Prederi approached, sheathing his sword. He held out his hand and drew Ingifrith to her feet. “Are you all right?” Gulping, she nodded. Bren joined them, his sling, clothes and hair wet and smelling of drink.
The tavern door slammed open and four men crowded in, each wearing green and black livery and a compliment of weapons with which they no doubt had intended to restore order. The barman, who had been cowering behind his bar, joined them. He turned and pointed at the rangers.
“You two go on,” Prederi said, looking Bren over with a scowl. “I’ll deal with this.”
“What will you tell them?” Ingifrith asked.
“Hel knows.” The tall ranger grabbed his cloak from a chair and stepped through the mess toward the soldiers.
~*~
A short time later, Bren and Ingifrith rode along the dark road away from the tavern. Trees whispered around them. Bren said nothing, nor had he said anything as they fetched their horses and mounted. Sullen as the night, the ranger had something on his mind, and Ingifrith didn’t think it was imps. Aside from being uncharacteristic, his mood abandoned Ingifrith to the horrors of her imagination. The trees and the wind came alive, watching, creeping, reaching with long fingers. That sorcerer was sure to be somewhere around here, stalking her.
To break the gloom, she said, “What was that thing you summoned?”
After a pause, the ranger spoke, his voice low. “It’s a chimera, and I didn’t summon her. I ran into trouble in Ylgr at the hands of a Fenrir sorcerer. I was desperate and appealed to the Otherworld for assistance. I didn’t think anything would come, but the chimera did. She’s been with me ever since.”
“What did you give her in exchange?”
“I promised her, that when the time came, I would give her whatever she desired that was in my power to give.”
Ingifrith clutched her reins. “That was foolish.”
“I told you, I was desperate.”
“So what did she do?”
“At that point, there was nothing she could do.” He fell silent for a time; and then he told a tale about a traitorous ranger, his own capture by a band of rogues, a nasty demon that bound him to his captors under pain of death, and an even more impressive act of foolishness by his best friend, who had called on the Allfather, of all things, to avenge a false vow.
When he was done, Ingifrith breathed a laugh. “You must be favored by the gods. How you survived all that, I’ll never know.” She imagined what manner of thing had broken Bren’s arm and put that scythe-shaped scar on his face—and then something Bren had said during his story finally clicked in her mind.
“What is the Fenrir Brotherhood doing way up there, putting curses on people?”
She felt the ranger’s stare in the dark. “Good question. Now I have one. What are you doing on these shores?”
Startled, she went for her planned response to the question. “I came looking for work. My father had just died and I wanted to see another land.”
“Ingifrith,” he said, his voice tired. “Do you think us fools? We are rangers. We notice things out of the ordinary. Something drove you to sneak onto a Catskoll pirate ship and risk your life to get out of Fjorgin, and it wasn’t lack of coin or a thirst for adventure.”
“I had no coin. All my belongings were stolen from me. I was desperate, too.”
“Desperate enough to bargain with a sea witch? You’re smarter than that, I think.”
“I told you. She trapped me—”
“A sea witch wouldn’t take an interest in any mortal who didn’t have a mighty big secret,” he said, quashing any argument. After a pointed pause, he continued. “Ylgr is being run by a crime ring controlled by a Fenrir sorcerer. We don’t know why he’s up there. The Fjorginans claim ignorance. We’ve lost men, myself nearly being the last, and within a fortnight there’ll be a civil war. Believe me, we’ve made it our business to spot secrets. And here you are.
“Do you think we didn’t notice that you wouldn’t leave Giselt’s house even on the best of days? The way you looked around on the road, jumping at every little thing? How the Otherworld rallies around you? That imp hasn’t left Prederi’s house in three moons and nothing—trust me—nothing could banish him from that place. And yet he followed you all the way down here. Why? He pushed me to call the chimera—and then he and his friends turned half the Copse to rubble and probably harmed people, too. Prederi is in there right now sucking cocks because the only way to explain what happened is to take the blame for being drunken assholes. Captain Genfawr is going to feast on our entrails for this.”
