She Wolf

by Dan Smith

  And then she was moving. The fear was not gone, but the paralysis was broken. She snatched up the spear and crouched with one knee on the ground, the other supporting her elbow as she aimed the point of the spear towards the opening of her shelter. She ignored Geri, huddled at the back like a ghost, and she listened.

  The rider was approaching from her right. Ylva was certain there was just one. The gentle clink of tack and the unmistakeable swish of a horse moving through the shallows did not overlap in the way they would with multiple riders.

  When the sound stopped, Ylva waited a while. Her horse snorted and turned in the shelter’s entrance, looking down at the water to see what was there. As it did so, Ylva inched forwards, pointing the spear ahead of her. Someone was there. They hadn’t passed by, but had stopped in the river beside the rocky shelf just below her. Ylva prepared herself for a fight. If it was anyone other than Cathryn down there, she would thrust the spear and—

  ‘This is becoming a habit.’

  Ylva stared.

  ‘You pointing a weapon at me, I mean. It’s becoming something of a habit, don’t you think?’

  Ylva had convinced herself she wouldn’t see Cathryn again. She had been sure she would have to survive alone. But when she saw Cathryn, an unexpected feeling of relief flooded over her like a winter wave on the open sea. She wasn’t alone any more.

  ‘I see you made yourself a spear. Very resourceful.’

  Ylva looked at the spear, then at Cathryn.

  ‘And you seem to have settled yourself in for the night, but we don’t have time to be playing games.’

  ‘Games? I’m not playing games. I would have killed you.’

  ‘I don’t doubt it. It was just an expression.’

  ‘Oh.’ Ylva lowered the weapon. Her hands were shaking, and not just with the cold. ‘I thought you weren’t coming.’

  ‘That I’d leave you out here on your own?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That says more about you than it does about me.’ Cathryn steadied her horse. ‘Well, you picked a good spot I suppose. It’s well protected.’

  ‘We could stay here for the night. Get some—’

  ‘No. We have to keep moving. I know a better place further upriver. And if you like this place, then you’ll love the one I’ve got in mind.’

  20

  Ulfhednar

  Ylva packed up the bedroll and the goatskin bags to take to her horse, but Cathryn stopped her from throwing them over its back, ready for the saddle.

  ‘Not there,’ she called up to her. ‘Put the bags and the fur on my horse; we’re going to set yours off that way.’ Cathryn pointed to the opposite side of the river. ‘If anyone manages to track us through the water, they’ll get here and see a trail heading off through the trees in that direction.’

  ‘And if the gods are with us, they’ll follow it?’

  ‘Gods have got nothing to do with it, child. It’s a good idea, so it’ll work.’

  Ylva secured everything she could behind Cathryn’s saddle, and told Geri to wait on the shelf while she took her horse a little further back downriver.

  Once she had gone far enough, Ylva let the animal step out of the water and on to the opposite bank. She leant over to rub his neck. ‘Thank you for bringing us this far.’ They were losing a valuable horse and he had been good company; she was sorry to see him go.

  ‘Will he be all right?’ Ylva turned to Cathryn and raised her voice over the sound of the singing water. A mist had arisen, as if spirits were clawing their way out from the forest floor. It hung over the black rocks and swirled around the horse’s fetlocks.

  Sitting in the saddle, Cathryn looked enormous compared to the small shape of Geri standing on the far bank, but even from this distance, Ylva could see the dog shivering despite his thick fur. She watched his ghostly face, his wide dark eyes, and felt a great longing to be with him. He felt so far away, as if he were staring at her from the world of the dead.

  ‘He’ll have as good a chance as we do,’ Cathryn said.

  Ylva kept her eyes on Geri. ‘What about bears? And wolves?’

  ‘What about them? If that horse can save my life – or yours, for that matter – I’d be happy to send him into a den of wolves.’

  ‘It feels . . . wrong. He brought me all this way. He helped me. He deserves better.’

  ‘He’s helping you now, child. Get on with it.’

  She’s right. Geri watched her from across the river.

  ‘I don’t want to.’

  Sometimes you have to let things go.

  Ylva looked away from him and rubbed the horse’s neck again. She whispered goodbye and slapped him hard on the hindquarters. The horse flinched and swished his tail in irritation. He blew through his nose and looked around as if to ask Ylva what she was doing.

