Shadow of the Wolf

by Tim Hall

  * * *

  The spring warmed and the days lengthened.

  Cernunnos taught him how to find woodcock eggs by the sound of his feet through the leaf litter. He showed him how to coax fish from the deep of the river using his bare hands. On a good day Robin feasted on smoked trout and wild garlic broth. Pheasant and chestnuts baked in a mud oven. He grew stronger.

  And now it seemed to him he almost preferred it when he had been starving. Then his only desperate thoughts had been about food. Now, with a satisfied stomach, his mind began to torture him once more. He felt the white-hot tip of the lancing knife, pushing inside the jelly of his eye. He saw the man with the ruined face, and Marian in that cage. He heard her hissing: They did follow you! You led them to me!

  * * *

  Since leaving the cave he had heard nothing like the wheezing of the old woman’s breath, or the clacking of her bones. Instead there were other uncanny sounds, like a baby crying, the noise drifting eerily through the trees. After a few weeks the crying stopped and instead he heard what sounded like a young girl, kicking through bluebells, giggling.

  These noises, so deep in Winter Forest, so far from any town or village.

  He heard something, or someone, creeping close to his shelter. The soft steps moved closer, then darted away, came back again, circling, a child laughing.

  “Who are you?” Robin said. “What do you want?”

  In reply, very faint, came the words of a rhyme:

  Round and round the wheel turns,

  Faster, faster, faster;

  See the way the carriage burns,

  Headed for disaster.

  Show me where the wheel stops,

  There! You’re the master.

  “What do you want with me?” Robin shouted. “Leave me alone!”

  The girl of the forest said nothing. Instead there came an awful rumble. Searing breath washed into his shelter.

  His anger had stirred something in the darkness.

  It was out there too. The Wargwolf.

  Robin scrambled from his shelter, meaning to run—

  But it was too late. The beast was on him. It flowed forward, its fangs dripping, its jaws opening to engulf Robin’s head.

  So hard to tell now what is waking life and what is dreaming. It feels so real. The putrid heat of the beast’s breath. The wet noise of its jaws widening.

  And somebody screaming.

  It is the girl of the forest—she is screeching and yelling—an incoherent babble. At the sound of her voice the Wargwolf becomes still, its dagger-fangs poised, about to snap shut. The girl continues shouting and the beast skulks backward, snarling, its top lip curled.

  Robin’s mind shows him the beast. It is colossal, black and silvered in the moonlight. But the most dreadful part is its shadow. Where the shadow is cast the dark behind Robin’s eyes grows blacker still. It is a hole in the world, so abysmal that to step into it would be to fall and keep falling …

  In Robin’s imagining the girl of the forest has fox-red hair, spilling to her waist. She is smaller than the wolf-god’s head, yet when she steps close it bends its neck to her and lowers its ears and its snarling subsides. She is reaching up to touch its muzzle, and she is whispering: “You can’t, not yet. It isn’t time.”

  And then in Robin’s mind’s eye the girl is turning and leading the forest god away, and as she goes she glances back at Robin and wipes a tear from her cheek, and then they are gone.

  * * *

  Two people arguing, near where Robin is sleeping.

  An old man saying: “I can see now what you’re doing. How long you’ve had this planned.”

  A young girl laughs meanly. “Who’s going to stop me, you?”

  “You want to use him against our brother, don’t you? These are not your playthings.”

  “Yes, you could try to stop me! Remember, like before? It’ll be fun!”

  “We’ve already lost so many. Where will your madness end?”

  The girl laughs and squeals, and Robin wakes, his breathing quick and ragged.

  * * *

  He followed Cernunnos across a warm glade. By the feeling of the sun it was midday. By the sounds of the birds the middle of spring. The old man went to his knees and seemed to be uncovering something buried in the leaves. Robin could smell the object: the sharp tang of rust and caked blood. Cernunnos was poking at the thing with a stick. Steel jaws crashed shut. It was a wolf trap.

  “The Wargwolf,” Robin said. “That’s what the soldiers are hunting, isn’t it?”

