Edgelanders (Serpent of Time)

by Jennifer Melzer

  “It was an awful song, now that you mention it.”

  “Yeah. Our mother had incredibly bad taste in music. Hey guys, I know you’re not talking to me, my being wiped from the annals of history and all that, but do you think we could stop so I could take a piss?”

  Again, no one said a word, they only continued walking until he cleared his throat dramatically, the gruff sound echoing through the quiet night.

  “I said, do you think we could stop so I could take a piss?”

  “We aren’t supposed to stop.” Krestof’s deep voice was a surprising response. He’d half expected them to continue ignoring him.

  “I know, and I get that, but look, if we’re going to be on the road three straight days you really can’t expect us not to piss. I mean, these are the only pants I’ve got to my name now. I’d like to keep them unsoiled, if you know what I mean. Plus, I really don’t want to embarrass myself that way in front of the lady.”

  Krestof exchanged a wary glance with the other guards, all six of them silently communicating with little more than disgruntled facial expressions and eyebrow raises. Finn concentrated, trying to pick up the trail of their thoughts, but all he caught were glimpses.

  “Come on, guys.” He started hopping up and down as if his bladder were about to explode. “I really gotta go.”

  “I swear, he’s like a child,” Vilnjar interjected. “I can’t take him anywhere. He’s an absolute embarrassment.”

  “Fine,” Krestof gave in. “I’ll take him, and if he tries anything stupid, I’ll put my axe in his skull.”

  Finn had to work very hard to keep the excitement of that challenge from rising all the way to his eyes. “I’m not going to try anything, Kres. I just have to piss.”

  “All right,” he sighed. “Come on.”

  Krestof grabbed the chains around his wrist and tugged him away from his brother and Lorelei. Finn stumbled purposely, ramming into the other man’s shoulder and then apologizing. “These chains make it a little hard to walk.”

  “They serve their purpose.”

  “I suppose they do.”

  They walked about ten meters into the woods, Krestof shoving him behind a tree for the only privacy he’d get. For several seconds Finn just stood there, his chained hands dangling over his waist, a mocking perplexed innocence as he blinked. It was so dark they could barely see each other. That would provide him with an advantage when he was ready to disarm the man and put his own axe through his skull.

  Irony. It had always been one of his favorite reflections.

  “How is this gonna work?” Laughing, he held his chained wrists up, his hands bound so close together he couldn’t have untied his breeches if he tried. Krestof didn’t say anything at first, only shrugged as if to say he’d have to figure that out on his own. “All right, I can do this. Maybe if you untie my pants, I can probably do the rest.”

  “I am not touching your pants, Finn. Sorry.”

  “Then how am I supposed to piss?”

  Krestof sighed, glancing down at Finn’s waist and contemplating how best to approach the situation. He started toward him and then stopped, releasing another frustrated breath. “I can’t.”

  “What are you afraid of? That it’s gonna leap out of my pants and bite you?” He was laughing again, and even in the sparse moonlight he could see a soft flush of embarrassment coloring Krestof’s gaunt cheeks. “All right, just unbind one of my wrists.”

  “No.”

  “Then I piss all over both of us.”

  His escort’s upper lip curled into a disgusted sneer, another exhale of frustration following. “Okay, okay. One wrist, but that’s it, and don’t try anything stupid or...”

  “Yeah, yeah, axe to the skull. I remember.”

  Jerking Finn toward him, Krestof worked his key into the silver shackles with gloved hands, freeing his left hand. Immediate relief surged into the skin, which began to repair itself. The chain still dangling from the other wrist would be gone soon enough, but not before he put it to good use.

  “Thank you.” He turned away, facing the tree and untying his breeches, but not before watching where Krestof put the key. Upper left inner pocket of his leather jerkin. His war axe dangled from the belt sheath on his right, which would give Finn immediate access to the weapon if they were face to face. The silver jingled with every movement. He relieved himself on the tree, realizing if he went through with what he was about to do, only the gods knew when he’d get another chance to take a piss. A man had to take advantage of all his opportunities.

