Chapter 34
When Raye next awoke, it was to the familiar sound of Svein’s feet pattering across the floor.
“Mama!” his small voice exclaimed. “Papa just told me we’re going to Orc Mountain today! Is that true?!”
Raye blinked her bleary eyes open, and found Kalfr’s tall form standing beside the bed, lighting the lamp, while Svein excitedly bobbed up and down beside him. “Is it true, Mama?” Svein demanded. “We’re really going together?”
Raye stiffened against Gaelfr’s warm bulk behind her in the bed, because oh gods, they were going to Orc Mountain, today.
She’d really agreed to that last night, along with everything else they’d done.
And afterwards, she’d fallen asleep with Kalfr and Gaelfr, only to awaken partway through the night, and find that Kalfr was gone.
But when Raye shot a furtive glance up toward Kalfr beside the bed, he met her eyes, and gave her a small, cautious smile. As if he didn’t have any regrets about last night. And as if he didn’t mind her and Gaelfr still being curled up in bed like this, either.
It was enough that Raye could draw up a smile too, and find her breath. “Um, yes, love,” she told Svein. “We’re going to Orc Mountain today, together.”
Svein yelped with delight, and whirled around to frantically tug at Kalfr’s arm. “You were right, Papa!” he exclaimed. “What will we do there? Will we see everything from the book?”
Kalfr’s grin toward Svein was unmistakably fond, his hand patting against his hair. “Ach, aught you wish to see, son,” he said. “And more. Mayhap we will even see a match in the Bautul fighting-pit.”
Svein yelped again, flailing his arms so frantically that he accidentally tossed Mr. Snuggles across the room. To which Kalfr chuckled, and then he strode over to fetch Mr. Snuggles from where he was lying against the far wall, and handed him back to Svein again.
It was such a small, insignificant gesture, but Raye felt strangely caught on it — and on that genuine grin on Kalfr’s mouth, the undeniable grace in his steps.
He looked relaxed, natural, more at ease than Raye had seen him yet.
And as she studied him, it occurred to her that maybe…
maybe he was looking forward to this trip today.
Maybe he wanted to take Svein to Orc Mountain.
Not to steal him away, like Raye had feared for all those years, but maybe just…
to show it to him. To share it with him.
To introduce him to his people, and their home.
“Ach, you shall enjoy this, son,” came Gaelfr’s gravelly voice from behind Raye. “Now, let us ready ourselves, so we can make good time, and return home this eve.”
This eve? Raye blinked, and darted a surprised look toward him. “We’ll have time to return here by tonight?” she asked, surely with too much relief in her voice. “We won’t need to stay?”
Gaelfr shook his head, and gave her a reassuring pat beneath the fur. “No, the mountain is less than two leagues from here,” he replied. “And as the honoured voreur of this byrgi, Kalfr will not wish to leave it unguarded long.”
He sounded utterly certain, enough that Raye half-expected Kalfr to counter this, but instead, he nodded. “I have already begun packing, and cooking breakfast,” he said. “So come, and eat.”
He didn’t wait for their reply, but he smiled again as he waved Svein toward the door. Again, as if he wanted to do this. As if this was only a fun family outing for the day, and not a trip to the notorious, dangerous Orc Mountain, to ask his clan for aid against a vicious enemy.
But maybe Raye needed to think of it that way, too. She wanted to prove this. She wanted to find the hope in this.
So she quickly rose and dressed together with Gaelfr, tugging on yet another shabby, baggy dress, and washing up in the basin.
Then, without prompting, Gaelfr once again braided her hair, his hands firing sparks of pleasure with every gentle scrape and tug, but Raye fought to ignore it, and focus on today. On proving this, at Orc Mountain.
They ate a quick breakfast of fried meat and mushrooms together, and once they were ready to go, instead of leaving through the main door, Kalfr thoroughly locked and barred the byrgi from the inside, and led them back down toward the tunnels below.
Where they walked through the long, curving tunnel leading west for what felt like a considerable distance before Kalfr unbarred another steel door tucked deep into the earth, and took them through a rocky ravine, and up a jagged hillside into the sunlight.
Svein, of course, enjoyed every moment of it, and kept up an excited stream of questions throughout.
Not only about the byrgi, but about the tunnel, and the path they were now following, and especially about Orc Mountain.
Which had begun to feel alarmingly close, looming higher and higher above them, and streaming long plumes of black smoke into the sky.
Kalfr answered Svein’s questions with easy kindness, and even the occasional companionable glance back toward Raye and Gaelfr.
As if, again, this was only an enjoyable family outing, and Raye fought to keep believing that, to keep the smile pasted on her face.
She would do this. She would prove this.
Keep walking, following on the path, further and further, until they rounded a bend, and found…
Orc Mountain.
Raye’s steps faltered, her breath choked in her throat, because gods, it was huge.
Rising up grey and jagged above them, its highest peak veiled by hazy white clouds.
Its base before them was fronted by a large clearing, with several outbuildings scattered about, and a broad cobbled road that led to what must have been the main entrance — but the road and outbuildings looked comically small in comparison to the mountain’s huge towering bulk behind.
