She Wolf

by Dan Smith

  ‘My own heart,’ Ylva said. ‘And the horses.’

  ‘And beyond that?’

  Ylva turned her head. ‘The wind. Like voices whispering. I hear . . . I think branches rubbing together.’

  ‘Further?’

  ‘Trees creaking. It’s a sad sound, as if they’re crying. I can hear snow falling from the branches, too, and something small moving in the bracken. Rabbits maybe, or birds.’

  ‘There’s something else, child, can you hear it? It’s like music.’

  ‘I hear it. Is there a river close by?’

  ‘Good.’ Cathryn nodded. ‘Open your eyes. The water you hear is a beck. One that becomes a river. Lucky for us it hasn’t yet frozen over, and it’s wide enough and deep enough to be our friend. I want you to keep riding until you come to it. When you do, take your horse into the water and turn upstream. Move against the current and keep going until you reach a rock that looks like an open hand.’ Cathryn held up her good hand, fingers outstretched to demonstrate. ‘I’ll meet you there.’

  Ylva looked in the direction she was to ride. ‘What if I miss it?’

  ‘You won’t. Even a blind man riding a three-legged goat couldn’t miss that beck. And practise your listening. Learn to do it without stopping, without closing your eyes.’

  ‘What about the rock? What if I—?’

  ‘It’s bigger than a hall, child. You’d have to be blind and stupid to miss it on a night as clear as this.’

  ‘But . . .’ Ylva put her hand into her hair again and pulled on it.

  ‘You’ll be fine,’ Cathryn told her. ‘I promise. But we’re wasting all the time we just made for ourselves if we sit here arguing. Find the beck and follow it to the hand-shaped rock. I’ll see you there in two hours.’ Cathryn turned her horse and rode away without looking back.

  Ylva watched her and considered going after her. Suddenly she didn’t feel quite so tough any more. Maybe this was Cathryn’s way of getting rid of her.

  ‘Do it, child,’ Cathryn called back. ‘Do it now.’

  18

  The Giant’s Hand

  You think she’s left us, don’t you? That she won’t come back.

  ‘We have to be ready for that.’ Ylva didn’t want to frighten herself, but she had to be prepared for what might come.

  But we’re going to do what she told us, aren’t we? Find the beck and follow it to the hand-shaped rock?

  ‘Yes.’

  I don’t think she was lying. Geri trotted alongside the horse, with his nose to the ground and his ears swivelling to pick up the sounds of the forest. She’ll meet us. I trust her.

  ‘Oh Geri.’ Ylva sighed as her suspicions deepened. This was a trick. Cathryn had sent her this way so the half-skulls would follow her, leading them away from Cathryn and Bron. Ylva was a decoy and Cathryn was—

  I see it. Geri interrupted her thoughts, racing ahead, gliding through the bracken. There.

  Ylva saw it too; something glistening among the trees ahead, and as she came closer, the song of water on stone grew louder. A sweet, fresh smell touched the breeze.

  She wasn’t lying about the beck.

  ‘It doesn’t mean we can trust her.’

  I trust her.

  ‘You’re a dog; you trust everyone.’

  The beck was a dark and bloated serpent sliding through the snow. Its scales were ripples and eddies glittering with reflected light from the stars and moon, glimmering where it frothed around black rocks. The beck’s music, and its wild, crisp scent, reminded Ylva of the river where she and Mother went to spear fish in the summer. Mother was always better at it. Her white feet sliding across the hard pebbles in the shallows. The flash of scales catching the sunlight. The splash of the spear cutting through the water. They would never do that again. Never—

  Stop thinking about her.

  ‘I know.’

  There was no valley or ditch, no slope down to the water in front of her, just the coil of the beck winding level with the ground. It wasn’t wide at the point where Ylva reached it, but she judged it too wide for a grown man to clear in one leap, and there was no telling how deep it was until she encouraged her horse into the water and saw it reach his knees. It would be cold, but the horse didn’t complain, and neither did Geri, who splashed straight in and followed them, keeping his head high above the surface.

