The Wolf Mile

by C. F. Barrington

  These were practised moves, flowing and natural, and Tyler realised with shock that these men hadn’t been selected by the Valhalla Venarii party because they could do press-ups or lateral raises or bicep curls. These men were in this vault because they knew how to fight.

  XII came again. A left punch which made contact with the other man’s ribs and then an immediate strike with the right aimed at his opponent’s nose. At the last moment, number II swung his shoulders to the side and the blow passed harmlessly beyond his ear. It took his attacker forward and off-balance and in the same flowing movement, the taller man spun around him and lifted the rope so that it looped around his opponent’s torso. As he dragged it tight, it clamped number XII’s left arm against him and dragged him even further off-balance. In the same instant, the taller man barged into him with the force of a bus and in four rapid steps his opponent was outside the hexagon.

  The movement stopped. The room held its breath. For a split-second anger washed over the face of the defeated fighter and then it was gone and they embraced and Tyler saw Halvar nodding approvingly. The big man stepped over to them and began to untie the rope. ‘A good start. You fight to win at all costs, but when it’s over you respect your opponent.’

  Freyja hadn’t moved. ‘Next pair.’

  The girls stepped forward. The one with the nose stud and honest face, and the small one with her thoughtful eyes and golden hair. She pulled her ponytail tight and then stood in silence looking somewhere into the middle distance.

  ‘Go girls, you can do it,’ Thrall II reassured and took himself forward to the edge of the hexagon, clapping his hands a couple of times in encouragement. Number XII followed his lead and stepped up as well, muttering words of confidence.

  ‘Begin.’ The girls started to walk around each other. They had watched the earlier fight and they copied the men’s stance with their hands curled into loose fists and held up to protect their faces. The vault was silent except for the soft padding of their bare feet. Somewhere above there was a hum of traffic. The candles and bowls of flaming oil cast shadows across the walls.

  In a sudden flurry, number X stepped forward and struck a blow. It had none of the power of the earlier duel, but it was direct enough and it broke straight through the other’s defences and caught her hard on the shoulder. She let out a little cry and stumbled backwards. Thrall X came again, using the moment to her advantage. She pushed into her opponent and struck with both fists. Number VIII defended herself with open palms, soaking up the hits with her hands. She moved quicker than her watching audience had expected and none of the punches landed. She took a step back and then swung her right leg in a graceful wide arc that brought her tibia hard against her opponent’s lateral thigh muscle. It was a powerful strike and number X’s face crunched with pain. Her leading leg collapsed under her and she went down on one knee.

  Thrall VIII danced away, still holding her fists locked in front of her face and watching her downed opponent. Tyler noticed Halvar make an instinctive motion to urge the little blonde back on the attack while she had the advantage. Number X recovered and stood. Now Thrall VIII stepped in again and spun around in a rising circle with her leg extended. It would have been a huge blow, but she had forgotten about the rope which curled with her as she spun. It slowed her attack and with a grunt number X grasped the leg as it came towards her. In moments the advantage had changed. Now Thrall VIII was standing uselessly on one leg and her other foot was held by her opponent. With a single pull, she fell onto her rump and without further ado, number X dragged her out of the hexagon.

  The fight was won. Thrall X stooped with her hands on her knees, catching her breath. Her opponent sat unceremoniously on the floor and stared at the stones above her. Thrall II stepped over and offered her his arm. She took it with a flicker of a smile and he raised her to her feet. Then the spell was broken and the two opponents hugged each other.

  Halvar unbound their wrists. ‘When you have the advantage, never give your foe the opportunity to recover,’ he chided, but then added more softly, ‘You’ll learn.’

  Freyja was still a motionless observer. ‘VII and VI. Take your positions.’