  Listening to the wet sound of urine splashing the bark and dry leaves nestled around the trunk and roots, he contemplated his next move.

  All he had to do was take care of Krestof quickly and quietly. He’d grab the loose chain in his free hand and strangle him with it long enough to get a good grip and then he’d snap his neck. Quick, quiet and with plenty of time left over to unlock the shackle from his other wrist. He’d be free to transform, free to rage onto the pathway and tear them all apart before they even knew what hit them.

  On the other hand, transformation would alert more than just the other guards; the wolves who followed would know he’d gotten free too, putting Viln and Lorelei in danger. As much as he wanted to savagely rip them limb from limb and paint the road with their blood, he had to be smarter than that or they were all dead. Once his brother and mate were on the run, he’d let himself go and stand to face whoever hunted them alone.

  “So, since we’ve already stopped, do you think you could convince your friends to give the princess something to eat? She’s weak, and she’s never going to make it to Rimian without food.”

  “No talking, Finn. Finish your piss and let’s get back on the road.”

  “Why no talking?” he asked, shaking off the last few trickles and tucking himself one-handed back into his breeches. “Are they afraid if you speak to us, we’ll turn you onto our twisted plot to overthrow the council and take over the world?”

  “If that were the case, they would have gagged you before we left Drekne.”

  “Hmm,” he nodded, working the leather ties on this waistline slowly.

  He drew in several deep breaths through his nose in attempt to steady his nerves. Anxiety; not a feeling he experienced all that often in his life. Finn was used to acting on the fly, seizing the moment before it was scarce. There were very few things in the world that scared him, and in truth what he was about to do wasn’t one of them, but the thought of getting Lorelei and his brother killed… Finn swallowed hard against that thought. “Maybe they should have gagged us before we left. We could chew on the gag to keep our stomachs from rumbling.”

  “I can gag you now, if you like,” Krestof offered, a sardonic tone in his voice that gave Finn just the right amount of motivation.

  It was now or never, and Mad Finn never said never.

  He spun around fast, his speed always surprising his foes. They never expected a man his size to move with such agility and grace. He gripped and slung the loose end of the chain one-handed, looping it agilely around the other warrior’s neck. It wrapped just enough for him to tug him into range, and before Krestof the Killer could even squeak Finn snapped his neck like a loaf of stale two-week bread. The fight went out of him instantly, and when he let go the man who’d taught him how to wield an axe dropped into a lifeless puddle of flesh at his feet.

  It sounded so loud, but probably only because he was trying to be stealthy.

  For nearly a full minute after snapping Krestof’s neck, Finn stood absolutely still listening to the sounds of the forest around him under the constant rush of his own breath. The wolves tracking their progress along the road were on the opposite side of the woods. He could hear them breathing, faint as whispers in the night. He heard the trickle of the distant stream, his brother’s voice, Lorelei’s heartbeat. Slow and steady, as it should be, but it was about to get a lot quicker.

  When he charged into the road and started taking heads, her heart ju
st might explode. He’d have to be careful with that. Giving his mate a heart attack before she even realized she was his wasn’t exactly conducive to their future together.

  Kneeling over the body, he fished the key out and quickly unlocked the shackle on his left wrist. Dropping the chains to the ground, he curled his fingers around the festering skin, taking pleasure in the immediate respite from agonizing torment as it started to heal. He took several deep breaths, inhaling through his nose to calm the instant rise of his blood pressure. The wolf was angry. It didn’t like silver. Silver was pain and the wolf didn’t like pain. Finn ground his teeth together, clenching his jaw tight as he battled silently against the beast, promising all the bloodshed it could stand as soon as the odds were in his favor.

