by Brian Bates
‘Drink it!’ he ordered, sitting down next to me and staring into my face. I swivelled my gaze towards him. His eyes seemed huge in the firelight and his face looked tight and strained.
‘Brand, we have to increase your life-force. Immediately! It is a matter of the utmost urgency, for you cannot survive long without your soul.’
He spoke quietly and calmly and I watched him talking fascinated by the movement of his mouth. The words washed over me like a gentle drizzle; I could not make any sense of them.
‘With your soul gone, your body will use all of your life-force to create a shadow-soul. But a shadow-soul cannot last for long soon your body will burn itself out trying to maintain the shadow, your head will get hot, you will sweat, you will ache and within two nights you will die. Our only hope is to attempt a sudden, massive increase in your life-force so that you can project your shadow-soul into the Underworld. There, if the spirits are favourable, you will be prepared for a long journey to the spirit-world. Then, if you can summon a guardian spirit, you may be able to recapture your soul. Things could go wrong at any stage, of course, in which case you would be dead anyway.’
He paused to wipe sweat from his brow, watching me closely like a hawk. I stared straight back at him I had just heard him pass sentence of death on me, for it was difficult even to conceive of doing all those things in two days. The chance that we would be successful in all those endeavours seemed to be non-existent.
Wulf raised his cup of herb tea to his mouth, but put it down again without drinking. He turned to look into the fire, in silence, and when he did turn back to me his eyes were moist. He spoke in a barely audible whisper:
‘Of course, Brand, we may have less than two days, for your soul is journeying in the spirit-world. At any time your soul could encounter malevolent forces and be killed.’
Dimly, I pondered how a soul could be killed. Now that I had heard it put baldly, it seemed an entirely reasonable supposition.
Wulf cleared his throat and continued talking in a very quiet voice:
‘I once knew a sorcerer from this forest who travelled in his soul to the spirit-world to retrieve the lost soul of a sick woman.
‘He laid his physical body before a fire in the spirit-house, surrounded by onlookers. Then he released his soul and began singing and chanting describing the journey of his soul; suddenly he began to tell of dangerous spirits approaching him and as they neared him he went to meet them and tried to reason with them, but they attacked him. The sorcerer described a terrible battle, his voice hoarse with anguish, and he cried out that they had sword-ripped the belly of his soul-form. Then he fell silent.’
Wulf paused again, staring at the ground, apparently wrestling with thoughts and emotions. ‘Everyone crowded forward to see if he was all right. There was an enormous wound across his stomach. Yet none of the people had touched him.’
There followed another pause before Wulf spoke again:
‘The sorcerer died. He was close to me, for it was I who first introduced him to the spirit-world. But let us hope that your fate will be different.’
I could not contain myself and I burst out laughing. Wulf’s story was so terrifying so doom laden and so final that there was nothing I could do but laugh. The forest crowded in around me and I knew now that before two nights had passed I would almost certainly be dead. I laughed long and hard, hysterically at first and then in a deeper and more releasing manner. Finally I began to relax. Death was so probable that somehow it ceased to be a threat. It was still frightening but it was so imminent that it seemed to lose its paralysing grip on my senses. No matter what I did, I would almost certainly die and so there could be no limit to what I could do. I would fight to stay alive, but would expect to die. I laughed until tears trickled down my cheeks.
Finally Wulf grabbed my tunic and shook me to command my attention.
‘Brand, listen to me. Listen! We must hunt for an ally so that we can increase your life-force thirty-fold. Tonight.’
‘We are hunting tonight? In the dark?’ My voice sounded loud and harsh and startled me.
‘We are hunting for power. The plant is spearwort. It is a fearsome plant and can be hunted only at night when it is most vulnerable.’
I laughed again, loudly.
‘How will spearwort help me?’ I snorted sarcastically. ‘By killing me?’
‘You will have to kill spearwort first and that is no easy task,’ Wulf replied coolly. ‘But if you are successful we can, with the help of spearwort, project your shadow-soul from your body like a luminous personal spirit. Then you will be able to journey to the Underworld, where the mighty smiths of magic will prepare you to journey to the spirit-world.’