  ‘Go!’ Ylva waved her arms. ‘Go on. Go!’

  The horse watched her with disinterest.

  ‘That’s the problem with a horse that’s accustomed to seeing action,’ Cathryn said. ‘He doesn’t scare easily. Slap him with that.’ She pointed to the spear in Ylva’s hand. ‘That’ll do it.’

  Ylva hesitated. The horse had brought her safely through the forest, and this was how she was going to repay him?

  ‘Do it, child. Time to go.’

  Ylva closed her eyes and brought the flat of the stick down with force. It cut through the cold air with a cruel swish and struck the horse’s rump with a hard smack. Immediately, the horse reacted. He let out a sharp complaint and bolted into the mist and snow, skidding through the trees and out of sight.

  ‘Be safe,’ Ylva said. ‘Please be safe.’

  With even more weight in her heart, she watched the horse until he was gone, then used the rocks as stepping stones to return to where Cathryn waited in the shallows by the craggy shelf. Before climbing up behind the Saxon woman, Ylva crouched beside Geri. She was hoping for warmth, but he shivered like a cold-fevered dream. And when she put her face to his fur, longing for that comforting blend of fresh air and woodsmoke, there was only the empty-grave smell of damp, stale earth.

  Ylva had been prepared to be alone, but the forest was less threatening now she was with Cathryn again. She still kept her wits about her, and she wouldn’t allow herself to relax, but she was less afraid. There was something else too; Cathryn had met her at the hand-shaped rock as she had promised. Ylva had expected betrayal, but Cathryn had kept her word.

  Geri picked his way along the rocks on the riverbank beside them, but every time Ylva glanced down at him, he looked a little thinner, a little slower, and a little more ragged. The dank and musty smell of his fur now lingered in her nostrils, and she hated that it turned her stomach.

  She tilted her face upwards to breathe the fresh, sweet air that rose from the flowing water, and rolled with the horse’s movement as they progressed upriver. From time to time they stopped and listened, but they heard nothing to make them think the half-skulls were on their trail.

  ‘Who are they?’ Ylva scanned the forest. ‘The half-skulls?’ She glanced at the river snaking into the darkness behind them. ‘They said they were hunters of men.’

  ‘Hunters of men,’ Cathryn repeated with a sigh. ‘That’s one way of saying it. There have been a lot of “hunters of men” since the Great Army took Eoforwic last month, and changed its name to Jorvik.’

  ‘The Great Army.’ Ylva breathed into the air over her head. ‘Led by Ivar the Boneless and Bjorn Ironside. The sons of Ragnar Lothbrok.’

  ‘You know about him?’

  ‘Ragnar Lothbrok? Everyone knows about him. He was the first to raid in England. And now all the Viking warriors from all the towns and villages have crossed the sea to avenge his murder by King Aelle. We came here to settle because the Great Army made it safe.’

  ‘Well it isn’t safe yet. Aelle and Osbert are still alive and they’re still the kings of Northumbria. They might have stopped fighting each other, now they have a Great Army of Vikings to defeat, but there’ll
be more bloodshed. You wait.’

  ‘Of course there’ll be more bloodshed,’ Ylva said. ‘The sons of Ragnar Lothbrok will get their revenge. Revenge is important to a Viking.’

  ‘Vikings have come here for more than just revenge, child. You saw that man tied in the forest. You saw how they let him die.’

  ‘They said he was a murderer.’

  ‘He wasn’t a murderer; he was a slave.’

  ‘A slave? You mean the half-skulls are slavers? That’s what they meant by “hunters of men”?’

  ‘Yes, child. They’re taking advantage of the army’s success, raiding the villages close to Jorvik, and capturing slaves. And you can see how they hunted that man until he was too tired and too cold to live. You’ve even experienced their cruelty for yourself.’

  Ylva thought about Mother lying on the floor of the hut, covered by a blanket. She thought about her buried deep in the cold grave, smelling of damp earth. ‘Why would they do that? Why would they kill her? I don’t understand.’

  ‘Because they’re slavers and they’re killers,’ Cathryn said. ‘Nothing more than that. Wrong time, wrong place.’

