Wolf Blood

by N. M. Browne

  Ever practical I dismount and hand over his clothes. ‘See anything useful on your travels?’ I ask.

  He shakes his head and scratches the stubble on his chin; he does it as a dog might scratch his neck. I wonder if with each transformation he becomes a little less human.

  ‘There are man tracks everywhere in the forest – some old, some new. We stayed away from all of them.’ He shrugs as he struggles into his tunic. His pale torso is criss-crossed by small cuts and abrasions, marks of the wolf’s history on his human flesh. I find myself staring at his well-muscled bare chest and have to force myself to look away. Ger had stowed a bag of bread on the mule and I offer Morcant some. He eats it greedily, from which I gather that his hunting last night was not a success.

  ‘Trista?’ He struggles to get the word out.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The wolf is getting stronger.’

  I thought he looked bigger and fitter than before, then I realise that isn’t what he means.

  ‘You’re stronger too.’ Even as a man he seems more powerful. The strain of my night’s visions has made me so weary, I can barely speak. I have to rest, if only for a short while. I attend to the mare. Morcant keeps his distance. ‘I’ve been riding all night – would you be able to stand watch for a while?’

  He hesitates and seems about to speak, but my eyes are already closing.

  I wake with a start I don’t know how much time later. The sun is high. I am freezing and Morcant is gone.

  It takes me a moment to stand up. My feet are numb. The things I saw last night are still lurking in the undergrowth, creatures of mist or madness. I rub my eyes but they still remain. I think I hear something and the creatures scatter like birds in a battle. Someone is coming and Morcant has abandoned me. I stagger after my lost mare. Fortunately she hasn’t wandered far away. Was the food I ate in Ger’s hall poisoned or cursed? My body feels as slow as my brain.

  I ride for a while before I see him, all but hidden in the gloom of the forest. He is a beast again. He carries something bloody in his mouth. I think it’s a rabbit. He looks as embarrassed as a wolf can. The shadow man that is his human self will not meet my eye.

  ‘You should not have left me!’ I sound aggrieved, like a nagging wife, even though I’m right. I can see the she-wolf behind him, eyeing me warily. She is still a wild creature. She sniffs the air, glances at Morcant, then turns and runs. I think Morcant is about to do the same; he turns as if to follow her but then stops. He watches me, waits for me. I urge the mare further into the wood, following the she-wolf. Whatever is a threat to the wolves will surely be a threat to me.

  The half-seen things that seem to live here are all heading in the same direction, away from the source of the noise I thought I’d heard. They crawl and limp, flutter past my ear on crooked wings or swing from the winter trees. Morcant walks alongside me, keeping his distance from the mare but matching his pace to hers. We go as quickly as I dare but the ground is treacherous and carpeted with a heaving crowd of eldritch beings. Luckily the mare doesn’t seem to notice.

  There is no doubt now. I can hear voices. I don’t want to be caught defenceless and fleeing.

  I halt the mare and slide from her back. I waste moments struggling into my mail. It is difficult enough even when my hands aren’t stiff with cold. I need help that Morcant’s paws can’t give me. Finally I manage to pull it down over my hips, belt my sword and grab my helmet. It has taken me too long; the voices are getting closer. I make for Morcant’s side.

  Morcant begins to run, but slowly so I can keep up in my heavy shirt and poor condition. They are gaining on us. I don’t know how many there are but it sounds like more than we can fight. They are speaking the Roman tongue. I’m getting to recognise it even though I still cannot tell one word from another. Morcant the wolf bares his teeth. Morcant the shadow man reaches out as if to touch my hand. His spectral fingers hover over mine. His keen senses will have told him exactly how many men pursue us: he thinks it’s over for us. I try to run faster but my legs have nothing left to give. I stumble and only save myself by falling on the wolf. I turn to see the twenty or so armed men stride into view. I draw my sword. We can’t fight so many but I’m ready to die trying. I glance towards Morcant who bares his teeth. At least the she-wolf got away.

