You couldn’t deny it was matter for skald song, through a winter and beyond. In the northlands, that mattered. Perhaps everyone shared these doubts he was having, Bern thought. He didn’t think so, actually, looking at his shipmates, but it would have been good to have someone to ask. He wondered where his father was. Thorkell had told him not to let them come this way.
He’d tried. You couldn’t say he hadn’t tried. He wasn’t leading this raid, was he? And if your life steered you to the dragon-ships, well … it steered you there. Ingavin and Thünir chose their warriors. And maybe—maybe—he’d come out of this with a share of glory. His own. A name to be remembered.
Men lived and died pursuing that, didn’t they? Fair fame dies never. Was Bern Thorkellson of Rabady Isle the one to say they were wrong? Was he that arrogant? Bern shook his head, drawing a glance from the man next to him on the beach.
Bern looked the other way, embarrassed. Saw, beyond the strand, the darkly outlined hills of the Cyngael, knew that the Anglcyn lands lay beyond, far beyond. And farther east, across the seas, where the sun would rise, was home.
No one, he thought, travelled as the Erlings did. No people were so far-faring, so brave. The world knew it. He drew a breath, pushed the dark thoughts away from him. Sunrise came. Brand Leofson picked his men for the raid.
Bern started east with the other chosen ones.
They had been living for three days on nuts and berries, like peasants foraging in a dry season or during a too-long winter with the storeroom empty. Cafall led them to water, so there was that, for themselves and the horses.
It was oppressively dark in the forest, even in daytime. On occasion a square of sky could be seen through the trees, light spilling down, a reminder of a world beyond the wood. Sometimes at night they caught a glimpse of stars. Once they saw the blue moon, and paused in a glade without a word spoken, looking up. Then they went on. They were following the dog north and west towards Arberth—or they had to assume that was so. None of them could do more than hazard a guess at where they were, how far they’d come, how far yet there was to go. Five days, Alun had said the passage through the forest might be: that, too, had been a guess.
No one had ever done this.
They pushed themselves and the animals hard: an awareness of urgency and the equally strong feeling that it was better to keep moving than be still in one place for too long. They never again heard or sensed the beast-god that had come the first night, or the green creatures of the half-world that had followed.
They knew they were here, however. And when they slept, or tried to (one always awake, on watch), the memory of that unseen creature would come back. They were intruders here, alive only on sufferance. It was frightening, and wearying. One had to work to avoid startling shamefully at sounds in the wood—and all forests were full of sounds.
They knew they had been three nights here, but in another way this had become for them a time outside of time. Athelbert had a vision once, almost asleep in the saddle, of the three of them coming out to a world entirely changed. He didn’t know, for he didn’t speak of this, that Alun had had that same fear, meeting a faerie outside Esferth, before the fyrd had ridden south.
Through the first two days they’d talked, mostly to hear voices, human sounds. Athelbert had amused the others, or tried to, singing tavern songs, invariably bawdy. Thorkell, after extended urging, had offered one of the Erling saga-verses, but the younger men became aware he was doing it only to indulge them. By the fourth day they were riding in silence, following the grey dog in the gloom.
Near sundown, they came to another stream.
Cafall was doing this without urging. Each one of them was aware that they’d have been lost days ago without Alun’s dog. They didn’t speak of this, either. They dismounted, bone-tired, to let the horses drink. Dim, filtered twilight. Clink of harness, creak of saddle leather, crunch and snap of twigs and small branches by the stream, and they nearly died again.
The snake wasn’t green. It was Alun who trod too close, Athelbert who saw it, whipping out his dagger, gripping it to throw. It was Thorkell Einarson who snapped a command: “Hold! Alun, don’t move!”
The black snakes were poisonous, their bite tended to be lethal.
“I can kill it!” Athelbert rasped through clenched teeth. Alun had frozen where he was, in the act of approaching the water. One foot was incongruously lifted so that he was poised, like some ancient frieze of a runner in one of the villas left behind when the Rhodian legions retreated south. The snake remained coiled, its head moving. An easy-enough target for someone skilled with a blade.
