Chapter 3

'There you will find the entrance to the cave, where you will need to light a torch. Follow the cave inwards and you will find the dragons. These you must despatch as best you can, after which you will have the treasure-hoard of Val the Viking to yourself.'

Thorir nodded. 'Right,' he said slowly. 'Um, could you repeat that?'

But before he could pursue the conversation any further, the scene before him began to break up into squares and triangles and slanting lines of redness against a background of black, and he awoke.

Beside him, Ketilbjorn was coming to. Blearily, he glanced up. They looked at each other, and shrugged. Shaking his head philosophically, Thorir gathered up the gifts he had got from the troll, and then the two warriors, still tied together by the rope, picked their way carefully down the mountainside.

It was dawn before the two men reached the fjord shore and the steading that belonged to Ulf. They were weary and travel-stained, windswept and still wet from the night's rainstorm. But they laughed and joked together as they stumbled up to the farmyard, and were still in high spirits when they strode in through the hall-doors.

It was gloomy indoors, after the cold morning light, and the slumbering forms of their companions and Ulf's men were dark shadows in the surrounding blackness. Thorir grinned at his friend, then, after untieing the rope that still joined them together, rushed over to the kitchen. A few seconds later he returned with a ladle and a large kettle-lid, which he proceeded to bang together, splitting the stillness with a discordant clangour. As he did so, he shouted out;

'Come on, wake up you lazy lot! We're going on a quest! Wake up, wake up!'

Ketilbjorn aided him in his endeavours by stirring crewmembers with his booted foot and yelling down their ears. Olaf was one of the first to awake, and he stared around him, catching sight of the triumphantly rowdy warriors.

'Oh no!' he murmured to himself. 'The troll killed them and now they've come back for all of us...!'

'Don't be stupid, Olaf,' snapped another of Thorir's men, a tall, thin-faced man called Hyrning. 'They don't have the colour of dead men. They must have killed the troll!'

Ulf was also awake, and he stared open-mouthed at Thorir and Ketilbjorn.

'Is this true?' he demanded incredulously. 'Have you slain Agnar and looted his burial mound?'

Thorir looked a little deflated.

'Well, no...' he began.

'You mean you woke us up this early just to tell us that you ran away?' Ulf scowled. 'To think that a nephew of Sigmund would fail to fulfil a boast! What's the world come to? Ragnarok must be near if the Odd the Showy's son is a coward!'

Thorir glared at the man.

'I am not a coward!' he snarled dangerously. 'It's just that I found out that Agnar is related to me, that's all.'

'You're related to a troll?' asked Thrand, another of Thorir's companions.

'He can't be!' Ulf said in bewilderment. 'I know who Agnar was! He was the son of Raknar, brother of Val the Viking! He's no kin of yours. He's duped you, Thorir.'

Ketilbjorn cleared his throat. 'He shagged Odd's wife while he was out, or something,' he rumbled.

Thorir shot him a warning glance, then continued his explanation.

'So you see, I couldn't kill him. But he did tell me where I could get treasure.'

'Oh? And where's that?' Ulf asked.

'In the Cave of Val!' Thorir said proudly.

'You're not going all the way up there!' Ulf gaped. 'It's in the middle of the Dumb Sea, halfway to Jotunheim.'

Thorir shrugged. 'The harder the quest, the greater the glory,' he replied coolly. 'But you know where it is, then? Could you direct us?'

Ulf folded his arms.

'I'm not helping you risk your neck. Here, I'll give you thirty gold marks, if you need money.'

'Risk my neck?' Thorir scorned him. 'Just a few dragons and a lot of gold...'

'I've known men to go on exactly the same quest as you, and never return,' Ulf said ominously. 'In fact, no one's come back, to my certain knowledge.'

'You seem to know a lot of people who go places and never come back...' Thorir began.

'Maybe they just didn't like you,' Ketilbjorn interrupted helpfully.

'That's enough from you!' Thorir warned, wagging a finger.

Ulf waved his arms in the air.

'I just wouldn't like it if all the men my old friend Sigmund sent me were to die!'

'Oh!' said Thorir, scowling. 'So that's all it is, is it?'

'Hang on! What's all this about all of us going?' asked a small Hordalander called Thorhall.

Thorir rounded on him.

'You're all coming with me,' he commanded. 'Or are you so cowardly that you won't even venture with me into the Dumb Sea?'

'I'm not bloody going there,' Thorhall said firmly.