  A hail of spears lands close to me. Morcant growls and backs away. He does not run, even though he would be too fast for these men to capture or kill. He should save himself. Do they know who we are? Do they think us the thieves, deserters, murderers who escaped the fort of the Ninth Legion?

  They have come prepared. Three men approach with spears and a net of the kind we use for fishing. It seems that they do know who we are. I grip my sword more tightly, ready to back Morcant when he attacks, but as the men come closer he does the last thing I expect. He allows them to take him: a weaker wolf will always submit to the stronger.

  They hang him from a pole like a slaughtered boar, or a deer, like meat hunted for a feast. I have rarely felt so helpless. I cannot run and I cannot fight. All I can do is endure.

  A tall man with the fair skin of a northman approaches me. I sheathe my sword. My chances of getting away were slim with Morcant; they don’t exist without him. There is nothing to be gained from fighting this one man. He is tall, fit and rested, and there are too many more. He is speaking at me, making harsh guttural sounds which mean less than Morcant’s growls. He grabs my helmet, pulls it roughly from my head and hits me – an open-handed slap across my face. The blow stings and I taste blood where his ring breaks my skin. I’ve been in this position before. I can’t bear it again. I hang my head, not in shame but in a kind of weariness. I am already broken: bereaved, abandoned, beset by visions and delusions, lost. There is no need to break me further.

  The northman shoves me towards the rest of the men. They are all in armour, except for one – a young red-headed man dressed as a tribesman. At first I think it is the Parisi pedlar because his face is familiar, but then I realise it is one of Ger’s men, the one who sang a drinking song. He must have left before me and ridden hard to bring a detachment after me so swiftly. I ought to have taken more notice of the druid’s and Ger’s warnings. Did they guess they had a Roman sympathiser in their midst?

  He pulls my head back upright, by my hair. ‘Seeress slut,’ he says in my own language. He is not gentle and I want to spit in his face, but I don’t. Perhaps in this I have to follow the wolf. I have reverted to the slave, Trista, who somehow survived when it might have been more honourable to die.

  What frightens me most is the sudden return of my visions. The last thing I need right now is to be lost in some other now, when I need my wits about me. Someone punches me in the guts for no particular reason and I pitch forward, hunched around the site of the assault. Perhaps I should have made a stand but someone slices through my sword belt and takes my weapon before I can launch a belated attack. I see the sword with a plunderer’s eye, the elaborate designs on the leather sheath; its jewelled hilt set in gold is a prize to be fought for. It causes me almost physical pain to see it taken from me: I have never carried a finer blade.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Trista’s Story

  I keep my head down for all of the day’s march. I don’t know where they are taking us both or why. I don’t understand why we haven’t been killed at once.

  I find out when the young Kelt chooses to taunt me.

  ‘This lot make sacrifices to their she-wolf god who founded their city. Their festival Lupercalia is tonight. You and your wolf are going to die, unnatural bitch. They don’t like women pretending to be men, especially Roman men. They’re going to make you suffer!’

  My throat is dry or I might be tempted to curse him. I don’t understand why he is taking such pleasure in this. I don’t understand. It doesn’t help that I can still see phantoms wherever I look. Even the northman’s hard slap hasn’t knocked any sense into me.

  I try to twist so that I can see Morcant and gauge how he
takes this news, but I get another slap for my trouble. The grey creatures watch, apparently unmoved. I have finally worked out who they are: the Wild Weird who lived in this land before all else. I still don’t know why I am able to see them, but it is possible that they too are real.

  I walk at the same steady pace as the soldiers. The rhythm of it, not quite a march nor yet a shamble, begins to act as a chant or a ritual drumbeat. The jangle of the soldiers’ belts, the slap of their feet on the mud lull me into a trance, take me to that other place where visions come. I think I moan and once I know I cry out: all I see are images of death and burning as if the whole of this vast land is ablaze and every warrior in it, fighting to the death. Even the grey creatures are dying, melting away with each tribal death.

