“Do you think Mil—the Norn was hinting that you should?” Leofwine said.
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
A breeze tugged at the flames and then died, leaving the night in unearthly silence touched by the rain dripping from the trees. The horses’ hooves thumped on the earth as they shifted in the dark. One of them whickered.
“What’s going on?” Prederi said, glancing their way.
“Magreda!” Othin called out. No answer.
Deep beyond the nimbus of the fire, a wild, ragged keen raked through the calm. The sound swept through Othin’s veins, draining the blood and filling him with ice. He shoved the crow into his belt and rose, drawing his sword.
“What in Hel was that?” Prederi said, doing the same.
Leofwine was already on his feet. “That was my watcher.” He moved away from the fire, his nostrils flaring as he stared into the shadows. It was impossible to tell from which direction the keening had come. “This is not good.”
“Magreda!” Othin called again, his heart pounding. Spinning his sword to loosen his wrist, he moved into the dark in the direction she had gone.
“Wait!” Leofwine hissed, holding out his hand with a black glance. “You don’t want to meet whatever killed it.”
“She’s not—”
“She’s either hiding or already dead.”
“I think we’d have heard her,” Prederi offered.
“I’m not assuming that,” Othin said. Then he stopped. Something shimmered in the dark over the ravine, a form against the black water running over the rocks. Fear crept up his spine like a spider. The specter vanished. A cry, a scuffle.
“Magreda!” Othin barked.
Prederi grabbed his arm as he started forward again. Leofwine stepped back. “On your guard, lads.”
Through the wild beating of his heart, Othin thought it was a trick of the light when a figure stepped before them. He was tall, dark skinned and shining with power, a warrior with a warlock’s mind. He held Magreda in a grip that could have snapped her spine like a twig. The dark elf held a blade to her throat, his eyes glinting with malice and desperation. His black hair was pulled tightly from his face, giving his features a sinister air. There was a mottled mark on his throat.
“You!” Prederi said. “Back at this again, eh?”
Under the dark elf’s control, Magreda’s owl eyes were glazed, and her lips moved as if she were speaking silently to something or someone. The elf was either unaware—or had done something to cause it. Othin’s rage rose up in him like a fiery wave. It was all he could do not to rush in—but after watching elves in action in their battles with demons, their movements swift and fluid as water, flawlessly accurate and deadly to a man, he knew he’d never make it.
He also knew, from what Leofwine had told him, that after being thwarted in his first attempt to capture Bren and then shot by Heige with an arrow poisoned with mortality, the elf would be intolerant of banter, distractions and threats. One bad move and Magreda would die.
“What do you want this time?” Leofwine said tiredly.
The elf’s gaze settled on Othin, sliding down. “That.”
Othin glanced down and plucked the hooded crow from his belt. He held it up, swinging it a little as if to tease a hound with a treat. “This?”
Leofwine wheezed a laugh. “I’ll wager you do. You think to protect your Niflsekt lord, is that it?”
Ignoring them, the elf locked his burning gaze on the charm in Othin’s hand. That desperation, again. This wasn’t about pleasing his Niflsekt lord.
“You think the stitches of a Norn can make you immortal again,” Othin said.
The dark elf looked down at Magreda. “You will give it to me, or I will curse your whore to a death beyond imagining.”
Othin moved to the fire, knelt and held the crow over the flames. “Just in case you hold any doubt as to the power of this,” the ranger said thoughtfully, “I watched a Warden of Dyrregin use this charm to reverse a Fylking Banishing sigil through the powers of Elivag.”
Panic fled over the elf’s face. “Give it to me and I will leave you. On my word.”
Othin studied the crow, smoke weaving through the stitches. The elf wasn’t letting go of Magreda, for all his talk. “Your word isn’t worth a rat fuck. You’ll kill us anyway. But we are mortal; we live in death’s shadow. That’s new to you, isn’t it?” He looked into the dark elf’s eyes, his resolve simmering hot. “I let go of this, and your slow, deteriorating mortal death will be worse for you than anything you can devise for her.” He clenched his fist around the threads. “Let her go. Now.”
