by Remi Black
“And a sorcerer and a wyre pack in pursuit. Twelve wyre, for we’ve killed only one. There’s gobbers as well. That’s odds I don’t like.”
She picked at a claw-torn rent in her skirt. “Sangrior said Lady Bone would not be pleased that the sorcerer used the gobbers. He said they were hers.”
“So they are. She rules everything in this Wilding. Even those who come from outside. Turn in, Orielle. I’ll keep watch for a couple of hours then switch with you.”
“Does so much remain of the night?” With a wide yawn, she stumbled up to do his bidding.
The gobbers had stepped on her blankets. She shook them hard then crawled under the top fold.
Sleep slipped away like water every time she thought she would sink into its blessed blankness. She stared at the flames and denied herself any watching of Grim.
He remained patient with her ignorance and arrogance.
Had the Crygy spelled them both to lose time and memory? She tried to track every second, every breath of that meeting with Lady Bone. She saw no place for a spell to be cast, no memory that seemed lengthened or shortened.
Could the spell be in her meeting with Sangrior, up by the little pool, as dusk deepened to dark. That tinny sound, the hollow feeling—were those clues?
Sleep slipped over her while she puzzled over it.
. ~ . ~ . ~ .
Constant alertness exhausted Orielle, much more than the previous day’s constant hiking.
Grim scanned for trouble throughout the day. He remained alert while she lost concentration or looked so intently into the tangled laurels that she stumbled. Her head ached before the sun reached its zenith. It pounded as evening approached.
Deeper into the Wilding, the mountains crowded together, allowing passage with steep trails and switchbacks. Any supplies brought to the Haven would have to be packed in, not brought by wagon. An hour’s climb barely halved their ascent. They rode double only when the trail didn’t sharply incline. In the morning, Grim let her ride while he walked, but by afternoon her sense of fair play demanded she walk in her turn. With the trail clearly marked, he put her in front. She thought it courtesy to help her avoid horse droppings until she figured out that he didn’t expect her to notice if anyone crept up behind them.
They encountered nothing that night.
Nothing the next day.
And still nothing the following night. No wyre. No gobbers. No Crygy.
Just a distinct sensation they were watched, a sensation that deepened to a crawling, creeping tension.
“What is it?” she hissed.
He shrugged. He walked with one hand ready to draw his sword, the other with fingers limned with power. “What would you guess?”
She could shrug, too.
Handing back the waterskin, she headed up the trail. Grim walked faster than she did. He’d be on her heels quickly enough.
The day had started with fleecy clouds herded across the sky. Now, slaty clouds heavy with rain obliterated the sun and rode the air currents barely above the trees with their fading colors. Wind gusted from the mountain’s crest, lost to the clouds, with snow creeping down the upper slopes.
Her breath fogged in air colder than first waking. She watched the fog dissipate and looked up at the wispy clouds trailing fingers down the upper slopes. The wight’s wispy fingers had gripped the trunk.
A wind gust tore out of the clouds and ripped through the trees, tearing off leaves and twigs and pelting them.
Orielle flinched then scrunched her eyes and plowed into the palpable Air. Another gust tugged her cloak, cast off her hood, and streamed through her hair, whipping it around until she was blind. She snatched it out of her eyes. Holding it back with one hand, she looked back.
Grim and his horse didn’t follow her.
Her heart jumped into her throat. Thinking she’d taken a wrong turn, fearing something had clawed them off the trail, she headed back.
The wind pushed against her. She stumbled forward. Her out-flung hand was seized—and Grim stood before her, the big chestnut switching its tail at a wind that merely teased.
She clung to his hand. “I lost you!”
His dark brows drew together. “You were only a few feet in front of us.”
“You disappeared!”
His scowl became fierce. “We vanished? Where?”
“Until you touched me.”
He hauled her behind him. When he drew his sword, the Fae scrolling glistened. Extending it before him, he stepped forward. Nothing happened. He walked past the point she’d reached. She trailed close, expecting him to vanish again. He remained visible.
