Samhain Publishing

“Hey, runt, two more over here.”

Hilde bit back her sharp reply and dumped two pints onto the table in front of Skand and his new mercenary friend.

“See what I mean about her eyes, Alfarrin?” Skand said.

She turned away but a muscled arm held her back. Alfarrin curled a lip in disgust and made the sign of Kyr’s Ward, touching his fingers to his lips before jabbing them towards her to fend off evil spirits.

“The Unseen,” he murmured and wiped his hand on his leg. “They let her stay?”

“Her grandmother stopped them throwing her on the fire when she was born,” Skand said. “No one crosses Edda, not even you, if you want beer.”

Alfarrin grunted in disbelief and gave her a cold-eyed look. “Don’t you be using any magic on me, runt.”

She hurried away. The Elephant and Turnip was doing a brisk business tonight, and there were plenty of others to serve so she could keep out of their way. The traders, they always needed beer. She offered up mugs of ale and listened to the villagers whisper about her to the newcomers in the trade caravan. More than once Kyr’s Ward was aimed at her, but she kept her eyes down and carried on. The villagers never spoke to her if they could help it, and avoided her whenever possible, but that was not so bad as Skand and his mission to make her life a misery.

The green dress her grandmother had made her wear was a mistake. It drew attention to her milk-pale skin and odd eyes, to the way her irises covered them like a cat’s, with no white to be seen. She loathed wearing a dress at the best of times, but the colour reminded everyone of the little doggerel that followed her wherever she went. Eyes of grey and eyes of green. They feared the nonsense rhyme and mistrusted her for giving them that fear.

Most of the traders were from the realm of Armand to the north and were darker and more slender than the Gan, more serious too. Tam headed the caravan, a florid-faced man who became more flushed after his third ale. They had lately come from Atlan, capital of Armand.

“Just south of the border a bloody great troll came on us,” Tam said, and she hovered nearby to listen. The traders looked at her askance but said nothing. “It ain’t usual for them to come down from the mountains. It was all we could do to beat it off and run to Ganberg. Other things about too, I hear, odd blue men few survive to tell of. Some say they’re the Unseen…” He looked worriedly at Hilde. “Luckily we didn’t see none of them. Had to hire a couple of mercenaries in Ganberg though, and I ain’t never had to do that before. They sent out some men to deal with the troll, with the King’s Champion no less. I hope he’s a better time of it than we did, though with the way the king’s been acting, he’s got enough to worry him.”

Tam took a swig of ale and wiped the excess from his chin before he carried on. “Leaving Atlan was a relief though, troll or no. Lots of trouble there, all them girls going missing and all. They found one, just before we left. Had her throat cut, all her blood drained right away. Makes me flesh creep just to think about it. Bad for trade too. Makes people nervous, and when they’re nervous they don’t spend no money.”

It made Hilde’s flesh creep too. All she had to deal with was Skand’s torments and Edda’s plans to marry her off to the first man who could be persuaded to take her, even if she had to pay him. The men thought her too scrawny to be attractive. She did not have the plump and cheerful allure of the others, and there were always her eyes to drive the men away.

Tam was very drunk by now and all his words slurred into one long utterance. “Picked her up too.” He pointed to an elderly woman who had come in with them. “She paid us passage. I’d have done it for free seeing how things are, but she’s creepy. My old lady reckons this one’s got the second sight, and the missus knows these things. I call it bad luck. I’ll not be sorry to leave her with you.”

Hilde was called away to serve but took the time to sneak a look at the woman with the second sight. She looked too ancient to move, and it took her an age just to walk from the door to the fire. Even her wrinkles had wrinkles, and her face flowed down her cheekbones in an extravagance of age. She had no teeth but she supped beer with the best of them, and only got sharper as the ale flowed. The old woman gave her what might have been a wink, but with all the wrinkles it was difficult to tell. Hilde hurried away.

The bard started a silly dragon story even the youngest of the audience knew was a pixie tale, a thing for children. Hilde always felt sorry for the bards who believed in wizards, dragons, men who became gods, and things that could not be. If they were real, the Gan would not believe in them anyway. They were too pragmatic, but they did love a good story. The bard moved on to a tale of Regin the Wolf, ancient hero and saviour of the Three Kingdoms, a man who kept his oath even beyond his own lifetime to destroy the dark god Mithotyn and cast him to the Bitter Dark. That might be true; the Duke of Mimirin traced his line back to Regin, and who was she to argue with a Duke?

