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Troll blood spattered his face. His armor remained clean of the battle. Skull ignored the blood on his skin but carefully wiped his sword as he approached. “An unexpected battle.”
“Another ambush.” Grim pointed to the forest road continuing along the mountain’s flank. “The wyre ran off.”
“Aye. Back to the old lair? Or to a new one, wherever it is. We must locate it. Close, I think.”
“Whichever, we’ll need to be wary. That’s twice they’ve ambushed us.”
“What think you, Not-Wizard?”
Orielle stopped worrying about the leaves she might have swallowed. She coughed then said, “The wyre intended to lead us away from their new camp, on orders of the sorceress.”
Sangrior had neared. Blood streaked his sword and his armor. Like the Kyrgy lord, he tended to his weapon rather than the troll’s blood. “What reason do they lead us away?”
“This is Crone Moon. As Lord Skull said, the sorceress had three people to moon-change into new wyres. Will they be able to fight us on the night of their transformation?”
Grim frowned. “Wyre can fight immediately. Why wait? Why not send every fighter into battle? Three veteran wyre, three new, and the sorceress. Even odds.”
Orielle turned to him. “What do you mean, even? Lord Skull has twelve riders and himself, plus you and Sangrior, and me. We outnumber them.”
“I’ve seen his riders fight. Your pardon, my lord, but unless it’s you or Sangrior, no single rider can take a wyre. It would need two or three of them.”
“You took on three.”
“And nearly died,” he reminded Orielle. “I can barely defend myself if three attack at once. And not for long. Even odds, like I said.”
“Sorcerer or wizard,” Lord Skull gave a slight bow to Orielle, “they will want overwhelming odds when they go into battle. Has the sorceress other fighters?”
“She had three mundane swordsmen when we fought on the shoreline. Two died in that fight.”
“And she moon-changes three tonight. She has other mundane then. Perhaps a troop from Frost Clime. She would need the Prime wyre for the moon-change, if they are to obey him. We killed one at the old lair. We saw two here. She has changed others before tonight.”
“When?” Orielle felt hollow. “When could she have done so? We saw her whole force at the shoreline.”
“Did you, Not-Wizard?”
“Where else would they have been?”
“How long?” Grim confronted Sangrior. “How long has the sorceress had a pact with Lady Bone?”
The consort knight grimaced. He directed his answer at Skull. “Since Dragon Moon the wyre pack has run the Wilding.”
“Which night of Dragon Moon? Wyvern? Dragon? Or Lindworm?”
“Lindworm. She would not add to the lair, though. She had ten males then.”
“And she has had days to achieve that number again. How many females were in the lair?”
Orielle remembered the woman standing naked on the boulder, the woman who transformed into the pale wolf. One female wyre. “None of the ones we fought earlier were female,” she murmured. “Just the one tonight.”
Sangrior looked abashed. “I do not know how many females.”
Lord Skull chuckled. “We are remiss in your training. No Prime moves without his consort prime. No consort prime moves without two attendants. No lair moves without five consorts. A full lair has all ten consorts.”
“I did not know that,” Grim muttered. “That’s good knowledge to have.”
“Fifteen wyre,” Orielle counted. “We must assume that number. Plus the sorceress and Saircuista. And swordsmen, one or two tent groups or temes. We were outnumbered from the beginning.”
“We killed seven,” Grim reminded, “plus one tonight. That leaves seven of the original fifteen.”
“Plus the three she moon-changed, ten. And however many females and mundane swordsmen and the sorceress herself.”
“Who is Saircuista?” Skull asked.
Sangrior didn’t answer, nor did Grim. Still distracted by numbers, Orielle said, “One of Lady Bone’s dames, one who betrayed her to ally with the sorceress. I knew the sorceress had been in the Wilding for days. Now we find that she has been here half-a-month. Time enough to recruit Fortis and convince him to use those eldritch blades to open a pathway for the wraiths.”
“You go beyond me.” The Kyrgy lord spoke without emotion, but his intense stare broke her distraction and warned her to focus. “My lady sister did not tell me that one of her riders had defected. Certainly not that a dame of the Hunt had allied to a sorceress.”
