A Companion to Wolves by Sarah Monette && Elizabeth Bear

Author:Sarah Monette && Elizabeth Bear
Language: eng
Format: mobi

Chapter 7

It was, at least, not harder than Isolfr had feared to convince Grimolfr that the war-strength of the trellmaegth had left the warrens and headed south—because he had feared it would be impossible. But Grimolfr had been wondering—as they all had—and he came around quickly when he understood that Viradechtis' conviction agreed with Isolfr's: the trellboars were not in the warrens because they had gone south, leaving the sows and priests behind. Grimolfr and Skald turned the Wolfmaegth easily enough, and the wolfless men were not about to stay in the mountains alone, not with high solstice over and winter on the horizon. Sooner they would have stayed in the mountains of the moon.

It took a day to get the army moving, and half as long to get out of the pass as it had to get in. Rested men and horses awaited them; they had had seen no trolls. A hasty council of war determined that the army would retrace the route of Othinnsaesc, as they had seen and fought more trolls and wyverns than all the other wolfheallan combined.

They had the sun all through the night and the endless drone of mosquitoes. They had mud and tired men and wounded men and horses staggering from lack of rest, and every man grudged an hour spent sleeping, for all the need.

The charge south was the sort of feat that births epics.

It was Frithulf, his face still raw and pink with healing flesh, and Kothran, ranging wide, who stumbled across the path of the troll army. The Wolfmaegth followed, and Isolfr soon lost track of the days. Sokkolfr watched him, or sometimes he watched Sokkolfr, but it was Ulfbjorn who made sure that the two of them and Frithulf and their wolves had hot food and clean water when they stumbled to the fireside at night. The Great Ulfbjorn seemed tireless. He walked—he was not much of a rider, and argued that he might as well spare a horse his weight—and somehow he and Tindr were always where they were needed, with a foul joke and a swig from a flask, keeping the line moving, keeping a man or a wolf on his feet for one more league.

At least the trell-path was clear, churned mud down to permafrost, and the flat landscape meant there was little chance of an ambush. Isolfr was glad of the rib-sprung carthorse they gave him to ride. It was easier to catch snatches of sleep in the saddle, and at times he could force Frithulf to ride for a space if he led. He worried about his tithe-brother; Frithulf's wounds still pained and exhausted him, and he had neither rest nor good food to buy him healing.

Othwulf rode up beside Isolfr at one point, long legs tight around the barrel of a sorrel gelding whose shaggy neck shed clots of hair into the dry, never-ending wind. Viradechtis was even too tired to flirt with Vikingr; she just leaned her shoulder against the black wolf's and sighed, and they slogged side by side through the mud.

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