Edgelanders (Serpent of Time)

by Jennifer Melzer

  She was a homeless drifter, she supposed, and that realization struck her as funny. She snorted laughter and had to hold the food in the side of her cheek as she chewed for fear of choking on it if she swallowed. It felt good to laugh, to be able to step outside her situation for the first time since she’d happened upon that dark and terrifying conversation outside Trystay’s tent on the road to Hofft. How ridiculous her life had become in the blink of an eye. She was an exiled fugitive with no place to call home.

  She’d gone from princess to pauper, and suddenly the thing she’d overheard Finn say to his brother about her made so much sense. All her life she’d felt as though she’d lived in a cage, her father—no, not her father—King Aelfric dictating every experience, every moment of her existence. He chose her clothing, her playmates, her toys, the manner of her education, the gods she had to worship, her husband. In the end, she supposed in choosing Trystay, Aelfric had even chosen the way in which she would die, but she’d thwarted that plan for the moment and taken her life into her own hands the night she ran away.

  Suddenly she was free, free to make her own decisions, to choose her own path. The very thought of that freedom was absolutely terrifying. She could go anywhere, do anything, marry whomever she wanted, not that she wanted to marry anyone after that bad bit of business with Trystay, but she could marry a frost troll if she met one who was nice enough, and there wasn’t a damn thing King Aelfric could do about it. Because he was not her father. He had never been her father, and though that truth made her very sad, it also set her free.

  “Free,” she muttered thoughtfully, tearing her teeth into the meat in her hands. Free to be a savage, to eat with her fingers and run around covered in mud. Free to go wherever she wanted to go, be whoever she wanted to be.

  So much power in a single word: freedom. And that power and word were hers for the taking.

  “What was that?” Vilnjar asked, tilting his head curiously in her direction.

  “Oh.” She glanced up at him, genuinely smiling for the first time in a very long time as she chewed the meat in her mouth and swallowed. “Nothing. I was just thinking out loud, that’s all.”

  “I see,” he nodded, but he didn’t see and that was okay. He allowed his discomfort to dominate the moment, and then finally cleared his throat to speak. “Finn says you could use a bit of training, in case we find ourselves face to face with those who hunt us before we get to Rimian. And once we’re there, assuming we actually make it, it’s hard to imagine what we might face. Trolls, goblins, giants.”

  “Training?”

  “With a blade and shield. You should know how to protect yourself.”

  “With what? I have neither of those things to use.”

  “We took as many of the weapons as we could last night as we were leaving.” Gesturing toward a small stash of weaponry, she hadn’t even noticed they’d been carrying it the night before. “There is a shortsword here and a battered shield. Are you willing to learn to use them to protect yourself?”

  “You can teach me?”

  “I know a few techniques I can pass on quickly, not much, but perhaps enough to save your life. There’s just enough room near the cave entrance to practice what I show you if you’re interested.”

  “Okay.”

  “Finish eating and we can begin.”

  Again, she found herself smiling at her newfound freedom. She always wanted to learn to use a sword, but Aelfric said she had no need. He’d been wrong about so many things, but she would finally make all those things he’d been wrong about right.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  “It’s not a turkey leg or a club you dragged out of the woods to beat off a troll.”

  Vilnjar drew in a deep breath to temper the impatience flaring up inside him. For a girl who’d grown up in the castle of a warmongering king, watching soldiers in the yard from the tower, her grasp on the use and care of weaponry was lacking, to put it kindly. To be more blunt, it was downright terrifying, watching her fling that blade through the air, and on more than one occasion he’d caught himself preemptively wincing and ducking backward to avoid having the tip of his nose taken off.

  There was no doubting her eagerness to learn; she was plenty eager, but in truth he’d never had the patience for teaching others and swordplay wasn’t exactly his strongest asset. Still, he knew far more than she did and if he could just get her to hold the damn thing properly before Finn woke, he’d consider it a small miracle and turn the girl over to him for further teaching.

  “It’s a sword. Swords are used for stabbing and slashing, not battering and smashing unless you absolutely have no other choice.”

  “What do you mean when you say no other choice?”

  “If you’re backed into a corner, for example. You could use the butt of your weapon to batter your way out if there was no other way. In any case, one would also assume if you’re fighting with a shortsword, as you are, you’ll also have a shield and if that shield is still in your grip, you’d bash it into your enemy’s face to stun and stagger him.”

  “Like this?”

  The way she gripped the blade was appalling, even to a man who’d spend more time studying politics and history than practicing the arts of war. Had Aelfric locked her away in that tower, put blinders on her and forbid her to look out the windows at the men fighting in the yard below? Even through mere observation alone, she should have understood that battering her way into a fight while swinging her sword arm willy-nilly left her exposed. It was obvious.

  Without armor to protect the parts of her body she was exposing to her enemies she’d be dead before she even brought her arm down. And that was with a shield to protect her.

