The Tempering of Men (2 page)

“It's what makes him a good wolfsprechend,” Vethulf said, stubbornly loyal. And then he looked down and cleared his throat, turning away.

Skjaldwulf closed his eyes. “Oh, Baldur's tits. You, too?”

“Me, too, what?” Vethulf was defensive, arms crossed, the tails of his snowshoes denting the drifts as he rocked back on his heels, almost far enough to overbalance before he caught himself.

“You love him,” Skjaldwulf said, and—unwillingly—Vethulf nodded.

“He doesn't care,” Vethulf said, with a shrug that lifted his bearskin coat around his ears. “He'd rather I were anyone else in the Wolfmaegth.”

“Vethulf, you idiot, he'd rather you were a
woman.
”

The look on Vethulf's face, as if Skjaldwulf had cracked him over the head with one of his ski poles, was very nearly worth it.

“I've been threatbrother to him five years,” Skjaldwulf said carefully, “and I have never seen him choose a man when it was not for his sister's sake. It is never easy for him to lie down for a man—
never
—and Viradechtis' open mating…” Skjaldwulf couldn't say it, for his own dignity, for Isolfr's. His voice trailed off, and he shrugged.

“Aye,” Vethulf muttered. “I have heard a little.” And he tilted his head toward Kjaran and Mar. But Vethulf still wasn't meeting Skjaldwulf's eyes, staring stubbornly at the wolves, who lay in the snow, secure and warm in their fur coats.

It was uncomfortable, stringing so many words together when he wasn't telling tales. But Skjaldwulf reminded himself that Vethulf was still a rather young man, sharp emotions not yet worn smooth by the passage of time. And Vethulf had not known Isolfr for five years, had not watched him grow from skinny jarl's son into wolfsprechend of Franangford. “He isn't playing us for jealousy. It's not his nature. But what you want of him … is not his nature, either.”

Vethulf swallowed hard; Skjaldwulf saw his throat work under his scarf and his furs. “I would lie down for him, if he wanted,” he said, and then jerked his chin upward, sideways, as if a violent motion was the only way he could force himself to meet Skjaldwulf's eyes.

“I know,” Skjaldwulf said. “So would I.”

*   *   *

By the time they returned to the army, camp was made, and they entered it in silence, Vethulf trudging along on his snowshoes as Skjaldwulf skied ahead. They had slung poles over their shoulders, and between them hung the gutted body of a winter-thin doe. Their beards and their wolves' faces were red with the blood of the steaming, raw liver they had shared. Skjaldwulf sank down by a fire and unlaced his skis, exhausted, while Vethulf found someplace to pitch their tent. Mar and Kjaran insisted on sharing sleeping quarters—though Skjaldwulf would have expected them to form a ferocious rivalry, but perhaps wolves were more sensible than men in this as in so many things—and Skjaldwulf and Vethulf lived by the whim of their wolves.

When Vethulf was done, Skjaldwulf brought him hot wine. They sat side by side to eat their meager suppers.

Things were easier between them, somehow, though Skjaldwulf could read Vethulf's lovesick misery in the set of his shoulders, and hated himself for forcing Vethulf to admit it—to himself as well as to Skjaldwulf. Meanwhile, Vethulf kept shooting him sidelong glances, as if he, too, were wrestling with some private guilt.

When Mar had finished crunching the raw, meaty marrowbone of the doe that he'd been allotted, he scrubbed his face and paws in the snow, leaving behind furrowed claw marks and pink-red bloodstains. He shook ostentatiously, sending snow flying, and nosed the flap of the hide tent. Kjaran, whose insufficient dinner had been slightly more than half of a hare, was right beside him, and Vethulf stood as well. “Good night, Skjaldwulf,” he said—the first words other than “thanks” and “hand me that” that had passed his lips since they'd killed the deer.

“I'll be in as soon as I put the fire out,” Skjaldwulf answered. He smothered it quickly with handfuls of snow. All around, clustered on the lee side of tree trunks, other fires still burned in the darkness. Isolfr's shieldbrothers—Ulfbjorn, Frithulf, and Kari—had the next camp over. Skjaldwulf wondered for a moment if they had promised Isolfr to keep an eye on his wolfjarls. It would be like Isolfr to worry.

And like him to keep it to himself, if he did.

Skjaldwulf pissed against the runners of the nearest unloaded and upturned sledge, so his urine would freeze into lubricating ice. He tucked himself away before anything more important could freeze, feeling the ache of the cold and the deer-hauling in his once-broken ribs and collarbone. Upon entering the tent, he peeled off his boots. The boots went into a sheltered corner of the tent beside Vethulf's, with Skjaldwulf's snowy trews laid over them. He spread his coat over the pile of bedding, snowy side up, but did not otherwise undress as he crawled over sleeping wolves and man to find his place.

