Ingelbert had thought Thorsa's fury was impressive, but the she-dwarf was nothing compared to the Roundhouse. The impact from his axe sent wights tumbling through the air, smashing bones, pulping skulls and separating limbs. His speed and ferocity outmatched even the storulvir. Swiftly, he cut his way through and, from somewhere within the mass of wights, he rescued Thorsa. The she-dwarf carried the limp form of her husband slung over her shoulders. Together, the Bone Chewers made their way to Fafnir and Flyn. The storulvir fell in around them, tossing wights from their dripping jaws. Moving swiftly, the wolves opened up a path for the coburn and the dwarrow. Flyn led the dwarrow through while Kàlfr covered their escape.
They made for the slope where Ulfrun and the lone wolf stood besieged. Emboldened by the presence of the pack, the beast leaped down from the boulders, barreling into the climbing wights. Ulfrun followed, reaching the bottom just as the pack began to shred the wights. The giantess joined Flyn and the dwarrow in the center of the screening wolves and they all began to flee towards the rear of the gorge.
Towards where Ingelbert and Deglan stood.
It was a strange sensation, staring down at himself from above, watching a charging pack of giant wolves speed towards his tiny body. Ingelbert could still feel Deglan struggling, his fear growing as the storulvir raced forward. At the last possible moment, Ingelbert returned to his own form, hauling Deglan off the ground as he turned to run. Snow exploded from all sides as the wolves darted around him. Ingelbert found himself in the center of the pack, running next to Flyn and Ulfrun, the giantess reaching down for Deglan. Ingelbert handed him up without breaking stride
The back of the gorge loomed before them and there, nestled almost imperceptibly amongst the tumble of boulders was the trail head. The great wolves made directly for it, half a dozen of them running up the switchbacks to scout ahead. The others fanned out at the base of the rocks, turning to face the interior of the gorge. Ingelbert stopped with the others and looked back.
They had managed to distance themselves from the vættir, but the throng was continuing to pursue them.
“Go!” Kàlfr commanded, his bald head steaming in the cold. “I will hold them until you reach the top.”
“I shall stand with you,” Thorsa said, setting the still form of Hengest down upon the snow.
“And me,” Flyn proclaimed.
“No!” the Roundhouse said roughly. “My brothers and me fight best alone. And you two will be needed if those horsemen wait for you at the top.”
“Horsemen?” Fafnir demanded.
“No time to explain, Chain Maker,” Kàlfr said. “Get you up that trail or stay here and be damned!”
Ingelbert did not wait to see what the others decided, but began hustling up the path. He felt suddenly cold, as if naked in the snow. No. It was a different feeling than that. It was as if something had left from his insides. He was now keenly aware of the danger nipping at his heels. He hurtled up the switchbacks, his teeth chattering. Shooting a look downward, he saw Ulfrun carrying Deglan a turn below. The gnome watched him, his crinkled face full of ire and suspicion. Behind the giantess came Flyn, followed closely by Fafnir and Skrauti. Two of the dwarrow porters now bore Hengest between them, laid upon one of their shields. Thorsa and a few wolves brought up the rear. Ingelbert could hear the sounds of Kàlfr and his beasts meeting the oncoming wights, but he did not venture a look. Instead, he returned his eyes to the trail ahead and kept running.
At the top, Ingelbert found no sign of Hakeswaith. The storulvir scouts had formed up protectively at the top of the trail, watching the flats between the nearby woodlands and the valley shoulder. As soon as the others reached the top, the wolves loped off, leading the group towards the trees. They did not enter the forest, however, but skirted its edge, setting a quick pace. It was not long before Thorsa called a halt.
“This is far enough,” she announced. “The call of the Corpse Eater will pull the vættir off our scent. We will await the Roundhouse here.”
“No,” Fafnir said, his face haggard and drawn. “He could lead the throng directly to us.”
Thorsa rounded on the Chain Maker. “He would never! None know the ways of the vættir better.”
“That may be so,” Ulfrun put in, “but this place is not defensible.”
“Agreed,” Flyn said. “We must continue on.”
Fafnir took a single step towards Thorsa. “Stay here if you wish, niece. We are going. You may have lost a husband this day. Likely your lover is also slain. If you too would perish before nightfall, remain here. I care not.”