  “No,” he sighed. “No. Not like that. You’re holding it too far away from your body. It’s a short sword, meant for close range combat. When you hold it that way, it leaves you wide open for attack. You’ll be dead before you even bring your arm in.” He reached in and took the sword from her hand and then grabbed the shield. Loosely clutching the handle, he stood at an angle facing her and covered the front of his body with the length of wood and metal. Holding his sword arm close, he said, “Duck in behind your shield, just enough that you can still see over the edge protect your body. Like this.”

  “Okay,” she nodded, but he could tell she still didn’t understand.

  “I want you to come toward me like you’re going to attack, but pay close attention to how my body responds.”

  “How should I attack you? I don’t have a weapon.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” he snapped impatiently. “Just come at me.”

  There wasn’t a single menacing thing about her as she stepped almost casually toward him, flaring his temper just a little bit more. Throwing out his arm as he stepped forward, he just barely touched her with the front of the shield and then brought the sword in and slipped it through the space between her loose arm and body. She gasped as his arm slipped across her back and stepped away in surprise.

  “If I’d hit you with all my force, the shield would have staggered you, throwing you off balance long enough for me to thrust the blade into your side before you went down. The shield staggers, the blade seeks weakness and exploits it on instinct. Now you try.”

  He didn’t know how many times he made her perform the same task over and over, but he was completely exhausted when the sound of her furious, yet forceful attack woke Finn from sleep. His brother sat up and drew his knees toward his body, resting his arms atop them as he watched her without her awareness, shaking his head and rolling his eyes.

  “I told you to teach her to protect herself, Viln, not how to die more gracefully.”

  The sound of Finn’s voice startled her, and she stumbled into Vilnjar, knocking him back into the hard stone wall. Catching his breath, he was actually winded when he confessed, “She’s dying much more gracefully than she was a few hours ago, I can assure you.”

  “I think I’m doing a pretty good job,” she huffed over her should
er.

  Finn got to his feet and stalked toward them, a confident swagger in his walk. “If you barely want to survive, maybe.”

  “Barely want to survive?”

  “You’re not even holding your sword properly. What have you been telling her, Viln?”

  “I’ve done the best I could with what I had to work with. She really has come a long way from where she was just a few hours ago. Trust me.”

  “It’s not far enough, not if she wants to live to see her next birthday. I’ll take over lessons, Viln. You should get some sleep.”

  “I’m done,” Lorelei announced, the sword clattering from her grip into the pile of weapons he’d scavenged, the wooden shield following.

  “You’re not done, Princess. You have a lot to learn, and the only way you’ll get there is if you keep practicing.”

  “But I’m tired.” It was the first sign of the spoiled girl to rear its ugly head since Vilnjar started teaching her, and the subtle whine of her voice made his teeth grind tighter together.

  “It’s not going to matter how tired you are in the middle of a fight. You’ll have to keep fighting through it until you’re the last one standing among your enemies. Assuming you want to live, that is. Do you want to live, Princess?”

  “Of course I want to live,” she shot back.

  “Then pick up that sword and learn how to wield it properly, or you will die.”

  They started to bicker like children as Vilnjar walked away from them, and though his first instinct was to push himself between them and settle things, he realized it wasn’t his place to get involved. He’d already involved himself far more than he probably should have, and he was completely out of his element. Mating was a strange ritual, one he’d probably never understand or experience for himself. For all he knew they were supposed to argue and pick at one another until they both knew exactly where they stood.

  Still, he had no idea how he was supposed to get any sleep with the sound of raised voices alerting every quirked ear within a ten mile radius of their hidden camp. Sitting down a few feet from the fire, he wiped the sweat from his brow and slicked back his dampened hair before lying down on his side and turning his back to them.

  Closing his eyes, the last thing he heard before drifting into a tangle of thoughts was Lorelei telling his brother she’d bash that shield right into his face if he didn’t watch it. Finn’s laughter carried him away, their argument soon replaced by the clash of iron and splinter of wood as he patiently taught her everything Vilnjar couldn’t.

  Strange as she was, Lorelei was a clever girl; he couldn’t deny that. Sometimes when he looked at her, he swore he saw traces of some secret awareness in her eyes she had no intention of sharing with anyone else until it suited her to do so, the flickering wisdom of the gods flashing in her narrowed gaze just moments before she’d lunged at him, snarling in a pathetic attempt at bravery.

  Everything he’d witnessed in the last twenty-four hours made him uncomfortable, baffled him completely until he was forced to call into question all he allowed himself to believe for as long as he could remember, including his feelings about those with direct connection to the divine powers.

  By definition, she was more than just a seer, more than a listener. For a fleeting moment during the council judgment she held all the power of a god inside her frail mortal body, and though she’d lived to tell the tale, she’d said nothing about the experience. At least not within his earshot.

  He wondered how many people in the village were left with the same questions and uncertainty after what they’d seen. He could almost imagine the chancellor and council quelling the outraged villagers with assurances the display they witnessed had been little more than the last ditch effort of a dying trickster who’d been plotting havoc and discord for nearly two decades.

  As much as he wanted to blame sorcery, as Cobin had so vehemently done, Vilnjar knew what he’d seen, and it had been powerful enough to touch him in ways he’d never been touched before.

