A Companion to Wolves

by Elizabeth Bear

  The paucity of enemies worried Isolfr more than if they had been nigh overrun. Possibly the trolls were smart enough to warren away from the easiest routes of travel, but Isolfr feared that the few they ran across were scouts, and a trellish army was massing elsewhere, as it had not in the hundred hard-fought years of relative peace since the days of Freyulf and Hrolljotr. So he was wary, and the wolves were unsettled and snappish, especially when they came out of the cold taiga forests and into the tundra where the earth froze too deep and too hard for trees to root. The biting flies were a misery, but there were reindeer to keep their ragged army fed, and they were able to save their dried provisions and pemmican against want. Morale was not high, but they were grim with determination, and quarrels among the men were fewer as the cold nipped their flanks like a hunting wolf and the days grew toward endlessness. On the horizon rose the mountains called Iskryne—the ice-lashed glittering crown at the top of the world, borne on the shoulders of the giant Mimir, so old he himself had become part of the stones he carried.

  Isolfr wondered that he had lived so long, to walk cold and frost-kissed into the embrace of legend.

  The men and wolves of Nithogsfjoll, having the shortest distance to travel, were first to the moot and made camp there among the gnarled toes of the mountains, around stinking fires fed with desiccated reindeer and musk-ox dung. At night, Isolfr huddled with Sokkolfr and Frithulf among their wolves, and none of them demurred when Ulfbjorn asked if he could join them.

  Isolfr wondered, though, since Ulfbjorn had seemed content with Ulfrikr and Aurulfr and Skirnulf. Diffidently, he asked, and Ulfbjorn said, “I grow tired of Ulfrikr’s prating tongue. It’s as endless as the world snake,” and would say no more.

  It did not assuage Isolfr’s worries. While Aurulfr and Skirnulf had no harm in them, Ulfrikr was another matter. Ulfrikr Un-Wise like Frithulf Quick-Tongue was a gossip, but where Frithulf’s malice did not discriminate between targets—and any rumor he passed on was sure to be bolstered or undercut by his own observations—Ulfrikr was cunning and did nothing without reason. With the Iskryne looming bleakly over them, Isolfr did not like the idea that Ulfrikr had managed to rile the phlegmatic Ulfbjorn to the point of causing a break between them.

  The way of wolves is to say what they mean. Ulfbjorn had clearly said all he intended to say on the subject, and Isolfr did not plague him further. He found himself unwilling to face Ulfrikr directly without more than his own uneasy instincts to tell him that there was something amiss, and this was not a matter in which the wolfthreat could be of any great assistance. Not all wolves cared to listen to human speech as carefully as Viradechtis did, and since Tindr still hunted and played happily with the enormous gray brothers Skefill and Griss, the problem was not—Isolfr thought and smiled at his own phrasing—a wolfish one.

  He sought out Aurulfr the Brown in the weak sunlight of a high overcast afternoon and found him and Griss, along with several other members of the threat, constructing a windbreak along the camp’s most exposed side.

  It was a good idea, and Isolfr went to work himself, letting the rhythm of shared labor color the pack-sense between himself and Aurulfr—who was no longer the weedy boy Isolfr had first known, but tall and broad in the shoulders, his brown-blond braids thick as ropes. He’d had his nose broken in the fighting the previous winter, and the lump across the bridge made him look older, harder. His green-hazel eyes were the same, though, shy and rather wary, warming noticeably when he looked at Griss and Viradechtis, who had sniffed each other, exchanged wide yawns, and curled up in a pile of gray and red and black to sleep.

  “Sensible creatures,” Isolfr said, and Aurulfr smiled and said, “Yes. More sensible than men.”

  “Yes,” Isolfr agreed, glancing at the Iskryne, as he found himself doing at random moments throughout the day, as if he thought he might catch Mimir stirring in his sleep. He said, “I’m concerned about Ulfbjorn’s falling-out with Ulfrikr.”

  And watched Aurulfr color to the roots of his hair, knowing, not happily, that his instincts had been right.

  He gave Aurulfr time to collect his thoughts; he was not a bully, and he did not want this conversation to be a fight, either openly or covertly. Aurulfr, who had been Hlothvinr, was his tithe-brother.

  So is Ulfrikr, said a snide little voice in the back of his mind, but Isolfr pushed it away.

  Aurulfr said, “He means no harm, Isolfr. It’s just … we’re all frightened, you know, and the waiting gets hard.”

