The Fylking: Outpost and The Wolf Lords

by F. T. McKinstry

  Normally a guildsman wouldn’t waste his reputation acknowledging a patron. Better to look intimidating. But Othin was not any patron. Seven suns past, in the winter, he caught a bat taking advantage of his position by raping one of the women here. Othin called upon his friends in the guard, hauled the man into the street and had the rogue drawn and quartered, his remains hauled off for chum. The Night Guild rarely transgressed their vows; they answered to the king. For this reason, to avoid dishonor, they didn’t report Othin for the deed. This and news of the guildsman’s fate spreading through the realm ensured such transgressions didn’t happen again.

  No sense letting one fool spoil things for everyone.

  Othin passed Stony with a curt nod and entered the house, ducking his head to clear the low frame. He drew a deep breath of cooking food, washing soap and incense. Music from a wooden flute came from upstairs. Othin smiled. Magreda. She was still here. Playing the flute was one of many creative things she could do with her mouth.

  He turned as a girl of roughly twelve summers bounced out of the kitchen door on one side of the foyer, wiping her hands on a towel. As she was too young to service men, Othin guessed her to be Kidge’s daughter. She was a little girl the last time he saw her.

  She looked him up and down and then curtsied. “Ranger.”

  “Milady,” Othin said politely. “Is Kidge here?”

  The girl nodded and disappeared down the hall. “Mum!” she called out. “Guest!”

  “Already?” came Kidge’s booming reply. Othin removed his cloak, bow and quiver and hung them on the deer antlers mounted on the wall as hooks. As he turned, a large woman entered the foyer. When she saw him, her mouth fell open. “Why I’ll be…” She stomped forward and threw her arms around him like a bear. She smelled of beeswax.

  Othin returned her embrace. “Hail, girl.”

  She held him at arm’s length and let her gaze move over him. “La! Wherever have you been? Magreda!” she cried up over her shoulder, her voice echoing through the house. The flute playing stopped. Footsteps sounded on the floor above.

  Kidge took Othin’s hand and drew him into the common room. Two women in soft woolen smocks of gray and green lounged in chairs near the front window. One was pale as cream with freckles on her nose and long flaxen braids; and the other dark skinned, curvy and beautiful as twilight. They smiled prettily. A lean male lover stood near the hearth in snug brown leggings and a white shirt opened at the chest. His blond curls glimmered in the firelight. He leaned against the mantel with a cavalier smile, his brow raised. An orange-striped cat lay near his feet, cleaning itself. Most cathouses kept cats, a tradition that began around a century ago. Some kept many. The Mermaid in Grayfen had nine.

  “Othin,” Kidge said, taking his hand. “May I present Reidi and Abalu”—she nodded to the two women—“and Gottfrid.” She nodded to the man. “This, my loves, is Othin. He’s a King’s Ranger. Used to be a regular here.”

  Othin touched his fingers to his forehead as they greeted him.

  “Is Elkie still here?” he asked, recalling another favorite, a strong, lean Eastlander who loved horses.

  “No, she married and moved on,” Kidge replied.

  “Found her a widower,” Reidi said, twirling a braid on her finger. “A farrier from the hills above town.”

  Someone came down the stairs on the far side of the room. A tall woman with brown curly hair and the eyes of a barred owl hopped off the last step. She wore a loose-fitting dress tied over her curves with cords of flowery colors. When she saw Othin, she stopped in her doeskin boots with her hands over her mouth. Then she ran into his arms, knocking him back a step as she plowed into him.

  “War God!” she squeaked with a laugh. The girls here had picked up the nickname from Bren some time ago. Othin held her close, inhaling her patchouli-scented hair. She withdrew, her grin fading as her gaze settled on his throat. Her mood fled into some watery, invisible place as she stared, and then returned to the light like a swan blasting up from a lake. She shoved him in the chest. “You smell like a goat!”

