Solem

by Clive S. Johnson

  “How long have we been at this?” Craith asked.

  “I don’t know; an hour maybe. Seems longer somehow, but I reckon an hour.”

  “And I reckon I could still throw a stone clear out of this damned Dwargstor hole.” He breathed in deeply and pushed himself up, grateful the pain seemed to be subsiding. Once he’d gingerly got to his feet he shook his head and sighed. “Which way now, Janeen?” and he followed her outstretched arm only to stare at the opposite but sheer and high bank of the streambed.

  They’d to detour quite a way before the bank could be climbed, but by the time they had, Craith could see nothing beyond its top. “Well,” he said, Janeen standing beside him, “looks like we’ve used up today’s daylight. I suppose, lass, our fate’s now entirely in your hands.”

  Janeen remained quiet for a moment. “I don’t think I can safely find our way, Craith. I honestly don’t. There’s just too little life in here for me to mind-see well enough.”

  “In which case, there’s nothing for it but to wait ‘til the morning. At least it’s warm in here, and strangely dry, given how hard it’s still lashing down out there.” He put his hand out but could feel no drops of rain finding their way through the black canopy above.

  They settled themselves as best they could amongst the dead branches and straggly growth, making a hollow of sorts in which they finally lay beneath Janeen’s cloak. The night proved long and for some reason unnerving, each only sleeping fitfully.

  At one point, both only half-awake, Craith whispered, “If you’re going to hide in here while I do a deal with Gryff—assuming we ever get there—you won’t have to be too far in. I’d never find you again.”

  “But I’d be able to see you, Craith. You stand out even more in this place. You’d only have to wave from the edge, blazing like a beacon, and I could come out to you.”

  “Hmm, if you’re sure. I suppose it makes for an even better hiding place.”

  Craith then reminded himself he’d still not come up with a plan for saving Janeen. His desperate search for an answer kept him awake for a while longer. “I’ll have to play it by ear if I can’t think of owt,” he finally decided before once more falling into a shallow and fitful sleep.

  37 A Grace Imparted

  When the morning came, it did so stealthily. At first, caught in the myriad gaps of a misshapen web of black branches, the canopy barely impinged with its faint collage of slate grey hues. It then seemed an age before hints of teal and olive appeared, their dull grey-green light begrudgingly falling to where Craith and Janeen now stirred.

  She rolled against Craith, burying her nose in the warm fabric of his sleeve, softly murmuring before she abruptly froze.

  “Where… Where am… Oh…Craith!” and she snatched her face away, pushing herself up onto her elbow. “I was having the weirdest…” She seemed to look around, her shoulders slumping. “I see it’s morning already,” she said, somewhat distantly, then turned back to face him.

  “I think it has been for a while, Janeen, not that it’s easy to tell down ‘ere.”

  “It’s that dark to you, as well? I must say, it’s not what I’ve got used to.” She pulled herself out from under the cloak and stood, slowly turning, as though convincing herself of where she was.

  When Janeen then set to, sorting out some of her roots with which to break their fast, Craith remembered Gryff’s refectory, fondly recalling Ellisa’s mushroom pie. He resignedly pushed back Janeen’s cloak, stood and draped it around her shoulders as she began to make two small piles of roots.

  “You’d best keep it all for yourself, Janeen. Knowing how slow Gryff are at making decisions, it might be all you’ll have for the next few days. Unless you can dig up some fresh supplies from in here.” He turned a doubtful eye to the forest. “Hopefully, we should be at Gryff sometime this morning, then I might get some proper…some of their food, before getting stuck into haggling with ‘em.”

  “You might be right, Craith,” and he thought he saw her shiver.

  Their journey proved no easier when they presently set out in slightly better light, indeed, made somewhat harder by the steady climb of the forest floor. It seemed the trees grew even closer together here, and the undergrowth that bit thicker. They often had to stop to get their breaths back and for Janeen to check their direction, which they were doing when Craith peered into the gloom.

  “Janeen?”

