Fenrir

57

Aelis fell back under the collision of images. She seemed to tumble through a thicket of thorns, her skin lighting up in agony. Fear was now a sensation she could touch, cold and hard. She saw a brilliant blue sky above her, felt the pull of the tide as it sucked at the sand beneath her feet, saw visions of a man sacrificed, hanging from a tree whose branches were the darkness of night and whose leaves were the stars. She felt his expiring heart beating as her heart and a need, stronger than hunger, stronger than thirst, a compulsion, to become what she could be. There were faces on the beach, and she knew that she knew them, but she couldn’t remember who they were under the runes that fell on her like a torrent. Eight found eight to become sixteen — purring, singing, shouting and rejoicing inside her.

On the River Indre there had been a sort of rapids in the river a morning’s walk from her hall. In the summer the children loved to swim in them, to shoot down the river in the rush of white water, shoving off from the rocks with arms and feet, the world flashing by in glimpses of sunlight. They were terrified and ecstatic all at once. One summer, though, after heavy rain, she had gone there with her cousin Matilde. Matilde wasn’t brave enough to swim in such a flow but Aelis had gone in. She’d quickly realised that swimming was impossible as she was forced forwards through the raging water, throwing up her arms to protect her head, hoping to live. She had the same feeling there on the beach but magnified many many times — that of being caught in a terrible flood that tore and pulled at her, driving all thought away other than the bursting need to survive. Here, though, it was not one flow that battered and tormented her but many, sixteen flows, surging to meet each other in the pool of her mind. The runes inside her were calling to the runes that had lived in the witch and a rush of bright symbols poured towards her through the dark. She could not distinguish, in that frenzied moment, the visions from the real, the past from the present, nor recall exactly what had happened on the beach.

The wolf, the thing, had killed Moselle, she thought. The knight had slumped to the sand at the moment Hugin had decapitated his own sister. Moselle had then tried to stand, to fling himself at Hugin. Aelis felt sure he had thought the sorcerer was going to attack her and, brave Moselle, he had tried to throw his drained and starving body between her and the Raven’s sword. Something else took him, though, dragging him into the sea in an explosion of flailing limbs, water and blood. The wolf. The wolf seemed crazed by the kill, tearing into the knight’s body, oblivious of everything around it.

A figure came into Aelis’s view. It was Ofaeti, his eyes vacant, the big man staggering about like a hungover drunk awaking in an unrecognised place. There were shouts from up the beach. The Franks who had been bewitched had woken up and were pouring onto the shore, swinging their swords as they came. There were Vikings too — the fat one’s companions.

Aelis looked down at her feet. There was the head of the witch, like a worm-eaten nub of wood. Against herself she bent to touch it. Her body felt sore and broken, her mind overwhelmed by the cascade of sensations tumbling through it.

Hugin took off his sword belt and lay it on the sand. He had something around his neck — a pebble worn as a pendant. He undid it and used the cords that tied his scabbard to his sword belt to extend the length of the thong that held the pebble. The berserkers had recovered from their enchantment and were circling the great wolf, Astarth moving left in the water, Egil to the right, Fastarr facing it, while Ofaeti hunted through the bodies on the beach for a weapon.

‘A fine time for weaving, crowman,’ said Ofaeti.

‘This is a wolf-fetter,’ said Raven.

He finished his work then sprinted towards the wolf through the water. The creature was too concerned with feeding to see him coming. Hugin leaped on its back, trying to tie the pendant about its neck, but was flung off, flying clear of the water to land on the sand with a heavy thump.

‘What a death this will be!’ said Astarth, sidling towards the wolf. ‘Come on, come on. My place in a thousand sagas beckons me!’

Now Aelis saw the werewolf properly, its night-black fur and green-disc eyes, like something made not born, standing on its back legs, its front limbs more like arms, its hands talons. It was tall, half as big again as even Ofaeti.

‘Come on!’ called Fastarr. ‘This death will see me at Odin’s right hand, to feast for ever.’

