When Weyland caught up to her, Gilda had walked to the river and was waiting for him. She was seated on a ground cloth, having set up a cold camp much like the one he’d shared with Hervor a relative lifetime ago. Avril didn’t bark, but snuffled the woman’s face and hands, begging to be petted. Weyland lowered his pack to the ground and spread his own ground cloth.
“Tomorrow, we’ll reach the coast and sail across the strait to the kingdoms of the south. It will put us closer to the principalities, but further away from the Geats and their kind.”
He opened the food hamper, unsurprised to find it full of bread and dried meat. He gave some to Avril and passed the hamper to Gilda, who examined it critically.
“Some of the news I heard in the past few months was about the Geat, about how Bodulfr, who is now King and elderly, had killed a dragon of his own.” Gilda nodded, turning the basket in her hands, working the loop and clasp closure at the top. “How long was I at the tower?”
Gilda looked up at him, her white hair luminous in the darkness. “Long enough to learn what you needed to know, I suppose. Time is different from place to place. I don’t pay much attention. This is good work, smith, and well done.”
“Patricius all but accused me of practicing sorcery,” Weyland said. “I put just a little meat and bread in the hamper earlier today, and now it’s full of enough food to last us for a month of travel. Is that sorcery?”
Gilda chuckled quietly. “Not so much. You were merely a very good student. Myrddin may be a sorcerer, and I am certainly a witch, but you are warrior from a people with a closer touch for magic in the world.”
“Is there a difference?” He took the hamper back from her. She shrugged and pulled her dark cloak around her, the hood up over her gossamer hair.
“Good night, warrior. We’ll be traveling early.”
They paid a few coin to cross on a small boat, barely half the size of the vessel the varingjar had used to sail the north seas. Avril huddled, terrified, in the bottom of the boat, and Weyland was grateful when they made landfall late that afternoon. The beach was covered in rocks washed and tumbled smooth by the waves, and they climbed the dunes, looking for the way to the road the oarsman had told them about. They found it, and traveled south another day, and then east for three.
They entered a forbidding forest, its canopy higher than any trees Weyland had ever seen, its tree-trunks black and strong. There were small villages along the way, and the people spoke a different language. Gilda seemed to be searching for something specific, and they visited each village, stopping at the humble inns or sleeping in haylofts. Avril found it to be a grand adventure, though Weyland grew restless with some inner turmoil. He thought often of the things that had come before, of Hervor and his family, of Myrddin and crafting things.
He and Gilda came upon a family with a broken waggon, the axel broken in half. He was able to splint it back together well enough to get them to the next village, where they parted ways. Gilda spoke their language, and the family gave them a bit of food for their efforts. The farrier was impressed with the makeshift repair Weyland had made, and offered him work for a few days. Thus it came about that he made his way chopping wood, doing odd jobs, and assisting the blacksmith and farrier who serviced three small hamlets.
He learned a little bit of the language, but never enough for more than basic transactions, selling wood or mending gear, occasionally joining a search party to find a lamb or child lost in the great, dark wood. He came to know the hunters and farmers and miners of the community, who to avoid and who might be trusted. He learned the woods, and Avril brought them small game for their pot on nights when they were traveling.
His hound also grew stout, her elegant narrow waist thickening over the course of several weeks. She came often to have her belly rubbed, and the reason for the changes became readily apparent. “Silly silly girl, did you flirt with the wrong fellow?” She grinned at him with a wide canine smile, tongue lolling as she groaned in pleasure at his pets.
When the dog was near to whelping, Gilda arranged for them to stay in the stable of the inn. Weyland foraged for wood and mushrooms and other delicacies in the woods, even as his hound became less and less inclined to travel with him. He was nearby the day her litter was born, and of the three pups, two were stout black and brown creatures, and the third a tiny brindle thing, legs stubby even by the standards of lumpy puppy bodies. Gilda laughed at the little fellow and fed him from her own bowl each night when he was weaned from Avril’s teat.