  “Yes,” she answered, bending to the hem of her skirt to mop her face.

  “Have you seen any wildlife while we’ve been in here? You know, birds or rabbits or whatever.”

  Her mouth drew to a thin line. “No. No, I’ve not, Craith. Nothing, not even a deer, and I’d have expected them here. There were loads around my bud-house.”

  “Deer?”

  Her brow knotted. “You must know what deer are, although I have to admit they are shy. But you must have seen the odd one or two at some time.”

  When Craith assured her he’d no idea what they were, nor what they looked like, Janeen described them in some detail. Craith’s mouth slowly dropped open.

  “Hang on,” he said when she’d finished. “That’s what I saw in…in a dream I had, when I was back in Crook’s Fold; the morning I set out to visit you at the dwelgefa’s.”

  “Well, you must’ve seen a deer at some time in your life, then…to be able to dream one,” but Craith was adamant that that had been the first time he’d seen such a thing.

  Craith was sure he now had Janeen’s hand held lightly in his own, but couldn’t recall having taken it. He felt it warm and soft but without form, as though both hands had somehow become one. Then it seemed her breath was on his face. He wasn’t sure how, but he thought he saw his own face faintly reflected in her eyes, her lips brushing his, a glow welling up from within him, lighting the air about.

  A reflection in her eyes? But how—

  “Are you just going to stand there all day?” she called back, already a good distance ahead. Craith shook the daydream from his head and blinked a few times, before coming to himself and hurrying to catch her up.

  As he did so, she stumbled ahead, out into a narrow gap between the trees. When Craith jumped down the low bank at its edge, he realised they were on a grassed track of some kind, stretching off to both sides through the forest.

  Janeen got to her feet, dusting off her knees for the umpteenth time. “Pity it goes the wrong way,” she said after turning about to face both ways.

  “Have you checked our direction again, though?”

  She swung her arm out, pointing into the forest beyond the far side of the track. “That way, Craith, I’m afraid.” She turned the same way but then jolted, drawing a sharp breath.

  “You all right, Janeen?” and Craith came beside her.

  “There was a figure over there,” and this time she pointed at a slight angle to their right. “I’m sure there was, unless I’m seeing things now—so to speak.”

  Craith peered fruitlessly into what seemed to be even darker forest.

  “There, again…and another, but only briefly, a way off and quite high up.” She went quiet for a while but then reported a few more, each one again lasting only a moment.

  “It’s got to be Gryff. I don’t think there’s owt else anywhere near here. Come on, let’s see if this track gets us any nearer. If you keep checking, you should be able to tell when we’re square on to them. At least then we’ll have the shortest distance to force our way through this damned forest.”

  Each time Janeen checked, she reported yet more brief glimpses of walking figures, some above or below others. Then she stopped and concentrated on what she was mind-seeing.

  “They seem to be blinking in and out of existence, Craith, as they move back and forth, and at many different—”

  “Windows,” Craith said. “Of course, you must be seeing them pass by windows, walking along the corridors on each floor of Gryff. That means we’re certainly within striking distance, Janeen,” but she didn’t respo
nd, only tipping her face towards the forest floor.

  Craith went to stand beside her. “Are they square on to us yet?” he gently asked.

  She sniffed and nodded, then barely whispered, “Just about.”

  “Well, I suppose it’s time to suffer the undergrowth again, then.” He couldn’t bear the pained look that had steadily grown on Janeen’s face and so turned away, gazing further along the track, but then noticed something. His hand found hers before he walked her on again, his stare ahead slowly revealing a junction in Gryff’s direction.

  “Maybe I really should put more trust in Solem,” he mumbled as they turned onto a wide taper of flagstones leading to two stone stumps, clearly once a gateway of some kind. “Here we are, lass; our way to Gryff awaits us,” he couldn’t help but smile as he swept his arm out.

  Janeen breathed in slowly, her lips and jaw firming before she nodded and stepped out with him, on between the two stone stumps. Once more on grassed track her stride became surer, although she remained silent, her hand still in Craith’s.

