Thoddun carried Skarga back where the wind ceased to whine, to the furs where she had slept. He sat there himself and took her on his lap, with her head tucked to the crook of his neck. “I was a little late,” he murmured. “I’m sorry, my love.”
She was, she realised, snuffling into his collar. She said, rather pointlessly, “I’m not crying.”
He smiled and she felt the lift of his jaw against her forehead. “You’re lying,” he said cheerfully, “and you’re soaking my shirt.” He leaned down and kissed the tip of her nose. He said, “Nice and moist, as a good bear cub’s should be.”
“I’m sorry,” she sniffed, smothering tears.
“For what?” He laughed. “You really are a most forgiving little human. Were you a bear indeed, you’d have cuffed me for not getting back quicker.”
“Did you know they were coming?” she demanded, sitting up.
“Oh, not at first. Not when I left you. You should have been safe with the dogs, and I expected no attack this soon.” He adjusted his position, one arm supporting her, the other hand sliding around her waist. “I was talking to Flokki when one of the eagles came to warn me wolves were exploring near the cave. I called on some of the bears. The land army is a good way off, but Karr heard me and sent me his scouts.”
“Can you call that loud?” asked Skarga, amazed.
He laughed again. “Silent calls. Mind calls. They travel further.”
The warmth he carried with him was intense. “And the dogs?” Skarga whispered. “Are they - dead?”
“Two are. The others were confused.” He grinned. “I’m rarely given to misjudgements. It won’t happen again.”
A hesitant cough echoed from the darkness, and Skarga jumped. Thoddun lifted her gently from his lap and strode back to the cave mouth. “Is it finished?” he said.
“Yes, my lord. Shall I bring in the dogs?” A young man bowed, face and hands thick stained with blood.
Thoddun nodded. “Karr’s taken the humans into the great caves beyond the glacier. Join him there, and send the other three back scouting. I’ll come by sled, and meet you at the glacier early tomorrow.”
The man left and the dogs pattered into the cave, splitting the shadows. They came slowly, hanging their heads and panting, dropping at once to Thoddun’s feet. The lead dog rolled into abject submission, the others behind him. There had been seven and now there were five. Thoddun knelt on one knee beside them. Skarga thought she heard him growl. One dog whimpered. Thoddun grabbed the lead dog, his hands to its muzzle, hauling it to its feet. The dog’ tail was thin between its legs, its ears flat, eyes wide and white. Then he released it, his hands became gentle, and he rubbed its fur, caressing its ears. It stood, head low.
Thoddun came back, smiling. “They’re half wolf,” he said softly to Skarga. “Their loyalty is to me, but their instinct is pack obedience. The werewolves ordered them from the cave and herded them, keeping them silent. When two tried to escape and give warning, they were killed. They won’t be confused again.” He led her back to the sled. “Now we have to meet up with Karr. We’ll camp half way for rest and food, so the dogs will make poor time, only five and the sled heavy laden. But Karr needs me.” He was tightening the straps across the baggage, adjusting the balance. He turned and looked down at Skarga a moment. He said, “Karr has your brother.” Skarga flinched. Thoddun began reharnessing the dogs, speaking softly, his own breath mingling with theirs. Both of the wheelers had been killed. He repositioned the others and left the lead dog running free. Finally he came to Skarga, helped her up into the sled and sat beside her.
“Which brother?” she whispered.
“I’m not sure. Does it matter?” Thoddun said, taking the reins “We’ll be there before the sun rises midday tomorrow.”
“It’ll be Hakon,” Skarga said, mumbling to herself. “Asved is down south. And Banke would be too frightened to head off on his own.”
A putrid twilight lit the rim of a sickle moon. The wind bit like whips as the dog’s fur streamed behind them, snow crust splintering beneath the sled’s tracks, spraying crystals. They were heading towards the mountains. It was quieter as they left the coastal ranges. The strange grinding of the bergs and the pounding of tidal waters beneath the pack ice were behind them as a new snowfall enveloped the world. Everything was swallowed into hush, the wind dropped and the furs across Skarga’s lap collected snow spangle. She could hear Thoddun’s heart beat beneath her shoulder, and above her she saw the condensation of his breath. The miles disappeared into magic.