They rode onto the main street. Despite the late hour, people milled about, dark silhouettes against lit windows and burning cressets. The sea moved restlessly in the distance, and gulls cried in the air. Bren rode a bit farther, then stopped in front of a wooden house with two stories, a tidy garden in front, flowers tumbling from window boxes and a sign with a seashell painted on it. A cat darted across the street and slipped into the shadows under the eaves.
“What are you hiding from, Ingifrith?”
She sat there, gazing at a brothel, tears welling in her eyes. Being upbraided by Captain Eklin at the king’s gaol was humiliating enough, but being taken down by a ranger, a seer and a rare friend was utterly terrible. This wasn’t like talking to Prederi. Bren knew as much or more about the Otherworld as she did. She couldn’t get away with simple explanations.
What are you hiding from? That accursed question! The answer was never the same and yet it never changed. Slightly drunk, she scrambled around in her mind, rifling through images of the phooka, Halogi, the Fylking of Tower Sie, the king’s gaol, Moust, ravens, sea witches, angry pirates, a dead nymph and a thief—but nothing made sense and everything would expose her, Leo, or worse, bring these men to further harm.
Bren leaned back and dismounted. “I need a bath, a warm bed and some attention,” he informed her. It appeared he was done talking. He drew the reins over his horse’s head. “You can come in and sleep on a couch, if you like. No one will bother you.”
As Ingifrith slid from her horse, she glanced up and down the street.
“Worried about your imp?” Bren said, noticing her vigilance. “Don’t be. The mistress here is a Blackthorn witch. A dark elf guards this place. Nothing will get near it.”
They led the horses to a barn tucked in the trees on one side of the house. Golden light spilled across the ground by the door.
“What did she give the elf to strike that deal?”
“They are lovers.”
With that, Ingifrith realized why Bren had been so insistent on her coming here. He wanted to shield her from the trouble that followed her. A dark elf wouldn’t stand for it.
They left the horses with a stablehand, a short woman with crooked teeth, freckles and a tangle of black hair that looked like a messy yarn bin. As Ingifrith followed Bren inside the house, she didn’t see any dark elves. But she didn’t see the pasty-faced sorcerer with the weird fingers, either.
She didn’t hang around to watch Bren get fawned over by women. Instead, she found her way into a quiet room with a small fireplace burning peat and settled into a chair. A deerhound lay on the hearth. In the corner, two women were tangled together, kissing. Ingifrith put her head back, closed her eyes, and thought about a guardsman called Finn.
She probably wouldn’t have liked him anyway.
She dozed to the sound of the fire and the soft voices of women. Whisky still turned the waters in her brain with sickening patience, pulling her down into the darkness. A cup of tea would be nice. A biscuit. A bath.
She started awake as the hound released a low woof!
A man leaned over her and then knelt by her side. He was clad in plain, snug-fitting clothes in shades of brown, white and blue. He had dirty blond hair cropped to his shoulders, hazel eyes and a nice mouth.
“Forgive me, I didn’t mean to startle you,” he said. “You must be Ingifrith. Bren told me you were in here.” He sounded like Bren,
and his smile turned her throat dry. As the dog got up and came to him, he reached out to stroke its coat. He had beautiful, strong hands. “Would you like some company?”
Ingifrith curled in her chair, her blood warm and her head throbbing. She heard Prederi’s voice in her mind. I heard he has a cock the size of a—
“I have no coin,” she blurted, forcing herself not to look at his crotch in an attempt to speculate.
“Rangers have a running tab, here. You’re with them.”
Realizing with a thud in her heart that maybe Bren wasn’t as cross with her as he’d seemed, Ingifrith uncurled herself from the chair and took the guardsman’s hand.
~*~
Birdsong rose and fell, threaded with a cool breeze stirring the curtains. It smelled like rain. Sea gulls clamored on the wind. Like the soldier he was, Finn had risen at dawn, opened the window and gone downstairs. He had touched Ingifrith with a kiss before leaving. A nice thing. She wondered if he gave all his patrons such lovely gifts.
