Heige nodded with approval. Othin said, “With what?”
“Something Oscar got from a Blackthorn witch who lives in the village. Put him out cold. You hungry?”
“Aye.” Othin took off his cloak and hung it on a rack, followed by his swords, his bow and quiver. He dropped his saddlebag beneath it.
Rande, a ranger who had learned her skills in the wilds of Thorgrim, sat on a bench covered with a ratty sheepskin, one leg propped up. She was dressed in leathers and her hair hung in a tangled braid. “Captain,” she said with a brief smile. Rande was fairly new to the order, but she came with a lot of experience and no small skill. She had a calm temperament and a fascinating habit of spinning a knife over her fingers when she was bored. Her gaze lingered with veiled, predatory appreciation on Alaric as he went to the hearth and scooped some brownish looking soup from a small iron pot. Othin’s men had a bet going as to how long it would be before the two ended up in bed.
Alaric handed the bowl to Othin and gestured to the chair he’d been sitting in. Nodding his thanks, Othin sat down, took the bowl and started spooning the lukewarm food into his mouth, some kind of gamey meat mixed with beans.
“Did he say anything else?” Heige asked Alaric.
Alaric shook his head. “Not a word, poor lad.” His expression drawn, he glanced at Othin. “You going to take him with you?”
Othin shook his head, swallowing. “Risky.”
“I don’t know how long I can hold him here if you try to go without him.”
Heige grimaced. “That’s risky, too.”
Othin set his empty bowl aside and yawned. “I’ve been on the road for two days, and I need sleep. Wake me before dawn.”
“Do we have a plan?” Heige inquired.
Othin grabbed his cloak, lowered himself to the floor by the hearth and shoved the blue wool under his head. His plan had come together in his mind on his ride with Heige, an ugly plan he would not likely be detailing to his superiors. “We’ll start with the Borderland.” He closed his eyes. “I’m sure one of the kind folk there will have something to tell us.”
The last thing Othin heard as sleep claimed him was Alaric rumbling with laughter.
The Borderland
Othin opened his eyes in the near dark as the rise and fall of tense voices came into focus around him.
“We don’t have time for that,” said a gruff voice in a south coastal accent. Prederi. “I’ve done this patrol more often than you. If he’s alive, he won’t be anywhere near that place.”
Othin rolled over and pushed himself up, rubbing his face. Oscar was off on some errand or another, and Rande had gone on patrol. She and Alaric shared the border between Ylgr and Austr.
“Morning, Captain,” Alaric said. Heige stood near the table, half dressed, with a cup in his hand. Prederi sat on the bunk, elbows on his knees and his head bowed. His blond braids lay in a thick tangle on his shoulders.
Needing to piss, Othin walked to the door and went outside. The air was cool, damp, and smelled of pine. Soft rain dripped from the cabin eaves, and birds filled the trees. Crows clamored in the distance. Othin took some comfort from the seeming tranquility of his surroundings, but not too much. His watchers haunted these woods like wolves.
He moved into the trees and unbuckled his trousers, tilting his face back to the rain to take a deep breath. A pall hung over the cabin, his friends and his heart. He had been consoling himself with optimistic scenarios that explained why Bren might still be alive. But alive or dead, they still had to find him, and now Othin had to deal with Prederi who, clearly, did not agree with his plan.
He had known these men well over a decade, respected them as equals, and his promotion hadn’t changed that. Though Heige and Prederi had as much experience as he did, they trusted his judgment and followed his orders without pause, knowing he would hear and consider any suggestions to the contrary. They worked together.
Now he was in a position of having to give Prederi orders against the man’s will, and he knew his friend well enough to question his own resolve. Prederi had a rough and open sense of humor that rarely left him even in the worst situations, but deep down he was a serious man whose quick temper had a root in Hel. He could disembowel someone and crack a joke while doing it.
Othin didn’t presume to know what losing Ursa and the child had done to his friend; however, his faltering resolve was not because of some lack of understanding. On the contrary, he understood too well. After losing Millie, he had cared for nothing and been capable of anything. That was the problem.
