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I could only fret while treading, and wrestle with the knot of my own anger, bafflement, homesickness—I could not name all the emotions, and that is dangerous for avolva. Weirding sometimes leaps to follow a strong feeling, even if its holder would refrain.
“Shuh,” she huffed, finishing, the weapon held level and almost quivering with battle-hunger. “They cannot expect us to stay trammeled much longer.”
“We are penned goats, Arn.” Even if no bar had been placed upon our wandering, I was sure we would not be allowed to go in any direction without an escort. Normally I would have longed to see the sights of an Elder city, stuffing myself with the strangeness, learning all I might. Now, each loveliness it held was merely a cat-tongue rasp across my nerves. I had not thought my mother’s daughter so small and envious, but it would have been worse had I attempted to lie to myself. “Do you think we should leap the fence?”
“This is unlike you.” She whirled, light upon the forefoot, and her spear-butt stamped the stone floor with a sharp crackle of irritation. “You will tell me what ails you sooner or later, Sol.”
Maybe.“’Tis too quiet.” I found my fingers threaded together and clasped bloodless-tight. “I like not how the air feels.”
“Your mantle is ready, and so is mine. It would be a shame to lose the trunk, but we may both carry a saddlebag.” Arneior’s freckles glowed, her cheeks bearing a bright pink tinge of exertion, and sheregarded me narrowly. “I say we attempt to find an exit. There cannot be only one.”
“And then what?” I did not point out that wandering an Elder city in search of some egress might be frowned upon by our hosts, for she would blithely assume I could keep us from much notice. Even if that were within my power, what would happen afterward? “League upon league of deep winter and more of those sheep-things, not to mentionorukhar?” I could not even bring myself to mention the iron-helmed lich.
She dismissed my objections with an eye-roll very like Ulfrica’s when confronted with one of Bjorn’s clumsy sallies. “Oh, you may find those fog-bound roads the boy did, Sol, and have us home in a trice.”
“I am not so certain.” A shudder walked down my back. I wondered if perhaps Ishouldtell her the source of my brooding, though it irked me to admit any shortcoming at all. Who, Secondborn or Elder, feels easy with such an admission? It is harder than the most impossibleseidhr. “Arn…”
“Just spit it forth, weirdling.” She glared at me, though she did not thump the floor again. “Idra would pull your braids, Sol, but I have half a mind to make you dance until you cease fretting. We may do something about what ails thee.”
There was always a cure for my Arn, and it usually involved spear-play. Dodging and weaving as she jabbed at me was an old game, and cheerful enough even when there was some ill feeling the dance was meant to purge. “There are some things you cannot kill with stabbing, small one.”
“Of course, and that is what I have you for.” But she cocked her head, her red-tawny braids dangling over her shoulders; she had not wrapped them yet today. “I mislike this quiet as well.”
“Perhaps it is some Elder observance.” My shoulders ached; the tension was well-nigh unbearable. And the lack of dreaming in what sleep I had gathered made me wary indeed. “This part of their city seems but lightly inhabited.”
“Or abandoned.” She stalked to my side, peering out onto the balcony. Though bright with orb-light there was no singing to be heard,neither of fountain nor of Elder throat. “Something troubles you, and has ever since that hunter brought you the silver apple. Out with it.”
To be so thoroughly predictable is only a comfort until there is an event one wishes to chew privately. “There is much to be troubled over.”
“I thought you giddy at the prospect of more weirding.” So easily did she say it, my shieldmaid; she knew me almost better than my own mother. She adjusted her grip upon the spear, her fingers fanning out to stretch before closing again one by one. “Is it the weregild troubling you, then? I have been thinking, and praying. The Wingéd Ones are silent, but…”
“It makes little difference whether they absolve us of oathbreaking at the moment.” Though being granted some sign,anysign in that direction from a divinity would have been welcome—even one of Lokji’s pranks, and he is a fellow no sane person,seidhror otherwise, wishes to gain the attention of. “There is still the snow, and thosethings.”
“But will the dark things be interested in us when there are other…” She halted, her head cocked. “Hist.”
I heard it too. Hurrying feet in boots, light and quick. The sound rang oddly in empty stone lanes, and though I did not have the strength for Elderseidhr, I had at least enough of my own to dread the news such a step brought. “Something is very amiss. It is as well we are packed; quickly, let us be ready.”
Arn hurried for our mantles and her braid-wrappings while I made certain our trunk was well-closed. Consequently, when Efain and Soren appeared, bearing signs of great haste and their own black traveling-mantles, we were unsurprised. Sword-bearing, both also carried their bows, and their quivers were half-empty as Curiaen and Caelgor’s after a long hunt.
“My ladyalkuine.” Efain’s scars were flushed afresh, and he took in our readiness with a single glance. “We must go. They have broken the great door, and—”
Arn’s blunt spear-end struck the floor, cutting across his words. “Whohas brokenwhat?”
“I told you.” Soren put his hand to his side and exhaled, as if toquell a muscle-cramp. The Old Tongue was harsh in his mouth, and high color stood in his thick cheeks. “They both might be of some use in the battle.”
“And be killed or worse, not to mention prove to the Enemy what he might only suspect?” Efain shook his head and shifted to rapid southron speech, sharply accented with his mothertongue. “The Great Doors of Nithraen have been breached, my lady Minnow, and the battle-rages. Our lord Eol charged us with your escape. ’Tis a relief to find you so ready.”
That was when we learned there had been battle before dawn upon the causeway leading to Nithraen’s outer gates—great stone slabs, silver-chased and cunningly balanced over the Nith’s mirrorlike mere. Arn had seen them upon our arrival but hardly studied their construction, occupied as she was with the burden of her half-conscious charge. Later, we knew the war-band we had met upon Nithraen’s borders was merely a tiny scouting party, spray before the wave; a strong force oforukharand other noisome things had issued southward from deep, new-made clefts in the ice-cliffs of the Marukhennor, those perennially frozen peaks raised by the Enemy to guard the eastron plains of the Black Land before turning north toward the Cold Gate.
It was the first army to do so in many mortal lifetimes.
Such was the cause of Nithraen’s sudden silence. Those who could fight were called to the many layers of defense, for Aerith the Delver had thought long and wrought hard to provide his folk with safety in caves the dverger told him of, long ago while the Sun was new. There had been little warning of the disaster though the folk of Nithraen held the hills above their deep homes with bow, sword, and spear no matter the season; some even lived among the trees in summer, free of a stone roof.
It may not have mattered. Warning is not the same as enough strength to fend off vast hosts of terrible creatures bent upon destruction.
My heart leapt into my throat. I could have wished for a true measure of my father’s battle-madness, for at that moment it seemed far better than my own cowardice.
Arn’s expression was merely thoughtful though her knuckles were white as she gripped her spear, and in her dun mantle and fresh woad-stripe she was the very picture of a shieldmaid ready for the work she prefers above all else. “How long, before…”
