by AJ Cooper
“Perhaps it is time to fight the evil in the Darkling Wood instead of feeding it,” Brand said.
“You’re right, boy. But there is no hero alive today that could stop the evil in that forest. Perhaps the Green Dragon could.” She turned around and looked at Brand firmly in the eye. “I’ll help you find him, Brand. My former husband Harram taught me how to steal a horse… and ride one at full speed.”
“I can’t say the same,” Brand said.
“We’ll ride two-a-saddle,” Hilda said.
“What made you change your mind?”
“I do not want to be bitter; nor do I wish to be a cold, cruel dog,” Hilda answered. “You have a way with words, boy.” As she walked down the patio steps, she said, “Also, the earl is forcing me to spin wool tomorrow and learn to be ladylike. I’d rather die fighting darklings than be a well-mannered lady.”
“You are a braver man than I,” Brand said.
Hilda laughed.
At the door of the lord’s stables, Hilda chanted a strange song. It was in a different language—a thicker, more guttural language—and the melody was in a mode that Brand had never heard before. A horse trotted out: a shapely black mare with her mane tied into braids.
“I will name you Midnight,” Hilda said, and hopped on her new steed. Brand mounted right behind her.
Hilda clucked and rode her fast out of the gate. The equerry ran out of his adjacent hovel and screamed, “Thieves! Horse thieves! An’ they’ve taken the best one!”
Midnight galloped swiftly away from White Wolf Keep and into the stony plain. Brand was surprised at how obedient Midnight was, but Hilda had ridden with the horse peoples and knew their tricks.
They rode long and hard. The watchtower appeared an hour or so after their departure. A great wooden wall blocked all inward passage but the pines were tall enough to stretch above it. They crossed the distance in a short time and found a group of men sleeping around the coals of a dying campfire.
Hilda dismounted and kicked one of them so hard with her steel-toed boot that there was a crack. The man woke with a start.
He was blond-bearded, and, judging by the indignation on his face he was the captain. “How dare you, woman!” He clutched his shoulder.
“Shut up!” Hilda hissed. “Open the gate, or—by the Green Dragon’s slippery scales—I will skin you alive and feed your innards to the darklings, just like you did to my friend.”
“I am cousin to the earl!” he started.
“That’s why he doesn’t feed you to the darklings, I’d guess,” Hilda sneered. She pressed the sword-blade up to his neck, easing off just enough so that it did not break skin. “And these men—I suppose the reason why they aren’t fed to the darklings is so they could protect your cowardly hide. Or maybe these men are your lovers, and you’re their blushing bride.”
The captain’s cheeks flashed red.
“Anger, or embarrassment that I told the truth? I can’t tell,” Hilda said. “But don’t talk, Hargin. I know you, worm. You’re the biggest coward in Badelgard, and if you do not march up to that gate and open it within the next three seconds, I swear I will cut off your head right now, because I am a smart woman and can figure out how to open a wooden gate—as can any of these men you whore yourself out to.”
Brand laughed. He was beginning to respect Hilda.
Captain Hargin slowly stood to his feet, eyes filled with rage.
“Hands up!” Hilda snapped.
He obeyed.
“Brand, remove his sword.”
Brand pulled the sword out of its hilt. It was a fine work of steel.
“That will be yours from now on, Brand,” Hilda said. She glanced at Hargin. “Open the gate, worm. Go on, or I will cut off the instrument of your whorishness.”
Brand didn’t know if egging Hargin on was a good strategy, but he laughed just the same. Happy to have a weapon, he followed Hilda as she forced Hargin toward the gate. The captain walked inside a small chamber just outside the gate and began cranking the thing open.
“Soon as he comes out,” Hilda whispered, “I’ll cut off his head.”
“Leave him be,” Brand said. “Leave him to his shame. It’s better than needless killing. It’ll prove you’re right—he’s the biggest coward in all Badelgard, and he won’t be able to escape it.”
Hilda smiled. “That is unwise. Yet if it is your wish, I will grant it.”
Hargin cranked the gate open and they entered the Darkling Wood. The gate then began cranking shut.