He stopped and poked forward with the sword. Nothing. “How far on the trail did you get?”
“You’re past where I was.”
He turned and visibly jerked. He stared at the reins in his hand. “Orielle.” A quiet voice and a slow cadence of the syllables of her name. “Can you see my horse?”
Half-afraid to look, she swept her gaze along the reins as they passed her and never reached the chestnut.
Although something suspended the reins in the air.
“Touch your fingers to the reins and go back for Ruddy.”
She took a hesitant step.
“You’ll have to let go of me,” Grim reminded.
He was the only human warmth on the mountain. She prised her fingers loose and transferred them to the leather reins. Walking forward slowly, she saw the big horse emerge, the air clearing, misting away like a fog. The horse flicked his ears forward. He snorted when her fingers slid up the reins to his bridle. “He’s here.”
“Say again.”
Grim’s voice was muffled, though he was not more than three steps behind her.
“He’s here,” she repeated, louder, and turned to look. Yes, three steps back. If she hadn’t known him, that scowl would have frightened her. “I still see you.”
“Clearly?”
That was Grim. His mouth moved when he spoke. His dark hair, those storm-grey eyes—but the sword wasn’t in his right hand.
“Come back. Something’s wrong.”
He took a step.
White fog billowed between them. The temperature dropped to icy.
The chestnut shied back, stretching the reins taut.
She heard a shout, muffled by the fog, dying away. Orielle grabbed the reins and pulled, towing them in like a lifeline thrown to a drowning man. The chestnut backed, taking the slack.
Grim shouted again. The reins stuck, not coming toward her, not receding back into the magical trap. She tugged hard. The icy-fanged wind ripped at her exposed skin. Gritting her teeth, she hauled back with her whole weight. “Let him go,” she threw at the fanged wind.
And he stumbled through.
She released the reins and jumped forward, grabbing his leather jack and hauling back, just like the reins. “They nearly had you, they nearly had you.”
He dropped his sword on the rocky trail and grabbed her, hauled her against him, and stopped her gabbling with his mouth. A fierce kiss of fear and need and lust, hunger that woke her own need and lust, passion that obliterated anger and fear.
A shriek pierced. It caterwauled up and up, quenching their need for each other. The sound intensified to pain. Then it stopped, as quickly as his sudden appearance. The icy wind died. The horse shook his head and snorted, unaffected by the shriek.
Grim reached for her—then dropped his hands, shook his head.
And Orielle’s heart flinched.
He reached again, only this time he took her hands. He turned them over. “You’re bleeding.”
Thin lines of red oozed on her skin, across her knuckles. “The wind. It cut like ice.”
One shake of his head stopped her. “That wasn’t wind. We need to get away from here, get your hands cleaned up before infection sets in. We’ll find another trail over the mountain.”
He sheathed his sword, snatched up Ruddy’s reins, then braced an arm behind her to herd her down the trail.
At the first switchback, Grim stacked three rocks, a barrier sign that even she knew. And beyond, as the trail climbed to the switchback, he placed another three plus two more. Danger. Go back.
The icy presence watched them far past the trail marking.
~ 12 ~
He used their water to wash the thin marks “from talons.” Then he sprinkled a greyish powder that soaked up the blood and started the clotting. “Do you have any healing power?”
“A little.”
“Use what you can. This can get infected too easily.”
He turned away and built up the fire as she called up the spells she’d learned when she first decided she would join her brother Saithe at Iscleft.
Grim had led her halfway down the mountain before he took an animal track leading along the mountain’s flank. As the clouds packed the sky, they had climbed through clearings, crossed slopes with dry grasses bent by the steady wind, and maneuvered through tumbled rocks that the heights flung down when ice cleaved giant slabs from the granite. They re-entered forest and wound through straight-trunked trees losing their golden leaves. Descent took them into evergreens. Her thighs complaining of the climbs and her knees complaining of descents, Orielle trailed behind the Rho.
