The men were riding down the trail again, as swiftly as they could on that steep narrow path. Wulf went first, and Sigmund glimpsed his face as he went by; his eyes were staring and his face dead white, and Sigmund’s heart was chilled to see it. Sigmund followed them, and in silence they rode the sun down into the west, plunging through the deep snowy forest aisles.

  As the sun cast its last long sheaves of light between the trees they came at last to the pasturelands. The gray haze lay thicker here, and he could smell the acrid scent of burning. They came to the place where the house had stood; the horses came to an exhausted halt, and the men sat in silence staring at the blackened ruin. Wulf dismounted, stumbling, but Sigmund sat still on his pony, unable to grasp what his eyes told him. Charred beams were all that remained, a crazy fallen structure of charcoal. That was what stuck in his memory from that day on, for the rest of his life: the smell of burning, the blackened lintel stark against the sky, and the forlorn figure of his father, standing with bowed shoulders in the midst of the ruin.

  Then a cry went up from the men, and spears were shaken, and oaths taken; and his father came back to them, his face flushed with his fierce rage. But Sigmund had seen his stricken look, and knew that was the reality, that loss and helplessness, whatever bloody deeds might follow after.

  They found no bodies but for two of the housecarls who lay in their blood before the house, swords broken in their hands. The blaze had been too fierce to leave any other traces. Sigmund thought of Gisl, and of Siglinda as he had seen her last, her bright hair shining as she ran, but he did not think of them long, for it brought back the stabbing pain in his stomach.

  They made no long stay there, for there was nothing to keep them beyond the burying of the carls, and they rode away across the frozen fields as the sun sank into a crimson lake of fire. They rode late, driving tired horses through the untrodden woods that suddenly seemed hostile, full of treachery.

  When the moon rose to flood the forest with its pale light they halted and made camp. None of the men slept that night. They sat long around the fire, their voices hoarse and shaken with weariness. Sigmund thought that he should stay awake as well, but he could not keep his eyes from falling shut. No one paid any attention to him, so he lay down at last wrapped in the bearskin, shivering with cold in spite of it, and closed his eyes. He did not think that he would sleep, but he felt his consciousness ebbing away as if he were bleeding from a great wound; and he fell into darkness.

  The next morning a band of armed men fell on them from ambush. There was a flurry of blows and cries, a confused storm of violence that was over almost as soon as it began, while Sigmund hung back in the shadows helpless and dismayed. His father would have fought on, berserk in his rage, but even Sigmund could see that the enemy were too many for them. Two of Wulf’s men forced him away and they rode off, Sigmund’s pony bolting along with the rest. The others let them go, sending gibes and catcalls after them. Behind them in the trampled snow they left three figures lying; one of them was his uncle Galarr.

  By that he understood that they were outlaws, that there was no law or strength they could call to their aid, but must live as hunted men in the lands of their enemies. Their attackers, he understood from the men’s talk that night, were Hreidgoths, strangers from beyond the mountains, newcomers to the land, at feud with the Volsungs over the doings of their bloodkin. That at least was their excuse; the real prize was Wulf’s land, that would fall now into his enemies’ hands.

  Their leader was called Lyngi the Mighty, a man hard and ruthless, known for his savagery. What government there was, a weak and preoccupied king, held court far away in Thrymdale and was useless in such a quarrel. At the time Sigmund did not comprehend all that this meant; the knowledge came slowly with passing weeks and months. For him at first it meant only that they must live outside, or in such rude shelters as they could contrive and abandon hastily in case of need. It meant they must live warily as wild beasts, starting up at the breaking of a branch; it meant there could be no recourse for the burning of the stead. Any vengeance that they took must be their own.

  The worst of it was Siglinda’s loss. He did not speak of it, and thought of it only rarely; but it was always with him, as if part of him had been torn away and the stump left bruised and bleeding. He woke in the night and reached out for her, but she was never there. At first he dreamed of her, but the dreams faded, or he did not remember them. But always, waking or sleeping, there was an aching sense of loss in the back of his mind, that did not dwindle as the months passed.

  They made raids on the farmsteads of their enemies. A few men, discontented or outlawed, joined them. Volsung became once more a name to dread, a name to whisper in fear by torchlight, when the wild winds swept down the mountain slopes and across the deep valleys to hide the rustle of stealthy footsteps, the hiss of swords being drawn. However deep their swords drank, vengeance was never sated, nor the emptiness in Sigmund’s heart filled.

