone and the team, other than Reynir of course, had kept the seamstresses of Brúardalur and surrounding villages busy for a week producing for each of them a couple of outfits embroidered with the traditional designs of their countries, sleep-clothes, and good warm wool sweaters. Emil and Sigrun had commissioned knee-length embroidered cloaks, Emil's dark blue and Sigrun's white, while Mikkel had a new white jacket that came to mid-thigh, embroidered all the way around the chest. They hadn't obtained any more clothing for, of course, they'd all expected to go home, not wander off into the wilds of Silent Finland.

With their belongings collected and everyone waiting to disembark, Emil turned to Mikkel. “Do we have to go through quarantine? Or can we just leave, ah, the non-immune here while we go on?”

“No, there's no quarantine here. Immunity among the Finns is close to two-thirds, and they have whole villages, like this port, where everyone is immune. As long as we stay away from the other villages — the ones with non-immunes — there's no quarantine. And we can't leave him behind. I've tried. He'll follow us, and that would put him in more danger. He has to stay with us.”

Emil shrugged and said nothing, clearly disappointed. Mikkel wasn't sure what the problem was, other than that Reynir's relentless enthusiasm seemed to grate on Emil, but he knew that Emil would do his duty as required and so long as Mikkel himself controlled communication between the two, being the only translator, he could keep hostilities from developing.

Disembarking was quite informal. They were permitted to leave the ship in groups of two or three, Lalli and Emil leaving together, followed by Mikkel, Sigrun, and Reynir. On the dock, several gray and white cats, three wearing Grade B collars and one wearing a Grade A collar, sniffed at their bags and their clothing, then strolled back to wait for the next group with the half-dozen soldiers leaning against a nearby wall. Kisu, as most of the team had taken to calling their cat, greeted the other Grade Bs with a nose touch, but was completely ignored by the Grade A. “Snooty little jerk,” Sigrun muttered, but fortunately none of the soldiers understood Norwegian.

Lalli, satchel in hand and rifle slung over his shoulder, took off immediately up the hill to the main part of the village while the others hesitated, looking around uncertainly. “Now what?” Sigrun asked Mikkel, “Where do we start looking for the guy?”

Mikkel shrugged. He was quite certain that Onni would not be in any place so safe as this village or any other. “I propose we follow the one who seems to have somewhere in mind.” Suiting actions to words, he led the way in Lalli's wake. The walkway soon became a long stair with wooden treads and small houses on either side. As they trudged up the stair, Mikkel glanced over at Emil. “You did tell him that we were going with him, right?”

“Yeah, I did, and I'm sure he understood. He said it was dangerous. He said that several times.”

“Of course it's dangerous. That's why we're here.”

At the top of the stair, Lalli hurried into a shop with a sign outside on which was carved a stylized boat. By the time Emil, Sigrun, and Reynir (carrying Kisu) followed him in, he was already on his way out with a set of keys in his hand. Mikkel had not followed the others inside, for the small shop was crowded enough with four people and didn't need him too, and so Mikkel was hard on Lalli's heels as the Finn trotted down to a small harbor where rowboats were pulled up on the shore and chained to large blocks of wood. Behind the Dane, Emil was already complaining, “Really? We climbed all those stairs just to go right back down again?”

As Lalli unlocked a rowboat, Mikkel was relieved to see that the scout had in fact obtained a boat big enough for the five of them — six of them if the team caught up with Onni. He had rather feared that Lalli would take a smaller, two-person boat and attempt to leave without them, again. Still, while it was a good boat, the rest of the situation was not to Mikkel's liking.

“Hold on now!” The Danish command meant nothing to Lalli, but the firm grip on his collar was a clear message. “Are you sure we're all set to leave? We don't have a tent, we have no medical equipment. What were you planning on eating? Emil, you translate.”

“I-I'll do my best.”

Some stumbling Finnish and a long exasperated response later, Mikkel thought that Emil's translation was probably inaccurate. “Uhhh — he says his plan is to sleep under a rock and … eugh?! — eat dirt off the ground?! I want to say I refuse to do any of that!”

There was a pause while the three looked at each other in helpless incomprehension, and then Mikkel turned back to the village. “How about we take a moment to gather the equipment we need?” The others followed him, Emil complaining, of course, “Stairs again …”

Given their communication difficulties, Mikkel had had the good sense to bring plenty of blank paper and some pencils, allowing him to draw the various items that they needed, including a shotgun for himself and a pistol for Emil. Lalli and Sigrun already had their rifles and Sigrun her pistol, of course. Mikkel, Sigrun, and Reynir spread out to visit different shops while Emil stayed with — that is, kept an eye on — Lalli. By the time the other three returned, Lalli had discarded his jacket from Iceland, replacing it with a beautiful white fur cloak.

They hauled everything down to the rowboat: tent, sleeping bags, backpacks, all their own bags, cooking gear, a good first aid kit for Mikkel, and food. Studying a map of the lake complex as the others packed the boat, Mikkel told them, “We won't make it in one day under any circumstances. I suggest we stay at an inn for the night and leave well rested tomorrow.” Wherever they were going was surely not here in the low risk, protected area. They had to be going farther north up the lake complex.

There was no answer. Looking over at the team, he saw that Reynir and Emil were already in the boat and Sigrun and Lalli were pushing it out. With a sigh, he added, “Very well, I've been out-voted.”

Mikkel sat in the bow, his back to their course, and began to row away from the island. Reynir sat with their cat on the next seat back, Lalli and Emil behind him, and Sigrun in the stern.

“Emil, see if you can find out where we are headed. I would highly appreciate knowing.”

After some quiet Finnish discussion, “Where he used to live, I think.”

“I see,” Mikkel answered with resignation. “A sensible place to look for the cousin.” That didn't really answer his question, but he supposed that Lalli would at least point left or right to keep him rowing in the right direction.

Mikkel rowed, eyes half-closed but watching the water behind the boat. The others would have to watch ahead, over his shoulders, and to the sides, but he had the best view to the back. Occasionally he glanced at Sigrun, alert, her rifle across her lap, watching for danger, and Lalli, somber but still keeping watch.

We're a month behind the cousin. A lot could have happened in a month. He could be dead already. Though … Reynir said he thought Onni — or at least his place — was still there in the dream-ocean, even though they couldn't get to it. Not that that's a happy thought. What is going on in that dream-ocean? I have no idea and Reynir doesn't seem to either.

Mikkel's eyes opened wide. Was that something following the boat? It was hard to tell with the sun sparkling on the waves but … no, it was just the way the reflections fell. His eyes half-closed again, he continued rowing and thinking.

Could Onni be dead already and Reynir not know? Come to think of it, though, how did Lalli act when Tuuri … died? He was alarmed, he ran, he shouted at us … he couldn't have seen her because, face it, he was a lot faster than she was. If he'd seen her running off, he would have chased her down instead of shouting at us. So he knew what had happened. Or at least that something bad had happened. After it happened. Presumably he would likewise know if something bad happened to her brother.

So I should assume that Onni's still alive until Lalli gives some sign that he isn't.

We're going to where they used to live, some village out in the lake somewhere. But what could be so dangerous about the village that Onni acted like he was going to his death? Lalli's not looking happy about going there either.

Sigrun sat up straighter, suddenly, looking off to her left, and Emil turned that way as well while Lalli continued to scan to the right. Continuing to row steadily, slower than he was truly capable of, Mikkel looked over to his right to see what Sigrun had spotted.

It was, he thought, a troll. It had draped itself over a fallen tree, multiple tentacles sprawling around it. If not for its purplish color, he would have taken it for some sort of fallen tree itself. Part of it stretched yearningly toward the boat, but the tentacles were far too short and, Mikkel judged, it was too disorganized in shape to follow them. Sigrun half-raised her rifle, lowered it again. The thing could not threaten them and there was no need to waste ammunition on it.

Mikkel rowed steadily as the sun fell lower and lower in the sky. “There, big guy,” Sigrun said suddenly. “That rock. We can camp there.”

The rock was far from the shore and only perhaps ten meters across at its widest point. It was quite steep as well, making it difficult for Mikkel to find a place to beach the boat. Still, once they'd pulled the rowboat well up on a less steep slope and tied it to the nearest tree, they were able to pitch the tent on top and build a fire, feeling surprisingly secure given that they were camped outside of any walls.

They set watches for the night, but they were not disturbed on this, their first night in Silent Finland.

As they struck the tent and collected their gear, Reynir began to rearrange the baggage which they had thrown helter-skelter into the rowboat. Once it was all neatly arranged, he triumphantly pulled out a second pair of oars that had been stowed along the sides and obscured by their baggage. Mikkel nodded to him, smiling slightly. Without arrogance, Mikkel knew that he was by far the strongest of the team and would do the great bulk of the rowing, but it was good that the others could help. A second pair of oars was also good since one could not be sure what they might encounter, and what might happen to his oars if he needed to fight.

As Sigrun and Lalli were the best shots, and Lalli was physically the weakest of them all, neither took a turn at the oars. Emil and Reynir took turns as the day passed while Mikkel stolidly rowed, and rowed, and rowed.

Lalli gave directions silently, pointing to the left or the right as needed. No one spoke; there could be grosslings in the surrounding forests. Mikkel had much too much time to think about the situation, trying to imagine how he could have prevented it.

Onni didn't order me to keep Lalli away from Finland. He just said there was nothing here for Lalli but that's not the same thing … is it? And I couldn't stop Lalli from coming anyway, as he has a right to live his life as he wishes, or to die as he wishes. But Onni sent the firebird for us and that placed on me the obligation to repay him. He has no right to run off and get killed without me! All I can do now to repay him is to guard Lalli with my life while we find him.

I had to let Emil come too … didn't I? Onni ordered me to make sure Lalli and Emil stayed together when they left Iceland, so when Lalli came here, Emil had to come too. Should I have disobeyed that order? Yet it seemed like such a simple order to obey, just to keep Lalli and Emil together. But now …

Could I even have stopped Emil? I didn't argue with him or order him to stay in Iceland or to go to Sweden, but would he have obeyed such an order even if I'd given it? Probably not. After he and Lalli saved each others' lives in such a strange way, I don't think he'd have let Lalli go into danger without him.

Maybe Emil even feels obligated to Lalli the same way I feel obligated to Onni. I can't ask him about that, though … if he doesn't feel that way, I'd better not put the thought in his head.

And Reynir! What am I to do with Reynir? He's a mage, yes, yes, but a farm mage, not a battle mage. And Onni is a battle mage, as I understand it — he supported the Finnish army at least — and he appears to expect to die doing whatever it is he's doing. How can Reynir possibly survive whatever we're walking into?

I bought him tickets. I bought them twice. I brought him here … but he said he'd come anyway. If I hadn't bought his tickets he would have bought his own, and then I wouldn't have been able to keep an eye on him. Still, I'm responsible for his being here … Sigriður and Árni will certainly think so.

Well, I didn't intend to go back to Iceland anyway.

And Sigrun. Sigrun wants … me …

Sigrun wants me to go with her to Dalsnes. To her family. To … oh, gods, to the General. To “Uncle Trond.”

What will he think when Sigrun fails to turn up for the start of troll-hunting season? When his agents trace us — and they will — and find out that I bought the tickets? That I took the team into Silent Finland on a whim? That I let them travel like this, unprepared, undefended?

It's just as well that I expect to die here. If I don't, if I make it back, the General will probably take me apart on general principles. If Árni doesn't get me first.

With these cheery thoughts, Mikkel rowed.

They passed under bridges, well built by engineers of the Old World, still choked with decaying cars. They passed ruined towns, and things watched them out of glassless windows. They passed endless forest.

At last Lalli pointed to a pier offering access to another hilly island and Mikkel, with concealed relief, rowed carefully up to it. Several sunken boats could be seen near the pier, deep enough so as not to be a hazard to the rowboat, and one boat in good shape was moored to the pier. Good, Onni is still here and we can go home. Though … what's he been doing here for a month? And what is the danger that he so feared?

As Mikkel made the rowboat fast, the others hopped out and Sigrun went over to examine the moored boat. “Is this the guy's gear? What's his name? Onni?”

Lalli, standing beside her and likewise examining the boat, shook his head as he answered in Finnish before striding away. Emil looked over at Sigrun and attempted to translate. “He said that this is not Onni. And that Onni isn't a fish. I think.”

They shrugged at each other as Mikkel joined them and they, along with Reynir, trailed after Lalli on the wooden steps that led up the steep hill. The scout seemed unthreatened, but Mikkel kept his hand on his dagger all the same. There had to be some danger here somewhere, or why else had Onni been so afraid?

At the top of the hill they found the remains of a village. Many of the houses had burned; those that had not had clearly been abandoned for years, as their roofs had collapsed and volunteer trees were growing up through them. Despite the ruin of the village, the paving stones of the path they followed were clean and nothing had grown up between them. The team walked through in silence while birds sang cheerfully all around them.

Past the ruins of the village, there were fields, now overgrown, where the villagers had once raised crops. The path led through the fields and on to a couple of buildings in excellent shape, surrounded by a neatly tended garden where a man was working.

The man looked rather scruffy. He hadn't shaved in a few days and his hair, which had obviously once been cut short, had grown out rather untidily. He stood as they approached, greeting them in Finnish. Lalli spoke eagerly to him until the man pointed off to the east, causing the scout to respond in confusion.

As they understood none of this, Sigrun turned to Mikkel. “Sooo … what do you think this guy's deal is? Some sort of crazy hermit who's obsessed with tidying this garden for nobody?”

“I just work here, lady,” the man put in in Norwegian.

“Uhhh … sorry.” Mikkel thought her pale face looked cute flushing with embarrassment, but of course he needed to try to recover the situation.

“A curious place for a polyglot to work,” he said, courteously offering his hand. “Mikkel Madsen, from Denmark.”

“Mauri Möttönen. I'm a skald, stationed here for the summer,” the man responded in good if slightly accented Danish as they shook hands. Mikkel raised his eyebrows, impressed. It was rare to find someone who had troubled to learn Norwegian and Danish.

“Doing what, exactly?” Sigrun asked before Mikkel could continue.

“I ward the island and tend to the graveyard,” the man answered in Norwegian, his tone perfectly neutral. “One day this island will be settled again, and every summer I make sure it is not becoming infested with trolls. If it is, I fetch a cleansing crew. My fellow wardens do the same for the other islands. All of the settlements in this area were lost a decade ago.”

Mikkel frowned, thinking of what he knew of the Hotakainen family. There seemed to be just the three of them, or rather just the two cousins now. Could their entire family have been lost here? “They were overwhelmed by a troll attack?” he ventured.

“No,” Mauri stated firmly, “But that is not for me to talk about. Defense protocols have been updated since, and a similar outbreak won't happen again. That is all you visitors need to know.”

As they spoke, Lalli had walked away, trailed by the other two young men. Mikkel and Sigrun hurried to follow.

Lalli had gone into a graveyard. Mikkel walked through quietly, trying not to disturb the peace of the dead. There were many gravestones, just simple stones carved with names and years of birth and death. It did not take long for him to realize that all the gravestones in this area of the graveyard had the same year of death: 79. Lalli had stopped, silently regarding the gravestones. The others caught up, seeing that all the stones around him bore the Hotakainen name. In particular, there was a new one: “Tuuri Hotakainen 69-91”.

“So he came here to bring that,” Emil said softly.

Lalli said something puzzled, turned, and stared off to the east. As he started to walk back toward their boat, Mikkel caught him by the collar. “Stop. We're spending the night here.” It was late in the day, and wherever the Finn meant to go, Mikkel had no intention of rowing him there in the dark, nor of allowing him to go anywhere alone.

Mauri had an ample supply of food and seemed to enjoy their company, so their supper was generous and the conversation enjoyable for Mikkel, discussing with Mauri the edible and medicinal plants of the area. Sigrun mostly listened in silence. As evening shadows grew long, their host showed them to a room set up with bunks, presumably for a cleansing crew if one were needed, offering the team good comfortable beds for the night. Mauri merely chuckled when Mikkel asked about setting watches. Well, he'd been here for weeks and was familiar with the area so it should be safe …

Mikkel lay awake for a long time, listening to Emil snoring and the others breathing evenly in their sleep. At last he too slept.

Mauri had told Lalli that he had seen Onni a few weeks earlier, but he repeated the information to Mikkel, saying that the older Hotakainen had gone northeast from the village and providing a map to “where the sentinel mage lives”. He also advised Mikkel in Icelandic:

To continue northeast you will have to pass through the sentinel mage's checkpoint. He's in charge of guarding that frontier.

The last fella didn't say where he was going, but if he's tried to cross into the area, the sentinel will have caught him. The path is upstream, but you should be able to reach the checkpoint in a couple of days.

His hut is located between two rapids in a wide river pass. You can't miss it. Especially not for the seagulls.

Mikkel nodded as if these instructions actually made sense and led the way to the rowboat. Reynir stopped him as the others were piling into the boat. “Mikkel, can I sit up here in the front? Where I can talk to you?”

“Certainly, if you wish. Emil can take the first shift of rowing, and we'll stop on some rock for lunch so you can move. What do you want to talk about? You know I won't be talking a lot while rowing.”

“I know. I want to tell you about a dream.”

Mikkel sighed. “Yes, by all means.” And they set forth, heading northeastward and hoping to find something.

Last night we — Emil and I — somehow fell into Lalli's memories. We saw what happened to that village.

We were all three just children again, and Emil was this little short fat kid — I shouldn't have said that. He isn't fat anymore. He's my friend and a good man.

Lalli wasn't happy to see us wandering around in his memories, but it wasn't anything that we'd done on purpose and we all just had to go on and wait for the dream to end. So we saw Lalli's grandma, Ensi, but she didn't see us because it was Lalli's memory, you know; we weren't really there when it happened.

Anyway, she and Lalli and a bunch of others had come back from cleansing surrounding islands, like they did that every year, and they went into quarantine on … yeah, on that island over there. There was this one old woman, Hilja, who was part of that team and she was acting strange, like she didn't know people, and they all thought she was just, well, old. Getting senile.

We didn't have to sit through two weeks of dream-quarantine, because Lalli was able to blink and make time pass. So then we went with the team back to the island, the village island, and Lalli saw something wrong about a package that the old woman, Hilja, was carrying. He told his grandma but when she tried to ask about it, Hilja told her to “look into my eyes” and said that it was just a package.

When I first saw Anne, you know, the one who was a troll really but still sane, the one who led the ghosts away, Onni was terrified of looking in her eyes. He covered my eyes too. I never realized …

But I'm getting ahead of the dream. The memories.

Then Lalli showed us around. We saw all the houses before they burned down, and Lalli's house, and the school he went to for a couple of years, and Onni and, and … Tuuri's house, but they weren't there; they were off on a sheep and farm island so we couldn't meet them.

Then Lalli made time pass again, a week that time, and we saw a village party, and that Hilja woman was wandering around, still acting strange, but they still thought she was just senile. And weird.

So Lalli made time pass again, two weeks until their harvest festival. There was this man, Tapsa, who had the village cats, two of them. He went off to fetch Hilja because they thought she'd just forgotten the harvest festival. But the cats took alarm as he approached her house, so he gathered the rest of that cleansing team to investigate, and Lalli tagged along and so did we.

We saw through the window … it was awful. She had brought a little grossling into her own house! It was in that package that looked wrong to Lalli, but it was all magicked somehow so no one knew except, kind of, Lalli. They said that she must have been under the influence of a “Kade” to do this. She knew magic that Lalli's grandma, Ensi, didn't even know! So she'd infected herself and she'd turned into a troll, there alone in her house. The troll tried to get away, but they managed to shoot it and kill it.

That man Tapsa was injured by the troll and he wasn't immune. They knew … but they thought they'd stopped the spread. Only they hadn't. Ensi, she realized that Hilja had been infected and contagious and deliberately spreading the Rash at the village party. They were all infected already. There was no hope.

The others went back to try to organize things in the village, but Ensi stayed to guide Hilja's soul to rest, and Lalli stayed to watch, and so we did too.

And then …

I-I heard It talking to Ensi. The same way I heard the ghosts talking, back in Denmark. I guess Lalli heard It, because we were in his memories. But it felt like hearing the ghosts.

It told her that she couldn't save Hilja or even herself.

And then she told Lalli not to look her in the eye under any circumstances, because if he did, It would get him too. That's what Onni was afraid of when we met Anne! That just looking her in the eye would … would …

Anyway, she sent Lalli away, told him to take her rifle, that rifle that he carries, and take it to Onni, tell Onni it was a “Code O”. She said that Onni would take care of him and Tuuri and he shouldn't worry about anything else, especially not his, his mom and dad.

We all ran down to Onni and Tuuri's house and — oh, Mikkel, Tuuri was there! She was just a little girl and she was so happy! She didn't know what we knew —

Right, right. It was just a shock to see her. Onni got the two children (and us, though we weren't really there) into a rowboat and took them off to a safe location on another island. See, they'd been on that sheep island, and then in quarantine, and so they'd never met up with the other villagers. They hadn't been infected. And they just sat there, those three, hearing screams and gunshots and smelling smoke as their village burned …

Anyway, after a while, the quarantine ships came and picked them up, but they were the only survivors of the village. And no one ever saw their grandma, Ensi, again.

So you see, we have to be so careful! You have to warn the others! Don't meet anybody's eyes out here, not even … not even Onni's.

I don't know how we can ever know that Onni is, is … is himself.

Mikkel rowed steadily, silently.

“You … don't believe me?”

“I believe you,” Mikkel assured him slowly. “I'm trying to think. From what you said, this Kade thing got its hooks into the grandmother — Ensi? — three weeks before she knew it had done it.”

“Yeah … that's right. One week to the party and then two more to the festival.”

“And she didn't know, in all that time. I suppose that it couldn't transmit itself to others until it … took over, or whatever you call it. Otherwise it could easily have passed to Lalli or any others in the village. They must have met her eyes at some point.” He thought uneasily of the handshake with Mauri, where he'd met the man's eyes, because that's what you did when you shook hands.

Did I doom the team by greeting that man? Will this Kade thing take me over and use me to destroy them? The others didn't get that close to him — I think?

Lalli was just a boy but he was certainly old enough to describe the events clearly enough for the authorities to understand what they were dealing with, and if they imposed new “defense protocols” in response to the attack, then surely that man was defended. Surely. Somehow.

“The woman who was taken over first —”

“Hilja.”

“Her behavior was strange. Confused, seemingly senile. Is that right?”

“Yeah, they all commented on that.”

He spoke three languages in my presence. He talked knowledgeably about plants. He wasn't confused. So he was … probably … safe.

This is terrible. I thought I understood how Tuuri felt but, no. Wondering if I might be infected with something, wondering if I might … kill … all the others …

I can't just give up. Not without more proof. They need me. I'm probably safe. And from what Reynir said, there was at least a little time during which Ensi knew she'd been caught and she still had the ability to act. In those few moments, surely even I could manage a fatal wound. Or blinding.

I have to warn them. I can't warn Lalli but … I don't believe he ever has met my eyes. Maybe once, back in Denmark. Here, after remembering all that, he won't meet them again.

“All right. We don't know much about this thing, except that it's dangerous to look into someone's eyes. Even the eyes of someone you know. Even mine. Reynir, I looked into that man Mauri's eyes. You must not meet my eyes until we figure out some way to be sure that I am … not dangerous.”

“No! You can't think —”

“Why not? He's out here, alone, where that thing has already struck once. Did you look into his eyes?”

There was a long pause while Reynir thought about it. “No. You were talking to him and we went off following Lalli. And then again at supper, you were talking to him and we sat over by the fireplace. No. I never met his eyes.”

“Good. Now don't meet mine.”

Reynir stared in horror at Mikkel's knees as the Dane continued to row steadily onward, his eyes now tightly closed.

They stopped on a rock in the middle of the channel for lunch and to allow Reynir to take over with the second set of oars. Mikkel kept his eyes firmly on his hands as he instructed Emil to describe the dream to Sigrun. Emil's version was close to Reynir's, and Mikkel could glean no new insight from it.

“So,” Sigrun said finally. “You figure the cousin is out here looking for grandma?”

“That or he's looking for the Kade. Or both. But there's a point I want to make. We now know it's dangerous to look into anyone's eyes. I looked into the eyes of that man back in the village, when I shook his hand. That means you must not look into my eyes. Not even if I tell you to. Especially not if I tell you to. If I tell you to …” His voice trailed off. This would be hard for them to hear, especially Emil. After a moment he finished, “then you have to shoot me as fast as you can. That's the message of that dream, I think. And it applies to all of us. If anybody tells you to look into their eyes, they've been taken over.

“Did either of you look into that man Mauri's eyes? I'm guessing Lalli didn't. After that experience he probably doesn't look at anybody's eyes.”

“No,” Sigrun said slowly. “I was embarrassed. I let you do all the talking.”

“I followed Lalli down to the graveyard and at supper I was over by the fireplace. I never talked to him at all, or even got that close to him.”

“Good. Then just be careful.”

And with that they ate their lunch, which was like ashes in their mouths.

Mikkel and Reynir rowed until they reached a portage point, where Mikkel lifted one end of the boat, Emil, Reynir, and Sigrun the other, and Lalli stood guard as they carried it past the rapids and into the smoother water beyond. Reynir and Emil switched again, and they moved steadily upstream until they found another good rock to camp on for the night.

They set watches, but once more they were undisturbed.

Mikkel struck the tent and loaded the boat while Reynir prepared porridge for the team. He was careful to keep his gaze away from the others, even when Sigrun sat down on a rock beside the boat.

“If we were told correctly, we should meet the sentinel mage today.”

“Okay,” she answered noncommittally.

“He may have a boat there, or Lalli may choose to proceed by land after that. You could take the other boys and go back.”

“You're determined to get rid of us, aren't you?”

“Well, not to get rid of you, no. I want you to be safe. I want you to go home to a nice safe job of troll-hunting.”

She laughed at that, as he had intended, but sobered immediately. “But you'll go on.”

“I must. I promised Onni I wouldn't let Lalli go off alone. It's my duty and I'll do it. And now … not knowing like this … how can I go back anyway? But you can. And Emil and Reynir. They won't want to go but maybe you can —”

“Not happening, big guy. You told me you would see us all through to the end. I'm holding you to that. You're taking me back to Dalsnes, however long that takes.

