The horse I was on was more restless than the one I usually rode, shaking and moving back and forth, refusing to stay still. Unfortunately, my last mount had disappeared, and I had no idea what had happened to it. It could have been among the beasts killed by the dragon or escaped and then fallen prey to the wolves, but I couldn’t know.

Despite my mother’s bandaging, my arm still hurt like hell, and I didn’t feel entirely confident with the reins. However, being the head of my lineage, I had to ride in front of my family.

It had been a very long night for many families, and they all appeared tired, but we couldn’t leave too late to arrive at the meeting on time. Six householders had died in the dragon attack, and three others were in no condition to go, so new heads of families and their substitutes had to be chosen very quickly. I had never seen such a thing happen in peacetime, and even in history it rarely happened to this extent. To complicate matters further, some direct heirs had also been killed, or were too young to take control of the family, making it difficult to decide in several cases.

Heike was in one of the wagons with the children and my mother, so I was alone in front of the rest of my lineage. I would have liked to bring Wallia with me, in the place that had been his father’s, but even after I said what Aghiard had done for all of us, the elders were not convinced to grant him such an honor. Even if they had, he had refused, so now he was somewhere in the crowd.

At one point, Theobald passed me on horseback, followed by his younger brother, his sisters, and the elders of his lineage. He was a few years older than Wallia and was exactly as I expected that morning: excited about the important task his father had given him and terrified of facing all those adult men. He kept adjusting the gold buckle that held his green cloak closed or fixing his brown pants over his red shirt.

The boy positioned himself in front of the entire line, in a spot where we could all see him, and tried to get our attention. Theobald looked like a younger, thinner version of his father, with just a hint of fuzz on his cheeks where a beard would eventually grow, but he lacked his father’s presence, which, despite all his flaws, was a quality that could not be denied. The son would need years to acquire it, and the result was somewhat pathetic.

The chieftain’s son tried to say something, perhaps an attempt to make a speech, but he couldn’t find the words, starting and stopping sentences without even completing a word at times. His sisters looked at him in embarrassment while his brother Fridurik, who was about the same age as Berth, was impatient to leave and didn’t seem to realize the shame his older brother was sinking into.

When he could barely pronounce a whole word, one of the elders approached and whispered something in his ear. The young man nodded like a whipped dog and, with a completely red face, simply said, “Let’s go.”

The column began to move, leaving the altar and heading into the fields. Once we finally reached the gate, Theobald and a handful of elders left the path, letting the rest of the column pass. The guards, who would stay to watch over the clan’s lands, waved to us from their stations at the top and sides of the gate.

When we were all outside, the guards on the ground closed the gate, and the chieftain’s son approached with an oak branch. The boy planted it precisely in front of the gate, making it look like a miniature tree. Having completed this task, the boy got back on his horse and returned to the head of the group. Only then did we truly begin the journey to the clan meeting place.

It was a strange journey. Normally, the clan reunion was a festive occasion, so during the long walk there was often joking, drinking, and generally a lot of noise. Now, though we weren’t silent – it would have been physically impossible with such a crowd – it was noticeable how the volume of the march was muted. Only the small children, whom the gods had blessed with ignorance of adult problems, continued to play among themselves.

The path we followed was long and winding, skirting a chain of hills and crossing a few low streams. Everything around us was choked by dense forest, and only the barest thinning in the trees made up the trail that allowed the wagons, horses, and people through. At one point we even saw the carcass of a deer in the middle of the path, half-eaten by wolves, which we moved into a bush to avoid obstructing the wagons. We had to do the same for a fallen branch, but could do nothing about a collapsed boulder, which had to be bypassed around the edge of the path.

When the sun was almost at its peak, we reached a point where two hills formed a hollow, and the forest gave way to a series of buildings and rectangular wooden  constructions circled by plinths of rough stone. It was a Sanctuary, and the first rest on the journey. Scattered about the settlement were its phratry members, tending gardens or carrying tools, or otherwise engaged in everyday tasks. And to the side of the sanctuary,  dominating the space and rising above the rooftops, was a huge sled made of roughly worked logs, on which lay the corpse of the dragon.

Those who had not seen the creature were astonished, united in an amalgam of wonder, horror, and curiosity expressed by my clan members. Even I, seeing it again, couldn’t stop the tremor coming from deep within me.

A man came to meet us and went to speak with Theobald, who couldn’t take his eyes off the dragon. The sanctuary keeper said something to the clan leader’s son and led him to a building larger than the others, from which a cloud of steam emerged when the man opened the door to let him in.

While they were inside, the men who had stayed with Gunnar and helped bring the dragon’s carcass began to emerge from the buildings. From their appearance, it was clear they must have woken up recently, likely because they had spent half the night bringing that thing here.

