The Fylking: Outpost and The Wolf Lords

by F. T. McKinstry

  Millie kept moving. As she reached the bottom, the rest of the tower fell into itself, raining stones. She ran out the door in a cloud of dust and leapt to the hill halfway down. She hit the ground and rolled, rocks and sky blurring as she tumbled over the rocks and brush. When she stopped, stunned, she got up and half-ran, half-limped as fast as her legs and her broken heart could carry her.

  The demon filled the sky, one leg slamming down to the east, splitting the Eldrim Mountains with a cataclysmic explosion. The shock rushed across the earth like a tidal wave. In the distance, horns blasted in alarm.

  Buffeted by the gale, Melisande reached her patterned beast, spread across the field. Hands burning, choking on dust and tears, she began to tear apart the threads. She ripped up the stitches, kicked them apart and crawled screaming in the brambles of the demon’s heart and scattered it to ruin. She continued to stumble around ripping at the earth, throwing it into chaos like a cyclone, her knees bruised and her fingers bleeding, until she realized the roaring sky had fallen still. She closed her eyes and sank to the ground, broken by stone.

  The heavens wheeled above, gray, then bright, sparkling with falling leaves and seasons come and gone, and then descended into the darkness of a womb. Soft wind blew over her face, stirring her hair. She lay on a twilit plain beneath a starless sky. In every direction, the ground rippled away into infinite, swirling oblivion.

  Hoofbeats struck the earth with eldritch rhythm. Melisande lifted her gaze to light. Mounted on a gray horse with eight legs, a warrior gazed down from a cerulean eye pale in shadow. His mail shone like a sun beneath his cloak, a mantle of black fading to blue with the turn of an eon. Wise and inscrutable, he held a live ash staff, spoke the language of wolves and ravens, sang magic to the stars and reveled in war’s chaos. She knew him, yet not.

  The crow warrior.

  “Am I dreaming?” she asked.

  “Not this time,” the Trickster said. “You have awakened.”

  Smiling, Othin held out his hand, lifted her onto his horse and bore her into the light.

  Across the Worlds

  The vernal equinox had come and gone in Ason Tae. Buds emerged on the trees, the earth had thawed enough to give life and the mountain chill touched the air. Tonight, the Hare Moon would shine upon the awakening land.

  The Master of Faersc reined his horse on top of a hill that overlooked the village of Odr. The rivers clamored with snowmelt, animals moved in the yards and fields, farmers worked the soil, woodsmen cut and stacked fallen trees and women opened their cottages to the fresh air.

  Beyond the North River and the rolling plain filled with wildflowers lay the remains of Tower Sif, scattered over the tor like bones. Ropes and ladders draped the ragged walls and new stone formed dappled patterns on the old foundations. People moved amid the rubble leading draft horses and skids; others stood on scaffolds upon the tower walls. When Faersc fell to the draugr, Skadi had managed to see dozens of apprentices, teachers, staff and builders into the catacombs beneath the mountains cradling the conservatory. She died to protect their secret, deep vaults containing the original knowledge of their ancestors.

  Normally, even masters would take many suns to rebuild a gatetower. According to Wolf, however, the demon’s release would bring war with the Niflsekt to a new fervor, and now the only Fylking who knew what their enemy had done were trapped on this side of the Gate. To hasten the outpost’s viability and get word to their superiors, the Fylking worked on the tower under the cover of night, plying their arts to put the stones and angles in place. During the day, they patiently instructed their mortal builders. Anyone with sense could see the tower was seemingly building itself, but the people of Odr had learned to take such mysteries in stride.

  Arcmael still doubted his worth in replacing Skadi, but the Gatekeepers felt otherwise. Wolf told him they admired him for having the courage to stand by his heart; had he not, things would have turned out for the worst. They gave him the key to the vaults and a crystal staff, into which Wolf blasted the rune of Othin, the Wanderer.

  King Angvald, after stripping Lord Halstaeg of his rank for violating the boundaries of his authority, offered to restore Arcmael to his station as the Heir of Halstaeg and give him the post of High Constable. It was a courtesy, of course, a gesture to acknowledge his fortitude in the face of dire circumstances. Arcmael felt no more worthy of that than he did Skadi’s post; besides, he preferred the wilds and knew nothing of managing the affairs of rangers. He was, however, given unlimited access to the Citadel, including arms trainers to teach new wardens the arts of weaponry. No more would the Wardens of Dyrregin be unable to defend themselves against trouble. If the Niflsekt could use the shortcomings of the Fylkings’ arrangement with their mortals once, they could do it again.

