by S. W. Clarke
“This is her map?” Veda asked.
“Sure isn’t mine,” he said. “I don’t even know which end of a quill makes the marks.”
Veda cast new eyes on the map. At once, the item’s description shifted to Brynhild’s Map of Issverold. “Is there anything I should know about what’s on here?” she asked.
“Them red crosses? Stay far afield of those—they’re warg lands,” Herathor said.
Amy set her face next to Veda’s. “Lucky me,” she said, her finger going to the cross by Fjall Bjornstad. “I got to spawn right in the middle of the northernmost pack.”
Veda surveyed the water surrounding the midlands; the section depicted by the map showed a strip of land that appeared inaccessible, almost an island amid the water. “How do we get to the midlands?” she asked.
“A few paths lead down into the bowl,” Herathor said. “Brynhild should have marked the one she took.”
Veda squinted, but the map had smudged near the half-circle that must represent the “bowl” he was talking about. “I can’t tell whether that’s a mark or just part of the geography,” she said, running her finger along the black divot of a mark at the bowl’s edge.
Herathor’s stool creaked, and he crossed to them. He lifted the map into his hands, inspected it closely. “I couldn’t tell you, girl. You’ll figure it out, mostlike.” And he rolled the paper and returned it to Veda. “Come sit. Eat your fill, both of you,” Herathor said, bringing both of them under his arms. He led them to the hearth, and Veda came to sit on the bear’s skin, Amy beside. They ate while Veda inspected the map, and afterward Amy polished her knife. Soon they slept, she and Amy in the bed while Herathor sprawled on the bear skin. In this way, the three passed the night in silence and warmth.
Eighteen
The wan light of morning saw the three of them in front of the cabin, the hestur saddled and bridled with Brynhild Strongarm’s gear for the first time in years. The blanket, a great black bear’s skin, encompassed the whole of Agnar’s back, and atop it a fashioned leather saddle large enough for three Vedas. At the fore rose a pommel with a length of braided leather cord—Brynhild’s charm.
They had pulled the hestur’s mane from his eyes to set the bridle over his face, slipping the bit into Agnar’s mouth. Now, standing with a high head, he looked like a different creature: bedecked, prideful, utterly mountainous. Both eyes surveyed the three humans, and they seemed to Veda to say: Come on, girl. Especially when the nostrils flared and a steaming, visible breath poured out.
Herathor had shown Veda how to adjust the girth to the hestur’s underside, to pull the stirrups to the length of her legs. She was tall for a human, but she’d had to pull the stirrups so high they looked almost comically short on the stallion’s back. Herathor had also attached leather canvas bags with food and other supplies to the straps at the rear of the saddle.
“One thing you should know, girl: there’s a length of my rope in the bag near his left flank,” he said, gesturing with his three fingers. “There will always be a time when you come to need rope. And this one won’t ever break on you.”
Agnar stood quiet by Veda’s side while the two women turned to Herathor. “Don’t be wasting time,” he said. “Just get on the hestur—do what you need to get done. Every moment is time lost.”
Veda came forward, wrapped her arms around the man’s abdomen anyway. The snow had begun to fall again, light and feathery on the dawn of one of Issverold’s last summer days. When she stepped back, she turned to Amy. “Me or you first?”
Amy stared up at Agnar. Next to him, she looked like a child. “You.”
Veda stepped up to the hestur’s shoulder, and his muscle quivered. The head came around, and he lowered onto his belly with a snort. “Go ahead, Amy. I’ll ride behind you.”
Amy stepped up to the horse, pressed her hand to his withers. “If I die in Sicora because of this thing, I hope you know I’ll carry a permanent grudge against horses.” She took hold of the pommel, swung her leg and came up to a seat at the front of the saddle.
“How is that any different than before?” Veda asked, setting her hands on the saddle and swinging herself up onto Agnar behind Amy. She reached forward, took hold of the reins. Sensing this, Agnar stood, swinging his head. Veda could hardly stop him from setting into a trot, and she pulled him back around so that they circled Herathor. He looked impossibly far down, especially knowing how tall he was.
“Go on, girl.”
She could feel the hestur pulling at the reins beneath her hands, priming to stretch his neck and head. “I’ll take care of him, Herathor.”
The man nodded, raised his three-fingered hand. And as she came around for the last time, Veda leaned forward in the saddle and loosened the reins. “Time to go,” she said into the perked ear. It swiveled forward, and the horse pawed once at the snow, lifted his forelegs and leapt into the air. Amy shrieked, clinging to the pommel as the horse landed at a canter, his hooves churning the snow behind him.
“Warrior,” Herathor’s voice called from behind them, dim under the hestur’s thunderous gait. “Agnar means warrior.”
The valley swept by fast and faster by as they set into a gallop, the sun at their left. He let a whinny as they passed the treeline, and she allowed the reins out further. The wind pressed Veda’s hood away from her face, and she knew that if they had any chance of finding Galen and Eli, it was because of Herathor Strongarm. It was because he had gifted her the hestur. And he had never even known her name.