Othin finished up and returned inside. Heige was putting on his mail. Alaric gestured to a steaming cup sitting on the table. There was also bread and a crock of oats. Othin picked up the cup and drank to clear his head. Chicory, and some kind of root. He turned to Prederi, his chest tight. The ranger sat on the bunk with a look that dared Othin to have any issue whatsoever.
“Leave us,” he said to the others. Without comment or hesitation, the two men stopped what they were doing and went outside. Othin set aside his tea, grabbed a chair and pulled it around.
“War God,” Prederi said. It was an old nickname Othin’s friends called him, an amusing reference to the Allfather, the fickle, self-serving deity of magic, poetry, trickery and war, after whom he was named. In Prederi’s mouth, the title had an almost mocking air, as if he believed the Magician himself had dealt out his cruel fate.
“Prederi,” Othin returned quietly.
“I’ll leave the brotherhood before I’ll be left behind here,” the ranger said.
Othin let that pass. “I can’t speak it, how deeply sorry I am about Ursa. I understand—”
“You understand nothing.” The ranger’s tone was so out of character it could’ve been someone else talking. “Your woman will return to you, and all you have to do is play around in Faersc every moon so you can feel her touch. You’ve lost nothing.”
Othin leaned back as the comment bit into him. “How long have you been rehearsing that? I was going to say, I understand why you want to come on this mission. Bren is my best friend, and I’ll raze Ylgr to the ground if they harm him. But neither can I have you charging in with your wits chopped up by grief and acting like none of us knows how it is. Many have been taken from us by war and fate. You aren’t the only one in pain, Prederi. We all grieve.”
The ranger got up abruptly, stomped across the room and leaned against the mantel, breathing heavily. “Do you think I’d compromise this mission?”
Othin stood. “Not intentionally. But you aren’t yourself. You aren’t dealing with this by facing Hel on her own ground. You’re trying to fill the hole. I’ve seen it before.”
The ranger swung around, his face red and his hair catching the firelight. “You dare say that to me.” He started to pace, clenching his fists. “How’ve you grieved, eh? You didn’t have to watch Millie die, you didn’t have to bury a child”—his breath caught—“you didn’t—”
Othin covered the space between them in three steps, wrapped his fist in the tunic at Prederi’s throat and slammed him against the wall by the weapons rack. “Do not tell me what I saw, felt and did,” he ground through his teeth, his face close. “I was so worthless after losing Millie that Diderik took me off duty half that winter. I’m not happily biding my time waiting for her to return from the dead. I’m not a fool. The woman I knew is gone.”
He released the ranger with a push, his eyes burning and his throat dry. It was the first time he had admitted this to himself, and he hated his friend for bringing him to it. “You want to leave the brotherhood, go ahead,” Othin continued. “But there’s too much at stake for Heige, Alaric and I to have to take care of you. I won’t risk fucking up this mission because you need something to take your pain out on.”
A tear sparkled on Prederi’s cheek. “I’m sorry.” The defeat in his voice said he meant it. “The brotherhood is the only family I have now. I can’t lose Bren, too. Please, Othin. I know Ylgr. I can help.”
“I won’t,” Prederi promised. He wiped his face and squared his shoulders. “I’m fine.”
Othin let out his breath and went to the door to call in the others. Fine was a word he had used often after Millie’s death. It was horseshit. He wasn’t fine.
Then or now.
~*~
Dawn crept through a cold drizzle as Othin rode in sight of the Borderland. He wore the dark, mangy clothes he had taken from a dead highwayman. Heige had smeared dirt on his face and pond grunge in his hair. Shifting a bit from beneath his clouded mood, Prederi had told him he looked like a right despicable asshole. It was a title Othin fully intended to take in hand.
A seedy establishment in sight of the Westfork River, the Borderland was a snake’s nest of spies and cutthroats who answered to a wicked, mean-spirited woman called Bothilde. The tavern mistress ran a tight operation. Her henchmen were paid to watch the roads and take stock of who came and went. Travelers looking well-off or dangerous, including rangers, were flagged to highwaymen, who gave their informants a cut of the spoils.
