The Circle of Stone: The Darkest Age

by A. J. Lake

  ‘Let’s follow it till we’re clear of this damnable ash; then we can all wash.’ The river-water made trails like tears down Eolande’s cheeks, but she looked up at him almost with a smile.

  Edmund walked with Elspeth and Wulf along the river, under trees still in bud. Everyone’s spirits had lifted with the return of life around them.

  They reached a bend where the river widened with a shallow beach on the outside bank, and gratefully stopped to wash. Wulf showed an unexpected modesty, wriggling away and blushing when Elspeth tried to help him take off his overshirt.

  ‘You’re a girl!’ he protested.

  In the end, Elspeth and Eolande moved a little upriver to wash, and Edmund stayed with Wulf, along with Cluaran and Cathbar. The boy undressed readily enough once Elspeth had gone, but he wanted no help, and still seemed to avoid the others’ gaze. Glancing at him as they knelt at the water’s edge, Edmund was shocked to see a livid slash across the boy’s chest – a recently healed scar, dark red against his pale skin.

  ‘How did you do that?’ he blurted out. The boy ducked his head and covered his chest with his thin arms, and Edmund fell silent, rather abashed at having pried. But he could not help looking at Wulf with a new curiosity. Tough and self-possessed as he seemed to be, the child had clearly not had an easy life. Had an animal gored him?

  They scrubbed the ash from their hair and skin, shivering in the cold, and jumped up and down on the bank to warm themselves, banging their dusty clothes on tree trunks before putting them back on. With the grime removed, the boy looked less of a waif: still painfully thin, but strong and wiry, with a pale, freckled face and sharp blue eyes. His hair was drying out to a light red-gold, though it was still wild, and his clothes were beggarly. The rags around Wulf’s feet had been holding together the remains of shoes so thin that the leather was ripped under both soles. His overshirt, though wool, was so coarsely woven that the wind could blow through it: Edmund draped his own fur cloak over the boy’s shoulders, ashamed that he had not thought to do it before. Even the necklet that the boy so treasured was a cheap thing, made of iron, probably, and so short that it was more like a collar. But when Edmund touched the chain as he was fastening his cloak about Wulf’s neck, the boy squirmed away.

  Wulf came back to let Edmund finish fixing the cloak; his pleasure in the well-made garment was obvious. When Elspeth and Eolande rejoined them, he was showing it off to Cathbar, lifting his feet carefully to keep its hem clear of the ground.

  Elspeth looked at Edmund with shining eyes, putting a protective arm round the little boy.

  ‘That was good of you,’ she said.

  They agreed to spend the night by the river, and head back to the road at daybreak and travel south again, towards Varde, where the other forest fire had been reported. It wasn’t much of a lead but it was all they had and they desperately needed to pick up Loki’s trail again. ‘The goatherd on the road spoke of unrest and fighting in the south, too,’ Cluaran said, ‘and I’ll wager that’s a sign of Loki. It was always his way to set men against one another.’

  The air was clear, and the low sun dazzled Edmund. The budding branches, and the blue sky above, put all of them in good spirits: even Eolande spoke a little.

  Just before they reached the road, a change in the wind brought them a familiar, choking smell, and all conversation died.

  Some freak gust had brought the forest fire to the very edge of the road. Suddenly they were walking through bare, blackened trunks again, and when they emerged on to the trodden dirt of the track, a gust of ash came out with them.

  At the road’s edge, someone had set up a marker, carved out of wood so blackened that at first sight Edmund mistook it for a burned stump. It was large, almost Wulf’s height, and following the child as he ran to inspect it, Edmund saw that a design had been crudely carved into it and rubbed with something white – ash maybe – to make it stand out.

  ‘It’s a shrine, I think,’ Elspeth said. ‘Can you tell who it shows?’

  ‘Can’t you?’ Edmund asked, surprised. ‘It’s Christians who set up roadside shrines, isn’t it?’ His mother’s people marked sacred sites: springs, or ancient trees. He could not imagine any place less holy than the desolation they had just left.

  ‘We wouldn’t use burned wood!’ Elspeth’s tone was shocked. ‘And this is no saint’s picture.’