  Tyler found himself following his neighbour into the centre of attention. He sensed Halvar in front of him, saying something and binding the rope around his wrist. There were words of encouragement from the periphery, but he could make out none of them. He could see the rope leading away to the vague figure of his opponent and he could recognise that the man was springing from side to side, pumping himself up. But it was all a blur. Blood was rushing through his ears. He should be moving, he thought, but his legs were locked in place under the spotlight.

  Halvar must have said begin because the voices renewed in volume. Tyler compelled himself to shift to the right. Yet even as he did, the figure of his opponent flew towards him and suddenly Thrall VII’s long horsey face was right in front of him. Tyler felt a hand gripping his shoulder, but worse, there was another hand striking his groin. This was a streetfighter’s move. Fast, hard and without mercy. The palm of VII’s hand struck his testicles and the cloth-bound fingers found purchase. A white light exploded in his groin and he shouted in pain.

  It was a mockery of a fight. His hands were down and trying to tear at his opponent’s grip and Thrall VII raised him onto his toes and dragged him by the balls out of the hexagon. It was over in moments and Tyler found himself on his knees, heaving into the stone floor as he cradled his groin.

  With the pairings complete, Halvar spent the rest of the session showing them what they had done wrong, using Freyja to demonstrate the moves.

  ‘Some golden rules,’ he said, standing in the centre of the hexagon with the candlelight playing on his oak-tree arms. ‘Get your stance right. Legs shoulder-width apart, with your strong foot in front. Bent at the knees. Never locked, but also not so bent that you feel the strain in your thighs.

  ‘Keep your chin down, pushed into your neck. Don’t give your attacker a chance to hit this area. A chin or neck punch will fell you.

  ‘Keep moving. Not bloody dancing about like a monkey, but not a stationary target either. Little light steps, always in balance and not too high off the ground.

  ‘Hooks, jabs and uppercuts – only use these if you’re very confident they’ll work. They can be slow or wild or risk counterattack. A straight-on direct punch is always the best option.

  ‘Likewise, kicking.’ He looked at Thrall VIII. ‘Never kick higher than an opponent’s thigh, unless you are very, very good. Any higher and you risk having your foot caught exactly as we saw. Believe me, in a full-out fight you really don’t want to find yourself in that position.

  ‘If you can’t avoid a punch, step into it. This may seem counterintuitive, but the real power in a blow is when the elbow has extended. Step forward so that your attacker’s strike hits you before the arm has fully extended and it’ll soften the impact.

  ‘Finally, attitude. Show confidence at all times. No matter the odds, bristle with confidence. Your opponent may be a gigantic piece of horseshit, but you need to worry him. Make the bastard wonder if you can win.’

  The group were silent as he spoke. Stilled. Half-listening, but also lost in their own thoughts. Perhaps that was why Halvar made sure he filled the quiet with his voice. There had been violence here tonight and they had stepped across a boundary. It was one thing to lift and hit bags, but over the last hour they had gone at one another. They had punched and kicked and hurt. And they had done it unquestioningly because they had been commanded. Some had won. Some had lost. Some felt quietly exhilarated. Some chastened.

  But the same question played in all their minds: What have I just done?

  They departed blindfolded and wordless, and the cars drove them to the Royal Mile. Behind them, Freyja approached Halvar as he extinguished the candles with his fingers.

  ‘I’m worried about number VI.’

  ‘I know, but he keeps coming back for more. That’s a lad with some serious dem
ons to banish.’

  ‘If he doesn’t improve fast, I’ll be recommending his expulsion to Radspakr.’

  Halvar sighed. ‘Aye, but not yet. Give him a chance, Freyja. See what he’s got. I think it’s important.’

  VIII

  Lana walked up the Mile after the cars had dropped them off, steering wide of people still out enjoying the night. She made her way to the junction beyond St Giles’ and stood on the corner. In her pocket she gripped her amulet, which she turned over and over as she peered down St Georges. A sickness rolled through her stomach.

