For the first time since he’d met her, Liriel was completely and utterly dumbfounded. Fyodor quickly turned his gaze toward the shore so she could not see the laughter in his eyes. Her befuddlement was comic, in a dark sort of way, but it was also precisely the response he’d hoped to elicit. The shock dulled some of the light in the drow’s wild golden eyes and silenced her caustic tongue. For the moment, at least, Liriel more closely approximated the stoic calm expected of the women of the Northlands.
“We may go ashore,” he said, pointing to a broadly smiling, gesticulating Hrolf.
“Kill me now,” Liriel muttered darkly as she climbed the rail and jumped into the sea. Sloshing ashore, a “respectful” pace behind her friend, she railed silently and bitterly over this new twist in their journey. Taking a secondary role was annoying enough; more disturbing still was the suspicion that this, too, was somehow part of the rune she must form.
These matters filled Liriel’s thoughts so completely that she found she had little difficulty keeping silence that evening—not that any words she might have wished to speak would have been heard in the noise of the celebration.
It seemed the entire village of Ruathym—the island’s largest town—turned out to welcome home the travelers. In the center of the village, surrounded by neat wooden homes and workshops, was a cleared area large enough for all the people to gather. Here, Hrolf told her, the Thing—their court of law—was held, as well as many of their celebrations. Tonight the clearing was bright with bonfires, and the scent of stewed meat and roasted fish filled the air. Raucous laughter competed with loudly told tales as the villagers jostled and thronged about, drinking horns or wooden mugs in hand.
Never had Liriel felt more at odds than in this strange company, and she was grateful for the steady presence of both Hrolf and Fyodor. Among her people she was considered stately—she surpassed the five-foot mark by nearly three inches—but the islanders loomed over her. Almost without exception they were tall and fair, with sky-colored eyes that regarded her with a mixture of hostility and curiosity. Even the women who, unlike drow females, were usually smaller than the males of their race, stood closer to six feet than five. These women might have made fearsome warriors, yet they carried few weapons, and they garbed themselves without any concession to combat practicalities. Long, straight tunics of brightly colored and much-embroidered cloth covered their gowns and hampered their movements. All of the women wore soft fabric boots, crudely fashioned jewelry, and demure expressions. Liriel was not pleased when one of them, a young female with braids of palest yellow gold, approached her. What had she to say to one of these pallid, insipid wenches?
To Liriel’s relief, the fair-haired islander did not address her, but merely fixed a wide-eyed stare upon her that the drow found insulting in its directness.
“Dagmar!” roared Hrolf happily, scooping the girl up into a brief, ebullient embrace. Keeping an arm around her waist, he turned a beaming smile to the watchful drow and her companion and quickly made the introductions. “This winsome lass is kin to me,” he explained, “the daughter of my cousin, Ulf the shaman, and herself soon to be the prettiest bride on the island!”
“Not so, Uncle,” the girl said in a low voice.
Thunderclouds began to gather on Hrolf’s brow. “Don’t you be telling me Thorfinn has taken back his pledge! He took Ygraine’s death hard, I’ll grant him that, but so did we all. You’re Ygraine’s sister, and heir to the prophecy! Thorfinn’s troth and rank are yours by right. By Tempus,” he swore, pounding a fist into his open palm with a resounding smack, “I’ll trounce that young scoundrel within an inch of his worthless life!”
“Thorfinn is dead,” Dagmar said bluntly. Her face was pale but controlled, her blue eyes steady as she regarded the angry Northman. “He was killed as he slept. No one knows who did it, or why.”
Remorse flooded the pirate’s face. “Ah, lass, I’m sorry. I hadn’t heard.”
“There is no reason you should have. We celebrate the Elfmaid’s return. The time to speak of the dead will come later,” she said softly.
Something in her tone brought new concern to Hrolf’s eyes. “You speak as if Thorfinn’s death was but one of many. There has been battle?”
“Would that there had been battle!” the girl said bitterly. “The warriors of Ruathen should die with honor against a worthy foe, not as pawns of the gods!”
“Tell me,” Hrolf insisted gently.
