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Authors: Elizabeth Bear

BOOK: A Companion to Wolves
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“What?” Not meaning to sound so eager, but there it was.
“If you are chosen—and Vigdis has at least four pups in her, so the odds are good—you'll need a name.”
“A—sir, a name?”
Brandr elbowed him. “Idiot. You don't think they're
all
born named ‘Wolf.' Ow!”—as Ulfmaer cuffed the back of his head.
“Respect for your packmates, whelp,” he said, and stomped off.
Brandr waited until he was out of earshot and then slid Njall a sly look, and grinned. “Old bastard. You know Hroi's his second wolf?”
“You can have more than one?” Njall blinked, surprised.
“Even wolves get killed by trolls,” Brandr said. He made a long arm that would have gotten Njall or his brother clouted, and ripped a wing off the goose three places down the table. “I hear his first wolf was a bitch, and he misses it. Makes him cranky.”
“Oh,” said Njall, and blushed. “What will you … I mean, have you thought of a name yet?”
Brandr made an expressive face. “My uncle's a wolfcarl—not here, in the wolfheall at Arakensberg. He made me promise I'd call myself Frithulf, after a friend of his who died.”
“And will you?”
“I promised,” Brandr said with a shrug, and Njall was relieved to realize that meant
yes
. Maybe honor would not be so difficult to hold here after all.
He was still thinking about that, chin on his fist and brow furrowed, when Brandr nudged him. There was—not a commotion, but a disturbance—at the head of the table, and Brandr bounced on the bench. Njall looked up; a tall spidery dark man was rising from his seat. “Skjaldwulf,”
Brandr hissed, leaned so close to Njall's ear that Njall could feel him jitter. “Skjaldwulf Snow-Soft, they call him. We're in luck.”
“
Soft
! That's a name for a wolfcarl?”
Brandr snorted. “Soft as a knife in the ribs. He nearly never talks,” he explained. “But he can
sing
.”
The tall man pushed black braids behind his shoulders and picked his way over snoring wolves on the rush-and-fur-strewn floor. When he had found a clear place to stand by the fire, he scuffed his feet wide and settled comfortably, eyelids lowered. One of the older tithe-boys brought him a horn of ale. He quaffed it and handed it back, and took a deep breath, running his gaze across the wolfcarls and tithe-boys and thralls spread around the hall.
The room went silent, as Njall was accustomed when someone was about to declaim. And Skjaldwulf Snow-Soft spoke in a resonant, carrying baritone that sounded as if it rose from the depths of the earth, carrying smoke and rain.
“Winter is long, and the nights are cold. There was a time when men maintained mere dogs to guard their cattle, when there were no wolfheallan and no wolfcarls, when trellwolves were troth-enemies of true-men. When fell trolls, terrible tyrants, walked in winter as they willed it, and our forefathers shuddered in shallow scrapes. This was the time of Thorsbaer Thorvaldson, who first knew a konigenwolf and swore to serve her for salvation.
“I took this tale from Red Sturla in his age, and as he told it me I tell it you. This was the time—”
Njall listened, enraptured. There had been better skalds at his father's hall, now and again, but not many—and there had been worse, as well. Skjaldwulf's voice rang like a brazen bell when he raised it, and the alliteration tolled from his tongue with heavy power. And Njall had not heard this tale before.
Skjaldwulf—Snow-Soft, and now Njall saw another reason for the kenning-name, for he was subtle and chill in his wit, as well—told it with precision and deftness. How Thorsbaer Thorvaldson had been cast out for sorcery, for
playing at women's magic, and how he had found—alone—a daytime encampment of trolls.
It would have been worth his life to attack them. And he could not return to his jarl's keep, even with a message of grave urgency—he'd die on the point of a spear before he spoke three words.
But perhaps he could send a message somehow, or raise a warning. Perhaps he could spoil their ambush, when night came.
He waited.
And with sunset—not that the sun ever rose but briefly, so deep in winter—the wolves came. When he saw that they had come to hunt the trolls, Thorsbaer Thorvaldson fell in with the pack.