Ingelbert saw the barest spark of anger flare in the she-dwarf's face, but it was quickly snuffed, replaced by a look of deep weariness. Was it the implication of Hengest's death? Or the possibility of Kàlfr's? Ingelbert was not schooled enough in the intricacies of love and passion to say. Whatever the cause, Thorsa seemed to come to the end of her previously unquenchable energy. Fafnir passed her by and the others followed, including the storulvir. Ingelbert did not need to turn around to know that Thorsa chose to follow. Gasten flashed the image through his head. With an audible snarl, Ingelbert pushed the owl out.
They slogged wearily through the snow for what remained of the day. Eventually, the woods to their right grew away from the valley. The storulvir continued to follow the tree line and the edge of the ravine was lost from sight.
The sun was low in the sky when the wolves halted in a craggy dell. They quickly sniffed the surrounding trees and the cluster of boulders, then bounded up amongst the rocks to rest.
“We camp here,” Fafnir said, motioning for the porters to ease Hengest down at the base of an evergreen. The blue-haired runecaster looked awful, a blossom of black bruises ringed his neck. The vættir had torn the storulvir to pieces, but it seemed they throttled their living kin so they could rise whole once dead. Fafnir immediately knelt beside Hengest, runestones already in hand. Ingelbert could attest to the wizard's skill at healing, but likely Hengest was beyond saving. He did not even appear to be breathing.
Ingelbert glanced about the dell to see how the others fared. Flyn looked as if he could barely stand, though he hovered close to Fafnir, clearly wishing to speak with the wizard, but unwilling to interrupt his tending of Hengest. Thorsa slumped to the snow as soon as she entered the dell, staring vacantly at the blade of the lone axe she still bore. Only Ulfrun seemed to have regained any strength since the battle. She set Deglan down and immediately began gathering wood for a fire. Skrauti and his dwarrow attempted to help her, but they moved sluggishly, clearly at the end of their strength.
Ingelbert sat himself upon a cold rock and tried to avoid catching Deglan's eye, waiting for the gnome to approach and demand an explanation for his rough treatment, but he never did. It was a small mercy. There would be no answer Ingelbert could give that would satisfy the herbalist. He had sought to save Deglan's life, but Ingelbert could not convince himself that feelings of mercy had guided his actions. He did it because he willed it, because in that moment he had found the gnome's need to uselessly sacrifice himself irritating. He simply reached out and placed Deglan under domination. A Fae. A friend. And Ingelbert had mastered him as one would an unruly hound.
No one spoke for a long time. Ingelbert must have dozed, for next he knew, the fire was kindled and the moon risen. Hengest now lay before the flames, wrapped in Fafnir's own cloak. The Chain Maker sat beside him, one hand gently resting on the prone dwarf's chest, which was now rising and falling. Ingelbert marveled. Was there no end to Fafnir's Magic? Deglan brooded close to the fire, sitting next to Flyn. Ulfrun stood just outside the ring of firelight, keeping a watch over the direction they had come. Thorsa had removed herself to the company of the storulvir, resting in the rocks which sheltered the dell. The sleds were gone, so there was no food, no furs. It would be a miserable, cold night.
It was Flyn who finally broke the silence.
“The wights did not attack me,” the knight said, his voice low and taut. “I have bee
n going over the battle in my mind. Every moment. They never tried for me. Why, Fafnir? Surely you know.”
The question brought every eye to the dwarf.
“You are a coburn,” Fafnir answered gravely. “A descendant of the Corpse Eater. Generations beyond reckoning separate you from her womb, but she can still feel you there, a child of her body. The vættir are nothing but food to her. She will not allow them to harm you.”
“You knew this already,” Deglan said. It was not a question.
Fafnir nodded slowly at the fire.
“Why did you not tell me?” Flyn asked.
“I have asked you to trust much, Bantam Flyn,” the wizard replied. “Me. The augury. Unproven allies. Such trust has limits. Telling a warrior he can come to no harm at the hands of his enemy would sound as madness.”
“And when I try to kill the Corpse Eater?” Flyn asked. “What then?”
“It is against all that is natural to kill one's own child,” Thorsa threw down from the rocks, her voice dripping with bitterness. “An unforgivable malediction.”
