The forest closed around them like a held breath.
Takani moved first, a shadow among shadows, his bare feet treading where oak roots knotted and moss swallowed sound.
He held a reed whistle in one hand and a length of cord in the other, its rawhide looped with knots that matched the signs he made with his fingers.
Around him, the mixed war-band, Norse huskarls in mail brynja and leather lamellar next to painted warriors with bone-tipped spears, followed in single-file, each man learning to take the forest's silence as a guide.
Vetrulfr walked three paces behind, cloak tucked, sword sheathed, eyes bright and quiet as a hunting wolf.
"See how the light dies here?" Takani whispered.
"They wait in the bows, five villages bound as one. They number more than yesterday. They use the hollows and the river-ways. We will not march into their line and hope. We will teach them an older law: the hunter is not found."
