Swiftwing, Leaflight
Riverfolk! None drive a harder bargain; no others laugh quite so loudly even in defeat. Quick of hand and eye are those who gain their living from trade and raiding, changeful are their tempers, stubborn as rocks under smooth flow. Take care when dealing with a riverlord or his lady, my friend. For the only thing more treacherous than lesser waters is the Sea itself, and the folk born of any shoreline are slippery to match.
—Erdjil the Lame, to his lord Athlat Forkbeard of the East Barrowhills
The first part was merely a matter of keeping pace. Elder boats skimmed over the water, all carrying five save for ours. We were Secondborn, naturally accounted of less speed and strength, and my weight before the prow was an additional impediment—yet Tjorin and the wolves bent their backs with good grace and attention, making Arn’s first task to hold them below a too-early effort.
I had not realized there would be so many competitors. Bobbing upon Naricie’s broad rippling back, pulling from shore and swinging into depth, a flock of wooden birds crowded close. None of the Elder called aloud as Arn did; they preferred hand-signals, for they knew the waters so well silent cooperation was their ideal. Yet they jostled, and this was the first test of skill and daring—many were thrown from the race in the very first flush of speed, capsized or losing rowers to cold water as boats collided.
“Tai-yo! Tai-yo!” my shieldmaid called, a lonely cry echoing from shore to shore. Though others sought to bar our way and oars clashed with dull wooden thudding, we swung and darted through the press, nimble as the minnow the Northerners called my small one.
Arneior’s cheeks flushed and fine spray hung about her, glittering silver as sunshine mounted and high grey clouds shrank. Her woad glowed, a much brighter stripe than the sky itself; for one used to the river-mother at Tarnarya’s feet, her sudden currents and melting floes in spring, this was not quite child’s play.
But it was close.
The rowers faced her, but unlike Elder they had no time to gaze upon a shieldmaid balanced loose-kneed in the stern, her hair afire with dawn. It was her voice our Secondborn friends heeded instead, right, left, ship, now down, tai-yo, tai-yo, two, two, three! It is a matter of trust between rowers and their caller, and those who can guide such efforts are counted hardly less than bards or songmasters.
The first rapids loomed, and crouched in the stern I felt the water change under the boat’s skin, humming upward through my bare soles. I was not looking either, my eyes half-shut and my palms against wet wood. My sole concern at that moment was to be as small and light as possible, trusting in both strong backs and Arn’s lungs to carry us through.
I was not idle while I waited, though. The marks upon my forearms twinged as the boat surged and dropped; I had to hope I had been friendly enough, that our leafshaped steed would not shake us away and go spinning downstream, free as her cousin who had thrown Tjorin and almost landed upon his skull as well.
It is no small thing to attempt weirding in a rocking, roving, splashing, heaving boat upon a river combing over half-drowned or grasping boulders. My skin became hers, her prow rising beautiful as a silver goose’s and her shuddering infecting my own bones, the joy of skimming upon waves hitting the back of my throat like strong mead. Splintercracks and unwilling cries lapped at the white foamsound of the river’s laughter, for the cold water did not like being used lightly, rewarding any inattention—even momentary—with a sudden clutching, a craft smashed to flinders and Elder shorewardens hopping nimbly onto the rocks with long carven crooks to rescue their kinsmen.
Yet Arn’s voice rose, a storm of imprecations harrying the wolves and Tjorin. They responded as a horse will to a well-trusted rider; we whirled, stern and prow exchanging places twice with dizzying velocity before thump, we landed in a cascade of froth and the banks drew away on either side.
Now was the time for greater speed, since we were past the first rapids. Arn chanted, hazel eyes wide and hornbraids darkened with flying mist. The rowers’ backs swelled and shrank as they obeyed, oars dipping and pushing, and we hummed over a riverback gone sleek and tame as a sleeping hound’s.
But under the surface the current gathered itself, and a roaring arose. I had heard it from shore, of course, approaching with every light-skimming step as I ran behind Naciel Silverfoot, but it was another thing entirely to feel the river flex under the keel, lazily inviting us along.
Come and dance, Egeril Naricie said, for I carry all to the whirlpool and beyond, to the sea where the gulls cry over waves much larger than these. Let me show you, hold you, strip you of flesh and polish your bones like the pebbles I have turned silken; time and branch, stone and sorrow, the river takes all.
I felt the boat tense as well, lifting as the rowers worked in unison, no longer four men or three wolves and a mortal lord but a quad-chambered beast with a single will. Arneior cried my name—Solveig! Solveig, now!
I was already rising, knees fluid and my hips moving with the lunging of water over rock. The men obeyed Arn’s cry to ship, ship the oars now, draw them in, lads!
The Teeth were upon us.
No shorewardens waited upon Egeril’s banks here. Evergreens drew close upon one side, dark-frowning, and the river had gnawed at the rock opposite, cutting deep and sheer. Some parts had crumbled, spring’s first melt adding force to the water’s clawing, but a forest of stone spears thrust skyward all across, begging fingers ready to rip the bottom from our fragile craft. Such rocks could dash even an Elder’s body to paste, and here the daughters of Ráen would have fine sport. The current could hold a strong man underwater for long enough to kill even the most lung-sturdy, and Naciel had told me softly of those lost attempting this stretch of rapids.
