“Where would you go?” he asked.
“I have a hut in the woods. Near the village where I grew up. With the dogs, I’d be able to catch game. If I get extra, I’d trade the furs and wild birds with the villagers in exchange for potatoes and vegetables. The farther away I can get from the city folk the better.”
Hemming thought about where he would go. There was no real home to return to. He thought about his empty family farm. He wondered if someone else had finally moved into it. He imagined the grasses crushed beneath heavy snow, the fences in disrepair, the barns empty except for rats and sparrows. Come spring, the house itself would begin to rot from the inside, locked up, windows boarded, the sun no longer able to warm the inside of the house. There was nothing to return to there.
The dogs had finished their meal and Liv was leashing them. They yipped and snapped and collapsed over each other, excited, anticipating the hunt.
“I thought the war would have made our lives better,” said Liv. “That, after all the fighting, people would be finally treating each other differently.”
“War is fucking hell.”
“Why did you come here? You don’t want to be a soldier anymore. I can see that. Don’t you have a family to go back to?”
“They’re all dead. I had three brothers. Our parents wanted us to stay on the farm. But we all wanted out. We wanted to escape from our village and see the world. I was the first to leave. I joined the army, making a name for myself, and my brothers followed, trying to outshine me. One by one they were killed until only me and my youngest brother, Gunne, were left. I was able to convince the general to let him serve in the honor guard too. That way I could keep him close and protect him. He wasn’t good with a sword. I thought I could always have him in sight. But war isn’t like that, and during one of the final battles while I was guarding the general’s flank, Gunne and I became separated. It was chaos. Too much blood and death to do anything but protect my own skin. And the general’s. After the victory, I searched for Gunne. I found him in a ditch, face to the sky, eyes plucked out by ravens. My baby brother. I have nothing to return to.”
“I have no one left either.”
“At least you have the dogs.”
“I need more than the company of dogs, Hemming.” Her gaze lingered on him.
A piercing scream broke through the howling wind, and Hemming and Liv locked the dogs in the kennel and hurried back to the keep. They followed the shouts through the gloomy corridors to the main hall.
The others crowded together, staring into the storeroom.
Hemming elbowed his way forward.
A body lay in the corner, curled up in a fetal position. It glistened, its muscles and tendons exposed. It had been skinned.
13
Hemming bent over the skinned corpse. The room had filled with metallic stench of blood and urine. He drew in narrow quick breaths through his lips to lessen the smell.
The corpse had been more than only skinned. It also had been mutilated. Deep cuts, parts sliced off, muscle flayed from bone. Bones had been snapped, yet it was shoved back together in a fetal position, almost like it had been packed back together after being dismantled. The damage was so bad that Hemming could not tell whether it was a man or a woman, or even sure how big the person had been.
He touched the pooled blood on the floor. Cold but tacky to the tip of his finger. He had expected the blood to be warm.
The others had retreated to the hall, whispering amongst themselves. He could hear the fear in their voices. All but Elof who stood in the doorway. He looked haggard, the skin of his face pinching in pain as he moved.
“How long has she been dead?” asked Elof.
“I thought we were safe here.”
“What the hell did this? What kind of monster skins people?” Elof’s face was drawn, bloodless. “That is Brit’s corpse, right?”
Hemming stared at the body. “I think so. I don’t know. I can’t tell anything. Who else could it be?”
Voices rose from the hall. Elof slipped out of the room.
Hemming closed his eyes for a moment hoping that when he opened them the scene before him would vanish. But nothing changed. The image of the skinned body only burned brighter in his mind. He turned from the corpse, returned to the hall, and closed the door to the storeroom. Even so, he still could smell the copper tang of blood as if he carried it with him.
Everyone had gathered at one end of the hall, near the hearth. They were lit orange from the fire as if captured in a painting.
“This changes nothing!” shouted Arne. His kite shield and sword lay at his feet. He had layered furs thickly over his armor, prepared for the blizzard. Beads of sweat rolled down his forehead and red cheeks. “We hunt this monster down and we kill it.”
“We shouldn’t split up,” warned Runa. The lines in her face were exaggerated by the firelight. She almost looked as if she wore a mask. Hemming thought that she had aged years since the last time he saw her. “You can’t leave me and Helga here by ourselves. We aren’t shield maidens. If it came back into these walls, we wouldn’t be able to defend ourselves. We’d be slaughtered.”
“Then put on furs. We’ll all go after it together.”
“The storm has worsened,” interrupted Liv. “We can’t go out in the middle of it. We should at least wait for some kind of a break in the weather. The cold will kill more of us than the beast.”
Runa twined her fingers through the hem of her woolen vest. “The keep will protect us. The walls are strong. We lock the gates. Keep watch. We stay together, safe in these walls.”
“We’ll run out of food,” said Arne.
“If we run low, we send the hunter out,” said Runa staring at Liv. “We pay her for a reason. She and her dogs can bring us back meat.”
Hemming imagined Liv leaving one morning with the dogs and never returning. She owed these people nothing. Then he would be left alone with them.
“No! We stay together,” said Arne, “and hunt this demon down.”
