The Fylking: Outpost and The Wolf Lords

by F. T. McKinstry

  “Millie,” Damjan said, clutching her arm.

  She stared at the corpse of a witch in gray, blood and silence.

  This could not be.

  Damjan took a more experienced view. “I think she shouldn’t have tried that.” He brought Melisande to her feet and drew her cloak around her. She swayed there, feeling sick. The Niflsekt had just shown his hand. The hooded crow, on the contrary, was the only being from this world or the other for which she had never knit a stitch, save as a gift to her lost love.

  Your art serves you better than you think.

  Her numbness parted by a panicky flame, Melisande broke from Damjan and walked to the cottage, carefully avoiding the blood sprayed over the snow. She didn’t look at Yarrow’s severed head as she quickened her pace. She opened the door, her breath catching on the pungent smell of burnt leaves. On the table, a single candle burned low in a puddle of black wax. She ran to the corner by the pantry, her heart pounding and her knees nearly buckling with relief.

  Refusing your art will serve you less well.

  She picked up her knitting bag and fled.

  The Trickster

  Time did not pass in the Palace of the Goblin King.

  Arcmael supposed it must have, for he had clues. But like most things in the Otherworld, they weren’t trustworthy.

  He slept in fitful waves amid the constant clamor of voices shouting inane verses depicting every imaginable obscene thing. Feet stomped on floors and steps and boughs. Music played on instruments made from gods knew what. The bones of erstwhile prisoners, most likely.

  Sometimes, through the vast and tangled trees beyond the confines of his rooty cell, he imagined the light of a distant sun or moon. He had tried to track the light with no success. A single cloud would render it nonexistent, throwing off his calculations.

  Eating also marked the passage of time. The weird and horrid things they brought him at regular intervals served to remind him that he was probably still alive. It did occur to him that the dead might eat if for no other reason than to experience something of their former lives—but if he were doing that, he would have chosen better things to eat than goblin fare.

  His captors left him nothing in which to relieve himself, yet somehow they removed his business, and he had yet to figure out how. He even tried masturbating once, thinking to get a reaction from someone, if nothing else. The evidence of this pointless endeavor vanished like the rest, as did the vomit he put onto the floor on several occasions after a particularly disgusting meal.

  He had no idea why the fiends had imprisoned him. In fact, he rarely saw them. A thin, bow-legged shadow, a pale bobbing light, the pitter-patter of feet and the appearance of sustenance were the only indications that anything knew he was here.

  He had small creatures for company, but they proved just as elusive as their masters. The pin-pricks of bites that tormented him constantly were probably from fleas. Things scuttled and slithered over the lacy network of roots surrounding him. Regularly, something would splash into his water bowl and soil it with a layer of slime.

  He gave up trying to put together the days. Time worked differently here than it did in the mortal world. He could have been here a week, a moon, or a hundred suns. He assumed the goblins had captured him as punishment for casting the Exile sigil, but that made less and less sense. Goblins respected nothing, including the Fylking. Why had they not killed him? At the very least he had expected to be tortured or relentlessly harassed for entertainment.

  Instead, they had left him here to rot.

  He tried to tear apart the intricate latticework containing him, but the roots were indestructible. His teeth did no harm; he doubted even a knife would mark it. He crept over every inch of his cell, one end to the other, and explored every seam, crack, hole and space for a door, but he found none. He couldn’t imagine how the goblins got the food in and out, let alone his person. It was as if the roots had grown around him after he got here.

  Next he tried provoking them. Though he doubted the goblins would hear him over their own unending din, he yelled out every foul-mouthed insult he could think of. He insulted the Fylking. He mocked the Exile sigil itself and claimed to have danced around a fire in celebration of the broken bond. He hurled obscenities into the trees and used his best storytelling abilities to describe devastating scenarios involving axes, torches and pitch. He screamed like a wounded animal and pissed on the ground outside his cell. Finally he took a shot at the Goblin King himself, accusing him of having tiny, limp genitals, incontinence, bloody piss, gas and an off-key voice. To deepen the affronts, he put them to rhyme and sang them with girlish sarcasm.

