By the Mountain Bound (28 page)

“I told you to stay away!” I lift her by the shoulders, slam her against the log wall. Bark shingling cracks and falls away, shards of ice splintering. The girl’s breath bursts out on a bitten cry.

Stunned, she struggles for air. I hold her off her feet, lean in to taste her breath. “I heard you cry out, Master Wolf,” she
whispers through her teeth. I shove. Her arms indent under my thumbs.

“I am under the protection of your sister,” she adds when she has wind. Ice water shed from the roof drenches us both, discomfiting me, endangering her brittle human life.

She’s light as eiderdown, a morsel, nothing more. Her eyes are bright on mine, muddy human gray-blue, not the stark silver of my kind or the lit blue of Heythe’s.

“I know you.” I shake her and she gasps, squawks, but will not stop. She says, “You’re in me. You put your hurt in me. And it still didn’t make it go away.”

I cannot understand her fearlessness. My lips touch hers, soft as an ink-soaked brush caresses cloth, waiting for her shudder and squirming away. But I’ve forgotten the girl’s courage, and I’ve forgotten the death I laid in her, poison under her skin. I taste my own grief on her lips, and the taste is bitter.

Until I taste as well her desire to have my kiss again, though it be her death, though she loathes me as only one who knows can loathe. A filthy passion.

And its mirror lives in me, when I lean my cheek into a goddess’ touch.

My breath locks in my throat. My grip on her slides. She presses her mouth to mine in a mockery of love. She’s cold, so cold to the touch, so cold in her heart with the ice I have grown there.

“Go ahead,” Rannveig murmurs against my lips. “You’ve killed my heart already. You may as well have my body, too.”

Writhing like a serpent, she edges higher against the wall, swings her thighs forward and clasps my hips. She grinds her sex on mine, through my trousers. “I’ll be your whore if that’s
what you want. A whore for a whore,” she gasps, laughing brutally.

She tumbles from my numbed hands. I go to my knees before her. Rain streaks and stings my eyes; water sharp with ice crystals thumps my head and shoulders. Rannveig falls harder, striking her head and shoulder on the wall, and still she struggles up while I kneel, head bowed and fists clenched.

I cannot speak. I cannot breathe. Heat flares in my chest, and if I pulled my shirt open I might see my bones outlined from within. Her teeth rattling with cold, she bends over me, fumbling with her hair and the hood of her cloak.

“I do not wish this,” I hiss between my teeth.

“We don’t get what we wish, Master Wolf,” she answers in gallows tones. She tilts my head to the side, runs her fingers down my left ear as if caressing a dog, twists my plait around her hand. If she were Heythe, I would know what happens next.

But she stoops to kiss between my eyes and says, “We get what we deserve. Hold very still.”

The pain is sharp and sudden, breathtaking as only superficial injuries can be. I yelp, too shocked to jerk away, feel a twist and hear a loud, sharp click.

Rannveig steps back, out from under the deluge off the roof, licking my blood from her hands.

I touch my ear. The flesh feels strange, hot, heavy. I think she has torn the earlobe away, but my fingers meet skin and the slickness of dripping blood, the chill of ice water—and the weighty twisted shape of a metal ring.

I tug at it, wince.

“Don’t bother,” she says, stepping forward and pulling my
hand away. “Yrenbend helped me make it. It won’t come free. Wear it like a tag on cattle.”

“Sorcery?”

She shakes so with the cold that she can hardly stand, but her strength is humbling.
I
cannot even rise.

“A curse?” I ask, again.

“There’s a spell on it to see through glamours. The best I could manage. I told Yrenbend it was for me.” She pulls me up, where I stand, weaving, while she laces her hands through my hair. Her fingers brush the throbbing lobe of my left ear. “I didn’t tell Muire. She wouldn’t have approved. She doesn’t understand you.

“Mostly”—she grabs that ear and pulls my face down, kisses my mouth, gives the earring a twist that sharps my eyes with tears—“it’s a reminder from somebody else who got what she deserved. You fucking bastard.”

She stalks away, leaving me frozen in the frozen rain.

The Warrior

F
or a month and a half Strifbjorn divided his time: sometimes at Arngeir’s hall; sometimes with Herfjotur on her snow-white steed, talking to einherjar and waelcyrge in the cities and villages; sometimes returning to the woods above what had been his home, speaking with Yrenbend or Muire.

