Old Dark Things

by Hob Goodfellowe

CHAPTER THE EIGHTEENTH

  For the last months, Lilia had been planning to go away with Alraun on the moment of her father's death. After her father was gone, after all, there was nothing left in the Veld to keep her. But now? If she were to stay, then she was also to rule. At that thought she shivered, not in excitement but in terror.

  Lilia passed through the Toren's winding, narrow corridors feeling as if she were seeing and smelling anew a half-forgotten world. From the musty scent of human occupation, to smoothness of clean white plaster, to the streaks of pink and black mould that grew where water had seeped between stones and through slate shingles. How had she once known all these sights and smells and forgotten them so utterly? Had Alraun and his dreaming engulfed her so completely?

  She passed people in the hall and showed them each a wan smile. She stepped around two children who ran helter-skelter, slapping their hands on the walls. She wrinkled her nose as a churl passed her, carrying a pot of stinking tar, probably to patch up a leaking roof. So many people. People who a day ago would have seemed to her mere phantoms now passed her as solid and real, with their own potent whirring inner lives. The small quirks that are so very human took on a special significance. A gap-toothed smile. A curl of unruly hair escaped from a headscarf. A laugh. A swollen boil on the neck. Everything fell into sharp focus. The lives swarmed about her. Each so real and so unknowable, gave her a sense of being one small mote in an infinite universe. Lilia found herself overwhelmed by all the small details. Blinking rapidly, fighting for short, shallow breaths, she forced her way on. Desperately, she paced faster, looking for a way out. Lilia strode, then jogged, throwing frantic glances left and right.

  Return to the garden. No. Not in the storm. Then where? Away. Anywhere. Away.

  She picked up the hem of her dress and dashed forward as if she were late for church. The people she shoved passed were gawking at her now. Wondering faces. Bemused faces. All passing by in a blur... too much, too much, too much...

  She careered into something solid, yet yielding, which held her and put tight fingers about her arms. She fought blindly for a moment, fought as an urgent unthinking need surged through her blood. She realised only too late that her thoughts were falling from her mouth. "Too much... too much... too much. I need my peace. Quiet and shadows. Need him. Need." Her last words were simpered, "This is too much."

  The voice crossed a wide chasm to reach her. "There, there. Calm down." Then slightly more firm, "People are staring." Lilia searched for the speaker, and her panic settled a little. She focused on a matronly face, weary with cares, and stern about the eyes.

  "Erma," she said, "I... I am sorry... I am not myself." There was no disguising the fear in her voice. Not from her aunt.

  "I can see that, Lili dear. Have you already heard? You are acting like you have. We all understand of course. It must be terrible."

  Lilia took a small step back and wrapped her arms stiffly about her shoulders. Ribbons loosened in her haste now left her hair slightly bedraggled. She brushed a lock of her mousy hair from her eyes. "Heard what?"

  "Oh dear," Ermengard paused unsurely.

  "Yes?" Lilia heard in her own voice a quavering note that surprised her. Firming her voice she said, "What is it?"

  "I was looking for you and Rosa. Your father..."

  "Father?"

  "He had a turn for the better, had. August was hopeful, Lili, he really was." Erma pressed her lips together and her eyes lost a little of their stern smoulder. "But now? The illness has worsened again, and swiftly. Your father shan't suffer much longer. You should go to him now. While there is time."

  "But he yet lives?"

  "For now."

  "Then there is yet hope." Swallowing hard Lilia felt a cold knot sink into her gut. "I should go to him. I have been forgetting about father. These last days, I have been away in my own world, but he needs me. Now, more than ever." Moving to walk away she paused, and stepped back to Ermengarde to kiss her lightly on the cheek. "Thank you. You have helped me just now, Aunt Erma. Helped me more than you know."

  Ermengarde's face was curious. "Of course. I'll be along soon. I need to find Rosa, too. Sigurd says that she went to her room to be alone, but she's not there at all. Where has she got to?"

  Leaving her aunt to puzzle over Rosa's whereabouts, Lilia walked purposefully now.

  Two steep staircases, and five sharp corners later, and she was pacing down the last hallway that led to door to her father's room. The undertones of a low chant in the priest-tongue reverberated through the stone. She recognised the shrivening. Rites for the dying. With her attention focused so tightly, Lilia barely noticed a door opening to her right, and she only just scraped past the door in time to avoid being caught painfully on the shoulder.

  "My apologies, m'lady." A flustered pock-faced maid, balancing a heavy bowl of steaming soup on a platter, made a rushed apology as she came limping out of the doorway.

  "Not at all," said Lilia, "I should have been looking where I was going."

  "Thank you. Oh, but it was my fault. I've work, work, work. Endless work. The Eorl's meal to deliver, not that he ever drinks much of it, begging your pardon for saying so, and then shirt's to mend, then chooks to feed. But I'm boring you. You do not want to hear about my poor day."

  "That soup is for my father?"

  "It is."

  "Here, I'll take it too him." Lilia smiled.

  The maid hesitated, her eyes looked both suspicious and curious, but eventually she held out the bowl. "If you Ladyship insists." As Lilia took the platter the maid's expression turned grateful. "Thank you, m'lady. Too kind. Too kind." She then vanished back the way she had come.

  The oak-carven platter was smooth and warm in her hands. The steam wafting from the soup bowl was savoury, though the broth itself was thin, and had nothing more substantial than a few grains of barley floating on its oily surface. Lilia wondered briefly if the kitchens had not heard of her father's turn for the worse. Why make up some soup for a dying man? Still, if Lilia could administer some of Snoro's potion, and if her father would take just a few mouthfuls...

  At the door to her father's sickroom, Lilia listened to be sure no one was moving towards the door, then snuck a glance down the hall. With as much haste as she dared, she laid down the soup, and tipped in a few drops, about half of what remained. Restoring the vial to her belt-purse, she had to nudge forward with her shoulder to avoid spilling the soup. As soon as she stepped into the rank air of the room Lilia was struck by the mood.

  The spectre of death hung over the Eorl's sickroom. It rasped in his rotten lungs. It haunted the hopeless faces of the guards. It was there in the gentle, but resigned, ministering of the apothecary August, and in the nervous eyes, and white knuckles of the Freer.

  And standing over all of this were three acolytes of the Freer, their dun-hued robes with the gold sun-embroidery as loose as dead flesh, their cowls pulled low. Silver incense burners swung from their pale hands, and it was these three monks who issued the unearthly chant.

