Page 122 of Edge of the Wild

Someone tried to smother a laugh with a cough.

Oliver kicked up his chin and cast a glance around at all of them, trying to memorize faces, sure to meet each and every gaze without flinching. He said, “I’m well aware that I’m not wanted here. To tell the truth, I wasn’t even wanted back home.”

Leif sat forward, caught his gaze, and lifted his brows.What are you doing?

He pressed on. “I’m not a warrior. Never have been. Oh, I understand the mechanics of it, sure – I’ll correct your form any day and be right. In another life I might have made an excellent dance instructor.”

Erik’s knee pressed sideways into his. Cautioning him. They’d talked about him holding his own, about refusing to give ground to the taunts or jeers of the clan chiefs, but they hadn’t talked about what Oliver would actuallysayabout himself, should he get control of the floor.

He had the vague sense this was social suicide in the realest sense of the phrase.

But he said, “The thing of it is, I know I will be judged for that and found lacking here. For all that I don’t fit in, I understand what it means to be a man up here in the North – especially in the Wastes. I know that you’ll think me weak, and soft, and a liability. That you’ll judge me for my ability – or lack thereof – to swing a battle axe.

“And that would be a mistake. You know why? Because all of you and all your men already can wield battle axes. You’ve rather got a monopoly on that up here.”

Erik’s knee pressed his again, more insistent.

“I’m an assetbecauseI’m different,” he stressed. “Because I know the South in ways you do not, and can offer wise counsel in dealing with them. Because I know what’s coming – what’s already come to Aquitainia – and I know that my mind, my negotiating skills, my bloody stubborn mouth are more important when it comes to repelling the Sels than one more axe. You don’t need me to fight: you need me tothink. And, not to brag about it, but Idohappen to able to communicate with dragons, and I’m fairly sure none of you can dothat. So.

“Do you want one more set of strong shoulders? One more sword and a bawdy joke around the fire? Or do you want a dragon rider back in the North once more?”

He found it hard to take a breath when he was done – after he’d laid such a weighty claim at their feet. He was dizzy.

They were staring at him. All of them. Some openly considering, some still closed-off and hostile.

TheJotunn chief sat forward, blue-smeared elbows braced on his knees, and said, “Where is your dragon, dragon rider?”

Fuck. “Oh, he’s out and about.” Oliver affected a bored air and flapped a hand, though his pulse was thudding. “He isn’t a kept pet. He comes and goes as he pleases.”

The Bryti chief said, “You can call him?”

“If I truly have need of him, he will come. But he doubtless doesn’t want to sit attendance on a council meeting. Boredom makes dragons hungry, you know.”

Several shifted uncomfortably, and more than one darted a glance over his shoulder, searching.

Erik said, “I would have thought the risk of war was more important than interrogating my consort, but it appears you’re all as gossipy as fishwives.”

Thatbrought an end to the staring.

“The Sels won’t come up here,” one said.

Another said, “Let them come! It’s been too long since my axe drank of foreign blood.”

“The most important thing,” Birger said, “is that everyone is prepared for every eventuality.”

From there, the conversation broke down into typical politicking.

Oliver let out a deep breath, felt his shoulders slumping. It could have gone worse.

Or so he thought, until he caught sight of the Beserkir chief staring at him with undisguised contempt. And, beside him, the former prisoner, with something like fear.

~*~

“I think it went well,” Birger said, later, as the four of them strolled along the edge of the lake, its surface blinding with the sun full upon it.

“Except for that bit where you claimed to be able to summon a dragon at will,” Erik said, drily.

Oliver winced. “I didn’t claim thatexactly.”

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