He was in the middle of a wood. His clothes were damp, as was his hair and face. Droplets tricked down his neck and shoulders; not perspiration but water with a faint sea stink, like what he had smelled when plowing the sea as an oarsman on the longship. When he took a step forward, his legs wobbled and buckled, as if they were accustomed to traversing a swaying deck and must now reacquaint themselves with level ground. He glanced behind, half-expecting to see a moored vessel buttressed against an embankment beyond a line of trees. But there was only dense, craggy forest.

Sunlight filtered through the canopy. An abundance of shade pervaded, but the air was thick, onerous. The mysterious dampness that had slicked his body was overtaken by unmistakable sweat.

“Okay,” he whispered to himself. “Take your bearings. One step at a time, Rich.”

The trees around him were close-knit, immense, and menacing; oak-thorns, birches, and bays mostly, with elms and chestnuts peeking through here and there. A curious variety. The ground was soggy and riddled with twigs, leaves, and matted grasses. All around were bristly shrubs, clumps of gorse, ferny copses, and thorn thickets. The forest had donned its war-mail, as if it were expecting a bruising. Figworts with purplish clusters splashed color on the breastplates of brown and green. The rich soil and blankets of leaves underfoot gave off a shrewd, salty scent that was far from unpleasant. He heard sounds of nearby water: a freshet or stream blithely proceeding along its course as the forest crouched in a defensive position.

Animals were scarce. Not a fox or squirrel was to be seen, nor an insect to deliver a bite or a sting. But there was birdsong. Starlings, thrushes, and wagtails warbled from their overhead abodes. Farther off, echoing among the trees, a succession of harmonies were sent in answer.

He followed the sunbeams and emerged into a bright, circumscribed glade. Tufts of hassock and assorted tall grasses brushed his legs and snagged at his belt. The sun blazed overhead, working hard to erase all traces of recent rains, as he moved along the clearing’s edge, feet sinking into fresh mud. A sudden, bitter wind dismissed the heat, and something at the other end of the glade caught Richard’s eye. He traversed the green circle to take a closer look.

A group of standing-stones were arrayed along the forest edge. Some were toppled and covered in moss while others were bare and upright. Richard counted twelve stones in all, and each was between five and fifteen feet in length. They were arranged in circular pattern, the remnants of an ancient henge. He approached the largest of the menhirs and ran his hand along its surface. It was cold and smooth, like winter-chilled skin. His fingertips tingled; they could tell that a power had once dwelled here, fierce and uncorrupted, resistant to ruin, preserved by long-dead stonemasters. In his reading, he’d learned about how Norse peoples would carve runes into standing-stones to commemorate the dead or record their achievements. But these stones were blank, which made them all the more chilling. He’d also read about the Druids, the Celtic priests who were said to have performed human sacrifices in stone rings such as this one, though the archaeological evidence for such practices was slim. Richard hurried on, disquieted.

He soon came upon a grassy field bordered by reed-choked marshland. Hillocks peppered with sedge and bulrushes undulated into the distance, and beyond them loomed larger peaks smudged with cloudy haze. He guessed the time to be mid-morning (although he really had no idea), and the season late spring or early summer. It was daytime, and it was hot—that much was certain. Apprehension burrowed in. A trek across an unknown land under a brutish sun? (He was already feeling homesick for his basement, his recliner, his books, his Saturday morning coffee and cruller at Dunkin’ Donuts.) He considered retreating into the forest to gather what food and water he could, and then waiting for dusk to explore the borders of the field. This plan was scrapped when he spied a small, humpbacked ridge about a half a mile distant. Thinking (hoping) this might conceal a valley on the far side, and perhaps a more plentiful water source, perhaps even people, he trudged a few hundred yards in what he believed to be an easterly direction. Going forth into the wilderness had worked in the ice world, why not this one? And, his reasoning went, he’d pretty much doubled down on his sanity waiting for the Sphericals to hear his prayers for another adventure. How could he possibly back down now?

Tall grasses subsided to drier, weedy terrain as Richard ventured closer to the base of the ridge. Here and there bushes burst with pink berries. He passed a shallow ditch and a spinney of strange trees, tall and slender with bark a cold-corpse color and bristly leaves the size of lily pads, green in the center but bleeding into a deep blue around the edges. A smooth brown fruit the size and shape of a pomegranate dangled from the lower branches. He hacked one down with his sword and tried to reach the pulp, but the husk was like iron. After several attempts he gave up and tossed the orb aside.

