by Jocelyn Fox
“It’s half-starved,” I murmured.
“It tried to kill us,” Merrick reminded me in a sensible tone.
“It didn’t have a choice,” I said, not quite sure why I was rising to the defense of the ulfdrengr and his emaciated wolf. “Neither of them did.”
“There’s always a choice,” Finnead said quietly, his eyes distant as he gazed off into the night.
I chose not to answer, instead leaning over the wolf. Blood patterned its fur wetly. I glanced at Beryk, who gazed back at me unconcernedly. He didn’t seem hurt, though the fight had been savage. I turned back to my inspection of the black-and-gray wolf. Its fur where it was gray was almost silver, and black markings circled its eyes, making me think of a raccoon. I smiled a little. Then the smile faded as I saw the collar fitted around the wolf’s neck. “Look,” I said.
“A collared Northwolf? I’ve never heard of such a thing,” Merrick said.
“Blasphemy,” rumbled Kavoryk.
Beryk added his own rolling growl to the chorus of disbelief. He was on his feet now, hackles raised, golden eyes fixed on the collar. The collar was black, nearly indistinguishable from the wolf’s fur. There was no visible buckle or clasp.
“Bastards sewed it on,” I said. I sat back on my heels. “I should be able to get it off.”
“You couldn’t even walk over here by yourself,” Merrick protested. “Are you sure it isn’t too much?”
“With the ulfdrengr, the curse was near his heart. It was inside him.”
“You don’t know that it isn’t the same with the wolf. The ulfdrengr had the dagger and the curse in his chest.”
“Good point.” I settled myself into a more comfortable sitting position on the ground. What do you think? I asked the Sword.
Asking my opinion now? The Caedbranr replied with something like amusement.
Yes, I replied mildly. We kind of charged into that last one headlong. Figured it might be better to have a plan with this one before plunging in.
You are learning, the Caedbranr said, approval tinging its words.
I felt the power of the Sword unfurling, but not in a rush of emerald fire. This time, it sauntered like a predator out on the prowl, sliding over my shoulder and toward the wolf.
“Stars above,” Merrick breathed behind me.
I blinked, trying to see what someone not bound to the Sword would see, and made out a shimmering emerald outline. It was an animal but I couldn’t make out what it was—something predatory, rippling with muscle. Something with claws. It padded over to the supine wolf and nosed at it, tail lashing. The green glimmer resolved itself into a wolf.
Merrick knelt beside me. “What is it?”
“The Sword,” I said simply, because I really didn’t know myself. Manifesting as an animal? That’s new, I commented silently to the Caedbranr.
Like calls to like, it replied, continuing its inspection of the black-and-gray wolf. The collar runs deeper than it looks, it said. Threads of Darkness holding it in place.
Can we get it off? I asked.
Of course we can get it off, the Sword replied dismissively. It’s a matter of whether we can get it off without killing her.
Her? I said in surprise, my mental voice the equivalent of a squeak.
Yes, the Sword-as-wolf replied. You did not think that Northern wolves simply split themselves in two when it came time to procreate, did you?
No need to be sarcastic, I said.
“What?” Merrick asked. Apparently I’d been making faces in the course of my conversation with the Caedbranr.
“It’s a her,” I said. I looked at Beryk. “Was that why you didn’t kill her?”
Beryk snorted dismissively, but he didn’t move from his watchful position. I raised an eyebrow at him.
There is something wrong, the Sword said, nosing at the collar and then looking back to where Vell knelt over the prone ulfdrengr.
“Something wrong other than the fact that they’ve both been carrying curses for God knows how long?” I asked acidly. My head hurt, pain knotting behind my eyes and settling in my joints.
Do not invoke the Ancient, the glimmering emerald wolf told me sharply. It leveled its burning gaze at me. Sarcasm does not become you, my Bearer.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” I muttered. “So what’s wrong?”
Rather than answer me, the Sword-as-wolf trotted past, gliding over the forest floor without touching a leaf. A slight breeze that smelled of pine and snow brushed against my skin. Without consciously commanding my limbs, I stood and followed the Caedbranr. It stopped by the ulfdrengr.
