Wolfskin

by Juliet Marillier

  “The circle holds,” Nessa whispered, “until my work is done here. Mother, watch over this task of darkness; know that I do not come to desecrate, to lay waste what should be left sleeping, but to seek the aid of this man named Ulf, untimely slain, a man who sought peace and light for these islands, but who brought only sickness, slaughter, and chaos. He must lend his voice now in the only way he can, and so set all here on right paths. What I take this night, I take with reverent hands, knowing and accepting the power of the dark one who gathers us all to her in the end. That which I bear forth, I will return with solemn ceremony when my purpose is achieved. This I swear as your priestess. There has been enough loss in this place, enough sorrow. Let there be no more.”

  The moon shone silver-white, cool, impartial. Stars grew brighter, a high arch of jewels on a blanket dark as a seal’s eye, dark as winter sea-wrack, dark as deep cave shadows. Nessa fetched the shovel.

  The burial mound was sealed tight; there was no easy entrance way. It came to her—as the night wore on and she felt the sweat drenching her body, and the pain creeping to lodge itself up and down her back and along her laboring arms—that an old tale was one thing, reality quite another. Old tales did not dwell on the practicalities of a task such as this, the backbreaking toil, the unbelievably slow progress, the growing fear as time passed and she had moved so little soil, shifted so few great slabs of flagstone. She started at the top, hoping this cairn was constructed in the old manner, its stones layered to form a gradual inward curve all the way up. She hoped they had not filled it in, blanketing the dead man in earth. If they had left space, she would reach him more easily. There must be enough time before morning; there had to be.

  It was very quiet. Once or twice, Guard growled softly as some small creature rustled by in the grass on a nocturnal errand. Once or twice, an owl hooted overhead, passing by on the hunt. Nessa could hear the gasp of her own breathing, she could smell her own fear. One stone; another. She would not throw them down, that was to offend the earth, to disturb the sanctity of the place still further. They must be set aside each in its turn, ready to be laid back in place when the task was over. But they were heavy, each heavier than the last, monumental slabs that seemed weighed down by an ancient grief. Tears spilled down her cheeks now; she labored on, letting them flow. By all the powers, she was weary. How sweet it would be to lie down and feel her warrior’s arm around her warm and strong, and his breath against her hair. Right now, she did not want to be a priestess.

  She rested a moment, crouching as still as if she were herself another stone, an insignificant mark in this vast, quiet place under the star-pierced sky. It was so late; what if she could not achieve the task by dawn? What if she were still here, the cairn uncovered, her hands dark with soil, her tools by her in plain view? What then? She could not leave this half-completed and seek a place of safety, for Somerled’s men would pass by and see what she had done; such an act of sacrilege would ensure she was hunted down. Besides, tonight’s work was only the first part of the task. She stirred; she set hands to stone again, tugging to free another slab, scraping at the soil, which had settled over and between the layers to anchor them ever more steadfastly to the earth. She strained, screwing up her eyes. Please, please. This one did not want to move; it fought against the weakening grip of her hands. Please. Help me.

  Guard growled again, an eldritch sound that spoke both challenge and terror. Nessa opened her eyes. There were lights, many lights across the fields around them, coming closer, moving in. Her heart lurched. Somerled’s men. It was finished, then. But there was no sound save a kind of whispering, like a language almost past the edges of human hearing, and the lights were surely not those of torches, for they shone eerie blue, beacons of a kind found in the tales of wrinkled grandmothers, in the songs of ancient shepherds. Bobbing, weaving, they made their progress toward the cairn where Nessa sat staring, knowing the circle kept her safe, knowing the signs marked on her face protected her, but trembling all the same. Guard had moved in close to the mound’s base; he was silent now, standing over the bag that held Nessa’s small store of belongings. The moon caught the wild look in his eyes, the half-bared teeth, but he stood steady, true to the name she had given him.

