Ingifrith’s mother had once told her to avoid such beings if she happened upon them, that they were wild, complex and bore no love for humans. The hedge witch had rattled off a raft of nasty stories about the sorts of things phooka, elves and goblins were capable of: bringing trees to life to attack lone travelers, shapeshifting into giant eagles or cats to eat children or livestock, or luring the sensitive to their deaths over cliff edges or in lakes. Ingifrith had feared such things as a child. But these beings didn’t seem to be up to trickery.
They were preparing for war. And that was even more frightening.
She had little to give them in exchange for their seeming attention. But, like the phooka, they asked for nothing, staying near whether she wanted them to or not. She wondered if she were simply able to see creatures common in these parts, or if the Fenrir Brotherhood had indeed turned their eye this way and the Others had gathered to protect her. But she couldn’t imagine why elves or the phooka—let alone goblins—would entangle themselves with the Wolf Lords.
Ingifrith walked down the road above the sea, wrapped in her thoughts and paying little heed to other travelers. She blended with the ground, the birds, the trees and the wind, and considered her next move.
A shadow crossed her heart as something dark stirred the trees on the side of the road. She slowed her pace, clenching her jaw. A raven perched on a low pine bough, folded its wings and leaned forward with a thwok! A second raven landed nearby.
The ravens had been following her for two days. Ravens were common enough, but they tended to come and go, or hang around in specific places only if something interested them, like a carcass. They followed wolves and other predators who led them to food, but they had no reason to follow her. Perhaps she was seeing different birds each time, but she didn’t think so. She had studied them, at first thinking them to be Fylking, like the one she had seen by Tower Sie. But they were real. She had not seen them in dreams, and they didn’t stir the hackles on her neck. But something about them unsettled her.
Ingifrith kept walking. At first, the ravens didn’t move. Then they took to the air with a rustle, soaring down the path toward the town. For once, she was glad to be going among people.
The path widened and parted to lanes of cottages and small farms, inns, stables and smithies. Ingifrith passed beneath a high iron gate with the word Antesh wrought into the arch. Stone barbicans stood on either side of the gate. Sentinels from a more troubled time, the towers were empty, and the stone walls that spread out on either side contained open doorways to gardens and courtyards.
On the far side of the gate, cobblestones replaced the dusty way. Closely-packed rows of wood and stone offices, fancy homes, shops and taverns stretched down the hill. People crowded the way, some on foot, others mounted or driving wagons and carriages. In the center of the street, carts were laden with flowers, trinkets and food. Ingifrith stopped and bought a small meat pie from a man with bushy red hair and a white moustache.
Overwhelmed by the noise and activity, Ingifrith headed into the crowds. Down by the water she might get an idea of what sort of boat might be able to take her to Dyrregin.
Not for the first time, Ingifrith was glad she had endured her father’s lessons on the Dyrregian language, which was not that different than Fjorginan, but different enough that she would have struggled with it upon her arrival. Her father had been a strong believer in the merits of educating oneself in the ways of one’s immediate neighbors—especially those with whom one had a history of war. Never trust a treaty! he would say, using the Second Gate War as proof of his concern. Ingifrith hadn’t bothered to argue with him.
As she moved along, taking bites from her pie, she spotted a curio shop tucked into the buildings on one side of the street. The window was crammed full of interesting things from faraway places: wooden chests with ornate brass detail, glass vases, carved animals, hanging ornaments of strange winged creatures, and tiered boxes filled with beads and baubles. Ingifrith slowed, letting her pack slide from her shoulder. She wrapped up her meal and put it inside. This place might be interested in buying her flute—
A warning rippled over her nerves. At first, she didn’t respond. A tug, a tear across her fingers, and then suddenly, her hands were empty. She stood there in shock as the truth sank in.
She whirled around. A fleet-footed boy dashed across the street, clutching her pack. Nearby, someone laughed.