  Ten minutes down there to Greyfriars. That’s all. Ten minutes to the graveyard. People drifted passed her. There was a spot of rain in the air. Come on, girl. Go to the tree. Leave them the bloody amulet. It’s time to get out.

  She churned through the events of the evening, replaying the movements of their bodies as they had fought. Then – unbidden – her mind began to stretch further back, reaching for memories, trying to plot once more her journey to that vault.

  For the first few weeks after it happened, Lana had told no one about the attack at the party. She took herself back to her university room and showered, letting the water cascade over her for an age and shaking uncontrollably. She continued going to lectures and revising for her exams, but a silence descended upon her. She stopped running, gave up studying in the department library and instead sat in her room, staring at her papers. She could read the information dozens of times, but none of it went in. The more she screwed up her face and burned a sentence onto her cornea, the more the words escaped and floated away, uncatchable, like dust.

  As the dates of her Finals reared closer, she went to see her tutor and told him in bare, matter-of-fact terms about the attack. He passed her to the College Dean and she passed her to Student Welfare and they strongly advised that she contact the police, and by that point she was sick of the lot of them. She took the one option left to her and escaped home to Dumfries. Her mother tried to understand, but Lana would overhear her on the phone to her aunt railing at the injustice and dismayed about what her daughter would do with her life now. After the exams, various letters arrived from the university and she found herself classed as DNC – Did Not Complete. There was an option to take her final year again, but the idea physically sickened her, made worse because her mother clung to this possibility like a floating spar after a shipwreck.

  For six weeks Lana festered in Kirkcudbright, rotting in the summer heat. The numbness within her, she realised, was loss of faith. Not with her attacker. Not even with the university. Rather, with herself. For a few minutes in that bedroom in Newington, she had been forced to become a victim. Someone else had held control over her body. And she hated herself for it. She would look at her image in the mirror and see something which was pathetic, and she swore that no one would ever control her again. So she began to research martial arts and was drawn to the Eastern traditions, especially the grace of kickboxing. She toyed with this, practised a few movements in her bedroom and looked into the details of joining clubs. Of course, there were few in rural Dumfries. But there were more than enough to choose from back in Edinburgh and she started to wonder whether the city still offered a form of escape.

  Then one muggy day in August, tacitly accompanying her mother to a farmers’ market in Castle Douglas, she felt uncomfortable and queasy. It got worse the following day and she was barely able to leave the bathroom. Examining herself naked in the mirror above the washbasin, she found a new realisation dawning on her like the coming of a slow winter’s morning across a black sea, that the true legacy of her ordeal might just be beginning.

  As Lana stood on her street corner, Tyler walked down the long stairway of Warriston’s Close, drawing shakily on a cigarette. He was still simmering and trying to fight off the urge to tell the whole damn Pantheon to go fuck itself. His groin hurt and his arm protested, but it was his sense of purpose which was truly undermined. As he emerged near the junction with Market Street, another set of footsteps fell in beside him. ‘How’re you doing?’

  It was Thrall II. He had his hands thrust into the pockets of his coat and had pulled on a beanie to protect his bald head from the night temperature. Tyler looked over both shoulders. ‘We shouldn’t be speaking.’

  ‘I’ve already checked and we’re not being followed. You looked pretty broken tonight. The little bastard fought dirty with you.’

  ‘The little bastard beat me fair and square. He knew how to win.’

  ‘So you’ll learn and you won’t let anyone do it next time.’

  ‘Maybe.’ Tyler walked on. A hen-party careered towards them with balloons, tartan caps and short skirts. They whooped around them and the two men had to shoulder their way through. ‘The problem is, I don’t think there’s going to be a next time. My leg kills me. I can’t keep up with the strength exercises. I can’t climb the ropes. If I get beyond fifteen press-ups it’s a major victory. And tonight… watching you all fight… watching you. Your skill. I can’t do that. I’m no fighter.’