The tent reeked of damp wolf and unwashed wolfcarl, but between the body heat and the insulating snow that Vethulf had heaped over its canvas walls, it was halfway warm. Under the covers, it would even be comfortable; Vethulf and two dog wolves threw off a good amount of heat. And Vethulf had made the sacrifice of crawling into the cold tent first, to warm it with his body. It was a sort of peace offering, like Skjaldwulf's mulled wine.

And so was the way Vethulf—not yet asleep—lifted the blankets and furs, inviting him into the warm, reeking nest. Skjaldwulf went gratefully, drawing his knees up to his chest so his chilled, stockinged feet would be in the warmth.

It was a long way to Othinnsaesc still.

*   *   *

This time of year, the days shortened fast, to solstice and the inevitable endless nights that surrounded it. Hands of hands of days had passed by the time they came within striking range of Othinnsaesc. The assembled might of Wolfmaegth and svartalfar and wolfless men now rose and walked and slept again in darkness and brutal cold, stamping and swearing, breath smoking from straining lungs to rime hoods and beards with hoar.

On this morning, Vethulf, sliding from under the furs, cursed mightily. Skjaldwulf wanted to tell him to wait fifteen years. Skjaldwulf felt the teeth of winter sunk in every bone he'd ever broken, every joint he'd torn or strained. At his age, that sometimes seemed like most of them.

One of the sledge reindeer had died in the night; by the time Isolfr's shieldbrother Kari found it and brought Skjaldwulf out to see it was already frozen almost too stiff for butchering. Mittened hands pulled into the sleeves of his coat, Skjaldwulf frowned into the fur of his hood and shuddered.

“I hope its heart gave out,” he said, unwilling to contemplate an army at the mercy of cold intense enough to drop a reindeer in its tracks. He sent Kari to fetch svartalfar to handle the butchering. Their knives were better, and the smiths and mothers would see the meat equally distributed. Skjaldwulf was developing the beginnings of an appreciation for the svartalfar's sense of fair dealing, uncompromising though it was.

This particular alf was named Iolite, which if Skjaldwulf had the convention right meant it was a male—not that that seemed to matter, to svartalfar, except in that females had two means of attaining the highest ranks of the council, and Skjaldwulf thought the most important were both smiths
and
mothers.

In any case, Iolite was neither a smith nor a mother. He seemed young, his teeth not yet etched with elaborate inlaid decorations, the hands at the ends of his spidery limbs smooth-nailed and quick when he eased off his mittens. The alfar also seemed less susceptible to the cold than men, and Skjaldwulf watched with curiosity as Iolite handled the knife bare-fleshed in chill that would have blackened Skjaldwulf's flesh in minutes.

Skjaldwulf was not so strong as an alf, either, but Iolite seemed happy when Skjaldwulf grasped the reindeer's legs and pulled it onto its back, belly exposed to the sky for butchering. Gelid blood clotted Iolite's knife as he cut from the genitals to the sternum without puncturing the entrails. Pale intestines and blood-dark liver flopped loose, oozing from the wound as Iolite snaked an endless arm up behind them to cut free the diaphragm and esophagus.

Trellwolves were already gathering in a respectful circle, their coats so dense they seemed more like animate clouds of thistledown than enormous gaunt predators. Skjaldwulf recognized Mar, Guthleifr, Kari's Hrafn—almost as black as Mar but smaller—and a half-dozen from alien wolfheallan. At a glance from Iolite, Skjaldwulf rolled the reindeer onto its side, spilling the guts on stained snow. Now Iolite reached inside the pelvis, cutting the anus and genitals free.

Mar whined, elbows hovering above the snow. Under that thick fur, Skjaldwulf knew Mar was painfully skinny—skinnier than he should have been, with so many months of winter still to come. The wolves lingering behind him were in no better condition.

Neither, truth to tell, was the dead reindeer, but there was meat still on it.

Skjaldwulf wiped his mitten across his frosted beard. Frozen and dried blood from the liver of yesterday's deer crumbled and caught in the yarn: he rubbed his palm clean on the reindeer's leg. “Iolite,” he said, catching himself before he called the svartalfar “Master.” “Divide this meat among the wolves, please? Everything but the intestines. They can have the hide and legs, too.”

Iolite glanced up from his bloody work and made a good attempt at a svartalf elder's somber frown. “I'll see it done.”