She rolled over into the softness of the bed, pressing her face into the pillow to inhale his scent. She drew herself into a fetal position as the flowing images of the night, lit by a glowing candle, washed over her. For an hour, she had trembled in Finn’s arms, unable to move. Always a wall to climb, a river to cross, a hole to escape. A field of flowers. Finally, safe beneath the protection of a dark elf and warmed by a man who knew his business in bed, she had finally relaxed.
Voices rose and fell in the house. Someone laughed. Ingifrith wondered where Bren and Prederi were. Waiting for her, probably. Stretching, she pushed away the covers. The insides of her thighs tingled. Finn was no better or worse endowed than any man, Prederi’s daft claim notwithstanding, but she would be feeling it.
Someone spoke outside. A man, his voice deep and full of authority. A chill crept over Ingifrith’s scalp. She swung her legs over the edge of the bed, pulled a blanket free from the covers and stood. Her head throbbed. Wrapping the blanket around her nakedness, she padded to the window and peered out.
A soldier stood on the step in the drizzle, speaking to someone at the door. He wore the same black and green uniform as the men who had come into the tavern the night before. Unlike them, however, his tunic bore some kind of seal, and his cloak was pale gray as a gull. An officer.
Looking up, he drew back the hood with long, gnarled fingers, turned a pockmarked face and looked directly into her eyes. Smiling, he entered the house.
Ingifrith jerked back from the window with a catch in her breath. The room blurred like a swiftly fading dream, the messed up covers, a woolen carpet, an empty glass, the puddle of a spent candle, a tapestry on the wall stitched with a coat of arms.
She moved.
She was mostly dressed when Finn came in. “Good morning.” His smile faded.
“I have to go,” she said, standing on one foot and yanking a boot onto the other. Just then, Finn’s seed broke from the softness inside. “Shit.” It flowed out, soaking her underlinens.
Finn watched her for a moment before clearing his throat. “The captain of the Milfort Guard is here to see you. He has some questions.”
A laugh escaped her lips. “I’ll wager he does.” She put on her other boot and yanked the woolen tunic over her head, wriggling it down over her hips. She gathered her tangled hair and tied a knot. Finn had lovingly unbraided it the night before, as she shivered in his arms.
Finn stepped close. “I know the captain. I’ve also spoken to Bren about the incident in the Copse last night.” He placed a hand on her shoulder. “It’s all right.”
Such nice hands.
“It’s not all right and that’s not the captain.” Now dressed, she ducked out from under Finn’s hand and paced about the room in a panic. She couldn’t go downstairs; the sorcerer would be waiting for her. Where was the elf? Some half-assed tale, that. No dark elf would make love to a mortal in exchange for protection. What an absurd idea. She moved to a window on the adjacent wall. The barn stood a short distance away through the trees.
“Find Bren,” she said, turning around. “He’ll know. He’ll see it.”
Finn stood there with a soldier’s expression, hard, grim and thoughtful. “Very well. Stay here, I’ll get him.”
She nodded as convincingly as she could. Finn left, closing the door. His steps thumped down the hall.
Ingifrith flung open the window. Below lay a woodpile covered with thatch. She grabbed her cloak from the bedpost and threw it out the window. Then she put her legs out, turned and clutched the sill as her body hung down. She pushed out and dropped.
It was a longer drop than it had looked, and the thatch scantly covered the pile. She landed hard, too close to the edge, turning her ankle and knocking several pieces of wood loose. As she scrambled for a hold, the edge of the pile collapsed, tumbling her to the ground.
Breathing heavily, Ingifrith began throwing the rough, splintery wood pieces aside to free herself. Her forearm and her back hurt, and one knee oozed blood where she had torn her leggings. She tugged her cloak free. As she got up, a sharp pain knifed into her as she put weight on her ankle. Limping heavily, she ran toward the barn, moving through the trees and skirting around to the back side.
A dryad slipped from a young oak and fled before her like a squirrel. Ingifrith had no time to ask questions; she had no berries, no milk, nothing but a mess between her thighs and a dozen scrapes and bruises. Briefly, it occurred it her that a dryad wouldn’t be hanging around on a dark elf’s watch.
Because there wasn’t one.