Sunset was long gone when she was called on to serve the crone’s table. Hilde thought of Tam’s words and the old woman’s wink, and moved up to the table warily.

“What will you have?” Hilde tried not to look at her, but she seemed not to have heard anyway.

“I’ve been looking for you.” The woman’s voice was older than mountains, her words so slurred Hilde had trouble making them out.

Gods, she’s steaming drunk, whoever she is. “What do you want to drink?” Hilde spoke slowly, well used to drunks.

“I’ve been looking for you,” the woman said again. “You’re the one with no father. The one who dreams.”

Who had told the hag? She would have words with them. The men at the table hid their faces in their mugs and tried to avoid her glare.

“What would you know about my father?” Hilde snapped. It was a sore point.

The answer was a stream of giggles far too girlish to come from those wizened lips. Hilde’s temper began to get the better of her as the woman reached up and fingered the pendant at her neck.

“A good luck charm, is it?” she asked. “Maybe, but it’ll bring as much bad as good when you leave tonight. It’s almost time to call him back.”

Hilde wished she knew what the old bag was on about. Skand watched them, and a curl of his lip mocked her.

“I’m going nowhere, no matter what you’ve seen.” Hilde was worried more about the look on Skand’s face now than some old woman and her flights of fancy.

“Oh, you will. You won’t be coming back after what happens with them.” The woman pointed at Skand and his new friend, and Hilde gritted her teeth against the flutter of fear in her stomach. “The Power of the Dead is found. It’s time to call him back. If you do, you’ll find your other kin, your father’s kin, and where you belong. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

Hilde nodded dumbly. It was often all she thought about. She did not belong here. She was too different to ever be accepted, or anything other than feared.

“He’s looking for you. Sending them to get you. The wizard will help you. The words belonged to your father, and now they’re for you to read.”

“You’re mad.” Fear sharpened Hilde’s voice. “I can’t read. And there’re no wizards.”

The crone’s smile was full of pity as she leaned forwards to touch the pendant that Hilde had owned for as long as she could remember. “Doesn’t matter, these words are yours now, by right. When you leave, go south, out of Ganheim.”

She did not wait for an answer but rose from her chair and pottered from the inn. Hilde was not sorry to see her go.

By midnight Hilde could take the hot smoke, the murmurs and sly looks no more. During a lull in men ordering ale, she took a moment to go out the back door for a breath of air. The old woman’s words had shaken her, she could not deny that.

She fingered the pendant at her throat, the only thing she had of her mother’s. Made of moonstone, it was covered with odd markings inlaid in a luminous blue that gave her a headache when she looked at them. Until today, she had thought nothing of the pendant other than it was a reminder of her oddness, even amongst her family.

Her mother had been either fey or stupidly stubborn, depending on who told the tale. Whichever, she had left without a word when she was sixteen and returned ten years later, pregnant, with a wedding ring and enough gold to confirm she carried some noble’s illegitimate child. She never once spoke her lover’s name before she died in childbirth.

Once Hilde had been born it became clear. If she was the daughter of a nobleman, he was not one of their race. It was a close-run thing before she was suffered to live, although not accepted. Yet Hilde had never quite managed to gather the nerve to leave. At least in Erna she knew her enemies and how to avoid trouble, and Skand.

The door opened behind her. The wide-shouldered bulk of Skand and Alfarrin blocked the light as they staggered through, drunk as lords. Hilde took a wary step back. Skand had always been the leader of the casual cruelty against her. He had named her “runt” even before she could talk. As they grew, that progressed to “bastard”, “Spawn of Mithotyn” and beyond, to humiliation at every turn and a volley of punches and kicks when he thought he could get away with it. The beatings stopped when she broke his nose with a poker, but the humiliations came in other ways now.

At over six feet tall, Skand was a good foot taller than her. The mercenary was even taller, and wider. She had never seen a Reethan before. The dusky skin and black tattoos that swirled across his face were utterly alien. His fingers tapped a rhythm on the pommel of his sword.

Skand grinned nastily and they moved towards her. Small she might be, but she was quicker than them, and sober. Bow and sword were not far away in the stables, though she had never used the sword. If she could not reach those, her hunting knife was in a sheath at the small of her back. Her hand moved round so she could grab it if need be. She had never used it in anger but her hunting trips had taught her to use it well.

