Wolfsangel. Part 37

Adisla screamed as the bright arc of the sword flashed through the air to sink into the animal's flank, but the blow was inexpert and poor. The wolf rounded on Feileg, driving its teeth into him, ripping away the flesh from his side and smashing him to the floor. The animal threw back its head, opened its jaws and swallowed the meat down. Adisla was too weak to move.

The witch smiled. The next stage was now plain. It was more than a spell though; it was an expression of something eternal, powerful and undeniable - like a rune, she thought. Yes, a rune. She stroked the piece of leather with the thumb of one hand while the other still held the spear shaft.

The wolf snarled, muscles bubbling on its body as its brother's blood dripped from its lips. It was transforming, not so much physically this time, but magically, the witch could sense. That was the key, as the rune Loki had given her had shown - the two brothers becoming one. It was all in place, all ready for the final stage.

The witch reversed the spear shaft, wedged the b.u.t.t on the floor and leaped forward, impaling herself so that the point came out of her back.

To Adisla, reality seemed to fall apart.

56 The Dead.

The witch was a little girl again, lost in her first memories. What were her first memories? The dark and the cold, the faces of the women smeared with their ghost paint, the weak light of torches and the damp smell of the caves.

They say with spells in tunnels dark As a witch with charms did you work And in witch's guise among men did you go Unmanly your soul must seem.

The voice, the witch queen knew the voice. If was him. Who? Him. The mocker. She giggled. Yes, the mocker who was not so clever as he reckoned. Loki, the liar, who thought he could stand apart from the affairs of the G.o.ds and laugh. Not so. She had hooked him in and made him play his part too. Did he think those fetters just held his body and that his mind was free to wander the worlds as a man? No. He was snared and trapped and pinned and tethered, shackled and bound in every movement of his thoughts. She had done for him, that red-haired fellow, that night caller, that smirker and snickerer and enemy of death.

Had the women of the Troll Wall known who she was? They had made her their queen when she was six. She had all the runes, all of them, as no mortal ever had before. Had they known?

The truth had been obscured from the witch, but as the spear sent its energy of pain throughout her body, she saw what it was. She had killed them, every one, the girls, the boys and her sisters; she had slipped into their minds at night to whisper suicide; she had strangled, drowned and burned them in their trances and she hadn't done it to weaken herself, as an extreme measure to preserve the magical gains of the sisterhood, but because she was a fearful and jealous G.o.d who despised them for their power. She had hidden her intent from herself, afraid that her earthly form might rebel and try to avoid its fate. She touched the triple hanging knot at her neck. One thing hidden inside another inside another. She had thought she had hidden the wolf from himself to hide him from the G.o.d. In fact, she had hidden him from herself. Now the deception unravelled and she knew who the wolf had come for. It had come for her.

The spear seemed perfect, and the position she lay in on the floor perfect too, an ill.u.s.tration of the rune that had guided her. She had made a Wolfsangel of her own body.

She was everywhere, controlling; she sensed every mind on earth and could influence and touch them. In the moment of her greatest pain was her greatest magic.

She said her own name: 'Odin.' Her voice was cracked from years of disuse but the force of the G.o.d's will pushed the sound through the reluctant throat.

The body of the witch was bleeding, blood spreading in a wide pool. The wolf put down his head to lap at it. Adisla could not take her eyes off what was happening in the cavern.

The witch stood. She pulled the spear from her belly and looked at the wolf, who looked back at her.

'I have called you here to do this,' she said.

The wolf drew back its lips, exposing its teeth.

'It was this way, and it will be this way for ever,' said the witch, 'though it will never be easy for you, Fenrisulfr.'

To Adisla, it seemed that the caves no longer existed. She was at the centre of a huge blackened plain, where the shadows of ravens seemed to sweep over her, where smoke tinged the air and the cries of a dying battle could be heard.

The witch too was different. She was dressed not in that bloodstained shift but in man's armour. She was carrying a shield and in her hand was a cruel spear.

'I am Odin,' said the witch, 'all hater, all seer, lord of the hanged, lord of the slain, lord of madness, wisest in magic and battle bold.'

The wolf began to keen.

'Come, Fenrisulfr,' she said. 'You are the slaughter beast, my enemy and my accomplice.'

