CHAPTER THE THIRTEENTH
As Kveldulf splashed icy water from a basin onto and over his face he let his mind wander around the fiery itching of knitting flesh. He existed between two sensations; the chill of water; the seething pain. Weeks worth of the pain and swelling that comes with healing were running wild along his nerves in a matter of hours. He grit his jaw, clenched his fists and waited. There was little else he could do.
Drops of water hung on his cheeks and chin and slowly rolled earthward. As each fell to the floor it hammered the stone. Each thunderous droplet rocked his brain.
And the hours passed.
Sunlight, little more than a pale, second-hand ghost from a window somewhere down the hall began to wash beneath the door. Kveldulf stared at the puddle of feeble light. Hour by hour the light swelled, until Kveldulf guessed that the morning was nearly gone. As noon lazed nearer, the itching subsided into a dull ache. Gingerly, Kveldulf brushed fingers along the thick scabs that clasped his throat like a necklace of wine-dark amber. He toyed with the edge of them. No fresh blood welled up. He peeled a little of it away. Then more. Underneath the flesh was still tender and slick, a blossom of scar tissue. In an hour he would not even be left with that.
He was starting to feel hungry. It was always like this after being badly hurt. He growing hungry for meat. The redder and rarer the better, from past experience of similar defeats.
A knock at the door disturbed his thoughts.
"Yes?" he hazarded, but found even the small word rough in his healing throat.
The voice that answered was muffled by the door. "I've a missive from thane Sigurd."
"Come in."
The door creaked open but the young servant, a boy with a nebulous shock of red hair and a round face, did not fully accept Kveldulf's invitation. Only his face entered the room, the rest of him stretched to remain outside it.
"Thane Sigurd asks if you'd be pleased to go a-hunting. A few fellows are heading out this afternoon for some sport. He's sent me once already, earlier, but you were asleep. He'll be in the great hall after the noontide hour. What shall I tell him?"
Kveldulf considered this, but did not dare say more while his throat still throbbed. At length he nodded. The boy was about to shut the door, when he mouthed a silent self-admonishment and added, "and he told me to say you were right. About the wolf the thane's speared. It's not it, not the beast of the woods. Two children saw it last night. It killed three of the sheep they were watching. And their dog. Foolishness take me if I would go into the forest now. Folk are all a'feared. Some are saying that the beast is a night-devil out of the north. Some servant of the Night Queen, or her children. Others reckon he's a warlock. There was howling in the village last night, and some folk's are saying that a whole gang of demons tore through the town."
So she was hunting sheep and dogs still. Or were the children just lucky to have escaped her notice? As Kveldulf waved the boy away he felt a deep, cold knot settle in his gut. With each day she would grow more bored and more bold. Until...
But there was no point in thinking about that. Not now. Time remained yet to move on before she grew bold. She'd follow him when he left, she always did. There was still time.
A little while later, Kveldulf managed to get to his feet and dress. He left his room and walked through the rank and dusty innards of the keep. He stopped on the way to raid some shanks of mutton from the kitchens, and ate them despite the cook's protestations that the meat was mostly raw. After that, he went looking for Sigurd.
He tried first in the great hall, glancing about and taking in the high, rough-hewn timbers and tapestries that were faded to old rose and dusty gold. All the feasting tables and benches were stacked along one wall, and the whole echoing place had an empty, sad feeling, as if the life that charged the hall in times of banquet and wine had died and turned stagnant.
Old men, the thanes of yesteryear, their faces stitched with the scars of hard lives, still lurked about their dead hearth and murmured to one another, evidentially reminiscing about long gone triumphs and days of youth. If any of them carried on the same conversation, Kveldulf could not hear it. Each spoke to the others in their own wandering monologues.
Hunkered down in the warmth of a slant of sunlight, a ring of children laughed and chatted. They were of an age too young to be put to serious work, and too old to be kept easily at the skirt. Kveldulf walked towards them. The laughter of children. That was a simple thing. He should try to enjoy simple things more.
As he passed near them, he slowed and said, "Good morning, what game are you playing?" His question generated a sudden, serious silence. Many round, bright-eyed faces looked up. One girl, her face half hidden by unruly curls said, "How's-e-Born, good sir," and then, "Just a silly little game."
A younger boy said, "No ;tis not. Its magic, a little magic anyways."
"Magic?" Kveldulf smiled. "So, how is How's-e-Born played then?"
"Well, the rules are like this," said the boy who had spoken before. "You name all the names of all the animals you know. And we all hold this little whittling knife wrapped in a kerchief. When it falls out you know the name of your pet."
"Numbskull," said the older girl, "you're muddling it all up. There is a rhyme to say, and the animal isn't like a pet. It's your double-walker," she explained with exact slowness.
"Really," said Kveldulf. "What's a double-walker?"
Mostly the children looked confused, some shrugged, one boy said, "The Freer says its an old word for guardian spirit. Like the heathens used to call it."
"I have a goat," said one sniffling, red nosed boy.
"I've a starling," said a little girl shyly, "but I don't like starlings. I wish I had a dog. I like dogs."
Kveldulf glanced down at the ragged kerchief and the blunt copper knife that rested on it.
"May I play?"
Children's games always have a certain solemnity to them, and the girl conferred with some of the older children a moment before giving Kveldulf a grave nod.
"So what do I do?"
"We need to know your name," said the older girl.
"Kveldulf."
"Right. Sit in the circle and hold a bit of the kerchief. We'll sing the rhyme, seeing as you don't know it."
The voices of the children rose in discordant chant. The song swam and rolled in the air.
Higgeldy piggeldy niggeldy norn,
Kveldulf, Kveldulf,
To what was he born?
