The Spine of the World

by Philip Athans

  “Secure the door!” one of the guards managed to cry out.

  The main door cracked open then, a man peeking out. Seeing Wulfgar bearing in, he tried to close it fast. Wulfgar got there just before it slammed, pushing back with all his strength. He heard the man calling frantically for help, felt the greater push as another guard joined the first, both leaning heavily.

  “I’m coming, too,” Morik called, “though only the gods know why!”

  His thoughts far away, in a dark and smoky place where his child’s last terrified cry rent the air, Wulfgar didn’t hear his friend, didn’t need him. Bellowing, he shoved with all his strength until the door flew in, tossing the two guards like children against the back wall of the foyer.

  “Where is she?” Wulfgar demanded, and even as he spoke the foyer’s other door swung open. Liam Woodgate appeared, rushing in with sword in hand.

  “Now you pay, dog!” the coachman cried, coming in fast and hard, stabbing, a feint. Pulling the blade back in, he sent it into a sudden twirl, then feigned a sidelong slice, turning it over again and coming straight in with a deadly thrust.

  Liam was good, the best fighter in all of Auckney, and he knew it. That’s why it was difficult to understand how Wulfgar’s hammer came out so fast to hook over Liam’s blade and take it safely wide of the mark. How could the huge barbarian turn so nimbly on his feet to get within reach of Liam’s sword? How was he able to come around perfectly, sending his thick arm spiking up under Liam’s sword arm? Liam knew his own skill, and so it was even harder for him to understand how his clever attack had been turned against him so completely. Liam knew only that his face was suddenly pressed against the stone wall, his arms pulled tight behind his back, and the snarling barbarian’s breath was on his neck.

  “Lady Meralda and the child,” Wulfgar asked. “Where are they?”

  “I’d die afore I’d tell you!” Liam declared. Wulfgar pressed in. The poor old gnome thought he surely would die, but Liam held his determined tongue and growled against the pain.

  Wulfgar spun him around and slammed him once, then slammed him again when he managed somehow to hold his feet, launching him over to the floor. Liam nearly tripped up Morik, who skipped right on by through the other door and into the castle proper.

  Wulfgar was right behind him. They heard voices, and Morik led the way, crashing through a set of double doors and into a comfortable sitting room.

  “Lord Brandeburg?” Lady Priscilla asked.

  She squealed in fright and fell back in her chair as Wulfgar followed the rogue into the room. “Where is Lady Meralda and the child?” he roared.

  “Haven’t you caused enough harm?” Steward Temigast demanded, moving to stand boldly before the huge man.

  Wulfgar looked him right in the eye. “Too much,” he admitted, “but none here.”

  That set Temigast back on his heels.

  “Where are they?” Wulfgar demanded, rushing up to Priscilla.

  “Thieves! Murderers !” Priscilla cried, swooning.

  Wulfgar locked stares with Temigast. To Wulfgar’s surprise, the old steward nodded and motioned toward the staircase.

  Even as he did, Priscilla Auck ran full-out up the staircase.

  “Do you have any idea what you’ve done to me?” Feringal asked Meralda, standing by the edge of her bed, the infant girl lying warm beside her. “To us? To Auckney?”

  “I beg you to try to understand, my lord,” the woman pleaded.

  Feringal winced, pounding his fists into his eyes. His visage steeled, and he reached down and plucked the babe from her side. Meralda started up toward him, but she hadn’t the strength and fell back on the bed. “What’re you about?”

  Feringal strode over to the window and pulled the curtain aside. “My sister says I should toss it to the waves upon the rocks,” he said through teeth locked in a tight grimace, “to rid myself of the evidence of your betrayal.”

  “Please, Feringal, do not—” Meralda began.

  “It’s what they’re all saying, you know,” Feringal said as if she hadn’t spoken. He blinked his eyes and wiped his nose with his sleeve. “The child of Jaka Sculi.”

  “My lord!” she cried, her red-rimmed eyes fearful.

  “How could you?” Feringal yelled, then looked from the baby in his hands to the open window. Meralda started to cry.