The wolf sprang as the witch forwarded her spear and stabbed. Then the wolf had her by the throat, shaking her body like a dog with a doll until her feet came off the floor. Adisla saw strange bright shapes scatter from the witch, some fizzing to the ground, some melting like snowflakes on warm land and others. .h.i.tting her. A sense of flow and current seemed to go through her, then a frozen feeling as cold as the north wind, then something that stamped and steamed and breathed was in her mind. Finally, a smell like fresh gra.s.s came to her and a sense of warmth like a spring day. These were runes, she knew, each with its separate power. They told her so. They spoke.

The witch had dropped her spear and was beating uselessly against the wolf's muzzle. The animal did not relax its grip but tightened its jaws ever harder about her. Adisla saw rain showers, sunshine, a great tree that seemed to stretch up to the heavens, horses, a hearth. All the witch's magic shook from her in the animal's jaws.

Then the scene faded; the walls of the cavern returned. The wolf stood over the witch, guzzling her flesh.

Adisla felt the power of the runes and was restored and strong, all mysteries peeling away. Now, she knew, the magic was complete. The witch was Odin. The G.o.d had achieved what it wanted - death, its own and the queen's, which were the same thing. The knowledge-seeking G.o.d had deepened his knowledge of death by experiencing it. The runes it had shed as its earthly self died seemed to burn within Adisla, offering insight and unhappiness.

The wolf fed, consuming the witch's flesh in snaps and gulps. Then it shivered and coughed, shook, and finally lay down.

Adisla took up the Moonsword.

The wolf looked at her and spoke. 'Do not. I cannot command myself if you do.'

Adisla raised the weapon above her head. It felt unbalanced and unwieldy. Feileg had hit the creature with all his strength, and though he had cut it, he had not killed it. She would not stand a chance.

'I am ready for death,' she said.

'Not death,' said the creature. Its voice was low and rough, the human words forced through the wolf throat and mouth.

'Is it you, Vali?'

'Her death has freed my mind from the b.l.o.o.d.y swamp. It is me.'

'You are the worst of marvels,' she said.

'I am afflicted, but this was an ending. There are sorcerers. We can find them. There is a way back for me.'

'At what cost? How many have you killed, my love?'

'I do not want to kill any more.'

'A wolf kills, Vali.'

'No, Adisla, no.'

'I have seen the truth. Feileg was your brother and you killed him.'

The great animal bowed its head. 'The wolf killed him.'

'You are an enemy of the G.o.ds. I have seen. This is your purpose.'

'I will be myself again, Adisla.'

Adisla shook her head, tears cutting bright lines through the dirt on her face. 'But I will never be me. We have loved outside our station; we have offended the G.o.ds. I want to go from you, Vali. I want to die.'

'If you die, my love is so strong that it will call you back from the halls of the dead.'

'I will live again, Vali. When the G.o.d died, a sharp magic entered me and I am certain that it means rebirth. But I will live again without you. You are hated by the dead G.o.d.'

'I am part of his plan, as I saw on the field of the slain. He needs me to fulfil his destiny. I am his enemy and his helper.'

'I want no part of that Vali.'

There was a noise from behind her, though she didn't turn to see its cause.

The wolf bent his head towards Adisla. 'I love you,' he said.

'Then forget me.' She lifted the Moonsword and stepped forward to strike him.

Vali felt himself shiver. He knew he could not help but respond to a threat, but he fought with all his will not to attack her. He understood who he was now - a G.o.d killer, reborn in a thousand lifetimes to hunt down Odin in all his incarnations. What room was there for love in that? What place even for himself against the vast magical forces that laid claim to him? He wanted her but he would kill her if she moved against him. As with so much in his life, he had no choice - the wolf would answer violence with violence returned a thousand times.

The sword was bright in her hand and the sound of anger was in his throat. He tried to frame the words. 'It isn't finished. We will live again, and I will never rest until I have found you and felt you love me as you once did.' But the words didn't come, just the blood-hungry snarl of the wolf.

Adisla closed her eyes and struck, but the blow didn't land. Authun was behind her and took the sword from her hand as it came down, stepping in front of her and pushing her back with the same movement.

Vali crouched. He looked at Adisla and knew that his dreams had been crushed by the jaws of the wolf. They had parted and all reason to live had gone from him. He was trapped for ever in an immortal body with no more company than his undying misery, linked more to the death l.u.s.t of a demented G.o.d than to the woman he loved so much.