Agnar navigated the trees with ease—the same forest from yesterday, marked on the map—his head working to pull them faster, faster. “Take him straight south,” Amy shouted over the wind. She had pulled the compass from her jacket. “Toward the midlands.”
“Is that where they are?” Veda called back. The hestur leapt a fallen tree, and for a moment they were weightless, her stomach rising and then juddering back to place as his hooves met the earth. They drove deep into the woods again, but this time the stallion galloped so fast she couldn’t have made an executive decision if she wanted to—she could only hold the reins and trust his instincts.
“It’s where Galen is,” Amy said, and her fingers unfolded to reveal the face of the compass, the needle pointing almost directly south of them. It was hard to decipher it in the shifting light. Snow rained on them as they brushed the low branch of a tree.
“Are you sure?” Veda said.
“I found you, didn’t I?”
“Okay. South.” At that moment they broke from the forest and Veda’s breath caught. The plain spread unbroken and buttery before them, snow glittering for miles. She ventured to turn her head, and it was only then she understood the smallness of Herathor’s valley, the forest they had crossed in a few minutes. Behind her, Fjall Bjornstad rose to a high and clouded peak. Issverold really was enormous.
They rode deep into the plain, and beneath them the hestur seemed tireless, his breathing even, his pace eager. For the first time, Veda began to relax atop him, to enjoy the separating clouds and the sun that warmed the top of her head. Her riding skill had risen to 3, and the young woman who’d struggled atop him yesterday seemed like a separate person from the hands that held the reins, sensed the hestur’s breathing and movements, had begun to understand his speechless voice.
They rode for hours, and Veda could only tell they had gotten anywhere by tracking the sun’s progress; it now hung at an angle to their right. And behind them, Herathor’s forest had shrunk to a dot and then disappeared entirely.
From the time they’d mounted the hestur, Amy had been uncomplaining. And where Veda had expected a constant stream of chatter, she understood that Amy Park could also be introspective; she had ridden in perfect, observative silence, which suited Veda: she needed time to think.
She thought about hypotheticals. There was the first scenario: they would find Galen, but there wouldn’t be time to find Eli before the countdown ended. And she realized with an awful clenching that, unless the
y were together or close to one another, this was preferable to the second scenario: finding Eli but not Galen. Because Veda sensed, even though he and Amy were secretive about it, that the two of them were there for Prairie. And Eli—while sweet—was another rook, incidental. It felt wrong, inhuman to think of things that way. Cutthroat, even.
In the third scenario, only Veda and Amy survived. They wouldn’t find the others, but they could make the midlands before autumn. She’d never forgive herself for losing the other two, but it was more than that: Veda stared at the black hair ahead of her, and she thought she liked Amy, but not as well as Galen. Amy was a scrapper, and Veda knew she meant well, but she felt stronger, safer with Galen. He was honest, where Amy had considered not leaving the northlands at all.
The fourth scenario was the worst of all. This one Veda came to last, hesitantly: Issverold was too large, and the hestur— though fast—not fast enough. Or maybe they encountered trouble—fighting or a lack of food or shelter—which meant no one survived. That included Prairie.
The fourth scenario was unacceptable.
“Veda.” Amy’s voice came jarring, a needle through the music of her thoughts. “Do you see that?” She pointed over the hestur’s left ear.
Veda squinted into the snow. She was about to say no, but she did see something—many somethings—small and black. “What are they?”
“I don’t know, but they’re coming toward us.”
Agnar had already sensed them. His head swung right, and he changed course, arrowing southeast. Veda set a hand to his neck, could feel that his breathing had altered, too. This was danger.
Veda remembered Herathor’s words: Brynhild had survived crossing the world. She had survived, he’d said. And as the first howl went up, she knew that meant surviving more than the cold.
“I think they’re—”
“Wargs,” Veda said. She leaned both of them close to the hestur as the creatures grew in size and distinctness, pelting through the snow toward them from the west and behind. They were bigger than the wolves she'd seen in the visual training, but also mangier, hungrier.
“This isn’t their territory,” Amy said. A note of fear had entered her voice.
The image of the map appeared in Veda’s mind. They rode west of the warg pack that Brynhild had marked beyond the forest, but she had probably created the map years ago—who knew when? And carnivores migrated, followed food sources.
“They’re faster than the one I saw,” Amy said.
“Get low,” Veda said in her ear. “Our bodies are creating resistance.”
They pressed themselves hard against the hestur as the wargs drew up alongside. It was only seeing their bodies in motion, the leaping arcs that brought their clawed legs nearly horizontal, that she understood how fast the hestur actually moved. The fallen snow ran as fluid as water beneath them. But it wasn’t enough.
“Brace,” Veda yelled as the nearest creature made a leap for the hestur, the curving metal of its claws extended to shred their flesh to ribbons.
Amy let a scream as the claws tore through her pants, and Agnar darted right as another of the wargs passed through the air where they should have been; it landed hard and futile in the snow.
