He didn’t stop until he was standing under the awning’s edge, transfixed by the constant thunk of hammer to steel, the fluid movement of her body and flex of her tight muscles. Tilting his head in awe, he watched a bead of sweat drip down her temple and soak into the fabric of her apron.
“Can I help you with something, U’lfer?” There was just enough bitterness in the deep male voice that spoke those words to startle him from his daydream.
Vilnjar’s gaze snapped right, toward the gruff looking man in an ash-stained apron, the golden hairs of his beard and the skin beneath dusted black with so much soot his blue eyes seemed to shine against that darkness.
“I am always on the lookout for a good blade.” Viln had no real interest in weaponry, but he had to stop himself from blurting out that he was just admiring the beautiful young woman at the forge. The look in the man’s eyes told him his advances would not be welcome. “How is your steel?”
“We don’t arm or outfit beasts,” the man grumbled, but his daughter glanced up from her work, her brilliant eyes meeting with his, her stare lingering and the edges of her mouth lifting ever so slightly when she saw him there.
“That is a shame,” he took a step back. “If all your seer says is true about the task of the Light of Madra, the people in your city will be without armor and blades.” Still walking backwards, his gaze flitted from the beautiful young armorer’s daughter then back to her father. “Good day, blacksmith.”
“That was very rude of you, Father,” he heard her say just before he turned back toward Hodon’s hall.
“Are you finished with that sword yet, Frigga?”
“No, Father, but…”
“Perhaps if you spent more time on your work, and less time ogling strangers…” The man’s words trailed into the bustle of bodies passing behind Viln on the street.
Frigga. Her name was Frigga.
He didn’t turn around again until he’d arrived in front of Hodon’s hall again, but when he did, she was watching him, waiting for him to see her, and when he did she smiled and Vilnjar felt the heavy darkness that had been weighing down upon him begin to lift.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Finn had never been one to linger on guilt. Life was too short, but since he met Lorelei he found himself feeling guilty about every single thing he did. Watching his brother storm out of Hodon’s hall only served to intensify the sour feeling in his already uneasy gut. Vilnjar meant well, he always did, but the way he went about his well-meant actions had been pushing Finn over the edge since he was old enough to realize his brother was not happy unless he was in control of everything around him.
It was a strange thing he hadn’t ascended higher into the Council of the Nine, considering how eager he seemed to be to hold the reins. Without the rigid structure and opportunity to stand firmly in control of the situation at hand, Viln’s teeth were likely on edge.
Good. Let him suffer a little.
He had been nothing but a vaporous cloud of negative energy since Finn had brought Lorelei into the hall in Drekne. If he couldn’t accept the fact that their entire race was teetering on the edge of a ravine plunging straight into extinction, that was his problem. Finn, for one, liked the idea of not only living, but filling the world with enough offspring to carry on his name for an age to come.
His eager thoughts of that possibility dampened as the likelihood of that happening were cut in half the minute Logren and his band of merry half-breeds ascended from the mountains to save their collective asses. Finn scowled across the table at Brendolowyn, a part of him not even sure why he felt so threatened by the half-elf every time he saw him making eyes at his mate. Maybe because he’d caught her looking back a time or two and felt a strange twinge of conflict in the beat of her heart that sparked an undercurrent of trepidation inside him.
What if she didn’t actually choose him when all was said and done?
The thought made the muscles of his stomach nervously clench, and they were already tight from all the tension between them he had felt before she left for the bathhouse with Viina.
“How much of your place in the grand scheme of events did Rhiorna reveal to you before she passed from this world, Finn?” Hodon left him little time to dwell on his brother’s hard feelings and the constant, uneasy shift of Lorelei’s emotional state.
The atmosphere in the hall shifted drastically when Vilnjar left, the heaviness lifting away like dark clouds abating after a storm. Even Logren seemed to relax with his brother gone, though he was still warily watching Finn from across the table, his eyes so much like Lorelei’s Finn couldn’t help but feeling like he would disintegrate under the other man’s scrutiny.
“Not much really,” he shook his head, retrieving his stare from the closed door and turning his full attention to Hodon. “When I brought Lorelei to Drekne, she said only that things were going as the gods planned. In the hours before she left this world, she told me Lorelei was my mate and it was my place to teach her the old ways my mother passed onto me.”
“She told you nothing of your journey?”
“Only that I must protect her and stand beside her until the end.”
Finn watched Hodon exchange glances with Logren, and then he said, “Yovenna has seen a great journey ahead of you. A perilous quest for three from which only two will return. She has already named the two companions who must travel with the Light of Madra to retrieve the horns, and you are one of them.”
The hairs on Finn’s forearms and at the back of his neck tingled and rose with a chill. His mother used to say that eerie feeling came when someone in the future passed over the place where a wolf’s body had been laid to rest after their death, the disturbance of their footsteps spanning across time to remind him of his own mortality. Finn never thought much about the fleeting nature of life, but death seemed to be all around him and everywhere he looked.
Brendolowyn was staring at him from across the table, the elf’s long violet eyes wide with intrigue, as if he were trying to gauge Finn’s reaction to the news that one of them was supposed to die.
