Mikkel's Story, First Adventure (2d Edition)

Prologue

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.

First Night

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.

Breakfast in the Silent World

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.

Kastrup

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.

Site number 24

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.

Inside Site Number 24

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.

Books are Books

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.

A surplus of candles

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.

A way to save us

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.

The Surprise in the Crate

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 …

Reynir's story

"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.

Tallow

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.

Bath time

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."

A better way to go

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.

The Dog

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.

Death in a bowl

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.

First Snow

"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.

A bit of a rough road

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.

Blizzard and snowdrift

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.

Parking garage

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?

Ghosts and grossling

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.”

Stitches and dinner

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.

Humiliation and Duty

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 .

A visit to Kastellet

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?

A decision

“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.

Ghosts and Trolls

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.

Fire and Water

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.

Story time

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.”

Soup and Prayers

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.

Off-roading in Y90

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.

On the way to Odense

“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.

The Antique Shop

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.”

Inside the hospital

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.

The Cure

“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.

The Attack

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.

Ashes

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.

In the Aftermath

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.

Night Watch

“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.

Reynir and the Ghosts

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.

On the Road Again

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.

Rainy Days

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.

Tuuri's Story

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 End of a Noble Steed

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's Choice

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.

The Long Walk Begins

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.

Existential Crises

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.”

The Church