“Would you now see his wish fulfilled?” Brynja asked. “Would you once again become his loyal servant?”
The Wolf Queen lowered the hood once again and the wolves backed off a few steps.
“You are clever, dear Brynja. What is it that you want from me?”
“Guide me to Hillcrest. I would prefer to meet my end in pursuit of vengeance.”
“And what of my sister?”
“Agafiia may already be dead, but if she still lives I will do what I can for her.”
The Wolf Queen lowered her head in thought. She sighed deeply and then looked at Brynja.
“I will show you the way. And if I am greeted by my sister’s corpse then no army in this frozen land will be able to turn my wrath away from those accursed walls.”
It was nearly dusk by the time Brynja again looked upon the wooden palisade that surrounded Hillcrest. The corpses of the dead wolves slain by the hands of she and her fallen companions had been gathered in a pile that now burned with a pale, sickly flame and filled the air with the noxious odor of burning flesh and hair. All of the wall’s watchtowers were manned by guardsmen and standing upon the narrow wallwalks were most of the townsfolk.
At first Brynja thought they had gathered to watch to the burning of the vanquished wolves, but as they neared the town she spotted the limp body that dangled from its neck against the wall. Even from a distance her eyes could make out the straight blonde hair that hung down over a young, almost boyish face.
It was Casten.
Brynja had never given much thought to her capacity for cruelty, but as she stared at that freezing corpse her mind began to conceive a number of slow, torturous deaths that she could inflict upon the men responsible for the young warrior’s death.
In the watchtower above Casten, she could see that the guards had readied another noose at the end of a rope tied to the rafters of the tower. Standing near this rope, restrained by a pair of armored men and her mouth gagged, was Agafiia. Her face was cast with both sorrow and anger. The scene was silent but for an occasional cough from the crowd and the orders shouted out by high ranking guards. Few of the townsfolk looked at her directly and Brynja noticed that the body language of the guards seemed particularly tense. Even so, there was no mistaking anyone’s purpose there; they had all come to witness the execution of Lady Agafiia.
No one seemed to notice Brynja approaching the palisade with the Wolf Queen, in her wolf form, alongside her. She got close enough that she could have thrown something at a man atop the wall and stand a good chance of hitting him before their presence was finally announced by calls and murmurs throughout the gathered crowd.
Brynja waited to be hailed by one of the guardsmen, but they were all too shocked to speak. A quick search of their faces revealed that Razlada was not among them. Perhaps, she thought, he is taking council with his mad jarl.
“This man that hangs so disgracefully from your wall,” she said, “what was his crime?”
No answer came from the people upon the palisade.
“Answer me, damn you!”
“T…treason,” one of the guards said.
Brynja sneered.
“Treason? By whose judgment?”
Razlada stepped into view from behind his men and leaned over the palisade to look at them.
“By his lordship, Jarl Habrec’s,” he said.
“Your jarl is a fool!” Brynja pointed to Casten’s corpse. “This man could not walk and could scarcely breathe! Did you have to rouse him from his sickbed to inform him of his crimes and slip the noose around his neck?”
Razlada slammed his fist upon the ramparts.
“He was a vile assassin and the unfaithful whore that invited his poison into our midst will hang alongside him! And you! Have you now sold your black soul to the will of beasts?”
“My soul is my own, Razlada of Hillcrest. How long has it been since yours was purchased by a madman?”
A new voice suddenly boomed like a thunderclap and stole the breath from the lungs of both Brynja and Razlada.
“Enough!”
The Wolf Queen stepped forward and the people of Hillcrest gasped as her wolfish body again transformed into that of a woman. But no one upon the wall was more astonished that Agafiia, for though she could not speak her eyes conveyed a shock that could not easily be given voice.
“You will release my sister now, Razlada,” the Wolf Queen said, her voice thankfully more human than it had been a moment earlier.
“Kalisa?” he asked. “It’s not possible…”
“Release her now.”
“I cannot,” Razlada said. His initial surprise seemed to wear off and his characteristic belligerence returned. “I will not! She will hang here today for treason against the jarl, just as you should have all those years ago!”
He looked at Agafiia and then barked the grisly order to his men.
“String her up!”
The guards holding Agafiia looked at one another dumbly, their fear and uncertainty plainly evident. Razlada’s single eye filled with such fury that it nearly glowed.
“B…but, sir—”
Razlada responded by drawing his sword and thrusting it into the guard’s chest. As the dying man collapsed into a puddle of his own gushing blood, the grim guard captain seized Agafiia by the hair and forced her head through the noose. Those who witnessed the scene did little more than stare in disbelief.
“Is this the justice of your jarl, Hillcrest?” Brynja asked. “I was summoned here by Lady Agafiia to help deliver you from the dangers beyond your walls but now I see that you face a greater threat from inside them! How long is this tyrant once called Habrec to reign here in blood?”
