An Apprentice to Elves (41 page)

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The humans held their war council under an open sky. The autumn days were growing short with accelerating rapidity, so that the sun had long set by the time everything was organized. A piercing cold stung the lungs with every breath, even through a scarf, and made Tin's eyes water. The jarls and wolfheofodmenn came together under a sky dark and transparent as cobalt glass, strewn liberally with stars. A twisted, milky streak of brilliance arched across the center of the heavens, twining with dusty darkness. Around the rim of the world, aurorae writhed in great, rippling sheets of jade, amethyst, and coral, putting Tin in mind of labradorite's shimmer.

The surface world was strange and cold. But the nighttime sky was an unparalleled revelation.

At the center of the clearing was a flat-topped rock crusted with rime, in which Erik had sketched a map of the area around Hergilsberg with, Tin thought, surprising skill. She had not been there herself, of course. But she had seen maps rendered by svartalf cartographers, and Erik's hasty work was better than she would have expected of any human working from memory. (Or from most of them working at leisure, with adequate light, resources, and tools.) It showed only the surface features, of course, and no allowance for type and depth of bedrock that she could see—but within its limitations, it was excellently done.

She told him so, and was surprised when the grim old priest shrugged up the collar of his bearskin to hide a shy, pleased smile.

It was Tin who had made the lights that gleamed among the overhanging boughs—sublunary, but steadier than the brilliant pinpoints spangling the heavens. They were stonestars—crude temporary ones that would fade, for she did not tie off the loops of language that excited their elements to glowing—hung in twists of line from branches all around the clearing.

A double ring of men in shaggy cloaks of animal hide huddled around Erik's impromptu map, shoulder to shoulder to break the wind. Outside the circle, upwind so the heat blew across the little gathering, burned a fire. It was insufficient, but at least it was something, and at least the dry old wood burned without too much galling smoke. Wolves lay across booted feet, warming toes.

Tin, being shorter, was in the center. Beside her stood Isolfr, and nearby were Gunnarr, Fargrimr, Erik, and a few of the others, who were meticulously presenting the enormity of the problem to the others.

“The good news is that they won't be able to get their ‘mammoths' easily to Hergilsberg,” Gunnarr said. He spat on the frozen ground. “They won't want to swim them in unless they hold the landing—the beasts would be too vulnerable in the sea.”

“They'll use them as a rearguard,” Vethulf said. He shoved a slithering red braid behind his shoulder irritably. “Which is the direction we'll be coming from. You call that good news?”

Gunnarr tipped his head. “Good news for Hergilsberg.”

“Unless they build a causeway,” said the Othinnsaesc wolfjarl.

Skjaldwulf stood between Isolfr and Vethulf, frowning, his arms wrapped around himself as if he were freezing. Both Isolfr and Vethulf were saving Skjaldwulf face by pretending not to notice, although Tin saw the glances they exchanged over their third partner's head.

Gunnarr frowned. “Do you think they could? Do you think they
would
?”

The other wolfjarl shrugged. Skjaldwulf, however, said dryly, “It's not the most ridiculous piece of siege engineering I've ever heard of.”

“It's close,” Vethulf argued, though he looked delighted that Skjaldwulf had collected himself enough to speak.

“Well,” Skjaldwulf said, “Leif Oleson, who they called Leif the Mason, more or less moved an entire mountain into the pass north of Gammlasund to block it, and then toppled whatever mess was left into the sound itself to block the beachhead below. And I'm sure our illustrious svartalf guest could tell us some stories.”

He smiled at her with some of the old skald's charm and twinkle. She wondered if anyone else could see that it was a skill, and not an emotion. He reached down absently to scratch Tryggvi, who leaned against his leg, and she could see the moment when he realized what he was doing and forced himself not to snatch his hand back.

The young wolf gave him an encouraging lick. Skjaldwulf smothered a sigh so as to be almost unnoticeable and smoothed the fur between Tryggvi's ears.

“Some stories, yes,” Tin said. She shifted herself to make her cloak ornaments jingle, so the men would look at her. “And you've fought trellwarriors, every one of you.” Near enough, anyway—a few might be too young.

