The Fylking: Outpost and The Wolf Lords

by F. T. McKinstry

  To make space, the High Command had ousted Othin from his room in the Rangers’ Square and given it to six guardsmen. Instead of allowing him to join his companions in other spaces, Halstaeg moved him into the guest quarters of his own house in the Royal District as they prepared for the wedding. Rosalie’s idea, no doubt, so she could keep an eye on him—as well she might, as Othin had spent every night since drinking with his friends in shady establishments like the Sour View. He used the pretense of gathering intelligence and hunting for spies. But the only thing he was hunting and gathering was information about the ranger who had died in Ason Tae.

  So far he had found nothing.

  In two days he would stand with the high constable’s daughter before the Old Gods, whom he had once thought patrons of warriors, wanderers and poets. He had since been educated by Rosalie on the fair attributes of Frigg, a goddess of love, marriage and wisdom. Conveniently, Frigg was married to Othin, the Allfather, and shared in his ability to oversee all the realms. Rosalie spoke about Frigg as if describing a pretty dress or a spectacular celebration. All Othin thought about as she prattled on was Millie, tossing carrots in a soup pot, muscling an unwieldy armload of wood through the snow, knitting by the fire and talking to the cat. If there was such a being as Frigg, surely she had blessed him with his wild woman of the north and not a marriage that killed his heart like an early frost. For this, his doubt in the gods had strengthened tenfold. Tripe created by women.

  Othin snapped from his dreary thoughts as a wild card landed by his hand. A red fox sat on watch between a forest and a flowery meadow. Othin looked up.

  Bren shrugged. “I just pulled it at random.”

  “Foxes are smart,” Prederi offered.

  “I’m not,” Othin said. He lifted his glass for a long pull. The whisky here was not as good as that of the Full Moon and would leave him with a dastardly hangover. But it was good enough for his sorrows.

  “Think back, lad,” Bren said, leaning forward, his red hair catching the lamplight. “We dragged you from the Moon and left you in your bed half conscious. Couldn’t you tell when you awoke next morning that you’d had a woman?”

  “I awoke late,” Othin reminded them. “We were due for the road, and I didn’t have time to ponder it.”

  “If you dreamed it, you’d have had a mess in your bed,” Prederi put in, tilting his glass to his lips.

  “Not necessarily,” Bren put in.

  Othin put his face in one hand and rubbed his eyes. He had fished his memory a thousand times in the dark, briny mists of that night, and all he came up with was Millie’s arms and the smell of gardenia—two things that did not go together. He had asked himself the sensitive questions his friends now asked and had not liked the answers. When he caught up with Captain Diderik three days ago and confronted him on the matter, the blademaster swore on his honor that he delivered Rosalie safely to the Royal District that night after leaving the tavern with her. Othin didn’t doubt Diderik’s honor. But neither did he doubt Rosalie capable of doing something wicked to appease her whims.

  “I still think she’s lying,” Prederi said. “Why else would she push the wedding so soon? She’ll capture your seed on your wedding night or soon thereafter, and no one’ll be the wiser.”

  Othin cast the blond-haired warrior a black glance. The same thought had occurred to him.

  “You were only on patrol for a moon’s turn,” Prederi pointed out. “How would she know that soon?”

  “She didn’t bleed on time,” Othin said. “So she says.”

  Prederi snorted softly. “That means nothing. My woman’s cycles don’t follow any known thing. She has me thinking I’m going to be a father every time the seasons change.”

  “Sometimes they just know,” Bren said. He traced a finger over the edge of his glass. “My mother did, when she conceived me.”

  Othin gripped his glass and flexed his jaw. “Halstaeg isn’t questioning such mysteries. Whether I got her with child or not, she convinced him we slept together, and he’ll see me bound for that regardless.”

  “Are you sure you had her?” Bren pressed again.

  “Have you listened to nothing I’ve said?” Othin shot back. “Even if I could recall it right, it doesn’t matter now. It’s my word against hers, and no one will take mine. It’s no damned secret how drunk I was.”

  The three of them sat there, staring at the table. Then Prederi lifted a finger toward the open window. “You could always go up there for a chat with the Fylking. Try shooting an arrow into one of those slits. It would be over quick.”

