Karin screamed as absolute darkness covered the earth. She clung to Queen Arane, feeling her knees turn to water in sheer animal terror. And from the yells around them she was not the only one.
The only voice that was not one of fear and horror was the stallion, whinnying as though in recognition.
The darkness might only have lasted a half minute, but afterwards, when she thought back to it with chills walking down her spine, it seemed that it might have been much longer, that there had been a period outside of time when there was no thought, no event, and no light.
Abruptly the moon was back. It shone down from a cloudless sky as though it had never been gone, lighting up the salt river and all the dripping wet men along the bank-and the person stepping out of the burial mound.
Just for a second, there seemed to be a faint fluttering, of a wight emerging shadowless into moonlight then disappearing into the mound again. But the person who came forward, shaking the taint of earth from him, was Roric.
Karin tore herself from the queen’s clutching hands and began to run. Even dead he was Roric, and she loved him.
He felt reassuringly solid as she threw herself, gasping, into his muddy arms. She could understand now the stories of the women who offered anything to have their men back.
He was laughing, loud, joyous laughter to sparkle in the moonlight. She had not known the dead could laugh. “I am no wight but alive, Karin,” he said, holding her to him, his embrace not cold but warm around her.
“I thought you were gone,” she said, sobbing now for no reason at all. “I thought you had died to save Valmar and me. But, oh, Roric,” pausing to kiss him hard, “I have learned you are not my brother.”