“It's a pity we can't get around behind them,” said the young wolfsprechend from Nithogsfjoll. “If we cut north toward Othinnsaesc, say. But there aren't enough ships, and the coast is ragged with fjords all the way south.”

“Wait,” said Fargrimr, who was the only female Tin had met south of the Iskryne who made the slightest sense to her. Isolfr had explained the custom of “sworn-sons,” and Tin thought, looking at Fargrimr's thin, hard face, at the blaze in his eyes, that it only figured the humans would insist on pretending he was a man. Fargrimr looked around, snapping his fingers inside his glove. Muffled in naalbound cloth, they did not make a sound. Tin felt her brow furrow—

“A brand for Fargrimr,” Isolfr called, perceiving the problem. Someone handed up a blazing stick drawn from the fire. Fargrimr wrapped his hand around the cool end, blew out the flame, and regarded the ember for a moment as it drew a spiral of smoke on the air.

“Not the coast.” With the coal at the tip of his bough, Fargrimr sketched a line in the hoarfrost on the stone. “We come across the water.”

Gunnarr grunted, frowning.

The Nithogsfjoll wolfsprechend leaned forward. “What, and spend the winter building more boats? Wait until spring? They'll shoot on us with those war engines—”

“No boats. We sneak. We walk.”

“Ice,” Gunnarr said. Idly, the konungur cracked a louse in his beard between two fingernails. “We walk the ice.”

Fargrimr grinned, his own beardless face so filthy it seemed no different from those of the other men. “If the winter stays hard, the sea will freeze between the mainland and Hergilsberg. We walk across the ice in the dark of midwinter. We will be hidden by the sleeping sun. Think they can hold the Rheans off that long?”

Erik shrugged. “If they're lucky. We've been stockpiling food since those bastards landed.”

“The mammoths,” Isolfr said, his voice tight enough that all the others fell silent and looked at him. They waited for him to gather himself. “If we can walk the ice—”

“Will it be strong enough?” A man Tin didn't know, wolfless, with the blue tattoos of a southerner coiling his arms.

“The white bears walk it,” Isolfr said.

“I've seen musk oxen out there,” the Othinnsaesc wolfjarl agreed. “Herds of them. You know it's a long damned swim from Othinnsaesc to Hergilsberg.”

Randulfr shouldered up next to his brother companionably. “It's a shorter walk.”

It drew a laugh. Nervous, but mostly genuine.

“I hope we all like chopping blowholes for seal meat. There's not going to be a lot of other forage out there.” That was another Northern accent. Tin didn't see who said it. She had a moment of wonder that she was getting to the point of being able to tell human accents apart.

“I know how to ice fish,” Fargrimr said. “And think of the glory. Think of the songs!” He winked broadly to all surrounding, the light of the stonestars strange on his hair. “Besides, we don't have to go all the way to Othinnsaesc. Just north of the Rheans.”

“And wait for a freeze. And hope there's not so much snow the whole lot of us bog down in it.”

“We know how to move on snow,” Gunnarr said, and Tin could tell from his ringing tones that he had decided. “We know sleighs and skis and snowshoes. We know what it means when the ice creaks to speak to us, and when it creaks to threaten. They are soft southerners. What do they know of winter?”

The konungur turned and looked from man to man. They stirred. Some shifted. But none looked down.

Finally, his gaze fell on the priest in the bear cloak. “What say the omens, brother?”

Erik stared at him for a strained moment. His hand shifted under his hide. Then he laughed, uproariously. “I have not cast the omens, konungur!”

“You have not?”

“I have not cast the omens. Because this early cold is Othinn's gift and Othinn's weapon! God of wolves, god of winter! And I have promised Othinn blood in return,” Erik cried, and thrust his axe into the air. “Before this winter's long dark day is done!”

 

SEVENTEEN

The wolves walked with her.

Alfgyfa had not expected it. Had expected, in fact, that Greensmoke's pack would stay behind in Franangford, pursuing whatever opaque compromise they had worked out with Viradechtis. That she would find the army because she herself could hear Viradechtis—not clearly, at this remove, but enough to take some comfort that the konigenwolf and her brother were as well as might be expected. She had not expected consideration and comradeship from the wild wolves, one way or the other.

