Wolf of Wessex

by Matthew Harffy

  She had not moved. She stared at him, eyes wide. She was not breathing. He had killed the man. It was all over so quickly, she could barely take in what she had seen. Her whole body trembled. She felt her gorge rising and feared she would puke.

  “Come,” he said again. “There is no time to waste.” He reached out a hand to pull her to her feet.

  She stared at the hand. It was large; thick fingers and callused palms. And it was covered in the brilliant crimson of the man’s hot blood. She could not bear the thought of touching it. It would be warm and sticky, she knew. The scent of it was everywhere in the glade now. Metallic and hot on the back of her tongue.

  “Come on!” Dunston implored. The sudden sounds of men calling out for their dead companion made Dunston rush forward, reaching for her with his huge hand. “We must flee!”

  The sound of the monk’s murderers’ voices and Dunston’s movement broke her moment of inaction. She did not wish to touch his blood-soaked hand, so she pushed herself to her feet.

  “Follow me,” Dunston said. “We need to be fast and silent.”

  She nodded, swallowing back her terror and the bile that burnt her throat.

  Close by, on the path, the horsemen were approaching.

  “Osulf,” they called. “Where are you?”

  Without waiting for her to reply, Dunston turned and ran southward, away from the path and deeper into the woods. For an instant, Aedwen glanced down at the dead man. Blood pooled in the gashes in his body. His mouth hung open in shocked silence. His unseeing eyes stared upwards into the canopy of the trees.

  The men on the path were nearer now, their calls more urgent.

  Leaving the bloody corpse of the young man behind her, Aedwen rushed into the forest following Dunston into the failing light.

  It would be night soon.

  Twenty-Seven

  The night was quiet, the forest hushed, wrapped in the night-time cloak of darkness. Dunston was a shadow within the shadows; his footfalls silent on the leaf litter.

  Through the trees, a campfire flickered, its light brilliant in the near absolute darkness of the forest. Even without the light to guide him, Dunston would have had no difficulty locating the men. They were whispering, their sibilant hisses strident in the stillness of the night. Despite not being able to make out the words, Dunston could hear the anxiety in their tone. The death of their comrade had unnerved them.

  He smiled grimly.

  These men had pursued them for some time as the sun went down. They had shouted and hollered, screaming abuse and threats after them as he had dragged Aedwen through bramble-choked gullies and bracken-thick ditches. There had been no time to cover their tracks or to attempt silence, and so he had decided his only option was to make their path impossible for horses, and difficult for men, to follow.

  Thorns had scratched and snagged at their clothing. Nettles had stung them. For a time, their hunters had sounded very close behind and Dunston had feared he might need to stand and fight. But night had finally fallen and the forest was plunged into a darkness that reminded him of the depths of the barrow. They had stumbled on for some time, but when they had finally paused for breath, they could no longer hear the men.

  Aedwen’s face had been pallid, her eyes glistening in the gloom. Her cheeks were streaked with tears. Awkwardly, he had reached for her, meaning to offer her comfort. The girl must have been terrified after what they had heard and witnessing his killing of the man who had found their hiding place. Aedwen had shied away from his touch and Dunston had been shocked at the strength of emotion her reaction had caused in him. He felt powerless in the face of her sorrow. And her judgement.

  He recognised the fear and revulsion Aedwen felt at seeing what he was capable of. Eawynn too had been terrified of the man he became when going into battle. Before her passing, he had promised her that he would die a peaceful death in their forest home. She had closed her eyes as he’d gripped her emaciated hand. He knew she worried that when she had gone, he would take up his axe and return to the ranks of the warriors who defended Wessex. She’d been scared that the darkness that brooded within him would engulf him, burying the light that had come from their love for each other. As he’d looked down at the once-beautiful face, Dunston had been filled with an all-encompassing feeling of terror. Perhaps if he swore the oath she wanted from him, promising to leave DeaÞangenga in the chest where he had hidden it, to never fight again, to not become the killer that frightened her so – perhaps then she would recover from the sickness that cruelly ate away the flesh from her bones. And so he had babbled pledges of peace to her, as tears streamed down his cheeks, soaking into his thick beard.

  She had died the following morning.

  But he had kept his oaths to her. All these long years.

  Until now.

  When they had recovered from their headlong run through the forest, he had pulled out from his bag a piece of cheese that Smoca had given them and a hunk of the ham they’d taken from Beornmod’s hall. They had eaten in silence, each lost in their own troubled thoughts.