“Oi!” Ingifrith cried, running after the waif as he vanished into a dark opening between two buildings. Ingifrith entered the shadows and saw nothing. She ran to the end, stumbled through a clutter of boxes and continued searching the area until her breath was spent. No doubt the rat thief knew every hole in this city. All Ingifrith knew was that her pack, purse, silver flute, meat pie and every pitiful other thing she owned was gone.
She stood there, breathing heavily, staring across the fenced yard of a ramshackle cottage. A croaking sound cut the silence behind her. Her blood running cold, Ingifrith looked up over her shoulder. A raven perched upon the top of a gutter, eyeing her with a cocked head.
“Wicked bastard,” she breathed.
The dark bird took to the air. In the distance, a second raven separated from the boughs of a tree and joined it.
Time to move. Ingifrith found an alley back to the main street and crept toward the light. What to do? Report the thief to the town constable or the King’s Guard? Assuming they didn’t laugh at her for being a fool, they might question her or even turn her over to Fenrir again. It wasn’t worth the risk. She doubted they’d be able to help her anyway.
Ingifrith had taken the ravens less seriously than she should have, mostly because her companions in the Otherworld hadn’t warned her. And when she reached the opening to the street and peered around, her heart nearly stopped.
By the cart where she had bought her pie stood two men cloaked in black. One of them fed a raven perched on his arm. The other spoke to the red-haired merchant, who wrung his hands and nodded with smarmy compliance. Ingifrith jerked back into the shadows. Sorcerers? They had to be. The ravens were theirs, and the birds were following her.
Ingifrith went back the way she had come. She left the web of alleys around the buildings, jumped fences, ran through courtyards and gardens, beneath trees and the thatched overhangs on cottages; she skirted streets and bounded down hills. She reached a shipyard, a sprawling place with towering scaffolds, huge stacks of oak planks, and buildings full of men carving and hammering. Half-built ships stood swathed in ropes and ladders. She slowed her pace and tried to act like she was just passing through and not being pursued by the Fenrir Brotherhood.
She was too frightened to feel any Otherworldly prickles or presences. She kept moving until the sea and the gulls grew louder. She passed along a row of granite blocks and stepped onto a wharf littered with shacks, barrels, nets and traps. Boats of all different types and sizes rocked on the water. People lounged about; others moved between the slips, on the boats, or along the wharf, talking and carrying things. Not liking the feel of the place, Ingifrith moved toward a curve in the landscape, where the planks ended and the sea began.
Piles of rocks strewn with seaweed tumbled down to a beach. She climbed down, being careful not to lose her footing. She caught the sweet, cloying odor of dead fish. When she reached the sand, a powerful prickle climbed over her scalp and down the center of her spine. A floating sensation enveloped her, lapping, swirling and hissing in the rocks. She moved, compelled, until a deep echoing reached her. Around another bend lay a tidal pool. The deep overhang of a cave shaded it. Ingifrith moved down to the edge and settled there, out of sight.
She rubbed her arms with a shiver. Outside the cave, bright clouds moved on a clear sky. On the horizon, sails glimmered in the sun. The fine day stood in hard contrast to her bleak situation. She couldn’t argue with Halogi’s reasoning for going to Dyrregin, not now that the Fenrir Brotherhood seemed to have found her. Very clever, to get around the protection of her invisible fri
ends by using ravens, creatures with physical senses that could also cross the Veil. But at least Ingifrith now knew she was still cloaked from the eyes of sorcery. If the sorcerers were able to see her, they wouldn’t need the birds.
This consolation didn’t amount to much, unfortunately. Ingifrith had nowhere to run, no way to get across the sea, no place to sleep and nothing to eat. The Faersc Conservatory had never seemed so far away.
No trap without a spring, Halogi had reminded her, using her own advice. No fortress without a crack. She scowled. How easy it was to comfort and advise another! Halogi, being the magnificent being he was, had not thought twice before acting on her words and flying off to risk his life. She wasn’t as brave as he thought.
