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My manners earned a blue sideways glance, and Gelad coughed slightly. “Of a certainty.” A silver cloak-pin glittered upon his breast, simple work but well-made and of true metal besides, with a cold sheen. “We have been amazed by your quiet.”
As if I have had any choice.“I am weregild; my reticence must befit my status. Though Arn can tell you I have never been chattersome.” I knew my shieldmaid was listening closely. For a moment, a swimming sense of unreality filled me—I was in a forest far from home, with an Elder and a collection of skin-changers. Would any at Dun Rithell believe this tale? I attempted to sort through every question I had, arranging them in order of most likely to be answered within the constraints of custom. “We are wending north and some little west, I see. Where shall we rest?”
“Tonight? In the forest, and for some days yet. We shall reach Nithraen soon enough though, should we make good time.” Gelad shifted in his saddle again, as if I had asked something impolite despite my attempt at a safe subject. His mount snorted, a warm white plume upon frosty air. “’Tis an ancient place, and well-guarded. They are kin to our lord Aeredh there, and will welcome us warmly.”
More Elder.I could not deny excitement at the thought. I was about to ask further, but Eol reined his mount and moved into Gelad’s position, which meant the other man forged ahead to trail Aeredh. The maneuver was accomplished without a word and with the ease of long habit, much as Arneior and I might change places in a crowded hall if tempers became touchy and two warriors likely to trade blows.
Perhaps the captain did not wish to hear the voice of one whose kin had killed his? I did not know how strict his people were upon the subject of a weregild’s behavior, either. My fingers tightened on the reins, though Farsight was relaxed enough, ambling along as if we rode upon summer sward instead of fresh snow that should have swallowed her to the hocks.
“I must apologize again,” the leader of the wolf-stamped men said, without preamble. “We sought safety in speed and secrecy returning northward with such precious cargo, as well as a shortening of the journey. Aeredh judged the Elder Roads the lesser danger, and so did I.”
“We are upon a very old road now, unless I miss my guess.” I could not decide upon the proper tone, or address. How did one speak to this manner of man? Bjorn’s blow must have been mighty indeed. In all the tales, those granted a second form possessed both extraordinary speed and strength, and were held well-nigh unkillable by usual means. “Is the danger lesser or greater here?”
“Both. Soon we will be in lands held by Aeredh’s kin. They are skilled in hunting the servants of the Enemy, and yet those take many forms.” His dark gaze rested upon the side of my hood. I could outright feel it; did all his kind possess some manner ofseidhr? I did not know enough, for Idra had held tales of skin-changers to be largely poetic description despite some travelers—even one or two from the Barrowhills—swearing they had witnessed their truth. “You should not worry, though. We shall see you safe.”
I do not even know where I am bound.I wished I could tell Idra these men were not merely poetry. Perhaps she was watching from the halls Hel reserves for those withseidhrafter the physical body is shed; the thought was a comfort indeed. “We are bound to your father’s house, then? Lord Tharos?”
It was not an unreasonable question, though if he took umbrage at being asked my alternatives seemed slim indeed.
“What? No.” Did he sound shocked? It was difficult to tell; still, I thought a little astonishment colored his tone. “You mean you do not even know where we are…”
“I am weregild. ’Tis not my place to ask, merely to do as I am bid.”I recited it singsong, to show I knew what was expected of a lord’s daughter. Perhaps he thought southron riverfolk savage, or untrained in proper behavior. “Besides, I had no time for gossip before leaving Dun Rithell, my lord Eol. I was busy with avolva’s duties during the Althing, too. It was my first time lighting the bonfire.”
He was silent for a few breaths before granting me the honor of conversation again. “I had not thought you so young.”
“I am old enough for every band I wear, my lord.” Perhaps I was nettled; I had enough summers and practice to judge legal cases and to call fire from open air, after all. Astrid might be a child still, and Bjorn like most men a child all his life, but I wasvolva. I decided to hazard a bit more, since he seemed disposed to speak. “Whither are we bound then, and who is your enemy? Some new warlord in the North, raiding holds and steadings?” It was not a bad guess.
