“Don’t scream,” he whispered. “We see them.”
The shriek of terror lay stillborn on my tongue. Night was falling, we were miles away from the nearest village, and we had just earned ourselves an escort of valkyries.
Chapter 11
Widdermere Marsh Hall
Alastair leaned low over Akarra’s shoulder and spoke a few words in Eth. She didn’t reply, but her muscles tensed beneath us and her wings beat a little faster. He tightened his grip around my waist. “The harbinger’s toying with us. Listen, Aliza. They’ve seen my sword, so they know what I am. Once we’ve landed they’re going to come after me. If Akarra and I can keep them distracted, they won’t look for you. You need to stay low and keep out of sight.”
I thought of his stiff sword arm and counted what valkyries I could see. There were nearly a dozen in front of us and I heard more wings flapping behind. Too many for him. My pulse thundered in my ears.
“Ready?”
No. No, I’m not ready! I was never ready for this! I wanted to scream, but my cold fingers curled around Akarra’s spikes anyway. I gripped the saddle between my knees and nodded.
“REQET!” he cried.
Akarra folded her wings and dove. With a shriek like talons across slate, the harbinger of valkyries followed.
We hit the ground hard. I tasted blood as I bit down on my tongue, but there was no time for pain. I threw myself from the saddle and landed hard in a pool of stagnant water. Feathers and leathery wings beat the air above my head.
A flash. The sky boiled around us as Akarra flamed, her dragonfire burning bright and hot as lightning.
Move! I rolled, knees sliding in the algae-slicked mud. Something snagged the edge of my cloak. Blindly I swatted it away but it sprang back, stinging my hand. I crawled beneath the thorn bush, held my breath, and watched.
The curve of the waxing moon peeped through the ceiling of mists, painting the scene in the colors of dead daylight. Akarra reared, spitting another column of fire into the hovering harbinger. Flames swallowed three valkyries at once. Their charred bodies plummeted to the earth not far from where I hid.
Alastair fought with his back to her, his sword flashing in the moonlight. Every stroke I watched with fists clenched, biting my tongue, living each new terror with him. Thrust. Feathers scattered in a spray of blood, black against the moonlight. A valkyrie crumpled at his feet. Another dove. He ducked, spun, and drove his sword upward into the creature’s exposed breast. It let out a gurgling squawk, flapped sideways, and did not rise again. Thrust. Two more fell. With each kill the silver glint of Alastair’s sword grew dimmer, bathed in the monsters’ blood.
And still they kept coming.
One after the other they dropped from the sky. Feathery bodies piled about him and Akarra, some beheaded, some still smoking, and yet there never seemed to be any fewer. They dove like a steady rain, chanting taunts in Valk.
Alastair’s strokes slowed. Each new attack forced him closer to Akarra, who was fighting with tooth and talon and dragonfire to keep the main body of the harbinger away from him, but she couldn’t take them all, and he was weakening. She saw it, and I saw it, and so did the valkyries. One of them dove beneath Akarra’s tail and snagged Alastair’s gauntlet, dragging his sword arm above his head and reaching for his exposed throat.
“Alastair!”
I forgot my promise, forgot reason, forgot everything. Before I knew what I was doing I was out from under the bush with dagger drawn.
The harbinger shrieked their delight in a dozen carrion voices and checked their flight in my direction.
“ALIZA, NO!” Alastair roared. He twisted away from the first valkyrie just as a second swooped low and buried its claws deep into his side.
His scream plunged like a red-hot iron through my heart. Somewhere inside I knew it was a bad idea, that I had made a terrible mistake and was very soon going to pay for it in blood, but there was no time for fear. They’re vulnerable from above—or is it below? Oh gods, which is it? Feathery bodies hurtled toward me, claws open, eyes flashing with malice and hatred and bloodlust. I raised the knife—
And watched, horrified, as the sweat-slicked hilt slipped from my trembling fingers.
Something snarled behind me.
The foremost valkyrie squawked and tried to check its flight, but a dark shape sailed over my head and met it in midair, bringing it to the ground with a splash and the crunch of bones. The rest of the harbinger drew back, hissing in Valk as the dark shape divided. The smaller, human-shaped shadow brandished a sword. Alastair cheered weakly as the strange Rider put the blade to good use, hacking through the closest valkyries and sending the others flapping away.
