Beneath Ceaseless Skies #184

by Ian McHugh

  * * *

  She waited for a moment after knocking, then pushed Hallveig’s door open a crack. “Hallveig?”

  There was a pause, then a croaking reply. “Come in, Freydis.”

  She stepped into the chamber, unsure of what she would find. Hallveig was alone, standing by the window with the shutters thrown wide, looking out at the view of the fjord.

  Freydis moved over to stand beside her. Hallveig’s eyes and nose were reddened. “Styr told me. I’m so sorry.” She meant it, but the words came out stiff.

  Hallveig gave the slightest of nods, as if she were afraid to move her head too far. “I’ll have this creature’s skin.”

  “Styr told me this wolf-woman butchered two leeches as well.”

  Hallveig’s head turned a little towards her, but her eyes did not. “What of them?”

  “One of them was Gudrid.”

  Now the Aetheling’s eyes flickered over to her, just for an instant. “Gudrid? What are you talking about?”

  “They didn’t kill her, Hallveig. They took her, made her one of them.” She had to say it through clamped teeth, otherwise she would have shouted it. They broke the treaty—your father’s treaty. They did what they swore they would not. They made my child into a monster.

  It was an old argument. Hallveig made her side of it wearily. “What would you have me do, Freydis? I’m sorry for your loss, as you are for mine, as I was when Gudrid went missing. I can’t destroy the leeches, nor drive them away.” Her voice strengthened. “But I know how to kill this new demon.”

  Freydis opened her mouth to respond, but Hallveig said, “Leave me to my mourning, Thegn Freydis.”

  Freydis clenched her fists. With an effort, she bowed her head, then retreated from the room.

  * * *

  “Thorfinn,” Freydis said, a second time, before her brother noticed her.

  He grunted. “Styr said you were here.”

  Freydis and Arnora were sitting on one of the benches that lined the walls of the long hall.

  Arnora flung herself at Thorfinn and hid her face against his chest. Thorfinn scooped her up and sat beside Freydis, lifting Arnora to his lap. He stank of horse and stale sweat.

  “You’ve seen Hallveig?” he said.

  “I have,” said Freydis.

  His face was stiff. “How is she?”

  “Wrathful.”

  “This wolf-woman is far gone from here.” Thorfinn stroked his niece’s back, his big hand spanning nearly the width of her slender shoulders. “We’ve coated the heads of our hunting spears with silver. If we find her, and the leech has told the truth, then we’ll kill her. But I fear won’t find her again, and Hallveig won’t rest unless we do.”

  “Thorfinn,” Freydis said, “I have something to show you.”

  * * *

  “It’s Gudrid,” she said.

  Thorfinn paused, his hand halfway out to catch the edge of the pall covering the body. Arnora was tucked under his arm, hadn’t let go of him on the way from the hall.

  He threw back the pall from the ruined remains of his eldest niece. “I’d thought her long since dead.”

  “They turned her,” said Freydis. He heard the edge in her voice, that said she would brook no sympathy. “They broke the treaty, Thorfinn.”

  “So that’s where it got to,” said Styr, reaching out to poke the broken end of the execution post in wonder. “Put it straight through her. Who can do that to a leech?” He realized what he had said. “Damn, sorry.”

  “This wasn’t my child,” said Freydis. “Not anymore.”

  Thorfinn wondered about that. Direly injured, Gudrid had fled home, not back to the leeches’ nest. Something, at least, of the young woman had remained. Enough to know the monster she had become?

  “What if it wasn’t because of the wolf-woman?” Freydis said sharply.

  He frowned at her. “What?”

  “What if it wasn’t because she’s a demon, that she could put the post through Gudrid like this.”

  Arnora whimpered and hid her face. Thorfinn scowled at his sister. “Have a mind for your living daughter, will you?”

  “She tore the other leech to pieces,” said Styr. “And...” With a glance at Arnora, he indicated the stump of the corpse’s missing arm.

  Freydis shook her head. “No. Strength wouldn’t matter. When the leeches first came, Aetheling Hafgrim caught one in daylight.”

  “I was there,” said Thorfinn.

  “Nineteen blows of an axe to take its head off,” Freydis said.

