Page 11 of Heart of the Mountain King

The bergsrå hummed softly, teasing out Sten's melody. Not to entangle, no — though the desire to harmonize was strong, Rask was not so far gone as to risk it. He merely drew out the tune instead; sending it soaring and swirling inside the bold little human who'd dared to ask a bergsrå for help.

"There," Rask whispered. "Sten hear it?"

Sten's eyes were wide, locked on Rask's face. "What is that?" he murmured, holding very, very still.

The bergsrå chuckled. "Sten's melody. As Rask said: all Sing, all part of Song."

"Oh." Sten swallowed harshly. "And…what do I sound like? To you, I mean."

"Sten good melody," Rask decided. "Very pleasant. Strong and sweet, like marble."

A deep breath filled Sten's chest, rising under Rask's palm and setting off warning bells in his mind. Quickly Rask dropped his hand, hastily severing the connection that'd been forming between them and chiding himself for his carelessness.

Sten's brow furrowed, the brightness of his expression dropping away as well. Looking around them, he shifted his weight awkwardly and coughed.

Was he sick? Was it too chilly for humans? Rask was vaguely aware Sten’s kind got ill and died all the time, sometimes from the smallest things. Rask had not brought a blanket or coat he could now offer, but they were not far from Sten's village. Surely he would have supplies there?

△▽△▽△▽△

"Halt!" called a woman's stern voice, breaking into the bergsrå's worries. "This is Thane Uffark's quarry. Who — Triggy?"

"Yeah," Sten answered the woman standing atop a ridge a third of the way up the cut-stone wall of the quarry, running along until it met the doomed scaffolding above their heads. "It's just me. And, uh… a friend, I guess."

"What in Baldor's name are you doing down there?" Sten's mother called down. Under the faint light of the moonwolves, she was little more than a dark silhouette as she took a step towards them, bringing her closer to the edge.

Beneath Rask's feet, the vættir grumbled like thunder moving in from the horizon; a low, percussive churning that buzzed up through the quarry floor and into Rask's bones.

"It's alright, Ma." A curiously bashful note had crept into Sten's voice. "I, uh… I brought help."

He gestured to the bergsrå, but Rask barely registered it. His attention was focused on the quarry face below the ridge, and the now steady rumbling of the vættir as —

"Back!" Rask yelled up to Sten's mother, and the other humans he could sense watching from behind her. "Get back!"

"What?" Sten sputtered. "Rask, you can't — "

"Make humans get back," Rask told him urgently; palm pressed flat to the ground and his senses opened wide as he strained to pick out a particular melody within the Song. "Vættir say ridge not stable. Sten's mother not safe."

"Ma, do as he says," Sten called up to her immediately with no further arguing, twisting to wave away the humans as if they were errant minnows. "Get off that ridge, all of you."

"Now, you just wait, Tryggvisten Björnstenson!" blustered a man in the back. "Whatever it is you think you're doing, we — "

There was a slight cracking sound, then the plink of small gravel rolling down stone. The blustery man gave a yelp as one of his companions yanked him by the collar, dragging him along to follow the other retreating villagers.

A roughly built timber ladder lay hardly a hundred arm spans away, and Rask was surprised to see Sten's mother was the first one to scramble down it. He supposed he shouldn't have been. Not given how stubborn her son had proven himself to be.

"Tryggvisten, you tell us this instant what's going on," his mother warned. "Where under Baldor's blessed light have you been the past few days? And who's — "

Faltering abruptly as her gaze landed squarely on the bergsrå, Sten's mother took a quick step back.

" — what is that?"

She was smaller than her son. They all were; Rask was surprised to realize at seeing the handful of villagers who'd accompanied her. All of them swiftly fanned out behind Sten's mother, as if to form a shield between their homes and the interloper they'd discovered in their quarry.

Rask briefly debated getting to his feet, but decided that was only likely to make the situation worse. Not that he was in any danger — not from this small of a crowd. Yet some little voice inside his head urged that he should attempt to make a good impression on… on Sten's mother, of all things.

Still, he supposed it was a reasonable enough plan. Obviously, she held some position of power within the village, given how the other humans deferred to her leadership. And yet, there had to be more to it than that. Another reason to gain this woman's favor; some secret thing the voice refused to reveal, balanced even so precariously just on the tip of the bergsrå's tongue.

It was unbelievably frustrating.