1
ON THE HIGH MOOR OF ELMET, ghostly in the pale winter light, wind hissed like grit through frozen bracken. Hild eased Cygnet to a halt, loosened the reins, and hooked one foot up across the saddle to wait. The big mare turned her rump to the wind, but Hild drank deep of the cold, clean air, unbreathed by any but lost sheep and soaring birds.
Below her, seven riders picked their way up the slope: six striplings, alike in coarse grey cloaks and plain leather caps, and Wilfram, her Hound. In this world of silvery lichen and snow-dusted rock, Wilfram, in the gleaming glory of a warrior gesith, was the only splash of colour: blue cloak, silvered war hat, and great shield, its leather cover painted half in green with the hazel tree of Elmet and half in purple with her own Yffing boar. He was keeping the younglings to a deliberate pace, no doubt to give the lady time to whisper with the wind, or walk with the wights, or whatever else her Hounds thought she did to gain uncanny knowledge. So many songs, so many stories: Hild Yffing, light of the world and godmouth; hægtes and freemartin; Butcherbird and king’s fist.
Old songs, all of them. Time for new ones.
She turned in the saddle, gauging the distance to the top of the moor. From there she could see for miles, and, as new-made lady of Elmet, everything she saw was hers—or would be when she had the spears to defend it.
Three months ago Edwin Overking had given Elmet to Hild and Cian Boldcloak to hold in his name, much to the rage of Osric Yffing, who now must be content to hold only Craven, to the west. This much was known. What was unknown, or as yet undecided, was where Craven ended and Elmet began.
Nothing could be done in Wulfmonath, when sensible folk bided by the fire to make and mend until the world turned back towards the light and the land unfroze. And she wanted nothing begun until she commanded more spears. What better time, then, than now, with no one abroad but the wolves, to train those spears?
Today was their first trial. She and Wilfram should be enough to test these few, though she could wish she had at least Oeric here. But she had left him in Caer Loid, the great vill, because with Cian and her other Hounds gone south to the Wolf festival—glittering with gold and the gear of war, all the better to lure restless and trainable young men—she had no other spears to watch over her folk.
Her group were close now, close enough to see how tightly young Cuthred clutched his reins, how closely he followed the others, how he startled when they passed the mouth of a stony gully and the wind stirred bare saplings taking hold there to eerie creaking. Small saplings, none of more than five years’ growth, they spoke of a land too long without a lord, a land whose folk feared to bring their herds to graze such a lonely place. As lady of Elmet she would change that.
Wilfram called an order for them to spread out and one of the striplings made a cheerful reply—still cheerful despite the cold; still proud of his new spear. She glanced at her Hound and raised an eyebrow. Without moving his hand from where it rested near his sword hilt, he gave her the one-shouldered gesith shrug: Here was as good a place as any.
She motioned them ahead. One of them turned to look back, wondering if she would attack from behind: Bearn, lighthearted and eager, always ready to burst into song. Well, she would change that, too.
Over the rise, out of sight, a peewit’s call rose and fell and rose again, fading into the distance. A gust of wind lifted Cygnet’s mane, and the mare turned to give Hild a mild look. Hild patted her neck. “I know.” Too cold to sit out here and think. Time to begin.
She secured her staff and gathered the reins, watching a throstle’s brisk wingbeat as it climbed up and up, south and east. It was cold out for such a bird. They usually—
The world snapped into enamel-bright clarity, every grass-blade sharp: not a throstle, a pigeon hawk; not flying low after the tasty peewit but rising, rising out of danger.
She kicked Cygnet into a run and whistled, the liquid trill of a blackbird she had trained her Hounds to recognise. Wilfram turned, sword already half-drawn, and she pointed at her eyes, then, with a chopping knife-hand, south and west: Go! And to the youngsters—gaping as Wilfram’s horse disappeared over the rise—the exaggerated fist-clutch and pull of Hold! For a wonder they did, and then she was among them, towering over them.
“Spears!” Cuthred and ever-eager Bearn already had theirs halfway out; the others were hauling awkwardly, excited that the challenge was begun.
“This is no trial.” Her voice was harsh. “South of the rise, someone comes.” Nothing hunted a pigeon hawk on its own moor except people—but it was the wrong time of year for drovers, and any shepherd’s dog would have barked. “We are the only blades between the vill and those who would do our folk harm.” Bearn’s grin faltered. She nodded. “Today you’re spearmen of Elmet in truth.”
The striplings swallowed, stiff and serious. Only one was dangerously pale. Oh, for the rest of her Hounds now …
“Follow my lead.”
