Page 65 of Blood of Wolves

Rune could only nod.

They started forward at a stately walk, Rune resisting the urge to match Bjorn’s impossible stride and thus look like a child taking overlarge steps. The crunch of snow underfoot echoed in the spiked pit of the dry moat, the only sound in the moments before the portcullis began to lower again, and the outer gate began to lift.

First, he could only see feet on the other side: the hooves of a horse, the wolfskin boots of their own guards, and the ornate, gold-chased boots and greaves of the Sel envoy who’d been sent.His feet must be freezing dressed like that, Rune thought, before fingers plucked at his cloak, and he realized they’d reached the center of the bridge. He halted beside Bjorn, who seemed to grow impossibly taller as he thrust his shoulders back and chest forward.

“Steady now, lad,” Bjorn murmured, lips barely moving.

Rune took a deep breath and stood at his tallest; tucked his cloak back to reveal the sword at his hip, grateful for the more familiar weight of the bow on his back.

The gate shuddered to a halt overhead, and Rune got his first good look at a Sel in person.

Guards had taken his horse, and his sword, but that proved little comfort, given the way Rune’s stomach curdled. The man was tall – Northern tall, broad through the shoulders, heavy through the arms. He wore an astonishing amount of gold plate, and Bjorn had said that was to make themselves appear bigger than they were…but a small man couldn’t have carried that much armor on his person. He clanked as he walked forward to meet them, purple cloak and surcoat streaming along beside him in the wind.

Bjorn held up a hand when he was five paces away. “That’s close enough. Show yourself.”

The Sel halted, and reached with golden gauntlets to remove his golden helmet. The face beneath was startling: milk-pale and sharp-featured, deep-set eyes white-blue, and cold as the snow around them. He wore his hair tied tightly back, so that it pulled at the skin of his scalp, mouth an unforgiving slash of bloodless, compressed lips.

They were an inbred culture, Olaf had said; Rune remembered that much from his studies. A people that bred siblings to siblings, cousins to cousins, in search of “pure bloodlines.” The result was the tall, pale creature that stood before him now, his gaze dispassionate at best, inhuman in its calculated contempt.

Rune took a slow breath, and refused to look away.

Bjorn gestured. “His Grace Rune Torstanson, Prince of Aeretoll. His is the door to which you’ve brought your war. What say your masters?” Old words, formal words, delivered in Bjorn’s deepest, most grating tone. Any man might have trembled in the face of them.

The Sel envoy blinked slowly, regarded Bjorn with the air of a man who’d found he’d stepped in manure, and turned back to Rune. His accent was heavy, when he spoke, threaded with the lilting, vowel-heavy sound of his own language. “My general sends you an offer. Terms for your surrender.”

“Surrender?” Rune managed to scoff; he tried to channel Uncle Erik as best he could, scowling, tipping his head back to look down his nose at the man. “He’s confident that I would do such a thing?”

His mockery was met with unwavering sternness – andsureness. “He knows that you will, sooner or later. Surrender now, and your people will be spared; they will be allowed to flee into the wilderness, or volunteer to serve us.”

“Serve you?” Bjorn snapped.

“In honorable employment, yes. But if you resist, none shall be spared when your keep falls to us.”

“Thispalace,” Bjorn snarled, “has never, and will never fall to anyone – least of which a bunch of shiny bastards like you.”

The envoy ignored him. Gaze pinned to Rune, he said, “You have twelve hours. Then we will come and take you.” He whirled on his heel, purple cloak flaring behind him, and donned his helmet again as he walked back toward the main gate.

Rune gaped after him a moment, cold to the marrow.

“Shit,” Bjorn muttered under his breath. He gripped Rune’s shoulder. “It’s all right, lad, we’ll–”

“Hey!” Rune shouted at the envoy’s back.

The man halted, and glanced back over his shoulder, eyes nothing but pale slits through the gap in his helmet visor.

Rune lifted a surprisingly steady hand, and pointed at him. “I’m going to put an arrow through you. Personally. See if I don’t.”

The man held still a long moment, then continued on, and didn’t look back again.

Rune let out an explosive breath as he watched him mount – at least until the gate began its descent.

“Well.” Bjorn chuckled. “Best deliver, lad.”

“Yeah.” Rune allowed himself a full-body shiver. “Guess so.”

13

“Erik,” Birger said – from several paces behind.

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