“I didn’t want her to worry about me. I wanted her to focus on the battle. I tried to tell her that, but another flood of anguish overcame me, and everything went black for a while.”
“But what she didn’t know, couldn’t know, was that the Dark Queen’s forces were already in flight. Between Meuhlnir’s wanton use of lightning, and Veethar’s nature-magic, the enemy turned and ran,” said Sif.
“Not to mention the six hundred fighters pounding down from the hills,” said Meuhlnir.
“Yes, there was that, too.”
“The battle?” I asked.
Meuhlnir shrugged, pursing his lips. “Not much of a battle, to be honest. The oolfa took one look at the forest going crazy at their backs and ran for it. The Black Queen was never a stupid woman, and she had a gift for sensing the tide of battle turning. I didn’t see how she got away.”
“She took the form of a bear and charged down the road, maiming her own troops if they got in her way,” said Yowrnsaxa in a bland tone.
I glanced at Jane, who was staring at the flames licking the cook pot. Her lips pursed and relaxed, pursed and relaxed, but the rest of her face bore no expression. “Penny, Supergirl,” I whispered.
She started, then flashed a quick smile at me. “That was quite a story, Frikka. Thanks for telling me.”
Frikka stared into the fire. “Who knows? Maybe I could not have killed her had I tried.” Frikka glanced at Jane and patted her hand. “I should have killed her when I first saw her. Her forces would have fallen apart as each ambitious leader claimed the throne. You see?”
“Yes,” said Jane.
“I might have saved so many lives. I could have saved your family from this ordeal.”
“Yes,” said Jane. “Though as hard as it was in the beginning, things…”
Frikka chuckled. “Not everything has been bad? You say this even after meeting Meuhlnir?”
“I heard that,” said the lightning god.
“I intended you to.”
Jane smiled. “Yes, good things have come out of our ordeal,” she said, looking at Mothi and Sig joking and play-fighting at the edge of the fire’s light. She took my hand and squeezed. “And this idiot here finally has a doctor who seems to know what she’s doing.”
Sif smiled and bowed her head once.
“But even so,” said Frikka.
“Yes,” said Jane for the third time. She looked at Frikka, and something seemed to pass between them. “There’s no point feeling guilty, is there?”
“None,” said Frikka. “The Sisters wove your fate eons ago. You can only do your best.”
Jane smiled and squeezed my hand. “I tell this lunkhead that all the time, but he’s got this thing about making everything perfect.”
Frikka glanced at me. “Men,” she said with a smile, and the other women repeated the word in the same tone.
Meuhlnir glanced at me across the fire and shook his head. “There will be no living with them, you know. You kill the next dragon, please.”
I laughed and shook my head. “Let’s avoid the next dragon and call it a win.”
“Hmmm,” said Sif. “You see, dear? Not all men are idiots.”
“Who knew?” asked Frikka, her eyes on Veethar’s pale blue ones across the fire.
“I did,” said Jane. She punched me in the arm. “Because my friend married one of the non-idiots. I bet he never shot at her!”
“A guy makes one mistake…” I said, doing my best mournful voice.
“Exactly!” said Meuhlnir. “One mistake, and—”
“Shut it,” said Sif without looking at him. She tried not to, but she couldn’t help smiling.
“Might as well ask sand to turn back into rock, as ask a woman to let things lie,” Meuhlnir muttered.
“Heard that,” said Yowrnsaxa. “What are you eating for dinner, dear?”
Meuhlnir shook his head. “I should know better than to say anything.”
“You really should, by this point,” said Veethar. “Everyone knows this.”
“Knows what?” said Althyof, walking back into the camp.
“It’s nothing,” said Meuhlnir.
“Tverkar jokes? Again?”
Meuhlnir held up his hands, palms out.
Althyof glared at everyone sitting around the fire. “I hope no one laughed…”
“Really, Althyof, there were no—” Jane began.
“Got you,” he said and roared laughter at the night sky. When he’d laughed himself out, Althyof slumped onto one of the logs circling the fire. “Okay, so guess what I just did.”
“Um, I think you tried to pull a joke, but I’m not entirely sure,” said Meuhlnir in a droll tone.
“Not that,” said Althyof, with a wave. “While I was away.”
“We don’t discuss such things in mixed company,” said Veethar, his face grim.
“What? No, I…that is, I—”
“Got you,” said Veethar, and, this time, everyone laughed.
