She Wolf

by Dan Smith

  ‘Is it them?’ Ylva whispered when she was standing beside Cathryn. ‘Have they found us?’ Her insides squeezed tight and a violent shiver ran through her.

  The horse was afraid too. It pulled back on the reins as if something was agitating it. His ears turned and focused, all the time staying pricked right up. Cathryn controlled him and hitched his reins to a nearby branch. ‘Stay behind me and be quiet.’ She drew her sword and headed into the trees on foot.

  Ylva tugged the axe from her belt and followed. After a few steps, she glanced back at the horse and saw Geri sitting beside it. Mouth open, tongue hanging to one side, he looked as handsome and strong as she had ever seen him. His fur was clean and smooth and his eyes were bright. He wasn’t really there – Ylva knew that – but she would keep him alive and call on him whenever she needed him.

  It surprised Ylva that Cathryn moved with hardly a sound. The way she had come down from the horse suggested she was in pain, that she was struggling, but now she was on the ground, she moved like a predator. Ylva walked in her footsteps, placing her own boots into each impression in the snow. When Cathryn crouched, Ylva did the same.

  They had crept no more than fifty paces into the forest when Cathryn stopped so suddenly that Ylva almost bumped into her.

  Cathryn pointed at a trail by her feet and whispered, ‘Bear tracks.’ She put her fingers into the deep, clear prints.

  ‘You’re sure it’s not them? The half-skulls. The Ulfhednar?’

  ‘Hush.’ Cathryn looked to the right, where the tracks had come from, and ahead where they disappeared deeper into the forest. ‘These are fresh.’ She leant forward, peering through the trees, then stood and followed the tracks before she stopped again and pointed at a large pile of droppings.

  ‘See that? Definitely a bear. A big one.’ Cathryn crouched and touched the dark pile. ‘Still warm,’ she whispered. ‘He’s—’

  A loud breathy grunt came from close by.

  Ylva flinched at the sound of it but Cathryn put out her arm to stop her from moving.

  The breathy grunt came again, followed by a rumbling growl. Terror flooded Ylva’s veins like molten iron. She had never even glimpsed a bear, but she knew they were feared as much as trolls and dragons. She’d heard about monstrous creatures standing taller than a giant and weighing more than ten men. A horrifying beast that could outrun a horse and take off a man’s head with one swipe of its claws. Only the greatest Viking warriors could fight a bear and survive. To her it didn’t make any difference if it was Ulfhednar or a bear out there in the forest – she didn’t want to meet either. ‘We have to go.’

  Ylva pushed against Cathryn’s arm, wanting to turn and run back to the horse, but Cathryn held firm and glared at her. She shook her head. Running was the worst thing they could do.

  So Ylva fought her instinct to flee. She swallowed her fear and stood her ground, waiting for the monster to crash through the forest towards them.

  But no attack came. Somewhere in the trees the bear grunted again, then it growled long and hard, and Ylva heard a sharp dog-like yelp. A moment later, there was an eruption of snarling and rumbling, and through the trees Ylva saw the bulk of the fearsome creature. Muscle and fat moving beneath fur that was black in the night. And each time the bear slammed a massive paw on the ground, the earth trembled.

  But the bear wasn’t coming towards them. It moved to and fro in the forest ahead, first one way, then the other, disappearing and reappearing through the trees. As it backed away, it growled hard and stood on its hind legs, and a second shape blurred in the night; smaller and closer to the ground, but no less ferocious.

  Cathryn leant in and put her mouth to Ylva’s ear. ‘Wolf.’

  They stayed where they were, watching, not making a sound. The forest ushered an ice-cold breeze towards them. Heavy flakes of snow began to tumble through the naked treetops. And in the small clearing ahead, the wilderness played out before Ylva’s eyes. A bear and a wolf locked in battle.

  The wolf was ferocious, like Fenrir himself, but the battle was one-sided. When it leapt at the bear, widening its jaws, the bear lashed out with an enormous paw and smashed the wolf against a nearby tree. The wolf yelped a pitiful high-pitched sound, and crumpled into the deep snow. It tried to get up, but it was broken and beaten, at the mercy of the larger creature. The bear was in a frenzy now; it ran at the injured wolf, trampling and swiping, rising on to its hind legs and bringing its full weight down on the smaller animal, biting at its lifeless body before finally becoming calm and standing over it, steam rising from its nostrils.