  She travelled slowly. It was a dangerous trick, riding the horse through the water, not knowing what was beneath the surface, but Ylva saw the sense in it. Her trail would disappear when it reached the beck. Anyone tracking her would have to decide upriver or down. There was little chance of finding prints in the riverbed, rocky as it was, and any sign she might leave would be washed away in moments.

  ‘This is good,’ she said aloud. ‘We’ll be like ghosts.’

  Ylva kept her wits about her. She focused her full concentration on the task of watching the stream ahead, looking for hidden dangers, and keeping her eyes open for the hand-shaped rock.

  Cathryn said you couldn’t miss it.

  ‘Then let’s make sure we don’t.’ Ylva’s confidence was growing. Cathryn hadn’t lied about the beck, and they were progressing towards the place where they would meet her. Perhaps they wouldn’t be alone for much longer.

  Her ears were filled with the swoosh-swoosh-swoosh of the horse moving through the water, but she stopped from time to time to listen as Cathryn had shown her.

  To really listen.

  Further upstream, the bank to her left became rocky and rose sharply so it towered above her head. The water deepened and widened, and the serpent-like beck became stronger as it washed around the horse. Soon the water was high enough to reach the animal’s shoulder.

  Ylva lifted her feet to avoid soaking her boots and felt sorry for the horse, its legs and belly in the icy river. She took him into the shallows where it was easier for both him and Geri. She was tempted to give them some respite by moving up on to the bank, but that would be a mistake. If she left the water, she would leave a trail.

  And a trail could be followed.

  Cathryn had been right; when she arrived, there was no mistaking the hand-shaped rock. The bank on one side of the river had become steeper the further they travelled, and Ylva had been afraid she would miss the meeting point, but now she knew she was in the right place. The trees were sparse on the left bank, the land too craggy for them to grow, and the moon shone like a spotlight on five enormous, jagged fingers. It was as if a rock-giant had punched his fist from beneath the earth and opened his hand to reach skywards. If Thor was there, Ylva thought, he would swing his hammer and break it to pieces.

  The river sang and the forest moaned in the wind, but there was no sign of Cathryn – or any other rider, for that matter.

  Ylva urged the horse out of the water and on to a flat rocky shelf that formed the riverbank below the fingers. The shelf was sheltered enough that it was covered in only a dusting of snow. There was debris there, sticks and branches discarded by the river serpent when the water had swollen and receded after heavy rain.

  Geri shook himself and sat watching the forest. Ylva waited for the horse to settle before she listened once more. Again, she heard nothing but the river’s song, and the forest’s complaints.

  Ylva didn’t like to sit idle. At home, she was never without a job to do. Being still gave her mind room to wander more than was good for her. She chewed her lip and thought about Mother, and wished they’d never come to this country. At home she hadn’t had much, but here she had nothing at all. She was cold and hungry and miserable. She would have given almost anything for a warm fire, a dry roof, and a bowl of Mother’s plum pudding. Thick and sweet, it was good enough to make almost anything feel better. Sometimes she and Mother would sit in the long grass on the dunes and eat it while watching the sea. Sweet-smelling steam would embrace them as they dreamt about sailing away to somewhere new, just the two of them. But she had never thought it would be like this.

  Not like this.

&
nbsp; She felt the ache in her heart and tried to bury it, but no matter how deep she pushed it, the pain was always just below the surface.

  How long have we been waiting? Geri looked up at the moon.

  ‘Not long. It probably feels like longer.’ Ylva turned and studied the fingers of rock standing proud behind her. ‘I’m sure this is the right place. Does that look like a hand to you?’ She held up her own pale hand towards the rocks and stretched out her fingers to imitate their shape.

  ‘Do you really think she’s coming?’ Ylva looked down at Geri, but he continued to stare at the sky through the trees. ‘Or do you think she sent us in this direction and went in the other to meet that boy. Maybe I should never have trusted her.’

  The thought of it cut through Ylva like a cold knife. Without Cathryn, she was stranded. Lost. Left in the forest to die.

  19

  Shelter

  Ylva stood where overhanging rocks sheltered the ground from snow. Geri crouched beside her, huddled and shaking. His fur was damp and matted, and the sight of him made Ylva uneasy, though she didn’t understand why. He looked like the mangy, starving dogs in the village at home – the kind whose owners didn’t care about them.