  “Yes,” Isolfr agreed, but refused to be placated or put off. “What is it, exactly, that Ulfrikr is saying?”

  “He doesn’t think it’s right that you’ve taken Hrolleif’s place,” Aurulfr said, miserable but not shirking the issue. “He says that’s Randulfr’s place by right. Or Hringolfr’s. Not yours.”

  “Neither Ingrun nor Kolgrimna is a konigenwolf. They couldn’t hold the wolfthreat.” He smiled, and saw Aurulfr’s eyes light in return. “I’ve nothing to do with it, you know. Any … place I have is as her brother. Besides, Randulfr’s quite happy not to have to deal with the wolfsprechend’s job.” He did not mention Hringolfr, and Aurulfr did not call him on it.

  He said, “It’s not that, exactly. Ulfrikr … Some men have to have something to complain about, you know.”

  “Yes,” said Isolfr, who did. And did not ask, because it was not Aurulfr’s fault, But why does it have to be me?

  That night, as they ate the spoils of Hroi and Kothran’s hunting, Isolfr said to Ulfbjorn, “Do you think Ulfrikr truly feels there is injustice being done?”

  Ulfbjorn gave him a long considering look. “You talked to Aurulfr.”

  “Yes.”

  “If I’d thought Ulfrikr were serious in his complaints,” Ulfbjorn said, “I would have told you. I wanted to spare you worrying about something that isn’t worth your attention.”

  Frithulf snorted. “Spend some more time with Isolfr and you’ll realize just what a lost cause that is. You can’t spare him worry, Ulfbjorn. All it does is make him worry about why you’re sparing him.”

  The thread of the conversation was lost in shouting and laughter for a while as Isolfr wreaked vengeance for that calumny, with the enthusiastic help of Kothran, who liked nothing better than to be allowed to stand on his brother’s chest and lick his face. But eventually, peace restored and Frithulf muttering direly about ingratitude and treachery while Kothran shoved his head in Frithulf’s lap, demanding—and getting—his ears rubbed, Isolfr said, “Probably you’re right, Ulfbjorn, and I oughtn’t to concern myself. I know what Ulfrikr’s like. I just …” He shrugged helplessly. “We’re so far from home and walking into such trouble, I hate to have things be ugly that don’t need to be.”

  “Peacemaker,” Sokkolfr said fondly. Isolfr grinned at him. He couldn’t imagine anybody who was less like his byname, when you got to know him, than the Stone. “You can’t make Ulfrikr happy, Isolfr, and I think I speak for all of us when I beg you not to try.”

  “Hear, hear,” said Frithulf, and Ulfbjorn said, “Let him complain about something foolish. He will get it out of his belly, and we will be friends again.”

  “Yes,” Isolfr said and added only to himself, I hope.

  The other threats arrived slowly over the next two weeks, Thorsbaer first and Othinnsaesc again last. Each wolfjarl brought a complement of wolfless men, and the two uneasy communities of the camp grew.

  Everyone was being very careful. Isolfr had had Viradechtis watching the wolfthreat from the start, and each konigenwolf who arrived added her own watchfulness to the spreading pack-sense, as wolfthreat joined wolfthreat and they became Wolfmaegth in truth. But the waiting, as Aurulfr had remarked, bore heavily on all of them, and tempers were fraying, those of men and wolves alike.

  The relief Isolfr felt at not having to negotiate the wolfthreat with Signy in the mix—Signy, like Vigdis, was holding household at her wolfheall—was immediately cancelled out by the enmity which sprang up between Viradechtis and Bekkh
ild, the konigenwolf of Vestfjorthr. Bekkhild had not been concerned with Viradechtis at the Wolfmaegthing, but now recognized her as a rival. Her wolfsprechend, a slender man with red-gold braids and merry blue eyes, was apologetic, but acknowledged with Isolfr that there was nothing they could do except try to keep Viradechtis and Bekkhild apart. “It will be easier when we are moving,” he said, and Isolfr agreed. Easier when they were moving, easier when there were trolls to fight. By the time the Othinnsaescthreat arrived, Isolfr no longer even blamed Ulfrikr for turning to petty malice to pass the time. Anything was better than this endless, helpless waiting.

  But they could not leave immediately, even when their company was complete. Wolves and wolfbrothers and wolfless men from Othinnsaesc alike were exhausted; they had found more trolls than the other groups, and although they had fought them without fatalities, they had not done so without injuries, some serious. They needed at least three days’ rest, and the wolfjarl of Othinnsaesc admitted that a full week would be better.

