The one was an immense Dane with an immense red beard. His physique seemed to crowd the low room, compressing the others into corners. When he lowered his voice others were put in mind of distant thunder; when he raised it, of thunder bursting directly above their heads. Was a voice that had long led men, had competed with sea-storm and battle-din to be heard, and never could accommodate itself long to more polite indoor tones. The chest whence it emanated bulged like twin shields and gold armlets and ornaments flashed on the giant.

The fifth man of that gathering went cleanshaven as if to flaunt his scars of past combats. He was without ornaments though his black tunic was bordered with gold. His square-cut black hair and dark, somber face made a setting of startling contrast for the cold, narrow eyes in their slitted niches. His rangy body bespoke and radiated a different sort of power from the massive Dane’s; swifter and more compact. His hands, one of which gave pensive support to his chin while the other lay relaxed on the table before him, were long-fingered and sinewy with tendons prominent on their backs. The right had been scarred; as had his face, more than twice. With weapons or unaided, those hands knew all there was to know about the business of killing.

King Veremund, and his brother Irnic, and his mage Zarabdas. And their two… guests. At this moment dreams of these latter two troubled the sleep of a Frank named Sigebert One-ear. Only days agone, they and their crew of reivers, searaiders, had done the Suevic king a high service. Now they spoke of matters more mundane, though of little less import.

They were Wulfhere Hausakluifr and Cormac mac Art of Connacht in Eirrin.

“Trade!” King Veremund said, nigh exploding the word from under his droopy yellow-white moustache. “Shipping! I said once that it has been worse than poor these thirty years, and this supernatural terror that has haunted our shores all but destroyed it. Because of you, my friends, the terror is now destroyed… and yet that is only a beginning. There are other dangers.”