I wove between trees, soft green moss grazing my skin, soft black earth melting under my bare feet.
I’d believed I was on my way to Holhalla, and to Viggo … to now find myself still in Vorseland, in an Endless Forest, still alive thanks to a druid with a heart of gold …
It stirred me somewhere deep and raw. I was changing, my heart, my blood, my bones. A part of me was being forged, like steel placed in fire.
Viggo had once said there was steel in my veins.
The entrance to the Bards’ cave was cleverly hidden behind a large spider tree. Hundreds of its white spindly branches wove an intricate pattern of rings that entirely obscured the opening. Madoc and I slipped behind the web and into the cave.
A large fire burned in the center, and the cavern was bright and very warm. I began to sweat almost immediately. I threw off my cloak and looked around. Casks of mead were stacked in neat piles, just as they had been in my death-dreams. Several had been emptied and tossed aside. Water trickled down from somewhere far above. The ceiling was so high it faded into darkness.
The walls of the cave were streaked with ripples of milky-green stone—this was a Jade Cave, then. They were common in the Skal Mountains and were famous hiding places of the Jade Fells—they had, in fact, given the Mountain Witches their name.
“Ink and the other Quicks are off hunting.” Madoc nodded to a figure huddled next to the fire. “There she is, resting.”
Gyda lay with her cheek on her arm, her short blond hair sweetly tousled. I knelt beside her. “I hear that you saved my life, Pig Witch.”
She opened her eyes. “I’m no Pig Witch.”
I reached out a hand, and she grasped it. I pulled the druid to her feet and clasped her in my arms.
Gyda looked at Madoc. “Is the wolf leader still alive?”
He nodded. “And will be for a while yet. I know you have questions for her. There will be time.”
The three of us walked to a deep stream that ran near the cave, silvery water twisting over stones between a grove of thin white willows. We dropped our clothes on the mossy bank and jumped in naked, too dirty and hot to care who saw what.
The cold water washed away the smell of fire, of wolves, of death. It made my blood sing and my heart hum.
We began to lazily tread water, our toes sliding over slick river stones, our lips spreading into smiles whenever our bare limbs brushed underwater.
I noticed Gyda had several delicate cuts under her skin, as if she had been sliced open from the inside.
“Did you get wounded during the wolf attack?” I asked. “Is this from a wolf spell?”
The druid shook her head. “This came with the magic I used to heal you. It will pass.”
I put a wet palm to her cheek. “Thank you,” I whispered. “Thank you, druid.”
“Are those tears in your eyes, Torvi?”
“No.”
“You’re getting as softhearted as this here pipe-smoking Elsh Bard.”
I laughed.
“Gyda killed three of the wolf-priests during the battle,” Madoc said. “She did well.”
“And Madoc took down ten, not counting the scout he killed before we attacked.”
“And all I did was get myself hanged,” I said with a frown. “You both proved better Butcher Bards than me.”
“No, Torvi,” Madoc replied gently. “You are part of our family now. Our success is your success. We are one.”
I felt a sudden wave of fellowship wash over me at this, toward my two companions, toward Ink, toward Sven and all the Quicks.
Is there anything better in life than having brave, true friends?
Some time later we lay on the riverbank, staring up at the cloudless sky.
Madoc pulled his pipe from one pocket and a flask of moongold cider from the other. “Which would you like?” he asked the druid with a smile.
“Both. I did save a dead girl, after all.”
* * *
Ink took me in her arms when she returned from the hunt and held me for a long while. She muttered soft things into my temple—quotes from the sagas about friendship and heroes brought back from death.
Teel, the young Glee Starr Quick, found us all sitting beside the stream as twilight crawled in, smoking pipes and drinking mead and talking softly of irreverent, pleasant things. “The dying wolf is calling for the druid,” she said, eyes on Gyda. “You had better come.”
We followed the Quick, weaving through the trees in the gathering