Has he the dog who hunts the hog?
Has he the sparrow who flies o'er farrow?
Has he the stoat, or has he the goat?
Has he the bear, or has he the hare?"
The voices raised, shrill with excitement, and the knife stayed in its sheath of rags. Little hands trembled and faces shone, smiling.
"Has he the hawk, who hunts the stork?
Has he the mouse who raids the house?
Has he the fox, or has he the ox?
Has he the crow, or has he the doe?
Has he the cat, who hunts the rat?
Has he the owl, who raids the fowl?
And the knife slipped. Kveldulf knew he was holding it as firmly as before. The children must have conspired to all let go all at once, for it slipped and fell so suddenly.
Has he the culver, or has he the wulver."
On the very last word it struck the ground like a bell ringing one clear note, before clattering and skittering on the bare stone. There were sniggers and giggles and some pointed fingers. "Wolf, wolf, wolf, wolf," all the children began to chant together. One of the brats snatched up the knife and rag, and they all scrambled to their feet before sprinting from the room, catcalling and laughing as they went, "wolf, wolf, wolf, wolf... wolf... wolf... ... wolf," until their small voices were muffled by the stone of the keep and faded to nothing.
He stood alone for a moment, blinking in the warm light, considering the rhyme as the laughter tumbled away.
"And what in all the Clay-o'the-Green is a culver?" The vo
ice came from over his shoulder. "That is what I always wondered."
Kveldulf craned his neck about and smiled as he rose slowly to his feet.
"Good morning. Been lurking long, Sigurd?"
"Oh, a few moments. You looked happy entertaining the children. Strangers are rare in the Veld. They must poke fun at them when they have the chance.It's good of you to humour them. Would you like to go hunting this afternoon? A few of us are going to meet in the yards soon. Though," he added, considering, "you look a bit worse for wear, though. Are you not sleeping well?" The next sentence was delivered as a good-natured challenge. "Perhaps you would rather stay home?"
"No, my friend, not today. I'd not miss a hunt today for all the world." He glanced briefly at the great hollow door through which the children had run. "A breath of fresh air is always good for clearing the head."
"Excellent. Hawking? Dogs? Bows?"
"Bows," said Kveldulf. "Horses and dogs do not take well to me." He smiled.
"Is that so?" said Sigurd with his usual happy, blank smile. “They must sense the huntsman in you."
"Perhaps. By the way, it's an old word for a dove."
"What?"
"Culver. Haven't heard it used for, oh, a very long number of years now. Funny how old words get caught up in the net of children's rhymes and nursery songs."
"A dove? Well, I never would have guessed. We used to play that game as children. The nonsense means as little now as it did then." He shook his head and affected a smile. "Foolish games. Foolish games."
"And yet, do we grow to adulthood and play less foolish games?"
"No," said Sigurd, his smile growing waxen. "No, I suppose the foolish games stay with us. It is only the risks and rewards that become more serious."
-oOo-
It was the sort of afternoon when the light of the sun is more pewter than gold, and the shadows more blue than grey. Day by relentless day, the season was turning from the brilliant fire of autumn to ash of winter, and the weather would not let the hunters forget it. Not long after joining the river a little way upstream of the millpond, a tattered cloak of drizzle set in. The hunters drew their cloaks tighter and pulled up their hoods as they skirted the riverbank.
For a long time the only one of them who seemed to have the energy to speak was an old thane, Radewin. He walked alongside his son, Radulf, still a boy really, and told him about a magical white deer he'd seen in the forest when he'd been about his son's age.
Mienard, a moon-faced fighting man about Sigurd's age scoffed and snorted at the story. He earned unhappy glances from both Radewin and his son. The only other man with them, aside from Sigurd and Kveldulf, was Lothar, a leathery-skinned hunter with driftwood hands.
An occasional blackbird rummaged the leaf litter near the path. Now and again a wren cried out in the deep hollows. Small red squirrels bickered in the trees. But those small creatures were the only wild things they found until Lothar, who was a few paces ahead, stood as still as a hunting cat and raised a hand and spoke. "Hush." He stood a moment full of intent energy, before crouching down.
The others crept up beside him. Between the trees and ivy they could see the dark stream rippling over an area of wide pebbly shallows. In the ford stood three fallow deer, two does and a buck. Black water and gold willow leaves swirled about their legs.
"That doe is a bit on the pale side," said Mienard with a slight wheeze as he suppressed a laugh. "Must be one of them enchanted deer."
"Fine sport," said Radewin scrunching up his whiskery chin, "teasing an old man."
The deer looked up, almost as one. Their ears twitched and their dark eyes blinked uncertainly.
Lothar was notching his bow and the others were still readying theirs when the deer started. Their legs sprang under them and all three bounded for the other bank. Mid-air, the kicked the air and twisting its spine into an unnatural shape. The crash of its body into the water sent an explosion of foam up into the air. The two does jinked off and escaped.
Standing a little to one side, quite forgotten until now, Kveldulf stood with a quivering bowstring and a rather flat smile.
Sigurd stood at his shoulder, pointing. "There will be a fine roast tonight." He drew out a long, slightly tarnished hunting knife. "Well, let us dispatch the fine fellow."
But as they trudged and slipped down the bank to the shallows, the buck, still alive despite the arrow that was buried in its neck, began to struggle out of the stream. Even as blood coiled over its hide and streaked the river red, it fought and flailed free of the stream and up the riverbank.
Kveldulf put a second arrow into it. This shaft struck the base of its neck but barely caused the deer to falter.
Mienard and Sigurd splashed eagerly through the river, their knives out.