“Now you’ll die, woman!” Hargin shouted, laughing hysterically. “You’ll die, and you’ll eat your insults when the monsters come! They’ll rip your arms off, dog! I watch them every day with pleasure. Your man is gone… gone! The darklings have already ripped him limb from limb!”
CHAPTER NINE
The Darkling Wood was silent, yet Brand could feel in his bones that it was not empty. There were things watching them.
“If we see a corpse, we must chop it into pieces,” Hilda said. “The corpses move with the speed of a White Wolf.”
Brand grasped his sword tightly. Gunnar had given him a little training, but not enough for him to bear a sword with anything approaching competence.
“Gunnar!” Hilda shouted. “Gunnar?”
There was a nonsensical whispering behind them, perhaps in a different language. Brand looked back. Standing a few yards away was a little girl, her head cocked at an impossible angle and dry blood covering her mouth. Her stomach was swollen. Hilda grabbed Brand’s shoulder to restrain him.
“It’s a darkling,” she explained. “See that belly of hers? She is not pregnant; it’s from eating human flesh.”
Nausea seized Brand, but he held it in.
There was a harsh cracking noise as the little girl’s head fell off and rolled onto the floor. As it rolled, the lips moved. “Your friend is one of us now.”
Hilda charged at the little girl, heaved back her sword, and, in one hard slash, chopped her in two. Brand winced as she hacked off the hands, then the legs, and finally, the feet. Then she turned around. “Remember, she is not a girl. She is something entirely different.”
“I know,” Brand said quietly.
“Where is Gunnar?” Brand said as they walked through the silent forest.
“I know some things about this wood,” Hilda answered him. “But, by far, not all of it. I have no idea where Gunnar might be.”
From the darkness of the forest, a voice began humming the tune of “Fell Winter”—the song the earl had liked and the one that Hilda despised. Brand froze in place. Hilda held her sword high.
“And the Ulfr shall have their revenge,” it sang, “and the Ulfr shall have their revenge.”
A figure in a dark, hooded cloak walked gracefully out of the forest. Green fingers drooped from the gold-rimmed sleeves. Behind the figure was an army of darkling corpses, and guarding the figure were two men, one blond-bearded and one brown-bearded, both rigidly frozen.
“Agni! Rannulf! My loves,” Hilda cried. “What has this monster done to you?”
“Agni and Rannulf love their mother,” a woman’s voice said from behind the cowl. “As do all my children. You have hacked one to pieces; I shall put poor Asgerd back together in a short time. I am an expert seamstress, as all mothers should be. You, human girl. Do you seam? Surely you do—it is every human woman’s duty!”
“Show your face, monster,” Hilda hissed, “Or I shall cleave it from the neck and see it for myself.”
“You’re an Ulfr witch, aren’t you?” Brand shouted, holding his sword out firmly but shakily. “What did you do with my lord, Gunnar? Speak!”
The witch laughed. “Your friend is my child, now.”
“Liar!” Brand snapped.
“Don’t you realize that, if I willed it, I could blacken your flesh and adopt you as my child?” The witch laughed. “And don’t you realize that, without the aid of the Green Dragon, the humans of Badelgard have no way of stopping me? You hum
ans foolishly kill your witch-children, and burn the wizards who come of age at the stake. Now, what sort of power do you have against us? How in the wide world can you protect yourself when my race returns? You had your three-hundred years of play and frolic; now it is time for me to reclaim what is justly mine.”
“Vile witch!” Hilda snapped, but her shouting could not mask the trembling in her voice. “You Ulfr were the most perverted of all nations. Your brothers married your sisters… you sacrificed little children to your demon-goddess… you ate your dead even when the harvest was good! How could you ever claim justice?”
The witch laughed. “You’re so simple, seeing things in two shades: black and white, good and evil. There is always gray… and colors—bright, beautiful colors—which you humans seem not to wear in your short, sad lives. But even so, there are no blacks, whites, grays, or colors when it comes to life; there is only strength and weakness, wisdom and stupidity.”
“We crushed you in times past,” Hilda shouted. “And by Vana, we’ll crush you again!”