“Here she is,” Skand said. “Now we can see about that bet.”

“She’s a bit skinny, but any whore in a storm.” Alfarrin leered at her. “Remember what I said about them Unseen. Be careful she don’t suck your soul out.”

She knew now without a doubt what was coming. Skand had threatened it long enough, but he would never have dared on his own.

“Lay a hand on me and you’ll regret it,” she spat. “How do you think Skand got that crooked nose?”

Alfarrin just laughed. The small family braid that should have hung by his right ear was missing. No braid, no honour, or that was how it was here in Ganheim. He had nothing to lose. Maybe, faint hope, Reethan warriors did not wear the braids. She knew nothing of them other than they lived in a desert land far to the north, past Armand, and were said to be vicious fighters.

“What can you do to stop me, runt?”

He clamped a hand over her mouth and twisted her arm behind her back in a grip of iron, so any struggle just increased the pain. He lifted her up by her elbow, off her feet, until her arm must break. She screamed but the huge hand covered her mouth and nose as effectively as a gag. Skand grabbed one of her plaits and yanked it hard enough to pull a clump of hair free by its roots. Tears stung her eyes but she blinked them back. They only made Skand worse.

Alfarrin thrust her into the stables and threw her down in an empty stall. As soon as the hand left her mouth she screamed, but he drew a long knife and held it towards her, its tip a finger’s breadth from her eye. He slapped her round the face with his other hand and knocked her head into the flagstones. Warm blood trickled from her nose and she tasted copper in her mouth. She did not try to scream again.

“Any more of that, I’ll cut that face up.” He turned to Skand. “Hurry up, and save some for me.”

She scrambled backwards and tried to move her numbed right arm round for her knife, but then Skand’s weight was on top of her. His hands crushed her wrists and his grin grew with every flinch.

“Why are you doing this?” she gasped.

“Because you need taking down a peg or two. You act so high-handed, like you’re better than me just because you’re some runt bastard. So you can’t use any of that Unseen magic on me like the spawn of Mithotyn you are. Because I can.”

He ground his mouth against hers and his teeth drew blood on her lips. Even without the weight that crushed her, her breath would have come in gasps. She had to stop him but it was hopeless, he was too strong.

With one arm against her throat to pin her, he used the other to undo his breeches. He hitched up her dress and she cursed her grandmother for making her wear it. Her leather leggings might at least have given him more trouble. He shifted and one of her legs came free. She thrust her knee up as hard as she could between his legs.

Breath whooshed out of him and he doubled up. She gripped her knife and dragged out a blade longer than her hand. He recovered enough to grab for her wrists, but she thrust the knife between his ribs.

Blood gushed over her and Skand’s dead weight forced the breath from her. The blood, the weight—it was just like the dream. Then she was free of him.

She had forgotten about Alfarrin. “Bitch! Oh, you’ll pay little whore.”

Alfarrin grabbed for her but she still had the knife in her hand—in his drunkenness he seemed to have forgotten it. The blade sliced a clean line up his cheek and he jerked his head back in time to avoid losing an eye.

Blood made a crimson mask of his face, a bogeyman to scare children with, but he was all too real as he lunged for her. She twisted away from him, her arm slippery with Skand’s blood, and broke his grip. With a quick dart past him, she made for her horse.

Alfarrin’s hand almost caught the swirl of her dress as she dived into the stall and ducked around the horse’s tail, something it always hated. The horse lifted both back feet, kicked out behind and caught Alfarrin straight in the gut. He sagged to the floor with a breathless grunt. Thank the gods for her bad-tempered horse. She backed him out of the stall, no time for saddle or bridle, but she took the few seconds to retrieve her bow, quiver and short sword from the tack room.

The old woman had been right, curse her. If Hilde did not want to end her days at the point of a Justice Disciple’s sword, then she had to leave, now, for good. She grabbed the halter rope, leapt up onto the horse and kicked him into the night as fast as he would go.

Burning applewood scented the air when she passed the shrine, as it did every week on Regin’s Day. Please, help me, Regin. She rode until her lungs stopped their ragged gasps for breath. Soon she was shivering, and not from the late spring chill.

That damned old woman. Hilde cursed with every vile word she knew.