Ingelbert saw Fafnir's eyes clinch shut at this, but otherwise did not acknowledge his kin had spoken. The Chain Maker looked back to Flyn.
“The Corpse Eater's struggle for survival is littered with atrocities. She will not hesitate to kill you to avoid her own destruction.”
“You speak as if you know her well,” Deglan said.
“Intimately,” the wizard tolled. “We are wed in hatred. Just as a lover suffers over the absence of their beloved, be it from distance or death, such it is with me and the Corpse Eater. But it is not her absence which pains me, not distance nor death. It is her presence, her very life. In my heart I can feel her, her breathing, her pulsing blood. Her continued existence offends me. I yearn to rid her of that life, send her to the death she should have embraced in the unnamed ages of this world.”
At that moment, the storulvir perked up, ears erect. They stood and dropped agilely down from the rocks, alert and sniffing.
“More wolves approach,” Ulfrun reported. “It appears the Bone Chewer is with them.”
Thorsa's face lit up and she came quickly down to stand with the storulvir, her breath heaving. Kàlfr and a dozen wolves entered the dell. The storulvir mingled quickly and Ingelbert was unable to tell the newcomers from those which led them to the camp. The Roundhouse carried a heavy burden slung over his shoulder, which he dumped unceremoniously to the ground. It was a headless corpse, one which wore a hauberk that Ingelbert recognized as belonging to one of Thorsa's own warriors.
Fafnir slowly removed his hand from Hengest and stood. Thorsa had been about to embrace Kàlfr, but paused at the sight of the body.
“I did not withdraw until they all emerged from the throng,” the Roundhouse explained, gesturing flippantly down at the remains before looking at Thorsa. “So you would know, none of yours walked as one of them.”
Thorsa accepted this rough comfort with a grateful nod, but Ingelbert detected a hint of disquiet in her face.
“And the vættir?” Fafnir asked.
“Hundreds remain,” Kàlfr answered. “They will go back on the march, but the rest of my brethren watch them. They will pick them off, a little at a time.”
“Why were you so late to our aid?” Fafnir demanded.
Kàlfr tossed a hand at Thorsa. “This one was over eager. Drew too many of the dead from the main group. I had to send a few of my wolves to gather a stronger pack. Figured you lot could hold until I had enough numbers to save your hides.” The bald dwarf smiled widely. “You almost proved me wrong, Chain Maker.”
Fafnir visibly bristled at the taunt, but managed to check his anger. “And what of these horsemen of which you spoke?”
Kàlfr stepped over the decapitated body and approached the fire. He did not even look at Fafnir as he spoke. “Saw them on the ridges as I was taking position. Both sides of the valley. Humans on horses, at least a score. They were tracking the vættir, same as us. Watching them. Thought they might lend a hand, but they vanished when Hengest and Thorsa engaged the walking meat.”
Fafnir remained silent, but it was clear in his face he had an idea who these men might be. Ingelbert recalled the name given by the hanged man near the Fatwood barrow.
Arngrim Crow Shoulders.
He was the fjordman warlord said to be responsible for the destruction of the Warden Trees. Fafnir had been overcome with rage at the revelation. The same rage roiled at the edges of the Chain Maker's countenance now, but this time he kept control.
“No matter,” Kàlfr went on, scraping melted snow from his pate with a calloused hand and flinging it into the fire. “We were victorious. The vættir in that gully will feed my storulvir for the next six months. So long as those fools guarding the last two Trees can keep them safe, there will be no cause to go on the hunt for a long time.”
The Roundhouse took a deep breath, then stomped away from the fire. He bent and retrieved the body, flinging it back over one shoulder. “Come, Thorsa. It is time we had our reward. Bring Hengest. This flesh will revive him.”
Thorsa looked at Kàlfr, then her eyes flitted to her unconscious husband and doubt filled her face. But there was something else struggling beneath. A lust. A craving. A hunger. Ingelbert's stomach turned.
Fafnir stepped forward quickly and touched his niece for the first time, grabbing her arm firmly. “Do not do this, Thorsa.”
“Thruni was young,” Kàlfr said, slapping the rump of the corpse on his shoulder. “And powerful. A warrior, freshly killed. His gall will live in us for a fortnight and ensure Hengest lives.” The Roundhouse's tone was one of warning to Fafnir, but coaxing to Thorsa. She hesitated, uncertainty written in every muscle.