“And — Mikkel, this thing murdered a whole village. Several villages. Just because it could. Yeah, I'm a troll-hunter and we enjoy hunting, but that's not the only reason we do it. Trolls are a danger to us. To the whole world. And so is this. As a troll-hunter, killing this thing is my duty too!”

Mikkel tied down the last bundle and sat back on his heels, gazing at his hands. “We don't know what this thing can do. We don't know what it has done to Onni. Or … to me. We don't even know if we can kill it.”

“Yeah,” she said softly. “There's so much we don't know. But I know you and I together have a much better chance than you alone.”

There was nothing more to be said to that, and the boys were coming over to the boat anyway. They set out once again.

Mikkel took the stern position so that he could watch their back trail with no risk of meeting anyone's eyes. It was not the most efficient position for the more powerful oarsman, but it felt safest to him, and no one would argue against it. Once more they travelled in silence for there were grosslings in the forest around them, and Mikkel had entirely too much time to think about the situation.

This thing is much worse than the Rash, because at least with the Rash, there are physical signs of infection. Eventually, anyway. How can I know if this thing has attacked me?

Is anyone immune to this? Tuuri said her grandmother was immune to the Rash, and this thing caught her grandmother. So I'm presumably not immune to this. I suppose I'm getting to experience what non-immunes feel all the time.

But the Finns must have a way of detecting this thing and protecting themselves against it. If they didn't, how could they ever have survived? It could have gone on wiping out village after village until they were all gone. So that man Mauri must be protected somehow, and therefore I am safe as well.

The pendant didn't warn me about him. It warned me about ghosts; why wouldn't it warn me about this? Except this isn't directly a threat to my life so it might not, well, recognize the problem.

Everything points to my being safe, but how can I be sure of that? And the risk to the others is so great …

His thoughts ran in tight trapped circles around the problem until the team reached the last rapids before the sentinel mage's “hut”.

They had expected something like a crude wooden house. What they saw ahead of them, beyond the rapids, was an ancient bridge in fairly good shape, on one pier of which was a large bus, somehow turned sideways, on which a couple of private vehicles were piled on top of each other, and the whole thing tied together with steel cables. There was no doubt that this was the sentinel mage's place, for the air was full of seagulls calling and swirling around them.

Hauling the boat out and up the portage and down into the relatively calm waters beyond the rapids, they proceeded to a small wooden dock built around the support pier. Mikkel's call — “Hello? Anyone here?” — stirred up the seagulls into a shrieking cloud, but there was otherwise no immediate response.

“Are we sure this guy is even alive?” Sigrun asked after a few moments.

“You reckon he isn't?” Mikkel replied, puzzled.

“Seagulls love corpses, just saying.”

But at that point the sentinel mage shouted down to them — in Norwegian, to Mikkel's surprise — “Hold on, I'll be right down!”

To Mikkel's left was a long narrow staircase built of metal and wood scrap; before him was a … large metal framework going all the way up to the bridge above. To his right was a large irregular chunk of metal attached to a steel cable which also went all the way up. As he studied this, the chunk abruptly jerked upwards while an open cage dropped down through the framework, bearing with it an extraordinary man.

The man was fat. There was no other word for it, for he had a massive belly that hung over his belt. They all did their best to avoid staring in amazement, for in the little nations, and even to some extent in Iceland, there was seldom enough food to allow much overeating. Although they were careful to avoid his eyes, they saw that he had a big white bushy beard and a completely bald head. All in all, he was most unusual.

“Everyone on board the elevator!” he invited, but when they all piled in and he pushed a lever, crying cheerfully, “And up we go!”, the cage jolted upward perhaps half a meter, and stopped.

“Hmm, I forgot this thing isn't multiperson capable.” Pulling the level back, he continued, “I'll have to reset it. The lot of you take the stairs! It's good for your health!” As soon as they were out of the cage, he pushed the lever again, and the elevator shot upwards as its counterweight dropped down. The cat had been overlooked in their hurry, and stared down at them in terror as she was whisked away. Mikkel wanted to stay and puzzle out the workings of the elevator, but the others were already running up the stairs to rescue their feline teammate, and he perforce followed.

When they reached the top, they found that the ancient bridge had been transformed by the addition of topsoil, leaving a paved path between garden plots, leading to an ornate wooden door that had been built into the side of the bus. Kisu was eyeing a seagull with either suspicion or hunger, and their host was waiting with another seagull perched on his head. Dozens more gulls perched here and there, peering at them intently. “Welcome, foreigners! To my grand home!” he told them cheerfully, “I've got nettle tea brewing and ready for your arrival. I'll let you lot go on your way once you're all checked in.”

“You knew we were coming?” Mikkel asked, puzzled.

“I see very far on the water.”

“Right. This is a good vantage point.”

“I mean, very, very far.” Mikkel could hear the man's grin in his voice as he led them to the bus. “You're lucky you fellas came through my checkpoint. Unlike the last guy who tried to get into the silent lands.”

“Onni.” Mikkel put in, and “Onni?!” Lalli asked, having understood none of the discussion in Danish, but hearing the name.

“Ah yes, that was his name. It's been quite a few weeks. Poor guy figured he could just barge in without review, tut-tut. I had to row over to rescue him from the gulls that mobbed him.”

“Hold on …” Sigrun put in excitedly. “Does this mean you've got him? We don't need to look for him anymore? Give him to us! That's why we're here! Then we'll head right back! We have lives to get back to!”

“What?! Of course not! This isn't a prison! He just had to follow protocol and I let him go. He went in that direction; haven't seen the lad since. Now come! We'll talk indoors.”

“Can I ask about the, uhh, car stack?” Sigrun asked.

“Beautiful, aren't they?”

“Sure. I'm wondering how you got them on top of each other like that.”

“Oh, imagine the power of a thousand wings!” As the man raised his arms dramatically, the bird on his head raised its wings as well, and all the birds perched around them raised theirs likewise. “A simple solution to a simple problem,” he concluded, while the gulls leaned in to stare at the visitors. The team hesitated, looking around at this peculiar display, but there was really no help for it. They followed him into the bus.

Odd though the man was, he did make a good nettle tea, along with fresh bread for the humans and fresh-caught fish for the cat. The bus was, of course, long and narrow, and he had removed most of the seats, leaving only a few in the front where the young people were sent to enjoy their tea while their elders talked to the host. Their elders would have felt more comfortable if he hadn't had a display of knives on the wall behind his seat at a little wooden table.

“Look,” Sigrun said in some annoyance, “We were told this'd just be a real quick stop and —”

“Yes! I'll have you all written down in my log book and then you can go.”

“That's all you do? You keep a list of people who want to go into the woods here?”

“I make sure nobody goes in unnoticed … and nothing comes out unnoticed. You are all aware of what happened in this area?”

Mikkel picked up Missekat, or Kisu as the others called her, and began to stroke her, content to let Sigrun handle the questioning.

“Sort of,” Sigrun answered. “There was an outbreak on the little islands, like a decade ago.”

“Yes! And you know what a Kade is?”

“Uh … kinda?”

“Nasty nuisances, aren't they? I suppose I ought to introduce myself properly! Hello! I am Väinö Väänänen, the sentinel mage assigned to guard this section of the lake, with my personal army!” He gestured at the gull still sitting on his head and several others which were peering in through the open door. “Day and night we make sure nothing worse than an infected donkey decides to start migrating thisaway! And of course make sure no foolish travellers go in willy-nilly and bring something back through their minds. As happened back then.

“See, there used to be several settlements on the archipelagos here. Very low levels of immunity. And that one year, the outbreaks happened. On every single island simultaneously. Nothing much could be done. It was concluded that a Kade had moved into the area, and did what a Kade does. There weren't proper protocols in place to screen for that stuff back then.

“It's retreated back into the woods and is still out there. You can feel its presence waft past sometimes. But the cowardly chicken won't come close now that it knows we're prepared for it!”

“Okay. If it's so dangerous here, why even allow people in?”

He passed a bit of bread to the gull on his head. “People have the right to risk their own lives. There's a plethora of particularly dangerous specimens past these shorelines. Every one of them that is taken out by a foolhardy hunting party is a future disaster prevented.

“But the deal is, if you get infected you do not get to come back out. Not even for quarantine.

“And now you know that! Which means you're ready to be on your way. Let's have you written up. My office is right over here.” He led the way to the other end of the bus, past the knife display, and the party followed, Mikkel draping the cat over his shoulders.

“This is my filing cabinet over here. I admit, it's a bit of a mess.” He opened the doors of the cabinet and all five of them froze in horror.

The cabinet was dripping with blood.

Mikkel stepped to the side, putting himself between the sentinel and the younger members of the team, while Sigrun shifted to put herself shoulder to shoulder with him.

“I'll need a personal item from each of you,” the man told them, holding out a hand casually to receive their offerings.

“So you stab us with them?!” Sigrun demanded.

“What?! No!” He seemed genuinely shocked at the suggestion. “So I'll know if or when you've died out there. Now,” he made shooing gestures, “go on, fetch me some items!”

They retreated to consider this, but for Lalli who remained to ask questions in Finnish. Onni's name figured prominently in his words, indeed he practically shouted it. Glancing over, Mikkel saw the man gesturing at a small model of an owl near the bottom of the cabinet. Though blood had run down the cabinet wall behind it, it itself was clean and Lalli appeared relieved.

“So what gives with this guy? Do we trust him?” Sigrun asked the others harshly. Mikkel translated for Reynir; he himself was unsure.

“I … ah … well, there's a legend I've heard of,” Reynir offered. “There were a couple of travellers, I think they were brothers, and one of them was going somewhere —”

“Quickly,” Mikkel put in.

“Right, yes, so he left something or other behind and if he got hurt or killed the thing would bleed and then the other one would know something had happened. I guess this guy knows how to do that spell so maybe it's safe to trust him. But that means all those things in there are all, um, people who died out there.”

“I think,” Mikkel said, “based on Lalli's expression over there, that Onni left a token here and that it does not indicate that he is dead.”

“So we go on,” Sigrun said with a sigh on hearing Mikkel's translation. He considered urging her again to turn back, but desisted. If he didn't turn back, she wouldn't either, and he would not turn back because Lalli would not. But Reynir …

“No,” Reynir told him flatly.

“I didn't —”

“But you were thinking it. I won't stay here and I won't go back. You need me.” Well, he'd lost that argument days ago. He let it drop.

They passed over their things, a hair brush from Emil (“I have another but that one's my favorite …”); a hair-tie from Reynir, who removed it from his braid and replaced it with a string; Mikkel's small scissors (I probably won't live long enough to worry about my sideburns); a pendant which Sigrun fished out of her shirt, surprising Mikkel who had not known she had any jewelry; a small wooden model of a cat which Lalli placed carefully beside Onni's owl; and even a small piece of Kisu's collar which Mikkel cut off before handing over his scissors.

“Well then,” the sentinel said, relentlessly cheerful, “Come back this way when you return, so you can pick up your items! And to avoid great suffering! And …” he added, turning to Mikkel, “I need to have a quick word with you about your firearms.”

“What about them?” Mikkel touched the shotgun's strap protectively, having no intention of turning that over to this man.

“They're very dangerous.”

“Yes, I'm aware,” Mikkel answered drily. “It's a quality I value in a troll-killing tool.”

“Yes, agreed. But you'd better use it sparingly; the noise will get you killed out here. You'd normally get away with a few gunshots without attracting critters from too far … but these woods harbor one exceptionally nasty critter. It is sensitive to piercing sounds, such as gunshots, and can sense them from dozens of kilometers away. It is named 'Surma'. And it's fast! So if you do have to resort to using that thing, you make sure you change locations real quick, because it is already on its way.”

“We'll … keep that in mind.”

“Excellent! Shoo now! You have nothing to worry about for the first couple of kilometers. I keep this place safe and tidy! You'll know when you've reached the end of my territory.”

And just like that, they were pushed to the east end of the bridge and sent on their way, gulls shadowing them and Mikkel's many questions unanswered. They found the end of the mage's territory, marked by a fence with a gate, and a sign informing them in Icelandic and Swedish, and presumably also in Finnish, “Danger: bad creatures outside. Please close gate after you.”

“What a helpful sign,” Sigrun sighed. They passed through the gate, and Reynir closed it behind them.

Finns are strange and mages are strange and Finnish mages are strangeness-squared.

The evening breeze rustled the … things … which Onni (presumably) had hung all over the tree under which they'd camped, and Mikkel looked up uneasily. Onni had killed, butchered, and skinned some number of grosslings, painted some sort of symbols on their hides, and hung hides and a variety of bones and other body parts all over the tree. It was rather creepy — it was exceedingly creepy — as darkness fell.

How did Onni do it? Not with a rifle, not if the Gull Mage, as Sigrun calls him, told me correctly. Multiple shots to bring down these creatures, and then the time to carve them up and create this … display, would have attracted the Surma-thing and given it plenty of time to catch up with him. If he did it with magic, and didn't collapse helpless on the spot, he's a lot more powerful than Lalli. A lot.

Putting that mystery aside, this all happened a month or so ago; if he made a mistake — just a single mistake, just one splash of blood into a scratch as he killed the grosslings, just a misjudging of whether the Rash was fully dead in the corpses — and he could by now be dead. Or worse.

Mikkel rubbed his eyes for a moment, listened hard. He trusted his ears more than his eyes in this twilight, but for now all he heard was bird-song and insect-song and frog-peeping. And of course the things in the tree stirring in the breeze. Nothing was approaching. He spooned up some more of his stew. Reynir was staring into the fire, lost in his own thoughts, occasionally remembering to eat as well.

“If you get infected you do not get to come back out. Not even for quarantine.” We should have stayed longer. We shouldn't have let that cabinet of his shake us up so much. I should have asked him to explain that statement. If he meant infection by the Rash, well, only Reynir and Onni are vulnerable, and how would we know if they're infected, except by quarantining them and waiting? Does he mean that non-immunes can't return? Ever? Surely he would have said so if he meant that!

So he meant the Kade, right? He had to mean the Kade, and that means he has a way of detecting it, and that means he would have detected it in me, and that means I'm safe from it. Surely. Surely.

Mikkel sighed quietly. Emil started to snore and he nudged the Swede with his foot, pushing him slightly on his side and quieting his breathing.

It doesn't matter as a practical matter, though. If that thing is out here, then I, or Onni, or any of us, could be caught. We have to keep being careful.

And it is out here, somewhere. Why else did Reynir and Lalli react that way?

Reynir closed the gate behind them and Mikkel looked back to see all the seagulls which (or who?) had accompanied them turning back, settling on trees in the sentinel's territory. Not one had flown past the fence.

“Okay, thanks, bye!” Sigrun called to them, then turned away, facing the silent forest, the Silent World, before them. “All right, we're on our own again. You!” She pushed Lalli gently forward. “Lead the way. Show where your mage senses want us to go.”

Lalli stumbled forward a step, stopped, and in the quiet of the day, Mikkel heard him swallow hard. “I gather he doesn't know where we ought to head either,” Mikkel commented to Sigrun. Another misbegotten mission. Worse than the last, looking for one man who's a month ahead of us, could be anywhere, and may already be dead. Or worse. He sighed. It didn't matter. If Lalli went on, and he undoubtedly would, then Mikkel would follow and so would the others.

Lalli went on, and Mikkel followed, and so did the others.

Mere meters from the fence, Reynir slammed to a halt. Sliding the shotgun from his shoulder, Mikkel asked him sharply, “You sense danger? Where?” Sigrun's dagger was in her hand already and Emil and Lalli had both stopped, looking around alertly.

“N-no!” Reynir was shuddering. “It's just … the air out here feels … creepy. Not dangerous, just … creepy!” After a moment he went on, “Okay … the feeling is going away.”

Mikkel looked around again, shrugged at the others, reslung the shotgun. They started forward, Reynir asking the world, or possibly Lalli, “Did you feel how weird the air out here is too? It's not just me, right?” Mikkel, being the only one able to understand the question, rolled his eyes but didn't answer, and Lalli turned back and replied in Finnish, which no one understood except, to a limited extent, Emil. Lalli turned away, took a step, and stopped to shudder in his turn.

Mikkel dropped the shotgun into his hands again, looked around for enemies, reslung it, rubbed his forehead. Just months ago I would have told them both to quit this silliness and get going. Now … I feel like a blind man. What do they perceive? Are we in danger? Can I do anything about it if we are?

As if answering his thoughts, Reynir commented, “There can't be anything dangerous too close by, though. Kitty isn't looking very worried. I guess we can just, uh, keep going. Sorry for the false alarm, everyone.”

Mikkel looked at the cat, yawning and stretching, and remembered Tuuri, at Kastellet, saying that there was no danger because the kitten wasn't worried. There had been danger there and she had not perceived it. He looked around once more, uneasy, and then followed Lalli, who had set forth again. There was nothing else he could do.

They had found the tree in the late afternoon. Even Lalli had appeared surprised by it, but Mikkel thought that he had caught, just for a fleeting moment, a trace of a smile on the little scout's face.

“Well then,” Sigrun had said drily. “At least we know we're on the same path as the guy. Art I like! We're making camp for the night right here.”

Emil had objected, of course, wanting to camp anywhere but the “slaughter site” as he rather accurately termed it, but Mikkel had agreed with Sigrun: “This is a good spot. Onni appears to have set up camp here, which would signal that this is a relatively safe spot. Presumably no troll nests in the immediate vicinity, and we have water. As good as can be!”

Reynir had taken out the rod he'd had jauntily stuck in his pack and used it to draw a rune around their camp. With all he'd seen, Mikkel should have been less surprised than he was that the rod left black lines where it had passed and that the lines were developing a slight blue shimmer as the sky darkened.

“Do you have any insight on where we might find our lost mage?” Mikkel asked quietly when the silence had gone on long enough.

“Nope, not really,” Reynir answered around a mouthful of stew.

“Does Lalli have any more of an idea?” Mikkel asked without much hope.

“I don't think so,” Reynir answered truthfully. “I think we're just going … forward.”

And by going forward without any sort of plan we risk getting the whole team killed. Especially you, Reynir.

“I believe that, for now at least, we might just be banking on sensing his presence if we happen to get close enough," Reynir went on, "Which maybe doesn't sound like the most solid plan …” And wouldn't be a solid plan even if we were looking for him in Reykjavik. Mikkel kept that thought to himself. “… but it's better than nothing! And hopefully Onni has left a lot of camp spots behind as a trail.”

“Hopefully,” Mikkel agreed. “Go to sleep now. It's my watch.”

His watch passed quietly. The insects and the frogs sang and there were no sudden silences to alarm him. At length he stepped over to the open tent and looked down at Sigrun, dreaming in the moonlight.

I can let her sleep. I can take her watch. I'm not too tired and she's so peaceful … No. She'll be furious. Wake her up.

Mikkel shook Sigrun gently awake. “Your watch.”

“Huh? Oh, yeah.” She yawned. “All quiet?” At his nod, “Good enough.”

“I stand relieved,” Mikkel said softly, and lay down in the warm spot where Sigrun had slept.

The morning was clear and bright, good weather for travelling, not quite so good as a bright winter day, for grosslings would be more able to move about, but still good. As Mikkel and Sigrun struck the tent and packed up their things, Lalli wandered off to examine a string which ran from tree to tree, pine cones tied to it at random intervals. Reynir joined him, Mikkel watching alertly, ready to shout if the non-immune strayed too far from their protection, but Reynir understood his peril, staying close to one or another of the immunes at all times.

Mikkel in his turn took a look at the string, but all he could conclude was that the string was not old and had not been there over the winter, judging by its condition, and therefore that Onni had left it. What Onni intended by leaving it remained a mystery. Reynir simply shrugged when Mikkel asked if he had any idea.

They followed the easiest path, an old and very overgrown road, The vehicles that had been left upon it in the last traffic jam of the Old World had been flung aside with great force, many of them hurled into the branches of the large trees on either side.

“Giant. But not recent, you agree?” Sigrun asked Mikkel quietly as they walked side by side, Reynir a few meters ahead of them, Lalli and Emil some meters beyond him, and Kitty leading the way.

“Agreed. Look at the branches that have grown into the vehicles over there. I think the giant came through many years ago. Decades.”

Sigrun looked around again, nodded. “Good thing. I don't want to run into whatever did this. Taking out a giant … well, I've done it, but not with a green team like this, and certainly not with a non-immune tagging along!”

The day was very quiet and nothing attacked them. They found more strings with pine cones and the occasional leaf, which at least assured them that they had not strayed from Onni's path. As evening shadows grew long, they camped again, sitting around the fire mostly in silence, for there was little to say. All night, insects sang undisturbed and in the morning they set forth again.

They found the airplane mid-morning. It was one of the smaller types and had evidently tried to land on the road, tearing itself apart against the trees and the vehicles already there. So much aluminum, theirs for the taking … but this was not a quest for treasure. Mikkel looked around, carefully fixing landmarks in his mind, ensuring that — in the unlikely event that he survived this adventure — he could come back to this spot.

And then they went on.

Not all the vehicles had been thrown into the trees, and not all of them were … empty. Kitty turned abruptly to face one small car, bushing out and sending speaking glances at the human team members. They cursed softly in their various languages and tiptoed quietly past and away, the car and whatever lurked within remaining behind, unmoving.

They were still too close for comfort when they came to a crossroads in the road they were following. Onni's strings extended across the road leading to their left and the road straight ahead. “Which direction do we pick?” Sigrun whispered.

“I think we can follow the guidance of these things,” Mikkel whispered back, tapping one of the strings. “From my observations it appears as if Onni has been fencing off roads that he did not take.”

They studied the situation for a moment before he went on. “Perhaps he —”

Branches cracked, smashed out of the way as the troll-infested car crawled after them on multiple multi-jointed claw-tipped legs.

“Go go go!” Sigrun shouted, and Lalli seized Reynir's hand and ran down the road to their right, dragging the Icelander behind him, while the others ran as well, staying between the non-immune and danger. They had run perhaps a hundred meters before Sigrun slowed to a stop. “Huh. It's really, really slow,” she observed, not even slightly out of breath. “We don't even need to run.”

“Okay,” Emil agreed, panting slightly, “but I'm pretty sure we'll have to deal with it eventually.”

Lalli continued to pull Reynir along, determined to keep him far from the danger even if, as Sigrun said, they were relatively safe.

“I know how we get rid of it,” Sigrun answered with a predator's smile. “Mikkel! Dig out the axe! We're trapping this little slowpoke neatly and quietly.”

A few powerful strokes, and Mikkel had two saplings cut down and trimmed.

“That's it, come this way!” Sigrun crooned, still smiling, beckoning the creature on. “Comesie, comesie, good trollie trollie.”

The troll-infested car crawled determinedly toward the annoying uninfected being before it, pushing between two trees … and Mikkel from one side, Emil from the other, rammed their saplings through its window openings and out past the trees. With one sapling crossing in front of the trees, the other crossing behind, both held in place by the car's own frame, the car-troll was unable to move in any direction and simply thrashed its dozens of limbs in a desperate and frustrated attempt to reach its intended prey. The troll was so deeply entangled with the structure of the car that it appeared quite unable to free itself.

The three of them gave each other thumbs-up, Mikkel allowed himself a smile that was a little more than slight, and Sigrun, grinning, told the creature, “Enjoy your new spot!”

They went on and the rest of the day was very quiet. They camped by a stream that ran into a pool, one of Onni's campsites, Mikkel was pleased to see, for he had decorated another tree with grossling parts. Emil rolled his eyes in disgust but didn't argue or complain. Reynir, once again, drew runes around the campsite.

While Reynir fixed dinner, Emil and Lalli on guard, Sigrun and Mikkel strolled over to the most recent strings. Sigrun tapped the pine cones thoughtfully. “I'd really like to know what these are for. Because now I don't think they're for marking which path he didn't go. See?” She pointed. “There's a bunch of them over on that side too!”

Mikkel studied the far strings, unconnected to those near the campsite, and sighed. “I suppose we'll just have to ask the guy once we find him.” There being nothing else to say, they returned to the camp.

“Reynir,” Mikkel asked as they approached, “care to share what the intended function of this stave is?”

“Sure!” Reynir was enthusiastic as ever. Sometimes he made Mikkel feel quite tired. “It's based on a design I've seen being used for directing sheep! It'll subconsciously suggest to any roaming creatures to change their path a bit, and steer clear of our campsite. Basically it says: 'Hey, why not walk around that way instead? Might as well!'”

Mikkel considered his words. “I presume it won't provide protection in case we are detected.”

“Nope!” Reynir was entirely too cheerful. “Only affects aimless wanderers. But it'll keep things from accidentally trampling over us as we sleep! We just have to stay unnoticed.”

Mikkel nodded slowly. Staying unnoticed was the problem, but they should be safe for the night. They all settled down for their supper of stew for the humans and a fresh-caught fish from the pond for Kitty.

They were just scraping the last of the stew from their bowls when Kitty sat up abruptly, bushing out and hissing. Somewhere off in the forest, back the way they'd come, branches were breaking.

“Uggh, It managed to break itself free?” Sigrun waved a hand in a gesture of frustration and disgust. “Fine, let's trap it and kill it this time.” Mikkel glanced over at Reynir to see him already putting on his mask, and smiled slightly at the Icelander. Reynir's responses were getting faster.

The car-troll had broken loose by actually breaking the posts between the front windows and the windshield. The top of the car had fallen sideways and was now dragging on the ground, making the creature even slower. For a moment they regarded it, thinking the problem easily solved … and then they saw what followed behind it.

It was a giant. Worse, it was armored, for it had grown within a cylindrical tank, a railway car, which had, presumably, once contained milk, judging by the faint remains of a cow logo on its side. The thing had many large, multi-jointed legs, but they were all under the front third of the tank; the back of the tank dragged, slowing it.

Mikkel looked down at the rune on which he stood, its faint blue glow just beginning to be visible as the evening fell. Reynir followed his gaze, shouted at him, “No! It's not going to work! It clearly already knows we're here!”

“Run run run!!” Sigrun cried, and they did, Mikkel pausing just long enough to scoop up his backpack. The tank-troll followed. “At least it's also really —” But her last word was cut off as the thing lunged, throwing itself forward, slamming into trees and sending the team fleeing, Emil and Kitty to the left, the others to the right. They survived only because the massive creature was slow on turns and unable to catch them when they dodged. Daringly, Emil and Kitty ran around behind it, between it and the car-troll, which was still doggedly following, and rejoined the team.