As the afternoon waned, she sat there in the chill shadow of the cave. The presence she had felt earlier still tingled on her nerves but did not show itself. Her mother had once told her to beware of the entities that ruled the sea, beings of the deep, liquid universe. She had called them tricky, vengeful and hungry. But Ingifrith had learned young not to take everything her mother said seriously. The woman had loved scary tales at the expense of reality.
As Ingifrith gazed out at the sea, loneliness descended on her, a crushing sensation brought on by the vast emptiness spreading out to the horizon. Clear, greenish gray water swirled into the cave, swelling the pool, casting the depths in moving darkness. On the surface, tendrils of green moved to and fro, forming beautiful spiral patterns. Ingifrith’s eyes went out of focus as she nodded off. A bald dome of shell white rose slowly from the pool, drawing the green hair in a large swirl around it, and from a face stared two black eyes, unblinking above a long nose and purplish gray lips dripping with brine.
Demon Tamer, a voice grated, the sound of a hand dragging across broken shells.
“I am nothing,” Ingifrith mumbled—then she snapped awake.
The pool had changed. It glowed with pale green light around the floating form of a hag, or the closest thing to it. A gray fin stretched from her forehead over her skull, arcing down to her spine, and smaller fins grew beneath her arms. Her breasts, floating in the water, were white, cold and tangled in seaweed. Bony fingers tipped with long, curved nails stroked the surface of the pool, sending fishes scurrying.
“Who are you?” Ingifrith asked, now fully awake and aware of how vulnerable she was. Somewhere in her mind, she thought, sea witch, and knew it for true. A sea witch was a particularly horrible being in faery tales that stirred up storms and undertows to drown mortals so she could suck the life from them and feast on their bones. Similar beings haunted lakes and rivers, but the ones in the ocean were said to be particularly malevolent. Gazing into the hag’s eyes, empty and dark as holes, Ingifrith believed it.
I am Maworfae, the hag breathed, her gaze as ancient as the sea.
“That’s a lovely name. I am Ingifrith.”
I know who you are. She smiled coldly, showing rows of sharp, jagged teeth.
Ingifrith didn’t bother to ask for an explanation. News traveled fast in the Otherworld. “I came here to hide.” She let her eyes move over the cave. “Am I intruding?”
That wicked smile, again. Not if you will answer me a question.
A trap, then. Of all the beings to bargain with, a sea witch was unthinkable. But if Ingifrith tried to escape, she wouldn’t get a finger’s breadth before the hag shredded her. “Ask, then.”
What do you desire?
Ingifrith suspected the witch already knew her predicament and planned to exploit it to her own ends. Biting down a comment involving the rat thief’s head on a pike, she said, “I want safe passage over the sea to Dyrregin.”
The hag lowered her arms beneath the water and bowed her head, as if laughing to herself. When she looked up, her expression held such anguish that Ingifrith stiffened, wondering what she had said. For a brief moment, she saw the bleeding, howling rift that scorn leaves in a woman’s heart.
It was something Ingifrith knew well.
There is a ship called the Midnight Fog, the hag growled, her face drawn up into a snarl. The first mate stole something of mine, and I want it back. Carving the water with her nails, she tilted her head up with a sly, calculating expression. Get it for me and I will grant you passage.
Ingifrith pulled her knees to her chest, liking this less and less and wishing she had taken her mother’s stories more seriously. “What is it?”
An amulet.
“Is it enchanted?”
The witch showed her fangs with a hiss. Apparently she hadn’t expected Ingifrith to ask that question. It protects him.
“I’m not a thief,” Ingifrith declared, irritated to the point of recklessness. She didn’t bother to cite the Rule of Exchange. This was the sea witch’s domain and Ingifrith was trespassing. It was common for Otherworld fiends to exact payments from mortals in exchange for passage through such places after they had unwittingly entered them.
Less common, though not unheard of, was an immortal falling in love with a mortal and granting them trinkets and protections. If Ingifrith remembered her mother’s tales correctly, sea witches were known to shapeshift into beautiful women to seduce and mate with mortal men.
“I’ll steal nothing for you,” Ingifrith said, standing her ground.
