“Brave One,” he rumbled. The earth trembled beneath her. His fire was cold, and no trace of the strange regard she had once felt from him remained. This was what his enemies knew. “You are mine.”
She huddled there, glowering. On the edges of the stone, beyond the wall of fire, warriors continued to gather. They had betrayed her, offered her as a sacrifice. “I am nothing,” she whispered. Her hair hung in her face. “Take me, then.”
Sun on the grass. Wildflowers, trembling in the wind.
She closed her eyes as Halogi stepped toward her, his boots cracking the stone. The folds of his cloak swirled around his feet. His vast presence surrounded her just as it had that day in the king’s gaol. Only now, he was as physical as she was. No curse held him, and he owed her nothing.
She had never had the power to summon anything from the Otherworld; it was always someone else who did that. Vargn bound Halogi in the gaol. The sea witch came on her own to take advantage of an opportunity. Leofwine summoned the phooka and Fenrisúlfr.
“I am nothing,” she whispered again. Just a stupid old, groaning twisted tree.
Halogi paced back and forth, his nostrils flared and his eyes flashing. “I have been summoned by countless sorcerers bearing gifts fit for my stature,” the demon said in his deep, gravelly voice. “In return for war and annihilation, I have been given the daughters of kings, untouched by men, that I might please myself with their innocence. But this,” he caressed the stained cloth between his long fingers, “is not what it seems.”
“It is the same, is it not?” she returned. “A woman’s innocence. How else could a coward like Moust have summoned you? In this dimension, you must obey his commands. Stop toying with me and be done with it.”
Halogi knelt before her, smoldering with ancient intention. He smelled of smoke, death and sandalwood. The long, twisted lengths of his hair were bound on the ends with gold. “I will, Brave One,” he assured her. “But first I must know what makes this exchange worthy.”
Ingifrith gazed at the stained cloth clutched in the demon’s hand. The question confused her. Her blood meant nothing, but it had some sinister power, or Halogi would not be kneeling before her asking why. “Moust summoned you to destroy me. Are you allowed to question what he used to do it?”
“I am questioning you, Brave One. Do you think your innocence is a thing that can only be lost once? You see flowers in a field, beneath the sun. They die, or they are picked. But they bloom again each summer, the same, yet different. What makes their sacrifice worthy?”
She blinked up at him. Why was he doing this? “I am not a flower.”
He lifted her chin on the end of a shining nail. “Yes, you are.” The demon removed his nail, his finger curling as he stood up. “I am a force of chaos and destruction. I serve the Hidden One and the fickle wiles of the Raven God.” He whipped his cloak around him as if to make the point. “And yet I once protected you from the very man who has summoned me. What made you worthy of that?”
“All I did was tell you something my mother once told me.”
“Why? For what?”
She shrugged. “You were a friend to me.”
“And you think that is nothing?” He bared his fangs in a silent laugh. “How many friends do you think I have?” He moved before her, glaring down, wreathed in smoke. His presence towered over the world, the heavens. The swords on his back had been forged in halls as old as the cosmos and had cut down empires. One sweep of his hand could have stricken the stars from the sky.
He did have a point. Beings such as this had no friends.
“It means nothing now,” she maintained. “Why are you doing this? You have your orders.”
He stopped pacing. “And I will obey them.” He brandished the cloth. “You think your innocence was an irrecoverable sacrifice, Brave One, but it is the source of your power in this world.”
“Stop calling me that,” she snapped. “All I do is hide. Without the power of the Otherworld, I am nothing. I was never able to summon anything on my own.”
“A summoning happens by an exchange of power. Do you think Maworfae asked you to reclaim her amulet from a sailor because you are nothing? That the specter of your ranger’s lost lover appealed to you because you are nothing? That your brother chose to give his life for love of you? You are a weaver of seiðr. And you are as terrible as I am.”
“If I were all that, you wouldn’t be about to send me to Hel,” she pointed out.
“On the contrary,” Halogi rumbled, his eyes now as dark as Spider’s. “The weavers of seiðr make the ultimate exchange for the Magician’s gifts, Brave One.”
A tear crept down her cheek. “Make it quick, then.”
