by Harmon, Amy
“We have s-slain their men. They are at our mercy. If I must b-be weak to make them m-more willing, so be it,” Bayr grunted. He was dripping blood on the stone floor; he needed to tend to his arm and impart his instructions among the warriors of Berne. Benjie never sailed with his warriors, and Bayr outranked them all. It was understood that he would give the orders and divvy the spoils between the two clans.
Daniel grinned as though he’d been let in on a grand scheme. His face and his braid were so blood-spattered, his white teeth glared in contrast.
“K-keep him honest,” Bayr demanded of Dakin as he turned to leave. “Convince them. Don’t c-coerce them. And make him w-wash his face first. We want wives, not c-captives.”
“Aye, Dolphys,” Dakin reassured. “I’ll find you a woman like my Magda.”
Bayr snorted and Dakin laughed, but it was not the first time his men or his grandfather had made such an offer or insinuation. His clan wanted him to take a bride.
“He is seeking an alliance,” Ghost murmured, keeping her pace steady, trying not to let her terror show. The king had been gone for a month, usually a welcome event, but he was in the Northlands and King Gudrun wanted a bride.
“He has been seeking alliances for a decade,” Alba said, tossing her hand like the matter was of no importance, but her brow furrowed in unease. “I am paraded in front of the chieftains, turned on the spit like a plucked chicken, dangled like a bundle of grapes over their gaping lips, yet Banruud never makes any promises.”
“You’re making me hungry,” Ghost quipped, her voice as mild and dry as a summer day. Alba laughed, just as Ghost had intended. Her daughter did not laugh enough.
They walked the long road from the wide north gate down to the village below, a dozen members of the palace guard trailing behind them. They’d learned to converse with their voices pitched low, their heads bowed, their shoulders together, though Alba had long passed Ghost in height. She was tall and well formed, with steady eyes and a stubborn chin that Ghost recognized as her own.
It was not an official royal visit—Ghost never accompanied Alba on those. The princess waved to the children who came running as they neared the base of the mount, but she and Ghost turned and headed back up the hill without entering the village, though two of the warriors distributed drops of honey candy to the children, per Alba’s instructions. It was one of Alba’s duties to be seen and to make her presence felt. Banruud believed it kept the people content. The king had taken her on visits to the clan lands—every clan save Dolphys—for the same reason.
Ghost had lived on the mount for ten years. In the beginning she’d cowered in the shadows, terrified that one of the king’s minions would see her pale face and tell the king of her presence. She wore the purple hooded robe of a keeper, the sleeves cut too long to better protect the skin of her hands. Her head was always covered, her face always shadowed, and little by little, year after year, she’d begun to believe the king had forgotten her. She’d grown bolder, become more visible, and now that there were other women on the mount—refugees and asylum seekers who had taken shelter among the keepers—it was assumed she was simply one of them, and since few people outside the temple saw her paleness, no one questioned it.
“I believe my father will use my presence as long as he is able,” Alba reasoned, resuming their conversation. “I am of far more use to him as Princess Alba than Queen of the Hinterlands or part of King Kembah’s court.” She wrinkled her nose at the thought.
Ghost tended to agree, but conditions were worsening. In the last year, no daughters had come to the temple walls seeking sanctuary. Dagmar feared it was because the journey was too fraught with dangers . . . or worse, there were no daughters left to make it.
“But if an arrangement is made . . . and I wed . . . will you come with me, Ghost?” Alba asked softly.
Ghost halted, stunned, and raised her eyes to her daughter’s troubled face.
“You want me to come with you?” she whispered.
“You have never left me,” Alba said, and Ghost could not hold her gaze.
“I will follow you . . . wherever you go,” Ghost reassured her, willing the tears not to rise and her lips not to tremble. For a moment, Alba clung to her arm as though she’d been afraid to ask, afraid to cause Ghost the discomfort of having to refuse her. Ghost would never refuse her.
“You would leave Dagmar?” Alba asked, awe tingeing her tone.
“He is not m-mine to abandon,” Ghost stammered, heat climbing her chest and collecting in her cheeks. The day was warm, but suddenly she was sweltering.