  “And he broke an axe blade doing it,” added Styr, thoughtfully.

  Thorfinn thought he saw a glimmer of where Freydis was going.

  “Wood should have splintered,” she said. “Why didn’t it?”

  They all looked at the broken post. Silver will kill this wolf-woman, Thorfinn thought. Wood. Could it be so simple?

  “A leech will cut easy as a man, once it’s dead,” he said.

  Freydis nodded. “Then there’s only one way to know.”

  When Thorfinn met her gaze, he was disturbed to see the same fever light in her eyes as he had seen in Hallveig’s.

  * * *

  Wood should have splintered. He rapped his knuckles against the stump of the execution post.

  Coal smoke plumed from the greathouse’s chimneys. Smoke rose from the forges down in the town, too. Forging every last scrap of silver from the greathouse and town into heads for spears and arrows. Thorfinn stood watching the sunset while he fretted.

  A soft footfall sounded behind him. “Do not turn.”

  He heard the foreign inflection in the words and froze.

  “You are preparing to hunt me.”

  Thorfinn’s mouth was suddenly dry. Freydis and Arnora were still in the aetheling’s house, and the only weapon he had on his person was his belt knife—good iron, but useless against a demon. “We know what you are,” he said

  “Are you so certain?”

  He half-turned his head. “If I had a silvered blade I’d be done with the task right now.”

  “No,” she said, close behind him. “You would not.”

  A trickle of sweat crawled down between his shoulder blades. What did she mean? Was the leech wrong? Had it lied? “Why have you come back?”

  “I never left,” she said, from a little further away.

  His stomach turned a somersault. Here all day? And Freydis and Arnora in the house...

  “I would prefer no quarrel with the people of this domain,” she said.

  “You’ve made your quarrel already,” he said, his voice thick. “People are dead. The aetheling’s only son is dead.”

  “I am sorry for those. It was not my intent.”

  That brought him up short. “You can’t control the beast.”

  “Sometimes, I cannot.” The regret in her tone sounded real.

  When you smell a virgin man. “Yes or no, the sentence is the same.”

  “I know,” she said. “But if you must hunt me, do so without hate in your hearts.”

  The sun’s disc was halfway past the horizon. The ceorls and maids would be locking down for the night. He had ordered the men to carry silver-headed spears. If only he had heeded his own advice. Keep her talking.

  “Why did you come here?” he said. “Were you fleeing the crimes you committed in your homeland?”

  “I am hunting the upiri,” she said. “The bloodsuckers.”

  The leeches! The hair stood up all over his scalp.

  Now he did turn. She stood a short distance away, halfway down the back side of the hill and hidden from the greathouse’s nearest doors.

  “You laughed, when I left you at the post,” he said, his voice hoarse.

  One corner of her lip rose, a sneer not quite suppressed. “You are like cattle making peace with butchers.”

  The barb struck painfully true. Thorfinn covered the sting with anger. “In Einarsfjord they fought the leeches and were slaughtered.” Fought with iron, he thought. That wo
od should have splintered.

  “Leeches?” She seemed amused by that. Then, “Better to die as men than live like cattle.”

  “Easy words when you’ve no family to protect.” . He opened his mouth again to ask her, Is it wood that kills them?

  But she said, so quietly that he had to strain to hear, “I did have a family. The upiri came through my homeland after they were driven from theirs. They killed my sons, my husband. I found a man who would share his curse with me. I swore to hunt the... leeches wherever they ran.”

  Bootsteps sounded from within the house. She slipped further down behind the hill as Styr appeared in the doorway, a couple of the younger ceorls crowding behind him, all of them with silver-headed spears.

  Thorfinn charged at him, wrenching the spear from his hand. He spun, the weapon leveled.

  The woman was gone.

  * * *

  Thorfinn found Freydis and Hallveig sitting together in the hall, Freydis on a bench and Hallveig on her high-backed chair. Two stacks of arrows were on the table between them, one with iron heads, the other with silver, with a glue pot, twine and bowl of silver heads to one side. Discarded iron heads were scattered on the floor. Arnora was asleep on some furs by the hearth. “Aetheling, may I join you?” said Thorfinn.

