by Jocelyn Fox
Vell chuckled, then sobered, eyeing the shard of iron I drew from the ground.
“Does iron kill North-kind?” I asked softly, wrapping the piece with its fellows.
“Depends on which North-kind you’re talking about.” Vell’s face darkened, her gold eyes hardening like amber. She stood and walked cat-footed until she found the next small scrap of blue cloth. “There’s more than one kind of people up North, even though the Court-breds all lump us together so it’s easier to scorn us. Some don’t even think of us as people at all.” Her dagger flashed as she plunged it into the earth vengefully, clenching her jaw.
“Sorry.” I dropped the word softly into the shadows as I passed. I knelt by the next fresh earth-scar. “I didn’t mean any insult. I don’t know much at all about Faeortalam, when it comes down to it, and most of what I know I learned at Darkhill.”
Beryk looked at Vell and gave a short, nearly inaudible whine, deep in his throat. She raised her head and looked at the wolf and sighed, leaving her dagger hilt-deep in the forest floor as she sat back on her heels. “My anger isn’t for you,” she told me quietly.
“Will you tell me? About the different North-kind?” I scraped around a rock, pried it out of the earth and tossed it aside.
After a moment Vell cleared her throat. “Well. Most of the North, past the Court patrols, remains wild. So there are maenads and dryads in the southern reaches—the southern reaches of our lands, that is. There were rumors that a centaur was seen near the Hvitrgal—that’s the mountains, the far, far North. The desolate white lands that I doubt any of your Sidhe lords have seen.”
I glanced over at Vell. A far-off look had taken hold of her eyes, giving her face an expression of…not exactly dreaminess, but the disconnection that comes with distant memory.
“There are the North-witches. Most of them have a mix of maenad and dryad blood in them, some Sidhe, maybe even a little strain of mortal from the far-back days before the Gate was shut.” She smiled faintly at me. Beryk deposited another scrap of iron in my lap. I roughed his neck-fur as he passed. “There are giants, though they mostly keep to themselves. And the trolls, though most of them are…gone now.”
“Gone where?” I asked, though I already thought I knew the answer.
“To the Deadlands,” Vell answered bleakly. “After they…made war upon us.” She raised her chin, lips pressed into a tight white line. Beryk padded over to her and sat by her shoulder, still as a wolf-statue carved of obsidian. “They called us ulfdrengr, the wolf-warriors. And Beryk’s pack was herravaldyr, the wolf-lords, princes among their kind.”
I looked at Beryk with a new interest.
“You didn’t think he was any ordinary wolf, did you?” Vell said, half a smile playing on her lips.
“Did all your people have wolves?” The idea of such a people fascinated me. To be bonded to such a fierce creature—the very thought took my breath away. The Sword hummed in its sheath at my thoughts of teeth and claws, blood and fur.
“We do not have wolves,” Vell said, though there was no malice in her correction. Her accent tinted her words more strongly now, and I tasted sharp snow and pine boughs in the back of my throat. “They are their own masters. Beryk is herravaldyr. He goes where he wishes.” Beryk gazed at me solemnly with his golden eyes. Vell showed her teeth in a humorless smile. “They thought to make me go, when Beryk made it plain he favored me. It’s not often that a prince chooses a woman as his bonded.”
“Why?” I brushed the dirt from the edge of the iron piece, but I didn’t move on to the next, loath to interrupt Vell.
Vell shrugged. “Perhaps because there are less women among the ulfdrengr than in years past. Perhaps because women tend to be less…fierce…than men.” She grinned wolfishly as she said the last, catching my eye, and I felt my lips stretch in an answering grin.
At last Vell pried her piece of iron out of the ground. She handed it to me with a disgusted grimace, and I followed her with my clinking bundle. As she knelt by her next mark, Beryk began digging at another, and I thought that perhaps this wouldn’t take terribly long after all. I’d have to whet my dagger though, if it wasn’t completely ruined.
“Are all the wolves who choose to be with your people…are they all herravaldyr?” I didn’t say it with quite the right accent, I knew, and the word rolled strangely on my tongue, but Vell gave me an appreciative smile.