  Othin broke into laughter, despite himself. Prederi never failed to crack him open with something extreme.

  Bren threw a punch at Prederi’s arm that knocked him from his chair. “That’s not funny,” the Northman growled.

  “Oi!” shouted the barman from across the room. Heads turned in the rangers’ direction. “I’ll have no trouble in here.”

  Bren held up his hand in a gesture of peace as Prederi disentangled himself from his chair and got back into it. He cleared his throat and tilted his head toward Othin. “He thought it was funny.”

  “I’ll laugh at anything,” Othin said. “I’m fucked.”

  At last, Bren said what they had all been thinking since Othin stormed out of Halstaeg’s office exhausted by an unkind patrol and feeling a lesser man than he had gone in. “You could slip the trap.” He gestured to the fox card.

  Prederi eased back in his chair with a deep breath and a nervous sidelong glance.

  Othin searched Bren’s blue gaze for meaning. “You mean leave Rosalie and her child to the gods, dishonor myself and our brotherhood and fly the city.”

  Bren’s nod was nearly imperceptible.

  Othin lifted the card and studied it. Shapeshifting, guile, escaping tricky situations. The fox in this tale could be Rosalie as easily, for she had outwitted him. “Honor aside, Halstaeg will not let a slight to his name go unavenged. He’ll hunt me down and publicly execute me.”

  Bren leaned forward on his arms with an expression of intent. “Who’s he going to send to find you? You’re a ranger, one of our best. You can vanish into the wilds like that fox.”

  “There are rangers who would hunt you,” Prederi said.

  Othin tossed the card and leaned back in his chair. “He wouldn’t need rangers. He’ll put a price on my head and every cutthroat in Dyrregin will be on the hunt. I’ll never see Millie again.”

  He drained his glass. His friends meant well, but Othin had plotted a dozen escape scenarios in the long hours of the night lying in the guest quarters of House Halstaeg. Unfortunately, they all involved Millie, and if he went missing, Ason Tae would be the first place Halstaeg would deploy his hunters, war and winter notwithstanding. It wouldn’t be beyond Halstaeg to use Millie or to question Othin’s companions, threatening them or worse, making an example of them for covering for him. They had all sworn an oath before the gods, and Halstaeg would have no qualms about using that to uphold his personal honor.

  Othin had not been able to discover a scrap of information about the rangers Halstaeg had sent to Ason Tae in his place. Just to get Othin’s reaction, the commander dropped the news that one of them died, and then wouldn’t give any details when questioned further. He was hiding something. Rangers met their ends on patrol occasionally, a bad fall from a horse, an ill-timed snowstorm or an outlaw’s lucky arrow in some wild place like Ylgr. Halstaeg never hid such deaths; on the contrary, the rangers were honored and their brothers given a chance to mourn them.

  This was different.

  Othin absently hefted the silk coin pouch on his belt. Two days ago he mentioned to Rosalie that he would purchase himself new armor for the wedding. He expected her to tell him that such arrangements had already been made. Instead, as he had hoped, she gave him a heavy pouch. Planning to use the coin to buy information about the dead ranger, he didn’t buy any armor. He didn’t buy any intelligence either. Halstaeg had stitched this up tight. No
one knew anything.

  Diderik, in a heroic show of sympathy, offered to see what he could find out. A bleak prospect, that. Halstaeg wouldn’t have closed this down just to deter Othin from his interest in another woman. Something terrible had happened in Ason Tae.

  He half listened to Bren and Prederi discussing women, their low voices mingling with the idle talk of surrounding patrons. Not liking the upshot of becoming an outlaw, Othin had entertained the idea of keeping Millie as his mistress, even asking her to live someplace near where they could meet in secret. Unfortunately, he had no way to get to her—Halstaeg had seen to that—and taking Millie out of the wilds of Ason Tae would be like removing and caging a wildcat. He couldn’t take her spirit and her love at the same time.

  He fingered the soft knit crow at his throat.

  The crow flies, and is still.

  Bren caught his attention by waving a hand over his face. With that odd look of having sensed something, the Northman said, “What are you bringing this way?”