  Edmund peered closer. ‘It must be a local god,’ he said. It was horribly appropriate here, he thought. The crude image showed a man’s head, narrow-eyed and grinning. Lines shot out all around the head, like a stylised image of the sun’s rays. And the hair and beard were shown as rows of sharp points, like teeth, or horns.

  Or like flames.

  Chapter Six

  Aagard shifted uncomfortably in his seat, watching the woman’s face across the carved wooden table.

  ‘They’re pursuing an enemy they cannot see, and with no certainty that they can fight him,’ he finished. ‘I’m sorry to bring such ill news.’

  Branwen, Queen of Sussex, shook her head.

  ‘Not so ill,’ she said. ‘You tell me my son is alive and unhurt, when I’d feared he was dead.’ She gave him a wan smile. ‘I know my debt to you, Master Aagard. Beotrich told me it was you who saved Edmund when his ship was wrecked. Now you’ve restored him to me again.’

  Aagard marvelled at the queen’s composure. He had written to her before, to give her the terrible news that her son had been taken by the dragon, but this was the first time he had seen her. With her brown hair and eyes she looked very little like her pale son; only in her quiet manner, and a certain cast of her head, was there a resemblance.

  ‘But you’ve not come here just to give me news of Edmund, have you?’ she said. ‘Welcome though it is.’

  ‘No,’ Aagard admitted. ‘King Beotrich is sending emissaries to all the kingdoms on this island.’ He drew a deep breath. ‘To warn you to prepare for war.’

  Branwen listened as he told her the news they had received several days ago: tales of armed men rampaging through Daneland and Saxony, burning all in their path.

  ‘Beotrich sent scouts to Saxony to check the truth of the rumours. They met a stream of vagrants, many of them women and children, all driven from their homes. These people told the same story: bands of men had fallen on their villages without warning, destroying all that they found. They would arrive in a troop, the villagers said, and attack without any order given. Some said they sang as they marched towards them, and laughed as they killed.’

  The queen’s eyes were wide with horror. ‘Armies of madmen . . .’ she whispered.

  ‘Armies driven by Loki,’ Aagard said. ‘In the time he has been free of his prison, he has spread his poison far and wide by being in many places at once. He draws men to him, and binds them with their own desires, to do his will. That was how he nearly escaped, a hundred years ago.’

  ‘And how he enslaved my brother,’ Branwen said softly. ‘Beotrich told me of that, as well.’ She blinked away tears. ‘And you think he’s sending an army here?’

  ‘I’m sure of it,’ he told her. ‘We know that some of these men have reached the port towns and taken their ships. Already, we hear of attacks on the northern coast.’

  ‘But why here, when Loki was bound in the Snowlands?’

  ‘I cannot see into his mind,’ Aagard said. ‘But I can guess the shape of his thoughts. He knows that these kingdoms joined forces against him a hundred years ago, and that we still oppose him. He seeks revenge on us all.’

  Branwen rose to her feet. ‘Then we must band together again to defeat him,’ she declared. ‘My husband, Heored, is in the north with most of his men, aiding his cousin of Northumbria against marauders from Gwynedd, a long-held enemy. I’ll send word to him of the growing threat. I know he’ll return as soon as he hears from me, and join our strength to yours.’

  She saw him to the door herself, dismissing her guards, and stood with her hand raised in farewell as he rode away. Aagard hoped that her messe
nger to Heored would make haste – and that the other kings would be as prompt to respond to the danger. With enough men along the coast, they might hold off the armies that Loki sent against them.

  But what of the demon himself? For days now, Aagard had not been able to glimpse the fiery presence in his visions.

  ‘He is everywhere and nowhere,’ he muttered as he rode. ‘And when he does choose to show himself – what can Elspeth do?’

  Elspeth’s hand had been throbbing all day. But there was still no sign of the glowing light that heralded the crystal sword’s appearance, and Ioneth’s voice had fallen silent again: try as she might, she could catch not a whisper of it inside her head. After all the days of travelling and searching, they were no closer to finding Loki. The ugly shrine by the roadside had seemed to taunt her, bringing the demon’s burning face before her eyes again, but Edmund was right: it could only be some local god. Loki had walked in the forest, she was sure of it – but there was no way of telling where he was now.