And they certainly didn't discuss any other plans with her, a mere human.

So she was surprised and delighted when she woke on her second day on the trail and realized when she reached out to find Viradechtis that she could feel Greensmoke and Mouse and the others as well. Much closer than Viradechtis, and much closer than they ought to have been, bedded down in the long soft needles under a grove of young pine. She sent them feelings of comfort and thanks—and as she unearthed her face from the blankets, she realized how cold she had gotten.

She had burrowed in her sleep, curled up rigidly tight under her blankets and a mound of leaves and needles. But she was shivering, even so. Her knees and shoulders spasmed pain; her hips would have been worse, but she could not bring herself to straighten them.

She'd packed warmly for October, but this was not October weather. It was not even fit weather for November.

“Gah!” she cried, kicking out, and nearly screamed at the agony of stiffness in her limbs.

Suddenly the wolves were around her. Greensmoke loomed over her, breath warm with meat-scent as she lowered her giant, jet-black head to sniff Alfgyfa's face. Alfgyfa froze, looking at the teeth, the lolling tongue close enough to lick her. The wolves had killed before they rested; the blood was fresh, by the smell. The others stood in a ring, regarding her: Mouse and Apple and Clearwater and Storm and Ice. And Wyvern, sitting pleased beside her with his fluffy brush flipped over his toes to warm them on the cold ground, laughed.

They were smug, Alfgyfa realized. It was in all the harmonics of the pack-sense. Smug to have caught her, and smug to have snuck up on her undetected, as well.

It made the panic in her chest subside a little.

“Oh, very well,” she told them. “You win this time. But I'm cold.”

She meant to get up and get moving, and perhaps have some breakfast once her blood had warmed her extremities. Instead, she found herself at the bottom of a smelly pile of wolf fur, as Wyvern flopped on top of her, followed by two or three of the others. “Oh, crap!” Alfgyfa said, laughing, shielding her face and neck with her hands and arms, as they were less than careful with their bony elbows and hocks.

Bruises aside, it was warm, though. And in a little while, she had stopped shivering and started worrying about making time on the trail before snow locked her down. If winter was coming early—and the wolves' keener senses told her that the cold was likely to settle in for a few days, although blessedly there was no scent of snow—she would have all the more reason to hurry. It wasn't just that she was losing the light, the longer she took. She was losing the warmth as well.

And the urgency she felt to rejoin Tin and her father pulled her like a hook in a fish's lip. She couldn't have named the source of it, and she didn't know what she'd do when she got there. And yet here she was, crouched on a frozen root gnarl, pulling on her boots while Greensmoke and her brother Ice chased each other between the trees like cubs exulting in the arctic morning.

She just knew she should be going south, and going now.

Perhaps this was what Skjaldwulf would have called a wyrd. A fate, a purpose—the will of the Norns, or just a thing that could not be avoided because it had always been going to happen. Because, in a sense, it had already happened.

She was about to stride out when Mouse and Clearwater appeared from the underbrush, dragging the cadaver of a foolish yearling deer between them. It
was
fresh: the dew-brown, open eyes barely dulling. And from the way Greensmoke's entire pack raised their heads and stared at Alfgyfa when the corpse came into view, she knew they intended for her to partake.

It was two-thirds eaten … but the wolves, being wolves, had started with the soft internal organs, and there were still large chunks of neck and haunch ungnawed. She knew how to butcher a deer.

Alfgyfa, all the wolves watching, drew her penknife from its belt sheath and crouched beside the deer. A few quick flicks loosened the skin along its lower spine. She peeled it back and found lean red steaks awaiting her—the tender cut that would have made a fine standing roast on the ribs if she had thought to bring along a bone saw.

Instead, while the pack-sense sang satisfaction all around her, she peeled the long muscle loose, severing the strips of glistening ligament that anchored it to the pelvis. She scraped the silverskin away, and put the whole muscle on a tree root to slice as much of it as she could eat right now very thin indeed. There were some onions in her pack: she cut thin slices of one of those, as well, and rolled her venison around them, seasoning the whole thing with a dab of the golden autumnal fat this particular deer would no longer need to get it through the long, dark wintertime. You could starve to death on lean meat alone, and it was an ugly death indeed.