  Eorl Fainvant, her father, was a living corpse. Slick sweat shone on his gaunt and blue-tinged flesh. What remained of the greyed wisps of his hair lay wet on his scalp and pillow. But his eyes... his eyes were bright. Unnaturally, piercingly bright. He stared into space and mouthed thin, whispered words that no one but the Eorl alone could hear.

  Lilia stole silently to the foot of the bed, and stood silent, watchful.

  August looked up, and rubbed his purple-ringed eyes. His small smile was kind. "Is that for his lordship, m'lday?"

  "The soup? Yes. A churl was bringing it for him. I took it and let her go on her way." As she spoke, she did not remove her eyes from the skull-like face. "Father? Can you hear me?"

  August was apologetic. "He is beyond hearing very much at all now, m'lady. Here, if I may? Perhaps he will take some broth." He stepped around the bed and held his hands out for the bowl. Lilia handed it to him her eyes still trying to meet her father's fever-bright stare.


  "This smells good, lord Eorl," said the apothecary. He took a small sip from the spoon. "Tastes good too. Not too peppery. Good, I keep telling them to put in less pepper, but they never seem to." If the Eorl heard any of this he made no sign of it. Each breath rasped and shook in his lungs. August measured a steaming spoonful of soup into the Eorl's mouth. The old lips smacked, but most of the brown liquid ran over his chin.

  "Has he long?"

  "Very hard to say for certain, Lady Lilia. Your father has always been strong. Why there was that time with the boar, and I thought for sure he'd walk with a game leg the rest of his life, but no, he would not have it. Up and about, no limp at all, in no time. Amazing." He dribbled some more of the soup into the sagging mouth. Lilia watch her father's abnormally protruding neck apple dance as he swallowed.

  "Be truthful," she whispered.

  August nodded. "He may last the night. Though, more likely it will be only a few hours."

  "A few hours." The words were hollow in her throat. Then even if Snoro's potion were a curative, it might be too late. Already tears of futility and visions of loss were forming in her thoughts. She blinked rapidly to clear her vision.

  "If you do not mind me saying, m'lady, I have seen many, many men die. And death now sits at your father's bedside, as surly as you and I do. We can make him more comfortable. Ease his pains, but there is little else that..." Suddenly August stopped speaking, the spoon that was about to tip broth between the Eorl's slack lips, froze, then trembled. Standing straight rather jerkily, first August's hands then his arms, then his whole body began to tremble. The sound of the wooden bowl clattering on the stone floor rung through the room, as soup splashed in a puddle of steaming brown and fatty grey.

  "Apothecary!" Lilia stared in disbelief as the elderly healer doubled up violently and fell to his knees. Two convulsions shook him. When the vomit came it was streaked with red.

  One of the guards stooped down and put an arm around August. "Someone fetch some clean water."

  "Milk," croaked August through a sticky mouth. "Milk, not water. Milk helps the stomach fight poisons. Milk... milk," he rasped.

  Lilia stood dumbly and stared at the ground. Sticky, hot liquid pooled around one of her feet, and as he lifted his heel to step out of it he said without expression. "The soup? Dear Ladies of All Things, the soup was poisoned."

  Even as the breath left her mouth, her father began to tremble on the bed. Scarlet streaks appeared at the corners of his mouth, and bubbles of blood gathered between his lips. One of the guards moved to hold the Eorl's convulsing limbs to the bed and began screaming, "fetch the prentice! Fetch the apothecary's prentice!" over and over.

  Lilia took a step away from the bed, shaking her head and staring.

  This could not be real. None of this could be real. Why would someone poison a dying man? Did the murderer not know? Had could they not realise he was dying anyway?

  "Lilia."

  Whirling about with such shock that soup splashed at her feet, Lilia suppressed a startled cry that choked and squeaked in her throat.

  "Sister?" said that sweet, strange voice.

  How long had Rosa been standing in the doorway? Tilting her head, Rosa glared with those deep, beautiful eyes, and her voice danced from confused to accusing. "You brought father the soup."

  Long enough, thought Lilia, as she said "No, I... a chambermaid gave it to me." It sounded a clumsy attempt to explain herself.

  While chaos reigned in the bedchamber Rosa advanced her eyes smouldering with rage. "You," she muttered, "you, you poisoner!"

  "No." Lilia made to step back but Rosa was too quick. They struggled briefly while the whole room erupted with yells and movement. Rosa's one hand was clawing at Lilia's hair and the other striking two ineffective, but vicious blows. Lilia stumbled back, raised her arms in defence and slipped on the pool of hot soup. Flailing wildly she fell and landed as if she had simply sat down with a strange violence. But as she hit the floor her belt purse sprung open and contents spilled over the woven reed flooring. A handkerchief. A few small trinkets. A small locket gold that belonged to her mother. A wooden vial.

  A vial that rolled and ended its wandering journey across the floor just left of where Rosa was standing.

  As Rosa stood fuming, her fists clenched by her side, her eyes wandered and set on the vial. Lilia realised too late what was about to happen. Stooping down and snatching it away before Lilia could move, Rosa stepped back, and gazed into the palm of her hand. Gazed at a roughly cut, corked vial. There were tears glistening in her eyes now. Real tears. This was not faked. Her reaction to seeing the vial had triggered something deep and enraged. The cork came off with a nudge of one thumb. When she sniffed it, she screwed up her face at the smell. "I recognise this. The hill-witch Snoro makes these."

  "No, Rosa, you misunderstand. It is a curative potion."

  "A potion? A potion snuck into father's food no doubt? A potion that smells as sickly sweet as any venom?"

  "No. The soup was given to me by a chambermaid. Her name was," Lilia fought to recall. "She did not tell me her name."

  Rosa's voice was a snarl. "How terribly convenient" With a glance at the vial she rounded her shining, black eyes on Lilia, and said, "and where did this phantom maid run to, dear sister?"

  "I will show you, dear sister." Lilia narrowed her eyes, and let indignation suffuse her voice. Everyone in the room was staring now. Everyone but their father. He was still trembling and stared at nothing but the ceiling. Let the rest of them stare. Let them see Rosa make a fool of herself.

  Tilting her chin back, setting a bold stare at Rosa, Lilia strode out of the room, and turned right, sharply back along the chalky hall. At the far end, the apothecary's prentice was now running towards them, his robes flapping about his feet as he ran in the tow of a guard who lugged a pale of sloshing milk.

  Lilia reached the door just as the prentice and guard passed them. Wrenching the door open Lilia froze. The doorway led to nothing but a small, bare room. One of those vacated by the frightened courtiers or servants, perhaps. It was empty from floor to ceiling.