  Kidge released a crow-laugh. “Well, of course he does. And as hungry too, I’ll wager.” She went into the foyer and leaned into the kitchen. “Althea! Prepare a bath and some supper for our guest.” To Magreda she said, “Give her a hand.” Magreda winked at Othin and sauntered into the kitchen with a fascinating sway in her hips.

  Kidge punched him in the arm to get his attention. “In with ye, now.” Othin smiled and moved into the hallway that went to the back of the house. A torrent of birdsong laughter came from the women in the common room. Water splashed in the kitchen. Somewhere in the house, a cat yowled.

  It’s good to be back, the ranger thought.

  ~ * ~

  Later that night, Othin stood near an upstairs window, bare to the waist, his lust drained like a jug of fine wine. Magreda lay tangled in the blankets, asleep. The briny scent of her sex, mingled with patchouli, filled the room. A candle burning inside a hanging brass ornament carved with stars cast patterns of faint golden lights over the low beamed ceiling, hangings on the walls and hides on the floor.

  The ranger gazed past the curtain edge at the whitebeam grove and the street beyond. It was quiet but for several men in worn attire lumbering along as if drunk. Dim light wavered from a cresset on a tavern down the street. Two dark figures of the Night Guild moved from shadow to shadow, glancing at the house and talking together in unheard tones. It was the third time that evening Othin spotted them pass, each time a different pair. He leaned aside to see a third guildsman standing in the grove near the curve of the street. No doubt familiar with the layout of the Rose, and Othin’s preferences there, the bat had moved his position to the opposite side across from Magreda’s room. Anticipating this maneuver, Othin had asked Magreda to swap rooms with one of the other girls for the night.

  A man on the road gestured; the man in the woods returned it. Probably routine, though Othin couldn’t recall the Guild ever stationing more than two men at a cathouse on any given night. He recalled Stony’s veiled reaction upon his arrival. Othin had not made friends here by executing one of their brothers in the street. Aside from the brutality of that, it had given other rangers and guardsmen the idea that they too might operate outside the law. As a result, the Night Guild had grown cagey and attentive to their own. They might be spreading word of his presence.

  “Are you on watch?” Magreda asked with a yawn.

  Othin moved away from the window. She knew he was on watch. He was always on watch. “Are the bats usually so edgy around this house, or are they just glad to see me?”

  She rolled over. “Not as glad as I am. Come back to bed.”

  Voices sounded downstairs. Othin walked to the door, eased it open and listened. Magreda started to speak; he silenced her with a quick gesture. A man downstairs spoke too low to hear. Another answered him. Not unusual here at night, and Stony would be onto anything untoward. He was known to come in late and doze by the fire like a hound. The girls swore he could hear a leaf fall in his sleep.

  Othin’s nerves were not comforted by the obvious. The guildsmen were acting stranger than his arrival deserved. At the root these men were mercenaries, seasoned blades accustomed to dealing with the worst things humanity had to offer, lust-driven violence being but one. Such men wouldn’t overreact to his being here even if they were plotting vengeance. That would be a show of weakness.

  “What’s happening?” Magreda whispered.

  The ranger closed the door and moved back to the bed, where he sat and ran his fingers through his hair. “Probably nothing.” He glanced over his shoulder and smiled. “I’ve been on the road too long.”

  She crept up and put her arms around him. Othin closed his eyes and let her soothe him. She brushed her fingers over the crow charm at his throat without touching it. “Where did you get this?”

  Othin looked down and raised his hand to Millie’s work. “My woman gave it to me.”

  A pause. “Is
she a witch?”

  My wild woman of the north, he thought, his heart darkening as he thought of Millie up there in the woods of Graebrok waiting for him. Before leaving Merhafr, he asked the two rangers Halstaeg had assigned to Ason Tae in Othin’s place if they would deliver Millie a message. New to the brotherhood, the men were surly and Othin was left doubting their reliability. He had spent long nights on the road contemplating how he would initiate them into the finer and more violent aspects of the brotherhood if they failed to do him this simple turn.

  “I don’t think she’s a witch,” he said finally.