  They came through the circle she had cast, making a ring of their own around the burial mound. Still she could see little of them beyond those wavering blue lights, yet here and there she half-guessed shadow forms, dark opaque eyes, squat bodies marked with ritual scars, faces that might or might not be masked, for there was no telling if they were man or creature. There was no doubt in Nessa’s mind that this was the Hidden Tribe of the tales. Most folk had seen the lights at night in the distance, gathered by some ancient cairn or weaving a pattern through the great stone circle in the south. One or two people claimed to have met them, and were half-believed. Every farmer had lost stored grain, or a bright cloth from a washing line; once, folk said, it had been a babe from the cradle, and nothing but a turnip in its place, with stones for eyes. Every farmer left out bowls of milk at full moon, and small sweet cakes at harvest time.

  They climbed toward her from every side. Nessa shivered. What did they want? Who had sent them? She could not hide, she would not run. Instead, she set her hands to the stone again, grimacing with effort. Sweat made her fingers slip, pain shot like fire across her shoulders. She gripped the rock anew, and now other hands set themselves by hers, hands as gnarled and knotted as dead roots, one pair, two pairs, three, and all heaved together, and the great stone freed itself from earth with a wrenching, rasping sound like a death rattle. Foul air arose from below; Nessa recoiled, her hands over her mouth and nose. There was movement around her now, stones shifting, rising, being passed down to the ground below, long hands scrabbling in the dirt, lights moving in total silence save for the constant, rustling whispering. The hole widened, the stench dispersed in the night air. Guard whined, looking up at her anxiously.

  The cairn was open. Dark forms dropped down within, blue light shone up from the interior. Hands like bleached bone reached up toward her. It was at that moment that Nessa remembered how she had called for help; it was she who had summoned them. She moved, lowering herself, until the stretching hands caught her and their owners lifted her down inside as if she were no heavier than a single owl feather. She stood by the slab where Ulf the far-seeker lay on his bed of heather, covered by his brave red cloak, and the Hidden Tribe stood about her in a circle, waiting.

  Lifting the stones, making the way in, had required strength, and she had found it, with a little help. What she must do now required an entirely different kind of strength. Every instinct shrank from the task; her thudding heart told her the fear she had felt before was nothing to this. She took a corner of the cloak between her fingers and peeled it back.

  Time and the small creatures that dwelt within the earth had wrought their changes here. Decay had touched this chieftain’s noble form, had shrunk and crumbled his fabric and painted him livid and gray and night-dark. The skull showed stark beneath the matter that still covered it, the body was collapsing within its shroud of fine clothing, braid-edged tunic, cape of close-woven wool, broad studded belt, fine soft boots. Ulf’s weapons lay by him; a helm with gilded eyepiece, a long sword, a dagger whose hilt bore a pattern of waves and suns, as if to show the will to voyage, which had been so strong in this chieftain from the snow lands. His hair lay long and dark about head and shoulders; the band of braided cloth, which had kept it neat, still circled his skull above the empty sockets of once far-seeing eyes.

  The hair: that was the easy part. She would start with that. Nessa’s knife moved, sliced; the soft strands fell into her hand, a whisper against her blistered palm. Other hands reached out, ash-pale, and took the strange harvest from her. She stepped across to stand by the dead man’s right arm. In her mind, she pictured the thing that must be made. She lifted the knife, poised it in place, began to cut.

  The sky was beginning to lighten by the time they were finish
ed. The folk of the Hidden Tribe bore the hard-won burden forth from the chamber; they lifted Nessa out and set her back on the earth by Guard, and they passed the bones between them until she had packed them all safely away in the bag she had brought. She was feeling very odd indeed, as if she were not really here, as if it were some other girl who did these fearsome things and walked by these beings of story, and the real Nessa were still at home on the Whaleback, tucked up asleep by her sisters in a time when the world was to rights, and no blond giants had come across the sea to set their booted feet on this quiet shore. But she was here; she could feel the burning ache in her back, she could see the circle of shadowy figures in the darkness and hear their whispering. Oh, she was tired; she was so tired, and this was not yet finished.

