Page 3 of Blood of Wolves

Wind gusted through the peaks, then, a high, shrieking whistle not too unlike the alarm cries of the dragons. But the little one remained coiled tight around the tent, and didn’t stir.

It was only after the sound had eased that Náli realized he’d tensed all over, so tight that his exhausted muscles threatened to cramp. He relaxed them, forcibly, with a sigh.

“Hey,” Leif said, quietly, and the tension returned. “I’m sure they’re all right.”

“Who is ‘they’?” Náli managed to keep his tone disinterested, disdainful – though his heart gave a painful flip and stuttered into a too-fast rhythm, because he knew, he knew.

Maybe Leif would shut up. Maybe he would drop to sleep in the middle of his sentence.

“Your men.” No such luck. “Your guards.” And then, Náli’s heart absolutely pounding and painful: “Your sworn shield – what’s his name? Mattias?”

“Yes.” Náli’s dry throat clicked as he swallowed, the sound echoing inside his own head. “Mattias.”

“I’m sure he’s fine,” Leif pressed on, the lout. “Him and the others. Don’t take this the wrong way, but if Ragnar was looking for important targets, your personal bodyguard isn’t high on the list.”

It was said kindly, and clearly meant to be a comfort, but it took every ounce of restraint not to roll over and claw at his stupid face. “They are the Elite Dead Guard of the Corpse Lord of the Fault Lands,” he snapped. “They are incredibly important.”

A beat passed. Then Leif said, “To you.”

“Go to sleep.”

Leif snorted. “Since when do lords tell princes what to do?” But before Náli could hurl another retort, he rolled onto his other side. “Try to get some rest,” he added. “You look half-dead, still.”

Náli swallowed an insult and ground his molars, staring up at the hide ceiling of the tent; the moon was out, and only beginning to wane, its blue glow seeping through the skin, outlining the shadow of the drake curled around it outside.

Within minutes, Leif was breathing deep and even, but Náli couldn’t have slept if he’d wanted to.

Leif wasn’t wrong: in the grand scheme of Aeretollean politics, the Corpse Lord’s Dead Guard weren’t important pawns, not as hostages, and not as the targets of assassinations. But they were the most important people in Náli’s life.

One in particular.

~*~

For most, early childhood – those tottering years before the mind began keeping careful record of happenings – was a blur of color, and sense memory, and sound that triggered indistinct recollections later in life, with a few bright, crystal points that stood out, edged in a child’s technicolor wonder. Those were the first memories; the memories that stayed preserved and precious like oil portraits in one’s consciousness. Usually, these memories were of a parent, on older sibling, a nurse or a nanny.

For Náli, it was Mattias.

The image of a boy’s smiling face, his hair already styled like that of a Dead Guard: the head shaved close save for a single, thick stripe down the center of his skull, kept tightly braided at all times, a single tail that slapped against his back when he rode, or slid over his shoulder when he bent over a map to show Náli something. A boy’s smiling face, and a boy’s high, musical laughter; his hand warm and large and safe around Náli’s, as he urged him along.Safe. He’d always been that. Always the cup of warm tea when Náli was flagging; the cloak draped over his shoulders; the insistence on sleep; the strong arms that caught, and lifted, and carried him, when talking to the dead overwhelmed him into unconsciousness.

Always “my lord.” In the voice of a boy, of a teenager, of a man grown, larger, and stronger, and more alive than Náli had ever been, or would ever be.

For two centuries, now, the lords of the Fault Lands – their lives interwoven with the wax and wane of the fire mountain, with the safety of the entire duchy, and even the kingdom – had been guarded from all harm, and doted upon by an elite force of five warriors, selected as boys, raised with their charge the way a sheepdog was raised with lambs. The Dead Guard were trained as knights and assassins both; learned warcraft, and statesmanship at their master’s hand. They took no wives, and fathered no children. When their lord died, they retired to a life of seclusion, in a quiet valley called Naus Fell.

Náli’s Dead Guard were cousins Danski and Darri,; then there was Einrih, and Klemens. And the captain – a captain since age ten, when he was named to the Guard: Mattias. He knew them all, their faces more familiar than his own reflection, but it was Mattias who’d impressed himself upon a toddling boy of less than a year; who’d scooped him from his crib and toted him around on his hip, as adept as any nursemaid, but more fun, always fun. Always with a story to tell, and a gentle hand cupped round the back of his head when Náli cried. He’d had nightmares his whole childhood, and it was Mattias who’d slipped into bed with him, and held him close, and whispered to him of far-off lands, where it was warm, and the fields danced with flowers, and no one ever had to draw magic out of their bones and wake the dead.

If Mattias had died at Dreki Hörgr, when Ragnar had forsaken them all, then Klemens would become captain, and another Guard chosen to fill the empty space.

If Mattias had died at Dreki Hörgr, Náli was going to dig his corpse from the snow and bring him back, so help all the gods, or he would die trying.

He’d just begun to slip into a fretful half-sleep when the tent shifted all around them, and the little drake let out a bleating cry of alarm. Náli bolted upright, as the cry was taken up by Percy, and by his mate: deeper, bone-chilling cries. A heartbeat later, the Beserkirs were shouting. A horn sounded.

Leif pushed up on an elbow and swiped at his face with his other hand. “What – what are–” He shook his head. “Ambush.”

“Yes,” Náli agreed, scrambling for the tent flap, unable to offer a smart remark around the lump in his throat. His pulse had stopped, and then lurched into a flat-out gallop, and he felt lightheaded with it. He grabbed his sheathed sword, where it had lain beneath the covers with him, and dragged it out into the night.

The camp was rapidly dissolving into the kind of controlled chaos that always followed an alarm: men running back and forth, taking up arms, lightning torches.

Erik strode past, naked sword in his hand; Oliver hurried along behind, swaddled in his cloak, a knife in one hand, expression caught somewhere between resolve and terror.

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