  Each time Janeen lifted her face to check where Gryff now lay, it angled that little bit higher, as though the place was beginning to loom above them. She’d just reported that there were now fewer figures, and only those at the highest level, when a dark wall appeared from within the gloom before them—running straight across the track.

  They stood before it, craning their necks.

  “By Dwargstor, but it’s bloody high,” Craith told Janeen after having explained what they’d come up against. “And it curves out towards the top. We’d never climb this, even if you could see.” He peered both ways along the wall, to where it vanished into the forest on each side of the track. Reluctantly letting slip Janeen’s hand, he went and stared into the blackness the wall seemed to gather to itself beyond.

  Janeen pressed close behind him. “It goes on a long way,” she said. “I can see its black length vanishing into the distance.”

  “Yeah, but nothing seems to want to grow right up against it.” Craith pushed his way through the bushes that bordered the track and in beside the wall. “It’s pretty clear in here,” he told her, although there’s just bare earth.”

  She stumbled in behind him, grabbing his arm. “If you can see well enough then maybe it’s time you led me again, Craith. I’m sure I can manage. Which way do you reckon we ought to go?”

  “Eh? Oh, well, this way, towards the spring-rise. That’s the side Gryff’s entrance is on.”

  Janeen reckoned it was almost midday by the time they came to stand at an outer corner of the wall, its continued march now striding off towards the noon-high. After about half an hour into their new direction she suggested they stopped for a bite to eat, Craith again refusing his share.

  Cradling a small portion in her hand, she began eating, only to stop, her face angled forward as though peering through the forest.

  “Craith?”

  “Hmm?”

  “There’s something happening over there,” and she pointed at a slight angle away from the wall’s noon-high march. Craith could see nothing.

  “Any idea what?”

  “No, it’s too far away, or too low. But there seems to be a long, thin column of something moving in the direction of the wall, but some way off to the summer-rise.”

  “A long, thin—”

  “Oh, by Solem! It’s the wolves, Craith; I’m sure of it.”

  “The wolves? But… Ah, ‘long’ and ‘thin’, of course. They’ll be on the road to Gryff; after all, they didn’t seem too keen to come into this forest, not that I blame them now. But why—”

  The sound of men’s cries and shouts drifted to Craith’s hearing, seemingly from over the wall but still some way off. Craith stood and cocked an ear as Janeen hastily packed away her meal.

  “I can’t tell what they’re shouting,” Craith finally said, “but it don’t take a genius to work out it’s goin’ to be because of the wolves. I can’t imagine anyone here knowing what the Dwargstor they are. Come on,” and he took her hand as she slipped her bag over her shoulder. “I think we need to find out what’s going on.”

  38 To Draw Upon a Grace

  Janeen warned Craith when they were getting near the road, describing a veritable river of wolves flowing along it. She said their tumbling bodies were still pouring in, forming a turbulent pool that lapped against the edge of the forest not far ahead. She also noted there was a gap in the wall’s high march.

  Craith brought them to a hasty halt and asked, “I take it, if I was on the road, you’d be able to see me from here?”

  “From here? Easily.”

  “Right. Then make yourself comfortable; somewhere well hidden. I’ll go on and see what’s happening.”

  “But, Craith—”

  “But nothing. I need my goods kept safe for trading, so you stay here. I can’t barter what gets stolen from me.”

  Janeen nodded, clearly reluctant.

  “And so you know it’s me: when I want you to join me, I’ll wave my arms and sway from side to side, like this,” and he demonstrated.

  A crack of a grin threatened her face. “I don’t think I’ll mistake that, Craith.”

  “Good. Now sort yourself out somewhere to hide, where you can still see the road.” He was about to leave when the enormity of what they were doing finally hit him. He drew Janeen close, slipping his arms around her, hugging her tight as he tipped his mouth to her ear.

