The dragon tooth, by far the most powerful thing he had acquired, was fit only for the kind of trouble he hoped to avoid—such as the Niflsekt’s reprisal once he discovered the remains of the dark elf they had killed. The companions had argued over what to do with the body. Leofwine had surmised, based on what Ingifrith told him, that the elf serving the Dragon Lord was acting in his own interests and not aligned with the dark elves in these realms. Burying the body in earth or stone would not only have taken time, but also risked insulting the other elves. That being a bad idea, the companions left the body in the open for scavengers.
Not one of them had slept soundly since.
Before entering Wyrvith to find Ingifrith, the companions left their horses in the care of a messenger who promised to take the beasts to a rangers’ outpost near Vota. Othin had suggested that Magreda and Prederi stay behind to recover. They refused. Othin didn’t argue, even though they traveled that much slower now, on foot and wounded besides.
Leofwine followed the rangers’ gazes to the sky as a raven dropped through the canopy shimmering with falling leaves. The bird circled the blue-cloaked warriors once and then floated down to land on Othin’s arm, its black eyes shining.
“Hail,” the ranger said, stroking the bird. “What have you brought us?” He untied the note.
Prederi, sullen, worn from his wounds and missing his horse, sat heavily on a rotting log covered with tiny white mushrooms. He was oblivious to the gnome that swore at him from beneath the thick moss around the trunk. Leofwine didn’t have the heart to suggest to the ranger that he might be considerate and move.
Magreda, in a similar state, lowered herself nearby. She pulled a water skin from her pack and handed it to Prederi. “It has sage in it,” she said. The tall ranger took it with a grateful nod.
“What news?” the blond warrior said, addressing Othin.
“Looks like a pair,” the black-haired ranger said, uncurling one of two small notes. The raven fluttered to a nearby bough and began to preen. “Ah. Ciron has returned from Ylgr.”
“Who’s Ciron?” Magreda asked.
“Bren’s brother,” Prederi said. “He’s an expert tracker in service to the king.”
“Good news is,” Othin continued, “the Niflsekt killed that Fenrir sorcerer up there. That means they weren’t in league.”
“Not necessarily,” Leofwine countered. “The fool could’ve displeased him.”
Nodding, Prederi said to Othin, “What’s the bad news?”
Othin folded the note and put it in a pocket. “Bothilde works for the Niflsekt now.”
Prederi exhaled sharply, rubbing his face. “What did I say about letting her live, War God? Hel knows what she’ll tell him about us.”
“There is one good thing about it,” Leofwine offered. “It would seem the Dragon Lord is running out of friends.”
Prederi snorted. “Och! She’s just his kind of friend. Mean as a snake. This is not good.” He drank from the skin.
Othin had opened the second note and now stood, holding it in his hand. Wisps of his black hair hung in his face as he lowered his head.
“Othin?” Magreda said.
The ranger said nothing. He closed a fist around the note.
Prederi rose stiffly and went to him. “War God.” He reached down and took the note from Othin’s hand. He went still, and then sank slowly to his knees, breathing heavily.
“Heige is dead,” Othin said to the others. “Bren is missing. They were attacked on the North Mountain Road near the Wolftooth Pass. Demons.”
“What are demons doing up there?” Magreda said, getting up. She went to Prederi and knelt beside him, putting her hand on his back.
Leofwine said, “The demons can’t leave unless the Niflsekt breaks his spell. They must be heading for the Gate. If they can get off this world, they can return to the Severed Kingdoms.”
“What about Isarvalos?” Magreda said.
“I’m guessing he’s abandoned them here. He won’t come into this dimension and get trapped.”
“This is about vengeance,” Prederi rasped, looking up, his eyes shining with tears. “We’ve killed demons. They know who we are—that sorcerer in Ylgr certainly did. He might have given the demons orders to kill rangers.” Clutching the wound in his chest, he got to his feet.
Leofwine had a sudden, dreadful thought that the demons might have taken Bren captive. There was only one reason demons would do that. He struck the image of bonfires and drums from his mind.