  Stripping the gloves from Krestof’s hands, he wriggled his fingers into them. They were a little tight, made specifically for another man’s hands, but they would serve their purpose. Wrapping the chains around the pliable leather, he stretched the silver tight and pushed off the ground with a low grunt. If no one looked too closely, they would think he was still shackled, giving him the greater advantage as he strolled back onto the shadowed road. He could still feel the silver, its harmful properties warming through the gloves.

  Hunkering low, he crept silently through the brush, surveying the scene on the road and plotting his next move from the shadows. Brogen and Farnek were standing with their backs to him, a nervous air about them as they muttered to one another. Necal and Gorod stood closely guarding Lorelei and Locon hovered near Vilnjar alone. He’d take out Brogen and Farnek, snapping the first one’s neck before dropping the curved edge of Krestof’s battle axe into the other’s head. After that, he’d just have to play it as it came.

  It wasn’t going to be easy, but that was the beautiful thing about standing against men who’d taught him everything they knew. Finn could perfectly mimic their movements, anticipate their reactions. He understood all their weaknesses and how to exploit them.

  Drawing in a deep breath, he cracked his neck and exhaled, and then he walked into the clearing.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Something wasn’t right. Lorelei felt it gnawing in her gut for miles, but she’d blamed that nervous roiling on the overall helplessness of her situation. Her mind was still muddled from the five-day healing sleep, her head still throbbed where she’d cracked it and though she kept insisting she wasn’t hungry there was an emptiness inside her that went well beyond mere hunger. Coupled with the eerie sensation her own heartbeat had become since waking from that healing sleep, she felt like a walking disaster just waiting for the next boot to drop.

  When Finn started singing about ambushes and insisting he had to relieve himself it provoked her fears because she knew he sensed it more deeply than she did. They were being followed, a dark presence running parallel to them on the road, lurking in the shadows and waiting for the right moment to leap out.

  She couldn’t begin to guess what the overgrown U’lfer warrior had planned when he made their guard stop so he could make water, but she was sure he was up to something. She just hoped whatever it was, he didn’t get them killed. Not that they had much of a life to look forward to once they reached Rimian.

  Surely Master Davan’s lessons about the frozen wasteland rimming the southern border of Leithe were true, though she really was beginning to doubt everything the man had ever taught her and Mirien over the years. Why would he lie, she wondered? Had it been on the king’s order? Had Aelfric deliberately miseducated his daughters? If so, to what end? Surely he knew they would one day leave not just the castle, but the continent of Leithe itself, and in their travels they would see for themselves that everything they were taught had been false.

  It made no sense

  Then again, not much seemed to make sense to her anymore, and though it was getting harder and harder to stomach that fact, she thought she was holding herself together rather well. Rocking back on her heels, she felt the soreness of the muscles in her legs and ankles all the way to the bone. She’d never walked so far in her life, and though she hadn’t noticed the aching as they traveled, once they stopped it became all consuming. She had time to really feel it, and while she hated the notion of Finn calling her Princess, she was very close to letting her complaints start trickling out.

  Would they let them rest at all before they reached the border, a journey that would surely take days? What would happen when she finally gave into her own bladder, which was getting uncomfortably full with every passing moment? She couldn’t have gone to the bathroom if she wanted to, as the idea of making water with eight men standing just a few feet away was positively horrifying. She wondered how long a person could hold it in before their bladder exploded, before the pain of denying the body that one simple relief became too much to bear.

  Gods, she felt her shoulders sink. Finn was right. She really was a spoiled princess. Drawing her lower lip between her teeth, she bit down on the plumpness of it until it felt as if the skin might pierce, and then she glanced toward the woods Finn disappeared into with one of the guards just moments before.

  He was planning something, but what? She imagined he was a quite a warrior; a man his size would be terrifying with a weapon in his hand, but a wolf that big… She bet that wolf could do a lot of damage. Silver obviously blocked the U’lfer from undergoing the transformation from man to wolf, and though she still had doubts there was really a dormant beast somewhere beneath her skin, the silver shackles she wore made her wrists feel sore and raw. The irritated skin stung and pulsed, but her rational mind reasoned any type of shackles would do the same after wearing them long enough.

