Page 129 of Edge of the Wild

Birger said, “On whether or not it was a drake.”

“Oh,” Oliver said. “Oh. Um…” He glanced down at himself, to find that he was still dressed, but bootless, and cloakless. “I need…” It was so hard tothink.

“We’ll let you get ready,” Birger said, and dropped the flap.

Oliver watched his and Leif’s feet retreat below the hide.

Erik said, “Ollie.”

Shit, he was just staring, slack-jawed. He shook his head – which proved a poor decision when the room swayed again. “Yes, yes. I’m coming. Just…” He flapped his hand in dismissal. “I’ll be there in a moment.”

Erik frowned at him. “Are you all right? I didn’t see you drink anything last night.”

He was acting drunk, then.Not drunk, darling, just woefully ill and getting worse. He said, “No. Only groggy. Give me a moment to get my bearings?”

Erik’s frown deepened, but he nodded and slipped out of the compartment.

When he was gone, Oliver pulled the little vial of Olaf’s ice rose tincture from his pocket and contemplated it a moment, what little he could make out of it in the faint glow that seeped in under the hide curtain. It clung wetly to the sides of the vial, a deep blue nearly purple.

The last thing he wanted was to be seeing things and raving like a lunatic in front of all the chiefs and lords of the North.

But he supposed that was better than swooning.

With a sigh, head still throbbing, he uncorked the vial, and put three drops under his tongue. Gods be with him.

~*~

The bodies lay outside the stable, a rustic building with only three walls and a crude rail fence to keep the horses beneath the shelter of the steep, sod roof. Ingvar’s men, their mouths open, their sightless eyes fixed on the sky. They’d been gutted, the blood gone tacky and black on the snow.

Ingvar himself crouched beside them, in the dancing glow of torchlight, and touched the shredded leather of their jerkins, fingers coming away tacky and dark. He looked up at Erik, his gaze touched with fright. “Sliced right open. Three marks. Parallel.” He spread his own fingers and hovered over the slashes: three parallel lines, just as he’d said. Like claws.

Like the body they’d fished out of the frozen lake.

“Those aren’t manmade marks,” Askr said, darkly. “An animal did this.”

“Or a man who wants us to think that,” Leif said.

“Or,” Náli spoke up, “a man wholooks likean animal.”

If it had been wolves, Erik would have murmured a prayer over the bodies and told the men to keep weapons and torches close at hand, and to keep a sharp eye.

But this wasn’t the work of wolves. That much he knew.

He turned to Oliver – and a pulse of alarm moved through his stomach. Oliver had been unusually fatigued yesterday afternoon and evening, and understandably disoriented minutes ago, when Erik woke him – but now, in the glow of the torches, Erik was startled to see that he looked…well,awful. His face was waxy and pale, a faint sheen of sweat shining at his temples and throat. Shadowed, half-lidded eyes held fixed on the tableau of death before them, and his expression showed no reaction. He weaved a little, shifting his weight from foot to foot.

“Well?” someone said. “Was it the drake?”

Oliver didn’t respond.

Erik reached out – “Ollie” – and touched his neck.

And recoiled.

His skin washot.

Erik touched him again, with the whole of his hand, cupping the side, and then the back of his neck. He was burning with fever.

Ignoring the others and their questions, he took Oliver by the arm and dragged him a few paces away; Oliver stumbled and came willingly, without his usual protests.

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