And the pack, to his shock, permitted it. He'd half-expected to be pulled down with the trolls, treated as prey. Instead, he found himself moving with the wolves, dreaming—so said Skjaldwulf—with the wolves.
Until all the trolls were dead.
Thorsbaer's jarl would not take him back on the strength of that. Most certainly not with a snarling she-wolf by his side, when he was already suspected of sorcery. He had lived with the wild packs until he died, and fought the trolls on behalf of men who would not have him.
But something strange had happened.
As the pack settled close, and Thorsbaer spoke for them, and it became noticed that trolls did not travel unmolested through their territory to attack the human steadings—other men joined him. Disaffected men, younger sons, disgraced men. Men who practiced unmasculine arts—weaving, seithr—or some who were lovers of men. They came among the wolf-pack, and to Thorsbaer's rude cottage they attached a timber hall.
And the wolves chose from among them.
And together they hunted the trolls.
 
 
U
lfmaer and Hroi took the six tithe-boys out to the practice-field that afternoon, accompanied by four young men only a year or so older and three amiable half-grown wolves. They'd be bonding soon, Brandr told Njall in an undertone, and then the odd boy out would have to decide what to do.
“Won't he go home?” Njall said.
“Maybe, maybe not,” Brandr said with another of his expressive shrugs. “
I
wouldn't.”
“Why not?” And then he caught himself. “I'm sorry, I didn't mean—”
“It's all right. I'm no jarl's son, Njall Gunnarson, and I can do a good sight better for myself in a wolfheall than I ever could on my father's steading.”
“They'll let you stay? Even if you don't bond?”
“Who says I won't bond?” Brandr said, grinning, and Njall couldn't help grinning back.
He found he knew rather more about the use of the quarterstaff than most of the boys, and remembered the way Brandr had said,
I'm no jarl's son
, not resentfully but with resignation. “You've been trained with the axe, lad?” Ulfmaer asked him.
“Yes, sir,” Njall said.
“Well, that's a mercy. I'm always afraid these clumsy young idiots will lop their own ears off.” And he glowered at the older boys, who grinned back affectionately. “For today, though, will you help the other lads? I hate to lose boys before a tithing.”
“Does it happen often?” Njall asked, pleased that his voice didn't squeak.
Ulfmaer exchanged a look with Hroi—Njall had noticed how frequently that happened, even though Hroi, unlike Vigdis the day before, did not watch Ulfmaer constantly. He had his own work with the half-grown pups. But trellwolf and man always knew where the other was, and they were never out of each other's line of sight. Ulfmaer sighed. “'Tis no tourney you go to tonight, youngling. The trolls do not care if you be unpracticed. But Grimolfr says we can't
protect those who must learn to protect others, and I fear he's right.”
“I'll help,” Njall promised, wanting suddenly to make Ulfmaer look less tired, less worried.
“That's a good lad,” Ulfmaer said, and wheeled, bellowing, “Fastvaldr, an axe is not a flyswatter!”
Njall went to help the other tithe-boys.
They were inclined to be uncomfortable at first, almost resentful, but he deliberately let the smallest of them, Hlothvinr, catch him a glancing blow alongside his skull, and grinned and said, “Perfect. But you'll have to hit me harder than that.” And the other boys laughed and listened more willingly.
They were all limping and favoring bruises by the time the lengthening shadows prompted Ulfmaer to call a halt. He and Hroi herded them back to the roundhall and, unyielding to blandishments and protests, into the bathhouse. “The first lesson to be learned, boys. The wolves can smell you. It's only polite of you to try to smell good.”
“Who says they don't like the smell of honest sweat?” Brandr said, and Hroi shook himself with such vigor that all of them laughed.
“
They
do, Brandr Quick-Tongue” said Ulfmaer, “so scrub up.”