“I swore an oath,” Thorkell said urgently. “Our lives depend—”
In that same moment Alun ab Owyn murmured, very clearly, “Holy Jad defend my soul,” and sprang into the air.
He landed in the water with a splash. The stream was shallow; he came down hard, knees and hands on stone, and cursed. The snake, affronted, disappeared with a slither and glide into underbrush.
The bear cub, which none of them had seen, looked up from the far side of the water where it had been drinking, backed away a few steps, and essayed a provisional growl in the direction of the man in the stream.
“Oh, no!” said Athelbert.
He wheeled. Cafall barked a high, furious warning and streaked past him. The mother bear had entered the clearing already, roaring, her head swinging heavily back and forth. She rose on her hind legs, huge against the black backdrop of trees, spittle and foam at her gaping mouth. They were between her and the cub. Of course they were.
The horses went wild—and they were untethered. Alun’s plunged through the stream. Thorkell seized the reins of the other two and hung on. Alun scrambled to his feet, splashed over, and claimed his trembling horse on the far bank—it was blocked there by trees, had nowhere to go. Frantically, it tried to rear, nearly pulled him off the ground. The cub, equally frightened, backed farther away, but was much too close to him. Athelbert sprinted over to Thorkell and the horses, fumbling for his bow at the saddle.
“Mount up!” Thorkell shouted, fighting his way into his own saddle. Athelbert looked at him. “Do it!” the Erling screamed. “We are dead if we kill here. You know it!”
Athelbert swore savagely, hooked a leg into a swinging stirrup. The horse skittered sideways; he almost fell, but levered himself up. On the far bank, Alun ab Owyn, also a horseman, clambered on his mount. It wheeled and bucked, eyes white and staring.
The bear came forward, still roaring. It was enormous.
They had to move past it to get out. “I’ll shoot to wound!” Athelbert cried.
“Are you mad? You’ll make it wild!”
“What is it now?” the Anglcyn prince screamed back. “Jad’s blood,” he added very quickly, and with extreme, necessary skill, mastered his rearing mount and, leaning far over to one side, lashed it past the bear, which was almost on top of them.
Thorkell Einarson was an Erling. His people lived for longships, white foam, a moonlit sea, surf on stony strands. Not for horses. He was still struggling to control his spinning, terrified steed.
“Move!” Alun screamed from the far bank, not helpfully.
There wasn’t enough time in the world, or room in the glade, to move. Or there wouldn’t have been, if a lean, blur-fast, grey creature hadn’t knifed over and sunk its teeth into the hind leg of the bear. The animal roared, in rage and pain, turned with shocking speed on the dog. Thorkell kicked his horse in that same moment, sawed at his reins, and moved, following Athelbert out. Alun joined them in that same instant of reprieve, splashing across the water, cutting out of the glade.
It was very hard to see. A bear was roaring behind them, a noise that shook the woods. And entangled with it back there was a wolfhound with unspeakable courage and something more than that.
They were out, though, all three of them. It was far too black and tangled to gallop. They moved as quickly as they could along the twisting, almost-path. A little distance farther the
y stopped, of one accord, turned to look back, staring—ready to move if anything remotely bear-like should appear.
“Why in the name of everything holy did we keep our weapons if you won’t let us use them?” Athelbert was breathing in gasps.
So was Thorkell, gripping his reins too tightly in a big fist. He turned his head. “You think … you think … if we get out of this Ingavin-cursed forest they’ll be dancing to greet us?”
“What?”
The big man wiped at his face, which was dripping with sweat. “Think it! I’m an Erling enemy, you’re an Anglcyn enemy, that one is the prince of Cadyr, and we’re heading for Arberth. Which of us do you think any men we meet will want to kill first?”
There was a silence. “Oh,” said Athelbert. He cleared his throat. “Um. Indeed. Not dancing. Ah, you, I’d wager. You’d be first. What, er, shall we bet?”
They heard a sound along the path; both men turned.