  “If that’s what you choose to call him,” Cernunnos said. “He’s carried as many names as I have: Wightwolf; Fenrir; Scucca; Baal. I don’t suppose he’s particular. Not anymore.”

  “Why is the Sheriff hunting it?”

  “A trophy?” the old man said. “Another head mounted on his wall? I gave up trying to understand your sort long ago. But he’s not the first to seek my brother in these woods. There is a legend about wolves: When they die their shadows continue to hunt. If a person could possess one of those shadows … and if the wolf in question happened to be … hmmm, well … so many stories, I’m no longer sure which ones are true. Which are of the past, and which of the future. Not that it matters. Not anymore.”

  Robin listened to Cernunnos uncovering another wolf trap. A whiplash of air as the jaws slammed shut.

  “Your brother? You said ‘my brother.’ ”

  “The last of my brothers,” Cernunnos said. “There were many of us, once. Now see what we’ve become. My brother has fallen the furthest of all. Little more than instinct left. When I think what he once was …”

  “What does it … What does he want with me? Why won’t he leave me alone? I hear him at night, breathing outside my shelter.”

  “You’ve feared him all your life. He is drawn to fear, like a moth to a flame. I doubt he means you harm, or you wouldn’t have survived this long. But stay away from him on clear nights and in open areas. You will want to avoid his shadow.”

  The cla-clang of a trap snapping shut.

  “Why does he allow himself to be hunted?” Robin said. “Why doesn’t he fight them?”

  “That was never his way. Certainly, he can be terrible if he’s provoked. But they never face him directly. He probably doesn’t even know he’s being hunted. He’s sunk so low.”

  Cernunnos went on his way and Robin followed. More than once he had the uncanny impression that the old man had grown to a great size, his footsteps crunching like hooves through the undergrowth. The clack-clack of antler against branch.

  “What about the other one?” Robin said. “The old woman in the cave, the crying child, the girl kicking through the flowers. They are one and the same, aren’t they?”

  “My sister,” Cernunnos said. “She’s the one you need beware. The strongest of us, by far. She remembers all the old shapes, and the rhythms. She won’t be much trouble for now. But come late spring, and summer …”

  “What does she want?”

  “Want?” Cernunnos said. “Typical of your kind to think that way. I can’t say she wants anything. It’s in her nature to stir the mud, to watch the patterns turn.”

  They went on in silence. Cernunnos found three more traps. He came to a halt and sighed.

  “They’re back,” he said. “No matter how many traps I find, they bring more. These people once worshipped us, then neglected us, now they spill our blood for profit and pleasure.”

  “Where are they?” Robin said.

  “A few hours east. They’ve just crossed Silver River.”

  “Teach me to see the way you do.”

  “What do you think we’ve been doing? You’ve changed more than you know. No more blundering about, crashing into things. This is a powerful place, even now, and power always flows both ways. Winter Forest will destroy without mercy. But it will heal and renew with equal vigor.”

  Robin listened to a hedgehog, snuffling amid green shoots, sucking up slugs, and he realized Cernunnos was r
ight: His other senses were growing sharp. He could not see the sky, or watch for the usual signs, but he knew from the taste of the air that a storm was approaching. He could tell from the smell of the bark that the trees here were beech, mostly, with some ash and hornbeam. The feel of the soil between his fingers told him this track led toward water. He was moving more swiftly and surely too. He had discarded his clumsy boots and his feet had toughened on root and thorn and bramble.

  “You could teach me to use my bow,” Robin said.

  “And what would you hunt? Those creatures in metal skins? No. I’ll not show you down that path. Anger is a forest fire. The more you feed it, the hungrier it becomes. So much I’ve forgotten, but I remember that clearly enough.”

  Something occurred to Robin. He still had his hunting pack, strapped across his back, and inside was the message from Sir Bors. Would this strange old man be able to read it? Could Robin know the full truth, at last? Why had his father abandoned him? Why did Marian say it all happened because of Robin? What did that phrase mean, winter-born?

