Many Words

Alfhilde didn’t care. “In a fight? Yes! The man has been trained since birth to kill, and he can see the future. He is a better fighter than you.” She caught herself, and her tone softened, as her face did the same. “Do you know why I fight alongside him? Because you are a better man. You are my family, and his skills are the best way to keep you safe—to keep you alive. Do you understand? The Twelve themselves could put me to the test, and every time, I would choose you. That is why I let him lead. I do it for Jakob, and I do it for you.”

Hrothgar looked away, stonily silent. Alfhilde sighed in relief. Her husband was a stubborn man, and it took him time to allow that he might have been wrong. “What about the girl, then?” he said, covering for himself.

“We should take her in.”

Hrothgar raised his eyebrows. “Do you have a plan to feed her? Or, for that matter, us?”

“The two of us can work,” Alfhilde reminded him. “What does Sif have? Thievery? That’s no life for a child.”

Hrothgar thought it over, quiet for some time. Eventually, he rumbled, “Three mouths is only a little easier than four.”

Alfhilde smiled ear-to-ear. “You’re a good man, Hrothgar Hrafnssen, better than I deserve.” He waved away the compliment, and she added, “Even if I do have to remind you some days. Here, give me Jakob. We’ll tell her later.”

“Harsh words for a man you think so highly of,” Hrothgar said.

Alfhilde seethed inside, but kept her lid on, though her words came out fast and clipped. “Highly? I think nothing beyond that he is our best hope of living to the next week.”

“If we had been on our own—”

Alfhilde cut her husband off. “—we would have been dead before we left the city.”

“And still your hero gets us into trouble—puts our lives, and the life of our son, at risk, time and again.”

“Bring Jakob’s life into it, will you?” Alfhilde burst. “If you had stayed with our son at the campsite, perhaps the diviner would not be dying, and perhaps he would not have pushed the girl to make a choice she should not have made.”

“You have the gall to blame me?” Hrothgar replied. Alfhilde could see the anger burning in him, brighter every second. This was not the direction she had intended to take the conversation, but here they were. Hrothgar added, “I was worried for you—”

“You are not a fighter!” Alfhilde said. “This is what I do—or what I did. I am able to take care of myself, especially fighting back to back with a diviner, one of the greatest warriors in the world. The only thing you do by joining me in battle is give me one more thing to worry about.”

“You would rather have him on your side than me, then?” Hrothgar rejoined. The volcanic anger Alfhilde had seen turned icy.

Alfhilde huffed. “We will see about that.” Turning to Sif and putting on a smile, she said, “That’s all.”

Sif picked up her pace to walk next to Falthejn, while Sif slowed her step until she was walking with Hrothgar. Ahead, the girl and the diviner carried on with their conversation.

Alfhilde put them out of mind, marshaled her thoughts, and looked at her husband. This would not be an easy conversation, but if she said nothing, the girl was doomed to life as a magiker, running from one thing or another until she died. She couldn’t let that be.

He noticed her stare, shifted Jakob to his other shoulder, and said, “Yes?”

Alfhilde took a deep breath and dove in headfirst. “How are we going to help Sif?”

Hrothgar blinked, catching up to her train of thought. “What do you mean?”

“It isn’t a trick question,” Alfhilde replied. “When we get out of this mess, what are we going to do for the girl?”

“The magiker seems to have that well in hand,” said Hrothgar, shrugging with his open shoulder. “What more do we need to do?”

Alfhilde had expected an argument along these lines. “Don’t pretend that’s a good life for her. You heard her two nights back. She my have convinced herself she can life with danger around every corner if it means somewhere she belongs, but what she really wants is peace, and a place to belong. The magiker’s plan won’t give her either one.”

Hrothgar shook his head. “You can’t be sure of that.”

Alfhilde gestured ahead of them. “Do you think our Falthejn Arnarsson has many friends?”

Falthejn shrugged. “Before we knew the dangers of magic, we had only the Twelve’s warning that its unsanctioned use meant death, and their wrath if we tolerated it. Now that we know the truth, your choices are a great deal less bad.” He looked aside for a moment, lost in thought, then turned back to Sif. “You’ve seen danger, now—tasted the life we magiker live. What do you say?”

Sif pressed her lips together, glancing over her shoulder. Alfhilde and Hrothgar were talking—quietly, but heatedly. She looked away. “I don’t know yet. Can I have some time to think?”

“Yes,” Falthejn said, “but I will have to know by the time we reach the fort.”

Sif nodded and dropped back a pace, brows knit together, her mind racing. Two roads stretched out ahead of her—well, only one of them was sure. She could go with Falthejn, become a magiker, and be somebody—change the world for the better, just like he did. Or, maybe, she could go with Alfhilde and Hrothgar. They were kind to her, and they offered something she’d never truly known: a place to belong. Would they want her, though? She was a thief and worse, and she suspected she would be a handful. What would they say if she asked?

For once, nobody noticed her troubled expression. Alone with her thoughts, she walked on.

Falthejn raised an eyebrow, and Sif had the uncomfortable feeling that he saw right through her. “Though we grew up in different circumstances,” he remarked, “in many ways, you are very much like a younger me. You know very well what we talked about.” Sif remained silent, and Falthejn prompted, “Well?”

