The Tempering of Men (19 page)

Vethulf's first thought was that Thorlot had undersold the size of the bear.

The mastiffs were great heavy-jowled dogs, their faces droopy with an armor of hide and fur, some near as large as a small trellwolf. The thanes and their jarl were doughty warriors, broad-shouldered in their chain and furs.

The bear dwarfed all.

It was a great sloped boulder of a thing, and it was as shaggy as a boulder, too. It was bloody here and there from the boarspears of the jarl's thanes and the jaws of his mastiffs, standing at bay in the ruins of the bakery, protected on three sides by the standing walls, the roof half-collapsed across it. The high, humped back was draped with thatch and timbers; the head that swung below and before its awesome shoulders snarled to reveal bone-crushing teeth in a mouth that could have consumed Vethulf's head entire.

A mastiff—a dog of fifteen stone if it was an ounce—lay crushed under the bear's right paw, limp as a stomped rat. Behind the bear, Vethulf could see tumbled racks of loaves and the torn body of the baker's son, unless those rent white limbs belonged to the dead thrall. Before it, the dogs and thanes darted in and back, harrying the beast—as Thorlot had said—with fire and spears.

As Vethulf closed, the head of the trellspear bobbing with each stride, he saw the bear pin one of the boarspears to the ground and swipe at the thane who had held it. The thane danced back, swift and sure-footed, and for a moment Vethulf hoped the bear would be lured out of its shelter to follow. If they could get its flanks—

But no. It lunged once and then retreated again, shifting from paw to paw and groaning. From this closer vantage, Vethulf could see the crumbs in its fur and the angry glare of its eyes. He checked his stride as the Franangford jarl, Roghvatr, pulled back from the fight and turned toward him.

One benefit of the long campaign against the trolls was that wolfless men now showed less fear of the trellwolves and more respect. Roghvatr, a grizzled, black-bearded man at least as old as Skjaldwulf, did not flinch in the slightest as Viradechtis and Kjaran drew up beside him. They faced the bear, and the jarl faced Vethulf.

“Well met, wolfjarl,” Roghvatr said. He gestured over his shoulder. “I don't suppose you have any ideas?”

“Fire the roof,” Vethulf said, realizing the flaw in his plan even as he uttered it. “But then we'd be fighting the bear and the fire.” He hefted the spear in his hand. “I suppose you have tried arrows?”

“We haven't a bow that will do more than sting the beast,” the jarl said. “I fear it's spears or nothing.”

Vethulf humphed. “Spears it is, then. We'll drive it out to you.”

To be honest, he was relieved to find something in which direct action might work. He was tired to the teeth of subtlety and nuance and politics.

Brother,
he called in the pack-sense.

Kjaran's attention was clear and bright in him. Vethulf showed the wolf what he planned, and the wolf agreed.

It will be dangerous,
Vethulf said.

Battle is dangerous,
the wolf replied, or images to that effect. Vethulf turned over his shoulder. “I need a set of volunteers, wolf and man. The rest of you go with Viradechtis and join the thanes. We will drive the bear out to you.”

Viradechtis gave him a look, her eyes cunning and bright. “You are the konigenwolf,” Vethulf said, “the pack's life is in you.” He only realized when Roghvatr hid a smile that anyone might find it strange for a man to converse with a wolf. Vethulf swallowed a flare of irritation at being made sport of.
At least I can be a distraction in troubled times.

Viradechtis sighed and turned away, every line of her body saying,
You never let me have any fun at all.
When Vethulf looked away from her, Sokkolfr was there. “I'll do it,” he said.

“Hroi is old,” Vethulf cautioned. In truth, he wanted Kothran for this. Frithulf's ghost-colored brother was quick and small and sly; he would be at least risk in close quarters with the bear. But Frithulf and Kothran were off with Skjaldwulf and Mar—and Skjaldwulf and Mar, the pack-sense told him, were in terrible trouble.

He could not think about that now. And in truth, why did it worry him so? If something happened to Skjaldwulf, that was one less rival in the threat.

Was it not?

Sokkolfr shook his head. “Herrolf went with the cave rescue team. I can work with Stigandr—”

Stigandr was fast, perhaps even faster than Kothran, if not as small and sly. From where Vethulf stood, he could see the leggy tawny wolf behind Sokkolfr, regarding him with eyes the same color as his coat. Vethulf opened his mouth to agree when Eyjolfr said, from the other side, “We'll do it.”

