Page 57 of Edge of the Wild

Leif said, “Or what?”

“It happened at night. He says there were men, for sure, but animals, too. He thought maybe they have a trained bear, or a wildcat.”

It wasn’t a wildcat they’d seen splashing and breaching in the lake earlier, but Oliver didn’t point that out.

To Lars, Erik said, “Ride back down the line and see if Askr is amenable to Ragnar overnighting inside the keep. I’m not waiting.” He wheeled his horse, and they were off again.

~*~

Redcliff village was named for Redcliff Keep – which was in turn named for its sinister appearance. There was just enough light left, when they arrived, for Erik to make out its familiar, grisly façade. Flat-faced in front, with only arrow slits to let in light, it was built of pale stone – but its mortar had been mixed long ago with the crimson red clay of the soil here, and so, after generations of rain and snow and weathering, the mortar had bled down the walls in long, ugly drips and drabs, so that the whole edifice seemed to be weeping blood. It perched over its village like a great wounded beast, and inside, the walls were given over to tapestries and murals and carvings depicting Askr’s ancestors in the midst of bloody battles. Axes and swords hung where other ornaments might have; one was never far from a weapon at Redcliff. The ale flowed freely, always, and Askr’s favorite dish, whole roast pig, was always on offering.

Tonight, their entrance was a somber and stressed one: Askr called immediately for the acting captain of his guard, and soldiers went running to and fro with a clank of steel and a slap of leather.

Erik saw that Oliver was bundled off to their guest chamber, equipped with servants who would see to a bath, and tea, and warm things to wear. Oliver made a variety of protesting faces at him, but he would not be budged, not on this.

For his own part, he had to talk to his lords – and his cousin.

A feast had been prepared, and a feast was served, but it was a hunched-shouldered group of lords and guardsmen who all congregated around one trestle, those without seats standing, holding their plates, eating as they listened. The ale was drunk without revelry, this night.

Ragnar drained off a whole horn, and demolished half a platter of bloody meat before, mopping his plate with bread, he heaved a huge breath and said, “We never saw them coming. The buggers melted out of the night like ghosts. The first we knew we were being followed, Gansi was bristling with arrows. Poor sod.” A servant leaned over his shoulder to refill his ale horn, and he nodded silent thanks, hand curling around the vessel. He met Erik’s gaze. “I saw a man in fur with gods-damned antlers sprouting from his head, Erik, like the shamans of old. And they had a beast with them, knocking us down like game pins.”

“What sort of beast?” Erik kept seeing that white flash of –whatever it waswhen he blinked. That fear of the unknown, the sense that something waswrongin a way he’d never experienced, currently competed with his worry for Oliver. Watching him go limp and fall face-first into the lake had been…horrifying. It would have been regardless, but knowing Oliver’s tenuous health, knowing that stress of any kind could trigger his marsh fever…

He gave himself a mental shake, and said, “Ragnar, whatwas it?”

His cousin set down his ale horn and wiped his mouth, looking unusually bewildered. “I don’t know. It – I don’t know.”

“Any guesses?” Lord Ingvar snapped, unusually impatient. It was him, and his party, who’d first spotted the thing in the lake.

Ragnar gave the man a sharp glance. “I’ve spent far more of my life in the wilderness than you,my lord. If you think I knew for sure, wouldn’t I tell you?”

Ingvar’s nostrils flared. “Listen here, you feral–”

“Lord Ingvar.” Erik set his own ale horn down with a purposeful thump. “We’re all on the same side in this instance.”

Lord Dagr cleared his throat with a sound like a buffalo roaring, so that eyes swung toward him. He sat with his arms folded, his food and drink untouched, scowling ferociously. His sons stood behind him, young mirrors. “Is he, though?” he asked, in his low, rumbling voice. “Is he on our side? Why would he align himself with us when he’s out in the wild Wastes with those lawless killers all the year long?”

Ragnar’s shoulders hunched; he looked hunted. When he opened his mouth to respond – no doubt with the sort of cutting, mocking remark that would have Aeretollean nobility up in arms, Erik broke in.

“Because he’s my cousin,” he said, levering intentional authority into his voice. “Because, if you’d ever bothered to take note, Lord Dagr, the clans of the Waste are not a monolith. They all have different cultures and beliefs, and they come into conflict with one another routinely. If my cousin Ragnar says they were set upon by a strange clan, then I believe him.” He sent a look around the table that he knew to be a challenge…

One which no one accepted.

Askr drained an ale horn, and, slightly breathless, said, “My question is: what are we going to do about it all? Are we to be harried all the way to Dreki Hörgr?” He lifted a hand – one that held an axe. “I say we fortify ourselves here, let them come, and kill the bastards!”

More than a few cheered him on.

“We still don’t know who they are, my lords,” Birger spoke up, dampening the moment.

“The fucking Beserkirs,” Haldin Askrson said, and turned to spit on the flags. “Who else?”

“The Beserkirs haven’t made use of that kind of shaman in decades,” Leif said. Erik felt a surge of pride for his nephew; Leif was, unlike himself, always reasonable, always cautious. He looked at problems from every angle, and never flew off the handle, the way Erik had, and was still wont to do. “If they’re using them now…then things have changed, somehow.”

“Things do change,” Náli said. He had a seat at the table, and his plate sat untouched before him; one of his men nudged an ale horn toward him. “But I don’t…I don’t know if it’s the bear-shirts.”

“No one’s asking you to diagnose, Náli,” Erik said. “I do think it’s most likely the Beserkirs, though. This is how they operate: they can’t defeat us in arms, or with numbers, so they pick us off and spook us instead.

“It’s important, my lords, that we not allow ourselves to be spooked.” He sent all of them a stern glance, and while most nodded, all averted their gazes; some grumbled under their breath. “We must stand firm,” he pressed, “and stand together. That’s the only way to end this.”

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