Page 81 of Edge of the Wild

A voice shouted, “Erik!”

Erik shifted his attention to it slowly, with obvious reluctance.

Oliver took his chance to twist out of his grip, and turn to face the speaker.

It was Ragnar, with all of his men, trotting out of the forest. Blood gleamed on their spears. “Did you see that?” His expression was more than a little wild on his approach. “Did you see the fuckingdragonthat just took off that way?”

Erik’s voice was like stones grinding. “Yes. I did.”

~*~

Ragnar claimed that his party had ambushed twenty Beserkirs in a hollow along the roadway. They’d fought for their lives, and in doing so left no survivors to be questioned. All the living bear-shirts with which Erik’s party had engaged had fled, along with their shaman, of which there was no sign now.

“Leave the bodies,” Askr said, breath steaming against a black, early morning sky. “I’ll send men to deal with whatever the wolves don’t get.”

The riders arrived too late to fight, but offered up their mounts for the injured. Lord Dagr’s body was wrapped in cloaks and laid over a saddle, as were all the other Aeretollean dead that could be carried.

Oliver was relieved to see Leif, Magnus, Lars, and the rest of the Aeres men on their feet and unharmed save a few bruises and scratches. But it was a shallow relief, one that couldn’t touch the block of ice forming in his belly. A part of him was elated to have been proven right: that there was a dragon, and that it had been communicating with him – there could be no denying, now, that a connection existed there.

But Erik – trading terse comments with his lords and giving quick orders to the men – wasfurious. It radiated off of him; seemed like it should have melted the snow that dusted the shoulders of his cloak. Oliver earned some back-slaps and exclamations – Askr said, “Gods, boy, but you’ve got an iron set. Er, rather, your lordship” – but men slid him cautious glances, too. They could sense Erik’s mood, same as him, and Leif’s look was a sort of head-tilted warning.

Magnus patted his shoulder and whispered, “Aye, lad, he’ll just blow up a bit.”

None of them said what many had to be thinking: consort or not, Oliver had issued a command to their king on the battlefield. There was no good way to spin that.

It was a somber party that trooped back to the keep. Servants waited inside the hall with cups of ale and warm cider, offerings of cold meat and hot cheese sandwiches. Most everyone slumped gratefully into chairs and accepted a late meal, hungry after having missed supper.

Oliver couldn’t have eaten a bite.

He slipped quietly away, and up the stairs to the suite he was sharing with Erik. Hung up his cloak, took off his boots, washed his face and hands. He was toweling dry when he heard the latch click behind him.

Oliver took a deep breath, and schooled his features in the ghostly reflection the window offered him. Beyond the glass, dawn brushed gentle pink fingers along the horizon.

He set his towel down on the table, and turned around, slowly, braced mentally and physically, muscles clenching tight.

Erik stood leaning back against the closed door, arms folded over his chest, head tipped back against the wood so that the whole of his bare, strong throat was exposed; another man might have looked vulnerable like that, but not him. He looked like every inch the wall that he’d claimed to be, weeks ago: the wall between worlds. Right now, he was the wall between Oliver and all the lords in front of whom he’d commanded a king.

Oliver waited for him to speak. To fume. In the heat of the moment, out on the field, he’d seen the shout – the roar – building in Erik’s gaze. But there was no sign of it now. There was no sign of…anything. Erik watched him down the length of his regal nose, through half-lidded eyes, and his face was a study in marble. Anger would have been resented, but warranted.

Apathy was another matter entirely.

Oliver had been prepared to shout at one another, to square off and spar with hurled words. But in the unexpected face of such cold indifference, he found himself wanting to explain his actions.

He swallowed, with difficulty. “Lady Fulla was kind enough to invite me to sup with her, but I found I didn’t have the stomach for it.” His voice held none of the authority it had earlier; he sounded downright meek, words flickering at the ends, uncertain. “I went up to the parapet, thinking that, from there, I could see any movement, out in the field. I met Askr’s older son, by the way – very toned-down for an Askrson, if you ask me…”

Erik hadn’t so much as blinked. If not for the subtle rise and fall of his chest, he wouldn’t have looked alive.

Oliver swallowed again. “I heard the dragon first, before anything. I saw it – felt it – and then I saw all of you, and I knew that I had to get to you before it did. I had to – to get through to it somehow. To stop it. I didn’t think after that, I just ran.”

“Because you can communicate with it,” Erik said in a flat voice. “Because we were trained warriors armed and ready, but you –youcan talk to dragons.”

“I think it’s obvious, after tonight, that I can. So, yes. I communicated with it. If you must know, I think I managed to sever whatever hold that shaman had over it. It won’t trouble us again.”

“The dragontold youthis?”

Oliver fought not to ground his teeth. Erik’s tone was maddening. “There are forests and fields of deer out there. Why would it stalk us? The only reason it was ever here was because it was being controlled. The shaman…I don’t know…had sway over it, somehow. It was speaking these words to it–”

“What words? Words like what was coming out of your mouth? Because that wasn’t any language I’ve ever heard.”

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