Akarra gave chase. Flames seared the clouds and more valkyries fell burning, screeching, from the sky. After another minute, the flames and the cries faded. All was quiet.
My head spun. I knelt and felt for my fallen dagger. A bitter bile taste filled my mouth as I touched the hilt and I wretched, shoulders shaking as I emptied my stomach into the mud. The smell of blood and vomit, charred feathers and rotting peat stung my nose and I sat back on my heels, gasping. Alastair’s scream still rang in my ears.
Wind stirred the grasses around me, combing away the stench of the battle, and slowly, brokenly, I came back to myself. My head cleared. The echo of his scream faded and other sounds bled into my consciousness. Water trickled through the roots of the sedges. A night bird piped its trilling song somewhere in the distance. Three humans panted in unison. Three humans, and something much larger than a human. I pulled myself to my feet.
“You all right?” a woman called.
“Aye,” I said as Alastair muttered, “Yes.”
The Rider laughed and wiped her sword on her knee. “I was talking to Magany. Suppose it doesn’t hurt that you fools are still here too.”
A new voice spoke out of the mist and darkness to my right. It was a round, resonant voice and gave the impression of fangs and fur. “Careful, dear. Let’s not make enemies too quickly.” A pair of glowing eyes came into view, as steady and unblinking as a stoorcat’s. “Didn’t I see a dragon here a moment ago?”
“She’ll be back,” Alastair said. “Aliza?”
I sheathed my knife with shaking hands and edged away from the creature.
“Are you hurt?” he asked quietly when I reached him.
“No. But Thell, Alastair, you are—” I reached for his injured side. He pushed my hand away before I could see how much damage the talons had done.
“Later.” Louder he said, “Who are you?”
An enormous, panther-like creature padded out into the pale light of the moon. It was a female beoryn, slim, lithe, and deadly. Her black fur drank the moonlight. Her snout, and the fangs that came with it, was level with my shoulder.
“We, my poor, lost Rider, are the closest things to friends you’ll find out here. Bhraheg, introduce yourself,” she said to her Rider.
“Johanna Mauntell,” the Rider said. “This is Magany, and you’re a Daired.” She raised her sword and pointed at me. The moonlight glowed off the milk-white skin of her bare arms. Stripes and whorls of blue woad ran down her chin to her chest, disappearing beneath the wolf pelt she wore over her shoulders. “You are not a Rider.”
“My wife,” Alastair said, touching four fingers to his forehead with an effort. “Alastair and Aliza Daired. We owe you our thanks.”
“Tch. Don’t bother. They’re your gods, dragonrider, not mine.”
Akarra landed behind us with a splash. “Khela, what’s this?”
“Introductions, I believe.”
“You’re in the Old Wilds now,” Johanna said without taking her eyes off Alastair. Neither of them had sheathed their swords. “You should know this is beoryn territory.”
“We’re only passing through.”
She snorted. “That’s what everyone says.”
A second beoryn and its Rider bounded into the clearing, spraying marsh water all over us as they slid to a
halt.
“What did I miss?” a young man asked.
“Nothing good,” Johanna said, sheathing her sword at last. “Daired, Daired’s wife, dragon, this is the man you’re looking for.”
“I’m—wait, what?” the young man said.
The silver beoryn beneath him sighed. “You’re Lydon Tam of Widdermere Marsh Hall, Rider of Thummerrum, who is altogether wiser, wittier, and better looking than you,” he muttered, and glared at Magany, “and who is wondering why he wasn’t invited to the battle.”
“Yes, what happened here?” Lydon Tam swung off his beoryn and nudged the nearest valkyrie carcass with the toe of his boot. Unlike Johanna, he wore armor.
Akarra explained our encounter with the harbinger. By the time she finished, Alastair was leaning heavily on my arm. “We were hoping to make it to the nearest village,” I said. “Can you tell us how far it is?”
