Page 15 of Blood of Wolves

“Ho, Erik! There he is! And he kept hold of his little red lad! Gods, we thought you were done for!”

The Lord of Redcliff was sitting up against the wall, back propped up with a few folded quilts and a pillow. His right arm – his axe arm, Oliver thought, distantly – was heavily bandaged, as was his throat, a choker of linen strips wound round the whole of his neck, just visible beneath the red of his beard. His color was bad, but his eyes were bright, if shadowed beneath, and he flipped back the fur on his lap like he intended to get up and greet them.

“Father, don’t,” Haldin protested, beside him. With a lurch, Oliver noticed that one of hiseyeswas bandaged.

“Stay down, you fool,” Erik said, without heat, striding forward.

“Ha! But then how can I bow to you, your majesty? You do love the bending and scraping, I know.”

Erik snorted, because anyone who knew him at all knew that he hated ceremony. His face had grown serious, by the time Oliver came to a halt a half-step behind him, and when he gripped Askr’s shoulder, it was almost delicately. His voice shifted into something grave. “I’m sorry that I wasn’t here for the real fighting.”

Red brows jumped, and Askr scoffed. “Wasn’t here? It’s not your fault your fucking whoreson cousin ambushed you. We all thought you were dead for sure!” It was said with all his usual bluster, but his gaze, fixed on Erik’s face, spoke of just how worried the lords of Aeretoll had been about their king.

“Only almost,” Erik said, a smile touching his voice before he grew sober again. His hand flexed on Askr’s shoulder. “We lost Ingvar, Náli’s guards said.”

“Aye.” Askr’s gaze dropped, and his chest lifted on a deep breath that hitched. “And half his men. Some of mine. Some of everyone’s. Brave lads, all. And Edda nearly had his arm taken off trying to get to his father in time. He…” He trailed off, and cleared his throat. When he lifted his face again, it was with the resolve and forced good humor of a man who’d bulled his way through this sort of pain more than once before. “They got to you, then? The skull boys?” He gestured to his own breast, in the place where the Dead Guard wore Náli’s house crest.

Erik nodded. “They reached our camp in the middle of the night, and they’re lucky they didn’t end up bristling with Beserkir arrows, or in a dragon’s stomach.”

A beat passed before the last part registered, and then Askr and Haldin were both sitting bolt upright; Haldin winced and clutched at his ribs.

“Dragon?” Askr asked. “You ran afoul of the beast again?”

Erik invited Oliver to chime in with a look, one that left Oliver’s stomach squirming in a pleasant way, this time, low-lidded, and almost smug, andproud. Having Erik Frodeson be proud of you was a heady, heady experience.

He schooled his features and met Askr’s gaze. “Notafoul, no.”

~*~

Askr could walk, though it was more of a hobble, and he gritted his teeth against the pain of even that much movement; Erik himself ducked beneath his good arm and hooked an arm around his waist to help him outside. It was slow going, but worthwhile, Oliver thought, to see the faint flicker of a worried smile tug at Edda’s mouth when they emerged, Haldin limping slowly along behind with help of a walking stick.

It was midday, a clear day, and with the bedraggled but mostly-whole lords of the kingdom standing in a loose circle around the longhouse, Oliver put two fingers in his mouth and whistled.Come show them, he thought, pushing the urge through that strange, new, but wholly comfortable connection that lived in the back of his head now.

In a matter of moments, he heard the telltale clap of flapping wings, and then the collective gasps and exclamations from the men around him as the three drakes lifted up over the tree line and then settled in the center of the clearing, wings kicking up clouds of cold snow vapor. The breeze stirred their hair, and Oliver found that his had grown long enough that he had to tuck it back behind his ears to keep it out of his eyes. He was grinning, he realized, as Percy folded his wings, and thrust his head forward, asking for scritches behind his horns and along his jaw. Erik was grinning, too, he saw, more of that proud, nearly-smug look from inside tempered by curved lips, and a flash of teeth.

“Gentlemen,” Erik said, raising his voice to be heard above the startling murmur of the crowd. “The drakes of the world are not extinct, and they aren’t slumbering – not anymore. And we have a Drake of our own to command them.” This last said with a sweeping gesture toward Oliver, fur cloak flung back for emphasis.

When the attention turned toward him, and a glad roar went up, Oliver felt his cheeks pink, but he didn’t want to hide; didn’t want to dodge eye contact and call himself a bastard. He took in their faces in turn – weary, banged-up, and infused with something almost like hope, now – and then turned back to Erik, to the pride shining in his eyes, and his chest felt full to bursting.

Percy snuffled at the front of his cloak, and he patted his cold nose. He didn’t know yet if he could actually ride him, or what lay ahead for them, but it was damn wonderful to feel – at least for a little while – that he was worth something.

~*~

“You need to return to Naus Keep.”

It was the first thing Mattias said to him when they were finally alone. Or, relatively so.

Erik had gone off with Edda to see Askr, but when Náli had moved to follow – he’d been a part of this whole thing from the first, albeit not by design – a strong hand had wrapped around his forearm, and even through layers of gray wool, the touch had burned. Burned in a good way; burned in a way that left his traitorous face overwarm – until he’d turned and seen Mattias wearing his patented Nursemaid Face, and,ah, this was about the fact that he no doubt looked like every level of hell.

His Guard had set up a tent – gray and white like every stitch of fabric in the Fault Lands – and Mattias steered him over to sit on a bit of log, in front of a fire that Einrih had built, and then passed him a warm mug of tea that smelled strongly of lavender.

“I’m fine,” he protested, as Mattias draped a snow fox fur around his shoulders. The way he shivered and cupped the mug in both hands didn’t help to drive home his insistence.

“Drink your tea,” Mattias said, leaning down to toss another log on the fire, sending up a shower of sparks. Afterward, he peeled off a glove and pressed his bare palm to Náli’s forehead.

Náli fought not to lean into the touch, and burned his tongue on the tea. “I don’t need tea,” he grumbled, not caring that he sounded like a sulky teenager – hewasa sulky teenager, after all, and it stung to be dragged away from the action. Even if he was past the point of exhaustion. Even if the brush of Mattias’s warm, callused fingers against his skin was sweet torture.

He didn’t normally let himself think such fanciful thoughts. Words liketouchandtortureonly catalysts to his still-childlike overactive imagination. Routinely, he kept tight check on that kind of thinking…but he’d been so worried. With them separated, and word from Chief Oddmarr of an attack against the Aeretolleans…without any way of knowing whether his Guard – if Mattias – were safe…

---