The Fall of Waterstone

Woad, Earned

Quick was the Minnow

And sharp was her spear

Bright was her armor

And she knew no fear…

—Gelad son of Aerenil, The Rowing Song

Ibent stiffly, retch-gasping, and struggled to breathe. Along with the pain came bafflement—he had no seidhr, for we weirdlings can tell our own. Yet he had ensnared me with invisible force, and the breaking of his grip sent a shock almost to my very bones.

Not him. Something else.Which meant Arn was facing powerful, malevolent weirding, and I could barely straighten, let alone sing.

“Sol,” my small one said, calmly enough. “Go to the door.”

A ripple passed through Tharos, the wolf turning inside him. The others of Naras shared that small betraying skin-twitch, but his was… wrong. Instead of a fluid melding, two creatures sharing a single goal, his motion was as a jerking, string-yanked puppet.

The horns sounded again, shrilling through my skull. The sound was awful yet the pain was salutary, a sharp pinch from Idra when she tired of an apprentice’s slow, clumsy work.

Try again, Gwendelint’s child. Do better.

Arn was already moving. Her spear flicked, and if she felt any hesitation about attacking an unarmed man it did not show. But Tharos was quick, leaning aside with a crackle of bones; he flung his left hand forward, a low vicious jab.

The ring gave a venomous yellow flash, and I screamed.

Inelegant, certainly. I should have been singing strength into my small one, turning aside any weirding with a chant, parrying or subverting any runnel of invisible force. Yet I could not haul nearly enough air into my lungs, for the bauble trapped in my flesh flamed like the fire-eggs certain birds lay within the cauldrons of restless, heat-breathing mountains.

Sheepshitting stupid Elder thing, behave!Frustration boiled over, porridge left too long upon the fire, and my cry hit Tharos with a crunch, driving him back. His boots scraped long furrows upon the dusty floor, and Arn’s spear whispered within a fingerwidth of his throat.

I had no time to be shocked; I meant only to baffle and confuse, not fling physical force. And indeed, I should not have been able to do so.

Another yellow flash. Tharos dropped into a crouch, bones creak-popping as his knees spread. The fabric of his robe tore as his shape wavered; the close-fitting trousers underneath split along their seams as his thighs swelled. The others of Naras looked like shaggy black inkblots while they moved between one form and the other, but no merciful blurring enfolded the Old Wolf. Nor did he fully take his second shape, though hair rasp-sprouted painfully through skin and his jaw made a deep grinding noise, teeth lengthening and changing.

An unholy amalgam, caught between two-legs and four like the horrible sniffing things flushing out Waterstone’s survivors, hunched its rapidly swelling shoulders and darted aside as Arn lunged again, spearblade whistle-cleaving cold moonlight. Bootleather parted, sheared by lengthening claws, and I wondered how the others kept their clothing intact during—

“No!”Another cry wrenched itself from my throat as the thing Tharos had become reversed with sickening speed. A chunk of masonry evaporated at the end of another scraped-clean trail, my weirding-laden voice flinging stone into the night, and stark fear filled me.

My seidhr was not behaving as it should.

We knew of two-skins in the south, yes. We also knew of different things—not man, not beast, nor yet a sharing between them. I had never heard of a two-skin turning into this manner of abomination; ’twas unnatural, seidhr of the most noisome and forbidden kind.

The varulv’s claws were knives, oddly translucent but sharp-honed indeed, and one paw still bore the ring upon a cramp-curled finger. Its yellow-pricked gem keened, a high sound of stress like wet rope pulled taut by heavy boat and fast current; my small one was all graceful motion, dodging Tharos’s swipe. Her spear halted, spun, whistled down, but she had to give ground as he pressed. A flurry of parries, claws ringing on blade, and I struggled to draw enough air, to do something, anything other than stand witless during battle.

Arn jabbed, feinting, and faded aside as Tharos’s strike blurred through the space she had occupied just a half-heartbeat before. Her face was blank and solemn, hazel eyes shining; in the training-yard at Dun Rithell or sparring in Laeliquaende she often smiled, but this was deadly serious.

Now her back was to the half-gone wall, and the wind sang a plaintive note across its mouth. She edged sideways, feet in green-grey Elder boots soft-quick as a granary feline’s step, her hornbraids mussed and her woad-stripe bearing only traces of blue though the skin itself was dyed darker by its near-constant presence.

The Tharos-thing leapt for her again, its shadows from lamp and moon both distorted. My shoulders met cold, damp wood; it was the door, and I had not even known I was moving. Both combatants were silent save for their breathing, Arn’s quick and deep, the varulv’s edged with a nasty growl. They closed, and though the one who had been the lord of a proud House was fast and fell, my Arn knows well how to hunt a wolf.

