When Skadi woke him, the fire bathed the longhouse in warm light. Nevertheless, his dreams left a disturbing shadow behind his eyes. Braziers in sconces gave off light and oily smoke. “It is time to go to the mead hall,” she said, shaking him by the shoulder.

  She didn’t look at him as he sat up and struggled into his boots but stood by the door, hands on her hips, gazing into the firepit.

  “Where’s Mikkel?” Conall asked.

  Rather than answer him, Skadi turned her back and said, “Come, we’ll be late.”

  Walking side by side into the settlement, he sensed that the shieldmaiden did not feel her usual exuberance. Keeping her head down and mouth tight-pressed, Skadi responded to his questions about their customs with grunts and scowls. By the time they were climbing the stairs to the massive mead hall, Conall decided he’d said something to offend her. Regardless of how hard he thought about what he’d said, he couldn’t come up with anything, even considering their differences.

  We’re not that different.

  Entering the mead hall, Conall was surprised by the number of folks within. From the outside, the hall looked massive, but inside—crammed with noisy revelers—it seemed less so. Light and warmth came from a central firepit running up the middle of the hall for almost the entire length. Benches and tables crowded the walls on both sides. A dais carried a long table at the end opposite the massive oak doors. At its center, Malthe sat with the woman who had welcomed him back in Lindholm with a screech and a flood of kisses, sitting to his right. The two chairs to his immediate left were empty. When he saw the shieldmaiden and Conall, Malthe raised a hand and beckoned them to join him.

  “Skadi here, and Conall to her left,” the Jute said, pulling out the chair beside him.

  When they had settled, servers spread through the hall carrying meat, fish, and bread. The folk were shouting, drinking, and eating, each louder than the last, and so the noise rose until Conall could hear nothing but one confused din. It surprised him that none of the shouts were in anger—all were shouting in competition to be heard and doing it lightheartedly. In ériu, in similar surroundings, the warriors would be arguing, not simply trying to outvoice each other. The risk of bloodshed would be growing with the noise level and the mead consumption.

  As he watched, Conall wondered about Cú Chulainn’s time in Lindholm. He remembered sitting in the hostel at Lúr Cinn Trá and giving Cú the hammer that Bradán stole when this adventure began. Cú described saving Dervla with the enthusiasm typical in one so young. He told Conall about his awe at the depth of the land—how it was not as fierce as the reputation surrounding it. However, Lindholm had shown Cú no welcome, which Conall realized would have been because of Malthe’s father, the king. When Conall first met him, the Jute said Lars had been jealous of his daughter’s popularity to the extent that he offered her as a sacrifice to the eastern wildlings. Cú found them sacrificing her in the forest, drove them away, and returned her to Lindholm.

  Which was the cause of so much strife.

  When King Lars banished the princess, she fled to ériu only to marry High King Lugaid and become queen. Jealous beyond belief, the women of the court in Tara killed her, and Cú killed them in turn—crushing the life out of one hundred and fifty women using Lorg Mór. If he hadn’t done so, Conall had no doubts Malthe would be raising a warband to exact revenge on the people of Tara.

  “You do not eat,” Malthe said, bringing Conall back into the moment. “Do you eat meat and fish?”

  “Aye, I do. I was just watching your folk…”

  Thinking about how they tore your sister apart because of jealousy and the machinations of the Witch Queen of Connacht.

  “Eat, éireannach. The food is good.”

  Conall nodded while thinking that if he’d only killed Mac Nessa when the fat man first betrayed him, it would have prevented a good deal of sorrow. Medb’s increasing evil was directly connected to the Ulster king’s scheming. Even the brutal murder of Dervla, which he didn’t doubt Medb orchestrated, would not have happened.

  Dervla would be here if I’d done the right thing.

  He glanced at Malthe and saw Skadi leaning close and whispering in his ear. He could not hear what she said, but there was no mistaking her urgency. Malthe listened in silence, picking at the food in front of him, not showing the enthusiasm he’d tried to instill in Conall. Even the mirth left his eyes, his sardonic grin receding as he listened.

  After a while, Skadi stood and put a hand on Conall’s shoulder, “I must look to Mikkel,” she said before striding from the hall. Malthe patted her chair, and he shuffled over.

  “So, what do you think of Lindholm?” the Jute asked.

  Conall shook his head and wondered how to reply. He’d only briefly been in the Northern settlement, so he could not say what he thought. However, even in such a short time, he believed that Jutish life had much to offer. His people were similar in many ways but were not as happy. From what he could tell, these people lived hard, died hard, and accepted it as their lot. The only unhappy person he’d met was Mikkel, and he thought the youth probably had reason to be less than satisfied.

  “Our people and way of life are similar…”

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  “Do you think you will return to ériu?” Conall shrugged. Rasping his chin, he decided it needed a shave. “Put another way, could you live among us, Conall of the Victories?”

  Turning to look at the Jute with blue eyes dancing in the light, face split by a teasing grin, Conall wondered if he could. Would a life among these people who laughed as readily as they screamed a battle cry or formed a shield wall be to his liking? Did he have any choice? With a price on his head and all of ériu searching to earn it, could he return?

  Not while the fat man lives.