Magne and Sigurd grunted in assent.
“Or maybe we do stay together,” offered Hemming, remaining just outside the circle of others and away from the flames of the hearth, “but flee down to Riverton. There’s no reason to remain here. The Sverges have all been slaughtered. There is no enemy force left across the border anymore.” He lowered his voice. “That monster, it slaughtered all of their soldiers. A dozen armed men. We don’t have those numbers. Imagine what it could do to us. We should go to Riverton. Rally the soldiers there. Even send word across the border to the Svergish cities so they can send reinforcements and we all hunt it together. We should not stay here.” He pointed back towards the storeroom. “Remember what it did to Brit.”
“That’s not Brit,” said Helga. She had been so quiet, bent in her plain dress and slowly poking the fire, that Hemming had forgotten about the cook. She could have been missing and he never would have noticed.
“Of course, it is,” said Elof. “It was wearing her skin. We all saw that.”
Helga shook her head. “I went in there, the storeroom, this morning to gather food to make breakfast. There was no body there this morning.”
“Then how did Brit’s body get it in there?” asked Arne. “Corpses don’t walk around by themselves.”
“The room was empty this morning.”
“Then who moved Brit’s body?”
“What are you rambling on about, you fool?” asked Runa. “That’s not Brit’s body. The demon was wearing her skin when we brought her in the keep. It had taken her skin before it came into our keep.”
“Then whose body is that?” asked Arne.
The fire crackled and a log shifted, thudding with an explosion of sparks. Everyone leapt backwards. Hemming retreated from the circle.
He glanced at the others. They all looked at each other, retreating, hands going to their weapons. Hemming felt his breath catching in his throat.
“Whose body is that?” Arne asked again, bending
to pick up his sword. “We’re all here.”
Magne grabbed the hilt of his sword and pulled the blade several finger lengths out of its scabbard. Runa mumbled words of protection beneath her breath. Helga clutched the iron fire poker before her chest.
“There has to be some explanation for all this,” said Elof.
Hemming turned to Runa. “When Brit was here and you were tending to her, what did you notice about her skin?”
“All those cuts on her body, and that gash along her back, I had thought it was from the dogs or the work of the Sverges.”
“What are you suggesting, Hemming?” asked Arne.
Hemming backed another step away from the circle. The axe felt stone heavy in his hands.
“What if that is one of us?” asked Hemming.
Hemming pointed back to the storeroom. “What if that body in there is one of us? I mean who else could it be? We are all here. The thing came into the keep wearing Brit’s skin. What if that corpse is one of us and the demon is standing right here and wearing one of our skins?”
14
They retreated from each other until they stood in a circle, their weapons drawn but not yet pointing at each other. The room had dropped into an uneasy quiet, the only sounds that of the crackle and hiss of the fire.
Liv was the first to speak. “This is ridiculous. We all saw that trail of blood leading down the tunnels and out of the keep. The demon is gone. We’re acting like fools right now.”
“Then how do you explain the body?” asked Arne.
“What if the body was there all along? What if that is Brit’s body?” asked Runa. “What if Helga is lying?”
“Why would she do such a thing?” asked Arne.
“I never trusted her.” Runa shook a fist at Helga and the cook shuffled back two steps and pulled a small blade from her apron.
“Stay away from me, witch. You’re the one we should we be watching out for. I see the evil signs you make. How many hours were you locked away alone in that room with the demon? How do we know the monster is not in your saggy skin right now?”
“We saw it torn out of Brit’s skin,” said Liv. “We saw it flee.”
“But what if the demon wasn’t alone?” Helga asked. “What if there was more than one? That would explain how one fled and the other stayed behind. I know whose skin I think it’s in now. The witch.”
“The witch,” echoed Sigurd.
Everyone turned to stare at Runa. “It’s not me, you fools. Helga’s the one who’s lying. Her mother was a Sverge. We can’t trust her.”
“Is that true?” asked Arne. He leveled his sword at Helga. Spittle stretched between his lips.
“She’s the one who’s lying!” yelled Helga. “She was alone with that thing for hours.”
Hemming retreated further from the circle. This situation was only getting worse. He should have fled from the keep and down to Riverton when he had the chance. He glanced at Liv. If he could get her away from the others, then maybe they could escape together. This was madness.
And if the monster was here among them, he was running out of time.
“The dogs,” said Elof. Hemming noticed that the Sverge was the only one who did not hold a weapon before him. Hemming stared at his folds of clothing, wondering where the knife he had given him was hidden and why he hadn’t drawn it. “We should get the dogs,” continued Elof. “They sense the monster. They must have captured the scent of the beast on Brit. We get them now and they’ll tell us if the demon hides among us.”
Liv nodded and began to move away from the hearth.
“No!” Arne leapt between her and the doorway. “We all stay together. What if Liv is the monster and we are letting her escape?”
“I was with the dogs minutes ago,” said Liv. “They were fine with me. Hemming was there with me.”
Arne leveled his sword at her. “What if you’re both the monster? There’s two of them now, right? What if you lied to us about being with the dogs? Think about it. You both went to the Svergish keep. We don’t know what really happened over there. What if the monster killed you and is in your skin right now?”