  They walked in silence for a few paces, then the taller man spoke again. ‘I don’t think they’ve picked us as their Electi because we can fight. If they had, if it were just physical prowess, then there are always other lads who are stronger and harder than any of us. So they’d be first on the list.’

  ‘Then why us?’

  ‘I keep asking myself that. Perhaps because they need people who are going to flourish in their ranks. People who can take orders, who can work as a team, who can be trusted. Perhaps you’re blessed with those attributes and you’re unaware…?’ He trailed off, head bowed as he thought. ‘I’ll tell you this – I, for one, trust in their choices. I think they’ve strong reasons for selecting us. Although Christ knows why… because I’m a washed-up reject and there’s no reason on god’s earth to select me for this opportunity.’

  Tyler halted and stared at Thrall II. ‘You’re a reject?’

  ‘In the eyes of my family.’ He was well-spoken. An upper-class Edinburgh accent, with a hint of east coast Highland.

  They hovered beneath the Scott Memorial. It seemed wrong to go any further together. Better not to know more about where the other lived. Tyler framed his next question. ‘So why are you doing this?’

  Thrall II smiled thinly. ‘The million-dollar question. Why am I doing this? Why are any of us doing it? Do you want the short or medium or long answer?’

  Tyler peered up and down the street, wondering what eyes were on them. ‘Better make it the short.’

  ‘Okay. I’m unemployed, directionless, without motivation. The Pantheon comes along and says, Do you want to be a part of this? And I think, Why not? It’s an opportunity. Rumour has it there’s good money to be made. So I think of these weeks as an extended and very selective interview process. Got to be worth a try.’

  Tyler puffed out his cheeks. ‘Right, we both know that’s bollocks.’

  ‘For some people that might be enough. A chance to break the cycle and make some money. Lead a more exciting life. I suspect even one or two of our fellow Electi think that’s enough. Look at Thrall VII tonight. He can fight, and he put you down hard. But he’s a street punk and he knows he won’t get far in normal life if that’s all he can offer.’

  ‘Want to give me your medium reason?’

  Thrall II looked at him for a few seconds, then nodded, checked along the pavement and ushered the other man through a nearby gate into Princes Street Gardens. They wandered over to a large tree and stood close under it where they were shielded from the streetlights.

  ‘My family’s always been a military one. From when I was a nipper, my father drilled into me a respect for the – quote – unity of the regiment, the unbreakable bonds between men who stand shoulder-to-shoulder against a common enemy –unquote.’ He tapped his foot against the tree trunk. ‘When I was eight, like all the boys in my family before me, I was sent to boarding school. Believe me when I tell you, there is no place more capable of destroying unity than a boa
rding school. It’s every sod for himself. Even the gangs have no bonds, they just exist because it’s the survival of the many against the one.

  ‘I think that place damn near did for me. I couldn’t speak to my parents about it because it was the same venerable institution my father had attended before me, and his father before him, and the natural stepping stone into the regiment. So instead I just brought down the shutters. I might have spent my nights in crowded dormitories and my days in busy classes, but you’d be amazed how alone you can become inside.

  ‘One February weekend, I came into the centre of Edinburgh. I was supposed to be shopping for a gift for my mum’s birthday, but I ended up walking the streets. God knows what I was thinking, I just remember letting my legs take me anywhere. It got late. I was hungry, but I kept going – great arcs out of the centre and back again. I think I was waiting to see if anyone would miss me. Pupils were required to be back in the school grounds by six on weekend nights, but I was still walking at eleven. I probably wondered if the alarm had been raised in my dormitory, whether my parents had been called and were even then fretting and wringing their hands and jumping in the bloody car to come find me. And that’s when I saw him on the roofs above Cockburn Street, a little after midnight… a Titan. I was the only person on the street at the time and he looked back at me. Probably wondering about this kid out on his own. He was… magnificent. The armour, the cloak, the helmet, the shield, the spear. I remember him so clearly. He was like a god looking down on my stupid life.’