It was hard for the boy to keep his mind clear. His body was freezing. The wind pulled at the cloak and tried to tear his hood back. His ears were numb. Concentrate. Concentrate,he thought.

What an awful fix they were in. They’d probably die before the Jotuns had a chance to bite off their legs. This world belonged to the frost giants, and they’d snuff out any fire before it got going. Jack felt overpoweringly sleepy. It would be so nice to give himself up to drowsiness. Lie down, boy,the frost giants whispered. It’s a fine old bed, ice is.

“I’m freezing,” said Jack aloud.

It’s only freezing if you think it is,the Bard said.

“That’s all right for you,” Jack said resentfully. “You’re sitting under an apple tree on the Islands of the Blessed. Winter never comes there. Here it never leaves.”

Are you sure?said the Bard.

“It’s supposed to be summer,” Jack agreed. “It’s only cold because of the nasty trolls and their nasty ice mountain. They aren’t happy unless everything’s half dead. But they’re wrong. It issummer. The sun’s just waiting to rise on the other side of those mountains.” He searched for it, felt its midday heat. Light was always there if you knew how to look for it.

Jack felt more confident. Magic seemed a lot closer to the surface here. Just look how easy it had been to see Yggdrassil. And he felt the whisper, whisper, whisperof the lives around him. Olaf had said it was the thoughts of the Jotuns, but Jack knew better. It was them all right, but also the hawks, the trees, the fish—everything that lived in Jotunheim. What Jack heard was the breath of life itself moving throughout this strange land.

Jack reached down for the buried sunlight of summers past. He traveled through cold and darkness until he found it burning furiously at the heart of the frost giants’ world. It was at war with the ice. At his call it roared forth, eating its way out. It boiled up, sweeping all in its path—

Thorgil screamed a warning. Jack opened his eyes. Here, there, everywhere puffs of light appeared in the deadfall as the moss kindled. Flames spread rapidly, hissing and crackling in the dry pine needles. The twigs caught, the branches flared, and then the tree trunks exploded in a sheet of flame that rose and twisted up into a massive pillar.

Jack was so alarmed, he ran for the shelter of the rocks. He and Thorgil clung to each other, enmity forgotten, as the pillar rose higher. It put out flaming branches like a tree, spangling the night with whirling sparks. The heat was so intense, they had to hide behind the boulders. Bold Heart clawed his way out of the bag, and Jack swept him to safety.

“I should be with Olaf!” Thorgil cried suddenly. She began to crawl toward the flames. Jack hauled her back by her good ankle.

“You idiot! He wanted you to live!”

“I don’t care! I want to go to Valhalla!”

“Then why don’t I just knock you on the head with a rock?” he yelled, beside himself with fury.

“No! No!” she screamed, her voice full of real panic now. “If a warrior dies by the hand of a thrall, he doesn’t go to Valhalla. He goes straight to Hel. It’s a shameful death.”

“Then stay here,” Jack snarled. “Live, damn you, or I willknock you on the head with a rock!”

“You wouldn’t be so cruel!” she wailed.

“Try me!”

A shrill cry made them stop in the middle of their fight. It came again, growing louder. Jack looked up and saw the dragon sweeping toward them. She flew over the pillar of fire with a harsh scream, swerved, and came back again. The light reflected on her belly and the undersides of her wings. Back and forth she went, like a sheet of living gold, screaming her challenge at the fire.

For challenge it was, Jack realized. “She thinks another dragon has invaded her valley,” he murmured.

“No. She’s honoring Olaf,” said Thorgil. Her face was shiny with tears, and Jack didn’t contradict her. Perhaps the dragon washonoring Olaf. They were both creatures larger and grander than normal beings. Perhaps even now Olaf was watching this tribute from the gate of Valhalla and thinking he had a finer funeral than had ever been seen in Middle Earth.

Dawn reddened the ice mountain, and a cold wind rose and swirled the ashes of Olaf’s funeral pyre into a gray cloud. They turned white when they reached the sunlit upper air and streamed away to the south. A few charred logs marked out the edge of the deadfall, but all the rest had vanished. The river flowed through the middle as though nothing had ever been there.

Jack went through their meager stores. They had a bag of dried fish, a skin for water, the flask of poppy juice. For weapons Thorgil and Jack had their knives—Thorgil’s sword had disappeared in the deadfall—and she had a battle-axe.

“You should leave me behind,” said Thorgil.

“Why? Your ankle will heal,” Jack said.

“Not soon enough. I’ll wait here for the dragon and make my stand.”

“Nobody’s waiting for the dragon. You’re coming with me or I’ll knock you on the head.” Now that Jack had discovered how terrified Thorgil was of dying by the hand of a thrall, he knew he had a weapon against her. He’d never have killed her, but she didn’t know that. She judged him by her own behavior.

“That only means we’ll bothbe eaten somewhere else,” she said with a melancholy smile.

Jack took Thorgil’s axe and hiked into the forest to look for a stick she could use for a crutch. He found an ash tree—unusual in such cold woods—and chopped off two branches. One had a fork at one end for Thorgil to lean on. The other was a staff for himself. He hadn’t planned to make one, but the gnarled wood reminded Jack of the blackened staff the Bard had used. It gave him a strange feeling to hold it, as though he were following a trail the old man had made long ago.

On the way back Jack gathered a patch of early cloudberries for Thorgil. “ Youeat them,” she said with a sigh, pushing them away. “They’re wasted on me, for I shall soon die.”

Jack was tired of arguing with her. He shared the cloudberries with Bold Heart, and they all had a long drink of water. He pulled Thorgil to her feet. She immediately slumped to the ground. He pulled her up again. “Come on! You have to try!” he cried as she collapsed.

“It’s pointless. I’ll fight the dragon here.”

Jack hauled Thorgil up, none too gently, and tried to plant the crutch under her arm. She hurled it away.

“You will… use…this crutch,” Jack said between gritted teeth. “You will… walk…with me, or I will… knock you on the head with a rock and send you straight to Hel!”He retrieved the crutch, and Thorgil, her mouth twisted with rage and pain, obeyed him. She refused any help and Jack didn’t care. He had enough trouble carrying Bold Heart and the supplies.

Slowly, they crept along the valley floor. Jack led the way with the crow on his shoulder. Bold Heart couldn’t fly and might never do so again. He seemed lively enough, though, and muttered to himself as he dug his claws into Jack’s tunic.

The boy looked up to see a puff of smoke from a cliff. He knew the dragon was up there, brooding, perhaps on a nest full of dragonlets. She’d be hungry long before they got to the ice mountain.

At night they camped in the open. Jack made a small fire of lichen and moss, but it burned quickly and soon left them as cold as ever. They huddled together under their two cloaks with Bold Heart between. Sleep was fitful. Thorgil woke up weeping. Jack dreamed of dragons. When he couldn’t sleep, he thought of trolls and how to catch their attention with the gold chess piece before he got his leg bitten off.

When day came, they crept on. There were no trees now and no bushes. The patches of snow were larger and the ground was treacherous with ice, which slowed them even more. Jack noticed that as Thorgil weakened, she became a lot easier to live with. She stopped calling him a thrall, and she thanked him once when he handed her the water bag. Perhaps she didn’t have the energy to be evil.