“You love him. He loves you,” Alba insisted.
“He doesn’t,” Ghost argued.
“Yes, Ghost. He does. It is as clear as the skies.”
Ghost tilted her head up to assess the cloud cover, and Alba crowed.
“What do you know about these things?” Ghost grumbled, embarrassed.
“Only what I see,” Alba replied. “You should make a rune to braid his fate to yours. Two souls together, throughout all eternity.”
“Do you know such a rune, Alba?” Ghost giggled.
“No.” Alba grinned, though it faded so quickly, Ghost wondered if she lied.
“Runes are chaos, Alba, not the cure,” she warned. Alba was not a keeper, and her knowledge was a constant source of concern to Ivo. “Dagmar says no rune can take away a man’s will or change his heart.”
“And what about a rune to make a man return?” Alba whispered.
“Bayr?” Ghost asked. Alba never spoke of him anymore and changed the subject when Dagmar mentioned his name.
“Bayr,” Alba murmured, wincing. “I don’t want to change him, I just want to see him again. And I’ve given up hope that it will ever happen.”
“The tournament is only weeks away.”
“He will not come. He never does.”
“Ivo says . . . he will.” Ghost had not wanted to tell the girl what Ivo had seen, but she couldn’t bear Alba’s sadness a moment longer.
Alba’s legs began to buckle and Ghost girded her up, sliding an arm around her waist. A guard called out to them, but Alba waved him off and resumed her climb, joy infusing her face.
“If Ivo has seen it . . . it must be,” Alba whispered.
Ghost could only nod.
Dagmar had rejoiced at the prediction, and Ivo had patted his cheek with a gnarled hand and demanded preparations be made. But when Dagmar left the sanctum, Ivo had wilted into his throne. He often claimed the decades and the demons had whittled his flesh.
“Death rides on his heels,” he had muttered, raising his black-rimmed gaze to Ghost. “The son returns, but night will follow.”
The winds did not cooperate, gusting up from the gulf and rushing toward the Northlands instead of blowing west toward home. Instead of two days back to Dolphys, it became an interminable week in a village where they were not wanted, waiting for the winds to change. The good news was, by the time they set sail for Dolphys, a few more women had mellowed on the men from Dolphys and Berne and changed their minds about coming with them. Twelve women and twenty children, half of them daughters, would be adopted into each clan.
They arrived home, victorious and relieved, only to find that a tiny village called Sheba, sitting at the border where wolf met bear, had been terrorized in the dead of night by a raiding party the previous week. Bayr, Dred, and six warriors climbed from the bellies of their boats to the long backs of their horses and headed for Sheba without rest or reprieve, a clean change of clothes and a few days’ rations in their saddlebags.
The people of Sheba had fought back, though two men had died and three were injured in its defense. Four women were dragged from their beds only to struggle free when the raiders had to fight off the whole village. Many of the marauders had escaped into the night, but more had died for their mistake. The dead were clothed in the garb of the clanless, simple tunics and hose with no colors to call attention—or blame—to a clan, but a few of Sheba’s farmers
were unconvinced.
“The tracks we followed the morning after led north at the neck. Toward Berne,” one claimed.
Bayr raised his head, meeting the man’s gaze, waiting for him to continue making his argument.
“Two of the attackers called each other by name—both names of the bear. We captured one, and he admitted his brother was a warrior of Berne, a warrior in the raiding party set to return with you, Lord. He also claimed there were Northmen camped on Berne’s beaches.”
“Where is he now? I’ll make him talk,” Dred growled.
“He is hanging from the village gates,” another man piped up.
Justice was swift in the clans, especially when the whole village bore witness to your crimes. Dred snorted and Bayr nodded, turning toward Berne, unconvinced.
“It was Berne, Chief,” one farmer said, his countenance grim. “These men were from Berne, I have no doubt.”
“Do they not know of the Dolphys?” Daniel interjected, gaping. “Do they not know what will happen to them if they attack his clan? The Bernians think they can defeat the Dolphys?”