  But, of course, to wreak vengeance on his nemesis, he needed to return to ériu. What he found unclear was whether his desire for revenge was that strong. Priding himself on being different, did he really need Mac Nessa’s head on a spike? Instead, he thought a comfortable life in the company of these no-nonsense folk might offer much. As yet, he’d seen no evidence that these Jutes thrived on the same violence as his people. Despite their evident skill as warriors, they seemed to lack the blood craving.

  I might be wrong, but where’s the choice?

  “Aye. I could live here,” he finally said with a nod.

  “To stay, éireannach, you must give me your oath,” Malthe said, making him realize nothing would come of nothing—neither here nor in ériu. “It is the same oath I ask of all my degns. A blood oath. And with the oath, I would expect you to take on the role of my champion.”

  He considers me a vassal or wants me as a vassal, at least.

  Conall was unsure if he was ready to take another oath. The last man he swore fealty to tried to have him killed—more than once. Even now, the bundún had a price on his head. And then something else came to mind.

  “What of Skadi?” he asked, one eyebrow raised. “Is she not your champion?”

  Malthe hesitated, gazing over the revelers in the hall before turning back and saying, “Skadi has chosen another path.”

  “What sort of—”

  “Now is not the time.”

  Conall frowned, hearing the same tone of command the Jute used when they first met. Perhaps, if he hadn’t been used to the company of kings, he would have taken umbrage. Instead, he said, “I have given many oaths in my time. I have always kept them. If I give you my oath, it will bind me to you.”

  “Ya. Do you have an alternative?”

  And there’s the rub. I don’t have anywhere else to go.

  “No. I suppose I don’t. But why me?”

  “Your battle fame is second to none, and you saved my life.” Conall shook his head, unsure how he had saved the Jute. Surely, it was Malthe who saved him? “When you warned me of the archers. We would have died in that arrow storm had you not done so.”

  “Aye, maybe.”

  “Come,” Malthe said. Conall nodded and followed him. Those at the tables continued feasting and drinking, not paying any attention as the two of them strode past the blazing firepit. Looking over his shoulder, Conall saw Malthe’s woman deep in conversation with the warrior beside her. He realized the jarl hadn’t even introduced them.

  “Come, éireannach,” the Jute said, putting a hand on his shoulder and guiding him through the door and down the stairs.

  Hearing a footfall behind, he turned to see Skadi following, her hand on the haft of her ax sitting on her shoulder, the blades dancing in the torchlight.

  She must have been waiting beside the door. So, not tending to Mikkel, then.

  The Jute led him out of the gate, around the palisade, and into the pines north of the settlement. The forest was dark, but the path winding up between the trees shone in the moonlight. As their way became steeper, Conall felt his thighs begin to burn. He could hear nothing other than the distant noise of the mead hall, not even the noise of animals in the night. It was as if the whole of creation waited for something. Finally, breaking from the trees and into a wide-open area, he saw myriad rocks and stones formed into shapes he couldn’t see in the moonlight because shadows distorted the patterns. The stones were not overly large, but something about them was forbidding—almost primeval.

  Stopping, Malthe said, “The kings and queens of Juteland,” opening his arms to indicate the whole area.

  Turning to look over his shoulder, Conall saw Skadi’s head bowed, and he bowed his in respect. The burial site held an aura of something gone—of history, great deeds, and greater doers. His heart beat faster as he felt the weight of death’s presence, suspecting Skadi hanging her head was because of that weight and not out of respect.

  “Come,” Malthe said, leading him between the stones toward the hill’s summit.

  Reaching the top, Conall saw a massive flat stone glistening in the moonlight in the center of the clearing. It took him a moment to realize it was dried blood reflecting the moon’s light—a lot of dried blood.

  Am I to die here? he asked himself, the beat of his heart telling him it was so.

  “This is Lindholm H?je, the sacred burial ground of my ancestors.” Malthe’s voice seemed to boom an echo as if it were Odin, his King of Gods, speaking. “Here I will hear your oath, Conall of the Victories.”

  “Why is Skadi here?” With that massive ax?

  Malthe grinned at him and patted him on the shoulder. “Fear not, éireannach; she is here to remind you of what happens to oath breakers.”

  Conall looked over his shoulder, and Skadi grinned at him. The moonlight showed her face as clearly as if it were daytime. With what he knew of the woman, however short-lived, he didn’t think she would show such delight were she about to use the ax.

  But you don’t know her, Conall. And with the thought, he realized there would be little he could do unarmed and alone.

  “Aye, well, let’s get it done, so.”

  Nodding, Malthe drew his knife, closed his fist around the blade, and slashed his palm with a rapid pull. The Jute offered the blade to Conall, hilt first, and he did as Malthe had done.

  “Take my hand and say the words exactly as I say them.”

  Grasping the bloodied hand in a tight grip, Conall repeated the words Malthe gave to him, and it was done; he was oathbound to a Jutish would-be king. Without releasing his hand, the Jute turned Conall to face the stones below their elevated point. From on high, he could see they were laid out in the shape of ships, some small, some large.

  “You have bound yourself to me in sight of these, my ancestors. May your oath hold, Conall of the Victories.”

  “Ya, or there’s the matter of my ax,” Skadi said, patting the shaft and grinning like a demon.