Wolfsangel

43

Vali. That name still described what faced Adisla in the black of the pit.

How much change must you go through before you are no longer you? How many planks can you replace on a ship before you have to say that you have a new boat?

Vali’s jaws dripped with the blood of the sorcerers, his mind was full of the scent of their panic, and yet, now that he had found Adisla, a glimpse of who he was came to him, indistinctly, hardly discernible, as a distant shore might appear through haze. This was the girl he had loved since the instant he met her. He fought down his other perceptions — the delicious aroma of anxiety that clung to her, the succulence of her flesh, even her threat. She was not him, and every living thing that was not him now seemed hostile and dangerous.

‘No,’ said Adisla. ‘No.’ She could see nothing in the darkness, nothing at all, but that made the creature more terrible — its rasping voice, the heat of its breath.

‘I have found you, as I vowed,’ said Vali. ‘Come from this place.’

Adisla shied back, reaching for Feileg’s hand.

‘What are you?’ she said.

‘Your love. Vali.’

The Noaidi was trying to bite back his pain but his suffering escaped him in suppressed groans. Vali felt the attraction of the holy man’s agony, calling him to feed. His skin felt alive, his muscles drawing power from his questing hunger.

‘Keep away from me,’ said Adisla. Her body convulsed as she clung to Feileg in the dark. Vali could see them clearly and felt his lips draw back from his teeth, his legs prepare to spring. He willed himself to be still.

Feileg spoke. ‘It is him. I saw the beginning of this change. It is the prince.’

Adisla was shaking her head.

‘Let me take you from here,’ said the wolf.

Adisla drew in her breath and backed further away. ‘I will not go.’

‘Better that than the damp and dark,’ said Feileg. ‘Go. If it is your turn to die then you will die.’

‘I do not fear death, only him.’

‘He is as the Norns wish him to be. Now go.’

Still she did not go. Feileg pushed her forward. Then fear killed all her thoughts, and she did not resist as Vali gathered her up. Her weight was nothing to him and he lifted her to the top of the shaft and then pulled himself up using his human arm. Three Noaidis stood at the mouth of the cave. The sun had risen behind them, turning the rocks inside to burning gold and revealing Vali and his burden to the sorcerers. They let fly with their bows. Vali turned his back to them to shield Adisla. The arrows hit him hard but didn’t even break his skin. Vali put the girl down, turned again and made a stuttering, snarling run towards them. They fell back and scattered. Vali returned to Adisla.

She tried to summon her strength, not for herself but for him.

‘Do you remember what you were?’

‘I remember the betony you gave me when I first went out to fight. I remember you at the river, the sun on the water and you racing your brothers from bank to bank. I remember how you kissed me when we last saw each other. I remember you, Adisla, so I remember me.’

Adisla looked at him. Somewhere in his expression, in the inclination of his head, she could see her Vali. It was him, so how could she be afraid?

‘Do you know what you have become?’ said Adisla.

The creature bowed its head. It stammered, ‘I am a b-better thing.’

‘No, Vali, you are not. You must come back to me,’ said Adisla. ‘We must break this curse.’ Feileg was beside her. He had climbed one of the ropes Lieaibolmmai had thrown down the shaft.

The wolf spoke: ‘It feels like a blessing. I am so strong and the world is so beautiful.’

‘We have had only one blessing in life, and one curse,’ said Adisla. ‘Each other. You have found me and I will find you. There are sorcerers who will help you, and we will take them the gifts they ask to save you.’

To Vali, Adisla’s body sparkled with scents, sang with her fear. And there was another sensation too, something even more persuasive. They would be together for ever if he ate her. They would be the same person. What closer love than that is possible? No! Her connection to him was stronger than hunger. Her love burst over him like cool water on hot iron and made a blade of his will.

‘What would you have me do, Adisla?’

‘Wait here, on this island.’

‘I cannot command myself.’

‘Then let us command you. Vali, this is a trap and a refuge. Go within and let us keep you here. We will bring your salvation, I promise.’

‘I will starve.’

‘Your hunger is worse fulfilled. It will be a noble agony and, I promise, my love, it will end.’

The great beast craned its head in something like thought.

Vali saw the flight of the arrow and knew it was going to miss him, so he ignored it. He hadn’t thought where else it might go. It struck Adisla in the leg, spinning her to the ground in a hard fall.

The bowman died for her, killed not for his arrow but so that Vali’s hunger could feast on flesh that was not Adisla’s. She was trying to stand, her stricken movements firing all his wolf senses, impelling him to take her.

He leaped towards her and stood above her, the man he had been struggling to spare her, the wolf he had almost become simmering in resentment at that restraint. No. Yes. No. Yes. Yes.

The wolfman shoved at Vali’s side, punching and slapping at him, trying to shake his attention from the stricken girl. Slowly the wolf turned its head to him, the black bulk of its body almost featureless against the light of the cave mouth.

Feileg was shouting at Vali, trying to get through to him. ‘After her there is no way back! After her this, always.’ Blood filled up Vali’s senses. He seemed almost to teeter above Adisla, rocking and keening as he struggled to fight the pull of her distress.

There was a scream from below. Lieaibolmmai had tried to climb from the shaft but the ruin of his arm made it impossible and he had fallen. The wolf lunged at Adisla. She felt his breath on her face, his teeth brush her neck. But Vali, still there inside the wolf, pulled his animal body back, slammed Feileg to one side and threw himself into the shaft after the sorcerer. He tumbled down, crashing to the floor.

‘I am lost,’ said Vali, not in the wolf’s growl but in the voice of his mind, ‘and I will never be found again.’

Lieaibolmmai scrambled back through the darkness, back away from the thing he had summoned. He knew he had lost to the goddess and his duty was clear. ‘Seal us in!’ he shouted. ‘Seal us in!’

At the top of the shaft Feileg was heaving at the flat boulder. He couldn’t budge it. Adisla stood, stumbled, stood again and added her weight. A Noaidi ran in to join them. They rolled the stone down the wall until it was level with the shaft.

Adisla fell to her hands and knees at the edge of the pit. She looked down to see a pair of green eyes reflecting the light of the rising sun. The rumbling voice echoed up the shaft.

‘Forget me,’ it said, and Feileg dropped the boulder over the hole.