  I think the commander is worried about me. Someone feels my forehead which burns as if with fever. Someone lets me sit and drink a little watered wine. I dare not take too much as I know it will only make things worse. Wine always loosens the stretched threads that anchor me to the here and now. Someone unties Morcant too, though they have muzzled and tethered him. A live sacrifice kept fit and whole until death is likely to suffer greatly and increase the power of the offering. I think I might be sick.

  While we rest, the soldiers build a fire and start to cook their evening meal. They send the Keltic traitor to ask me if I need anything. I refuse to speak. Something has happened to my loyalties, something I didn’t expect: the Romans have become my enemy. I don’t want the Romans to do to Ger’s clan what they did to the Chief’s hall. I was raised as a Brigante warrior. I will fight for my tribe against its enemies. The Romans have just become my tribal enemies and I will fight against Rome itself if I have to.

  My visions cease once we stop marching. My head clears. I’m not going to walk to my death like a sheep to the butcher’s knife. I’ve done with slavery and dumb acceptance of my fate. I was wrong. I’m not yet broken, only dangerously cracked. There has to be a way to escape. I have to reclaim my sword, my sword belt and my pouch with that scratched bark for Caratacus.

  I can’t do much but sit for a while. The smells of cooking make me weak with hunger and I don’t have the strength to turn down food when it is offered. It is only then, when my belly is full, that I notice Morcant sniffing the air, tense and wary. His human shadow is as alert as the wolf. Something is coming. Morcant the spectral man meets my eyes and signals. I will be ready.

  The Romans have left my hands unbound. They might well regret that.

  I mime that I need to relieve myself. The soldier guarding me leers and makes some remarks I’m glad I don’t understand, but the northman gives permission. I am surrounded by armed men – what can I do? I lower my eyes and walk like I’m a slave again. These men are all used to ignoring those who serve them as I am – or was. I round my shoulders, hide my height, shuffle as though the fight has been beaten out of me. I stumble into a soldier cleaning his sword. He grunts and says something I’m pretty sure is obscene. I allow him to hit me with the flat of his gladius. I moan a bit to make him know how much it hurts. It stings and I will have a bruise there if I live to see tomorrow. I endured worse every day in training as a girl. The pain focuses my mind. It reminds me that I’m not dead yet. I have lost fitness in the months of slavery, but I’m still quick as a bird. These Romans wear their pugio so obviously they almost invite theft. This blade is not as fine as the last one I purloined, but it will serve me well enough. The legionary doesn’t notice. I slide it up my arm, hiding it inside the sleeve of my tunic, and when he is done with his yelling and beating, I shuffle awkwardly away.

  I disappear behind a tree to reorder my dress so that the pugio is hidden under my cloak. The wolf is tethered away from the fire – he would put anyone off their food. He is enormous. I can see that he is doing his best to look like a beaten dog; his head rests on his paws as hounds lie at their master’s feet. I need a diversion.

  The fire is always in me and it is easy to make the cook fire blaze and spit. The men round the fire leap back, a cloak catches and they have to beat it out. The flames are high as a man’s shoulder. They withdraw in panic and in their conversations I hear words that sound like curses. While they argue over what has caused the problem and how to fix it, I wander over towards the wolf and slice through the hemp rope that binds him. He licks my hand and I scratch the fur behind his ears.

  I can tell by the wolf’s eagerness that whatever is coming is nearly with us. We must be ready. He gets unsteadily to his feet. The Romans have hurt him. I run my hands over his back; there is no blood but the awkward way they carried him must have pulled muscles and ligaments. His tail and ears are down. There is nothing I can do to help him.

  ‘It’ll be all right,’ I whisper to him in my own language. Somehow both of us have temporarily forgotten the men who are our captors. The northman sees me standing with the liberated wolf and yells something. His men grab spears and I know that we must run. There is no need to speak. We are of one mind in this – we run for the treeline as fast as our various injuries allow.