The land began to slope upward, and Richard noticed a curl of smoke rising into the cloudless sky. It appeared to be coming from beyond the ridge, though he could not tell for certain. He would need to ascend to the ridgeline it to get a decent view. He was thankful that he was not particularly hungry, thirsty, or tired. In fact, he was wide awake, and filled with wonder. He was here, wherever here was. He thought of his knobby-kneed father scrambling up a ridge like this one in his own sphere world and chuckled at the preposterous image. He pressed on. If the smoke turned out to be nothing, no matter; he could double back to the forest and pick up two or three of those brown fruits on the way. If need be, he would smash them on a rock to get at the pulp. He could also sample the pink berries, knowing that he might have to puke them up if he sensed that they were poisonous.

As he started up the slope, he discovered that he’d misjudged the ascension. The incline was much steeper than he’d thought, the distance longer. Drenched with sweat and huffing (if I make it back, I’m joining a gym—or at least stick to a sit-up regimen), he finally reached the crest and peered down the rocky slope. A valley was tucked beneath the ridge. To his left—which he assumed to be north—rose sheer limestone cliffs down which tepid waterfalls trickled into a muddy river. The river, more like a generous rill with wide, low banks, wended lackadaisically to the south, where it disappeared about a half-mile distant behind a cluster of burnished boulders. Further on, beyond the valley to the east, was another line of weather-scored cliffs that resembled great petrified mudbanks. Here and there along the cliff-wall, gnarled scrub and twiggy plants clung for dear life to protuberances of rock.

Nestled on the far side of the river between the huge rock faces was a small town—or the ruins of one. He could make out only two or three hut-like structures through the smoke, the source of which, he discovered when he reached them, was a number of small fires along the riverbank. No one was in sight. Eager to get a better look, he started down the hill too hastily and almost lost his footing. A stumble would have killed him, for the slope here was sharper and craggier than on the side of the ridge that faced the field. He stepped down and saw that the kindling for the fires was what looked to be burlap and straw, along with linens and clothing. A brief gust whipped the fumes into a frenzy, and a blast of foul air invaded his nostrils, causing him to hack and wheeze, tears streaming from his reddening eyes. Then, as quickly as it had arrived, the wind died. Greeted once again with clean, clear air, his throat unclenched, his eyes were relieved of stinging pressure, and the town returned to his sight.

As Richard moved forward and down with ginger steps, the town came into clearer focus. The dwellings were a mix of squat shanties, cabins, and cottages arranged in rows, about sixty in all. Each was made of a framework of timber beams enclosed with planks, roofed with wattles and thatch. From what he could tell, none of the buildings contained a scrap of metal or a pane of glass. Gaps hacked into the walls served as windows. Without exception, every thatch roof was slumped with water, which sluiced into the muck below, creating inch-deep moats that rats would attempt to cross in the cover of night.

The remains of a palisade compassed the town on its north and south sides, extending from the base of the north-side cliffs, curving eastward toward the far ridge, and then vanishing into shadow. It reemerged to the south and continued its circle around the town. The fence posts consisted of sanded floor planks, thick oak pillars, stained pine bench boards, hastily carved pikes, and strung-together tree limbs and boles still wearing their bark. Most of the poles and pillars looked as though they’d been snapped, splintered, bent aside, or ripped directly from their foundations. Some of the gaps were so wide that a brigade marching five abreast could pass through without tightening formation.

There had once been a gate on the eastern side of the palisade, but now a barely recognizable portico topped with wooden crossbeams and horizontal stones that looked ready to slip from their perches marked the primary entrance. Posting sentries along the palisade’s perimeter would have been pointless. To guard all of the apertures would require the participation of at least half the townsfolk, probably more.

He wondered where the town’s residents might be. The riverside fires were fresh, so surely there were people nearby. Best not to startle them. He laid his sword and shield in the grass, got down on his belly, slithered behind an outcropping, and waited.

Within minutes, a man exited one of the dilapidated huts. He was young, with matted, soot-colored hair, a deathly pale countenance, and cadaverous features. He wore loose-fitting leather breeches, a scruffy tunic cinched with a rope belt, and a gray, knee-length sheepskin cloak. His feet were unshod. A woman emerged from the same hut and stood next to the man in the dust-blown lane that ran between two rows of domiciles. Her attire was the same as his except that her cloak was waist-high and black. Clutching the woman’s wool-sheathed arm was a child, a little girl, similarly cloaked. The beshrouded family shuffled over to the nearest fire and sat in the dust, huddling close to stay warm even though the day was balmy. A moment later, the man unhooked from his belt a flat piece of wrought iron, and the woman produced three eggs from inside her cloak. The man held the improvised skillet over the fire as she cracked the eggs onto it one by one, spilling their innards.

