Malcolm runs to the end of his leash

As they neared home Malcolm’s brother fell silent for a while. For the sake of the smile on his lips Malcolm let him be, though their time together was dwindling like the daylight.

His brother and father were leaving at dawn, and already the sun was below the tops of the trees. The low-​hanging, hazy smoke of the charcoal pits veiled its burning face, and Malcolm could stare straight at it as it flashed between the bare trunks, round and red-​golden as the yolk of an egg.

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Kuntigern considers his creation

Kuntigern, as a silversmith, was a man accustomed to the transmutation of coarse, common materials into finer things, given a steady source of heat and sufficient time.

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Congal gets his question answered

Congal had already clammed up by the time his “escort” shoved him into the warehouse where Eirik awaited him. That left the other man ranting for no apparent reason—and, since he was ranting in Gaelic, perhaps incomprehensibly as far as the three Norsemen were concerned.

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Finn makes a friend among men

Sometimes in the trough between two great splashing waves there would come a sort of quiet. It was not silence, for seawater still hissed over the hull, and ropes squeaked and wood creaked, and men sat muttering further up the deck, but it was quiet enough that Finn could hear all the way to the front of the ship, and then he would strain his ears.

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Finn goes to the rescue

“Rise and shine, sleepyheads! It’s time to greet the day!”

A draft of crisp night air gusted into the stifling room, and Finn sucked it gratefully into his lungs. He had been drowning in there: in that choking miasma of unwashed blankets, unemptied chamber pots, and four anxious male bodies locked up all night in a room made to sleep two.

His nose wrinkled at the sour reek of wine and decrepit wolf that followed the man in, but at least that air was cool.

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Congal is left a lone man

“Congal!”

Congal stopped short and whipped himself around so fast his boot skidded in the gravel. He had been running towards the bonfire long enough that he was temporarily night-​blind, but he recognized the voice.

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Muirgius claims an ancient right

In the doorway Muirgius was all black. His face was a mask of night. He must have been waiting for him.

Aed plunged into unplumbed depths of fear without even a thrash to mark his passing. At the bottom he hung weightless and numb for long seconds, wondering how he had ever supposed he could deal man-​to-​man with a murderer.

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Aed understands the solitude and the sense

How did one tell a lady her man was no man?

Aed thought he should have said it at the first opportunity: “No, lady, you cannot see him now. Perhaps later, after we’ve finished bandaging up the four-​inch gash he just sliced into his own fucking wrist. Have a pleasant night. Give a shout if you’re needing anything.”

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Aed casts out the evil

Tuathal son of Nuadu deserved the face of a treacherous rat. Aed wished he had thought to warn Congal.

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Aed executes his plan

Cormac was following him.

Cormac had kept out of the way and scarcely said a word since he had stepped off the Shetlander, but now that Aed was at last going up to meet Muirgius, Cormac simply fell in behind him, like a tick dropping out of a thornbush onto the back of a passing stag.

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