Vethulf had to lift his chin to stare the bigger man in the eyes. Speaking of rivals, Eyjolfr and his big wolf Glaedir were first among them. It had been a surprise to everyone when Glaedir had chosen to follow Viradechtis, after all the bad blood caused by Eyjolfr's pursuit of Isolfr. But since the reformation of the Franangfordthreat, Eyjolfr had been better-behaved than Vethulf had imagined possible.

Perhaps he was a changed man. Perhaps he only needed to be valued to blossom into an ornament to the threat. Or perhaps he had merely been biding his time, awaiting just such a perfect opportunity for treachery. If something happened in the close confines of that tumbled bakery, who would ever know?

Vethulf did not like Eyjolfr Eagle-faced. But he still had to lead him. And to lead him, he must not be afraid.

“Better a wolf and man that know each other well,” Vethulf said. “I'm sorry, Sokkolfr. Eyjolfr, check the lashings on your spear.”

Another man might have stormed off—Vethulf himself most certainly would have. Sokkolfr, whom they called Stone, simply nodded. He was no older than Vethulf. Who was he to be so calm?

A jarl was meant to be foremost in battle, last in retreat—and doubly so a wolfjarl. Vethulf firmed his suddenly sweaty grip on the bindings of his trellspear and straightened his spine.

“No worse than fighting in a trellwarren,” he said.

Eyjolfr surprised him with a smile. “Better,” he said. “No trolls coming up behind you through solid stone. Come, soonest begun is first ended.”

Eyjolfr and Vethulf separated and—each accompanied by his brother—went the long way around the other houses, out of sight of the bear. Each pair chose a place on one side of the gap, and Vethulf knew through the pack-sense when Eyjolfr and Glaedir had found theirs.

Viradechtis joined the thanes before the bakery, her wolves and wolfcarls around her, and the thanes broadened their formation to allow the wolves access. A dog or two snarled at a wolf, but the wolves replied only with cold indifference. The plan was all through the pack-sense, passed from wolf to wolf and wolf to man. Only the wolfless man had to be told in words.

When everyone was in position, Vethulf glanced down and let his left hand brush Kjaran's ruff. He felt Viradechtis' readiness, and Glaedir's.

Go.

Viradechtis and her threat lunged forward, men and wolves snarling, harrying, thrusting with spear-tips, and gliding out of reach again. Vethulf smelled sharp blood as wily old Hroi got his teeth in a bear-paw, just a slash and release. The bear roared, enraged, and surged forward.
Now!

Vethulf dove around the corner, past the bear's flank, behind it. Into the destruction of the bakery, the blood-soaked bread, the rags that had been a man. Beside him, Kjaran, and then—though the wind of the bear's paw swept by his ear and shoulder—they were behind the beast, and Eyjolfr and Glaedir were there as well.

The big wolf laughed and lunged, but narrow-backed Kjaran was a hair faster. And Eyjolfr got his spear down—twisted around in the tight confines to level it—even as Vethulf pressed forward. All four at once, they struck the bear's unprotected haunches.

The bear sprang away, astonishingly fast for something so large, bellowing louder than the thunder of the mastiffs' voices. The men and wolves ran after, stumbling amid torn lath and wattle, tripping on crumbled mud plaster. Vethulf felt the shock up his hands and forearms as he struck the bear again. He realized they were in daylight, the bear surrounded by wolves, and men, and wolfless men, and dogs as fearless as the others. Sokkolfr was on Vethulf's flank, of a sudden, in the midst of a wave of snarling wolves. Then the bear was facing them, trying to rush back into the shelter of the bakery, and Vethulf set the base of his trellspear against earth and leaned into it with all the strength of his arms.

The impact of the bear's weight would have torn the spear from his grip, but other hands were beside his, broad shoulders, Sokkolfr and Eyjolfr supporting the spear against the charge. The bear came up the spear snarling, the point entering its chest and emerging behind its left leg, and Vethulf knew it could not survive this.

But it could survive it long enough to shred the puny humans who had killed it.

The spear's crosspiece cracked under the bear's charge, shattered and pushed back before it, doing nothing to hold its weight. The bear lunged again, teeth snapping just shy of the men who tormented it. One more push, Vethulf knew, and it would be on them. He felt Kjaran tense, ready to dive past him and into the range of the bear's teeth and claws. “No!” Vethulf yelled, in the pack-sense and aloud, knowing that Kjaran would not listen with Vethulf's own life at stake.