  “Cover up,” she managed. “We cannot leave him thus. The stones, the opening…”

  Already, behind her on the mound, there were faint sounds of activity, and yet the strange companions of her moonlit endeavor stood here close by her, the blue light which shone about them fading slowly as dawn came closer. She ventured a glance over her shoulder and blinked in amazement. The Hidden Tribe, it seemed, was not the only force the islands had summoned to aid their priestess this night. Now small creatures of the dark crept forth—some on two legs, some on four; some furred, some feathered; some many-limbed in jewel-bright carapace—and as Nessa stared, the cairn was mended, grain by grain, pebble by pebble, the surface growing smooth and unbroken in the gray of early light. She had not seen the big stones move, but this was a place where the impossible happened every day, folk knew that; what about the woman who had once been a seal, what about the turnip baby, what about the monolith with a powerful thirst for lake water? Nessa looked away. Whatever had moved that weight so quickly, she thought, she would rather not look in its eyes. Still, she could see ferns rustling upward, creepers twining and binding to cover the earth she had bared, she could see spring’s soft blanket moving up again to shelter Ulf’s rest, until she might return to make him whole again.

  Now she must go; she must find a place of hiding as far from here as she might travel before the sun rose bright in the spring sky. Her helpers seemed to be waiting; perhaps they expected some reward. Nessa took her knife again and moved sunwise around the circle, undoing what she had made here. She spoke a few words to the guardian of each quarter, spending a little longer in the north, home of Bone Mother, for she knew the ancient one had sent courage to her heart and steadied her hand in this night’s work. There: the circle was unmade, the morning brightened, the wide sky showed a faint rim of rose pink to the east. Still they waited there, eyes dark and solemn, bodies clad in tattered rags, whose openings showed old, deep slashes to the skin, neat patterns of lines on chest, belly, back, or thigh. Some wore talismans of whalebone driven through ear or nose, and one had a necklace of tiny skulls.

  “Th–thank you,” Nessa stammered, not at all sure they would understand. “I honor you for coming to aid me. Without you, I could not have completed this task.”

  They stood unblinking.

  “I would like to give you something, some token of my gratitude,” she said, “but I came away in haste; I have very little.”

  Now they were staring at Guard; one licked his lips. The hound growled a warning.

  “I have a little food. Bread, some hard cheese, some dried fruit. You are welcome to that.” She bent toward the bag, wondering how she would manage if even this meager supply were gone.

  A bony finger tapped her shoulder. Nessa looked up. Its owner motioned toward her face, then to his own, touching the lips. A rustling went around the circle; they edged in closer.

  “A kiss?” Nessa rose to her feet, blinking in amazement. “That is all you want? This I will give gladly, and then I must be on my way. I will remember each of you, and do my best to keep your secret places safe. Our kind and your kind, we are both of the fabric of these islands, though our feet seldom walk the same path.”

  Right around the circle of them she went, stooping here, rising on tiptoe there. Each got his kiss; each felt the touch of her lips on cheek or mouth, each felt the warmth of her hands, and one or two were bold enough to put an arm around her, to touch roughened fingers to soft hair or narrow waist. When she was done, she opened her mouth to thank them again, and saw the grins that creased their fierce faces, but before she could speak, the lights faded away and, with a whisper of shadow on dew-touched grass, they were gone. Behind her, the mound still rustled with life as myriad small creatures worked their magic of remaking.

  “Come, Guard,” said Nessa, shouldering the little bag and picking up the other with its strange cargo. The shovel she must leave somewhere in the fields; it would slow her progress, but could not be abandoned in this place. “We must seek shelter until it is dark again. Come, good friend.”

  When it came to it, they did not go far, for there were soon men about, Somerled’s men, and it was quickly clear to Nessa, peering out from what refuge she could find, that they were looking for someone. Perhaps they had learned of her escape, finding the ruins of Kinart’s boat, her footsteps on the shore, some other trace. Perhaps Somerled sensed her purpose and sought to silence the voice she would summon. She could see small groups of warriors scouring the countryside, going into every cottage, every barn, searching each fold and cranny of the land, perhaps on orders not to return until they had found their prize. Of her own folk, she saw none as she fled, nor would she have sought them, for to ask for shelter among what survivors still lived in isolated farmhouse or far-flung settlement was to bring down Somerled’s wrath on them. What must be done, she would do alone.

