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Authors: Elizabeth Bear

BOOK: A Companion to Wolves
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“And you stitch more neatly than any of us,” Signy's brother Leitholfr added, watching while Isolfr tended to a triangle-shaped tear in the skin over the shoulder of a Thorsbaer wolf. “The gods know, I've seen enough hamhanded wolfjarls and wolfsprechends to last me the rest of my life. And Ormarr and Stafnulf are grateful, aren't you, Stafnulf?”
“Yes, Leitholfr,” Stafnulf muttered, hastily dropping his gaze from Isolfr's face.
Isolfr did his best to get used to the way the younger wolfcarls stared at him when they thought he did not notice. He knew what they were thinking, and would have even without the pack-sense to tell him. Word had spread—for there were no secrets in the Wolfmaegth—that the youngest of the konigenwolves would be looking for her consort soon, and the young men were dreaming. Isolfr did not blame them, but it was uncomfortable being the center of so much attention, uncomfortable knowing that as much as they were thinking about their wolves' chances with Viradechtis, they were also thinking about having him, Isolfr, lie down for them. He caught glimpses of himself in the pack-sense, filtered through wolves and wolves: pale and cold and unapproachable. If Grimolfr's name to the wolves was black iron, then Isolfr's own was ice, the cold, pure ice of the Iskryne.
He was amazed, even when he was blushing hotly enough to disprove their comparison, at the sharpness of their observations, their ability to make judgments. For no wolf in the Wolfmaegth had seen the Iskryne before last summer's campaign, yet that knowledge was in the pack-sense now, the cold sharp smell of the ice of the Iskryne. And when they thought of that smell, the Wolfmaegth thought of Viradechtis' brother.
Spring wore slowly toward summer; the konigenwolves grumbled and snarled but maintained their truce. The wolfsprechends organized and planned, laid in stores, drilled their wolfcarls. Aslaug's brother, who had been wolfsprechend of Ketillhill for almost forty years, said that, aside from trolls, the worst danger they faced was bored men, bored wolves. Patrols were a necessity, and the men and wolves were kept busy on messenger duty to the wolfheallan, crofts, and villages, and hunting and requisitioning provisions for the army. Isolfr had had no idea of the scale of the logistical operation required to support an army of this size; it was nothing like a raiding party or a Viking band.
Summer was traditionally the time of harvest and relaxation. There was no such luxury this year. The trolls were dug in deep under Othinnsaesc; the news that returned with the waves of wounded was not encouraging, and left Isolfr half-frantic with frustration over not being there to fight beside Frithulf, Sokkolfr, and Ulfbjorn—yes, and Grimolfr, too. The men and wolves of the North had managed to reclaim what remained of heall and manor—wooden buildings had burned, but stone shells remained—but the trolls were into the sea-caves and had had the whole winter to warren the town. They burrowed silently, master sappers, and could emerge anywhere, any time, with only crumbling earth and collapsing walls to warn the men above.
At midsummer, it was decided, the Northmen would make a push and try to purge the warrens once and for all. Nobody said it out loud, but everyone knew: the stalemate had to end by winter or the trolls had won.
 
 
O
n the third day after the solstice, more wounded began to arrive at Franangford. It was horribly like a spring flood; first a trickle, then a stream, then a torrent, then simply the grim struggle to keep from going under and never mind the force one struggled against: men cursing, wolves crying with pain, screaming—dreadful screaming—as those whose trollbites had festered had to have their injuries lanced, and sometimes an arm or leg removed entirely.
It was ghastly work, butchery, no respite, no peace, and Skjaldwulf had said Isolfr's name three times before Isolfr realized who he was.
“Skjaldwulf!” He looked anxiously, first at the man, then for his wolf. Skjaldwulf wore his shield-arm in a sling, and Isolfr could see from the hunched outline of his shoulder that something was still amiss in the joint. Mar had a terrible bite, swollen and clearly festering, on his shoulder. He was whining softly, but from the way he kept bumping anxiously at Skjaldwulf's unbound hand, Isolfr saw his distress was for his brother, not himself.