  Thinking all this, Robin had slowed, and Cernunnos had strode some distance ahead. Robin hurried after him, dark memories burning through his thoughts.

  * * *

  He felt as though he had been standing in exactly this spot for days. A little way ahead of him a heron was searching for a safe place to build a nest. Robin listened to the heron—he listened and he gripped his bow and he waited.

  “The owl is the greatest hunter of the forest,” the old man had told him. “Total awareness. Perfect patience. It will watch the movements of its prey for days before choosing the moment to strike. Its stillness makes it invisible. How many times did you hear an owl in the woods, and how many times did you see the bird behind the voice?”

  Cernunnos had finally agreed to teach Robin to shoot his bow. But only once Robin promised he would hunt only for food.

  “You are learning to sense your surroundings at last,” the old man had said. “Eyes only deceive in the deep forest. Butterflies have ragged wings to look like autumn leaves; bugs change color to become the bark on trees; rabbits flash their tails one way and run the other. Everything here is illusion. Human hunters call deer ‘fairies of the wood.’ Did you know that? They believe deer can disappear. But they are still there. They are just infinitely patient.”

  Robin listened to the old man and he stalked his prey. He missed, missed, and missed again.

  “No, no, no,” the old man had said. “Your mind is full of noise. I can hear it from here. And so can your quarry. Clear your thoughts. Sense the ripples in the pond.”

  Robin listened to the heron hopping closer.

  And in the next instant everything else disappeared. There was only the forest, and this hunt, here and now. For the first time in months his mind was clear of Marian, of the Sheriff, of his parents. He listened to his own breathing, and to his heartbeat, and he heard those noises merge with the rhythmic click and ticking of the forest.

  The heron flapped its mighty wings.

  Robin released the bowstring, the arrow flew. The bird dropped dead.

  “Tonight, a feast!” the old man said, and only now did Robin realize he was standing very close. “Perhaps you won’t be a complete burden, after all.”

  Cernunnos led Robin back to the glade where they had first met. While Robin built a fire the old man plucked the heron and gutted two fish he had caught. Robin had gone days without a proper meal. He feasted on the smoked fish and the heron flesh. Fully fed, he lay down to sleep. The fork moss was soft and warm from the day’s sun. The stream trilled across pebbles. Cernunnos had told him this stream was called Lethe and it was a stream of forgetting.

  “It will help to wash away thought and memory,” the old man had said.

  Robin listened to the stream and he listened to the forest breathing softly around him and he felt something close to peace for the first time since he was seven years old. Hunting for himself, feeding himself, had felt good. Even better had been that feeling of clearing his mind completely. No room for those nightmares of the past.

  Perhaps I could forget all that entirely, he thought. Just hunt and eat and sleep and discard all those darker things. Become part of the wildwood, the way the old man has.

  Already he had abandoned his backpack, and the scroll it contained, casting them into the cave. Why would he want to torture himself with those echoes from the past? What use was the truth to him now, when there was nothing he could do to put things right? He curled himself amid the moss.

  Yes, forget all that. Hunt and eat and sleep and forget everything else.

  Everything?

  Forget about Marian?

  Don’t you dare! her voice screamed in his head.

  “I don’t even know if you’re alive or dead.”

  I’m not dead, stupid goat. I’m buried somewhere else. You’ve got to fight to dig us out!

  “Fight?” Robin whispered. “I’ve only just learned how to survive. And where did fighting ever get me? Or you? I remember what Sir Bors said; I’ll become the monster I fight against.”

  You’re making no sense! Marian shouted. Follow the path of the angels. Follow the girl with a thousand shapes.

  “Now who’s making no sense?”

  His thoughts were becoming disordered as he slipped toward sleep, Marian’s voice fading with the breeze. Forget those painful things. Warm and well-fed and full of relief. Sleep.