  "She must have come in here only to slip out again once I was gone. She must have been waiting for me..." her voice trailed off, turning small and worried. "Oh, Goddess of Brightness. She was waiting for me."

  A strange expression played across Rosa's face but vanished as she said, "I... I see it all now. All this time, others have pitied you for your tremulous, shy nerves. And I, I simply grew used to those tremors. I thought you trembled from weakness. Or from fear. But now I see. You trembles were of jealousy, and anger, and greed. You want the Eorldom now. And not content to wait, you have poisoned first our mother and our dead father too, to have it."

  "No. Rosa, think what you are saying."

  "Poisoner," she hissed. "Witch. Murderess." Her voice began as a low hiss. "Someone fetch me Kveldulf," then she said louder and louder, "Someone fetch me Kveldulf. Kveldulf! Bring me my hunter."

  "Rosa," Lilia raised her hands and tried to calm her own voice, "Stop yelling. The churls will all think you've gone mad."

  "Kveldulf!" screamed Rosa. One of the Eorl's guards, the quicker witted man who had gone for the milk and prentice, his oxblood livery now spattered with the real blood of poor August, appeared at the door to their father's room.

  "My Ladies," his voice was strained. "You father is dying. I apologise for my plainness but..."

  "Fetch me Kveldulf. Now!"

  His face slackened into an expression of bemused shock.

  "Kveldulf, you simpleton. My huntsman, he has a room along the corridor, look for him there. If he is gone from his bed, then hunt the Toren Vaunt from spire to dungeon. Bring him here, immediately."

  She raised her hand to point. The guard paused, his brow darkened and knotted, and his eyes flickering from Rosa to Lilia. At length he nodded, if a little stiffly, and walking briskly down the hall in the direction that Rosa was pointing.

  "Fifth door on the right, after t
he corner," said Rosa, chasing her voice after him.

  They stood in silence for a few moments then, the awful tension stretched taunt between them.

  "I suppose," said Lilia, "that we ought to go back to father."

  "So that you can gloat over his death?"

  "Rosa!" I... I did not murder father. How can I make that more plain?"

  "Liar. Deceiver. Oh, but I am sure Kveldulf will have his ways to make you spill the truth."

  "You would put your trust, the innocence of your very own sister, in the callused hands of a vagabond huntsman? Rosa? Please?"

  "Vagabond huntsman? How foolish you are. Let me say this plain, now--witch-hunter."

  A profound silence clung to the inside in Lilia's throat. She opened her mouth to speak but nothing, no stream of words, nor even a chocked cry of shock came out. When her voice recovered she said only, "you have hired one of those filthy, twisted men? No Eorl in all the roll of years that our family has ruled the Veld has allowed witch-hunters and hex-tellers to ply their trade in our valley. They are frauds, Rosa. Tricksters who feed off the fear of others. They murder more addled old crones than actual warlocks."

  "Brave words now, Lilia, but how brave will you be when he is done?"

  "You are insane." Lilia stepped away.

  "Guardsmen!" screamed Rosa, "the murderess seeks to escape."

  But before guardsmen of the Eorl's chamber could do more than appear, with their stricken faces peering at the door, a new presence entered the space. Did they all feel it as Lilia felt it? A cold chill that crawled along her spine.

  His footsteps sounded loud and hollow through the stone and appeared long before he did. When he stepped into the hall, Lilia felt she did not recognise him for the change in his face. The old-fashion trim beard, and unruly black hair, that before had seemed merely incongruous on such a young man now looked threatening. The cloak he wore billowed about him like grey wings of a hawk. She had spoken with him only an hour ago, but now he looked so much darker. His eyes shone, even from a distance with intense contemplation.

  Like a fat, satisfied cat, Rosa almost purred his name. "Kveldulf. We have need of your counsel."

  Still walking swiftly towards them he replied, "I heard."

  "The guard found you."

  "No, I heard." His smile seemed to Lilia a little ironic as he said, "I've very good hearing."

  Taken aback a little, Rosa fumbled for her next sentence, saying at last, "I have found out who has been poisoning the Eorl."

  "Indeed?"

  "It was my very own sister, my flesh and blood, who has betrayed the family, for greed and avarice and hunger for the throne."

  "Lies!" Lilia realised everyone was looking at her. Some worried, others curious, but Kveldulf's gaze was inscrutable. "I mean, Rosa is mistaken. She thinks I've been slipping poison into father's food when..." suddenly it seemed a difficult thing to try and explain.

  "When?" said Rosa.

  "When I have done nothing of the sort."

  "Accursed, ill-begotten whore!" Rosa's balled fist swung out and struck Lilia just above the brow. Reeling and enraged, Lilia struck back, then pulled at Rosa's hair, then clawed at her and screamed.

  Half blinded by anger and struggling hopelessly, Lilia was barely aware of being dragged away. Staring through dishevelled hair and blurred eyes she slowly understood that Rosa too was being held by one of the Eorl's guards. Kveldulf stood close by, his arms crossed firmly in front of his chest. His cold gaze flitting from Lilia to Rosa and back again.

  "What in the nine names of night are you two at?" Kveldulf's face was a mask of just restrained fury. "You father is dying, and you are here cat-fighting in the hall?" Taking two deep breaths, he then said slightly more calmly, "apologies, m'ladies, but you scream at one another like common brothel girls, drunk on sour ale."

  "She is the poisoner," shrieked Rosa. "She delivered father's soup. The soup that poisoned the apothecary. I was watching from the doorway. I saw it all. And she carries a vial of venom in her belt. It is one of Snoro's. Look at it." Turning to Lilia she spat, "Murderess."

  Lilia found herself barely able to string simple words together. All she could stammer was, "I did not poison father," over and over. "It is a curative. I swear."

  "Whoever heard of the hill-witch making 'curatives'? Here! This is it." Rosa still held the vial in her fist and unfurled her fingers, to show it to everyone present. There was a bit of a murmur of voices. Apparently, Snoro's vials were recognisable and he did not have a good reputation.

  Kveldulf held out a hand and took the wooden vial from Rosa, then looked at it held between thumb and forefinger. He sniffed it tentatively, then shrugged, before asking Lilia, "Is this yours, my lady?" He held at arm's length the wooden vial. Some of its contents had spilled, wetting the wood with oily red-black liquor.

  How could the truth could hurt her? It was not a poison, after all. She had even drunk it herself to test it, not fully trusting Snoro. "It is. I bought it off of the dwarfie in the hills. But I swear again, it medicine only. For father."