  The bear stood for a while, as if waiting for its victim to be resurrected. It put its snout closer to the wolf, nuzzling and poking at it, but the wolf lay still so the bear lifted its head and turned in Ylva’s direction. Snowflakes settled on its dark fur.

  Even from where she was, with the blood thumping in her ears, Ylva heard it sniffing the air.

  It knew they were there.

  Afraid to make a sound, Ylva held her breath.

  On the other side of the glade, the bear reared up on to its hind legs and stood with its back straight, its head towards them. It remained still, like a statue, watching the trees.

  Ylva eased the air from her lungs and took another breath. The cold stung her eyes, and when she reached up with her free hand to rub them, the bear thumped back down on to all fours. It raised a massive paw and slapped it hard on the ground, clacking its teeth together and blowing hard through its nose.

  When it lowered its head and put back its ears, Ylva knew it was about to attack. She didn’t know how she knew, she just knew.

  22

  Wolf’s Blood

  The bear came at them like a mighty thunderstorm. It barrelled across the glade in a hurricane of rage and violence.

  ‘Stand your ground!’ Cathryn raised her sword. ‘Fight hard, Young Wolf, fight for your life!’

  Ylva hardly realized she was using both hands to hold her axe at shoulder level, ready to strike. Her entire body was numb with fear. She was not herself any more; she was someone else, floating high above the trees, looking down as the bear thundered through the undergrowth towards her.

  Its jaws snapped open and shut, its teeth clattered, and its paws shook the earth.

  Ylva braced herself, ready to sidestep and swing her axe as she had seen warriors do while training. She would swing it with all her strength.

  But the bear came to a sudden stop. At the nearside of the glade, it skidded to a halt, spraying snow in all directions. It froze in place with its mouth open and its teeth bared. Its chest bellowed in and out with every breath as it fixed the intruders with its small dark eyes.

  ‘Stand your ground,’ Cathryn said again.

  The bear snorted loudly through its nose.

  Ylva stayed as she was. She wasn’t sure she could move even if she wanted to. She was frozen with fear, the three of them locked in an impossible showdown.

  The bear snapped its yellowed teeth again and again, a sticky wetness of gore glistening on its muzzle. It was hard for Ylva not to imagine her own body caught in those terrible jaws. Each of its finger-length teeth would punch through her skin and crack her bones as easily as she could snap a twig.

  ‘It’s trying to scare us,’ Cathryn said.

  ‘It’s working.’

  The bear snorted and lowered its head, preparing to charge again, but before it could move, Cathryn let out a long, loud battle cry. Ylva had heard the shield-maidens making such a noise, and Cathryn did it as well as the best of them. A cry like that would strike fear into enemies on the battlefield. Seeing a horde of screaming warriors running at you across a field, with their axes and spears flashing, could change the whole course of a fight. Enemies sometimes even turned and ran away, but the bear hardly even flinched. It paused for no longer than a second before it charged straight at them.

  Ylva thought it impossible that something so big and so heavy could move with such grace and speed. She’d hardly even h
ad time to register that the bear was moving before it was almost on top of her.

  All she could see was bristling fur. All she could hear was thumping paws and mashing teeth. All she could feel was the ground shaking and the wind rushing at her. The enormous beast was going to trample right through her, toss her into the air and—

  ‘Move!’ Cathryn’s shout brought Ylva to her senses, and they twisted in opposite directions as the bear reached them, jaws snapping together. It swiped with one paw, stumbling as it skidded past through the bracken, but Ylva had moved well clear.

  Heart pounding like Thor’s hammer, her vision flared white with fear and relief. But when she looked across at where they’d been standing, she saw that Cathryn must have lost her footing as she turned, probably unbalanced by her broken arm, and was now lying on her back in the snow, struggling to get up.

  Close by, the bear was already turning towards her, moving in for the kill.

