Cold Counsel

by Chris Sharp

  The cages had been built with an average-sized goblin in mind. Luckily for Dingle he was far from it, unlike his closest neighbor who’d been an overweight brute with obvious ogre blood in his family line. That cage was overflowing with red, pecked-up meat. It looked like a giant sausage had burst out of its sack, covered now in a rustling blanket of black feathers. The crows had taken up residence atop the cage, and had already eaten the goblin’s face and fingers. The swarms of grackles dove and swooped about his legs, pecking the flies from the rotten flesh.

  The big corpse would satisfy the crows for a while, but the flies and some of the other birds preferred fresh blood and warm meat. With the press of spikes at the back of his head, Dingle raised his gaze to find the particularly large raven that had taken up roost among the higher branches. That bird had been watching him with those pitiless eyes behind its broad dagger of a beak all afternoon. He knew it wouldn’t be long before it came pecking.

  So far, Dingle wasn’t bleeding too badly—mostly just from the fists and kicks of the goblin guards prior to his hanging. The alarming sway of the cage had gone with the wind, but the flies that gathered instead were relentless. Every bite on his ankles was like the prick of a salted pin, and when he kicked out or banged his legs together, the spikes drew more trickles down his back to further tempt the raven.

  The cage spun slowly with the latest useless flail of his leg, and he got a good view of another dangling neighbor—reduced now to tattered rags over bones with a last few strands of old flesh and hair clinging to the skull. Dingle spun on and came face-to-face with another goblin staring bug-eyed back at him. This unfortunate soul was somehow still alive, but he had already descended into full-blown madness with only one extra day of suffering.

  Dingle had met this goblin on occasion when he’d gone to Clan Center to buy his eggs in the past. He’d carried the widest variety of eggs in all sizes and colors and had labeled himself the finest egg connoisseur in the whole clan. Though Dingle could rarely afford his offerings and found the chubby merchant officious in his dealings, he wouldn’t wish this fate on anyone. He couldn’t imagine what offense the egg seller might have committed to cross the Khan and wind up here.

  Someone had chopped off his fingers, toes, and manhood before he’d been locked up and hung. The spikes had pierced his belly and jowly head with a constant drip of red, and Dingle had been forced to listen as the big raven had eaten his ears, nose, lips, and eyelids—hence the bug-eyed stare. Once the frantic screaming had turned to an even more disturbing laughter, the raven, and even the flies, had inexplicably left him alone to bleed and mumble.

  “They’re coming, they’re coming, to get your tongue strumming. It stings when the wings come to make your mouth sings,” he sang with his gaze locked on Dingle. “The raven comes first, his pecks are the worst. The crows come next and make you most vexed. But the maggots come last, and they don’t eat you fast.” He laughed as he spun out of Dingle’s view.

  The little goblin tried to block out this nightmarish reality he’d been elevated into, wondering how it was possible that he’d been able to ignore all of this horror for years as he’d gone about his business unaware and uncaring below. He looked down past his knees to the world he’d come from, but the movement drew blood on his forehead. Still, he could tell that hundreds, maybe even thousands had gathered in Clan Center, and the rhythmic pounding of the drums swelled again as another core of wolf riders and their accompanying drum team joined in.

  All of this was for Slud, all because Dingle had delivered his message to the Khan. All designed to display the strength of the Rock Wolf Clan, though Dingle knew now that it only showed their weakness. He tried to spit down upon them, but his lip was fat from the beating. The foamy tendril he’d been able to muster dangled uselessly before dropping onto his own thigh.

  The flutter of wings sounded behind him, and the cage jostled as something heavy landed on the bars above his head. He glimpsed the movement of black feathers, but he couldn’t raise his chin to face the raven’s emotionless gaze one last time. He contemplated shouting, but clenched his eyes tightly instead, waiting for the first stab of its beak. The cage wobbled, and the spikes jammed into his earlobe, but no peck came . . .

