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there’d seemed no limit to their achievements, either spiritually or geographically. Legends told how they’d even reached Africa and the Americas. Good Lord … four of the world’s seven continents contacted five centuries before Columbus, and with what? Crude weapons and flimsy longships.
    Yes … it was difficult, if not impossible, to hate any race of men who could achieve so much with so little. To fear them, on the other hand? That was a different matter. Fearing them was easily possible. And in that moment, like a dash of cold water, Alan remembered exactly where he’d heard about Skadi’s Viper.
    And it had everything to do with fear.
    Wonderingly, he walked away from the precipice to the tunnel mouth, where the portal-stone still lay on its tarpaulin bed. In the bright morning light, the carved serpent looked even more beautiful than it had before, the endless coils of its body interwoven with near mathematical precision, filling almost every inch of the exposed surface.
    Skadi’s Viper … indeed; in fact, now that he thought about it, without any doubt at all.
    The story concerned Loki, the Norse god of Evil. It told how, weary of his many crimes and fearful of what he might do next, the other gods took Loki and bound him in perdition with mighty chains; the goddess Skadi then added to these a poisonous serpent or viper, a creature so monstrous that it was thought no-one and nothing could escape its clutches. According to the legend, of course, that thinking proved incorrect.
    Alan regarded the stone with a new fascination, and then he thought about the opened barrow behind him, and how this too had been incarceration of a sort. He chuckled, genuinely amused.
    All the same, there was a faint but undeniable chill in the pit of his stomach.
6
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    Linda was knee-deep in the water, bathing.
    Alan came up to the shoreline and watched her for a moment. He wasn’t sure if she was aware of him. As the rest of the camp was still fast asleep, she had stripped down to a pair of skimpy knickers and, though the water was evidently cold, she was luxuriating in its cleansing caresses. She had produced a sponge from somewhere, and was working it slowly over every shining inch of her supple, athletic form. As he watched, her thin cotton panties turned filmy and transparent. The arousal this brought him was agonising in its intensity.
    â€œSo you’re a voyeur now?” she suddenly asked, without turning to look at him.
    â€œIs that a problem?” he wondered, nervously.
    Linda smiled to herself. “I doubt it would look good on a CV.”
    Her apparent lack of concern gave him new courage. “I mean is it a problem for you … me watching?”
    In response, she rolled the sponge over her small, firm breasts, the peaks of which came perkily erect. “It’s nothing you haven’t seen before, I suppose.”
    â€œThat isn’t answering the question,” Alan said, drawing his t-shirt over his head.
    She made no reply; didn’t even seem to notice as he unlaced his boots, kicked them off, removed his socks, then waded out into the pool in his corduroy pants. Now she turned to face him, apparently surprised, though whether this was in pretence or not, he couldn’t tell. She folded her arms across her breasts, though dark fur was clearly visible through her soaked underwear.
    â€œWhat do you want?” she said, as he came up to her.
    Alan gazed boldly down at her. “What do you think?”
    Suddenly she looked innocent, child-like. Despite the warm sunlight, she was shivering. “I thought we agreed …”
    â€œWe agreed nothing,” he interjected. “I told you, that incident at the party was a complete mistake … I owned up to it straight away, didn’t I?”
    Linda stared up at him for a few seconds, uncertain. Then she made a move away. “I think it’s better if we just forget everything