Isolfr met Skjaldwulf's eyes momentarily, not meaning
to, and had to look away. His face was pinched in pain, but traces of a smile lingered at the corners of his mouth.
I am not worth it,
he wanted to say, but bit back. That was not his decision to make, any more than it had been Viradechtis' choice whether Isolfr would stay with her. Instead, nervously, he said, as he had been saying to wolfcarls for days now, “I regret that I must cause you further pain.”
“Aye,” Skjaldwulf said, eyeing Isolfr's collection of lancets and salves with some dismay. “Before you make me forget though, I was charged most strictly to bring you greetings from your shieldmates.”
“Are they well?”
“Better than Mar and me,” Skjaldwulf said, with a lopsided grin that had all his hidden sweetness. “Frithulf says to tell you … .” He frowned in concentration, and when he spoke it was in an imitation of Frithulf so uncannily good that Isolfr almost looked around for his friend: “Ulfrikr snores so loudly we use him to scare off the trolls.”
Isolfr felt himself smile, small and stiff. “Thank you, Skjaldwulf. Do you wish me tend you first, or your brother?”
“See to Mar,” said Skjaldwulf. “His hurts are worse than mine.”
As Isolfr worked, applying hot compresses to bring the poison up before he lanced the wound, he asked Skjaldwulf to tell him how the campaign fared. It was easier, if he did not have to meet the wolfcarl's eyes, and he knew Skjaldwulf needed something to distract him both from his own pain and from his brother's.
At first, he despaired of ever breaching the wall of Skjaldwulf's reserve. But then he hit on the idea of asking how the two of them had come by their injuries, and then, at last, Skjaldwulf began to talk with some ease. The voice he used was trained, fluid—not his own awkward phrases, disjointed by silence. He sounded like a skald, as he did sometimes, and Isolfr moved himself to wonder again what he might have been if he had not been a wolfcarl.
“We entered the tunnels with torches,” he said, falling
into a rhythm as slow and natural as breathing, while Isolfr drained the stinking pus from Mar's swollen shoulder, scrubbed the dead flesh away, and packed the wound with boiled moss, and herbs. The fur had already begun to drop out around the edges of the bite, but the fever didn't run through the wolf's body; the only heat was in the flesh near the wound. That gave Isolfr hope; the poison was not in the blood. “Through stinking troll-havens sought them, down into darkness, companioned by wolves.”
“You're already making a song,” Isolfr accused, and Skjaldwulf laughed, but lightly, hitching as if it pained him.
“Shall I try a plainer rendering?”
“No,” Isolfr said, binding his dressing tight over Mar's dark coat. Mar groaned in appreciation, as if the pressure eased the pain of his wound. “You'll need the distraction. Now you,” he said, and gestured to Skjaldwulf's injured arm.
“The collarbone's broken,” Skjaldwulf said. “I can't raise the arm. I think it's broken too, and the ribs may be as well. You'll have to help me with my shirt.”
Isolfr wiped the blood off his hands with a damp rag. “Has it come through the skin?”
“No,” Skjaldwulf answered. Together, they got his tunic off, and Isolfr could plainly see how the bone in his arm was shifted, the skin bruised fiercely there, down Skjaldwulf's chest and shoulder and over his ribs.
“I'll have to set this,” he said, and sent a village boy for Ulfgeirr. He was not strong enough to hold Skjaldwulf steady as well as straighten the bone.
Ulfgeirr came, and swore when he saw the injury. “Did a wall fall on you?”
“No,” Skjaldwulf answered, as Isolfr took hold of his good arm and braced his shoulder against the wall. “A roof. Don't send it through the skin, werthreatbrother.”