“Everyone get into the woods!” Sigrun ordered. “It'll get stuck on something and we can shake it off our trail.”

Mikkel was no sprinter and he had shrugged on his heavy backpack as he ran. It was hard for him to keep up, so he was still far back when the giant picked up and hurled a log at them. Fortunately the log crashed into a tree before swinging around and knocking Lalli down. Mikkel ran desperately, but he was slow and the footing was difficult for a man whose balance was always a bit uncertain. Emil and Reynir had lifted off the log and freed the little scout before he could reach them.

As he came even with Sigrun, she growled, perhaps to him or just to the universe in general, “It's already made so much noise, it won't matter if we make some more.”

“I'm inclined to agree, but I'd also argue that —”

But it was too late; she'd drawn her pistol and emptied the magazine into the giant, the bullets ricocheting off its tank armor. “We'd need something heavier than bullets to really damage its insides,” he finished.

They ran again, Mikkel half-carrying Lalli, who was still a bit stunned from being knocked down. The tank-troll was slowed by smashing its way through trees, and the density of the forest prevented it from throwing more logs. Still, it was slowly gaining on them. Emil looked back at the onrushing giant, his eyes wide with fear. “I … I'm going to try something. If I can get an explosive inside its shell, it'll get absolutely shredded! I need you to keep it distracted from me!”

Sigrun and Mikkel glanced at each other for a bare moment before Mikkel had to return his attention to his feet. Emil was neither troll-hunter nor soldier, and was, by a few months, the youngest of the team, but he was the Cleanser who could do more with less and if anyone could blow up a giant, it was Emil. “Go,” Sigrun ordered, and to the others, “Let's go grab this thing's attention! This way, big guy!”

They ran to the right, shouting, while Emil ran silently to the left. Sigrun and Lalli stopped in plain sight of the thing, the Captain calling, “That's right! Good boy! Turn slowly and nicely, I know you want to squash us!” It turned and Mikkel saw Emil vanish behind it.

The tank-troll turned away from the tempting uninfected beings before it. “Excuse me, what are you doing now?” Sigrun shouted, still trying to get its attention. “Why are you trying to crawl in that direction?” The creature turned to the right towards a rocky hillside, crawled away with Sigrun and Lalli racing along beside it and Emil carefully climbing the rusty ladder on the back. Mikkel followed far back with Reynir, carrying Kitty, by his side. “Has it had enough?” Sigrun asked Lalli, pointlessly. “Is it trying to flee from us by climbing up on the boulders?”

The monster had by no means had enough. Pulling itself up on the boulders of the hillside, it abruptly threw its weight to its left, rolling on its long axis down at the two who had been parallelling it, rolling towards a shallow lake.

“No!” Mikkel cried quite unconsciously as first Lalli, then Sigrun, dived into the lake and the tank-troll rolled in after them, Emil clinging desperately to the ladder.

Mikkel charged unhesitatingly into the lake, headed for where he'd last seen his teammates. Sigrun surfaced in front of him — she can swim, you idiot! — and shouted, “I lost the little guy! I saw him jump away from the tanker somewhere over here!”

Waist-deep in the murky water, they felt around, Mikkel imagining all the terrible injuries one could suffer diving into unknown waters. But it was a shallow dive, I saw it. He shouldn't have gone deep enough to hit anything … but the water's shallow … where is he?

Reynir, who had been left on the shore, ran into the lake as well, Kitty held out in front to check for threats and, apparently, for lost teammates. He carried her past his two elders, then, seeing her wriggling and looking downwards, dropped her on his shoulder, reached deep into the filthy water and heaved. Lalli came up gasping and choking, vomiting water, but alive.

The tank-troll was still struggling towards them, but the floor of the lake provided little traction for the heavy monster and they were able to stay ahead of it, Reynir still supporting Lalli. With the giant right-side-up again, Emil climbed on top. Mikkel watched when his footing was stable enough for him to direct his attention elsewhere. Emil had opened an access hatch on top — the giant's tissues, under pressure within the confines of the tank, bulged out — Emil had drawn his pistol and plunged it in — multiple muffled shots — Emil was climbing down shouting, “I did it! I planted the explosives!” Covered in grossling blood and slime, his face nonetheless glowed with excitement. “It's going to get shredded!”

The rest of the team waded to the shore, waited for Emil to join them, and then ran, Sigrun shouting “Let's go go go!”

The explosion was impressive, even contained as it mostly was by the tank. The sound shook the forest and Mikkel remembered, uneasily, the warning about “Surma”. We've made entirely too much noise. And yet, what else could we have done?

The tank-troll pulled itself out of the lake, continued its pursuit more slowly. The team paused for a moment, looking back. “Well, that's a bust,” Sigrun said, “it's still coming for us.”

“No,” Mikkel answered with only a little more confidence than he really felt, “it's done for.” The tank was holed in several places and blood was spewing from all of them. “It might hold on to life for a moment, but that wound will drain it. Come, let's head back to the road. It will give up the pursuit soon.” He glanced over at Emil, who was still smiling with pleasure despite being coated with blood and slime, and at Lalli, who was dripping water and algae. Switching to Icelandic, he added, “Reynir, keep some distance from Emil.” Reynir was already looking at Emil in terror and staying well back, Kitty riding on his shoulders.

Emil quite suddenly looked down at himself and realized just how filthy he was. With a cry of horror, he ran to the nearest pond in this well-watered forest and threw himself in, rolling around in a frenzy to get it off, get it off, get it off! Mikkel glanced back to see Lalli patiently standing guard, and so the other three went on without them. The two young men could easily catch up.

“This day hasn't been annoying enough,” Sigrun muttered as they reached the road, for the car-troll was still dragging itself along in pursuit. “Kill it?”

“Let's find another place to trap it,” Mikkel said with a sigh. “We'll kill it then.”

Behind the car-troll, once again, came the tank-troll, wounded but still determined. There being no honor among trolls, it crawled right over the smaller troll, mashing it quite flat and unquestionably killing it. The team continued, walking since the thing seemed unable to put on its former bursts of speed. Emil and Lalli caught up and they fell back into their normal positions, Kitty leading, Emil and Lalli behind her, then Reynir, and finally Mikkel and Sigrun as rear guard.

They had walked in this way for about five minutes when the tank-troll finally staggered, stopped, trembled on its many legs, and collapsed with a crash. “Goodbye, was nice meeting you, big guy,” Sigrun said with no hint of mockery. Mikkel glanced at her and decided not to comment. “Does anyone remember what equipment we left behind at the campsite?” she went on.

“Uhh, the food pot?" Emil offered, "And the big tarp! Some blankets? And … junk.”

Sigrun sighed. “All right, it's worth trying to pick those up. We'll have to check if we attracted any more critters. If we didn't we can —”

“Hold on now!” Mikkel interrupted, dropping a big hand on her shoulder. “You're forgetting a certain troll with the initial 'S'.” With all his exposure to magic, he had learned that it was a bad idea to name things unnecessarily. “If what we were told is true, that thing might very well be on its way to our previous location. For all we know, it is currently back there on this road even as we speak.”

“Yeah, you're right,” she agreed reluctantly. “We can just try to find some new equipment. I guess.”

They camped for the night in a ruined house. It rained. The roof leaked.

Pots and pans hold up for decades even in a ruined house, but little else does. There was nothing resembling a tarp or a blanket to be found in their shelter. Mikkel tied the best cookware to his backpack, and they set forth again. They could probably find some place to raid along the way, and if they couldn't, well, they'd bivouac in some other ruin. At least it was a good sunny day and few grosslings would be active.

They had a long quiet hike in the bright sunlight, stopping once for a lunch of the dried fish which the Gull Mage had given them. In the mid-afternoon, they found rusty coils of barbed wire beside the road, and beyond them what was clearly a post-Rash settlement. Carefully working their way through the coils, they reached an opening in the crude wall that surrounded it.

“Tsk,” Sigrun observed, “some idiots tried to build a settlement next to a road. Rookie mistake! Looks ancient, bet they didn't last past the first few years. Probably had a whole bunch of non-immunes in there. Nothing to see here, moving on!”

As she turned away, Emil held out a hand to stop her and pointed out, “That sign there says 'warehouse' in Finnish. Just pointing that out in case we're still planning on raiding places for some tarps and junk.”

“Hmm.” Sigrun turned back, regarding the settlement speculatively. “Hey, pipsqueak!” she said, looking over at Lalli, “Trolls. How many? Good? Bad? Understand?”

The scout studied the settlement for a long moment, clearly using his strange powers. “Some inside,” he said in heavily accented Swedish. “Not many. Not big. Not move around.”

“Sounds good enough to me,” Sigrun said with a shrug.

“You think it's safe enough?” Mikkel asked.

“Well, we're getting closer to a city, so we probably won't run into any safer places to raid any time soon. We grab what you think we need and get back on the road!”

“Someone will need to stay outside and stand guard,” Mikkel pointed out.

“I'll stay!” Emil volunteered. “I killed the last troll, I deserve a break!”

“Excellent!” Mikkel agreed, pulling off his heavy backpack. “Keep watch over your Icelandic friend.”

“Uh, what? No, I'm coming with you! I killed the last troll, I deserve more action. Sigrun can stay.”

“Nuh-uh! I'm the captain, I do not baby-sit!”

“Only one way to solve this fairly,” Mikkel intervened. “You'll draw straws. Let me gather some …” He turned away, gathered some grass stems, bit one off to make it shorter than the others. Now, how did he want this to turn out?

If Emil had volunteered — or remained volunteered — then Mikkel would have accepted that. But if Mikkel had to choose, better to leave Sigrun guarding Reynir. She was a better shot than Emil and better at close range as well. Yes. Sigrun should stay behind. He had only to arrange it … so.

Sigrun immediately seized the one stem temptingly sticking up just a little bit above the others, and then threw it down in disgust when it proved to be the short straw. Still, she was a good sport about it and dutifully remained behind with Reynir and the kitty while the other three cautiously moved into the settlement, Mikkel with his shotgun slung ready and the others with their hands on their daggers.

The builders did well, Mikkel thought, given the probable skills and knowledge they'd had. They'd built an outer wall out of whatever scrap they could find, with the single opening protected by coils of barbed wire and overlooked by a tower which appeared ideal for sniping, and then an inner wall with the single opening on the opposite side from the outer opening, and within that, a large platform raised a good twenty feet off the ground with huts built on top. Probably put the children up there for protection. Much good it appears to have done them, though.

As Sigrun had suggested, the place had been abandoned — by human beings at least — for many decades. Parts had collapsed, leaving debris and openings that could house grosslings, even very large grosslings. Mikkel and Emil looked around uneasily, glancing frequently at Lalli for hints of where enemies might hide.

“Sooo … where exactly are the bad guys hanging out?” Emil asked, glancing over at Lalli. “Can you tell?”

The mage studied their surroundings. “There direction,” he answered in broken Swedish, pointing off to their left, “Inside cover. Not knowing how many precise.” They moved cautiously forward to the building labelled as “warehouse” which, after some consideration, he pronounced empty.

The door was heavy glass, but they thought it better not to try to break it and possibly attract unwanted attention. Mikkel and Emil worked together to carefully force it open while Lalli stood guard. Mikkel stopped just inside the doorway, looking about, listening, even sniffing at the air. The place was indeed a warehouse with orderly racks of gear and seemed to have been so well-sealed that he could not even smell rodent droppings. Everything was covered with dust and cobwebs, and many shelves had bent or collapsed. There was no sign, sound, or smell of grosslings and, of course, Lalli had said there were none. Though the Dane now believed that magic existed without question, he was not entirely confident of its effectiveness and preferred to use his own senses to check. As the place seemed safe and empty, he dragged the glass door shut again, feeling safer as always with a door between him and the dangerous outside.

Since it appeared that there were plenty of salvageable — or semi-salvageable — items in the warehouse, Mikkel directed Lalli to stand watch against attackers while he and Emil searched, scrambling over fallen shelves and sneezing as they disturbed decades of dust. Emil wanted playthings: a dart board, board games, cards, an odd cube with moving parts which neither of them recognized as a Rubik's cube. Mikkel advised him, with a sigh, “You may bring anything you want so long as you carry it yourself.” Unsurprisingly, this caused everything to end up on the floor, except the cube.

Far back in the warehouse, Mikkel had collected reasonable facsimiles of the gear they needed when Lalli called softly, “Hey! Hey! Alert!” Having found a working set of binoculars, Mikkel was able to get a good look at what the scout had observed: a troll oozing its way from the ruins of a building not far away. Fortunately the troll's flesh withered and burned in the bright sunshine and it was forced to retreat. Good enough, but Lalli had said there were more.

“Well, we don't need to worry about that one,” Mikkel advised Emil, “It's already injured itself. But let's pack up and leave immediately, before we have more of them.” They hurriedly bundled their prizes into a tarp and began working their way through the debris back to Lalli.

“Mikkelll!” Lalli screamed, backing away hurriedly from the glass door as a second troll — so big as to be almost a giant — charged the heavy glass with a crash that shook the building. The glass was thick and reinforced, but a bullseye fracture showed that it would not last long. Lalli retreated towards the others.

But we can manage this. We'll have to shoot the thing — it's too big for us to take it out with daggers — and then we'll have to run for it, in case this Surma-thing is following. At least this time we have the gear.

“Stay calm,” Mikkel told the others. “We will simply gun this one down and swiftly run past it.” He dropped the shotgun into his hands and Emil drew his pistol. “We can just leave this settl—”

The troll spit on the glass, a mass of disgusting yellow stuff which hissed as it splattered to the ground. The monster reared up, pressing against the already cracked glass, drooling more vileness.

“Is that thing puking acid at us?” Emil whispered in disbelief, and then exclaimed, “Nobody shoot it! The glass will shatter and its body will splurt all over the place like a fountain! What if it burns right through our flesh into our organs? Or what if … what if … I get that on my face?!”

Mikkel reslung his shotgun, tried to think. They'd been all the way to the back and the other exit was blocked by fallen shelves. They'd never get through there in time. But there was a lot of gear in here; there had to be something they could do! If only Emil would shut up and let him think!

The troll was throwing itself against the glass, sheltering in the shadow of the building. The sunlight would hurt it, but it wasn't going to die before breaking in. “I know what we need to do,” Mikkel said slowly, hoping the plan would work out. “Follow my lead.”

They retreated to the back of the warehouse, pulling down more of the well-wrapped tarps, collecting goggles intended long ago for swimmers and heavy work gloves that fit over even Mikkel's regular gloves. Hastily cutting slits in the tarps, Mikkel made them into crude ponchos for all three. With ancient duct tape wrapped many times around their calves and the largest tent he could find draped over the three of them, they would be shielded as best he could manage. A “window” in the tent would allow them, or at least him, to see where they were going. As the troll continued to crash against the door, they quickly and quietly tied coat racks and heavy daggers together to make three boar spears.

They had barely finished when a resounding crash told them the troll was inside. “Get the tent. Get ready. All covered?” On their whispered agreements, Mikkel threw a chunk of debris hard across the room to get the troll's attention and the three ran forward under the tent, Mikkel leading, Emil behind him, Lalli last since he was the weakest, and all their spears poking out from under the tent.

The troll was before them, turning back from the distraction, and Mikkel rammed his spear into it as it sprayed the front of the tent with acid. He could only hope the tent and the tarp-poncho would protect him long enough, as he shouted, “Get it! Get its head while it's down!”

The other two were stabbing wildly with their own spears, and as soon as the thing stopped moving, they all simply dropped their spears and ran. “Sigrun! Take Reynir and go!” Mikkel ordered in his best parade-ground bellow. “They spew acid! Do not come to help us! We'll catch up with you!”

It was the way of the Rash: if one person in a crowd of sick people changed, then those around him were more likely to change as well. And whatever form the first took, those around him were likely to take the same form. One acid-spewing troll, therefore, implied a whole colony of them.

They were out of the warehouse now, through the opening in the inner wall, running around the half-circle between the two walls, trying to reach the opening in the outer wall, but something crashed down on the tent and Emil was screaming “Get it off! Get it off!” and Lalli was out of the tent and running beside Mikkel.

“Drag it into the sun!” Mikkel shouted, and he and Lalli were pulling the tent forward while Emil struggled to gain his feet under the weight of the troll and more trolls were diving down off the wall. Mikkel was in the sunlight, and Lalli, but Emil …

Mikkel gave a desperate yank, pulling the tent, the troll, and Emil himself into the full sunlight, and the troll, shrieking and writhing, simply came apart. Emil rolled to Mikkel's feet, and the big Dane yanked him up and ran, half-carrying him, chasing after the much faster scout and, far beyond him, Sigrun and Reynir, who had scooped up Kitty and Mikkel's backpack.

In the bright sunshine, the three scavengers slowed to a walk and shed their protective gear. As they caught up to the others, Sigrun called, “Sooo … you guys okay, or …?”

“Yes,” Mikkel answered casually. “We found everything we needed, no issues.” They had not been injured, after all, and attacks by trolls were just what you expected in a ruin.

“Geeze, that settlement!” Sigrun exclaimed, not quite so casual as Mikkel. “Were ancient people brain damaged? How stupid do you have to be to try surviving this close to a city? We have those kinds of ruins all over Norway too.”

“I wouldn't judge them too harshly. I assume they didn't yet know what was to come. After all, in the beginning many of them believed they only needed to shield themselves from a disease and humans who spread it. By the time they found out what was coming for them from the ruins they might have been surrounded and unable to resettle. Or perhaps all it took was a few infected rodents to make it past the barricades.”

Mikkel fell silent, remembering stomping vermin beasts a kilometer from his home. That was the greatest fear: vermin beasts, and not enough cats to control them. There was an on-going project in Sweden to breed immune rats, mice, and squirrels, the idea being to burn an area, then flood it with immune vermin to prevent non-immune vermin from moving in. The trouble was that the non-immune trait was dominant, and all it would take was one lusty non-immune to undo all their good work.

The team made camp in an area liberally surrounded by Onni's strings, which proved to work well for hanging up their clothes to dry after Mikkel washed them. Reynir, accompanied by a reluctant Emil, strolled off for some privacy and found recent tracks: the trail of a large and heavy bear, and the parallel footprints of a man. “We're catching up,” Sigrun observed with satisfaction when they were pointed out to her.

Their camp was situated next to a pond where each took advantage of the opportunity to bathe after Lalli confirmed it to be safe. Reynir drew his runes around their “tent”, which is to say a tarp hung over one of Onni's strings and staked down on the sides. Emil took first watch, Lalli second, then Mikkel, and finally Sigrun.

During Emil's watch, he fiddled endlessly with the Rubik's cube, twisting this way and that before giving up and discarding it. Taking over the watch, Lalli scooped up the cube and tried it himself. Though none of them knew what a Rubik's cube was, it was obvious that one might want to make each side its own color, and this they both attempted to no avail. With a rare expletive, Lalli also cast it aside and devoted his efforts to watching for danger. Mikkel ignored the cube as it had no practical purpose and would only serve to distract him from his duty. All three of their watches were very quiet.

In the wee hours, Mikkel was awakened from a troubled sleep by quiet splashes. Rolling over and sitting up, he was horrified to see by dim moonlight a number of cow beasts walking out of the lilypad-covered pond directly towards the camp. Silently, working by feel, he covered Reynir's mouth to keep him from making any noise and pressed his mask upon him. Waking instantly, the non-immune pulled on his mask and sat up, likewise staring at the oncoming herd of grosslings in horror. Sigrun, sitting on a fallen log keeping watch, held her rifle ready but otherwise stayed still and silent. Emil and Lalli were awake too now, also keeping still but wary.

A herd of normal cattle could easily trample them; a herd of cow beasts could do the same even if they did not transform in some horrible way to attack, and a few rifles and a shotgun could not possibly stop them. The team's only option was to try not to attract attention, and to hope Reynir's runes worked as advertised and didn't catch fire or do something else unfortunate.

The herd, a couple of dozen strong, had been directly approaching the camp, but instead of bulling straight through, some went around to the left and some to the right, then rejoined and proceeded off to the north to whatever strange destination they sought.

No one slept the rest of the night.

In the morning, as Emil and Sigrun packed their gear, mostly into Mikkel's huge backpack, Mikkel and Reynir took a look at the deep hoofprints of the cow beasts. “Very heavy,” the Dane observed. “At least as heavy as normal cattle. And they must have walked straight through that pond.”

“Do you know what this means?” Reynir asked him in some excitement.

“Yes. There is a lot of beast activity during summer.”

“No, not that,” the Icelander answered with a look of annoyance, “What this means is that my stave worked perfectly! I'm a proper mage now!” He gazed at the hoofprints with a proud smile. Off to his right, Lalli stooped to pick up the discarded Rubik's cube and tuck it into a pocket of his cloak.

“We're done packing, stop yapping!” Sigrun ordered. “I want to catch up to that guy already so that we can go home!”

It was a bright sunny day, the kind that kept grosslings in their lairs, and the team hiked for hours without disturbances. “Mikkel,” Reynir asked after they'd walked for a while, “how could there be an entire herd of cow beasts? I thought it was rare for animals — or people! — to change.”

“Well, it is, on a population-wide basis. But you can get clusters for two, maybe three, reasons. One is that the more an animal or person is exposed to the Rash, the more likely they are to change. A herd of dairy cows, maybe in a barn together or a small pasture, once they were infected, would re-expose each other over and over again throughout the incubation period, raising the chances for all of them to change.” Reynir nodded slowly. Growing up in sheltered Iceland, he hadn't learned or needed to learn all the characteristics of the Rash, only that it was contagious and utterly lethal to a non-immune like himself.

“Then too, there seem to be genes which affect the probability of changing. Scientists in Sweden have bred strains of mice that are not immune but don't change; if they get the Rash they always die of it. On the other hand, there are other strains that are very likely to change. So this herd, probably closely related to each other, may have been of a strain likely to change.” He gestured vaguely in the general direction that the creatures had gone.

“It's also believed that if one animal or person changes, others infected around it will be more likely to change as well, though no one's been able to pin down the effect separate from the other causes. So, anyway, mostly you run into individuals, but occasionally you'll run into a group, maybe even a herd, as we did.”

“Thank you.” Travel had been broadening — terrifying but broadening — for Reynir.

Later, passing a battered road sign for Joensuu, Mikkel wondered aloud, “Do we have any plans for when we draw near this city?”

“We'll figure it out when we get there,” Sigrun replied with an insouciant grin.

An hour or so later it clouded up and soon began to rain, gently at first and then a downpour. They kept walking, Sigrun being determined to find Onni as fast as possible so they could go home. Mikkel forbore to argue or point out that they were a month behind their quarry as he preferred hiking, even in the rain, to sitting around.

Lalli was not enjoying the rain and began checking ruins that they passed, coming up after a few minutes with a lime-green plastic umbrella and strolling along happily dry with Kitty hurrying to stay beside him out of the rain if not out of the wet road. When Reynir joined him as well, however, he started checking more ruins and came up with, surprisingly, another lime-green umbrella to give to the Icelander. Mikkel supposed that there had been a peddler of lime-green umbrellas who came through this area just before the Great Dying.

Taking pity on the cat, Reynir scooped her up and carried her, being joined by Sigrun and Emil under the shelter of his umbrella. Lalli led the way with his umbrella, and Mikkel followed in the rain as rear guard. He could have asked for his own umbrella but he was already so wet that it didn't really matter and he preferred to have his hands free, just in case.

They had walked along in this fashion for another few minutes before Kitty suddenly alerted to something to their right. All turned to look and spotted a poodle trying to shelter under some trees, whining.

“Don't let its pitiful look trick you,” Sigrun ordered quietly. “It has an ancient collar; it's a beast, not an immune wild dog. Reynir, shoo! We need to put it down as silently as we can.”

“Yeah, not me,” Emil answered as Reynir ran to Lalli's protection and Mikkel readied his shotgun. “I have issues with beast dogs.” Mikkel nodded to himself, remembering soft-hearted Emil's reaction to killing the dog beast back in Silent Denmark.

“Fine, I'll do it,” Sigrun replied, “Mikkel, be my back-up if it tries anything. Dog, come here!” When the dog didn't move, “Come ooon,” she crooned, “come over!” As it began to run towards them, “Yes! Good boy!” Dagger ready, she added, “This won't hurt a —”

The dog beast changed. Its mouth opened … and opened … and opened, becoming a maw half the length of its body, lined with fangs as long as Mikkel's fingers. Just as it lunged for Sigrun, Mikkel pulled his trigger. At such close range, a mere four or five meters, even he could not miss with a shotgun, and the monster dropped, instantly dead.

“And now we run once again,” Mikkel ordered, grabbing Sigrun's arm and pulling her along in pursuit of the others, who were already running.

“Right you are! Dog might have dog friends nearby, and beasts like roaming around when it's overcast.”

“No, no. Remember, we need to watch out for Surma.” He was puffing with effort; he was not a sprinter at all. “We never know when it might be on our heels.” They continued to run for a few hundred meters to a road with plenty of woods between them and the site of the fight.

“Yeahhh …” Sigrun continued the discussion not even slightly winded as they slowed to a stop. “I'm honestly not so worried about that. I'd say —”

Aawwooooooooooo

The howl echoed through the woods. Off to their right, something furry streaked past, briefly seen as it passed a gap in the trees. “Did you see that?” Sigrun whispered. Before Mikkel could answer, the thing raced into another gap and turned to stand regarding them.

“Hukka,” Lalli whispered to all of them. It was recognizable as a wolf beast, its body longer, taller, and skinnier than a normal wolf and black and glossy with grossling slime, its original wolf pelt still clinging to its back like a cloak, its jaws greatly lengthened and enlarged, and its tongue so long as to hang out even from its lengthened jaws.

“I think it's seen us,” Emil whispered unnecessarily.

All their daggers were out now, and Mikkel's shotgun was ready. “It's a wolf,” Sigrun whispered. “It'll stay in the shadows unless it gets agitated. We back away slowly, and make sure we don't get its pack on our tail too.”

Aawwooooooooooo

They looked behind them to see at least a dozen more wolf beasts — hukka, as Lalli called them — running down a hill on the other side of the road, making for shelter under an overpass.

