White Stag

by Kara Barbieri

  “Anyway,” Seppo continued, “he wasn’t very happy I was sent instead, but I reminded him that his invitation said he was looking forward to seeing Satu’s clan at the Hunt and I was Satu’s clan. He had no choice but to accept me.”

  “I’m surprised he didn’t kill you,” Soren said. “He’s done more for less.”

  “Well,” Seppo deadpanned, “he really wants to sleep with my mother, and sending my head back on a platter would probably kill any blossoming desire he’s sure she’s hiding.”

  I cringed. “Okay, less talk about Lydian wanting to sleep with your mom, more talk about the plan.” If I heard one more word of this, I was going to throw up—preferably on Seppo.

  “Well, I was taught acting ignorant was a better way of getting information than being the bruiser for the tough guy, so I played that angle. Lydian and a few other men were planning to reach the mountain top and call Skadi while the rest of us waited in ambush. I managed to tag along without them knowing.”

  I grumbled something under my breath. I had to hand it to him—he had guts to spy on not just Lydian, but Skadi, an actual goddess and giantess.

  Seppo glanced around the cave. “So he called her and asked for an exchange; he would provide a favor for her if she did one for him. Lydian asked if there was any way the stag could be killed for good. He started rambling about destruction and betrayals and how something terrible would happen unless he could stop it. Something about a snake eating its own tail or whatever. It really wasn’t very coherent.”

  Soren’s eyebrows furrowed into a deep frown. “Lydian is clearly mad. So why would Skadi tell him anything?”

  Seppo shrugged. “I’m not sure the exact reason. She might have thought he meant to prevent whatever terrible thing he said would happen. But I do know that something was preying on her pack of wolves and she couldn’t defeat it, and she was anguished over it. When the Aesir killed her father and she fell out with Njord, she went back to the mountains and the wolves became her family. She said if Lydian killed the creature, then she would give him the information he sought. He came back with the severed head of the monster, and she gave him information.”

  “Which was?”

  Seppo swallowed, eyes shooting around. “I’m not sure. By the time he got the information, the others found out where I was. I only just managed to convince them I got lost. I’m pretty sure I still have a dislocated rib.”

  Soren’s eyes narrowed. “So, we know what he’s doing, but we don’t know how he’s going to do it? That’s helpful.”

  I scowled. “We’re back to square one.” The moon was a sliver in the night sky. Donnar’s warning came back to me. By new moon it will all be undone. Soren said there was never a hunt that lasted past the new moon. That could have something to do with Lydian, or perhaps it was another way we could stop him. No matter how he was planning to kill the stag for good, there was no denying that if he did, he’d upset the balance of the world.

  Back when Lydian and Soren almost fought in the Erlking’s hall, their power almost brought the mansion down. The stag was all that stood in the way. Just as goblins absorbed the power of the creatures they defeated, the stag absorbed the power of the strong and released it to the weak, keeping some type of balance in effect. It detected when the foundation the world sat on became feeble and ensured that new blood would make it strong again. Like winter after a long summer, it let the old die and made way for the new. If the stag died forever, the power pledged to the new Erlking would be his, unregulated, forever.

  The whole idea was mad. It was insane. Lydian was insane.

  Soren and I shared a mind. “The bastard,” he said. “We need to stop him. But for that, we need to figure out what he’s doing.”

  “Seppo?” I asked. “Why are you doing this?”

  The halfling shrugged. “It seemed like the right thing to do.”

  I stared at him in shock.

  “I know that’s hard to believe,” he said. “But it’s true. It’s not right. And it shouldn’t happen. And we need to stop him from whatever he’s doing.”

  Wordlessly, Soren and I stood. He slung his swords in their holsters, checked that his knife was still in his boot, and slung his quiver and bow across his chest. I adjusted the stiletto on my hip and the bracers on my arms. Deep inside the leather, the nail was burning.

  “You need to dispose of that soon,” Soren said, looking at the bracer. Could he smell the burning? I could. “I know why you have it, but it’s not worth it now. You don’t need iron to gauge how human you are. You’re as human as you want to be.”