  “I know it seems like we’re being carried along by everything, Janeen,” he said quietly, “but if you’re having any second thoughts…”

  She clumsily angled her face towards his and placed her lips impassively against his own. It surprised them both, each freezing for a moment until Craith’s lips relaxed and drew hers to part. Their kiss promised more, but renewed shouting shattered the moment and Craith pulled away. They faced one another for a brief and rather scary moment before a scream startled them apart. When someone shouted “Lock that bloody door”, it spurred Craith out of his stultifying wonder.

  “I best be—”

  “But…but the wolves, Craith,” she warned, “if I’m not with you, they might—”

  He put his finger to her lips. “Trust in Solem, Janeen. Isn’t that what you keep telling me?”

  She seemed to search his eyes then slowly nodded.

  “So, wait ‘til I give you the signal,” was all Craith could manage before turning on his heels and slipping back beside the wall, his head somehow lightened despite a heavy heart.

  It wasn’t long before he caught a glimpse of grey fur, swirling past a narrow gap between the wall and undergrowth ahead. He swallowed hard before his legs would carry him into that gap, where the cacophony of growls and snarls beyond brought him up short.

  Angling his head, he strained to see through the break in the wall, his suspicions at last confirmed. “Thank Solem,” he whispered, “but it is Gryff’s geetholden,” then leapt back as a wolf snapped at the air before his face. The beast fell back into the turbulent mass that swirled along the road and lapped into the geetholden.

  “Maybe Janeen was right. Maybe they will tear me apart if I go out there,” but in his mind he saw Janeen’s eyes again, from which his own reflection stared back. He drew in a deep breath and edged forward, but then naked fear took hold, and all he could do was stare at the snarling jaws and intense yellow eyes that flashed by.

  “Trust… Trust in Solem,” he forced himself to say and raised his gaze to the gap the road cut through the forest’s canopy. A ripple of thin, high cloud stained the strip of blue sky visible, seemingly so still and peaceful, so distant and calming

  Slowly, his legs again moved him forward, from his crouch and out to stand before the press of wolves, his back to the forest. Fear once more overwhelmed him, his mind screaming “Run!”, the wolves snarling as they rushed towards him. Gritting his teeth, he again looked up at the sky, this time beseeching Solem—and the world went deathly still.

  When he dared lower
his gaze, a placid pool of eyes stared up at him from quizzically tilted heads, and Craith’s fear ever so slowly subsided.

  Gingerly, hardly breathing, he stepped down onto the gravel of the road. The wolves parted as he slowly went to stand at its crown, from where he faced in to the geetholden.

  Its courtyard overflowed with wolves, unmoving, staring his way. Beyond them, the low building had been shuttered, its central gate shut tight and no doubt barred, not a soul in sight.

  As Craith stepped in and came between the stockyards, the wolves parted before him as the smell of blood assailed his nose. Donkey carcasses littered the pens, smashed cages fluttered their red-tinged feather pennants and milk churns lay overturned. The feasted wolves now stood still and silent over their ill-gotten gains.

  It seemed to Craith that a thousand eyes followed his horrifying walk between what had become shambles’ yards. As he passed into the courtyard, a wake of subservient wolves followed him in, and when he came to stand before the door to the reception building, he found it, naturally enough, closed and shuttered. He leant forward and knocked loudly upon its wood.

  “Who is it?” a fraught voice called from the other side.

  “I’m Craith Waindrifa.”

  “Oh, are you? The wanted man himself, eh?”

  “I’ve come to trade.”

  “Trade? What do you mean ‘Trade’?”

  “I’ve got something you want.”

  A lot of whispering came from beyond the door, then, “Wait there. We’ll get back to you.”

  Here we go, thought Craith, the first of the long waiting-arounds.

  He turned away from the door and spotted Slobber, pushing his way through the other wolves towards him. When the wolf came beside Craith and nuzzled his leg, he crouched to pat him but then heard the door crack open. Turning, his hand still on Slobber’s head, Craith saw an eye peer out through the door’s narrow opening.