  She was tired; she was so weary her legs would hardly go forward, her eyes barely remain open to see her way. She would have to stop. She would have to rest and go on at dusk when she might move more freely undetected. She watched while a group of five warriors searched a hay barn, now all but empty of its summer harvest. The best stock had not long been let out of winter confinement to feed on the first new growth in the fields; it was strange to remember that, but for Margaret and Ulf, the crop that had been stored here might never have been gathered in to nourish the herd through the dark season. When the search was over and the men moved on, Nessa stole into the barn with Guard by her side, and crept into a dark corner among the remnant hay. She lay down with her pack under her head and her arm curled protectively around the other bag. She was too weary to eat, to drink, to do anything at all. In the far corner, Guard caught some small, squealing thing and ate it hungrily. Nessa thought about Margaret. A fine, strong girl: a pity she had not been able to sway Somerled. He had not listened to her, and he had not listened to Eyvind. He had scorned the good counsel even of those who loved him. He had gone his own way, and now it seemed he would make the choices and determine the path for all of them. That could not be allowed to happen. She would stop him. When it was dark, she must head southward to the great circle, and then to the coast again. The Hidden Tribe had come to her aid. Now she must seek help from another quarter, though she trembled to think of it. She would go on…she would…

  Nessa slept. In the doorway lay Guard, one eye half-open, ready for trouble. The sun passed over, the breeze brought a shower of rain, and another. Down the hill, armed men passed and passed again, searching. The sunlight glinted on their spears, on their helms, on the burnished bosses of their round shields.

  “Not a whisker,” said one warrior to another, easing his back. “Whatever way he went, it wasn’t this one.”

  “So what do we do?” asked a second. “Report back empty-handed? Who wants to tell Somerled we searched from dawn till midday and found nothing? Not me.”

  “We could try northward,” suggested another.

  “Fool’s errand,” grunted the first. “The man’s a Wolfskin. Wild creatures, they are. Slip across the land like the hunters they’re named for. Like shadows. Like ghosts.”

  “Bollocks,” said the second. “Any man can be caught, so long as he’s flesh and blo
od. Somerled’s right. Eyvind turned into a traitor. Traitors have to be taken and punished. No chieftain worth his salt lets a man turn against his own and get away with it, Wolfskin or no Wolfskin.”

  “Never catch him, not unless he wants to be caught,” muttered the first man. “If you ask me, Somerled’s a fool.”

  “What?” Four voices spoke as one. His companions turned toward him, eyes narrowed, mouths grim. Each fingered his weapon.

  “Nothing. Come on, then. North it is.”

  They moved across the land in silence, leaving no tumbledown hut untouched, no cave, no sheepfold, no heap of weathered rock unsearched. In the hay barn, small creatures stirred in the walls, and Guard’s ears twitched. Nessa slept a sleep of dark dreams.

  ELEVEN

  As night fell a chill wind came up, numbing his ears, hurting his head, setting a shiver in his bones. He had stolen sword and knife, a pair of boots, a haunch of meat which he’d already eaten, crouched motionless in the lee of a stone wall between fields, some time during the day’s gradual journey southward. Without fire it would be a cold, dark night. But fire could only attract pursuers; in darkness, he was safe from Somerled. A wolf finds his way by moon and stars, by the faint scent of the enemy, by the subtle movement of leaf and twig. Thus Eyvind must go; but for now his aching body demanded rest, his throbbing head and hazy eyes cried out for sleep. Ah, sleep: he longed for it and dreaded it. Sleep brought a bright tangle of dreams, and all the dreams were of her. The bad ones: Nessa frightened, Nessa captive, Nessa burning; from those he would wake with flesh bathed in cold sweat, heart racing, eyes full of tears. The good ones: her soft voice, her elusive smile, the scent of spring flowers; words of love she had never spoken, sweet touches she had never given. He walked with her on the shore in summer; he sat silent by her on the clifftop in springtime. Waking from those dreams was bitterest of all, and he did not know which was strongest in him, the craving to see her or the horror of confronting, each time anew, the knowledge that she had been taken from him. He cursed the gods for sending him such dreams, and yet he would not have been without them.