The Fylking: Outpost and The Wolf Lords

by F. T. McKinstry

  Ingifrith moved along, shivering and muttering to herself. The first mate stole something of mine, and I want it back. How would Ingifrith take a protective amulet from a sailor? He would keep it close. Such a feat would challenge even a seasoned thief. Get it for me and I will grant you passage. And how was that supposed to happen? She slowed her pace, her cheeks hot. The more she thought about this, the more absurd her task seemed.

  Even if the Midnight Fog was in port here, who was to say the crew would be leaving soon, or at all? And what if they weren’t sailing to Dyrregin? They could be going anywhere. Surely, the sea witch knew these things before sending Ingifrith on this daft mission, but she dared not assume that. The witch wouldn’t care if Ingifrith starved or froze waiting for a coincidence.

  The sun cast shadows on the water. Spent and full of despair, Ingifrith sat down against a pier with a good view of the harbor. Her stomach growled. All around her shouted hawkers, sailors, merchants, fishwives and prostitutes; dogs barked and seagulls wailed; pulleys whined and cargo slammed onto pallets and decks. Her search had become too difficult in the midst of so much activity. If she missed the Midnight Fog, she would not only be on the bad side of a sea witch, but also have lost her only chance to make her journey across the Njorth.

  She closed her eyes. A faint chill stirred the nape of her neck. Water lapped below, against the pier. The chill deepened. Ingifrith opened her eyes as something rushed by her face. She nearly choked on her heart as a large black bird alit on a nearby stack of planks. It was not a raven but a gull, with feathers in rare shades of black and gray. It had an iridescent shine in its eye.

  Wolves are on the hunt, the bird said into her mind, its voice shrill.

  Ingifrith didn’t question the meaning of that as she twisted around and scanned the wharves and streets for black cloaks. The gull lifted up on dark wings and drifted away on the wind. Beware the charm, it warned. Then it dissolved into the air like mist.

  Ingifrith froze against the pier, torn between wanting to run, hide or both. At that moment, she realized Maworfae knew exactly where the Midnight Fog was and what her crew planned—how could she not? A broken heart was remarkably cognizant, bleeding with intense perception, noting every detail. She was a creature of the Otherworld, and the very tides whispered in her veins. The first mate of the Midnight Fog wouldn’t be able to scratch his ass without her knowing about it.

  The witch had made a point to warn Ingifrith about the tide. That meant this was happening and time was running out. Others did not speak to mortals to make conversation.

  Ingifrith got up, her heart racing and her palms damp. It protects him, the sea witch had said, grudgingly, a piece of information she only gave up after Ingifrith had asked her if the charm was enchanted. Why hide that from her?

  Ingifrith threaded her way through the people, pallets of cargo, storage shacks, animal pens and workshops, one eye on the boats and another on the crowd. A swirl of invisible mist accompanied her. The whispers of the unseen grew insistent, almost irritating. In contrast, the surrounding throng paid her no mind. The shadows lengthened, blurring the hulls of the boats with the water, making it harder to discern names. Ingifrith ignored the smaller vessels and focused on the larger ones, ships big enough to require a first mate and a crew. She noted several, but she couldn’t tell what they were.

  Then the inevitable happened. She froze as a raucous sound cut into the murmur of the crowd. A raven. Spinning around, she noticed a long, run-down building with stacks of crates and fishing gear outside. She ran to a barrel and crouched behind it, peering around. It smelled of pitch. She cowered as the bird soared overhead, its wide wings and wedged tail black against the sky. She crept around the shack to the door and tried it. Locked.

  Scowling, Ingifrith crept to the other side and climbed between a pile of tangled nets. She hunkered down, drawing a net over her.

  The whispers in her mind had quieted. She felt no brushes of warmth, cold or the scents of flowers or trees; no briny breezes, chills, no impressions.

  Except one. She stiffened as the dark shape of a bird appeared across the way, tucked between a stone building and a yard strung with ropes and sails. It perched on a tavern sign that hung over a door: The Black Gull.

  No coincidence, this. The door to the tavern stood open to the evening air, the crowd inside thick and bawdy. The smell of food caused Ingifrith’s hunger to return in force. Inside, glasses rattled, benches grated over the floor and laughter burst forth. A woman yelled something obscene.