  My gaze hardened. “I need to keep it. I just need to.” I couldn’t take the time to explain to him the tugging in my gut that told me the nail had yet to fulfill its purpose. Maybe it was just in my head. Maybe I couldn’t get rid of it because it was the last thing with ties to my old life. Either way, I couldn’t let it go.

  We gathered outside the cave, the harsh wind whipping us with ice and dust. My hair streamed in the wind until I tucked it under my hood. In his free time while dying from lindworm venom, Soren had rebraided his hair, and it hung loosely to his waist. I scowled. It shone like snow. Mine still smelled of brine and pond scum.

  He caught me glaring and smirked. “You’re cute when you’re jealous.”

  “Go eat your young.”

  Seppo snickered. “Any young of his are coming from you.”

  I made a scene of looking down the sheer cliffs to the blackened, icy forest below. “Do you have a death wish? Because I will push you off the mountain.”

  The snickering stopped at once. “I believe you.”

  Soren rolled his eyes. “You two, seriously? It’s like a dog bickering with a much tinier dog, and the tinier dog is winning.” He shielded his face from the sun, looking high for a path to lead us out.

  “Your analogy skills need work.” Mountains spread as far as the eye could see; some were just dots on the horizon and others were huge behemoths in our path. The pathway Soren chose soon faded into the rocky randomness of the wilderness. We’d have to climb and lug our way out of the mountain range. It could take days, maybe weeks. We had no food, no water, worn-out clothing, and the weapons on our backs. By the time we got to the ground, Lydian might’ve already won. He wants to use Soren, but he doesn’t need him. Soren met my eyes and offered me a small smile, and his gaze burned with the warmth I was coming to know.

  I narrowed my eyes at the ground, hoping to see the silver line the stag left behind. There was nothing. Just ice and dust and snow.

  “We’re never going to get out of here in time.” I finally spoke the words everyone was afraid to say aloud. “We’ll die out here, if not from hypothermia, then starvation or dehydration.” The artic wind howled as if it was agreeing with me. The tips of my eyelashes were dusted with frost, and despite the leather gloves on my hands, I barely felt my fingers.

  “We need horses or something to ride,” Soren said. “That’s the only way.”

  I looked at Seppo. “I don’t suppose you have three horses up your sleeve, do you?”

  He shook his head. “Afraid not.”

  The howling of wolves echoed in the crystal-cold air. I pulled my half cloak around me. From the corner of my eye, I saw Seppo shiver. If I weren’t freezing myself, I could almost pity him. Out of the three of us, Soren was the only one whose body was made for this weather. But even a full-blooded goblin born and raised in the Higher North would freeze eventually.

  “Well, then,” Soren said, his breath turning to frost. “We’d best keep going. We’re not going to achieve anything by standing here.”

  “We’re not going to get anywhere fast, but better to move, I guess.” Doubt wasn’t the only thing gnawing my hollow stomach. I was sure Soren could hear the growling. The effects of the nectar were now almost gone, and every muscle in my body screamed with fatigue.

  Hopelessly lost in the mountain range, banged and beaten from our time in the caverns, I wouldn’t be surprised if an an
imal tried to pick us off. We were sitting ducks for any goblins in the range too. Every once in a while we came across a frozen body, and each time it reminded me that the longer we were out here, the more likely we would be killed. There was no fast escape and no place to hide if an attack came.

  The mournful howls of wolves filled the nighttime air with song. It was almost as if we spoke the same language. Their song was of loss and grief, pain and fear, tiredness and the ache for revenge.

  Skadi. They killed your family too. The Aesir thought they were better because they were gods and you a giant and they sought to tame you with a man you could never love. But you went and took your revenge. You rule these wilds. You rule all of us. When I was a child, I prayed to her almost constantly, hoping she could help me discover my destiny. Going to the Permafrost stopped that. I’d never been closer to the gods or farther away.

  The wolves sung so mournfully, as if they were still grieving their lost brothers and sisters. An uneasy thought struck me. “Seppo, are you sure Lydian killed whatever was preying on the wolves?”

  “Well,” Seppo said, “considering that he brought back the head of a troll, I would hope so.”