“We came back with the dogs,” said Hemming. He stepped forward, arms open. “Arne, you need to settle down. You’re making no sense.”
Arne snarled and turned his sword to Hemming. The captain’s eyes were wide, bloodshot. For a moment, it looked like he was trying to say something, his mouth moving, lips fumbling, and then he lunged forward and slashed his sword.
Hemming leapt backwards, the captain’s blade coming so close that he felt air brush his cheek. “What the hell, Arne?” He lifted his axe, its haft squeaking in his palms.
“The dogs,” repeated Elof. “Why don’t you listen to me? The dogs will root out the monster if it is among us. We need to stop this madness and fight this thing together.”
“No one leaves!” screamed Arne. His face had reddened and glistened with sweat. He breathed raggedly through his slick lips. His legs suddenly began to tremble and the shaking took over his whole body.
Magne stepped forward. “Arne, my friend, you need to settle down. Elof is right. Let’s get the dogs and it will prove that none of us are the monster. Then we hunt it down, just like we planned.”
Magne stepped too close to Arne, and the captain struck. A quick slash flashed in the dying light of the hearth. The flesh of Magne’s neck parted, and for a moment, it seemed to Hemming that the skin just peeled back as if it were nothing but another layer of clothing. Blood sprayed out and Magne dropped his sword and slapped both hands to his neck. The red torrent was relentless, bright, streaming through his fingers. He pleaded with the others with his eyes and the room filled with the sudden stench of urine.
Runa ran a few steps towards him. But she was too late. He tottered a few steps, then fell, his head cracking loudly on the floor.
Runa pointed at Arne and screamed, “It’s him!”
Arne lunged at her. Hemming leapt between them, and brought his axe up to deflect the descending blade. The blow nearly buckled his arms.
“Arne, drop your sword!” yelled Hemming. “This is madness.”
Arne did not seem to hear him, and instead redoubled his attack, this time turning his attack directly at Hemming. He did not expect Arne to come after him. He stepped back, parrying the blows, not ready to strike back. “Arne, please. Stop! Don’t do this.”
Even with the attack, Hemming was aware of where everyone else was in the room. Runa pointed and screamed. Sigurd stood listless, spear hanging by his side. Helga shrunk towards the hearth. Even Liv backed away as if at any moment she might flee down the hall back towards her dogs.
Arne attacked with a fury Hemming never would have expected. Sparks exploded off the metal. Hemming cursed. Each time he defended a blow his arms lost more energy.
“Arne, stop!”
“He’s the demon!” screamed Runa.
Hemming did not want to have to strike back at Arne but he was running out of options. Hemming was about to attack when his foot slipped out from beneath him and he collapsed to the floor, his axe spinning out of his grip and sliding out of his reach.
Arne raised his sword. The light shimmered in the metal. Hemming lifted his hands.
And then Elof stepped behind Arne, wrapped his arms around his neck, as if dragging him into a deep embrace. When his hands pulled apart, something flashed.
Arne’s eyes widened. He stumbled, dropping his sword, and brought both hands to the widening slash across his throat. Elof still held him, and Hemming saw him whisper something into the captain’s ears before letting him sink to the floor.
“I had no choice,” said Elof retreating from the widening pool of blood. “He’d gone crazy.”
15
Hemming backed away from Arne’s body and sat on the bench, burying his head in his hands. The others had stepped away, weapons hanging in slack arms. Finally Runa approached Arne’s and Magne’s bodies and, with a quick movement of her knife, filleted their
skin, pulling away strips to reveal what lay beneath. To Hemming it looked all the same: muscle and tendon. She butchered the corpses like animals, her knife flashing with each slice and her skin glowing orange in the light of the hearth fire.
Hemming felt bile rise in his throat and retreated to the far side of the table where the air was cooler and not so heavy with the cloying metallic smell of blood.
No one really said anything until Runa turned towards them, her forearms slathered in blood. “I can’t tell,” she had said. “I don’t think either of them are the demon. But it could be hidden deeper beneath their skin. We should burn their bodies just in case.”
They dragged Arne and Magne as well as Brit’s skin and the skinned corpse out of the hall and into the courtyard, piled them on split logs, covered them with more logs, and then doused them with oil. After the flames enveloped the bodies, sending twisting black smoke into the falling snow, the others shuffled back into the cold stone walls of the keep leaving Hemming and Liv to watch over the fire and make sure it did not go out prematurely. They huddled beneath the eaves of the courtyard as the bodies burned.
“I don’t think it was either of them,” said Liv. “Runa did not find the demon beneath their skin.”
“Then it’s still here among us.” Hemming stood with both hands tucked beneath his armpits. The clouds had lowered making the world seem smaller, and he imagined he could practically reach up and touch the clouds. Soon the heavily falling snow would snuff out the flames. Only the oil kept the flames alive.
“The body in the store room,” she asked, “could you tell who it was?”
He shook his head.
“If it was still here in the keep, it would be killing us.”
“We’re killing ourselves. We’re doing its work for it.”
“What if it is one of us?”
Skin Page 5
