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“I hardly think… well, Sol, the wolves.” Her lips barely shaped the syllables. “Did you not see?”
“Upon their clothing, or singing at night?” Perplexed, I pressed my cheek upon my arm and studied her face.
She had gone pale, and her freckles glared. “Them, Sol. Their eyes are too bright and their teeth too sharp. I thought the boy merely too young to show any sign, but if you say he is Elder…”
“I do not…” I had thought her using some kenning to describe Aeredh’s essential difference. But suddenly I understood otherwise, and despite the steading’s shelter I shuddered as if lost upon the cliffside with Farsight again. “You mean they change their skins.” Much more made sense, now—their empty bedrolls, and the wolf-calls that night driving me and the cream-colored mare back to safety. I wondered briefly upon the other sigils. Bear, and a torch-rune perhaps for no creature that walked under the daylit sky? “Fryja preserve us.”
“We might do better to call upon Lokji, or upon Allmother herself.” Uncharacteristically serious, Arn shuddered, and I slipped my free arm over her, hugging her close.
Nose to nose as if we were children again, I stared into her eyes, our breaths finally matching. Calm settled over me. There was no quandary we could not solve together, my shieldmaid and I. “An Elder, a group of wolves. And those things in the fog.” I gave each word its own space, settling the problem in speech. Often, ’tis enough to bring clarity. “Why did they not take Bjorn? He would have noticed naught amiss, and probably thumped that sheep-thing upon the head to boot.”
“Killed it in one blow, likely. We know him capable of it.” Arn’s dark gaze turned even more troubled, and a brief apology swam in it. “I thought,We are only two days away from home, well enough. But we are not, and we are at their mercy, Sol.”
Well, of course. I was weregild, largely subject to Eol’s command. And his kin, felled by my brother’s hand and calledtraitor.
Perhaps I had translated the term aright after all.
“Or they are at ours.” I did not like seeing her… afraid? Was that the word? I liked even less the way my voice sought to catch, as if on a stubborn nail in old wood. Fortunately, it was merely an internal sensation, not audible—or so I hoped. “Avolvaand a spearmaid are doughty enemies.”
“The boy will give me some trouble.” It was high praise from my shieldmaid. Then again, Elder had many a year to learn the use of weapons, and the light of the Allmother burned bright within them. They did not sicken as we did, even when grievously wounded—and though they may die by violence or anguish, naught else takes themover death’s threshold. “As for the rest of them, well. Their kind is said to be strong, and quick.”
“You have hunted wolves before,” I pointed out, softly.
The truth did not bring a smile to my shieldmaid. “A wolf can be hunted because it thinks like a wolf, Sol. A beast which thinks like a man may not be so easy.”
“But we know how men think, do we not? There is no mystery in them.” Or precious little, I should have said. Neither Bjorn nor my father held any great riddle, nor did any warrior, freedman, bondsman, servant, or thrall of Dun Rithell.
Besides,seidhroft uncovers what is hidden. I did not think myself a match for an Elder, naturally—but strength is not what may count most when it comes to weirding.
I was slightly nettled I had not guessed the truth of the Northerners before now—it was perhaps a sign I was not fit to wear the bands I had acquired so laboriously—but Arn saw what I did not. It was enough. The persistent unease retreated somewhat as I snuggled in fine linen and woolen blankets, and my shieldmaid’s living warmth.
They did not know I could understand their Old Tongue. I was bound by the rules and obligation of paying a life-debt, but ’twas no different than being obliged by inheritance or other law. Every rule or custom may be turned if one has enough wit, just as a hare may wriggle through a thicket while the hunter is mired in thorny branches.
I was, after all, the eldest daughter of Dun Rithell. I had been negotiating since I could speak, and training inseidhralmost as long.
Whether we were caught in saga or song, at least we knew the rhyme or music now. And—oh, why deny it? I was intrigued. May the Allmother forgive me, I was also excited at the advent of new wonders, new mysteries, of things beyond the smaller world of my home.
What truevolvacould not be?
“I know that look.” Arn’s lips barely shaped the words. “There is weirding you wish to attempt. Something Idra would advise against, but you will do anyway.”
“Would she truly advise against it?” I could not hold back asoft laugh; once or twice I had attempted what my teacher warned against, and though never leading to comfort it was also marvelously instructive. Now, though, I had no Idra to aid in undoing or mitigating an unexpected effect. “I am planning noseidhr, Arn, merely to keep my eyes wide open. To see what wonders can be seen for our year-and-day, before we return home with many a fine story to tell.”
Arn’s mouth thinned. I did not need further speech to sense her worry.
“They cannot keep us past then,” I pointed out. “It is against law and custom both. And in a year we will have learned so much, Arn. We may leave after next winter solstice, whether they will or no.”
She was still silent. We remained so, breathing together, until my eyelids grew heavy and we each turned to our halves of the bed, back-to-back in a small dark nest of warmth while outside a life-stealing storm drove white flakes before it.
I dreamt of Dun Rithell that night. The greathall was empty, though laid with a feast bearing a distinct resemblance to the Eastronmost’s. My mother was in the carved high seat upon the dais, and when I descended the steps from the open doors she rose and smiled. I knew she had seen me in her own sleep, and was comforted.
But then the dream changed, and I trudged across a barren grey wasteland starred with dead trees and tangles of dark, thorn-thirsty bramble. In the distance a crimson glimmer crouched amid knifelike black mountains, and terror filled my night-wandering self as a single wolf’s cry lifted in sere, corrupted air.
Fare-Thee-Wells
At the Dag Saekirrin—the Battle of Falling Ice—all was lost until Taeron Goldspear and his army arrived, from whence even the other Elder knew not, and fell upon the backs of the Enemy’s assembled hosts like the avenging Blessed themselves. Great was the slaughter that eve, the Black Land’s power seemed broken, and many were the fell things hunted to extinction in the days after. Yet three mornings past the victory, the assembled hosts of the Elder and Faithful woke to find Taeron and all his warriors had vanished once more…
—Daeron of Nithraen,On the Dag Saekirrin