More wretched souls drifted into the open to tend their fires. One man held a tarnished axe-head, decapitated from its handle. He hacked off small blocks from one of the fence posts and stacked them around his fire. An old woman employed a three-pronged gardening tool to rake up fallen thatch, which she distributed evenly around the base of hers, which flared skyward and crackled in response. Stray livestock wove among the fires and folk, grazing on whatever weeds and grains could be plucked from the dirt. Goats, lambs, fowl, and the occasional foal nuzzled up to the children, who pawed at the adults, most of whom were too busy staring blankly into their blazes to pay any notice. Some of the townsfolk herded their animals with holly branches, which had left sores and welts in the beasts’ hides, many of which had been cured with tar. Behind each of the huts was an open pit of three to four feet in diameter that served as a latrine, most of which were overflowing. The wind had gone stone still, and the only sounds were the continuous hiss of burning things and the switch, switch of holly on hide. All was rubbish, dearth, dirt. These people aren’t just poor, Richard thought. Something bad happened here.

Suddenly a man burst into view, disrupting the scene. He was armored—hauberk, silver armlets, silver greaves, rawhide boots, and a baldric, on which was fastened a bonework horn. (Richard recalled his reading: hunting and drinking horns were the possessions of warriors and were often found at Norse and Anglo-Saxon burial sites.) The man marched up and down the thoroughfare, shouting at the top of his voice toward each of the huts. Chain-mail clinked and swished, and the wooden shield slung on his back clapped rhythmically against his metal garment with each martial stride. He slashed the air with a battle-axe, flailing like a berserker. His manner and appearance seemed bizarrely out of place in the midst of such despairing stillness. His face was hidden behind a visored helmet adorned on either side with silver eagle’s wings. Richard recalled the axe-wielding instructor from the B.L.A.D.E.S. gathering. Jim didn’t introduce us. What did he say about him? That he worked only with “advanced pupils”?

In response to the axeman’s bellowing, more people emerged from the shadows of their blackened huts. These newcomers—about thirty in all—were also armor-clad, though their battle-dress was much less impressive, consisting of leather cuirasses and vests and no iron. The weapons they wielded were equally unspectacular: wooden clubs, javelins, and sharpened stakes. Some bore dish-sized shields and long daggers. They moved sluggishly toward their decidedly unsluggish summoner, weapons drooping at their sides, as though each of them was wearied beyond usefulness. And yet they managed to form three tight ranks before turning to face this imposing man who commanded them. Not all in this shabby-looking group were men; two stone-jawed women stood among them, conspicuous by their shapeliness and long plaited tresses bound with ribbon. The townsfolk tending the fires paid the soldiers little mind and continued to cook their breakfasts and warm their gaunt bodies.

The commander looked his troops up and down. He was at least a foot taller than the tallest of them, with broad shoulders and thighs like blocks of mutton. He paced back and forth, raising a puff of dust with each pivot, and then stopped abruptly, turning to face the river. He lifted his visor and removed his helmet, which he tucked under his arm. A long tapering white beard tumbled from his chin and caught the breeze like a pennant. His face was elongated, tawny, hollow-cheeked—the very visage of fierceness. He craned his neck, inhaled deeply, and expelled a phlegm-choked cough when the rank, smoky air tickled his lungs. Performing an about-face, he turned once again to his company and addressed them for the first time:

“Yewhilke āhngrisla akkūnnoþon y’us, nahtōn gūhilke þeginlīkke kempas!”

Richard recalled the CDs and mp3s of scholars reciting Beowulf, elegies, sagas, and sermons in Old English and Old Norse. The language the axeman spoke was phonetically similar to these languages (which were themselves similar to each other), but Richard had absorbed enough of them to be able to recognize that his inflection, syntax, and vocabulary were unique. The moment he became aware of this fact, something that he could only describe as magical occurred. The axeman’s native tongue resolved into comprehension, like a river reclaiming its identity after bursting a dike. Richard decided then and there to believe that the Sphericals had granted him this gift, because he’d spent days reading and studying the “OE” and “ON”. As he listened to the man bellow forth—in perfect English—he wondered what other surprises were in store.

“…but we must fight! We can cower no longer when the sky-menace comes, screaming from dawn’s vaults. If the gods in their halls hear us, they will heed. If they do not, or if they choose not to hear, then the dark-bringer will show us salvation. Your king is counting on you to—”

Richard sneezed. Twice. Three times. Brassy, full-bodied outbursts. He’d been too entranced by what was happening below to see them coming. The man with the axe had stopped speaking. Shit, he heard me.

“Ho!” the man shouted. “You there!”

Richard peeked out from behind the outcropping. The man was looking right at him.

“I see you. You are crouched behind a shrub. And your steel flashes in the sun. No use hiding…or running. If you are a friend of the realm, then approach, and we shall speak as friends. It would be discourteous to make these old bones scale that rock to come to you. I would not appreciate it.”

This is it Rich, you stupid sneezing bastard. No use balling yourself up like an armadillo. It starts now.

Taking up sword and shield, Richard Waters descended the stony slope.