In The Grip Of Old Winter Page 14

  The barghest sprang higher than the carrier and came straight at Wulfwyn. The outlaw leapt aside and swept the knife in a wide arc at the beast’s flank. The dog snapped at Wulfwyn’s arm, but missed and the ground shook when it landed.

  Wulfwyn sprinted behind the barghest, knife raised, but the dog spun round quicker than an eye-blink, crouched and then lunged with a ferocious growl. Saliva drops flew across the glade.

  The outlaw struck downwards and a dull clang, like a muffled bell, echoed through the trees when the dog’s teeth deflected the knife’s tip. Wulfwyn jabbed the knife left and right as the barghest bit at his hand. The dog’s size forced Wulfwyn back, so that defence, not attack, became his only chance of survival.

  Peter’s vision cleared. The silver mark throbbed before his eyes. Its shape, the same pronounced curve when he’d rescued Oswald, might be a crescent moon, though a moon with a cracked surface criss-crossed with dried up riverbeds. No clue as to how he might use it, though before he just pointed.

  The barghest’s attack never faltered as it dodged the outlaw’s knife. Wulfwyn’s breath came in ragged wheezes. He flicked the knife first one way and then the other, but the barghest moved faster. It avoided every strike and its eyes blazed red. When it growled, the air in Peter’s ears vibrated and buzzed.

  The barghest snarled, jumped back on all fours and then reared up onto its hind legs. It towered over Wulfwyn and its claws raked at his head.

  Wulfwyn raised his arm to protect his face, took bigger steps to retreat, stumbled over a tree root and fell. The dog stretched to its full height and, with bared teeth, fell upon the outlaw. Wulfwyn rolled away, but one of the dog’s paws landed on his jerkin, a loose fold that flapped free as they fought and now stopped Wulfwyn’s escape and left him trapped.

  The barghest snarled louder and saliva drooled as its jaws closed around the outlaw’s neck.

  Peter swept his arm around in a wide arc and pointed at the dog. “Get off!”

  A detonation, like a canon’s roar, erupted and knocked Peter backwards and he fell with a heavy crash. Stars sparked in front of his eyes and his ears rang from the explosion. He stared up into the trees, stunned and too shocked to move. Had he died? Time must have stopped, for he didn’t hear anything. Wulfwyn’s face appeared and a sensation of being lifted made him dizzy. His gaze angled down from the trees and into the glade.

  The barghest lay far away, on its side, panting. The dark figure, caught underneath the dog’s bulk, floundered. The carrier slithered on his belly as he used his arms to crawl towards the ravine, his painful movements as slow as a swimmer’s in quicksand.

  Peter’s vision blurred as Wulfwyn carried him further into the trees. Dark mists swirled at the edges of his sight and he guessed that he must be about to faint. He caught a last glimpse of the barghest just before the trees concealed the glade, for the figure trapped beneath it heaved the dog off and threw it aside as if it were nothing more than an annoying blanket.

  As it climbed upright, the figure’s limbs thrashed in a mockery of co-ordinated movement. The skeletal hands, tipped by long black nails that coiled like misshapen corkscrews, stabbed the air and talon-like, clawed at their retreating figures. The jaw opened wide and the legs jerked as it found its balance and gave chase.

  Peter shut his eyes and the black mists swirled, ready to envelope. He forced them open and the mists receded, he didn’t want to faint. Wulfwyn hoisted him over one shoulder and the ground leapt up and down beneath him as the outlaw ran.

  The seal-amulet dangled from Peter’s neck and bounced against Wulfwyn’s back. It glowed bright crimson and the silver marks spun, though not one of them emerged into Peter’s mind. Did they appear in his mind, or hover in the air above the target? It might be both, but for now, he didn’t have the strength or the will to work out how. He lifted his head to peer further back. With luck, if the figure still followed, it might not find them. Wulfwyn ran fast, fast enough to leave the glade behind before that creature reached the trees. Difficult to track too, for the outlaw didn’t keep to any path.