Sangrior shifted uncomfortably. Lord Skull’s knights and dames had gradually retrieved their mounts then walked over to encircle them, and Sangrior looked at each one, as if answering unspoken questions. “The Lady has dealt with the traitor. She did so yesterday. This night the traitor is no more.”
“Skuld has removed her mantle on the dame?”
“She did, Lord Vrigsmal.”
Orielle fastened on the Kyrgy lord’s true name. Sangrior had slipped out the Lady’s name days ago: Skuld. Now she knew Lord Skull’s: Vrigsmal. Said three times, his true name would bring him to her aid, just as she had called upon the knights Sangrior and Volk, and upon the Lady herself, to save Grim.
Only in dire circumstances, though, would she ever call upon a Kyrgy. Their aid came with a required sacrifice. These three Hunts, that she had sworn to give Lady Bone, they were a minor sacrifice, not dire, dangerous but not soul-stealing.
Vrigsmal might choose the dire and soul-stealing in return for his aid.
The Kyrgy lord bent his head in acknowledgement of Sangrior’s answer. Then he looked to Orielle and Grim. “Who is this Fortis that you mention has eldritch knives? A Rhoghieri? Why would a Rho bind himself to a sorceress? She is allied to wyre. All Frost Clime sorcerers have wyre leashed for their use. Rho and wyre are enemies.”
That answer belonged to Grim. He cleared his throat. “Fortis was a mentor. He’s dead.”
“Yet this mentor made pact with a sorceress. He used her eldritch knives. How many?”
“I do not know, my lord.”
“Three,” Orielle supplied. “We did not find more. He killed people to create paths for the wraiths to enter the Haven, but—.” She didn’t think it wise to brag about her battles with the wraiths. “He was unsuccessful. We fought him yesterday.”
“You killed him?”
“We did, my lord,” Grim said firmly, with no hint that Fortis had been a childhood friend.
“And the wraiths?”
“Destroyed, my lord.”
“Then we need not return to the Haven to purge any lingering corruption.” He addressed that to Grim, no doubt considering him as the Rho’s representative to the Kyrgy. “The corruption that infected my lady sister’s riders is also removed. The Haven is no longer corrupted. That is guot. We have the sorceress and her wyre to remove, to restore the Wilding. The pact with this sorceress should never have occurred.” His glinting gaze bore on Sangrior, who shrank under its weight.
The knight knelt. “My lord. Do you require that I return to my Lady?”
“You ride with me, a gift from my sister until we defeat the sorceress and her wyre and mundane, however many remain to her. As for Lady Skuld, my sister will answer to me. Come, we have wyre to hunt and a sorceress to kill.” He glanced at Orielle. “Your debt will clear with the death of the sorceress, Aiwaz Solsken. You need to be wizard now, no longer Not-Wizard.”
She did hate that name. “As you say, my lord.”
A rider handed over the reins to Vrigsmal’s black steed. He vaulted into the saddle. They hastened to mount, Grim helping Orielle then leaping into his own saddle. The Lord ordered Orielle and Sangrior to flank him once more, then they rode from the boulderfall, back around the battle ground with its wisps of wraiths, and to the forest road.
. ~ . ~ . ~ .
The old lair looked as empty and smelled as musty as before. They found signs of recent wyre, three distinct tracks on the forest side of the lair. The wyre that had killed the knight had disappeared.
Lord Vrigsmal removed the cloak over the fallen knight. He knelt beside the stiffening body. Passing his hand over the stilled face, he bent his head.
A crackling of flames over new wood sounded, but no one had kindled a fire. No flickering light appeared; no smoke rose. The light, when it came, blazed suddenly, appearing on the knight’s exposed skin. The fire lacked the orangey yellow of flames. It shone with gold, white gold and yellow gold, shimmering gold that flickered over the knight. The strange flame consumed flesh and bone and metal, for when it died, the knight’s body had vanished, even his armor and leathers consumed.
Lady Bone hadn’t tended her fallen riders this way. She burned them where they lay on the shore—after she healed Volk.