Silence fell over the forest burning with the demon’s wrath. He drew his sword, white as the sun and wreathed in flames. The Fylking around the circle knelt...except for Spider. She stood, pale, inscrutable, knowing all. Death was nothing to her.
His expression fierce and beautiful in its intensity, the High Commander of the Third Sun said, “You must be as the flowers in the meadow and release your innocence to the jaws of the Wolf.” He gripped his flaming sword in one hand and the blood-stained cloth with the other.
Ingifrith stared at the blood Moust had taken from her, staining the cloth in Halogi’s grip. Images and memories flowed over her like a cold river. It had come to this. Wicked farm hands, taking her life. She was nothing. She closed her eyes and bowed her head as Halogi lifted his sword, alive with the powers of annihilation. Her last thought was of Prederi, laughing at some rude joke, sadness behind his eyes standing like a still, dark pool.
“Hagalaz,” the demon lord boomed.
An icy wind struck Ingifrith’s face. So quick as that, her entry to Hel? She opened her eyes. She was still in the burning forest, and a rift shimmered before her, in the center of the circle. Beyond its edges, opened by the demon’s sword, towered black mountains beneath a gray sky flowing with storms. Hail and sleet swept down upon the frozen earth, cloaking it in winter. It was the desolation of a witch’s curse, the rage of winter.
Halogi held out the cloth. As Ingifrith took it with a trembling hand, the shock of understanding swept over her, as cold as the winds blowing from the chasm. Her innocence in the meadow that day was only that. She had thought Moust and Grimar had left her without value. But in her heart, standing at this precipice, she had found it again. It was not her life the Magician wanted in exchange; but her belief that she was nothing. In the void of that belief, she had become something else.
A weaver of seiðr.
Tears streaming down her face, Ingifrith stood and released the cloth toward the rift. The winds of hagalaz took it in a crone’s bony grip, dissolving it in darkness where, beneath the ice, the seeds of flowers waited.
The rift closed with a hiss.
Halogi stepped up to Ingifrith and knelt before his sword. “I am yours to command, Milady.”
She lifted her chin, feeling new strength flow into her. “Destroy the Niflsekt, return the realm to the Fylking, and deliver Wyrvith from the fire.”
The demon rose and bowed with a flourish. Then he lifted his burning sword to the sky and released a roar to the heavens that opened the portals to the Severed Kingdoms, where his army heeded the call to war.
Freya’s Charm
The silence of the earth had finally returned.
Othin sat against the dirt wall of a small cell, blood congealing on his neck where the demon’s claws had dug into him. Prederi lay unconscious beside him. He didn’t recall his arrival here aside from a dim series of images of warriors in scales, shining with immortality, and cold as the crags at the top of the world. They had stripped the rangers of their clothes and left them in a darkness that smelled of damp, sweat, urine and mold. Then the white one came for Prederi, addressing him by name.
A guard returned the ranger hours later. The sounds of his friend’s screams still tore at Othin’s mind. Prederi was sleeping, or still in shock—it was hard to tel
l. At least the ranger was breathing, though it was faint and irregular. There was no light but for a faint glow at the top of the door.
“Is he still alive?” Leofwine said, huddled on Othin’s other side for warmth. The Niflsekt had brought the sorcerer in while Prederi was being tortured.
Othin moved his hand over Prederi’s hair. It was damp and smelled of blood. “Aye.”
None of them knew where they were. Faersc was a good guess, being the Niflsekt’s stronghold, though Othin had never believed the Wardens of Dyrregin kept dungeons beneath their shining conservatory. Leofwine was of a more cynical mind. It was he who had suggested that they’d been put in this close cell together so they could witness each other’s suffering. It was as good a theory as any.
“War God,” Prederi croaked against Othin’s chest.
“That’s Captain War God to you,” Othin said. As his friend started to laugh, his breath caught.
“Who’s here?” he panted.
“It is I, Leofwine,” the sorcerer said.
“Magreda?”
Othin glanced at the sorcerer in the dark. Leofwine said, “We were attacked by a mounted company of Niflsekt. She used her magic to buy me time. I don’t know what happened to her. I was struck unconscious.”