  “The cuckold, and now the murderer,” Feringal muttered to himself as he moved closer to the window. “You have damned me, Meralda!” he cursed. Holding out his arms, he moved the crying baby to the opening, then he looked down at the innocent little girl and pulled her back close, his tears mixing with the baby’s. “Damned me, I say!” he cried, and the breath came in labored, forced gasps.

  Suddenly the door to the room flew open, and Lady Priscilla burst in. She slammed it shut and secured the bolt behind her. Surveying the scene quickly, she ran to her brother, her voice shrill. “Give it to me!”

  Lord Feringal rolled his shoulder between the child and Priscilla’s grasping hands.

  “Give it to me!” the woman shrieked again, and a tussle for the baby ensued.

  Wulfgar went in fast pursuit, taking the curving staircase four steps at a stride. He came to a long hallway lined with rich tapestries where he ran into yet another bumbling castle guard. The barbarian slapped the prone man’s sword away, caught him by the throat, and lifted him into the air.

  Morik skittered past him, going from door to door, ear cocked, then he stopped abruptly at one. “They’re in here,” he announced. He grabbed the handle only to find it locked.

  “The key?” Wulfgar demanded, giving the guard a shake.

  The man grabbed the barbarian’s iron arm. “No key,” he gasped breathlessly. Wulfgar looked about to strangle him, but the thief intervened.

  “Don’t bother, I’ll pick the lock,” he said, going fast to his belt pouch.

  “Don’t bother, I have a key,” Wulfgar cried. Morik looked up to see the barbarian bearing down on him, the guard still dangling at the end of one arm. Seeing his intent, Morik skittered out of the way as Wulfgar hurled the hapless man through the wooden door. “A key,” the barbarian explained.

  “Well thrown,” Morik commented.

  “I have had practice,” explained Wulfgar, thundering past the dazed guard to leap into the room.

  Meralda sat up on the bed, sobbing, while Lord Feringal and his sister stood by the open window, the babe in Feringal’s arms. He was leaning toward the opening as if he meant to throw the child out. Both siblings and Meralda turned stunned expressions Wulfgar’s way, and their eyes widened even more when Morik crashed in behind the barbarian.

  “Lord Brandeburg!” Feringal cried.

  Lady Priscilla shouted at her brother, “Do it now, before they ruin every—”

  “The child is mine!” Wulfgar declared. Priscilla bit off the end of her sentence in surprise. Feringal froze as if turned to stone.

  “What?” the young lord gasped.

  “What?” Lady Priscilla gasped.

  “What?” gasped Morik, at the same time.

  “What?” gasped Meralda, quietly, and she coughed quickly to cover her surprise.

  “The child is mine,” Wulfgar repeated firmly, “and if you throw her out the window, then you shall follow so quickly that you’ll pass her by and your broken body will pad her fall.”

  “You are so eloquent in emergencies,” Morik remarked. To Lord Feringal, he added, “The window is small, yes, but I’ll wager that my big friend can squeeze you through it. And your plump sister, as well.”

  “You can’t be the father,” Lord Feringal declared, trembling so violently that it seemed as if his legs would just buckle beneath him. He looked to Priscilla for an answer, to his sister who was always hovering above him with all of the answers. “What trick is this?”

  “Give it to me!” Priscilla demanded. Taking advantage of her brother’s paralyzing confusion, she moved quickly and tore the child from Feringal’s grasp. Meralda cri
ed out, the baby cried, and Wulfgar started forward, knowing that he could never get there in time, knowing that the innocent was surely doomed.

  Even as Priscilla turned for the window, her brother leaped before her and slugged her in the face. Stunned, she staggered back a step. Feringal snatched the child from her arms and shoved her again, sending his sister stumbling to the floor.

  Wulfgar eyed the man for a long and telling moment, understanding then beyond any doubt that despite his obvious anger and revulsion, Feringal would not hurt the child. The barbarian strode across the room, secure in his observations, confident that the young man would take no action against the babe.

  “The child is mine,” the barbarian said with a growl, reaching over to gently pull the wailing baby from Feringal’s weakening grasp. “I meant to wait another month before returning,” he explained, turning to face Meralda. “But it’s good you delivered early. A child of mine come to full term would likely have killed you in birthing.”