“Crush me?” the witch said. She extended her hands out of her sleeves. Her fingers were like green vines. A black light grew in her palms. “It is time to end this conversation; I’ve grown bored with your dumbness, girl.”
Hilda gasped, as if she could not breathe, and stumbled. Her skin shimmered and then darkened. Brand screamed and began to charge, but it was no use; a White Wolf’s piercing howl filled the forest like a shrieking winter wind. A pack of giant, snow-colored wolves sprinted up to the Ulfr witch and her darkling children. They growled.
“Dogs! Wolves!” the witch screamed. “The most unclean of beasts! I shall hunt every last one of you, and make stew out of your hearts.”
One White Wolf dashed up to Brand and lay down on the floor, then barked. Not sure what to do, Brand sat down on his back, and then the White Wolf dashed off in the direction of the neighboring great peak. He looked back, and Hilda had followed. The gnawing, withering sounds of the Ulfr witch’s dark spells filled the air as the rosy light of dawn slowly crept into the horizon and Brand and Hilda were borne away toward the mountains as if by a propitious wind.
CHAPTER TEN
The White Wolves carried Brand and Hilda high up the peak. As they leapt up rocky cliffs and ascended steep inclines, Brand occasionally thought of running away. The wolves could very well intend to eat them, but the way the wolf had beckoned Brand to sit on him indicated otherwise.
By the time they stopped their ascent, it was well into the morning. Exhaustion had begun to seep into Brand, and when the bumpy ride ended he nearly dozed off. The wolves walked through a veil of snowy black pines, and entered an ice cave. There, Brand hopped off his wolf and sat against the ice wall, shivering. The air was cold and dead.
A male wolf trotted up to him. He was the largest and most muscular of the lot. A scar ran across his blue eyes. Baring dark yellow fangs, the wolf reached out with his right paw and scratched hard into the ice with one of his claws.
“Don’t eat me! Be a nice boy.” Brand’s voice cracked.
The wolf snarled and beat his paw onto the ice. Brand looked down at the scratchings the wolf had made.
“I don’t know what you want!”
The wolf barked twice and hit the ice with both paws. Brand looked down once more. Only then did he realize that the wolf had scratched two crude runes into the ice. They were in old Badelgard script, but he had learned that language at the Skalds’ College. They read, “Friend. Danger.”
“Yes! Yes. I know, my friend is in danger,” Brand said, baffled that these wolves were communicating. There had always been legends of White Wolves talking, but he always assumed they were just that: legends.
The wolf backed away and began scratching again. This time he wrote five runes. They read, “Great Need. Healing. Carry. Southward. To Gulls.”
“Gulls?” Brand said, confused.
The wolf snarled.
Hilda spoke from across the room. “Andarr’s Port has gulls in summer. Do you mean Andarr’s Port, boy?”
The wolf snarled loudly and growled in a low tone as he approached Hilda. With great force he dug his claw into the ice and scratched three runes: “King.”
“I apologize, your majesty,” Hilda said. “You are a king, and a proud, noble beast.”
The alpha wolf scratched more runes: “Danger. Coming. Take. Leave.”
A she-wolf dragged the body of Gunnar across the ice. His legs were cut off just below the knees, his stumps somehow healed and not bleeding. His skin had darkened, and his eyes had yellowed.
Brand let out a scream that lasted several seconds. “Master! Master! Is he alive?”
“He’s unconscious, but he’s breathing, boy,” Hilda said. “I’ll carry him.”
The alpha let out a wintry howl and all the wolves bolted out of the cave except the one who had dragged in Gunnar. She wrote the rune for “Follow.”
Hilda carried Gunnar as she, Brand, and the White Wolf navigated down the eastern side of the slope. Their descent was far more awkward than the ascent; they could not manage the steep cliffs and rocks as well as the White Wolves, especially Hilda with Gunnar. The descent lasted until the sun was nearly in the middle of the sky.
They reached the bottom, and, despite their exhaustion, continued through the black pines. Eventually they came to the wooden wall. They were on the other side—the safe side that faced White Wolf Keep. Brand ran his hands along the coarse wood and thanked Vana that the Ulfr had not taken them.