The Kyrgy lord straightened. He studied where the knight had lain, then he turned to his riders, some wounded in the battle against the rock troll. “Sir Kalleth will never be forgotten. His memory will be lifted when we feast. A smoke will lift to him from Maiden’s Moon to Maiden’s Moon. His name will be worked into the tapestry of my hall. To Kalleth!”
“To Kalleth!” returned his knights and dames.
As Vrigsmal mounted his horse, Orielle decided that the Kyrgy lord knew how to lead. Even when he lost a rider, he honored the rider’s memory. Knights and dames would remember that. No matter the terms of their binding, the signs of his appreciation of their sacrifice increased their loyalty to him.
How had Lady Bone increased loyalty? Sir Volk gave her complete loyalty. She called him hers: “my Volk, you cannot leave me.” Yet Sangrior looked beyond the Lady, still harking to the mundane world. Saircuista had tried to defect and suffered before she was given death. The Lady hadn’t said anything special about the riders lost on the shore. Yet who would have heard her? Volk, who she already held, and Sangrior and that third knight, whose name she didn’t remember. Did the Lady do nothing to inspire loyalty?
Lady Bone was fearsome.
Yet she had two consort knights while her brother appeared to have no consorts. Was that because his consorts were at his hall—and where was that? What kind of place would be fitting for a Kyrgy lord? Vrigsmal ruled; his sister ruled because of him. Did that prevent him from choosing a consort? Was it his choice as leader? Would he pick no favorite to keep every knight and dame striving to win his approval?
Lord Vrigsmal was terrifying—for Orielle admitted that he could wring allegiance from her. She feared Lady Bone. Vrigsmal inspired Orielle with awe.
A knight shouted, and the Lord rode to consult with him. He reported another wyre track leading from the old lair, in the direction of the river. Orielle expected a hard ride as they tracked the wyre to the sorceress.
Yet Vrigsmal did not spur to follow. He stared at the sky. The round Crone’s Moon had cast over to the inky western vault. “The night nears its end. I will not follow the trail only to confront this sorceress as the sun rises. She will expect us.” He leaned toward Orielle, as if he spoke to her alone, yet his voice carried to all the riders. “You are Solsken. The hours of the sun are your blessing. Not so for the Kyrgy. The Moon gives us her blessing, and the Lady Moon doubles her blessing.” He straightened and turned to meet every rider’s gaze. “We have fought well tonight. We have killed enemies, expected and unexpected. We mark this Wilding as ours. In the sunlight hours, we will prepare for the Lady’s Moon, when we shall hunt again, hunt a sorceress who fouls our Wilding, and hunt the wyre who serve her. We ride.”
And they rode, the trees rushing past as the horses covered ground in their dream-like gallop. Orielle and Grim rode with them; Sangrior rode to the right. Would they not return to the Haven or to Lady Bone?
The transition started so gradually that she didn’t notice until the horses’ hoofs no longer thudded over bare ground but clanged on stone. The trees rising to surround them became buildings of pale amber stone and white marble. Underbrush transformed into half-walls. Twisted branches became carved ornamentation on the stone buildings.
As dawn lightened the sky, they rode along a wide street toward a many-storied building with ornate decoration on doors and windows and the roofline. Walls rose high, three stories, dwarfing them. The road appeared cobbled, but the horses’ hoofs remained soundless.
She tried to see everything, but it passed in a blur, just as the sky brightened in a blur.
The building they approached had a single spire reaching for the blueing sky. Glass glittered amber along the three stories of the facade, the panes gilded by the rising sun. The palace looked as gracious as any in Tres Lucerna, capitol of Mont Nouris.
The massive entrance had silver-aged doors gilded with a coppery arabesque design. The doors opened as they drew up before the stairway. Soldiers marched out, each taking a step that mounted to the doors. Nine men on each side.
Vrigsmal sprang down. A rider caught the reins of his mount. The Kyrgy lord ran lightly up the steps. Then he turned. The sun glinted on his Fae-graved armor. He flung out his arms. “Welcome to Ifendrayl, my hall. Today, we prepare. Tonight, we hunt. Tomorrow, we feast.” With that, he disappeared through the open door.