“No,” she said simply. “Beryk’s mother was a queen-wolf, mated to another herravaldyr. Only the pups of that litter are herravaldyr. Other pups from other wolves, they are still pack, but they are not…” She stopped, searching for the right word. Finally she shrugged. “It is hard to explain. But the herravaldyr, they are stronger and smarter and more cunning than the others, and that is why it is their place to lead.”
I glanced at Beryk, whose black fur rippled with the dappled sunlight filtering through the branches of the trees overhead. “So Beryk will have his own pack someday?”
“Perhaps,” said Vell, her tone carefully neutral. “And then again perhaps not. He is a young wolf, and strong, but there may be no North-wolves left for a pack of his own when he comes of age.”
The Sword hummed a low, angry note. Beryk paused in his industrious digging, watching the scabbard on my back with uncanny intelligence, his amber gaze riveted on the Sword. After a long moment, the Sword fell silent. Beryk looked over his shoulder at Vell, and Vell looked at me.
“What just happened?” I said slowly, feeling very much like a stranger in a foreign country with unintelligible conversations occurring all around me. Vell blinked a few times, and then her golden eyes turned thoughtful.
“The Sword,” she said, “just spoke to Beryk. Or…something after the fashion of speaking.”
And she said no more, even though I frowned in confusion. I shook my head and sighed. “Maybe someday,” I muttered, mostly to myself, “I’ll be able to understand everything around here.”
Vell chuckled and the Sword vibrated in its version of laughter. I rolled my eyes, moving on to the next fresh scar in the earth. I almost had the iron unearthed when a deep voice rumbled behind me, “So the pieces, they are marked by the blue cloth?”
I felt a small prick of pride that I hadn’t jumped at Kavoryk’s comment. I looked over my shoulder at him and said dryly, “For a giant man you move very quietly, Kavoryk.”
Kavoryk chuckled, his coal-black eyes glinting.
“Size doesn’t always exclude grace,” Vell commented with a half-grin from where she knelt. She flicked a rock at Beryk with the tip of her dagger, and the black wolf caught it deftly in his jaws, golden eyes dancing.
“I’d agree, except I tend to think that Beryk doesn’t stay one size, so that doesn’t really count.” Vell didn’t reply, merely raising one eyebrow. I turned my attention back to Kavoryk. “Yes, the Glasidhe marked the pieces with blue cloth. I’m collecting them all.” I made a face. “Though I don’t really know what I’ll do with it once we’re finished.”
Kavoryk shrugged his massive shoulders. “Perhaps we shall think of something before we are finished.”
I nodded. “Hopefully.” When Kavoryk stood silently, watching me, I cleared my throat. “Is there something else?” I dropped the piece of iron into my bundle and stood, wiping one hand on my trousers. Kavoryk stepped closer to me, his huge bulk blocking what little sunlight filtered through the green leaves of the trees. I looked up at him calmly, trying not to strain my neck.
“It was a hard battle,” the giant man said finally. “It is never easy, even for those who have fought before.”
I swallowed against the sudden tightness in my throat as I remembered sitting in the barracks with Moryn, a young guard who had been killed in the fight. “I hoped it would get easier,” I said thickly.
“No,” Kavoryk said, shaking his head. “Do not hope for such a thing.”
I blinked up at him.
“If it gets easier,” Vell interjected, her voice grave, “it means you’ve lost a
part of your soul. With the war we’re fighting now…it’s not the killing of the Shadow-creatures that’ll get to you, it’s watching your comrades die. Even if you don’t like them very much, you should still feel something when someone fighting back to back with you loses his life.” Vell’s gaze remained downcast as she dug through the earth, her pale fingers stained with dark loam.
“It is never easy,” Kavoryk said again. He put one massive hand on my shoulder. “But that is why warriors must stand by one another.”
I smiled bleakly. “I’m hardly a warrior.”
“You think too little of yourself, young one,” the massive Northerner told me, his hand tightening on my shoulder. “But that is better than thinking too much of yourself.” He gave my shoulder another squeeze and then moved past me, searching the ground until he found the next blue marker.