Fastarr talked of living for ever but the wolf’s snarl brought out the mortal in him, sent the chill of oblivion shivering through his bones. He dropped the spear from his hand, his shaking fingers traitors to his will.

The wolf sprang.

Fastarr recovered himself enough to swing a punch at the animal’s head but was too late. A blood geyser burst in the surf. Astarth died next, a rag of meat in the jaws of the snarling wolf, which shook the life from him as easily as a gull shakes water from seaweed. It threw him down to guzzle at his ravaged body, driving its muzzle into his chest, ripping away his flesh with its terrible teeth.

Now the Franks came howling in, their swords and spears at the ready, around fifteen on foot and a couple bareback on their horses. They smashed through the bloody waves towards the creature. It picked the first to arrive from the sand and flung him back towards the rest, knocking two men down. A horsemen hit it at the gallop, but the spear was torn from his hand, his horse sent crashing back down, its limbs broken.

The knights were brave and fell in to the attack, but the wolf was like a demon, thought Aelis. It was huge, twice her size, its twisted body like the unbaked clay figure of a man that had been stretched and pulled by a naughty child. She knew it from her dreams.

Egil had arrived. He stood at the water’s edge, weighing his sword in his hand. He took a pace back and pointed at the werewolf.

‘I know that I am to die but know this slaughter beast that seasons many have I…’ The fine words would not come. ‘Bollocks,’ he said, ‘let’s have it.’ He leapt at the wolf but the creature rounded on him, biting away his head and the shoulder of his sword arm as its muzzle drove him down into the bloody water.

Ofaeti had picked up the Raven’s sword and plunged towards the fight howling out the name of his father and grandfather, telling the wolf he was from a noble line of killers. ‘This day, creature, you have met your match!’

Aelis felt a pull at her arm. It was the Raven. She tried to get away but he held her fast and pressed something into her hand. The pebble on the thong.

‘Make him wear this amulet,’ said Hugin. ‘Make him put it on. It is hope to us.’

Aelis hardly registered his words.

‘Get away from me, monster!’

‘I have been your saviour. Look to the dead witch. Make him wear this amulet. Make him wear it!’

The werewolf levelled its great eyes at her. Something like recognition flashed within them. Men were all over it, clinging to it, stabbing at it. It tried to shake them from it as it walked towards her.

Aelis staggered back, gripping the pebble.

The creature spoke, its voice like stone on stone. ‘You came to me before. In the shining green fields of unripe corn, under a bright sky when the sun turned the water to a field of diamonds. You came and you blessed me, Holy Mary.’

Aelis ran. Blind panic had taken her. Still, she couldn’t help looking over her shoulder.

Ofaeti jumped at the wolf, swinging the Raven’s sword. The creature was fast and threw its body aside, but the sword cut into the black fur on its flank. The animal leaped at Ofaeti, but the Raven threw his arms around the Viking to pull him down as the great beast’s jaws brushed his neck. The werewolf touched its flank and put its fingers to its lips to taste the blood.

‘Kill it!’ screamed the Raven as Ofaeti leaped at it again. This time the wolf was too quick. It seized Ofaeti, lifting him off the wet sand.

Aelis turned. ‘Vali, no!’ She didn’t know where the words came from nor what they meant, but they seemed to have an effect on the creature.

It let Ofaeti fall from its fingers. The Viking hit the water and lay clutching his bloody sides, rasping for breath. Still men beset the wolf, and it turned to rip them down, losing itself in its fury as it bit and tore.

A rune arose inside Aelis, the first one she had ever known by name. Horse. Down the beach at a gallop came a grey mare, one of the Frankish mounts.

‘Lady, you must stay with us. I offer you my protection!’ It was the Raven. He had his own sword again but had not returned to the fight.

Aelis shook her head, backing away.

‘Lady!’

She took a handful of mane and pulled herself up onto the mare’s back.

‘He will kill you! The wolf will be your end!’ shouted Raven.

Go! she thought, and the animal kicked hard across the sand for the trees.