Othin put his arm around Prederi and then Magreda. He gestured to Leofwine. The sorcerer went to his friends and joined the circle. The four of them stood there, holding each other.
“We keep the balance when the gods turn away,” Othin said, reciting the rangers’ motto. A tear crept down his cheek.
“We keep the balance when the gods turn away,” the others repeated.
As the companions withdrew, Othin called the raven to his hand. “Prederi, get me a note and some ink. I need to warn Captain Helasin about the elf. If the Niflsekt turn against us, demons will be the least of our problems.”
~*~
The companions moved more swiftly after the news, hurts and grief notwithstanding. None of them knew what finding Ingifrith would mean, but losing Heige and most likely Bren drove them with new urgency. If Isarvalos’s demons decided to hunker down around the Vale of Ason Tae to stay close to Tower Sif, they would isolate the Vale, keep anyone from going in and out and kill everyone living there for spite or entertainment.
As for the Niflsekt, they had not yet harmed anyone besides seers, but that was only because they had no reason to stir up sedition. They’d showed little interest in engaging in battle with demons—if anything, the war between demons, Others and humans provided a useful distraction. No one had had the time or wherewithal to interfere with the Niflsekt.
Until now. Because Leofwine and his companions had done exactly that.
After several hours in which none of them spoke, Othin called a halt. “I smell smoke.”
Leofwine looked up at the sky. A shadow passed over his heart as he recalled Nosthrod, burning. “Could be a campfire,” he offered. “Though it’s generally known that building a fire in Wyrvith is foolish.”
“Maybe it’s Inga,” Prederi said, his face lighting up.
Leofwine shook his head. “She isn’t foolish. ”
“It could be demons,” Magreda said, eliciting dark looks from the men. “It would be good to know, don’t you think?”
Leofwine released a breath. “It would. Let’s find a high spot and see where the smoke is coming from.” He put down his pack and walked around, looking for a tree to climb.
“Wait,” Othin said, pointing. “Here comes news. Might tell us something.”
A raven flew through the trees at eye level, swerving gracefully, an air of intention around it. Leofwine’s gut wound up into a knot, and his heart started to pound. Something was wrong. “Othin...”
The raven kept coming. Its eyes flashed red.
“What?” Othin said over his shoulder, holding out his arm.
“Get down!” Magreda shrieked.
It was too late to drop, run or summon help. The raven grew in size, absorbing the light, obscuring the trees. It swept down in an enormous black miasma of wings and claws. Othin backed away; Prederi drew a sword. In a single motion, swift as dreams, one claw opened and closed over Othin. The other grabbed Prederi. The rangers’ cries faded into some unearthly distance as the bird carried them off, flying east, where it faded to shadow.
The forest was silent; no birds, no wind, only the whispers of falling leaves.
Magreda stood, stunned. Then she dropped to her knees and screamed her lover’s name. The cry echoed through the woods.
Leofwine broke from his shock and ran to her. “Magreda. We must go, hide. It will come back for us.”
She wept, choking on nonsense, her arms wrapped over her belly. Leofwine put his arms around her and tried to soot
h her and lift her up. His mind was blank; he could think of nothing but escape. Then another sound reached his ears.
Hoofbeats.
Magreda grew still then, her hair in her eyes, her face wet with tears. She lifted her chin. Warriors riding horses, all clad in black, scales and shining steel, thundered through the trees. They wove with impossible agility through the trunks, over rocks and hollows, kicking up ferns and moss, their immortal eyes shining cold.
Magreda glowered at them, her chest heaving. “I am really tired of this shit.”
“They are Niflsekt.” Leofwine backed away, his mind scrambling for options. Even if he could use the dragon tooth to summon protection, he didn’t have the time or the power to bring across something capable of taking on an entire company of the Fylkings’ ancient enemy.
Magreda turned to him, her dark eyes slitted with black. “I will deal with this. Run.”
He choked on a mad laugh. “Run where? What will you do? What will you exchange for power enough to fight them?”