  The goblins ignored his invectives. Either they didn’t hear him, which he doubted, given that they were Otherworld creatures and knew everything, or they continued to ignore him knowing the effect it would have. Eventually, when his throat was raw and he ran out of ideas, he trailed off. His food still appeared. Something still cleaned up after him. He stopped caring about the slime in the water.

  Then he had another idea. If the goblins cared enough to feed him, they might notice if he stopped eating. This presented no challenge at first, as his captors seemed to delight in providing him with a new set of horrors on his plate at every meal. The uneaten food was removed and a new plate set there at the same intervals as if nothing bothered to check if he had eaten it.

  After what felt like weeks but was probably more like two or three days, Arcmael’s attention turned repeatedly to his latest meal. The shadowy little tails, eyes, mashed together insect wings, half-rotten fruit and intestine-like casings stuffed with moss actually appealed to him. In a flash of rage he struck the plate with a kick, flipping it against the wall and scattering the nasty, slippery morsels all over the cell.

  “Clean that up, you little fucks,” he muttered. Then he put his head in his hands.

  Othin. The Trickster had abandoned him to this, and what did he expect? Everyone knew the god’s favors were unreliable. Arcmael was tempted to rattle off a curse on the Allfather just to see what would happen. At least torture or death would free him from this isolation and give him something to think about besides his miserable fate.

  How had it come to this? To all appearances he had been snatched from the mortal world to spend the rest of his life in this cell because he broke his bond with the Fylking. Since when did goblins give a rat’s shit for the affairs of wardens? They didn’t, and they didn’t take orders from elves either, as far as Arcmael knew. Perhaps the goblins owed the hateful bastards a favor. No telling. Arcmael’s training hadn’t included the particulars of Otherworld interactions. Either that or he had been too drunk on youthful arrogance to pay attention.

  With that came the old thoughts, like the deepest roots of ancient trees, thoughts that had haunted him since his childhood in the training yards of House Halstaeg. He had spent his time as a warden steeped in bitterness, when in retrospect his life as a warden was a blessing from the gods. He was free to roam the wilds just as he had dreamed as a child. He was left alone; no one bothered him. He had company when he wanted it, albeit strange company, and until Wolf’s wretched bargain, he hadn’t been required to handle a sword. What had made him so loath to accept his fate that he would actually invoke an Exile sigil to defy it?

  War. If the undying specter of his father’s disapproval wasn’t bad enough, the man had delivered a final cut by placing Arcmael into the service of warlords. One way or another, war would find him. He dug his fingers into his hair as if to pull it from the roots. Was there anything in this entire realm not ravaged by war? The ground itself groaned with ruins. Warlocks with living ghosts rose from the mists. Towers bound the land and warriors watched unseen. There was no place in Dyrregin for one who defied the sword, and Lord Halstaeg knew it. No place for a man who would give an animal life when it should have died.

  Wolf knew it too.

  So did the Old Gods.

  Tears streaming down his face, Arcmael reached into his tunic an
d drew forth the shriveled mugwort leaf he had stashed there. He pressed it against his nostrils and inhaled the scent, now faint. Then he crushed it between his hands and pressed it to his forehead, rocking forward.

  “Allfather,” he breathed. “I’ve failed to give a worthy sacrifice.” His eyes and nose burned with tears. “You have me now. Set me on the road to Hel, and I’ll walk into the darkness. This I swear.”

  Arcmael sat there in a maelstrom of grief and remorse and wept for his defiance. His belief in the Old Gods had always been more romantic than devoted. He knew them from old texts, statues, tapestries and the oaths of warriors. Skadi offered occasional hints as to the nature of gods, as had the Fylking. But she used to say that everything had to find the gods alone, and for the first time Arcmael understood what she meant. He huddled there as silence descended. Even the goblins’ clamor ceased. He might have slept; he might have dreamed; he might have died. His plea was ridiculous and he didn’t care.