They were few, for the Elder are hardy and cautious, their boats light and strong. And yet… no wonder she argued against Tjorin’s purpose; no wonder she had been so pale that morn.
A single touch of an oar as we careened past and even a two-skin could be yanked from the boat; one miscalculation and my captivity in this beautiful alien place, along with Arn’s, would be over for good. Yet I rose while the boat shot into the roaring, my arms lifted, grey sleeves falling back and the bracelets on my wrists and forearms—holy seven and powerful five, the runes between them dance-shifting under skin—flamed hot enough to turn the river’s cold to steam. My lungs filled, my head thrown back, and the song burst from me like a sleekwing riverbird.
All who have seidhr may perform some basic tricks and wonders, for every branch of the weirding springs from a central pillar. Yet as a child grows into one of the Wise a particular bough-road calls to them, and they learn the secrets of water, of air, of stone, of black earth. Some learn the forge’s heart, others the living mysteries of wood; many are the riddle- and runemasters. Some may enforce their will upon their bound element; others are beloved of theirs and even stone or fire will rise at the bidding of cherished friends.
But I was elementalist. All branches are available to me, though most not to any great depth. I could not bend Naricie the Whitehaired to my will; even one who had a lifetime to sing and much strength to spend would have lost that battle.
Yet I could persuade, and when dealing with so mighty a beast, sometimes that is all one needs.
The Old Tongue scoured my throat, lifting high and keening silvery, bouncing from sheer rock to the trees hard upon the other side. My feet melded to the leaping, spinning boat; we whirled merrily, a hairsbreadth from one set of rocks, lunging past another, shooting between sharp shivering stonefingers. Arn crouched now, the men clutching their oars and Efain’s feet braced on either side of a bow tucked below his rowing-seat, Gelad keeping a coil of light Elder rope from being flung elsewhere. I could have laughed, for they were wholly in my power at that moment, and the weirding filled me like silt-dark wine.
I sang to Egeril the swift, the cold, to Naricie the foaming; mother I named her like the vast streaming depths at the foot of Tarnarya, sacred one and white-clad, and each looming rock buried under her skin or breaking free to catch us was my brother, as big and blundering as Bjorn.
But that was not the end of my weirding. The song mounted, my throat scraped by its passage and my lungs heaving.
To our boat I sang as well, hoping the few short days of attempting some kind of communication had reached into its curves and overlapping tight-clamped boards. She seemed more hammered or grown than carven, and her skin bore no pitch for waterproofing. She was a light dry leaf upon a fast-flowing torrent, and if we even brushed one of the rocks she would break asunder.
But I called to her, and she responded. Her wooden hide became mine, the river beneath us a cold parental hand—large and protective, though sometimes terrifying as all omnipotent power—and I cried aloud the craft’s name too.
What is named is known, and may be fought. Or befriended.
SwiftwingI called her, Araenail elussieae for the fowl passing overhead each spring and autumn in V-shaped flocks. Nacamasiae I named her for the white-winged birds I had only seen when my subtle selves were freed by drugging fumes from Idra’s brass brazier, flying to the west where the spear-harbors meet the sea. Leaflight, I chanted, Wave-skimmer, Wood-dancer, Daughter of forest and stream. Each kenning was a thread between us, and in the cradle of overlapping strands we were borne fleet and light as the foam itself, whipped into flying gobbets by a heedless rushing roar under the infinitely thin wooden shell bearing her burden along.
And she responded. So did the river, and for a long endless breath I was the cord between them, the link by which a mother is bound to the one in her womb. The boat could have broken to wooden shards at any moment; the river could have decided to consume the tiny motes upon her foam-itching back.
Yet they did not. Lulled by a volva’s voice they cradled us, albeit with shattering jolts, drenching spray, and several hairsbreadth-scrapes, the rocks not quite certain we were friend instead of prey.
Arneior laughed, the sound lost in crashing spume; I am sure one or more of the rowers cursed as they clung grimly to their oars and hoped not to be thrown overboard.
But I? I danced, voice and body both weaving seidhr, and for a long dilating moment I was the river itself, from high springs so cold even an Elder would not survive their freshets to the whirlpool before it submerged, passing under masses of black stone. My heart slammed against its moorings like a terrified horse in a burning stable, and I glimpsed the eventual meeting of Naricie Egeril and great Jarstvik the Elder call Ancarimael for its brownish breadth, water pulled ever onward until it meets the great salt depths and loses itself in forgetting every other name.
Again there was a sense of dropping; our craft sailed airborne for a few moments, light as the bird I had called her. The shock of landing grated all through me, but there was no time for wonder or thought, for Arneior’s voice rang out again and I folded down, realizing I was cold and wet clear through. I had to twist, settling my back against the prow’s comforting solidity, and blink away the spray.
Tjorin’s and Eol’s oars shot out, dug into the river’s skin again. But Efain rose, swaying with the river’s rocking, and we shot along silken rippling at a speed even the glimpse of silvergold on the now-rolling bank could not rival—Naciel, running as she rarely did, at the edge of even her Elder swiftness. She bore a shieldmaid’s spear as she raced and its bladeglitter rivaled that of her hair, a floating banner upon morning breeze, both receding—for she had turned away, cutting across the base of a triangle.
Next the Egeril bent sharply, and I could not sing us past that deadly curve. There was only one way to meet it, a feat of skill any remaining Elder would be proud to say they had accomplished, and it was Efain who must somehow perform it now.