  Wulf grew older, his hair and beard turned gray. He was a big, stubborn bull of a man with a stern will, who drove his men hard to survive. But something had died in him the day of the burning, some spark of purpose and hope, and it was never rekindled.

  But Sigmund grew tall and hard and fierce; as he grew his spirit blazed up and his will hardened. Outlawed by men, he resolved in defiance to live without law, to make his own law in a harsh and unjust world. He wielded his sword recklessly, and the young Volsung was feared in all the coasts and valleys of the Northland. And even he did not know that there was a place untouched by bitterness in him, a place of gentleness where a memory lingered, growing fainter with each passing season.

  On a night in autumn when Sigmund was eighteen, they made ready to go raiding. It was a dark moonless night, with a high wind keening in the trees and the threat of rain in the air. By the light of the blowing torches Sigmund saddled his horse Grayfell, a coarse-haired beast that had carried him sure-footed out of more than one dangerous place. As he tightened the straps,Wulf went by leading his horse, and paused beside his son to scent the air. Sigmund thought it must be the torch’s glare that made him look so haggard and gray.

  “A good night for us,” said Sigmund.

  Wulf nodded slowly. “If we are not looked for.”

  “Why should we be?” Sigmund knit his brows,

  “It is a rich stead, with droves of cattle and barns bursting with grain. They will be on their guard.”

  Sigmund bared his teeth in a grin. “We will drive off the cattle and fire the barns before they know we are there—gone like the wind in the night.”

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  Wulf sighed, his face somber. “Maybe we will. But I feel fey tonight. Maybe my death is near.”

  “Do not speak so,” said Sigmund with a sudden pang of dread.

  Wulf gave a harsh breath of laughter. “There is no sense in fear. When the fates decree a man shall die, there is no sense in hiding under the bed.”

  Sigmund smiled faintly, but shook his head.

  “When I am gone, whenever that may be, you will be lord of the Volsungs—or of the tattered remnants that remain. Maybe you will be able to restore the lands and fortunes stolen from us.”

  “I will try, father,” said Sigmund, biting his lip and giving the girth a savage jerk. “But not yet.”

  Wulf stood motionless, gazing at him with an expression Sigmund had never seen on his face before, a mixture of pride, tenderness and anxiety. “You are strong,” he mused. “There is something of the old warriors in you, some of their toughness and courage. — Maybe there is hope yet for the Volsung race.”

  A muffled horn blew, summoning the raiders to horses. Sigmund lifted his head. His father laid a heavy hand on his shoulder, gripping hard. “We ride now,” he said.

  In the dead of night they came down on the stead from the north. Even as they climbed the last ridge and saw below them the dark bulk of the manor, with its dim barns and outbuildings, Sigmund sensed that something was wrong. It was too dark. No watchfires burned, there was no sound or sign of sentries. “It looks deserted,” muttered the man beside him.

  Sigmund sat motionless, uncertain, but in reckless abandon Wulf urged his horse on down the ridge, and the others followed. Sigmund spurred after them, seized by fear over his father’s fey mood. He had not ridden fifty yards before he heard a hiss, and saw the man before him throw up his arms and slide sideways from the saddle. The night was full of the sudden hiss of shafts. He reined in as the man on his left gave a choked moan and toppled from his horse, an arrow through his throat.

  Horses screamed and milled. An arrow whistled past his ear; he ducked instinctively before he heard it. Swords flashed from sheaths, but the enemy were shadows hidden in darkness, and the night was raining death.

  “Ride!” shouted Wulf in a great voice. “Ride, ride for your lives.“

  Horses swept by Sigmund, black shapes in the darkness. He bent low over Grayfell’s neck, clutching his mane, and sent him after the rest. Hoofbeats drummed in his ears. They gained the rise and scattered into the forest, their attackers pursuing them with fierce battlecries. Sigmund ducked as a branch swept over his head. He tried to keep the others in sight, but he lost them; at last only a single horseman rode before him.

  He followed the rider deep into the forest. The cries and sounds of pursuit faded into the distance. He urged Grayfell to greater speed, seeing that the rider ahead sagged in the saddle as if he were about to fall. At the edge of a narrow clearing the rider pulled his mount to a halt. Sigmund saw the heavy black cloak, the grizzled hair.