  A sound brushed the silence. A winged shape spiraled down from the heights of the trees beyond his cell. It caressed the air as it gracefully descended on wings of black. Arcmael’s first thought was of food. Then he caught his breath as the bird landed by his feet. As usual he had no idea how it got in.

  Self-pity is powerful magic, is it not? the crow said. Its pale ash body glowed beneath the pitch mantle of its cloak. It turns the ridiculous into the sublime. It cocked its head mockingly.

  Arcmael leaned back and closed his eyes with a long exhale. Hunger was causing him to hallucinate.

  I require no sacrifice but that which confines you, the crow continued. Its wings rustled as it moved.

  “Sod off,” Arcmael rasped. After some moments he opened his eyes. A shining warrior stood before him clad in fine armor, leathers, arms and a blue cloak. One eye gazed down and struck Arcmael like a cerulean whip, prompting him to scramble up and slam into the wall, his heart thumping wildly. He swayed beneath a dizzy spell.

  A hooded crow perched on a branch hanging over a stream trickling through patches of ice. Dim sunlight filtered through the trees. You have business in Faersc, the bird said. Then it lifted up and flapped into the trees.

  Arcmael stood there in the biting cold, no cloak, no pack, no weapons, only a hollow belly and the filthy, stinking clothes on his back. The forest surrounded him. Well. He had thought it unlikely that goblins would feed him, clean up after him and leave him alone despite his every attempt to insult them. As if the nasty creatures were under orders by something they actually respected.

  A god.

  If Othin had sprung him from the palace, then why abandon him to the goblins in the first place? The god had never demanded a sacrifice. He even chided Arcmael for indulging in self-pity. I require no sacrifice but that which confines you. Then Arcmael wondered: what did sacrificing his limitations have to do with returning to Faersc? What horseshit. After casting the Exile sigil, the conservatory would be nothing but a testament to his weakness and hubris. He would be better off in the goblins’ prison.

  As he stood somewhere in Wyrvith Forest with no means but the boots on his feet, Arcmael recalled what Wolf had said: Oaths can be broken. Everyone has a price.

  Yes, and Arcmael had paid his. But breaking an oath to the Wanderer was not an option.

  He took a deep breath and started walking.

  ~ * ~

  Stars twinkled through the tops of the trees. Huddled in the shelter of a dead oak, Arcmael waited for the moon to rise. To his deepening unease, no silvery light shone upon the trees or dimmed the starlight. He had been captured by the goblins under the dark moon, and no moon shone now, which meant his original estimate of a fortnight was wrong. He was in the goblin’s palace longer than that.

  The forest had changed seasonally since he entered it. He saw more clearly through the trunks, boughs and brush. Snow and ice limned streams and hollows. The birds had changed. And it was cold. He might have emerged from his incarceration farther north than where the goblins had captured him, which would account for thinning leaves and colder nights. But in the north this forest grew steep and treacherous as it climbed into the mountains, and the elevation of his surroundings had not changed.

  After deducing that he was with the goblins for a whole moon’s cycle, Arcmael had an even more alarming thought that it could have been a sun’s cycle. Ten. How would he know? He peered out of his damp shelter, fingering his beard. Hair growth was not a reliable reference. Then he considered Othin. Would the crow have asked him to return to Faersc after a sun or ten? He wheezed a laugh. Elves, goblins, gods and crows—madness was his best friend now.

  At least he had no further trouble from the Otherworld. Not so much as a face in a tree trunk or a whisper in his mind. He might be near the eastern part of the wood, where roads and villages kept the Others at bay. But that was still only speculation.

  He knew one thing: he would never make it through the mountains to Faersc in his present state with winter coming on. The goblins may have spared him at Othin’s command, but they had helped themselves to his provisions for their trouble. He had no pack, no cloak, no bow or knife; no coin or staff with which to barter. He did remember a dirk he kept in his boot, a silly thing left over from his childhood in a royal house. Somehow it had escaped the goblins’ notice.