Well it wouldn’t be him, Finn decided, clenching his teeth together so hard in his mouth he could feel the tension rising into his temples and making his skull ache. No doubt the half-breed had been given years to sit with and accept his potential fate. He’d be well prepared when it was his time to die.
For a moment, however, Finn felt the heavy, dreaded hand of doubt, the nervous flutter in his stomach no longer preoccupied with Lorelei’s anger toward him. He wasn’t sure if it was better off knowing that kind of thing, or not. He guessed he was about to find out.
“I don’t suppose your seer knows which of us is not meant to come back?” A nervous laugh stuck in the back of his throat, flitting into the silence and hanging there when he realized all eyes were on him, Brendolowyn’s lavender gaze most specifically, his eyes narrowing with unspoken distaste as the long edge of his mouth jerked into a sneer when he shook his head.
“Even if she does know, she will not say. It is no one’s place to know the time or manner of his death.”
“No.” Finn looked down at his arms on the table, the hairs still standing straight up as if he were cold. He did feel cold; his hand swept the muscle of his forearm briskly, absently. “I suppose it is not.”
It was Logren who next spoke, his fingertips bristling through the long hair of his dark auburn mustache as he asked, “You will escort my sister then? Even knowing you may not return?”
Finn didn’t even have to think to answer that question. “I will follow her wherever she must go, protect her with my life,” he declared. “But your seer has seen this great journey from which one of us may not return, has already named Lorelei’s companions, so you already knew my answer. Why go to the trouble of asking me?”
“I need to hear it firsthand, that you will keep my sister safe and ensure she reaches her destination so the Horns of Llorveth are returned to this place. I already know I can trust Brendolowyn. He is my s
worn blood brother, but you, U’lfer…” He said the word U’lfer as if it left a bad taste in his mouth. “You I am still not so sure about. You are little more than a child. Does the thought of death not frighten you?”
Finn still wasn’t sure how he felt about Logren, if the man was even half as trustworthy as he wanted his sister to believe, or if his esteemed loyalty to her was merely a front to win her over to whatever cause he had planned. Did he care if Lorelei returned safely, or were the horns he spoke of more important?
It was impossible to tell.
“I have stood face to face with death enough times to know the foul stench of his breath, half-breed.” Two could call names, but as soon as that insult left his mouth he felt a surge of guilt, remembering how much it upset Lorelei. “They did not name me mad and reckless without just cause.”
“That is good,” Hodon nodded, an appreciative grin tugging at the corner of his mouth. “From what I’ve gathered, it may very well take a madman to get through what lies ahead of you.”
Logren laughed appreciatively, slapping Brendolowyn’s back. “It is good then that my sister has two mad men at her disposal for this journey. It sounds as if she will need you both.”
“I am prepared to die for Lorelei, if that is what I’m meant to do,” Finn declared. “She is everything to me.” He doubted the half-elf could say the same with even half the conviction Finn felt in his heart, and for a moment that realization boosted his arrogance.
“The power of the bond between a wolf and his mate is unbreakable,” Hodon lamented as he leaned back in his chair. “Even if she has not recognized him as her mate, he will stay true to her until the gods take him from this world. Knowing this, however, we still needed to hear you say the words, make the commitment to the journey ahead.”
Across the table Brendolowyn was still scowling, the remnants of a half-breathed sigh rushing through his lips when he caught Finn’s eye. What was he thinking? That he could better protect her with magic than Finn could with might? That he was more willing to die for her than the wolf who felt a connection to her soul? He almost laughed out loud at that notion. He had more than earned the name his people gave him, and from the sound of things, a little insanity and recklessness was just what she was going to need to get her there and back again in one piece.
The things he would do to keep her safe… the mage couldn’t even begin to imagine.
“Yovenna will reveal the details of her quest to her this day, the exact location of the Horns of Llorveth. Both of you should prepare for departure at Lorelei’s whim.”
“I am ready whenever she is,” Finn declared, snidely grinning across the table at the mage.
“I have been ready since before the wolf pup here was even born,” Brendolowyn assured Hodon.
“How is your smithy?” Finn ignored the other man’s statement. “I will need him to forge me a set of armor before we go. And an ax if possible. My weapons were confiscated by your men,” he glanced over at Logren. “I’d stolen them anyway. They weren’t exactly made for me, but perhaps if you will permit me to work with your blacksmith…”
“Broehn Black-Hammer will give you whatever you require,” Hodon yielded. “All I need do is ask it of him.”
“Lorelei will need outfitted as well,” he determined. “I have been teaching her basic shield and blade techniques, and she shows promise, but she could improve greatly with a set of equipment made specifically for her.”
“For the Light of Madra, it will be done.”
Hodon agreed to speak to the blacksmith on their behalf after the noon meal, and then he dismissed them. Finn followed Logren back through the hall and into the crisp, mid-morning air, but Brendolowyn lingered behind to discuss further business with Hodon. He was glad to be away from the mage, an incredible lightness of being enveloping him as they stepped outdoors, but guilt returning the moment he saw his brother.