I shrugged my shoulders to indicate that I had no objections to a night-time hunt. Since I was doomed to die in any case, everything seemed possible.
Wulf opened his hands and began to pass them over my body close to my tunic but without touching me. He seemed to be feeling for something with his palms and I was suddenly reminded of his cure of the horse at Cydda’s farm. He nodded, apparently in satisfaction.
‘The shadow-soul is breathing out your shield-skin, preventing your body from crumbling and keeping it alive. But it cannot continue for long. We have no time to lose. Come on!’
Wulf began to make preparations to leave. My fingers still trembled with cold, but I realized that my body was no longer numb and frozen. Unsteadily I strapped on my shoes, wrapped my cloak around me and as soon as we were ready, Wulf led the way from the clearing Northwards along the riverbank, setting a slow pace, allowing me to stay close behind him.
A pale moon glowed intermittently between drifting clouds and shimmered through the forest canopy like silver star-dust. Shrubbery winked and rustled as we pushed past and the soft ground-cover wriggled under my feet. At first I had difficulty walking I felt as if my body were pivoted at the navel and my feet were slipping about on ice. Gradually I gained control of my balance and concentrated on treading close behind Wulf. Suddenly he stopped and I walked straight into the back of him.
‘Be careful!’ he hissed. ‘Now listen. Spearwort is an extremely powerful and dangerous force. It will be expecting us and as soon as it knows we are coming it will lay a trap. It will send forces after us.’
He paused and glanced at the tree cover at the back of the clearing. Then he whispered into my ear:
‘We must hunt in absolute silence. When we reach the plant, try not to look at it directly for it has been known to kill with a look of power. Keep your gaze to one side of the spearwort and watch it out of the comer of your eye. You must try to get as close as you can to the plant, moving so slowly that it cannot even detect that you are moving I shall give you my knife. When you are within two or three paces, leap in and plunge the knife as deeply as possible into the ground at the base of the plant.’
Wulf pulled his head back and regarded me steadily.
I nodded, stiffly. ‘How will I know which plant?’
‘You will know. But remember, if spearwort suspects our presence too early, it could kill. Under no circumstances must you talk. Spearwort will not give you a second chance. You are hunting but remember, you are also being hunted.’
We resumed walking and, after a time, Wulf led us across a shallow ford in the river and we waded through the swift, cold current, swirling past our feet like some slithering animal pulling at our ankles. On the opposite bank we plunged into thicker woodland and the tree cover blotted out the moon. As we pushed through the undergrowth I sensed the presence of larger animals and once glimpsed the bulk of a bear watching us from a slight rise, behind a clutter of bramble and low branches. Wolves howled in the distance, foxes’ eyes glistened from hiding places and the undergrowth was alive with badgers scurrying for cover.
As the forest became more thickly wooded, our path twisted and turned around trees and shrubbery huddled together like children in darkness, and soon my face stung from the lashing of low branches. Wulf pushed on ahead
of me. Suddenly I realized that I could no longer hear the swish of his legs through the undergrowth. I stopped in my tracks and listened carefully, sweat running salty into my mouth, but I could hear nothing I peered blindly into the surrounding shrubbery, but he was gone. Panic pounded in my chest and I stood rigidly like a trapped rabbit, trying to decide what to do. Then my heart leapt into my mouth: I heard Wulf’s voice. I knew that something must be terribly wrong for he had insisted on total silence. I turned and looked behind me. The low branches that I had pushed aside had closed behind me, blocking my view. I held my breath and listened hard. Wulf spoke again, this time from my right.
‘I am on the other side of the hawthorn. Can you come through?’
Quickly I scanned the bushes. Just ahead of me the red berries of a hawthorn gleamed like black stones in the darkness. I dropped to my hands and knees and crawled through a space near the base of the bush. To my relief, the familiar silhouette of Wulf’s cloak and hat loomed ahead of me. He had his back to me and seemed to be examining something in the trees to his left. I scrambled out from under the hawthorn and stood next to him, peering in the direction of his gaze.
‘What’s wrong Wulf?’ I whispered.
