Tangled webs - Elaine Cunningham [135]
"it is done; it is enough," Alflilda pleaded. "Come and let me tend your hurts."
"My sword," he grated out.
The woman hesitated only a moment; then she hastened back to fetch the fallen weapon. Wedigar sheathed it, then put one arm around Alfhilda's shoulders, accepting her offered strength. "i must get down to the water's edge," he said, grimacing as a new wave of pain struck him. Alflilda had heard the story of the Rashemi's curse, and she followed her husband's reasoning at once. The frenzies ofHolgerstead's warriors would cease when the enemy disappeared; Wedigar intended to ensure that Fyodor stopped fighting as well.
Alflilda's eyes were bright with a pain deeper than Wedigar's as she helped her husband toward the coming battle, and perhaps toward death. Although she was justly proud of her husband's battle prowess, she had seen the young Rashemi fight, and fear chilled her to her soul. But Wedigar had his duty, and she had hers. She would accept her husband's choice and give him what aid she could.
By the time the struggling pair reached the shore, the last of the sahuagin were splashing frantically into the waves. The Ruathen berserkers ceased at once, some of them drooping with exhaustion, others chanting out victory songs. Only Fyodor was not appeased by the disappearance of the sea folk. Still in bear form and snarling with battle lust, he prowled back and forth along the shoreline.
"All of you, back to the fortress!" Wedigar commanded. The men eyed the raging shapeshifter and hesitated, made uncertain by their love and loyalty to their First Axe.
But the Northwoman seized the axe from her husband's belt and brandished it. "Obey the First Axe, or die by a woman's hand," she shouted at them, her eyes blazing.
The men nodded and fell back, shamed into compliance by Alflilda's devotion and fortitude. Without a backward glance, she followed them into the fortress and threw her weight into helping to close the massive door that would bar her husband from the safety of the fortress.
Wedigar waited, his sword still in his scabbard, until the Rashemi in bear form at last turned away from the sea. The bear's eyes, a bright and incongruous blue in his darkfurred face, burned with killing rage as they settled upon the wounded warrior.
For a long time they stood so. Then a shudder ran thraugh the massive form of the bear, and the fur began to recede, disappearing into the pale-skinned body of a man. In moments Fyodor of Rashemen stood before Holgerstead's First Axe, naked and white with exhaustion, but otherwise unhurt.
He looked at Wedigar with puzzlement, taking in the man's many wounds, the hand poised on the hilt of his sword. Then understanding came, and he nodded slowly. "You came here to kill me," he whispered.
"Yes."
The young berserker drew in a long, shuddering breath. "For this, i thank you," he said simply.
Wedigar responded with a grim smile and shrugged off Alflilda's cloak. He handed it to the young warrior. As Fyodor wrapped it around himself, the First Axe swayed. "i am glad it was not needed," he said in a fading voice. "You are now a true hamfarrigen, my friend, and trusted in this as in all other things."
Fyodor caught Wedigar as he fell and slung the unconscious man over his shoulder. Slowly, painfully, he climbed the steep and rocky path that led back to the fortress village. The door swung open to admit them. Several men rushed forward to take Wedigar from Fyodor's hands, and they carried him into the keep to be tended by the village shaman. Following Alfhilda's calm direction, the other villagers fell to work tending the wounded, building a funeral pyre for the dead, dragging the