The wolfheall's bathhouse was bigger than that of the manor; Njall guessed that maybe half the werthreat could bathe at once, if they crowded on the benches. The ten boys were able to spread out more than that, but Njall still found himself grateful that Ulfmaer did not leave, but stripped to his breechclout and stumped up and down the aisle scattering water on the rocks to make steam, grumbling at them to scrub behind their ears, and passing pitchers with snide comments: “Yes, you do have to get your hair wet, Svanrikr. Otherwise you can't get it
clean
.”
Njall shared with Brandr and one of the older boys, Sigmundr: the Stone Sigmundr, a good byname for a lad as self-contained as a keep's high walls. Sigmundr was silent except for politely answering when Brandr asked him questions.
Njall concentrated on washing, and stealing sideways glances at the scars that marked Ulfmaer's torso, forearms, and thighs. Scars that looked like the marks of teeth and claws.
There were clean clothes when they were done, and then back to the hall for supper. The food was again plentiful and well-cooked, and even nerves could not prevent Njall from eating heartily. Brandr sat beside him again and told him the names of the werthreat and their trellwolves, at least as many of them as he knew. Njall listened with half an ear, but mostly watched the trellwolves, red and gray and dark brindle, eyes golden, amber, orange—there were even three or four wolves whose eyes were almost green. He wondered if those wolves all had the same father and asked Brandr, “Is Vigdis the only bitch in the wolfheall?”
Brandr snorted into his ale. “It's your own wolfheall—you've only lived nigh it your whole life.”
Njall hunched a shoulder uncomfortably. “My father doesn't like it spoken of.”
Brandr's eyebrows went up, but he said only, “Well, Vigdis
isn't
the only bitch in the wolfheall. She's just the konigenwolf—the top bitch.”
“Oh,” said Njall, and couldn't help his eyes going from Hrolleif to Grimolfr. Happily, Brandr didn't notice. He said, “There's three or four other bitches, I think. I know the pups who came out with us today were whelped by Ingrun,” and he nodded down the table to a young man, blond and ruddy-faced and laughing at something his trencher-mate had said. “Randulfr's sister. We're lucky we're getting a shot at Vigdis' pups.”
Njall watched a moment, to see if he could tell which of the wolves near Randulfr was Ingrun. And yes, a tawny-gray wolf, gnawing on a deer-rib, looked up at Randulfr just as he leaned back from the table to pass her a tidbit. Brandr prattled on beside him. Njall looked at Hrolleif, and then at Vigdis and Skald, and knew that Brandr was right.
 
 
T
hey set out across the snow at moonrise, well-armed and outfitted as became warriors, all afoot, including Hrolleif and Grimolfr, because even battle-hardened horses would not stand before a wyvern. They divided into three parties and cast out: Njall's group included Ulfmaer and Hrolleif and traveled north and east toward the rising moon, over snow so cold it creaked under their boots.
Each man had a wolf beside him except Hrolleif—Vigdis being too gravid to hunt—and the four unbonded boys. Besides Njall, there were Brandr Quick-Tongue, Svanrikr—whom Brandr called Un-Wise, but not where Svanrikr could hear him—and the Stone Sigmundr—and one of the three adolescent wolves, Eitri, although Njall noticed that the men and grown wolves kept the boys and pup in the center of the group, and Eitri did not look at Sigmundr the way Hroi looked at Ulfmaer.
The trees they moved through were still gaunt, although the tips of their branches swelled with the promise of spring and life. After a little, it struck Njall that they passed through the dark with very little conversation—the wolves wove among the men, ranging out and back, and the men cast out among the trees but seemed to find each other effortlessly. Njall fingered the edge of the axe slung across his chest, his feet slipping slightly in his too-new boots, and realized that he was moving with the rest, as much a part of the pattern as a goose flying in a wedge. He could smell the night around him—the snow and the dark and the sap running up branches, the first green tang of spring. He could smell Sigmundr beside him, smell the wolves and the men, each individually, smell Brandr's sour fear and his determination, smell his own confidence—for, unlike the other young men, he was a jarl's son and this was not his first time in battle—and he thought if he closed his eyes and concentrated, he might be able to pick out the scent of the moonlight on snow. Moving, all moving, like a great, coordinated dance, and he bit his lip to keep from laughing in delight.

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