  So now we wait for Cathryn.

  ‘It doesn’t matter if she doesn’t come.’ Ylva was already preparing herself for the worst; persuading herself she would cope. ‘We’ll stay here long enough to get warm and dry, the horse can rest, then we’ll go.’ As she spoke, she searched among the sticks on the rocky shelf until she found one that was thick, and as tall as she was. ‘We’ll look for this village Cathryn mentioned. Seatun. Maybe we can find someone there to help us.’

  We need a fire.

  ‘No. If the three-fingered man is out there, he’ll see it.’ She remembered the way he had sniffed the air like an animal. ‘Or smell it. We’ll have to find another way to get warm. Come on; this way.’

  The land itself would provide much of the shelter she needed, so Ylva and Geri climbed up from the shelf and encouraged the horse to follow.

  ‘This is a good place.’ Ylva found a spot between two of the giant fingers, where the black rock stretched up on two sides, standing proud in front of a dark cliff that offered protection from behind. Inside the web of the two fingers, there was only a light dusting of snow on the ground – a good sign that the wind blew mainly from the back.

  Sheltered from the worst of the weather, Ylva brought the horse across the entrance for added warmth and protection. The horse carried a sheepskin bedroll, two bags, and a large folded fur behind the saddle, so she dried him with the fur, laid it over his back, and hobbled him to stop him from moving away.

  She and Geri retreated to the furthest corner of their rocky shelter and Ylva searched the bags the horse had been carrying.

  ‘I wish I had my satchel,’ she said as she opened the first bag. ‘It had everything we need.’

  I wish Mother were here.

  The goatskin bags from the horse provided enough to replace what Ylva had lost. There was hard cheese, bread, smoked meat, and dried fish. A clay pot, small enough to fit in her palm, contained strips of charcloth made from touchwood fungus boiled in urine. It was still smouldering – and would continue to do so for days – so she could use it to light a fire when the time was right. There was also a waterbag, a small pouch of salt, three silver coins, and five iron arrowheads.

  When Ylva had made a mental inventory of everything, she rechecked and recounted it three times, then returned it to the bags and secured them.

  ‘So now we wait for Cathryn.’ She pulled the axe from her belt and sat with her legs crossed. ‘If she comes.’ She gripped the axe close to the top of the handle and, using the sharp blade, began to whittle a point at one end of the stick she had brought up from the ledge.

  Shhkk. Shhkk. Shhkk.

  ‘I can tell you a story if you like,’ she said.

  Geri whined and curled beside her, pushing against her thigh.

  ‘Mother told it to me one day when we were sitting on the dock with our feet in the water, and the sun on our shoulders.’ Ylva continued to carve as she spoke, imagining the warmth of the day, and the ripples glittering on the surface of the sea. ‘I was dipping my finger into the water and drawing pictures on the wood but the heat kept drying up my patterns. You were lying in the sun, curled up exactly like you are now. You loved days like that.’ Ylva had loved days like that, too; lazy days when she wasn’t breaking her back in the fields or wearing down her fingers at the loom. She would let the sun drain her energy and then she would lie with her face on Geri’s stomach and feel the rise and fall of his breath as she lost herself in the smell of his warm, soft fur.

  But those days were gone now, so Ylva pushed the image away and began to tell the story of Signy, who married the wicked and jealous King of Gautland. ‘Do you know it?’ she asked Geri, but if she knew it, then it meant he knew it, and she was going to tell it anyway, just to pass the time and to remind herself of her purpose.

  Ylva took a deep breath and told how the King of Gautland hated Signy’s family, especially her brother Sigmund, who refused to sell him the sword he had won from Odin. ‘So when Signy’s father and her ten brothers arrived in Gautland to visit her, the Gauts attacked them.’ Ylva’s words were hardly more than a whisper. ‘There was a fierce battle but the King of Gautland won in the end, killing Signy’s father and all his men. Signy pleaded for her brothers’ lives, of course, what else would she do?’ Ylva paused and glanced up at Geri, who sighed deeply.