Weeks passed slowly, the factions more clearly drawn every day, and Strifbjorn knew it was only a matter of time before his rebellion was laid open to the Lady. A third of the children
had promised their aid, gathering in the now-crowded confines of Arngeir’s hall while they debated. Heythe’s faction killed, growing stronger.

Rumors reached Arngeir’s hall of starveling monsters preying on livestock and lone humans. Strifbjorn imagined the yellow-eyed beasts that Heythe commanded, and wondered how many she might have. Every passing day weakened Strifbjorn’s faction by strengthening Heythe and her band.

On the coldest day of winter Strifbjorn went with Herfjotur to bring Yrenbend and Muire out of Heythe’s hall.
Heythe’s hall.
Strifbjorn bit his lip until he tasted blood.
My hall.

He had another task while here, as well.

The valraven’s wings cupped air as he descended to land at the base of the Ulfenfell’s spectacular waterfall. The muscles of his back slid and strained under silken hide. Strifbjorn braced against Herfjotur’s back, but the stallion touched down like a sparrow, cantering to a halt and craning his heads about curiously at the clearing.

The waterfall trickling under the ice made a plinking sound. Ice weighed the bare branches of the surrounding birch and poplar. Snow had long covered the footsteps of Strifbjorn and the others previous meeting. The clearing and the bank were lovely and untrampled, the deep pool crisp with ice.

Strifbjorn looked away. There was a cave behind the waterfall, a granite cave with many levels.

He knew the place because Mingan had shown it to him, when the world was bright and young, and Mingan had loved him.

Herfjotur and Strifbjorn dismounted, striding to meet the
two figures who came out of the forest to greet them. Strifbjorn knew as soon as they came into the clearing that something was wrong. The taller was Yrenbend, but the woman was broader than Muire, and clad in a russet cloak Strifbjorn remembered.

“Yrenbend.” Strifbjorn clasped his wrist and nodded to the mortal girl. Muire’s new apprentice. He remembered her name in a moment. “Rannveig?”

She smiled without pleasure. “Bright one.” She nodded. “We bring tidings.”

Strifbjorn turned back to Yrenbend. “Not Muire?”

He shook his head, releasing Strifbjorn’s hand. “Well. She would not come on this errand.”

“She’s staying with Heythe?” Strifbjorn’s heart sank. He had never doubted her loyalty.

“No,” Rannveig put in hesitantly. “It’s . . .” She drew a breath. “Bright one. The Grey Wolf. He is not . . . well.”

Ice pack creaked under Strifbjorn’s boots as he stepped back. They stood on a thick layer of crust from a storm two nights past, a thin dusting of snow lying over it. Strifbjorn had sharpened my knife that morning. “Of all the creatures in the world, you would ask me to aid him? Muire was kind to refuse this errand. You must tell her to leave Heythe’s hall. The war is about to begin.”

She hissed through her teeth and spread her hands, helplessly. “I understand him, Bright one. And the . . . It is partly my doing that he is unwell.”

“My doing as well.” Yrenbend took the short step needed to set himself between the mortal girl and Strifbjorn. Strifbjorn wondered if he looked as if he might do her harm.

He turned away from them and from Herfjotur, who
stood at his shoulder and did not speak. “Did you poison his ale? Pity you didn’t use more.”

“I gave him a talisman.” Rannveig ducked behind her fringe. “A ward of clear vision. I thought he might see what he has become. I did not know . . .”

Strifbjorn’s eyes came back to her. When she would not look up he turned to Yrenbend. “Did not know what?”

He blanched. “Heythe must have laid some sorcery on him. It does not remove culpability, or wash the blood from his hands. But since Rannveig broke it, he sits staring; he is sick or mad. . . .” His voice trailed off. He looked Strifbjorn in the eye, and said nothing.

“He saved my life,” Rannveig said quietly. “I destroyed his. I had to—”

Herfjotur’s hand had somehow fallen on Strifbjorn’s shoulder. He stared. The girl stammered to a halt.

“There are seen hands and unseen hands,” Yrenbend finished, glancing down. “I am einherjar. We do not believe in coincidences.”

Strifbjorn’s hand fell to my hilt. “We are not
for
forgiveness, my brother.”

Herfjotur’s milk-white hand pressed harder. “I told Yrenbend you had said you would kill the Wolf yourself.”

Rannveig looked up. “No,” the mortal girl said softly. “Not death. He must not die.”

“He took your whole village from you, girl.”

“And my family. But.” Her hands fluttered, helpless. “We deserved it.”