My wife joined me, looking in total awe at the beast’s body. She was clothed in a yellow dress cinched at the waist by a belt, and her hair was gathered under a net woven with red stones that I had given her at our wedding. Her blonde eyebrows showed all the horror, but also the amazement, that the creature rose within her.

"You shouldn't get up from the wagon," I said softly as she leaned against my horse’s flank .

I really didn't want her to come, but she had insisted. It was her duty as wife to the Householder to be present at the gathering of the clans. Despite her clearly still recovering from the night’s labors, shadows under her eyes and a hand on her stomach.

I knew my wife's stubborn nature, and had expected her to insist, but my mother’s agreement had taken me by surprise, and even Heike herself. Since I had returned, her behavior had seemed strange to me, and even as I had told her about Aghiard, she hadn't reacted with the pain or mourning I had expected, her eyes instead filled with something like acceptance, as if she had somehow known before I had even arrived.

"I couldn't stay in the wagon with the children any longer, I needed to get up," she replied with a quirk of her lips.

I snorted, but said nothing else and went back to looking at the beast.

“I can’t believe you and Aghiard faced such a beast,” she said, with a hand over her mouth and without taking her eyes off the creature.

“I also find it hard to believe I’m alive. That beast followed me for who knows how long, yet somehow I’m alive,” I said.

“Are you thinking about your brother?” Heike said, more a statement than a question.

“I can’t think of anything else. Even tonight, I didn’t have the same dream that tormented me.”

“Maybe the dream was about this!” my wife said, turning to me. “Maybe the gods sent you this dream to warn you about the dragon.”

I thought about it. Indeed, some things in that dream reminded me of what had happened. Yet there was something that didn’t convince me about this explanation, something I didn’t understand but felt viscerally, telling me there was more.

Theobald and the sanctuary keeper came out, followed by the chieftain. Gunnar was dressed in his best clothes, but his green tunic had damp patches on the chest, and his hair was still wet from his bath in the hot spring.

The clan leader uttered something to his son, who immediately ran to one of the elders. “My father said to bring the cloth” he said, visibly grateful after the morning’s embarrassment to be able to put responsibility back into his father’s hands.

A few men took an enormous piece of cloth from a cart, apparently made of various pieces of old fabric roughly sewn together. Gunnar’s lineage men spread it over the huge beast, starting to tie it to the sled to cover it completely.

“There is no time to rest. That beast will slow us down, so as soon as everything is ready, we will leave immediately,” announced Gunnar, provoking a chorus of protest along the entire column.

Maracholt stepped forward, pointing his finger at the clan leader. “You can’t restart the march right away! Last night many of us stayed up to choose the new head of the lineage, and we are tired.”

He spoke as a directly interested party, given the deep dark circles under his eyes. Meino’s lineage had taken the longest to decide, despite Langmar’s son, his intended heir, being far too young to lead the family. From what I had been told, even though the sun had not yet risen, it was almost dawn when they decided for him, so many of those who had participated in the meeting were sleeping on the carts, even though they were neither old nor sick. Maracholt seemed to be standing only because he wanted to assert his new authority as householder.

“You will rest when we are on the river. Now move!” he ordered everyone in a tone that brooked no argument.

When ten oxen were secured to the beast, we left the sanctuary, crossing the valley between the hills and entering the territory of the Ekwaz clan.

Gunnar was right about the dragon; transporting the behemoth slowed us down a lot. The sled had to be rolled on tree trunks that had to be constantly placed one in front of the other, requiring a great deal of time on the uneven terrain of the forest path. Bringing it to the sanctuary must have already been quite a feat, and even though we had started earlier, we were losing a lot of time.

Finally, with great effort, we reached the river. At the end of the road was a hut and several barges pulled up on the muddy banks.

Normally, such an incursion would have been considered a hostile act, but given the occasion, our arrival was expected, and the necessary arrangements had been made for us to set sail along the river to reach the meeting place, thanks also to the gifts sent by our clan leader. What was not expected, however, and left the waiting guards astonished, was the enormous sled being dragged at the end of the line.

“May the heavenly father give you strength and luck,” greeted Gunnar, rather pleased with the reaction that the gigantic thing had provoked, even without it being visible what was under the cloth.

“May the mother of all things bless your lineage, chieftain Gunnar,” one of them replied, trying to compose himself. “We don’t have a barge big enough to transport… whatever that thing is.”

“Don’t worry, we’ll take it directly on the river,” he said, not without a hint of trepidation crossing his face.

The men transporting the beast approached the river almost to the bank and then, very slowly, began to lower the sled into the water. When the nose was in, I saw the clan leader’s hands twist behind his back, waiting to see if his idea would really work.

Finally, the sled slid completely into the water and, despite its size, managed to float. Gunnar’s shoulders relaxed with relief, and he turned to us, who had been standing still watching what would happen.

“What are you standing there for? Move and load everything onto the rafts."