  The silence in Ingifrith’s mind deepened, like a creature withdrawing into its shell. Five men strode up to the tavern and paused by the door. They were dressed in billowy trousers, rough linen shirts of black and gray, leather jerkins, worn boots and wide belts holding knives. Two of them wore swords on their backs, and all but one had thick, dark hair. Two wore beards. They spoke to each other in Catskoll. Ingifrith didn’t know the language, but she knew what it sounded like. The wife of the miller from whom she had let the loft in Earticael was a Catskoll who spoke Fjorginan only when she had to.

  The fifth man, dressed in black with a loose yellowish shirt, had long, tangled blond hair with a thin braid on one side. He spoke in lousy Catskoll with Fjorginan mixed in. He had a strong jaw shadowed with a pale beard. More than one woman eyed him as he moved through the crowd. But his looks were not what brought Ingifrith’s thoughts to a crashing halt.

  On his chest, beneath a tattered scarf, lay a large stone of pale green, the same color as the water in the sea witch’s lair. It emanated the eeriest silence she had ever felt, a veritable wall across the Veil.

  The amulet. Any gift from the Otherworld, given to a mortal, would give that person abilities beyond the natural. Maworfae had not been able to get her charm back on her own; she needed Ingifrith to do that. It was the only reason the witch hadn’t killed her. The charm protected the sailor from Others—including Maworfae.

  Beware the charm. It would protect the sailors from Ingifrith’s unseen friends, too. She would be exposed.

  The men were arguing. One of them, a wiry man with a sallow complexion, a thin moustache, and garish stripes on his trousers, barked a laugh and said something to one of his crewmates, a stout man with red cheeks and a woolen cap. It sounded like an order. Scowling, the second man threw a wistful glance at the tavern interior and then strode away toward the water.

  His companions went inside.

  Ingifrith wrestled the net off her face, clattered through the traps and followed him. She couldn’t be sure if this was the crew of the Midnight Fog, but there was no mistaking the weird feel of that stone—or the black gull. She would never have noticed those men if she hadn’t first seen the sign. As she moved away from the tavern, the airy glimmer of the Veil gradually returned to her nerves, further solidifying her belief in the power of the blond man’s necklace.

  Ingifrith trailed the sailor as he walked leisurely along the wharves. As dusk settled over the town, lights glowed from ships, inns and piers. Ingifrith didn’t see any more ravens, but she wasn’t going to assume the sorcerers’ birds would go to roost as they normally would at this time of day.

  The sailor made for a ship moored on a deserted section of the wharf. It was dark and sleek, with two masts. Ingifrith had seen the ship earlier in the afternoon but hadn’t stopped to investigate because two men had stood there, guarding it. They were still there, mercenaries clad in grim shades and armed with bows, swords and knives. One of them leaned on a spear. The sailor stopped and spoke to them, pulled something from his belt and shook a coin into each man’s palm. One of them said something and laughed. As they departed, the sailor went up the gangplank, jumped onto the deck with a thud and disappeared below.

  Trusting in her unseen companions to render her insubstantial, Ingifrith drew close to the ship and crept along until she found faded letters engraved on the stern. Not able to read them, she assumed it was in Catskoll. The letters were dim and ill-maintained, as if the crew did
not want much attention brought to them; in fact, the whole ship, seedy and nondescript, bore an air of strength disguised by squalor.

  Pirates. As if the Fenrir Brotherhood and a sea witch weren’t trouble enough. She would have been better off in the king’s gaol.

  The sailor had emerged from below with a bottle in his hand and now lounged on the poop deck. He was on watch, no mistaking that. Ingifrith looked over her shoulder. She hated not being sure if this was the Midnight Fog or not; she had to trust what she had seen. If she did anything, it had to be now, before the first mate returned with his amulet and scared her protection away.

  Something hissed in her ear, startling her. Above, the red-cheeked sailor barked a curse. Ingifrith crept near the gangplank and crouched in the shadows, but she knew she’d been spotted even before she saw the black figure perched on the foremast, its feathers ruffling in the wind.