  Deep down, the words weakened in him. The villagers in Ason Tae all knew Millie, and no one spoke ill of her save those who knew what they all knew and were not wise enough to keep it. She had given him the crow with a smile and a flush in her cheek. She had tied it around his neck and said, For my Trickster, a nickname she often called him in reference to the nature of his namesake god.

  Othin took Magreda’s hand and turned around. “Why do you say this?”

  That watery, distant look again. Kidge had once said something about Magreda’s lineage, hinting she had some kind of foreign magic in her veins. Othin had assumed she was joking, but this wasn’t the only time he had thought of it. Like Bren, Magreda had a way about her. Unlike Bren, however, whose weird comments and senses for things felt like birds and heat lightning, Magreda was more like the sea, the night and dark places in the earth where things lived that no one knew the names of.

  Her dark gaze rested on the crow. “She must love you.”

  The comment startled him. Millie was too wild for love, unless the shining sun or a blooming flower could be called love. The loyalty of a stray cat. “Magreda,” he said, lifting her chin to look at him. “What are you talking about?”

  “Haven’t you felt it? Things happening around you that you can’t explain?”

  Othin shrugged. “I don’t think so.” He had fallen from horses, taken arrow and knife wounds, been beaten in fights, lost his way in snowstorms, dealt with conniving women and, above all, had his patrol changed to these accursed shores. Millie’s gift was just a token of affection. It didn’t protect him from the throes of life.

  Magreda said something in another language. Then she smiled and placed her hand on his face with the care of a mother. “That charm is connected to everything. But it is still.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The crow flies, and is still.” She smiled, but only she understood the meaning of what she said. She leaned up and caressed his lips with hers, tangling her fingers in the laces of his breeches to loosen them. Then she drew him down, bringing his stiffening cock and his questions with her.

  Othin had kicked his breeches to the floor and wrapped himself in Magreda’s damp flowery madness when the voices reached him again. This time Kidge’s voice was unmistakable, as she had raised it loud enough for all but a passed-out drunk to hear. Magreda caught her breath and pressed her hands against his shoulders. Othin cursed the gods as he disentangled himself from her scented limbs and rolled off the bed. He yanked on his breeches and undershirt and moved again to the door.

  “I will not!” Kidge growled from the common room below.

  “I want a woman,” a man said in a strange voice, foreign, almost ghostly.

  “I told you. We’re full up.”

  Footsteps. A door slammed.

  Othin’s gut prickled. He had seen only one other patron, a middle-aged fishmonger who kept to himself. Kidge was not one to turn patrons away without good reason. He returned to the room and began to don his leathers straps and buckles with the practiced efficiency of a soldier at war.

  “What’s happening?” Magreda said, more urgently this time.

  He pulled on his boots. “Trouble. Do you still have that knife I gave you?”

  She nodded. “Stony helps me stay in practice.”

  “Good.” Othin threw his sword strap over his shoulder. Magreda learned to fight in the port city of Tahslen and could probably best half the men in the Guild, were she of a mind. “Warn the others and stay quiet until I return.” He reached up and snuffed the candle in his fingers and then slipped from the room.

  He drew his sword and crept down the hall. Some of the others were stirring already. Where was Stony—or the six bats who had been watching this house all day? He circled the landing and drifted down the stairs, slowing in caution as he neared the opening to the common room. Someone had a lit a lamp. An odd, unpleasant smell hung in the air.

  Heavy footsteps approached the stairwell. Othin waited as a man swung around the rail and began to ascend with black intent. The sword in his grip reflected the light; his eyes did not.

  Using his advantage on the stairs, Othin kicked the man in the chest. A shock rippled up his leg as the man was lifted from his feet and flew head first into the wall at the bottom of the stairwell, shattering the small table there. His sword landed point down on the floor and then fell on top of him. At the top of the stairs, Reidi caught her breath with a cry. Hissing at her to get out of sight, Othin jumped down and grabbed the man’s belt to drag him out into the room. Again, a weird shiver crept up his arm.