The White Wolf scratched more runes into the dirt: “Carry. Holy Place. Gulls. Before Dusk.” Then she howled and took off, bounding up toward the mountains, toward the place she came from.
Brand needed sleep. Even now, his eyelids were drooping shut. But he trusted these White Wolves. Andarr’s Port was sixteen miles southwest down through the plains and down a sharp descent to the seashore. That was a long journey, even for someone who hadn’t slept all night. And now that late morning had arrived, there was very little chance they could get there before dusk.
Hilda screamed in frustration. “This man is heavy as a boulder! Why, gods? Why?”
Then Midnight came galloping in from the north, whinnying as the first snow of the winter began drifting down from the silver sky.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Even if Gunnar had not been unconscious, riding three-a-saddle on Midnight would be impossible. So Hilda fixed him to the saddle and, despite their exhaustion, they half-walked, half-ran, down the southwest-leading trail as fast as they could as the snow fell.
They reached White Wolf Keep in the afternoon, but made a point to avoid it; they were fugitives now—both in Frostfall and Ostergard—and whether the city of Andarr’s Port would look the other way was any man’s guess. But beyond doubt, they knew Lord Henrik would not look past it.
The snow piled up throughout the day as they hurried down the path. Soon it was up to Brand’s heels.The road seemed to go on and on with no hint of termination. No signposts led the way. Over time, the sun descended in the sky, unnoticeably but inevitably.
The ground was truly dropping below them, now, in a steep, rocky descent. This almost-vertical drop continued for a quarter of an hour, and then a great river appeared below them. They were in the lowlands.
They followed the river west as the sun set in bronze colors. They came to a crossroads. A signpost read, “Andarr’s Port: four miles.” The sun was dipping below the now-visible sea as the rocky slopes of the river valley widened into flat, sandy land.
The winds picked up. The snow had deepened to Brand’s thigh and Hilda’s calf. Midnight began to whinny and neigh and toss her head about, and despite Hilda’s reassurances the mare kept up her nervous demeanor.
The lights of a great city, built on either side of the river, appeared before them. Blocking view of anything but the rooftops was a tall stone wall. In time they reached a great wooden gate. A watchman stood on top of the battlements with a bow in his hands.
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br /> “Who are you?” he shouted. “The honorable Lord Harald has no desire whatsoever to harbor the unwanted, sickly, or poor. And if you come from any other keep having a price on your head, be aware that your punishment will be ten times worse here.”
“Milord!” Hilda shouted. “We are not unwanted, nor are we sickly or poor. Nor do we bear a penalty on our heads of any kind.”
Despite his sleepiness, Brand smiled wearily; not a single thing Hilda had just said was true.
“Are you a widow?” the watchman asked. “We are not a safe harbor for widows either.”
“I am not a widow. This man here—” she said, and touched Brand’s hand, “is my loving husband.”
Brand gulped.
“An unlikely pairing. And who is that legless man in the saddle?”
“This,” Hilda said, “This is my friend.”
“What do you have to offer Andarr’s Port?”
Hilda cast a worried glance into the creeping darkness.
“I have my lute,” Brand said. “I am trained by the Skalds’ College. I can play every instrument known in Badelgard, and I know as many songs as I’ve heard.”
“I’ll let you in,” the watchman grunted. “Go to the Sunset Inn on the bay and tell the innkeeper I sent you. Name of Ivan. Nice man, and he’s looking for a singer. He has the best spiced lamb in all Badelgard… actually, the only spiced lamb, far as I know.” He glanced at Hilda. “And what about you? What talents do you possess?”
“I will not go in without my… dear wife,” Brand said, glancing furtively at Hilda.
“I suppose the legless oaf comes in too,” the watchman said. “Very well.”
Andarr’s Port was the largest town Brand had ever seen. The thatch-roofed, sturdily-built homes were crammed together, blocking out most sight of the quiet rock-walled bay. It was larger than Oskir, even though Brand—an easterner—knew that Andarr’s Port had no army of its own; the High King was responsible for its defense. It was the only port into Badelgard. Spices, incense, strange animals, and foreign gold made its way into the port’s marketplace, and because of its wealth, it was necessary to make it dependent on the High King.