  Elspeth’s frustration was tinged with relief. What could she do even if they found him, if Ioneth had not returned?

  Once she had thought she heard the low voice again. After she had rescued the boy, Wulf, she had held out her hand to him and heard that his family were gone – and for a moment, Ioneth had cried out in her head and burned in the hand that touched him. She knew why. The child had lost his parents just as Ioneth had lost hers, taken by the same monster. Elspeth had vowed at that moment to protect the boy until they found a place of safety for him. It was some comfort, if their mad quest was foundering, to have this small, manageable responsibility.

  Wulf had been holding her hand as they walked, but she had loosed it when the throbbing became too uncomfortable. Edmund, walking alongside, took the boy’s other hand instead, and Elspeth smiled at him. He had not had to come with her: he had a wealthy home to return to in Sussex – a kingdom, in fact. She still had to stifle a laugh at the thought of Edmund, her quiet, thoughtful friend, commanding armies as his father must do. And here he was, cold and tired in an impossible search, without even a cloak to his back. Wulf was still wearing his thick fur, swathed in it almost to his feet, while Edmund was wrapped like a beggar in his sleeping blanket.

  ‘I’m heated with all this walking,’ she told him impulsively. ‘Would you take my cloak for a while?’

  ‘You won’t stay hot for long,’ Edmund warned her – but he allowed himself to be convinced, and took the heavy fur cloak. Feeling the cold wind cutting through her woollen sleeves, Elspeth realised how much he must have needed it. The sun was already high in a clear sky: it would get no warmer today.

  The trees began to grow closer until they were walking down a narrow passage between brown trunks. Elspeth found the gloom under the trees oppressive, and could not forget the choking dust and charred stumps of their last venture into the forest. She stayed close to Edmund, whose spirits never seemed to waver, while Wulf held on to her arm. The throbbing pain in her right hand seemed a permanent part of her now, always there on the edge of her awareness; every now and then becoming fiercer, like lightning streaking up her arm. She wondered for the hundredth time whether it was a sign that Ioneth was growing stronger, and listened in vain for the voice inside her head.

  ‘Edmund,’ she said at last, giving up the attempt, ‘do you think we’ll ever find him?’

  Edmund did not ask who she meant. He was silent a long time before answering. ‘I don’t know,’ he admitted. ‘It seems impossible sometimes. We can’t track him, not as you’d track a brigand – we’re just following stories and rumours. But I feel that we’re close to him here, and I know Cluaran does too.’

  The trees grew thicker and darker. Twice they found wooden shrines at the edge of the forest path, one showing another version of the bearded man with the sun’s rays behind him, and one with a crude image of a hand surrounded by the same rays.

  ‘Do you think these are new?’ Edmund wondered, inspecting the second shrine. It did have a recently cut look, Elspeth thought.

  ‘Menobert said there were new religions springing up everywhere.’

  ‘It’s a sign of the times, like Menobert said,’ Cathbar put in. ‘When there’s trouble and danger, everyone looks for something new to believe in. It doesn’t matter what.’

  ‘No one seems to be visiting the shrines, though,’ Elspeth pointed out. They had been heading south on the road for half a day or more, without meeting a living soul.

  Cluaran led the way, with Eolande beside him. He seemed resigned to Wulf’s continued presence, and Elspeth made sure that the child stayed close to her, determined that he should not be thought of as a burden. She was reassured to find that Wulf had no trouble matching their pace and never complained of tiredness, though his rag-bound shoes slid about on the leaf-mulch underfoot. When they stopped for the night, it was clear that he was determined to be useful. He ran deep into the trees to collect firewood, and returned dragging a branch longer than himself and so thick that Elspeth was amazed he could lift it at all. While they struggled to break his prize into sections, the boy ran off again.

  ‘Don’t go too far, Wulf!’ Elspeth called. ‘It’s getting dark.’

  ‘Leave the boy,’ Cluaran told her. ‘You can see he’s at home in the woods; he won’t come to harm.’ The confidence in his voice cheered Elspeth: Wulf was becoming accepted as a member of their group.