  The sailor was on his feet now. He threw his bottle in the raven’s direction, causing the bird to fly off. The bottle shattered somewhere out of sight. Ingifrith didn’t hesitate. She ran up the gangplank, grabbed a line and swung onto the deck. A moment later she ducked into the companionway to the hold. She made her way down, as silent as a cat. When she reached the floor, she moved aft and wedged herself between two dusty sacks that smelled like grain. Then she grew still, breathing heavily, her blood racing in her veins.

  Shivering, she waited for the tide.

  Wolf Blood

  It wasn’t long before the Midnight Fog came alive with the shouts and stomping feet of her crew. In the dark, damp chill of the ship’s hold, tormented by visions of ravens, sorcerers and tentacles, Ingifrith could have sworn the whole night had passed, dispelled by the sea witch’s amulet.

  The ship creaked and groaned as the crew brought her underway. Exhausted despite the fact that she was now sailing away from her homeland in a pirate’s ship with no idea where she was going or how she would get there, Ingifrith fell into a deep sleep.

  She awoke from a dream about dogs, barking and running on top of the water. She came around and realized the barking was real, as heavy footsteps pounded down the companionway. Light flooded the hold. Ingifrith withdrew farther into her hiding place, cornered, as a dun-colored hound with long ears stomped its paws, barking wildly through the sacks and crates sheltering her. Where did this creature come from? She would never had made it onto the ship if the dog had been here earlier.

  A man spoke to the dog in Catskoll, saying a name, asking a question. Ingifrith steeled herself as the sailor came around and knelt, holding a lamp aloft. He reached in and dragged a sack out of the way, then another. For a moment, he stared at her, his dark eyes blinking. She didn’t recognize him as one of the men from the tavern.

  Furrowing his brow, he reached in, gripped her by the arm and dragged her into the open, none too gently. She yelped in pain. The dog was still barking, almost drowning out the voices that came down from above. The sailor muscled Ingifrith to the ladder and called up. Three faces stared down, one of them the captain; another the first mate, the amulet still lying in the hollow of his throat. As the man with the dog roughly prodded her, she climbed up. Two of the men reached down and hauled her up into the night air.

  The boat moved swiftly, its huge sails stiff and full in the wind. The hound came onto the deck, sniffed at Ingifrith, and trotted off.

  The captain laughed humorlessly and then spoke roughly. Ingifrith shook her head, not understanding. The first mate spoke in Fjorginan. “Who’re you?”

  “I—I didn’t mean to get underway,” she blurted. “I was hiding from someone. I fell asleep.”

  The first mate grinned. “Now there’s a tale.” The others, who appeared to understand most of what she said, rumbled with laughter. “You’re on the run. I do think that.”

  “A stowaway, eh?” the captain said in heavily accented Fjorginan. “Think you get”—he gestured around at the ship and the sea—“and no pay?”

  Ingifrith started to revert to her original story and then fell silent as another sailor came across the deck, still wearing his wool cap, his cheeks shiny and red in the lamplight and his expression drawn. He spoke to the others, pointing up at the foremast. Ingifrith’s stomach sank as she realized he was describing the raven that had followed her on the wharf. The sailors turned to her with hard, nervous looks. One of them muttered a word and made some kind of warding gesture.

  The first mate turned to Ingifrith with a darker countenance. “So we were warned. And here you are.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “How’d you get aboard?”

  The red-cheeked man rattled off something in Catskoll and then spat on the deck.

  Ingifrith swallowed, her throat dry. She couldn’t tell them about her invisible friends, or that the raven had provided her with a distraction. Sailors were notoriously superstitious. Anything she said would set their fears alight.

  When she didn’t speak, the captain said, “What you hiding from?”

  Ingifrith closed her eyes briefly. That had become everyone’s question, and the answer kept changing. “A cruel man,” she said. That much was true, in one way or another. “The raven was his.”

  The sailors took that in, their suspicion almost palpable. The captain, eyeing her, started to speak—then looked up sharply as one of the men above, in a crow’s nest, shouted something. Momentarily forgetting their stowaway, the sailors scattered, one of them climbing a ratline, and the others clambering up to the decks. Ingifrith moved to the beam.