  “You hope so. There could be a potentially dangerous monster lurking in the Permafrost that even an ascended giantess can’t kill?”

  He worried at his lip. “Well, when you put it that way…”

  Something inside me broke, and I started to giggle. It was quiet at first, then grew louder and louder until my sides were heaving in pain from laughter. I doubled over, hitting my knee with my fist. Tears were in my eyes.

  Seppo eyed me like I’d gone mad. “Why is she laughing?”

  Soren’s eyebrows furrowed. “I … don’t know. Do you think she’s still sick?”

  “You—” I choked down another wave of laughter. “We’ve— Since we went to the Erlking’s palace, I was almost killed by Lydian for the second time, got into a fight inside the palace, threw a man over a ledge, killed a goblin at point-blank range, pounded Helka’s corpse into pulp, almost burned my arms off in the Fire Bog, fought and fell off a gods-forsaken mountain, had a shitty dream quest with a svartelf, kissed you, killed a fucking dragon, held my breath for six minutes inside a whirlpool in order to sing a song to a senile nøkken who almost drowned me so I could save your life, found out Lydian might end up destroying the world, and now we might be facing a mystery monster if the thrice-damned wolves don’t get us first!” I started coughing. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d laughed this hard. “How in Hel’s gate am I still standing?”

  Soren frowned, then slowly smiled. The points of his canines gleamed in the cold sun. “Because you’re the tiny dog.”

  “The tiny dog?” I asked as the last waves of laughter left my body.

  “I said Seppo and you fought like a dog and a tinier dog, and the tinier dog was winning. You’re the tiny dog. You’re the most vulnerable of us, but it doesn’t stop you. You could break your arm in three different places, have an eye gouged out and an arrow through your back, and you’d still keep fighting. You’re the tiny dog.”

  Seppo snorted. “Tiny dog, not-so-tiny teeth.”

  The chorus of wolves began again as the sun was sinking in the sky. My body was strangely light, as if all the laughter was weight I’d carried on my shoulders. But the threat of death out here was looming as the sky turned to crimson. Even if Lydian did kill the monster preying on the wolves, the wolves themselves … I froze in place and Seppo smacked into me.

  “Ouch!” He held his nose. “What’s the big idea?”

  “The wolves,” I said. “Skadi’s wolves.”

  “What about them?”

  “We can ride them,” I said. “It’s possible. The Valkyries did it. They can get us out of here.” Like lightning, another idea struck me. “If the monster Lydian killed isn’t the one who preyed on her wolf pack, we could strike a bargain. She could tell us what she told Lydian and lend us wolves to ride in exchange for us killing the monster.”

  “Unless she kills us for being associated with Lydian in the first place,” Seppo said. When I glared, he clarified. “I’m associated with Lydian because I was his ally, you are because you’re my allies.”

  Soren gave us a withering look. “Skadi is fair. Even if Seppo is with us, we might be able to strike a deal. If it means figuring out what Lydian is planning, then I would rather fight what’s out there than go in blind. We handled the lindworms; we can handle this. Besides, those wolves are ungodly fast.”

  I looked up at the snowy peak before us. The rocks poked through the snow as the slope got less and less prominent. Soon, we’d be at the top. I sucked in a breath of air, knowing the elevation was taking a toll on my lungs more than on the others’. We had to find a way. This idea, it had to work.

  “We’ll summon her,” I said, my breath turning to ice in the air before me. “We’ll summon the Mother of Wolves.”

  16

  MOTHER OF WOLVES

  BEFORE WE SUMMONED the Mother of Wolves, we had to lug ourselves another twenty meters up the mountain. For once, I took the lead as the blinding wind whipped my hair against my face.

  “You should’ve let me braid it,” Soren said after my hair got in his face for the ninth time.

  “In what downtime did you ask to braid my hair?” I tried to stick it back underneath my hood but strands kept escaping, and I finally gave up.

  “Well, I tried while you were unconscious after your swim, but you hit me. Hard. I have a bruise.”

  “I told him not to do it,” Seppo said. “I told him that trying to braid the hair of a person undergoing a chemical psychotic spell wasn’t a good idea. Did he listen? No.”