Dagmar took a long, steadying breath. “There have been accidents, strange happenings. Men have drowned—fisherfolk who could swim before ever they took a step: Grimhild, Brand, Drott, Fafnir. Some of our mightiest hunters have been found torn to ribbons by the claws of unknown beasts; our finest trackers go missing. Fishing boats return to shore as driftwood. Children at play simply disappear.”
“Strange indeed,” he muttered, appalled by these revelations.
“There is more. Ancient spirits have returned to the wells and springs; fearful creatures haunt the ruins. Only the most daring youths and maids dare go near the old sites now. There are dark forces at work,” Dagmar concluded somberly, turning her eyes to the drow and her companion. Then, unexpectedly, her grim face broke into a smile. “It is good that you have come, Fyodor of Rashemen. Dark times make for great deeds, and we of Ruathym gladly welcome such a warrior to our midst. Be at home for as long as you choose to tarry.”
Her words had the ring of ritual; formal, too, was the demure kiss she bestowed on Fyodor’s cheek. The young warrior accepted her tribute with a nod, and returned her clear, candid gaze—so like his own—as he placed one hand on the hilt of his dark sword.
“I am pledged to protect my homeland. Your troubles are now mine; for as long as I walk this land, Ruathym will be as home to me,” he promised.
“Is it just my imagination, or have we fallen into a large vat of honey?” Liriel inquired icily. “For cloying sweetness, this moment lacks only tremulous viols and a shower of flower petals!”
Dagmar stared at the drow with amazement, much as a child might regard some curious, mythical beast who had inexplicably broken into song. “The dock-alfar talks!” she blurted out with artless delight.
“Aye, that she does,” Hrolf said with a chuckle. “And I’ve a fair idea what she might say next! Come along, lass,” he said, wrapping an arm around the astounded drow and steering her firmly away from incipient mayhem.
Dagmar watched them go, her blue eyes frank and curious. “I never thought to see a dock-alfar—a dark elf—on this island. Indeed, I had thought them to be only legends. How strange she is, and how very small! Yet she speaks the Common tongue nearly as well as a real person. She is your thrall?”
“No,” Fyodor said, a wry smile lifting his lips at the very idea. “Liriel is slave to no one. She is as free as a wild mountain cat and not nearly so tame!”
“Your concubine then,” the young woman concluded in a matter-of-fact tone. “Well, that is the way of men. But a warrior must also have sons. Have you a proper wife in Rashemen?”
Fyodor merely shook his head, for he was speechless in the face of the Ruathen girl’s blunt inquisition. And yet, he realized suddenly, Dagmar was not so very different from the maids of Rashemen. He’d merely become accustomed to the contradictions and complexities of his drow companion. Dagmar’s direct manner was as bracingly familiar as a drink from a cold mountain stream.
“No wife. Well, perhaps you will take a woman of the north back to Rashemen,” Dagmar continued, smiling artlessly. “And if not, at least you will enjoy your stay while it lasts! There are many youths and maidens in the village, and much merriment and adventure even in these troubled days. Some of us,” she added, dropping her voice to a whisper, “leave for Inthar with tomorrow’s dawn, to seek answers to the trouble that besets the island. Will you come? Bring the dock-alfar, if you like—I will see that none of the others object.”
The Rashemi considered the invitation. The ruined keep known as Inthar had featured largely in Ol
vir’s shipboard stories. An ancient stronghold shrouded with magic and mystery, it might well be the place for him and Liriel to begin their quest. Fyodor accepted the invitation. Before he could ask Dagmar for more detail about the expedition, the call of hunting horns cut through the din of the crowds.
Instantly the villagers stopped their merriment and made their way in silence to the central bonfire. They ringed the leaping fire and sat cross-legged on the ground in a well-ordered circle. The groupings were apparently based upon clans, for Dagmar led him over to the place where Hrolf and another man enough like him to be his twin sat with an assortment of fair-haired women and children. Beside Hrolf sat Liriel, her face as composed as that of an obsidian statue, but her eyes burning with a heat rivaling that of the central fire. The drow, Fyodor noted with a touch of foreboding, was not enjoying her first night on Ruathym.
