The wind from the fjord carried the smell of tar, salt and freshly planed wood. In the jarl's long house a bonfire was burning, and shadows danced over the flames like slender black crows. On the shore, men carried oars, girls tied thongs and boys practised javelin throwing in the amber light of evening. The jarl's new drakkar, christened Silver Thunder, rested on the water just off the pier. It had slender sides, deep tar scales and a dragon's head on its prow, carved in such a way that it seemed about to hiss. Edda, the eleven-year-old daughter of a fisherman, sat on a beam above the yard with her legs hanging down like two oars. In her hands she was turning a thin strip of birch bark on which someone had carved lines with fine incisions. Next to her stood Ivar, a year older, with a sun-baked nose and hair in disarray from the wind. He was pretending to count the pegs in the hull, but every now and then he glanced at the trough in his sister's hand. - 'Grandmother Astrid said it was an old sign from the skalds,' whispered Edda as they both slid down and hid the thin bark in the shadow of the rope box. - She said it should be applied to a place that cries out for a story on its own. - And what does that mean? - Ivar crinkled his eyebrows the way the jarl did when he didn't like the answer. - A place can call out? Edda looked around. Long shadows of mountains glided across the water, and above them rose rocks called Troll's Teeth. Against their backdrop, the Silver Thunder looked like it was ready to leap. Suddenly, the girl felt something pulling at her - not a hand, not a rope, but a curiosity that managed to be stronger in her than reason. - 'Maybe this,' she said quietly, pointing to the dragon's head on the prow. - 'Look at these notches. Some look like lines on the bark. Ivar jumped off the platform onto a stone and cautiously approached the prow. There were indeed tiny grooves on the dragon's carved maw, so thin that only very careful eyes could see them. Ivar leaned in close enough to smell the resin. - 'We must not go in there,' he reminded, although he was already climbing aboard. - 'Jarl Gunnar said that tomorrow morning everyone who doesn't have a beard or their own oar stays away from the drakkar. - 'Grandmother Astrid also said that sometimes you have to go where others are afraid to look if you want to hear a good song,' Edda replied and smiled briefly. - Besides, no one will see. The sun is setting and everyone is by the fire. The deck was cool and smelled of tar. The ropes crunched quietly, as if whispering among themselves. Edda pressed a strip of bark against the left side of the dragon's neck. Nothing. She moved it lower. Further silence. Finally, she leaned in so that her cheek touched the cool wood. And then the corner of the bark caught on a small indentation in the carving, exactly where the depiction of the scales was getting shallower. The line on the bark and the line on the dragon's neck met like two banks of the same river. - 'Look,' she hissed. - Fitting. Ivar knelt down next to her and held the bark. For a moment they just breathed. And then the moon, thin as a silver claw, slid out from behind a cloud and touched the bark and the wood at the same time. The cuts on both materials trembled. They did not flare like fire, but began to glow milky, as if someone had poured ice over them and the light had passed through the frosty skin. The lines merged into a larger pattern. Edda opened her eyes wider. - This looks like a map,' she whispered. - 'See, here are the Troll's Teeth, and here is the current that always pushes us down. But this line leads ... - she hesitated, unsure if she should say it out loud. - ...straight between the rocks. - Stupidity - snorted Ivar, although he couldn't look away either. - It's shallow there, and the waves beat like hammers. Whoever swims this way comes back on his shield. - And yet - Edda slid her finger over the illuminated line without touching it. - Someone had cut it out. Someone who knew more than we did. Wood crunched on the platform and the siblings instantly stood still. But it was only the old carpenter Hauk who walked over, humming something under his breath, and disappeared into the shadows. Their laughter came from the campfire. Someone blew a horn and a short, cheerful sound drifted out over the water. Edda and Ivar lowered their heads, as if they had suddenly become part of the bench. When it was quiet again, Ivar straightened up first. - 'Let's put this down and go back,' he said. - Tomorrow we'll tell Astrid's grandmother. Let her see it. But Edda wasn't ready yet. As she peeled the bark away from the carving, she felt something else under her fingers: a tiny, almost invisible rune, hidden under the dragon's scales. Before, it had not glowed. Now it shone so delicately that you almost had to swipe it with your eyes. The girl bit her lip. - Do you know what this means? - she asked. - Grandmother said it was a sign of passage. For something to work, you have to hear the call and respond. - That what? - Ivar looked at her as if she had just tried to persuade him to dance with a bear. - 'You have to blow the horn,' Edda stated and looked over to the stern, where a small signal horn hung, not yet consecrated before the expedition. - Just keep it quiet. - Edda... - groaned Ivar, but it was too late. The girl grasped the horn carefully, as if she were holding a chick. She put it to her lips and blew so lightly that the sound was more a sigh than a signal. Nevertheless, it spilled over the deck and dripped down the sides like water. The moon faded for a moment, and the fine ripples on the thin skin of the fjord ceased to tremble. Silence fell over the settlement like a fur coat. - 'Oh no,' whispered Ivar. - No one could hear that. Not even the dogs. Edda slowly put the horn down. A chill enveloped them, but not the usual, nocturnal kind; this one was a deep cold that remembered very old winters. Somewhere far away, beyond the Troll's Teeth, as if underwater, there sounded a long, bassy tone. It was not the sound of their horn. Nor was it a cheerful voice from the campfire. It was a cry, to which the fjord responded with a tremor. - Did you hear it? - Edda crouched down, as if to become thinner than a shadow. Ivar did not answer. He looked overboard. An angular shadow emerged from the mist that had begun to roll across the water like milk from an overturned jug. At first he thought it was a boulder. Then he saw a vertical line - a mast. A ship. It sailed slowly, with no oars, no people on board. Its sail was sheathed in patches so bright that in the moonlight they looked like the ribs of a great fish. - 'Someone's coming towards us,' Ivar whispered, although he knew that no man was at the helm. - Or something. The Silver Thunder's dragon's head squeaked, as if the wood had stretched. Edda felt a gentle tremor under her hands. The sculpture's features - hitherto motionless and proud - seemed to sharpen, and the dragon's eyes now shone a little brighter than the runes. The girl and the boy looked at each other. Something in them wanted to shout for help, but another part - the part that likes the songs of the sele and the aurora over the fjord - told them to keep quiet and watch. The shadow of the ship was growing. Fog smeared its side and the ions of waves smeared the stars in its reflection. The water, hitherto firm and moving, now lay as smooth as a whale's skin. Somewhere in the nearby bushes a grouse whimpered, then came total silence again. And then something light tapped on the plank near their feet. A crow's feather. It fell from the beam above them. A black, shiny shape scuffed the air and perched on the cleat. The crow's beak contacted, contacted, and it tapped three times, as if counting. - Edda - Ivar barely moved his lips. - Don't move. A new sound came from the mist, shorter and higher, like a string being dragged across the ice. Edda felt the tiny sign of passage under her fingers again, hidden beneath the dragon's scales. For a split second, she was sure that the drakkar was listening, as if it were alive. That it was waiting for an answer as much as they were. At the same moment, the water next to the side moved, as if the fjord had taken a breath. A dark shape appeared on the surface. First an edge - smooth and hard - then a second flash, like an eye. Something brushed the boards of the boat from the outside, very gently, once, a second time.... and then it knocked on the side a third time, clearly, with a deep echo, straight from under the Silver Thunder.