“Dear Jad,” said Alun ab Owyn quietly.
He slipped down off his horse, walked a few steps back along the way they had come, crunching twigs and leaves again. Then he knelt on the path. He was crying, although the other two couldn’t see that. He hadn’t cried since the beginning of summer.
Out of shadow and tree the dog limped towards them, head low, moving with effort. It stopped, a short distance from Alun, and lifted its head to look at him. There was blood everywhere, he saw, and in the near-black he thought an ear was ripped away. He closed his eyes a moment, swallowed hard.
“Come,” he said.
A whisper, really. All he could manage. His heart was aching. This was his dog, and it wasn’t. It was Brynn’s wolfhound. A gift. He’d accepted it, been accepted after a fashion, never allowed himself a deeper bond, something shared. Companionship.
“Please come,” he said again.
And the dog stepped forward, slowly, the left front paw favoured. The right ear was indeed missing, Alun saw, as it drew near and he put an arm around it, gently, and laid his face carefully against that of the creature which had come to him the night his brother’s life and soul were lost.
THORKELL WAS AWARE that the dog had saved their lives. He wasn’t about to get drunk on the thought. He and Siggur had saved each other at least half a dozen times, each way, years ago, and other companions had guarded him or been saved by him. It happened if you went into battle, or at sea when storms came. Once a spear thrust he’d not seen had missed him only because he’d stumbled over a fallen shipmate’s body in a field. The spear had gone behind him, and above. He’d turned and cut through the spearman’s leg from below. That one, as it happened, he remembered. The blind chance of it. He’d never been saved by a dog before, he had to acknowledge that.
The animal was badly hurt, which might be a difficulty, since they had no hope of getting through the wood without it. Ab Owyn was still on his knees, cradling his dog. He’d known men who treated their hounds like brothers, even sleeping with them; hadn’t thought the Cyngael prince was one such. On the other hand, something extraordinary had happened here. He owed his life to it. It wasn’t quite the same as Siggur covering his left side on a raid.
He looked away, feeling unexpectedly awkward watching the man and dog. And doing so, he saw the green figure among the trees. It wasn’t far away. Out of the corner of his eye he registered that Athelbert had also seen it, was staring in the same direction.
The curious thing was that this time, he didn’t feel afraid. The Anglcyn didn’t seem frightened either, sitting his horse, looking into the trees at a green, softly glowing figure. It was too far away for details of face or form to be clear. The thing looked human, or near to being so, but a mortal didn’t shine, couldn’t hover over water as these things had done. Thorkell looked into the darkness at that muted glow. After a moment it simply went away, leaving the night behind.
He turned to Athelbert.
“I have no least idea what that is,” the prince said softly.
Thorkell shrugged. “Why should we have an idea,” he said.
“Let’s go,” said Alun ab Owyn. They looked back at him. He was on his feet, a hand still touching the dog, as though reluctant to be parted now.
“Can he lead us?” Thorkell asked. The dog had at least one bad leg. There seemed to be blood, not as much as there might have been.
“He can,” Alun said, and in the same moment the dog moved ahead of them. He turned back and waited for ab Owyn to mount up and then started forward, limping, not going quickly, but taking them through the spirit wood towards his home.
They rode through that night, dozing at times in the saddle, the horses following the dog. They stopped once more for water, cautiously. Alun bathed the dog by that pool, washing away blood. The animal’s ear was gone. The wound seemed strangely clean to Thorkell, but how could you say what was strange and what was proper in this place? How could you dream of doing so?
They reached the end of the forest at sunrise.
It was too soon, all three of them knew it. They ought not to have been able to get through nearly so quickly. Athelbert, seeing meadow grass through the last of the oaks, cried aloud. He remembered his thoughts about time passing differently, everyone dead, the world changed.
It was a thought, but not an actual fear. He was aware (they all were, though they never spoke of it) that something out of the ordinary had happened. It felt like a blessing. He touched the sun disk around his neck.
Why should we have an idea? the Erling had said.