A spark of resentment flashed in the eyes of many of the townsfolk. Even some of the guards seemed to consider the implications of Brynja’s words. Razlada sensed the unease around him but chose to ignore it, pulling Agafiia closer to the edge of the wall. But as he moved forward, one of the guardsmen reached out to him. It was difficult to tell if he intended to help his commander or oppose him. The guard captain did not wait to discover his true intentions and once again his sword lashed out to take the life of one of his own men.
Now the guards began to move in on Razlada, their hands on their weapons. He whirled about to face them with gaze of desperation and took a threatening step toward them.
“What is this? Have you all turned against your jarl? You honorless pigs!”
Even as the guard captain started to brandish his sword in the faces of his men, Brynja was already half-way up the side of the palisade. When Razlada had turned to kill one of his men for the second time, Brynja broke into a dead run towards the wall. She threw herself into the air and managed to catch the ankle of Casten’s dangling corpse. It took her but a few seconds to climb up the dead body and grasp the rope from which he hung.
Her muscular upper body shot Brynja up the rope and she vaulted herself over the top of the palisade just as Razlada turned his attention back to Agafiia. His hateful eye widened at the unexpected sight of her.
“You!”
Razlada shoved Agafiia aside and charged towards Brynja. He lifted his sword and aimed for the base of her neck, but she sprang forward as he brought the blade down, and he missed her completely. Brynja threw herself into the guard captain, wrapping her powerful arms around his armored torso and bringing him to the ground. She tried to wrest away his sword with one hand while her other hand shot to his throat.
But then the right side of Brynja’s head exploded with pain as Razlada’s gauntleted fist smashed into her temple. The vision of her right eye went blurry and she lost her grip on the guard captain’s neck and sword arm while she rolled with the force of the impact.
Razlada threw her aside and leapt to his feet, sword still in hand. He thrust the blade down at Brynja’s chest but she regained her senses and rolled away from the attack. She scrambled to her feet as Razlada closed in and her hands shot out to catch the wrist of his sword arm as he swun
g for her throat. Before the guard captain could react, Brynja pulled his arm forward across her body and then drove her weight against it to yank the arm free from the shoulder socket. The sword dropped from his limp hand as Razlada cried out in pain.
Brynja flung him to the ground and snatched up the sword. She glared down at Razlada as he managed to rise to his knees clutching his dislocated shoulder. The guard captain looked to the dumbstruck faces of the men who stood about watching them.
“Don’t just stand there, you fools! Kill her!”
The guards did not move to obey him. A few averted their eyes from their wounded commander.
“Is their treason within your hearts as well, then?” Razlada asked. “Curse you! Curse you all!”
“There is treason at work here, you dog,” Brynja said. “You and your pathetic jarl have betrayed these people to a life of fear and terror to preserve your own delusions of power. Perhaps they would be better off bargaining with the wolves.”
“You will destroy us all, you faithless witch!” he snapped back, nearly overcome by his now impotent rage. “Can you not see?” he cried out for all to hear. “She has brought the Wolf Queen herself to our walls! She is the agent of our doom! She…”
His raving voice trailed off as the Wolf Queen, who had followed Brynja up the wall, came up from behind her. She pulled her black wolf pelt open to reveal the long scar that ran down her chest.
“Do you remember the day you gave me this, Razlada?” the Wolf Queen asked, her eyes overflowing with hate.
“Do you remember calling for my death when I dared to speak out against my father’s madness? Do you remember casting my bloodied body over this wall?
“But even then I did not feel hatred. I felt pity, pity for the poor souls left to rot behind this pathetic wall. It was the same pity that soothed the bloodlust of the white wolf after I came to live among his children. It was my voice, not the sad posturing of my father that kept the wolves from the walls of Hillcrest.
“But when you betrayed that peace with your murdering bloodhunts, it was my voice that screamed for vengeance. You and my father have poisoned this land with your greed and your vanity. Twice I have been betrayed by your fear and now you would do the same to my sister. I will see to it that both of you will suffer today for these long years of treachery.”
The Wolf Queen took a step towards Razlada, but Brynja held out her arm to block her passage.
“No,” she said. “This one has earned a traitor’s death.”
The Wolf Queen looked at Brynja for a moment and then nodded.
“As you wish.”
Brynja walked over to Agafiia and first pulled the noose from her neck and then removed the gag over her mouth. A quick swipe of Razlada’s sword cut her bonds. Agafiia immediately ran to her sister.
“Kalisa!”
She wept as she threw her arms around the Wolf Queen, who returned the gesture awkwardly, but genuinely.
Brynja looked to the guards still standing around them and pointed the sword at Razlada.
“Strip him,” she said. They hesitated for a moment then began to pull his armor off. Razlada, his formerly grim eye now empty with defeat, allowed them to remove his clothing, grunting in pain when they touched his dislocated shoulder.