I stood silently, watching the play of shadows on the forest floor as a slight breeze swayed the boughs of the trees above our heads. I didn’t feel guilty about killing the Shadow-creatures, but I wanted to forget the feel of my sword sliding through living flesh, cracking through bone. I wanted to stifle the agonized shrieks of the creatures that still rang in the back of my mind. I didn’t feel guilt, but I felt haunted. I clenched my jaw and breathed deeply, willing myself to restrain the memories.
Had Liam killed anyone, over in the mountains of Afghanistan? I wondered suddenly, the thought surprising me. Did he struggle with guilt over taking another life, or was he battle-hardened, viewing the death of his enemies as necessary to his own survival? I shivered, hoping that war hadn’t put out the joyful spark in his green eyes. Hoping that it wouldn’t put out the spark in my own, either, before I returned home. If I ever returned home. A shiver rippled through my body at the thought of remaining forever in Faeortalam.
I shook myself slightly and went to find the next marker. As I knelt with the coolness of the earth seeping into my knees, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up, and my fingertips tingled. The Sword hummed a low note of warning. The part of myself that Walked jumped strangely. It felt like an electric current jolting through my body, and I looked up sharply, searching the shadows between the trees. I pivoted on my toes, still crouched warily, and then I saw him.
Chapter 2
The Walker stood between two trees, his russet hair glinting deep red in the shadows. He stood attentively but not warily, as if he was sure he couldn’t be seen, and he was here to observe rather than avoid detection. His eyes, a luminous green, were unlike any of the Sidhe I had met in my travels thus far. He turned slightly, his gaze shifting to Vell and Beryk, who both worked obliviously, though Beryk paused, his hackles rising as the Walker’s eyes rested on him. But the black wolf went back to digging when the Sidhe turned his attention elsewhere. I watched silently, waiting for him to look at me, anticipation tingling in my limbs. The Sword vibrated slightly in its sheath.
I knew in my bones that the Sidhe Walker was from the Unseelie Court, and that Mab had sent him, no doubt to find out why Molly hadn’t returned with the Iron Sword, or why the Vaelanmavar had not sent word back to Darkhill. I slid my dagger from the dirt and stood, waiting, staring at the Walker. Vell glanced at me and paused in her digging. I shook my head slightly without taking my eyes from the Unseelie spy’s spectral form. Vell nodded and resumed her work, a new watchful tension in the lines of her lithe body.
After what seemed an eternity, the Walker turned his green eyes to me. He studied me with blatant leisure, a trace of arrogance tinting his expression despite the fact that I was looking directly at him. I smiled slightly—he was so sure that I couldn’t see him, it was almost comical. I tossed my dagger from hand to hand with an idle air. “So,” I said, watching my flashing blade as it arced from my left hand toward my right, “did Mab send you, Walker?” I caught the dagger in my right hand and quick as thought threw it toward the Walker. It embedded itself hilt-deep in the nearest tree with a hollow thunk, and I couldn’t help but grin at the expression of utter surprise that washed over his face. He looked at the still-quivering dagger, then back at me. I walked toward him and stopped at the tree with my dagger, reaching up to grip the hilt. “Are you deaf as well as dumb?” I asked conversationally, pulling my dagger out of the tree with a fierce tug. The Sword gave a sharp command from its sheath, and the Walker flinched as if he’d been struck. He took a step back, but then stood resolutely and raised his chin.
“No, my lady,” he said, his voice strong despite his half-substantial form.
“No, you aren’t deaf, or no, Mab didn’t send you?” I watched him intently.
A small smile turned up one side of his mouth. “No, I’m not deaf, nor dumb, if I may say so.”
I shrugged. “You seemed to think you couldn’t be seen.”
He frowned slightly. “When I do not wish to be seen, I am not. It is a particular talent of mine when Walking.” He paused. “And why the Queen sent me specifically, I think.”
“Be careful with Mab,” I said, flicking a wood-shard from my dagger. “She’s hard to please.”
The Walker didn’t reply, his luminous eyes settling on the hilt of the Sword. “My lady, if I may ask…is that…the Iron Sword?”
The Sword answered for itself with a strident tone, driving the young Walker to his knees. When it finished, I murmured, “Was that really necessary?” It sent me a wave of righteous indignation, that such a young Sidhe would even question its identity…and, for that matter, think to keep himself hidden from me, its Bearer. “Don’t be so sensitive,” I told it. Something like a chuckle vibrated through my ribs. ““The Sword can be a little…testy, sometimes,” I told the Walker with a slight shrug.