  The following morning Arcmael gathered enough materials from the forest to set some traps. He had to rebuild them a couple of times as Skadi’s lessons slowly returned to him. He had no success until that afternoon, when he happened upon a soft hollow near a willow tree growing on the edge of a stream. There, he found a patch of hardy greens growing from the unfrozen ground. Not recognizing the plant or knowing if it was edible, he tried setting the stalks in one of his traps. A rabbit took the bait.

  Another clear evening brought unpitying cold. Arcmael gathered dry wood and tinder to build a fire, warm his bones and cook his meal. Without his tinderbox it took a long time to catch a spark, and it left him weak and out of breath. Amid a fitful sleep he dreamed of inns, hearths, soft warm beds, bread, wine and the forgiving touch of women. Deeper into the night he dreamed of Tower Sif, warm light emanating from the center crystal as it gathered the light of stars beaming down over the mountains cradling the Vale of Ason Tae. Dog lay by his side, sleeping soundly.

  Two days later, in the evening, his body aching from cold and damp, Arcmael hunted for a place to build shelter for the night. His kindling clattered in the vine sack he had strung together to carry on his back. He had not eaten that day and had spent most of the night before on the move, just to stay warm. At this rate he would garner the attention of wolves.

  The woods were endless. He wondered if he had missed the North Mountain Road and now wandered east of it. He had never felt so lost and disoriented.

  A crack sounded in the distance.

  Arcmael stopped, his every sense alert. Light glowed in the trees, just bright enough to see. His search abandoned, Arcmael headed toward it. After a time he heard voices and the crackling of a fire. A stream murmured nearby. He crept near like a wary animal.

  Four men clad in gray cloaks and furs over red tunics occupied a small camp. Dyrregin Guard. One stood among the horses, opening and closing saddlebags; another worked on a lean-to built against a steep rise formed by boulders. Two sat by the fire. A steaming pot hung there. The smell made Arcmael’s head spin.

  What were they doing out here? In this season, the roads north to Ason Tae were the dominion of rangers and wardens. Guardsmen tended to hole up in their outposts, barracks and training yards. A large enclosed cart loomed in the shadows beyond the light. Long wooden sleigh runners were tied up along the sides, above the wheels. It would be impossible to maneuver a cart through these woods. The guardsmen must have come off the road.

  Arcmael took a deep breath, clenching his teeth against the cold. The guardsmen might give him something to eat and a spot by the fire, or they might not. If he stepped into their midst from the dark they would think him vagrant, fey
or both. They wouldn’t believe the truth. They would take him to the nearest rangers’ station, where he would have even less luck explaining himself.

  Desperation growled in his stomach. He considered waiting until they slept and sneaking in to see what he could find, but he would never get away with that. They would set watch, and in these woods they would be vigilant. If they caught him on a prowl they might kill him on the spot.

  The guardsmen talked quietly, a word here and a comment there. Taking great care not to rustle a branch, crack a frozen puddle or snap a stick, Arcmael circled around the camp to get closer. He crouched beneath a beech tree, its brown leaves shaking in the wind.

  A tall man with blond braids bound in leather emerged from the horses’ midst. “Sigrik, what happened to the Cae Lis?”

  “We finished it yesterday,” replied one of the men by the fire. He wore a sword on his back with a polished pommel that glinted in the firelight.

  The blond man approached carrying a metal pot clanking with things inside. He dumped out a pile of cups and wooden spoons and then took the pot and walked to the stream. The sound of cracking ice echoed through the forest.

  The guardsman who had built the lean-to approached the fire, pulling his cloak around him. He had tattoos on his fingers. “That ready yet?”

  The other man by the fire picked up a stick. “Ready enough.” He leaned forward and stirred the contents of the pot. He began to take up the cups, dip them into the pot and hand them around. The wind rose into a powerful gust, unnerving the horses, tearing the flames, driving curtains of snow through the camp and eliciting an array of grumbles and curses from the soldiers.

  “Thor’s balls, it’s cold up here,” the cook complained.