  All of his beliefs scattered to the wind in a single moment.

  Rhiorna warned him, promised that one day he would follow wherever Lorelei led. He couldn’t imagine following that spoiled little princess to the ends of the earth, but he had followed her out of Drekne and into exile. He’d stood against men he’d known all his life to protect her and his brother. He could tell himself he was protecting Finn all he liked, but under the surface it went so much deeper than that. Finn could handle himself, and Vilnjar was almost certain that if anyone could brave the tundra and live to brag about it, it was his brother.

  So why was he still using Finn as his excuse for joining them? The worries over his brother’s safety still lingered, but Ruwena was right when she said one day they would have to cut Finn loose and live their own lives. Eornlaith hadn’t asked them to look after him until he was an old man, but Vilnjar always assumed she’d meant for them to watch over him and make sure he got to be an old man one day.

  Which brought him back to the question he’d been silently asking himself since he’d first laid eyes on the broken girl in Finn’s arms: why her? What was so special about that girl, and why would their god choose to appeal to his people through a half-blooded outsider who didn’t even know there was a wolf beneath her skin? How could she possibly save their people?

  And to make matters more complicated, she was so young. If she was truly Rognar’s daughter, and judging from the fire of her hair and the familiarity of her face that question was less relevant than any of the others, she would be several months younger than Finn. Only seventeen years old, which by U’lfer standards should have made her a woman. Adulthood came with one’s first moons’ blood and transformation, but if she’d never embraced the beast didn’t that mean she was still a child? She had a naive air about her that was hard to overlook, even if it was tempered with a heavy internal awareness she didn’t even seem to realize she possessed.

  Vilnjar didn’t understand any of it, and couldn’t see it becoming clearer anytime in the near future. He didn’t like not knowing things, didn’t like how quickly everything he’d believed so staunchly had been called into question by a stranger who’d been touched by their god.

  On the other hand, would he have believed even half of what he’d seen if Llorveth had stayed within Rhiorna? He may have been struggling to believe it, but he hadn’t trusted Rhiorna any more than he trusted Groland or any other priest he’d ever met. Maybe speaking through an innocent outsider was Llorveth’s way of reaching a lost soul like Vilnjar, like most of the people in the village who begged their god for years to give them some kind of sign that he was even still listening.

  Only his brother...

  It was as if the very situation itself came branded with Finn’s name, letters bold as fire beckoning him to tread carelessly, recklessly into the madness. Vilnjar hadn’t even felt the deep breath he’d drawn into his lungs until he exhaled a sigh. Finn may have been strong and more than capable, but try as Vilnjar might to imagine his brother and that girl getting more than a handful of miles without getting themselves into trouble, or worse—killed. And that was the real reason he was there. Vilnjar may not have been battle-seasoned, and his skill with a blade might not have been the best, but he was clever, and that intelligence would keep his brother alive.

  There hadn’t been much time for regrets until that moment, and in the quiet corner of the cavern where he tried to sleep, his back to the two of them and the clash and ring of weapons lulling him, his thoughts weighed heavy in his mind. He worked so hard over the last ten years to gain the respect of the people of Drekne, to earn his position in the Council of the Nine after Helkon the Wise passed away. He busted his backside to make sure his brother made it to his eighteenth birthday without suffering serious injury or exile—all of that was lost now.

  A life without structure and reason for a man like Vilnjar didn’t seem like much of a life at all.

  Viln tossed and turned through troubled moments in which he was st
ill connected to the world outside while also deeply embroiled in the mist of heavy dream. He could hear their voices through that veil, his brother’s lighthearted teasing, Lorelei actually laughing almost good-naturedly. Every word between them was a game, an attempt to match each other’s wit until finally the swordplay subsided and the two of them sat quietly inside the cave holding an almost normal conversation.

  Finn was talking about their mother, about standing at her bedside the day she died and listening to her talk about his father. “I never knew him, but Vilnjar says he was fierce. Kind of crazy just like me.”

  “I don’t think you’re really crazy,” she said. “You’re just passionate.” He could almost imagine Finn looking away, abashed and blushing at her compliment. “And your father, he was one of Rognar’s men?”

  “Both of my parents supported your father’s cause. My mother used to say if it weren’t for me, she would have been right out there with Deken, fighting for land and freedom.”

  “Isn’t it kind of ironic that before this War of Silence, the U’lfer were free, even though they had no land, and afterward they were given land, but they paid for it with their freedom and their lives.”

  “Ironic,” Finn mused. “Yeah.”

  The chatter of their voices began to fade, replaced by the piercing, frantic wails of a thousand dying women and children, the roar of angry men clashing together in battle somewhere behind him. His little legs pumped so fast the muscles tingled and burned, his skin itched beneath the fabric of his breeches. Rue’s sweaty little fingers clutched tight to his as they ran and ran without looking back at the place they’d called home longer than any other. Their mother, heavy with child, gripped Ruwena’s other hand and dragged them both through the acrid black smoke of their burning village and toward the thick woods so they could hide from the iron-clad soldiers of the king’s army who’d come to teach Rognar one final lesson.