Magreda came out of the dining room, her face pale.
“Othin!” Gottfrid shouted. “Fire!”
The ranger looked behind him. Smoke curled from beneath the kitchen door.
“Gods!” Magreda choked, her dark eyes wild. “Where’s the Guild?”
“Ask the gods that. Take her.” Sobbing, Althea wouldn’t let go of him. Magreda extracted the child from his arms and hurried her into the common room, glancing back in terror at the kitchen door.
Othin snatched up his sword and went first to the front door. He opened it to the night and released a whistle of alarm. No sign of Stony; no sign of anyone.
“Keep watch here,” he said to Gottfrid. “Call me if you see anything.”
Othin returned to the kitchen. As he entered, someone yanked the door back and slammed it in his face with enough force to crack his skull. It struck him in the nose, shocking him. His sword had caught in the crack, dampening the blow. Shaking his head to gather his wits, he pried his blade from the wooden jamb and kicked the door in.
The air rushing in caused the fire in the cooking stove to flare out. The dusty piles of rushes strewn all over the floor went up like a brushfire.
Something dark rushed him from the closet behind the door. Othin blocked the man’s advance and brought his blade around—then stopped short as a thin rope flipped over his head and tightened on his throat, cutting off his air. A second attacker. Static crackled over his scalp. Blood flowed from his nose. The first man put a fist into Othin’s gut, doubling him over and causing the rope on his neck to dig in.
In the hall, Gottfrid yelled something unintelligible.
Amid the panicked colors flashing over his eyes, Othin flipped his blade and thrust it back into the man strangling him. The point hit low, just above the groin. The man’s grip loosened as the blade crunched through a vibrating pulp of leather, sinews and organs. Othin got his fingers under the rope with one hand and twisted the blade hard with the other, tearing a ghastly animal sound from his attacker.
The fire had begun to spread to sacks and boxes stacked on the edges of the floor. Coughing from smoke and the violence done to his windpipe, Othin clawed the rope from his neck and tossed it aside. He ducked to avoid the dark man’s next assault. The man behind him fell, taking Othin’s sword with him. Othin leapt clear of the body, eluding a wide swing of a longknife covered in blood.
Kidge.
Othin pulled a knife from his boot and defended his guard as he reached for his sword, yanking it with a shout from the ghoul’s bowels. He brought it around clumsily and hit his foe’s arm with the flat edge hard enough to send the longknife spiraling into the approaching flames. The move threw him off balance. Before he could recover, his attacker hit him in the face.
Somewhere in the smoking, roaring chamber, a window shattered. A woman screamed. Othin stumbled back as Magreda leapt out of the smoke, swinging an iron pan the size of a wine barrel lid. It struck the black-clad soldier in the head with a clang. He crumpled to the floor, snuffing a swath of flames before they closed around him.
Shouts filled the common room. Townsfolk had arrived and were flinging open windows and handing in buckets of water from the cistern on the far side of the grove. Reidi and Abalu, in their sooty finery, slung water onto the flames. Others used blankets to smother the smaller fires dancing in patches along the floor.
The man Magreda had struck regained consciousness and roared with unearthly woe. One of the women yelled at him to shut up and doused him with water. Knowing no man would have been conscious after what Magreda had just given him, Othin flipped his sword and plunged it into his breast, gritting his teeth against the resulting tremor. The man choked with mortal shock, but his eyes didn’t close. Another ghoul, the one that had tried to strangle Othin earlier, lay on the floor nearby, its fatal wound gaping like a bloodless mouth. He made the sounds of someone trying to scream in a dream but couldn’t awake.
More ghouls. And the one with the broken neck was still at large.
Othin went out into the hall with Magreda on his heels. Her eyes watering and her cheeks and breast red from the heat, she took his arm and drew him around. “Ah love, what have they done to you?” she said, touching his face as she took in the state of him. His eye had begun to swell, his nose throbbed and his throat felt like a burning knife had been drawn over it. She drew up the hem of her shift and used it to clean the blood under his nose.
One of the ghouls in the kitchen released a cry of wrath straight from Hel.