Radewin hesitated and puckered up his old dry lips. "I have an ill feeling. That deer should be twice dead by now."
Lothar shrugged. "Sometimes arrows just miss the vital bits inside a beast. I've seen a bear with twelve broadheads in it, still thrashing about and killing dogs."
"A bear's life is buried deep down. They've got layers of fat and meat and gristle 'till you get anywhere near their heart and gut." Radewin frowned. "Damn. I've got water in my boots. A deer is not a bear. That buck should be dead."
The deer was half-staggering, half-hobbling into the undergrowth now, and though the sound of its snorting and wheezing was easy to hear it was fast disappearing from view. Sigurd and Mienard were chasing after it like children.
"Onward, quick," called Mienard waving his hunting knife. "It can go no more than a few paces before its heart gives out. If we lose the tracks only wood-rats and crows will dine on venison tonight."
Kveldulf stepped into the cold river, he felt the water soak into his calfskin boots and smelled the rich flavour that always drifts over sluggish, leaf-stained water. A new breath of faint rain arrived and spotted the water with a thousand shifting rings. The gold willow leaves spun and twirling around his ankles.
Radewin remained moving forward only slowly. "I think that perhaps the wolves can have their flesh, and we can keep ours. I have never liked this other bank. No good comes of going too deep into the woods hereabouts. Come, let's turn back. We can find another deer."
Mienward stopped, snorted and waved a heavy, dismissive hand at Radewin. "Quit your doomsaying, old man. Come on now, hurry, or we'll lose the game."
Lothar's voice was less certain. "The desperate and the poor sometimes scrounge fire-wood or wild honey or forest fruits from across Weird Wood. Most return safely, but more than one has vanished over the years. There are worse thing than bears and wolves across the waters. We should at least leave someone here to call out a way back in case we lose our way."
An exasperated sniff. "Very well then," said Mienard. "Young Radulf, you stay and guard this bank. Go fetch help should... well... should five strong men find themselves outmatched by a half-dead buck."
Radulf touched his hunting knife and his eyes tightened into angry narrow lines.
"No, Radulf, do as he says." Radewin laid a hand on the young man's shoulder. "When I was young and rash I went over to that bank more than once. I have seen strange things there, and I do not like the place, but I always found my way back. The deer is not far off. Just stay here and wait for us. We shan't be long."
The young man loosened his fingers from the knife. "Very well, father."
So, watched by the hunch-shouldered, still somewhat unhappy looking Radulf, the rest of the company climbed up the far bank and tracked into the ferny undergrowth. Sigurd was waiting for them beside a patch of red-spotted mud. The blood that dappled the ground and leaves made for an easy trail. Soon the heaving rasp of dying lungs could be heard.
They came upon the buck without warning on the other side of a stand of holly. It was lying on its side, blood bubbling from its flared nostrils, its legs struggling against the dishevelled soil.
Lothar held it down while Radewin quickly slit its throat.
&nbs
p; Kveldulf watched this with a distracted air. He occasionally looked up. No birds sang. No squirrels romped or leapt through the canopy. The forest was deathly quiet here, and would have been deathly still except for the ceaseless patter of light rain. Sigurd and Mienard wandered away from the deer, talking about how best to season venison while Lothar and Radulf set about gutting the beast.
Meinward's voice lingered on the air. "This should do."
"No, no, this other one." Sigurd's voice sounded lightly happy. "It is green, and long, and stout. It should make a fine stave."
"Do you have a hatchet?"
"Yes, here. We can hack at it near the root."
Kveldulf's eyes widened. It dawn on hims what they were about to do. With a heavy, sickening knot in his stomach he took to a run in the direction of the voices.
"Yes," said Mienard, "this should do."
"No," cried out Kveldulf, "stop."
But, even as he stumbled closer, Mienard was already hacking away at a stout sapling. His third stroke cut through most of the tree, leaving just stringy bark to be sheared away.
Kveldulf stared, horrified. "What have you done?"
Sigurd looked up. "Oh, hello, come to help? We're cutting a pole to truss the buck and carry it back. Couldn't find a good stout fallen branch so we've made one. Just need to strip the leaves."
As he spoke, the rain, which had been coming and going steadily, died and the whole forest seemed frozen in time. Kveldulf cast his eyes about. It felt as if the trees were sneakily spiralling around him, as if the branches were moving whenever he wasn't looking at them, reaching out with claw-like fingers. The whole wood felt as if it recognised him and hated him.
"Fools. Shooting a deer on the other side of the river and following it is one thing. Cutting green-wood is another. He will know we are here now. One of his creatures is dead already and another screams in pain." He felt the last word hiss in his throat. "We go back, now."
"What are you babbling about?" said Mienard, wiping sweat and earthy grit from his brow with the back of one thick hand.
"The Alder King."
As the words left his mouth, wind struck the forest like the beat of a winged monster. The trees thrashed and creaked. Kveldulf turned around and took to a sprint though the red-brown-gold forest, back into the grove where the deer lay. As he broke into the clearing he found Lothar and Radewin looking up at the sky with wide, nervous eyes.
"A storm's coming," said Lothar. "Sprung up right quick."
Radewin nodded and whistled under his breath, then scratched a hand through the thin, white hair on his head. "If we want this buck then we ought to take it up between us and haul it back over the river, innards or no innards, truss or no truss. I was wrong. We should not have come into these woods, not even for a few moments. The things that live here are upset already today, and easily angered."
Lifting his face to the sky, Kveldulf said, "Yes. We have overstayed what little welcome mortalfolk may have here."
Lothar, who it seemed was too sensible not to be superstitious replied. "That we have," and slapped his butchering knife into its sheath.
