Dawn crept over the fjord as quietly as if it did not want to wake the rocky walls. The breath of the sea rose from the black waters in white streaks that wrapped around the pier pilings and the salt-gouged sides. The smell of peat, smouldering in the hearths of the long house, mingled with coniferous resin and tar; in every corner you could smell winter: sharp, polished, alert. Einar stood at the end of the platform and clasped his hands on the cool wood. He had long, unruly hair tied up with a thong and those eyes that the elders said could see not only the waves but also their shadows. He wore a short coat lined with fur and a leather shoulder bag; the bottom of the bag rattled quietly against the bone, for inside lay his lyre and a few smooth stones for fate. As he moved his foot, the planking of the platform groaned and echoed in the water, as if someone had breathed underneath. - 'Today the sea speaks in whispers,' muttered old Arvid, stepping out from behind a pile of barrels. He had thick hands that remembered oars, and a moustache that had salt left in it from all the seasons. - And when the sea whispers like that, it is better to listen than to answer. - 'We'll say as much as we need to,' Liv replied, standing between them. She was tall, with her hair in tight braids, a scar above her brow and a gaze as cold as the water at dawn. Her cloak moved, revealing the fitting of a shield and the handle of a spear. - Jarl Bersi is waiting for news. The fires on Raven Island were burning blue yesterday, and that does not bode well. Einar nodded. The whole village whispered about those fires: about how they lit not when they needed to, and not with the light they needed. About the roar of the horn that bore down in broad daylight, though the sky was as smooth as a reindeer's shoulder. About the fishermen who returned without their nets, saying only that the wind had quieted in their hands. Yesterday's meeting at the jarl's was short, as cold as ice in a cup. Bersi sat under the beam on which the old shields hung. He stared long into the fire and only then turned to Liv, Arvid and Einar. - 'I don't want to spread fear,' he said then. - 'Raven Island lies close to our bay, and its fires are our eyes. If your eyes are blinking at the wrong time, you need to check if they see something we don't want them to. Take Hrafna. Keep the crew small and quiet. Get back before night. And so now they stood beside a dragon ship with a black, tar-shining side and a proud, carved raven-shaped prow. Hrafn had thin, springy planks and new ropes that creaked under their fingers like fresh leather. Below deck, on the benches, Ivar and Tor - brothers, resembling each other like two stalks of reeds - and Hrólf, with a laugh too loud for this morning, were already bustling about. Each of them, however, fell silent near Liv as if snow had suddenly covered their tongues. Ragna also came out of the long house, as old as the spell that everyone knows but no one remembers who invented it. She was carrying a small box, and her step was sure, though her feet were barefoot. - 'Since the skald is flowing, let him carry his ears too,' she said, opening the box. On the bottom lay a bone matted whistle, so tiny that it could disappear in her hand. - Don't whistle unnecessarily. It's not for fish or birds. It's for the wind. Einar took the whistle with care, as one takes a cup of boiling water. He felt a chill in it that did not belong in the morning. They pushed Hrafn away from the pier. The ropes went into motion, they furled the sail, as the wind was capricious, and grabbed the oars. The water offered a slight resistance, as if it were heavy with untold stories. The village quickly retreated into the bluish air, the patches of smoke disappeared, and all that was left on the shore was jarl Bersi with his arms crossed over his chest and Ragna with her hands tucked into her sleeves, both as motionless as statues. - 'Keep your course closer to the eastern shore,' muttered Arvid as they passed the tall boulder on which nets dry in summer. - The currents off Raven Island don't like strangers. - 'And we do,' snorted Hrólf, but he immediately suppressed a smile. The joke hung in the air like a drop before a fall. As long as they swam between familiar boulders, everything was ordinary: the cries of seagulls, the flutter of herring scales just below the surface, the sheen of ice in the shallows. Then there were little things that didn't suit the morning: a dishevelled, shamelessly clean knot at the end of a rope drifting with the run; a wicker basket, almost new, and floating bottom up, as if someone had laid it down like that; a strip of leather, cut evenly, without burrs. Tor bent down to fish out the basket, and quickly withdrew his hand. - Stone cold,' he muttered. - Like ice water from under the eye. - She's always been cold,' Liv replied. - But not always so silent. Indeed, the silence grew. Somewhere the seagulls had disappeared. The water wasn't murmuring, it was breathing. Einar pulled out a bone whistle and hesitated. - 'Once,' he said to himself, remembering Ragna's words. He put the whistle to his lips and let the air out. The sound was thin, almost invisible, like a scratch on ice, yet it rolled over the ribs of the ship and escaped along the edge of the fjord. After three heartbeats, Einar felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. The answer did not come from above or below. It came from the side: not a sound, but a sensation that the space to the right of the ship was denser, more serious, ready. Arvid looked at him from under his bushy eyebrows. - 'Did you hear that? - I don't know if it was hearsay,' Einar replied. - 'That's enough,' said Liv. - She paddled more evenly. 