  “Of course,” Hallveig said, tersely. “Fetch yourself a stool.”

  Thorfinn kicked one near and sat. He took a deep breath, checked the tremor in his hands, and said, “She was here all day. The wolf-woman. I just spoke to her outside.”

  Hallveig was out of her seat before he had finished. He saw the slap coming an instant before it landed. “She was here? My son’s killer, and you spoke to her? The hauld of my house—our protector—and you spoke to her?”

  “I had no silver weapon. I kept her talking until the ceorls arrived, but she fled.”

  “Coward!” She thrust a silver-headed arrow at his face. The metal reflected orange and red in the lamplight. “Then we should be hunting her.”

  “It’s dark, Aetheling,” said Thorfinn.

  She raised her hand to strike him again.

  “Hallveig,” said Freydis. “If she was here all day, she could’ve slaughtered everyone. But she didn’t.”

  Hallveig lowered her arm. Her breath rasped between clenched teeth.

  “She’s here to hunt the leeches,” Thorfinn said.

  Hallveig’s chin trembled. She flung the arrow at Thorfinn’s chest and sagged where she stood. “Then why did she kill Gunnbjorn?”

  “She can’t control the wolf.” Wolf. That still bothered him. No mere wolf could do what this demon had done. He thought, again, of those claw marks on the walls.

  “Then we’ll hunt her tomorrow, like the rabid cur she is.”

  “This is no ordinary wolf, Aetheling. You saw what she did.”

  Hallveig’s lip curled. “Perhaps your courage isn’t up to this hunt, Hauld.”

  He looked away. “My courage will suffice, Aetheling.”

  “Thorfinn, what more did she say?” asked Freydis.

  He collected his thoughts. “She said that the leeches were driven from their homeland, and driven from her country in turn.”

  She made the leap immediately. “The people there knew how to kill them.”

  “With wood?” said Thorfinn. “Or did they become demons themselves, as this wolf-woman has?”

  “I know you think the treaty is a devil’s bargain, Freydis,” said Hallveig, standing over them. “And it is. But sometimes there’s no better choice.”

  Cattle making peace with butchers, Thorfinn thought.

  “It was the demons we treat with that took my child,” Freydis said. She held up a silver-headed arrow. “Silver for the wolf-woman, iron for a witch. Wood for a leech. What if the price of any dark gift is that it must have a weakness? What if the leeches fled here because we didn’t know?”

  “And it’s only our ignorance that makes us weak,” murmured Thorfinn.

  “Your conversation with the murderess didn’t broach this topic?” said Hallveig, acidly.

  Thorfinn kept his voice level. “The men arrived as I was about to ask it.”

  “We have to find out,” said Freydis.

  “The wolf-woman dies first,” said Hallveig.

  Freydis drew in a deep breath, let it out slowly. Thorfinn could all but see the thoughts buzzing around inside his sister’s head. “Aetheling,” she said, “perhaps it doesn’t have to be a choice.”

  Hallveig frowned. “Explain.”

  “Why did she hide here? She can’t track them. The leeches leave no spoor.”

  “She doesn’t know where the nest is,” said Thorfinn.

  Hallveig looked from one of them to the other. Her lips curled into an ugly smile. “We do.”

  * * *

  In truth, Freydis told herself, the ravine looked no different than any other cleft in the mountains. The pine trees that climbed its steep sides were twisted to orient themselves to the sun, stunted by the sparse soil between the rocks. Their branches plaited together, casting the base of the ravine in deep shadow. There was nothing sinister about it.

  Perhaps it was just the knowledge that the leeches’ nest was in there that cast the place in dread. Her mouth was so dry her lips felt glued together. Her palms, by contrast, were slick on her horse’s reins and the grip of the strung bow laid across her lap.

  Thorfinn reined his horse in beside her and Hallveig. “Let me go, Aetheling.”

  “It must be me,” Hallveig said, as she nudged her mount forward.

  Thorfinn grimaced unhappily, then dragged his horse’s head around. His eyes roved the surrounding forest. “No sign of her,” he muttered.

  “Perhaps she doesn’t trust us,” Freydis replied. It came out as a croak.

