An Apprentice to Elves (36 page)

There was Vethulf and Skjaldwulf's room, the door closed so that the unused room would not steal heat from the rest of the building. There was Isolfr's room, the door likewise shut, and the draft-curtain drawn close across it. And there was Sokkolfr's room, sealed against cold by a heavy tapestry.

She pushed the rug enough aside to slip behind it. Sokkolfr had not shut his door. Now Otter did so, silently. When she turned back, though, she saw Mar's eyes luminescent in the night, catching and concentrating what little light was cast by the coals on the hearth. She paused to let the old wolf identify her; sometimes she thought his hearing and sense of smell were not so keen as they had been. And though she hated to admit it, the ripple of light reflected from the membrane in his eyes seemed dimmed, somehow, as if somebody had dragged an oily thumb over polished stone.

He made no sound, however, except his tail thumping once softly against the flags near the hearth. Otter decided that was as good as an invitation and forced herself to take a few more shy steps into the room.

Sokkolfr rolled over in his blankets and lifted his head from the warm nest of his bed. He blinked groggily. Mar reached out and put his white-frosted paw on Otter's foot, flexing his claws as he stretched so that she felt it through the leather. She winced but kept her foot still. It was affection, and also a bit of a practical joke or a test, though you would have to be a wolf to find it funny.

“I wanted to talk to you about Varghoss,” she said.

“Feigr's new brother?” He sounded dopey and sleep-dazed. She refused to find it sweet, or in any manner charming.

She bit her lip.

“He needs responsibility,” she said. “Right now, he's got authority. He's the oldest tithe-boy—”

Sokkolfr hitched himself up on his elbows, bewildered but game. “Not a tithe-boy anymore.”

“His problem exactly,” Otter said. Carefully, she extricated her foot from under Mar's.

The old wolf laughed at her.

“You need me to give him something to do? Right now? At dark moonset on a rain-frozen night?”

“No, of course not. I meant in the morning.” She took a step back toward the door, suddenly feeling shyness, confusion. But Mar was there, leaning on her thighs, and she'd have to push the old wolf out of the way to get any farther.

Sokkolfr struggled further upright. The blankets slid down his unclothed chest. “But you had to come tell me now.” He didn't sound annoyed. If anything, he sounded hopeful.

“I didn't realize how late it had gotten.”

“Otter, it's pitch-black.”

“I didn't want to go back to my room,” she blurted and felt her ears go hot with mortification.

“Then you don't have to,” he said, as if it were no more difficult than that. He lifted the blankets in invitation.

“I'm cold,” she warned, stepping toward him.

“That's all right,” he said. “I'm warm.”

She dropped her overdress on the bedside stool, stepped out of her shoes, and slid in beside him, hesitant but also drawn by the warmth. He curled around her immediately, but he didn't take any liberties. She almost wished he would.

She thought of a story she'd heard many times and loved as a child, and smiled suddenly, into the dark.
Maybe the wild doe has tamed herself to the hand.

He pulled the blankets up. “Othinn's one good eye, woman, you weren't exaggerating!”

Somewhere in the room, Mar was laughing at them both.

She took a breath. But she knew what she wanted. She caught his hand and slid it under the top of her kirtle. “Warm me up,” she ordered.

So he did.

*   *   *

Alfgyfa sat at breakfast, wrapped in her gold-patched cloak and trying to work out in her head why the steel and the bindrunes seemed to be inimical to each other. She'd been through five different fully articulated and highly plausible theories and was now working on her sixth—and remained baffled and infuriated in equal measure.

Idocrase, beside her, sipped mint tea and nibbled on a leftover raisin-studded saffron bun from the night before. He'd toasted it over the coals, and the butter and jam he'd spread it with dripped temptingly over his fingers. He didn't seem to be paying it the sort of attention one ought, however, as his nose was nearly touching the pages of his record book as he bent over them, squinting at variations on a bindrune he was puzzling out. Alfgyfa knew he used spectacles when he was scribing, and she wondered why he wasn't wearing them. Or maybe it was the inherent nature of bindrunes to be difficult to see.

She reached out and snagged the other half of his bun off the tin plate at his elbow. He didn't even flick his eyelashes in her direction when she stuffed the corner into her mouth and took a big bite.

“You're welcome.”