  The mind-numbing shock of the detonation eased. His ears still rang, though the stars in his eyes stopped shooting in all directions. What had he done to make that attack against the barghest so powerful? Perhaps, because he wore the seal-amulet and that increased its effectiveness? Why would he, an eleven-year old boy, be able to do that? Fairy stories, computer games, they used magic, not any real person in the twenty-first century, or the eleventh century. In real life, magicians, sorcerers, witches, tricked people into believing that they possessed special powers, but like the smoke that concealed King Rat in the pantomime and gave him the cover to pretend to vanish, the apparent reality deceived the audience.

  What he’d just done didn’t trick or deceive. The seal-amulet’s magic happened for real and worked. He’d saved Wulfwyn’s life and his own, but how did he make the magic work, or rather, why did it work when he balled his hand into a fist or pointed his finger? That it did work thrilled him, but that he didn’t know how, made him angry.

  Wulfwyn slowed to a walk. He panted long and hard as he gulped in great lungful’s of air and with care, lowered Peter to the ground.

  Peter staggered, still dizzy and reached out for support until his palm rested against the hard, almost sharp, bark of the nearest tree. Wulfwyn bent double, his hands on his knees as he recovered.

  As his head cleared, Peter gazed around. The outlaw had brought him into a grove of enormous trees.

  ***

  Each trunk supported a tree of immense height. Thick roots burst through the ground and looped and coiled before they plunged back into the soil. On some of the trees, where the trunk had split, large chunks of bark stood proud, like the scale of some giant’s armour that had worked loose. The lowest boughs stretched far out as if they meant to take hold of their neighbour’s and intertwine. Snow lay piled in the boughs’ hollows and filled the dips between the roots.

  Peter tilted his head back as he tried to work out how high the trees stood. Higher than his house, which dad said measured over fifteen metres, much higher. A few withered leaves still clung to some of the twigs, though most had dropped and he sank his boot into a huge pile that rustled and scraped as he pushed down deep.

  Some greenery still thrived, for moss hung in long tattered curtains from the lowest branches. They swayed with a gentle drift from the slightest breeze and sparkled where frost formed in the deeper folds.

  Wulfwyn straightened up, clasped his hands behind his head and stretched. Bones cracked as he released the tension from his upper back. Then he bent double again and his breathing sounded loud, though as he recovered, it quietened.

  “What are these trees?” asked Peter.

  Wulfwyn, his hands on his knees, gazed upwards. “They are oaks.”

  Large snowflakes drifted to the ground. Peter peered back the way they’d come.

  Wulfwyn’s hand went to his knife. “Do you hear something?”

  The harder Peter stared into the trees, the darker the shadows loomed. An attacker might be upon them before they had a chance to react. If he and Wulfwyn found somewhere to shelter, then the possibility of being surprised needn’t be so great.

  Had he imagined that figure - that torn skin - those terrible nails - the lidless eyes and the teeth that clacked like castanets made of bone? Impossible to believe that such a horror hadn’t leapt out of one of his computer games and into real life. And now, out of sight, it stayed as a memory which made it even less real. Easy to dismiss it as imagination, but he didn’t allow such a comfort to glaze his mind, for that turned life into a fantasy and ignored a real danger. Those skeletal hands, with fingers bent like claws, meant to grasp and kill.

  He faced Wulfwyn. “Was that - thing, the spae-wife? Have you seen it before?”

  The outlaw focused on the distant trees. “I have never seen the like. Nor the beast that meant to rip out my throat. The carrier I know, though not the actions that revealed such venom. W
hat is it that you hear?”

  Peter closed his hand over the seal-amulet and its heat warmed his palm. “I thought that figure gave chase. It stood up and started after us, but it doesn’t walk very well and you ran very fast, so it might have given up.”

  They stood in silence. The shadows darkened, but nothing moved.

  Peter let go of the seal-amulet. It still glowed, though not as bright as before. “I can’t hear anything.”

  Wulfwyn sheathed his knife. “It is not wise to linger where all can see. Come.” He set off through the trees and Peter followed.

  The ground sloped in a gentle decline. The oaks grew close and the curtains of moss hung in dense drifts, so that they brushed them aside to pass. Clumps of moss grew on the exposed roots and around some of the trunks. Not much snow covered the ground. Though still cold, the air left droplets of moisture on Peter’s cheeks. An earth smell, sharp and rich, strengthened as they went down and deeper into the ancient wood.