  Arcmael twisted in his saddle as a large company crested the hill—rangers, guardsmen and friends—all there to pay their respects to the woman who had saved their world from annihilation.

  Together, Arcmael and Bren had watched from Tower Sor as the demon fell, vanishing into the clouds with a howl that would haunt the dreams of Math for a thousand suns. It was not until he had journeyed to Odr shortly thereafter that he discovered the ruins of Melisande’s work spread across the field. Nearby, on the edge of Graebrok Forest, a place she loved, the Fylking had built her a grave. Folk across the Vale claimed it appeared there one night as if by magic.

  Othin of Cae Forres rode up to his side, checking his mount. His cheeks were flushed. Promoted by Lord Coldevin to captain of the North Branch, he wore his ranger’s garb with ease, Millie’s crow resting on his throat.

  The ranger’s grief had not left him. For a time, he blamed the High Fylking of Tower Sif for saving his life, once by protecting him from the Niflsekt’s blade and again by catching him in a net of light as he fell from the tower. Arcmael still didn’t know why they had saved him. To his knowledge, they had never done anything like that before. Wolf said nothing, as usual.

  “Are you ready?” Arcmael asked. Othin had spent the winter visiting graves, widows and friends, but he had not been here since losing Millie. Lord Coldevin finally persuaded him—ordered him, more like—to join his friends here under the Hare Moon. Othin joined the company yesterday.

  He gazed afar at the Vale, his gray eyes concealing his thoughts. “I am.” He glanced behind him. “Bren told me the Gatekeepers have been waiting.”

  “They’re good at that.” Arcmael had asked Bren to take on the staff, but the seer chose to remain in the rangers’ brotherhood. He had agreed to journey to Faersc for training and to learn the subtleties of his art. But Arcmael had a feeling the Fylking were already attending to that. They liked the idea of a warrior who could see as much as they did a seer who could fight.

  Arcmael shook his reins and led the company down the hill.

  “Haldor tells me the villagers are done with the cottage,” Othin said. “I have leave from Coldevin to stay here a while.”

  Arcmael nodded. “I may do the same. Did Lieutenant Haldor speak to the constable here?”

  “Aye. The cottage is mine.”

  “Millie’s cat has taken over the warden’s cot, I’m told. The apprentices take care of him.” Othin said nothing. Arcmael changed the subject. “Who’d they end up giving the position of high constable to?” Last he knew, his father’s erstwhile post was vacant and Coldevin had taken the rangers under his own command.

  “Your sister is trying to convince Diderik to volunteer.”

  “Ah, Rosalie.” After a tearful reunion with his mother and a stiff yet civil conversation with Straelos, Arcmael met his sister for the first time. She burst into tears and threw her arms around him, leaving the scent of perfume clinging to his clothes for two days. “I still can’t believe he married her, the old goat.”

  A smile touched Othin’s mouth. “It’s a good match. She’s actually happy. He’s from an old family, you know. Gives her everything she wants, and she’s out from under her father’s rule. I’d say th
e gods smiled on it.” He shifted in his saddle. “Oh, I almost forgot. Leofwine is back in Merhafr. It’s anyone’s guess how he convinced the king of Earticael so quickly that the war was a set-up to distract us all from the Niflsekt’s work.”

  “Reports of a demon in the sky were probably proof enough we have our own problems without bothering with Fjorgin,” Arcmael noted dryly.

  “Indeed. Anyway, King Angvald pardoned him.”

  Arcmael snorted. “For what? He didn’t do anything besides disobey some bad orders.”

  “Well, when the high constable accuses you of sorcery and espionage, it’s hard to shake. Anyway, he plans to accompany the king’s retinue at midsummer.”

  Arcmael nodded. King Angvald and rulers from other realms planned to gather and come here to honor Melisande in grand style. The Vale was already preparing for it.