And did Raye really need to go in here, could she really trust them enough to do this?
“Orc Mountain!” Svein squeaked, clasping Kalfr’s hand, and staring agog at the sight before them. “Papa, we’re really here! I can’t wait to see everything!”
Kalfr’s smile down at him was almost painfully affectionate, but then he glanced up to where two new figures were jogging out from the mountain toward them. Two new orcs, tall and powerful and bare-chested, both with jagged curved swords in their hands.
Raye froze, her heart pummelling against her ribs — had these orcs come to interrogate them, or attack them?
But Kalfr didn’t look even slightly concerned, and his smile broadened as he waved toward the orcs, beckoning them closer.
While beside Raye, Gaelfr’s eyes flickered first with surprise, and then with unmistakable recognition, as if he knew these orcs, too.
“Brother!” the first orc exclaimed toward Kalfr, flashing him a broad, delighted grin. “Ach, what is this? Is this your son?”
He sounded astonished, incredulous, and he didn’t wait for Kalfr’s answer before crouching down before Svein.
“You are Svein, are you not?” he asked, with another swift, stunning grin.
“You scent just like your father! I am your Bautul clan brother Eyolf, and this” — he flailed a hand up toward the second, more serious-looking orc behind him — “is Iyolf, my ástvinur, and your brother also! We are both so honoured to meet you!”
This Iyolf’s severe expression hadn’t changed, but he curtly nodded toward Svein, and raised his hand to his heart.
While Svein blinked back and forth between them, and — after a searching glance toward Kalfr — he cautiously smiled back, shuffling on his feet.
“I didn’t know I had more brothers,” he said shyly. “Are you my Papas’ brothers, too?”
This Eyolf nodded and grinned again, glancing up toward Kalfr and Gaelfr — and then he startled, and leapt back to his feet.
“Gaelfr?” he exclaimed, more incredulous than before, as he lurched forward, and hauled him into a tight embrace.
“Last time Iyolf and I saw you, we were yet younglings! Ach, but we have never forgotten your sparring lessons, have we, Iyolf? Have you come to stay? Will you do yet more training with us?”
Gaelfr’s smile toward this Eyolf as they drew apart was undeniably fond, and he gave a firm, companionable shake to his shoulder.
“Ach, mayhap, little brother,” he said. “Though not today, for we have not come to stay, but to seek an audience with the Bautul. We have already spoken with Captain Olarr, but we now wish to meet with Captain Silfast, and Joarr, and any others within our clan who ought to hear this.”
Eyolf’s eyebrows rose, and he darted an unreadable look backwards, toward Iyolf’s stern face.
“I am sure we shall welcome this,” he replied, “but Silfast and Joarr and their kin are away until this afternoon. But you shall gladly wait until then, will you not? And show the mountain to your son, and… his mother?”
It was the first time Eyolf had acknowledged Raye’s presence, but as she blinked back toward him, she realized that of course he’d known she was there.
And his previously genial eyes on hers had gone uneasy, mistrustful, while behind him, his bond-brother Iyolf was frowning at her with downright hostility.
“Or mayhap she would rather wait outside,” Iyolf said, in a deceptively soft voice. “As she has so oft wished the rest of us to do, all these past summers.”
Raye’s breath seized, and sudden bitter awareness flooded through her thoughts.
They… they knew who she was, then. They’d surely been among the orcs Kalfr had sent to her, perhaps watching over her, or dropping off goods and coin at her door.
They’d perhaps even been some of the orcs who had knocked, and begged in vain for a few moments to speak, and slipped Kalfr’s letters through the crack.
They knew everything. They knew all Raye’s shame, all her failings.
And gods, how many of the other orcs here at the mountain knew, too?
How many of Kalfr’s acquaintances and clanmates?
Surely… all of them, right? Surely they would all have known about Kalfr’s son, and asked why he’d never once brought him to visit?
Raye’s face burned, her arms folding over her chest, and curse it, now Svein was looking at her, too.
His expression was just as unreadable as Kalfr’s had so often been, these past days, and the sight of it struck Raye with more misery, more bitter dread and shame.
How could she face this mountain, and all its certain judgement, without it negatively reflecting on Svein?
He’d been so excited for this visit, and she couldn’t ruin it for him. She couldn’t.
“Right, then,” she managed toward this Iyolf, and his cold, unfriendly eyes. “If it would be best, I’ll be happy to stay out here and wait, while Svein goes with my —”
She bit her lip just in time, because what else had she been about to say? Svein would go visit the mountain with her lovers? Her enemies? The two bonded orcs who she’d helped to keep apart all this time, and who were very possibly only tolerating her for Svein’s sake?
But then — Kalfr. Kalfr’s tall body, stepping quick and jerky toward her. And Kalfr’s hand, settling together with Gaelfr’s on her back, and Raye frowned up at him, not following that look in his eyes. What was he doing, what was he saying, was he…
“Raye will come with us,” Kalfr said, his voice deep and certain. “And you will welcome her with only honour and kindness. For she is not only the mother of our son, but she is” — he took a breath — “our mate.”