'Ivar, Hrólf, stop looking into the water as if it's going to give you back your own reflection. The milk of mist began to condense on the eyelashes. First it was just a promise, then a strand, and finally a wall: white, thick, standing. Unlike any fog that Einar remembered. Ordinary fog floats, this one looked as if it had grown into the water and was drawing it in. Liv gave the sign to row more quietly. The brothers' hands were suddenly serious, their movements cautious. The ship rocked uncertainly, as if walking on new ground. - 'It's not a masquerade,' muttered Arvid, although no one complained. - Fog doesn't get that way from nothing. - And what is it supposed to make itself from? - asked Hrólf in a whisper. - From the warm springs, from the breath of the rocks, from the fact that summer has gone wrong. Or from people. Those who call upon the wind when they have no right. Einar shifted his gaze to the taffrail. Something small floated by the side, tapping gently on the planks. He lay down on the shore and grasped the object with his hand. It was a horse made of wood, small, with raw edges and straight cuts instead of eyes. The kind that fathers carve for their children to keep close to the mantle during the market. On one side someone had carved a mark - not a letter, not even a word, but an old rune resembling a horseman. On the other side, barely visible, was another: like a wing or a breath. - 'Raido and Ansuz,' whispered Einar, and Arvid nodded gravely, as if confirming what he had constantly intuited. - 'This is not a toy from our shore,' added Ivar, looking at the sculpture. - In our country, the bangs are made differently. - Stop it - cut Tor off. - Any horse is good enough for a child. Horse. The rider's rune. The rune of breath. Einar slipped the figurine into the bag, where it rattled lightly against the lyre. The mist tightened further. The paddles began to rub against the dampness like skin, and drops ran down the spars onto her wrists. Liv lifted the spear with one hand, the other strapped her belt tighter. Her eyes, accustomed to reading the ever-changing colour of the sky, were now staring into a pupilless white. The horn sounded once, far away, so clear that it made Hrólf's laughter stand up in his throat. The sound did not bounce off the rocks, did not return - as if the rocks were not there. Straightforward, unanswered, like the voice of someone who does not wait for permission. - From where? - Tor asked. - From the right? From the left? - From everywhere,' replied Einar, although he wasn't sure if he was talking about himself or the sea. They raised the oars. Their hands clung to the wood. The mist had the taste of wet iron, and a chill lurked in their mouths that did not come from the air. The ship glided silently, as if the water itself moved away before the dragon's bow. In this way, they reached the wall of white and entered it as one enters a strange chamber: without stepping over the threshold, but standing immediately on the other side. After a moment's silence, which could have been a minute or a whole winter, the mist began to part. First it showed a rope, black and taut, like an adder in the snow. Then the trunk of the mast emerged, tall, with the dampness hugging it. Finally - the side. Dark, wet, clad in shields that shimmered with colours familiar all too well. Liv was the first to utter aloud what touched everyone's lips. - These are our colours. The ship that loomed before them was Hrafn's dragon brother: from bow to stern made by hands that understood the same rhythm. Only there was no movement on its deck. There were no people. Shields were hanging, but no one was touching them. The ropes were level, but none twitched. At the stern, in a fresh tarred beam, someone had carved something with a blade: marks, still shiny, like a wound in a tree that had not had time to dry. Einar lifted himself up on tiptoe, Liv held his arm, and he read it without hesitation, though he didn't want to, though his heart darkened in his chest like cold ash. - 'Einar,' he whispered, for it was his name, engraved in their own handwriting, in a foreign stern, here, in the milk of the mist. - Who had carved it? - Hrólf lowered his voice to the very bottom. - And when? - 'If we knew that, we'd be sitting by the fire,' said Arvid. - Liv? Liv did not take her eyes off the empty deck. Her mouth tightened into a narrow line. - 'We'll get closer. We're not pulling anyone overboard before I'm the first to stand there. Ivar, Tor, hold the hooks. Arvid, rudder half a hand to the left. Einar... - I know,' he replied, squeezing the bone whistle in his pocket so hard that his fingers hurt. - I'm listening. Hrafn listened along with him. The rustling of the water under the bow disappeared. It disappeared like a breath that someone had held out of fear or concentration. That's when something new rang out: not a horn, not a seagull, not a rope. A sound like the touch of a finger on the bottom of a drum, low, even, coming from the depths. A quiet rumble flashed up from the bottom of the fjord and passed over the planks like a chill passing down the back. In an even moment, under their side, just out of the water, something darkened the whiteness. First a stain, then a shape, and finally, the shadow of a dragon's head, like their own, but with its beak open not to the wind, but as to a whisper directed straight at their names. Einar forced air into his lungs, Liv raised her spear, and Hrafn, obedient as a living creature, touched the side of the silent ship. The mist next to them parted by a hair and then they saw what awaited them on the other side of the dark, wet, tongue-fresh wood....