  Like the old house, Peter wondered if the trees observed his presence. Nothing suggested that they did, no eyes blinked or bough moved, yet the sensation of being watched, a wary acceptance that they knew he passed, brooded amongst the shadows.

  To their left, the ground dropped away in a steeper slope and Wulfwyn placed one hand behind him to steady his descent as he went down sideways. Peter copied the outlaw’s technique and slithered and slipped into a flat open space at the bottom.

  A single oak, long-dead, its thick trunk split from the high crown to half its length, stood in a wide stream of clear running water that sprang out of one bank and disappeared into the opposite one through a tunnel of overhanging moss. Thin layers of clear ice lined the edges of the stream. The dead tree’s roots shone white where the water ran over them and the lower boughs, stripped of their bark, revealed a cream-coloured skin.

  Wulfwyn splashed through the stream towards the dead tree. “We will take our rest here.” He reached up to where one of the dead boughs curled over the water. “The chance of discovery at this shelter is slight.” With his hands clasped around the bough, he swung his legs up and then twisted round until he sat upright. He stretched out his hand. “Come.”

  Peter waded into the stream and Wulfwyn grabbed hold of his wrist and pulled him straight up. He held on until Peter found his balance and straddled the bough.

  “Wait there,” said the outlaw. With his hand against the trunk for support, Wulfwyn stood.

  Knots or boles of wood stuck out from the old tree and he used these to climb up to the next branch. He lay down flat and curled his legs around it. “Can you climb like that?”

  Peter shuffled along and when he reached the trunk, he took hold of the same handholds as Wulfwyn. As he stood, the outlaw reached down and gripped hold of his backpack to steady him as he climbed up to the next branch.

  Now level with the jagged crack that split the oak, its width revealed a much wider space than appeared from below; wide enough for a man to pass through. Peter gripped the branch as he sat.

  “Stay still,” said Wulfwyn and he stepped over Peter. “This hiding place is hard to find. Our scent will not be left on running water. We will rest here.” He turned sideways and squeezed through the crack. His voice echoed. “Follow me. There are footholds. I will guide you.”

  Peter shuffled up to the trunk and where the wood split, took hold of the sharp edges and stood. He peered through the broken bark. A hollow space where once the tree’s stout wood grew, reached for as high and as deep as the light allowed him to see.

  Wulfwyn’s pale hand appeared below him and patted at a place on the trunk’s interior. “Place your foot here.”

  Peter did as he instructed and the outlaw gripped his ankle to support his descent. Rough strips, like a ladder’s rungs, chiselled out of the bark at even spaces, made it easy to climb down into the wide base. The sound of the stream gurgled outside as it passed around the trunk, though the hard-packed earth beneath their feet stayed dry.

  “Wow,” said Peter when he reached the bottom and craned his head back. Far above, a ragged oval of grey, no bigger than the circumference of the cereal bowl he used for breakfast at home, marked the top of the old tree.

  Not much light filtered so far down, though as Peter’s eyes adjusted to the gloom, he made out Wulfwyn, several paces distant, crouched on the ground and he moved closer.

  The outlaw focused on something in his hands and there came a sharp click and scrape and the flare of a spark that flashed and died. Wulfwyn repeated the action, faster this time, and several sparks ignited and some of them dropped onto a small pile of dried moss, where they glimmered and smoked and then caught. Three small flames wavered, strengthened, joined as one and burned. Wulfwyn flicked the burning moss onto a pile of twigs that stood proud of a shallow hollow dug out of the earth. The wood caught and the fire crackled and gave off a pale orange light.

  Peter guessed that the space must be almost as big as grandma’s kitchen. The fire burned in the very centre. Thick furs hung from wooden pegs hammered into the tree and the leg of some large animal, perhaps a deer, hung higher than the furs and proud of the tree. On the opposite side, Wulfwyn’s circular shield stood propped against the trunk.

  The outlaw sat back on his haunches and warmed his hands against the fire’s building heat. “We shall rest here.” He gazed into the flames. “Chance or fate may bring some of those who fled Bosa’s attack to find their way back.” His melancholy tone deepened. “I hoped to find some already returned. I do not believe that all perished.”

