By the Mountain Bound (10 page)

“Thy thanks are understood, lass. Hie thee home.”

I step aside. She bolts past me, down the narrow trail west toward her village.
Candle-flicker
, I think.
Such a brief, bright life.
I walk into the embrace of the tree, crouch against it where she stood, shake my plait over my shoulder so I can tug it with my hands.

In moments, my pack is around me.

The Historian

I
recalled her the instant I saw her, with a shock of identification when a friend unseen for decades heaves into silhouette at a ridgetop, and one knows him by stride and stance long before his face is visible. Of course, I had never met her. Of course, I knew her not.

But I recognized her.

She stood at the clifftop, the light slanting around her, yellowing grass stirring about her knees and the blue-green skirts of her gown. She stared at the horizon, her fingers moving restlessly on a stiff cord. As I came up to her, I saw she plaited stems, and when she lifted her chin jewels in seven colors flashed against the cloud-white of her throat.

“You must be the skald,” she said, and dropped her braid before her feet. “I am Heythe.”

“Muire,” I said, and curtseyed, feeling as if I wore her stern and sober expression about my shoulders like a yoke. I waved past her to the empty sea beyond. “Were you waiting for someone?”

“The pursuit,” she said. “I fear I’ve brought enemies among you, waelcyrge. It will not be long now. Their teeth scored my heels when I fled; they have pursued me from dead Midgard across all the worlds that hang like fruit upon the tree; and having come to you”—she shrugged, her braid-tip flicking from hip to hip with the shake of her head—“I can flee no longer.”

“Enemies?”

“Giants. Giants of frost and fire, armed with axe and hammer. They will come in my wake, and lay waste to what they
find, for they care only for destruction. They are the last remnants of the armies of chaos, as you are the last remnants of the armies of the Light.”

The silence dragged, the cry of gulls, the hiss of the sea far below. I was surprised to hear myself answer, “We were made to stand with you. We were sent ahead for that purpose, to await your coming. We remember that; the Wolf remembered, and Strifbjorn.”

Even in profile, I saw the corner of her smile. “And will you stand with me?”

I knew she didn’t mean
me
. Frail Muire, the least of the brethren. “I do not speak for the children, Lady.”

Lady. And whence
that
conviction?

She turned in place to face me, her train a puddle at her feet. “Strifbjorn speaks for the children.”

“Yes,” I said, and watched her shoulders settle under the gown like waves rolling back down the sand. “We have always followed Strifbjorn.”

Threshold-crossing full foe-heedful

Unsounded doorways lead to dark doings

Lurkers loiter and lancing strike

                    
—Hávámál

The Wolf

D
ays later, Yrenbend smiles and reaches out as I approach the mead-hall door. I clasp his wrist. “Another day, another mystery,” he says.

Muire stands beside him, all startled eyes and dark blond braids. She ducks when I share my smile, but flicks a small one back. She’s not pretty, but has an interesting face.

And I’m so pretty myself, to judge.

Whatso’er she overheard in the wood, she’s kept quiet. When she might have used it for blackmail. Or revenge.

Muire and Yrenbend follow me inside. The hall is crowded—more brethren than our own attend. Menglad and Arngeir hold hands near the unlit fire trench. Yrenbend falls into step behind me, Muire silent beyond him. “Has our new Lady returned yet from her errands?” I ask.

“Briefly,” Muire says.

I glance over, surprised that she deigned to speak. She adds, “She spoke with Sigrdrifa and some of the other waelcyrge who
favor her, and with Strifbjorn for a little; then she rode off again.”

“I do not like this coming and going,” Yrenbend adds, with slow consideration.

“You do not trust her?”

“Brother Wolf, I do not trust anyone.”

We pass the length of the hall. The dry pine boughs from the floor have been swept out and replaced with rushes and sweet hay. At the top of the hall, Strifbjorn sits on a bench, ringed by einherjar and waelcyrge. His attention is on Sigrdrifa, with her narrow shoulders and bright hair.