“Change in plans:” Sigrun whispered urgently, “we're going this way instead.” She pointed up the embankment and away from all of the creatures. “Don't run, walk! Slow boring movements. We just have to move out of eyesight without exciting any of them. Wolf beasts like hanging out in packs, but don't like being the first one to set chase.” They moved away, slowly and quietly, without sudden movements, and the monsters remained peacefully under the overpass.

After a couple of hundred meters, the team felt safe enough to run, and they did. For some moments, all seemed well and then … far behind them, out of their sight, a runnel of water from the continuing rain dislodged a tiny pebble from the long-neglected overpass. Falling on a wolf beast, the pebble startled it into a forward lunge and all the others followed. The hunt was on.

Aawwooooooooooo

Attempting to outrun the wolves was hopeless. Even unburdened, human beings cannot outrun normal wolves, and this team was not unburdened nor were the wolves normal. As the front-running beast nearly snapped at Emil's heels, he snatched the lime-green umbrella from Reynir and opened it directly in the thing's face. Retaining some wolf instincts, the creature recoiled, falling back and away. The other monsters hesitated, startled and confused, while the team continued to flee.

Abruptly Kitty struggled loose from Reynir's grasp and ran from him. “Kitty, no!” he cried. “Come back to us!”

Instead, the cat ran to a large, sturdy oak in the overgrown yard beside a ruined house and shot up it like a squirrel. “Follow cat!” Lalli shouted in his heavily accented Swedish, “Do what cat! Into tree! Now!”

They followed the cat, scrambling hastily into the tree, Emil as the last one just ahead of snapping jaws. Lalli stabbed at the creature with his umbrella, knocking it back. “This won't end well at all …” Sigrun observed as they made themselves secure in the branches.

Aawwooooooooooo

“Any thoughts on our next move?” Mikkel asked as the monsters raced in circles around the tree, occasionally leaping disturbingly high at them.

“We can't just sit here and hope they go away!” Emil put in.

“I know we can't!” she answered, “We'll starve to death before they leave! And they're making way too much noise …”

Emil opened his umbrella in the face of a beast that leaped too close, but another leapt, clamping down on the handle, just missing Emil's hands which he hastily jerked away, and landing with the umbrella in its jaws. That was the last straw for Sigrun. “I refuse to die in a tree. That's where cowards go to die.” Mikkel glanced over at her, raising an eyebrow as he wondered about Norwegian culture and cowards in trees. “At least we have a good vantage point,” she went on.

Drawing her pistol, Sigrun gestured to the others to get ready. Emil drew his own pistol while Mikkel unslung his shotgun and Lalli his rifle. At her nod, they all opened fire and the slaughter began. Dead and dying beasts all around the tree, Sigrun hastily scrambled down shouting, “Get all of them! Don't let any get away! They'll just come back to hunt us later! Leave no tail standing!”

As the other continued to shoot down the grosslings, Lalli abruptly stopped, looking off into the woods beyond the house. “Something else bad coming!” he shouted. “Hiding!” He pushed Reynir toward the ruined house, the others fleeing as well.

“Great!” Sigrun muttered to Mikkel as they ran, “I bet it's the big guy.”

Lalli hung back, allowing the others to precede him. As he fled, just before he reached the shelter of a ruined wall, the Rubik's cube slipped from the pocket of his cloak and fell behind him. Unable to give up the challenge, he started to crawl out to retrieve it, then hastily jerked back into cover as something large loomed in the woods.

The whole team crouched, crowded together in the ruin, peeking as best they could through a gap in the debris as something crunched ominously towards them. They barely breathed as they waited and then …

Moooo

One of the cow beasts, still draped with some of the lilypads which had stuck to it as it walked through the pond, stalked slowly forward, eyes on the dead wolf beasts. Behind it the watchers could hear more crunching as the rest of the herd approached. Mikkel could feel Emil and Reynir relaxing their tension, while Sigrun and Lalli remained on alert as did he. They knew that a herd of normal cattle would be a serious threat to their small party, and there was no telling how much more dangerous these cow beasts would be.

The concerns of the military team members were justified when the herd began to graze on the wolf beasts, tearing them apart with fangs such as no cow ever sported. ”Ewww,” Sigrun muttered, speaking for all of them. “Let's vanish!” They carefully and quietly slipped through the ruins and escaped, running for all they were worth once they were out of earshot.

When they finally stopped, Mikkel and Emil were winded, Reynir and Sigrun were panting, and Lalli was completely unaffected, having spent most of his young life running around Finnish forests as a scout. Once she caught her breath, Sigrun declaimed, “What have we learned? Overcast makes all the beasts around here too eager to come out and play! In the future we set up camp and hunker in place for days like these. Rest up a bit, you know.”

As she spoke, Lalli was checking the pockets of his cloak and Mikkel recalled that he had not had the opportunity to retrieve the cube when the cow beasts approached. Lalli's face showed that the same recollection had just occurred to him. But there was nothing to be done; the toy was a good half-hour behind them and possibly eaten by cow beasts anyway. Mikkel resolved that, in the unlikely event that they found themselves in another raid, he'd keep an eye out for a replacement.

They walked on in the rain for a while before finding a good campsite with a stream nearby. They did not camp under the bridge which crossed the stream, though it would have given them shelter, for a large chunk had fallen — or been torn? — out of it, and they could not trust it not to collapse on them.

The rain slowly stopped during the night, and though they set watches, they were not disturbed.

“That 'Surma' thing,” Sigrun mused as Mikkel and Reynir began to pack up the gear in the morning and Emil made a weak sort of tea by their campfire, “I'm not convinced it exists. Has the old seagull guy ever even seen it? Or was he just being senile about what warnings to give?”

Mikkel shrugged. “He's the only knowledgeable person we've spoken to about this place, so we have to rely on him. We've been running away whenever we've made a lot of noise. That's a good policy in any case, whether the actual 'Surma' thing exists or not.”

“I guess.” Mikkel could see that she was still annoyed that he had made them run away and leave their tent and other gear behind. He was more philosophical; they had found replacement gear that was good enough. “At least the weather gods are trying to make up for yesterday!” she added, gesturing at the bright sunshine. Mikkel nodded, intent on folding their tarp with Reynir's aid. “Hey, scout!” she cried suddenly, “Where are you going?”

Mikkel turned to see Lalli running off into the woods, back the way they'd come the night before. “I don't know,” Emil replied, “But I think he said he'd be back in an hour.”

“You don't think the little ferret's taking off on us, do you?” Sigrun demanded of Mikkel, “Trying to find his nutso cousin alone again?”

“No, I don't think so. In his own way, he is part of the team and I don't believe he'd ever abandon us out here. I suppose he's checking our back trail. There could be more wolf beasts — hukky? — or the water cows, or something like that back there, following us.” He shrugged again, told Reynir that they had plenty of time to pack, and set about doing so efficiently.

“Yeah, but … that idiot is getting farther away with every passing hour! I don't want to stay out here any longer than I have to! My team back home will be hunting trolls and I'm running around Silent Finland looking for some dumb guy who probably doesn't even want to be found!”

”We're hunting trolls,” Mikkel pointed out, knowing how much it annoyed her when he was oh-so-reasonable. “We nailed a car troll and a tank giant, a poodle, and a pack of wolf beasts, in just a few days.”

“Back home we'd have got more than that,” she grumbled, sitting down by Emil to try his tea and making a face at the taste.

After about forty-five minutes, by Mikkel's estimation, Sigrun couldn't stand it anymore and chivvied the others into putting on their packs and starting to move slowly along the road they'd been following. They hadn't gone far, however, when Lalli burst out of the bushes behind them at a dead run.

“It seems our scout has returned from his detour,” Mikkel observed dryly.

“Calm down,” Sigrun told the Finn, “we weren't going to leave without you.”

The little scout was actually winded from his run, Mikkel saw with some alarm, and had to catch his breath before gasping fearfully, “Surma!”

All four of the others simply stared at his terrified face for a horrified moment and then, as one, turned and fled, Mikkel scooping up Kitty as they went.

By late afternoon they were well within the city of Joensuu and Lalli was waiting impatiently for the rest to catch up.

“All right, translator,” Sigrun asked irritably, “where are we at?”

“Uhh …” Emil looked around wildly at rusted and broken street signs, settling on one high up which had escaped most damage. “We're at the … I think … the middle?” Considering the sign a bit longer, “Oh! Or the city center is that way. Do we really plan on going there?”

“Sure, why not?” Sigrun growled. “And where else would we go anyway? The mage threads are going that way. We'll do an initial sweep around the area and assess what the danger level is.”

While she and Mikkel began their survey of the area, Reynir, with Kitty draped across his head, and Lalli moved over to examine the “mage threads” which they had assumed all along to be signs of Onni's passage. Lalli seemed to have no more idea of their purpose than the rest of them, and settled for plucking and poking at them while waiting for the older team members to decide their next move. Reynir merely leaned on them, bored perhaps, or trying to use his strange mage senses to detect enemies; Mikkel could not tell.

The sun being still high in the sky, Sigrun was soon satisfied that there was no immediate danger and waved the other four to proceed alongside the mage threads. Some minutes later, as they were about to enter an overgrown courtyard surrounded by ruins, Lalli stopped in his tracks; Emil, who'd been looking off to the side, trying to read a rusty sign, ran into his back; and Reynir, who'd been behind and to the left of Emil, stopped as well, petting Kitty as if for reassurance. Sigrun and Mikkel, following the other three, likewise stopped short at the sight that awaited them.

“Okay …” Sigrun said at last, while Mikkel stood speechless with shock. Before them was a decapitated troll spiked to a large board, propped upright between two smaller boards on which messages had been crudely painted. Mikkel could not read the sign to the left but the sign to the right! “Go home!” it commanded in Icelandic. “Army is dead.”

It was Onni's work, of course. Who else would be wandering around in Silent Finland (besides themselves, of course)? But Mikkel had not thought that Onni knew his background as a soldier nor cared if he did know, and certainly had never imagined that Onni — or anyone else — would cast it in his face that the army to which he had belonged was dead while he was still alive. Eleven years now, and the guilt of his survival when so many others had perished, though less constant, had never left him.

“Uhh …” Emil began in a whisper, attempting to translate the Finnish on the left since he knew even less Icelandic than Finnish, “it says … Go back, I have bad breath. From eating … you?” After a pause while he tried to make sense of his own translation, “Or maybe: a bad spirit wants to eat us?”

“All the eths are written the wrong way,” Reynir whispered to Mikkel, the only other person who understood Icelandic. One was in fact backwards and another upside down. The Dane rubbed his eyes, tried again to read the sign. It was not “Army is dead”, he realized; between knots in the board and drips of paint, he had mistaken the second letter of the word. Rather, it was “Here is death.” He closed his eyes, tried to push away the feelings his misreading had brought to the fore.

“A spirit with bad breath is threatening to eat us?” Sigrun whispered disbelievingly, “Are you sure?”

Emil shrugged helplessly.

Sigrun elbowed Mikkel in the ribs and, still shaken, he did his best to pass along her question. “Reynir, do you sense any spirits with foul-smelling breath in the vicinity?”

“Not really?” Reynir ventured. “Shouldn't you guys without masks be better at sensing that?”

Mikkel had just opened his mouth to reply to Sigrun when Lalli, who had been looking around the courtyard with a disgusted expression, took action. “Onni!” he shouted, followed by a loud spate of Finnish.

“Hey!” Sigrun tried to get his attention in a normal speaking voice. “Pipe down, or I'll pipe you down!”

The little scout ignored her, continued to shout, then folded his arms and glared straight ahead, waiting.

Sigrun and Mikkel looked at each other in dismay, turned back to back to study their surroundings. Shaking off his troubled emotions, Mikkel became a soldier again, on guard, for the shouting might have awakened … anything.

After some seconds, Lalli opened his mouth as if to shout again, Mikkel started towards him, meaning to shut him up, and from above and to their left, a pebble flew down to clip the scout's head.

Onni himself stepped forward into the sunlight, glaring down at all of them through a broken picture window on the second floor of a ruin. Arms folded, mask removed for the moment, face unshaven, and clothing grimy and bedraggled, he did his best to project the image of a stern and disappointed father. Lalli glared back, unintimidated and exasperated. The other four backed away in wordless agreement. Let the cousins work out their issues by themselves.

As Onni attempted to retain his dignity while picking his way down the talus slope of the collapsed left side of the ruin, whole vistas of the future opened before Mikkel. We found him! All of Silent Finland to search and the trail a month old, but we found him! My duty was to take Lalli to his cousin or die trying, and I've succeeded! And no one had to die trying, not Sigrun, not the others, not even me. This crazy adventure is over and we can go back and pick up our lives again. He sighed in relief, feeling as if a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders, and glanced over at Sigrun, who was gazing back at him with a grin of triumph and … It's affection. We've been teammates for months and through all these emergencies, so of course she feels affection. As do I. He wouldn't allow himself even to imagine anything more.

Back on the ground, Onni gestured imperiously “Come along”, and they all began to follow him, Lalli leading the way and Reynir close behind.

“Great, we found him!” Sigrun exclaimed to Mikkel, trailing along behind the others, “Mission complete! Now we can go home!”

“I think now we need to drag him kicking and screaming with us,” Mikkel replied, quite cheerful about the prospect. The Finn was larger than his cousin and stockier, so wrestling him might possibly offer a bit of a challenge to the powerful Dane. “Unless you reckon we simply leave Lalli here with him.” No longer driven by his duty, he would gladly do whatever Sigrun wanted.

“Let's see what the idiot is up to, first,” she decided after a moment, and they caught up to Emil as Onni led the way into the woods.

The euphoria couldn't last, of course. Following Onni, listening to him whisper angrily to Lalli in Finnish, and argue in whispers with Reynir, inevitably Mikkel began to think ahead, trying to plan.

We found him!

But … now what?

I suggested carrying him back kicking and screaming, but that isn't going to work. I could overpower him physically, of course, or him and Lalli both if it came to that, but Lalli blew away a giant with magic, and Onni is even more powerful. If I tried to wrestle him into submission, I think he or Lalli or both would splatter me all over the landscape.

Even if I did survive long enough to overpower him and tie him up so we could carry him back, then what? We're in Finland. We're outlanders. We can't just abduct a Finn in his own land no matter how crazy we consider his actions.

The Sentinel Mage said “People have the right to risk their own lives.” If I try to haul Onni back by force, the Sentinel Mage will make me let him go. At best. If he sicced all those birds on us …

And we can't hold him anyway. Even if the Sentinel Mage let us pass, even if somehow we managed not to be arrested and imprisoned as soon as we got back to civilization, we'd have to let him go, and then he'd be free to come right back here.

So what do we do? Leave Lalli with him and go home? Emil would insist on staying; after saving each other's lives in Silent Denmark, those two are closer than brothers. Emil will never leave Lalli to face danger without him.

And I? Will I walk away, as I did before, and leave those two children to face the terrors of the Silent World without me? There's no deadline now, no rescue ship that we must meet or it will leave without us. I don't have to leave them.

Sigrun.

Reynir.

They won't leave if Lalli, Emil, and I stay. Their lives are in danger here. I should leave with them, as before.

If I can make myself do it.

He had reached this unsatisfactory point in his thoughts when Onni brought them to a small boat drawn up on the shore of a lake. Gruffly gesturing them to get in, the Finn picked up a paddle and began laboriously propelling the boat across the lake. After a quick scan of the boat, Mikkel found another paddle and set to work helping the other man.

Gazing at Onni's back, Mikkel frowned in puzzlement, distracted from his thoughts. Though the man was unshaven and his clothing grimy and bedraggled from climbing around in ruins still wet from the rains the previous day, the man was surprisingly — astonishingly — clean for having wandered around in Silent Finland alone for a month. He was easily as clean as the searchers, who had been able to bathe regularly since they had four immunes and a cat to guard their one non-immune and to watch each other's backs.

How had Onni managed to keep clean? Indeed, how had he managed to avoid infection? Surely, even with his mage abilities, he had to sleep sometime. Mikkel glanced over at the cat sitting on Reynir's lap and entirely comfortable in Onni's presence. Cats could detect infection, but clearly she had not detected anything so far. Silent, Mikkel continued to paddle, and watch, and wonder.

As the boat approached a small island far in the lake, Reynir asked impatiently, “So are we allowed to talk yet, or —” Breaking off, he smacked at the side of his face and then looked at his hand in astonishment. “Is this a … mosquito?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Onni muttered in his heavily accented Icelandic. Mikkel remembered from his long years in Iceland that in fact the island had no mosquitoes, so that the young Icelander might actually never have encountered one before.

“Wait …” Reynir went on, wide-eyed with fear, “is there a chance that this could carry …?”

Before Mikkel could answer, Onni, leaping out of the boat and grabbing a line to tie it to a tree, replied, “No. There is not. Mosquitoes die if they ingest troll blood, so they don't. That's why you haven't run into any until now. They only survive in sheltered places that are free from trolls. It's how you can identify safe areas like this to set up camp.” Clearly feeling safe on the island, he pulled his mask down and led the way along a path where paving stones still showed occasionally through the grass. “Don't mind the animals,” he added, gesturing up at a number of squirrels watching them from high in the trees, “they're all immune here.”

Onni's camp turned out to be in the middle of a homestead. The main cabin was largely ruined and uninhabitable, but there was an intact building which the Finn identified casually as a sauna, a working well, and an intact hexagonal grill hut where Onni had been building his fires in the evenings. He'd clearly been staying in this protected location for some time, and Mikkel itched to find out why, and what he'd been doing.

“Okay,” Sigrun whispered, “here's the plan: once he falls asleep we clobber him unconscious and tie him up!”

That's exactly what I was thinking, but it won't work. Maybe in Norway, if this Viking princess dragged a non-immune back from the Silent World against his will, maybe there it would be considered proper behavior. Not here.

“Let's attempt talking first,” Mikkel replied, hoping that Onni could be persuaded to go with them before Sigrun got too impatient and took action herself. She shrugged and grumbled under her breath, but did not argue with Mikkel's suggestion.

Putting his words into action, Mikkel approached Onni, who was kneeling, building his fire, and ostentatiously ignoring everyone around him. “So,” Mikkel began, deliberately looming over the smaller man, “is there a reason why you lied to your relatives about where you were heading?”

For a moment he thought the Finn would simply refuse to answer, but with an exceptionally violent swipe at his fire steel, Onni snarled, “Yeah, how about I didn't want Lalli to come here and be killed. Enough reason for you, big guy?!”

“Aren't you the one who's at a greater risk?”

“That's irrelevant. I don't care what happens to me.” The fire now started, Onni stood to glare at the big Dane.

“Is that so?” Mikkel asked with deceptive mildness, taking hold of the mask still hung around Onni's neck and pulling it up and in front of the man's face. “Having this says otherwise.”

“I only need to —” Onni began, but was interrupted as Mikkel's clumsy fingers betrayed him and the mask, pulled too far forward, slipped from his grasp and snapped back into the other's face.

Embarrassed — again — by his traitor hands, Mikkel closed his eyes and said briefly and sincerely, “That was an accident.” Onni, holding his bruised nose, replied with a string of Finnish that Mikkel assumed was curses. He hoped that the Finn's curses wouldn't actually have a magical effect.

Still cursing under his breath, Onni stalked away, brought in firewood, and built up his fire. As the evening shadows lengthened and the air grew cool, Sigrun and Emil joined Mikkel on the benches around the firepit, Onni sitting on the far side of the fire from the others. Lalli and Reynir seemed to be looking at something over by the well. As they had no language in common and Lalli didn't even appear to like the Icelander, Mikkel hoped this sudden common interest might indicate some developing friendship.

“This is a lehto,” Onni began, waving at their surroundings. “It's protected by nature spirits and the forest gods, Tapio and Mielikki.” Having grown up believing that gods and magic were silly superstitions, and having encountered magic for the first time only months earlier, Mikkel could not prevent his face from showing some doubt, a trace of residual skepticism. “Yeah, you Danes know better than us primitive superstitious Finns,” Onni growled, “but it's a fact. This place is protected. Do not hunt or even disturb the local animals, or you will be made extremely sorry and so will the rest of us. The gods tend to judge us by the company we keep. So pass that on to your friends: no hunting! And don't disturb the plants either. Don't break off branches, don't pick berries, just leave everything alone!”

Mikkel frowned, gesturing at the fire now burning brightly between them.

“Yeah, yeah. I built a fire. But I gathered that wood from the ground; it's all fallen twigs and branches. I hunt and gather on the shore, not here. Anyway, understand that! You must leave this place exactly as it is, and we will be safe.”

“All right.” Mikkel glanced at Sigrun to his right, Emil to his left, and spoke in Danish for their benefit, as they had not understood the Icelandic conversation. “Onni says this is a magical place and we must not disturb the plants or the animals, otherwise the magical guardians will hurt us. So no hunting, no picking berries, nothing.” Sigrun nodded; she had no difficulty believing in magic. Emil, a confirmed skeptic like Mikkel, looked around doubtfully and then looked back.

“Okay. If you say so,” the Swede answered resignedly. “I hope … we're just going to stay the night anyway, right?”

“That's my hope too,” the Dane agreed.

Agitated conversation by the well came to them indistinctly and Sigrun looked over at the two young men in annoyance. “Hey, you two!” she called, “Stop squabbling over there! You can't even understand each other!”

They couldn't understand her either, Mikkel knew, so he added in Icelandic, “Reynir, calm down over there!”

“But …” Reynir answered in rather stunned tones, pointing at Lalli's empty hand, “it's Tuuri.”

Sigrun and Emil didn't understand Icelandic, of course, but they both caught Tuuri's name and turned to stare at Reynir at the same time that Mikkel did. Reynir appeared rather stunned and Lalli, standing next to him and looking towards Onni, seemed almost … accusing, Mikkel thought.

Mikkel turned back to regard Onni, who was poking at the fire. The older Finn's face expressed annoyance — but then he'd been annoyed from the first time he'd shown himself — and something else. Embarrassment? Guilt? Certainly, Mikkel thought, neither Tuuri's brother nor her cousin seemed even slightly surprised at Reynir's pointing at Lalli's hand and speaking Tuuri's name. The big Dane got to his feet and, accompanied by the other two, went to find out what was going on.

“What are you talking about?” he demanded.

“Tuuri!” The Icelander gestured at Lalli's forefinger, held out horizontally. “She's just here for a short while because Onni needs her and — and you can't see her?”

Mikkel looked at Lalli's hand, looked back at Reynir, shook his head with a frown. Reynir looked at the other two, whose faces showed complete puzzlement, and went on, “It's okay. Really. Mikkel, tell them: her spirit is right here, looking like a little bird! She wants to say hello.”

He held out his own finger as if offering a perch to a little bird, and made a kind of soothing gesture above it. All three stared at the finger as Mikkel muttered a brief translation.

There are times when I really wish I were back in safe, sane Denmark. No weird Kade-things that take over your mind and you don't even know it, no spirits of dead people turning up as invisible birds … Mikkel glanced over at Sigrun's face, utterly focused on Reynir's hand. But then, back in safe, sane Denmark, I'd never have met this crazy Norwegian troll-hunter. And that … that doesn't bear thinking about.

Lalli was backing away from the other four. His face had returned to its normal impassivity as he watched them in silence, his index finger still extended.

“Welllll …” Sigrun said at last, “did I ever say I'm sorry for what happened? So, you know … sorry.” Tuuri presumably still understood Norwegian and Danish, Mikkel supposed, so he added in his own tongue, “I hope you're well despite your circumstances.” He could think of nothing else to say.

Lifting his gaze from the presumed position of Tuuri's spirit, Mikkel saw Reynir attempting to hide a grin. “You — you —” he began, furious, recognizing that he'd been tricked, and Reynir, realizing that he had made a very bad mistake, looked wide-eyed from the angry Dane to Lalli. Following his gaze, Mikkel saw Lalli apparently conversing with his own finger in Finnish. “I do not appreciate being made a fool of, boy, and I don't appreciate seeing Sigrun made a fool of either. And she'll be even angrier if I tell her what you did. Now, is Tuuri in fact here? Is she in fact sitting on Lalli's finger in the form of a bird?”

“Yes, yes, she is, really she is,” Reynir all but babbled, “she would have heard you and Sigrun both. I mean, you were looking in the wrong place, but she's really here and really listening, really!”

Mikkel hesitated, not entirely sure whether to threaten the brat again or drop the subject, when Missekat leapt onto Lalli's shoulder, clearly intent on his hand. Tentatively dabbing with her paw at the air above his finger, she abruptly leapt away, so frightened that she clawed at Lalli's face in her haste to escape.

Not only was this the best evidence Mikkel was going to get that there was definitely something invisible on Lalli's hand, but the situation called for immediate action on his part, putting an end to the confrontation with Reynir. As he hurried for his first aid kit, Mikkel thought it just as well that he'd been interrupted; if not for the cat's actions, he really might have told Sigrun that Reynir had tricked them.

Though the scratches on Lalli's face were shallow and would heal cleanly, he had to submit to Mikkel's ministrations, for the medic would not be put off. Even one immune to the Rash could succumb to other forms of infection, as they had good reason to know.

With Lalli properly cared for, Mikkel stalked over to Onni, who was sitting by the fire doing his best to pretend to be uninterested in current events. “So you decided to conjure the soul of your dead sister from the afterlife,” Mikkel stated. He might have been a skeptic nearly all his life, but he had read a lot of myths and legends, and he was certain that conjuring the souls of the dead was widely regarded as both unwise and unsafe, and quite possibly outright evil.

Onni grunted a wordless acknowledgement.

“I assume you have a good reason why you'd do something so unorthodox,” Mikkel continued sternly. Onni himself had said that “the gods judge us by the company we keep”, and Mikkel didn't care to be subject to whatever judgement might come as a penalty for conjuring up Tuuri's soul.

“Yep.”

“Are you going to tell us what that is willingly, or …?” Mikkel put as much menace as he could into the words, glaring down at the smaller man.

“Yeah, whatever. Look, I —”

Mikkel took a step forward, looming as only he could, and Onni raised his hands in a gesture of surrender.

All right, all right. I needed help. I found the Kade and was trying to get in a position to attack, but I couldn't do it. By a few weeks ago, I knew that I needed help, and I didn't want to bring anyone else in to maybe get killed. Not even you.

But Tuuri — my sister is already dead. So I …

Well. You outlanders don't know anything about us. I have to explain what any Finnish child would know!