She led them uphill, but at a slant, on a track that would keep them below the skyline, to a gap between the boulders just below the top. At their backs the wind was turning northwest. When the clouds dropped their burden she doubted it would be rain. No sign of Wilfram.
Keep them busy.
“Check your mounts,” she said, and watched as they laid their palms on the ribs to feel their breathing, tugged at the girths, and tested the bits as she had shown them.
“Spears.”
They held them out for inspection, still-new and unblemished ash shafts gripped tightly in still-new and unblemished hands.
“Bucklers.”
The small round shields were best for mounted work, and it would be a long time, if ever, before these barefaced boys were ready for the shield wall.
She hefted her staff—bound with iron at each end, and longer than most men were tall—and loosened her slaughter seax in its sheath. Cygnet knew that sound. Her ears pricked forward and the great ribs between Hild’s knees moved faster.
Hoofbeats. Coming at a run. Wilfram.
He skidded to a halt. “Half a mile,” he said. “From the west. At a walk. Eight.”
Bandits?
“Good mounts. Good blades—”
Not bandits.
“—but no banners, no colours.”
Men who did not want to be known. “Gold?”
“Not much.”
A warrior wore his wealth. These men were not the best, not king’s gesiths but lord’s men, though not here to talk or trade. “Craven,” she said. Osric, testing Elmet’s defences—testing her. And all her Hounds but Wilfram gone with Cian Boldcloak somewhere south of Ceasterforda.
Eight. Well-armed and well-mounted, against herself, Wilfram, and six striplings not yet half trained.
She looked at her Hound, then his shield, tilted her head. His slow smile was answer enough. He slid the shield onto his arm, gripped the bar behind the boss, and waited at her word.
She caught the striplings’ gaze, one by one. “We face men who’ve dropped their colours.” She grinned, sudden and savage. “So shall we.”
Wilfram tore off the Elmet colours to show chalk-white planks daubed in bloody red: a man spiked on a stake like a warning. Totem of the Butcherbird.
The striplings paled, knobby bones showing white at wrist and jaw. They looked up at her with eyes huge and dark: a song come to life.
She led them east, below the summit, until she found the gully she was looking for—the steep run south down to the river. It was covered in a thin blanket of snow, but she could tell by the ripples and bumps, the soft flat and rounded humps, what was water, what was reed, and where marsh lay. “Follow exactly.”
She picked out the narrow track winding alongside the fenny beck, then let Cygnet find the way.
The great Yr’s deep vibration grew. When it rumbled in her bones she reined in, signalled them to hold, and slid from the saddle. Staff in hand she crept forward around the last curve in the gully to where trees clustered on both sides of the mouth of the beck, thicker to the east than the west.
From behind the still-red berries of a rowan, she listened. There. Over the deeper note of the river, the jingle of unwrapped harness. Either fools or they had never raided before.
She whistled softly. Wilfram appeared at her shoulder. “They’re close. Take four striplings back into those trees.” She pointed behind her. “Send two to me, here, quick as you like.” She watched the scudding cloud. “At my signal, fast and loud. Drive them back.” Back west through the Gap. “Kill if you must”—no quarter for nameless men—“but drive them.”
Some would die—she could not afford to be careful, not with untested striplings—but not too many. Nameless or not she was not yet ready to risk open war between Craven and Elmet.
They were barely in place among the trees on either side of the beck when the men of Craven came around the curve in the river. The one leading was turned in his saddle, laughing with another. Only one, riding closest to the river, had his shield on his arm and spear forward. She marked him in her mind, knew Wilfram would, too.
She studied how they moved. She looked at the sky. Another two hundred paces and they would be in place. Behind her a horse shifted its weight and she smelt the sudden stink of fear sweat from its rider. Cuthred.
“Steady,” she said.
One hundred paces.
“Ready…”
She felt herself swell, blood coursing rich and thick in her veins, and her heart rose like a great bubble.
A pause and swirl of wind brought sleet slanting in from the raiders’ flank and the man in the lead hunched down against the pearl-grey streaks. His mount slowed and the horse behind him turned to avoid bumping them, then they were milling in confusion. One man jumped down to tug a cloak from the bundle behind his saddle, another was turning from the sting as sleet hardened to hail.
“Now!” And with a sharp whistle, she kicked Cygnet forward, charging the raiders down the path of the wind.
“Butcherbird!” Wilfram bellowed behind her. And Butcherbird! his striplings screeched, and the raiders, astonished, turned into the slash of sleet and jerked their reins in shock at the sight all Craven dreaded, the shield of the Butcherbird. Their panicked horses reared, and she smashed into them.