  Now, with Aedwen secure in the dark sanctuary of the forest, Dunston crept closer towards his enemy’s camp, threading his way wraith-like and silent between the ghostly shades of the trees. The men had camped close to the path, and he could make out the silhouettes of their mounts where they had tethered them in a widening of the track.

  It had taken him a long time to make his way back here and he hoped that Aedwen would be all right where he had left her. She should be safe, he told himself. She was wrapped in their cloaks and blankets and covered by a layer of bracken. There could be no fire for them that night, but she would be warm enough. He had given her strict instructions not to move from where he had placed her.

  He had explained what he planned to do, and all the while she had said nothing. But she had grabbed at his sleeve as he’d made to leave. Her touch had brought him up short.

  “Promise me you will return to me,” she had said then, her voice small, tremulous.

  “I will return,” he had said, and a chill had run down his spine. He knew he could not make such a promise. He recalled again his oaths to Eawynn. He would break at least one promise in the darkness that night, it seemed. Why then was he heading out into the night? Would it not be safer for them both to rest and then to press on away from the men who pursued them? He had thought much on this as he had stalked through the night and he had convinced himself that this was a sound course of action. If he could weaken the men further, they would be less of a threat to Aedwen. This is what he told himself, but if he was truthful, he did not believe this was his main reason for seeking out their camp.

  What he had heard of Ithamar’s last moments of life had filled him with a terrible rage. He thought about Lytelman’s mutilated corpse. The man was just a peddler, a man of no consequence, but he had been Aedwen’s father and not a bad man from what she had spoken of him. Then Dunston recalled the butchered inhabitants of Cantmael and the tale of rape and murder told by Nothgyth.

  Perhaps it was true that to weaken the force that followed them would prove useful, but more than that, Dunston knew that now, despite his words to Aedwen and his promises to Eawynn, he sought revenge for what these men had done. With their acts of savagery they had awoken something in him he had believed long banished, and the realisation filled him with dismay.

  He wanted to make them pay.

  One of the men coughed and a horse stamped a hoof and snorted. The night air was cool on his cheeks. The flickering firelight and the sounds of the night brought back memories from long ago. For a moment, he could almost have believed he was a young man surrounded by his brother warriors, Guthlaf and the rest. Wulfas Westseaxna, Wolves of Wessex, they had called themselves. Many times they had sneaked up to enemy encampments, as silent as ghosts. He could not count how many men they had slain over the years. Norse, Wéalas, Mercians, Eastseaxna. Wherever their king had sent them, the Wolves would hunt. They had become feared by all of t
he enemies of Wessex. Some had thought them Nihtgengas, night-walkers, creatures of legend. Others had scoffed at the idea, saying they were but men. But wherever they were mentioned, people would cross themselves, and make the sign to ward off the evil eye, for the Wulfas Westseaxna, just like the hungry wolves in winter, would descend upon their prey and leave only bloody, ripped carcasses behind them.

  Dunston drew in a deep breath of the forest air, tasting the smoke and the faint coppery tang of blood, whether from the man he had killed, or from Ithamar, or both, he could not tell.

  He was the last of the Wolves now. But this Wolf, grey though its beard might be, still had teeth.

  Stealthily moving closer to the fire, careful to avoid making any sound to give himself away, Dunston pushed all thoughts of Aedwen, Eawynn and his past out of his mind. The girl would be safe, and if she was not, worrying about her would do him no good. He took a deep breath, offering a silent prayer for Eawynn’s forgiveness. He must not be distracted. He was a wolf stalking its quarry and he sensed that the moment to strike would be upon him soon.

  He was very near to the fire now. So close that he could smell the dusty coat of the horses and the leather of the beasts’ harness. He stood for a moment, pressed against the trunk of an oak, listening and watching. In his right hand was the familiar weight of DeaÞangenga. He had smeared mud from the bank of a stream over its silver-decorated head. He had rubbed more of the dark muck over his face and into his beard. If anyone had looked in his direction, they would have seen nothing but a shaded tree.

  For a long while he stood thus; silently observing the men. Their whispers were loud in the night, but his hearing was not what it once had been and he could not discern their conversations. His right knee was stiff and when he shifted his posture, he was surprised to notice that his right elbow ached. He must have jarred it when stabbing the man, or perhaps when throwing DeaÞangenga. But these pains were as nothing to him. He had once fought with a spear jutting from his shoulder and still managed to take down four foe-men. The aches of old age would not slow him enough to blunt this Wolf’s bite. This grey Wolf would still kill.