He did not reply, but continued to look away from me as if observing something in the trees. I tried to attract his attention again:
‘Wulf, why did you speak?’
Slowly he turned towards me, his face shrouded by the broad brim of his hat. As his gaze met mine, I went cold with horror; the face was grotesque, with eyes white and blank like stream pebbles and a black mouth opening and closing silently. I could not move or even tear my eyes away from the horrible face; it was like being trapped in a terrible nightmare. Then I heard a high-pitched whine and felt a tremendous pressure inside my head. Desperately I struggled to move away, but my feet were rooted to the spot. I was aware of the demon’s hand reaching towards me and suddenly I recoiled from a mighty blow which lifted me right into the air and hurled me through the bushes to crash into the undergrowth. I rolled over on my back, staring panic-stricken at the mass of waving and spinning branches, losing all sense of direction. Then the bramble branches parted and the shadowy figure came towards me.
Frantically I averted my face and tried to scramble out from under the shrub, kicking and flailing my arms wildly, but strong hands held me fast, gripped my head and slowly forced me to look back into the face. In a frenzy of terror I closed my eyes and screamed. When I opened them again, the face had changed—it loomed close still, but I was looking into the eyes of Wulf.
He helped me to my feet. I could breathe only in sobs and I was trembling uncontrollably. My entire body ached as if I had taken a terrible beating.
He put an arm around my shoulders and helped me from the thickets into a clearing under a large beech tree, where I slumped to the ground and sat with my head between my knees. Wulf squatted next to me. Neither of us spoke. I knew I had made a terrible mistake and Wulf had rescued me. My physical fatigue had interrupted my concentration and when I heard the voice I should have gone in the opposite direction.
I sat for a long time and Wulf made no effort to fore-shorten my recovery period. Eventually I begin to regain control of my trembling limbs.
‘What happened?’ Wulf said eventually, keeping his voice low.
In a whisper I tried to describe what I thought had occurred and Wulf nodded.
‘Spearwort is a cunning force. It lured you into a trap. If I had not returned to look for you, it might have killed you. You are very lucky, Brand.’
Wulf stood and looked into the shadowy forest in all directions, then motioned me to get to my feet.
‘This time, stay alert,’ he warned. ‘Spearwort may try again. No talking. Stay close to me.’
Wulf set off into the woods at a slower pace and I clung to him like thatch moss. Every animal sound and movement now seethed with threat and I stayed alert and vigilant.
After a short distance, Wulf stopped abruptly. I could not see his face but I could hear him sniffing I breathed in deeply; I could smell only the sweet coolness of the forest. Suddenly Wulf left the trail and made off at an angle to the right, walking in a crouch; I doubled over and stayed as close to him as possible. At one point I got my foot caught in matted ferns and had to resist the temptation to hang on to his cloak to avoid losing him.
Twenty paces into the undergrowth, Wulf stopped in front of a large shrub. I looked up at its black bulk and recognized the outline of a dog-rose, clusters of pink flowers looking like small faces in the shadows. Wulf dropped on to his hands and knees and peered cautiously between the lower branches. I squatted close to him, glancing nervously behind me.
Wulf eased himself forward on to his stomach and slithered through a small gap at the base of the shrub. For a moment I was alone in the darkness and in near panic I scrambled through the gap after him. He was crouching on the other side of the shrub, facing a small clearing. Carefully I crawled out of the shrub and rested next to him. Immediately I became aware of something strange about his posture, something that I sensed rather than saw; he seemed to be frozen into a half-bending, half-squatting position, staring at the trunk of a small tree. I focused my eyes in the direction in which he was looking and could just make out the trunk of an aspen. Almost immediately I felt a hot tingling sensation on my left cheek, as if I were sitting too close to a fire. I turned my head to the left and was met by the piercing stare of numerous gleaming yellow eyes. I tried to see some detail of spearwort’s appearance, but I could take in only the cold stare of the yellow eyes. My body tensed with alarm and I jerked back my head to look at Wulf; he remained stock-still, staring at the tree. I remembered that he had warned me to avoid the direct gaze of the spearwort. I looked at the tree, but still had to shift my gaze to the right to avoid the glare.