It was true. They lived in a world they could not possibly comprehend. The belief that they did understand was illusion, vanity. Athelbert of the Anglcyn carried that as a truth within himself from that time onward.
There is something—there is always something—about morning, dawn’s mild light, end of darkness and the night. They rode out of the trees into Arberth and saw the morning sky above green grass and Athelbert knew—he knew—that this was their own world, and time, and that they had come through the godwood alive in four nights.
“We should pray,” he said.
A woman screamed.
IT REALLY SHOULD HAVE BEEN POSSIBLE, Meghan thought indignantly, for a girl to crouch and relieve herself in the bushes outside the shepherd hut without having a man on a horse appear right beside to her.
Three men. Coming from the spirit wood.
She’d screamed at the voice, but now a colder fear came as she realized that they’d ridden out of the forest. No one went into the wood. Not even the older boys of their village and farms, daring each other, drunk, would go farther than the first trees, in daylight.
Three men, a dog with them, had just emerged on horses from the woods. Which meant that they were dead, spirits themselves. And had come for her.
Meghan stood up, adjusting her clothing. She would have run, but they were on horses. They looked back at her oddly, as if they hadn’t seen a girl before. Which might be true of ghosts, perhaps.
They looked ordinary enough. Or, if not ordinary, at least … alive, human. Then—third shock of a morning—Meghan realized that one of them was an Erling. The riders from Brynnfell that had come and taken all the men away with them had spoken of an Erling raid.
There was an Erling here, looking down at her from his horse, because—of course—her scream had revealed to them where she was, peeing in the bushes before seeing to the sheep.
She was alone. Bevin had gone with the others to Brynnfell yesterday at sunrise. Her brother would have laughed at her for screaming. Maybe. Maybe not, with men coming out of the wood, armed, one of them an Erling. The first man had spoken in a tongue she didn’t know.
The dog’s fur, she saw, was torn, streaked with blood.
They were still looking at her strangely, as though she were someone important. The Erlings had blood-eagled a girl named Elyn—another farm girl, only that—to the west after the Brynnfell fight. Meghan would have screamed again, thinking of that, but there was no point. No one near them, the farmhouses too far and t
he sheep wouldn’t help her.
“Child,” said one of them. “Child, we mean you no harm in all the god’s sweet world.”
He spoke Cyngael.
Meghan drew a breath. A Cadyri accent. They stole cattle and pigs, scorned Arberth in their songs, but they didn’t kill farm girls. He dismounted, stood in front of her. Not a big man, but young, handsome, actually. Meghan, whose brother said she would get herself in trouble if she wasn’t careful, decided she didn’t really like it that he’d called her “child.” She was fourteen, wasn’t she? You could have a child at fourteen. That was what her brother meant, of course. He wasn’t here. No one was.
The Cadyri said, “How far are we from Brynnfell? We must go to them. There is trouble coming.”
Feeling extremely knowledgeable, and not as shy as she probably should have been, Meghan said, “We know all about it. Erlings. Riders came from Brynnfell and took our men with them.”
The three men exchanged glances. Meghan felt even more important.
“How far is it?” It was the Erling, speaking Cyngael.
She looked dubiously at the one standing beside his horse.
“He’s a friend,” he said. “We must get there. How far?”
She thought about it. They had horses. “You can be there before dark,” she said. “Up the swale and back down and pretty much west.”
“Point us to the path,” the Erling said.
“Cafall will know,” said the Cyngael quietly. The third one hadn’t spoken since his voice had made her scream. His eyes were closed. Meghan realized he was praying.
“Did you really come out of the forest?”
She had to ask. It was the wonder at the heart of this. It … made the world different. Bevin and the others would not believe her when she told them.
The one standing in front of her nodded. “How long ago did your menfolk leave?”
“Yesterday morning,” she said. “You might almost catch them up, on horse.”
The one who seemed to be praying opened his eyes. The one on the ground swung back into the saddle, pulled at his reins. They left without another word, the three of them, the dog, not looking back at her.
The Last Light of the Sun Page 41