She did not hear the bird until the buzzard’s wings swept between sled and sky, pale mottled beneath its wing beats. Thoddun pulled on the reins and called to the dogs. A man stepped from the mist. “My lord. Five humans, eight wolves. The dominant human is of their chief’s household, three others are his jarls, the last an archer of the huskarls. Two of the wolves are exiles from the castle, once the she-wolf’s creatures. The other six are from the south. Karr has them safe, my lord, in the eastern cave system by the flanks of the glacier. Wenden has taken over the lead of the reserve forces in Karr’s absence. Karr asks if he should wait for you, or return to the army.”
Thoddun said, “Wenden’s reliable, until Karr can take over again. Have the humans finally launched a main force?”
“Their king is still preparing to leave their township, my lord,” said the messenger. “We expect their muster to be complete in a day or two. They await full daylight. The group we’ve taken was only their scouting party.”
CHAPTER THREE
She dreaded it, over the miles. She had not expected her family’s arrival nor thought of having to face any of them so soon.
The wind had strengthened again, whipping up shards of ice and the debris of old banked freeze. The snow fall was flung almost horizontal, cutting sideways across their path. Behind them the wadmal loosened and flapped, straining against its straps. The gusts plunged beneath the sailcloth as it billowed, then cracked flat. Skarga was sheltered by Thoddun’s body and he grinned when he knew she worried, thinking him frozen.
“Are you worried for me,” Thoddun laughed, “or about this brother of yours?”
“Both. Neither.”
“Then we’ll stop,” Thoddun answered. “I’ll rest the dogs and you can eat. Over food, you can tell me about your wretched brothers.”
He set the sled as a windbreak and released the dogs while Skarga laid sealskins over the hardened snow and discovered the supply panniers. Sitting close together, leaning back against the sled’s high carvings, they ate cold venison and black bread, salty and tart. When she was thirsty, Thoddun passed the small sweating sack of ale. “It’s useful,” she said, drinking deep, “having someone know my wishes before I do.”
“You didn’t always think so,” he said. “You wanted me out of your head.”
She shook it, smiling. “That was before.”
Thoddun ate little. He had hunted as the orca. Now he said, “Before? Before what? Before Ymir’s first mating? Before the Great Void? Tell me.”
Skarga sniffed, mouth full. “You know already. Before I was in love with you.”
Thoddun grinned. “I like it, hearing you say it,” he said. “No one’s ever said it to me before. I know your thoughts. Hearing it spoken is still invigorating. It’s like the wind playing in the shallows, and the sun on the ice.”
“I thought I hated you.” Skarga said. “Perhaps you knew my mind better than me all along.”
He leaned down and rubbed his thumb over her lips, wiping away the meat grease. “Perhaps I do,” he said softly. “Now tell me about your brothers.”
It had been a long time since she’d allowed herself to think about them. Even the threat of war with her father had not made them real. “It’s one of the few things we share,” she said. “Difficult brothers. You killed Gunulf. He wasn’t the worst.”
“Then he’s of little interest anymore,” Thoddun said. “Nor the youngest, for the moment. Tell me of the other two.�
�
Skarga sighed. “Hakon used to talk a lot about justice, fair’s fair he says, though I doubt he knows what justice really means. He was married once, poor little girl. Hakon’s the eldest, so my father actually stirred himself to arrange an alliance and a wedding feast. But she died. Hakon never knew what to do with her.” Thoddun raised an eyebrow. Skarga said, “I just mean – well, she was very young. About twelve years. Poor little Ferda - she and her baby died in childbirth. Hakon didn’t grieve. I think he was relieved.” Skarga lapsed into mumbles. “Father never got any other girl’s parents to offer their daughters. None of my brothers are married, even being chieftain’s sons.”
“And you?” smiled Thoddun. “Surely a kinder way of getting rid of you.”
“No one wanted me either. They were all too frightened of the curse.”
“As I’ve frequently remarked,” Thoddun smiled, “humans are remarkably stupid. Now tell me about Banke.”
