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Mother was furious after dinner, upbraiding him over his absence during the day’s entertainments. She’d come looking for him, and found him in the service hall that led, after a number of staircases, to the stairs that walked down into the cold caverns of the Nágrindr. How funny, he thought without humor, that she’d come looking for him on the path to the dead when she couldn’t find him elsewhere.

As usual, she didn’t acknowledge his Guard as humans capable of hearing.

“…and then,” she continued, voice climbing to something in the startled owl register, “I have to find out from one of the stable boys that you were seen walking alone in the garden with Lady Brigida!”

“Mother, you’ve never spoken to a stable boy in your life,” he said, mildly, just for the pleasure of watching the flush in her face climb up to touch her fair brows.

“Why, you–”

“Secondly,” he said, “I wasn’t alone with her; all of my Guard was in attendance; she came to watch us spar in the training yard. Thirdly,” he went on, in the face of her white lips and red cheeks, “you invited Lady Brigida here. Am I to take it you don’t approve of her as a possible wife?”

“A true gentleman doesn’t show such favoritism!” Little flecks of spittle struck his cheek, cold as her expression.

He wiped his face with deliberate motions. “Yes, well, we’re not in your homeland, Mother, and I’m not a gentleman. Here in the Fault Lands, I’d be perfectly within my rights to drag my bride of choice behind a hedge and fuck her in front of my men.”

An exaggeration, yes, but it had the desired effect. Her eyes flew wide and she made a choking, scandalized sound, hand fluttering to her throat.

“Now, if you’ll excuse us.”

She was still making shocked, high-pitched noises as he stepped around her and, thankfully, she didn’t try to stop him again.

~*~

Valgrind greeted him with glad trumpeting, down below, and ran circles around him, tail swinging dangerously back and forth.

Einrih dodged one of said swings and pointed toward a corner of the cavern, saying, “We’ve brought him a few sheep, as you can see.” Only bones remained.

“Yes, yes, fine,” Náli told the overexcited drake, and scratched along his jaw and behind his horns until he settled, eyes slitted and purr rumbling in his chest. “Do you remember what we did last time? We’re going to do it again.”

It wasn’t frightening, this time, now that he knew what to expect. He gripped Valgrind’s neck spines and kicked along beside him; knew to hold his breath, close his eyes, and brace himself for the squeezing pressure of travelling forcefully through the gate.

They arrived as before, Náli dressed as always, Valgrind shaking white water off his frills. Birds trilled in the distance; bees hummed in the blowsy white wildflowers that dotted the meadow. But when they crested the hill, they found a village that was not merely quiet, but abandoned.

Doors stood open, swinging faintly in the breeze; through them, Náli glimpsed half-eaten meals on tables swarming with flies. Overturned chairs. Fires had burned down to coals, the contents of the cookpots above reduced to black sludge adhered to the bottoms. He found a doll lying in the street, its straw-stuffed cloth arms flung out to the sides, its hand-stitched face scuffed with dirt. That disturbed him most of all, for some reason; the people who’d lived here were dead. What could have caused them to flee? What could harm the dead?

Pulse skipping with uneasiness, he laid a hand on Valgrind’s shoulder, and together they continued.

The longhouse, when they reached it, emitted no smoke from its roof. A deep inhale revealed a lack of fragrant herbs and cooking smells. Náli knew before he pushed the door open that he would find it empty; it seemed to hum with that particular quiet only found in deserted places.

“Hello?” he called, voice echoing off the high timbers of the ceiling. He startled a pair of doves in the rafters, and they fluttered clumsily out through the open windows. At the center of the house’s single room, sand had been raked over the fire, and the pots sat stacked in a corner, along with the shaman’s usual stool. The herbs, he noted, always suspended from support posts in dried bunches, spaced with ropes of onions, garlic, and dehydrated fish, were gone. Unlike some of the cottages, the longhouse had the distinct feel of intentional leaving about it, like the shaman had taken the time to pack what he needed, and organize the rest before he departed.

“Where did you go?” he asked the empty air, turning in a circle, staring up through the open smoke hole at the hazy clouds above. Shouting: “Where are you?”

No answer, save the call of birdsong.

“I don’t even know his bloody name,” Náli grumbled, to which Valgrind replied with a kirik from the open door. “I don’t suppose you know how to go about following him, do you?”

Valgrind withdrew his head, and shuffled away, tail curling and flicking like a cat’s. Náli followed. When they were side-by-side once more, Valgrind lifted his head, tested the air, and then set off at a lope, heading down the track and out of the village.

Náli had to run to keep up, and though he was young and fit, it turned out that a person grew tired and flagged even beyond the mortal realm.

“Wait, wait.” He clutched at his ribs and grimaced, stumbling on his next step. He staggered to a stop, breathing roughly against the stitch in his side. “I can’t – keep running – forever,” he panted.

Valgrind swung his head around, cocked and assessing; then he gripped the back of Náli’s tunic with his teeth.

“Stop! Bloody – what are you doing? You beast!” But his waving and kicking went disregarded, and he was swung up and placed neatly on the natural dip just behind the drake’s withers, where a saddle would fit.