Ulrike, my mother, sometimes seemed to think I must have known all about that scheme, but at first I knew nothing but fuzzy colors and sounds and shapes. I don’t even really remember the first beating. I know how it happened, though. When Ulrike learned I was a changeling left in place of her baby, she asked the wise women of the village for advice, and they gave her the best they had: trolls or uldra will sometimes come back for their blood-child and give up their captive one if they hear the wails of their kin. I gather Ulrike snatched me up and made sure I wailed good.
The treatment would have killed a human babe. I was troll-stuff, though. You might think I’d have hated Ulrike. You’d be wrong. I thought my new mother was beautiful. She thought I was horrid. Though in truth I looked pretty much like any other baby, except for a bit of green light that spilled from my eyes now and then, and a thickness to my bones that she discovered with a whoof as soon as she tried to carry me.
Well, a fine mess we were all in, the priest’s family and the changeling. But though they were hard people they couldn’t just murder me. Guess I’m grateful.
My father, Mentor Peer, wasn’t the one who’d strike out. Maybe it was all that Swanling teaching about taking a second blow before giving one yourself. Maybe it was that he could hurt almost as much with a hard word and cold eye as Ulrike could hurt with a hand or a wooden spoon. He could be kind, but even on a good day it was a pitying sort of kindness. And Ulrike, she had a good heart in her too, but sometimes after ale she’d grow sullen and red-eyed and remember what she’d lost. And then it was only a matter of time before I said or did something—break a cup with my strength or yell too loud when I bashed my head on a low doorway—and all at once I was the nastiest, most insolent, most ungrateful creature who walked on two legs, she who’d taken everything from her, and the hitting would resume.
I spent many years trying to reconcile all the terrible things she said into one consistent theory of my horridness. But in time even I realized I couldn’t simultaneously be too thin and too fat, too loud and too silent, too aggressive and too scared, too worldly and too pious. I think it was when I was eleven, and realized she’d begun a meal by complaining I hated her cooking and ended by saying I ate like a hog, that I realized there was something wrong that wasn’t me.
Now, I had options ordinary human children lacked. Even at eleven I could lift a boulder over my head. I was sorry for any child of a violent drunk who couldn’t summarily crush all her mother’s bottles of spirits underfoot. I was sorry for those children, because they needed protectors. But I finally realized my troll blood meant I could be my own protector. That same day, the wooden spoon, long unused, broke against my troll-bottom.
My father and I had a long talk at his church. I spoke to him while clutching the great icon of the Swan, pointedly showing that my skin did not in fact smolder. I said, “She will not hit me. You will stop talking to me as if I were a monster. And if either of you wants to get drunk, you do it in another town. Go without me. As the goddess is my witness, I’ll be fine.”
I know there are people in the world far, far worse off than I’ve ever been. But I had strength, and damned if I wasn’t going to use it.
I am glad to tell you something. That was the worst of them. They actually got a bit better. Peer reached out to his superiors, and whatever one may say about the Swan-church, this time it helped. Instead of blaming me, my father’s colleagues tried to change my parents. And because they got better I learned something strange.
To my eyes, Ulrike and Peer had been the loveliest people in the village, while most others were misshapen and ugly. Yet over the months as they struggled to become their better selves, they too became ugly in my sight.
I figured out the truth from Peer’s books. I have troll-sight. People of good will? They appear ugly to me. Saintly people look horrific. People of evil intent look attractive to me. The truly wicked look beautiful.
(You, Northwing? You look like a plain old human being. It’s kind of reassuring.)
I’m a good judge of character. It pays to hang around with ugly people. That’s one reason I ended up making friends with Malin Jorgensdatter. She’s hideous. To me. A-Girl-Is-A-Joy, she looked horrid too.