  "Consorting with witches," said Rosa. "A witch. A venomous servant of the serpent of darkness. That's what she is. Poisoner. Witch. Murderess."

  One of the guards hazarded to say, "Many of the villagers buy potions from Snoro. Not everything he brews is a poison." That drew an icy glare from Rosa, and he fell quiet.

  Kveldulf took a resigned breath and narrowed his eyes, studying the vial. "My ladies, I am but a man of the hunt. I only hunt those things that other men fear, and some call me wise for it. Yet I am also a man who has had his full share of the dying, the vengeful, and the hysterical." He nodded the Eorl's man who had spoken before, standing tensely by. "You."

  "Yes?"

  "Take what remains of this and spread it over a piece of raw mutton. Mind not to get any on your fingers. Feed the mutton to one of the kennel hounds. We shall see how poisonous it is." Turning to the two sisters he frowned and his weary face creased with a few wrinkles. "As for the two of you? Freer, come forward."

  The small man blinked furiously. He looked horrified that someone had noticed him hiding near the corner of the door. He shuffled into the corridor. "You ask for me?"

  "You are the keeper of the laws of the Veld?"

  "As is the way of the Temples of the Glorious Sun, I am."

  "What say the elder laws of the Veld? Should the right of rule fall into doubt? One heir accuses the other of murder. What say you?"

  The Freer did not want this. It was clear in his face, in his eyes. Lilia imagined from his expression that he was wailing inside his skull: why me? Why can I not just read my prayers and be left to my peaceful, full-bellied life?

  "Well," he said tentatively and licked his thin, chapped lips, "well, I suppose it would be right to confine both daughters. Until we are sure about the vial."

  "No." screamed Rosa, "She is the poisoner. You show now the hatred you have always had for me. Always whispering to my father. Always trying to make my life a misery. You hateful creature."

  The guards looked surprised. Some seemed shocked. The man who was still holding Rosa's arms said, perhaps without thinking, "My lady! The Freer has said his piece. It would be best if you both spent some time apart from each other." He looked at the Freer. "At least for a few hours?"

  The Freer was toying with the hem of his robes. "For a few hours at least. Yes, a few hours."

  "And as for me," said Kveldulf, "I think it is high time that I paid a visit to Snoro at his house."

  "No." Rosa looked almost as shocked as everyone else that she had said this. "I forbid it."

  "Forbid it?" asked Kveldulf, in a somewhat more troubled voice. Then, more pryingly, "why?"

  "It is a waste of time. You might be gone hours, perhaps a day or more. When the dog dies, then all will know the guilt of my sister as surely, as I know it now. And where will you be? Off in the woods. We would have to wait for you to return, and in that time--you know what might happen."

&nbs
p; "Elaborate," said Kveldulf.

  "We both know it. I have been told by... a friend... but you know it too. She is consorting with him. In the wild woods. If he catches wind of this, he will come as surely as the wind and break her free. And then, the murderer will be gone, laughing at us. You cannot leave the Toren. You are needed here, for when he comes. Don't chase after old hermits in the hills."

  Kveldulf took a long, considering sigh. So, Rosa knew about Lilia and Alraun then. But who had told her. Suddenly, the choice of play, with the Pouckling, the Faer King and the maid, seemed less innocent and more calculating. "I think Snoro may have something of importance to say on this matter. I will return what coin you have paid me. I am not a seeker after wealth. I am a seeker afer truth."

  "No. You will not leave the Toren. You are needed here. What if he comes? You cannot pretend he won't. Who hear could do anything to stand against the wild king, save you?"

  A slight shrug registered Kveldulf's disinterest. "I have lately had a conversation that makes me think that is unlikely." He shot a cool glance at Lilia. "Is't that so?"

  She nodded. "We argued. I did not leave him in good grace."

  Whispers started to stir around the hall. People were clearly running and jumping in their heads to work out what was being discussed. The words 'Alder King' were skipping around the circle of watchers.

  Kvedulf frowned, and his eyes turned pensive. "So you may keep your silver, and I will go and have myself a chat with Snoro."

  The guard who had taken it upon himself to speak before, spoke now. "Johannes, Gohart, take the Ladies Lilia and Rosa to their respective rooms. Watch their doors and let neither of them leave their chambers. And you," he pointed at another guard, "find the mistress of chambers and ask her if she has any suspicions about churl-maids in her employ. I would be glad of a word with her."

  -oOo-

  "You took a great risk on you shoulder's, just now," Said Kveldulf. He stood just under the shelter of the great entrance to the keep. Miserable, cold rain swirled out of the sky, brushing over the courtyard and sometimes flying up at unlikely angles to strike Kveldulf and the guard, Loer, on their bare faces.

  Loer stood further back in the shadow of the door, trying to avoid the wet.

  "You don't think I should have sent them off. I did treat them both like naughty children." A sigh. "No matter the truth of it, neither of the ladies will quickly forget it. I may be looking for a different way in life soon. Perhaps it was a mistake."

  "I did not say you did not do what was right, only that you did what was dangerous." Loer was a young clean-faced man, who wore the self-proud sort of expression that made Kveldulf suspect he had not yet fully realised that it is possible to commit both good and evil in a single action. "How far is the cave?" said Kveldulf, as a brief memory of the Nibelungr's threats whispered through his mind. Snoro still had a piece of his night-wolf hair. Confronting him was dangerous, to say the least.

  "Not a long way. Less than few hours to walk there and back. Are you sure you don't want a horse?"

  "No."

  "Hm. Then ask at the village, someone will know the way by foot more properly. The churls often go to him for amulets, potions, and charms..." His voice darkened. "And if rumours tell true, unkindly spells too."

  Kveldulf nodded and said, "I will do that." He turned away from Loer, glancing up at the old grey fortress that towered above. Breathing deep, he smelled the stormy air, the dark earthy scent of the forest rising from the trees that swarmed like an ocean of black in all directions.

  "Fare thee well, Loer. I hope your choices today come back to roost with more good for you than evil."

  "And so to you."

  -oOo-

  As the storm weighed in the sky, Kveldulf drew forward his hood, and wrapped his cloak tight about his chest. He found a curly bearded, broad-shouldered townsman on the road, lugging a bundle of kindling over one shoulder.

  "Good day," called out Kveldulf.

  The man looked up and blinked through the rain. With one free hand he clutched a rain-beaded sheepskin cape tighter about his shoulders. He smelled of lanolin and strong pipe-smoke.

  "Not really," he muttered.