Then you will die, the sea witch grated. The water turned dark around her, as if poisoned by ink, or blood.
“Kill me, then. But you won’t find another to help you.” She studied the witch, her heart pounding and her throat dry. “A sailor stole your amulet, you say. Or did you give it to him? Tell me the truth.”
The sea witch threw her face back with a scream that all but stripped the flesh from Ingifrith’s bones. I gave him nothing! she howled. Treacherous mortal! It was not his to take!
The cave roared with streaks of black, green and gray, killer tides, clouds and waves, the cruel grip of an undertow, the weight and power of a storm tide. Mist hung in the air, dripping tears. Ingifrith surmised that the sailor had used Maworfae for his own ends and then dropped her. Perhaps he had discovered her true nature and fled; that would be understandable. But he had stolen something dear on his way out, as some hero from a tale would do.
In those stories, no one ever considered the beasts.
Feeling an almost primordial connection with this creature, Ingifrith said, “I will help you. But I want one other assurance.”
The witch towered over her now, filling the cave in a writhing, hissing maelstrom of tentacles. The hag’s breathing rasped with rage, her eyes glittered like broken glass, and her nails drew blood as she clutched her breasts in pain. Death would be certain unless Maworfae wanted her amulet more than she wanted to kill a hedge witch who knew her secret.
A hedge witch who knew the scorn of men.
Name it, the hag snarled.
“I’m being hunted by the Wolf Lords. They will follow me. I want protection.”
For a moment, silence fell. The witch parted her lips and her nostrils flared like an animal catching a scent. Her brooding calm held such hatred and ferocity that it cloaked the sea in a shadow. Ingifrith felt the brush of a warning—the fire in Halogi’s eyes and the glint of his sword.
For that, I require blood, the witch purred.
“Whose blood?”
The witch’s laughter echoed in the cave like an avalanche. Wolf blood. She didn’t wait for an answer. The tentacles relaxed and slipped into the water as the hag submerged. Go now, Demon Tamer, before the tide is sated.
The sea witch left her there in the damp, creeping shadows. Ingifrith sagged with relief, though her heart was filled with dread. She had just made a nasty bargain, if ever there was one—and she had no earthly idea how she would fulfill it.
Halogi would be proud.
~*~
Ingifrith left the sea witch’s cave disoriented, her sense of the day skewed by the Otherworld. Hours had passed, though it seemed she had been in the cave only a short time. Until she climbed up the rocks, she hadn’t realized the
tide had come in. The beach on the far side lay underwater. No trap without a spring, she thought sourly, splashing in and trudging across. By the time she reached the wharves, she was soaked to the waist. The early evening had descended, and the wind off the water chilled her.
No fortress without a crack.
She set out on her new mission, ignoring passers-by as she made her way closer to the boats rocking on the tide. Away from the sea witch’s lair and out in the open, the presence of the unseen returned to her, more sharply this time, whispering on the wind, hissing in the water, pulsing in the rocks. The Others here were strange, imbued with the spirit of the sea, wild and toughened by constant motion. But they surrounded her, and she was able to move along the docks amid the loud, rough-handed crowd without being noticed.
Upon emerging from the cave to the flooded beach, Ingifrith had thought the sea witch’s comment about the sated tide was a warning about it rising. But as she wandered along, checking the name of each ship, she noticed that some of the crews had returned from shore leave and were readying to get underway. Go now, before the tide is sated. If the incoming tide was hungry, then a sated tide would be going out. And ships with it.
Ingifrith quickened her pace. She didn’t know much about ships aside from memories of her father’s chatter; he had loved boats. Not all of the vessels had their names prominently displayed; some of them, including a handful moored farther out into the harbor, left her wondering. She passed a tall building surrounded by flagstones and a wrought iron fence—the harbormaster’s quarters. Ingifrith considered stopping there and asking after the Midnight Fog, but that idea left her quickly. The sorcerers were certain to come here asking questions, if they hadn’t already, and the men there might remember her too well.
The Fylking: Outpost and The Wolf Lords Page 53