Certainly rumors of raids and unrest reached Dun Rithell, and the filthy blackrobes of the Falling Shelf past the barrow-country—always barking of their necromantic god—occasionally visited on their way upriver to visit other steadings. We did not cherish those particular visitors, and though we did all hospitality demanded my mother did not allow them to stay. It was not so much their god, though he sounded blasphemous enough to give any right-thinking person pause, but their physical filth and deplorable manners.
I wondered if these men had ever met one of their ilk.
“He is notnew, my lady, though there is ever war enough and to spare in the North.” Eol’s laugh was short, sharp, and unamused. His mount arched his neck, and Farsight shook her head in reply, her mane tossing. “I wonder that your people have not heard, but at least we may be grateful our labors have made such a thing possible.” He would have been hard-pressed to sound more bitter.
I pushed my hood slightly back with my right hand, glancing at Arn. Her eyebrows had raised, and she was a breath away from making a sharp observation or two. At my look she subsided, and I gathered myself for a parley beginning to feel more like a battle itself.
At least, so I thought then. I had not yet been upon a murderous field, hearing only the songs of such things; even my father hadnot been in battle since I was a babe still in swaddling. Not many dared his ire after the accounting he had given of himself against the last petty warlord to trouble our lands. Some few raids by desperate bandit-bands, certainly, but none of our neighbors cherished any hope of expansion while Eril the Battle-Mad and his followers could lay hand to axe.
“We hear nothing of the North in Dun Rithell.” I hoped he would not take ignorance as an insult. The mornlight dimmed slightly, an edge of cloud touching the sun; I tasted yet more snow upon the frozen air, but not for some hours. I longed to ask why they had not taken Bjorn instead, for he would be far more suited to their company and furthermore oblivious to any weirding. “Truly we are occupied enough with our own affairs, and the Pale God’s robed fanatics to the south. Last spring one came upriver and raved great blasphemy. He even offered violence to my teacher.” I shuddered at the memory; not only had he attempted to attack Idra, but the robed man refused the healthful heat of the sauna and stank, always muttering about the corpse of his god tied to a dead tree—not like Fryja’s husband Odynn or her son Tohr hanging from the great world-spindle in search of wisdom, but to expiate some horrific act.
Why worship anything so vile? It made no sense at all. The North’s many saga-drenched mysteries, though baffling, could at least besolved. Or at least, so it seemed to me then.
“Pale God?” Eol’s attention sharpened. “We have heard some fell rumors of that. Perhaps it is some gambit of the Enemy’s.”
“This enemy you speak of. You do not name him?” I shivered, though the cold was not nearly as intense as in the fog of their Elder Roads. Altogether I was more sanguine here, especially since there seemed little chance of another twisted sheep-creature happening along.
And so long as a man speaks, more may be gained than from his mere words. Tone, inflection, and expression all add to the tale—as well as what isnotsaid. I was growing more hopeful I could at least reach some cold courtesy with Eol of Naras.
Not friendship, certainly. He did not seem the sort.
“Not anywhere his spies may hear.” Eol grew yet graver, werethat possible. He was not a cheersome fellow in the least; not even old Flokin was this dour. “Has the South forgotten everything? It was not so long ago the Black Land’s iron gates were sieged; even less are the years between us and the Dag Saekirrin. Or at least, it is not so long as the Faithful count it, much less as the Elder do.”
My pulse mounted in my throat, and threatened to fill my ears with rushing. “The Black Land’s malice is spent,” I said, as every deliciously frightening childhood tale had repeated at beginning, middle, and end. Farsight’s tail flicked; she was now aware of my tension, and did not like it. “It was broken in the Battle of Falling Ice. Naught remains in that country but ruins, and the Elder are all gone into the West.”
Yet even as I said it an Elder rode at the head of our cortege, his ear-tips poking through dark silken hair. He had not worn whateverseidhrkept his difference from striking an observer since Dun Rithell.
Or perhaps we simply had not seen it because we did not wish to, for who would credit such things while safe at home? Idra always said willful blindness is a deep darkness indeed; it hides much more than weirding could ever hope to.
“I am gladdened to hear as much,” Eol answered, his tone oddly soft. Almost thoughtful, or more precisely, as if he had summat caught in his throat. “Someone should tell theorukhar, and thetrulas well; it would make our lives much easier.” Then he inhaled sharply, shifting in his saddle with a creak of leather. “Forgive my ill temper, my lady Solveig. It does comfort my heart to know there are places the Shadow does not touch.”