Sigurd came crashing into the glade, followed shortly after by Mienward, red faced, his cheeks heaving with each heavy breath.
"By the white, hairy arse of the Old Winter himself," gasped Mienward, "Are you all gone mad? When did a turn in the weather make grown men turn to children?"
A moment after Mienward's spoke all eyes turned towards the unseen distance. From somewhere off in the forest, there came an eerie, enraged cry. The sound rolled through the trees and lingered as a long and painful note.
"No one," said Lothar, "can tell me that was the wind."
They began to frantically hoist up the buck, but it was heavier than it looked, and now soaked with slippery blood. Grunting and sweating together Lothar and Kveldulf managed to half-carry, half-drag it between them. They dragged it past the holly grove, among trees, over a rotten log, around a stretch of blackberry, down a muddy track, out to where the river ran its lazy course.
Only the river didn't run it's lazy course.
The only man not to whisper some curse or make some superstitious gesture was Kveldulf. He stared, then broke in a hoarse chuckle that rolled gradually into a laugh.
Before them stretched no sign of a river, or bank, or even a clearing, but more and more endless trees. Beech after beech waded through their own dead leaves up hills, silver birches stretched their long deathly white fingers, and oaks, old as rock and just as grey, stood over everything.
"The river was here. By the names of the Queen's Twelve Children, where is it?" said Mienward, "There," and raising his arm to point at a gleam of something like late afternoon light on water, he ran off into the woods.
"Mienward!" Radewin cupped bloodstained hands around his mouth. "Stop, come back. Argh, swive me. Swive us all. Forget the buck."
They dropped the carcass, and chased after the ambling bulk of Mienward as he pounded ahead of them through the woods. He vanished momentarily from view as he plunged down a slight slope. Coming to that same slope in the earth they found him on his knees in front of a shallow puddle.
"A puddle... a puddle... not the stream?" He looked at them with eyes that were wide and dark as they gathered about him. "Streams do not just disappear. We can't mislay a small river."
Just then the woods stirred more strongly against the wind, and the canopy trembled with that unearthly, rolling cry again.
Lothar unslung his bow and tested the gut cord. "It comes this way."
Radewin, walking a few paces from the group, obviously weary, rubbed his hands over his wrinkled face, leaving streaks of blood and black soil. Taking a curved goat-horn he put it to his lips and let loose a violent blast.
The resounding note trembled on the air, and it seemed might have been swallowed whole by the storm. As it faded from somewhere, in fact seemingly from everywhere, came a faint reply.
"Radulf. He is still by the river, but he sounds a long way off." Then he cried out as loud as his old lungs could, "Radulf! Where are you?"
Silence.
Then softly, from another world, came a reply. "Father?"
"Radulf, go for help. Do not cross the river."
The reply was more still more distant. "Father?"
Lothar fingered his great curved bow with uneasy hands. "Is the boy moving away or is the forest stretching?"
"What kind of help can he fetch?" asked Meinard. No one answered.
As they spoke the savage storm slackened to rolling wisps of wind, and the air became charged, the way it does just before thunder. Then, just as quickly as the wind had come, it died and out of the hollows and dark places formed thin tendrils of damp mist. Soon, the air was thickening into wreaths of fog. Radulf cried out again and again, and blew his horn in vain. It wasn't long before the whole world was wasted away to the colours of charcoal and chalk.
"I've never seen weather change so rapidly as this," said Sigurd. "It's unnatural."
"One of us could climb a tree," suggested Mienard, "and scan the forest for the river."
Lothar shook his head. "No good with this fog," he said. His beard was beading full of moisture droplets. "We would be wiser to make a bad fire out of damp wood, be ready, and watch, sing a few drinking ditties, do whatever we can to keep spirits up and last out the cold and wet."
"Or the night," added Radewin with a glum frown. "I never thought I'd be so foolish as to let meself be caught in the Weird Woods for a night. My old father must be laughing at me from beyond the grave." His face wrinkled with sad lines. "And to think of that. A grave? What hope have we for graves? Our bones will end up chew-things for bear-cubs."
Mienward smiled, and put on a hearty though not very convincing voice. "Don't tie yourself in ringlets of despair. We will be back at the Toren before long, and all this forest of fear will go up in smoke. Hearth-smoke. We shall knock open a cask of good ale and sit about the great hall, drinking and laughing at ourselves yet,
eh? Soon as the damned fog clears, we'll find our way out of here."
Standing apart from the group, Kveldulf let his gaze rove over the forest, along the tangles of trees, among the mossy boulders, and rolling ferny dells.
Sigurd walked over to him. "What are you thinking?"
"That there is no wild fennel growing in this wood. Or foxglove. Or clover. All the plants that the hedge-wise will tell you are effective charms against the unearthly ones and the faer, they do not grow here. Do you have anything wrought of iron?"
"My knife is steel."
"No. It has to be simple iron, solid and cold. Steel is not good enough. It is too diluted."
"Perhaps we should go back for the buck? Then, if we can spark a fire in the shelter of some hollow tree, we might roast the flesh and have something of a merry night. I have a skin of spiced wine here that I have barely touched. We could have a happy old night of it."
Kveldulf looked away, out into the darkening woods, and after a while staring peacefully he spoke. "That might be best. But we all stay side-by-side. There can be no going off alone in this wood. Not in this," and he waved a hand through the mists, "not with twilight falling on us so quickly now too."
They tramped back as a group, retracing their steps, through the wet undergrowth. Pushing aside one last branch of dead, papery leaves they broke into the glade where they had left the dead buck.
"May the Lady of Brightness guard us," said Mienard, "it has risen and walked away."