  “Wulfgar!” Morik cried suddenly.

  Lord Feringal, apparently recovering some of his nerve and most of his rage, produced a dagger from his belt and came in hard at the barbarian. Morik needn’t have worried, though, for Wulfgar heard the movement. Lifting the babe high with one arm to keep her from harm’s way, he spun and slapped the dagger aside with his free hand. As Feringal came in close, Wulfgar brought his knee up hard into the man’s groin. Down Lord Feringal went, curling into a mewling heap on the floor.

  “I think my large friend can make it so that you never have children of your own,” Morik remarked with a wink to Meralda.

  Meralda didn’t even hear the words, staring dumbfounded at Wulfgar, at the child he had proclaimed as his own.

  “For my actions on the road, I truly apologize, Lady Meralda,” the barbarian said, and he was playing to a full audience now, as Liam Woodgate, Steward Temigast and the remaining half dozen castle guards appeared at the door, staring in wide-eyed disbelief. On the floor before Wulfgar, Lady Priscilla looked up at him, confusion and unbridled anger simmering in her eyes.

  “It was the bottle and your beauty that took me,” Wulfgar explained. He turned his attention to the child, his smile wide as he lifted the infant girl into the air for his sparkling blue eyes to behold. “But I’ll not apologize for the result of that crime,” he said. “Never that.”

  “I will kill you,” Lord Feringal growled, struggling to his knees.

  Wulfgar reached down with one hand and grabbed him by the collar. Helping him up with a powerful jerk, he spun the lord around into a choke hold. “You will forget me, and the child,” Wulfgar whispered into his ear. “Else the combined tribes of Icewind Dale will sack you and your wretched little village.”

  Wulfgar pushed the young lord, spinning him into Morik’s waiting grasp. Staring at Liam and the other dangerous guards, the rogue wasted no time in putting a sharp dagger to the man’s throat.

  “Secure us supplies for the road,” Wulfgar instructed. “We need wrappings and food for the babe.” Everyone in the room, save Wulfgar and the baby, wore incredulous expressions. “Do it!” the barbarian roared. Frowning, Morik pushed toward the door with Lord Feringal, waving a scrambling Priscilla out ahead of him.

  “Fetch!” the rogue instructed Liam and Priscilla. He glanced back and saw Wulfgar moving toward Meralda then, so he pushed out even further, backing them all away.

  “What made you do such a thing?” Meralda asked when she was alone with Wulfgar and the child.

  “Your problem was not hard to discern,” Wulfgar explained.

  “I falsely accused you.”

  “Understandably so,” Wulfgar replied. “You were trapped and scared, but in the end you risked everything to free me from prison. I could not let that deed go unpaid.”

  Meralda shook her head, too overwhelmed to even begin to sort this out. So many thoughts and emotions whirled in her mind. She had seen the look of despair on Feringal’s face, had thought he would, indeed, drop the baby to the rocks. Yet, in the end he hadn’t been able to do it, hadn’t let his sister do it. She did love this man—how could she not? And yet, she could hardly deny her unexpected feelings for her child, though she knew that never, ever, could she keep her.

  “I am taking the babe far from here,” Wulfgar said determinedly, as if he had read her mind. “You are welcome to come with us.”

  Meralda laughed softly, without humor, because she knew she would be crying soon enough. “I can’t,” she explained, her voice a whisper. “I’ve a duty to my husband, if he’ll still have me, and to my family. My folks would be branded if I went with you.”

  “Duty? Is that the only reason you’re staying?” Wulfgar asked her, apparently sensing something more.

  “I love him, you know,” Meralda replied, tears streaming down her beautiful face. “I know what you must think of me, but truly, the babe was made before I ever—”

  Wulfgar held up his hand. “You owe me no explanation,” he said, “for I am hardly in a position to judge you or anyone else. I came to understand your … problem, and so I returned to repay your generosity, that is all.” He looked to the door through which Morik held Lord Feringal. “He does love you,” he said. “His eyes and the depth of his pain showed that clearly.”

  “You think I’m right in staying?”

  Wulfgar shrugged, again refusing to offer any judgments.