  Peter slipped off his backpack and sat beside the fire opposite the outlaw.

  Wulfwyn shut his eyes, tilted his head to one side and hummed with gentle care. The tune might have been a lullaby to rock a baby to sleep, or the long lament for the passing of comrades and friends.

  ***

  Peter woke with a start. Wulfwyn’s humming and the fire’s warmth must have lulled him to sleep. The fire no longer flared, but glowed a deep orange and the rich colour darkened the brown furs and washed across the tree’s interior, so that everywhere he looked the enclosed space appeared to soak up and benefit from the warmth.

  A cosy sense of well-being flooded his body, which lasted just a moment. Wulfwyn no longer sat beside the fire, nor did he lie stretched upon the ground. His shield stood as before, propped against the tree. Peter leaned back to peer upwards. The fire’s light diminished above the furs and the haunch of meat might not even exist, so deep did the shadows gather beyond the light’s reach. The oval at the top of the tree no longer gleamed.

  Why had Wulfwyn left him alone? His chest tightened. Peter scrambled to his feet and the seal-amulet swung free on its chain. A red blush washed its surface and the silver marks rotated, faint and indistinct.

  High above, something scraped against the wood. His heart thumped, as splinters pattered onto the earth and some fell into the fire and ignited. Peter pressed his back against the tree and squinted into the darkness. Whatever or whoever made that happen now began their descent, for the irregular rustle and scrape as they climbed down the ladder came closer.

  Peter wished with all his heart that it might be Wulfwyn, for if not, with no means of escape, he didn’t stand a chance to break free. He clutched the seal-amulet, ready to fight for his life.

  His relief as the outlaw came into the light made his heart beat even faster. Wulfwyn dropped to the ground, spun round and pressed his finger against his lips to warn Peter to stay quiet.

  They both stood in silence and listened. The fire settled and sparks drifted and went out in puffs of white smoke. Peter attempted to calm his breathing, for the sound of his heart beat loud in his ears. Wulfwyn glanced, his gaze unfocused, his head tilted to one side, into the fire and then up into the darkness. His brow furrowed as he strained to listen.

  Peter watched and waited, still as a statue. The silver marks faded on the seal-amulet and the red glow disappeared.

  Wulfwyn whispered. “We are safe, though,” and he
raised his hand in caution, “do not speak with a loud voice.” He picked up a log from a pile stacked under the furs and placed it on the fire. “Did you not hear?”

  Peter whispered. “No. I fell asleep and when I woke up, you’d gone.”

  The outlaw sat. “Your thoughts of earlier held true, for they did follow. More care to cover my tracks and less fear to hasten my flight might have served me better. They passed above and around the stream. If our scent brought them to this place, then they lost it by the water.”

  Peter shuddered and ran his fingers up and down the seal-amulet’s chain. “That person that looked like a skeleton, was it the spae-wife?”

  Wulfwyn gazed into the fire as if he searched for an explanation amongst the flames. When he spoke, his voice hushed so low and deep that Peter had to lean forward to hear.

  “I have not seen such a one as you name before, but their presence is known to the old dames that tell tales to frighten children.” The outlaw picked up a twig and poked the fire. “Spae-wives are hedge witches, skilled in potions and herbal salves. They are gentle - though others, who are sharper and crueller, come from across the sea where the lands are snow and ice. Our shores are beset by wild men in boats from these lands. A spae-wife conceals her form in a stone coffin, wound round with enchantments so that none may see. When the wild men attack our shores and carry off our women and burn our lands, she slips unseen from her hiding place and hunts alone.” He tossed the twig into the fire. “These are the tales that I heard as a boy. I do not believe that such childish fancies can be proved true.”

  Peter remembered Bear telling the same story. The spae-wives sounded more like vampires. “What does she hunt?”

  Wulfwyn’s brow furrowed. “The tales tell of sacrifice, of girls who blush with the first knowing of what it is to be a woman, whose life is drained by the spae-wife, so that she is reborn with the youth and vigour of the one whose life she has taken. Some tales tell that she takes other forms, man or woman, old or young, even babies that walk and talk in mockery of one grown, though common lore favours women of tender years.”