  She glanced over at Vilnjar and watched him wince as he tried to adjust the chains and rub at the raw, festering skin beneath them. He sucked breath in through clenched teeth and hissed temporary relief when he achieved a moment of freedom, the burn shifting to skin it hadn’t affected yet.

  If there really was a wolf inside her, as Rhiorna told her there was, why didn’t silver bother her the same way it did her companions?

  So little of what happened since she’d opened her eyes in the healing room made sense. Her mind was still swarming with the information she’d been given, thoughts rallying against each other until confusion was the only clear thing in her mind at all. And what was going on with her body? That eerie double pulsing of her heart was always there, always catching her off guard when she least expected it and making her wonder if the U’lfer hadn’t done something to her while she was asleep and helpless in their care. But why would they? To get back at her father? To punish the king for their suffering? As much as she wanted to believe that was key to understanding what was going on inside her body, she knew it was a stretch. The U’lfer couldn’t get rid of her fast enough. Their council wanted nothing to do with her, which in itself seemed odd when she played through the sparse details she had about the Edgelanders Proclamation she kept hearing about and the War of Silence that had been caused by her own mother.

  Her mother… Quiet, obedient, accommodating Ygritte whose voice barely rose above a whisper in the presence of her husband and king. Who spent so little time with her daughters that Lorelei knew almost nothing about the woman behind demure smiles and acquiescent nods. Had she once been terrified enough of her own future to run away from it? Had she taken refuge in Rognar’s arms, become his wife for that short time before he was executed just to punish her? Was that why her mother was so subdued? Did that explain why it was so difficult for her to sometimes look at Lorelei during those rare moments she and her sister were allowed their mother’s company?

  So many questions. Of course it seemed she had plenty of time to work through them all on their journey, but her mind was focusing on other things. She kept returning to the strange possession of her body in the council hall in Drekne. It had been real, one of the realest things she’d ever experienced and for a fleeting moment the mere memory of it caused something inside her to stir. She’d seen plenty of charlatans
in Rivenn, numerous so-called men of Foreln, the father of humanity, trying to demonstrate the power of their god through sleight of hand and sorcery, but the laws her great-grandfather imposed against magic made them few and far between. Sorcery was outlawed, and though she’d seen some in her time, how was she to know whether or not what happened to her in Drekne had been the last powerful trick of a sorceress bent on leaving a lasting impression on her audience before exiting the stage?

  “Are you scared?” The sound of Vilnjar’s voice was unexpected, and she startled from her memories with a stifled gasp.

  What kind of question was that? Was she scared? Of course she was scared. She’d lost everything she’d ever known in the blink of an eye, and that was before she overheard her betrothed plotting to kill her. Some part of her believed in the short time she spent traveling with Trystay toward the coast that eventually his company would win out, his nearness would help assuage some of the longing and sadness she felt leaving her family behind. She didn’t even have that to believe in anymore. Her sister, her mother, Pahjah… she’d probably never see any of them again.

  It took every ounce of strength she had not to burst into tears. The only thing keeping her from that was the strange comfort she seemed to feel whenever she was with Finn. He was near enough that the comfort lingered, even though she couldn’t see him. “A little,” she confessed, turning her gaze sidelong to look more closely at Vilnjar.

  Despite the roughness of his demeanor he had kind blue eyes that seemed far too old for a young man’s face. Faint creases led to the side lashes, crinkling deeper whenever he smiled. That didn’t seem to happen very often, and as if he knew what she was thinking he offered a gentle grin.

  “Whatever awaits us out there, we will get through it.” Was there some kind of hidden promise in those words? Were they meant to reassure her that the thing she feared in the darkness would not get them.