Then the mountain’s slope gentled and widened, a natural bowl with an ancient spillover of earth still gashed and furrowed. Autumn-changing trees grew around the perimeter while wildflowers bloomed in the warmer center.
He had stomped down the wildflowers and grasses until he had a circle for a firepit. Ruddy grazed the dry grasses and nipped the last sweet flowers. With no task given her, Orielle watched the clouds sailing overhead, slaty grey becoming deepening purple, while Grim started the fire then fetched a waterskin to wash her oozing cuts.
Talons. A specific word. What magical creature had set a trap, tore at her hands as she towed Grim free, then shrieked its disappointment at their escape? Did he know? He had to, for he had warned her about infection.
He came back and inspected her healing. Then he touched beneath her eyes and studied them. “A little red.”
“So are yours. From walking into the wind?”
He started up, off for another camp chore.
She grabbed his shirt sleeve. “What was that?”
“Ice Huldra.”
Huldra. She’d scanned that entry in Creatures of the Hinterland. A lovely woman who showed herself only when she was ready to kill the man she had lured into her trap. Her tutor had laughed and called the entry proof of a lonely monk’s wishful fantasy. The Enclave needed to send its tutors to the Wilding, to have their eyes opened the way hers now were. They might not survive, though. They would need a Rho guide.
“I saw no sign of a trap. No spell markings. I looked!”
“As did I. Nothing but the vanishing. If we had continued, we would have walked into her cave and never known until she cleaved us open to feed on our warm blood.”
She shuddered. “She nearly caught you.”
“Nearly caught both of us. You walked into her trap with me totally unaware. I’ll get more wood for the fire, then you can set the camp wards.”
Will he not mention that kiss?
He didn’t, not when she came back from setting the last ward wrapped around the chaos sigil, not when he let her finish the tea, not when he told her that he’d take second watch. Yet he stayed close through all that, and he kept touching her, her loosened hair “like spun gold in the firelight” and her hands “to see if any infection has started” and her cheek “to see if your eyes are still red.”
. ~ . ~ . ~ .
The Crygy came, a marble knight on a bone-white steed, more knights and dames behind him, slowly riding a circle behind her wards, until they encircled the camp except for the broken earth at the bowl’s spill-over.
Awake this time, Orielle stood and turned, keeping the lead rider to her fore. Lady Bone did not lead them, nor did she join them.
Sangrior didn’t lead them. This knight had a leaner face, a longer chin and sharper nose, prominent cheekbones that angled his face like Lady Bone’s. Orielle had focused on the leashed wight and not the knight that held the leash, consort with Sangrior to Lady Bone.
Although she didn’t want to wake Grim, her panic increased when the riders stopped circling and advanced their horses to the rim of the wards. Ruddy turned as she did. The horse bared his long teeth, but he didn’t charge. He stood his ground, head tossing, ground-tied reins flipping around.
The riders didn’t cross the wards. Only the lead knight did, edging his horse across the magical line. She felt a sharp pang through the magic. And his horse shied, a slow dance sideways curbed by steely spurs.
If he felt that sharp pang, he didn’t reveal it.
Once across the wards, he dismounted. He dropped his reins. The horse’s head came up, nose lifted, neck arched. Then the silvery tail flicked. The right forehoof stomped the grassy ground.
Ruddy responded, stomping his own held ground. His long jug-head shook, as if driving away biting insects.
When the knight approached, long strides crossing the wind-waved grass, Orielle curtsied, staying dipped until he stopped two ells from her.
She rose smoothly, grateful for that court lesson. “Sir Knight.” Into her mouth eased the name Volk.
He didn’t offer the same courtesy. “Lady Aiwaz Solsken.”
She expected him to announce his mission, but he said nothing more. Glancing at the waiting riders, she heard more names echo. Khristofin. Alledyne. Saircuista. Wythe. Laroise. She tried to mask her expression, but her lashes flickered at each naming.
How do I know this?
And she recalled Sangrior’s `ware attack!
Courtesy had served before. “I welcome you, Sir Knight. I would offer bread and salt, but our supplies will not stretch to include your escort.”