Yowrnsaxa doled out portions of another delicious, if improbable, trail stew, which was better than the fare I’d eaten in many fancy restaurants back in Mithgarthr.
“There’s something I don’t understand,” I said, looking at Althyof.
“Yes?”
“Why did Jane pass out? The ring—”
“Ah, that. The ring allows her certain abilities, but at a price, as with anything.”
“A price?” I asked, my voice grave.
“Oh, nothing to be concerned about. For the enchantment to work as it does, it needed to be bound to something. Given the nature of the work, I bound the power of the enchantment to her will—to her spirit, or whatever you Isir call it.”
“Fettle,” said Sif.
“Wait a minute—”
“No, hold on,” Althyof said, pointing at me with his spoon. “There is no permanent damage done. Her spirit will replenish itself over time, as anyone’s does. There is no danger.”
“Well, she passed out and almost drowned,” muttered Yowtgayrr.
“Well, yes, but—”
“So, there are limits to what she can do. If killing something will knock her out for a day and a half, what about—”
“The time, the impact of the deed depends on the power of the creature. How much of its own will it raises in its own defense.”
Jane nodded. “The more powerful the…will, the more it takes out of me.”
“Yes,” said the Tverkr around a mouthful of stew. “Meuhlnir, here, you—”
“No. No jokes,” said Jane.
Althyof bowed his head. “Ah, yes. No jokes,” he said.
“What about the confusion? The healing? The wings?”
He waved his spoon. “No, only the offensive abilities. Well, yes to the confusion. It will drain you, but not to the extent of killing your opponent.”
“And does the cost scale?” Jane demanded.
“I don’t follow.”
“If killing one sea dragon knocked me out for a day and a half, would killing ten million ants do the same?”
“I’m not sure that’s a good—”
“Fine. If I confuse one man and it takes one unit of energy from my…from my spirit, would confusing ten men take ten units?”
Althyof nodded. “I would think so, yes, but it’s complicated by the fact that not all men are equal. Some are weak, some strong.” He shrugged. “You will feel the drain. With the dragon, it was—”
“Too quick,” she said.
“Yes. Too quick. In the future, you will have to assess the creature you wish to kill, to judge the impact to your will.”
Jane nodded and looked out into the darkness surrounding the camp. We went on eating, talking about lighter things, and after everyone finished stuffing themselves, between the full bellies and the roaring fire, eyelids drooped, and conversations petered out. While Jane helped Yowrnsaxa clean up, I rolled into the large bedroll Jane and I shared, groaning under my breath as my creaky joints settled on the hard ground. I had meant to wait for Jane, to warm her side of the bedroll, and to hold her until she fell asleep, but the events of the day snuck up on me, and I slept.
When I woke, the fire had burned down to coals, and it was still dark—still the middle of the night dark. My knees, ankles, and feet burned with a persistent, low-level pain. Jane lay beside me, her breathing deep and relaxed. I lay there, trying to escape the pain by sinking into the warm embrace of sleep, but deep down, I knew it was a lost battle. Once the pain reached the level where it could wake me, it would keep me awake for as long as it wanted, and there was not much I could do about that. I could take a pain med, but since I was one of the lucky few for whom narcotic pain meds prevented sleep and made me groggy at the same time, that would only guarantee I wouldn’t sleep for the rest of the night. It was a win-win for my Personal Monster™. It made no sense, but then again, where was it written that things must make sense?
There was a part of me that had grown to hate night. I kept it from Jane—she had enough to worry about—but the act of getting ready for bed, the settling into bed, the silence, the darkness, all of it contributed to my insomnia. There’s an unfortunate side effect of chronic pain—in the absence of other sensory input, pain gets louder—more intense—and much harder to ignore.
I thought about taking a pain med anyway…maybe I’d fall asleep before the damn thing set my brain to “wake.” There was a part of me that recognized the fallacy inherent in that thought, but another part of me didn’t care. It’s not like I’d fall asleep if I didn’t take the pill. The pain would be there, waving its arms and shouting for the rest of the night. The only hope was a distraction that wouldn’t, in and of itself, keep me awake, but had enough oomph to lower the volume of the pain.
Yeah, right.
I rolled up on my side, facing Jane. At times like this, I missed being back home, where books were as close as my phone, and I’d be able to read away the hours until dawn. I had my phone, of course, I’d buried it away in my pack, but with no way to recharge the thing, the battery had gone flat.