Wake him up, the Sword said, standing over the man’s limp form imperiously.
Vell made a quick sign and kissed one of her rings, watching the glimmering half-substantial wolf with slightly wide eyes. Yet she still leaned over the unconscious man’s head protectively, looking like a wolf herself on her hands and knees, teeth slightly bared.
“The Sword would like you to wake him up,” I said huskily.
Her stare hit me solidly, like two golden coins. “You just had your hand in his chest. He shouldn’t be awake right now.” There was a low growl in the back of her words.
“Please,” I said tiredly. I inclined my head toward the jewel-colored outline of the Sword. “If you don’t, the Sword will.”
Vell clenched her jaw. “Might damage him even more,” she said mutinously, but then there was another power in the small clearing. Not blazing-great like that of the Sword, but soft and fierce and beautiful like snow—still deadly, but more subtle. I watched through slanted eyes, letting my eyes go slightly out of focus. I saw the Sword-as-wolf, smaller than Beryk but somehow more primal, prehistoric and regal in the heavily muscled set of its shoulders and longer gleam of its teeth. And I saw the different kind of power coalescing about Vell, like snowflakes caught in an eddy. The crystalline flakes, glowing softly silver, spun faster in an invisible vortex, Vell the center, her golden eyes gleaming and unblinking. She reached out and cradled the ulfdrengr’s face between her palms. There was such tenderness in her hands, in her face, that I felt as though I were spying on an intimate moment. A blush burned in my cheeks, though I couldn’t put words to the reason.
Vell’s power swirled around her as she leaned over the ulfdrengr. She whispered a gentle word and it drifted from her lips amid a cloud of snow. I couldn’t tell whether the snow was real or just her Northern power at this point. My head pounded. The Sword watched with glowing emerald eyes. I stepped closer, wondering whether the wolf-form of the Sword’s power was substantial. Could I pet it? I reached out and brushed the glimmering creature tentatively. It felt like hot silk beneath my hand.
Wake him up, the Sword repeated imperviously.
“I’m trying,” Vell hissed at it.
Try harder, little wolf-queen, or I shall do it for you. The Caedbranr took half a step forward on its gliding paws, its fur sliding through my fingers.
“No,” she growled at it, leaning forward and shielding the ulfdrengr with her body. “He is one of mine.”
“Then wake him up,” I said, the Sword using my lips without my permission. I growled in frustration at it. It looked up at me with its ancient wolf-gaze. The Sword-as-wolf made Beryk look like a family pet, and I’d seen Beryk tear the throats out of creatures as we rode into battle. Goose-bumps skittered up my skin as I realized how much the Sword was restraining itself. “Vell,” I whispered. “Please, just wake him up. I don’t want…I don’t want the Sword to have to do it.”
Her eyes flashed. “You were already elbow-deep in his chest tonight.”
“Removing a curse,” I reminded her tiredly.
She didn’t reply, instead turning back to the ulfdrengr lying deathly still beneath her, taking one hand from his face and placing it on his chest. Her power coalesced into a blizzard around her, and the Northern word was a sharp command. The ulfdrengr’s body heaved and his head jerked. Vell spoke to him urgently, her dark hair escaping its braid and falling for
ward to hide her face as she leaned over him. Then she stiffened. I knelt. The Caedbranr pushed past her arm, stood stock-still for a heartbeat and then whirled, leaping over both of us effortlessly. In a corner of my mind I felt its movements. It glided across the clearing and stopped again by the black-and-gray wolf.
With effort, I separated myself from the Sword and reclaimed my vision. “Vell?” I asked.
“Give me your water-skin,” she said brusquely in a strange, strangled voice.
I fumbled my water-skin from my belt and handed it to her. She unscrewed the top and held it to the ulfdrengr’s lips with shaking hands. He coughed harshly and she slid one hand under his neck, helping him to raise his head. His eyes slid open and I couldn’t help the sound of surprise that escaped my throat. I leaned closer.
“You and Beryk…are all pairs like you?” I asked quietly.