Two more drew alongside. Veda focused on the one running left of them:
“Hold on,” Veda whispered. Before her, Amy groaned, her hand set to her leg; blood dripped into the snow alongside them. A lure, an irresistible scent. Don’t drive your heels into his side unless you mean it, Herathor had instructed. If she was ever going to mean it, that time would be now. Veda let the reins fully out, giving the hestur the full breadth of his gait, and pressed her heels into his sides.
Please, she thought. Run. Run. Run.
And he ran. When her heels touched Agnar, he let a snort, drove his head forward, became something more than a stallion. The hooves ceased to pound, began moving so fast the wind hurt her eyes. When Veda looked down, she realized they weren’t running through the snow, but atop it. Somehow the enormous creature wasn’t even setting divots anymore.
He wasn’t a horse at all, she realized—he was a hestur.
They passed out of the plain toward a gleaming surface, a frozen lake extending wide and fat across the landscape.
“Veda,” Amy said. Her teeth sounded gritted.
“I see it.”
“Turn him. Turn him now!” she yelled.
Veda pulled hard on the right end of the reins, but Agnar was in his own power, his long head leading straight on toward the ice. She jerked again, but she might as well have pulled on a wooden horse. “He won’t respond.”
“This is bad,” Amy said.
Veda glanced behind; the wargs were still keen on them, now assembled to nearabout twenty running as a pack. Here were true predators: when their prey began to pull away, they chased harder.
Something her sister used to say when Veda was afraid came to her. Just trust yourself. Your body understands more than you give it credit for. That was what Prairie told her after Jacob Henry—after she was done calling Veda an idiot for going with him. After she was done kicking things. After she was done hugging her sister like she’d never done before. Those two nights of separation had been the change in their relationship: before they’d been “sisters,” assigned to one another for companionship. After, they had been blood. Veda knew that Prairie would let nothing happen to her, and she never had.
Your body understands, she’d say.
Veda set her hand to the wither, felt Agnar’s muscles stretching, contracting, responding with perfect execution to the hestur’s will. Beneath them, he galloped not with the frenzy of prey, but a quiet sureness. He wanted this. She had to trust. “We’ll be okay.”
“Are you crazy?” Amy jerked her head around, eyes flashing on Veda.
But the hestur had already chosen the course. She squeezed her eyes shut as they came out onto the wide expanse, Agnar’s hooves clattering almost symphonically. They didn’t slip, and they didn’t fall. On they went, the four hooves music across the surface. Veda opened her eyes, was struck and nearly blinded by the sun reflected off the ice around her. When she closed her eyes, the colors had seared themselves into her vision for the second time in her life—and she remembered why it was so painful to stare into the sun.
And she knew why the hestur had chosen this path: the lake was a great and powerful mirror. Behind, the wargs were still on them. As they encountered the ice, they threw their heads, the retinas in the great black orbs of their eyes struck by the light. They began slipping, skidding, struggling for purchase, shrinking into the distance as Agnar brought them across with the same terrific speed. Ice, snow, clear ground—all were the same to the hestur, whose hooves played across the surface until they came to the opposite bank and he climbed them up to level ground.
As they crested, Veda slowed Agnar to a walk among the pine trees. Behind them, the wargs had retreated back to the bank. The lake stretched so wide she couldn’t see either end of it; that gave them time. And right now, they needed time.
The hestur breathed hard and fast, coughing, and while Veda sat up in the saddle, Amy remained pressed to Agnar’s neck, her knuckles white where they clenched his mane. Her blood still dripped into the snow, but she wouldn’t complain.
Nineteen
“I don’t know why anyone would play this game,” Amy said, staring up the trunk of the tree she sat against. Agnar pressed his nose toward her leg, and Veda, on her haunches, nudged the hestur away. “I mean, sure, that was probably amazing for you, but some of us feel like we want to die right now.”
“You’ll be fine.” Veda pulled off her gloves and stuffed them into her waistband. She wasn’t positive, but the basic medical training given to her in formatory told her this wasn’t enou
gh blood for Amy to be in real danger. When her nameplate appeared, Veda knew she was okay:
Afterward, she stood to rummage in the canvas bag while Agnar licked up the melt by his hooves. “We should get going,” Amy said. “I’m okay to ride.”
“You need food.” Veda pulled out a canteen. The water didn’t slosh, and she uncorked it to find a frozen block inside. Beneath the canteen Herathor had laid a sack of oats that she yanked from the bag. Agnar jerked his head up, his eyes on Veda. “And this guy needs some, too.”
She lifted the sack to the hestur, who pressed his muzzle into the oats with such vigor she had to work to hold on. Amy stood, one hand on the tree. After a second she pushed herself away, testing her leg as she crossed to the canvas bags. “I hardly feel it anymore. I was expecting…”
“Agonizing pain?”
Amy’s fingers went to the wound, inspecting the skin. “Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve had to limp around in this game.”
Veda raised her eyes, one eyebrow lifted.
“Prairie Powell shot me in the foot,” Amy said, reaching into the bag to pull out a wrapped hunk of dried pork. She set it between her teeth, yanked a section free. “Blew my big toe right off. I would have gone yipping to you if you’d been around.”