  My side feels as if a spear has pierced it, though I know that it is only the after-effects of the beating I was given. Still I run. The steady smack of feet tells me that the men are not far behind. The wolf has stopped. Could it be that he waits for me? I am gasping, my chest is heaving, my lungs are on fire. I wish I could make sense of the Romans’ language, for the air is thick with commands and it would help if I could understand what is going on. The wolf looks at me. His eyes glimmer in the darkness like steel. I rest my hand on his head. Is it time to stand? For the first time I notice how the grey folk surround Morcant the shadow man. He speaks to them and it looks to my incredulous eyes as if they understand. They turn as I turn to face the men running towards us. I stand knee-deep in an army of shadows. Their presence chills my bones. I don’t know what harm they can do to the bulky well-armed men who, even in the gathering darkness, are so much more real than these phantoms of smoke and air.

  I remove my hand from Morcant’s head, raise my stolen dagger and yell: ‘Charge!’ as if it were my war cry. The sound rings out and releases us both. Morcant leaps. He is a blur of bunched muscle, of raw power. He hurls himself at the first of the legionaries, knocking him to the ground. The gladius falls from the man’s hand. Someone screams. A man wields a blazing brand stolen from the fire as if it were a weapon, but a grey snake with human arms launches itself at him, winding its body around the man’s throat so that for a moment his eyes bulge and he seems to gasp for air. The brand falls to the ground and everyone is yelling at once. The power of the grey people is limited but they distract and disrupt and in battle any small advantage can be made to count. I scrabble for the sword, darting quickly between the feet of my enemy. I duck an ill-timed, half-hearted blow because everyone is looking at Morcant. My own eyes are fixed on my enemy. A man screams in agony as I hear Morcant’s growl, and I have to guess the rest. From the corner of my eye I see the wolf’s open maw ripping at the man’s throat. Blood sprays. Men who should be able to best me are backing out of my way and a tide of the shadow creatures are with me, entangling the legs of my enemy, creating chaos and confusion.

  Distantly I hear the she-wolf howl. Not now. Why can’t she leave him alone? He cannot afford the distraction. Morcant stops mid-stride, throws back his huge head and howls a response. It echoes and for a moment it is all that there is in the whole world.

  All other sounds cease, rendered meaningless by the primal power of his voice; there is only the beast and his mate filling the night with their haunting, marrow-chilling cry. The men watch him in a kind of awe. He is the biggest wolf I have ever seen and his cry lifts the hairs on my neck and chills my blood – and he and I are allies. The men watch, their eyes wide. Morcant is a creature of legend.

  The awe does not last for long. These Romans are not much given to it. A spear misses Morcant by less than a hair’s breadth. The men are responding to commands now in better order and our feeble chances of survival dim
inish further. I pray more earnestly than I have ever prayed before to the local gods to add their power to that of their minions.

  I drop into a fighting stance. I could wish for a better sword than this gladius and a few more warriors beside me but there is a kind of freedom in knowing that I cannot survive. There is liberation in knowing that all I need do is fight for my honour as a warrior and reduce the ranks of my enemies by as many men as I can. I sing out my ululating war cry and there is a kind of joy in it. There is no dishonour in such an end – even Gwyn would admit that.

  Most of the men have mustered so quickly that they’ve left their shields behind at the fireside. Without shields battle with a gladius is an intimate affair. I can feel the heat of their bodies in the chill of the night, smell their sweat. The reach of the gladius is so short that to stab them with it, I must move in close, as if for an embrace. My first attacker is a dark-eyed, dark-skinned man from somewhere far from here. I go in for a low and vicious blow. I am quick and strong. I watch his dark eyes widen with surprise then turn glassy as I send him to a still further place. I have to pull hard to free the gladius from his flesh. I ask a silent blessing on his soul and then step over him to meet the next foe: a tall warrior with the freckled look of a tribesman. I take a deep breath to steady myself. The Wild Weird are clustering around me, tugging at me, urging me – to do what? I exhale and my breath is fire. It is as if I have become a dragon of legend. It gushes out of me as though I am a blazing torch. The yellow tongues of flame lick my enemy’s face, his mail, his sword, hungry and eager to consume him whole. The heat singes the ends of my hair, blisters my throat and burns my teeth. My opponent screams a raw, desperate sound. He retreats, enveloped in flame, burning.