Vilnjar made himself comfortable while he waited, his back against the wall, arms crossed over his chest and his gaze lingering in the distance. He didn’t even look at them when they emerged, and when Finn spoke he didn’t make eye contact.
“I still think you should have thought this all through a little better before coming along,” Finn told him. Logren gestured with his head for the two of them to follow him and they fell into step behind him. “You’d probably be a lot happier sitting back at home spouting doom and gloom to the entire congregation with the council.”
“My reasons for coming along are my own, little brother,” he pushed off the wall with his foot and fell into step behind Logren. “You forget, I spoke with Rhiorna before she left this world. You have no idea the things she said to me.”
Finn didn’t know why, but that startled him a little. What things had Rhiorna said to Vilnjar that she hadn’t said to him? Did his brother know what fate awaited him? Had he come along to try and talk Finn out of embarking on a journey from which he was not meant to return? It would explain a lot of things, Vilnjar knowing he might be headed for his own death on the road that lay ahead.
“Well, whatever it was she said to you, you’re not going to stand in the way of my doing what needs to be done, Viln.”
“Rhiorna said nothing of importance to me about you,” he said almost casually, his stare lingering on the young woman hammering steel outside the blacksmith’s forge when they passed her by. Finn watched her look up from her work, a slow smile warming at the corner of her mouth when she saw his brother. “Whether you want me here, or not, it matters little. I am exactly where the gods wish for me to be. Isn’t that right, Logren?”
“Oh, real clever, Viln. Bait the man putting a roof over your head while you’re a guest in this city,” Finn snorted a disbelieving laugh.
Logren ignored his brother’s taunt, and instead lead them into the bathhouse so they could wash and change into fresh clothing. The air within the building was heavy and damp, immediately seeping into the tight fabric of Finn’s borrowed clothing and weighing it down against his skin until he itched. Logren stopped to speak with the attendant serving just inside the doors and turned to hand Finn a stack of clean clothing Viina left for him to change into. Accepting the pile of fabric, he scanned the central pool for a glimpse of his mate, but Lorelei was nowhere to be seen. Only children frolicked in the main pool, the water lapping at the edges with their movement, their laughter and voices echoing over the undercurrent of splashing water.
“She brought you clean clothes as well,” Logren turned to Viln, handing him a neatly folded outfit of casual clothing. “The men’s bath is through that door over there.”
“And the women’s?” Finn quirked an eyebrow, but Logren was not amused.
“I have some business to attend to, and will return to wait for you outside the bathhouse when I’ve finished,” he told them. “Be respectful to the people here,” he warned. “There are not a great many in Dunvarak who feel comfortable allowing beasts to roam free among us, but no one will deny you a proper bath after all you’ve done to bring the Light of Madra safely to our city.”
“And yet they want so desperately to release the beasts beneath their own skin,” Vilnjar scoffed. “Very hypocritical if you were to ask me.”
Nudging his brother toward the left hand door leading into the men’s bathing area, Finn scowled. “No one has asked you, in case you haven’t noticed. Heidr’s loom, Viln, what is with you?”
“Not a thing,” he shrugged, drawing his shoulder in to avoid colliding with two brawny men emerging as they were passing through the doors. The men scrutinized them with wary, cautious eyes, their mouths drawn tight with distrusting scowls.
“Look, I didn’t mean to be so harsh with you back at Hodon’s hall, but…”
“Think not a thing of it, brother. It is water under the bridge.”
“Water under the bridge,” he snorted, “right.”
His brother had never been a water under the bridge kind of man, choosing to linger on the details of every annoyance until th
ey threatened to eat him alive. It wouldn’t be long before the lectures started, Finn was sure of it.
“No, really, it is.” He shrugged almost casually, and for the first time since they emerged from the hall he noticed that his brother was more relaxed than he’d ever seen him. What the hell happened to him while they were inside discussing the details of Finn’s possible death? “You are right. I had no place forcing myself into your journey, and scorn me for coming though you might, I am meant to be in this place just as much as you are, Finn. I have a part to play too.”
“What are you talking about?”
“It doesn’t matter.” His voice was quiet, his gaze passing across the near empty bathing room when they entered. “I know now that there was a reason for me to follow you for once, and that reason had less to do with watching out for you than I had thought.”
“Hodon said I might die.”
Finn lowered his clean clothes onto a long, stone bench beside the pools and began unlacing the taut string across his chest. Peeling that shirt off felt like removing a layer of skin, and when he glanced down at his bare chest there were deep, pink indentations beneath the sparse layer of hair there, left behind by the hemline pressing into his flesh. He didn’t even want to see what he looked like below the waist, the pants he wore were so tight, his legs were probably purple from the lack of blood flow.
Viln stripped down and slid into the hot water lapping at the edges of the pool before Finn even finished peeling his pants off, but he said nothing about what Finn declared. He waited until he’d stepped down into the pool before bringing it up again.
“Doesn’t that worry you?”
“What?”
Edgelanders (Serpent of Time) Page 47