Gos chuckled and broke into a coughing fit. He spat out black ooze.
Alfric rushed over to him. "Are you sure I can leave you here?"
"You go on," he said, clutching his stomach. "This isn't anything I haven't dealt with before. Best of luck." Gos wiped his mouth before gasping Alfric's hand. "It's a good thing you're doing. I'm sorry about that hunter. Would have smelled him and known you were up to something if I still had my nose."
They'd left the dead hunter's carcass behind by the lake, his traps and weapons in the earth beside him. Alfric had wanted to bury the corpse, but Velmit forbade it. After seeing the village only a few miles from the skinwalkers' campsite, he had decided to warn them.
Despite how unwell Gos appeared, Alfric left him, wondering what kind of sickness a wraith couldn't heal.
Further on, clouds of smoke trailed from the chimneys of thatched rooftops. Women carried bundles of fruit they'd picked from the village orchard, children chased dogs through the muddy village, and the men sat around a fire in the center of the village. It wasn't dissimilar from what Alfric had imagined.
Fat hissed as it dripped from the spitted boar into the fire. Normally the smell would have made Alfric salivated, instead it turned his stomach. Men around the fire clinked ale mugs, celebrating their kill as afternoon waned into evening.
The village was a good distance from any road of substantial size. They must have heard little of what occurred elsewhere in Aernheim. It was a window into life before Aern had been murdered. If Alfric didn't convince the villagers of the impending danger, then that window would be shattered.
As he passed, a woman dropped her basket, apples spilling out at her feet. Children stopped running and gaped at him. The dogs at their sides growled and bared their teeth. The men around the fire replaced their ale mugs with axes and spears.
Alfric hunched his shoulders to appear smaller. No one called out or got in his way.
"Greetings," Alfric said to the one person who seemed too busy to stare at him—a man carving a block of wood beneath the cover of a workshop.
The man lifted his head. "Greetings, stranger." His eyes widened as he took in Alfric's stature. "Aern's Face, you're a big one." A row of newly fletched arrows lay on the workbench beside a slender longbow, unstrung and untreated.
Alfric admired the man's craftsmanship. He had never been a great marksman, but he could tell fine arrows and an equally fine bow when he saw them. "Who rules this village?"
The fletcher scowled. "We ain't got no rulers."
"No offense intended," Alfric said, holding out his arms from his cloak. He immediately regretted it as the fletcher's eyes lingered on Alfric's claws. "I have warning of danger on its way to your village."
"Bandits?"
"Something like that."
The fletcher met Alfric's gaze and studied him for a few terse seconds. Finally, he said, "I'll call the elders."
He put down his carving knife and marched down the road. Alfric followed after him, ignoring the whispering villagers. The fletcher entered a stone building. It appeared to have once been a granary, though it had long since stopped being used for one. Well-tended vines crept along the outside. Amongst the wooden houses, it looked like a palace.
Alfric waited outside, trying not to draw attention to himself. The other villagers looked at him warily, and he hid within the cloak, however impossible that was.
The fletcher came outside, followed by a burly man with a braided gray beard. He held the hand of a white-haired woman, her eyes milky with blindness. Silver broaches clipped matching bear-fur cloaks to their necks. The old man wore a sword on his leather girdle and held his hand on the pommel as he approached Alfric. He lifted the weapon slightly from its scabbard, so the black steel showed. Garrdforged. Only a great warrior would own such a weapon.
Despite the fletcher's claim that the village had no rulers, these two "elders" clearly ruled it. Alfric had never been outside of Indham, so he'd never experienced the aversion to being ruled that was said to exist on the outskirts of Aernheim. The man with the garrdforged sword had probably been a warrior of renown during the skirmishes with Lamworth's army, thus earning his position and not inheriting it in the way of kings and lords.
"Bandits?" the old warrior said to Alfric, his tone accusatory. "Ridiculous."
"They'll be here by nightfall."
The chief slapped the fletcher across the back of his head. "Why did you hail me for this? Can't you see this son of a giant is a madman? He wears no shoes and smells like a filthy beast." He gave Alfric a look of disgust and turned back to the granary.
