by Dan Smith
‘I can’t go there on my own. A Dane in a Saxon village? They’ll—’
‘I told you; there’s no one in Seatun to hurt you. You’ll be safe there.’
‘Then we’ll go there together. You can sleep longer – another night – and we’ll ride out in the morning.’
‘You’re not listening.’
‘You helped me so I’m going to help you.’
‘I’m not going anywhere. I can’t walk. I can’t ride.’
‘I can build a sled and the horse can pull you.’
Cathryn tried to smile. ‘There you go again, refusing to change your mind.’
‘It shows strong character.’
‘It’s called being stubborn. Like a goat. Didn’t your mother tell you that?’
‘Yes.’
‘She was a smart woman.’
‘I’ll build a sled,’ Ylva said, as if it was the last word she was going to say about it.
‘Things aren’t always as they seem, Ylva. They don’t always turn out how we want them to. Wanting something, really wanting it hard, doesn’t make it happen, so don’t waste any more time here. Get to Seatun. Find Bron. Tell him who you really are.’ She reached up and touched Ylva’s scarf. ‘There’s a lot of bad in this world, child, but you’re the toughest person I ever met; you’ll survive. I know you will.’
Ylva watched her.
‘Take the horse. Ride north.’ She let her hand drop. ‘Seatun is in the first valley you come to. You’ll see it. Bron will be waiting for you. Don’t look back, She Wolf. Don’t look back.’
They were the last words Cathryn spoke.
31
Night Terror
Ylva did head north, just like Cathryn told her, but not straight away. She didn’t leave Cathryn to die alone.
She fed the fire through the cold, grim day, wood snapping and popping in the flames. She kept Cathryn warm and comfortable. When it was safe, she took the horse down to the forest to find a place for it to graze, but there was nothing for it to eat.
When darkness fell, the howling returned.
Ylva remembered what Cathryn had said: ‘They’re just men, and Bron’s arrows killed them dead enough.’ Cathryn hadn’t convinced her that Ulfhednar did not exist, but Ylva was starting to believe that the half-skulls were not possessed by wolf spirits. She told herself that although the man who killed Mother wore wolf furs on his back and a half-skull on his face, he was still just a man. He would be sleeping, eating, searching maybe, but he wasn’t out there, howling in the forest.
The ground-tied horse moved restlessly in the cave entrance, and Ylva went to him. He put his head over her shoulder and she circled her arm around him. ‘I know,’ she said. ‘You’re afraid. Cold and tired and hungry. Just be strong for a while longer. When we get to Seatun, I’ll give you all the feed I can find. Just be strong.’
The horse snorted and blew. He pulled his head away and moved from side to side, his ears turning.
Freki was uneasy too. He stood alert with every wild howl from the forest, but was afraid to venture close to the front of the cave.
‘Easy.’ Ylva soothed the horse, running the flat of her hand along his muscular neck. ‘Easy.’ She looked past him, into the night and down through the naked claws of the alders and birches below. Dark spirits moved against the stark white of the snow. Too small and lithe to be men on horseback, the silhouettes slipped among the trees like the blurred shapes of fish beneath water. In and out of view, they crept closer to the rocks, where they waited like hungry shadows.
Wolves.
Ylva took the horse deeper into the cave to try to settle him, but when the howls came again, they were loud and close, and he reared in blind terror. He turned on the spot, and Ylva held tight to his reins, but he was too strong. He bolted, yanking Ylva off her feet and dragging her across the rocks as he headed for the precipice at the cave entrance. If Ylva held on any longer, she would be dragged to her death, so there was nothing for her to do but let go.
Ylva released the reins and watched, waiting helplessly for the horse to go over the edge and disappear from view, but at the last moment, he turned. As if he had seen it just in time, his hooves clattered and he skidded to his right, following the ledge that led down to the snow. Ylva scrambled to her feet to go after him, but stopped when she saw wolves halfway along the ledge. Not men, not wolf-warriors, but wolves.
Three of them.
While the animals circling below had distracted her, others had been making their way up to the cave. They had been closing in on her, but now they scattered in surprise as the horse raced towards them. He slammed into the first one, knocking it off the ledge with a high-pitched yelp. The others leapt aside, and gathered themselves, but as soon as the horse had passed, they turned and gave chase.
Ylva hurried back into the cave and grabbed the spear, but when she returned to the ledge, the wolves and the horse were gone, and the night was quiet once more.
32
Nobody
Cathryn died before first light.
Ylva arranged her with weapons in her hands, then buried her beneath a mound of rocks collected from the cave floor.
Afterwards, she sat by the fire with the wolf pup curled in her lap.
‘I lied,’ she whispered to the mound of rocks. ‘Mother wasn’t a famous healer. My father wasn’t a brave warrior. I’m nobody. I don’t even know my father’s name.’
An almost overwhelming sadness filled her heart, but Ylva dug her fingernails into the back of her hand and bit her lip. ‘No,’ she said. ‘This is not the time for tears.’
When the sun rose, Ylva hung the goatskin bags across her shoulders. She tucked Freki into her cloak, picked up her spear, and took one last look at the mound of black stones in the centre of the cave.
