Christofer lay on the bench. Felt the heat pulse under his skin. The woman knelt beside him, dipped the linen, and began cleaning the crusted blood from his face. The water ran pink, then red, then pink again. She wrung it out and pressed fresh against his cheek. The woman paused at his right eye, examining it. His right eye ached in its socket. The woman touching around the eye didn’t exactly help.

  She spoke softly. The words blurred together, incomprehensible. It wasn’t just exhaustion, words couldn't bridge the gap. He squinted, trying to read intent in the set of her mouth, the lines around her eyes. Couldn't.

  “...resembles Proto-Germanic,” rippled out from the gecko.

  The woman looking at him made a pained grin. She stood, and paused. Christofer noticed it as well. The bowl of bloodied water in her arms shimmered, faintly, like oil catching light. Slick and eerie. As if contaminated by something. He uneasily sat up and leaned back.

  ‘That’s not a good sign.’ Christofer thought.

  She took a few steps, set down the bowl and crouched next to Christofer again. He looked into her eyes as she touched the gambeson, tracing the charred runes with one finger, she whispered something. The woman's hand froze on the hem of the gambeson. She leaned closer, examining the runic bands at Christofer's wrists. The linen beneath was woven black with strange fibers, worming their way around the fabric. Troll hairs sprouted around the linen like a forgotten potato. She said something urgent. The elder came closer. Looked. His face went still. He touched one of the bands carefully, pulled his hand back fast.

  "What?" the Captain demanded. "What is it?"

  Felman approached and crouched down next to Christofer and the woman, gesturing to her so that he could start translating. She whispered. He turned around to the captain. Felman pointed to where the woman had been pointing, trying to convey her gestures as well as her words.

  "The... protection? Ward? Something Gerard put on him. It's burning out."

  "Gerard did say that he designed it as a temporary measure," the captain said. "Temporary being the operative word. A stopgap measure, can it be extended?"

  Felman shook his head.

  "She says this is... actually kind of hard to translate… old craft? Troll magic? maybe. She doesn't know how to repair it." Ike stepped closer.

  Christofer’s attention perked up.

  "Is that why I’m glowing?"

  "What happens if it fails?" Felman asked.

  The woman's reply was short. Her tone grim. The captain glanced to Felman.

  "She doesn't know. But the elder says..." Felman paused. "He says magic contained always seeks release. Like water behind a dam."

  He felt the heat under the gambeson pulse. Irregular. Arrhythmic. Like a second heartbeat struggling to find its rhythm.

  "So if this thing fails…" Ike began.

  "The dam breaks," Halvar finished quietly. The Captain looked at Christofer.

  Christofer gave a thumbs up and sighed.

  “Boom.”

  The others didn’t react. The woman spoke again.

  Felman translated.

  "She's asking if we want her to try removing it. Before it fails."

  Silence. The Captain looked at Halvar. Halvar looked at Christofer.

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  "And if you take it off?" the Captain asked.

  Felman translated the response.

  "She says the magic will spread. Fast. She doesn't know what it'll do."

  The others were silent. The Captain sat with Ike near the door. His fingers drumming uneasily on a piece of parchment between them. Christofer watched the Captain's eyes move down it. Stop. Move back up. Ike said something low. He heard the ruffle of parchment as the captain tucked it into his coat. The Captain was saying something about the route.

  The hum of voices blurred together into something fuzzy. Like someone turned down the volume and the light. His attention was drifting. The words had shapes even when the meaning slipped. Then the shapes stopped making shapes. He didn’t even notice his eyes closing.

  * * *

  Christofer came back to Halvar's hand on his shoulder and a different quality of light in the hall. The fire had burned lower. The Captain was gone.

  "You were out for forty minutes," Halvar said. Not accusatory. Just informational.

  His right eye still ached but the skull-deep pressure had eased slightly. Christofer blinked and rolled his head to the side. The hall was still low and smoky. Men sat where they'd dropped, backs against timber walls, weapons across their laps. Some lazily chewing on jerky while half-asleep. He glanced down on the gambeson still on him, filling the gap of the discussion he missed. He was still upright on the bench. He'd apparently just... stopped.

  "Did I fall over?"

  "No."

  "Good."

  He turned his head, finding the Captain and the others. An elder gestured sharply at a map scratched into the dirt floor, speaking rapid Norse. His finger jabbed at a point near the edge.

  "What's he saying?" the Captain asked as Felman leaned closer, brow furrowed.

  "I think... he's saying the beast doesn't cross water? Or... wait, no. It *does* cross water, but not… fuck." He shook his head. "My Norse is shit, sir. Trade dialect, not this."

  “Didn’t he speak English before?” Christofer asked. “Wait, is that another old guy?”

  He squinted, scratching his chin. The elder repeated himself, slower, enunciating. He made a gesture like something leaping, then slashed his hand down. A cutting motion.

  "Ambush," Felman tried. "From above. Stone. He keeps saying *steinn*. Stone."

  "We got that part," the Captain said flatly.

  The elder's eyes narrowed. He said something else, tone sharpening. Felman winced.

  "What?"

  "He... thinks we're not listening. Or we're stupid. Hard to tell which."

  Behind them, villagers watched in silence. One woman whispered something to another. They both looked at Christofer, half-sitting on the bench. The second woman made a warding gesture. Ike shifted his weight.

  "They're talking about him."

  "I know."

  "Should we be worried?"

  The Captain didn't answer. The elder was still talking, frustration bleeding into his voice. Felman tried to follow, failed, held up a hand in apology. The elder spat something that didn't need translation and turned away.

  Christofer exhaled a deep breath. The snow had almost melted off his boots when a horse screamed. Not Gristle. How he could differentiate by the sound to figure that out, he didn’t know. It appeared to be one of the others, outside, tied to the post. A single sharp scream cut off too quickly. Then silence. Then the post snapping. Benches scraped as men lurched upright, the Captain already at the door, blade drawn, before anyone spoke. The second scream wasn't a horse. Christofer pushed himself upright on the bench. His legs shook. The woman who'd been cleaning his face had pressed herself against the far wall, eyes fixed on the ceiling. He followed her gaze.

  The roof beams groaned. Snow cascaded from the thatch. The first sign inside was dust from the beams, fine at first, then falling in sheets as the thatch shifted above them. Sound bled through the walls. Creaking wood. A groan starting low, timber under pressure it wasn't built for. Scraping, something finding purchase on the slope of the roof, claws gouging through snow into the wood beneath. It moved from one end to the other.

  “Well, here we go again.” Christofer said as he stared at the ceiling, following the sound of the groaning wood.

  The thrum of a growl hit the chest first. Deep. Resonant. The kind of sound that old parts of the brain registered before the ears did. It built slowly, like an engine turning over, finding its register. The walls couldn't contain it. The bowls rattled. Then the smell followed it in. Heavy animal musk and beneath it, cold iron. Wet-feather reek of something large that had been out in the snow too long. A soldier's hand went to their sword without them deciding to move it. Gristle's hooves hammered the outside wall. Still tied. Fighting her rope.

  "Norseman." Halvar said, his voice low and hushed. "Can you stand?"

  Christofer looked at his hands. The glow under his bandages pulsed. Irregular. Wrong.

  "Working on it," he said as his hands pushed at his knees.

  The roof beam cracked.