Magreda’s eyes came into focus, fixed on Othin. Her lips still moved. Softly, sound emerged from her throat, low and earthy, the words of roots and things that lived in the ground, creeping, devouring, singing in the dark. The elf tightened his grip, his attention torn between the witch and the crow. Her voice rose, cracking like a wave. Sweat covered her face.
With the rough cry of a cat, she slid a knife from her sleeve and slammed her elbow back, pushing her fist with the other hand. The elf choked, doubling over with surprise. He no longer gripped a woman, but a shadowy panther with all the wiles and strength of its kind. The dark thing twisted around and lashed out, leaving a row of long scratches on his face.
Age and speed still served him, however. His knife flashed as he turned it, slashing down. Prederi caught the blade in a parry, but not before the elf sliced into the cat’s shoulder. Bringing his blade around, the ranger came in for another attack. With a short sword in his other hand, the elf met him in a seamless series of blows, driving him down.
The sleek black shape leapt from the fray and fled into the night. Shouting Magreda’s name, Leofwine went after it.
The elf, clutching his gut, looked up, his face pale and bleeding. His hair had come undone and hung in wild disarray. For a moment, silence gripped the air.
“That was the wrong thing to do,” Othin said with deadly calm.
He dropped the crow into the fire.
“NO!” the dark elf screamed. He bounded and leapt, his lean, bleeding body spinning in the air. A kick struck Othin in the chest, taking him off his feet. He hit the ground with a heavy jolt that knocked the breath out of him and the sword from his hand. Gasping for air, he rolled over, retrieved his blade and got up, swaying on his feet.
The elf had landed on all fours over the fire. As he reached into the flames, the light shone in the bleeding scratches on his face. Prederi, covered in blood, staggered up behind him. Planting his feet, the ranger drove his sword down with a rough cry. Blood spurted up over the blade as the elf writhed under it, his pale hands smoking and charred. He clutched a single strand of burnt stitches. Then he collapsed and went still.
Othin caught Prederi as he dropped to his knees, his hand sliding from the hilt of his blade. A cut bled on his cheek. “Prederi,” Othin breathed.
“I’m all right,” the ranger panted. He fell to one hand, clutching his chest with the other. Othin lowered him to the ground and drew the bloody hand away. The elven blade had cut through his mail near his heart, but not deeply enough to kill him. Prederi looked down and breathed and swore. “Find Magreda.”
“Leofwine went after her. We need to stop this bleeding.” He got up, went to base of the rock and took up a pack. When he returned, he flipped the pack upside down, dumping the contents on the ground.
Prederi reached over and grabbed a roll of linens and a bottle full of yellow-green liquid. “I’ve got this. Go.”
Bracing himself, Othin pulled Prederi’s blade from the elf’s spine and laid it by the ranger’s side. He snatched up the water skin with the whisky in it and handed that to his friend as well. Once he rolled the elf’s corpse off the fire, he removed the weapons and the fang-shaped pendant. Then he dragged the corpse into the shadows on the edge of the camp.
He met Leofwine on the edge of the stream. Magreda hung pale and limp in his arms. “She’s alive,” the sorcerer said. Othi
n took her into his arms and went up the bank, his chest aching and his muscles burning. At the top, he lowered her by the fire.
“Here,” Prederi said. He picked up a wad of clean linen and tossed it over, followed by a small pouch full of supplies for treating wounds.
“Magreda,” Othin whispered. As he parted the torn tunic on her shoulder, he flexed his jaw. The wound would need stitches. As he pressed the cloth over it, Magreda came around with a sharp breath. “Easy,” he soothed.
As she saw him, her eyes filled with tears. “I’m sorry, Othin. This is my fault.”
“Horseshit,” Prederi said across the fire. “If it weren’t for you, we’d all be dead.”
“You surprised him,” Leofwine added, kneeling next to Prederi. “Took him off his guard.”
“They’re right,” Othin agreed.
“You didn’t have to burn the charm,” she said, tears rolling down her cheeks. “I had him. I could’ve killed him and we could’ve used it.”
“The charm didn’t matter,” Othin said. “You did.”
“It meant so much to you.”