I enter in the midst of the conversation.

“. . . the Lady proposes sense,” says Sigrdrifa. “We toil on behalf of the mortals, protect them at risk of our lives, end their wars. Why should they not pay us just tribute?”

“Other than the thralls they send to serve us?” Strifbjorn leans back, seeming at ease. But I can translate his furrowed brow. “Food we do not need, gold we have no use for . . . and not all of them are pleased with arrangements as they stand. What could they pay us in, then?”

“Souls.”

Beyond Yrenbend, Muire gasps.

“Not in my hall.” Strifbjorn stands, commanding the room. He looms over Sigrdrifa, though she squares her shoulders and stands tall. “Not while I live.”

Silence follows.

And Sigrdrifa speaks through it, gesturing to the banner on the wall. The grasping Raven floats bold in black on its white weave. “The Lady comes on the wings of crows. The war
that follows her we can win only if we obey her without question.”

Strifbjorn steps forward, sharp-scented in his fury. His hand is not on Alvitr’s hilt, but his fingers curl toward it. “The Lady,” he mocks, “who must be followed without discussion or recourse? Is that what I taught you?” He glances at me. “Is that what the Grey Wolf taught you?”

I step to his side, and Yrenbend and Muire are behind me. Four to one.

“We see the Banner. We saw her perform the seithr.” Sigrdrifa draws herself up. “You saw her perform the seithr. Do you deny the truth of it?”

Four to two: Skeold comes to stand behind Sigrdrifa, frowning.

“It’s radical,” Skeold says, before Sigrdrifa can answer. “But the Lady has come, as promised, to lead us. Is it not as the Grey Wolf said? Has she not proved herself by might of arms?”

Strifbjorn shrugs massive shoulders, shifting his fur cloak enough to show that his hand rests now lightly on Alvitr’s hilt.

But surely he will not draw his blade in threat? Not against a child of the Light.

“But she hasn’t challenged me directly, has she? And we haven’t had a flyting yet.” Strifbjorn smiles a slow, arrogant smile. “You seem to have chosen your mistress, Sigrdrifa. Extend to her my challenge, if you please.”

The Warrior

S
igrdrifa would’ve stared Strifbjorn down if she could, but she hadn’t the will. She stepped aside, implicitly accepting his order and authority, and when she went Skeold didn’t follow. Instead, Skeold ducked Strifbjorn’s gaze and backed away, her midnight-blue cloak furling from her shoulders with the haste of her gesture when she finally turned.

With Mingan, Yrenbend, and Muire, Strifbjorn held the center of the floor. And around them, the children pretended with great business that they hadn’t seen a thing.

When enough time had elapsed, Strifbjorn turned to his allies. Muire gave him a quiet smile when his gaze came to rest on her, then glanced away, ostentatiously distracted by some movement across the hall. With a mumbled excuse, she fled.

Yrenbend followed Strifbjorn’s regard as it followed Muire. “I don’t have to tell you her feelings. She’s worthy of any einherjar in your hall. Don’t spurn her because she isn’t tall and fair.”

Strifbjorn glanced up at the Banner hanging behind the Lady’s chair. The breath of wind that had flicked Skeold’s cloak stirred the restless Raven. “It’s a bad time for marrying, Yrenbend,” he answered. “But if I were about to, I would certainly heed your counsel and Mingan’s above all else.”

Mingan’s eyes met Strifbjorn’s. He gave a mocking half-smile. “I cannot fault her courtesy, her courage,” Mingan said, glancing at Yrenbend, who was looking at Strifbjorn, “or her discretion.”

Something in his always-layered tone implied a deeper
meaning. The shard of the Wolf Strifbjorn carried within supplied an explanation.

Muire the Historian was keeping their secrets.

She stood before the Lady’s chair, facing the Raven Banner. Her back was slim and straight, despite her small stature and her shyness. Strifbjorn frowned at Mingan. “After the war, perhaps. Whatever war may come.”

