The Long Hunt (The Strongbow Saga) by Judson Roberts

case I have made for your bow. It will protect it aboard ship."
    I lowered my chest to the ground, opened it, and lay the arrows inside. There barely was room for them. I unrolled the sealskin case and slid my bow into it. It was a useful gift which I greatly appreciated. The constant dampness of wave and weather aboard ship can be hard on a bow. "I thank you," I said. "Very much."
    Straightening up, I held out my right arm to clasp wrists with him. He took it, then pulled me close and embraced me. I was too startled to react.
    After a moment, he stepped back and held me at arm's length, his hands gripping my shoulders. His eyes looked moist.
    "You have grown into a fine man," he said. "Your father and Harald would be very proud of you. If you find Toke, be careful. Take no chances with him—kill him as quickly as you can, and be done with it. Then get back here without delay and help me with this hornets' nest you have stirred up and left me to deal with. I am no foreman. I am just a simple carpenter." Dropping his hands and stepping back, Gudrod turned and hurried away, before I could gather my wits enough to answer.
    Fasti was standing off to the side, watching. After Gudrod left, he stepped forward and said, haltingly, "M…Master Halfdan?"
    "I am not your master, Fasti," I told him. "You are free now."
    He stood there, just nodding his head up and down, as his eyes grew moist, too. I felt uncomfortable, and again I could not think of appropriate words to say. I was not used to having anyone care whether I stayed or left. After a long moment he said, in a choked voice, "Thank you. Thank you. May the gods guard you on your voyage, and bring you back to us."
    He paused, then extended his clenched right hand out to me, and opened it. Something covered with black feathers was in his palm.
    "This is Huginn's wing," he said. "The wing that Toke tore off of her. I kept it to remember her by."
    I stared at it, but did not know what I was supposed to say or do.
    "The feathers. Use them for an arrow," Fasti said. "Huginn will make it shoot true. Kill Toke with it."
    Chicken feathers made poor fletching for an arrow. The wing feathers of a goose are longer and stiffer, and better suited. But Fasti did not know that, and I did not tell him. I took the black wing from him. He said nothing more, but nodded his head in thanks, then turned and hurried away.
    At the shore, the Gull and the Serpent , which were tied up along either side of the narrow wooden pier that jutted out into the water, were in the final stages of loading, as the crew members who had, like me, been sleeping ashore, carried their gear to the ships. Near the pier's end, Hastein was wrestling a ram down to the water's edge with the help of Torvald and Stig. I stowed my sea chest and bow aboard the Gull and hurried back to where the two crews' members were gathering around them.
    By now Hastein was standing in the shallows, the waters of the inlet lapping around his ankles, the ram at his left side. Torvald, standing on the sheep's other side, had a horn in each of his big hands, immobilizing its head. Stig stood behind Torvald, both hands buried in the wool on the ram's back, holding its body steady so it could not buck or rear.
    Hastein raised both arms overhead—his golden godi ring around his upper left arm, and a knife in his right hand—and shouted up at the sky.
    "All-Father Odin, mighty, hear us! We ask for your blessing and protection on the voyage we are about to take.
    "We pray to you, mighty Thor, as god of oaths and honor. We go to hunt an oath-breaker, a Nithing who has no honor.
    "We pray to you, wise Odin, as god of vengeance and death. We go to avenge foul treachery and murder. Help us bring death upon those whom we hunt.
    "Brave Thor, master of rain and storm, lord of thunder, grant us fair weather. Accept this blood-offering we give you now. Let the sea drink the blood of this ram, and spare ours. Let its hunger be sated, and spare our ships from