"Please," Alfric said, grabbing the chief's shoulder, "if you'll only listen. These aren't regular bandits. They're much worse. You cannot—"
The chief spun around with an alacrity beyond his years, grabbed Alfric's arm, and twisted it. Alfric cried out in pain as the chief applied pressure, bringing him to his knees.
"You dare lay your hands on me?" the chief said, his hot breath tickling the hairs on Alfric's neck.
Pain surged along Alfric's shoulder. He gritted his teeth, knowing that he would kill the chief if he let his anger go unbridled. Fangs bared, he saw something pass in the chief's eyes, something like recognition. Whatever it was, it was gone in a flicker of eyelids, as though the notion was too crazy to entertain.
"Husband, hear the man," the blind woman said.
The chief released Alfric. Stepping back, he kept his hand on his sword handle. "Speak, urchin."
Alfric stood, rolling his shoulder. "As you must know, the wraiths have come to Aern." The chief scoffed, but Alfric continued. "The people they possess become skinwalkers, terrible monsters who feast upon the blood of men."
"Lies," the chief spat, his knuckles whitening around his sword pommel. "What is it that you want? For us to flee our village so that you may take residence inside our homes? Does a band of urchins lie in wait in the forest?" He turned to the trees and cried out, "We will not leave our homes. Leave, or we will take up arms and hunt you!"
Alfric caught the metallic scent of oiled steel. Behind him, the villagers had armed themselves.
He could show them a real skinwalker, but then there would be bloodshed. He decided to appeal to the one person who seemed willing to listen—the chief's wife. "If you would see your people survive the night, take the road west until you get to Indham. Tell Mother Edoma of Enlil's Daughters that Alfric has sent you. She will provide you with refuge." He didn't know for certain whether she would. He didn't even know whether Indham had survived the wraiths. But if there was one place that was safe and one person who could help them, it was Indham and Edoma.
"You dare ignore me?" the chief said. His wife's appeasing touch drew his hand away from his sword. "And you wish us to flee to Indham? High Priest Idmaer has gone mad. He thirsts for power. Just the other day, a man bearing warnings from the east came here. He scared the children, so we dealt with him. You will be no different. Leave."
Alfric cursed under his breath. This chief was the insane one. They lived too far from news to have heard anything except the whispers of gossip, no more reliable than the bedside promises of a whore.
"If you do not heed my warning," Alfric said with finality, "the village will fall."
The armed warriors shifted and readied their weapons, as though they had taken Alfric's words as a threat.
"We have heard your words," the chief's wife said, raising her hand. The armed villagers stepped back, though their excitement filled Alfric's nostrils. They seemed eager to fight a lone stranger.
Cowards, Alfric thought.
The chief glared at Alfric before he and his wife retreated into the stone building.
A retinue of armed men escorted Alfric out of the village.
"How did you fare?" Gos asked when the villagers had left.
"Unless a wife can make her husband see reason, that village will fall tonight."
6
Bradir
Bradir stopped at a thicket east of the Edin R
iver. It was a fair distance from the road and the river, so he and Radbod weren't likely to encounter any trouble. The arrival of the soldiers earlier that day still unsettled him. Seeing the armory in the old shieldsister's cottage only worsened the feeling that something was awry. The pack would need to keep their eyes peeled and their ears perked for any sign of trouble.
Radbod tossed the unconscious woman down from his shoulders. Her body hit the ground with a bounce. He winced. "Keep forgetting my strength."
Bradir rolled his eyes. "Tie her up, and we'll leave her here. If Golden Boy finds out about her, we'll have a fight on our hands." He had taken the book from the caravan as a bribe for the one they called Golden Boy. The act of gift-giving, as Bradir had learned as bandit chief, was never truly free. Every gift carried an implied obligation, a return of the favor, so to speak. Bradir liked the lad, even if he was a little fresh. He'd toughened up a few lads like that in the past, and Golden Boy would be no different.
"What are you going to do with her?" Radbod pulled up her tunic, but before her breasts could be exposed, Bradir grabbed him by the neck.
