answer for a few minutes. He stared moodily into the
coals, and then feeling behind him in the dark he found a bright shirt and
struggled into it. "I was getting ready to take a bath when the thing came
at me," he explained simply.

"Gunnar! Where is Maya?"

Gunnar's big hand squeezed Odin's shoulder.

"Steady, lad. I wish I knew. I wish I knew. But you are here now, and we
will go hunting together. For you are my friend and Maya is my friend. And
I swore by my sword, the Blood-Drinker, to her father I swore it. And to
Jul. That I would look after her. But I failed. And is my word no stronger
than a puff of wind? I have sworn a new oath. I will find her. Even though
we go farther than the graveyard of stars--or beyond the gates of hell,
maybe--I will find her."

There was a sob in the squat man's throat and Jack Odin could see by
the light of the flickering coals that Gunnar had aged. His face was
more seamed. The knots of muscle at each jaw were larger. His hair was
gray-streaked and thinner. But those huge shoulders were huger still,
and the big gnarled hands kept closing and unclosing as though they
were grasping at a throat.

"We will go together, then," Odin said. "But tell me--"

"Then swear it by my blade." And Gunnar took the long sword and harness up
from the sand where he had left it.

"My people do not swear by the sword."

Gunnar cursed. "The tongues of your people are like two-edged knives. I
have had enough of them. But you are not like them, Odin. I said before
that you were a throwback to the men of old-time, when they went berserker
together, or followed the whale's path in their dragon-headed ships. Here,
swear by the sword, my sword."

* * * * *

And Jack Odin reached forward and touched the sword and swore that he would
go with Gunnar even to the edge of the stars--

"Now," Odin pleaded. "Tell me what happened down there."

"It is a long story. And not a pretty one, either. Have you anything to
eat?"

Odin produced some bread and jerked beef. As they sat there, with the coals
winking red eyes at them, Gunnar told his tale between wolfish bites.

"Grim Hagen planned well." (So Gunnar began). "He planned well, and even
yet I hope to kill him.

"That was an evil day when you and Maya decided to go back to outer-earth.
An evil day. Some of Grim Hagen's men snared Maya with their thons. There
was much fighting. We killed many but many got away.

"I should