(title hidden — not yet read)

(summary hidden — not yet read)

John, Sefawynn, Ealstan and a roped-along Quinn scramble up the wall-walk over Maelport and see what is coming out of the fog: hundreds of Hordamen ships, packed thick as storm-wrack on the water. The first warriors are already off the boats — disciplined ranks, shields, helms, mail and leather. Not the screaming barbarians John had in his head from pop history; a real fighting force with a sailing-tech edge.

Then a spear of lightning splits the sky and the thunderclap nearly puts him flat. So much for the city gates. *Woden is with them,* Sefawynn whispers. *And there are so many.*

Ealstan turns on Quinn — *Aelv Quinn* — and proposes, in deadly earnest, that they persuade Ulric to put aside their feud against the greater threat. Quinn asks if he is for real, decides he is, and tells John to put the gun away — John is not going to shoot him, that is a hell of a lot of Vikings for two pairs of platings to handle, they will have to bring the rest of the gang through. *How?* John asks. Quinn says obviously through Ryan's beacon. *Reinforcements.*

Wait. What.

John's brain catches up in a single click. Ulric has no second beacon. Ryan was wrong about that. Ulric needs one to get anyone in or out — which is why he went to Stenford in person to investigate the aelv arrival, and why Quinn was so excited to bring news of Ryan back to him. The only door out of this dimension is Ryan's. Which means Ryan is in danger right now. John lowers the gun. Quinn runs off. He might have just made a mistake; he is too rattled to be sure.

And the bigger picture is rolling in around him too. The Hordamen are not a raid this time — this is a full invasion, and Sefawynn's whole nation is about to be erased. *Woden brought them here,* she whispers. *He is doing this on purpose.* Above them the thunderheads boil in supernaturally fast, crackling. John is not going to argue with the expert; this is a god's work. *Why?* she keeps asking the sky. *Why side against us? Are we not diligent enough?* Ealstan tells her flat: Woden has never rewarded diligence; only blood, carnage, conquest.

John floats the only idea he has — get Ryan to call in Seattle's finest, his old anti-cartel division, real weapons in real numbers. The leaf-rustle voice in his ear — Thokk over the comm he does not have — says quietly that this would only be an invasion of a different kind. He does not have a better idea. *Let's go find Ryan,* he says.

Then Ealstan — the wall, the Vikings, everything pressing in — offers in even voice to die. He is no earl, but he is the highest-born blood here; if John spills his heart's blood as a sacrifice, it might turn Woden's favor. The way he says it is the way a man who has bled every day for his people for too long, and has nothing left to give but the last of himself. John tells him no. *Come with me instead. We'll find another way. Please. Trust me.* Ealstan tells him quietly that he owes John his life and the lives of Stenford, and will follow him to hell if asked. John takes it as the gift it is.

Sefawynn points across the city to a jagged black runestone in the central square — bigger than the ones they have seen, dark, not glowing at all. *The city defenses might stand stronger with my boasts. The wights might help.* Ealstan shakes his head where she cannot see; he does not believe it, but neither does he stop her. Ryan's men have already joined the wall — Anglo-Saxons closing with Anglo-Saxons against the worse foe.

John is being crushed between two terrible choices. If he saves the place from the Hordamen by importing his own world, Ryan will own this dimension as surely as Ulric would. If he doesn't, the Hordamen win. He breaks the spiral by asking about Thokk. The other two glance knowingly at each other. He tells them off — she has *told* him you think she's a witch, she is putting it on — and they let it pass. *If we're going to help,* Ealstan says, *we should move quickly.* Hordamen come to pillage; the dead will be the lucky ones.

They climb back down and run for Ulric's compound, John navigating off the city map screenshotted onto his visual overlay. The streets are weirdly hollow — everyone is at the wall — and there are shouts and shield-cracking from beyond. Sefawynn breaks off at the central square and runs for the runestone. Ealstan and John crouch at the shuttered, locked side of the meeting hall. John sets a berry on top of one shutter and asks his wight for the locks. *One berry?* the leaf-voice complains. *You want me to stop Ulric or not?* he hisses back. *It's the principle.* The electronic locks click open.

He eases the shutter and looks in. Electric light, garish to his eyes now, on metal-clad walls. Ulric is inside with a bound Ryan on the dim side of the room, holding the beacon up grinning. The room flashes. Three people step out of nowhere — two armored troopers with assault rifles, and a woman with a portal-rig backpack he recognises as Marta, Ulric's dimensional expert. *Seems like you've been having some trouble, boss,* she says. *Came as soon as the beacon came back online.* Ulric tells her to set the portal back up — this dimension is going to be useful, but for now he is sick of its stench.

The whole timeline drops into place in John's head. Ulric came through to investigate this dimension's probability-bending nature. Ryan tracked him here with an emergency beacon he had been given, sabotaged the equipment a week ago and stranded him. But why didn't Ryan then leave? *Wait. I wonder where Ryan got that beacon.* Ulric knew Ryan would come back to finish the job, and waited for him — and in catching him, took the very door he had been missing. Ryan carried it in. *Hot damn,* John thinks. *He's not perfect, is he?*

He squints at Ryan's inside contact slumped beside him on the dim side of the room, and dials his optics in on her face as she looks up. It is Jen.