  Ylva had to do something. She had to do something.

  So she let out a battle cry. It was high-pitched and pathetic compared to Cathryn’s. It burnt her throat like she had swallowed hot sand, but it was enough to attract the bear’s attention.

  The beast turned its massive bulk and looked at her across the top of the undergrowth. It huffed and clattered its teeth and broke into a loping run. The ground shook with every step. Tree branches snapped as it passed, and the breath from its nostrils blew warm and rank, but Ylva waited until the last moment. She waited.

  And waited.

  And waited.

  And struck.

  It was more luck than skill, but as the bear reached her, Ylva twisted away from it and swung her axe at its enormous head. She landed a fierce blow that shuddered up her arm as if she had struck a chunk of iron.

  Dazed and surprised, the bear stumbled as it tried to turn towards the cause of its pain, but it lost its footing and thumped head first into the gnarled trunk of a thick oak tree. The tree trembled, snow cascading from its branches, and the bear collapsed in a bundle. But it wasn’t down for long. Before Ylva had time to help Cathryn, the bear struggled to its feet and stepped back. It shook sense into itself, turning its head in confusion, searching for its prey.

  Ylva stood with her bloody axe raised, torn between two thoughts; escape while the creature was confused, or attack again and keep on attacking until it was dead.

  So she attacked.

  She ran at the bewildered beast, screaming and swinging her axe, striking at it wherever she could. She shouted so hard she thought the veins might burst in her head. She made sounds she didn’t know she could make.

  The bear turned in a circle, huffing and clacking its teeth, disorientated by the chaotic attack. Ylva didn’t let up; she rained down blow after blow on the bear, sometimes striking flesh, sometimes bone, and sometimes striking nothing but the cold, cold air.

  She fought even though her arms ached and her chest was ready to burst. She couldn’t give the creature even a moment to recover, so she fought and fought and fought until, ‘Oof!’ – a powerful blow struck her hard in the chest.

  Ylva’s lungs collapsed, her breath sucked away, and she was lifted off her feet. For a moment she was airborne and everything was lost, then she landed in the snow with a thump. But her instinct was to survive. It was always to survive. Within seconds, she was on her feet again, drawing breath back into her body, shouting and swinging her axe, but the bear was not to be struck again. With a final roar, it turned towards the glade and thundered away, crashing through the understorey and disappearing from sight.

  Ylva continued to shout and swing her axe until long after the bear was gone. She only stopped when Cathryn came close and said, ‘Child.’

  Ylva whipped around and raised her axe. There was blood on her face and fingers. The leather-wrapped handle of the axe was slippery in her grip, and the snow around her was splattered.

  ‘It’s gone.’ Cathryn reached out a hand, but stopped short of touching Ylva.

  Their breath steamed between them with every well-earned lungful.

  ‘Gone?’ Ylva said when she found her voice. ‘You’re sure?’

  Cathryn nodded.

  ‘Will it come back?’ Her whole body was shaking.

  ‘Would you?’ Cathryn’s face cracked into a smile. ‘Would you come back with such a dangerous child screaming at you?’

  ‘What’s so funny?’

  ‘Nothing.’ Cathryn’s smile broadened. ‘It’s not funny at all. We nearly died, but . . . You.’

  ‘Me? What about me?’

  Cathryn chuckled. ‘Seeing you battling the bear. A young pup and a fully grown bear.’

  ‘I’m not a pup.’

  ‘But just a young wolf,’ Cathryn chuckled. ‘A she wolf. If only you could have seen your face! The determination. I’ve never seen anyone so fierce.’ Cathryn put back her head and laughed. ‘Maybe you do have the heart of a warrior. If it wasn’t for you, I’d probably be dead.’

  ‘Why is that funny?’

  Cathryn ignored the question and allowed herself to laugh away the fear and the adrenalin. She laughed until she could hardly breathe, then she calmed herself and looked at Ylva, who was watching her in confusion. ‘You have no sense of humour, child.’

  ‘That’s what Mother used to say.’

  ‘Uh-huh, well.’ Cathryn wiped her face with her sleeve. ‘She was probably right. But what you lack in humour, you definitely make up for in bravery. And your battle cry was pretty good. Your mother would’ve been proud of you. Geri, too.’