Vell gave me a stricken look. “It is the most prominent mark of the ulfdrengr, that we have wolf-eyes.”
“We saw the wolf’s eyes in the scrying-stone. They were amethyst.” My head was pounding, and thinking felt like slogging through sludge.
“It’s not his wolf,” Vell said, her voice tight with nameless grief.
I felt the Sword gather its power. It was just enough warning to brace myself. The Sword-as-wolf tore at the Darkness embedded in the neck of the black-and-gray wolf. It burned our mouth and our paws with cold. Distantly I felt myself cradling my hands to my chest, baring my teeth against the pain. The black-and-gray wolf shuddered. Kavoryk tightened his grip on his axe, black eyes glittering. We raked the Darkness with our claws and worried it with our teeth. It peeled away from the wolf’s neck, leaving raw red flesh behind, still desperately clinging with the single-minded intent of a leech. We pulled it away and swallowed it, piercing it with our long white teeth. It writhed inside us like a terrible snake, shrieking, but in the furnace of our fire it shriveled. It lashed at us with a barbed tail, thrashing wildly in its death-throes as we wrung the curse from the black-and-gray wolf. The struggled lasted a long moment, but then the curse crumbled to ash.
I wrenched myself away from the Sword, shuddering and gasping, black spots dancing across my vision. My mouth tasted like copper. I groped for my water-skin and took a swallow shakily.
“Tess?” Vell said. “Are you all right?”
Putting a hand on the ground to steady myself, I gritted my teeth and willed my head to stop spinning. “That one was harder. Maybe because it was the second one.” I blinked. “But I’m okay.”
“Two curses in one night. Impressive,” drawled Finnead from the shadows, approaching us on cat-quiet feet.
“With no help from you,” I retorted. Irritation and the beginning spark of anger brought me back into focus.
“One of us had to ensure that we weren’t ambushed while you were preoccupied with saving the Northman that tried to kill you,” he replied in his cold, smooth voice.
I wanted to kick him. I opened my mouth to reply.
“A little friendly banter is all well and good, but we have more pressing matters to attend, do we not?” Vell spared us both a glance and then bent over the ulfdrengr again.
I glared at Finnead, but he had already turned away, the moonlight caressing a sheen of blue and purple into his dark hair. The sight of his lithe body moving through the shadows like a beautiful, deadly panther made something in my chest squeeze tightly. I clenched my teeth angrily and pushed the feeling away, turning back to the ulfdrengr.
Vell murmured a question in the North-tongue. From the sound of it, I guessed that she was asking his name.
“Luca,” he whispered through his cracked and bleeding lips. “You are…herravaldyr?”
Vell looked over her shoulder to where Beryk stood sentinel-still by the black-and-gray wolf. Luca followed her gaze. He tried to sit up when he saw the still form of the mottled wolf. “Is she dead?” he asked hoarsely. “Tell me, please…the curse…”
“The curse is gone,” Vell said gently, placing a restraining hand on his shoulder. “You need not fear it anymore. The wolf is alive.” She omitted the fact that she had shot said wolf with a green-fletched arrow, I noticed.
The ulfdrengr clearly didn’t believe that the curse had been removed. He raised his right hand. He still held the dagger, but not of his own volition: twisted black threads, not Darkness but ordinary leather, bound the hilt of the dagger to his palm. I reached out and took hold of his arm gently, grimacing as I saw that the cords pierced through his palm in several places. The flesh of his hand was an ugly mottled color, red and almost black in places. It must have been painful, but the ulfdrengr had eyes only for the silver of the dagger.
“It’s silent,” he said hoarsely. He closed his eyes. “It’s not in my head anymore.” His face twisted and for a moment I thought that he felt pain at my inspection of his hand, but then he heaved a sigh of incredulous relief. His breath caught in a strangled sob.
I looked at Vell. She pulled her sleeve over the heel of her hand and wiped the tears from the ufdrengr’s bruised face. At her touch, he quieted. He opened his eyes and watched me as I carefully turned his hand over, my mouth thinning as I saw the ugly knots biting into the back of his hand and wrist.