They had finished eating and the ale sack was squeezed empty. The sled’s sailcloth ballooned as the wind bounced off the ice. Eventually the dogs reappeared, little dark panting ghosts through the mist. Thoddun stood and began to roll up the sealskins. Skarga clambered onto the sled. “All humans may be stupid,” she said, “but there’s places missing in Banke’s mind. You couldn’t read his thoughts. He doesn’t think, he just does things. And what he does is brutal and pointless.”
“Indeed,” Thoddun said. “Neither your brothers nor mine much decorate the world they live in. Do you mind, then, if I remove them from it?”
He was up beside her again, flicking the reins as the dogs bounded forwards. She said, “Kill them all? Banke, Hakon, my father. Asved. And then Grimr. Is that really what you plan to do?”
“It is,” he said, and as usual he was smiling.
She shook her head with a disguised gulp. “I won’t miss them.”
He paused before answering. “Perhaps you will,” he decided. “Do you realise how much they’ve influenced you over the years? Made you into who you are?”
“Everything that happens does that.”
“Families more specifically. They build both who you are and who you think you are. Oh, you can be defiant in defence at times. But your first answer to anything is escape. That’s because of your family.”
“Escape is natural good sense,” Skarga mumbled to her lap. “Was I supposed to fight everyone?”
“If you hadn’t run away from me, you’d have been saved a good deal of suffering.”
She glared up at him. “And if you’d explained at the beginning how you weren’t really Grimr and didn’t actually mean to kill me!”
“But I might have changed my mind,” Thoddun said. The weather had a thousand heart beats moaning from the north, each mile changing rhythm, leaping from fury to patience to the first hint of lemon sunrise. He grinned into the new born light. “There were certainly moments when I’d gladly have killed you.”
She opened her mouth to say something, then shut it again. Finally she said, “It’s bear bluster again, isn’t it? So what horrible things are going to happen, that you’re trying to stop me thinking about?”
Before them a frozen river slid from divided peaks. One day it would reach the sea, but it was only underground in the dark places hidden beneath its own ice cover, that the water flowed free. The glacier’s huge width shimmered like trapped moon shine, a vast timelessness, halted within its gigantic weight. It was, Skarga thought, a storm that had forgotten how to blow. “Hush now,” Thoddun said. “We are here.”
The dogs slowed, pulling uphill. Their paws slipped on the smooth ice and Thoddun called them to stop. The lead dog, still unharnessed, trotted back, tail high. The sled changed direction, cutting across towards the deeply crevassed banks. The wind sliced from the mountains, following the curve of the glacier’s path. Along the flanks huge boulders lay in a stagnant moraine, trailing down to lackadaisical scatters of smaller stones. The sled could not pass. Thoddun jumped down and unharnessed the dogs, sending them free to hunt. He nodded to Skarga and held up his arms. Stiff and cold, she tumbled into his embrace. As he swung her round she saw the man who had come before, helping rescue her from the wolf attack.
“The prisoners are held in the lesser system, lord.”
“Get someone to unload the sled and drag it in,” said Thoddun. “It’ll be a day or two before I need it again.”
There were steps downward, rough ledges both natural and axe assisted, sloping and steep. Thoddun took her gloved hand and they entered a passageway of reddish rock. A slow dribble of melt water dripped across the entrance. First meandering, the cave system tunnelled beneath the glacier and up into the mountain ranges beyond the frozen valley. Smaller caves led to larger, protecting their warmth from wind and snow. The rocks arched into grander openings, and then there was light. One great doorway led into a high beamed hall of natural stone, both furnished and peopled. Iron sconces held a hundred torches and a fire seethed across a central hearth. Bundles of furs and hides were piled along the outer walls; bedding for the men. There were pots and cauldrons discarded and empty beside the hearth, but one steaming pan simmered on its trivet. The cavern was well prepared, well supplied and comfortable. Karr was waiting. “Well, I’ve a neat bundle of wolf and human in the cage, confused as a walrus with a toothache. I’ve neither fed them nor spoken to them, but they roar at each other fit to frighten the seals. The hunting’s probably ruined as far as the coast.”
“Leave them long enough, maybe they’ll eat each other,” someone called.