  ‘She begged the wicked king to lock them up instead of killing them, and he agreed, but really it was a lie; just a way to make them suffer even more. He built stocks from a huge tree trunk and kept the ten brothers trapped in the forest. And every night, the King’s mother turned into a wolf and came to them, and every night she ate one of the brothers; killed him and swallowed him up while the others watched. She did it every night until Sigmund was the only one left.

  ‘By then, Signy hated the King as much as anyone could hate a person – maybe even as much as I hate the three-fingered man – and she was desperate to get revenge on him, but first she had to save her brother Sigmund, so she persuaded a servant to go into the forest and smear honey on Sigmund’s face. That night, when the she-wolf came, it tasted the honey and started to lick it all off. And when its disgusting tongue went into Sigmund’s mouth, he bit right through it. The wolf died of shock and Sigmund broke free. Signy’s last and favourite brother survived.’ Ylva stopped whittling and looked at Geri.

  ‘You’re quiet,’ she said.

  It’s cold down here. And dark.

  ‘Don’t leave me.’ Ylva could hardly bear to see him so bedraggled. His coat was dull and the sparkle had gone from his eyes.

  Forget about me and finish the story.

  ‘All right.’ She cleared her throat. ‘So . . . much later, Signy had a son who was strong and brave, and Signy knew he would get revenge for her as soon as he was big enough. He spent a lot of time with Sigmund, having adventures in the forest and fighting battles. One time they even put on wolfskins and became wolves for ten days, but when Signy’s son was finally ready, he and Sigmund sneaked into the King’s hall at night and set the whole place on fire. They burnt everyone alive. Everyone. Even Signy. But at last, after all that time, and all that waiting, she got her revenge.’

  It was a good story, Ylva had always liked it, and when she finished telling it, she bit her lips and tried not to think about Mother.

  Mother always told the best stories.

  The sound of whittling echoed from the rock walls. Shhkk. Shhkk. Shhkk.

  ‘I know what you’re thinking.’ Ylva watched Geri lying still beside her. ‘You’re thinking that Signy died in the fire too, so what good came of it? That’s what you’re thinking.’

  Geri raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Or maybe you’re thinking, why didn’t Signy just kill the King herself? She could have done it when he was asleep. That would have bee
n easier. She could have taken a knife and—’

  Maybe she wasn’t strong enough.

  Ylva stopped whittling, and all was quiet.

  Are you strong enough?

  ‘Yes.’ Ylva stood to test the spear she had made, thrusting it forwards against an invisible foe. ‘When the time comes, I’ll be strong enough.’

  She went to the horse and stroked his neck as she looked down at the river.

  ‘If anyone passes below, there’s a good chance they won’t notice we’re here,’ she said as she went back to Geri and leant the spear against the rock. She sat down and practised grabbing it a few times, to be sure she was prepared for an attack, then she laid the axe beside her and watched Geri.

  Huddled and unmoving, he wasn’t much more than a dark shape. The damp, musty smell of his fur was growing worse; as if he had crawled out from beneath the ground.

  ‘I know how to survive,’ Ylva said. ‘And I have food and shelter. I’ll be safe until daylight, then I’ll find my way out of the forest – see if I can find this place Seatun that Cathryn told me about. But until then I need to be alert.’

  Cathryn will come.

  ‘I don’t think so.’ Ylva closed her eyes and listened to the forest.

  The river was the most dominant sound, but when Ylva listened deeper, she heard bird calls and small animals scurrying in the trees. She became one with the forest around her, letting herself be a part of it. She needed to feel at home here, and for a moment she did. When her whole being was focused on the sounds around her, there was nothing else to think about, nothing else to muddy her feelings.

  But her concentration was broken by the chink of tack. The soft swish-swish of something moving in the river. A sniff. Someone was coming.

  Ylva froze. Her eyes widened. Her mind muddled.

  The three-fingered man.

  He had found her.

  Move, she told herself. Move!

  Her throat was dry and her heart was pounding. Every muscle cramped.

  Fight! her mind screamed at her. Survive!