  “A week, we cannot give you,” Grimolfr said reluctantly, “but three days you may have.”

  Isolfr barely had time for a cup of broth with Othwulf before his attention was taken up, nearly from the moment of Othinnsaesc’s arrival, with sorting out a nasty snarl of dominance between the wolf threat of Nithogsfjoll and the wolfthreat of Kerlaugstrond, because while konigenwolf-in-waiting and konigenwolf were as amiable together as one could ask them to be, Osk, the second bitch of the Kerlaugstrondthreat, did not feel that she yielded place to Viradechtis, and she was a strong enough force in the threat that several of the dominant males went with her.

  It was an exhausting matter to resolve without either undercutting Viradechtis’ authority or offending the wolfsprechend of Kerlaugstrond—or Osk’s brother, a man as touchy as his sister, who clearly gave his wolfsprechend a good deal of trouble.

  Isolfr spent two days up to his eyeballs in the pack-sense between the two threats, and the first he knew of any other trouble was when he was coming back from the Kerlaugstrond camp to the Nithogsfjoll camp and heard his father’s voice saying with untrustworthy mildness, “I want a word with you, boy.”

  He turned, let his eyebrows rise, noticing that while Gunnarr did not commit the solecism of calling him Njall, he didn’t seem able to bring himself to call him Isolfr, either.

  “And if you don’t mind,” Gunnarr said and looked pointedly at Viradechtis.

  Isolfr did mind, but he was also aware of the need to keep strife between the wolfheallan and the wolfless men at a minimum, so he said to Viradechtis, “Go on, sister,” and she gave him a deeply dubious look, but went.

  He watched her until she was nearly out of sight, wanting that moment to collect his thoughts, his temper, then turned to Gunnarr, saying, “Yes, F—”

  The blow came out of nowhere; he was on the ground with his ears ringing and the entire side of his face throbbing before he even realized Gunnarr was swinging at him.

  “You filthy, depraved beast,” his father hissed at him, and Isolfr got his feet under him to scramble out of range before Gunnarr could kick him, his attention focused frantically on cutting himself off from the pack-sense, from Viradechtis, with a strong command to stay away, because the uneasy truce between keep and wolfheall would not survive a wolf of Nithogsfjoll attacking the jarl, no matter how egregiously provoked she was.

  He stood up, wiped blood off his mouth, spat sharp copper. “Father, what is this about?”

  “Don’t call me that. You unnatural, perverted trellspawn. Don’t claim bloodkinship with me, not today or any other day.”

  “What—”

  “You don’t lie down for the wolfjarl, oh, no,” Gunnarr said, almost shouted. “But what about your uncle?”

  “My uncle? Othwulf?”

  “Sturla!” Gunnarr howled. “Yes, your uncle Othwulf,” in savagely mocking, mincing tones. “Who I understand you have been flirting with since the Wolfmaegthing. Is there nothing too low, too dishonorable for you to embrace?”

  “Flirting? Father, I don’t—”

  “Don’t call me that,” Gunnarr said with loathing, and it was then that Sokkolfr appeared, saying, “Isolfr? Viradechtis is—”

  He broke off, seeing Gunnarr’s fury. Isolfr didn’t imagine he himself looked much better. “Lord Gunnarr,” Sokkolfr said, nodding.

  “Is this another of your conquests, Isolfr?” Gunnarr said, investing his name with so much contempt that Isolfr flinched. “I hear you’re very popular in the wolfheall, that even the most unnatural practices don’t dismay you. How many men have you let have you, boy? How many in a night?”

  Sokkolfr was somehow standing between them, saying gently and firmly, “Lord Gunnarr, the wolfjarl will call upon you later to address your concerns. You will upset the wolves if you continue to flyte their wolfsprechend. Please.”

  The jarl stood silent, fists clenched hard, and looked into Sokkolfr’s eyes. But Sokkolfr was a young man, heavy-shouldered with hard labor, and Hroi stood watchful and wise at his heels, lip curled despite his silence. Long moments later, Gunnarr turned on his heel, and strode off, bootnails clattering on the frozen ground, as Isolfr wondered distantly how Sokkolfr had known what to say, how he had known that Gunnarr’s terror of the trellwolves would silence his wrath.