Viradechtis hit it from the side, twenty-plus stone of killing fury, her teeth a mouthful of daggers as she ripped through dense matted fur and into flesh. The bear, off-balance and impaled, toppled onto its opposite side and thrashed weakly, ripping the spear from the hands of the shouting men.

Vethulf hardly felt the sting. He staggered back, trying to find his feet, failing, and was only saved from dropping to his ass in the dust when he bumped into the remains of a leaning wall. He put his left arm out to support himself and only then realized that he was bleeding from his upper arm and shoulder.

“Ouch,” Sokkolfr said, touching the slickness. The bear was still quivering. “Come on, I'll stitch that for you.”

Vethulf turned to Eyjolfr. He extended his right hand. “Well fought.”

Eyjolfr returned the clasp. “Bear for dinner tonight,” he said with a grin.

Vethulf felt a returning pang of worry—for Brokkolfr and Kari, for Skjaldwulf and Mar—and could not force himself to return the smile. Coming up alongside the bear, Roghvatr shook his head and swore by the god of smiths. “What a mess,” he said. “There's the widow and children to house and feed, the bakery to rebuild … And did you look at this thing? It's half-starved. In the height of summer. What's going on?”

*   *   *

The sceadhugenga was much younger than Brokkolfr had expected, even granted that he had no idea how to judge the svartalfar's age. But Baryta was obviously younger than Antimony, possibly even younger than Orpiment, and Brokkolfr might have worried, except she had the most commanding presence of anyone he'd met, including Grimolfr Skaldsbrother, the wolfjarl of Nithogsfjoll. Every time she looked at him, he felt her glittering glance cut through him. He would not have dared to argue with her even if it had not become speedily apparent that she knew her work and knew it well.

She set Kari's ankle and gave him something that he said was like drinking flowers. It certainly returned the color to his face and stopped his shivering. Brokkolfr suspected it made him more than a little drunk, for he became remarkably tractable. Brokkolfr was glad of it, as he and Baryta manhandled Kari into a cupboard-bed, and Baryta said firmly, “Sleep, surface creature.”

At that point, Kari would have been hard-pressed to do anything else.

Baryta led Brokkolfr away from Kari's bed—a real bed, not merely a pallet. Brokkolfr could not fault svartalfar hospitality, though he feared again there would be a price. They passed more fluted stone, carved with such delicacy that Brokkolfr imagined the tools must be as fine as wires. How did the svartalfar smiths make them so fine and yet strong enough to carve stone?

He tried to remember if Kari had mentioned any such carvings in the svartalfar cities of the North and could not. The only work Brokkolfr had ever seen of such intricacy was in the trellwarrens that undermined all Othinnsaesc.

He swallowed against the chill in his gut. This was not a trellwarren, and where that stone had flowed as this did, the designs had no comparison. A trellwarren was disturbing, nauseating, full of headsplitting asymmetries.
This
was as restful as any herb garden.

Baryta led him to an antechamber whose floor, sloped like a shallow bowl, was padded with elaborate carpets and tassled cushions. They were rich and soft enough for a jarl, but years and use had dulled the colors and worn the embroidery smooth.
Not a new settlement,
Brokkolfr noted, and wondered.

The svartalf settled among the cushions. At her gesture Brokkolfr, too, sank down gratefully. He had not realized it until now, but his limbs ached with weariness and the aftermath of struggle and fear. He sighed and let his back curve into the cushions.

“Your friend will do well,” Baryta said, “though he will be lame for some months. The break was a clean one and did not involve any of the
difficult
bones.”

Of course, what the sceadhugenga considered relatively simple might have been beyond the skills of the wolfheall's best bonesetters. Brokkolfr had seen men—fishermen and wolfcarls both—permanently lamed by broken ankles, even if the flesh rot did not set in and kill them. Kari was blessedly lucky that the svartalfar had decided to help him, and Brokkolfr, as his friend, felt that blessing deep in his own chest. “Thank you,” he said, and was not surprised that his voice wavered.

Baryta turned a bright inquiring eye on Brokkolfr. “And you? Are you hurt?”

“No,” Brokkolfr said. “Thank you.”