Kveldulf and Radewin waded a few paces into the drifts of dead leaves. There was an impression in the mould, above which the air was thick with the coppery scent of blood.
"Here," said Radewin pointing, and crouching down, "did you ever see the like? The deer ain't gone and walked off. Its been dragged off. There, through the woods. Must be a pack of wolves, or a big she-bear?" He gave a harsh whistle. "Look at the size of these prints in the mud."
The laugh of leather on metal cut the air. Kveldulf stood tense, moving his hands in a fluid motion, he had two curved knives poised before him: one the colour of a silvery dawn, the other black as midnight. "No," said he said in an odd, small voice, "it was neither many wolves, nor one bear. It was one wolf. We are caught between the Alder King and the wolf."
As Kveldulf's spoke it seemed that the air turned momentarily to a brilliant, burning grey as the last light of evening stroked the mists. The trampled earth and tall trees were black as pitch by contrast. Then, the sun dipped finally away, either behind some distant hill or black thunderhead. It didn't matter which--the effect was the same.
Night.
-oOo-
The mist shrouded everything. It no longer rolled on the air. It hung in thick, wet coils. The only sound profaning the silence was the incessant--tap--tap--tap--of a flint and steel. Five men hunched beneath the skeleton of an ancient oak that was grown to ruinous age and hollowed by rot into a chimney with one open face. Kveldulf had gone to the trouble of making absolutely sure the oak was dead before he would let them start a fire inside it. They had since made a miserably small pile of the kindling that Lothar and Radewin carried in oilskin bundles for emergencies. What half-damp wood they could find lay in an untidy heap with them inside the old tree. As Lothar tried to nurse a flame from the kindling the rest of them stood or crouched, miserably wet, trying to keep out of the rain and passing Sigurd's wineskin from one white-knuckled hand to another.
Kveldulf felt his mouthful of the spiced wine warm the inside of his ribs, then passed the skin to Radewin who eyed it with a mixture of stoniness and solace. "Wish we could get the fire going."
"Yes," said Lothar, "the smell of smoke might scare off whatever it is out there."
"Whatever is out there?" mumbled Radewin. "We know what it is. Kveldulf named it and we all know it. It's the demon wolf. The thing that is hunting the valley, killing sheep and deer and anything else unlucky enough to be out at night. But it's not a friend of the Alder King, that I can tell you. We have that at least. Maybe they'll fight one-another."
Kveldulf's voice came out of the darkness. "What makes you say that?"
"I've seen it. That ungodly scream that was up on the air last night. Didn't any of you hear it? Hmm. No? Well I was up at that hour. I was down the village and I was walking home--not quite sober mind, but not too piss-headed either. And you know what I saw coming across the fields out of the woods?"
Lothar grinned and his teeth shone under his beard. "The Eorl's taxman coming to collect on the secret grog you'd been swilling all night?"
Radewin smirked. "Worse." His voice turned low and hissing. "I saw it. Screaming and bounding over the grassy fields like all the demons of the frozen north were after it, but it weren't any ice-demon. No. It was the others. The good neighbours of the forests. The faer. The Alder King's subjects biting and scratching, nipping and clawing and chasing the wolf-thing through the night." Radewin hunched his shoulders and wrapped his long, thin arms around himself to keep warm. "So the way I see it, is this: the wolf, it's just come into the Veld hasn't it? Its an interloper, and probably come out of the old bleak north. So the Alder King must be right peeved. Cause he's used to getting all the souls of the unshriven dead and the unbaptised babes for himself. And he doesn't want any princeling of the dark night taking them instead. So they got into a fight. That's how I see it anyways. They're fighting over who gets to takes the souls of the unhallowed." His voice trailed off.
Everyone around the tree muttered. All but one. Kveldulf stood very, very still and was very, very quiet. So still that his breathing was almost imperceptible. When, after a time, he spoke his voice was hollow. "This wolf you saw? Was it injured at all?"
"Aye. Did you see it too? It was terribly hurt," replied Radewin. "Bloody and gashed, but especially about the muzzle and eyes. The left side of its throat was a matt of blood."
Kveldulf brushed fingers along his neck and felt the remnants of the long scab. Felt the tacky, malleable surface and the line it made. Felt it tingle and itch as even now it was healing.
He was good at forgetting. He had made an art of it, well practised. Good at self-deception and delusion. Good at pretending that the plainly obvious was not true. Mostly, though, he did his forgetting in the dreaming. When someone clearly and plainly stated the obvious to him while he was awake: that was harder to ignore and dismiss into the shadows of the under-mind. It was difficult to push the thoughts into the dark forgetful places. "By the gods, old and young," he whispered. "By all that is holy and unholy." He stood and stared at the shadows while he considered what he had just heard. When Kveldulf looked up from his thoughts, he cast a furtive glance over the group. If anyone noticed that his face was empty of blood and his skin goose-fleshed, they said nothing. He turned around, then sat down with them again, and listened to the grumble and murmur of conversation as it filtered around the circle.
About an hour passed.
They glimpsed it several times over that time. A great shadow, slinking from cover to cover, a thing that was big and swift and black. Perhaps she was afraid of the scent of sweating men, or smell of leather and steel. Perhaps she was just mocking them and biding time.
Kveldulf eased himself away from the group once again and surveyed the shapes and shadows of the forest. He was not surprised to hear Sigurd's distinctively firm footsteps approach him.
"It seems that this creature of the night is a little more timid that we thought, eh? Let it lurk, I say. We'll fill it with arrows and make a rug of its pelt if it comes any closer."
