‘A drow?’ Erik raised an eyebrow. He had never believed that those too too solid ghosts of legend, the walking dead, truly existed - not in this day and age.

But Bjorn nodded.

‘Aye,’ he confirmed. ‘My people say that once the howe was home to a nest of trolls, but the Red Daughter cleaned it out with fire and the sword ninety years ago. This creature has moved into the mound recently. However, we have had no troublesome deaths, so it cannot be one of my villagers walking after death.

‘For the last week, the drow has come down at night and terrorised the village, riding the roof-poles and wreaking havoc in any manner of ways, just as they do in the tales. One brave man of my folk tracked the drow to the barrow after a crofter saw it riding across the moors. He returned in the daytime with an ash-stake and an axe, determined to stop it walking ever again, to stake it and remove its head. But he was never seen again. Since then, we have had no peace.

‘Since then, no one has been brave enough to repeat the exploit, and we have been terrorised each night. I was intending to make one last despairing try myself - none of my folk will go anywhere near the barrow these days, and I would have had to go alone. But now you are here!’

Erik looked troubled.

‘We’re traders, not heroes,’ he said slowly. ‘It’s profit we’re after. Glory can keep until we have enough money to afford it.’

Halldor was appalled by this.

‘But you can’t turn him down!’ he exclaimed. ‘Our names would join the ranks of heroes if we were to track down a drow and slay it! We would be sung of like all those warriors of old - Sigurd Fafnisbane, Hromund Gripsson, Gull-Thorir, the Red Daughter, Halgarth Wolf-Howl, Njal the Blind…’

‘Oh, that mad old fool,‘ Erik sneered at the last name. Njal was an old hero of the Wirral-folk, who had led them at the Battle of Vin Heath, long before they switched their allegiance to the Christian English. ‘You don’t want to believe a word they say about him. My mother’s uncle knew him, and he reckoned Njal dreamed up all those stories. Anyway,’ he snapped. ‘What if the drow slew us? Where would the glory be then? These aren’t the days of old. Heroes no longer walk the earth as they did in ancient times.’ His gaze shifted to Bjorn. ‘All we wish is to traverse your waters and make our way round the north coast of Scotland.’

Bjorn sank his head in his hands. ‘Again, it troubles me to use such underhand means,’ he said. ‘But you are lost in the Isles, by your own admission. I sailed all these waters in my youth. I could easily pilot you as far as Cape Wrath - further, if you wished. But at a price.’

‘The price quite possibly being of our lives, I take it,’ Gudrun said grimly.

Bjorn nodded, and spread his arms.

‘It is a hard bargain,’ he said. ‘But you must understand my position. Few people come here, and I cannot lay the ghost alone. I need you. And you need me.’ He smiled tightly. ‘See it as a business agreement. You might say we're going into partnership.’

Erik turned away, and stared into the distance. His mind was working furiously. Perhaps they could just shove off and try to find their way through the isles without assistance. Or should they help Bjorn Axehand? Either way, they might very possibly end up dead, or worse, late for the market at Hedeby.

It was an insoluble situation. Whichever route they took they would lose, one way or another. But although Erik had been brought up to think in trader‘s terms, his veins ran with the blood that had urged his Viking ancestors to sail across the seas of the world, to fight their way through all opposition, to go down gloriously at the end of wild lives that few would forget - the code many Norsemen still followed, especially those fortunate to live beyond the taming influence of Christian monarchs like King Ethelred. He grinned to himself recklessly. Why not fight the drow? Their chances of surivial were poor, but if they fell, they would go to Valhalla like all the old heroes. Then he shook his head. He was getting as bad as Halldor. Still, what else could they do?

‘Very well,’ he said at last. ‘Unless either of my colleagues has any objections, we will aid you. In return, we shall take you on as a pilot for the voyage ahead - not just through the isles, but at least as far as Orkney.’

Bjorn frowned at this. Clearly he felt that Erik drove a hard bargain. But he got to his feet, and stumped over to the trader.

‘Done!’ he said, clapping Erik’s hand within his own meaty paw. They shook hands. ‘Now!’ he added. ‘No time like the present. As soon as you've explained the situation to your men, we’ll be off.’

A quarter of an hour later, they were standing at the edge of the village, about to enter the thick forest of pines that fringed the scrubby fields belonging to the settlement, and divided the coast from the moorlands where the barrow was located. The villagers had come out to see them off, and Bjorn was speaking to them, telling them to be brave, and to anticipate an end to their troubles.

‘If we are not back by nightfall, then I suggest you assume we shall never return,’ he added, on a somewhat sombre note. ‘If that happens, you must find yourselves a new Lord of Skadhey. But on the bright side - look at the men who have come to aid me lay the drow to its rest! Fine warriors, all of them!’ The crew straightened their backs and tried to live up to his glowing description of them, though few seemed to have quite the same conviction. ‘How can we lose with such men to help us? I hope you intend to reward them well.’ He paused, a little uncertain perhaps, perhaps a little put out by the silence of his folk. ‘Well, we shall return soon,’ he promised. ‘Now we go to the barrow, to root out evil at its heart.’

But even this failed to lift the people’s spirits, and it was in silence that Erik’s crew marched from the village towards the eaves of the dark forest. Bjorn paused at the edge of the fields, and glanced back. Then he took a deep breath, his face creased with concern, and plunged into the trees.