  Robin had shot a woodcock and was carrying it across one shoulder, making his way back to the glade. He moved swiftly now through the forest-maze, guided by its shapes and its patterns. Here was a wren, singing on its boundary post; and nearby a hare, thumping the ground outside a bolt-hole. And here was a particular pattern of rutting rings, which Robin could trace with his fingers; and a familiar crisscross of badger paths and rabbit runs. Each of these was a waymarker, leading him on. Slowly, barely realizing he was doing it, he was building a map in his mind, as intricate as the roots in the soil. He followed this map and continued toward the glade.

  As he drew near he sensed danger, and panic. Woodpeckers cackling in alarm, squirrels barking.

  Something was very wrong.

  In the distance an awful roar and a crash and splintering sounds. Robin turned toward these noises and he followed.

  He stumbled down a bank of raw soil. Here was a fresh trench plowed through the forest—trees toppled on either side. He followed this furrow, groping his way through the debris: thousand-year-old heartwood splintered like kindling; ancient roots ripped from the earth; rocks tossed aside like marbles. What could have caused such destruction?

  Robin thought he knew, and he quickened his pace.

  From up ahead more roaring, thundering noises—something powerful was dragging itself though the wildwood, carving this trail of devastation. Another bellow of pain. The clattering of countless wings, birds taking to the air thick as insects.

  There was blood everywhere. So much blood. As if the trees themselves were bleeding. It dripped stickily on Robin’s head; he slipped on it as he clambered over fallen trunks. Ahead of him the roaring, splintering sounds had stopped, but he could still follow easily by the trail of blood.

  Eventually it led him to the cave. He crawled inside.

  As he suspected, it was Cernunnos. The old man was barely conscious. Robin felt with his fingers and found the wolf trap was still clamped to his mangled foot—he must have ripped its chains from the ground and dragged it with him through the trees.

  Someone else was here in the cave. She giggled. The girl with the fox-red hair. She giggled again and the old man groaned—she was poking a stick into his wound.

  “Get away from him!” Robin lunged at her.

  There was a sound like claws on rock as she scuttled from the cave, giggling.

  Robin turned his attention to Cernunnos. He probed with his fingertips to establish the extent of the wound. He left the cave and he cut vines to use as a tourniquet, willow wands to make a splint.
He collected moss and primrose to make a salve. He went back and used his knife to wind open the jaws of the trap. The old man came fully awake, bellowing loud enough to make the cave walls quake. Robin did what he could to stop the blood flow. He treated and wrapped the wound.

  “Get away from me …,” Cernunnos mumbled. “Leave me alone. I told you … a worn-out piece of the world … nothing more. You’re too late. Leave me to die.”

  “No,” Robin said. “Don’t you abandon me too. Hold still. The worst of the bleeding has stopped, I think. Don’t you dare die.”

  * * *

  Cernunnos lay in the cave, drifting in and out of consciousness, while Robin hunted and foraged for them both. He sat with the old man for hours, telling him stories he remembered from his childhood with Marian. The old man never gave any sign he was even listening, but for Robin it was good to lose himself in the old tales.

  It was several days before Cernunnos showed any real signs of life. He cleared his throat and asked Robin to help him sit upright against the wall.

  “Wonder if she made this happen … all part of her plan,” the old man said. “Stay … away from her, you understand? She will offer … attractive things … offer them for free … but they will carry a high price, in the end. Where’s your knife? Give it to me.”

  He took Robin’s woodsman’s blade and there was the sound of sawing. He pushed the knife back into Robin’s hands, along with something else. Something furry to the touch. A piece of antler.

  “Pieces of old gods …,” Cernunnos said, “hold great power. Even now. This … this will help you see the ripples in the pond. Wouldn’t be giving you this if I was thinking straight. The kind of shortcut she would offer. Take it, and promise you will stay away from her.”

  He rested his head back against the cave wall and soon he was sleeping. Robin turned the piece of antler in his hand. It was hollow and slipped over his finger like a ring.

  * * *

  He had climbed a tree and wedged himself into a saddle between branch and trunk. He had sat that way for a day and a night, his bow poised, feeling almost a part of the oak. Leaves stirred in the breeze, but Robin didn’t move so much as a finger. Insects scurried past him, across him; birds landed on him and flew away, oblivious to his presence.