"No," said Kveldulf, "it has never been timid." He could not quite bring himself to call it she in front of him. That implied too much familiarity. He was still having difficulty denying what he'd heard--after the last few days, after the things Helg had said, and Snoro, and Alraun also--he was confused. What was it in the forest? He shook the thoughts clear of his head. "It is intrigued by us perhaps... and watchful." He shrugged. "It will come closer eventually. Too close for our comfort. Be assured of that."
>
They stood without speaking for a time then, searching the misty night. At last, Sigurd spoke. "You seem to know the thing. It is no natural pup of a wolf, is it?"
Kveldulf nodded slowly. "No. It is not." He forced himself to say, "She is not. She is a witch in the shape of a wolf, or a demon, or a forgotten goddess. I don't know for certain."
"It is a creature of Old Night and Chaos, then."
"Perhaps, but not quite you imagining of it. A very old night, indeed. Cold and forgotten and never truly alive. No, this wolf is not ruled by the Night Queen, as you think of her." As he looked at Sigurd's plain, honest gaze, Kveldulf felt a sense of guilt at not having explained what he might have about the wolf. "Shall I tell you a little of my story and hers?"
Sigurd nodded, not knowing what he was agreeing to hear.
"We were all young once," Kveldulf's words wandered, "and when I was young, I had a wife and two sons and a beautiful daughter. We had a humble but pleasant house in the north. My wife made a modest living by fishing, and weaving baskets from reeds. But I had a darker trade, even then I was a hunter of old, dark things. One winter's day I was out setting snares and tracking when she came upon me. As swift and terrible as a demon loose from the north's weeping halls. She could have killed me... she should have killed me... she had reason to, as I had already slain several of her sisters. She was the last of her tribe, I think."
"But you out-witted her?"
"No. She spared me, so to speak." Kveldulf forced himself away from old habits of thinking. He tried to remember the day clearly.
"The beast showed mercy?"
Kveldulf laughed a bitter, sad laugh. "Ah, I wish that she had. If she had shown mercy she'd have killed me then and there. If she had shown less mercy, then I suppose she might have let me die slowly. But she showed the least mercy of all. She let me go on living."
"From that day to this I have been a haunted man. Mercy? There was no mercy for my wife and children, nor the hundreds of other innocents. But I am making no sense. Let me say it plainly. From the day when we first met she has followed me close behind, like a dog following a master. Over rocks, mountains and wave-tossed seas. At first I tried to flee her, but she follows always, somehow she finds a way. And every step I have taken she has left a bloody trail behind me. It is very the reason I became more and more learned in witch-lore. I thought at first that I could turn on her, hunt her down. I have sought out the famed witch-hunters of two dozen lands and learned their arts. But nothing I have learned has availed me. I know the charms to counter endless spells and curses. I can undo the magic of the heathen priests. I know the blessings by which the restless dead may be made to go back to the grave. I know how to raise those same dead up again, and ask them who murdered them so that justice can be done. I know the names by which twenty-eight shadow-demons may be commanded to dance in a ring until dawn. But I cannot be rid of one wolf. So now I spend my years wandering from holy-man, to mad prophet, to sorcerer in search of some secret lore that might allow me to finally be rid of her." He shrugged. "Or to be rid of life. That egress is denied me too. A part of the wolf's curse is that I seem to have misplaced my mortality. I guess I left it in the bloody snow all those year ago."
Sigurd's lips were pressed to a thin line. His expression was heavy about the lips and eyes. Twice, he opened his mouth to say something but shut it firmly and shook his head.
"I am sorry, Sigurd. I have brought a curse to your country. I was planning to be back on the road within a few days, well before she would start her killing. But I have lost some of the charm-tools that used to keep her distant and more docile. She is emboldening herself again. I think I must take myself away from your little valley. As soon as I can."
Drumming his fingers on the shaft of his bow, Sigurd raised his clear, oddly innocent face and said, "I will speak with the Mareschal. We will call another hunt. This time you must help us. Together we can cut through every dell and overturn ever rock and smoke out every cave until we find that creature and have her witch-corpse on a stake."
Laying his cold hand on the thane's cloaked shoulder he said, "Brave words. You are a good man. But she is not easily slain."
Sigurd lowered his voice and shot a glance at the others. "There must be some way. Look, say nothing more of this, not to anyone. Others may not understand, but, I think where spells and sorceries may fail brave hearts may yet succeed. Let us try, Kveldulf. For you have saved the life of our Eorl, and none but Rosa and I even know. You are close to finding out who the would-be murderer is too. I can feel it. I trust you in that. The Veld owes you a great deal already. Let us repay some of that debt." Sigurd then cleared his throat and smiled. "Ah good, the fire is lit."
A small stream of blue smoke drifted up from the kindling, but only two men tended to it. Sigurd's brief smile stuck to his face and faded. "Where is Meinard?"
Radewin looked up from under a knotted brow. "I don't know. He was just here two blinks ago," he said. "Where's he upped and offed to then? Maybe he's taking a piss behind the tree?"
Sigurd was cupping his hands about his mouth to call out to the darkness when a cry that was loud and shrill enough to make them all stop dead still shook the air. Meinard came tumbling out of the shadowy undergrowth his face pale and frightened. He struck the ground with a half-screamed curse and struggled to get up, slipping in his own slick blood. Meinard's cries of pain were echoed by an inhuman howl from somewhere far too close.
Struggling and heaving, Sigurd and Kveldulf dragged Meinard towards the dead oak. He was just as heavy as the buck and just as wet with crimson-black. Shuddering and groaning, he managed to speak.
"The fiend... fiend... the fiend had me... it had me... it had me..."
They leaned closer to hear more but already his eyes were seeing what no living man could see.
