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Others say the eldest son of the Allmother committed a mockery of her greatestseidhr, fashioning forms from materials at hand and breathing a travesty of life into them, creating abhorrent puppets unable to do other than work his will. Yet theorukharand many other spies of the Enemy sing, however discordantly, and that is the mark of a creature that may be free if it wishes—by flight, fight, or battering against cage bars until the release of death is won.
Still others say the truth lies somewhere between, that he took what people he could of the twin strains Elder and younger, twisting them at once and wholly in an act of unholyseidhr, letting them thereafter multiply in the usual way. For some of them appear asyouths, and some parts of their rough language speak of mates or family left in the Black Land’s distant reaches as surety for their cringing return to its master.
What is absolutely known is that they hate the Elder, and to a lesser extent the Allmother’s younger children; they fear bright sunlight, but can withstand it for short periods at great need. They are swift, hardy, and deadly, and very often their broadswords bear a sharpened, triangular metal flag at the tip, meant for ripping great gashes in the bodies of foe or victim. Sometimes, when one of those straight, awful blades cleaves the air, a particular deadly sound is heard.
The Elder call itkwiseirh, a crushing whistle.
Arn’s horse pressed upon my right, her knee almost upon mine, for the Northerners drew close around us. A lone rider may be surrounded and pulled from his perch, and they sought to do so to Soren. His mount did not rear, but responded to the pressure of his knees and weight by lashing out with hindfeet. Shod hooves sank deep into unhealthful flesh the color of a smoke-tainted snowdrift, and dark ichor spattered.
Their band was small, eight to ten warriors, but I only knew the count much later. In the snow-choked light I thought them far more, and clinging to a trembling Farsight took all my strength. A long ribbon of cleared pathway trailed behind us, an ancient stone road brushed free of old drifts but showing a skin of needles, leaves, and moss vanishing under a scrim of fresh white flakes. Near every runestone the clear patches spread, giving the impression of a serpent’s undulation along our wake.
That much I glimpsed before a deeper darkness rose behind the attackers. It was on foot as they were, but much taller and leaner than their hulking; its shadowed head bore a spike-crowned iron helm. Reddish glimmers deep in the gloom sharpened, and a gout of whirling snow pushed through rents in its great sable mantle, turning into a billowing stain.
A cold deeper than winter spread from it, and a sense of twisting, deepeningwrongness. My head, tender from holdingseidhrfor so long, crunched with pain. I thought something had hit me—a flungstone, perhaps, much larger than the pebbles Idra used to toss at me near her woodpile, reserving her true aim and force for when I could reliably dodge or deflect their path by will alone.
Like many weirding-games, it was practice for battle. But I had never imagined anything like this.
Aeredh’s voice rose in a shout. Farsight quivered underneath me, and another white horse reared, a black-clad Northerner sliding from its back.
I caught only scattered flashes of the fight. Aeredh driving forward a-horse, his sword running with cold blue radiance—he fought with blade andseidhrboth, clearly suffering no loss of strength. The black-cloakedthingparrying with a dull-gleaming blade, and the impact shivered through me, crown to soles. Eol and Efain both were dismounted, the Northern captain cleaving the head from an ash-pale shape, letting loose a high spraying jet of dark blood. Efain’s shape blurring like black clay in warm water, and the shrill protests of maddened horses ringing under moaning trees—it seemed to take forever, yet I remember only small bits, reflected in shards of polished ice. Arn leaning in the saddle as her spear flickered, driving deep into an attacker’s throat and tearing free. Shieldmaids are trained to fight upon horseback if they must, but she did not charge, keeping her white mare near Farsight.
Aeredh’s voice took on a deep, belling sonorousness. It was a battlesong, and had I any wit at that point I would have been listening to learn its cadence and content. I could have added more of my ownseidhrto his than the trickle I managed, for though avolvamay not touch or use weapons of honest combat, we are more than permitted to aid warriors in our own way.
But I was useless, mazed and blind, frozen and clinging to Farsight’s reins.
