Page 40 of Edge of the Wild

~*~

Up three flights of switchback stairs, the way lit by rippling pitch torches set in sconces, a door opened up to a wall walk that overlooked an expanse of white fields. Oliver drew up beside Erik, peering through a gap in the crenelated roofline, blinking against the onslaught of new snowflakes that blew down from the north, small, and wet, and stinging his cheeks.

Without a moon, visibility was limited to the small puddles of golden light that surrounded the torches scattered before them: some encased in glass on garden light posts, and others, beyond the wall, in the hands of scouts on horseback, as they trotted out across the fresh crust in search of trespassers.

“I sent a team to swing wide, no lights, to try and flush the bastards out.”

Down below, the dancing pinpricks of torchlight fanned out, and continued on, growing smaller and smaller.

Trying to keep his tone as neutral as possible, Oliver said, “Isn’t it possible they’re just travelers in search of shelter? What makes you think it’s some sort of raiding party?”

Kjaran coughed a laugh. “This is the North, lad.”

Erik said, “No native would be out traveling after dark as a snowstorm is setting in. Even if they were travelers, they would have made camp before now.”

Oliver could think of a dozen reasons why someone might refuse to set or abandon camp, despite dark and snow, but he swallowed his protests with a frustrated huff.

Kjaran said, “If they’re lost, we’ll send them on their way. But my money is that they aren’t.”

Far out in the field, one of the torches dropped, suddenly; was doused in the snow.

“Man down!” Kjaran bellowed.

The horn, perched atop a watchtower just behind them, sounded again, two short blasts, one long.

Oliver clapped his hands over his ears, his pulse thumping wildly against his palms.

~*~

Leif’s cloak hadn’t had time to dry yet, but the cold didn’t bother him now. On their travels, the biting cold had been a constant annoyance; he’d dashed at his nose with the back of his hand again and again. He’d been born to this land, and he hadn’t felt close to freezing – not the way Ollie had looked, shivering beneath the weight of two fur hoods – but he’d felt it all the same.

He didn’t feel it now.

Without torches, or even the helpful sheen of moonlight, visibility was low. The ice crust crunched underfoot, seeming too loud in the hush of low clouds and fresh flakes. Leif could see the dark shapes of the men around him, and, a blur of black against a sea of gray, the tree line ahead.

Haldin Askrson said, “I can’t see a bloody thing.”

“Shh,” Leif hissed. A glance over his shoulder revealed the castle as a blaze of glowing windows and dancing torches behind them. “As long as we stay within sight of the hall, we can find our way back. Swing that way.” He pointed, for all the good it did.

Off to their left, the main company of household guards were making a lot of noise: hallooing and talking and breathing like a heard of oxen. A fog was rising up off the snow, and it diffused the bright flare of their torches so that it looked, instead, like one solid mass of light moving out toward the forest. If there was anyone out here who shouldn’t have been, they would have been blind and deaf not to clock the main hunting party.

Leif’s party swung right, hurrying as quick as they could through the shin-deep snow. If their quarry fled, they’d never catch up to them – and hopefully they were long gone by now. But if they turned back, if they movedtowardthe light – Leif intended to cut off their escape.

One of his party pressed in close at his elbow as they walked; the ethereal glow of nearly-white hair told him who.

Náli said, “They’re out there.” His voice, always full of flair and taunt, had gone eerily detached; Leif had heard it do this a few times before, enough to know that it wasn’t merely fog and snow distorting the sound.

“Can you see them?”

“No. One of them is…I canfeelhim.”

Shit, Leif thought. “What does that mean, exactly?”

“I think…” Náli swayed on his next step, and Leif gripped his arm; the Corpse Lord leaned hard into the support. “I think he’s like me. I think he can talk to the other side. Only…worse.”

A scream.

Leif turned his head just in time to see a torch drop amidst the main party. A collective cry of alarm went up.

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