In truth, Fyodor’s observation was only partially correct. Ruathym and its customs were utterly foreign to Liriel, but that very strangeness whetted her curiosity. At the moment, she was focused entirely upon the scene unfolding in the middle of the clearing.
Before the bonfire stood the largest warrior Liriel had ever seen. The drow shaded her sensitive eyes with one hand as she studied the man. Nearly seven feet tall he was, in late midlife but still in prime strength. His lined face and knotted muscles reminded Liriel of a weathered oak. His fair hair had faded to gray, but his eyes were bright and blue and proud. Liriel was accustomed to the smooth perfection of drow beauty, but she sensed the history in that face—challenges met, battles won, character tested and tried until it was as strong and steady as the oak he resembled. Liriel knew instinctively that this man was an important leader among his people, even before he lifted his voice to speak.
“I am Aumark Lithyl, First Axe of all Ruathym. Let any who would challenge step forward.”
The words seemed to be a formality, for none of the younger warriors so much as blinked. In Menzoberranzan, status-conscious soldiers would have cheerfully slain their brothers and climbed over the still-warm bodies for such an opportunity. Liriel studied Aumark Lithyl as he spoke, trying to understand what there was about the man that could inspire such unnatural loyalty.
But the leader spoke only a few words before yielding the floor to the village skald, a white-haired gnome of a man who declaimed songs about Ruathen heroes of recent and ancient times. The scald, in turn, called upon Hrolf to share news of the wider world.
To Liriel’s way of thinking, Hrolf was fully the equal of any storyteller she knew. Even though she had lived through the events he described, she listened, entranced, as the captain told the story of the Elfmaid’s trip—the battles they had seen, their unusual escapes, the treasures they brought to the island through trade and thievery. There was a glow of pride about the captain as he described Liriel’s contributions to the adventure, and although the drow noted that the villagers shifted uneasily as Hrolf described her feats of magic, the looks they cast over her changed from grim curiosity to wondering awe. It was, in her opinion, a vast improvement.
When at last Hrolf paused for breath, he called upon Fyodor. The young warrior rose, completely at ease before the large crowd as he began to speak of his own quest. He spoke of Rashemen, of the Time of Troubles when long-dead heroes and ancient gods walked the lands—a terrible time when magic went awry and the people were tormented by horrendous nightmares. Then came the Tuigan invasion and the devastation of his land. He told of his own part in the war, his growing acclaim in battle, and the ever-increasing strength of his battle frenzies. Candidly, he described the need to control his berserker rages and his hope that the Windwalker amulet, and the drow spellcaster who carried it, might restore him to himself, and to his homeland.
This, also, seemed to raise Liriel in the estimation of the Ruathen, for many nodded with pride and approval as Fyodor spoke of the drow’s efforts to learn their ancient lore, and of the rune quest that had led them both to this place.
The fire had burned down to glowing embers by the time Fyodor’s tale came to a close. At a signal from Aumark, the people slipped quietly away from the gathering to their own cottages, many of them carrying sleeping children. Hrolf’s cousin, whose stern expression seemed out of place on a face so like that of the jovial captain, rose and stalked from the clearing without so much as a word to the pirate. Dagmar expressed a wish to linger, but her father spoke a few sharp words in a language Liriel could not understand. The Ruathen girl’s jaw set with displeasure, but she nonetheless rose and obediently followed her sire, leaving Hrolf alone with Liriel and Fyodor. For the first time since setting foot on Ruathym, the drow had a chance to speak her mind.
“Well, what’s to come of all this?” she demanded.
Hrolf grimaced and shrugged. “You’re here, lass, and so far no one’s taken it upon themselves to run you back into the sea. That’s more progress than you’ll know! And the lad’s words helped. But my kinsman Ulf—good-looking lad, but stubborn as a snail—didn’t take to the idea of teaching rune magic to an elf woman.”
This news was not unexpected, but it was nonetheless disheartening. Liriel’s shoulders slumped, and she hissed a drow curse from between clenched teeth.
“Now, don’t you be fretting,” Hrolf admonished her. “Ulf will come around! He’s a good lad and not one to be following the thinking of other men. Give him time to make up his mind about you.”
“And until then?” she inquired bitterly.