  Kveldulf smiled. "Do you know the way to Snoro's hermitage?"

  "Why ever you want to go to visit him on a day like this?" He brushed a stubby hand under his nose and sniffed. "Going to be a blasted wet, cold afternoon it is. He hates folk visiting at the best of times. He won't want to see you."

  "It is a matter too needful to wait."

  The townsman shrugged. "As you like. As you like. There are a few paths. This is not the quickest I suppose, but the easiest to take without getting lost. Follow the left bank of the Woodbourne upstream from the millpond. Go over the bridge, past the willows. You will come to an old silver birch tree with five trunks. It looks a bit like an old pale hand. To the left of the birch is a rough path leading off into the woods. Pass along that track, through the woods and over the heath beyond. You will see his cave sure enough. Look for the smoke from his chimney. Been up there a few times myself. Just to buy remedies for the sheep mostly." He huffed out a little breath. "Just mind that you keep your temper with him. He is more dangerous than he looks."

  "My thanks, I will." Kveldulf paced along the road, and onto the spongy grass just on the town-side of the old moss-encrusted bridge. The water looked unusually cold in the dismal light and was already rain-swollen.

  An hour later, the half-hearted showers gave way to chill, wind-chased flurries and violent winds. The occasional boom of thunder ruled the air, but Kveldulf trudged on, ignoring the wet and cold, as he had ignored many storms before. He passed the five-trunked birch, and found the narrow path. 'Rough' was an understatement, being little more than a wild-grown goat-track, choked with wet ferns and autumn-brown bracken. As Kveldulf walked along the path, he noticed that now and again a low branch would rustle in the woods, or a twig would break, or a bird--startled by something unseen--would fly into the air crying out in alarm. Small disturbances that until now he had always attributed to the ever lurking she-wolf. At times, the invisible presence became almost comforting. As if he wended along the path with an old friend. But whenever he recalled the haunted and bloodstained years, he shuddered and wondered how he might ever learn to live with himself, let alone the thing that walked unseen beside him.

  Disturbed from mid-thought by an unnatural shiver, Kveldulf stopped where he stood. He looked about coldly, something else unseen was with him. He laid a hand on his iron knife just as the wind arose and surged through the forest, before falling away into a rippling sound that became a peal of laughter. "Good gods and ill. Really? Again?" The last leaves of autumn were falling in swarms. They fluttered together in mid-air and became first a face, then a small, scraggly body with clawed fingers and a wicked smile. The spright blinked eyes like slits of stormy light, and spoke. "Mine lord and master Alraun, king of the woods and all within, bids you greeting, spirit-wolf-man. I am his herald and his humble messenger."

  "I have no time for you, or your master."

  "Then I shall be less eloquent and more pertinent." His leaf-shaped claws flickered in constant movement. "Thou hath slain one of my master's favourite pets."

  "One or five?" Kveldulf said. "It was a gaggle of creatures pretending to be a large beast."

  "Be that as it may, my master is wroth with you. And yet he is majestic in his forgiveness. For his court and lords suggest to him an accord may yet be struck between you and he. We see now your torment. We understand. For you have more in common with us than with the mortals of this valley."

  "You prattle. State your message."

  "Mine master offers but this: that he will take you into his realm, to be his lord-protector." The eyes shone briefly as a flicker of lightning that rent the sky above. "You have slain his most terrible guardian; hence this right to succeed is yours by the oldest laws of our kind."

  "A fool's bargain, to be a king's dog."

  "Speak
not in haste. For think upon this. Within mine master's realm all truth is his to reshape. You wish to be free of yourself? For him, all truth is pliable. Age is youth. Ugliness is beauty. Sorrow is joy. He can make oak leaves into gold or bitter toadstools into loaves of warm-white goodness. He can do this and so, so much more. He can remake you, too. Man and soul could be one, at long last. Think of it. Think of the peace that the magic of my master's dreaming could bring you."

  "No."

  "You refuse so quick?

  "He can no more lift the curse from my soul than make any of those tricks more than illusion. Alraun all is mirage. Naught is truth. And the day he grows weary of me and forgets to work his charms, any illusions he wove about me would melt away, and I would be left the same as I am now--but worse--for I would remember what it was to be something else. Something more. Something happier."

  "Lies."

  Kveldulf threw his head back and gave a long, humourless laugh. "Everyone seems to be accusing everyone else of lying today. And so, say you, a figment of his illusion? But, I tire of this. Tell your master: no. I go on my way. I have great need and purpose and will not be delayed."

  The spright's voice turned to a snickering sound, like branches lashing about in the wind. "As you wish, spirit-wolf-man." A moment later he was a half-human seeming swirl of leaves, and then just a scattering of rust and brown, and then nothing. In that moment a power infused the air. Something that wailed as loud the storm above passed close by Kveldulf, striking him on the side of the head, before dancing away into the woods, bounding from tree to tree, leaving a sound that, though it was only wind howling in the woods, might easily have been mistaken for rills of inhuman laughter.

  Kveldulf rubbed the new bruise on his temple, then with a shrug resumed trudging along the path.

  -oOo-

  The rains fell more like mists now, wetting the whole forest but for one small and solemn glade. For in the dell where Alraun and Lilia had so often met, within the circle of brooding monument stones, now gathered a council of the faer folk. And the rain would not fall on a council of the eldritch. Their king stood among them, just as the tallest and proudest of the standing stones loomed over the other less noble rocks. Though he still wore an autumn crown, it was bejewelled with wintry frost now. His cloak and garb were the mingled grey-brown-black of the first months of winter.

  Into that circle came a swirling presence, and all talk fell to silence. The presence paused for a moment to take up a handful of fallen leaves and fashion for itself a body: small, sharp-edged and clawed. All the council, a moment ago filled with the musical voices of the wild, fell at once to whispering three words. "The herald returns."

  "Well, how doth the warlock-wolf answer?" asked Alruan his dawn-bright eyes were narrowed and curious.

  The scrawny spright bowed his head and through the sharp-toothed smile that was forever fixed on his face said, "Not well, mine master. He is uncouth, and a fool. Not only has he refused your offer, but scoffed at you, and calls you a master of naught but illusion."

  "He refuses," Alraun whispered darkly. "Very well, then. The offer has been made and he has given his answer freely. The old laws of our folk are satisfied." He opened his eyes wide and stared up into the rain-washed sky. His thin, delicate lips curved with a smile. In a clear voice he began to intone words that shook the air like thunder. He spoke to the trees, to the earth, to the stones and waters, and all the wild things. He spoke the oldest secrets he knew and recited all the names that had in them a little of the elder power. When he was done the green trees shivered at the passing of his artistry.