He also met a girl, a chambermaid at that single inn that provided lodging for travelers passing through. She had simply walked out of the woods one day, filthy and scratched and wild-looking. For all that, she was soft spoken, and always had a kind word for Avril. He found her to be lovely, black hair and gray eyes, with features that hinted at strength rather than delicacy when she reached womanhood. The innkeeper put her to work cleaning the rooms and serving the travelers, and while she spoke very little, Weyland learned that her name was Bronwyn. In the darkness of night and the dawning of the day, he saw her kindess and sometimes a glint of protective fire, and it stirred the deepest waters of his soul. Sometimes, in the clear light of noon or the pooling shadows of evening, he fingered the ring tied securely on its thong around his neck, putting it away after a moment and feeling foolish. But still, her clear eyes and dark hair, the gentleness of her touch and hidden fire, they took root in the deepest places of his heart
One night a storm blew in, a fierce spring gale. A group of men came late to the inn, miners and a rough and terrible looking hunter with yellow eyes, dressed in barely cured skins of wolves and big cats. The hunter made Weyland’s knife hand itch, particularly when he egged the miners on, teasing the barmaid and the chambermaid who were run ragged with serving the full taproom.
The first night of their stay was raucous and crude, but they generally kept their hands to themselves. The second night was a bit different, and the hunter kicked Avril as he was leaving the taproom for the night. Gilda put her hand on Weyland’s arm to restrain him, and the yellow-eyed hunter sneered at the woodsman as the door swung closed behind him.
The next day, Weyland foraged further afield than usual for drier wood, and returned to the inn late in the evening. Avril was anxious, hiding her pups in the back of the hayloft. Weyland calmed her with soft words and affectionate caresses, but she would not let him leave without the brindle runt. The pup was mostly weaned, only pretending to still need his mother’s teat for the sake of the attention she gave him, so Weyland tucked the pup into his cloak and went to the taproom.
The miners and the huntsman were already there, and already harassing the barmaid and Bronwyn. They had torn the younger girl’s skirts and bodice, and when Weyland entered she was standing in the center of the room, Gilda’s arm around her shoulders. The witch met Weyland’s eyes as he entered, and she pulled out her flask and the horn cup, tipping some of the bitter water into the cup. Gilda’s expression was strangely triumphant as she offered the cup to the maiden.
"So it begins," the witch said softly, and the girl closed her eyes as the rim of the cup touched her lips.
The draught was bitter - Weyland knew it to be so, water from Myrddin’s well. An echo whispered in his memory, that it could kill those whose soul had no fire to quench. He tried, but could not remember the face that accompanied those words, the color of the hair of the woman who had stolen - and he couldn’t remember what had been stolen, either.
Bronwyn almost choked on the water, but drained the horn cup as Gilda stepped away from her. The chambermaid fell heavily against the bench, cracking her chin against the table. Gilda stooped to take the cup from Bronwyn's limp fingers, Gilda’s long white braid brushing the stricken girl's face. She paused to twitch the girl's skirts straight, covering her bare legs. One of the miners made a rude comment, and the rest of the drunken crowd murmured in assent. Avril’s weanling puppy struggled out of Weyland’s cloak and snuffled Bronwyn's ear and face, licking her lips dry of the last clinging drops, trembling as the water woke in his soul, too. Gilda turned to the restless men, now deprived of their sport, and raised a thin hand to point at the speaker.
"Aye, you could do that, Jacob Tanner, but would you risk it?"
"What risk is there? She's out cold, couldn't even put up a bit of a fight." He sounded a bit disappointed.
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"Oh, she's not asleep at all, nor is she dead, and that's what she should have been if she weren't a witch." The woman raked them with a gaze darkened by fury. An uneasy tremor rippled through the group, very like a great beast shuddering its hide to shoo away a biting fly.
"Then get her out of my inn, Gilda Oldroot. One witch in this county is bad enough, I'll not have two in my taproom." The inn-keeper gestured curtly to two of the men to carry the girl out. The wagoneer shook his head, backing away, and the hunter eyed the apparently sleeping girl speculatively. He looked rather like he wanted to test the risk involved in bedding a witch against her will. His eyes glowed cold yellow, a wolf's eyes, as if he peeled their souls away with their skins, and took their essence into himself even as he ate their flesh.
As the hunter stepped forward to gather Bronwyn up, Weyland stepped forward. "I will take her," he said in a quiet voice, challenging the hunter’s look calmly. The hunter paused for a moment and stepped aside, bowing with a sarcastic flourish.