  ‘Wrong time, wrong place?’ Ylva whispered the words and looked down at Geri. ‘I hate slavers.’

  ‘Bron thinks they’re Ulfhednar,’ Cathryn said. ‘Wolf-warriors. He thinks they get stronger when darkness falls, so he had me paint the symbol on the horses – to ward off evil – but it’s a load of rubbish, of course. I heard that Ulfhednar can’t be hurt by fire or iron, but Bron’s arrows killed them just fine. There’s no such thing as monsters and magic.’

  ‘Of course there’s such a thing,’ Ylva said. ‘It makes sense now; I knew there was something strange about them. One of them even had teeth like a wolf. And they howled like . . . you know, they tear their enemies apart and drink their blood?’ Ylva shivered. ‘And now they’re hunting us because we killed their men.’

  ‘There’s no magic in it,’ Cathryn told her. ‘They’re just slavers in wolf furs, making noises and sharpening their teeth. Bron’s arrows killed them just fine, don’t you forget that.’

  ‘Maybe the symbol helped him,’ Ylva said, thinking about the quiet, dark-skinned boy. He was wild and quick and strange. ‘Why does he speak with his hands?’

  ‘He can say a few words if there’s a need for it, but it hurts him like claws in his throat. When I found him, he had that bow in his hands and his neck was cut, and I thought he was dead till he opened his eyes and tried to talk. There wasn’t much I could do for him so I took him to the Witch. And before you say anything, child, the Witch is just a healer, there’s no magic in it.’

  Beyond the rocky banks, the ground levelled out and they passed through a place where the water became shallow again, sometimes hardly even covering the horse’s fetlocks. Any shallower, Cathryn said, and it would freeze. There, they were surrounded on all sides by nothing but snow-laden birches standing to attention like soldiers. Too many to count, there were rows and rows of them as if they had been laid in lines by the gods. Further still and the forest grew thicker and darker, closing in on the river, trying to swallow it. Mist swirled through the trees, and the cold was so bitter that Ylva believed she might somehow have travelled into the heart of Niflheim.

  ‘You’re not a very good liar.’ Cathryn kept her voice quiet, as if she might disturb something dark in the forest. ‘And what you told those men about your father made me think you haven’t been long in England. You didn’t know Dunholm is a Saxon town. So I was thinking about that burnt ship Bron and I saw. The one I told you about. It can’t have been there more than a few days, and—’

  ‘My father is dead.’ Ylva stopped her and focused on the hypnotic swoosh-swoosh-swoosh of the horse’s legs in the freezing water. ‘He was killed in battle. At home in Denmark.’

  ‘I’m . . . sorry to hear it.’

  ‘He was a great warrior,’ Ylva said. ‘But he’s in Valhalla now. We buried him with his boat and his sword, and we had a great feast to honour him.’

  On the banks, the forest grew thick with junipers that brushed against them as they passed, shedding snow and leaving a crisp, sweet scent. Deeper among the trees they entered a dark grove where the water ran black and the world hummed with an unnerving and unnatural silence. The cold air was filled with a thick and rotten smell. There was something ancient and frightening in that place, as if the trees were watching, and the forest could close around them at any moment.

  ‘Did your father really die in battle?’ Cathryn’s voice sounded flat. Lifeless. ‘Was he really a warrior?’

  ‘Of course. Don’t you believe me?’

  ‘I’m just trying to understand who you are, child. I want to help you but I know nothing about you. I don’t even know your name.’

  ‘You never asked.’

  ‘I did. In the hut where I found you. I asked you then. “I don’t care to share it with you” is what you told me.’

  Ylva stared at the back of Cathryn’s head and hesitated. Telling this Saxon woman her name felt like giving something away. Like losing part of herself. ‘My name is . . . Ylva.’

  ‘I don’t know that name, does it mean something?’

  ‘It means She Wolf.’

  ‘Huh. That makes sense. A fierce name for a fierce child. Your mother chose it well. And what about your dog? Does he have a name?’

  Ylva felt an aching wrench in her heart, and she looked back at Geri falling behind. He was just a shadow of himself now, growing weaker and weaker by the hour.

  ‘You speak to him,’ Cathryn said. ‘I’ve heard you.’