So, that’s who I am. It’s a lot like what you’d hear about me from Malin, except that I don’t tell her how bad things sometimes got. Not everyone’s ready to hear things like that. (I think you hear, and see, a lot.) And even though Ulrike and Peer became better people, it was never easy around them, which is why I jumped at a chance to get on the road. I can forgive. That’s a choice. But I can’t forget. That’s a scar.
But there’s one thing, something I rarely say out loud, something I’m doing for them as well as me. I’d like to find out just why trolls exchange their babies for human ones sometimes. I’ve been among trolls a while now and I don’t see any humans. And is the original Inga Peersdatter still somewhere in the world? I’d like to meet her, if so.
So that’s how I began. How do you think I’m going to end up?
Of Innocence
Well, I thought she might end up badly, which is why during her story I’d been reaching out with my perceptions to find some animal, any animal, who might consent to help us. This was difficult. The natural creatures of the area steered clear of these mountains, and with good reason. What birds and beasts remained in the area had bits of troll-substance stuck into their brains, twisting their minds, making them easier for the trolls to command. I started cajoling them, getting a surprise ready for the trolls.
Meanwhile I began to tell Inga my own story, or at least the part of it that began when my patron Steelfox ordered me and Haytham to hunt for Innocence Gaunt. We were rudely interrupted, in one of those events that the spirits themselves may have arranged.
Skrymir Hollowheart flung the cage’s door open and grabbed us both in one hand. That stony cave of fingers shut out most of what passed for light. I lost my mental grip on the troll-addled creatures outside. Skrymir was not a gentle beast of burden. It was like being back on Al-Saqr during a storm.
There was some sort of commotion at the tunnel, the one leading to the cave where Skrymir could look down upon the Karvak army. Skrymir ran to the tunnel, and then his voice boomed, chattering our teeth, and hailing, to my surprise, Lady Steelfox. My patron answered.
Now, you should understand something. The conquering Karvaks set Steelfox over us by marrying her to our rightful ruler. As I’d been the best shaman in the land, I’d been advisor to them both. When my ruler died in the Karvaks’ endless wars, I served Steelfox. I don’t have much reason to like her. But, grudgingly, I do. She is a remarkably decent imposed leader, one who tries to understand our needs. And when I heard her voice, my heart raced. I have to admit I grinned.
Spirits grant she never reads this.
Skrymir’s voice drove the grin straight from my rattling jaws. For he’d seen someone with Steelfox. “The chosen of the Heavenwalls! You’ve delivered him!”
This I certainly didn’t expect. I did not know what would happen or whom to trust, but I wanted help. I reached out to the animals I’d sensed, eagles in the heights with troll-splinters in their eyes. I had the control I needed, and I set them winging toward this tunnel.
“He has delivered me, Skrymir,” Steelfox said. “Without my shaman at my side, I needed his help. I am in his debt. He is under my protection.”
Well, that was interesting.
“Of course!” Skrymir sounded like a boy persuaded not to be cruel to an animal. “I will not challenge your authority!” He opened his hand, palm up. I’d like to claim I was ready for action, but I was more interested in throwing up.
“Here is your shaman,” Skrymir said, “the mighty Northwing, whom even we trolls fear. And also this troll-girl who helped the Runethane escape me. Shall I crush them?”
“Northwing!” Steelfox actually seemed to care. I vowed to throw up on her last. “What has become of you? What have you done to my friend, Skrymir?”
“Liege,” I managed to say, “You must understand . . . I have tried to follow your commands as best I could, and I am not afraid to die. . . .”
It was all more eloquent in my head.
Steelfox cut me off. “I have absolute faith in you, Northwing! Your clutches overreach, Skrymir! My sister will know of this!”
“All in good time,” said Skrymir. “It is your foolish inventor and your mighty shaman who have endangered our alliance, but you can make good by taking this Northwing back under your command . . . we surely cannot contain the shaman. And by minding the chosen of the Heavenwalls.”
“And what of the girl, there?”
“This one? She is of troll blood. Years ago we dealt with the uldra of Svardmark, to place her among the humans. We are welcoming her back to the fold, in our own way.”