  Hallveig raised her voice. “Zsuzsanna! I am Hallveig Hafgrimsdottir, Aetheling of Herjolfsfjord. Zsuzsanna, I would speak with you.”

  “Zsuzsanna?” Freydis repeated.

  Her brother shook his head. This was the aetheling’s secret.

  “Hauld!” barked Styr. “Here they come!”

  It took Freydis a moment to see. The darkness was thickening beneath the trees inside the ravine. It spilled out, separating into shrouded figures, each wrapped in its own cloak of shadows. The men stirred. A couple of horses whinnied nervously. Freydis noticed Thorfinn letting his spear slide down through his grip until the butt rested on his foot. He twisted the silver head between his thumb and forefinger. She hissed at him to stop.

  The foremost leech stopped just short of Hallveig’s horse. The shadows drew back, revealing a girl’s pale, filthy face.

  “I am Zsuzsanna,” the leech said. “My bargain was with Hafgrim Gunnarsson.”

  Freydis stared. How could that be? The leech looked barely older than a child.

  “My father’s dead,” said Hallveig. “I am aetheling.”

  “So be it, Aetheling. State your purpose here.”

  “There’s killer in our domain, a wolf-woman. It has killed my people and yours.” Hallveig’s voice was like flint.

  “The farkasember is known to me,” said the leech.

  “We would hunt it,” said Hallveig. “We have the means to kill it, but our hounds won’t track its scent.”

  “You wish us to find it for you.”

  “It threatens us all.”

  “We are not threatened here.”

  Freydis felt a little thrill. They don’t know. Her plan might work.

  “But we won’t feed you here,” said Hallveig.

  “Then the treaty is broken.”

  Fredyis watched the other leeches, motionless inside their shadow shrouds. Thorfinn loosened his silver spearhead a little more. On her other side, Styr rested his hand casually on his sword hilt. The blade inside the scabbard was wooden, a practice sword hastily bound into a proper crossguard and grip. Freydis thought of the wooden-tipped arrows in the quiver on her back. If the leeches charged, she would barely have time to reach for one.

 
; “We uphold the treaty,” Hallveig said.

  There was the briefest of pauses, then the leech inclined its head. “As you say.” It turned and gestured to its followers. Half a dozen glided forward. “These will assist you.”

  Freydis saw Hallveig’s face as she wheeled her horse, her eyes roaming the trees as Thorfinn’s had. But the aetheling’s expression was eager. Hallveig wanted the wolf-woman to attack now, while she was there to strike her down.

  * * *

  One of the leeches held up a hand. Hallveig copied the gesture as she reined in, the rest of the column bunching up behind. Moving through the forest, the leeches had retained only a faint mist of their shadow shrouds, exposing their tattered skeletal frames. They looked like nothing so much as lepers, Freydis thought. Was it no more than a disease, she wondered?

  The one that turned to speak had wisps of beard along its jaw. Styr grunted behind her. “It’s the same one that came to Gunnbjorn’s chamber.”

  “The farkasember passed this way.” The leech pointed. “It went north-east.”

  “She’s headed up towards Blaserk,” said Thorfinn.

  Freydis could glimpse the bare, bluestone peak between the branches of the pines.

  “She’ll have to pass over the saddle between Blaserk and Knustskjaer,” said Styr. Freydis caught the edge in his voice and understood what he was hinting at: a chance to split the leeches up, get some of them out into the open and away from their fellows.

  We should do it now, she thought, with a thudding heart.

  “Perhaps,” said Hallveig, impatiently. “Lead on.”

  One of the leeches was kneeling on the trail, though, sniffing, most of its fellows gathered around it. The one with the wispy-beard barked a query at them in a language Freydis didn’t know.

  The kneeling one answered over its shoulder, sounding uncertain. The response was followed by a flurry of debate.

  “What’s the matter?” asked Thorfinn.

  Wispy-beard gave another bark, silencing the rest. “Nothing. The trail is clear. Our quarry lies ahead.”

  Thorfinn cast a glance at Freydis. She shook her head slightly, trying to put her thoughts into her expression: Don’t lose courage, now, brother.

  He scowled. She knew very well he hadn’t wanted her to come. Think of your living daughter! he had said. I am! she had spat back at him.