Leaving Mar to his breakfast, Skjaldwulf shuffled off through packed snow, in search of Vethulf, recognizable by his buff-colored hide hood. The other wolfjarl was moving from campfire to campfire, speaking with men as his brother spoke with wolves, making sure of everyone's health and strength—making them laugh, even, which was something neither Isolfr nor Skjaldwulf himself could have managed right now. For a moment, Skjaldwulf stood with his arms folded and watched.

His attention must have drawn Vethulf's notice, because between conversations Vethulf turned to him and caught Skjaldwulf's gaze, raising his chin challengingly. Skjaldwulf bit back hard on a momentary flare of irritation and came down a little slope. He took Vethulf's sleeve and turned him aside, leaning their hooded heads together. “We need to start butchering the reindeer.”

“We'll have to pull the sledges ourselves,” Vethulf said, but he didn't argue. Nor did he suggest that perhaps the svartalfar could help out by butchering a few of their shaggy dwarfish ponies, for which Skjaldwulf was grateful.

“Us and the wolfthreat.”

“Right.” Vethulf leaned back, his mittened hands thrust up his sleeves for a little additional warmth. Snow creaked under his boots: here in camp, it was packed enough that he didn't absolutely need snowshoes or skis. “I'll tell Grimolfr.”

*   *   *

Trellwolves were more sensitive to scent than men, but even Vethulf could smell Othinnsaesc before the Wolfmaegth heard the sea, for all that winter had frozen the stench of unburied corpses. On a night shortly before the solstice, after slaughtering the first three trellish sentries they came upon, the army camped inside the woods, a mile or so from the border of hewn trees their scouts reported.

Vethulf joined the wolfjarl of Nithogsfjoll, grizzled and wiry Grimolfr, in picking his way silently and without lights to the edge of the trell-harrowed lands. Across a rude clearing leading down to the cliffs over the sea, the smoke of trellish fires was almost invisible on a blackened sky. Two wolfjarls stared unhappily at the smudges blurring crystal stars.

The sun-turning was upon them. Vethulf could not shake the sense that if only they could hold on until its return, it would prove an omen of survival.

“They've marked out the boundaries,” Grimolfr said. “They're burning our woods.” Weariness made his voice crack and sag in the middle.

Vethulf understood. He couldn't muster much outrage himself, or much emotion besides grim resignation. They had come this far, and they would fight now. It was as inevitable as snow. “It saves us time,” he said. “We won't have to kindle our own bonfires to burn them out.

“Skjaldwulf will be pleased,” Grimolfr said.

Vethulf snorted. If it made a good story, Skjaldwulf would like it.

Grimolfr said, “I hope we got all the sentries.”

It wouldn't matter. The trolls had to know they were coming.

“I don't fancy fighting a whole warren of trolls in the dark,” Vethulf offered.

Grimolfr's mouth worked behind his scarf. “There won't be a morning,” he said. “And the dark is when we fight trolls. Come on. You post sentries and collect the jarls. I'll gather the wolfheofodmenn and the smiths and mothers. We'll go in as soon as we can form up. There's no sense in giving the trolls time to tunnel under and flank us.”

*   *   *

The wolfless men camped on the left flank of the army, and their sentries knew the wolfheofodmenn of the army by sight. Vethulf was ready for the usual mutters and sneak-eyed glances, but this fur-swaddled sentry greeted him with a raised hand. “Wolfjarl,” he said. “Are you looking for the other wolfcarl?”

“I was looking for the night heofodman,” Vethulf said. “Which other wolfcarl?”

“Yellow-bearded and about as tall and old as you. The wolf was a tan bitch, gray around the neck. He wanted the heofodman, too.”

Vethulf nodded approval of the sentry's sharp eyes and made a point of remembering the man's face. Even now, most wolfless men heeded only the man and did not look at the wolf. And Vethulf recognized the description of the wolf more surely than the description of the man. Blond men there were aplenty, but wolf-bitches were a different matter.

Randulfr and Ingrun.
A wolfcarl and subordinate bitch of Isolfr's former threat. What would they want with wolfless men? Vethulf found that he did not like mysteries in the approach to a battle. If Kjaran had been with him, his hackles might have spiked at Vethulf's rising irritation. As it was, Vethulf shrugged himself tighter in sweater, tunic, coat, and cloak. He stamped his feet to shake the snow from his calf-wrappings and warm the blood in his feet; he was more successful at one thing than the other. “If it was the heofodman he sought, then I may accomplish two errands in one. Who and where?”