Okay, yes, I'll explain what you need to know. When we die, our … I don't know the word in Icelandic. There probably isn't a word in Icelandic, because you outlanders are different. I don't know your gods and you don't know mine.

Yes, yes. When we die, that part of us that is eternal, um, soul, I guess you'd say, follows the Bird Path to Tuonela to sleep in peace. There are ways to get from here to Tuonela, which I won't describe to you because you wouldn't understand and if you did, if you tried to do it — and you're the sort who might — you'd just die. And the Swan might get angry at me. Angrier.

So, there are ways to get there, and I did. I found Tuuri sleeping there and I was going to bring her back, but the Swan — she's the guardian of the dead, among other things — caught me.

“You know very well what I do to the living who try to disturb the peace of the dead,” she told me, and I do. Most people who try what, what I tried, don't come back. “You better have a very compelling reason, or else!” she told me and she … hurt me.

I told the Swan that I needed Tuuri's help to kill the Kade and free my grandmother's soul, because I won't be able to do it alone. The Swan didn't think that was sufficient excuse, because after all, she thought, the Kade will die someday and then our grandmother's soul will come to Tuonela as it should. Only it won't, because her soul won't ever be released unless someone releases it, and that has to be me because nobody else will do it. If the Swan killed me for my intrusion upon the peace of the dead, she would never have that one soul of our line. Lineage is very important in these matters.

So anyway, yeah, I convinced her to let me bring Tuuri back to help me but … there's a price. And a time limit. She told me, “You can have this summer. You can borrow that one soul to help, and I expect two back. One way or another.” And her parting words to me and Tuuri, once we got back here, were, “Fetch me the wayward soul of your line, and do it without giving me a headache.”

So you see: I can't go back with you, no matter what you say. I have to do this by end of summer.

Or else.

Mikkel stared at the man describing so casually the deadly trap that he'd gotten himself into. Onni interlaced his fingers, extended his arms, cracked his knuckles, and continued, “We don't need any of your help, but since you've decided to barge in uninvited … I suppose you might as well do something useful.” Falling silent, he leaned back, hands behind his head, and closed his eyes.

Mikkel glanced to his left at Sigrun, who had settled herself on one of the benches around the fire pit and was studying Onni with a hunter's intensity. Unable to understand his words, she seemed to be evaluating his body language. Mikkel doubted she was deceived by the man's pretense of ease. To Mikkel's right, Reynir had seated himself on another bench with the cat in his arms and was listening with a worried expression. In his mage training, he might have learned the same sort of myths as Mikkel had. Lalli was still off by himself talking to the invisible Tuuri, and Emil, bored with a conversation that he could not understand, was idly dropping pebbles into the well.

When no one spoke, Onni went on, “Do you lot have some clue about what I'm dealing with here?”

“Yes,” Mikkel replied, “I believe we've been given adequate information. You're hunting your grandmother, who is now a 'kade'.”

“She's not a kade,” Onni corrected, “Her soul is part of one, among several other souls. It's hard to tell how many; it feels like just a big clump, spirit-wise. But you can sense they all used to be mages of some sort. Mages that were caught off guard along its path.” He stared into the fire, face deliberately bland.

After a moment's consideration, Mikkel asked, “If it is a conglomeration of souls accumulated over time, then who is the original part of the kade?”

“Who knows? Who cares?” Onni was annoyed again, though Mikkel didn't think the question was foolish, believing that knowing your enemy got you a fair way towards defeating it. “Some random person of the old world, who would have been a mage if they didn't become infected.” Onni waved a hand in dismissal. “Whoever it is, was weak! It is physically nothing. If it can't get to my mind, it's toast in my hands!”

Mikkel frowned, wondering if Onni was justified in his confidence or arrogantly overestimating his power. The thing was intelligent, and if it had been around since the Great Dying …

“It knows,” the Finn went on, “it knows I'm coming for it, and … it got itself protection.”

Ah, now we get to the heart of the matter. The reason he needed Tuuri. And, perhaps, something “useful” for us to do.

“A horde of bears!” Onni exclaimed with a gesture of frustration. “Or three of them. I can't tell if they are following the kade, or if the kade is following them, but they seem to always be near one another. I haven't been able to get close enough with those things being in the way.” He sighed. “It's the big leader bear that is the problem. As far as we can tell, it's the mother. It takes care of the two smaller ones. It keeps them on track, grooms them, protects them.”

Mikkel stared at him, appalled. He'd known of packs and herds of grosslings — indeed they had recently encountered such — but he'd never heard of something akin to maternal behavior among grosslings. If such could persist among bear beasts, then what might persist among trolls? His horrified imaginings were interrupted as the other continued, “A few days ago some scrawny troll tried to crawl past them, and the big bear all but smashed it flat!”

Mikkel frowned again. Something didn't add up here. “Are they really such a threat if you're able to stay close enough to observe all this?”

“Wow, good job being all smart on me!” Onni sneered. “Yeah, I don't do that. Tuuri does. She's the one who keeps an eye on them. I've only seen them from way far away.”

Mikkel consciously tamped down his own annoyance. The man tried to do this alone, which he knew was dangerous, damn near suicidal; he's seen all his plans ruined; he's under sentence of death if he doesn't succeed; and he's been wandering around Silent Finland for weeks alone but for the soul of his dead sister. And now we show up, bringing his last surviving relative into the very danger he tried to protect him from. Of course he's annoyed, even angry.

“The big one's been hunted before. There are arrows and spears sticking out of it. Who knows how many hunters it's killed! The other two are smaller, like I said, maybe its, um, cubs. They're all three pretty decayed but still, they're bears … Anyway, we've identified the weak link in the group,” Onni went on, “A sickly, ugly monstrosity! There's something wrong with its skin that makes it really sensitive. Just touching one of my threads makes it run away in pain. The other two could break the threads, but they don't because I've placed wards on them.” He glared at Mikkel, daring him to argue against the magic. Reynir was nodding thoughtfully.

“By controlling the direction of movement of that one,” Onni continued, seeing no disagreement, “we can control the whole group. We've been attempting to drive them somewhere where we can trap them, or drive them off a cliff, or something!”

Once again, things didn't add up. Mikkel felt he had to have missed something. “I don't understand why you're doing this bear-herding in a city. I'd assume it would be safer anywhere else.”

“Yes, thank you for your wisdom,” the other snarled. “I never thought of that! They ran into the city, we're trying to get them out!” He clutched at the air as if he could drag the bears out by main force. “Every time I tried to get them into a good spot they would divert and run closer to the city! And now that I'm finally getting pretty good at herding them properly, you all show up and give me another thing to worry about!” He was working himself up into a fury, shouting “I would have been fine ON MY OWN!!”

“There, there,” Mikkel said with his best calming smile, seeing that the man was on the edge, and quite possibly too dangerous for them to handle if he lost control. Patting the air soothingly, the medic went on, “let's take a breath. I sense you might be a little stressed.”

Quietly rising from her bench, Sigrun moved to stand behind and between Mikkel and Reynir; with the benches being somewhat raised, their three heads were nearly level with one another. Mikkel could feel the tension radiating from her, the concern that Onni might actually be furious enough to attack them.

Onni glared at him for a long moment, hands raised and fingers in a position that might be the beginnings of spell-casting, before slowly relaxing and leaning back, still annoyed.

“What about Surma?” Reynir put in, desperate to change the subject. “Are you not worried about that one at all?” Meanwhile Sigrun grumbled to Mikkel, “Someone better translate all this later.” Mikkel hid a tiny smile at her irritation.

“What now?” Onni was at least puzzled rather than angry.

“Surma! Didn't the seagull man tell you about it?”

“Oh right, that thing. Haven't come across anything like that over here.” He shrugged indifferently. “I think it's something the old man made up to keep people on edge.”

Mikkel and Reynir looked at each other.

“What's with the look?” Onni had found yet another reason to be annoyed.

With an uneasy smile, Reynir explained, “Well, hah, we're pretty sure we've got it on our tail.” Mendaciously he added, “Mikkel's been shooting his gun a lot!”

“Of course he has,” Onni put in disgustedly.

“Hey now,” Mikkel began, but got no further, for Sigrun had laid her head on his shoulder. He felt her red hair tickling his chin; he swallowed hard, suddenly finding it quite difficult to breathe; his hands trembled within his gloves; he could not prevent a small blissful smile from touching his lips. Every glance they'd exchanged, every word she'd spoken to him, every thought of affection he'd pushed away, flooded back into him.

“At least, Lalli saw it, a bit outside the city. We've been really quiet since then though!” Reynir was still talking. Good, let him talk. Mikkel didn't care anymore what the others said.

Sigrun turned her head and her breath was warm against his cheek. His captain, his Viking princess, his crazy Norwegian troll-hunter, was whispering to him: “Translate. Or I will hurt you.”

Mikkel gulped, pulled his scattered thoughts and emotions into order, and began a hasty, somewhat jumbled, recitation of Onni's story while the older Hotakainen summoned his younger cousin with a peremptory gesture and engaged in a Finnish discussion in which the word “Surma” featured prominently.

“We can't take him back?” Sigrun asked, dismayed.

“I'm afraid not. He's got to kill that kade-thing by end of summer, or he himself will die. You know Lalli won't leave him; Emil won't leave Lalli; and I …” He hesitated, not wanting to say it, not knowing how she would react. “And I won't leave them.”

“Of course not,” she agreed. “You and me, we'll deal with all this and bring everyone home safe. That's our duty.” Seeing the relief that he couldn't quite hide, she punched him rather hard in the shoulder. “Idiot! Sure I want to go home! Sure I want to go back to my life! I want —” she paused. “I want us all to get back to our lives! So if this guy's gotten himself in some mess with bear beasts and the kade-thing and spirit-things, well, then, we just have to get him out of it. Together.”

“I'm worried about Reynir, though. A non-immune, here, and us trying to fight grosslings. Then too, from what Onni said, the kade captures mages. Maybe non-mages like us are safe, but wouldn't Reynir be threatened by that too?”

Sigrun shrugged. “The nutso cousin's not immune and he's a mage. He's survived so far. We'll just protect Freckles as best we can. You have to admit that we've done pretty well so far.” And with that Mikkel had to be content, knowing that Reynir wouldn't leave even if ordered to go with Sigrun or Mikkel himself as escort. After all, he'd already refused to go home when it was safe for him to do so.

Onni stalked over to them. “You don't even know what you've stirred up. You don't know what that Surma thing did. Lalli couldn't tell you. He told me. That thing carved up the whole herd of cow beasts that you lot saw. It sliced right through them and left them in pieces scattered across the clearing. It was fast enough to get every last one of them before any could get away. It was hiding from the sunlight so all Lalli could see of it was its claws, but they were at least a couple of meters long.

“And you people stirred it up and brought it in here where I'm already trying to deal with the kade and the bear beasts! Do me a favor and promise not to shoot things when you're anywhere near me, all right?!” He turned on his heel and stalked away.

Relieved by his conversation with Sigrun, happy at the prospect of actually fighting the various monsters of which they'd learned, unable to resist tweaking the man, Mikkel smiled broadly as he answered to the other's back, “I'm afraid I can make no such promise! It has recently come to my attention that I might have to shoot some bear beasts soon.” Onni's answer was in Finnish, which was just as well as Mikkel suspected it was unprintable.

The mystery of Onni's surprising cleanliness was solved: he'd been using the sauna in the lehto. The boys, as Mikkel privately thought of them, were once more firmly instructed not to damage any plant, sent off to gather firewood, and then given the first use of the sauna, it being too small for all six of them to use at once. While Sigrun stalked around the homestead, considering the problem, Onni displayed an unexpected affection for cats, not only petting Kisu but making such good friends with her that she rolled over and allowed him briefly to rub her belly. Mikkel leaned on the well, watching them both but mostly Sigrun, doing his best to focus on their situation and not on how he'd felt when she laid her head on his shoulder.

Mikkel had never had a successful relationship with a woman. Not that he didn't want one; he did. And not that women weren't interested in a big, strong, smart, healthy, immune man; they were. But he was more than a big, strong, smart, healthy, immune man; he was Mikkel Madsen, and once a woman got to know Mikkel Madsen, and once he got to know her, somehow it didn't work out. Watching Sigrun, his mind wandered back to the various women who'd rejected him over the years and, of course, to Dagmey — but he would not think of Dagmey. For many years he had been not thinking of Dagmey, and he was quite practiced at it.

Not thinking of Dagmey worked well to keep him from thinking of Sigrun. He focused on what to do about the various enemies they faced, but he had not reached any conclusions when Sigrun scribbled on a piece of paper, then turned to the two men to say, “Attention, listen up! I've put my best thinking into this, and I've drafted our plan of action to take those bears down! With nobody getting eaten.” Mikkel smiled slightly at that; he was entirely in favor of nobody getting eaten.

“The others, except you and me,” Sigrun went on, looking directly at Mikkel, “probably won't get it, so you'll have to explain it to them.”

“Very well,” Mikkel agreed.

“This is our plan,” Sigrun concluded, holding out a rather worn sheet of paper on which she'd drawn out her idea.

The plan was actually simple and clearly drawn. Step one: find a pit of some kind. Step two: put spikes at the bottom and camouflage the hole. Step three: lead the bears to it and at least one falls in. “I call it 'Operation Bear Hole',” Sigrun explained.

The two men studied the plan side by side. It was straightforward, and it fit with what Onni had been attempting to do all along, but there were many ways it could go wrong. As neither man spoke, Sigrun turned to Mikkel, worriedly. “See, I don't think he gets it.”

“I think he gets it,” Mikkel assured her. He rather imagined that Onni didn't like it on general principles, just because he hadn't proposed it.

“We'll go and find a place for the trap tomorrow,” Sigrun directed. “We'll take those bears out one by one,” she added with predatory glee. Mikkel nodded; he would propose improvements to the plan as they went. It would be easier that way.

With the boys evicted from the sauna, the older three took over, Sigrun and Mikkel enjoying real cleanliness for the first time since leaving Iceland. Mikkel closed his eyes, tried to think about their plans for tomorrow, but behind his eyelids, Sigrun shone like a sword-blade in the sunlight.

She put her head on my shoulder!

That memory kept the nightmares away almost all night.

The plan was not so simple as finding a pit and preparing it, of course, though finding the pit came first. They decided to split into three pairs, with one member of each pair able to see and hear Tuuri, who would fly among them to carry word of the progress of the search. Emil would go with Lalli, naturally, as Emil was the only corporeal person other than Onni who could communicate with the little Finn, and Onni could not go with his cousin as that would leave only Reynir able to interact with Tuuri.

Sigrun did not speak Icelandic while Mikkel did; hence she could not talk to either of the remaining mages and he could. Mikkel thought that, in the interests of friendly teamwork, she should go with Reynir and he should deal with Onni. The troll-hunter shrugged, indifferent to the decision, and walked away with the Icelander at her side.

Onni turned to glare at Mikkel. “So I have to put up with you.”

“Just so,” Mikkel answered, smiling slightly, before immediately turning to lead the way. He didn't intend to antagonize the man, and it would be easy and oh-so-tempting to do so.

“If it were easy to drive the things,” Onni growled after a while, “we would have done it already.”

“I don't disagree.” Mikkel kept his voice mild. “But there are six of us now, and four of us can safely approach the things more closely than you can.”

“Huh! You're going to approach the beasts? Have you missed the fact that they are bears? Even if they weren't Rashed, they'd still be deadly if you approached them without firearms. Or even if you approached them with firearms, probably. But then there's this Surma so you can't use your shotgun. Not around me, at least.”

“We don't want to approach the beasts, but we can risk it more than you can.” Mikkel reminded himself not to argue with the man. “Anyway, there are just more of us to react to the beasts' behavior, keeping them going in the right direction, which would not be possible for one man alone, even with, ah, Tuuri's assistance.”

Onni grunted something like reluctant agreement, and they searched in silence for some time.

“Why did you tell him?” Onni demanded at last.

“I didn't,” Mikkel replied quietly, having rather expected this question. “I couldn't. I don't have any language in common with him, and besides, I gave him your note. I assumed you'd told him where you were going; there was no reason for me to tell him even if I could have.”

“But then how —”

“I didn't know it was a secret. You didn't lie to me, and I didn't know you'd lied to Lalli. How could I? Just before she left, Taru said she would go by Keuruu to look for you, and I thought she was mistaken — I didn't know you'd lied to her too — so I told her you wouldn't be there because you said you were going to Saimaa. Lalli was in the room, and even though we were speaking Icelandic, he must have heard the word 'Saimaa'. He worked it out himself from that.”

“Idiot Dane,” Onni grumbled, in Icelandic so that Mikkel could understand him. The Dane said nothing; it would not help matters to quarrel with the Finn. They returned to searching in silence.

There was no shortage of pits and collapsed streets in Joensuu; a near century of neglect had allowed many underground pipes to flood, back up, and break through the streets. Still, all the pits they found in the first couple of hours were either too shallow to control the bears or much too wide for the team to conceal.

“This is a fool's errand,” Onni complained after a brief conversation with Tuuri, of which Mikkel heard only the mage's side, entirely in Finnish. “The others haven't found anything better. We should drive them out of the city and try out there.”

“Does Finland have a lot of sinkholes we can use?” Mikkel's curiosity was unfeigned. He knew little more of Finland's geography than he had observed in searching for Onni.

“No.” Onni's answer was curt. “But there are bogs. And some cliffs.”

Mikkel shrugged. “The people of the old world did dig basements and things. We can spend a day or two looking before we give up and try to drive the beasts out.”

“I am on a deadline, you know,” the Finn put in dryly.

“I know. And Sigrun knows. And we will do everything in our power to help you.”

Onni sneered at that but didn't answer.

By noon they were still searching when Onni paused, peering off to their left. “What is that?”

Mikkel put a hand on his dagger. “Grossling?”

“No. There are some in that building —” he pointed ahead and to their right “— but they're not active. No, I saw a flash, over that way.” He backed up carefully while Mikkel looked around, hand still on his dagger. The Dane believed in the mages' ability to detect grosslings, but he didn't rely on it, counting instead on his eyes, ears, and even nose to give him warning of approaching enemies.

“There!” Onni announced. “It's light reflecting off glass. Angled glass near ground level, not part of a building. That's strange.”

By silent consent, they turned to check out the glass, and were both surprised and pleased to find an intact peaked glass roof over an underground corridor with closed doors at each end. The doors at the left end, Mikkel saw, led into an elevator, glass-enclosed from the ground up, that went up the mostly intact building at that end; the doors at the other end led into another ruin. As all the doors were closed, this seemed to constitute a good pit trap. The extraordinarily thick tempered glass of the roof, and for that matter of the building to the left, had held up rather well to storms and animals over the decades, so no debris had fallen into the corridor.

“This looks good,” Mikkel offered, “great find.”

Onni shrugged, turned away, closed his eyes with an expression of concentration. Mikkel watched for a moment, then turned to check in all directions for attackers, operating under the assumption that the other was doing something magical which might prevent him from watching for approaching grosslings.

A few minutes later, the mage held out a finger, spoke briefly in Finnish, and watched the invisible Tuuri fly away. “No one else has found anything better,” he observed to Mikkel, “so this is probably what we'll use.” After a moment he added grudgingly, “It'll work better than a bog, I suppose. And the bear beasts are not too far away.”

Sigrun and Reynir, with Kisu the cat, ran up minutes later to join Mikkel and Onni on one side of the corridor, while Emil and Lalli ran up on the other side. “Nice!” Sigrun exclaimed at once, “Excellent size for a bear hole! Time to set it up!”

The first step was, of course, to break the glass. This was easier said than done as the glass was tempered; in the end they had to start the break by placing a piece of gravel on each pane and hitting it with a sledgehammer taken from a nearby store. Mikkel, as the strongest, was the logical person to wield the sledgehammer, but he silently shook his head when Sigrun offered the tool to him and she, remembering prior incidents of his clumsiness, merely nodded her understanding and swung it herself. The force of the blow, focused on the small area covered by the gravel, was enough to break the glass, and from there it was a matter of kicking the remaining pieces out of the frame.

The biggest risk was that the sound of breaking glass might constitute the sort of sound that would attract Surma which, according to the Gull Mage, was “sensitive to piercing sounds, such as gunshots”. The sound was more of a dull thud followed by cracking — and surely glass cracked in the city all the time — so they believed it unlikely to attract the monster's attention. Still, Mikkel was on edge, half his attention devoted to watching and listening for an approaching giant even as he assisted in gathering and sharpening stakes. Lalli, the nimblest of them all, climbed down a rope held by Mikkel in order to set up all the stakes, before the whole team worked together to cover the pit with thin branches and boards, topped by fresh leaves.

“Good job!” Sigrun announced in the late afternoon, “Can't even tell it's there!” The cat evidently really couldn't tell it was there, as she started towards it and had to be scooped up by Reynir before she fell in.

“Now we're only short on bears,” Mikkel observed to Sigrun in Danish, studying the trap with a critical eye. “I presume we'll spend the next day or two looking for them?”

Reynir, still holding Kisu, looked around abruptly, listening to something the others could not hear. “Tuuri says she knows where the bear beasts are,” he said, pausing again to listen. “She says it's her job to keep track of them, and they're asleep in a parking place a couple of blocks away.”

Onni nodded. “We'll get them when they awaken at dusk. Now we prepare the path here.”

All afternoon was spent with Mikkel, Sigrun, and Emil pushing or dragging sturdy pieces of debris into position to close off alternate escape routes, while the three mages worked together, Lalli collecting pine cones, leaves, and similar natural materials which Onni attached to threads, chanting softly over them as he worked, and Reynir stringing the completed threads between trees, posts, and other standing bits of ruin.

At last the task was done, the path constructed, and it was time to assign everyone their places.

“No,” Mikkel answered.

“Yes,” Sigrun retorted.

“No,” he repeated. “It's too dangerous. I'll do it.”

“You will not.” Her tone was flat, refusing any argument. “You're too slow to run from them and you can't crawl under that truck. If you do it, we won't catch the bears. And you'll die,” she added as if as an afterthought. “I'm not going to allow that. He can run —”

“Emil can't outrun a bear. None of us can.”

“He doesn't have to. He can run fast enough to reach the truck and he can get under it. And you can't. So don't argue about it. Someone needs to coax the bears out once everyone is ready, and it won't be you. Anyway, you and I have another task, and we all need to get this done.”

Mikkel turned away. She was right that Emil would have a better chance than he would, but Emil was the youngest of them all. He should not have to take any risk at all.

“It's time,” Onni said, gesturing at the sun, now nearly set. “Everyone take their spot.”

“Emil,” Mikkel said heavily.

“What?”

“It's time.” Emil would not have understood Onni's Icelandic.

“Yeah, uh, okay.”

“Are you sure you understand the plan? Where to run? You must not make a mistake, Emil.”

“Yeah, yeah, sure. I can do it.” And Emil was walking away.

Emil was walking away, obedient to his orders, and behind Mikkel's eyes were all those other young men who'd walked away, obedient to his orders, and died, and they were all walking away to their deaths again and again and again. Mikkel's hands trembled, his head bowed as he fought back the images. He had to get control, had to keep going, and if he lived through the day, then it could all come back tonight. But not now!

He had it under control. He was a soldier and he would do his duty. He took his position beside Sigrun, ready for the battle.

The plan was relatively simple and they all had their assigned places and tasks. Emil would throw rocks at the bear beasts to lure them to charge him. Onni, by far their best archer, would then shoot the furless cub and, according to him, the beast would flee directly away from the pain and the other two beasts would follow. The Finn had to be right, or the big bear would tear Emil apart. Mikkel considered praying for Emil's safety to gods in whom he did not entirely believe, but they most likely would not regard the prayers of a godless Dane anyway, so he dismissed the thought.

Mikkel and Sigrun guarded a long stretch of the street which was blocked only by Onni's magic strings. They had not been able to move enough hulks of vehicles in the way, and so if the beasts passed through the strings, they would escape. Mikkel had his shotgun and Sigrun her rifle and pistol, but these could be fired only in the most dire circumstances, for their use was sure to draw the Surma creature and force the whole team to flee, abandoning Onni's quest and most likely dooming him. For the purpose of redirecting the beasts, the two were armed with old street signs in relatively good shape. According to Onni, the naked beast should be cowardly enough to flee from two people waving things in a threatening manner. Of course, the non-immune mage didn't and couldn't know for sure since he himself could not get near the beasts.

Mikkel glanced at Sigrun as they waited. If Onni was wrong about anything, if the furless beast kept coming despite the threats, if the big beast got ahead of it and charged them …

They might well be dead within the hour. Mikkel wanted to say something, but what was there to say? He faced front, waiting and listening.

“Come, little bears,” Emil called, his voice thin with fear as well as distance. “Hey! Wait! Where are you going? Don't walk away!”

Mikkel and Sigrun looked at each other in alarm. Reynir had conveyed from Tuuri the news that there was only one exit from the partially collapsed parking garage when the bears were sleeping. They should have to go towards Emil in order to escape. If they retreated back into the ruins of the garage, the team could not safely go in after them.

“Come back!” Emil shouted. “You're supposed to charge at me in rage!”

There was a silence while Mikkel tried to think how to salvage the situation, and then … RAAAAH! Certainly the bear beasts were enraged now.

Mikkel rolled his shoulders, straining his eyes in the twilight as he watched the spot where the bear beasts would appear. If they appeared. If the whole plan didn't go awry. Crashing noises and continued roaring made him fear that Emil's shelter — a truck in relatively good shape — would not suffice to shield him. And why hadn't Onni gotten the beasts moving?

A high-pitched squeal, and the crashing stopped, followed by yelps of anguish. The two hefted their crude weapons uneasily as they waited for the beasts to make their way along the blocked-in path and charge towards them. In a matter of seconds, the first beast appeared, and it was the furless one, the one they needed, still yelping as it fled, leaving a trail of blood. For a moment Mikkel thought that Onni's strings would be effective, for it tried to slow as it saw the string before it. Its legs, seemingly eaten away to naked bone by the ravages of the Rash, were unequal to the task and it slammed into the string and fell with an even louder squeal of pain.

Staggering to the bare bones of its legs, still tangled in the string, the creature reeled towards the two watchers. “Quick! Silent corralling move!” Sigrun murmured, and they ran forward, waving their improvised weapons and hissing at the thing. With a terrified squeak, the furless beast turned and fled up the street in the intended direction as the two darted behind a wall. The big beast should be in hot pursuit of its cub, but it might take the time to attack them if it saw them.