She flexed her hands, baring long, growing nails. She fell forward on the ground and plunged a fist into it. “I paid, Leofwine.” Mist formed around her in a feline shape. “I paid with my child and my love, and I will not pay again.” She grew larger, muttering words Leofwine didn’t understand. Then she rent the earth, causing living creatures and elementals of every kind to flee. The ground shuddered, causing Leofwine to lose his balance and fall.
The great cat bounded toward the Niflsekt riders.
Magreda! Leofwine scrambled up and backed against a tree, fumbling in his pockets for the dragon tooth. Maybe Magreda was strong enough—or she could buy him time—or he could change this and save her.
Or maybe he was just an idiot. Clutching the tooth, he snatched a dirk from his boot and carved a circle over the moss and roots, muttering incantations, not daring to look at the chaos in the distance, a tangle of horses, cat screams, shouts and blades.
A shadow stretched across the ground. Leofwine paused and looked up...then dropped his knife. A warlord towered over him, clad in shimmering scales, his black hair hanging in long, twisted strands. Beneath the hood of his winged cloak, his eyes burned with the wrath of gods.
All around, Niflsekt warriors rode from the trees, a hundred of them, their fine mounts stomping and snorting. Grim and unperturbed by the thickening smoke in the air, the immortals were unscathed by war, fire or cats.
“I’ll take that, now,” the Dragon Lord said, holding out his hand for the tooth.
Brave One
Fire raged over Wyrvith Forest in a legion of screams.
Wolf moved over the smoking, crumbling landscape with such speed and agility that Ingifrith might have been dreaming, so unreal the woods became. What naïve fondness she had felt for the High Commander of the Third Sun had fled, replaced by yet another blow to her innocence, shattered like the stone, dust and bodies exploding from the Allfather’s temple.
Wolf leapt from the ruins onto the ground beside a stream where the earth was cool and damp. He put her down. “Follow me.” As he slipped into the shadows of an evergreen stand, it was all Ingifrith could do to keep up with him. Once they had gone a fair distance, he slowed and said, “That man, in the temple. You knew him.”
“Didn’t you?” she panted behind him.
“We knew it wasn’t Arcmael, although not all of the wardens saw the truth; they were blinded by joy and saw only what they wanted to.”
Ingifrith knew the feeling. “Is Arcmael dead, then?”
“We never saw a body.”
It was not a comforting response. “The man is Adept Moust of the Fenrir Brotherhood.”
“The talisman he had. What was it?”
“Maidenblood,” she said after a brief hesitation. “How does that have power enough to summon Halogi?”
The tall warrior lifted his chin with a deep breath. “Such things cross into the realm of Elivag. In the right hands, it could be used to summon a god. But few of us would try that. The realm of Elivag is formless. A mystery. Such spells can easily go awry.”
Ingifrith plodded along, crushed by futility. By Moust’s triumphant expression, it was clear he was getting his revenge for her having humiliated and escaped him in Rivergate.
The Fylking looked down, his expression holding concern. “There is something you are not telling me, Ingifrith.”
“The blood is mine,” she admitted.
“How did he come by it?”
“By force, when I was a girl. Him and another. Moust got it on that cloth. He must have known its value, for he saved it all these suns.”
Wolf stopped, his blue eyes deepening with cold understanding.
She spoke quickly. “Over a moon past, my brother Leofwine found out. He killed the man who was with Moust by summoning Fenrisúlfr. Moust and two other sorcerers came here after us. I didn’t realize until later that Moust meant to destroy me to protect his secret. They put a curse on us. From the Severed Kingdoms, Leofwine summoned the wolf again to destroy them. Moust escaped.”
Her words caught in her throat as Wolf’s expression changed with some dark realization. He said something in Fylking. Then he turned around and went back in the direction they had come.
“Wolf!” Ingifrith said, running after him. “What?”
The High Immortal reached a break in the trees and moved swiftly up a rise of tumbled ruins. At the top, beneath the light of the day gone gray with smoke, there was a round, broken mosaic of carved stones that had once formed some kind of dais. The deep groove of a pentacle choked with weeds spanned the diameter. In the center, he turned to her.
“No one escapes Fenrisúlfr,” he said. “The wolf let him go.”
“Why would it do that?”