He saw the cruel sword in the hands of his father, felt the cut, still bleeding, in his side, no matter that all his other wounds had healed. The Norns, he thought, had paused their weaving for him, and it was up to him if he wanted them to start again.

He wanted it all to melt away, to be as it had been. To him Adisla was still the girl by the fjord, lying with him in the gra.s.s under the brilliant sun. But that was just a dream now, and he had travelled too far for it ever to be reality again.

He turned his eyes to the warrior. Authun returned his gaze.

At last, Vali forced out a word: 'Death?'

'Death,' said Authun.

The Moonsword flickered in the lamplight; the wolf's eyes and teeth flashed from the dark.

When it was done, the sword lay on the floor and the wolf was still.

Adisla came forward to look at the corpses, her body shivering and her mind numb. The strange woman with the ruined face was bending over Feileg, stroking his hair. Adisla went to her and looked at him. His blue eyes were open, looking up into nothing. There was a cruel wound in his side where the wolf had torn into his belly. He wasn't yet cold, but there was no breath in him and she knew for certain he was dead.

She took him in her arms and kissed him. In her mind she felt the shimmering presence of the rune that had seemed to burst with the scents of spring, to patter and babble like the sound of rain by a stream. Rebirth. She tried to send it to him, to make him whole again, but that art took years to learn and its cost was madness.

The woman with the ruined face was looking down at her, and Adisla understood what she said with her eyes: 'There is a way.'

The woman took up the lamp and left the cave. Adisla lifted Feileg in her arms. The runes seemed to shine inside her as she did so, and he did not feel heavy, nor was the entrance to the cave difficult to pa.s.s through. She followed the light up through the silent tunnels to where she could feel fresh air on her face. At the end of a broad cave, where a bright shard of light split the dark, the woman stopped and put her hand on Adisla's arm. Then she kissed Feileg on the forehead and touched Adisla's cheek.

Adisla walked on. She smelled wind, rain and the cold coming off the sea.

The shard of light grew. She walked on. At the mouth of the cave she looked out from a ledge near the top of the sheer Troll Wall, the ground far beneath her feet. A vast distance of land and sea lay before her, glorious in green and blue.

She kissed Feileg and held him to her.

'For hope,' she said and stepped into the light.

Saitada had followed to the ledge. From somewhere a wolf was howling. She understood what its voice was saying: 'I am here. Where are you?'

She stood listening for a while. Then she turned back to the caves.

57 Travellers' Tales.

The hunters were three days into the forest looking for the wolves. There was a new pack in the area, they were sure. Sheep had been killed and even an old horse. They had taken their bows and their bait and headed into the trees, looking for signs of the animals. They had found nothing and were beginning to think they had wasted their time.

Then, as the long dusk of summer settled over the trees and the moon hung full in the sky, a traveller had come to their clearing, asking to share their fire. He was a strange-looking man, tall and pale with a shock of hair that was an almost unnatural red. Still, he had a skin of mead with him, and they let him eat with them in return for a few cups.

The stranger was good company and funny too, but as the brief night approached conversation turned to religion.

'I see you are men of the new faith,' said the traveller, gesturing to the cross one of the hunters wore at his neck.

'We are Christ's,' said a hunter. 'You are a man of the old ways, I can see.'

'I like to get as many G.o.ds as I can for my money,' said the stranger. 'It seems to me that all the Lords of Asgard give a better bargain for your sacrifices than the one G.o.d of the east.'

The men laughed.

'There are places in this land where you'd lose your tongue for saying that,' said one.

'Yes, the meek and merciful G.o.d can get in quite a bate when he's crossed, can't he?'

'It's no sin to defend the word of Christ,' said another man.

'Even if that word tells you that such a defence is sin?' said the traveller. 'Are you recent converts or born into the faith?'

'This time five years ago I crawled on my belly before idols, then the way of grace was shown to me,' said the first hunter.

'Why did you change?' said the stranger.

'I was a slave and the church paid for my freedom,' he said. 'Christian men should not be the slaves of pagans. So says the holy father.'

'And you?'

'The same,' said the second hunter.

'It wasn't so for me,' said the third, who was quieter than the other two, and cleverer.

'What was it?'