No words would come until at last, into the silence of three who would not meet his eyes, Strifbjorn said, “I came to kill
him. You can go, all of you. I will not ask your sanction. You do not have to wait for me.”

They shifted, avoiding each other’s attention. Herfjotur turned Strifbjorn to face her.

“I am a widow, too,” Herfjotur said. “I will await you.”

Strifbjorn unlaced the diadem from his belt. “I had counted on Muire to enchant the circlet. Without her, I cannot promise I’ll be back.”

She still would not look at him, but Rannveig reached into the pocket of her jacket and drew out a carved wooden flute, while Yrenbend brought forth his metal one.

T
he mead-hall bustled. Heythe, too, was calling her troops to war. Strifbjorn entered through the front doors, a half step behind Yrenbend and preceding Rannveig, hidden by their magic and protected from accidental contact by their bodies. Inside the doorway, they drifted apart, leaving Strifbjorn to find his own way to the Wolf.

He laid his hand on Alvitr again, and thought of how he would kill him.

Yrenbend had told Strifbjorn that Bergdis had found Mingan crouched in the snow unmoving two nights since. He had not spoken.

And Yrenbend had also told Strifbjorn where to find him.

He did not turn as Strifbjorn slipped into the niche he had been led to. Strifbjorn had seen him even as he walked up: there was a bench, but he was not sitting on it. Rather, he had slung himself up onto the ledge of the high window and
lounged there, staring out at the sea, above the height of the partitions. He did not turn, but Strifbjorn could imagine his ears twitching at the tapestry’s rustle. The earring that pierced his left earlobe glittered in the sunlight with the slow rhythm of his breathing. The flesh was red and swollen around it. He had not troubled to heal the small wound.

He did not move as Strifbjorn crossed the space. Strifbjorn took a breath and spoke his name: “Mingan.”

A shiver ran his length; his arm tightened around the drawn-up knee.

“I know you can hear me. Rannveig told me what the earring is for.”

He took a breath. His voice sounded more harsh and disused than ever when he spoke. “You should go. Do not risk yourself for me.”

“Don’t make me climb up there.”

He turned slowly, his eyes like ash-covered coals. His hand uncoiled from around the knee, came up, touched the earring. Poised as he was on the ledge, he was visible to anyone who happened to look up.

But he pitched his voice low enough that Strifbjorn strained to hear. “I am beyond saving.”

Strifbjorn drew his knife out of its sheath. He thought of Alvitr, but flinched from her hilt. What blade he used today he would not touch again.

“I’m not here to save you.”

He stared, and then he smiled, and then he nodded and slid from the ledge in a fluid arc. He landed in a crouch before Strifbjorn, and when he stood he lifted his chin and looked him in the eye. “I was hoping you would come.”

Strifbjorn drew a breath, full of the scent of him. “There’s going to be a war.”

“You cannot permit me to fight against you.”

“I know.” Strifbjorn set the dagger against Mingan’s breast. He did nothing to prevent it. “Mingan, tell me you’ll walk away from this, and you can live.”

Strifbjorn wished he would lie, anything, give him the excuse to set the knife aside. He leaned forward, on his toes, so the knife pierced his shirt and blood welled around it. He pressed his dry mouth to Strifbjorn’s mouth.

Strifbjorn wondered if he could taste all those deaths on it.

His voice was cool when he leaned back. Strifbjorn listened to the rusty rise and fall, and tried to memorize the sound even as he wished he had already forgotten it. “I sent the Imogen away.”

“I cannot risk it.”

“I understand.” Mingan placed his hand so-gently over Strifbjorn’s. Strifbjorn could not tell which hand trembled more as Mingan moved the point a half inch up, so that it rested between his staring ribs, below his collarbone. The knife would slip effortlessly between the bones, sever the big vein over the heart. Strifbjorn already felt the heat of his blood across his hands.

“I will not throw myself on the blade,” he said. “So you see, I have not loved thee as I ought.”

Strifbjorn moved to put his weight behind the blade.

He could no more have pressed it through stone. The knife would not move. His arm would not move it. His hand shook palsied on the hilt, and a second thin, dark circle surrounded the tip of the blade.

Strifbjorn heard a footstep on the boughs beyond the curtain. “Hurry!” Mingan said.

He stepped back against the bench. “I cannot.”

The hanging slid aside. Sigrdrifa entered, her crystal blade naked and dark in her hand.