“Well, what?”

“What do you want to do? You have very little choice now that you’ve used magic in anger—”

Sif put in, “It wasn’t really my choice, was it?”

Falthejn shook his head. “It was. All I did was remind you that the choice was there to make.”

Sif tilted her head and gave him a look. “Did I have any other options?”

“You might have died,” Falthejn said baldly. “Not in a very pleasant manner, but more pleasant than do many magiker.” He returned her look with interest. “As I was saying, you have very little choice, but you do have a choice. You may decide to come with me to the Northlands, once we have escaped, to train to become a magiker. Your stunt with the ontlig armor would put you through the doors of the Skola der trollersmagiker—the conjurers—on the strength of the story alone.”

“What’s the other choice?”

“You may swear to me that you will never call on magic again. I will take your promise with me when I go north, and your name will be entered in a book. If ever you are found to be working magic, you will be killed.”

Sif walked in silence for a few steps. “A lot of my choices lead to death, don’t they?”

Sif only half-heard Falthejn’s reply. Poisoned? Her mind whirled. Without him, they weren’t safe, and, not to put too fine a point on it, she had no future. The tone of the conversation changed, and she picked up the thread of it again.

“… about Sif,” Alfhilde said. “I saw you stop and your face go magical. You pushed her to it.”

“It was that or her life,” Falthejn replied. “And your son’s.”

Alfhilde punched him in the arm, hard. He winced. “You leave Jakob out of it,” she said. “That is our responsibility, not yours. What I do not want to see is a young girl played for your own purposes.”

Falthejn blinked and spluttered, “My own purposes? Do you think I do this out of selfishness? Sif lost everything, and never had much to begin with. I want only to give her a place to belong.”

“Is that so?” Alfhilde said. “I have seen the way magiker live. You would wish that on her?”

“She seems to like the thought of it,” Falthejn countered. “Beyond that, what choice does she have?”

Alfhilde huffed. “We will see about that.” Forcing a smile Sif could have spotted from a league away, she turned. “That’s all,” she said to Sif.

Sweetly, Sif smiled back, and returned to Falthejn’s side. A few yards behind them, Alfhilde fell into step with Hrothgar. Sif turned her smile on Falthejn. “What did you talk about?” she asked innocently.

They ran, crashing through the underbrush, until they reached the road. They turned north. After what seemed to Sif like an eternity, Falthejn slowed to a walk. She gratefully accepted her pack from Hrothgar, and winced at the stitch in her side.

“Put your hands on your head,” Falthejn suggested.

Sif did, and her lungs opened up. She gulped down a few deep breaths. Gingerly, Falthejn touched his side, and his hand came away bloody. Sif Frowned. “Are you hurt?”

“Not badly.” Falthejn wiped his hand on his leg and waved off any further concern. “I will be fine. We do need to talk of your future, though.”

Before Sif could reply, Alfhilde sidled up next to Falthejn. “The diviner and I need a word,” she said, “apart from any prying ears.” She pushed on Sif’s shoulder, gently but firmly, and Sif obligingly slowed her step.

Which meant nothing, as far as hiding the conversation went. Alfhilde wasn’t half as quiet as she thought she was, and Falthejn made no effort to be any quieter than that.

“Are the rumors true?” Alfhilde asked.

“I have three or four days before it becomes crippling,” Falthejn replied. “We know of a cure—any of several of the herbs of this region will do—but we cannot spare the time. Once we reach the fort, the army’s physicians will take care of me.”

“If you say.” Alfhilde shook her head. ” For myself, I’d rather have your judgement free from—” she leaned in, and somehow whispered more loudly than she’d been speaking “—poison.”

Sif spun and screamed as leaves and twigs showered over her. The monsters looked her straight in the eye, and she scrambled backward, slipping and falling. Then, she felt a tugging at her mind, and suddenly, she saw the true shape of things—felt the weave of the world, the twisted creatures in front of her, and the anger of the forest at this intrusion on its peace.

She could work with that.

Hrothgar skidded to a stop and spun on his heel. The ontr brought their weapons down toward his son, but checked their swings halfway through. Briefly, their brutish faces seemed almost confused. In the space of a heartbeat, their expressions turned to terror. Their armor flowed over them like quicksilver, twisting around them in vinelike tendrils. The sound of bones snapping echoed through the clearing, and the monsters howled in agony: a noise to haunt a man’s dreams for the rest of his life.

He heard Falthejn shout, “We need to leave!” The diviner snatched his pack as he went past, grabbed Sif by the arm, and slipped out of the way as the ontr, entombed in their living armor, stomped toward the dropoff and their comrades. Alfhilde, freeing the axe from an ontlig corpse, was close behind, shouldering her pack and picking up Jakob. “The other pack, Hrothgar!” she shouted over the baby’s wail.

Hrothgar shook his head, tearing his eyes off of the armored figures just as they reached the mass of ontr climbing the hillside. The screams behind him suggested he’d done so just in time. Taking his pack and Sif’s, he followed the others, fleeing madly down the hill, while the howls and shrieks of dying ontr behind them split the silence of the night.