Bayr silenced Daniel’s effusion with a wave of his hand, but the farmers nodded, as though they’d considered that.
“They waited until you were gone, Lord. They knew you were in Eastlandia. While you were fighting there, they attacked here,” one farmer reasoned.
“Their warriors beg to raid with us because they know the strength of our chief. Then, while our backs are turned, their brothers steal from us,” Dystel murmured, disgust clinging to every quiet word.
“The same kind of raids are happening in Joran too, though from Ebba. Elbor has lost control of his lands,” Dred said, nodding. “Bands of young men are becoming violent in the villages. Farms are being burned. Instead of worrying about the Hounds of the Hinterlands, Josef of Joran is erecting fortifications on the border with Ebba.”
“Benjie is weak,” Dystel spat. “He has not traded or raided in years. He sits in his keep and lives off his people. His warriors have been seen in Adyar too, small war parties that pick off the outer settlements looking for women and children.”
“Show me w-where those tracks led,” Bayr said quietly.
Bayr and his men followed where the farmers led, winding down into Berne, their mounts draped in Dolphys blue to avoid being accused of the same deception they were attempting to prove. The path they’d taken from Sheba eventually intersected a well-traveled dirt road that forked in three directions. Trees crowded the thoroughfare, creating a canopy that appeared to extend for miles.
“We didn’t go beyond this point, Lord,” a farmer said, patting his old dappled mare. It was a good thing; the horse looked ready to collapse.
“They could have gone in any direction, Chief. Or all three. And a week has passed,” Daniel grumbled.
Bayr sat in his saddle, his gaze trained on the hard-packed earth, puzzling over what should be done. With the thumb of his right hand, he absently traced the shape of the skull—the rune for wisdom—into his palm. He never used blood and never believed Odin answered his prayers, but the exercise calmed him and directed his thoughts.
“I hear bells,” Dred murmured, staring this way and that. “Is it just the madness of an old man?”
Dred had the keenest senses of all the warriors of Dolphys, young and old, and Bayr raised his head, listening. It was faint, but he heard them too. He waited and the sound grew, becoming a cacophony of clanks and jingles coming from the north fork. The way was obscured by the curvature of the road and the boughs of the trees, but before long, a traveler came into view.
A portly peddler approached, his wares hanging from his clothes and the sides of his mule, his clatter scaring the birds and spooking the horses. He didn’t seem alarmed by the sullen warriors in his path and drew to a stop with a rattle and a clink.
“Hellooooo,” he called. “Fine day, men of Dolphys. Fine day. I am Bozl of Berne, hailing from the village of Garbo. I have wonders from the north and marvels from the east. Can I interest you in a bauble for your ladies or a button for your coat?”
“We have no ladies,” Daniel complained.
“You have c-come all the way from Garbo?” Bayr asked, his eyes narrowing on the plump little man.
“I have, sir. I have. Do you know Garbo? It sits right on the sea, and I have gathered all the best treasures from the ships that come to trade. Would you like to see?”
“Are there no customers closer to home?” Dred pressed.
The peddler hesitated. “Of course. But let me show you what I have.”
“Have y-you heard tales of Northmen on Bernian shores?” Bayr asked.
“Aye, Lord. I have,” he said with a nod, his cheeks quivering with the movement. He looked frightened. “I’ve seen them myself. ’Tis why I left.”
They clung to the west border of Berne, where the clan lands met the lands that circled the temple mount fifty miles in every direction, lands that the people simply called Saylok, where herds and farms were run by clanless tenants of the king. To ride on clan lands without permission from the chieftain could be dangerous, and Bayr had never been so far north into Berne. He had no idea what he’d find nor the approach he should take to see for himself if the Northmen had stayed.
Anyone would be able to hear Bozl and his mule coming a mile away, so Bayr purchased the peddler’s entire inventory and saddled the dappled mare and the flabbergasted farmers with enough baubles and buttons to adorn all Saylok. Then he demanded the peddler take them to Garbo. Bozl, stripped of his wares but a good deal richer, had agreed, but by the following day, as they dipped down toward the coast of Berne, he became increasingly nervous.