The black eyes seemed to glint with firelight. “You will reach the Haven tomorrow by sun’s zenith. Will you welcome us there, Lady?”
“I will not refuse a visit from a Crygy knight. The Rhoghieri of Iscleft Haven may be surprised and thus refuse your entry.”
His humorless smile revealed bone-white teeth, sharply pointed, again like Lady Bone’s. This was indeed the leash knight. Volk. “The Haven exists at the Lady’s will. Should we choose to ride to the heart of their circle and feast on blood and flesh, they have no right to stop us.”
That answer sounded like Lady Bone. Blood and flesh sounded evil, but she shifted it to the half-cooked meat her brothers preferred rather than the charred meat that her mother liked. Her lack of disgust caused his eyelids to flicker.
She reckoned this Volk was more a mouthpiece for Lady Bone than Sangrior. She wanted to ask about the sword knight, but she dared not. “Lady Bone herself may come to my hearth and be welcome.”
“Would you feed her, Lady Aiwaz Solsken?”
He laughed, and the riders laughed with him, mockery rather than amusement, and Orielle knew that his word feed was not her use of it. She heard the big chestnut snorting, stomping, off to her left, but she didn’t look away from Volk. When the laughter ebbed, she aimed a dart, not certain it would strike true. “I thought the Lady intended me to feed the Ice Huldra who waited on the mountaintop.”
Mockery vanished. Once more, he became cold marble. “A mistake, not intended by the Lady. The Huldra has learned that only the Lady herself may touch you.”
The Lady’s touch held danger, life-stilling that it was. Yet her claim would keep other predatory creatures away. Orielle curtsied, accepting the unintended honor. “My thanks to the Lady for her watch-guard.”
For a long second his brow constricted. He must want to correct her deliberate misunderstanding, but he did not. Doing so might unveil Lady Skuld’s true intent.
And Orielle had her own quandary, wanting to ask about Sangrior but not wanting to give him a question to turn into a debt to him. “The Rho and I—we thank the Lady also, for allowing Sir Sangrior to come to our aid last
evening. The ensorcelled gobbers overwhelmed our campsite. His aid—.” She stopped, seeing more treacherous debt in gratitude. “We did not wish to harm any gobber, for we know all creatures of the Wilding are under the Lady’s shield. Yet sorcery clearly influenced these.”
There. She’d drawn a strong line. Lady Skuld could not equivocate now. Sorcery was at work in the Wilding. Either she allied to it or drove it out; the Crygy lady could not ignore it.
“Do not try to be clever, Not-Wizard. The Lady has great power. She uses it when she chooses.”
“She is the Chooser.”
A spate of harsh language came from a rider. Volk cut it off with his hand’s quick down-thrust. “You offend my fellow knight.”
“The Rho claims my education is much at fault. I understood that another name for the great Crygy was the Chooser.”
“She offers the choice, Lady. You choose.”
“As Sangrior chose to help us. But his was the wrong choice. I heard the thunder of the Lady’s displeasure.”
“Your education may be weak, but your understanding is strong. He did choose, to ride with the Lady. And now to help you when she did not offer that as a choice for him. You may call upon her; only at her bidding should he have come.”
“He said that I reminded him—.” She stopped, too late.
“You remind him of a past he should not cling to, not when he rides as Crygy knight. His devotion is to the Lady. No one past or present can claim an nth of his loyalty. Now he helps you, twice, and gives you his name, a wedge into the heart of the Lady’s riders. He learns his lesson now.”
The hardness of those words flogged her shoulders. “I do not deprive the Lady of her knight. His loyalty remains to her.”
“Yet the wedge remains. With that wedge, you can ride into the heart of the circle. Knowing this wedge exists, the Lady cannot remove it. My fellow knight cannot remove it. Nor can you. Only one thing removes the danger of the wedge.”
Ice shivered over her. “She would have me as a rider. I will not do her much good, Sir Knight.”
“The Lady would have a wizard riding with her.”