“Thorsa,” Fafnir urged, his voice nearly pleading. “Hengest stood by you despite your transgressions, but he never partook in this. Do not dishonor him by making him a part of it unwillingly. I have done what I can for him, but he may yet die. Kàlfr's way will save him, but will Hengest forgive you?”
Thorsa's eyes welled with tears, but then her quavering lips hardened and she struck Fafnir across the face with the back of her hand, wrenching free of his grasp.
“You would speak to me of forgiveness!” she screamed. “You! How dare you!”
Kàlfr placed his axe in front of his lover, gently easing her away. Thorsa allowed herself to be guided backward, but she continued to throw abuses at Fafnir.
“You claim the Corpse Eater's life hollows your heart, but her death will not make it whole, uncle! Too many times, with your own hand, have you cloven it in twain! You are as damned as I, Chain Maker! You may succeed in delivering our people, but that one act will never redeem you! Never!”
Kàlfr and Thorsa drifted away into the night, the storulvir departing with them. Fafnir slowly wiped the blood from his lip and went back to tend Hengest. Ulfrun resumed her watch and no one pressed the Chain Maker for answers, not even Deglan.
Ingelbert fell asleep to the sound of the campfire and the nearby howling of feasting wolves.
He was awakened in the middle of the night by an empty belly and full bladder. Rising on stiff legs, Ingelbert hobbled away from the comforting ring of pulsing light and relieved himself amongst the trees. As he returned, he saw that Fafnir had taken Ulfrun's place on watch. The dwarf's sword was sheathed at his side and a smoking pipe was clenched between his lips. Ingelbert approached him, making sure his steps were heard. The wizard turned and nodded at his presence.
“The night is long,” Fafnir said somberly, briefly removing the pipe from his mouth.
“It is,” Ingelbert agreed, rubbing his hands together.
Fafnir stared thoughtfully out into the darkness, blowing fragrant plumes of smoke.
“It was wise,” the dwarf said after a time, “what you did today, Master Crane. Protecting yourself, and Master Loamtoes.”
Ingelbert was only slightly taken aback. “You knew?”
Fafnir nodded. “I felt it.”
�
��Deglan will never forgive me.”
“Likely not,” the runecaster agreed. “But you must accustom yourself to such feelings. It is one of the many prices demanded by Magic.”
Ingelbert accepted this without comment. He had been without friends most of his life and would survive if his fellowship with Deglan was irreparably severed. Truly, he was more concerned about the price he was paying within himself. He was given to solitude, and always imagined he would end his days as a hermit, but the distance he felt from his companions, from his own emotions, from the world itself, all were growing. Desperately, he yearned to walk away, leave the others and travel alone. He fought the urge because he knew, once that first step was taken, there would be no coming back. He would have abandoned all loyalty, all responsibility, all compassion and offered himself totally to the gristmill of his own thoughts. The lives of others would become distant things, purposefully avoided and when they did inevitably intrude, they would be nuisances best disposed of. Ingelbert saw all this clearly, a natural, logical progression beginning with the harsh way he handled Deglan and marching steadily along to cold, callous disregard for life. The images did not disturb him. Worse, the vengeful feelings that welled to the surface with the conjuring of these black thoughts were welcoming, familiar. Indeed, that incarnation of himself would wear with more ease than the man he was now, the man who suffered the company of others in a craven bid to retain any empathy.
“Hengest nearly paid the final price this day,” Fafnir intoned. “His Magic twice failed him. The first by his own admission when they baited the vættir. He seemed befuddled, betrayed. The second failure I felt just before he fell.” Fafnir closed his eyes for a moment, savoring the pipe smoke. “He was my apprentice, long ago. I housed him with my own family, tutored him in the lore of runes. My wife was fond of Hengest. Thorsa came to love him, but I warned him against her. I sensed the wildness in her. Many times I asked him not to follow her to unending shame. I begged him to set her aside and join me on the path to save our people, but he bound himself to her cursed choices and rebuked me. To him, I was the greater evil. So you see, Ingelbert Crane, I am no stranger to condemnation.”
The Errantry of Bantam Flyn (The Autumn's Fall Saga) Page 39