“You won’t find one anywhere in this quarter of the Widdermere. Nearest is half a day’s hard riding due east. But if you’re looking for a place to spend the night, we have room at the Hall.” Lydon’s grin flashed in the moonlight. “My parents won’t mind.”
“How far is it?” Alastair asked.
“Ten minutes’ ride.”
The breath hissed between his teeth and I felt the tension in his body as he staggered forward. Whatever damage the valkyries had done had left him in no shape to fly. Even riding while Akarra walked would be a challenge, but we didn’t have much choice. I helped him onto Akarra’s back. “Lead the way.”
The long, low edifice of Widdermere Marsh Hall rose out of the sedges as if it had grown from the marsh. The Hall sat on stone pillars above the water, covered in dark moss and slick with brittlewort. We sloshed up the steps, Lydon and Thummerrum bringing up the rear, our panniers carried between them. “I’d invite you in, dragon,” Lydon told Akarra, “but it’s small and, well, wood.”
Akarra told him she preferred sleeping outside anyway, whispered to me that she wouldn’t go far, and bid us goodnight.
Inside the Hall was smoky and dim. Lanterns hung at irregular intervals from the raftered ceiling. There were no rooms, only sections draped off from the main chamber with animal pelts. A peat fire burned fitfully in a stone hearth in the middle of the Hall. The only windows were high, narrow slits under the eaves, which did little in the way of dispelling the smoke. Even indoors the moldering smell of the bog was inescapable.
“Tams!” Lydon called, banging his fist against the doorjamb. “Wake up! We have guests!”
A minute later the pelt at the end of the Hall drew back and a man and woman peered out, both dressed in nightclothes, their Rider’s plaits in disarray. The woman came to her senses first. She rushed forward and smacked Lydon on the side of the head. “What in Thell’s name were you doing out so late, young man? Don’t tell me you were hunting marshlights again.”
“We were hunting marshlights again,” Johanna said. “Have you got any of the duck left, Prudence? I’m starving.”
Prudence Tam tossed her head in the direction of the fire, muttering a phrase in Beorspeak. She turned to us. “Well? Who are you?”
“Lady Tam, my name is Aliza Daired and this is my husband—”
“He’s hurt,” she said. “How?”
“Valkyries.”
“Bad luck.” Her eyes raked the dragon crest on his shoulder. “Ah. Well, we’ll get you sorted. Dragonrider, are you? Don’t get many of those around here. Roland, get some water,” she called to her husband. “And Lydon, fetch the good bearskins. Come over here and sit down, Master Daired.”
I saw Alastair to a pile of furs near the fire before following Roland Tam to the pump outside the door. He was a slight, bearded man with a receding hairline that made his blond Rider’s plait hang like an overlooked ear of corn from the back of his head. “Sir, do you have any hush in the house?” I asked.
He looked at me blankly.
“Grows on a vine, has small purple flowers?”
He shook his head.
I tried again. “Passiflora? Honey?”
“Afraid not.”
“Oil of the Saint Marten flower?”
He brightened and backed away, returning with a small jug of oil and a few clean cloths. I thanked him and hurried back to the fire, where his wife was admiring the gashes in Alastair’s breastplate. “My, you did take quite the talon, didn’t you? I’d ask you what you and the nakla were doing out this way at such an hour, but we might be better off saving those questions for tomorrow.”
“They were coordinated,” Alastair said. His voice was controlled, but I heard the pain he tried to conceal as he eased out of his hauberk. “The valkyries. They took turns.”
“Marsh valkyries cooperating?” Prudence said. “That’s singular. They’re usually at each other’s throats as much as they’re at ours. How many?”
“Three, four dozen.”
At the other side of the Hall, Lydon stopped pulling down bear pelts. Johanna and her beoryn looked up from the end of the fire pit, the remains of a waterfowl carcass hanging from Magany’s jaws.
“That’s not a harbinger,” Roland said at last. “That’s every valkyrie in the southern Widdermere.”
“They were all hunting you?” Lydon asked, but his mother waved her hand.
“Enough questions. Master Daired is injured and needs to rest. Roland, fetch some mrumhgath and more water.” She knelt beside him and rolled up her sleeves. “Let’s take a look.”