  “I can’t leave him,” Meralda said, and she reached up and tenderly stroked the child’s face, “but I cannot keep her, either. Feringal would never accept her,” she admitted, her tone empty and hollow, for she realized her time with her daughter was nearing its end. “But perhaps he’d give her over to another family in Auckney now that he’s thinking I didn’t betray him,” she suggested faintly.

  “A reminder to him of his pain, and to you of your lie,” Wulfgar said softly, not accusing the woman, but surely reminding her of the truth. “And within the reach of his shrewish sister.”

  Meralda lowered her gaze and accepted the bitter truth. The baby was not safe in Auckney.

  “Who better to raise her than me?” Wulfgar asked suddenly, resolve in his voice. He looked down at the little girl, and his mouth turned up into a warm smile.

  “You’d do that?”

  Wulfgar nodded. “Happily.”

  “You’d keep her safe?” Meralda pressed. “Tell her of her ma?”

  Wulfgar nodded. “I don’t know where my road now leads,” he explained, “but I suspect I’ll not venture too far from here. Perhaps someday I will return, or at least she will, to glimpse her ma.”

  Meralda was shaking with sobs, her face gleaming with tears. Wulfgar glanced to the doorway to make sure that he was not being watched, then bent down and kissed her on the cheek. “I think it best,” he said quietly. “Do you agree?”

  After she studied the man for a moment, this man who had risked everything to save her and her child though they had done nothing to deserve his heroism, Meralda nodded.

  The tears continued to flow freely. Wulfgar could appreciate the pain she was feeling, the depth of her sacrifice. He leaned in, allowing Meralda to stroke and kiss her baby girl one last time, but when she moved to take her away, Wulfgar pulled back. Meralda’s smile of understanding was bittersweet.

  “Farewell, little one,” she said through her sobs and looked away. Wulfgar bowed to Meralda one last time, then, with the baby cradled in his big arms, he turned and left the room.

  He found Morik in the hallway, barking commands for plenty of food and clothing—and gold, for they’d need gold to properly situate the child in warm and comfortable inns. Barbarian, baby, and thief, made their way through the castle, and no one made a move to stop them. It seemed as if Lord Feringal had cleared their path, wanting the two thieves and the bastard child out of his castle and out of his life as swiftly as possible.

  Priscilla, however, was a different issue. They ran into her on the first floor, where she came up to Wulfgar and tried to take the baby, gl
aring at him defiantly all the while. The barbarian held her at bay, his expression making it clear that he would break her in half if she tried to harm the child. Priscilla huffed her disgust, threw a thick wool wrap at him, and with a final growl of protest, turned on her heel.

  “Stupid cow,” Morik muttered under his breath.

  Chuckling, Wulfgar tenderly wrapped the baby in the warm blanket, finally silencing her crying. Outside, the daylight was fast on the wane, but the storm had faded, the last clouds breaking apart and rushing across the sky on swift winds. The gate was lowered. Across the bridge they saw Steward Temigast waiting for them with a pair of horses, Lord Feringal at his side.

  Feringal stood staring at Wulfgar and the baby for a long moment. “If you ever come back …” he started to say.

  “Why would I?” the barbarian interrupted. “I have my child now, and she will grow up to be a queen in Icewind Dale. Entertain no thoughts of coming after me, Lord Feringal, to the ruin of all your world.”

  “Why would I?” Feringal returned in the same grim tone, facing up to Wulfgar boldly. “I have my wife, my beautiful wife. My innocent wife, who gives herself to me willingly. I do not have to force myself upon her.”

  That last statement, a recapture of some measure of manly pride, told Wulfgar that Feringal had forgiven Meralda, or that he soon enough would. Wulfgar’s desperate, unconsidered and purely improvised plan had somehow, miraculously, worked. He bit back any semblance of a chuckle at the ridiculousness of it all, let Feringal have his needed moment. He didn’t even blink as the lord of Auckney composed himself, squared his shoulders, and walked back across the bridge through the lowered gate to his home and his wife.

  Steward Temigast handed the reins to the pair. “She isn’t yours,” the steward said unexpectedly. Starting to pull himself and the babe up into the saddle, Wulfgar pretended not to hear him.