"Indeed. Take her now. She is fond of wandering lost in the woods, so I shall have her later." Gilda Oldroot stepped aside as the woodsman knelt to gather Bronwyn up, cradling her against his chest. The witch collected her walking stick and pulled her dark cloak close, shouldering Weyland’s pack. He hadn’t noticed it before, nor had he noticed that the walking stick was once again his mother’s spear. Slipping the flask of bitter water back into her pouch, she took a shaker of salt from the table. The crowd parted before her, and she led Weyland from the taproom and into the night, holding open the door for him.
"I've never known you to be cruel," Weyland gently chided her in the language of his birth.
"Bah. If I'd not offered her the cup they'd have passed her 'round til she died of it."
"She could have died of the cup," he pointed out, shifting Bronwyn higher on his chest, her head falling to lie against his shoulder, forehead against his neck.
"Better that than the other," Gilda snapped, glancing at the girl.
"How long will she sleep like this?" He ducked around a low branch.
"Who knows? A night, a hundred years, depends on her."
"Will anything wake her?"
"The usual, I'd imagine. Mix a potion made of the powdered horn of a unicorn, an apple from the tree of knowledge and follow it with True Love's kiss, that sort of thing. She'll wake on her own eventually, though, no need to go to great lengths chasing down wee beasties." He was silent for a long while, striding through the woods in the wake of the witch. Avril followed along behind, coaxing, encouraging and sometimes carrying the brindle pup.
Weyland heard the crack of a branch behind them. "We're being followed." he observed quietly, turning his head to scan the woods.
"That's the way of things," the witch said, and there was a peculiar sadness in her voice. "Here, lay the child down, this clearing will do." The mossy rock stood at the edge of a clearing, a spring trickling nearby. Weyland lay Bronwyn down on the stone carefully, folding her hands together over her waist. “She'll be safe enough from most things, but the wolf is coming, and that we should defend her from, at least." Gilda walked in a circle around the girl and the stone, sprinkling the salt in her wake.
Bushes rustled nearby, and a small yelp broke the silence as Avril brought her pup to the rock, whining anxiously. "Well, I suppose you'll do as a last resort. Watch after her, mind you, and never let her starve or go thirsty, if you're able." The witch's voice was tender, and she set the pup on Bronwyn’s legs. The puppy crawled up the girl’s body until he could lick her face again before settling on her chest, head resting on Bronwyn’s folded hands.
Gilda handed him the blackwood spear and began to remove her pouch and cloak, folding them together and tucking them at the base of the rock as she addressed Bronwyn. "Girl, when you wake keep the pouch and cloak and whatever else you find. I've no time to teach you, but fate is a cruel master, and it has its hooks in you now, deep in your gut. Do as you see is right and you’ll fare reasonably well. Use the things that come to hand when they are needed.” She spoke further as Weyland kept watch, hearing the huntsman come ever closer until they were entirely out of time. “Remember, though, there are things one takes along, no matter what the journey's end. Keep those with you, they will always fit in the pouch." Her hands glowed with a pale lightning for a moment as she touched the maiden’s brow, a flash so quick he wondered whether he imagined it.
Weyland sensed it when the girl finally fell unconcious, deep under the spell of the water. “Who is Jacob Tanner?” He listened to the man coming closer, circling them in the woods.
“It used to be one of Myrddin’s wolves. The daughter of Myrddin’s bones taught it the art of becoming a man, but its heart is cruel. I wonder that she has sent it here, the vile bitch. If it attacks as a wolf, let the Gods’ Hound take care of it. I’ll use what little magic is left to me to protect her from what is to come.” Gilda shivered a bit in the gloaming depths of the wood, and Weyland wondered at the fear he saw flit across her features before they settled into resolve. “If you see Myrddin again, tell him - “ she paused, grimacing. “Never mind. He knows.”
There was a snarl from the woods, and Weyland turned to see the huntsman rush in. He was not charging Weyland, but running towards the girl lying unconscious on the stone bier. Weyland stepped into his path. Too close to use the spear, Weyland pulled his hatchet, swinging low and fast. He missed, the axe-blade ringing against the stone. The huntsman rose over Bronwyn’s still form, the skinned head of a wolf pulled low over his face like a hood.