“Who or what?” Magreda asked with a glance.
“I don’t know. Where’s Althea?”
“Safe. Gottfrid took her next door.”
Shouts filled the yard outside. Dyrregin Guard, bearing torches. Othin reached into his tunic and drew forth his purse. He emptied out a substantial amount of his road pay, took Magreda’s hands and closed them around the coins. When she started to protest, he silenced her with a kiss. “You’ll need it,” he rasped, his throat raw. “You’re in charge, now. There’s still at least one of those things on the loose. Spread the word.” He gestured outside. “Get the guardsmen to help you with the others.”
He didn’t need to mention Kidge. He grabbed his bow and quiver from the hooks in the foyer and then donned his cloak and pulled the hood down as the guardsmen crowded in past him toward Magreda’s shouts.
Othin stepped into the night, breathing deeply of the cold, salty air. Still not a guildsman to be seen. People gathered beyond the edge of the street. Othin started down the steps, scanning either side until he spotted a dark shape in the bushes. He jumped down to investigate, wary of a trick. The body had been dragged out of sight and half buried in thorns. Stony. The ranger knelt and found the gaping smile of an assassin’s work on the guildsman’s throat. Loyal to the last.
“You there!” someone barked above him.
Othin stood and stepped from the bushes into the light of a torch. A guardsman hurried down the steps, his sword drawn. Othin pushed back his hood and flicked aside his cloak as an older man with gray sideburns and thin dark hair approached. His tunic bore the black insignia of rank.
“Captain,” Othin greeted him.
The man’s manner changed. He sheathed his sword. “Captain Pavel, Fell Guard.”
“Othin of Cae Forres, King’s Ranger under Captain Ageton, North Branch.”
A nod, and then his brow furrowed as he took in Othin’s state. “You’ve seen trouble. What are you doing here?”
“Same thing every man does here. We were attacked. Fjorginans, it would seem.” He gestured to the bushes. “One guildsman down. I’d like to know where the rest of them got to.”
Pavel shifted on his feet. “Bad business, that. We caught one of the guildsmen who was stationed here tonight down in the Silver Trout. One of my men recognized him. He was very drunk, and when questioned he claimed they were paid to leave their posts.”
“By whom?”
“He wouldn’t say. My men decided to toss him in the gaol until he sobered up enough to talk. But when they tried to bring him in, he went berserk. Got away from them and ran off the end of a pier. He vanished into the water. I’m still waiting for a report.”
Othin shook off a chill. Strange as ghouls. Possibly, the guildsmen took the bribe knowing Othin was in the Rose and thought to get their vengeance by leaving him to deal with the attack alone. The notion weakened under the light of circumstance. The Night Guild would have to be in league with the Fjorginans beforehand to set up something like that. More likely, the attack was already planned and Othin just happened to be here.
A bigger question was who or what would be powerful enough to bribe the Night Guild into leaving their women to the mercy of Fjorginans—or to drive a seasoned mercenary into the cold sea before revealing them?
“You mentioned Fjorginans,” Pavel said. “Why would they attack a cathouse?”
Othin flexed his jaw. “My guess? To make a statement in retaliation for the Minos woman in Fjorgin
. They killed Kidge in a like manner.” He glanced in the direction of the sea whispering in the distance. “What I don’t understand is how no one saw or reported them.” He paused and added, “Or why they can’t die.”
The captain blinked. “What?”
They turned as a woman shrieked inside. Glass shattered; something hit the ground on the other side of the house above the garden. A dark figure ran across the yard. Othin recognized the ghoul Magreda had felled with the frying pan.
“Leave this one to me,” Othin said. “Magreda will explain the rest.”
With a hesitant nod, the captain shouted a command at his men as they rounded the house in pursuit.
The Fjorginan made it to the horses, untied one and mounted, knocking a bystander to the ground as he turned the beast around. The horse fought the bit, prancing about in terror until it bolted down the street. Othin was close behind, his breath short. He found his horse, leapt up and started after the ghoul, leaving the smoldering ant bed of the Pink Rose behind.