Hell, if we were back home, I could get up and go search for the end of the Internet. Or maybe watch YouTube videos of idiots doing stupid, yet interesting things. Or I could play a game—my hands felt fine for a change. I flipped to my other side and stared into the darkness while my legs sang their litany of pain and discomfort in my ear.
Reciting the things I couldn’t do wasn’t helping anything. Why did my mind run to things that amped up my stress instead of repressing it? It never failed—when I felt my worst, I worried about all the things I was missing out on, all the things I could no longer do. It was stupid, but I seemed powerless in the face of that brand of self-torture.
I wondered what Luka was doing at that moment. He’d taken damage in our fight in Piltsfetl, not only from my pistols but from Urlikr’s swords. Even Jane had gotten in a few licks. I didn’t imagine any of the wounds still existed or had even slowed him down that much, but still…
And the Dark Queen…Elizabeth Tutor on our klith…Hel on Osgarthr…She-who-waits…the Black Bitch…Queen Suel of Suelhaym… She had a new kingdom in Fankelsi—the land Meuhlnir had exiled her to at the end of their war—didn’t she have to run things there? Or did Vowli act as her regent? How come she had so much time to make our lives miserable? And why did she care? Because she hadn’t liked my attitude when Jax and I interviewed her back home? It’s not as if she had been pleasant. The whole interview would have gone another way without her attitude. But hell, as long as I was wishing wishes, if she and Luka hadn’t come to my turf and started eating people, I’d still be back home, living the life I loved. I’d still be healthy.
I flopped onto my back and sighed.
“What’s the matter? Can I get you a pill?” asked Jane in a sleep-blurred voice.
“Sorry I woke you,” I whispered.
“Want a pill? A hot-pack?”
She wasn’t awake. There were no microwaves, no hot-packs on Osgarthr. “No, no. Go back to sleep, Supergirl. I’m fine.”
“Sure, sure. Nothing wrong with you.”
I smiled in the darkness—even half-asleep she still had the ability to bust me for being a “big, dumb Norwegian.” It was one of her gifts, I suppose. Her breathing deepened and evened out. I held still long enough to be sure she was asleep before lifting the edge of the blankets and rolling out from under them.
The air was frigid, shocking as I shuffled over to the glowing coals of last night’s fire. I stirred them with a stick and fed them fresh kindling. In a few moments, I had a small fire going again, and I huddled in its warm glow. The eastern horizon was still dark, not even a hint of color. Salt and sea came to me on the breeze, and the scents seemed pure, clean. Sea air back home had much the same effect on me, but here, where the seas were clean and fresh, the effect was stronger. Waves pounded on the thin shingle of beach across the road from the campsite.
As I watched the dark, misty shoreline, my eye caught on a stygian patch of shadow. Is my mind playing tricks or did that black hunk of night move? I wondered. I stared at the black patch and waited. As a cop back in New York, I’d learned that my eyes were sometimes smarter than my brain—at least my conscious brain. Maybe it was some lizard part of me, buried deep, that was still worried about the tiger in the night, or the part of my mind that wasn’t distracted by actual thought, but when my eye snagged something in the night, there was usually something to it.
Of course, I pretended not to watch, looking off to the side, watching from the corner of my eye. Years of being a cop had also taught me that when people are up to no good and know you are watching, they have the patience of the saints.
I pretended to be interested in the fire, in the night sky, in the sole of my boot, and through it all, the patch of blackness remained still. I half-believed my lizard brain had made a mistake this time and had almost stopped paying attention when it finally moved again.
Whatever it was, it moved without making a sound—no chink of armor, no rustling of cloth or leather. Its steps made no sound either, as it backed away, moving south from the camp along the dark swath of beach.
I stood and stretched, still not looking at the thing. As I let my hands fall to my sides, I realized my pistols and gun belt were over near the bedroll, in a heap under a cloth. Three steps brought me to them, and I grabbed the belt without pausing, moving into the darkness on the other side of the fire with as much stealth as a big, dumb, disabled Norwegian can.
“Do you need a pill?” I heard Jane ask in a bleary voice.
“Go back to sleep,” I whispered.
I walked through the darkness, parallel to the road, eyes straining to adapt to the lack of light. It was still over there, still moving, still not making a sound. Whatever it was, it didn’t seem to be aware that I had left the camp, let alone that I was shadowing it from across the road.