“Wouldn't dream of it,” Ulfgeirr answered. He laid thumb by thumb on Skjaldwulf's arm, and with a deft wrench of his hands brought them level. Isolfr felt bone grind and click through his palms and did not count it
cowardice when Skjaldwulf screamed. Mar growled, hard by his werbrother's knee, and Skjaldwulf managed to drop his good hand and soothe him.
“They mean me no harm,” he said, when the whiteness of his cheeks gave way to a raw-looking flush. Mar whined, but fell back on his elbows and dropped his head across Skjaldwulf's foot.
“Well,” Ulfgeirr said, with a frown. “It's good you're not an archer, but it should heal well enough for a shield.
If
,” he added sternly, “you let it heal. If you break it half-healed—”
“I know,” Skjaldwulf said. “Wrap it along with the ribs. It's best if I can't move anything.”
But Isolfr traced the dark bruises under his fingertips, on Skjaldwulf's sword-arm shoulder, ignoring how the other man shivered. “These are wolf teeth.”
“Mar dragged me free when the tunnel came down. And now you've made me tell it out of order, Isolfr.”
“I'll hush,” Isolfr said, bending for a roll of linen to wrap Skjaldwulf's chest and ribs as Ulfgeirr patted his shoulder and moved away. “Tell as you will.”
“We fought our way down into the warrens,” Skjaldwulf said in more normal tones. “We fortified and traded men off at every opportunity, sending them into the light to rest and be fed. The trolls had warrened from rock and the caves up into the earth under the village, and we fought them bitterly back. Our blood and their blood flowed before us as we descended. We splashed through gore. The way was slick and awful.”
Isolfr had to lift Skjaldwulf's arm to wrap the ribs under it. Only the hitch in his breathing showed his pain. “Tell me more,” Isolfr said, as much caught in the spell of the story as hoping to distract his patient.
“As we descended, we found ourselves fighting sows—as in the Iskryne, you remember?—and we knew we were coming to the heart of the warren. There were kittens, too, and once we got down to the bedrock, they'd started working the stone in those patterns of theirs. They mean
to—ow!—to stay, Isolfr.” He paused, breathing slowly through his nose.
“Do you want ale? Or something stronger?”
Idiot
, Isolfr thought. He should have offered at the outset.
“No,” Skjaldwulf said. “When you are done, perhaps. Or perhaps Mar and I will rest a little, and then see what we can do to help.” He frowned at his arm. “This will keep me from fighting for a month or four, but I can still sing.”
“I think a song would be welcome.” Isolfr reached for another strip of linen, and continued winding. “How did the roof come into it?”
Skjaldwulf closed his eyes. “We broke through the sows and the trellwitches, and found another rank, bigger warriors than any we'd seen, and with them a troll twice the size any troll has a right to be.” He paused, breathing shallowly, too quickly, and leaned his head back on the wall. Sweat beaded, broke, and ran together on his forehead, and his skin under Isolfr's fingers was clammy. “The trolls brought it down,” he said. “When they saw we were going to win through to their king. They brought the roof down on their own heads to save their king. Again, as they did in the Iskryne.”
Queen
, Isolfr almost said, thinking of something one of the svartalfar had said—and then remembered that he couldn't explain how he knew, and finished binding Skjaldwulf's arm over his tightly-wrapped ribs in silence. “There,” he said, and—steeling himself—brushed the hair off Skjaldwulf's forehead. “Mar, make him sleep now.”
The black wolf looked up at Isolfr with pale, cool eyes and, grinning, promised that he would.
 
 
S
kjaldwulf was already a week on his way to Nithogsfjoll along with the rest of those too wounded to fight when Frithulf made the trip from Othinnsaesc, bearing tidings. He told Isolfr that not a troll had been seen on the surface or heard delving since the mines caved in, and the
men and wolves remaining were starting to breathe easier. He and Kothran sat with Isolfr and Viradechtis by the fire, drinking mulled ale muddled with ginger and honey. His scars hadn't faded, but whatever salve Jorveig had given him seemed to be returning flexibility to the skin; his smile was straighter than it had been.