Bothilde answered to some big employers that Bren had once referred to as the Dark Lords of Ylgr. Othin had every reason to believe her machinations had put Tasn and Rolof in their hands.
The inn was quiet, and no one prowled the woods besides Heige and Prederi. Oscar and Rande had been busy the previous night and had taken down two Ylgrian scouts, one in the woods beneath Birkan and another perched in a pine tree overlooking the valley. A third, which Rande had in her sights but couldn’t risk killing in the open, had gone into the inn.
One horse stood tied to a post out front, but that was no indication of who was here. More than one patron had come out of this place in a drunken stupor and found his horse sold to the highest bidder. Of course Bothilde knew nothing of that. Or so she would say. Othin tied Loge to a tree on the woods’ edge, using a slip knot that could be pulled in a hurry.
When Heige scouted the area earlier, he had seen no sign of Bren’s horse. What he had found, stuffed in a crack in a false wall of the common room, was a sprig of sage. For some reason, Bren loved the plant and always had a bit of it on his person. Heige recognized it for what it was—a message from the Northman, telling them he had been here. And he wouldn’t have done that unless something had happened.
Othin stepped up to the entrance. Boxes hung under the windows, overflowing with vines and flowers no doubt planted by Bothilde as if to mock her shadowy clientele. The only reason Othin hadn’t plowed this place into the Westfork was because he still wanted information concerning his men’s deaths, a mission Heige and Bren had been planning to take on as a team. But Othin was no longer concerned with particulars. These scoundrels wanted a war, they would get one.
He went inside.
The Borderland, an inn like any other where a traveler or weary farmhand might find food, drink or a bed, had one distinguishing feature: it was larger on the outside. Inside, hidden from the common room, it contained a beehive of little rooms used for all manner of tricks, deals and deeds. Many who entered this place never left again. The river had carried its share of bodies to the sea.
One of the hidden rooms, Othin had recently learned, lay on the other side of the false wall on which Bren had left his message. Their greatest fear was that Bren had been recognized, perhaps by someone who was paid for the information. Such scum flourished up here, and they came from nearby realms to do it.
Othin strode through the common room as if he owned the place. Two men lounged there, one with his head on a table and the other leaning back against the wall. At this hour, either they were sleeping it off from the night before or plotting the night to come. One of them got up and headed for the door, unaware that Prederi would be delaying him with a knife and a question or two. The other man stirred with a snort before settling again and returning to sleep.
Pleasant dreams, Othin thought.
Prederi was right about one thing: they didn’t have time to dally here. Othin moved past the bar and into a narrow hall that led to the kitchen. A child slept in a corner there, on a pile of rags. Othin drew his sword and nudged her with his boot. As she awoke, wide-eyed and ready to scream, he tilted his head toward the door in back of the kitchen. She scrambled up and fled, leaving the door swinging. He hoped Heige had the sense not to sink an arrow into her.
Othin leaned back into the hall as Prederi entered the common room with his sword in one hand and a sack of pitch-soaked linens on his shoulder. The blond ranger woke the sleeping man with a rough nudge of his boot and began to question him. Othin kicked aside the rags where the girl had slept and pulled the iron ring on the floor, opening a trap door that Tasn had discovered on one of his patrols.
Below, a woman stopped on the stairs, her skirt in her fist. Her expression, wary and shrewd, was framed by a wild array of pale and graying curls. Othin moved before she had a chance to flee. As he wrestled her against the wall, she screamed and clawed at him like a wildcat.
“Why Bothilde,” he said pleasantly. “How pleasant to see you again.” He caught her arms, hauled them up over her head and pinned them there with one hand while he reached under her skirts with the other. Digging her fingernails into his hands hard enough to draw blood, she tried to knee him in the groin. Expecting that, he pressed his bulk against her so she couldn’t move. She spat in his face and tried to bite him. “Easy there, love,” he said, but he had no amorous intentions. He pulled the daggers she always kept strapped to each thigh and threw them aside. Then he drew his longknife and pressed it to her throat.