  He bowed his head. His eyes, a moment ago lustrous and golden, had dulled a little. "I am spent and must rest now," he said, so softly that many of the court had to lean closer to hear his whispered words. "But it is done. The path he follows has been utterly cast from the earth, and the forest has wrought for him a new track to take him... elsewhere... through darker hollows, where the shadows are hungry. Let him scoff at those illusions." He looked up at his gathered host and saw smiles growing among the crowd. He was pleased. "And now another matter moves me." Gazing past the wild folk, above the crowns of trees, up at the distant and bluish outline of a great stony crag surmounted by a fortress of dreaming spires. "The mortal maiden Lilia has denied me, but when did I ever require the consent of mortalfolk to do as I please? I think I have been a king without a castle for too long."

  -oOo-

  It was a powerful, invisible presence that rolled through the woods and swept around Kveldulf where he stood. His cloak was caught up by it, and flapped like the wings of a storm-battling bird. Kveldulf stopped and focused on the sudden river of power that eddied about him. A noise? A smell? Tiny hints of old and earthy things swirled about him. He looked back down the gloomy brown tunnel of trees and earth. Seeing nothing that way, he cast his gaze about the dreary forest of ghost-white birches and claw-branched oaks. Walking a few paces forward he paused and looked again over his shoulder. Slowly, he turned around and stared. Where, not two heartbeats ago, the path had lain, there was now only an endless wall of woodland. Heaped with fallen trees and twisted tangles of gorse, there was no way to cut back through it.

  He scowled.

  "Alraun." And for a moment he imagined he heard low, faintly perceptible growl that rang with agreement. "So the Weirdwood King does know some tricks that are not illusion?" He looked around himself again. There was still a path ahead, but it looked changed too. "Well, as there is no going back, we might as well go forward. No doubt, we will find whatever it is that Alraun wants us to find."

  The path cut deeper into a tract of forest that was thick with thorns and dark with shadows. As Kveldulf moved along the way, he became increasingly aware of a stillness and silence. No blackbirds scuffled in the fallen leaves here. No magpies mocked one another with their rattling calls. The only sound was the cold quiet misery of rain and wind lashing the canopy. The trees grew more rotten and lifeless with each passing step. Even the rainwater that ran in rivulets was grey and sluggish.

  Kveldulf considered turning around but was quite sure he would end up back here again. The spell that Alraun had worked was sending him to where it wanted him to be and he would have to pass through it to pass on.

  Only a little farther along the path, something grey and unnatural caught Kveldulf's eye. He crouched by the side of the road, and examined the stone. It was about knee high, and raised upright. He brushed a gloved hand over its pitted surface, scraping away moss and leaves and two fat, yellow snails. In a snaking ribbon was writ a sentence in gaunt runes, faded to shallow scratches by time. They were carved in the old tongue, and tracing his fingers over the letters, Kveldulf muttered the words to himself. These letters were old, perhaps older than the Eorldom of Vaunt. With some difficulty, he worked over the lines, making out each word in turn.

  "This ward hath fine powers,

  and each power hooks and locks another,

  and each power is everlasting,

  this the endless knot that binds,

  and will not suffer harm to pass."

  Getting up and rubbing grime from his hands he scanned the forest from under a knotted brow. An old charm? A ward? Perhaps to guard a sacral ground, or keep at bay evil spirits? There were probably more stones set here once. Stepping back onto the path, Kveldulf laid a hand on the hilt of his iron long-knife and he trod carefully. Who knew what "harm" once wandered here, and perhaps still did, along this mud-riddled track?

  The air now noticeably smelled of decay. Most of the trees where split and blackened, and wriggling with masses of grubs. He breathed shallowly to avoid taking too much of the stench. And the trees grew worse as the walked. First they were rotted, then they became twisted, unnatural, almost tortured shapes. They looked like dancers made into wood through painful curses.

  When the path widened into a clearing, it certainly smelled as if the wellspring of all the malice that fed the roots of the wood had come to its source. The air was put
rid, and the few leaves that clung to the trees were blotched black and sickly yellow. The storm rain that fell was oily as soon as it touched the dirt, and formed small cesspits in the earth. And across the ground were scattered the old, splintered remains of bones.

  But it was to the middle of the clearing that Kveldulf's eyes were drawn, to an old rot-thatched hut with crooked walls that were sour with mould. The whole thing was built into the side of one massive, twisted dead old oak. He drew both the iron and the silver knives, unsure of what exactly he was going to find, but certain enough that it would not be harmed by steel. The silver blade was a beacon of light that shone as bright as dawn in this dismal glade. The black iron was like a cool cloudless midnight.

  He stepped towards the hut and crazily tilted tree.

  The shadows about the dell stirred and whispered.

  And then the thing at the heart of the rot emerged from its hut. At first, it seemed no more human than a huge, fat bear shambling along on hind legs. But as it drew itself upright and moved a little closer the human features became clearer. Under that tangle of grey-green hair was a face, old and ugly with sharp yellow teeth--but human in general outline nonetheless. There were hands too, clawed, twitching and never staying still, but also, otherwise human. The body, though studded with white outgrowths and sharp spikes, was it appeared, still a human body. Kveldulf stood his ground. He let his gaze search over this shambling creature. Was this hunched misshapen thing once mortal? Or was it a mockery of the human form made out of tortured souls and dreams?

  Its eyes were screwed tight as it walked, snuffling the air and licking its lips. Only when it stopped did it open those eyes and look right at Kveldulf. The eyes were as dark and hollow and endless as night. When she spoke it was in high, hissing, lisping voice that resembled, at least vaguely, that of an old woman. "By yarrow and yew, some flesh for my stew."

  Kveldulf positioned himself into a ready stance, and raised his iron knife, planning how to hook the curved tip of it into her bloated flesh. But as he stood, he shuddered as something invisible, clammy and grasping heaved itself against him. Casting about wide-eyed, he realised that the very shadows were seeping out of the forest and swarming towards him. One had already grasped at him with phantom hands. Soon, chill wispy hands were everywhere, grasping and holding. He struggled against them as a fly thrashes against a web. And all the while she moved closer.

  "Come to me little tasty one. Let me embrace you. Come... come... Let go of your dreams and your struggles. Come mortal. Embrace me. It is warmth and peace to be one with me."