  Wulf returned at sunset, very muddy and holding out the front of his overshirt filled with mushrooms. Cluaran inspected them and pronounced them edible, his voice filled with surprise. ‘Who taught you to know mushrooms, boy?’ he demanded. Wulf laughed delightedly, but did not answer.

  They cooked the mushrooms with wild onions in Cluaran’s cooking pan, and shared out the stew with the last of their bread, sitting around the fire. The bitter wind had died down, or was stopped by the trees, and looking around at the flame-lit faces of her friends, Elspeth felt an unexpected peace. Tonight there was no ravening wildfire, destroying all it touched; their fire was a kindly thing, casting a small circle of warmth and light against the darkness.

  ‘This is good food,’ said Eolande, and Elspeth was startled by the sound of the Fay woman’s voice. Cluaran offered his mother more of the stew, while Wulf beamed with pride. Edmund, wrapped in his own cloak once again, raised his water flask to the boy like a cup, in friendly salute. The ring of firelight was a haven, Elspeth thought, if only for one night. While the circle lasted, nothing would harm them.

  Cluaran banked the fire at last, and they lay down to sleep in its mild glow. Wulf lay between Elspeth and Edmund, wrapped in the blanket from Eikstofn, and smiled as he slept.

  Elspeth woke suddenly in the night. For a moment she remembered other midnight alarms and her skin prickled, but there was no sound or movement. The fire’s embers still warmed her feet, and all around her was soft breathing. She relaxed, trying to recover the fragments of her dream. She had been Ioneth again, the child of the ice caves; not running or frightened this time but sitting at home with her mother and sisters, singing and learning to weave a mat, the melody winding in and out with the to-and-fro of the shuttle. A good dream – though Elspeth had never known her own mother, nor learned to weave. Were you skilled at it, Ioneth? she asked inside her head, and wondered if there had been a whispered reply, too faint to catch. The song continued to wind around her thoughts, and she hummed a snatch of it, thinking she would sing it to Wulf in the morning.

  Wulf! With a shock, Elspeth felt the empty ground beside her. Edmund was a gently snoring mound a little further away, but between them was only a crumpled blanket. The boy had gone.

  Elspeth pulled herself up, looking about in panic. A bright quarter-moon showed the empty road stretching away to both sides. She caught a glimpse of bright hair.

  ‘Wulf!’ she hissed, angry and weak with relief at the same time. ‘Come back here!’ But the boy had already skipped back behind one of the trees.

  ‘Wulf!’ she called, louder now
. The only answer was a distant rustling as Wulf made his way deeper into the forest. With a sigh, she wrapped her cloak more closely around her and followed him, still calling.

  There was no clear track through the trees, and the moonlight that filtered through the branches turned the undergrowth into a mesh of shifting gleams and shadows. Elspeth pushed on in the direction Wulf had taken, blundering into thickets and cursing under her breath as she barked her shin on a hidden stump. There was no sign of the boy up ahead, and after a few more paces she stopped and listened for him. There it was, a soft footfall over to her right. She turned to follow the sound, hoping that she would be able to find her way back. At the same moment she heard something else behind her.

  There were bears in the forest, the pedlar Menobert had told them, and great hoofed beasts, elk and aurochs, that could outrun a man and trample him to death. She had not even thought to pick up the new sword. ‘Wulf!’ she cried desperately. Prickly branches pulled at her as she forced her way on.

  A bush just ahead of her shook with laughter. A small hand pulled aside the branches and Wulf’s face poked out, pale with moonlight and glowing with mischief.

  ‘I found something, Elsbet!’ he crowed. ‘I’ll show you – come.’

  ‘No, Wulf!’ Elspeth tried to sound stern. ‘We must go back right now!’ She wondered if she could tell what direction to take. She tugged at Wulf’s hand, and the boy scrambled out of the bushes.

  ‘Let me show you, Elsbet!’ he pleaded, pulling at her hand. ‘It’s so funny!’

  There was a sudden movement in the trees behind them. Elspeth wheeled to find Cluaran striding towards her, his face thunderous.

  ‘Back now – both of you!’ was all he said.