Chapter 1

One: The Troll

THE FISHING BOAT stank.

As he and his fellows rowed slowly up the fjord towards Ulf's farm, Thorir the Icelander scowled to himself, pulling on his oar with his thoughts elsewhere. He was discontented, that was for certain.

Boredom had prompted him to leave his father's farm and sail down to Norway to visit his uncle Sigmund, on the shore of the Hardanger fjord, far to the south. He had been expecting excitement, adventure, plunder; everything his father had spoken of when he was younger. Renowned by the bards as Odd the Showy, Thorir’s father had frequently filled his son’s ears with lurid tales of his eventful life in Norway, in the wild years before King Harald Finehair united the tiny squabbling, petty kingdoms by force of arms and his own iron will. Odd had fled to Iceland weeks after Harald's decisive victory at the Battle of Hafrsfjord, before his son's birth; his recollections of the country were of a place that promised everything a daring youngster could desire: the thrills of raiding and the gains of trading; of fighting for the petty kings and earls, or the sea-kings whose fleets used to patrol the island-studded ocean. But King Harald's victory had put an end to that all that. After a few weeks at Sigmundstead, Thorir had been bored out of his skull. And where had that got him? Sent to Sigmund's northerly neighbour Ulf to learn how to be a farmer. He could have stayed in Iceland and had more fun.

The fishing boat was close to the shore now, and Thorir could make out the smoke-trails from Ulf's farmhouse, wisping off into the sky, where the low Halogaland sun crouched close to the horizon. Thorir caught sight of a tall figure waiting beside the jetty, and he turned to one of his comrades, a thickset, burly, redheaded man named Ketilbjorn.

'Looks like Ulf's come to meet us,' he said laconically.

'Because we're late getting back. Doesn't trust you with fishing.' The Halogalander spat dispiritedly over the side. 'This boat stinks.'

'This whole job stinks,' Thorir replied bitterly. But then they reached the jetty, and were soon too busy unloading their slippery cargo to complain further.

Ulf the Halogalander watched from up the hill as Thorir and the others fixed up their boat for the night. He was worried about the lad, nephew of Sigmund as he was. Sigmund and he went way back - back to when he and Sigmund, and Sigmund's brother Odd, used to go on regular viking raids against the Scots, the Danes, and the Irish. Ulf had long since settled down and accepted King Harald's rule, and he knew Sigmund had too. But Odd's son...

He glanced at the lad. Eighteen years of age, with the promise of a fine beard in the down on his cheeks, Thorir had the blond hair that was common to his family. Coupled with his ruddy cheeks and piercing ice-blue eyes, this made him the image of the young Viking - entirely out of place at the stern of a fishing boat. Restlessness simmered in those fierce eyes, a burning discontent with anything mundane. He was trouble, and Ulf knew this.

He strode down to greet them.

'How's the fishing been?' he asked Thorir. The lad straightened up from securing the boat, glanced round and grinned.

'We've got enough to keep you going the whole winter,' he replied boastfully. 'Told you I'd fill your sheds with food.'

Ulf nodded. 'It'll need salting, all this,' he said.

Thorir made a face.

'Leave that to the thralls,' he sneered. 'Salting fish isn't work for a man.' Then he looked somewhat downcast, and muttered; 'Neither's fishing, come to that.'

'Your uncle didn't send you here to go on viking raids,' Ulf replied testily. 'He wanted you to help me with the everyday running of a farm. That's what's needed in King Harald's kingdom.'

'But in your youth, you weren't one to stay quietly at home,' Thorir complained as they started walking back up the track to Ulf's farm, with Thorir's men following behind them.   'You were a true Viking.'

Ulf shrugged. 'I did it all,' he admitted. 'Raiding, warfare, exploring... I spent seventeen years of my life at sea and never slept once beneath sooty hall timbers. My wife I seduced and abducted from a Danish earl who I scorned to pay the bride price. Oh yes, I was a Viking alright.'

Thorir flung his arms out expansively.

'So why can't you understand how I feel, stuck out here, fishing and farming?' he cried. He looked Ulf straight in the eye. 'Where's the honour in a life like this?'

Ulf sucked at his bottom lip. He shook his head.

'You have to move with the times, lad,' he replied. 'Accept that. The days of the Viking are ended in Norway. Maybe in Shetland or the Faeroes, or up in Iceland or down in Scotland you can live like that. But round here, we have other considerations.'

They had reached the doors to the main hall by now, and through them Thorir could see the smoky interior, where the women were laying out feasting-boards. The smell of food cooking reached his nostrils. He sneered at himself, and glanced bitterly around at the gloomy slopes surrounding the darkening valley. As the other men filed up into the hall, he paused, and narrowed his eyes. What was that, up on the ridge?

He turned on Ulf, who was about to follow the men inside, and grabbed his sleeve. The old man looked up at him, and followed his gaze.

'What light is that?' Thorir demanded.

Up on the ridge he could make out a pale, silver light, almost as if a second moon was rising to join the one that already hung like a thin nail paring above them. Above the light hovered a strange blue flame.

Ulf caught his breath.

‘It's better not to ask,' he said ominously. 'It isn't of human origin.'

'Why shouldn't I know what it is,' Thorir demanded, 'even if it was lit by trolls?'

Ulf sighed, and shook his head slowly.

'Very well,' he admitted. 'You know what it is. It's a grave-mound fire.'

He turned to go inside, but Thorir caught his sleeve again.

'A grave-mound?' he questioned. 'Whose mound? Doesn't a light like that mean that there's treasure in there?'

'Possibly,' Ulf admitted. 'Now come on inside....'

'There's no "possibly" about it!' Thorir crowed. 'That's what a grave-mound fire always means in the old songs.'

'Well, this isn't an old song, is it?' Ulf demanded reasonably.

Thorir looked him straight in the eye again. Though the sun had now set, and the only light nearby was that of the trench-fires inside the hall, it was clear to him that Ulf felt uncomfortable.

'You know more about this than you're letting on, don't you?' he persisted. 'Tell me.'

Ulf sighed, and scratched his keel-like nose. He glanced up towards the ridge, his eyes haunted.

'Very well,' he said heavily, and he folded his arms.

'The story goes that there was a berserk called Agnar. He made the grave-mound and went into it with the whole of his ship's crew, and all the plunder they had amassed during a long and successful career as Vikings. Since which time, it is said that he lives on inside the barrow...'

'A hogboy?' Thorir demanded with delight. He had heard many wild stories concerning the living-dead inhabitants of burial-mounds, the treasures they inevitably guarded, and the heroes who defeated them. But he had always dismissed them as legends. Ulf swallowed and nodded.