Inga began saying something. It was, “Kill you . . . kill you . . .”
I wondered if it also sounded better in her head.
“Yes, yes, yes,” said the troll-king, “and a pony too. Now—”
“Now it ends,” rang out a human voice. I knew it. I didn’t like it, but I knew it.
Walking Stick, of the wulin of Qiangguo, jumped onto Skrymir’s hand. I have to give him credit for guts. And strength. He hauled me and Inga up and leapt deep into the tunnel. I got a fleeting sense of his power. You could say that we are both masters of spirit, but my focus is outward onto the world, and his is inward, giving great resources to his body.
Innocence gasped. “Walking Stick! Teacher!”
Walking Stick just stared. He was obviously surprised to find the boy here of all places. But he recovered quickly.
He snatched up the Scroll of Years and started jabbing here and there. Each time someone appeared in midair until he was accompanied by Liron Flint, Snow Pine, and two monks. It was good to see them, but I realized the feeling might not be mutual.
Skrymir laughed like a little kid before grabbing a monk and crushing him like a clump of snow.
This was too much.
I’ve long wandered the southern lands, the Karvak Realm, Qiangguo, the trading cities of the Braid of Spice, and now the Bladed Isles. And what I’ve seen everywhere is a disregard for life. You all see yourselves as so distinct from one another, but spilling blood is the sport you all share. My own people fear us shamans, because we remind them so much of blood and death. But among our own people we are reserved, even gentle. Down in the south I have cultivated a certain gruffness, acting as though I didn’t care about the violence around me.
But this casual slaughter isn’t the way we were meant to live. When my people hunt, we offer up prayers to the wild creature who has consented to be caught and eaten, so that when its spirit returns to its source, it will think well of us and come again. When a person dies we are careful to honor the essence as well.
Skrymir Hollowheart understood none of that.
When I became a shaman, I had a vision of climbing a tree around which the stars wheeled, going up and up to the place where the tree pierced the skin of the sky. Out of that gap roared spirits of power, shapeless and shining, and they slew spirit-me, cut me to pieces like a game animal. Down they brought a cauldron made of night and boiled me up. Out of the cauldron my spirit arose again, a thing of speed and cunning, like a waterbird of the northern seas, able to survive in two realms, water and air. So, too, I knew both the realms of flesh and spirit.
I was the shaman Northwing.
It is sometimes the burden of the shaman to speak to the mighty and say “enough.”
“Enough!”
And my voice brought the troll-eagles to us.
They had no hope of slaying the troll-king, but Skrymir clearly did not enjoy the pain.
“Northwing, enough!” said Steelfox. “I need your power beside me! Skrymir is our ally!”
That was it. I obeyed.
“No!” yelled Inga. She rushed at me, killing one of Steelfox’s guards.
Innocence was yelling at her to stop, while Walking Stick pleaded for him to come away.
“Enough!” I said, and told Innocence it was time to choose sides.
He chose the Karvaks.
Skrymir had destroyed the eagles. I might have felt guilty about that, but they’d been corrupted by crystalline troll-splinters already. Skrymir made a grab for Walking Stick, but the wulin warrior leapt from the tunnel into the high mountain air. He’d already magicked his companions—and Inga too—into the scroll. He dropped out of sight.
And so there I was, and there Innocence was, choosing one faction of a great struggle. I didn’t like having some friends on one side and some on another, and I didn’t think he would enjoy it either. But war is like that.
Of the War Council
And so I was alone, or might as well have been. My traveling companions were gone. Innocence Gaunt was busy being morose, stalking here and there among the caves. I had all the trolls and troll-twisted animals I could ever hope to talk to, of course. Ha. I glowered by myself in a corner of Skrymir’s audience hall. I was back in Steelfox’s service, but she was completely preoccupied with war plans.