  I smirked. “Where did I bruise him?”

  “Nowhere important.” Soren was trying hard to keep his voice light. A little too hard.

  “Oh, it’s important all right,” Seppo said. I tuned out as the two men began to bicker over what happened when I was unconscious. I was a little disappointed that I missed my own show.

  I spat out a strand of hair. Maybe I should cut it if I live after this.

  If I lived after this and stopped Lydian from carrying out whatever scheme he had up his sleeve. If I lived through seeking the help of a giantess god and whatever task she would request from me. Gods above, if someone told me a few years ago I’d be in this situation, I would’ve laughed. And maybe hit them.

  I walked to the flat bed of rocks and dusty snow that was the peak of the mountains. The crisp air stung my ears and eyes, freezing the moisture inside my nose. The temperature dropped rapidly as I made my way to the center of the peak. Soren and Seppo lingered back near the edge. I turned toward them, eyebrows raised.

  “Problem?”

  “I’d rather not be in blasting range of the goddess I might’ve unintentionally scorned a few days ago,” Seppo deadpanned.

  “Soren?”

  He looked away. “Skadi doesn’t like me very much.”

  “Why?”

  There was a slight rosy tint to his pale face. “I would rather not specify.”

  I sighed. I probably didn’t want to know anyway. “Fine, I’ll do it.”

  I forced myself to sit on the freezing stones. Crossing my legs, I brought out the stiletto Seppo’d given me when we fought the dragons. It was an old weapon. The bronze twisted in the shape of a snake eating its own tail on the hilt, and the blade was the green of a serpent with a line of silver-blue in the middle. Someone had blessed this weapon; the power in it said that much.

  For now, all that mattered was the sacrifice. I bared my right arm and let the sharp edge of the stiletto run across the underside. A thick band of blood rose to the surface, and I angled my arm so the blood would drip onto the ground.

  I closed my eyes and chanted, “Wake, Skadi, Mother of the Mountain. Wake, Skadi, Mother of Wolves. Wake, Skadi, the Huntress, the Avenger, the Mother of the Wilderness. I call to thee. Wake, Skadi!”

  The wind picked up around me, swirling
and piercing through my thick clothes with its freezing chill. The sound grew louder and louder, until the force of the wind became the howling of wolves. I opened my eyes as the goddess materialized from ice and snow, the wind becoming the pure-white strands of her hair.

  She stood seven feet tall, her cold gray eyes narrowed as she gazed down at me. Despite her regal looks, a bow was slung across her back and an axe against her hip. Her silver hair whipped around her like dozens of ribbons in the wind. She swept her gaze beyond me, to Soren, then Seppo. Her eyes darkened as she narrowed her brows.

  “You,” she said. Her voice shook the mountains, the raw power seeping out of her forcing my words from my mouth to the pit of my belly. “You dare show your face here again, mongrel? You dare come back while your tribesmen leave a debt unpaid and my wolves still die?”

  I stood, swallowing. At least now we knew whatever was killing the wolves was still out there. “I summoned you, my lady.” I wasn’t exactly sure how to address a goddess, but I didn’t think adding honorifics would hurt. “It was I who summoned you, who woke you from your sleep. It is I who begs for your aid.”

  The goddess turned her cold, hard gaze to me. Her eyes softened. “You, child. I’ve not heard your voice in a long time.”

  I cast my eyes to the ground. “The will to pray was lost from my own human weakness.”

  She made a sound in the back of her throat. “Not so weak, from where you stand now. I feel the power of the lindworm in you, the power of goblins, and the Permafrost beating in your heart. You have done well. But that does not explain why he is in my sight.” She hissed the last word, rage in her eyes. “He and his cur asked for my wisdom and tricked me. Now my family lays dying, and I can hear their mournful yelps from sunrise to sunset.”

  Seppo fell to his knees, head bent so low it brushed against the earth. “Honorable Skadi, from the bottom of my heart, I apologize. I truly believed the man who deceived you had killed the creature that terrorized your family. I no longer align myself with this deceitful man and come in peace. Out of respect for your dead brethren, I will pay you any favor you wish so long as it doesn’t hurt the ones I love.”