"Why did you go into the bushes?" said Sigurd. "Are you mad?"
"I saw it. Its eyes were so beautiful. I just wanted to see the gold a little closer." With a last flicker of life he reached out a hand and grabbed Sigurd by the cloak, "Run... flee from here... leave me... it hunts us... it will devour us all... it will take our souls... it will..." His hand tightened, twisted loose of the folds of Sigurd's cloak and then fell limp to the leafy soil with a light thud. His breathing turned ragged, slowed, then gurgled as blood began to seep up from his mouth and nose.
"What in Winter's name were you doing?" yelled Radewin. "What in all the Winters were you doing?"
"Shut up. He is dying," said Sigurd. "Let him rest."
Kveldulf leaned closer then, running a hand over injuries. "Silence is the best thing you can give him now. Pray if you think it will help. We can't do any more."
No sooner had he spoken, and all their attentions were drawn to the clump of hooked and woven undergrowth from which Mienard had just tumbled, flailing. A deep, rumbling growl rolled out of the darkness as something huge loomed into view. It took a step closer. It didn't seem to shy anymore. Gold eyes lit up in the dark.
Lothar drew his hunting knife, quick, and leapt up with a defiant holler. Sigurd and Kveldulf raised their bows. It was a mountain of tangled fur with dripping teeth and eyes that blazed and burned. As it stared at them, panting, a smell of strong spices and lavender washed around them. Arrows thudded into it uselessly. Lothar attacked it, but was snatched up in massive jaws immediately, and lifted off the ground. More arrows sung and bit. The creature barely twitched. Lothar, pinned between sharp jaws, twisted about and thrust his knife between the creature's shoulders, but this seemed to achieve nothing.
Radewin had thrown himself to the ground, and was crawling to the edge of the clearing. The last they heard of him was a shaken voice crying out, "Sweet blood of the bright mother. I will take me chances with the Alder King," as he scrambled to his feet and sprinted off into the woods.
The arrows achieved nothing. Lothar was soon limp in the bloodied jaws. Casting his bow to the ground, Sigurd's face turned from grim to mad. He drew his own hunting knife, f
umbling with the leathern scabbard, perhaps only dimly aware that Kveldulf's hand had just settled on his shoulder. He looked at the witch-hunter with bright, manic eyes.
"No," said Kveldulf. "Your knife is a toy. We've nothing that can do more than scratch her. Run. Follow me. We can do nothing for the others now... run!"
"Honour," said Sigurd.
"No," replied Kveldulf, "Life."
"We cannot leave them."
"Think of Rosa."
"We..."
"Sigurd!"
The shadowy monster was for the moment ignoring them as it tore Lothar apart. Sigurd nodded and the madness faded a little from his eyes. "Very well then," he whispered, "For Rosa's sake then."
They turned and ran into the benighted forest, not daring to look back. There was a pause and then a howl as the creature gave chase. The sounds that followed them were more like the cries of a lunatic than a wild beast. Although Kveldulf didn't think clearly what it meant, he noticed that the creature didn't sound like it had a woman's voice. They struggled into the misty night, scrambling over logs, thrashing through stinging nettles and sharp holly, sloughing through stinking mud and cutting their hands and knees on rocks. The sound of something wild and huge moved through undergrowth close behind.
"Dear Lady," cried Sigurd, "look... men..."
Kveldulf paused. He felt his lungs burning with each breath. Sigurd was right. Outlined against a patch of silvery mist stood two darker figures on a ridge. They were very close.
"We should warn them," and Sigurd cut across the mossy ground, and began stumbling up the hill yelling as he ran, "Ho there! 'ware... run friends... run," as loud as his exhausted voice allowed.
But the two men stood as still as statues.
"Are you deaf?" yelled Sigurd.
Kveldulf threw a glance over his shoulder. Something down in the dells was moving swiftly closer. Three grouse scattered from a clump of gorse screaming their shrill, plit plit plit, warning calls.
Renewing his weary ascent Kveldulf cried out, "She is upon us."
When he reached the crest of the hill his eyes swam, his head pounded with blood, and his body was hot with reeking sweat. Yet he found to his mingled shock and surprise that Sigurd had stopped and was laughing and clutching his sides.
"Not men," said Sigurd with a slight note of insanity, "not men at all. Maybe we can stand in a row with them and the fiend will prowl right past." He let out a shuddering laugh.
Looking again at the two shapes Kveldulf saw the cause of Sigurd's mad laughter. They were relics of the ancient religion that must have long ago ruled the Veld. Two idols, half-featured lumps of stone with holes for eyes.
"Wait," said Kveldulf, "wait, I know these two. I remember them from... it doesn't matter where from, but I know them. This way, we have a chance yet." Kveldulf leapt down the slippery slope, through a screen of leaves like flakes of shadow and then out into a wide glade. "The river."
It lay like a gash in the earth, a black flow of blood seeping out of the wounded soil. They splashed across the shallows, then scrambled awkwardly through the knee-deep, churning flow. Kveldulf was across and about to make a dash into the woods when the sounds of a slick scrape, a splash and then a hoarse curse forced him to stop and turn about.
Crawling on hands and knees and soaked through, Sigurd inched up the bank.
"No farther... I cannot go any farther. I fell and cut myself a way back... in the woods... didn't want to say anything... too much... I can't go any farther."
Kvelduld dragged the limp man out of the water. In the dim light he could just see that what he had mistaken for an odd sign of mirth earlier was actually Sigurd pressing shut a wound in his side. How deep it went, he could not tell, but there was thick blood in a red blotch down his shirt.