He reached up to touch Millie’s crow flying beneath his throat. Still there, still quiet.
Too quiet.
Black Yarn
Three days had passed since the Barley Moon had risen over Ason Tae, its clouded eye piercing the freezing mist that cloaked the fields, forests and towns. A ridge of heavy clouds descended from the mountains and hung low over the village of Odr, breathing snow flurries into the air. Melisande approached the arched door of a centuries-old stone building on a bend in the North River. Swinging in the wind on an ornate iron bracket hung a sign showing a hammer surrounded by fire, the name Jarnstrom painted beneath in soot black.
Melisande hesitated, gazing at the river, its dark gray waters swirling around the foundations. A millwheel creaked and splashed, driving the bellows of the forge. She had come here for two reasons. Well, three. On her back she carried the heavy bulk of a cloak she had knit for Damjan, the Master of Jarnstrom, and she had come to deliver it.
Her second reason for this visit was that Othin had not arrived at his usual time. He and Damjan had become close, and the ranger always visited the smithy when he was in town. Melisande was not daft enough to expect Othin to come to her first; after all, he was on the king’s business. He might have found trouble somewhere. As he had told her many times while holding her in the silence of the night, his duties could delay him for many reasons. Damjan, who tended to hear the winds blowing from the greater world, might have news.
Holding the strap of her old bag tightly in one hand and a sack of provisions in the other, Melisande leaned her elbow on the door latch and pushed it down. As to her third reason for coming here—she had not yet worked out a way to approach that, even after rehearsing it all day.
As the door swung open, a wave of heat rushed into her face, causing her breath to catch. Loud hammering struck the air. The Jarnstrom Forge was one of many smithies built over Dyrregin’s rough history, but it was renowned for weaponry, especially swords, of which Damjan was a master. In the lowlands it was said the Fylking had taught the ancestors of House Jarnstrom their skills. Three stone forges stood across the floor, surrounded by racks, tools and implements, molds, slack tubs and anvils set on wide tree stumps. One forge burned and glowed in the steam. On the wall behind it hung an assortment of latches, hooks, harness gear for horses and oxen, and farm and household tools. In times of peace, blacksmiths provided such wares to the Vale of Ason Tae, and the smiths made only enough war gear to stay skilled and to keep the warriors of the realm in good standing.
In times of strife, all three forges burned to provide the trappings of war. Stone shelves in the center of the chamber held heavy wooden boxes containing iron rods, arrowheads, spearheads, axe heads, mail, horseshoes and other sundry bits and pieces. In one corner stood an ironclad door that led to the armory. No one was allowed in there, though Othin had visited it once and talked about it for two days afterwards.
Melisande put her food sack down near a blackened oak pillar and shrugged off her knitting bag. Holding it close, she called out. “Hail, Damjan!”
After a moment, Damjan’s son Vinso stopped what he was doing and approached. “Millie!” He smiled warmly. As tall as his father, he had black, tousled hair and a powerful chest. His face was as dirty as his apron. “To what do we owe your lovely presence here?” Always so polite, Vinso. A fascinating contrast to hammering, burning and sweating over iron.
“I have something for your da,” Melisande replied.
Vinso nodded and returned to his work, hollering up a stairwell as he passed. His shout echoed in the vaults of the chamber. After a moment, footsteps pounded the stairs to the second floor where Damjan kept his office, along with a collection of ancestral war gear that only the occasional high-ranking warrior or official had laid eyes on, Othin included.
Damjan hopped from the last step. His characteristic black Jarnstrom hair was balding on top and he wore a long braid down his back. His cheeks were ruddy and his wide smile flashed in a bristly beard stippled with gray. His forearms were scarred by hot metal and tattooed with symbols from war campaigns in other lands where he had fought as a younger man. “Are ye done with it yet?” he asked, rubbing his big hands together.
Grinning, Melisande pulled forth the cloak, shook it out and held it high. Knee-length, it had openings for arms, deep pockets and a hood. She had run out of brown yarn and used black along the edges. As she had picked up the black yarn and looped the end over a needle, her pattern sense intensified to a buzz that made her fingers ache.