Othin gathered her in his arms, his witch with all her secrets, a panther with its claws. It had taken this, finally, to make him see it. “Magreda, you mean more to me.” She was trembling. “I’m sorry I hurt you. I was tired and upset. And still, you stood by me. You waited. You looked after me all this time. I’m here, now.” He held her face in his hand. “I’m here. With you.”
Her breath quickened. “Othin, they’re coming.”
He blinked down at her, his mind spinning images of demons, watchers, dark elves and goblins. Then he realized who she meant.
“The Leopard Clan,” she continued. “They know where I am, now. They will come.”
The ranger sat back, and glanced over his shoulder at his friends. Leofwine was watching him. “What can we do?” Othin asked Magreda.
Leofwine rose and approached, holding a bloody rag in one hand. “We’re in the domain of the Fylking,” the sorcerer said. “Not the Leopard Clan.”
“Aye,” Prederi put in, lowering his skin after a swig. “We have wolves.”
“Big wolves,” Leofwine added with an unsettling smile.
The Allfather’s Temple
The Otherworld, as vast as nature itself, was not particular. For every mortal seer protected by something, there was another who would be harried. To that end, someone in the know, like a Fenrir sorcerer with an inclination for the darker, more unsavory side of the art, could command almost anything.
It had finally come together in Ingifrith’s mind, why she didn’t recognize Moust in the gaol in Rivergate. For all her skill seeing the unseen, she hadn’t seen him because she couldn’t accept anything that terrifying—a man like him having the power to summon Others and work magic. Another blow to the tatters of her innocence.
Leofwine had told her there was a balance, and no magician in his right mind would violate it; there were rules, and the price for breaking them was not only harsh, but also increased with power. With that, Ingifrith knew that Moust hadn’t followed her to Dyrregin to find Leo or to prevent her from summoning Halogi.
He meant to hide his secret—by silencing her.
Her time was running out as surely as daylight fled before the setting sun. Under the guidance of the phooka, she headed for Wyrvith Forest, a stronghold where the Fylking who had survived the Niflsekt’s occupation were lying in wait. For what, the phooka didn’t say. With every league she wondered if she should return to the rangers and stop being such a fool. But Moust would stop at nothing, including using her friends and loved ones against her.
Remembering something Othin had said about the ancient wood being difficult to navigate with horses, Ingifrith left Trisker in a tiny village with no name—a mere farm, cottage and forge on a stream. She was led there by a dryad, a thin sapling of a thing who loved the farmer’s daughter. The child was sick, and Ingifrith offered to help in return for a safe, out-of-the-way place to leave Prederi’s horse. She spent a whole precious day gathering and preparing herbs and roots, and called upon the spirits of the land to heal the child. She promised to return for Trisker, and her tears had sealed the deal, though she had no idea if she would ever return.
The rangers would be scouring all of the northlands for her. If not for the phooka, she wouldn’t stand a chance of staying hidden. Leofwine would use magic. So would Moust. And she had no guarantees that the phooka could keep her safe.
So she rode upon the black horse with the red eyes, its fur rough, thick and smelling of dirt. The phooka had materialized beneath the Niflsekt’s spell. The creature told her that the spell gave the Niflsekt power to summon things without the restrictions of the higher realms. They could summon Halogi himself if they chose, and he would have no choice but to obey them, just as he had obeyed Vargn until he turned against the warlock and paid the price.
Moust was more than capable of the same. If the sorcerer was in league with the Niflsekt, as Leofwine believed, he would have no trouble getting something valuable enough to satisfy the Rule of Exchange.
She never actually saw Moust. But she knew he was there, tracking her with the eyes of crystals, pools and demons. She felt him in the night, watching, a rustle of leaves in a willow tree, a whisper on the wind. She had hoped it was all in her imagination—until the phooka awakened her one night with a scream that froze her blood. The creature scooped her up from the ground, threw her pack and bow into her lap and ran like the wind with the gnarled claw of a sorcerer’s chant on its heels.
There were many things that could have been after her. But she knew it was Moust when the murky, blowing void of the unseen came to life with wildflowers blowing on a sunny day, crushed, her blood staining the ground. The young man stood by the pine forest, holding a scrap of cloth. This time, he did not turn or run away. He laughed.
