mournful wail of a distant wolf echoed through the forest, making the horses whicker nervously. “There may be no snow, but it’s still cold enough to drive the packs down from the mountains,” she said.
“True,” Oskan answered. “But that wasn’t a wolf, or not completely so, anyway.”
“Another wolfman, here in the Icemark?”
“Wolfwoman, actually.”
“You can tell that? Then can you understand their language? What’s she saying?”
The howling broke out again, descending slowly through the octaves to a deep and strange moan.
“I can understand a little, not everything. She’s warning of something and calling a …” He stopped and in the subtle brilliance of the moonlight his face looked deadly pale. “She’s calling a muster of the Wolffolk! That hasn’t happened in generations! Something big must be going on. Perhaps we should look to the north for war after all!”
Thirrin stood in her stirrups and waved up the escort ready to gallop for Frostmarris. But Oskan grabbed her arm.
“Wait. There’s more.” He listened as the distant howling continued, weaving a melancholy web of sound over the night sky. “No, I was right. The trouble is coming from the south, and she thinks they’ll be too late to fulfill their … Well, she uses the word oath and then says ‘to the Princess.’”
Thirrin gasped, then barked orders at the troopers. “Ditch the torches. We ride for the city!”
“She’s probably right, of course,” Oskan continued as though chatting comfortably by a fire about the price of bread. “The wolfwoman’s obviously just part of a relay sending this message back to The-Land-of-the-Ghosts, and by the time it gets there, whatever’s about to happen will already have done so, if you see what I mean. I wonder what oath she’s talking about. And who’s this Princess?”
Thirrin cuffed him impatiently around the head. “Shut up and ride!”
With that her horse leaped off through the forest. Oskan urged his mount on and then immediately wished he hadn’t as the animal charged after Thirrin and her escort. He clung to the horse’s neck, desperately trying to avoid the branches and twigs that whipped overhead as they sped along the narrow forest track. The rich scents of leaf litter kicked up by the galloping hooves of twelve horses reminded him of the Yuletide cakes he hoped to be eating. But he soon forgot all about food as he concentrated on staying mounted on the wildly galloping animal.
In what seemed an incredibly short time they burst out of the trees and fanned out over the farmland that flowed up to the walls of the city like a windswept fertile sea. If anything, it was even colder here without the shelter of the forest, and Oskan tried to draw his cloak around him to keep out the bitter iciness. But it was no good; he’d no sooner risked life and limb to grab an edge when the wind ripped it out of his hand again. He clamped his jaw shut on his chattering teeth and stared ahead to Thirrin and the cavalry escort. He wondered if he looked as wild as they did, all flailing hooves and billowing cloaks, and concluded that he must.
Frostmarris was drawing nearer, looming over the plain like a disciplined mountain range, all right angles and straight edges instead of jagged peaks. But in the moonlight its granite walls glowed slightly, as though it were made of nothing more solid than moonlit cloud, just waiting for a gust of wind to blow it away across the plain. In the clarity of the night air Oskan could see the glint of spears as the guards made their slow circuit of the walls, and he was struck with a sense of the city’s vulnerability. A besieging army could starve it, break its walls, kill its people. Was that what the wolfwoman’s message was about? But why should the Wolffolk be bothered about Frostmarris? Before he could give any more thought to these questions, he lost his grip and almost slid sideways from the saddle. With a wildly thumping heart he managed to struggle back upright, and he decided to give all his attention to riding and ask questions later.
7
Oskan had been dreading having to sleep in the Great Hall along with all the other less important guests who would fill the castle for Yule. He was used to the privacy of his cave, and the thought of sharing his space with any number of total strangers was daunting. But he needn’t have worried; he had been given his own room.