Free By the Mountain Bound by Elizabeth Bear

flees me, and I pursue it. Something threatens me, and I slay it. And then . . . darkness. I awaken afire, surrounded byice. This part is clearer. There is a Tree, and the Imogen, and . . . then I fall into darkness. And you know the rest.”
    “I do?” Strifbjorn didn’t even remotely understand him, but as he spoke his hands relaxed on the furs.
    “Raising the world from the waters. Our song.”
    “Ah. Indeed.” Strifbjorn brushed Mingan’s hair back from his face, hiding the gesture with his shoulders. They shared a moment’s regard.
    “I’m leaving,” Mingan said quietly. He stood, casting about for his clothes. His blade leaned against the wall by the narrow head of the bench.
    He was already pulling on his leathers when Strifbjorn stopped him with a touch. “Leaving?”
    “Back to the mountain. I cannot stay. I cannot breathe this air.” He gave Strifbjorn a look of feral desperation. Strifbjorn backed away.
    “As you wish, brother of my heart.” The war-leader pitched his voice low, but Mingan reacted to it. He fumbled his shirt off a hook in the turfed log wall.
    Lacing the collar, he turned back. “Come and find me,” he whispered. “Soon.”
    He caught up his cloak and his blade and was gone out the door. Not running, still he appeared as if he fled.
    The Wolf
    A t the edge of the wood, the pack greets me. I have been gone too long, and they are fearful at the strange stinks thatcling. The odor of my own blood that hangs on me. They like not my unbound hair, nor the scent of a woman on my skin.
    We run. After, they pace me to our denning-place. No flowers wait this time, and I am sad. The roughly cleaned corpse of the buck begins to stink despite the chill. I plait my hair. Then take the carcass by the antlers and drag it where scavengers cannot get it and it will not foul the den.
    When I return, the wolves quiver on tiptoe, hackles raised. Each faces west, inland, across the shoulder of the Ulfenfell and down into the valley, where a village called Dale lies. I swing into the wind and I, too, catch the scent.
    Strifbjorn. Already.
    I did say “soon.” I leave my not-brothers and go to meet him on the trail, smelling the trouble on him before I come close. The veering wind brings me another scent—the flower-gathering maiden. But distant still. She must wait, if it is me she has come for. I step from shadows, into the presence of my brother. He smiles when he sees me, his eyes tired. “Are you well?”
    “Well enough.” I close the distance. He reaches out roughly and pulls me into his arms. The embrace should be suffocating, but it comforts and enfolds. I lean my head on the soft, smoky bear fur around his shoulders and sigh.
    “You frightened me,” he says into my ear.
    I look up. “The terms of the combat were not death.”
    “But you would not yield.”
    “No. I will not yield.” It is good to stand in his arms. Rarely may I touch him thus. “You should not be here.”
    He steps back, takes my elbow and leads me to the archingroot of a gnarled oak. He straddles the root, leans against the trunk. He pats the bark between his legs. “Where should I be?”
    I swing a leg over the root and sit. He pulls me back until my head rests on his shoulder. “Bringing the brethren together. Finding a high point, a place of power that they will serve you even in the face of this Lady. What does the Light say of her?”
    “I’m granted no swanning ,” he admits. “The Light is silent.” His chest shifts against my shoulders. He passes a drinking skin. It sloshes when I take it, and I raise it to my mouth and jet expected wine or mead down my throat.
    I cough ferociously on what I get. Eyes streaming, I complain. “Brandywine? You could have warned me.”
    He reclaims the skin, drinks. “I thought the occasion demanded hard liquor.”
    Another laden silence follows, during which I drink again. More than I should. “Thee,” he says against my ear, changing tone. “I have had enough