She moved without thinking, staff punching, short and hard, out and back. Out and back. One man unhorsed and scrambling to his feet, another lolling over the neck of his mount. Feint against the standing man’s head, reverse to sweep his legs. Down. No time to drive him. She leapt down. Punch, punch, punch.
Screaming erupted closer to the bank as Wilfram’s charge hit.
She wiped the blood from her face with one hand, saw Bearn trying to lever the half-conscious raider off his horse with his spear. “Leave him!” The stripling did not let go of his trapped spear fast enough and nearly fell. Cuthred just stared in horror at the bloody mess she had made of the other.
“Leave them!” She jerked Bearn’s spear free. “Bearn!” She threw it to him. “Cuthred!” She pointed at the milling chaos now a little upriver. “Drive them! Drive them!”
She whistled for Cygnet and dived forward, belly down, onto the mare’s back. Cygnet, well-trained, was running even as her rider swung upright, dropped her legs down either side of the saddle, and took the reins.
The riverbank was a whirl of shouts and horse screams, curses and flying blood. The raiders had not run as they should. Even from here she could see one man, cool and steady, moving in to spear a stripling, swaying away from another’s wild thrusts, moving back in. Two of the striplings were unhorsed, and one unmoving, and Wilfram, the pale mane and tail of his mount twisting and plunging, was hemmed in by three mounted men.
She set Cygnet for the man with the shield and charged.
* * *
Bearn died that night in Caer Loid, teeth bared in a hideous grin through the gaping wound in his face.
Hild sat by him on a stool, both hands wrapped tight around his forearm so he knew he did not die alone. Cuthred and the others had mumbled their farewells and fled to the bright warmth of the hall. Fighting men were all the same. Stripling, grizzled spearman, or sleek gesith: They did not like to see the results of their work. They wanted only the songs of gold and glory; to eat the hero’s portion and drown memory in mead; to forget that death was their wyrd.
When the rattle of his breath quieted at last, she lifted her hands and shook out the ache. She leaned back and let the wall take her weight. In the greasy, wavering light of a single tallow dip she studied the wound. A good blade, well-wielded: The tip of the sword had opened the cheek just under the bone, parting skin and muscle like water, then the heavier part of the blade had sheared through the upper teeth and the lower jaw, splintering and cracking the bone, wrenching free and scattering a handful of ruined teeth. The bone and teeth that remained were already drying and dulling.
If he had not lost so much blood from the torn vein in his leg, the wound itself might not have killed him, or not quickly. If he had survived the fever, he would not long have survived others’ horror as he tried to eat; the shying away as he spat and drooled when trying to speak.
They had brought in his saddlebag and left it. As his oath-keeper, she now owned all that was his: spear, horse, even the cloak on his back. She lifted the bag onto her lap and took out a leather roll and a small hemp sack. The roll held one comb, antler, plainly carved; an ear scoop; a spare hair thong. So little. In the sack were a fistful of nuts, coarse grey salt, and two boiled eggs still in their shell—always carry eggs, she told them; they were the perfect war food: always fresh in their own wrappings, easy to eat with one hand …
She saw again his quick look back on the high moor, his eager face, her resolve to cure him of the urge to sing. And so she had.
She took one of the eggs—Bearn would not miss it—crunched and shelled it, and stretched out her legs. She ate slowly, aching all over, as she always did after pouring out strength so hard and fast.
In the distance the songs began. Wilfram would be telling the tale of how the lady had seen through the rock—the solid rock!—of the summit and spoken the doom of nithings from Craven; the striplings would chime in with her call to the gods to sweep blinding ice into the eyes of the enemy; of taking the enemy champion with a single blow …
As a child she had needed her reputation as hægtes and godmouth; it made men listen; it kept her safe. She no longer needed it, but reputation was not something to mend in a night. For now she could, and had, ordered Wilfram to cover the Butcherbird totem before they reentered the vill: in Caer Loid she was lady of Elmet; her men, men of Elmet.
She sighed. Bearn’s body would not wash itself. She finished the egg, wiped her hands on her skirts, and reached to light another dip. The wavering light glimmered on the hairs of her forearm, stiff and bristling with blood—blood smeared past her elbow—and she bent over and heaved up everything she had just eaten.
She stared at the stinking mess on the floor. No. Wiped her mouth with her shoulder. Not now. Not yet.
Copyright © 2023 by Nicola Griffith
Maps copyright © 2023 by Jeffrey L. Ward