She swallowed, licked jammy butter off her fingers, and smiled. Idocrase met her gaze and smiled back.

At that moment, Sokkolfr stood up from where he had been sitting with Otter. He raised his hand for attention and got it, not the least because Mar limped up beside him and leaned a shoulder on Sokkolfr's thigh.

“Congratulations, wolfcarls!” Sokkolfr said. “And don't get too comfortable. Because in order to practice his leadership skills, Varghoss will be taking us on a hunt today.”

Varghoss looked up, shock and surprise quickly replaced with a small glow of pleasure. Brokkolfr and Amma shared a look, and Brokkolfr offered her the remains of cold shoulder and scrambled egg on his plate. She accepted daintily, washing the pewter with a thick pink tongue while Athisla watched enviously.

Alfgyfa stood up. “May I come on the hunt, wolfcarl? I know how to handle a spear.”

“Oh,” Idocrase said. He didn't stand, but raised one hand. “I should also like to assist, if it is possible?”

Sokkolfr pursed his lips. He glanced at Brokkolfr—not, Alfgyfa noted, at Athisla's brother Ulfhundr—and Brokkolfr must have given him some tiny gesture of agreement. Or perhaps it passed wolf to wolf, because when Sokkolfr looked back at them, it was obvious that the answer was yes even before he said, “Get your boots on.”

They set out not much later—seven new wolfcarls, seven pups bouncing at everything, two mature and more-or-less sensible bitches and their brothers, Mar, Sokkolfr, Alfgyfa, and Idocrase. Otter had had to give Sokkolfr an extra hug before she let him go, and Alfgyfa wondered if that meant what she thought it did. The air was raw but not unpleasantly so. The earth was moist underfoot, but rain had given way to curling mist and condensation.

Varghoss seemed at first uncertain with his sudden elevation to authority. He fussed so much, in fact, that Alfgyfa reached out to Mar and sent the crafty old wolf an image of a harried mother duck fussing over her ducklings. Mar turned to her and laughed, and Sokkolfr shot Alfgyfa such a look of mock-horror that she knew Mar had passed it on to his temporary brother. Alfgyfa winked and kept some approximation of a straight face.

When they had reached the edge of the wood, Varghoss turned to Sokkolfr and said, “What, then, should we hunt?”

“You're the master,” Sokkolfr said. “What do you feel your pack has the strength to manage?”

Varghoss looked from one to the next of them. Alfgyfa felt his eye skim over her appreciatively, though not in an offensively lingering manner. She stopped herself from reflexively stepping closer to Idocrase.

“Or what can we possibly sneak up on?” Varghoss asked.

Sokkolfr twitched a quick smile.

“I'm of a mind to say venison,” Varghoss said. “But I can't imagine these pups being ready to run down a deer yet.” He looked down at the wolf cubs. “Squirrels? How do we feel about squirrels?”

Pups bounced and yipped and knocked one another rolling in the leaf piles. Two of the bigger pups slammed into Alfgyfa's ankle while wrestling. They hit hard enough that she had to steady herself on a spruce, and she drew back sap-sticky fingers.

At least Varghoss was showing some discipline. And some sense. She'd have expected this particular cocky young man to take after the biggest game available.

Not that squirrels were going to be easy with the spear resting on her shoulder. She wished she'd brought a bow.

She was lousy with a bow, but she wished she'd brought one anyway.

*   *   *

There were very few squirrels this close to the heall, for some unfathomable reason. And the ones who did venture into the den of wolves were wary and very, very fast. But as the little hunting party ventured deeper into the wood, they got beyond the range foraged by wolves and pigs and village children. More acorns crunched underfoot, and squirrels were so thick in the trees they almost seemed to move in flocks, like birds. They chattered and scolded, too, and hurled acorns—which did nothing to endear them to the cubs.

“Well,” Sokkolfr said in a low voice, watching fat little Feigr stand on his hind legs and bark up the trunk of a pine, “at least they're well on their way to confirming the traditional enmity of their people and squirrelkind.”

“We should have brought terriers,” Alfgyfa replied, equally softly.

That got a smirk. “They've had enough practice ratting in the basements. It's time they got to stalk something that can climb.”