“Let me see,” the captain mused, stroking his beard in a parody of thoughtfulness. “You must’ve gone clean through those books of yours during the trip. Might it be that you’re wanting more?” he asked slyly.
The drow’s eyes lit up, and Hrolf grinned. “Then tomorrow I’ll take you to the Green Room. We’ve a fine library, filled with books and scrolls from all over. Don’t rightly know what’s in it, myself, but you’re welcome to root around.”
“I had not heard Ruathym to be a place for scholars,” Fyodor observed.
The pirate shrugged. “Didn’t set out to be that, but you never know what treasures you might find when boarding a ship or raiding a keep. To most folk here, the Green Room is just another kind of treasure heap. Valuable as gems those books might be, but they’re of no practical use to us simple sailors and fisherfolk.”
“Can you wait until later in the day to explore this treasure?” Fyodor asked the drow. “We have been asked to go with some young folk to Inthar come morning. I think we should go.”
“Bad business, that,” Hrolf cautioned. “Best to keep away from those ruins.”
“Are my ears failing me, or did an old woman’s words come from the lips of Hrolf the Unruly?” inquired a new and jovial voice behind them.
The three friends turned to face the newcomer. The man approaching them had thick braids of pale ash brown, and a bluff and cheerful face marked by keen gray eyes and a well-tended short beard. He was taller than Fyodor by a handspan and had the same stocky, thick-muscled frame. He was dressed in leathers and armed as if for battle. A broadsword was strapped to his back, and a well-loaded weapons belt encircled his waist and crossed in an X over his massive chest. A one-handed battle-axe hung on one hip, and a large iron hammer—tipped with a broad, flat disk of mithril on one side and a wicked, spiked claw on the other—bounced on the opposite side.
“Wedigar!” roared Hrolf in welcome, extending both hands to clasp the man’s wrist in a warrior’s greeting. “It’s glad I am to see you again, lad. What brings you to the village?”
The man’s bearded face turned sober. “You know that Thorfinn was killed,” he began.
“Aye, Dagmar told me. A great loss.”
“More loss than you know,” Wedigar said grimly. “He was to have been First Axe of Holgerstead after me.”
Hrolf’s brows rose. “Is that so? I knew Thorfinn as a fine fighter, but I hadn’t heard he’d joined the ranks of the hamfariggen—the shapestrong,” he translated for the benefit of Liriel and Fyodor. “Ho
lgerstead is a village to the north. Our berserkers live and train there. The mightiest among them can take on the form of beasts during a battle rage. A sight to behold, that is, though not so common now as in olden times.”
“Thorfinn was the last, after me,” Wedigar agreed somberly. “There are no more hamfariggen upon Ruathym, and therefore no one to lead when I have gone to the halls of Tempus. The old women who read omens believe the shaman’s daughter is, of all our women, most likely to bear shapestrong sons. Since Thorfinn is dead, I came to the village to court his pledged bride.”
“You don’t sound very happy about it,” Liriel observed with more pleasure than the situation truly demanded.
“I have a wife,” the man said shortly. “She has borne me only daughters, but I am content. There can be no peace with two women in one house.”
“Precious little of that with just one woman,” Hrolf agreed with a grin.
“What of you, Fyodor of Rashemen?” inquired Wedigar, clearly eager to change the subject. “Are your people also hamfariggen?”
“No, and may the ancient gods be praised,” Fyodor said with such fervor in his voice and horror on his face that Wedigar fell back a step and regarded the young man with puzzlement.
Afraid he had insulted the ruler of Holgerstead, Fyodor hastened to explain. “You have heard me say that the rituals of Rashemen no longer control my battle frenzy. I would not like to think I could become a beast against my will, like some wolf-bitten man at the coming of the full moon!”
Wedigar considered this. “Since the shapeshifting gift is not of Ruathym, it has no part of the magic that rages within you. But it might be that you could learn our rituals. You would then have a berserker power you could control.”
“A good idea,” Liriel agreed promptly, but Fyodor looked unconvinced.
“Think on it, and we will speak of these things again another time. But come, lad. Let’s test your strength and skill,” Wedigar invited with a good-natured smile as he drew his sword.
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