  A hand clutched his ankle with an eagle’s grip, causing his knee to weaken with a jolt. With a start, Othin let the man hit the floor and brought around his sword. The man released him, his head lolling at an impossible angle. His eyes stared wide as he gasped with a mewling sound. His flesh was as pale as fish’s belly, a rip in the leggings on one thigh revealing a raw wound that didn’t bleed. His leathers and mail were filthy, and he smelled like rotting seaweed. Beneath the grime on his tunic he wore the standard of Earticael, pale mountains behind a rampant black horse.

  A Fjorginan soldier.

  Othin leveled the tip of his blade at the warrior’s throat. “What is your purpose here?” Only that strange sound emerged, and then the man went still. Othin lowered the tip of his blade onto his chest, and a shiver crackled over his hand on the grip. He instantly pulled his blade away. The thing was solid, yet not. His heart sickened in his chest. What was he looking at? More ghoul than soldier.

  A door opened and closed in the hall. Backing up a pace, Othin turned and strode across the room. He grabbed the lamp. Where there was one ghoul, there might be more. He leaned into the kitchen. The large cooking stove in the center of the room was burning. He entered and headed to the far side.

  That smell, again. Light from the stove flickered on the walls and caught on something on the floor. The ranger knelt, touched a dark, glistening drop and brought it to his nose. Blood, dripped in a wavering line. He followed the trail through the bath and passed through a hall to the back of the house. He stepped into the dining room.

  Near the far wall near a small hearth lay Kidge, blood pooling around her. Othin’s mind went blank as he put the lamp on the table. He knelt, checked for a pulse and rolled her over. Her hair tumbled from her head and covered her face. He brushed it away. Her throat was rent wide and hacked apart by a longknife wielded with great strength. It looked as if the killer had tried to behead her but didn’t have time. Othin touched her green eyes closed and then inspected her further. Her clothes were torn, and blood stained her thighs. If she had been raped, it would’ve happened after she was silenced. It might have been just an appearance.

  Althea. Othin had no idea where she was.

  He rose, spinning his blade to release the tension of grief and wrath in his veins. As he headed back through the main hall, he wondered once more where the Night Guild had gone. Even if Stony had let that ghoul in here, the guildsman would have come in behind him.

  When Othin reached the common room, the ghoul was gone. When he ran to the stairs, its sword was still there. Magreda sat on the top step, in shadow, holding her knife.

  Gottfrid came onto the landing behind her. “What is it?”

  Othin’s throat went dry. “Where is Althea?”

  “Downstairs in the corner room. Why?”

  “We n
eed to get her out of here.”

  “I’ll get her,” Magreda said.

  “We can use the narrow stair,” Gottfrid suggested.

  Othin had forgotten about the stair, a narrow, hidden passage built during the last war. “Gottfrid, come with me.” He picked up the Fjorginan’s blade, gritting his teeth in anticipation of a jolt. He felt nothing; the blade was normal enough. He returned to the common room and circled the place where the ghoul had lain. No blood, no tracks. Othin scanned the room for open windows, moved chairs, dirty fingerprints. The thing had vanished.

  Gottfrid came down the stairs and stepped over the rubble of the table at the bottom. He flushed as Othin flipped the sword around and held it out, hilt first.

  “Take this.”

  The blond man stared at the blade. “I can’t—”

  “Magreda told me you’re quite good.”

  “That was a long time ago. I’d rather bed men than fight them.”

  Othin stepped close, took the man’s hand and pressed the hilt into it. “Trust me, you won’t want to bed this lot,” he said with a cold smile and then headed back to the hall. The ghoul had gone somewhere, maybe outside, maybe in the kitchen.

  Gottfrid followed him, sword in hand. “What did you do with the man you killed?”

  “Nothing. He disappeared.”

  A pause. “I thought—”

  His voice was clipped by a piercing scream that tore through the house like a saw. Othin drew his sword and ran for the dining room, barely checking the full tilt of his rush as Kidge’s daughter ran out and crashed into him. He dropped his blade and wrapped his arms around her as she screamed again, shrieking gibberish.