Wulf started to move again in the same strange, slow manner. He glided stiffly and silently towards the yellow-eyed plants, his head averted, staring at a space two or three paces to the right of them I tried to follow him, but my calf muscles were so tense that I had to roll forward to take some weight off my legs. At the same time I became aware that I had been holding my breath. I sucked in two long silent breaths; the air in the clearing smelled sour and oppressive. I crawled across the clearing, Wulf a few feet ahead of me, still moving almost imperceptibly towards the plants. As I watched him, his right arm glided behind his back and his knife slipped silently into his hand. I wiped my sweating palm on my cloak, reached out and took the weapon. With a wave of his hand, Wulf motioned me past him towards the plant. I swallowed hard, moving forward very slowly like a man swimming under water in a deep pool. I moved to within three paces of the spearwort. Suddenly a horrible, low moan came from the eyes and I froze in mid-stride.
‘Kill!’ Wulf screamed.
I shot forward, the knife flashed and plunged and the yellow eyes shuddered and reared back like an adder about to strike.
‘Run!’ Wulf yelled, sprinting past me to the dog-rose. I lurched after him, pursued by the low moaning and dived through the shrub, shutting my eyes against the slashing branches. Scrabbling desperately at loose soil, I catapulted myself out through the other side. Wulf was waiting for me and as I tried to get up to run, he pushed me down to the ground and held me there, signalling vigorously for me to keep still. He put his mouth near my ear and whispered:
‘When I tell you, go up slowly to the plant and dig it out with your fingers, making a ditch a hand’s-breadth from the stem. Pull out the whole root, with the knife still buried in it.’
Wulf put a finger to his lips and indicated that we were to sit in silence.
We waited for an age, Wulf squatting next to the dog-rose and periodically peering through the branches. Eventually he signalled with a jerk of his head that we were to re-enter the clearing.
He crawled under the wild rose and I followed close behind. As soon as I emerged into the clearing the moaning again filled my ears in rhythmic bursts. The sound grew louder and
I began to shiver as if caught in a biting wind. I pulled my cloak closer around me and stared at Wulf, hoping desperately for a signal to run, but he motioned for me to approach the plant.
Heart pounding I slowly uncurled from my crouch, rolled forward on the balls of my feet and crept towards the spearwort. Gradually the moaning died away to a whisper. From close up I saw that the yellow eyes were a tight array of petals in a daisy-like formation. The knife looked thick, solid, and deadly, buried to the hilt in the ground at the base of the plant.
With my fingers I began to work loose the soil around the base of the stem, avoiding the knife. The night wind crept around the clearing and sighed through the trees above us. In the distance an owl hooted: a melancholy, mournful call. Wulf remained behind me, squatting absolutely motionless.
Gradually I created a ditch surrounding the plant, about as deep as my hand and a hand’s breadth from the stem. Then I burrowed my hands beneath the root, as we had done days earlier when collecting plants on the plateau. I stood slowly and lifted the plant cleanly from the ground. Wulf leaned over and gently brushed away excess soil; the root glistened wet and white, shining through the darkness. It was dark and swollen, with a split on either side of the intruding blade.
Wulf took my arm and we began to back out of the clearing. His head swivelled from side to side, apparently scanning other spearwort plants further back under the trees. We crawled under the dogrose and Wulf took the plant from me. My hands tingled where I had held the wet root and I tried to wipe them dry on the grass.
Now Wulf took a linen sack from his belt, spread it on the ground and placed the plant on it with the root at the centre. The point of the knife blade protruded a few inches from the bottom of the root. Carefully, Wulf wrapped the bag around the root and then gave it back to me.
‘Take good care of it,’ he whispered. ‘It gave you trouble earlier, but now that you have captured it, spearwort will be a powerful ally.’
I followed Wulf back through the forest, cradling the plant protectively in the crook of my arm. It felt heavy and strong like a small, adult hunting animal. As we talked, I began to feel stronger. The chill left me and soon I was sweating under the heavy cloak. My thoughts came clearer and for a time I thought my soul had returned of its own accord. But occasionally the ominous feeling of emptiness returned to my body and I knew that my time was still diminishing rapidly.