  His eyes snapped open as the sound of a bowstring released above him. He saw a golden bolt skewer a grackle as it swooped between the legs hanging from the overstuffed cage. The black bird snatched a fly from the dead goblin’s ankle just as the bolt caught it through the back, but its fishtailing plummet was stopped short by a shimmering thread that trailed back to the cage behind the bolt’s fletching. Dingle glimpsed a goblin’s hands pulling up the golden thread—long, sharply trimmed claws and spiraling tattoos of jagged letters that wound about the wiry wrists and knuckles.

  The pierced grackle was still jerking as it was raised toward Dingle. Its trembling wing slipped between bars and clipped him in the nose as it passed, triggering an abrupt sneeze. Spikes jammed into his skull above his brow before a handful of others dug in to the back of his head with the recoil. The wash of fresh pain made his vision go white for a moment before the warm buzz settled over him again. When sight returned he saw the hands carefully remove the bolt from the bird before stuffing the kill in a leather satchel beneath a black-feathered robe. For an instant he saw a thin quiver with two more golden bolts. Then a small crossbow came into view, clipped by its handle to a braided wolf-hair belt, before the robe closed over it with a wall of black feathers. The goblin deftly slid down the bars before Dingle’s view.

  It was the hex doktor that Dingle had seen beside Big Boss Harog on the burning mountainside. The apprentice turned his engorged eye on Dingle, and an unpleasant shudder passed through the scout with sharp pricks at numerous spots along his back and shoulders. Dingle was too far gone to think it particularly odd that this goblin would willingly perch outside of his cage more than a hundred feet above camp. He tried to say something, anything, but his mouth couldn’t yet form words in the wake of the evil eye.

  “Still alive,” the apprentice observed. “Ya heal quick, don’t ya? Beatin’ like that would kill most.”

  Dingle averted his gaze from the enlarged black eye that bored into him. Instead, he found the continued gaze of the raven on the branch above. It cocked its head and opened its beak as if it was about to say something. “D-d-do you th-th-think you could shoot a b-b-bolt at that bird?”

  The apprentice adjusted his hold on the bars and glanced over his shoulder at the raven. Its head ticked to the other side, but it still hadn’t closed its beak. “No shootin’ that bird. Bad luck’s all that’ll get ya.” He waved a hand toward it. “YA! Be gone with ya, devil! Go back to yer master!”

  The raven took a hop toward them along the branch and let out a loud squawk that echoed about the canopy. It closed its beak and lowered its head like it was going to attack, but then straightened again and turned away, as if hearing something off in the night. Dingle was shocked when it unfurled its giant wingspan, at least three times as wide as Dingle was tall. He instinctively tried to back away, piercing his skull and shoulder blades again as the bird dove from the perch, but the flutter of feathers carried it sailing overhead. With an audible flap it lifted away through the trees, and rattled off another piercing squawk before it disappeared completely into the gathering evening shade.

  “Goodbye, raven king, come again to hear me sing!” called the insane egg seller from his nearby cage.

  Dingle looked back to the apprentice. “Th-th-thanks.” But the apprentice was reaching through the bars of the cage with a little blade at the end of an outstretched finger. He sliced across Dingle’s chest without warning.

  Dingle yelped, jerking into a back full of the spikes. His vision went white again before the warm tingle spread across his torso on both sides. When he could see, the apprentice was filling a small glass vial with the blood that spilled from the fresh cut, his big eye locked on the wound with penetrating focus.

  The vial and fing
er blade slipped back into the satchel below the feathers, and the apprentice adjusted his hold on the cage once more. “Ya spoke of a witch in the Iron Wood when ya first saw this Slud . . . Did ya take anythin’ from her house? Did she give ya somethin’ to eat or drink?”

  The apprentice spoke with an intensity that made Dingle nervous, but he doubted his lot in life could get much worse than his present predicament. He remembered the awful taste of the gold-flecked potion he’d sampled—the potion that had been made by the witch for Slud. Dingle nodded, with a spike jabbing him in the bridge of his nose.

  The apprentice’s hand slipped into his robe once more, and this time it came out with a little key. He reached between the bars toward Dingle’s neck and slipped it in the inner lock that held the spike mold around his head. With a turn the spikes blissfully clanged away from his skull and throat. His neck popped as he rolled it with a gratified sigh.