Varghoss finally got the cubs and wolfcarls to spread out over a broader area, each one just visible to the next through the open space beneath the ancient trees. That seemed to work slightly better. The cubs still didn't catch anything, but they got closer. And the squirrels seemed more intimidated. One of the bigger cubs even got a mouthful of tail fur and a nasty little bite on the nose for his troubles.

Athisla, who had been hanging back with Mar and Amma to let the younglings practice, went over to comfort him. After a brief inspection, she licked the dab of blood off his face, nosed him hard, and wandered back over to the adults with her tail waving lazily.

They'd set a harder task for the cubs than maybe they meant to—the mist hugged scents close and blocked the lines of sight. But, as Brokkolfr pointed out to Idocrase when the alf began asking interested questions—alfar were
always
interested in things, and Idocrase more so than most—it didn't do a cub any harm to learn that some things in life were frustrating and would have to be outsmarted rather than being charged through.

They still hadn't caught a single squirrel by midday, when they snapped out their cloaks over damp logs in a convenient clearing and settled in for lunch. Athisla lay down so the pups could nurse. Amma, who was early in her pregnancy but an experienced mother, already had some milk, and flopped down beside her. A litter this large was a burden on the mother, even when the pups were old enough—as these were—to take quite a bit of solid food as well.

The humans dined on bread, fresh apples, dried plums, potted meat, and wedges of cheese.

Alfgyfa felt Greensmoke's trickle of envy and grief inside her as she thought about the cubs. Listening—feeling—Alfgyfa understood that the largest litter Greensmoke had raised to adulthood was three dog pups, and she had started with five, one a konigenwolf.

Not all of ours survive either,
Alfgyfa replied, wrapping the phrase in consolation and shared sorrow. Only after she'd sent it did she realize that she had thought of the wolfheall as hers.

Greensmoke's answer was understanding, sympathy. And then alarm—sudden and sharp and quickly followed by aggression, angry and unsubtle, a mother's fury when her home was invaded.

Athisla leaped up. Amma too, one very stubborn cub still clinging to her teat, but swiftly shaken loose as she stepped forward. Mar was beside them, all trace of a limp lost as his hackles rose and his lip curled into a snarl.

Brokkolfr, Ulfhundr, and Sokkolfr were up as well, remains of their luncheons scattered around their feet where they had fallen. The new wolfcarls huddled behind them, hands hovering uncertainly, waiting to be told. All the men were lightly armed, Alfgyfa realized as a sinking sensation seized her gut—a few bows, spears, daggers. No swords or axes, and no shields.

They were armed for a hunt. Not a battle.

The bitches fell back as Mar shouldered forward. Alfgyfa found herself on her feet, spear raised in guard. She stepped forward beside the old wolf, felt his gratitude.

Idocrase was right behind her. “What is it?”

“Rheans,” Brokkolfr said.

“Run?” Sokkolfr asked.

Ulfhundr shook his head. “Coming right for us. They know we're here.”

Sokkolfr glanced quickly over his shoulder. “Boys, get your pups in the middle.” The new wolfcarls scrambled to obey, while Athisla circled, helping. She stood over the small pile of cubs, snarling so low in her throat that Alfgyfa felt the vibration in her belly.

Thank the gods that Otter isn't here,
Alfgyfa thought, and tested her grip on her spear.

*   *   *

The Rheans came through the trees in a broken line, encumbered by their great rectangular shields. Alfgyfa had heard they marched in lockstep like so many cart horses, but apparently the lack of roads impeded them. They scrambled over tree trunks and chopped branches out of their way with short, heavy-bladed swords.

The mist swirled around them, showing glimpses of bronze helms, red shields, skirts made of armored leather straps protecting the tops of bare legs. One, toward the back, had some kind of horsehair crest sticking up from his helm, and Alfgyfa wished even more that she had a bow, or knew how to use it effectively if she did.

A couple of the new wolfcarls had bows, however. She couldn't remember the new name of either to save her life.

“You with the bows,” she said, keeping her voice low in case somebody among the Rheans spoke proper Iskryner.

Both boys looked up.

She jerked her chin. The Rheans had slowed a little, catching sight of the armed men and wolves awaiting them. “The one in the back,” Alfgyfa said. “With the crest. That might be the commander.” One boy—the ginger—seemed to get it. He nocked an arrow. The other looked at her quizzically. “Shoot him.”