Weyland drew his hunting knife, water-born and crafted in sunlight, and lowered his shoulder to tackle the man. Behind him, he heard Gilda chanting, felt the rising currents of air around them. A howl rose in the forest nearby, and Avril raised her own voice in answer, looming impossibly large in the stormlight.
With a grunt, the huntsman threw Weyland off of him, drawing his own knife, an ugly thing spotted with rust, the edge chipped and jagged. They clashed again, and Weyland grappled with Jacob Tanner, pinning his knife hand and twisting around so the blade could do him no harm. The hunter dropped the knife with a snarl and began to change. Sudden fear clenched in Weyland’s gut, and he slipped an arm under the other man’s arm from behind, reaching across the back of his neck as the form shifted, growing and twisting in Weyland’s grasp. Weyland slashed up and then down with his knife, slicing across the wolf’s eye.
The wolf screamed in pain and rage, a sound like none Weyland had heard since the night the Ravager was slain by fire and terror. With a desperate thrash, it tore loose, catching Weyland’s arm in its teeth and ripping down to his knife hand. Blood flowed freely across Weyland’s knife, and he dropped it, scattering droplets of blood across the rock, and maiden and witch.
Desperate, Weyland fumbled and found his mother’s spear, sliding away from the menacing beast on his backside, raising the wicked spearhead one handed as the wolf stood, shook itself and charged. Braced against the rock that Bronwyn lay upon, the spear caught the wolf in the chest, the momentum of its charge driving the shaft all the way through its body. Its vicious claws caught Weyland across the face, slicing deep into his brow, hind legs kicking hard and opening his flank and hip.
In the woods nearby, he heard Avril struggle against another beast, her snarls becoming more desperate. The witch’s voice rose and with a final cry, lightning struck the stone, flattening them all, and she vanished along with the huntsman’s transfigured body. The snarls of canine combat fell silent, and Weyland wondered through the haze of his blood loss whether Avril had won the day.
After a long moment, Weyland dragged himself up the cold and mossy rock, sitting precariously on the edge next to the still body of the girl. Blood from his leg and flank and arm stained the rock and the moss, and the thirsty stuff turned red with it. The night skies cleared, and a bird began to sing, uncertain, in the distance. Wiping the blood from his eyes with his good hand, he took her hand in his, cradling it against his chest. Blood dripped down his nose again, and he smeared it away with his injured wrist.
He listened to the wood, the wind in the trees, and felt the echoes of Gilda’s spell among the branches. Leaning close, he whispered to the girl.
"If you can hear me, lady, listen close. This wood shall be friendly to you, and the trees will give you what shelter they can if you only ask. The wolf is dead, I think, and perhaps I'm not far behind him. The witch is gone with her own spell. I have nothing more to give you that might save you. Perhaps even my own life won't be enough." He sat still for a moment. "I'm frequently wrong about things, so please forgive me if any of that proves untrue. Forgive me this, too. I'm not a prince, but I have watched you yet a while, and perhaps loving you simply may make up the difference in my birth."
Weyland bent over her again and kissed her lips gently. The bitterness of the water and the coppery tang of blood sweetened under his mouth, and his heart skipped a beat, his pulse racing. He sat by her, keeping watch as the moon arced overhead and then set, hoping that his kiss might be true enough, or his love strong enough to free her from the spell. At length the sky grew lighter, and finally he sighed. Folding her hands together at her waist, he said "I am truly sorry. I hoped it would help. I must go now, sweet Bronwyn. I would not die beside you and disturb your sleep with my rotting." He kissed her once again, fingering the ring on its thong. A tear fell from his cheek to hers, warm in the chill morning. He staggered into the forest to die where he would not disturb her sleep with his rotting.
Hoofbeats came from the far distance, first racing and then slowing, and a midnight horse emerged from the dawning light. He blinked, and perhaps lost consciousness, for he thought he heard his cousin’s voice. “Volund,” Hervor said quietly, urgently. “I haven’t time, you must get on my back.” He opened his eyes and saw the mare kneeling quiet on the ground next to him, waiting patiently. Something in her intelligent black gaze spoke to him of his cousin, and he dragged himself painfully to his knees, pulling himself onto the horse’s broad back. She stood smoothly, and the darkness consumed him as she stepped forth.