‘Goodbye,’ she said, and set off into the forest once more.
North, Cathryn had told her. To the first valley she came to. That’s where she would find Seatun.
She made slow progress on foot. Pushing through the understorey in the dense forest, the snow was manageable, but when the trees opened out, the covering was deep and difficult to navigate. In those places Ylva moved slowly, prodding the ground with her spear before each step.
She didn’t think about Mother. She didn’t think about Geri, or Cathryn. She didn’t want any distractions at all so she thought of nothing other than putting one foot in front of the other and heading north. Just north.
The cold was harsh, but the air was still. There was no wind for her to fight, and Ylva was thankful for the clear morning that let her see the sun. Without it, she wouldn’t have known north from south.
As the afternoon wore on, Ylva began to feel that she would never leave the forest. Only when she was beginning to lose hope did she notice a familiar scent carried on the breeze. And when she finally emerged from the trees, she stopped on a rocky plateau that overlooked the valley Cathryn had told her about. Far below, the whole valley floor was the purest white. It was as if clouds had fallen from the sky, and had been rippled into gentle waves by the winter winds. At the far end of the valley the forest climbed the distant hills, but to her right, the glittering sea crashed on a sandy beach, and Ylva breathed deeply, tasting the salty air that reminded her of home.
But more recent memories – uglier memories – washed over those happy thoughts of a Viking village by the sea. It was difficult to look at that English beach and not think of the burning ship she and Mother had fled. Of screams in the surf and blood in the sand.
Hair blowing around her face, she watched the breakers rolling in from the misty sea, wondering why the gods had let this happen to her. Why had they led her here? She turned her attention to what lay in the middle of the valley, close to the water.
Seatun.
Was this where the gods wanted her to come?
The sun was inching lower over the valley, spilling a blazing orange glow that seared across the snow and shimmered on the sea. Into that white world aflame,
the town of Seatun settled like a seed of hope. Ylva counted no more than thirty thatched wooden buildings arranged in no particular order, with a tall wooden wall to surround and protect them. There were pens and barns for keeping animals. Ylva could already feel the closeness of civilization. But the longer she watched, the more she sensed there was something not quite right about Seatun.
She saw no movement. No people. No animals. She stared until her eyes watered from the strain, and decided the lack of movement was because of the cold. Everyone must be inside, keeping warm. That was the only answer.
So why is there no smoke? Why is there not a single fire burning in Seatun? Why are the roofs still heavy with snow?
As she stood and wondered, there was a clatter of wings from a pair of ravens flying out of the forest behind her.
Raak! Raak! they protested as they soared over the valley like Huginn and Munnin, the two great ravens that carried news to Odin.
Ylva turned slowly to scan the trees behind her. From the warmth and safety of her cloak, Freki watched too. Just his head was visible, and Ylva felt the soft tips of his ears under her chin as they pricked up, swivelling to find any sound.
‘Something disturbed them,’ she whispered as she cast her gaze over the trees. ‘Do you see anything?’ But the longer she watched, the less she saw, and when she looked back at the village in the valley below, Ylva wanted to be there. When they reached it, she would find warmth and hot food, and she would begin her search for someone who would help her fulfil her promise to Mother.
And once she was ready, she would find the three-fingered man, she would kill him, and the gods would stop punishing her.
Ylva held tight to the warm bundle beneath her cloak and stretched the awkwardness from her muscles. She moved to the edge of the plateau and looked down the steep climb. ‘I don’t like this,’ she whispered to Freki. ‘I don’t like this at all.’
The first part of the climb was gentle. Ylva stepped sideways to avoid slipping, and planted her feet firmly with each step. One wrong move and the snow would tumble away from beneath her and she would fall.
‘Slow and steady,’ she told Freki as she held tight to him with one hand. With the other, she clung to the puny saplings that grew in the thin soil between the rocks.
The goatskin bags grew heavy across her shoulders, and carrying the pup made everything more awkward, so by the time she was halfway down the valley wall, the sun was low in the west. If she didn’t pick up her pace, it would be dark long before she made it to Seatun. But there was no way she could move any faster; she had reached the place where the descent became much harder. From here, the valley wall was steeper, and there were places where the drop was sheer, straight down to the seashore below. Ylva scanned ahead, searching for the easiest route, and as she stood on the ledge, trying to find a way down, a wolf began to howl in the forest above.
Freki squirmed inside her cloak.
‘Hush now.’ Ylva squeezed him tighter. ‘You’ll make me fall. It isn’t much further, I just need to find the right route and we’ll be fine.’
The deadly effect of Bron’s arrows, combined with Cathryn’s insistence, had convinced Ylva that the three-fingered man was not Ulfhednar. And seeing the wolves last night had shown her that it hadn’t been the half-skulls howling in the forest. But now Ylva understood that the half-skulls were not the only predators hunting her. Hungry wolves had found her scent, too. They had taken her horse, and now they wanted her.
The wolf howled again and Ylva turned to look up at the way she had come. It was a mistake. The whiteness of the snow, the patches of black rock, and the passing of the clouds made her head spin. And when the pup wriggled inside her cloak, Ylva lost her balance. She felt herself tip backwards. The sky moved, the mountainside slipped away, and Ylva dropped like she would fall for ever.