He snorted. “What Sigrdrifa said about souls. Explain, please?”

Strifbjorn couldn’t. He shook his head and concentrated on peeling his clenched fist from Alvitr’s hilt.

Yrenbend cleared his throat. “Heythe has said that we will not be strong enough to defeat the giants—”

“Giants.” Mingan’s disbelief couldn’t have been more polite, or more archly evident. Strifbjorn loved him with all his heart.

“We must, she says, use our kiss to draw the strength from mortals.”

“As we do,” Mingan said. “When we avenge them.”

“No,” Yrenbend replied. Strifbjorn watched the Wolf’s eyes narrow. “She would have us take every breath but the last. Take their strength.”

“Slay them,” Mingan said, stating flatly what Yrenbend couldn’t quite force himself to give voice to. “Steal their lives.”

“Yes,” Strifbjorn said. “Is that your Lady, Wolf?”

He placed his gloved hand on Strifbjorn’s arm and gave him an odd smile. This one Strifbjorn didn’t understand at all. “Oh,” he said. “Yes. I dare suggest it could be. Do we expect Heythe soon?”

A fey half-answer. Chilling. “She seems to move at her own whim, like the wind . . . and fast, as if she travels on music.
She’s contacted several of the brethren who then returned here—Sigrdrifa, for example.”

“Obviously,” Yrenbend said. “She’s always been hot-tempered. But something moves her to fury with you personally. Forgive me for speaking bluntly, but I wonder”—his voice dropped—“about her promise that she is pursued by giants. What if the war the Banner predicts is one between us and Heythe?”

“She is the Lady,” Strifbjorn answered.

Mingan’s cold little smile continued, twisting on his lips. “She is indeed. But is she . . . our Lady? Or another one?”

“
Another
one?”

He shrugged. “Many things are possible. She is stronger than any of us, yes. But so is the Bearer of Burdens, whom we serve. And the Imogen, who serves us. Strength is not all, my brother.”

“It is to her. That she’d have us fattening on the mortals, poor candle-flickers, as if they were cattle. That smacks to me of a worship of strength.”

“It’s exactly that,” Yrenbend concurred, and Mingan, though motionless, seemed to take a half step away.

“What troubles you?”

He shook his head once, tossing his streaked black braid over his shoulder. “A worship of strength,” he said, and would speak no more.

In the morning, Heythe returned to the mead-hall.

The Wolf

T
he drink is drunk. The dice and draughts are set aside at the waning edge of a long night of testing conversations and edgy
murmurs. I watch as Strifbjorn leans back on the bench, stretching. The first sunlight slides through high, narrow windows, painting the ceiling. I wish I had spent the night with my pack, running in the wood.

The great doors swing open and Heythe comes into the hall. Sigrdrifa follows, chastened and uncomfortable. Heythe hesitates, scans the hall and strides directly toward Strifbjorn.

She has found better clothes somewhere. Green and gold, the colors of spring. The dark moss tint of her cloak makes her hair shine all the brighter, and the green contrasts with the brilliant blue of her eyes.

Sigrdrifa takes two steps to follow the Lady. But Heythe brushes her aside. The waelcyrge stops, her mouth downturned and sulky.

“Strifbjorn,” Heythe says as he and I rise to greet her.

She dimples at him and chooses not to notice that he does not offer her his hand. Turns her smile on me. I do accept her hand, bow over it clumsily. “Well?” she asks.

“Lady,” I say. “Hale, thank you.”

“I should be most displeased to learn that I had done you lasting harm.” She squeezes my hand through the glove, not flinching away, surprising me. “We’ll need to stand together, all of us, when the time comes.”

“Yes,” Strifbjorn interjects. “That’s something we need to speak on, Lady. I’m . . . uncomfortable . . . with what I hear.”

“Yes,” she says. “We must talk. May I sit with you?”

As if I had ceased, again, to exist.