"She's not your plaything," he said. "Fix her up."
Radbod scurried back to the unconscious woman and covered her. He dragged her body so that her back rested against a pine tree. "She killed Olsten. His wraith's gone, too." With the rope he'd found inside the shieldsister's cottage, Radbod tied the unconscious woman's feet and wrapped and bound her arms behind the tree trunk. He shook his head vigorously, his jowls shaking like a bulldog. "Not me. You can't kill me. I've always been loyal to you. I've never betrayed you once."
"Calm yourself, Radbod. You'll be at my side when we reach the beacon." At first, a vague suspicion had Bradir suspecting the beacon had something to do with the way they changed every morning back to something resembling humans. The more he thought about it, and the more he reflected on the moment when he'd been possessed by the wraith, he realized that this new life was a gift from Eosor.
"I reckon we get rid of the old man. He's practically useless. Even the wraith can't handle that sickness he's got."
Bradir didn't like the thought of executing a member of the pack. Even before he became a skinwalker, he'd never killed one of his men without good reason. But the pack needed to be strong if they were to reach the beacon. Someone like the old man only slowed them down.
"The wraiths can heal anything," Bradir said, trying to convince himself as much as Radbod. "Two nights ago, an axe took my left arm off at the elbow. It was back again come morning."
"I think the old man is hiding something." Radbod checked the woman's bonds before standing again. The bag hanging from his shoulder dripped a trail of blood. The sight and smell made Bradir shudder with desire. He forced the hunger down and reminded himself that those tasty morsels were for the others.
"What are we going to do about the hunters? From the looks of those weapons, they were gearing themselves for quite the fight."
"Depends. The old woman was a shieldsister. We took her out easy enough. Might be different if there are thirty who can fight. Hopefully stringing her up like a puppet outside her cottage will scare them off." Bradir had thought it a good idea, and still did, but the sight of the shieldsister's mutilated corpse hanging from the beams turned even his stomach. It had to have a similar effect on the hunters. Olsten had tracked other hunters earlier that day, and he'd learned of the cottage where the shieldsister lived. His death was a tragedy. "They can hunt the rabids. I don't give a shit about them, but I'll protect the pack. We're kin now, just like the Old Boys were."
The Old Boys. It seemed so long ago that the group of bandits had lived on the Edin River, waylaying any boats foolish enough to travel without armed guards. Had it really been only a week since the wraiths had come?
Ten days ago, he'd been robbing a river barge when he found a golden trinket inside, carved in the likeness of a great elk. He'd pocketed it and allowed the other men to gather what they wanted. That night, he'd been infatuated with the elk trinket. He held it over the fire, watching the gold glow. When he'd retreated to his tent to sleep, he knelt before the trinket. As if in answer to his prayer, he heard screams from outside. He watched as crimson mists surrounded his men. Like demonic hands, they reached into their mouths. The invasion did not spare Bradir.
On that night, his prayer to Eosor was answered, and he'd become a skinwalker. Radbod, Velmit, and Olsten had been granted the same gift. Bradir had given his band of men the name the Old Boys. Now, they were the pack, an apt name for them now that they were more akin to wolves. And he was their alpha.
He touched his side, feeling the bag, and within it, the book he'd taken. It had once kept a religious trinket. Although he'd lost it two nights ago, when he'd forgotten to tie his bag shut before nightfall, he hadn't forgotten who and what it represented. Eosor had called them. Why else were they becoming beasts except to serve the Guardian of beasts? The beacon was drawing them west, toward Eosorheim, where Eosor resided.
"I reckon it's best we cover her," Radbod said. "There might be wolves around. Maybe even rabids."
Bradir whispered a prayer that they might find the beacon soon while Radbod covered the unconscious woman with his scent.
"I'd say we have enough time to bring Gos here before sundown," Bradir said, nodding at the sky. They'd have to brutally kill the old man, a death that would allow the wraith to still feed while outside his body. Bradir had only done it once before, and it would be risky. Still, he wanted the woman as part of the pack. He'd long yearned for a bride, and what better time than now, when Eosor was drawing them?
