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Authors: Elizabeth Bear

BOOK: A Companion to Wolves
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But they could not leave immediately, even when their company was complete. Wolves and wolfbrothers and wolfless men from Othinnsaesc alike were exhausted; they had found more trolls than the other groups, and although they had fought them without fatalities, they had not done so without injuries, some serious. They needed at least three days' rest, and the wolfjarl of Othinnsaesc admitted that a full week would be better.
“A week, we cannot give you,” Grimolfr said reluctantly, “but three days you may have.”
Isolfr barely had time for a cup of broth with Othwulf before his attention was taken up, nearly from the moment of Othinnsaesc's arrival, with sorting out a nasty snarl of dominance between the wolf threat of Nithogsfjoll and the wolfthreat of Kerlaugstrond, because while konigenwolf-in-waiting and konigenwolf were as amiable together as one could ask them to be, Osk, the second bitch of the Kerlaugstrondthreat, did not feel that she yielded place to Viradechtis, and she was a strong enough force in the threat that several of the dominant males went with her.
It was an exhausting matter to resolve without either undercutting Viradechtis' authority or offending the wolfsprechend of Kerlaugstrond—or Osk's brother, a man as touchy as his sister, who clearly gave his wolfsprechend a good deal of trouble.
Isolfr spent two days up to his eyeballs in the pack-sense between the two threats, and the first he knew of any other trouble was when he was coming back from the Kerlaugstrond camp to the Nithogsfjoll camp and heard his father's voice saying with untrustworthy mildness, “I want a word with you, boy.”
He turned, let his eyebrows rise, noticing that while Gunnarr did not commit the solecism of calling him Njall,
he didn't seem able to bring himself to call him Isolfr, either.
“And if you don't mind,” Gunnarr said and looked pointedly at Viradechtis.
Isolfr
did
mind, but he was also aware of the need to keep strife between the wolfheallan and the wolfless men at a minimum, so he said to Viradechtis, “Go on, sister,” and she gave him a deeply dubious look, but went.
He watched her until she was nearly out of sight, wanting that moment to collect his thoughts, his temper, then turned to Gunnarr, saying, “Yes, F—”
The blow came out of nowhere; he was on the ground with his ears ringing and the entire side of his face throbbing before he even realized Gunnarr was swinging at him.
“You filthy, depraved
beast
,” his father hissed at him, and Isolfr got his feet under him to scramble out of range before Gunnarr could kick him, his attention focused frantically on cutting himself off from the pack-sense, from Viradechtis, with a strong command to
stay away
, because the uneasy truce between keep and wolfheall would not survive a wolf of Nithogsfjoll attacking the jarl, no matter how egregiously provoked she was.
He stood up, wiped blood off his mouth, spat sharp copper. “Father, what is this about?”
“Don't call me that. You unnatural, perverted trellspawn. Don't claim bloodkinship with me, not today or any other day.”
“What—”
“You don't lie down for the wolfjarl, oh, no,” Gunnarr said, almost shouted. “But what about your
uncle
?”
“My uncle? Othwulf?”
“
Sturla
!” Gunnarr howled. “Yes, your uncle Othwulf,” in savagely mocking, mincing tones. “Who I understand you have been
flirting
with since the Wolfmaegthing. Is there
nothing
too low, too dishonorable for you to embrace?”
“Flirting? Father, I don't—”
“
Don't call me that
,” Gunnarr said with loathing, and it
was then that Sokkolfr appeared, saying, “Isolfr? Viradechtis is—”
He broke off, seeing Gunnarr's fury. Isolfr didn't imagine he himself looked much better. “Lord Gunnarr,” Sokkolfr said, nodding.
“Is this another of your conquests, Isolfr?” Gunnarr said, investing his name with so much contempt that Isolfr flinched. “I hear you're very popular in the wolfheall, that even the most
unnatural
practices don't dismay you. How many men have you let have you, boy? How many in a
night
?”