The Walker blinked, his vibrant eyes widening slightly. “So…”
I sighed impatiently. “Yes, it’s true it’s the Iron Sword, and yes, it’s true that I’m the Bearer. Gwyneth—she was the last Bearer, in case you didn’t know—sealed it to me in blood.” I smiled a little. “I’m Gwyneth’s daughter, a few generations removed, of course.” Touching the iron pendant at my throat with two fingers, I watched the Walker as he absorbed my sudden explanation.
“You know, Tess, it’s rude to have a whole conversation with someone that no one else can see,” Vell said, walking over to me with a casual air. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you’re talking to an imaginary friend.”
I scrutinized the Walker. “Are you a figment of my imagination?” I asked him in a mock-serious tone.
He smiled. “No, my lady.”
“All right then. Do you have a name, and would it be so terrible if you let yourself be seen by my companions? I already know you’re here, so secrecy isn’t an issue anymore,” I pointed out reasonably, “and it is rather rude to be holding a one-sided conversation.”
Beryk pricked his ears forward in interest as the Walker’s form shimmered slightly.
“So there’s our would-be spy,” Vell said, her gaze focusing sharply on the Walker’s face.
“My name is Murtagh,” he told us stiffly, “and I am not a spy.”
“Well, Murtagh, at least you have some manners, but let’s call a spade a spade.” I spread my hands. “I’m a mortal,” I said, pointing to my own chest, “she’s a Northerner…an ulfdrengr, to be precise, with her herravaldyr,” I continued, gesturing to Vell and Beryk. The black wolf lifted his lips from his long white teeth. “And you, my dear Sidhe, are a spy for Queen Mab.”
Murtagh appeared ready to reply to this accusation, but then Kavoryk appeared by my other side, and the Walker held his silence, gazing up at the huge Northman.
“Oh,” I added, “and this is Kavoryk.”
Kavoryk rumbled something that resembled words but also sounded suspiciously similar to a growl.
“I had no choice,” Murtagh said finally, his voice slightly defensive.
“I never said you did,” I replied, my words gentler now as I thought of Mab’s terrible power. “But you do have a choice now.”
Vell laid a hand on Bery
k’s dark head as the wolf began to growl low in his throat.
“And what would that choice be, my lady?” Murtagh asked carefully. “Would you have me betray Queen Mab?” His form wavered slightly, and he looked slightly paler.
I considered him. “I know that Mab’s power is terrible, and her anger is…impressive.” My jaw tingled with the remembered pain of the Unseelie Queen’s long slim fingers holding my face in a vise-like grip. “So I’m not asking you to betray her, no.” I glanced at Vell. “But I’d appreciate having a…friend…in the Unseelie Court. Another Walker that I can talk to, when I need to find out information.”
“You want me to be a spy for you,” Murtagh said, his voice tinged with both amusement and suspicion.
“I never said being a spy was a bad thing, or having spies wasn’t useful. I just don’t really like spies who are reporting on me back to someone who isn’t my particular ally at this moment.” I watched Murtagh with a cool, aloof gaze. “I am the Bearer. I am bound to the Sword. I don’t pretend to have any particular fondness for Mab, but I’m no traitor.” I drew back my shoulders and raised my chin. “As Bearer of the Sword, I intend to face Malravenar. But I have other plans first. And Mab doesn’t need to know of them.”
“What do you ask of me?” Murtagh said.
“Like I said, it would help me greatly if I had a friend in Darkhill. And you can make your report to Queen Mab. Tell her of what you’ve seen, and heard…except for our conversation right now.”
Murtagh closed his eyes. “It is a dangerous omission.”
“But you think you can do it.” My words were a statement, not a question.
“I will.” He looked at me solemnly. “I don’t know what the Queen expected me to find, but I certainly don’t think she expected me to find you the Bearer. That alone shall be enough shock to satisfy her, since this is not how it was prophesied.”
I shrugged. “What can I say? Things don’t always turn out the way you expect. Do you think I expected to become the Bearer?”
Murtagh regarded me with surprise. “That had not occurred to me.”