7
Alfric
"Where'd you two go? You smell like meat, and I know for sure he didn't do no killing." Velmit thrust a bloodstained finger at Alfric. "Got yourself some breeches. Ain't that something."
Alfric stripped away the breeches and tossed them into the fire. His rage from the village chief's foolishness hadn't yet subsided. On the walk back from the village, Alfric had considered the way the chief had dragged his blind wife outside and then back into the stone hut. Despite how she'd mollified him, he was the chief. The village was doomed.
"We did some sightseeing." Gos smiled a little too sweetly.
"You make me nervous, old man," Velmit said. "You never told us where you're from. Don't look like you're from Aernheim."
"I was born in Sifheim."
"What are you doing this far north?"
"Sightseeing," Gos said, smiling again. He spluttered and coughed, thick phlegm spattering the dirt. He wiped his mouth with an arm patched with silver fur, oily and matted.
Velmit narrowed his eyes before turning to Alfric. "What about you, Golden Boy? You said you was from Indham. Fancy place."
"Hard to know what to say," Alfric said. He was glad that Velmit's attention had been drawn away from Gos. Velmit, like the others in the pack, seemed like he constantly looked for a reason to get rid of him. "Indham was all I ever knew until the wraiths came."
"And you set off on that quest? I bet you're glad you never got into Eosorheim. Hurn's a mad sorcerer. Probably would have turned you into a toad. Or worse—made you into his little plaything." Velmit wriggled his eyebrows with intent and then fell backward into a fit of laughter.
Alfric didn't join him. Sigebert and Cenred had entered Eosorheim. Had they found Hurn? Or had they suffered death at the hands of a vengeful sorcerer?
Alfric couldn't help feeling that he'd failed the warriors. Despite what he'd said to the village chief, Indham might well have been destroyed by now. The wraiths might have possessed folks, and the skinwalkers killed the rest. He had confidence in Edoma, but the wraiths seemed unstoppable. For all he knew, Indham might be nothing more than a pile of smoking rubble now.
Fryda would be dead. Hiroc, too. Alfric wanted to go back, but every evening, the wraith went after that cursed beacon. There was no escape for him or any of them.
He'd met a few other skinwalkers, most of them rabid, but there had to
be more. What if Aernheim became as the Scorched Lands are said to be—a desolate place teaming with monsters from the dark realm? Alfric shuddered at the thought. And yet Alfric and the pack had been spared the worst of it—their spirits remained in this world, able to control their bodies when dawn came.
"What makes us so special?" Alfric said aloud. "Why were we spared when so many other skinwalkers went rabid?" A voice in his mind said he ought to be thankful, yet all he could feel was anger at the injustice of it.
"We aren't special," Gos said. "These wraiths who possess us were the first wave. The first created in the spiritmeld, so they are the weakest. They possess not the strength to crush our spirits. At least, not immediately." He raised his hand and studied his fur in the sunlight. "But soon, we shall be as the rabids."
"How is it that you know all this?" Velmit said.
Gos shrugged. "I know many things."
"Like I said, you make me nervous. Knowing things a man shouldn't know. What'd you do in Sifheim?"
"I dabbled in various crafts."
Velmit threw up his arms. "You're more closed than a consecrated virgin's legs."
What profession had Gos performed in Sifheim? The wrinkled lines on his face suggested he was at least seventy. He carried himself with regality. Though short, he never seemed to look up to anyone. Perhaps the others found his aura threatening. He reminded Alfric of Idmaer, except without the haughtiness.
Velmit stood and walked away from the others.
Gos tilted his head and listened. Alfric tried to speak, but he raised a hand, silencing him.
"You ever stop to think about what the beacon is?" Gos's voice was so soft that Alfric had to concentrate to hear him. "Shattering the orb was only the beginning. None of this really matters, of course. The beacon's compulsion grows stronger as we get closer to it. Won't be long until we find out whatever it is. I suspect it's magic of some kind. Maybe some person lies behind it."
The Dragon Soul (Vagrant Souls Book 2) Page 4