And if it had been me
, Isolfr thought,
would half the wermaegth still be wooing me?
A useless question. Whatever beauty he might possess was nothing compared to Viradechtis. He snorted into his ale.
“What are you thinking?” Frithulf asked, leaning against his arm.
“Just counting my dowry,” Isolfr answered, with a nod to the wolves.
Frithulf chuckled. “Think of the fun we'll have come next summer,” he said. “You'll be wolfsprechend, and I shall be your no-account, troublemaking friend. You'll be eternally busy rescuing me from the fathers of the maidens who swoon across your path, ripe for the plucking.”
Their laughter drew no sideways glances in the half-empty wolfheall; the mood had grown lighter over the course of a week without wounded. The summer nights were still no more than a dimming of the light and men's hearts turned toward hope. Frithulf and Isolfr slept side by side, as in the old days, bracketed by wolves, and Isolfr allowed himself to believe that they might soon be going home.
They were not privileged to sleep long. Dawn was no more than a suggestion in high summer, a hesitation of the pale sun in its endless circuit of the sky. Isolfr was roused in that hour by shouting voices and the clash of metal, startling to his feet before he realized he'd dragged Frithulf with him. The voices were strained, angry, fearful. In firelight, he dragged his trews on and jammed his feet into his boots. Frithulf handed him his axe before his head was even clear of the neck of his jerkin, and Viradechtis and Kothran flanked them as they ran for the door amid a dozen other men and wolves.
They emerged to chaos. Trolls were everywhere, in among the outbuildings of the wolfheall, and Isolfr ducked an axe-blow and riposted unsuccessfully before he won free of the roundhall door. Frithulf was at his left hand still. They charged, making way for those behind them: the gravest danger was to be trapped inside, vulnerable to fire.
And the trolls had fire. Smoke rose beyond the walls, telling Isolfr that Franangford was already burning. He cursed and stumbled on a not-well-seated boot, managing to keep his head on his shoulders only because Viradechtis hamstrung the troll who struck at him. It went down with a crash, and he half-severed the lumpy greenish arm with which it wielded its enormous club, and then gutted it as he climbed over it, looking for the next. As he did, he saw how it fought in light; a hooded cloak and slit-eyed goggles like those men wore against snowblindness shielded its piggy eyes.
“Bet they can't see their flanks very well,” Frithulf yelled, regaining his side.
“Like a man in a helm,” Isolfr agreed. They advanced into the courtyard, cobblestones slick with blood, fighting as they went. They saw no wyverns, blessedly, but there were trolls enough for everyone, and Isolfr could see more pressing through the broken gate, overrunning the defenders there. “Damn.
Damn!
”
“It's all the fucking trolls in Othinnsaesc!” Frithulf started for the gate. Isolfr followed, running, axe raised as he shouted something wordless and white with rage. Other defenders ran to join them, wolfcarls and wolves forming an impromptu charge, and somehow Hrolleif was with them as they hit the wall of trolls, Vigdis snarling at his side.
They had no shields and there was no shield-wall to strike. The thunder of charging men, the impact that could lift you off your feet, was replaced by whistling axe blades and the thud of clubs on wolfcarl bodies. Something struck Isolfr across the face, teeth and brains, a blow that stroked his hair and killed the man before him. Then he was among the trolls, ankle-deep in gore, just as Skjaldwulf had described.
He screamed, and the trolls were screaming, and the force of blows struck and blows parried made his arm ache and rocked him from side to side. He looked up once to see a trellsow looming over him, and saw her fall when Hrolleif took her head with a stroke that confounded understanding. Other than that, there was the blood, and he fought now beside Frithulf, now beside Ulfgeirr, and then beside wolves and men whose names he barely knew, men of Thorsbaer and Bravoll and he knew not where.

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