Riding in darkness before the first moon rose, Bern Thorkellson thought bitterly about the bonds of family. He could smell his own fear and laid a hand forward on the horse's neck to gentle it. It was too black to go quickly on this rough ground near the woods, and he could not—for obvious reasons—carry a torch.

He was entirely sober, which was useful. A man could die sober as well as drunken, he supposed, but had a better chance of avoiding some kinds of death. Of course it could also be said that no truly sober man would have done what he was doing now unless claimed by a spirit himself, ghost-ridden, god-tormented.

Bern didn't think he was crazed, but he'd have acknowledged freely that what he was doing—without having planned it at all—was not the wisest thing he'd ever done.

He concentrated on riding. There was no good reason for anyone to be abroad in these fields at night—farmers would be asleep behind doors, the shepherds would have their herds farther west—but there was always the chance of someone hoping to find a cup of ale at some hut, or meeting a girl, or looking for some-thing to steal.

He was stealing a dead man's horse, himself.

A warrior's vengeance would have had him kill Halldr Thinshank long ago and face the blood feud after, beside whatever distant kin, if any, might come to his aid. Instead, Halldr had died when the main crossbeam of the new house he was having built (with money that didn't belong to him) fell on his back, breaking it. And Bern had stolen the grey horse that was to be burned with the governor tomorrow.

It would delay the rites, he knew, disquiet the ghost of the man who had exiled Bern's father and taken his mother as a second wife. The man who had also, not incidentally, ordered Bern himself bound for three years as a servant to Arni Kjellson, recompense for his father's crime.