The swordsmith’s eyes lit up like a furnace. “Och!” he exclaimed, taking the cloak and drawing it around his shoulders. He had asked for something in which to hunt and travel. “By the gods, Millie,” he said, looking down, “‘tis most fine.” Still wearing it, he took her hands in his. “Now tell me what you would have for payment, hmm?” He gestured to the chamber. “Anything you desire.”
Melisande gulped, her gaze settling on a rack where a row of knives hung glinting in the light of Vinso’s forge.
That morning, in the shadow of predawn, she had awakened to the sound of hoofbeats near the cottage. She had jumped up and peered out the window to see two riders vanishing into the forest. She would have brushed the whole thing off, but the horsemen had awakened her from a dream in which a hooded crow warned of their arrival. On top of that, she had witnessed the Fylking warrior with the dragon helmet riding through the snow before the horsemen, as if leading them on a chase.
Until that morning, Melisande had believed her experience by the gatetower where the dragon warrior had harried her was just a glimpse, an artifact of sensitivity brought on by her habit of wandering too close. Now he was back. Why would he be riding in the woods by her cottage? It was almost as if he had led the horsemen there.
By itself, the horsemen’s brief visit that morning gave her little to fear. But a warning from a crow and the subsequent appearance of the dragon warrior had left such a shadow on her heart that she decided it couldn’t hurt to take precautions. Her father had always chided her for being careless. Perhaps he was right.
Melisande jumped as Damjan said her name. He had removed his cloak and folded it over one arm, gazing down kindly in expectation. No point in hedging. She took a deep breath and walked to the rack, her gaze settling on the longest knife in the collection. The deadly two-edged blade had been fitted to a hilt and wrapped with black and red leather in a crisscross pattern. It had a silvery pommel tapered to a point.
Flashing a weak smile, she took the long knife from the hooks on which it hung. It had knotwork engraved below the hilt and trailing off to wisps along the blade. A weapon fit for a prince, it was worth more than a cloak. She turned and brandished it. “I’d like this.”
The swordsmith pursed his lips, his expression keen. “That’s no kitchen knife, Millie. It’s fit for one thing only.”
“I thought I’d give it to Othin as a gift,” she said. She had not thought of this before while fretting over the range
r’s whereabouts. The story she had concocted for Damjan on the way here involved some rubbish about learning to fight, which was closer to the truth. She placed the knife back on the hooks. “I didn’t realize how fine it was until I saw it up close.” This much was true. Despite her fears, she had no intention of making an unfair trade.
Damjan smiled and retrieved the knife. “It would make a splendid gift, and you’re welcome to it.” He held the hilt in one hand and placed the blade on the other. “My tanner hasn’t made a scabbard for it yet. If you want to come back…”
Melisande shook her head. “I—he’ll be here soon, and I’d rather have it.” She looked into her knitting bag. “I can put it in here.”
The swordsmith peered dubiously into the bag. “I’ll give you something.” He strode to the other side of the smithy and rummaged around in a box on the floor. He pulled out a thick, felted bag more suited to a bunch of spoons than a knife, but the length was good. He wrapped the blade in it and brought it to her.
“Thank you, Damjan.” Melisande took her payment and tucked it between the wool in her bag, feeling as guilty for lying to him as she had for anything she’d done in her life. She considered telling him the truth. But that would only rouse things up, and Melisande had never been good at admitting when she needed help. Besides, when Othin did come, the damned trickster, she probably would give the knife to him. She lowered her head and went for the door, picking up her food bag on the way. Damjan saw her out with a kind, if not slightly concerned, smile and thanked her again for her work.
Melisande had hurried over the North River Bridge and gone halfway down the eastern path to Graebrok before she realized she had forgotten to ask the swordsmith for news.
~ * ~
Melisande took another way home that day, using a path northeast of the warden’s cot that her father had cleared to avoid passing near the tower and tempting the Fylking. Her mother, of course, who was never one to brush with the Otherworld, had wisely followed suit. For the first time, Melisande wished she had listened to both of them long ago.
The Fylking: Outpost and The Wolf Lords Page 9