  “Can help ya, goblin. I’m Chief Doktor now . . . Just start at the beginnin’. Ya tell Fixelcrick everythin’.”

  WITH ANOTHER slow flap of his wings, the raven crossed over the spiked-log wall of the outer stockade and left the sprawling Rock Wolf stronghold behind. The Raven Lord navigated through the maze of dark trees by instinct; his eyes were always scanning below. They didn’t need the light from the torches or forest fire to take in every detail of the land and life that he passed over. A flurry of short flaps brought the giant black bird swooping up through the higher branches. As he slipped above the canopy, the world opened around him.

  The night sky was clear heading away from the mountain. Stars clustered in a thick shining band that cut the horizon, but behind his tail feathers the mountain was socked in with rolling clouds above the tall peak. The temperature had plummeted. The air smelled like snow. A storm was coming, and it made the ancient bird uneasy.

  Muninn was his name, and he did not forget. He’d sat at the shoulder of Wotan the Wise, and whispered counsel in his ear at the dawn of the age of man. He’d stood proudly, across from his brother, Huginn, and the symbol of the twin ravens had spurred the hearts of the followers and sent fear to the heads of the faithless. He’d flown above the field at Ragnarok as the giants stormed down from the Jötunheim and the Demon Wolf pierced the dark with his infernal howl.

  Something in the air this night made him remember those dark days. Perhaps it was the stink of death in the wind or maybe the beat of the war drums, but when the black wolf howled again from a higher ridge, Muninn heard the echo of monstrous Fenrir in the call. By the end of the reign of the gods, his master was called the Allfather, Odin One-Eye. Muninn remembered the sight of the Demon Wolf’s jaws around the old man’s waist, breaking his back with a ferocious shake just as Odin released his spear with a killing blow in return.

  Muninn did not like this black wolf that reminded him of the other; he did not like remembering those old days at all. But his new master, who he and Huginn had followed now for only four centuries, sent him to watch over the activities on the mountain more and more, and the old memories returned amid the cold air beneath the towering peak.

  Soon, Muninn would return to eat more of the caged goblins and bask in their suffering. Soon, the army of the Rock Wolf would march out to crush the last remnant of the Demon Wolf’s line. Muninn would watch the black mutt bleed out on his precious mountain, and he would peck the golden eyes from its head and remember the old prayers for Odin’s blessing as he tilted the prize down his gullet.

  A single crisp, clear note of a flute sounded again, carried through the night from far across the land. Soon, Muninn would return to the high country to watch and remember, but now, his master, the High King of the Fae, called the raven brothers home.

  THE IMMENSE GATES of the outer stockade wall creaked open, and a raucous cheer joined the incessant pounding of the drums. A swarm of goblins riding broken wolves spilled forth, filling the night with a chorus of yips, hollers, and howls. Snow had begun to fall across the high reaches, and the tops of the trees were already white and sagging. It was beautiful, but the wind had started to gather again, this time from above rather than below, and now with a frigid bite in each gust.

  Luther had climbed quickly from the odd meeting with the troll as the rest of the Pack struggled to keep up. A few clung at his heels, trying to impress, but he only had a mind for the events that unfolded across the mountain.

  He’d led them to the upper slope where the trees thinned and the vantage opened, but his keen eyes had lost count of the enemy behind branches and distance. He turned away from the emerging army to watch the spear of flame that advanced along the lower ridge to meet them. Even from afar, it looked like the fire had a will of its own, darting strangely from tree to tree and consuming the towering pines with ravenous appetite.

  Luther swiveled his ear, and for a moment he heard a harsh whisper clinging to the air. The Wolf King didn’t like it. A low growl hung perpetually in his gut; he needed to kill something and eat its flesh to relieve the tension. Luther was always hungry. After years of forcing it, he’d finally acquired a taste for goblin meat, something the other wolves of the Pack had yet to join him in. For Luther, all that stringy tendon and muscle had become better than deer. He was half tempted to run down there and dig into the first goblin he found, but the thousands behind it, and the traitorous mutt beneath each one, stayed the impulse.