“That is impossible to say, but I would wager there is trickery involved. What happened, exactly?”
The man ran into the woods. He looked back once, his eyes cold. “The sorcerers had me cornered. When the wolf came and destroyed them, I saw Moust running away, toward the trees. It was the same as that day in the meadow, and in a vision Leofwine summoned in his circle. It was the first time I realized Moust was the one with Grimar.”
A grim smile. “Moust wanted you dead to hide his secret. But a sorcerer cannot hide a secret like that from the Otherworld. It gives him power in the Dark Realms—but those forces do not rule, here.”
“They do now,” Ingifrith pointed out.
The Fylking nodded. “That’s why Adept Moust wants you dead. You have the power to summon the one who can destroy the High Vardlokk of Chaos.”
Ingifrith stared at the warrior in disbelief. “Maybe you’ve noticed, but it’s a bit late for that. Moust beat me to it—using my own blood!” She stomped back and forth, flinging the tangles of her hair over her back. “Everyone seems to think I can summon Halogi. I never did that. Vargn did. I happened to run into Halogi in the king’s gaol, where he was imprisoned. I helped him. In return, he called Moust off me—and that was the end of it.”
As she spoke, every memory, image and word she had shared with Halogi fell down on her like ash and debris, the toppling, burning trees, the ruins of war and isolation. Halogi knew what Moust had done—and yet he had just come here at Moust’s wicked summons and laughed as he razed the ancient forest with fire. Even if she did have the power to summon him, it was too late.
Wolf stepped closer, his war-torn armor shining dully. There was blood on his arm, his thigh. “You underestimate yourself, Ingifrith. You take for granted what to the rest of us is a stunning talent for seiðr, the power of the Witch Goddess. Even the Lords of the Severed Kingdoms take heed of seiðr.”
Ingifrith put her arms over her belly as if to protect it. “I don’t even know what you’re talking about.” I am nothing. “You know nothing about me.”
The Fylking glanced to the side. A spider web hung over the edge of the circle, shimmering. Something skittered over the silvery threads. Then a woman appeared. Still in the unseen, she was tall, thin as
a willow, and cloaked in black. Her face was mostly hidden beneath the cowl of her hood, and long braids the color of milk hung to her waist. Her long, spidery fingers moved as if she were calling something to her hand.
Ingifrith wondered if she should kneel. This was the source of the voice, the presence of spiders, that had been guiding her with strange council for most of her life. What she hadn’t known was that the spider was Fylking—and had obviously been talking to Wolf.
“This is Spider,” Wolf said, holding out his hand. The woman took it. “She is part of my company along with Raven, Fox and Cat. We were Arcmael’s Guardian Fylking before he became the Master of Faersc. She is a wisewoman; in our tongue, we call her völva.”
“What do you want with me?” Ingifrith asked.
She realized her mistake, and the reason Wolf had brought her here, when the völva raised her spidery hand to the sky with a word. Salamanders, the keepers of fire in the elemental world, soared out of the air and erupted in the stone circle, racing over the lines of the star. Smoke billowed in the trees, sparkling with flames. Ingifrith shrieked and bolted from the center of the star. The fire within did not burn, but neither could she leave the circle. She was trapped.
No trap without a spring, she heard her mother say, as if mocking her.
Wolf stood beyond the ring of flames. His steely gaze settled on her, and his long hair blew around his face. Ingifrith screamed his name, woven with curses. He said nothing as a host of Fylking warriors melted into shape from the surroundings, armed, grim and wearing the same implacable expressions. She hated them then, just as she had hated the beautiful High Fylking warlord of Tower Sie for leaving her on the plain to bleed.
Spider pushed the hood from her face, her flesh ghostly pale and her eyes as black as a raven’s. She tilted her face back and spoke a name.
Ingifrith sank to her knees then, because it was a name she knew well.
Smoke flowed down into the circle and gathered into a form. The High Commander of the Third Sun stood in the center of the pentacle, wreathed in flames. In his physical form, he stood eight feet tall. He lifted a hand, his nails black and curved like knives.
The Fylking: Outpost and The Wolf Lords Page 76
