Sword Song
the grave, and slapped wetly onto the damp grass. The messenger’s body twitched and struggled for a while as the blood flow became weaker. Then, at last, the young man slumped between his captors who let his last blood drops spurt weakly onto the grave. Only when no more blood flowed did they drag him away, dropping his corpse beside the graveyard’s wooden fence. I was holding my breath. None of us moved. An owl, its wings astonishinglywhite in the night, flew close above me and I instinctively touched my hammer amulet, convinced I had seen the thief’s soul going to the other world.
    Haesten stood close to the blood-soaked grave. “You have blood, Bjorn!” he shouted. “I have given you a life! I have sent you a message!”
    Nothing happened. The wind sighed on the church’s thatch. Somewhere a beast moved in the darkness and then went still. A log collapsed in one of the fires and the sparks flew upward.
    “You have blood!” Haesten shouted again. “Do you need more blood?”
    I thought nothing was going to happen. That I had wasted a journey.
    And then the grave moved.

TWO
    T he grave mound shifted.
    I remember a coldness gripping my heart and terror consuming me, but I could neither breathe nor move. I stood fixed, watching, waiting for the horror.
    The earth fell in slightly, as though a mole was scrabbling out of its small hill. More soil shifted and something gray appeared. The gray thing lurched and I saw the earth was falling away faster as the gray thing rose from the mound. It was in half darkness, for the fires were behind us and our shadows were cast across the phantom that was born out of that winter earth, a phantom that took shape as a filthy corpse that staggered out of its broken grave. I saw a dead man who twitched, half fell, struggled to find his balance and finally stood.
    Finan gripped my arm. He had no idea he did such a thing. Huda was kneeling and clutching the cross at his neck. I was just staring.
    And the corpse gave a coughing, choking noise like a man’s death rattle. Something spat from his mouth, and he choked again, then slowly unbent to stand fully upright and, in the shadowed flamelight, I saw that the dead man was dressed in a soiled gray winding sheet. He had a pale face streaked with dirt, a face untouched by any decay. His long hair lay lank and white on his thin shoulders. He breathed, but had trouble breathing, just as a dying man has trouble breathing. Andthat was right, I remember thinking, for this man was coming back from death and he would sound just as he had when he had taken his journey into death. He gave a long moan, then took something from his mouth. He threw it toward us and I took an involuntary step backward before seeing that it was a coiled harp string. I knew then that the impossible thing I saw was real, for I had seen the guards force the harp string into the messenger’s mouth, and now the corpse had shown us that he had received the token. “You will not leave me in peace,” the dead man spoke in a dry half-voice and beside me Finan made a sound that was like a despairing moan.
    “Welcome, Bjorn,” Haesten said. Alone among us Haesten seemed unworried by the corpse’s living presence. There was even amusement in his voice.
    “I want peace,” Bjorn said, his voice a croak.
    “This is the Lord Uhtred,” Haesten said, pointing at me, “who has sent many good Danes to the place where you live.”
    “I do not live,” Bjorn said bitterly. He began grunting and his chest heaved spasmodically as though the night air hurt his lungs. “I curse you,” he said to Haesten, but so feebly that the words had no threat.
    Haesten laughed. “I had a woman today, Bjorn. Do you remember women? The feel of their soft thighs? The warmth of their skin? You remember the noise they make when you ride them?”
    “May Hel kiss you through all time,” Bjorn said, “till the last chaos.” Hel was the goddess of the dead, a rotting corpse of a goddess, and the

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