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is all left to the StoneHeart, now, comrade!” The lanky redheaded youth yelled at him as they ran. “Even the booty taken from the merchant’s knorr!”
    Even Broder’s sister was left to the StoneHeart. Broder’s conscience pinched at the trouble he had caused her.
    He recalled the events of days before, the day Llyrica fell into the hands of a flesh peddler and was hauled in Dyre’s ale lodge. Solvieg had joined Broder that night with plans to help Llyrica escape. They arrived in time to see her crawling out of a hole she had just kicked open in the rotted wall. She had also just crawled out from under an unconscious Xanthus, the money purse again in her possession. After vomiting from her experience with the paunchy slaver, Llyrica said she would commit a few crimes that dark night, though it was not in her nature as it was in her brother’s. Solvieg provided two skins of water and two loaves of bread and showed them on which merchant ship they would find a barrel of their wovengoods. Llyrica bade Broder steal a two-man faering and the barrel, tasks she quipped he would be good at. Also in his list of talents was setting things on fire, which she suggested he put to use on Xanthus’ ship, the BoarsJaw. Broder and Llyrica then rowed along the River Trene to where it emptied into the sea. As she firmly insisted, Broder hid her in the barrel and hailed a ship to take them to the Isle. To Danelaw. She seemed to have a specific goal in mind, but did not share it.
    Less than an hour ago, Broder had pushed her barrel from a burning ship, seconds before he jumped in the water. After much chaos, he had found himself saved by unknown hands, sprawled half-drowned on a deck, then came to, joined to the others in a hasty escape. If he could swim, perhaps he would have dived in and returned to Llyrica, stayed with her and shared her fate.
    Now he deemed it too late, especially since this band of roughnecks swept him along. Let things settle a bit, then he would figure a way to get to her.
    “Where are we bound?” Broder called in return. With any luck it would not be so far that Llyrica would come find him.
    “Those who have homes, have gone on,” the boy answered. “Those of us who have not, return to our king and surrogate father, lord Haesten. His fortress is up the Lea to where we will soon return. Now we are encamped near the village of Olavby.”
    The name of the man, whose lore preceded him, caused Broder to break from his trot for a moment, and forget Llyrica entirely. Few young warriors had not heard the legends relating to Haesten’s adventures across the Mediterranean and Francia or his grand feats of warfare. “The same Haesten who killed sixty men in a day? Then escaped capture by leaping from a cliff top onto his horse below? Was it he who sent you out today against the StoneHeart?” Broder looked up the trail through the fen, saw timber dwellings ahead and wondered if he soon would encounter the myth in the flesh.
    “Aye the same! But Loki’s Foot! He did not send us to the task today! We thought to prove ourselves worthy of his army by storming the StoneHeart’s Gate. No doubt he will put us to sharpening spears when he finds out our folly.”
    “I would cut rushes for his floor to enlist in his army!” exclaimed Broder. “Will he take me with the lot of you?” This would prove an even better fate than coming upon fellow miscreants and witnessing a sea battle, though it ended badly and in flames. And with the separation from his sister.
    “He will, so join us ... the six of us. I am Egil. Look there to Lunt, Erik, Kalmin, Gunnar, and Ragnar.” Broder glanced at the boys to each side of him. “Tell me how you are called and how you came to be on the merchant’s knorr.”
    Broder told of his search for adventure, a partial truth that need not include Llyrica. As the young bloods ran on, he pieced together the events that had separated him from his sister. This band of juvenile marauders had