Othin shuddered under a wave of despair. A cat. She might have escaped as a cat, had she not done the unthinkable and attacked them. Once again, he had lost a half-wild woman to the Otherworld. He would not likely live long enough to find out if his beautiful, secretive panther had survived.
Prederi stirred again. “I miss Inga.”
“So do we,” Othin said quietly. None of them dared to speculate about the implications of the Niflsekt ravaging Wyrvith Forest.
They sat there, shivering, hungry and empty of hope, when a sound came to them from outside the cell. Othin’s limbs turned cold. Someone drew near the door. A ghostly face appeared through the bars.
“Leofwine?” a voice whispered tightly.
The sorcerer got up. “Who’s there?”
“It’s me, Arcmael. I heard they got you.”
Othin’s heart jumped in his chest, but he stayed where he was, not wanting to move Prederi. He tightened his arms around the ranger, who had begun to breathe heavily.
Leofwine limped to the door and put his hand through the bars. “By the gods, Arcmael. We all thought you were dead.”
“Not yet.” He paused as he looked behind him. “Who’s with you?”
“Greetings, Arcmael,” Othin said.
“Othin and Prederi,” Leofwine added. “They came for Prederi already, and he’s not too talkative. Are there others?”
“Not anymore,” the warden said cryptically. “Just you lot. Whatever you did, the Niflsekt commander is so fucking pissed off he couldn’t even kill you. He brought you here to do that in a very long, bad way. He put a warlock on it, an executioner called Moefir. He’s nasty. He’ll make examples of you.”
As that sank in, Prederi growled, “You always were such a dreary fuck, Arcmael.”
Not hearing him, Arcmael said, “Something’s happening.”
“Can you get us out of here?” Othin said.
Arcmael didn’t respond.
“Arcmael!” Leofwine hissed. After a moment, the sorcerer backed away from the door, breathing a curse. Silvery light grew between the bars. Something white moved over it, and then a key clinked in the lock.
Othin swallowed hard, his throat as dry as ashes. The door creaked open. Framed in the soft, glowing light of a crystal ensconced in an ornate holder, stood a tall Niflsekt with long white hair, a silvery white tunic, gray leggings and black boots. Warlock. Executioner. His sleeves were stained with blood.
“War God,” Prederi panted, trembling and clinging to Othin’s arm. “Don’t—”
“Othin of Cae Forres,” Moefir said in a voice like a waterfall. “Come with me.”
“Don’t let him into your mind!” Prederi choked. His heart pounding, Othin gently disentangled himself with a soothing word. Leofwine brushed by Othin and pressed something into his hand. “Freya be with you.”
Othin stumbled through the door, flinching as it slammed behind him. He followed Moefir down a narrow corridor cloaked in webs and shadow. Cold air touched his face as he passed by empty cells. Somewhere above, footsteps pounded on a floor. Voices spoke in another tongue. A booming sound shook the walls.
Something’s happening, Arcmael had said. Whatever it was, it didn’t trouble the executioner. The white-haired immortal drifted down a flight of steps, confident that Othin followed. They both knew the ranger had no other option.
Othin opened his hand. Leofwine had given him some kind of charm, a pentacle with leaves and a dark crystal woven into it. Small comfort.
He followed the warlock into a room lit by pitch torches. A large pentacle was drawn on the floor with what looked like dried blood. Chains hung down from the ceiling into the center of the star. There was nothing else in the room aside from a plain wooden chest sitting against the wall. Moefir placed his crystal torch into a sconce, and then pointed.
Othin stepped into the pentacle. Images of running, fighting and pleading flowed through his mind, like a scene he watched from afar. The High Immortal took his arms, wrenched them over his head and clamped his wrists into the manacles.
Othin still clutched the charm, more from desperation than faith.
“The Norn’s warrior lover,” Moefir began, padding back and forth in front of him. His eyes were pale gray, like the sky before a storm. “Abandoned you, did she?”
Per Prederi’s advice, Othin shoved down his last image of Millie, sitting by a spindle. The dream lapped over his thoughts, insistent as a tide. War is coming. The Gate will close. Those who can see will be hunted.
Gritting his teeth, he focused on the memory of dropping the hooded crow into the fire.