  Behind them, someone called out. Othin looked up as a raven flew around the company and drifted down. He held up his arm. “Hail, lovely,” he said as the bird landed. Lowering his reins onto the pommel, he unfastened a message. After reading it, he slipped a white band onto the raven’s leg and released the creature to the south.

  “Hey, War God,” said a familiar voice. Prederi rode up beside them with Heige close behind.

  “That’s Captain to you,” Othin returned.

  “Captain War God. Was that from Coldevin?”

  “Aye.” He handed over the message. “You got the patrol.” Prederi and Heige leaned on their horses and slapped their hands together. “You’ll have to wait until I return. I’m not sending you to Ylgr until we come up with a battle plan.”

  “Ylgr!” Arcmael said. “Since when did the rangers start going up there?”

  “Since me,” Othin replied with a cold smile. “The sheriff and I have unfinished business.”

  The villagers of Odr, still recovering from the shocks of war, stepped aside, bowing their heads with respect as the armed, finely clad company rode through the street.

  Arcmael acknowledged them with a nod, but his heart hadn’t warmed to the place as a whole. Generations of scrappy fortitude beneath the shadow of Tower Sif and they had crumbled like straw before fear and hearsay. Then they brought harm to the one person who had cared for them in such simple ways, using a power as ancient as the stars. On his first return visit a moon past, Arcmael brushed aside their joy at having a warden return to the Vale and made it clear that, far from being malign, Melisande was beloved by the High Fylking, who would remember their treatment of her. Though Millie’s death had plunged the village into remorse, Arcmael didn’t veil the threat. The Fylking wouldn’t.

  To be sure, the new captain of the North Branch would want for nothing on his visits here.

  After settling into their inns and seeing to their horses, the company gathered on the far side of the North River Bridge. Some of the villagers trailed behind. Damjan, wearing a fine cloak Millie made for him, spoke quietly to Othin as they waited for the sun to set across the field. The apprentices working on the tower had stopped and sat on the outcroppings beneath the ruins. Birds chirruped and fluttered in the fields.

  A hush fell.

  To the east, in the leagues-wide cleft in the Eldrim Mountains, the Hare Moon rose serene and golden pale. The gaping wound was ragged and new, left by the first and only step upon the world by the Niflsekt’s demon. Arcmael raised his staff, catching the light in the crystals set into the branches on the end. Then he led the company over the field beside the forest eaves.

  Melisande’s grave was a work of art, a tribute to her spirit. A mound was laid with intricate patterns of stone and crystal interlocked in a continuous line, representing eternity. On top the Fylking had planted a young ash tree, now budding. Moonlight shone in beams through the forest and glinted on the boughs and crystals of the mound. Flowers and offerings from the folk in the surrounding villages surrounded the base.

  Arcmael stepped forward, facing north. Othin and Bren stood on either side of him, heads bowed. The company gathered around the grave. Closest to the mound stood Damjan and his family, Lieutenant Haldor, the rangers of the North Branch and Constable Fagel. Bythe, Millie’s closest friend, stood with an armful of wildflowers, tears glistening in his eyes. Arcmael waited as others joined them, including his apprentices. Wolf, in his animal form, perched on a large boulder behind the group.

  Arcmael looked up with a deep breath. “It sometimes comes to pass,” he began, “that one is born to the mortal world who is not of the world. One who belongs to the gods. Melisande was such a one. She smiled, she cried, she was wild as the mountains. She loved small things that most of us overlook. Innocent of her power, she was a child of Elivag. Let us honor her.”

  “Let us honor her,” the company repeated together.

  Once each person had come forth and paid their respects, many leaving offerings, they drifted away into the evening, quiet as deer moving into a forest. Arcmael stood alone with Othin and Bren, his heart full and yet empty.

  Bren stepped forward, drew a sword and laid it on the mound. “The Others call her the Weaver,” he said. “By my sword I will serve the balance.”

  Arcmael held up a small black stone with a spider carved into it. He placed it near Bren’s sword, in a space between the stones and crystals. “The Fylking call her Norn. By my staff I will serve the light.”

  Othin stood there, unmoving, his head still bowed. He had no offering but a tear which slipped from his cheek and spiraled to the ground. “I loved her. I will always love her.”