  Through gritted teeth he said, "I am no more or less than mortal than you, old crone-thing. I will not die easily." Lashing out he buried the knife of silver in one of the shadows. It shrieked, and withered, and faded to nothing. But already two others crowded to take its place. He steadied his voice as best he could. "Let me pass, and I will do you no harm."

  "Silly little delicacy. There is no death here at all. No one dies to feed my hunger, for it never has pleased me to eat dead flesh but ah, to swallow the living. I feel them now, wriggling, wriggling deep inside me."

  Kveldulf looked again at the hag, and realised with a shudder that the spikes protruding from her flesh were bones. Sharp fragments of ribs, legs and arms all jutting out, as if every creature she had ever eaten struggled to worm a way out of her.

  And still the rain lashed down and the wind howled through the dead glade, though it sounded like a cry from another world.

  He could smell her retch-inducing breath now. Reaching out with her chipped and blackened claws, she made a snatch at his throat. Bringing up the silver knife he tried to slash at the claw, but was held back by the clammy grasp of shadows. Four razor sharp points sliced his throat. Warmth and wetness flowed down his neck and soaked his shirt. She leaned closer and opened her mouth until it dislocated with a pop. Thick saliva dripped from roof to mottled tongue. The stench of her breath engulfed him.

  Dizzying. Dizzying. Dizzying. His blood drained away and his skin pricked, and tingled and crawled. He could taste the shadows now. Dizzying. All became wild hunger. Dizzying. His teeth were the fangs of the old, old gods, his eyes were the stars, and his tongue was hot as flame.

  He could see past the gloom and into the wide-eyes and sad faces of the eaten. It was they who lurked in the shadows. Taken by her hunger and consumed by it. Each fleeting ghost a part of her and trapped in her hollow. A shadow to do her bidding. The dead grasped at the one thin strand of life in the hollow. A strand of life that was beating weaker and weaker, spilling out hot blood with each slackening breath. She leaned over that body and touched it gingerly. Perhaps to be sure the limp, bloodstained form was truly unconscious.

  Her back, hunched and covered with protruding bones, was turned to him. Totally unaware, she had no idea of what stalked up behind her. If wolves could smile he would have.

  He struck the ground hard with his paws and sprang. The hag screamed as the shock of the impact hit her. Forgetting her prey she thrashed about to throw him off, but he held tight with his jaws. It became a dance. A dance among shadows and rain, watched by the tormented dead. He tore at her. He bit, and struggled, closed his jaws and felt bits of her shred and rend.

  Though he held tight, her arms were long, and when she got a hold of his thick fur in her claws, she gave a powerful wrench and threw him to the ground. He hit the ground hard, but rolled immediately to his feet. Growling, snarling, with hackles raised, he edged towards the prone body. His own prone body. The shadows spread apart like ripples in a disturbed pool. They were afraid of him. He stood over the barely alive flesh that lay sprawled on the ground.

  "Ugly dog," she hissed. Blood, black and thick as pitch, oozed from wounds all over her back and arms. "Wicked trick," she screamed. "I should have looked at you twice. Ought to have looked at you with the other sight. Too hungry. Too hungry. Too eager. It has been so long since I last fed." She grimaced "Wicked, wicked trick to wear your soul like that, with teeth and claws. Wicked trick to prowl unseen, to wear a soul on the outside. Wicked sorcerer." She squatted down outside the door of her hut and the shadows gathered thick about her and moaned with their only cold voices. It looked like a mass of children swarming about the skirts of a fat old grandmother.

  And she waited.

  How many hours passed before he crossed into the nothingland between bodies? Where time stretched thin and the dead were clear and bright and shinning, and the stars could be touched if one stretched out just enough...

  -oOo-

  Slowly, resentfully Kveldulf opened his eyes. Wet through from the rain. Cold. Stiff. Muddy. He reached up and felt his throat. The wound was already crusting over. But it was deep and foetid. It would take a day to heal cleaning to a scar. The scar might stay with him for a week or more.

  Twilight had suffused the dead glade, and the storm had lost some of its bluster. He had been unconscious some hours then. At first glance, Kveldulf had a strange notion that the stars, blotted out by the storm, had fallen to earth. A hundred cold, twinkling lights stared out from the darkening wood. It took him a confused moment to realise that they were the unblinking eyes of the dead. As faint and sickly as corpse-candles.

  Sitting with her long talon-tipped hands restlessly dancing before her, the raw-boned hag rocked back and forth. She murmured to herself and occasionally wetted her dry, blood-crusted lips with her tongue.

  Pain shot through his legs as Kveldulf rose unsteadily to his feet. "Let me pass," Kveldulf wheezed. "Have I not bested you?"

  "No," she spat, "Never. You will starve, grow old and die eventually. I can wait."

  "I will destroy you if you do not move aside." He fumbled around the ground for his knives. Brushing rotten leaves from the blades he slid them away in the sheaths.

  "Nisss, nisss. Poor, foolish little soul-wearer. Destroy me? I was a goddess once, and I shall be again... when enough time has passed, when the moon has fallen from the sky, when this valley has been forest and waste ni
ne times each. Then I shall be beautiful again. But from this day to that, I shall never be bested by a hedge-wizard who has a dog for a soul." And she sneered showing rows of crooked, black and yellow teeth.

  "What sort of goddess lurks in a small blighted hollow?"

  "A goddess dwells where she must when she is trapped... tricked... snared... by a piss-poor magician, long since dead. His name forgotten. How fair is that? A snivelling little charm-peddler traps me with a sorcerous spell, and then goes off and dies before I can even get my revenge on him. But the runes will fade. In time, I shall be free, and glorious to behold."

  "So what? Shall we wait here until time stops and the earth ends?"

  "Nooo, oh nooo my self-sure titbit of a man. I am endless. Without flesh to devour I grow merely hungry. And hungrier." And she winced. "Burning, burning hunger, but you..." she pointed one bloodied finger, "I have met your sort before. Yes, you do not die easily, but with naught to eat, you will weaken and slacken. Until you and your soul are so weak I will be able to cram both of you into my mouth. Eat, eat, eat. Gobble you up, smack my lips, feel you squirm in my belly. Eat, eat, eat. Down you will go, all wriggling in my tummy forever."

  "It will be a long for both of us wait then."

  "So be it."

  "Your hunger will only grow."

  She snarled but said nothing.

  "There are other ways. You are one of those who were born out of the Old Night and Chaos, I think. Your kith have laws to settle disputes, do they not? Contests that may be played out. Riddles that may be asked. Gifts that may be given. We might come to some other agreement?"