“We’ll get this off you,” I told him quietly.
“You were the one who took the curse from me?”
“Yes.” I looked down at him and felt half a smile curl the corner of my mouth. “It wasn’t exactly gentle. I’m sorry about that.”
The ulfdrengr stared at me with ice-blue eyes and whispered, “You should have killed me.”
I blinked. “Why?”
Pain etched lines into his face. “I was going to kill you. That’s why it sent me here.” He shuddered. “And the other things it made me do…now they’ll kill Kianyk.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” I told him, even as I wondered what horrors he had been forced to commit. And Kianyk. Was that his wolf? I motioned to the silver dagger. “See? This is what made you do it.”
“If I had been stronger…”
“It’s not a matter of strength,” I told him fiercely. “Not when it comes to this.”
Vell touched the ulfdrengr’s shoulder in silent reassurance and stood. Apparently she had forgiven me for plunging my hand into his chest.
“Your eyes were green flame,” he murmured, his voice hoarse. I remembered his screams and the feel of his beating heart beneath my hand.
I forced a smile. “Side effect of the whole curse-removal ability.”
“It fears you,” he told me, eyes glassy. “The Darkness.”
“Good,” I said with a hard satisfaction.
“It wants you dead,” he continued.
I set his arm down gently, careful of the sharp edge of the dagger. “Then the feeling is mutual,” I told him.
“But it can’t be killed,” he said in a chilling whisper.
Before I could reply, Vell returned with an armful of blankets and one of her saddlebags. “We’re not going anywhere tonight. We were bedded down anyway.”
“I doubt anyone else got any real sleep,” I pointed out, helping her slide a blanket beneath Luca’s head. The ulfdrengr stared unseeingly into the darkness.
Vell drew her healing kit from the saddlebag and handed me a packet of venison. “See if he’ll eat anything.”
“The wolf…”
“Kavoryk and Merrick are taking care of it. I think the Sword’s still over there, too. Or whatever it is now.”
“It’s still the Sword,” I replied. “I didn’t know it could do that either. But it said ‘like calls to like.’”
“Hmm,” was all Vell said as she unscrewed the cap of her water-skin. She tipped a packet of powdered herbs into it and shook it briskly. “Have him drink this, too.”
The water smelled like mint and juniper. “Luca?”
He blinked. “How do you know my name?” he asked in confusion.
I gave Vell a worried look.
“He’s been through more than
most could handle,” she said quietly, laying out her healing kit. “His mind’s still recovering from the shock of it.”
I nodded. “I’m sorry I didn’t introduce myself,” I told the ulfdrengr. “My name is Tess.”
“Tess,” he murmured breathily. “That’s a beautiful name.”
I smiled and Vell quirked an eyebrow. “I bet you’re quite the charmer when you’re not flat on your back from a curse,” she commented drolly, her pale white hands untucking his shirt with clinical precision.
“On the contrary,” he replied, “I am at my most charming…when flat on my back…” The ghost of a grin hovered on his cracked lips. His accent was stronger than Vell’s, but the glimpse of easy humor reminded me of Ramel. It made me like the ulfdrengr more.
“Hmm,” Vell said noncommittally, apparently unimpressed by Luca’s wit.
“Here,” I said, offering him the water-skin.
Luca went to take the canteen with his right hand and I caught his wrist out of reflex as the dagger flashed. He stared at the blade sewn crudely to his palm, as if he’d forgotten it was there. I laid it down by his side and offered him the canteen again. He let me hold it to his lips and he drank thirstily, so fast that he started coughing.
“Easy,” I cautioned, waiting for him to catch his breath.
“He might have a few broken ribs,” Vell said. She had Luca’s shirt pushed up around his neck, her expert hands running lightly over the mottled bruises covering his torso. His ribs showed starkly through his pale skin. There was a nasty burn over the left side of his chest.
“Did I do that?” I asked with a fascinated sense of horror.
“The curse would have killed him eventually,” Vell replied. “Looks like it was just going to push him until his body failed.”