I helped Alastair raise the chain mail and tunic. Blood stained the cloth, though less than I feared. Three violent purple welts crossed his torso. The tips of the valkyrie’s talons had pierced the mail just below his armpit. The punctures still bled but the edges weren’t ragged and they didn’t look deep. Ugly, but not life-threatening. His jaw tightened as I checked for broken bones. “Just bruised,” he said.
“Aye, but badly. You’re going to be sore tomorrow.”
“I’m amazed it wasn’t worse, given what it did to your armor,” Prudence said as she took the little box her husband handed her. The smell of moldy onions smothered the pleasant scent of the Saint Marten oil. “You’re lucky, young master. A few inches deeper and we wouldn’t be having this conversation. You owe your armorer a word of thanks.”
She flicked open the lid of the box, and I took a deep breath through my mouth. At full strength the oniony smell made my eyes water. “Lady Prudence, what is that?” I asked.
“Mrumhgath. Swordsalve, in Arlean. Saint Marten’s oil is fine for easing the pain, but nothing cleans wounds like mrumhgath.”
I decided not to quibble. Something was better than nothing and, remembering what had happened to Anjey after the gryphon attack in North Fields, I didn’t want to leave those wounds untreated a moment longer. I tore a length of cloth from the pile Master Tam had deposited beside me, daubed it with oil of the Saint Marten flower, and reached for the box. “May I?”
“What?”
“Aliza’s an herbmaster, Lady Prudence,” Alastair said. “She knows what she’s doing.”
“Oh, what you will.” She handed me the box and stood. “If you need us, we’ll be over there. Roland and I are light sleepers, so call if you think he’s about to die.”
Lydon hurried over and dumped a bundle of furs next to us. “Don’t mind Mother,” he said as the pelt to his parents’ sleeping quarters fluttered shut. “She’s not used to nakla. Have you got everything you need?”
“Yes, thank you.”
“Good. Sleep well, then.” He started toward the opposite end of the Hall. “Johanna? Magany? Are you coming?”
Again Johanna looked up from the fire. “You go. I’m not tired,” she said and went back to sucking the marrow from one of the duck bones.
With a crunch Magany swallowed the rest of the carcass and stood. “Come along, dear. Can’t you see the dragonriders want their privacy?”
Johanna growled and tossed the bone into the fire, wiping her hands on her breeches. In a single mo
tion she seized Magany’s ruff and swung onto her back. “Fine. Goodnight, Daired, Daired’s wife. Best hope the waterbeetles don’t bite. You might not wake up if they do.”
The three padded to the end of the Hall and disappeared behind another bear pelt. A moment later the lanterns closest to them went out, leaving us in the only pool of light in the Hall. I inspected the swordsalve. Thick, brownish paste filled the little box. My nose burned. “Does anything else hurt?” I asked.
“My sword arm,” he said.
“The same?”
“Worse now.”
I washed my hands in the basin Roland had left by the fire, then cleaned his injuries with the swordsalve, forcing back queasiness as the wounds ran red, then clear. Alastair sat upright with his arm raised over his head, grasping a fistful of bearskin as I worked. It was the only outward sign of pain he gave.
“Tighter,” he said as I wrapped bandages soaked in Saint Marten’s oil around his torso.
I pulled the fabric as tight as it would go and tied off the strips. “That’s the best I can do. I don’t know if I can mix anything for your arm.”
“I don’t think anyone can.” His voice came muted, hollow, as if he pushed the words through some great barrier. His expression was carefully blank.
The pitter-patter of water droplets drew my gaze to the floor. A pool of muddy water spread around my feet, dripping off my soaked and filthy clothes. I peeled away the damp leather plates, then my boots, and then, figuring we were long past nakla notions of propriety here, my tunic and trousers as well. I knelt next to the basin in my shift and daubed away the mud, thanking Janna that our spare clothes had stayed dry during the battle. Clean, or at least less dirty, I lay down next to Alastair.
“I’m sorry, I should’ve saved some water for you,” I said.
“A bath is the last thing on my mind right now.”
“You might change your mind if you knew what you smelled like. This marsh mud stinks.”
“What did you expect, moorflowers?”
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