  ‘I hit it.’ Ylva looked at the blood on her hands. ‘Didn’t I?’

  ‘You did. And not just once. Maybe they’ll write a saga about you after all. Ylva the Fearless; the child who fought a bear and won. Maybe it’s you who’s Ulfhednar. I wouldn’t be surprised if you have wolf’s blood in your veins.’

  23

  Mercy

  Paw prints were scattered to and fro across the glade. In places, it was dappled with black spots that would look red in any other light. But fresh snow continued to fall like silvery petals, layering a touch of beauty over the cruel evidence of the terrible battle. Soon, any evidence of what had happened here would be buried and gone.

  Cathryn stepped into the glade and stopped. From a distance it might have been easy to mistake her for a bear. She remained still, watching the trees, her shoulders moving with each heavy and laboured breath. There was sweat on her brow, and weary bags hung under her bloodshot eyes. Soft flakes settled on her furs.

  Ylva stood beside her, scanning the clearing, taking in the scent of soil and bark and something else; something wild and dark. Her gaze settled on the shape of the wolf lying trampled at the base of the tree. She was sure it was dead but, as if to prove her wrong, the creature moved. It lifted its head, trying to turn in their direction. The effort was too much. It whimpered and collapsed back into the snow.

  ‘He’s a strong one,’ Cathryn whispered, and for a moment they stayed where they were, looking from the wolf to the trees and back again, waiting to see if the bear would return.

  ‘Is it one of them?’ Ylva asked. ‘The Ulfhednar?’

  ‘A man in the form of a wolf? No, of course not. Wolves are wolves and men are men. There’s nothing magic about the half-skulls. Remember what Bron’s arrows did to them; you saw it with your own eyes.’

  ‘So it’s just a wolf?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then it’s cruel to leave the poor creature like that.’

  Cathryn nodded once. They understood each other. There was only one thing they could do for the wolf.

  Ylva drew her knife, and went deeper into the glade. Cathryn followed, but when Ylva crouched beside the wounded animal, Cathryn remained standing.

  Ylva was almost overcome by the beauty and power of the wild animal lying in the snowy glade. It was larger than she had expected a wolf to be. Far bigger than Geri. Its blood-matted coat was musty with decay, and every wheezing breath released a trickle of stale air.
Its narrow body was hollow from hunger but there was something powerful in its presence. There was no doubting the wildness and strength of this beast.

  Before she knew what she was doing, Ylva ran her hand along the wolf’s body. She had done the same when she found Geri lying lifeless in the hut. The fur was coarse and grainy with dirt, and when she took her hand away, there was blood on her fingers. Ylva wiped it on her breeches, and held her hand over the wolf’s head. She hesitated, then gently touched the soft fur between its ears. Ylva kept her hand there as she spoke to the dying creature.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ She fought back tears and tried not to think of Geri as she reached around the wolf’s neck with her right hand and drew her knife across its throat. It only took one swift cut to finish what the bear had started, and Ylva knelt beside the wolf and stroked its head as its life slipped away.

  When it was done, she wiped her blade in the snow and then on her breeches. She ran her hand through the wolf’s fur once more.

  ‘You did the right thing,’ Cathryn said.

  Ylva looked up at the woman standing beside her. She was suffering. The huge Saxon who had barged into the hut last night was a shadow of what she had been. Her skin was pale, her eyes tired.

  ‘Your arm is bad?’ Ylva asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You need to rest.’

  ‘I’ll rest when I’m dead.’ Cathryn managed a smile.

  ‘That could be sooner than you think.’ Ylva looked at the wolf, then at Cathryn. ‘You need to rest before you die.’

  ‘Uh-huh, well. As soon as we get to the caves, then.’ Cathryn wiped her face and scanned the glade one more time. ‘Look.’ She pointed to three small dark shapes a few paces away.

  Ylva stepped around the wolf’s body and moved closer. Now she understood why the wolf had been fighting the bear.

  ‘It was a “she”,’ Ylva said. ‘A mother.’