  Ylva closed her eyes and bit the inside of her cheek so hard she felt it crunch.

  ‘And you see him too, don’t you? What was his name?’

  Ylva put a hand in her hair and tugged until it hurt. ‘Geri. His name was Geri.’

  ‘But you know he’s not there, don’t you?’ Cathryn said. ‘You know he’s dead; that we buried him beside your mother?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I know.’ She opened her eyes and looked back once again, but instead of seeing Geri, she saw nothing but trees and shadow, and she thought about all the times she had pretended to hug him and press her face into his fur.

  ‘In the hut I suspected, but it wasn’t until after we rescued you from the half-skulls that I was sure you still see him. It must be hard for you. I can’t even imagine it, but—’

  ‘I know he’s not there.’ Ylva raised her voice and let herself be angry. ‘I know. Don’t tell me what to do or how to think. Don’t tell me to forget him.’ She pulled harder on her hair and fought back the tears and remembered how Mother had taken Geri with her into the hut on the mountainside that day. Ylva said he would protect Mother, keep her safe, but now they were both dead, killed by the three-fingered man. ‘I don’t want to forget him, and I’m going to find that man and make him pay for what he did. He murdered my mother and he murdered my dog, and both of those things are crimes where I come from.’

  ‘I wasn’t going to tell you to forget him,’ Cathryn said gently. ‘I was going to tell you that if you need him, it’s all right to keep him alive. Right here.’ Her voice was soft as she raised her good hand to touch the side of her head. ‘I know you’re not like other children, and that’s fine. Talk to your dog if you have to. Do whatever you need to do to survive.’

  Ylva let go of her hair. ‘You don’t think it’s stupid?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I like animals. They make me feel calm. Not like people.’ Ylva took a deep breath. ‘Mother gave him to me when he was a pup, and we’ve never been apart. It was her idea to give him words. I . . . don’t always think the way other people think, and sometimes, if I’m . . . if I’m concerned about something, and I don’t know what to do, I bite my cheek or pull my hair.’

  ‘I’ve seen you do that.’

  ‘Well, I used to get so angry I’d hurt myself even worse, so Mother said I should give Geri words if I ever felt like that; if I was confused or scared. As i
f he was talking to me.’

  ‘I like the sound of her more and more. I wish I’d met her. Geri too.’

  The last time Ylva had seen Geri alive was when he and Mother had crossed the snow-covered track, and entered the trader’s hut. When she next saw him, he was lying on the dirt floor beside Mother, and she had so wanted it to be untrue. She had tried and tried not to see his broken body. She had tried not to see the blood. And when she had covered him with the blanket, she imagined he had lived; that he was there to keep her company, to be the voice she needed him to be.

  But now he had faded from her. He had stepped back into the shadows. Geri was gone, and she had nothing but a black storm of sorrow and revenge.

  ‘It’s not stupid,’ Cathryn said. ‘Not at all. Keep Geri in your head, and your mother in your heart. That way, whenever you need them, they will be with you.’

  21

  Fenrir

  When Cathryn was satisfied they had followed the river for long enough, she steered them away and headed deeper into the forest. But some time after midnight, when Ylva was lost in thought and her eyes were growing heavy, Cathryn pulled hard on the reins and brought the horse to a sudden standstill.

  ‘What is it? Why did we stop?’

  Cathryn held up her hand.

  ‘You hear something?’ Ylva imagined bloodthirsty Ulfhednar, and wondered if Bron could be right about the men who were hunting them. ‘Is it the three-fingered man?’

  Cathryn shook her head and tightened her fist, signalling Ylva to stop talking. She cupped her hand behind her ear, so Ylva did the same and leant sideways to look around Cathryn’s wide body. As she focused her hearing, she noticed the horse was listening too – both ears were pricked up and turned towards the forest ahead.

  And then Ylva heard it.

  Perhaps an animal. Perhaps men. Or perhaps it was both. Whatever the sound was, it was coming from the trees ahead of them.

  Hindered by her broken arm, Cathryn climbed down from the horse with all the grace of a greedy sow. Ylva almost heard the animal heave a sigh of relief that he no longer had to carry her weight. The enormous woman paused to catch her breath then gestured to Ylva to climb down.