Somehow Sigrun had managed to push Mikkel ahead of her, putting herself closer to the danger, and he grimaced, thinking he should have arranged things better even if she didn't want his protection. Still, as they hid shoulder to shoulder, the thudding of the big beast's gallop passed them and continued up the street as intended.

As soon as the sounds told them the creatures had passed, they were running up the parallel street. A crash ahead told them that the trap had worked; something had fallen into the pit. As they ran up to the trap, Emil and Onni joined them, the cat running along behind them. Mikkel closed his eyes and shook his head just for a moment as relief flooded through him at the sight of his youngest team member alive and unhurt.

The third beast — a truly strange creature that seemed to be without head or internal organs, as if it had been crudely gutted and yet left alive — hesitated at the edge of the pit into which the other two had fallen. Before the hunters could act, the naked beast rose high enough to scrabble at the edge of the pit, clearly being pushed from below. As it pulled itself out, the third beast leapt across the pit, landing on the furless creature's shoulders and fleeing, followed by the other. “At least —” Sigrun began to murmur, interrupted by a crack from below. The big monster was breaking the spikes on which it had fallen and which projected through its body.

Mikkel looked around in alarm for Onni, the only one with a silent distance weapon. He saw the Finnish mage was looking the wrong way, hurrying to join Lalli and Reynir, who were waiting in safety behind a partial wall. Turning back to the pit, the Dane was horrified to see the big grossling gather itself and then leap more than its own body height, catching its massive claws on the edge of the pit and heaving itself out while the hunters retreated out of sight. Standing on the far side of the pit, the creature paused to pull some of the new spikes out of its body with its teeth and drop them with what Mikkel could not help interpreting as a contemptuous gesture. Apparently satisfied, the monster departed in pursuit of the two smaller grosslings, leaving a trail of blood.

“Bears can't do that,” Emil whispered, and no one answered because no one else had thought bears could do that either.

“Didn't work as perfectly as I wanted,” Sigrun whispered after a moment. “But they're injured! Badly! Let's follow!”

Mikkel and Emil followed Sigrun across the one solid plank which they had laid along the side of the pit to serve as a bridge, but when she turned to call the mages to join them, Onni quite suddenly hissed something in Finnish to Lalli on his left while smacking Reynir in the face with the back of his right hand. The three mages stood in a row with their eyes firmly covered with their hands. None moved or spoke.

Sigrun scowled, tapping a foot impatiently. “All right,” she said after several seconds, “I'll give them five minutes, then I'll poke them.” Beside her Kisu, the cat, was staring at the mages with intensity and, Mikkel thought, alarm. “Who knows what they're trying to accomplish,” Sigrun added.

The mages had just moved their hands and opened their eyes when, quite suddenly, a mess of maggots began to ooze from Sigrun's left sleeve. Mikkel stared at it, frozen for a moment in disbelief, before Sigrun noticed it and with a surprisingly unhunterish shriek of horror struck it away from her. “What is this disgusting goop?”

Meanwhile, the same sort of mess was oozing from Reynir's right sleeve, and for several seconds they were both frantically scraping the stuff off and stamping it into the ground. Mikkel ran a hand through his hair, at a loss as to what to do. This was clearly unnatural. Magical, even. Which meant that it was the work of the Kade, and no one had said anything about the Kade having the ability to … conjure? manifest? teleport? … masses of maggots. If it could do that, what else could it do to them?

“Don't mind the maggots,” Onni said, quite coolly under the circumstances, “it's trying to intimidate us. Doesn't work.”

With that, he raced away in pursuit of the fleeing beasts and, after a quick look to confirm the safety of the rest of the team, Mikkel ran after him. Even with the presumed assistance of the invisible Tuuri, the non-immune mage had no business running around Silent Finland without an immune guard.

At length Onni stopped and Mikkel caught up with him. They stood together and looked at the thick trail of blood, black in the twilight. “The bears are running out of the city,” the Finnish mage said, and an odd note in his voice make the Dane glance at him. Why, the man was actually smiling! Mikkel had never seen him smile before, and the expression seemed quite unsuited to his face.

“How far can bears travel in a night?” Mikkel asked. There being no bears on his home island of Bornholm, he was unfamiliar with their abilities.

“Far. But with that much blood loss? Less far.”

Not precise, Mikkel thought, but then, these bear beasts had demonstrated abilities beyond normal bears anyway. “Less far” was probably the best estimate they could manage.

“They'll be easy to track this time,” Onni added, “and they'll be tired.”

The two men turned back to join the others, now maggot-free, and the team made camp in a ruin which the Finnish mages agreed was well away from any grosslings. They would not follow the fleeing beasts in the night; the day would be longer and the sunlight would help them track the creatures while it kept the creatures from moving.

“I suppose you didn't get the Kade,” Mikkel commented to Onni as the team prepared to bed down. Lalli would take first watch, then Mikkel and finally Sigrun. With so many people and such short and bright summer nights, they didn't all have to stand guard every night.

“No, I didn't. It tried to ambush us but we were ready for it. I struck at it but, well, it got past us. It's still with the bears,” he added, answering Mikkel's unasked question. “Now that they're out of the city, it'll be easier to deal with them.”

I hope so, was Mikkel's unspoken thought as he lay down beside Sigrun and tried to sleep. Swarms of maggots featured prominently in his nightmares.

The next day dawned dark, chilly, and rainy. “Just the sort of weather to bring out the trolls,” Sigrun grumbled, “and the beasts can keep going.” She pulled up her collar and sighed, looking out at the rain while Mikkel and Reynir packed up their minimal camp. As the team headed out, Mikkel paused long enough to check for anything overlooked, made sure the fire was out, adjusted his heavy backpack, and followed the others.

They arranged themselves in a new order: Sigrun and Lalli leading, Onni and Reynir following with the cat riding on Reynir, and Emil and Mikkel bringing up the rear. They walked in silence, for grosslings would be active in the woods. With Tuuri scouting invisibly ahead, they needed not fear an ambush by the bear beasts, but smaller beasts might evade her sight. Since all the team members other than Emil were capable trackers, at first they had little trouble following the bear beasts’ trail as they trudged through the rain. The occasional smashed grossling proved the bear beasts were still formidable and aggressive.

By noon the rain was dying down, allowing them to stop and collect blueberries to supplement their dried fish for lunch. Afterwards, even as the rain slackened, their pace slowed. The trackers spent ever more time studying the ground until at last Sigrun called a halt, waving Mikkel forward for a low-voiced conference. “I think we’ve lost the trail. I’m not sure what we’ve been following these last few minutes, but it’s not the bears. We’ll have to go back and see if we can find it again.”

“After six people have walked over it. Perhaps we should split up. Lalli is probably our best tracker, and we could send him out alone, just to find the trail.”

Lalli glanced over at the sound of his name, then looked up, his gaze following something the other two could not see. “The birdie must be back,” Sigrun said. “If she’s spotted the bears, we won’t need the trail. You know, every troll-hunting team ought to have a flying scout.”

“Onni staked his life to get her here,” Mikkel reminded her. “Useful as she is, it would have been better if he hadn’t done it. And we don’t need anyone else doing it.”

“Yeah, yeah. A flying scout that isn’t a ghost. I can dream.”

Onni looked over at them with his usual expression of annoyance. “Tuuri hasn’t found the bears, but there’s a big dead beast over that way.” He pointed off to their right. “It’s not a bear, but she thinks the bears must have done it. Or else there’s something else big and vicious running around in these woods.” Mikkel thought of the monster called Surma, and kept quiet.

Following Onni’s instructions, the team made its cautious way through the woods, water dripping on them from every branch as they passed. They came out on a shattered road; ahead and to their left was a ruined gas station. Sprawled before it lay a grossling that had started its existence as an elk. Eight jointed legs tangled around its body and its deformed head was half-severed from its long neck. A pool of wet blood around the corpse proved the monster had died that morning rather than the previous night.

“Well,” Sigrun said, surveying the mess, “Good! We’re clearly on the right track.” She gestured at bloody paw prints leading away. “And it’s easy to see which direction they went.” The team set off in pursuit once more.

As the shadows grew long, the weary team camped once more. They had made over thirty kilometers on rough trails, a long way for even such hardened travellers as themselves. Sigrun and Mikkel took the watches and Tuuri circled unseen above, always on watch.

The morning dawned bright and clear, but clouds loomed to the west and the air smelled of rain. Groaning a little, the team set out at once, hoping to catch up with the bear beasts before the grosslings recovered from their injuries and outran them, taking the kade beyond their reach.

When they had made, by Mikkel’s estimate, another fifteen kilometers, they stopped for a lunch of more fish and blueberries. Sigrun and Mikkel sat on a log side by side. As they ate, Sigrun shook her head. “Those bears sure don’t lack stamina!”

“But we do. I don’t know how much longer we can keep up this pace.”

“So we just have to catch them today!” She looked around at the team. “Five more minutes, then we get moving again.” They grumbled, but no one objected and five minutes later they were on the road again.

In the late afternoon, with heavy clouds moving in and the first sprinkles of rain falling, the travellers trudged along an eroded road up a long hill. At frequent intervals, they clambered over fallen trees or leapt across meter-deep gullies. “What is this place?” Reynir asked, breaking the long silence.

“Shut up,” Onni answered without looking at him. “This hill’s called Koli. And there are bear beasts somewhere nearby.” Abashed, Reynir fell silent. Mikkel, having overheard the brief discussion, studied their surroundings with renewed unease. Where were the bear beasts?

As they rounded a curve, they found a parking lot filled with rusted and decayed vehicles, with a ruined building beyond it. To their left, a narrow railroad led uphill with a worn stairway beside it. At the base of the railroad was a small wrecked building. Spotted here and there on the broken asphalt were drops of fresh blood.

Kisu, the cat, approached the nearest blood before freezing and looking to her left and up the hill. Her fur bushed out to its greatest extent. Every team member turned the same way, all the immunes drawing their daggers and adjusting their firearms for quick drawing. The dense foliage on the hillside blocked any view of lurking monsters. Mikkel moved up beside Sigrun, Emil following.

“Emil,” Sigrun said, “take the little guy and go back with the helpless ones. If the bears charge, you run. Mikkel and I will stop them.” She turned to give Mikkel a quick, ferocious grin before turning back to watch the hill.

“Watch out for Surma,” Mikkel added. We probably can’t stop that big one, even with firearms. But we can slow it down and injure it, and maybe the others can get away.

Even as he thought this, Kisu’s fur settled back to its normal sleek appearance and she sat down to lick a paw, the signal cats used for “all clear”. “Seems they were nearby, and now they’re not,” Sigrun said with a casual tone that fooled no one. “Nice.”

“Now is a good time to decide on the new plan,” Mikkel said, “and to make camp.” They moved into a van which still had an intact roof, the best shelter they’d had since Lalli’s home island. Emil and Lalli gathered firewood, and the Swede lit the fire just as the sprinkles of rain grew to a downpour. Kisu snuggled down in the remains of the driver’s seat, seeming asleep but for her ears, which moved now and then as if listening for enemies.

“Okay, so here’s what we do!” the irrepressible Sigrun began. “It’s very cliffy around here, right? So we go and stand by the edge of a cliff and lure the bears to us. And then we jump out of the way when they come at us!”

It occurred to Mikkel that the trolls Sigrun had hunted were less intelligent than these bear beasts, guided by the kade, had proved to be. “Let’s call that our plan B,” he said diplomatically. “Does anyone else have ideas to share?” When no one spoke, he asked in Icelandic, “Onni, any suggestions for what we should do?”

“I don’t have suggestions. I know how we’ll circumvent the bears.” Mikkel looked over at him, an eyebrow raised. On the one hand, he appreciated the man’s help. On the other hand, he worried about the man’s perhaps misplaced confidence.

“The cubs are our key,” the Finn began. “Clearly the mother will prioritize protecting her family over defending the kade. Therefore, we need only distract the mother long enough to trap and immobilize one of the cubs, after which the mother should stay by its side, and won’t come to help the kade, which will be easy pickings.” He looked away, out into the forest. “Then we can go home.”

Neither Mikkel nor anyone else had a better idea, so with the plan made, they settled down to sleep with the rain drumming down on the roof. Emil and Lalli stood watch, but Mikkel woke repeatedly to look around in the firelight and confirm that all was, so far, well.

It was still raining in the morning as they set off up the narrow stairway. Onni insisted on leading the way with Tuuri as his guide. Mikkel, Kisu draped across his broad shoulders, moved in behind him, blocking Sigrun from the most dangerous position. Grumbling, she took the spot behind him, Reynir behind her, and Emil, then Lalli, taking up the rear.

At the top of the hill there was a complex of decaying buildings. Lalli set off alone before Sigrun could order the team to stay together so, rolling her eyes, she sent Emil to follow him. Mikkel and Onni, trailed by Sigrun and Reynir, searched for a sturdy chain that was both unrusted and long enough to be useful.

“Here,” Mikkel said, holding up a still-shiny chain that had been wound around a fallen pulley. “This is stainless steel. It’s not so strong as carbon steel, but carbon steel would have rusted away by now in this climate. This should be adequate for our purposes.”

Onni gave him a rather odd look but accepted the chain. “Now we need a carabiner,” he said. “Lalli’s looking for that.” And, indeed, by the time they had gathered up the chain and made their plans, the younger Finn returned with the promised carabiner. To Mikkel’s pleased surprise, he had found one still in the plastic packaging that was used before the coming of the Rash. It was perfectly intact and useful, and Mikkel spared his young teammate a brief smile.

The rain continued to fall and the steep path continued to climb and the team continued to trudge forward. At length Sigrun tapped Mikkel on the shoulder to pass on the word from Reynir that Tuuri had located the bears. The team stopped to discuss their next actions.

“It is decided,” Mikkel announced. “Myself and Onni will chain the weaker cub to the tree with this. You three,” he said, turning to Sigrun, Emil, and Lalli, “have the honor of distracting the mother bear for long enough.” Turning to the remaining man, he remembered to switch to Icelandic. “Reynir, you stay out of the way.” Beside him, Onni instructed Lalli in Finnish.

Sigrun hesitated, frowning, and Mikkel looked hard at her, willing her to agree. We can’t do this together. One of us must make it through to help the survivors get away. Perhaps she reasoned the same way, for she nodded and answered with feigned unconcern, “All right, see you on the other side of bear chaining.” As she walked away, he heard her mutter, “I still think my cliff idea was better, just saying! We take care of really annoying trolls that way all the time in Norway.”

Mikkel refrained from answering. The bear beasts were not acting normally — if there was a norm for grosslings — and he doubted whether they would be foolish enough to go over a cliff. In any case, the plans were made. The chain draped around his shoulders, he followed Onni.

“Onni!” he said sharply. “You’re not wearing your mask!”

The Finn gave him an annoyed look. “You’re perceptive. Finally noticed! No, I’m not. These aren’t the kind of grosslings that breathe disease, and if I get scratched or bitten doing this, I’m doomed whether or not I have a mask. I’m leaving off the mask so I don’t keel over because I can’t breathe. Good enough for you?”

Mikkel nodded his reluctant agreement. To see a non-immune in the Silent World without a mask was troubling at a deep level, but Onni was correct. He was in little more danger without a mask than he would be with one. They stalked the bear beasts in silence as the rain continued to fall.

Pebbles flew from the cliff to their right, most falling harmlessly but a handful striking the furless cub. It squealed, twisting around in an effort to dodge the hail of stones. The mother bear beast, smarter or possibly prompted by the kade, charged at the three who stood atop the cliff, waving their arms and, in Sigrun's case, thumbing her nose.

As the big beast scrambled up the steep rocks, the three above fled while Mikkel and Onni raced forward to fling the chain around the skinless cub. Now was the critical moment, when the monster or the other cub might sprout new limbs or open a maw big enough to engulf a man, when the mother grossling might turn back to defend her cub instead of pursuing the others.

But no such disaster occurred. To Mikkel's surprise, the attack went smoothly. With the chain around the cub, the two men ran back to the nearest tree and raced around it, Onni clockwise and Mikkel counterclockwise, wrapping the chain repeatedly around the naked creature as it whined miserably. The diciest part of the operation was running behind the tree, for it was close to the edge of a cliff and they had to watch their feet. Still, in seconds the job was done. Mikkel snapped on the carabiner and the two men fled into the undergrowth.

Atop the cliff, the mother bear, hearing the cub's squeals and whines, slid down the pine tree into which she had chased Lalli, and clambered back down the rocky bluff. Mikkel and Onni joined Sigrun in peering over a boulder on top of the cliff. As the mother beast circled the trapped cub, tugging on the chains and licking the squealing cub in an effort to soothe it, the Finn whispered, “I was right. They will stay there now. Keep an eye on them. I'm taking care of the kade.”

Sigrun watched him hurry off to a small natural clearing, then turned back to watch the bear beasts below. “Let's hope big mama doesn't change her mind and get tired of sitting around. And that mage guy knows what he's doing!”

Emil joined them behind the boulder while Lalli and Reynir climbed down from their respective trees and, with Kisu in the Icelander's arms, leaned against trees beside Onni's clearing. The mage built a fire, the smoke from which stung Mikkel's nose when the wind brought it their way. Emil smothered a sneeze.

Below, the mother bear turned from biting and pulling at the chain, which only further pained the cub, to biting and clawing at one of the tree roots. “Is that thing seriously trying to eat through the trunk?” Sigrun said, looking side-eye at Mikkel. “It's going to take some time, but … Sooo at what point do you think we need to abort the operation? Ninety percent through?”

Before the Dane could answer, the damaged root gave way with a CRACK and the tree began to tilt. Another root broke — another — another — and the tree was toppling sideways over the cliff, carrying the furless cub with it. The mother beast ran to the edge of the cliff, watching the cub fall.

The endless rain pattered on Mikkel's head. His thick hair hung in wet locks and a stream ran down the back of his neck. His clothes were soaked through. He watched with an impassive face as the skinless monstrosity fell over the cliff, taking with it all his hopes and dreams.

We haven't been able to kill or even really slow down the big beast, and now it'll come after us without restraint. Onni's in a trance … I could grab him and run … but there's no point. I can't outrun this beast; none of us can. Let him be. If he stays motionless in trance, perhaps the beast will leave him while it chases down the rest of us. Perhaps he can kill the kade and avenge the murdered villagers before the beast kills him. Perhaps this whole crazy expedition will not be for nothing.

He felt Sigrun shoulder to shoulder with him.

We could have gone to Dalsnes. She could be leading her team and I could be her medic. Or her food-taster. Or her … anything. But instead we're going to die right here.

He dropped his shotgun into his hand. “Run.” Behind him, Emil was moving, trying to flee for whatever good that would do. Sigrun didn't move. “Run,” he repeated. She drew her pistol without a word. He nodded, just a little, and they waited for the bear beast to turn on them.

“It’s not charging!” Mikkel looked back at Sigrun as she slapped him on the shoulder. Below them, at the base of the cliff, the bear beast was howling, an ear-splitting noise that all but drowned out the captain’s shout. “Run! Go go go!” Mikkel turned towards the beast just for a moment, seeing that Sigrun was right. They might — probably would — need to make a stand against the thing, but not yet.

They ran. Though Mikkel’s legs were a little longer than Sigrun’s, he was big-boned and heavy-set, while she was slender and supple as a reed, her red hair a shining beacon even in the heavy rain … He hastily pushed that thought aside as unproductive at this moment, when they were running for their lives. But they were running for their lives, instead of selling their lives dearly to guard their team’s back trail, and with life unexpectedly still pulsing through his veins, he yearned for her.

Extremely unproductive. Don’t look at her. Keep putting one foot in front of the other.

Sigrun swiftly outdistanced him, catching up with Emil, who had run when ordered. As she took the lead by Emil’s side, Reynir was close behind her and the cat raced before them, bushed out so near to grosslings. Onni had roused from his trance while Mikkel’s back was turned and was running, but he and Lalli were well behind the other three, perhaps because they were now wasting their breath arguing in Finnish. Whether because they had finished their argument or because he was reluctant to argue before Mikkel, even though the Dane didn’t understand them, Lalli sprinted ahead, leaving Onni and Mikkel side by side.

“Do you have any preferences on our next move?” Mikkel asked. He forbore to mention that Onni’s earlier bright idea — chaining up the naked cub beast to distract the mother bear beast — had worked less well than they had hoped.

“Yeah, I’d prefer you all travel back in time and decide not to come here!”

Can we do that? I would say no, but what do I know of the powers of magic? So how would we decide not to come? He stumbled over a root but caught his balance and kept going, now somewhat behind Onni. Lalli is the key. If I can stop him from coming here, then no one else will either. So we should travel back to the day that Taru left — no, that won’t work. We’d have two Lallis, and now-Lalli knows Onni’s situation. He’d just get then-Lalli to go with him, and then we’d all be here again. Twice, even.

Mikkel ducked under a branch and looked ahead. Sigrun was still in sight, and he could only hope that she had some shelter in mind. So maybe we shouldn’t all travel back in time. Maybe me alone. I could tell then-me not to mention Saimaa to Taru, so Lalli wouldn’t know and wouldn’t take off after Onni. He and Emil could go be Cleansers in Sweden, and Sigrun and then-me could go to Norway, maybe with Reynir if he insists, and now-me would … I don’t know. Something. Only — what happens to now-Sigrun if I travel back in time without her? Maybe Sigrun and I could travel back together. But then what happens to the others?

He put on a burst of speed and caught up with Onni. “Can you do that?” he panted. “Send us, or some of us, back in time? And if so, then —”

“No! Of course I can’t do that! Are you stupid? If I could do that, do you think I’d waste it on you lot? I’d’ve gone back to save my sister!”

With an effort, Mikkel refrained from answering the insult. Let it go; it’s his way. Just as well we can’t go back, I suppose. We can focus on what to do right now. He allowed himself to fall back again to serve as rear guard. Onni had no useful suggestions, so there was no point in talking when he needed all his breath to run.

Behind them, the bear beast’s wail was dying away, and not because of distance. It’ll come after us now. No, not it, she. That grossling is — remains — a mother bear. A mother bear that feels love for her cubs and grieves for them when they die.

He stumbled again, his left foot slipping sideways on wet leaves, and he fell to one knee before pushing himself up and sprinting as best he could. Even a rear guard needed to stay close to be effective. We’ve always understood that animals that lived together tend to stay together even when infected and transformed. It’s thought to be a matter of habit. Cow beasts may stay in herds, wolf beasts in packs, even trolls in groups like the bipeds in Copenhagen. What did Sigrun call them? The “Royal Danish Dance Troupe”? I assumed they were just some patients from a hospital, still together because they lacked the motivation to separate.

He caught up with Onni, who gave him a glare and sped up to put distance between them. Mikkel settled back in a steady pace that kept him close to the others. Ahead, he caught glimpses of a building that seemed fairly intact. We’ve always said that grosslings are mindless, motivated only by a desire to spread the disease or kill the uninfected. Certainly they’ve acted that way. Mostly, at least. In Silent Denmark, before we knew about the ghosts, I thought the trolls that attacked us had somehow begun to organize. But once we knew of the ghosts, I dismissed the thought. Of course they couldn’t organize; they’re mindless. Only now … those bear beasts aren’t staying together out of a dimly remembered habit from before their infection. They’re staying together because they care for each other. And if beasts can feel affection, why not trolls? Were we destroying families, back there at Kastrup?

Sigrun was pointing urgently at a building to their right, surrounded by decaying vehicles. “In there!" she ordered. “We can’t take a stand out in the open!” Focusing on their next action relieved Mikkel from his horrifying thoughts. Before he could catch up with the others, Sigrun and Reynir smashed out the glass in the front door. Emil threw his cloak over the jagged shards along the base, allowing everyone to clamber over without injury. Mikkel, last to arrive, reached for the cloak to return it to the Swede, but Emil snatched it away with a glare. I’ll admit I’ve slipped things in his pockets before, but does he really think I scooped up a toad or something for a prank while we were fleeing? If we survive this, I’ll have to try to treat him better.

Onni and Lalli stepped to the side, muttering to each other in Finnish, and Reynir drifted over to join the other mages. Sigrun took the lead, cautiously checking around the lobby where they found themselves, Emil and Mikkel spreading out behind her. The mages and the cat weren’t sounding the alarm for grosslings, but there could be plenty of other perils in an abandoned and ruined building. The stairs ahead of them, leading to an intact upper floor, seemed safe enough.

“Let’s find a way to the roof,” Sigrun whispered, evidently not confident that there were no grosslings in the building. Mikkel understood. He preferred not to rely on the strange senses of mages and cats to warn him of danger. “If we get a good, hidden vantage point,” Sigrun went on, “we can —”

The cat and the Finns all whirled to the picture window behind them. Before anyone could react further, the mother bear beast flung herself into the window, cracking it but not breaking through it. Baffled, the monster backed off, roaring furiously at the sight of the hated human beings.

“Follow me!” Sigrun shouted to the mages, pushing Mikkel ahead of her, Emil already halfway up the stairs. “Take higher ground!”

Mikkel climbed the creaking stairs, staying close to the wall, where the stairsteps were likely to be most sturdy. The last thing they needed was for the aged structure to collapse under his weight before the others could join them. Behind him, Sigrun stopped, shouting, “I said, follow me! Do you people not understand Norwegian?”

Mikkel turned back, seeing that the mages — Onni first, then Reynir, and finally Lalli — were running off deeper into the building. Emil, almost at the top of the stair, had stopped as well. “What —” the Swede began.

“Fine,” Sigrun said in a frustrated tone, “come on! We need to not split up!” The other two followed as she ran back down the stairs, Emil all but treading on Mikkel's heels. The three slammed to a halt as the bear beast lunged once more, smashing through the picture window to land four-square in the lobby between the two groups. Sigrun threw out an arm to stop the other two. “Never mind, they know how to take care of themselves. Go go go!”

Mikkel hesitated as Sigrun pushed him, trying to get him moving up the stairs. The non-immunes have only Lalli to protect them. I should follow them. I owe them my protection. And yet … I can't get past that thing and charging it would just get me killed. Sigrun shoved him again, snarling “Move, you big lump!”