Moefir’s lips twitched with a smile. He made a gesture with his fingers. Something stirred at Othin’s feet, like a nest of snakes. His breath caught as he realized he was hanging over a chasm.
I walk among the stars, in the infinite darkness of Elivag.
“Or did she?” the Niflsekt mused.
Magreda grabbed her knife from the sheath on her thigh, held it up and carved a death rune into the air. The heat growing in Othin’s body gathered in his loins as he moved his hand up her thigh, caressing the tattoo there, shining with secrets.
Moefir laughed. “A whore is just a whore.”
Fire began to lick up at Othin’s feet.
Sod off, you fucking twig, Magreda said.
Othin envisioned the fire in the woods and dropped the crow into the flames. The stitches curled, blackened and vanished. Millie was gone. She had left him that day by the tower, her task completed. Somehow, he had known it then. And he knew it now.
When dealing with the Otherworld, you must never make assumptions.
No longer smiling, the immortal warlock spoke a word. The fire leapt up and grabbed Othin’s legs. Fingers tipped with long claws and wide mouths with sharp teeth wound around his limbs like tentacles, shredding his flesh. Othin’s breathing quickened as his body registered the damage. His throat opened up into a scream.
The Niflsekt has a weakness. He fears the Norns, the Spinners of Fate, witches who weave in the roots of Yggdrasil.
Threaded into the flames, feeding on the darkness, images from his life burned away: the stone carving of Hel in the witches’ graveyard in Merhafr; the Fox wildcard; the garden in front of the Pink Rose cathouse; a statue of the Hooded One in the Rangers’ Square; the verdant, tangled hills of his father’s vineyards. Pain blotted out every hope of reprieve.
“Spite makes bad decisions, Ranger,” the warlock crooned.
Draped over her lap was a knitted image of a tower with a black dragon wrapped around it.
Pain consumed him. He screamed again, his voice tearing the stone, the earth, the sky.
You must learn to see.
A thread hung from the edge
of the Norn’s knitting. He only imagined it, surely. Clutching Leofwine’s charm in a burning hand, Othin reached out in his mind’s eye and grabbed the thread. Then he pulled, unraveling the stitches in tiny ripples of chaos.
The Spider Web
The black-clad guards at the gates of the Faersc Conservatory moved with methodical poise as the commander of Niflsekt Covert Operations rode along the scrubby road with a small escort behind him bearing a banner of the Dragon Clan. He had handed Leofwine Klemet off to one of his men, a dark-eyed scout called Hrafn who, with a deadpan stare, reported the death of the witch whore who had accompanied the rangers. Without ceremony, Hrafn had struck the sorcerer unconscious and strapped him onto his horse.
As the company approached the gates, Vaethir turned around and gestured.
Hrafn rode up alongside him. “Master. Your orders with this one?” He glanced over his shoulder. Someone had carved a patch of dragon scales on the sorcerer’s hand using a knife.
“Put him with the others,” Vaethir replied. “Tell Moefir I will question him myself.”
The scout nodded and rode ahead, weaving through the shadows, the sorcerer’s senseless bulk bouncing behind him.
Adept Klemet would prove useful indeed. Aside from Alorael, now dead, only Moust had the same pernicious drive to find Ingifrith Klemet, whom the Niflsekt were still unable to locate. But Moust had something to hide, and Vaethir suspected the witch’s brother knew what it was. Vaethir would expose them both.
A report of a Niflsekt company discovering a Fylking stronghold in the northern wilds of Wyrvith Forest had given Vaethir additional satisfaction in the wake of Alorael’s fall. Pleased by the plumes of smoke drifting through the trees, he had deployed most of the company to make sure the Fylking were destroyed.
The last report Vaethir received brought his plans together further. Isarvalos’s demons, in an obvious attempt to use the Gate to get off this world, were marauding the northern pass and had killed two of the rangers Bothilde had told him about. Better yet, one of them was the archer who had shot the poisoned arrow into Alorael’s throat. As far as Vaethir was concerned, the demons were welcome to take over the Vale of Ason Tae. In return for passage through the Gate, they would happily rid him of any mortals who might cause him further trouble up there. Rangers, witches and seers, for a start.
The Fylking: Outpost and The Wolf Lords Page 77