Any shieldmaid does. The final test before she may wear the woad is to go into the wilderness, naked or in a thin shift, bearing no weapon. There, she must not only survive with the aid of the Black-Wingéd Ones but also hunt to the death one of the beasts who prey upon her settlement’s flocks. The sagas say the wolf offers itself to her cunning, her strength, and her trust in those who took her at birth.

But it is not a creature to give the gift lightly. A blue stripe must be earned.

Another shattering growl turned into a coughing trill midway, spiraling up. Pinpricks of vile jaundiced light flared in the thing’s eyes, and it bolted for my small one with such speed colorless sparks struck from its amber claws.

Do something.I could not sing. My right hand snapped out, the first two fingers stiff, and seidhr filled me.

Empty air parted, a streak of brilliance lingering after my fingertips. I had no breath, but I did not need it to scratch a rune, did I? A single slashing line, the shape meaning a particular vowel-sound in both our language and the Old Tongue—but its edges were crisp and hard, the symbol itself named for ice in our written language, a sudden snap-freeze descending the moment winter ceases its stalking and springs upon its prey.

My left hand flicked palm-out, a brushing motion; the rune flashed as it was flung. Perhaps my shieldmaid felt the wind of its passing, yet she made no sign—most likely she simply ignored the sensation, trusting me to do my part.

I could not see its landing, for the rune vanished as it approached the abomination. Yet the varulv staggered before lunging at her again.

Arneior skipped aside, and I knew her spearblade was too high. It gathered moonlight, a star shining from its honed tip for a brief bare moment, and another shapeless, hopeless yell bottled itself in my aching, half-stoppered throat.

But my small one was not deceived, nor was she outplayed. Her hands flashed and she leapt as well, the maneuver perfectly timed, using all her considerable strength. Her lips skinned back in a snarl close to a wolf’s itself, very much like one of the men of Naras when facing battle, and the blunt end of her spear smashed into the slavering, snarling face.

Crunch.Foam flew, the thing’s howl turned into a mangled screech, but she was not done yet. No, my shieldmaid landed, knees bending deep, and uncoiled again with devastating force. Her high glassy cry of effort swallowed both her opponent’s noise and another piercing horn-howl, and such was her might in that moment that the lord of Naras—or what had been him a short while ago—was driven to the very edge of the crumbling floor, arms wheeling wildly like a child attempting to regain balance atop a slippery boulder.

My right hand leapt again; this time the lines were firmer, and burned silvergold for a bare moment as I sketched in empty air. Two runes melded together, force bleeding from my fingertips—the horse-and-rider symbol, meaning a partnership, and the lightning-swift angles of a strength-rune, not the torch of day but a quick serpentine cloudflash. My left palm stung when I slapped this new weirding free, as if batting away a flung pebble.

Black veins danced at the edges of my vision. The Jewel halted its torture for a bare moment, perhaps realizing its host was upon the verge of suffocation, and I sucked in a deep, cold, endless breath.

Arn whirled, and so did her spear. A complicated flurry ended with the blade slashing across the creature’s front, not biting deep but adding to its difficulty balancing. Stone groaned sharply, dust puffed, and a splash of blackened blood flew—life-fluid looks darker than usual at night, but this appeared inklike, almost as wrong as the exhausted ichor from orukhar.

Then her spearpoint rose, the haft sliding through her hands loose as a lover’s casual touch. A thundercrack—she drove the blunt end against the floor and leapt with the haft’s aid, her boots smashing into the beast’s middle.

The blow was one too many, and the Tharos-thing—still swelling, still growling, still champing its strong white teeth amid a billow of rabid froth—was flung into the night.

I half expected her to go sailing through the hole too, but my shieldmaid dropped straight down, landing heavily as more stone crumbled.

“Arneior!” I shrieked, and staggered in her direction.

My small one almost followed the lord of Naras that night, for the floor was giving way. She pushed herself backward, gripping her spear whiteknuckle now, and collided with me. The back of my skull hit wood, and I did not mind the pain. Even now I am not certain I did not perform another lunging, impossible seidhr, drawing her from the brink.

Skull ringing and lungs heaving I slumped, pinned between her and the heavy, age-blackened door. “Arn,” I whispered. “Arn. Arneior.”

She gasped, breathing deep now that the battle was done. I held her belt, fingers squeezed tight, heavy leather yielding as warm butter in my grasp.

From below rose shouts—my name, and hers. A hot, distinct tang of smoke rode the whistling breeze. But for that moment I closed my eyes, simply glad I had not lost her as well.