  "Oh ho? You wish to play a game with me? I, who am older than the hills? I, who will yet live to see this forest grow nine times and turn nine times to ruin. I, who have seen the acorn before the sapling, and the sapling before the oak, and the oak before the acorn? I, who could baffle you with truth?"

  Kveldulf ran his hand over his stubbly face and nodded very slightly.

  "And what are the rules, little snippet of flesh-for-stew? What are the stakes, my morsel," she smiled and flickered her fingers, "if you should lose?"

  "Should I lose? I forfeit myself."

  "And should I lose, my lovely blood-and-butter loaf?"

  "Free passage through and safely out of your realm."

  "And the nature of the contest? Strength? Guile? Sorcery?"

  Taking in a deep breath, and suppressing the urge to gag on the reek of the stale air, Kveldulf considered his chances. He did not think he could outmatch her for brute strength, and in that last moment before she tore at his throat, she had moved with preternatural speed.

  "A game of riddles."

  "Very well. But three riddles only, and I will ask them. If you fail to give even one correct and proper answer, the game is mine. Are we agreed, my succulent marrow-fat bone?"

  He had no other choice that he could see. "Agreed."

  With a delighted smile, she shifted about on her haunches. Her deep black eyes glittering, she said, "Here now. I have one... ah how I look forward to savouring your tender flesh. How does it riddle?"

  "I am old, broken and cold,

  Though once thoughts I did hold,

  And though eyeless I may be,

  Through me once a man did see."

  Edging forward and smacking her lips she said, "Well? Answer quickly for I am hungry, hungry as fire for wood, hungry as sea for cliffs."

  Kveldulf looked down at the earth, at the soil and rotten leaves. His foot touched something solid and he turned it over with his toe. It made a sucking sound as it came out of the mud. Maggots wriggled beneath it. Grimacing, it stared back at him.

  "A skull."

  With a hiss of indrawn breath, her face scored with angry lines, and her eyes burned briefly with rage. "True. Hmmmm. Then another... my second riddle..."

  "I burn flesh and blood like fire,

  I devour but not with teeth,

  All fear me from churl to sire,

  To put your kiss to me is grief."

  "What am I?" she snickered. "A tricky one, eh? An old, old rhyme this one is. The King of Ashes once knew it well, too well for his tastes." She snickered and her fingers waved rhythmically each small sharp point dancing like lustrous fly. "Well my crumb-of-flesh? Well my sweetmeat? What sayest thou? One answer, mind. Just one..." As she spoke, saliva gathered at the corners of her blue lips and one tiny thread fell from her chin.

  Kveldulf watched that black spittle fall. He allowed a small smile to shine in his eyes.

  "You are poison. Poison burns but has no flames. It devours but has no teeth. And who does not fear poison? He that drinks of it has much to grieve."

  All manner of deep, unnatural, twisted sounds came issuing out of her throat. Spitting and cursing, she rolled her eyes about and her face twitched with spasms. "So, a clever-clogs are you? Smart as a fox think you? Knowing as an owl? Bah! Well, try this then. Try this little puzzle... What--is--my--name?"

  "That," said Kveldulf, "is not a proper riddle. It has no clues hidden in it."

  "Am I not a clue enough for you, my little blood-pudding?" She raised one fleshless finger and wheezed. "But I am fair. I give you three guesses. And on the third guess..." she patted her swollen belly between the sharp, protruding bones.

  "Very well." Kveldulf laid a hand on his knife half absently, and looked about the glade. Names of forsaken goddesses and old bloodstained ogresses ran through his mind. "Your name? Is it Hunger?"

  "Ah, no it is not, my toothsome sweet." Still crouched, she scuffled a little closer and her eyes grew eager and bright.

  "Is it Raw-bones?

  "Never so poor a name for me." Her voice rang with delight and all her sharp-clawed fingers were trembling, trembling, trembling.

  Kveldulf felt a tightening of the muscles in his throat. He reached his hand up and touched the clotted scab only to wince at the pain of it. He could still break his vow and fight her. Or could he? Had just making his offer to this old hag put him in her power? Bargains with old powers of the earth are often bound by more than mere promises. He felt already transfixed where he stood. He thought back to the charm written on the stone. Was there maybe power in that to harm her?

  And then he smiled, looked down at the ground, then up slowly, knowing in his eyes.

  "Your name. I have one last guess."

  "Yes, yes, yes?"

  "Is it Skadi?"

  He knew the truth of it by the slackening of all the loose flesh of her face. All the wrinkles turned to a trenched web of bafflement and fury. "How?" she gasped, "How? I demand to know."

  "The ward upon the path, Skadi." He said the name with cold ice, and she shrank back a little, even as Kveldulf took a step forward. "I misunderstood it. Harm shall not pass. Skadi shall not pass. Names were always so much more literal in the old tongue. Skadi. Harm. Fitting."

  For a moment, all the shadows at the edge of the glade stirred and whispered and trembled.

  "Will you allow me to pass then, Skadi? It was our bargain."

  "You were going to try and break you word if you lost. Why should I keep my word?"

  "Don't play the fool with me." He shook his head. "Your kith live and die by your old laws. You must be scrupulous in your oaths."

  Hunched now, and wrapped in her long, bone-thin arms she nodded. Malice dripped from her lips with each word. "You are right. I have no choice. The old laws bind me yet. Go."

  Kveldulf felt her eyes bore into his flesh and bones as he walked past. It took all his sheer force of will not to take to his heels as fast as he could, and just bolt from that withered glade. But he had his self-respect, and he would go slowly and calmly.

  As the dead trees rolled away, as the glade fell away behind him, the air grew less thick with her stench. Kveldulf glanced back once, over his shoulder, and let out a deep breath that billowed and clouded in the chill air. The way grew paler with each passing moment. The darkness and murk of the rotten forest was lifting. The air was soon threaded
with fog and alive with the sounds of the early evening.

  He must have been in the glade for hours at least. It had been early afternoon when he embarked on the track.

  By the time he emerged from the woods onto the grassy hill where Snoro had his house, it was almost the dead of the night. The moon, ghostly pallid behind thick clouds, cast only a thin glistening of light over the scrub and heathland. Tall grasses thrashed in the wind like waves on a rolling sea.

  At the peak of the hill, rose a small, black crag, darker than the dark sky behind. At the base of the rocky outcrop was a flickering orange glow. A promise of warmth and a fire, though perhaps not of cordial welcome.

  Wrapping his cloak about his shoulders, Kveldulf began the long, slow trudge through the sodden heath that would take him up the slope to Snoro's cave.