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Gelad was silent for a long moment. “It was only said once.”
Once is enough, when Idra the Farsighted has taught you.“Avolvaremembers what should be remembered.” Besides, the eldest daughter of a hall keeps such information ready. Many of our dutiesinvolve the soothing of tempers, and honoring a man by remembering his lineage is a small, disproportionately useful courtesy.
Efain, drifting behind us in rearguard, gave a slight disapproving exhalation. Silence returned to our group. We walked through the icy woods, alert as deer who sense the wolves—or wolves themselves, wary of a hunter’s snares.
When disaster struck, it was quick. Arn halted, her chin rising and dun hood falling free. Her hair, still grimed with Nithraen’s choking stone-powder, nevertheless glowed fiercely, and the blue of her woad, with a thin line of dried blood slashing over it, was likewise vivid; a stray gleam was wrung from mail through a small rent in her mantle I would have to repair if we ever reached safety.
I froze. Gelad reached for his sword and drew a dagger in his other hand as well; behind us, Efain’s blade whispered free of the sheath.
Karas turned to grant me a meaningful glare, pointing at a nearby tree with one half-gloved hand. The other was upon his swordhilt, and when theorukharboiled from a scattering of boulders downhill, evidently surprised during a rest, I darted for shelter as I was bidden.
Battle, Persuasion
I have wrenched the secrets ofseidhrfrom the roots of the Tree, and thus I decree: Those who use what I have discovered may not touch blade, nor bow, nor spear, nor any other weapon save a healer’s knife. It is an affront to the gods.
—Anonymous,The First Saga; said to be sung by Odynn himself
My first pitched battle was a jumble of disconnected images amid whirling snow, the terror of the lich staining every moment. The second stands clear and sharp in memory, not least because it was soloud.
Clash-slither of metal against metal, Arn’s sharp cry as her spear’s point plunged through armor and burrowed deep before ripping free, the war-shrieks of theorukharand sharp oaths from the Northerners—the sudden clamor was overwhelming. My back slammed against a tree-trunk wider than I am tall, and for a few moments I could do nothing but stare.
Gelad, ducking away from a wild swing, stepping in with broadsword held almost level and lunging with nearly Elder grace, tearing open anorukhar’s belly when he moved away to the next clash, stabbing with the glittering dagger in his free hand. Efain engaged with two swift-slashing opponents, a stray shaft of sunshine glaring over his shoulder to strike their straight, flag-tipped swords. Karas givingground, feinting, and nearly lopping the head from a squat, muscularorukharwhose war-bellow was disconcertingly deep.
And Arneior? My shieldmaid danced, her spear glittering and her armor whisper-silent. She had already downed one opponent and spun in, finishing one of Efain’s; with that done she whirled again, spear burying itself in a throat, breaking free with a whistling rush. A black ichor-spatter flung from its passage hung in the air for a bare moment, horrible in its beauty, and fell.
It was a battle, I wasvolva. I had to do something, but what?
None of the sagas or songs speak of crippling fear upon a bloody field. Now I know why—it is of theseidhrnobody wishes to attract by mentioning or even thinking upon for too long. Warriors are trained to keep moving, for freezing in terror means being felled almost at leisure;volvasare not taught that particular skill. I knew the battle-chants, of course, to lend strength to arm and blade, to fill companions with the gift of fighting rage, to proof skin and armor against stray breaking, and more. I had learned them painstakingly, under Idra’s watchful glare.
At that moment I could not remember a single note, nor a solitary syllable.
Arn retreated, slashing; there was a clot of the ashen creatures gathering and her practice-cry was now a full-fledged war yell. The difference was unmistakable, for all I had never heard her produce such a sound before.
My gloved hands leapt up at the sound, fingers spread, and I whistled. The high-drilling noise shaped whatseidhrI could reach, and one of theorukharpressing my Arn flinched, sunlight striking its eyes just enough to alter battle-rhythm. Her spear leapt to take advantage of the motion almost of its own will, and she stamped at the end of the blow.
It wasn’t much—tiny light-darts, a child’s game on a river’s dappling broad back.Think a little smaller, Solveig, my teacher said more than once when I bemoaned my own ineptitude, my inability to accomplish some worthy feat.You see? Great things need not be large.
It is a terrible thing to find, after being the pride of Dun Rithell, that the wider world esteems one small indeed. Yet there was no timefor self-pity of any stripe. Sunlight, for however long we had it, was an ally if I could just be persuasive enough.
The inked bands on my wrists twinged,seidhrflaming. A large shadow detached from the tumble of boulders our opponents had been resting in, ice crunching under its gnarled, hooflike feet. A thundercrack leapt across the clearing; my head snapped aside, my cheek stinging.
Faint iron-taste filled my mouth, my teeth piercing my own flesh. I stared at the thing, near-dazed with horror.
One greenish-pale, heavily muscled shoulder much higher than the other, its broad face set with terrible blank fury—the monstrosity was taller than the Northerners and impossibly broad. Steam curled from its shaggy sides; either it was furred like a bear or it wore the pelt of some terrible misshapen animal, I could not tell which.
It had been twisted by some monstrousseidhr, I realized. A hazy shadow wrapped about the creature, leaping and fringing like flame; it looked like a lopsided clay figurine made by an enthusiastic but terribly untrained potter. Something crouched inside its body, and though the invisible inhabitant burned it did not consume.
The monster stomped uphill with ponderous almost-grace, far too quick for such a bulky, limping thing. And ithurt, though not with the lich’s cold piercing. This was a battering; for a moment I thought our new opponent the thing which had wrecked the gates of Nithraen, and was slightly puzzled at its small size.
Another whistle shrilled between my lips, my upflung hands shaking as the thing’s invisible will buffeted me across empty space.
No, not empty, for Arn was there, and the monster was no longer too small to batter down a city gate but far too large compared to my shieldmaid’s slender glitter. Sunshine burst in dapples across Arn’s back, and where the light fell past her and struck the burning thing, actual smoke arose. Thin weals appeared upon its pelt, bubbling with blisters.
Thetrul—for that is what Northerners name the smaller form of these fearsome things—actually staggered, its deep-cloven hooves stamping frozen earth. Ice shattered, and I could think of nothing save blinding it and hoping that someone,anyoneelse would somehow make it go away.
Arn’s spear flickered, stinging the monster’s larger hand. A coil of what looked like tar-smeared rope swayed in that hairy three-fingered fist, and the knowledge of what the weapon was arrived with another sickening swell of fear.
Thetrulbore a whip.
