"Alright! Now as I was before I was so rudely interrupted..."

Here Sigurd looked very hard at Zac (who had moved to stand near Hal) and Zac smirked.

"Let's get underway."

Hal was surprised. He had half expected that some kind of roll might be called, to determine if anyone was missing. Zac grinned. He had seen the surprise on Hal's face and guessed the reason behind it. It was second nature to a man like Sigurd to do a head count in second. He swivelled his head round to face Sigurd as he spoke again.

"Today you're going to be selected into your brotherbands."

He paused and looked at the earnest faces in front of him and added,

"That's in case any of you thought this was the Hallasholm ladies' needlework society. If that's the case, you may leave now."

Zac's smile widened as the others laughed nervously. Ha, ha, ha. Boys, I hope you know that sucking up to people like Sigurd only annoys them.

"First thing we do is select brotherband leaders. Any nominations?"

A boy standing slightly off to the side spoke up.

"Tursgud!"

Sigurd nodded in response. He wasn't exactly surprised by the nomination.

"Tursgud. Seconder?"

A person only two heads down seconded his friend's nomination.

Zac assumed that the smirking boy in between the other two was Tursgud. Zac had seen him once or twice and didn't like him. He was a bully, and a coward who assumed that he would one day be the maktig* just because his father was. This made him an arrogant prick on top of everything else. As if the whale wasn't bad enough.

"Alright. Proposed and seconded. Congratulations Tursgud."

Tursgud shrugged. To him, there was no way he wasn't going to be picked. Congratulations seemed unnecessary. Arrogant selfish pig.

"Anyone else?"

Sigurd looked around the group assembled in front of him.

"Rolland!"

Zac nodded in appreciation. He had heard a bit about Rolland and thought he would make a good brotherband skirl. He was an excellent athlete and had a good reputation as a wrestler. Unlike Tursgud, however, he had no preconceived ideas of his own importance. Yes. Rolland would make a good brotherband skirl. Apparently he wasn't the only one who thought so.

"Second!"

Zac turned around in surprise. Hal had called out before Sigurd had called for seconds. Rolland looked a little surprised. He had assumed the call for second would come from one of his close friends he nodded at Hal in thanks. Sigurd spoke again and all attention was once again on him.

"Alright. Rolland. Who else?"

The remaining boys shuffled their feet nervously. They all knew that if they were the third brotherband skirl they would be competing with Tursgud and Rolland. None of them saw themselves beating either of them. And the loss of the competition weighed heavily on the shoulders of the skirl. Sigurd cast a glance over them impatiently.

"Come on. With these numbers we really need three teams. Anyone else?"

There was no reply. Then suddenly,

"Hal!"

Zac looked over at Stig in surprise. Beside him, Hal closed his eyes and cursed.