The thing stopped—all I could see of it was a patch of black darker than its surroundings—and turned as if it were looking out to sea. Shaped like a woman, or a slender man, it stood, straight-backed and stiff-legged. I crossed the road in the hunched-over trot that was the best I could do given my condition, and still, the thing didn’t turn. It didn’t move, as if it were a statue of onyx rather than an animate being.
My palms rested on the butts of my pistols, landing there as if by their own accord, and as I closed the distance to the thing, I slid Kunknir and Krati out of their holsters.
“You don’t need your wands, Tyeldnir.” The voice lacked the characteristics I associated with live people. It was without warmth, without emotion of any kind.
“I’ll be the judge of that. Let me see your hands.”
The shadowy figure raised its arms out to its sides, and a spooky sound escaped it. “I am no threat to you, Hank Jensen. To the contrary.”
“How do you know my name? Let me guess: the Black Bitch sends her regards.”
A shudder wracked the thing, seeming to send ripples through its shadow stretching across the ground. “No. I do not serve her. I serve…Roonateer. Or I serve myself. I serve the three Sisters, the Weavers of Fate.”
“The Nornir?”
“The very ones.”
I sidled around the thing, wanting to see its face, but I might as well have stayed where I was. The thing had no features, no face. It stood but seemed no more solid than the surrounding air. “Who…what are you?”
“I am of the Tisir. I am filkya.”
“Filkya. I know that word. Are you telling me you are a ghost? A spirit? Entwined in my fate?”
The Tisir laughed, and it sounded more than a little like a bus grinding its gears. “I am filkya,” it—she—repeated. “I am Tisir.”
“Is that a name?”
Again, she laughed. “The name of my kind, yes. I am called Kuhntul. It means ‘wand wielder,’ the same as you, Tyeldnir.”
“Don’t call me that. My name is Hank.”
Kuhntul cocked her head to the side but said nothing.
“Why are you here? Why do you come sneaking up on our camp in the middle of the night?”
“I am here to warn you, Hank, son of Yens.”
“Warn me? About what?”
“A betrayer,” Kuhntul hissed. “A traitor.”
“What, in our party? I don’t believe it.”
“Believe what you want, my duty is dispatched in this.” Kuhntul turned and drifted to the south, skimming above the sand without touching it.
“Wait just a minute,” I said. “You can’t say something like that and walk away into the night.”
“No?” Kuhntul didn’t slow, but she wasn’t moving much faster than a walk.
“If you are a filkya—my filkya—fate binds you to me, right? That means—”
“I never said I was your filkya.”
“You implied it.”
“Did I?”
I didn’t know why, but I had the distinct impression that Kuhntul was laughing at me. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t believe anyone in our party is a traitor.”
“That is your business, Tyeldnir.”
“Meuhlnir’s family is beyond suspicion, they’ve proven their willingness to die for my family. Likewise, the Alfar. Veethar wouldn’t betray anyone to whom he’s given his word. He’s not made that way.”
“Is he not?”
The feeling she was laughing at me was so thick it seemed hard to breathe. “And Frikka? There’s no way…she has no motive. None at all. Neither does Althyof, as much as he plays his Tverkr role, he’s an honorable man.”
“Is he?”
“Yes, he is,” I snapped. “Then who? Jane? Even if I saw her betray me, I wouldn’t believe it of her. Sig? My own son? Don’t be ridiculous.”
“And yet, the skein of fate says you will be betrayed by a member of your party.”
I scoffed. “And this skein is never wrong?”
Kuhntul shrugged and laughed. “It is not.”
“Why are you really here? Who sent you?”
“I’ve told you why I am here, and I came of my own accord. I have no…what did you call it…no motive for dishonesty.”
“If you are one of the Black Queen’s pets, you’ve motive aplenty.”
“I am no creature of the Dragon of Fankelsi. I’d sooner yield my soul to the mists than serve one such as she.”
I believed her—about not working for the Dark Queen, at least. Nothing she said caused any pings in my Cop-radar.
“Be on your guard, Tyeldnir. Don’t be caught unaware.” With that, Kuhntul dissipated like smoke on a windy day, leaving me alone on the black shingle of beach. I slipped Kunknir and Krati back into their holsters and blew out a breath. I had wished for something to distract me from my aching legs. As I walked back to camp, I didn’t feel them at all.