  Othin creased his brow, not understanding the question. Then the door to the tavern opened and a tall man entered, cloaked and hooded in guardsman gray. Startled to see him, Othin rose to his feet. He flashed a dry smile at Bren and said, “Have you ever considered joining the Blackthorn Guild?”

  “No.”

  “You’re a natural.” He moved around them to head for the bar. “I’ll be but a moment.”

  The newcomer had positioned himself on the farthest end of the bar closest to the door. He had two mugs of dark ale in front of him. As Othin reached his side, the man pushed one of the mugs in his direction.

  “Captain,” Othin said with a nod. He leaned one elbow on the dark, scratched wood. Beneath the shadow of his hood, the lines on the blademaster’s face were long. “How did you know I was here?” He took a drink, hoping the guardsman was not privy to some general assumption.

  “I didn’t,” Diderik said, scowling into his mug. “I tried three other places first. I have news.”

  By his tone, not to mention that he had gone through the effort of tracking Othin down, it was clearly more news than Othin had expected. After Diderik had rescued him by escorting Rosalie from the Full Moon that night, Othin wouldn’t have asked him for any more favors. He still owed him for that one, badly as it went.

  “Some news indeed for you to seek me here,” Othin said, glancing over his shoulder.

  Diderik set down his mug. “Well. You don’t have much time.” His tone was dry. After losing a young wife to winter sickness several suns past, Diderik had turned his eye toward Rosalie, though he had never liked her father.

  “I doubt it’ll matter now, but what do you have?”

  “The ranger called Nestor who was sent in your place to Ason Tae returned with the body of his companion about a fortnight before you returned from the coast. He didn’t come into the city alone. Two guardsmen were with him. They’d been in Ason Tae recruiting. Halstaeg spoke to Coldevin and had them deployed to a backwater outpost on the border of Skolvarin.” He lowered his voice. “Another accompanied Nestor as well. A famed swordsmith from the Vale.”

  A chill shot over Othin’s scalp. “Who?”

  “House Jarnstrom. That’s all I could get. Almost no one saw him. He was escorted from the city the same day as his arrival. I wouldn’t be half surprised if he took a knife between the ribs on the road.”

  Othin thought fast. Jarnstrom. As he had feared, this had happened in Odr. Only Damjan and his son Anselm were known in Merhafr, and Othin had to guess that one of them accompanied the rangers back. But why? A man of great honor and strength of resolve, Damjan had taken it upon himself to keep an eye out for Millie. He had probably asked to see Othin when he arrived, to tell him what happened.

  Whatever that was. Something dire enough that Halstaeg had the guardsmen who had accompanied Nestor back to Merhafr reassigned to the south to keep them quiet. This went beyond the death of one ranger—an unproclaimed death, at that.

  “That son of a bitch Halstaeg. He’s covering something up so I won’t find out. I think he only told me about the ranger’s death to see if I knew anything or had received word. Now he’s marrying me to his daughter to trap me here so I can’t go up there and discover the truth.”

  Diderik chuckled dryly. “Maybe. It would help if you hadn’t got her with child—that gave him a working excuse. I will tell you, Halstaeg puts his name above all else. Whatever happened in Ason Tae must be bad enough to put a stain on him. It might even be something he was involved in. This is not the first time he’s tried to protect himself from dishonor. Do you know Straelos is not his eldest son? There’s another called Arcmael who brought shame on his father’s name by failing to dedicate his life to the sword. Halstaeg stripped him of his titles and disowned him.”

  “When did this happen?”

  Diderik thought for a moment. “Some eighteen suns past.”

  Five suns before Othin had arrived to Merhafr to join the rangers. Plenty of time for truth to ferment into rumor. “I heard Halstaeg had another son who died in the mountains.”

  The guardsman shook his head. “His father might have wished it so. Straelos certainly did. But no, Arcmael joined the Wardens of Dyrregin. No one has seen him since.” He tilted his mug back and drained it. Then he added, “Halstaeg is more of a politician than he is a warrior.”

  Othin tapped his fingers on the bar to release the tension in his gut. Like a badly placed piece in a war game, he had given Halstaeg a place to cast the stain.

  Diderik turned slightly, his gaze intent. “What were you thinking, bedding her?”