Karr smiled at Skarga. “Nice to see you lady. You don’t resemble your brother, I see.”
“Which brother?” Skarga said quickly. “Do you know his name?”
Karr shook his head. “Never gave a name. Just keep’s saying he’s the king’s son. Has a nose like a moose and the temper of a bear with a bloody flux. Are there more than one like that in your family?”
Thoddun interrupted. “First I want hot spiced wine and a report on the main army, both ours and theirs. The prisoners can wait.”
Thoddun spent a long time talking to the men, but he did not leave Skarga entirely, and his orders concerning her were immediately fulfilled. She was well warmed and well fed. Her boots were rubbed out with straw, her furs hung near the fire, her gloves dried and stacked on the bench, her hair towelled with wool. She was given a pottage of salt bacon and pickled cabbage, heated and thickened with grain and wiped through with rye bread, then fortified ale and a horn of spiced wine. For a moment she felt the delicious satisfaction of knowing herself completely respected, while her wretched brother was hopefully hungry, and certainly cold.
Thoddun caught her thoughts and laughed. She frowned, nodding. “I know. I’m learning bad habits.” But she was surprised when he took her with him to see the prisoners. Skarga had already guessed, and she was sure it was Banke they had captured long before she saw him. She could hear him.
They were caged. The cage swung, suspended on massive hooks from the rock above. The iron bars were wide enough apart for arms and legs to protrude, waving in fury. Some distance below them tumbled the underground stream, a glacier melt cascading in froth. Its spray splattered the floor of the cage and the prisoner’s legs. On the rocks furthest from the water, two oil lamps hung. The sullen light flared occasionally, spat and sparked, smelling foul.
Banke sat at the front of the cage sobbing. His roars of frustration and hunger had subsided to whimpers. His nose ran consistently but he couldn’t reach it with a useful sleeve, for both his arms were stuck through the bars and he was too squashed to move. His face was smeared with snot, with tears and with dirt. His throat was sore and his ears rang. His legs were painfully cramped for the others imprisoned with him were heaving behind. Someone had vomited. His own weight, his three jarls and the bowyer-bodyguard with five of the werewolves, was sufficient to hold the cage steady but when it swung, the impetus was powerful, heaving out in an arc over the river. The wolf men howled. Ther
e was no space for them to Shift and all remained as men, but their howls were wolf howls, and their misery more animal than human.
Thoddun regarded them all with vague interest. “Is that one of yours?” He had put his arm around Skarga’s shoulders. She clung to his arm.
“It’s Banke,” she said quietly. “I’d hoped it wasn’t. I could have talked to Hakon.”
Looking down to the stony banks of the tumbling ice stream, Banke stared, mouth open, seeing the inexplicable shape of his sister holding to a man he recognised. A moment’s speechlessness, then Banke roared again.
“It’s you,” voice cracked, throat dry. “Get me out of here.”
Behind Thoddun, Karr said, “We took eight wolves. One we put to death. He was badly wounded and not worth keeping alive. Then there’s two of the she-wolf’s jarls. They’ve Shifted so we’ve kept them separate. The rest are here.”
“Bring the two wolf jarls and the principle human, shackled, to my own antechamber.” Thoddun turned to Skarga. “Have you anything to say to your brother?”
Skarga stared at Banke and shook her head.
“Order the wolf jarls to Shift back,” Thoddun told Karr. “If they refuse, use force by water or iron. I want them and the human chained, and brought before us.”
The antechamber was roughhewn and small with a long table and one chair taking all the width. Thoddun sat Skarga on the chair and stood behind her, his hands on her shoulders. Karr sat on the table, lounging at ease. The wolves had Shifted back to men, and they and Banke were brought in. Their shackles dragged, the dull clanking of iron over wet stone. A small lamp pooled pale light. Low stools were set before the table and Banke sat. He continued to cry, but access to his sleeve had improved his appearance. The wolf-men remained standing.
“I am interested,” Thoddun said. “You have each aligned with strangers, in complete ignorance of their character and capabilities, in order to make war against myself and my community. What, with such stupidity, have you hoped to achieve?”
Stars and a Wind- The Complete Trilogy Page 59