Mikkel surrendered to necessity, turned and ran up the stairs, slowing just enough to let Sigrun pass him. As they fled along a hallway smeared with grossling slime and strewn with the remains of trolls, he heard the stairs groaning under the weight of the bear beasts.

Shortly after they reached the second floor, the first troll attacked; it was small, and Sigrun killed it with ease. Still, scrabbling and thuds told them that more trolls were hiding in the rooms and now waking up to the presence of prey. They kept moving, climbing the next flight of stairs. Behind them, the bear beasts advanced, implacable.

As the three hesitated on the third floor, scanning back and forth for any means of reaching the roof, they heard a sound. Like no sound he'd ever heard before, it pierced through Mikkel's ears, through his head, and he staggered, clutching his head in pain.

And then it was gone. Mikkel looked at the other two, who had likewise clutched their heads.

“What was that?” Emil peered around warily for the source. “Some kind of troll attack?”

“Not that I've ever heard of,” Sigrun answered. In the rooms around them, scrabbling noises rose to a frenzy. “Well, great, it's stirred them up. Let's move; we've got to find someplace to make a stand.”

Mikkel did not have the luxury of holding his head in despair. This is a deathtrap. Every troll for kilometers around must have taken shelter in here over the decades. There must be a collapsed door or something that we couldn't see. And yet, what else could Sigrun do? The bear beast was practically on top of us. We couldn't outrun or outfight it outside, and if we hadn't run in here, it would have torn us apart within minutes.

He looked over his shoulder. The bear beast was not visible, but he could hear it. At least the other three ran the other way. The bear isn't after them. If we can't kill it, maybe it will be satisfied with killing us, and they can escape. If they can fight through the trolls in here, with two of them non-immune …

As Sigrun led the way down the hallway, four trolls burst through a rotting door behind them. The three took positions, daggers out … and the trolls scrambled away towards the stairs.

“They didn't see us,” Emil murmured.

“They didn't need to,” Sigrun murmured back. “Trolls hear you, smell you … they had to know we're here.”

Mikkel ignored the discussion, preparing himself to fight. More trolls were coming their way, varying in size but most small. He wondered if only smaller trolls could fit through the opening to the outside. As the creatures approached, Sigrun pushed the other two back against the wall, her face intent. “Hold still,” she whispered, “See if they'll just go by.”

The trolls crawled, slithered, scrambled past the team without turning heads or eyestalks towards them. As more appeared, Sigrun whispered, “Okay, let's go. Don't touch them. We've got to find a roof access. If we can just get up there, we have a chance.”

Following her down the hallway, Mikkel looked up at the ceiling. Watery sunlight shone through holes where the roof had rotted through, and below these holes, the floor was a mass of mold. The big Dane trod quickly and carefully past such spots, keeping close to the wall, but still the floorboards creaked and cracked under his weight. Maybe the bear beast will take time to kill these trolls. Maybe it will fall through the floor. If we can get up on the roof, and if Sigrun can get a clear shot at the thing's eye, maybe she can destroy its brain. But even if she manages to kill it, there's still the Surma creature; it'll be drawn to the shots. If we're up on the roof, though, maybe we could kill that too. If only we knew what it was!

Only when the thing moved into the weak sunlight did the team realize what was ahead of them. What had appeared to be the far end of the hallway was a massive troll, almost a giant, which had taken on the shape of the hallway itself. It was now squirming forward, completely blocking their path.

Sigrun looked back towards the departing trolls and, beyond them, the stairway already groaning under the weight of the bear beast, then turned back to the oncoming monster. Her shoulders were set and Mikkel thought that, for the first time, she believed they were doomed.

Not yet! Not if he could help it!

Mikkel yanked at the door to his left, and the doorknob came off in his hand. With a curse, he flung it aside, pushed his hand through the hole, and heaved. This time, the rusted hinges failed and the door fell towards him. Shoving it at the approaching troll, he took a quick look into the room. It was dimly illuminated by one filthy window, had an intact roof and floor, and was void of trolls. It was good enough. “Everyone take cover in here. Quickly.”

The three stood silent as the massive troll squirmed past, the floorboards squealing under its weight. The bear beast will have to tear through that to get to us; that should slow it down long enough that —

With a resounding crack, the floor underneath Mikkel gave way and he dropped, the other two losing their balance and falling after him onto something soft and yielding. The cat leapt down, landing on Mikkel's head and pushing his face into what proved to be the slime-covered body of yet another grossling.

This one was a giant, an immobile mass which extended from the remains of a double bed across the floor to the door. As the three struggled to pick themselves up, the giant raised its head — larger than a horse's head and equipped with teeth like a crocodile — from the bed and shrieked. Sigrun, still pushing debris off her body, shouted, “Somebody shut that thing up!”

Mikkel wiped slime from his face and tugged at his shotgun, the strap still tangled with a fallen board, while Emil pushed himself up and drew his pistol. Before the Swede could fire, the picture window behind the bed exploded inward and the giant's head … came apart.

It happened so fast that Mikkel didn't see it. Something had reached through the window and slashed the giant's head into pieces. Before any of the three could react, the cause became clear: a giant leaned through the shattered window and seemed to survey the room.

It could be nothing other than the dreaded Surma. Its body resembled that of a vast human being, starved to skin and bones, with enormous fingers elongated into razor-sharp claws perhaps two meters long. Its skin was yellowish, almost translucent, and every bone stood out clearly. Its head was missing, replaced by what appeared to be a chunk of concrete with two pieces of rebar poking forward. It had no visible eyes, ears, nose, or even mouth, but it was clearly capable of navigating in some fashion and, of course, it reacted to sound.

The three froze, staring. After a moment, the giant seemed satisfied and climbed the rest of the way into the room, seated itself on the remains of the bed and the dead giant, crossed its legs and folded its arms, and appeared to settle in for a nap.

Mikkel turned his head slowly to look at the door. There was debris between him and the door, and opening it would surely make noises that would alert the thing. The claws of the creature's left hand were bare centimeters from his shoulder and, after seeing its speed, he had to acknowledge that attempting either to attack it or to open the door would merely get him and the others killed. They had no choice but to stay still and quiet. Slowly, carefully, and very quietly, the three settled themselves against the debris and waited for some sound to distract the monster.

It was perhaps five minutes before they heard it: something clawed at the door. Surma leaned forward, tilting what passed for its head back and forth. The clawing continued, followed by a thump, and Surma lunged. The giant passed the three in a heartbeat, hurling itself into the door.

The door, the wall around it, and the floor all collapsed under the impact, and for the second time in mere minutes, Sigrun, Emil, and Mikkel fell to a lower level. Since the dead giant's body had fallen with the floor, they were cushioned from the worst of the fall.

Wiping slime from his face, for he had tumbled face-first into the corpse again, Mikkel sat up to see Surma and the large bear beast sprawled motionless in a heap of debris. They had fallen into a restaurant, many tables and chairs crushed under the monsters but others bizarrely intact with their moldering tablecloths in place. Sigrun and Emil sat up as well, and Mikkel was relieved to see that, despite their adventures, bruised though they were, none of them were badly hurt. After a quick look at the situation, Sigrun pointed off to their left, to a glass door leading to the outside. As quickly and quietly as they could, the three worked their way through the debris to the door, the cat riding on Sigrun's shoulders.

They had just reached the door when the bear beast got to its feet and roared in fury at the sight of them. As Mikkel and Sigrun seized the door handle, Surma swiped at the other grossling. Incredibly, the bear beast was not slashed to ribbons, but instead hurled into a wall, bringing down more debris and a small troll which the bear beast casually smashed while charging into Surma.

“They're distracted,” Sigrun whispered. “Quickly now!” Together, she and Mikkel yanked at the door, once, twice, without success. “It's locked!” This lock was not rusted enough for Mikkel to force with brute strength. While the battle raged behind them, the three glanced around for anything to break the lock or the window. Sigrun came up with a serving fork with which she attacked the lock. Mikkel watched for a moment, biting his lip in worry. He was the strongest of the team, but also the most clumsy. He might break the lock, but he might break the glass of the door in the process, and the results of that were not to be contemplated.

He turned back to the battle, where the bear beast roared in fury and Surma slashed at it in eerie silence. His eye was drawn to a movement on the remains of the floor above. The surviving cub, the one that seemed to be without head or internal organs, the one which he had almost forgotten about, was still up there, apparently watching as the bear beast and Surma rolled around in frenzied combat.

As Surma flung the bear beast away once more, the cub threw itself out and down, landing spread out like a rug on the giant's back. Surma tried in vain to shake the thing off, and even from across the room, Mikkel heard the hiss of burning flesh. The creature was secreting acid!

The Surma monster reached up with one massive hand, raking the cub beast with its razor-sharp claws, and flinging it in pieces not far from the watching humans. Surma's back was bleeding heavily from both the acid attack and its own claws, and the monster hesitated, as if unsure of its next action.

The bear beast had no hesitation. After one long look at the tattered remains of its second cub, it charged Surma with all its strength, sending both of them hurtling through the glass door, completely over the patio outside, and crashing into the forest far below.

The three humans stood silently peering out into the forest, Mikkel marvelling at their survival.

“I don't think they're thinking about us a lot anymore,” Sigrun said at last. “So, I guess our problem is solved over here.”

“Uh, one of them will win and still be alive, though,” Emil pointed out.

“Yeah, yeah, you're right. That means this is our chance to find the others and get out of here.”

With a few nervous backward glances, they turned away and picked their way through the debris to the interior of the hotel.

The fight between the bear beast and Surma had demolished the restaurant, leaving the floor covered in unstable debris. It was, perhaps, inevitable that someone would be hurt as they made their careful way through the mess. That someone was Emil, who tripped and fell hard on a fallen beam. As he picked himself up, he groaned and swore under his breath.

“What is it?” Mikkel hastened to help him.

“My side. The side of my chest. It hurts.” He continued to swear as Mikkel felt along his ribs.

“I think you've cracked a rib. Maybe two. I don't — dammit, I have nothing to bind it up with. You'll just have to take it easy until we get back to the camp.” Mikkel seldom swore, doing so only in deep frustration.

“Yeah, like that's going to happen,” Sigrun said. “But we'll do our best to keep the trolls away from you.”

Emil sighed and then winced. “Right, I'm good. Let's go on, then.”

Once they got to the front lobby, where they had entered, they followed a trail of fresh grossling slime leading down a hallway. It seemed they all felt that the grosslings were making for the missing mages, and they could only hope that they were not too late.

Bringing up the rear as usual, Mikkel was the second to be hurt. His foot slid sideways on a tilted board and slipped into a hole amidst sharp-edged debris. As he worked his foot out, trying not to cut himself too much, he heard Emil and Sigrun talking ahead.

“Wow, there's a lot of them,” Emil said.

“They're distracted, though. Or — whoa! Not so distracted now! Burn them!”

“Bad idea; the building —”

“Burn these things before they swarm us!”

Whoosh!

Grosslings shrieked from the hallway beyond.

“I told you this wasn't a good idea,” Emil said.

Mikkel yanked his foot out, disregarding pain and injury. The others needed him now.

“Mikkel!” Sigrun called. “Can you come over here and do some smoke-diving?”

He ran painfully to join the others, seeing that the hallway beyond was full of burning grosslings, with flames running up the walls. To his right, and perhaps four meters ahead, was a heavy steel door. Beside it was a small, round-cornered window; the grosslings were concentrated around that window.

“I figure the mages are inside that room with the window,” Sigrun said. “I'll hold off what's left of the trolls while you get the idiots to safety. Emil stays here. The cat, too. Good?”

“Good.”

“Yeah, good,” Emil said, frowning and twisting, trying to find a position that didn't hurt. Kisu crouched close to the ground, staring down the hallway and growling.

“Surma,” Mikkel added, glancing at Sigrun, who nodded. In the heat of battle, she might be tempted to raise a battle-cry.

The two ran into the burning hallway, kicking flaming debris (and grosslings) aside. As Sigrun slashed and stabbed at dying grosslings that still charged at her, a quick look told Mikkel that the door opened outwards, and he yanked it open. The three mages were within, alive and apparently uninjured. Onni and Reynir wore their masks, which would protect against smoke as well as infection, but Lalli was already coughing.

“Out! Go to Emil!” With no other choice, Mikkel raised his voice to be heard over the sound of flames and shrieking grosslings. If Surma is still alive, we need to get out of the building now!

Lalli ran out first, dagger in hand, and turned to join Sigrun in holding off the grosslings; Onni shoved Reynir ahead of him, and the two ran together, with Mikkel close behind. Once Sigrun and Lalli caught up, the reunited team fled from the flames, Reynir scooping up Kisu as they ran. Sigrun led the way out of the burning hotel, Emil gasping behind her, the three mages behind him, and Mikkel taking the rear-guard position.

As they all stopped for breath in the fresh air, “We're done,” Sigrun said, keeping her voice down. “Let's get out of here quick, before either claw-hands or the bear shows up again.”

Still gasping and leaning forward, Emil pointed wordlessly past her to the mother bear beast, now padding up a game trail from the forest. The bear beast dripped both blood and water as she stalked implacably towards them.

We can't kill her, Mikkel thought, despairing. The Surma-giant sliced up an entire herd of cow beasts, but it couldn't kill her. We're all suffering smoke inhalation and we have two non-immunes. It's just us three against that thing, and Emil is wounded. Well, Lalli will fight too, for what he's worth. He pushed past the mages to stand to Sigrun's left while Emil stood to her right. This is the last battle. It ends in a few minutes. If her beliefs are true, then perhaps we will meet again in Valhalla.

“Hold,” Sigrun murmured. “It's a bear.”

The three drew their daggers, and Mikkel looked to Sigrun for the cue to attack. He understood her meaning: beasts often acted as they had before infection, and a bear might pass by humans who offered it no challenge. But this beast had not acted like a normal bear at any time. He expected it to strike.

The bear beast stalked past Mikkel, pausing to look directly at Sigrun, who glared back unflinchingly. The creature snarled, and Mikkel raised his dagger, readying himself for a final, useless attack.

The beast turned away.

Mikkel stared, stunned, as the creature stalked up the hill to his right and disappeared into the hotel. They were still alive.

Sigrun shook herself slightly, as if surprised to find herself in one piece. “Okay,” she murmured, “let's get out of here right now before it changes its mind!”

Mikkel, Sigrun, and Emil started downhill, but turned back when they realized they were alone. Reynir had followed them for a few meters, but stopped, looking back at Onni and Lalli, who seemed to argue in low tones while watching the hotel. Abruptly, Lalli ran into the hotel as Onni turned back to the others.

“There is a ceremony,” Onni told Mikkel. “It's — hmm — it's a ceremony to put the bears' spirits to rest. That bear beast is near death, and we need to see where she falls so we can do it.”

“That's great. I'd rather Lalli didn't get killed before she falls, however.”

“He'll be all right. In her current condition, he's faster than she is. And since she didn't attack all of us, I don't believe she'll attack him.”

Mikkel rolled his eyes, but nodded agreement. “Very well. We need to go back to the camp now. Emil has a broken rib or two that I need to tape.” He didn't mention that he had slashed his foot through the boot as he yanked it out of the debris. There was no need to draw attention to his clumsiness.

They were only halfway to their camp when an anguished howl echoed through the forest. Onni turned, then ran towards the sound without a word. “What are you —!” Sigrun shouted before pursuing him, and the other three perforce followed, Emil and Mikkel wincing with every step.

They found Lalli looking over the cliff, just where the tree and the naked bear beast had gone over. He glanced back at them, then turned away. Mikkel looked over at Onni, who shrugged and waved everyone forward.

The bear beast lay motionless below in a pool of blood. In front of her muzzle lay the mangled naked beast and the shredded remains of the second cub. “Alive?” Mikkel whispered to Onni, not quite trusting Kisu's purring as Reynir held her.

“No. She is quite dead.” Lalli turned to his cousin and the two Finns conversed for a minute before Onni nodded and addressed Mikkel again. “We can camp here. Neither of us perceives any menace around here, and Lalli has work to do for the ceremony.”

“We need our gear from the camp.”

“So go get it. I'm staying here, though.”

There was no help for it. Lalli was busy, Emil was wounded, and walking wasn't doing Mikkel's foot any good. “Sigrun, we're going to camp here. Lalli and Onni have some, ah, religious ceremony they need to do. For the bears, apparently.” Sigrun gave him a puzzled look. “Well, yes, I have no idea. But, anyway, we need our gear from the camp. Will you please go get it?”

“Sure!” Sigrun trotted off, dagger in hand. Mikkel shook his head, realizing that the crazy Norwegian troll-hunter was looking forward to finding more grosslings along the way.

By evening, the rain which had bedeviled the team for days finally ended. The older members of the team ate their meager supper beside the fire while Lalli cleaned the skulls of the bear beasts, and Emil and Reynir watched him. The second cub, the one which appeared to be a walking bear-skin, proved to still have its skeleton and internal organs. All but its spine were greatly shrunken and distorted, and its skull was scarcely larger than a vertebra. Seeing it, Mikkel shook his head at the ability of the Rash disease to deform living creatures. It was no wonder that so many died as they transformed.

With all the skulls cleaned, Lalli stacked them together, fitting one inside the next, and set the result aside before yawning hugely, taking his blanket, and making himself comfortable for the night.

Mikkel looked over at the skulls. That didn't seem like much of a ceremony. He shrugged and poked at the fire; he had other problems on his mind. “Onni, what is the situation with the Kade? Do you still need to deal with it?”

“No.” It seemed the Finn had nothing more to say.

“It's gone, then? We can go home?”

“It's gone.” Mikkel's glare seemed to make him uncomfortable. “We — Lalli, and the Icelander, and … and Tuuri — we were able to free our grandmother's spirit. The Swan of Tuonela took the original Kade’s spirit away. I told you of the Swan.”

“You did. As I recall, this Swan was going to take your spirit?”

“If I didn't free my grandmother's spirit. But I did, so she and my sister have gone to Tuonela. As they should.” He stared into the fire.

So Onni had lost his sister again, and this time for good. Mikkel could think of nothing to say to this except, “I am sorry, Onni.” The Finn nodded without looking up.

“Hey, what's that all about?” Sigrun asked.

“I asked him about the Kade. It is gone, and Tuuri's spirit has gone as well.”

“Well, great! This stupid adventure is over?”

“It is. We are free to return to civilization.”

“Finally! Then let's set watches and get some sleep. I want to get moving early. Home!”

The watches were assigned to Emil, Lalli, Sigrun, and then Mikkel. They were undisturbed, and it did not rain.

As the late summer dawn broke, Sigrun was on her feet, urging everyone to pack up. To her frustration, Lalli ignored her, placing the skulls on his head and climbing a dead tree. Distracted from packing, Sigrun watched his actions with fascination. “Wow, what a sense of balance! Not sure how useful that is in hunting, though. Or scouting, either. Maybe he's good at not falling off cliffs?”

Mikkel shrugged and continued rolling up blankets to stuff into his pack. Up in the tree, Lalli carefully hung each skull on a separate branch. Both he and Onni, watching from below, chanted something in Finnish as he did so. Sigrun fell silent, recognizing that she should not interrupt this ceremony. When it was done and Lalli was climbing down, she turned to Mikkel.

“Hey, could you ask the grumpy one if he's going to come willing with us back to civilization? And don't tell him that we'll knock him unconscious and drag him back if he won't.”

Mikkel smiled slightly. His foot hurt, and he was not looking forward to the long hike back. He welcomed the distraction of a prank.

“Certainly. I'll ask exactly that.” He switched to Icelandic. “Onni, are you listening?”

“What?”

“Sigrun wants you to know that we plan to knock you unconscious and drag you back to civilization if you don't come with us voluntarily.”

“Great, thanks.” Onni didn't turn around as he answered. “I wasn't planning on staying here, so …” He sighed and waved a hand.

Disappointed at the reaction, Mikkel turned back to Sigrun. “He'll come.”

“Great! Now let's head home. To Norway, that is!” She turned to survey the group. “I'll get Dad to hire all of you, including all these mute and language-limited mages.”

“Are you certain your father has that many vacancies to fill?”

“Ohh, don't you worry about that! More people, more better! All right, let's get moving. We'll eat once we're back on the road.”

The group moved slowly, Lalli leading, Sigrun taking rear-guard, and the “helpless ones”, in Sigrun's tactful phrase, in between. Though Mikkel had wrapped Emil's ribs, hiking was still painful for the Swede, and Mikkel himself was limping, helped along by a stout stick used as a cane to reduce the strain on the sutures he'd put in his wounded foot. He had wrapped his foot tightly with the remaining bandages and wrapped his torn boot with a torn-off strip of his jacket, hoping to keep his foot dry. He suspected that his foot would soon be soaked in filthy water despite his best efforts.

At first, Emil and Mikkel walked together with Onni and Reynir behind, until the Icelander's incessant chatter drove the Finn to call a halt and propose that the non-immunes should each have an immune guard at all times. Though he recognized the true reason, Mikkel agreed with the ostensible reason and requested Emil to walk with, and guard, Onni while Mikkel served as Reynir's guard. The group set off again, now with Emil and Onni following close behind Lalli, then Mikkel and Reynir, and finally Sigrun.

“Tell me what happened with the Kade,” Mikkel said. Remembering Reynir's scattered approach to storytelling, he added, “Start with you and the other two running away from us.”

“Oh, yeah, that. I heard Sigrun shout something, and I thought I should turn back, except, except I felt there was a reason I should go with them. I mean, I was there, or at least I was in the vision, when the Kade attacked. So I went with them.”

He looked to Mikkel as if for approval, and Mikkel nodded. Who was he to question dreams and visions?

“Onni led us to that room where we were. And Tuuri, she was with us then. He was pretty mad at me, because he didn't want me bothering him while he was busy, but there wasn't anything I could do at that point except stay, and I was sure I was supposed to be there. Anyway, I closed the door and we all, um, went to sleep. So we could go into the dream-world, not being idle, you know.”

Mikkel gave a “go on” gesture.

“I was in my pasture with my dream-dog, so we ran all the way to Lalli's place — I told you about that before — and he was there and Tuuri was telling him to go back, stay away. We wouldn't, of course. When I'm there, in the dream-world, you know, I can feel where Onni and Lalli are. I wonder if I could feel my mom and dad, if I tried. I never have —”

“Getting back to the Kade?”

“Oh, yeah, okay. Anyway, I could feel where Onni was, and me and Lalli and my dream-dog, and this big cat that was with Lalli —”

“It's a lynx,” Onni said, looking over his shoulder at them. “It's his luonto, like the owl is mine.”

“His, uh, luonto, okay. So we all went to join Onni, with Tuuri scolding us all the way.” Reynir gave a wistful smile. “Onni wasn't happy to see us there either, but he said we could act as bait for the Kade.”

Mikkel looked from Reynir to Onni's back before returning to his usual watchfulness.

“We didn't wait for long before the Kade attacked. At first it, well, it screamed, I guess is the best word. It was painful to hear, but it didn't really hurt us, so I don't know why —”

“I do,” Mikkel said. “We heard the scream too somehow. That's what called all the trolls to cluster around the room you were in. They went right by us without attacking.”

“Oh, wow.” Reynir paused, but there seemed nothing more to say about that. “Well, then the Kade came for us. It was … it was a giant of mist and darkness, and eyes. So many eyes.”

“Eyes?” Mikkel asked in alarm. “Did you look into them? Any of them?”

“Well, sort of —”

“It didn't matter,” Onni interrupted, glancing back at them before looking ahead even as he continued to speak. “I slashed its corrupting eye; I destroyed that eye just before we all ran away from the bear. If I hadn't been interrupted then, I'd have killed the Kade myself.”

“We had to run,” Mikkel said. “You saw the condition of the bear after tangling with Surma, who, I remind you, sliced up an entire herd of cow beasts. She did die finally, but she kept going a long time after that fight, and we have no weapons that could do anything like that much damage. If we'd stood and fought the bear while you fought the Kade, we would all be dead.”

“Yes, yes.” Onni waved a dismissive hand. “In any case, we were in no danger of corruption from looking at it, but while I was delayed, it gathered more lost spirits and, hmm, built itself that giant body, as the Icelander said.”

When he didn't continue, Mikkel turned to Reynir and cocked an eyebrow.

“Right. It didn't have a head, just this big maw in the front, and Tuuri flew right into it: brave little spirit!” Mikkel glanced at him and caught that same wistful smile. “It struck at us, tried to smash us, and Onni blocked it somehow. He was just amazing.” Reynir's smile widened, and he looked at Onni's back with worshipful eyes.

“It knocked us away, into the water.” Reynir straightened, squaring his shoulders. “Me and Vúvúff — ah, that's my dream-dog — we can stand on water, so we helped Onni and Lalli onto a bank. Then Tuuri must have done something to the Kade, because it started biting at itself, like it was itching, and then it kind of … tore itself apart. I thought that was great, except then it mostly pulled itself back together, and the pieces turned into these beast things of mist and darkness and started chasing us around. Tuuri flew out again with this, uh, this bird thing chasing her. I didn't see too much of what happened to her, because I was trying to keep the things from hurting Vúvúff.

“But Onni had this sword, and he was slashing those beast things to bits. It was great!” Reynir smiled broadly at the memory, then sobered. “Only each one had a big eye inside, and when he slashed one up, the eye just flew back to the giant.”

“We were whittling it down,” Onni said without turning, “but slowly. We would have finished it off, eventually.”

“Eventually?”

“Onni chopped up all the beasts, and then Tuuri came back with the bird thing chasing her. She and Onni and Onni's owl were trying to keep that thing away from the giant, but I guess he didn't want to chop it up —”

“Of course not. Our grandmother's spirit had been corrupted into that form, but it was still her spirit. We wanted only to draw her back, to guide her back to herself. We never wanted to hurt her!”

“Well, yeah. Anyway, they were doing that, and Lalli and I, and Vúvúff and the lynx, we were kind of off to the side, and we didn't — I didn't, anyway — know if we should try to help.”

“You shouldn't have. We didn't need your help.”

“So we were just there, and this big red swan flew down to us.”

“The Swan of, of …” Mikkel struggled to remember Onni's story.

“The Swan of Tuonela,” Onni said in annoyance. “It is her duty to lead the spirits of Finns to Tuonela, to rest from our labors.”

“That swan, yes. She said she was there to gather the spirits that were 'overdue' to go to Tuonelly.”