It’s been a long War Council. The Easterners are bad enough—the princesses Steelfox and Jewelwolf, the Karvak general Ironhorn, the crazy warrior Dolma (who seems to have glued herself to Innocence), all talking, talking, talking. And then there are the Kantenings—yes, Kantenings, ready to sell out their fellows, the chieftains of places called Langfjord and Grawik and Jegerhall, northern lords with long grudges against Oxiland and Svardmark. Those three are of monstrous proportions, big as any men I’ve ever seen. In the jabbering of the trolls, they’re called three of the Nine Wolves, and they’re supposedly more than human, something I’ll have to investigate later.
Ah, the trolls! There must be thousands of them. You’d think they could overrun the Bladed Isles all by themselves. But I gather they’re limited in some ways. They’re none too happy with bright sunlight, and in some way I don’t understand they’re stronger on Spydbanen than elsewhere. Skrymir needs human help to fulfill his plan of claiming the Chained Straits. He’d like to slaughter as many humans as possible, naturally, but the Great Chain is what he really wants.
“Our riders have already secured the strait, great ones,” General Ironhorn reported. “We’ve met no real opposition. We had to eradicate one village, but once the survivors fled with their tale, the others capitulated. We have encampments on both sides of the gap, and on the island in the middle. The Chain is ours.”
“Mine, you mean,” Skrymir said easily. It must be very comfortable to talk to your allies when they’re human and you’re big as a hill. “You Karvaks and hangers-on, you can have the land, as long as my trolls can ravage a bit. I want the magic.”
“As long as I and our wizardly colleagues have access to it,” Jewelwolf told him. She was ever a striking woman, both like and unlike my patron—younger, fiercer, more commanding. I understood that in their childhoods, Jewelwolf had earned her conquering father’s respect. Steelfox had merely earned his love.
“Of course,” Skrymir said impatiently. “If not for our association in sorcerous circles, Jewelwolf, this whole alliance would be impossible. You and the others may tap the power for your own purposes. There is plenty for all.”
I kept my eyes low, scribbling. I would have to investigate that matter for myself.
“Tomorrow,” Jewelwolf said, “we move the main force. Innocence will accompany us, so that at the right time he may master the Chain.”
“I could take one of those balloons,” Innocence said. “Isn’t it true we could be there right away? Why wait?”
Dolma said, “Patience, great one.”
“Indeed,” said Jewelwolf. “It is good fortune we have you now, but there are those who might seek to sn
atch you away.”
The lord of Jegerhall, a huge, fierce-eyed man named Arnulf Pyre-Maker, spoke up. “You’re really planning to move a whole army down Spydbanen in the dead of winter?”
The equally big, many-scarred Ottmar Bloodslake of Grawik shot back, “We’ve sparred plenty of winters, we three.”
“Skirmishes!” mocked mighty Kolli the Cackling of Langfjord. “With war-bands of twenty or less! That’s a real army down there in Jotuncrown, with hungry stomachs.”
General Ironhorn laughed. “You have no experience with us. On the steppe we learned to campaign in winter, bringing what food we needed on the hoof. We know how to use frozen rivers as roads. We know how to use snowfall to disguise our movements. Winter is our friend.”
Steelfox said, “Nevertheless I fear we are overconfident. This is alien ground. And we campaign without a clear path home. My father never put himself in that position.”
“I am not our father,” Jewelwolf said. “And although a great strategist, he respected boldness above all else.”
“We will use all our craft,” the general said, seeming to appreciate his awkward position between contentious royals. “We have every expectation of victory, but we will not underestimate the Kantenings. Give the order, great ones.”
I have caught up now, with the present time.
Jewelwolf looks across the gulf before the throne of Skrymir, into the eyes of Steelfox. Jewelwolf is khatun, the chief wife of the Grand Khan back on the steppe. This is truly her expedition, but she has chosen to involve Steelfox, whether as punishment or peace offering, it’s hard to say.
It matters now, that the sisters agree.
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