  In the distance, the smudge of a dark ship loomed in the early dawn light. The sails were dark, and the mainsail bore a symbol Ingifrith couldn’t quite make out.

  The captain’s voice rose above the shouting. Men ran, climbed and worked the rigging, changing course. The red-cheeked sailor said something and pointed at Ingifrith. The first mate jumped down from a ladder and approached her in no good mind. “Fenrir Brotherhood?” he panted, his face pale. “Is that who wants you?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t—” Her breath caught as he grabbed her by the arm. Then she gestured to the amulet at his throat and blurted. “That’ll protect you from them.”

  Desperate nonsense—and the wrong thing to say.

  Grasping the charm, his eyes blazing, he turned and yelled something in Catskoll. Two of the sailors approached, drawing blades. The first mate shook his head violently. “No! No blood.” One of the men understood and sheathed his knife. The other held Ingifrith at swordpoint. The first mate swore at him in Catskoll, and said something Ingifrith didn’t understand. The man lowered his blade.

  It dawned on her that the first mate feared that if they drew her blood, she would use it to summon something or curse them. She had no such power—those were the nasty sort of things Leofwine knew about—but these men didn’t know that. They believed she was a witch, whatever that meant to them, and they were blaming her for the sorcerers on their trail.

  Unfortunately, while she didn’t toss about with Leofwine’s ilk, the sailors’ other assumptions were true.

  The captain strode up and ordered the others back to their duties. The first mate said something, and then he and the captain took Ingifrith roughly by the arms and hustled her toward the beam. At first she feared they meant to hand her over to Fenrir, until they brought her starboard, out of sight.

  They meant to throw her overboard.

  She screamed and struggled in their grip. “If you do this, I will curse you and you’ll never make port again! That amulet won’t protect you from me—and the Brotherhood knows it!”

  Her bluff worked—for a moment. The captain loosened his grip, giving her a chance to free her arm. The first mate, not as easily fooled, held her fast. He slammed her up onto the beam. Hooking a leg to keep from going over, Ingifrith kicked him with the other, knocking him back. Growling, the captain caught hold of her. She kicked, clawed and spat like a wildcat caught in a trap.

  The first mate, now red with anger, came in again. Ingifrith lashed out and scratched
his face. He wiped at it and looked at the blood on his hand. Then his hand shot out like a whipcord and closed around her throat, cutting off her air. He lifted her up. The water rushed below, swift, gray and cold. Colors swimming before her eyes, Ingifrith struggled to no avail.

  Until the first mate got too close.

  Ingifrith closed her fingers over the amulet and, with the uncanny strength of the dying, tore it from his throat.

  “No!” he cried out. The captain barked something in Catskoll. They held her from going into the water, wrestling her as the first mate tried to grab the stone. But Ingifrith no longer had the stone. She had whipped it into the sea, where it vanished without a sound.

  Silence fell over the Midnight Fog as every man stopped what he was doing and took in what had just happened. The captain and first mate were too shocked to do anything but lean over the beam and stare at the water in horror. Ingifrith fell onto the deck, sucking in air as she crawled away from the bulwark and stood up.

  The sailors turned to her with blood in their eyes. The first mate stepped forward, raised his hand and struck her. She fell, pain exploding from her right eye as she uttered a word.

  A name, in fact.

  Ingifrith trembled with chills, her heart as raw as an open wound. The fury, depth and power of the sea raged in her veins. From the calm morning gray, wind rose. It drove the sea into a frenzy, tore at the sails, strained the hull and spun the craft, listing it hard to starboard. Crying out, men clung to the rigging to avoid being cast overboard. The man on the steer board plummeted across the deck and into the bulwark. Another slid down, struck the railing around the companionway and grabbed on. As the ship swung back to rights, it tossed everything the other way.

  The wind abated, and a heavy mist cloaked the dawn. The water around the ship bulged, churned and moaned. Men screamed as rows of tentacles as thick as old trees rose up, uncoiling, stretching, soaking the decks. On the forecastle, the first mate shrieked and fell to his knees as a tentacle end whipped around his throat and squeezed.