There was a final burst of noise, a deep foul howling, a choked gurgle from the last dyingorukhar, and the spike-helmed thing retreated with its last defiant scream piercing my head as well as all my joints. I cried out too, shrinking and shaking so badly I almost slid from the saddle.
“Solveig!” Arn’s voice, very far away. I clung to consciousness,despite the world turning to midnight around me. My body loosened; I swayed drunkenly.
A vise closed about my upper arm. Arn shook me—not overly rough, but still a sharp movement. She repeated my name, but I could barely hear her. The quiet of falling snow had crawled into my head, perhaps a reflex against the dark-cloakedthing’s terrible, piercing scream.
Gelad, Karas, and Elak went from body to body with quick efficient movements, gathering what knowledge they could along with items fit for later use. Aeredh’s horse stepped delicately onto a patch of cleared road; the Elder’s eyes blazed while the sickening unphysical darkness fled, pure snowlight returning in a flood. His sword hissed itself clean as it swung,seidhrsmoking along the blade; sharp metal returned to its home in a single fluid movement. A very disheveled Eol stood aside, his own blood-streaked broadsword held low but ready. The Northerner glared at the woods as if to challenge the foul thing to return. He waited until the Elder had joined us; only then did he clean his blade upon a fallen foe and sheathe its shine. Efain stroked his horse’s head, speaking to the trembling mare in the Old Tongue.
Soren, hard by my left, scanned the forest from horseback-height. His mount turned, obeying the pressure of his knees, and he kept hand to hilt.
“Solveig.” Arn’s tone assumed its proper volume and dimensions. I stared at my shieldmaid, and for a dizzying moment did not recognize her. I barely even knew I was upon a horse, let alone where we were or the names of my companions, and my own name seemed too great a riddle to even pretend thought upon at the moment.
“Arneior?” I sounded like Astrid after a night-terror; she had them often before reaching her blood years. Once she gained full womanhood they abated; I was glad of it, though I did not grudge their soothing. Sometimes even our mother could not calm her, and I had to sing her back to sleep withseidhr. “Oh. Yes.”
“Here.” Arn let go of me, but only to attempt freeing the meadskin from her belt. “Here. Take some, and don’t argue. You havethat look.”
I shook my head, waving the proffered drink aside. She wasabout to curse, but I was not precisely arguing. I merely had to lean over, clinging to the pommel with both hands, and retch. My middle twisted upon itself; I could only produce a thin thread of colorless bile. Their strange Northern waybread I had taken at the beginning of our nooning halt did not burn when it escaped like some other foods do.
But all the same, I did not like losing it.
A breathless, strengthless moan left me at the end. Though I was cold, sweat dewed my forehead, and I hoped I had not fouled my mantle.
“First battle?” Soren still scanned the forest, tense and ready. The Northerner even wore a slight, fey smile; his dark eyes were live coals. “Aye, I remember the feeling. You did well, my ladyalkuine.”
I was not so sure. It took all my failing will to straighten as Aeredh kneed his mount closer.
“Very well indeed.” Aeredh granted the compliment in a hushed tone. There was a light in his white horse’s gaze that almost matched his, as well; his kind are held capable of infusing even mute beasts with courage. “Steady, young one; all is well.”
“That was not one of the Seven.” Eol backed onto the road, turned sharply, and strode for his horse. “Was it?”
“Oh, no.” How was it possible for a man to look so young and old at once? Aeredh was the same youth who had visited in Dun Rithell, but his expression was akin to one my father sometimes wore while speaking quietly to warriors who had witnessed the deadly battle of Nath-Imil, the year before he wedded Mother.
A mildly successful warlord—one too victorious to be called “petty,” and Idra once said she suspected he had some weirding despite his use of paired blades—had met his end upon Eril the Battle-Mad’s axe, but Father did not listen to the songs sung of the event, nor did he speak upon it to his children. The silence said more than any saga could; did a guest begin to intone familiar verse about that long-ago deed, Father left the high table and would not return. Even Flokin did not boast of that victory, for it had been a terrible one. The fighting had been without quarter or ransom.