“Tuonela,” Mikkel and Onni chorused.

“Tuonela, okay. I asked her to help us, but she said she couldn't because it was against the rules. Whatever the rules are. Then she led us — no, she didn't lead us, no, we just followed her even after she told us not to. Anyway, she flew into the giant's maw, and we climbed up its body (ugh!) and got in while it was, I guess, distracted by watching Onni and Tuuri. When we got in, it closed its mouth, but it was a lot bigger inside than out, and it wasn't dark, just kind of dim. The Swan flew a long way down this tunnel to this enormous … cavern, I guess you'd say, all full of pools. She dived into one pool, and what could we do but dive in after?”

“I suppose,” Mikkel said absently, studying a shadow under a tree off to his right. He thought he'd seen motion, but perhaps it was just the breeze.

“We swam after the Swan and, wow, I thought I was going to drown before we got to the other end of that underwater tunnel! So then we were in another cavern, and there was this huge, huge eye in the middle, looking up at the ceiling. But it wasn't complete, it lacked the transparent thing in front?”

“That's the cornea,” Mikkel said.

“That's because I slashed it,” Onni added.

“Right. Well, there was water, something like water, flowing out of it. We didn't know what to do, but the Swan was over there grooming herself, and she accidentally hit herself in the eye, and that gave me the idea that I should look inside the eye. Not that she was trying to help, or anything! She wouldn't do that, not at all!”

Onni looked back, frowning. “This is all very odd. She wouldn't help anyone; that's not her task. I wonder what was going on, back in Tuonela, to make her want to intervene.”

Mikkel looked over at Reynir to find the Icelander looking back at him. They shrugged identical shrugs.

“Well, I don't know about that. Anyway, I climbed up the eye (yick!) and looked inside. There was a glow, down deep, so Lalli held my feet while I stretched down and pulled it up. It was a bird skeleton inside a ball of clear ice. I didn't know what to do with it, but the Swan told me to give it to her. I did, and she shook it really, really hard. The ice broke up and the pieces nearly hit us! But then, while she was shaking it, the flesh — well, not the flesh, but where the flesh and feathers would have been, this glow surrounded it until it looked like a silver bird, like Tuuri, but a different breed, like a swallow, maybe.”

Onni dropped back now to walk on Mikkel's right side. “The itse — the spirit, you would say — always takes the form of a bird, for it must follow the Bird Path to Tuonela, but the type of bird depends on the person.”

Emil looked back at them. “Mikkel? What's up?”

“I'm getting the story of what happened to the Kade. I'll tell you and Sigrun once I have it straight.”

“Okay, but I'm really supposed to be Onni's guard.”

“I'm sure he'll rejoin you when the story is complete.”

“Once the bird took shape and started flying around,” Reynir went on, “the giant, the monster of mist and darkness, just broke apart, and the eyes that were inside it started flying away. But the Swan went after them and collected them in her beak. She even flew right into that bird thing that was, ah, containing the grandmother's spirit, and she got that one too. They didn't look like skeletons then, or anything, just like big eyes. When she shook them, though, they turned into birds too, and one of them was this big crane. Tuuri flew to that one, so I thought it was the grandmother's spirit.”

“It was. We knew the feel of her.”

“They talked, Onni and Lalli and Tuuri and the crane, but I didn't listen in. It was not my place.”

“No, it was not. And there is no need for you to hear of what we discussed.”

“Of course not,” Mikkel politely agreed, though he was indeed quite curious as to what the grandmother had experienced while a captive of the Kade, and whether she had learned anything of the Kade's motives. Alas, however, his curiosity was not to be satisfied.

“Some of the eyes flew away, though,” Reynir said. “Tuuri asked the Swan to get them too, but the Swan said she would get them when it was their time, or something like that.”

“Some of them got away?” Mikkel asked in alarm. Had they done so much, and yet failed? “Does that mean there's still a Kade out there? Or many Kades?”

“No, I think not,” Onni replied. “The spirits that escaped, hmm, they did not cloak themselves in darkness, nor take any form. I believe they are lost spirits that the Kade captured to assist in its defense after I destroyed its corrupting eye. That the Swan left them behind makes me believe they are not dead. Indeed, I believe they may be the spirits of non-immune mages who were infected by the Rash, so their bodies are still out there, alive but twisted, deformed, and suffering.”

“I thought you said that mages infected by the Rash became Kades.”

“Not always. A Kade is an extremely hateful, envious person; the Rash offers such people the power that they craved but never had. A person who isn't like that will not accept the offer of power — and its price — and will not become a Kade.”

“But their bodies are still out there, as trolls.”

“So I suppose. I cannot imagine otherwise why the Swan let them go.”

Mikkel walked in silence, thinking of the troll in Silent Denmark, the troll who had kept much of her humanity and had, with Reynir's aid, taken away the vengeful ghosts created by the Danish “cure”. How many such trolls might there be, still retaining something of their human consciousness? The bitter cold of the first decade after the coming of the Rash was thought to have killed half or more of the trolls at that time, and hunters killed more with every passing year. Still, scientists estimated that there were tens of thousands of trolls still surviving in each nation of the Known World other than Iceland. He found it best not to think of the suffering of those trolls; such led to despair.

“So now you have the story,” Onni said. “There is nothing more to tell.” In a few swift steps, he was beside Emil once more, and the team proceeded in silence.

The Sun was past its zenith and beginning its long slide to dusk when Lalli signalled the group to follow him off the overgrown road and into the deep forest.

“What's wrong?” Reynir whispered, looking about fearfully.

“I don't know. Be still,” Mikkel murmured in return. If Lalli had detected enemies ahead, they didn't need the Icelander's voice attracting attention, though it would be most odd to encounter grosslings in the bright sunlight. A few steps later, the group broke through a screen of underbrush and found themselves in a glade surrounded by berry bushes. Lalli stepped away from the others, gesturing at the ripe berries. “Is food here,” he said in heavily accented Swedish, his voice no softer than usual.

“Lunch break? Good!” Sigrun said. “But come on, this stuff's bird food. I'm going to find some real food.” She trotted off farther into the forest, soon vanishing in green underbrush. Mikkel watched her trim figure until it was lost; her passing made little noise, and that was soon overcome by cheerful bird-song.

Reynir looked around at Onni, Lalli, and Emil, who were already plucking berries from the bushes. “We're stopping for lunch?”

“Just so. Sigrun's gone hunting, so perhaps we'll have some meat later.” With two mages to watch for grosslings, and sunlight to keep enemies at bay, Mikkel thought it safe to let down his guard. He sank to the ground beside a well-laden bush, relieved to be off his injured foot. Though he'd kept it dry so far, there was a scent of rain in the air, and he feared his crude wrapping would soon soak through. Immunity to the Rash didn't confer immunity to other infections, and the first aid kit to which he'd clung through all their adventures had little of antibiotics remaining.

But still, if it happens, it will take time for infection to set in, and by the time it is too severe for me to walk, we should be back to the boat. And who knows, perhaps I can find some useful herbs. Not in this glade, though. He leaned back with a sigh and began his meal of berries.

Bang!

Mikkel lurched to his feet, catching up his heavy walking stick for a club. “Reynir! Behind me!” The Icelander ran to him, berry-stained hands clasped tight in fear. Across the glade, Emil had run to Onni's side, pistol drawn. Mikkel frowned in concern. We've supposed the Surma-thing is dead since the bear beast came back alive, but are we right to do so? Is the giant charging for Sigrun even now? And why did fire she at all? She was hunting; surely she just fired on prey. No war cry, no call for our aid against a swarm. Of course, she was just hunting. Only … is this silence because she's now unable to shout? Though Mikkel pushed that thought away, it persisted, biting at the corners of his mind.

Onni and Lalli conferred in quiet Finnish before Lalli darted soundlessly away in the direction from which the gunshot had sounded while Onni and Emil retreated to join the other two. The immunes stood side by side, alert and watchful, with the non-immunes behind them. All waited for what might come next.

What came next, some minutes later, was Sigrun and Lalli, a well-cleaned fawn slung over a branch carried between them, one end resting on Lalli's shoulders and the other in Sigrun's strong hands. “We need a fire! Emil, little Viking, get to work!”

Emil hesitated, unwilling to argue with his captain. “Sigrun,” Mikkel said, helping him out, “he can't light a fire here; he'll set the forest on fire. Let's go back to the road first and find a spot that's not too overgrown.”

Emil gave him a grateful glance as Sigrun laughed. “Okay, okay, lead the way, but lead fast! It's been ages since we had some good red meat.” She, at least, had no lingering concerns about the noise-seeking giant, and indeed it had not appeared. Not yet, anyway.

Reynir and Onni cleared a relatively intact section of the road, pulling up the weeds which had grown in cracks over the decades, while Lalli gathered firewood and Mikkel butchered the carcass. Emil watched the preparations, forbidden by the medic to stress his cracked ribs, until all was ready and he could set to work with flint and steel. In a remarkably short time, the Cleanser had a good hot fire to roast the venison, and not long after, they were enjoying a hearty lunch.

Soon enough, Sigrun was on her feet, waving at the group. “Come on, come on, let's go.”

Mikkel looked around, frowning. “Where's Lalli? He was here a minute ago.” When no one answered, he switched to Icelandic. “Onni, where's Lalli? We need to get moving.”

“He'll be back soon.”

“It's going to rain soon. We need to find shelter — we need him to find shelter for us — before the grosslings get frisky.”

“He knows that. He'll be back in time.”

“Mikkel, what's he saying? Where's the twig?”

“I don't know. He's gone off somewhere, but he's coming back. Supposedly before the rain hits.” Mikkel shrugged; who could understand the vagaries of Finns?

Sigrun looked down at the seated group, her face a study in frustration. Two non-immunes; two immunes, both wounded (not even in combat); herself; a missing scout. “We can't just sit here in full view of any troll that wanders by. How far is it to that city we went through? Jonny-something?”

“Joensuu. Forty kilometers or more. We'll not reach it today.”

She stared at him. “Yeah, probably not. At this rate, we probably won't reach it in a week.” She seemed to realize the implied criticism. “Not your fault, though. You've been keeping up with the rest of us. It's just … it's just that the scout's run off, so now we're going even slower, and we've been out here so long.”

And she really wants to go home. She never wanted to be here at all. She came with us because — no, don't think that. She came because she thought we'd all get killed without a troll-hunter captain, and she was probably right. Now we need to go home. If Lalli would just get back!

The threatening rain had come, the first sprinkles pattering on the leaves, when Lalli returned carrying a canvas bag, which he tossed at Reynir, and a grimy box, which he dropped at Mikkel's feet before turning to talk to Onni. Reynir had missed his catch and gotten the bag in his face; he held it out to Mikkel and asked, “What am I supposed to do with this?”

The box had broken open, and Mikkel found himself looking at a pair of pre-Rash boots, sturdy and waterproof, still clean after so many years. There was no lining, but such would have rotted anyway, and Mikkel had good socks. He turned to Onni. “Please thank him for this. That was very thoughtful of him. I didn't expect this at all.” After so many examples of Lalli's ability to find what was needed, he should not have been surprised, and yet he was.

“What am I supposed to do with this bag?”

“Use the bag for the leftover meat,” Onni answered in annoyance. “Were you going to carry it in your hands? And you — Lalli got you the boots so you don't slow us down. Put them on and let's get going. He's found a shelter nearby.”

Mikkel smiled to himself as he stripped off his own boots. For all their prickly nature, the two Finns were still part of the team.

The boots fit well and were warm, comfortable, and, above all, waterproof. All of these things the promised shelter, a small two-room cabin, was not. The roof had fallen in at one end, and mold streaked down that wall and extended hungry tentacles onto the adjacent walls. Despite ample ventilation, the place reeked. The windows were broken, but there were shutters which the prior tenants had failed to close; the team remedied this omission as they moved in, there being no need of windows for illumination. Still, the walls were sturdy enough that they would not collapse during the night, nor could trolls or beasts easily smash through them. Giants could, of course, but giants were rare.

Reynir scraped debris from the fireplace, making it safe for Emil to build a fire; the chimney was plugged with more debris, but just as there was no need of illumination from windows, there was no need of a chimney. Smoke drifted through the fallen roof, mingling with the incoming rain. Beggars, and travellers in Silent Finland, can ill afford to be choosers, and as such things went, this was a good shelter.

Reynir, as usual, took charge of the meal, roasting the remaining venison. Onni and Lalli took over one corner, Onni sitting up to watch with his mage senses for approaching grosslings while Lalli curled up to sleep beside him. With a sigh, Emil slid down the wall to sit next to Lalli.

“Are you all right, Emil? Do you need your ribs rewrapped?”

“No. I'm fine.”

Mikkel shrugged. He's probably fine, just tired and in pain. I should have watched for willow trees. A little willow bark tea would help him. And, to be honest, it would help me too. He sat down as well, pulling off his boots and inspecting his injured foot. His stitches, messy as they were, had held, and the flesh was only mildly irritated. As he pulled his sock back on, Sigrun sat down between him and Emil, handing each a share of venison.

“You guys okay?” The men mumbled agreement through mouthfuls of meat. “Good. Emil, you take first watch, I'll take second, Mikkel takes third.” They agreed again. “This is a pretty good place, so if it's still raining tomorrow, we'll stay right here.” More agreement. “Okay. Now. The night won't be too cold, and we don't need to attract attention with that fire. There's a bucket over there that will hold some water, so I'll fill it, and you tell Freckles I'm going to put the fire out.”

Mikkel swallowed hastily as she stood. “Yes, of course. Reynir! We don't want that fire drawing in trolls, so Sigrun's going to drown it.”

“Oh, yes. Sure.” The Icelander retreated as Sigrun strode past, scooping up the bucket as she went and taking it with her to catch water from a sagging gutter.

“It's a good fire,” Emil said dreamily. “She shouldn't kill it.”

Mikkel glanced over at him. “There will be other fires.”

“I know, but each one is different. This is a good fire.”

“Get some sleep, Emil. Your watch is coming soon.”

Taking his own advice, Mikkel slouched back a little more and closed his eyes, listening to the others, listening to the rain, and

they are fleeing from the bear beast, but Emil trips and the beast is upon him, tearing him apart. Mikkel fires his shotgun at point-blank range, but the shot disappears in green fur. Sigrun shoots, trying to hit the eye, but the beast has no eyes. Talons sweep past so fast that Mikkel cannot follow them, and Sigrun is gone; there are pieces, there are eyes staring at him from a ruined face, and there is blood, there is so much blood. Onni is shouting, and Lalli is running, dragging Reynir behind him, but Surma slashes and Onni is gone; the beast pounces and Lalli and Reynir disappear together. Mikkel is alone, and the bear beast and Surma turn to him and

“Your watch, Mikkel.”

Mikkel jerked awake, shaking, and pushed himself to his feet.

“My watch.”

The rain stopped during the night, and the day dawned bright and clear. “The gods smile on us,” Sigrun said with a smile of her own. Mikkel glanced at her but didn't argue. For all his skeptical Danish upbringing, he had seen Kokko, the bird of flame, with his own eyes. Who was he to say that the gods did or did not smile on travellers?

They reached Joensuu after four good, sunny days. Sigrun had hunted a rabbit or two on three days, and another deer on the other; Lalli had found good shelter every night; and they had encountered few grosslings, and those were easily killed. As Joensuu was infested with trolls, they hurried through it to find Onni's boat. Mikkel was surprised at first to find it still where they'd left it, but of course they'd been gone less than two weeks. It only seemed like years to his tired mind.

The lehto was unchanged, of course. As before, the younger three were sent to gather firewood and enjoy the sauna while the older three sat down for a well-deserved rest.

“Onni, please tell Lalli his is first watch, then mine, then —” Mikkel began.

“We don't need to set watches here. It's safe.”

“Something could swim over —”

“No. It's safe. It's protected by nature spirits and the forest gods, Tapio and Mielikki. We don't need to set watches.”

“Very well.” There was no point arguing with the Finn, and Mikkel could watch all night. The nights were still short, after all, and he had done it before. A sound caught his attention, and he turned to find Reynir behind him, glowing from the sauna.

“It's yours,” the Icelander said, pointing back to it, and waiting while they made their way inside. When Mikkel came out, warm and sleepy, he found that Reynir had already laid out the bedrolls. Mikkel's own bedroll looked inviting, and an afternoon nap would help him stay awake all night. He stretched out and closed his eyes, and

Mikkel walks up the lane to the farmhouse, hand in hand with Sigrun. As they enter the farmyard, his baby sister, Mette, looks up from weeding the vegetable garden and runs to him, embracing him with a glad cry. His brothers and other sisters are there too, pounding him on the back, hugging him and Sigrun both. Somehow they are inside the farmhouse, and as his mother hugs him, he looks around to see Mille helping Sigrun into the family wedding gown, and of course it is long enough because his mother has adjusted it, and

Sigrun shook his shoulder. “Mikkel, wake up. We need to get going.”

Mikkel awoke, looking around in confusion. It was broad daylight, and the others were rolling up their bedrolls, making ready to leave. Somehow he had slept soundly all night, and for the first time in weeks, he was truly rested.

As he rolled up his own bedroll, Mikkel found underneath an elaborate rune, still glimmering faintly in the sunlight. He straightened, spotting Reynir ostentatiously attending to his task of putting out the fire.

“Reynir.”

The Icelander looked up, freckles standing out dark against a blushing face.

“What is this rune?”

“It's just one for restfulness. I didn't expect you to sleep so soundly. Really! It shouldn't have worked like that. It was supposed to just make you more comfortable. Maybe it's this place making it —”

“I would have been very comfortable if I'd been eaten by a troll because I didn't wake up in time.” Reynir ducked his head, ashamed. “Is this the only one? Did you do this to anyone else?”

“No, no, just you, because you looked so tired, and I thought —”

“All right, I know you meant well. But don't do this again, not to me, not to anyone!”

“I won't! I won't!”

Mikkel turned away so the others would not see him rolling his eyes. Reynir had meant well, and he did feel rested. But that dream … it would be so easy to ask for that dream again. And again. And again.

On a bright sunny morning, three pleasant days later, they stood before the fence that marked the edge of Väinö's territory. It was not, perhaps, surprising that the sentinel was there to greet them, his seagulls wheeling above.

“Now,” Väinö said, “let's make sure all of you are clean.”

Mikkel looked at the others and then back at the sentinel. This was the fear that he had pushed back and away in all their difficulties. What if he wasn't clean? What if the Kade had infected him, back when he looked into the eyes of Mauri? What if he had then infected the others?

Onni said something to Lalli, who stepped forward with a bored expression. A gull landed neatly on his head, walking in place for a moment, before pecking him hard, squarely on top of his head.

“Seriously?” Sigrun said in horrified astonishment. “The pipsqueak is possessed?”

Mikkel closed his eyes in despair. For all that they'd accomplished, they'd failed. He'd failed, and now they would all die because of him.

“No no no!” Väinö said. “Not at all! This is the sign that everything is fine and dandy, no possession detected! You get pecked: you're clean.”

Mikkel opened his eyes to stare at the man in disbelief. Pecking meant no possession? Off to his left, a second gull was pecking at Onni as he tried in vain to shield himself.

“You don't get pecked …” the sentinel continued, “well, you don't want that.”

“Oh,” Sigrun said, rubbing her head in anticipation of pain.

“Who wants to be next?”

Mikkel set his teeth and stepped forward. He had to know. Even as a gull landed on his head, he described the situation for Reynir.

Peck!

Mikkel's knees went weak for a moment. It was all right. He was all right. Everything was all right. They could go home.

As the other three submitted to the examination, and were duly pecked, Mikkel looked over at Onni and Lalli. They, it seemed, had known about this, and he thought with some resentment that Onni could have warned him.

They all passed the sentinel's test and, still rubbing their abused heads, were treated to fish sandwiches and nettle tea in his peculiar home.

“Yes, I knew you were on your way back. I knew you were alive because of the tokens, of course, but also, well … you were such an odd — that is, such a remarkable — group that I sent a few gulls to watch you. It wasn't protocol, but the gulls get bored in the summertime, so this kept them on the wing.” He smiled at the gulls perched around the room, and they raised their wings in response.

“And I'm amazed that somehow you got Kaunoinen, that bear beast, you know, to go after Surma! She — the bear, that is — was never a problem. She didn't attack anyone who didn't attack her or her cubs first.” Mikkel looked away, guilty. “Though she killed her share of adventurers who thought they could take her. That giant, though. That one had a body count. I had no hope that you could kill it; I thought the best you could do was to avoid attracting it.”

Väinö shook his head with a rueful smile. “You did attract it, though, the first day or so, setting off that explosive. Lucky you were, that it went the wrong way when you ran! But all that's by the by. You're all here, alive and uncorrupted, which I did not expect when you set out, and the Kade, Surma, and Kaunoinen and her cubs, are all dead. Or gone, perhaps, in the case of the Kade. We've argued sometimes, we sentinels, whether the Kade is — or was, that is — actually still alive.”

He looked them over, smiling. “You've done well, very well indeed. Now let's return your items and send you on your way.” Suiting actions to words, he left them at the table, and brought back all the tokens they had left with him: Emil's hair brush, Mikkel's scissors, Sigrun's pendant, Reynir's hair-tie, Lalli's cat and Onni's owl, and a bit of leather which Mikkel recognized after a moment as a piece of Kisu's collar.

Mikkel pushed the leather back to Väinö. “This one I think we can leave.”

“Oh, sure, if you don't want it.” The older man tossed it behind him, and three gulls pounced on it. He ignored the squawking squabble as he ushered his guests to the door.

Rowing downstream was both faster and easier than rowing upstream had been. They reached Toivosaari, the Hotakainens' village, by early afternoon. “Stop here,” Onni said. “Stay in boat.” He and Lalli climbed out, tied up the boat, and disappeared up the hill into the village.

“So what happens now?” Sigrun asked.

“We wait. Onni told us to stay here. He didn't say why. Perhaps they are doing something at the graveyard, or talking to Mauri. That's the caretaker,” he added, seeing her puzzlement.

“Um.” She blushed a little in remembered embarrassment, and Mikkel's impassive face stood him in good stead. He found her blushing face charming, and it would not do to let her know, for she would probably push him overboard.

An hour passed as the four leaned back to enjoy the warm sun and the chance to rest in this long, long journey.

Another day, maybe less, and we'll be back at the port town. A few days on a ship, and we can be on Bornholm. At long last, Reynir can see my island. Sigrun and I can walk to the farm — no, Poul can take us all there in a carriage; we won't have to hike anymore. And I'll introduce Sigrun to the family and … But what if she doesn't want to meet them? What if I've misinterpreted everything?

Mikkel shivered. What if she says goodbye?

Fortunately, Onni and Lalli returned to interrupt these thoughts. They offered no explanation of their actions; Onni merely cast off and took up the second set of oars. Mikkel focused his mind on rowing, pushing away all thoughts of the future.

That evening, they camped for one last night on the same rock they'd camped on when they came upstream. They could have continued for hours, but they could not reach the port town before dark. Sigrun felt safe enough to allow Emil to build a small fire, since the rock was unreachable for trolls on the bank. Supper was nettle tea and dried fish, and though they set watches as usual, they were not disturbed.

Mid-morning, Mikkel brought the boat neatly alongside a pier. Reynir, sitting amidship, tied it up, and the group clambered out. Mikkel looked around with emotions for which he had not even a name. He hadn't expected to return alive, and now he had. He looked over at Onni: Onni, whom he'd owed for the lives of his team. Mikkel had paid his debt; he had taken Lalli to Onni, and brought both of them back to safety.

And all the others were here too, alive and in safety. “All right,” Sigrun said, not even looking at him, “we're here. Now let's get back to real civilization.” Leaving the others behind, she trotted up the pier to a kiosk labelled in three languages. The two Mikkel could read, Swedish and Icelandic, read “Tickets”. Leaning into the kiosk, she said, “Hey, do you speak a human language? When's the next boat ride out of this country?”

Mikkel rolled his eyes, chuckling. Trust Sigrun to approach the situation with tact and courtesy.

“Hm, let's see,” said a man's voice in Swedish from inside the kiosk. “The next boat out is … after Winter.”

“Excuse me, what? It's not even the end of Summer yet!” Actually it was, Mikkel thought as he approached; Summer had ended … about the time that the mages had fought the Kade. But Sigrun wouldn't let a detail like that derail her complaint.

“How can the boat line already be closed?” she went on.

Mikkel caught up with her, peering into the gloomy kiosk. The man within — balding, bearded, wearing glasses — pointed to an entry on a schedule posted on the wall in front of him. The Dane studied the schedule with care, but there was no doubt about it: the man was not being difficult because of Sigrun's tactlessness; there really wasn't another boat until Spring.

“Well, we take passenger safety very seriously. The nights are already getting longer and darker, which means more troll activity around the canal, so —”

Sigrun gave an inarticulate cry of frustration.

“There's very cheap lodging in town for over-winter stays,” the man finished.

Sigrun stalked down the pier without acknowledging his words, and the rest of the group followed, Mikkel explaining in two languages what had happened.

The “very cheap lodging” turned out to be the only lodging in town, and Mikkel's share of the expedition money, still stashed in an envelope in the bottom of his backpack, was barely enough to cover it for all of them. Reynir and Onni had never had any expedition money, and the other three had been wise enough (or in Lalli's case ignorant enough) to leave their shares in the Bank of Iceland, with branches all over the Known World … except, of course, Finland.

The clerk at the Inn and Restaurant (its official name) spoke heavily accented Swedish, so at least Mikkel could make the arrangements himself, Sigrun peering over his shoulder and the others crowding in behind. “I want my own room,” Emil said. “All I've wanted this whole year is a private room with an actual bed!”

“Yes, yes, Emil, you shall have it. Onni, does Lalli want his own room? Or will he room with you?”

Onni didn't pause to consult his cousin. “He wants his own room.”

“Good. Okay, we would like six single —”

“No,” Sigrun said. “Five single rooms and — no, wait, four single rooms and one double.”

Mikkel turned to stare at her, at a loss for words. Or rather, the words that sprang to mind (“Are you sure?”) were too foolish to voice.

Sigrun grinned at him. “Yes, that's right. Four single and one double.”

“Four and one,” the clerk said, and Mikkel passed him the money without looking. Sigrun took his arm, and they walked together into the sunlight.

Together