Page 138 of Edge of the Wild

Leif was leaned back against the wall, and he sat forward, frowning. “How?”

“We’re in Fang country, lad,” Birger said. “In the Wolf Mountains. You’ve never been here.”

“Not…physically.”

Erik sighed. “More dragon nons…stuff.”

“It isn’t nonsense.” Oliver heard the petulant, whiny note of his voice, and was too exhausted to care. “It’s…psychic…something or other. I don’t know! But I’ve seen this cave. Only…” Now that he looked again, the ceiling, while studded with icicles, wasn’t glowing blue like it had in his visions. “Something’s wrong.”

“Yes, something’s wrong,” Náli said, drily, “we’re trapped in a bloody cave while we wait to be eaten.”

“No.” Oliver closed his eyes a moment, shoved his sweat-damp hair off his forehead and gripped his temples. Tried tothink. The fever made every part of him sluggish. “I mean…”

“Ollie.” Erik’s voice was no longer right behind him, but came from a distance, albeit a short one. “Sit down before you fall.”

He opened his eyes and realized that he had in fact stood, and walked across the width of the cell; stood now in front of the metal grille, looking down the hall, flickering with orange-yellow torchlight.

Orange, yellow – but not blue.

“I know this is the cave,” he murmured, and glanced back over his shoulder. Magnus was even here, as his voice had been in the – the vision, he supposed. Could dragons see into the future? Could he?

Everyone was staring at him. “I’m not crazy,” he said.

Náli rolled his eyes. “No, of course not.”

“You’re sick,” Erik corrected. “And you ought to come sit down and rest.”

“I need more ice rose,” Oliver said, and fumbled for the vial in his pocket. By the time he’d finally extracted it, Erik stood in front of him, and captured his hand in both of his large ones; held him tight. “Ineedit.”

“No,” Erik said, quietly. “You need your wits about you.”

“What wits? My brain is cooking in my skull right now, and you would deny me relief?”

Erik looked like he’d been struck.

Náli said, “If there’s hallucinogens to be had, he’d better share them. If I’m going to be eaten alive by savages, I don’t want to be aware that it’s happening.”

Oliver leaned sideways to peer around Erik, and shot the Corpse Lord a frown. “Why’re you here?” It wasn’t what he’d meant to ask, but it seemed a relevant question.

“Probably because I was with you and your bloody stupid king when his own cousin turned on him. They couldn’t leave me alive for a witness, now, could they? And those fucking shamans couldn’t kill me themselves.” The last he said with clear satisfaction, and, now that Oliver squinted at him, he could see the young lord wore dark smudges beneath his eyes, and lines around his mouth.

“Got a magic trick to use on cannibals?” Leif asked.

Náli sniffed. “Perhaps. You’ll have to wait and see.”

“Well, begging your pardon, my lord,” Magnus said, “but if you do, now would be the time to use it. Someone’s coming.”

The scuff of footsteps over slick stone floors reached them, echoing off the ice that skeined the walls, and hung from the ceiling.

Oliver tried and failed to free his hand – the vial – from Erik’s grip. “Erik,” he was pleading and didn’t care. He swayed on his feet and his vision blurred at the edges. If his fever got much worse, he’d be unconscious: nothing but a dead weight to lug around and stand over when their enemies opened the cell.

But Erik said, “No. Behind me.” He bundled Oliver around behind his back – the room spun, the floor tilted – and Oliver gripped weakly at the back of his tunic to keep from falling.

When he could, he peered around Erik’s arm and saw two men standing on the other side of the bars, one holding a torch – but frightfully unkempt and greasy-skinned. If the clansmen had looked wild, these creatures looked fresh from the depths of some dungeon. Their teeth, when both of them grinned at them, had been filed down to sharp, unnatural points. They wore smooth, hairless hides that hadn’t come from animals, Oliver realized with a lurch. Keeping upright and conscious was all that kept him from panicking.

Erik said, “If Ragnar gave us to you, then you know who we are – who I am. I’m a king. I have riches. If you return us to our people, you will be handsomely reward: clothes, food, tools, jewels. Whatever you want.”

The man on the right, his dirty pale hair lying like seaweed over his shoulders, laughed, a rusty sound. “We don’t want your jewels,king.” He made a mockery of the title.

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