  Sometimes Luther longed to let the savage craving in his belly be his guide, but he was afraid to give in to it fully, unsure if he’d ever be able to stop once it was released. The rest of the Pack was counting on him; there were only twenty-seven free wolves left. His failure as their king was almost complete.

  Hundreds of his kind had been captured and locked behind those walls, abused into servitude or broken into thrall by the goblin warlocks. Hundreds more had been born and raised in goblin kennels, trained to cannibalize the weak wolves in their own litters and feed on the old and injured after that. They’d become twisted, craven things, and Luther hated them even more than the goblins who had made them that way. He’d killed almost as many of his own kind as he had the real enemy, but he’d never seen so many of them march at once.

  Dark magick was at work this night. The suicidal troll and renegade goblin had something to do with it all, but Luther didn’t yet see what. Whatever was happening, it was not the free wolves’ fight. This was not a battle that the Pack could win.

  The whispers in the wind found his ear again, closer than they’d been before, words he did not recognize. The Pack was jumpy, and the omega female started to growl and bristle with her gaze locked on the tree line below. She was the daughter of the former alpha pair, before Luther had come to challenge and lead. They had fought back against his claim and lost, but rather than bow down before his ferocity, they’d joined the sworn enemy of the wolf in their defeat. Now they sat at the feet of the Khan himself, alpha pair of the broken wolves. Their pup had been left to fend for herself.

  The omega female ate last and had not yet been permitted to mate. Her once beautiful gray pelt had been marked by numerous bites and scratches from Luther and others over the years, but she still carried the keenest senses of them all, and she never wavered in battle despite her stooped and cowering stature at home.

  Luther followed her gaze to see a night-hag climb up from the trees with a sharpened pine stick jabbing the snow-covered ground with every step. The hag’s obsidian skin stood out against the white backdrop, and she continued a string of hushed words that echoed back from above as another icy gust lashed branch and fur. The other wolves noticed the approach and joined the omega’s defensive stance with a barrage of snarls. All but Luther.

  He’d never seen this hag, bent and bony beneath her ragged covering of leathers and furs, but he’d only seen such magick once before when he’d been a pup himself. Something of this witch reminded him of that one, and a sense of foreboding crept over him as she stepped closer. It seemed the dark fates that swirled about the mountain did not intend to let him escap
e so easily. The wind quieted as her whispered words ceased, and Luther finally caught her familiar scent—wet, roiled earth mixed with spices, blood, and wood smoke.

  Her sharp-angled face split into a wicked smile with long, pointy teeth as she bowed before him. “Good evening, Wolf King,” she said as the Pack circled and bared their fangs in return. “You may not recognize Agnes, but we’ve met before, yes? It was old Agnes who pulled the little black pup from yer mum’s belly. Agnes who saved you from a goblin war party many moons ago.”

  He’d only been a few years old when he’d first met her. She’d been hunched and withered then, though she’d appeared out of the night without fear just as a large Rock Wolf hunting party attacked. The goblins and their twisted wolves had come from behind, intent on killing the young and old at the rear as the Pack moved across the slopes in search of a new den. The spirits of the air had carried the old witch as she descended from above and spoke harsh words that turned the broken wolves against their riders.

  After the goblins had been torn apart or run screaming, the possessed beasts of the clan turned on each other, ripping out throats and bellies until none survived. Luther had never felt so hungry or alive as he had watching the carnage of that moment. Afterward, the witch spoke to him, and he realized that he understood her language, and could even form words of his own in response. She’d told him that he was not like other wolves, the last descendant of a great line of kings. His name would be Luther Ever Hungry, son of Magyard the Mad, son of Hrumox Doom Hound, son of Skoll Sun-Eater, son of Fenrir Odin’s Bane—all marked by the blood of the demon coursing through them.

  “I remember,” Luther growled as the rest of the Pack waited for his order to attack.

  She eyed them without fear. “The Rock Wolves march; it is time for the enemies of the clan to strike.” Her wicked smile did not fade.