Sokkolfr was somehow standing between them, saying gently and firmly, “Lord Gunnarr, the wolfjarl will call upon you later to address your concerns. You will upset the wolves if you continue to flyte their wolfsprechend. Please.”
The jarl stood silent, fists clenched hard, and looked into Sokkolfr's eyes. But Sokkolfr was a young man, heavy-shouldered with hard labor, and Hroi stood watchful and wise at his heels, lip curled despite his silence. Long moments later, Gunnarr turned on his heel, and strode off, bootnails clattering on the frozen ground, as Isolfr wondered distantly how Sokkolfr had known what to say, how he had known that Gunnarr's terror of the trellwolves would silence his wrath.
Sokkolfr's arm was around Isolfr's shoulders, and he was urging him gently back toward the camp. Hroi was on his other side, a dense warm weight. “No,” Isolfr said muzzily, “not when I'm … I can't upset Viradechtis.”
“Viradechtis is already upset,” Sokkolfr said. “You won't help matters by hiding from her. Come on.”
Blindly, stumbling, Isolfr let himself be guided; he couldn't uncramp his mind into the pack-sense, not with that ugliness staining everything. “Are you one of my conquests, Sokkolfr?” he said, aware that his voice was pitched too high, but helpless to control it.
“Of course I am,” Sokkolfr said sturdily. “Proud of it.”
Isolfr found himself giggling and forced himself to stop. “It's true, what he said.”
“And what is that?”
“I will lie down for Othwulf, if Viradechtis wants Vikingr. Depraved, just like … like Lord Gunnarr says.”
“Isolfr—”
Isolfr found himself flat on the ground for the second time in short succession, this time with Viradechtis standing over him, licking his face and throat, whining anxiously. Isolfr knew she could taste the salt of his tears and the sharpness of blood and tried to pet her to reassure her, but his hands were shaking so badly he suspected it wasn't much comfort.
“Isolfr,” Sokkolfr said, “I have to talk to Grimolfr. We have to kill this thing now, before it spreads. You won't leave Viradechtis, will you?”
“No,” Isolfr said, and recognizing his friend's concern, added, “I promise.”
“Good. I'll get Frithulf to come help you, but I really can't—”
The wolfheall came first, and that was a comfort. “I understand,” Isolfr said. “Go on.”
Sokkolfr and Hroi went. Isolfr sat up, put his arms around his sister, and sobbed into her fur like a child. And Viradechtis stood patiently and leaned on him until his pain ebbed enough to clear his head for thought. Implications crowded each other, and Isolfr was clutching Viradechtis' ruff, hauling himself to his feet in a near-panic, when Frithulf strode up, a skin bucket of melted snow steaming in his hands.
“Whoa there—”
“Frithulf. Grimolfr. You have to stop him before he does anything about Lord Gunnarr. He
can't
have it out with my father over me. The jarls won't understand that it's about the pack. They'll just see him interfering in a family matter, and the wolfless men are unhappy enough already to be here.”
Frithulf stopped and cocked a hip to prop his burden against. “Isolfr, much as I like you,” he said, a wicked grin curving his lips, “someday you're going to have to accept
that Grimolfr knows at least as much about politics as you do.”
“But—”
The grin widened. “Othwulf is … ‘speaking' to Lord Gunnarr.” At Isolfr's befuddlement, Frithulf shook his head, grin widening. “Keeping it in the family, as it were. The jarls
will
understand that. Now are you going to sit down and let me wash your face, or am I going to have Viradechtis knock you down?”
Isolfr sat. “Has anybody asked where my father heard … ?”
“Ulfrikr,” Frithulf said sourly, warming a cloth in his bucket of water. He crouched, and began to bathe Isolfr's face. “Grimolfr is ‘speaking' to
him
.”
“Oh,” Isolfr said, flinching away from the cloth and then forcing himself to be still before Frithulf could ask if he was a girl or just cried like one.