The barn was opened wide, exposing the path and the front of the house on the far side. Bren’s horse was crosstied in the center of the barn. Ingifrith stole to the other side. Hugging the stall doors, she ducked under the horse’s lead, which was attached to a post.
She stopped in her tracks as the crooked-toothed stablehand emerged from the tack room, carrying a brush, a curry and a bridle. The woman shrieked in surprise. “What’re you doin’ sneaking in here?” she demanded, clutching her things to her chest. Her hair was tied back with a piece of baling twine.
Ingifrith held her finger to her lips. “I have to go, please, don’t—”
“I suppose you’ll want her saddled, then,” the woman snapped.
Beyond the door, near the house, something moved. The man wearing green and black came into view, his hood hiding his face. He had a strange gait, as if he were half drifting along the ground. As he neared the opening, he moved between the trees.
“Worthless, nonexistent elf—” Ingifrith choked. She reached Trisker’s stall and fumbled at the latch. It was stuck. She slammed it open with the flat of her palm and flung the door wide. Standing with her rear to the door, Trisker looked over her shoulder.
The stablehand hadn’t stopped talking since she’d come upon Ingifrith—something about the ingratitude of patrons—although Ingifrith didn’t hear most of what she said. Her head pounding, blood and terror racing in her veins, she drew out Trisker, grasped onto the beast’s mane and hauled herself up as the horse danced beneath her. As her bones settled onto the horse’s back, she winced as she was reminded of just how good Finn was to her with his cock the size of a—
“By the gods!” the stablehand yelled. “Stop it at once!” Bren’s horse stepped about, tugging on his leads; the other horses in the stalls responded in kind. Outside, the wind picked up and rushed into the barn, driving rain over the hay. One of the horses kicked the stall.
Ingifrith didn’t know how to control Trisker without a saddle or bridle, but she knew enough not to clamp her heels. She finally turned the horse around to face the back of the barn. Bren’s horse was in the way.
“Please untie him so I can get by,” she said.
The woman snorted like a boar. “Hel, I will!” She put her whole body into flinging her hand toward the front door. “Go out like everybody else, if you’re so bent on it, and do it quick!”
“Little bitch,” Ingifrith growled, using her legs to mane
uver Trisker around. Behind her, the stablehand launched into a string of expletives that would’ve made a Catskoll pirate blush.
Ingifrith drove Trisker out of the barn. The sorcerer wasn’t in sight, but he was here, on the wind, between the trees, in the fear of beasts and the hate in the air. Trisker sidestepped, tossing her head.
Bristle. She hadn’t seen the imp since the tavern and had assumed it wouldn’t come around here with a dark elf guarding the place. But there was no elf. Hoping Trisker would forgive her, Ingifrith called for help.
It wasn’t help that came. The sorcerer melted from the trees like a dryad, blocking her escape. His eyes glittered under his hood, and he held one hand aloft, crooked fingers moving, calculating. Greasy hair twined on his shoulders like snakes.
Come with me or die.
A shape hissed over her head. Trisker spooked and let out a whinnying cry. Ingifrith didn’t realize the imp had landed on Trisker’s rump until the horse dug in her hooves and lurched forward. Clinging for her life, Ingifrith leaned down and closed her eyes. As she passed through the cloaked specter in her path, he snarled a cruel, spiky word that bent the Veil. Fingers, strong as whipcord, tangled in her hair and clutched at her throat, ripping the cord from her neck that held the algiz rune.
Something hit her in the back and clung there. She screamed. Trisker raged away from the house at a full gallop.
Bren’s voice bellowed out into the street behind her. Ingifrith had no idea how to stop the horse; she didn’t care. Everything Prederi had taught her disintegrated like dry leaves tossed into a furnace. Trees, grass, rain, gulls and people streaked by as Trisker raced out of Milfort, past markets and farms and streams and fields.
As they entered a forest, the path narrowed. Branches whipped at her from both sides. Ingifrith stayed down and held on, panting and gasping as the thing on her back began to burrow into her spine like a worm. Bristle appeared in the brush at her side, keeping pace with the horse and shrieking at the top of its lungs in its weird language.
The Fylking: Outpost and The Wolf Lords Page 60