When they finished stripping him bare Brynja had him stood up and brought to the edge of the wall. She adjusted the noose and slipped it around his neck.
“This is a far better death than you deserve, Razlada of Hillcrest,” Brynja said through clenched teeth.
Without another word, Brynja slashed Razlada across the midsection and hoisted him over the palisade. He plummeted down until the rope caught fast and the sudden stop caused his entrails to spill out through the wound. The fall snapped the guard captain’s neck instantly and he was dead before his guts splattered onto the snowy ground below his dangling corpse.
No guards opposed Brynja, Agafiia, and the Wolf Queen as they walked through the frozen streets of Hillcrest to the hall of Jarl Habrec. A crowd followed a good distance behind them, for none dared to either stand in their way or walk alongside them. Confusion and shock were the most prevalent emotions that carried through the cold air that evening.
The jarl’s hall was as pitiful as Brynja remembered it. If anything, it looked sadder than it had on her previous visit for the newly fallen snow had buried it even deeper. Agafiia waved the guards outside the doors aside and Brynja heard their pace quicken to a run as they left their post to join the crowd behind them.
The Wolf Queen approached the heavy doors and grasped their massive handles. Agafiia placed a hand on her shoulder.
“Kalisa, surely there must be another way?”
“No,” the Wolf Queen said. “This must be done, Agafiia. I must put an end to this, for all our sakes.”
Agafiia nodded and stepped away from her sister. The Wolf Queen pulled the doors open and stepped inside. Before the doors swung shut, Brynja caught a glimpse of the insane jarl, his eyes widening with terror at the sight of the daughter he had condemned to death so many years ago.
A dreadful silence descended upon the area around the hall as the gathered crowd waited for some sign of what was happening inside.
Brynja and Agafiia were not waiting for any sign, for they already knew that the reunion between father and daughter could only end in one way.
The crowd gasped as a monstrous roar suddenly came from within the hall. It was followed by a horrifying scream that brought tears to the eyes of many who heard it, including Agafiia.
Several uneasy minutes passed before the door of the hall slowly opened and the Wolf Queen emerged alone with blood was smeared across her face and hands. The sight Brynja caught a glimpse of behind the Wolf Queen’s shoulder was one that she would not soon forget.
“Tear down your wall, sister,” the Wolf Queen said. “Stay clear of the forest and my children will trouble you no more.”
Agafiia, tears still in her eyes, nodded and made as if she wanted to embrace her sister again, but held back when she once more saw the blood of her father.
“What of the hall?” Brynja asked.
The jarl’s daughters stared at it uncomfortably.
“Burn it,” Agafiia said at last.
The Wolf Queen spent a great deal of time in Hillcrest with her sister over the next few days. Agafiia refused to take a title of jarl as her father had done, but it was clear that the people of Hillcrest looked to her for leadership and she concerned herself primarily with overseeing the destruction of the palisade whenever she was not with her sister. She spoke often of her desire to rebuild the many farmsteads that dotted the countryside around the town, but there was little that could be accomplished until the snow began to melt.
Brynja requested that a pyre be built from a few scraps of the palisade in honor of her fallen comrades and Agafiia saw that it was done. Casten’s body was burned along with the belongings of Severian, Ilari, and Kurgin. Brynja knew that they would have the strength to find their way to the halls of their fathers in death and so shed no tears for their passing.
After resting in Hillcrest for a few days, Brynja at last bid them farewell. The Wolf Queen’s witchcraft was able to call her horse back to her from the wild and she loaded Breaker’s saddlebags with the supplies she would need for the long ride back to join her father’s forces.
Brynja departed on the morning of the fifth day after Jarl Habrec’s death, which also happened to be the first day the sun shone through the clouds since she arrived there a week earlier.
Once the weather broke, the journey northward proved less difficult than she expected. Brynja traveled for several days before finally picking up the trail her father’s mercenaries left behind following it toward the battle she expected find raging between the ambitious lords of Sigmund’s Deep and Valenhold.
But Brynja would never be reunited with her father or his brave company, for on the eve of the battle their greedy employers struck a secret pact with Valenhold’s king.
Unwilling to pay for an army the never used, the lords of Sigmund’s Deep betrayed them to an ambush that slaughtered Erlinger’s company to the last man. When news of her father’s death reached her, Brynja’s heart yearned for vengeance, but she was wise enough to recognize that one warrior, no matter how great, could do little against such mighty kingdoms.
Instead, Brynja chose to ride east for the shores of the Gray Sea. There, upon those tumultuous waters, she would ply her trade as a reaver, waiting for the day that she might forge a mighty company of her own, one capable of surmounting the iron-shod walls of Valenhold and smashing the merchant houses of Sigmund’s Deep to kindling.
But that is another story…
Distant Worlds Volume 2 Page 30