  Arcmael took a deep breath and then looked up as a powerful chill raced over his flesh. By his side, Bren gasped. Wolf jumped down from the rock and assumed his warrior’s form. The air seemed to brighten as the Fylking appeared, all of them, and with them a host of Others, elves, goblins, phookas, nymphs, sprites and many other nameless things. Quivering with light, the ash tree swayed as if blown by an invisible breeze. It grew brighter.

  In unison, the entire unseen assembly dropped to their knees. Grasping the arms of his companions to bring them down, Arcmael did the same.

  She appeared from the ash tree in a white dress fine as spider silk, her red-blond hair falling in twisted curls to her waist. She smiled a familiar smile.

  “Millie?” Arcmael breathed.

  Othin turned to him quickly. “What?”

  “Something’s happening.”

  “It’s her,” Bren said. He rose and walked around, put a hand on Othin’s shoulder and pointed with the other. “There.”

  Arcmael stood as he perceived an unmistakable pattern. “She is Fylking!”

  Othin rose also. “How’s that possible?” His gaze swept the air before him. “They can’t cross the worlds—and the Gate is closed.”

  “And yet there she is,” Arcmael said. “As old as the moon.”

  She stepped down the mound, approached Othin and placed her hands on his heart, her blue eyes shining. Only for a moment, my love. Until the Gate opens again.

  “I feel her,” Othin said. “As if she’s here but I can’t see—” His voice caught in his throat as his face went blank with astonishment. Then he dropped to his knees and tilted his head back to the sky. “That’s it!” he laughed. “My vow. I must learn to see.”

  Arcmael shared a smile with Bren. “We will teach you.”

  With a sigh, the shimmering assembly vanished on the wind, leaving the Vale of Ason Tae quickening to spring beneath the rising moon.

  Book Two: THE WOLF LORDS

  Destroyer of the Math Gate

  A sun’s cycle on the world of Math was little more than the fleeting life of a mayfly to a High Immortal, the lofty race to which the Fylking and the Niflsekt belonged. But to the commander of Niflsekt Covert Operations, it felt as long as all the millennia of his existence.

  The commander sat draped like a panther in the boughs of an old pine tree deep in the wilds of the Fylking homeworld of Oeoros, his mind focused on the crystalline glow of the Oeoros-Math Gate many leagues to the south. Fr
eezing mist hovered over the towering evergreens carpeting the foothills of the mighty snow-draped mountains that separated this remote realm from the heart of the Fylking Empire.

  The distant world of Math had long been a thorn lodged in the paw of the Niflsekt High Command. Enemies of the Niflsekt for tens of thousands of suns, the Fylking had perfected the art of interdimensional travel. They had established an outpost on Math and built the Gate, a plain but sophisticated portal in the shape of a pentacle. The Gate, which was 213 leagues in diameter and defined on each point and intersection by a tower of stone and crystal, allowed the Fylking access to star systems that were once the sole dominion of the Niflsekt. In their focused intent to stop what had become a devastating military advantage, the Niflsekt High Command had given him, Vaethir of the Dragon Clan, orders to destroy the Gate.

  He succeeded the first time, over twenty-five centuries ago. He had left the realms around the Gate in cursed desolation for a thousand suns, pleasing his lords and giving the Niflsekt a much-needed reprieve. But the Fylking, just as resolute, had factored in the likelihood of such an attack. When generations of the trained mortal seers who served the immortal warlords rebuilt the Gate, the Niflsekt’s reprieve came to an end.

  Just over a sun past, Vaethir had tried again, this time, taking a more aggressive approach. A deft and seasoned operative, he had slipped through the Gate on a pretense and spent twenty suns hiding on Math, during which time he carefully plotted the fall of his enemies.

  He had very nearly succeeded but for one mortal, a woman with a pretty smile and a skill for knitting.

  Millie, they had called her. A peasant name, simple as weeds fed to goats, but there was nothing simple about her. Favored by the grim and shining Fylking pantheon, she wielded the power of a Norn, a goddess of fate and destiny, a spinner, weaver, and worker of magic. Just as Vaethir brought his plans to fruition, the Norn wounded him by slicing a knife through a patch of wool knit into his image, leaving a nasty wound from shoulder to groin in his otherwise flawless immortal flesh.