Your friends will abandon you, the sorcerer said. Your pain means nothing.
The sun sank into a bank of clouds in the west. The air was cold. The black horse ran north, through dense, tangled trees alive with animal spirits, elementals and the occasional elf on patrol. The foothills had the marked feeling of a land preparing for war.
“Why are you protecting me?” she finally asked. “I made no exchange.”
She heard the phooka’s voice in the air, as physical as the beast beneath her. “Your brother did.”
“When he summoned you to track Othin, during the war, you demanded me in return.”
“A sorcerer must always know his heart when wielding power, and your brother was not specific. I came in the whirlwind of his love and ignorance and took what was dearest to him.”
“Me? But he thought you meant to harm me.”
The horse tossed its head, one red eye shining in the twilight. “That was not his desire.”
Ingifrith fell silent as a knot grew in her throat. “So you’re only doing this for him, because he called you not knowing about Grimar and Moust?”
The phooka slowed, plodding toward the eaves of a mighty forest, hoary and towering, cloaked in mist. “You called to us for help that day. I heard you, and that is why I appeared to your brother in his circle. He gave me the exchange you could not.”
Ingifrith grasped onto the phooka’s shaggy mane and slid to the ground, her knees weak and her eyes brimming with tears. She sank to her knees as this came together. She threw her arms over her belly. “You—what exchange?”
“Love.”
With that, she broke. “My innocence wasn’t enough?” she cried.
The phooka changed shape, towering over her, long horns shining. “You cannot offer something in exchange for help against the act itself.” The phooka knelt and gathered her into his arms, and then moved toward the depths of Wyrvith Forest. They passed beneath an ancient stone arch breathing with whispers. “When you give your innocence freely, then you will know who you are.”
~*~
It should have mattered, that after all this time Ingifrith fina
lly knew that the Otherworld had heard her that day in the meadow and went about such elaborate maneuvers to protect her afterward. But it didn’t matter.
It should have mattered that Leofwine’s love for her was so great that he had risked his life by getting on the wrong side of the Fenrir Brotherhood. But it didn’t matter.
Even Moust and Grimar didn’t matter anymore.
Those struck by darkness and cast from the world must walk in two worlds, not belonging in one or the other, but ruling in both.
You will know who you are.
Nothing. She was nothing.
Eventually, she fell asleep in the phooka’s arms, under the rhythm of its stride and the sounds of the night cascading through the forest. The phooka walked tirelessly, leagues it moved over roots, stones, greens and moss, so deeply into the forest that the land began to rise into the steep, rocky arms of the Thorgrim Mountains. Ingifrith dreamed of bats, wolves, bears and dragons breathing ice, the murmurs of trees talking to the wind, stars falling in spiraling patterns around a quarter moon high above the clouds. She dreamed of demons, creeping, flying and lurking in the silence of pools. Every living thing in the wood watched her and found her wanting.
She was nothing.
Her dreams changed, like twilight snatched and drowned in a terrible storm. Golden beams of sunlight shone upon the dancing flowers, fair and utterly indifferent. On the edge of a tall pine forest stood Moust, holding a scrap of cloth stained with something dark. Her blood, her soul.
When you give your innocence freely, then you will know who you are. What in Hel was that supposed to mean?
Nothing. The man turned, the stitches of a wolf, moons and thorns vanishing in the fold of his cloak, hiding his secret like a spell cast from the Severed Kingdoms. His smile was cruel. The forest will not protect you, he whispered. Your blood will herald the fall of the realm.
Ingifrith awoke in the dark, her heart pounding. A voice whispered close to her ear. “Be still. Wolves are on the hunt.”
She was in a cave. It was still dark; the faint gray of predawn filled the forest beyond the opening. The trees swayed with rain and wind. Sitting beside her, his feet propped up as he leaned against a root that formed half the wall of the enclosure, was a dark elf. Though he had taken physical form, he glimmered faintly. It was the same elf who had come to her in the graveyard in Merhafr after she had fled from Prederi’s wrath, the one who had later protected the rangers’ ravens. On his wrist, he bore a tattoo of a black bird in flight.
The Fylking: Outpost and The Wolf Lords Page 74