  He slid from his horse and ran to help Wulf dismount. His father half fell from the saddle, leaning on him. Blood was pouring from a wound in his neck and the shaft of an arrow protruded from his left breast. Sigmund staggered with him to the foot of an oak where he sank to the ground.

  It had begun to rain in earnest, with fine blowing drops. Sigmund could feel his father shivering. He tore a strip from his shirt and tried to stanch the blood flowing from the neck wound; the blood looked black against the pale blur of skin. “I will go for help,” he said, choking on the words.

  “No,” said Wulf, lifting a hand. “No one can help me now. I have seen the Valkyrie.”

  “What?” Sigmund crouched bewildered beside him. His father’s face was calm and pale, but in himself he felt fury and terror rising like a flood.

  “Only the dying are doomed to see the Choosers of the Slain, the warrior maids; and that is a sight worth seeing—” His gaze returned from a distance and focused on Sigmund’s face, streaming with rain and tears. With an effort he raised a hand and touched his shoulder. “Son—We shall meet again in time to come. Do not grieve for me too much; life is a burden no lighter than death.” He choked then, and turning away his face he gave a shudder and died.

  Sigmund knelt in the falling rain, his hands wet with his father’s blood. The sense of loss opened like an abyss of emptiness before him. He threw back his head and howled like a wolf in anguish, then threw himself on the body with tearing sobs.

  He grew quiet at last and lay listening to the rain drumming on the ground, rustling the leaves overhead. Slowly he became aware that his hands were ice cold. Stiffly, his mind a blank wall of grief, he pushed himself to his knees. Hearing a twig crack behind him, he froze; then turning slowly he saw a dark cloaked and hooded figure under a tree. A spear in its hand glimmered gray. He raised his voice, and it sounded strange and harsh in his own ears. “Stand forth, you in the shadow. Who are you?”

  The figure neither moved nor spoke.

  “What do you want?”

  Then at last it spoke, the voice resonant and deep. “I have come to bid you not to grieve too deeply for Wulf. The chief of the Volsungs is safe with me.”

  “Safe?” Sigmund glanced incredulously at the pale blood-streaked body before him. Stretching out his arm, he seized the spear he had let fall. “Who are you?”

  The hooded figure did not reply.

  “Are you afraid of me?” he snarled, and gripped the spear harder.

  “I am afraid of nothing,” came the voice, harsh and deliberate. It woke a dim memory in him, but he cared nothing for that.

  “Neither am I,” he cried, and leaping up he ran like a berserker at the stranger, wild with grief and rage to destroy. The spear struck the tree and shattered in his hands; the stranger was gone, melted into the dark.

  Returning to the camp with Wulf’s body lashed to his horse, he found a remnant of the raiding force, a few sullen survivors. With their help he built a funeral pyre, heaping it high with resinous logs. When he set a torch to it, it smoldered but caught at last, sending a column of black smoke high into the clouded drizzling night. He set his spear in the ground and sat beside it with head bowed, hearing but not aware of the heavy clash of weapons on shields and the chanting of the warriors, their voices deadened with weariness.

  He slept not at all that night, and the next day they moved on, away from the smoking ashes of the pyre and the memory of defeat. Sigmund rode and gave orders as if in a dream, still numb with grief, but trying to summon from somewhere in himself the wisdom and stubborn hold on life he needed to endure, to take command.

  That night he dreamed for the first time in years of Siglinda. Yet he was not sure it was she, for she was familiar and yet unfamiliar to him. She wore a bridal gown of satin and rose velvet, and jewels shone in her hair; her face was wet with tears and she held out her arms to him, crying his name. In his dream he reached for her, groping in his sleep. But she faded before he could grasp her, and in her place he saw a sword glowing from hilt to point with an eldritch golden light. Down its blade were incised shining runes of power, strong against evil. He reached for it, but it swung from his grasp, and he saw that it was wielded by a maiden in shimmering silver armor; her face was wild and fair beyond mortal beauty. With a cold and pitying glance she rode away from him, climbing the sky on a steed shod with the wind; and there roared between them a great billowing fire, but whether his father or some other warrior lay there and was consumed he could not tell.

  He woke from the dream amazed and trembling, heartsick with loneliness and grief. He slept no more that night, but sat brooding with his head on his arms before the campfire.