They traveled three days, sleeping beneath stars, and each night the men formed a perimeter around her while she slept, not so different from Hody’s stones.
“No one will hurt you while you are among my men. Not a hair on your head,” Lothgar promised. It was a comfort, and she believed him. He was kind and boisterous, and his men seemed to like him. She liked him; he made sure she was fed and watched over, and he didn’t insist that she speak.
Her appetite was returning, and she ate whatever she was given, but she’d stopped talking, ignoring the questions that everyone wanted answered. She was now Liis of Leok, and it had become her standard response when peppered with questions. She was certain that, just like the old women, Lothgar and his men thought her simple or suffering from something terrible. She supposed she was, but silence was her best response. If she did not speak, she need not lie, and she could not tell the truth. They all wanted a girl of Leok. They would not want a girl who had left plague in her wake.
Lykan seemed intent on instructing her, as though he knew she was not who they wanted her to be. He spoke of the chieftains at length—their clans, their colors, the beasts from which they all took their names. Leok the lion, Adyar the eagle, Berne the bear, Dolphys the wolf, Ebba the boar, and Joran the horse. Ghisla pictured the star Hod had sculpted in the sand as he spoke.
“Do you know the story of Hod?” she asked Lykan when he had finished. Lothgar looked back at her in surprise.
“She speaks,” he grunted.
She immediately regretted it.
“Hod the blind god?” Lykan asked.
Ghisla nodded, just a jerk of her head, but it was enough to set Lykan off again. “Aye. I know of Hod. I know of all the gods.”
“Some believe the Temple Boy is a god,” one of Lothgar’s men said, inserting himself into the discussion. “Some say he is the son of Thor. Many thought the keepers would make him king instead of Banruud.”
“I’ve seen him battle several men at once,” another man said.
“It is not battle if it happens in the yard,” Lothgar grumbled.
“But, Chief Lothgar, he killed a man—several men—when he was still a child,” another warrior argued.
“He is yet a child. Still a boy, though he is the size of a man,” Lykan said. He looked at Ghisla, explaining as he was wont to do. “His name is Bayr. He has no clan. He’s been raised by the keepers; everyone calls him the Temple Boy.”
“His strength is not that of a regular man. His strength is beyond that of the natural world,” Lothgar admitted.
“He can hardly speak, brother. He stutters like a mindless idiot,” Lykan said.
“The gods are not perfect, Lykan. Odin’s sons are as flawed as they are gifted.”
“Hod was blind,” she reminded softly, and for a moment the men were silent, thoughtful.
“Bayr is not a god. He is a boy,” Lykan insisted after a while.
“Aye. A boy the king fears,” Lothgar said, and he laughed as though it pleased him greatly.
Temple Hill rose up out of the ground, so tall and green that the top was ringed in clouds, making it look as though the mount skewered the twilight sky. But Ghisla was the only one who gaped. The men of Leok had seen it before, though they seemed glad to see it again.
“That is the temple mount,” Lothgar said. “On the left, you can see the spires and the dome above the wall. On the right, the king’s keep, Castle Saylok. From the mount you can see in every direction, every clan. ’Tis not a bad place to live, Liis of Leok.”
He said her new name like he was trying to make it real when they both knew it was not. It is just a name, she thought to herself. It is only a name. And it was not so different from Ghisla. It hissed off the tongue in a similar way, though she heard Ghisla in her mother’s voice, and Liis was more like a curse, a whisper cut short. A life cut short. She did not hate the name. It was simply like wearing Hod’s old clothes. It didn’t quite fit. Mayhaps she would grow into it. Or grow out of herself.
“You will ride with me from here on out, Liis of Leok,” Lothgar said. “I’ll be better able to guard you, and I want King Banruud to see that you have my protection. Now . . . and when I am gone.” Lykan dismounted and lifted her from her docile horse and placed her in front of his brother before climbing back onto his own horse. Lothgar’s mount tossed his golden mane and chuffed his welcome. Lothgar wrapped his enormous arm around her waist, securing her against him, and they began the steep climb to the temple entrance and the edifices behind the walls.
As they climbed, the mountain grew. It was much bigger than it had looked from the King’s Village below. The temple spires rising above the clouds had made the top appear elongated, but the mists had entirely disguised the top of the hill and the flat plateau behind the walls. It reminded her of a song where Odin took his sword and cut off a giant’s head: The giant fell to his hands and knees, his back as flat as it could be, and Odin made a table where all the world could come to eat.
Temple Hill was a table where all of Saylok came to eat. Or where all of Saylok came to meet—at least all of Saylok’s men. She had not yet seen any women. Everywhere she looked were men and horses, braided and bulging with leather and shields and weapons of war.
“Make way for Chief Lothgar of Leok,” a voice bellowed from above, and bugles rang out as they rode beneath the portcullis.
The torches that lined the square shot light into the sky and shadows onto every face.
Tents were erected in the space beyond the castle—Adyar gold, Berne red, Dolphys blue, Ebba orange, Joran brown, and Leok green—but the light was being leached from the sky, robbing the flags and the tents and the outskirts of their color. There was only fire and stone, the temple and castle facing off across a cobbled square.
Half of Lothgar’s men proceeded on toward the tents, talking of supper and swords and sore flanks. Lothgar and his brother, the only other face she had a name for, remained seated on their horses in the main square, and she remained with them.
“Are we the last to arrive?” Lykan asked, but his words were immediately interrupted by a trumpeter on the wall.
“Make way for Chief Aidan of Adyar and Queen Esa of Saylok,” the watchman boomed.
A young man on a white horse draped in gold entered the courtyard, an aging woman riding at his side. The woman had a haughty lift to her chin and a yellow cloak that glimmered in the torchlight.
“Adyar has brought Alannah’s mother, the old queen,” Lothgar said, his voice rumbling above Ghisla’s head. “The princess will need her, now that Alannah is gone.”
A warrior helped the woman dismount, and she swept into the castle as though she belonged there. Her son watched her go before turning to his men and instructing most of them to set up camp. Like Chief Lothgar, he remained seated on his horse. His braid was as long and pale as Lothgar’s, but that is where the similarity between the two chieftains ended. He was young enough to be Lothgar’s son, and where Lothgar was square, Aidan of Adyar was sharp. His hair came to a deep V on his brow that echoed the tip of his nose and the point of his chin. He was handsome the way an eagle is handsome, and Saylok’s animal sons took on new significance.
“He’s brought the queen . . . but it does not appear he’s brought a daughter,” Lykan mused, searching the yellow-draped warriors that surrounded their chief.