33
Hunted
Ylva hit rock with a sudden and dreadful thump. She landed on her back, and bounced, slipping further down the cliff. The snow was deep, but it hardly cushioned her at all. Ylva felt every hard edge as she skidded and spun backwards towards the valley floor. But she didn’t put out her hands to snatch at the saplings to stop her fall. Instead, she wrapped her arms tight around herself to protect the pup that nestled inside her cloak. She kept him safe until she slammed into a large outcrop and came to a bone-crunching stop. Her head whipped back and cracked against the hard surface, and everything went dark.
When she opened her eyes again, it felt as if hours had passed, but it couldn’t have been more than a few seconds. A minute at the most. From her position, lying on her back propped against the outcrop that had stopped her, Ylva saw clear evidence of where she had fallen – a messy path straight down the mountainside. Far above was the black lip of the plateau, and beyond that the blue sky with the passing clouds.
Hurting all over, Ylva gave herself a minute to collect her thoughts. Freki wriggled free of her cloak, poking his head out. He whined and licked at the fresh blood on the scrapes across her chin. She pushed him away and checked he was still in one piece.
‘Looks like you came out of that better than I did.’
She set him down beside her and sat up, realizing for the first time that the goatskin bags were gone. There was no sign of them anywhere near her, so she crouched behind the outcrop, wiped the blood from her chin, and looked up to see if she could spot them. That’s when she caught sight of movement at the edge of the plateau high above her.
At first she thought of the three-fingered man. But when she brushed her hair out of her eyes and squinted against the brightness of the snow and the sky, she saw something different.
A large black wolf was looking down at her.
With its dark snout and its pointed ears silhouetted against the light, it could almost have been Geri standing up there on the ridge watching her. But Geri was dead, and the shape above was not a figment of Ylva’s imagination. The black wolf was real, and Ylva needed to get away from it, so she gathered herself and came down into the bay as quickly as she could. She sat on her backside and slid most of the way, using the rocks and saplings to guide her. She wished she had thought of doing it earlier, but it was too late for that now. Decisions never were her strong point, and there was no good to be had from wishing she had done this or that. Wishing was for fools. The only way anything ever got done was by rolling up your sleeves and doing it, not by wishing for it. That’s what Mother always said, and Ylva was sure Cathryn would have agreed with her.
Behind her, the wolf howled again, and this time the call was answered by another howl. Then another, and another, until the wolves drowned out the sound of her sliding in the snow. The howling was all she could hear. High and tuneful. Beautiful and terrifying. With their howls echoing from the trees behind her, Ylva believed the forest could be full of wolves. They were calling to each other, bringing the pack together, and then they would hunt.
When she reached the bottom, Ylva clutched Freki to her chest and got to her feet. The perfect snow was so deep it came to her knees.
She looked back at the wide trail leading down from the plateau. At the very top of it, four wolves had left the cover of the trees and stood on the ridge, snapping and yelping as they agitated each other. Ylva thought they might stay where they were, unwilling to leave the safety of the forest, but it wasn’t long before three more wolves joined the pack, and the animals began their descent.
Ylva watched them pick their way down, following the same path she had taken, and she knew they would move faster than she could.
Aching from the bruises already forming on her back and shoulders, she pulled her cloak tight around her, drew the axe from her belt, and hurried closer to the sea. She didn’t want to get her feet wet, but there was no snow where the water touched the sand, so it was easier for her to pick up her pace and jog towards the distant town, boots splashing in the surf.
The wolves hung back, pausing their descent every few minutes to tease and agitate one another. The s
ound of their yips and yowls blended with the crashing of the breakers on the beach. Even when they reached the valley floor, they kept their distance. They followed the same route Ylva had taken, but from time to time several of them would break away from the main group to scout into the deep snow further inland.
Some were black, gliding like shadows. Others were grey, or close to white, and it was difficult to keep track of them. Sometimes Ylva counted seven shapes running together, nipping at each other, and other times she saw only three or four.
She wondered what they were doing; perhaps they were wondering about her too. Maybe they were deciding if she were suitable prey. Maybe they would give up.
But the wolves didn’t give up. The pack followed her across the bay as if they would never tire, so Ylva kept moving towards the village in the distance.
The sun was dazzling and the cold was punishing. Ylva’s hands were stiff and painful, and she had lost the feeling in her face. There were times she felt as if she were stuck in one spot. When she looked behind, the mountains and the forest seemed no further away, and when she looked ahead, Seatun was no closer. It was as if she were in a dream, running hard, but never going anywhere.
As the afternoon wore on, and the sun dropped, Ylva knew the gods were conspiring against her, because the sky darkened first to a dirty grey, and then to a sombre black. The wind picked up, heavy thunderheads rolled over the distant hills, and Thor began to beat his hammer.
As the world fell into a grey gloom and more snow began to fall, Ylva continued on. She didn’t stop before she reached Seatun. But the wind was fierce and the snow was blinding, and when she looked back, the wolves were lost in the storm.
34
Ghosts in the Storm