The thought of Ulfrikr on the receiving end of one of Grimolfr's tonguelashings didn't do his bruised dignity any harm at all.
 
 
A
s promised, the Wolfmaegth marched three days after Othinnsaesc's arrival at the moot. They left the shaggy horses—skinnier now—with the injured men from Othinnsaesc and one or two others, and began the climb into the Iskryne, weighted down with weapons and provisions.
The trellwolves were as comfortable here as anywhere; this was the ancestral home of their race and they found the going not so difficult as did the men. Many could even be convinced to pack supplies, which was a relief. There would be little food and fuel in the mountains—not for so many wolves and so many men.
They climbed as they could, following the line of a pass that was storied to lead all the way through the Iskryne and into the fabled land of the svartalfar, the dark elves with
their hammers and forges and grindstones, their jewels mined from the bellies of mountains, their unrivalled golden finery and their weapons of unequalled steel. Surely they must find trolls soon; trellish raiding parties always returned north in the summers, for summer to trolls was as winter to men, and after all their travel the Wolfmaegth and the allied wolfless men were coming up on the time of year when the sun revolved around the Iskryne like a spun top, and never yielded to night at all.
On the third day of their climb, as if in obedience to the prophecy Isolfr had made in the roundhall years before, it was wide-ranging Kothran who picked up the scent. His howl floated to them like the sound of a reed pipe, and every wolf and every wolfcarl knew what it meant.
Trolls!
Kothran called.
Come, come quick! I've found the trolls!
A shiver ran through Wolfmaegth and wolfless men alike. Some three thousand cold, trudging, miserable pilgrims straightened in their boots, shuffled off their packs and reached for their weapons, and became an army again.
Isolfr raised his voice with the others and charged up the slope on Kothran's tail. His boots slipped on icy rock; he shed his cloak in the snow beside his pack and scrabbled on hands and knees, other men climbing beside him, trellwolves bounding past like mountain sheep.
The trellwarren could not have been more obvious if it had been signposted with a crier at the gate. The arched entrance was raggedly gnawed out of stone, but as Isolfr came to a halt before it, surrounded by wolves and men, he was struck by the symmetry and some sense of decoration that seemed to knot the claw-furrows into a pattern that squirmed just outside Isolfr's ability to define. The stench was worse than the midden-pile at his father's keep; even in the cold, the trellwarren smelled of snake-shit and wormy meat and the heated reek of a forge.
“They're armsmaking,” Grimolfr said, and Isolfr started. He'd been so intent on the trellwarren that he had not felt the wolfjarl come up beside him, close enough to touch. He
looked up at Grimolfr, and Grimolfr glanced down at him with a twisted lip. “Smelting bronze,” Grimolfr said. “Othinn help us all.”
“God of wolves,” Isolfr said, and Grimolfr nodded, passionlessly.
“God of wolves. It's butchery now, lad.”
“Yes,” Isolfr said. “Let's go.”
 
 
T
he god of wolves is the god of death. He is the all-Father, the god of wisdom and the god of war. He is the god to whom all are answerable, in the end, and he is the god who paid with his sight and hung on the Tree at Mimir's feet for nine days and nine nights and counted the cost well paid for the reward.
He is the god who knows that nothing comes without price.
Isolfr held the god's name as a prayer as he hacked into the trellwarren. This time they could not wait for the trolls to come out to them; this was a proper warren, years in the digging, and they could not hope to find and block all its exits. Grimolfr had had a few brutally brief pieces of advice about fighting in an old warren, which for all his experience Isolfr had not done before, and those words rang clear in Isolfr's head through the acrid stench of troll blood, the bitter copper bite of men's and wolves' blood, the dark and smothering heat, the howling confusion of metal against metal, the snarls of wolves, the shouts of men and the strange yammering of trolls:
Never get separated from your wolf.
Never turn your back on a hole if you don't know what lies beyond it.
And most important:

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