Page 105 of Edge of the Wild

Sound of the doorknob turning. It seemed it was a night for interrupting would-be lovers.

Bjorn released her – her arm felt immediately cold in the absence of his touch – but he held her gaze, probing, asking.

Astrid said, “My lady, supper is coming out. Will you go down, or shall I bring up a tray?” She didn’t ask why Revna stood so close to Bjorn’s chair, nor why he was staring at her. Unlike Hilda, she had tact in spades.

Revna turned toward the door, eyes stinging unaccountably. She blinked and knew they were dry. “No, I’ll come down.”

She felt the weight of Bjorn’s gaze follow her all the way out the door.

13

The path was so narrow they were forced to walk single-file, vine-draped branches thrusting in close, leaves tickling at arms and faces. Connor walked ahead of her, his wife ahead of him, and both held torches aloft, the flames crackling and snapping loudly in the oppressive, close dark of the forest all around them.

Amelia felt Malcolm right up against her back; he kept treading on the heels of her boots in his attempt to stay together.

Connor glanced back over his shoulder, up toward Malcolm, and then met Amelia’s gaze and winked. “Very loyal men you have, my lady.”

“Fuck you,” she said, pleasantly, as he chuckled and faced forward again.

“Watch your step. It’s just ahead.”

The path curved to the right, around another totem that reared up out of the dark, nearly occluded by vines. The torchlight danced over carved eyes, carved teeth, carved horns. A dragon, she realized.

She didn’t believe one word of what Connor had told them. That dragons – fire-drakes, specifically – were not only real, rather than the subjects of children’s stories, but very much alive, and had been hibernating in caves, and had been awakened.

Rubbish, all of it.

And yet, here she was, following, being led down narrow footpaths in a darkened Inglewood. If nothing else, she had to credit the Strangers with creativity. She’d never heard such a wild, far-fetched excuse for a kidnapping.

She touched her wrist, briefly, where the ropes had been. Asked herself why they hadn’t been bound again. Weaponless, outnumbered, she supposed there was no need to tie them up – they were easy enough targets as it was.

On that comforting thought, they finished rounding the bend, and arrived at the mouth of a cave.

It was wide, but low enough that Malcolm would need to duck to fit. Above, a gnarled, mossy tree grew up to join the canopy, its roots crooked up into knees, long fingers reaching out of the earth and dangling down over the cave opening – which was black as the pits of hell.

Amelia was filled with an immediate, all-consuming dread.

Heedless, Connor stepped forward and brushed a tangle of roots aside, revealed symbols carved into the rock – old symbols. She wished Oliver could see them, because he was the studious one, of the three of them left, and he would have known their origin.

Connor traced a shape with a dirty fingertip. “Runes,” he said, and she knew then what she was looking at – and that it wasold. That it predated the idea of Aquitainia as a sovereign state. “Úlfheðnar, at a guess.” He glanced back at her. “The original wolf-shirts who came down from the north in their longships and pillaged the Men of the Lakes – the first people to make a home here, in the Inglewood.”

“What do they say?” she asked, unable to keep the waiver from her voice.

“I don’t know, exactly. But this one here” – a series of stacked, short strikes with the chisel that gave the impression of a sinuous curve – “repeats over and over, and it I do recognize, along with this other. This isfire, and this isdrake. These runes mark a place where dragons slumbered.”

“And what,” Malcolm said, tone mocking, “they’re about to come out and eat us all?”

“Oh, no, they’re not at home at the moment. They’ve moved on. They’re loose in the forest.”

Amelia thought of Strangers raiding sheep pens out in the open. Thought of the dead lion they’d stumbled over earlier, its missing bones, its gnawed flesh. She swallowed with difficulty and said, “I can’t decide who’s the bigger idiot. You for staging this farce, or me for even entertaining it.”

He flashed a quick, tight grin. “If it’s only a farce, come and see for yourself.” He hooked a bit of dangling root with his hand, and pulled it back, gesturing eloquently with the torch.After you.

She folded her arms and stared him down.

“Very well, then. Follow me.” He ducked into the dark opening, glare of the torch touching rough-hewn, natural rock walls, illuminating a dirt floor that sloped gently downward.

Amelia took a deep breath, stepped forward – and stopped when Malcolm’s hand gripped her arm. He stood beside her, now, and there was enough light from the wife’s torch to make out the harsh set of his jaw.

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