Aage must hear it, but he directs his words to me. “You are the Horned King,” he declares with iron in his voice. “Your title was earned through your service to our people. Your gifts have brought us safety and justice and prove time and again you are touched by the gods. Perhaps it’s time we remind them of that.”
It’s not a promise to keep me from danger, but it is a promise to reestablish my might before the huscarls, including those who actively discredit my title. Considering all the nasty little details I uncovered during our travels about the shadow man’s work throughout the Wylds—specifically what he’s done in these clans’ territories and how the huscarls’ people suffer from their negligence—I can bring the wrath of the Sluagh majority down on the traitors’ heads through my testimony.
“Perhaps it is,” I agree. “Am I allowed to speak at the Assembly?”
“You, and only you.”
Keiran watches me closely. He knows how much I dislike speaking for myself.
“You wish to testify?” he asks evenly.
“I need to.”
The belt’s magick slowly fades, until I can’t sense it against my glamour anymore. “We’ll be beside you then,” he says, and the Hunt nods at his back.
A knock on the door interrupts us. Cybel and Breoca go to answer and I steal the momentary respite to reach out and skim my fingers on Keiran’s knuckles.
“I’ve got my seax,” I tell him, hoping he’ll worry less if he knows I’m armed.
He nods. “Carry at least one more. I’ll get my axes.”
A compromise if I ever heard one. He’s not happy about the situation, but he trusts me to stand as the Horned King and won’t get in my way unless absolutely necessary.
“Deal.”
Cybel and Breoca return. Breoca only has eyes for Aage. “They’re here.”
The Northern clans are up when we emerge into the main hall. They watch in respectful silence as Aage marches toward the open doors, Breoca behind him. My Hunt and I follow a few steps after, and one by one, the other clans file in behind us.
The Mainlanders have already assembled outside and give us nervous glances when we join them and watch the edge of the plateau where the road is.
Horses approach from the mountain path. Everyone quiets. The hoofbeats come closer, closer, and then, the first of the guards crests the small rise. Behind Aage’s men, small groups of well-dressed Sluagh stare us down.
When their cool glares cut to me, eyes rising to take in my glamoured helm, I feel something shift in the back of my mind. The draugr waking feels like the sliding of a snake’s scales against my earlier composure. I try to breathe through the irritation taking hold of me, and remind myself that I don’t feel it and I won’t allow myself to be a vessel for the draugr’s anger.
The clans split apart, the Northerners and Resnik to Aage’s side, the Mainlanders to the other, though some look torn about that decision. Aage ignores the obvious tension of the crowd and strides forward. “Welcome,” he ca
lls as everyone dismounts. “Your rooms have been prepared.”
Boros, looking just as insincere as he had in the village, tosses his horse’s reins to one of his retainers and walks toward Aage, commanding the empty aisle of space created by the clans. “You welcome us, thegn,” he snaps, “yet you had us escorted here under armed guard. Where is the goodwill required of Krigsmöte and its assembly?”
Breoca, standing slightly behind his thegn, drops a hand to the hilt of his sword, mirroring the movement of Boros’s retainer.
“Boros,” Aage says in a bored tone, “you and your compatriots have been brought to Krigsmöte to defend yourself against charges of treason against our people and our way of life. The fact that I called an assembly to hear the evidence, rather than taking the easier route of traveling to your lands to kill you there, is goodwill enough.”
No one says a word. No one dares to make eye contact with Aage. Even Boros, for all the angry flush on the back of his neck, looks away. Aage lifts his chin, looks past Boros toward the other clan heads and their retainers. “Do any of you challenge these charges?” he calls. “Chayka?”
She stares at the ground.
“Bouchard?”
His hands clench to fists at his side, but he doesn’t respond.
Aage shakes his head. “Then there’s nothing more to say.”
It’s Dreher, one of the older huscarls, who breaks away from the Mainlanders’ crowd. He steps in front of Aage and draws his sword.
The draugr hisses its approval—