Something crashed above them. The floor shook with stomping, cries and shouts as Prederi dispatched the tavern mistress’s men who slept upstairs.
Bothilde’s eyes flashed in swift understanding and no slight hatred. “You bastard.”
Othin mocked a pout. “And I thought you’d be glad to see me.” Not likely, after he had taken her to bed, warmed her up and learned the whereabouts of Shinter, one of the slipperiest villains in this gods-forsaken land. Shortly thereafter, his rangers had taken the old ringleader down.
In the common room, someone made a muffled sound, as if gagged. Something heavy hit the floor. After a moment, the smell of burning pitch wafted down the hall. A loud crash shook the place, followed by the sound of cracking, falling wood.
“I’ll kill you,” she snarled through gritted teeth.
“I’ll be the one doing that,” Othin returned, “unless you tell me where he is, the Northman who came here two days past, with hair like fire and eyes like the sky.”
The smell of smoke touched the stale air. Below, someone screamed. On his earlier visit, Heige had discovered another entrance to the cellar, outside.
She cracked a nasty grin. “Stupid fuck. Your ranger’s dead.” She beamed in triumph.
Othin didn’t respond. While her arch gloating felt more like a bluff than the truth, she had made a point to reveal that she knew Bren was a ranger. If she knew that, so would her employers—which meant Bren’s fate was out of her hands.
“Kill me, then,” she challenged. “Won’t change a thing.”
Othin snorted a laugh. “Oh, you’d like that, wouldn’t you? Either of us dies, and so does your secret. And it’s such a wicked little secret, isn’t it? Old Shinter is dead because you sang like a finch in the throes of a good, hard fuck.” He caressed her face with a speculative gaze. “I have a better idea. Why should I get your blood on my hands when I can have the Dark Lords of Ylgr take care of that for me? They’ll be so much more creative. I’ll drop a rumor in a tavern. What man won’t believe it? They’ll go after it like trout hitting a cricket.”
; Beneath the loathing, he finally saw fear. “I don’t know where he is,” she said quickly, her gaze darting up the stairs. Smoke thickened in the kitchen.
Heavy footsteps came down the hall. “War God!” Prederi called out. Above, he pushed someone with a sack over his head into the kitchen.
“Here,” Othin called out. He returned his attention to Bothilde. “He’s in Hel, according to your first story.” He tightened the grip on his blade, pressing in. “Gods brought him back, did they?”
Her breath quickened. She didn’t want to die as badly as she let on. “Men took him. I don’t know where.”
Othin’s patience left him. He brought her arms down and wrenched them behind her back, causing her to cry out. Then he muscled her up the stairs. “I’m in just the mood,” he breathed against her neck.
“I’m telling the truth!” she choked.
“You’ve never told the truth a day in your life.” He brought her out and hustled her toward the back door. Behind them, flames ravaged the common room.
Outside, Prederi stalked like a cat around a man on the ground. “I’ve no idea what you’re about!” the man claimed. “Them being held, that’s all I saw.” His hands were tied and his hair hung in his face. Blood oozed from his nose.
Othin caught Prederi’s gaze. The blond ranger shook his head. Othin gestured. The bleeding man shouted as Prederi drew his sword. The sound ceased as the ranger ran him through.
Bothilde dropped to her knees. “The ranger lived when he left,” she pleaded. “I swear by the gods I don’t know who they were. One of ’em, he talked strange. Not from ’round here. Dressed all in black, he was. The others talked up to him.” She searched the ground. “There was another. Had a scar on his face.” She traced a long curve on her cheek.
“I’ve seen him,” Prederi said casually, wiping the blood from his blade. “In the Moor’s Edge. He’s one of the sheriff’s men.”
Othin gazed down at the tavern mistress. A man with a scar would be easy to remember; she could have mentioned it to throw them off. Sheriff Thorn was crooked as a corkscrew hazel, but he wasn’t involved with the Dark Lords, as far as Othin knew. “How did these men know the ranger was here?”
The Fylking: Outpost and The Wolf Lords Page 41