“We’ve gone far enough, Lord,” he argued. “The Northmen are vicious. They won’t be so easy to kill as a few hungry Bernians. They are all as big as you, Dolphys.”
Bayr had no wish to fight, only to see with his own eyes what Bozl described. Instead of entering the valley of Berne, they skirted the edges, dipping into Adyar before coming out on the highlands that jutted up between the two clans. The heights gave them a view of the sea in front of them, the northern coast of Berne on the right, and the coast of Adyar on their left. They crawled on their bellies up to the overlook, and with spyglasses extended, studied the fishing village below. Long docks extended from shore to sea, but many of the boats clustered there did not have the sails common in Saylok.
“He’s right. They are the long ships of the Northmen. I count ten in total,” Dakin said, grim.
“Why have w-we not heard of this?” Bayr hissed.
“They did not just raid. They stayed,” Bozl explained.
“And no one challenged them?” Dred asked.
“Those that did died,” Bozl rushed to explain. “Those that didn’t want to die or submit moved inland. They left their homes, their boats, their shops, everything . . . as did I.”
“And the Northmen . . . have they m-moved inland?” Bayr asked, still holding the spyglass to his eye.
“Not yet, Lord. There are not many of them. But we fear there will be more.”
“And what of Aidan of Adyar? Surely he knows there are Northmen living on the other side of the highlands,” Bayr asked, incredulous.
“You did not know, Chief,” the peddler said with a shrug, and Bayr could only nod, conceding the point.
“Chief Benjie offered them gold to leave. But they don’t want gold. They want land,” Bozl said. “Some say they want Saylok.”
“We have to tell the king,” Bayr said.
“He knows, Lord,” Bozl countered.
The warriors turned on the unhappy peddler as one, their jaws slack, their gazes blank. Outrage followed on fleet feet, and Dred ground his teeth so hard, Bayr heard a crack.
“King Banruud offered them a Daughter of Freya,” Bozl claimed, morose. “The king of the Northlands wants to see our temple. He is fascinated by the daughters . . . and the keepers.”
Bayr felt a wave of fury so hot, he could not be still. Bozl
rose beside him, as though he thought Bayr did not believe him.
“But they will not leave,” Bozl wailed. “Some say that men and women—families—from the Northlands will heal the scourge. But so far, we’ve only seen warriors. Not women. Not families.”
“The king . . . where is he now?” Bayr asked. If he was near, Bayr would kill him. Then he would kill Benjie of Berne and drive the Northmen out himself.
“There is talk that King Banruud went to the Northlands and met with their king,” Bozl offered. “But I don’t know if he has returned.”
“What do we do, Chief?” Dred ground out. He turned his gaze on his grandson as if he should know. And suddenly Bayr did. It was the only thing he could do.
“I am going to the temple mount.”
Dred frowned in surprise. “To see the king?”
Bayr nodded. To see the king . . . and the keepers. It was time. Benjie would be of no assistance. Benjie had bigger problems than the Clan of the Wolf. If something wasn’t done about the Northmen, Berne would fall. And if Berne fell, Adyar and Dolphys would follow. He could not send Dred to be his voice, not again. If the king would not act, then Bayr would have to appeal to the chieftains still in power in their own lands.
“Tell no one I am g-gone. I just returned, and I put the clan at r-risk every time I leave.”
“I will not let you go alone, Chief,” Dred said, his mouth hard.
“Nor will I,” Dakin grunted. “You need a man on each flank.”
“I need m-men in Dolphys,” Bayr commanded.
“I will follow you if you deny me,” Dred shot back.
“You are a s-stubborn old man,” Bayr sighed. “But we cannot both go. If you are in Dolphys, the p-people will believe I am not far. It is how we’ve always been.”
“And the tournament?” Dred pressed.
Bayr could hardly believe they were talking of such things with invaders on Saylok’s shores. He could hardly believe the tournament would even take place. Still, Bozl’s account indicated that the situation had not worsened in the month since he’d fled. It was a small comfort, but still . . . comfort.