Wolfbreed by S. A. Swann Read Free Book Online Page B

fall had torn something inside her, and she had lost the child during the too-short siege that followed.
    After the city fell, she and her husband, Gedim, had taken in the orphaned Uldolf. They thought she had been left barren and he would be their only child. And after so many losses, he was a blessing.
    But two years later she had Hilde. And as difficult as the pregnancy was, as painful the birth, her daughter was a miracle. Like the adopted brother she worshiped, Hilde had reserves of strength that left Burthe humbled and a little bit in awe. As a midwife, shesaw boys years older succumb to illnesses not half as vicious as those she’d seen grip Hilde.
    Yet now she was smiling, had a good color, and was chatting away as if she’d just woken up from a nap. “Mama, Ulfie sounds like he needs help.”
    Burthe kissed her again, then stood up and listened. Muffled, outside, she heard someone calling, “Mother!”
    It
was
Uldolf.
    She stepped toward the door, casting a warning glance at Hilde. “You stay there, understand?”
    “Yes, Mama.”
    Burthe pushed the door to the cottage open and stepped out into the front field—the one that largely went to grow the taxes and the tithes that allowed their family to remain here unmolested. The week’s thaw had stripped the black earth naked, but when she stepped outside, her footsteps crunched; the ground was still stiff with frost.
    The field between the cottage and the road was framed by a rough stone wall that testified to the rocky nature of the soil. Every stone had been clawed out of the mud years ago by Uldolf and her husband. Similar walls marked off the other fields they tilled and the pasture where they kept the livestock, when they had livestock. Since midwinter, the pasture only served their one horse, which was absent at the moment, having taken Gedim and the wagon to Johannisburg.
    Uldolf was just now walking along the outermost wall, by the road. He stopped at the waist-high gate that led in to the field.
    From inside the cottage, Burthe heard Hilde ask, “Did he bring something?”
    That he had.
    Uldolf saw her and called, “Mother, help!”
    It took a moment for Burthe to respond to her son’s plea, because she was unable immediately to make sense of what she saw.Uldolf cradled his cloak in his arm, half draped across his shoulder like a sack of grain.
    “Oh, by the gods!” She ran across the field, realizing that Uldolf was doing his best to carry a human body one-handed. As she reached him, she amended the thought.
    A woman’s body
.
    Burthe could see the bloody temple and scalp resting against her son’s shoulder. She didn’t bother to open the waist-high gate. She just extended her arms over it. “Hand her to me.”
    With a grunt and an audible sigh of relief, Uldolf unloaded his burden into her arms. The woman was small, but dead weight, completely unconscious. Even though Uldolf was wearing just a linen shirt in air that fogged the breath, he was coated with sweat and deeply flushed.
    “How. Is. She?” He was so out of breath he could barely speak.
    Burthe looked at the woman.
    Not a woman
, she thought.
Only a girl
.
    The girl in her arms was taking breaths that were even and deep, and her skin was of good color. “Despite the wound, she looks better than you.” She stepped back so Uldolf could open the gate and come in. “How far did you carry her?”
    “Not far. I found her in the woods by Johannisburg’s eastern wall, I think bandits—”
    “By Johannisburg? That’s five miles at least.”
    “She was able to walk herself, at first.”
    Burthe looked back at the girl’s head. The damage was awful, and were it not for the fact that this girl was flush and breathing, she might have thought it mortal.
    “And how far did she walk, with such a grievous injury?”
    “A quarter mile, maybe.”
    Burthe shook her head. “No wonder you’re late.”

    ama, who’s that?” Despite Burthe’s instructions, Hilde was sitting up on the edge