  The blademaster had always been perceptive, behind a blade or a bar. “It wasn’t my intention,” Othin assured him. “I’m not certain it happened. I was drunk as a god.”

  The guardsman didn’t respond to that. After a respectful pause he said, “I don’t think this is about Rosalie. Perhaps my last bit of news will convince you.” He paused as the barman approached and set another mug before him, and then lowered his voice. “Nestor is being held in the Rat Hole.”

  Othin glanced at him quickly. The seediest gaol in Merhafr, the Rat Hole was reserved for the worst sorts: cutthroats, assassins, traitors and the like, men with no more honor than a dock rat. To Othin’s knowledge, no ranger had ever been put into the Rat Hole. “Are you sure?”

  “Aye. Halstaeg himself gave the order.”

  Othin’s fear for Millie swelled in his chest like a cold wave. Diderik was right. This wasn’t about Rosalie. What had happened in Odr that would drive Halstaeg to put away one of his own rangers in order to hide it? Had those men done something wicked under bad orders? Dyrregin was on the verge of war with Fjorgin. Perhaps the rangers had compromised the realm, somehow. That would explain Damjan’s involvement.

  Millie. Politics and dishonor aside, he couldn’t shake her from his mind. This could not be a coincidence.

  “Meet me outside,” Othin said quietly. He moved through the crowd to the corner where his companions leaned together, talking. As he approached, Bren looked up. The wolf card lay face up before him.

  “You’re up to no good,” the Northman observed.

  “I have business to attend to. I’ll see you both later.” He reached for the silken purse, gritting his teeth as the faint scent of gardenia reached his nose. He shook out a gold coin, which he placed on the table. “Enjoy yourselves.”

  He headed for the tavern door before his friends could question him. Cold wind smelling of brine and clamoring with gulls greeted him as he stepped outside and closed the door behind him. Diderik stood across the street, his tall form shadowed in the overhang of a tall house shuttered with disuse. “You’ve done me yet another good turn, my friend,” Othin said as he stepped close. He took out his purse and held it discreetly between them. “I would that you take this.”

  Diderik took up the purse with the skill of a seasoned thief. “I never knew rangers were paid so well.”

  “We aren’t. I’m to use that
for my wedding armor.”

  Diderik hissed a laugh. “And what will you wear now?” He returned Othin’s purse to him. “I require no payment. I am satisfied.” He started walking, his eyes glittering beneath his hood.

  Othin looked over his shoulder to make sure Bren and Prederi weren’t following him. Then he quickened his pace to follow the captain. Diderik had no reason to help him beyond his own gain. His cagey manner begged one more question, the answer to which might prove useful if Othin knew the man at all. “I do wonder,” Othin said in a low voice, matching the blademaster’s stride, “how you came by this information when Halstaeg hasn’t left a mouse shit for a trail.”

  The blademaster’s smile lit the dark like a knife. “Well you ask,” he purred. “I caught Leofwine on his knees with Halstaeg’s cock in his mouth.”

  Othin snorted. “That’s not news. They’ve been up to that for suns. Did they see you?”

  Diderik shook his head. “Halstaeg’s back was turned and the seneschal was…busy.”

  They reached a corner in the narrow cobbled lane that went along the river. Othin headed that way. Diderik accompanied him as if he knew exactly where the ranger was headed.

  “You won’t be able to bribe them with that in return for information,” Othin said. “It’s common enough. Besides, Lady Halstaeg wouldn’t give a shit. Word is, she has several lovers.”

  “That’s what Leofwine said, until I refreshed his memory. In his passion, Halstaeg had torn open his lover’s undershirt, exposing his chest. When I mentioned that, Leofwine turned white as a trout’s belly, he did. Last I knew, treason was a crime.”

  Othin slowed his step and stared. “What are you talking about?”

  “Leofwine is Fjorginan, House Earticael. Halstaeg hired him because he’s clever, he can read and write several languages and it looked good politically to befriend Fjorgin’s ruling seat. What I didn’t know is that he has a tattoo on his chest, a black wolf surrounded by leaves, moons and thorns.”

  “That’s the mark of some Fjorginan brotherhood, is it not? They serve a god called Loki.”