Page 113 of Edge of the Wild

His eyes snapped open to darkness. He shivered, and felt goosebumps prickling over every inch of his skin. Erik was snoring against the back of his neck, dead to the world, and he held perfectly still a moment, breath held.A dream, he thought.Whatever that noise was, I dreamed it.

Lungs starting to burn, he strained to listen. Heard the faint shifting of dying coals on the banked fires; more than a few men snoring, elsewhere in the longhouse; the creak of wood as someone shifted around up in the loft. But no–

A high, piercing, pained cry split the night. It sounded nothing like the animal cry of the cold-drake, nor could he feel that presence in the back of his mind. No, this sounded like a woman shrieking in terror, in pain, in anguish. It was coming from outside. Was rolling through the valley, rippling across snow and ice so that it bore a crystalline ring at the end, as it tapered off and died.

Without quite understanding why he did it, Oliver slipped silently from under Erik’s arm, stepped into his boots, and ducked out of their room.

Cool moonlight fell in through the smoke holes above, and the coals beneath the cooking kettles glowed red and orange, giving him enough light to make out the path down the length of the longhouse, toward the double front doors, where a blue-white stripe of moonlight marked a gap between them. He walked slowly, and lightly, boots silent on the earth floor, and he hugged his arms tight around himself, wishing he’d taken the time to draw on his dressing gown.

The scream sounded again, more distantly, and he hastened his step.

He pulled open one of the doors, and it creaked a little on its hinges; frigid air rushed in, slapped his face, filled his lungs. He gritted his teeth against it and stepped outside, muddy, churned-up snow crunching underfoot.

The clouds that had accompanied their arrival had been swept away by the strong, southerly wind that raked across the valley – a valley poured with silver-blue moonlight, glistening and gorgeous and otherworldly in its glow.

He gripped his own arms tightly, shivering, and stood a moment, gaze scanning the gently rolling hills below, the pine stands, the brilliant sheen of the lake. His breath steamed in front of him, and his nose started to run right away. His goosebumps left his skin aching.

But his mind was full of Askr’s story, of his wailing woman trailing ghostly tatters of a white dress, black hair streaming in the wind. Of her dead, yawning mouth, and the awful, dying rabbit screams she’d tormented him with, years ago. All a fantasy; a made-up story to scare children.

But that didn’t explain the next screech that rent the night.

He shuddered hard, head snapping around. It sounded as if it had come from across the lake, the skin of ice reflecting it strangely. Amplifying it. “That’s a bloody good way to start an avalanche,” he muttered, glancing up at the mountains behind the longhouse, endless black shadows in the moon-silvered dark.

A hand landed on Oliver’s stomach; a body pressed up against his back. “What is?”

It took only a second for him to recognize Erik’s voice, the shape of his chest and stomach at his back, but that was enough time to startle hard. “Gods,” he hissed, jumping in place, prevented from whirling only by Erik’s arm around him, his large hand pressing reassuring over his belly. “How is it possible to be that silent?”

“What are you doing out here in the cold in your nightshirt?” Erik sounded more than a little concerned. His hand withdrew, and a moment later a welcome, heavy weight settled across Oliver’s shoulders: his cloak. Erik wound it round his throat from behind; the fur tickled at his jaw.

“I heard something. It sounded like–” He hesitated, embarrassed now; he’d climbed out of bed over this, walked out here alone without so much as his dressing gown against the chill. “It sounded like someone was screaming.”

A beat. Erik’s voice sounded careful: “More…drake…stuff?”

“No, not like that. It didn’t sound anything like a drake – not in person and not like it does in my head. This sounded human. Mostly.”

As if on cue, a low, mournful cry shivered up from the foothills, a drawn-out wailing that was soon joined by other voices.

Erik relaxed physically behind him with a deep exhale. “Oh, that. That’s wolves, love.”

“But that isn’t what I heard before.” And itwasn’t. There was no mistaking the lonesome yodeling of wolves at night, but the screams that had drawn him out of his bed had been just that: screams. The two were unmistakable.

But Erik said, “You were asleep, in an unfamiliar place. The valley echoes things strangely, and Askr had been telling all those stories about his wailing woman.”

Oliver turned in the circle of his arms so he could glare up at him. Moonlight brightened the silver threads in Erik’s hair so they gleamed like molten metal.Don’t get distracted, he reminded himself, and that wasn’t hard when he saw Erik’s faint, patronizing smile. “I know what wolves sound like, and I’m telling you, what I heardwasn’t wolves.”

Erik stared at him a long moment, until his smile slowly faded. “I’m not doubting you.”

“Oh, yes you are. Whatever was out there” – he jabbed a finger toward the hills – “it was shrieking loud enough to wake the dead – though not you, apparently – and it wasn’t a wolf, or a dragon, or any sort of four-legged thing I’ve ever heard. Not a cat, either,” he added, when Erik started to protest. “We have lions in Drakewell and I’m familiar with that particular scream, thank you very much.”

Erik’s brows lifted. “If you’re quite finished ripping into me?” His tone was mild. “I was going to suggest that, whatever it was, coming out here all but naked wasn’t the best way to deal with it. Or don’t you agree?”

Oliver’s face heated – which left his cheeks stinging, here in the frigid night.

“We’ll investigate tomorrow. Whatever it is, if it can lift a door latch and come in after us, it’ll have a whole host of angry lords to contend with. Butyou, your lordship, should be abed.”

“Pompous ass,” Oliver muttered under his breath, to which Erik chuckled. He let himself be tucked under a strong arm and steered back indoors.

The wolves kept singing, an ancient song of grief, and cold, and silver moonlight.

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