Sigurd looked down at his chest. "Damn. Rosa sewed this for me. It is my best hunting shirt," he ran a hand over the wet blood, "Now I've gone and ruined it." His voice had a distracted air to it.
"Get up." Said Kveldulf. "Stand and run or you will die."
Something like a flash of black and heaving mist moved past the two stone statues on the hill, and vanished as soon as it was briefly visible.
"Get up," and Kveldulf and he strained at Sigurd's shoulders, trying to lift him to his feet. He was a dead weight and sank back onto the mud and pebbles.
"Leave me," snarled Sigurd.
"Walk."
"You are throwing your life away. You can still run. Take your own advise and flee."
At that Kveldulf gave a dry, ironic laugh, "If only. Sigurd, the years have rolled into centuries and still she refuses to kill me. I told you I had misplaced my death. I am old, Sigurd. I am older than you. I have lived a long score of years, too long. I will put myself between you and her and she will not kill me because she has never killed me. Have heart and you will see Rosa again. She will yet chastise you for ruining that shirt. I avow it."
"Riddles and nonsense," spat Sigurd, but still he rose unsteadily to his feet, and put his weight on Kveldulf's shoulder.
They took a clumsy step.
"It comes," said Sigurd, "I can hear it on the other bank. Will it cross the river? I have heard that bleak spirits fear moving water."
"She will cross it. She has no fear of anything."
Sigurd's voice was wandering and dreamy. It had the tone that fills men's voices when they are pushed beyond weariness into grey, dead cold exhaustion. "It seems so strange, all of this, so strange."
Kveldulf grunted as he almost lost his footing. "Keep up the pace. I cannot carry your whole dead weight."
They did not look around, but took a few more painfully slow steps. The sound of breath hissing into a deep and predatory growl arose behind them. They did not look about.
"Walk," said Kveldulf. "Walk."
"It is behind us, my friend, I want to look at it before it is upon us."
"Walk."
"Walk? Walk to where? Why not sink down here in the ferns and die with our knives drawn?"
"There is more than one realm in this forest, Sigurd, and more than one power..."
Stumbling another half-a-step, Kveldulf was now slowly fighting an irrevocable weight drawing him downwards. He could sense Sigurd's will gradually abandoning him. The young thane twisted as he fell so that he could see past Kveldulf and over his shoulder. He smiled.
"It has beautiful eyes, Kveldulf. You should look at its eyes."
Kveldulf turned then and drew his silver knife. It was all he had, and though it would not kill her, it would hurt her a little at least, maybe enough to drive her off. He tore his shirt open then too, so that the warm rich light of the feather spilled from his chest as if his heart was on fire. "Come to me!" The wolf-shape was huge, easily as tall as his own height standing, and it bore down on him with prowling speed. Kveldulf waited, timed his attack, and drove the silver knife into its side. But the knife just seemed to glance off as he stepped away from the beast. The wolf turned to look at him, and there was a strange, eerie chuckle from inside it. It barely even tried to move out of the way when he dealt it another blow with the silver knife. For two or three long draws of breath he didn't understand, and then all of a sudden, in a rush of realisation, he swore. "Gut you, Alraun! Gut you, and curse you, you filthy trickster!" He dropped the silver knife then, and took up the iron knife instead. This time, instead of glancing off the creature, the black blade sunk deep, so that fiery silver and green blood flew into the air. There was a weird shivering of the skin, and the whole of the creature twisted up and fell apart. Five ugly little faer sprights fell out of what had been the wolf, and tumbled over the ground. They were startled by the attack, but shook their heads, snarled and hissed at Kveldulf, before scampering away.
"A glamour," said Kveldulf. "It just just Alraun's cretin servants pretending to be her under a wolfskin." He picked the old dry pelt that was now crumbled up on the ground. He screamed into the night, "I will wring your neck, Alraun! Do you hear me?"
There was
then a scuffle of noise behind him, and he turned around, suddenly worried that some other creature might have snuck out of the woods and attacked the prone Sigurd while he had been distracted.
For a brief moment the world stopped. Everything, the trees, the wind, the faraway calls of night birds froze as if caught in a sudden flood of amber, and then life and movement and cold returned. And so too, did light. In a sickly green cast, seemingly from everywhere and nowhere, the night air lit with a powerful flickering glow.
Kveldulf blinked into the glow. Standing a few paces away, absently sucking on her outlandishly long pipe, was a crook-backed old woman. She blinked her one good eye, and without hurrying blew out a wisp of smoke that seemed to glow like burning chalk.
"Hello, Kveldulf. Would you like to come in for a nip o' tea? I see you have brought a friend."
From the shadows several guttural snarls rose and fell and submerged into an unearthly hiss of breath.
Glancing up at the lurking creature she hummed and said, "Many friends," and took a leisurely puff on her pipe before addressing the creature. "I think you know what I will do to you should you come a step closer. This is my domain, all the woods and air and waters from here to there bend to my will and no other. Go away." She hobbled around and clasped her arms about her frame. "Sure is cold and damp out tonight. Come on then, deary. Get your friend on his feet. My little cottage is just over there."
The threatening growl remained a constant menace as Kveldulf used the very last of his strength to lift Sigurd up.
"Is she a witch?" said Sigurd.
Kveldulf nodded.
"Is she a good witch?"
"There is no good or evil in magic. Only power."
Sigurd blinked confusedly. "So is she a good witch, or not?"
"If you like to think of it in those term, yes. Helg is a good witch."
"Oh. That's good."
Half-dragging, half-shambling over the leafy ground, they passed the thorn-hedge and trudged inside the cottage. As the door shut, they could hear the first strains of a howl of rage and frustration.
Old Dark Things Page 17
