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As if anyone would dare treat avolvaotherwise, especially one with a sworn shieldmaid. And yet…Traitor, they said. Yet I was not certain of the word; better to simply listen and learn what I could.
I freed a small waterskin from Farsight’s saddle, took a tepid mouthful. “I wonder how Astrid is faring.”And Mother.
“I wonder if your mother has turned your father out of doors to sleep in the pig-hutches.” Arn accepted the waterskin with only atoken nose-wrinkle. The ale had not lasted. “He could have refused, and sent your brother.”
“That would not satisfy tradition.” It was not quite a defense of my father’s choice, since I had silently bemoaned it more than once. Between us, though, only Arn would voice such a truth. “They are probably worried for us.” If Father thought of me at all, which was unlikely except to feel some annoyance I was not there to keep my siblings from trouble or, in Astrid’s case, tears. When I was small he was merry enough, but as I grew into myseidhrEril held me in some caution, a constraint growing between us with each passing year. I did not doubt his pride in me, nor his protection—but perhaps he found it difficult to be affectionate with his uncanny eldest daughter.
For my part I preferred my mother, as some daughters do. The distance between the lord of Dun Rithell and hisseidhrchild had become mutual; we both added to its length like a spear with two masters.
“Oh, Lady Gwendelint worries, certainly. But he?” Arn shook her head, and took a short swallow as well—too little to slake a deep thirst. If it snowed we would not lack for water, but in the meantime it was best to be careful. “I know he is your sire, little weirdling. And yet.”
A shieldmaid’s tongue is sharp as it needs to be; the Wingéd Ones speak honesty enough and to spare. I might have made a light reply, were we still at home.
Of course, were we still at Dun Rithell, we would not be having this conversation. So I merely nodded, resealing the waterskin, and had to suppress a groan at the thought of more riding. My thighs trembled unhappily, and I suspected I had blisters in places Fryja rules.
Arneior stiffened; I stilled, my attention turning inward asseidhrprickled under my skin. The Northerners had gone silent, even Aeredh, whose hand blurred to hilt. Steel left sheath with a soft scraping, and the others followed suit. My shieldmaid stepped before me, pushing me against Farsight’s warm bulk, her chin lifting and her right ear subtly presented.
Listening, through the fog.
I heard it too, a noisome burbling growl. Farsight laid her own ears far back, a ring of white appearing around each of her fine dark eyes.
“Up,” Arn said softly, and I wasted no time clambering into the saddle. Without aid it was an inelegant scramble, but better than being merely afoot.
I gathered the reins in my right hand, leaning forward to flatten my left glove against Farsight’s warm neck.Seidhrtingled fitfully in my fingers, but I have been calming the four-footed or feathered ever since I could walk.
It was one of the things Idra noticed, warning her of anothervolva. My mother, of course, had seen it too—she oft told the tale of how I used to charm the granary cats into playing with me, docile as dolls, and how even the ill-tempered black king of the goat herd would lie down when I approached, letting me clamber onto his back when I was but four winters old.
Arn was halfway to her own mount when dark shapes loomed through cling-greasy mist. One of the great pale horses let loose a rattling snort, and Eol lunged out of sight into the vaporous curtain. Aeredh followed noiselessly with graceful flickering speed, his swordblade gleaming blue. Scarred Efain and a tall Northerner with long dark hair bound in a leather-wrapped club were in their saddles with the same alacrity, both their mounts crowding Farsight and Arn’s own horse almost before her boot could find the stirrup.
The growl turned into a chilling cacophony—more than one creature giving voice, something like barking but inexpressibly foul, yips, tearing noises, heavy snuffling. My heart thundered in my ears no less loudly. Farsight pawed, restless despite my fingers now twining in her mane.
My calm was tenuous; how could hers be otherwise even withseidhrbetween us? I glanced at Arn as she swung atop her mount; her hair darkened with damp and two spots of high color stood out upon her cheeks. Her spear’s tip glittered; the noise from the fog reached a fresh crescendo.
A single beast burst from the wall of whitish cloudsmoke, a high-shouldered unhealthy hulk with spreading horns. Bright scarletpinpricks flickered in its black pupils, its claws dug deep in winter-frozen earth, and it lowered its head to charge. Now the various sounds made sense—nothing with a nose so deformed could breathe or use voice with ease, and nothing so misshapen could walk, let alone run, without pain. A dart of similarly misborn agony speared my skull; I cried aloud and my knees clamped reflexively as Farsight backed away, tossing her head as if she too felt the thing’s overwhelmingwrongness.
“Ai!” Arn yelled, a shieldmaid’s battle-cry. Had she not been a-horse she might have charged the creature despite its unwholesome appearance and the stink roiling from its steaming hide; as it was, her mare lost presence of mind and reared, shod hooves flailing.
The thing barreled in my direction. It really did look like a twisted, scabrous ram laden with ox-horns, but those claws were not of any creature that lived upon herb and its teeth were likewise altogether too sharp for a grazing beast, not to mention dripping with smoking black ichor besides. My weirding-hold upon Farsight was tenuous; the mare let out a high sharp fear-cry and would have reared as well had I not been locked with her in the way ofseidhr, half myself and half a four-legged thing whose instinct and sense both screamed to flee.
Aeredh burst from the fog as well, lightfoot and eye-blazing, his blue-burning blade raised high. Efain—his mare trusting him far more than mine did a stranger—bolted forward, his sword a bright silver bar as the fog flushed, thinning under a last imperfect assault from the falling sun. Arn cursed, frustration ringing in her tone.
Farsight decided she had endured enough.Seidhrwill quiet an animal before it is slaughtered, but I had no desire to make her suffer such an event and my hold consequently slipped a fraction. She wheeled, and bolted.
Clinging to the back of a maddened Northern horse, I plunged into darkening fog.
Night Falls
The Allmother’s blessing rests upon the smallest of things—a sparrow, a pebble turning underfoot, a single spark. Be both mindful and merciful, for the sparrow may entice the hawk to dash its brains upon the rock, a pebble under a hoof may bring down the doughtiest rider, and a single spark may, if breathed upon, grow until it consumes a forest.
—Idra the Farsighted of Dun Rithell
She did not throw me, at least, and for that I was grateful. A bone-rattling gallop thundered in my ears no less than my own panicked pulse, horsefear ringing through my bones. Wind-scoured boulders flashed by upon either side, crowding and rising in random bursts; Farsight’s hooves sounded upon hard-frozen earth like bells. Dead yellow grass and rimed creeping-gorse flew in clods, and it was small consolation that at least the Northerners would be able to track our flight come daylight.
If, that was, they survived the attack. How many of those creatures were there? And Arn…
Of far more immediate concern was the mare turning a foot in an unseen hole, or launching herself from a hidden precipice—I could not see much of the terrain, but when one is stuck to the saddle of a plunging, maddened beast amid heavy cloudbreath all manner of strange fears become far more plausible and vivid. I had enough todo keeping myself from being flung to earth; I did not have breath or mind to mark which direction we were wending.
Sometime later, twilight swallowing the remains of a short winter day, the mare’s terror was somewhat purged and she dropped to a bruising canter, then a jarring trot. Farsight finally halted upon a slope scattered with thinning cloud-fingers and large, secretively hunched grey boulders. Lichen clung to their backs and my head was not too mazed, so at least I knew where aseidhr-needle would point.