  Sokkolfr’s arm was around Isolfr’s shoulders, and he was urging him gently back toward the camp. Hroi was on his other side, a dense warm weight. “No,” Isolfr said muzzily, “not when I’m … I can’t upset Viradechtis.”

  “Viradechtis is already upset,” Sokkolfr said. “You won’t help matters by hiding from her. Come on.”

  Blindly, stumbling, Isolfr let himself be guided; he couldn’t uncramp his mind into the pack-sense, not with that ugliness staining everything. “Are you one of my conquests, Sokkolfr?” he said, aware that his voice was pitched too high, but helpless to control it.

  “Of course I am,” Sokkolfr said sturdily. “Proud of it.”

  Isolfr found himself giggling and forced himself to stop. “It’s true, what he said.”

  “And what is that?”

  “I will lie down for Othwulf, if Viradechtis wants Vikingr. Depraved, just like … like Lord Gunnarr says.”

  “Isolfr—”

  Isolfr found himself flat on the ground for the second time in short succession, this time with Viradechtis standing over him, licking his face and throat, whining anxiously. Isolfr knew she could taste the salt of his tears and the sharpness of blood and tried to pet her to reassure her, but his hands were shaking so badly he suspected it wasn’t much comfort.

  “Isolfr,” Sokkolfr said, “I have to talk to Grimolfr. We have to kill this thing now, before it spreads. You won’t leave Viradechtis, will you?”

  “No,” Isolfr said, and recognizing his friend’s concern, added, “I promise.”

  “Good. I’ll get Frithulf to come help you, but I really can’t—”

  The wolfheall came first, and that was a comfort. “I understand,” Isolfr said. “Go on.”

  Sokkolfr and Hroi went. Isolfr sat up, put his arms around his sister, and sobbed into her fur like a child. And Viradechtis stood patiently and leaned on him until his pain ebbed enough to clear his head for thought. Implications crowded each other, and Isolfr was clutching Viradechtis’ ruff, hauling himself to his feet in a near-panic, when Frithulf strode up, a skin bucket of melted snow steaming in his hands.

  “Whoa there—”

  “Frithulf. Grimolfr. You have to stop him before he does anything about Lord Gunnarr. He can’t have it out with my father over me. The jarls won’t understand that it’s about the pack. They’ll just see him interfering in a family matter, and the wolfless men are unhappy enough already to be here.”

  Frithulf stopped and cocked a hip to prop his burden against. “Isolfr, much as I like you,” he said, a wicked grin curving his lips, “someday you’re going to have to accept that Grimolfr knows at least as much about politics as you do.”

  “But�
�”

  The grin widened. “Othwulf is … ‘speaking’ to Lord Gunnarr.” At Isolfr’s befuddlement, Frithulf shook his head, grin widening. “Keeping it in the family, as it were. The jarls will understand that. Now are you going to sit down and let me wash your face, or am I going to have Viradechtis knock you down?”

  Isolfr sat. “Has anybody asked where my father heard … ?”

  “Ulfrikr,” Frithulf said sourly, warming a cloth in his bucket of water. He crouched, and began to bathe Isolfr’s face. “Grimolfr is ‘speaking’ to him.”

  “Oh,” Isolfr said, flinching away from the cloth and then forcing himself to be still before Frithulf could ask if he was a girl or just cried like one.

  The thought of Ulfrikr on the receiving end of one of Grimolfr’s tonguelashings didn’t do his bruised dignity any harm at all.

  As promised, the Wolfmaegth marched three days after Othinnsaesc’s arrival at the moot. They left the shaggy horses—skinnier now—with the injured men from Othinnsaesc and one or two others, and began the climb into the Iskryne, weighted down with weapons and provisions.

  The trellwolves were as comfortable here as anywhere; this was the ancestral home of their race and they found the going not so difficult as did the men. Many could even be convinced to pack supplies, which was a relief. There would be little food and fuel in the mountains—not for so many wolves and so many men.

  They climbed as they could, following the line of a pass that was storied to lead all the way through the Iskryne and into the fabled land of the svartalfar, the dark elves with their hammers and forges and grindstones, their jewels mined from the bellies of mountains, their unrivalled golden finery and their weapons of unequalled steel. Surely they must find trolls soon; trellish raiding parties always returned north in the summers, for summer to trolls was as winter to men, and after all their travel the Wolfmaegth and the allied wolfless men were coming up on the time of year when the sun revolved around the Iskryne like a spun top, and never yielded to night at all.