  Three men sat close to the blaze. One threw a branch onto the fire and sparks flew high into the night sky before winking out. The sudden flash of light picked out the shape of the fourth man. He was some way off, outside of the fire’s glow. He stood closer to the tethered horses and Dunston assumed he was supposed to be guarding them.

  Dunston bared his teeth and, as silent as thought, drifted towards the guard. He propped DeaÞangenga against a wych-elm. And covered the last dozen paces to the unsuspecting man. Dunston was so close that he could smell the man’s sweat and the sour stink of ale on his breath. It seemed that this Wolf still knew how to move silently in the night.

  Clamping a hand over the man’s mouth, Dunston plunged his seax into the small of his back. The steel penetrated the man’s kidney and he went rigid in Dunston’s grasp. He clung to him tightly. The man struggled as Dunston pulled out the seax, then shuddered when he slid the seax blade effortlessly into the man’s throat. After a few moments of trembling, he at last grew limp. Dunston lowered the man to the ground and glanced over at the campfire. The three men still sat there, whispering and chuckling over some jest.

  Dunston made his way to the horses. They stamped and blew at his approach. One whinnied. The smell of fresh blood always spooked horses. The element of surprise would soon be lost, so Dunston flitted quickly between the animals, using the bloody seax to slice through the ropes and reins with which they’d been tied to the trees that lined the path.

  One of the horses, a large black stallion, tried to bite him, its white teeth snapping close to Dunston’s face as he pulled back from it. Regaining his balance, he punched the steed hard on the snout and the animal shied away, whinnying angrily.

  “Hey, Eadwig,” came a voice from the fire, “what in the name of Christ are you doing?”

  There was no time for anything more now. Dunston hurried back towards the wych-elm where he had left DeaÞangenga. As he passed the jittery horses, he prodded them with the sharp tip of his seax. They reared and kicked and the night was filled with their cries of pain and fear. In an instant, the path was a chaos of furious horseflesh.

  One mare skittered in a circle, blocking Dunston’s way. He slapped it hard on the rump, jabbing it with the seax for good measure, and the animal bounded away, galloping eastwards along the path.

  The men from the camp were on their feet now, lending their shouts and calls to the madness that had descended on the small glade. All was confusion and Dunston grinned to himself in the darkness as he snatched up DeaÞangenga from where it lay. He watched for a moment as they tried to calm the horses, shouting insults at the man who had been set the task of watching the beasts.

  He listened to them calling to each other in the darkness, as he slid back into the night. He did not worry about making noise now and he hurried away, sure-footed despite the black beneath the forest canopy. He heard their voices raised in fear and alarm as they found their fallen companion, and he grinned despite himself. For too long these men had believed themselves above justice, able to torture and kill as they pleased. And for what? A sheet of vellum that bore Christ knew what message.

  Their voices receded and as he made his way unerringly back to where he had left Aedwen, Dunston was unable to suppress the warm feeling that flowed through him. What would Eawynn have thought of his actions? he wondered. She never understood him or the sheer joy and exhilaration that fighting could bring. But she had understood that sometimes the strong must stand up to defend the weak. And in killing one of their pursuers and scattering their horses, he had evened the odds against Aedwen and him.

  That was so, but as he retraced his steps through the dense undergrowth of the wood towards the girl, there was one thing that troubled him. And he knew that it was this, more than the breaking of any vow, that would truly have upset Eawynn.

  It had felt good to allow the long-sleeping Wolf out of its cage to kill once more.

  Twenty-Eight

  The forest whispered and murmured around Aedwen in the darkness. From where she lay under the thick blanket of cloaks and bracken she could make out a small patch of sky through the boughs of the great linden tree that spread its limbs above her. The light from the quarter moon silvered the leaves as they waved in the light breeze. Far beyond the tree, in the infinite expanse of the sky, the spray of stars was bright against the deep purple of the night’s shroud.

  Staring up at the moon, she wondered whether she would see it swallowed up before her eyes, as she had when they had fled from Briuuetone. But its light remained constant and cold in the sky.

  An owl hooted far off. Aedwen half-imagined she heard the plaintive call of a wolf on the wind, but perhaps it was just a dog in a farmstead somewhere nearby. She recalled the prints that Dunston had told her belonged to a wolf and shuddered, despite feeling snug in her hiding place.

  Something rattled and cracked out in the blackness of the woodland and she started, clutching tightly the small knife Dunston had given her. She shook her head. What use would such a weapon be should a wolf come upon her in the darkness? The thought of slavering jaws, full of drool-dripping sharp teeth filled her with terror.

  She tried to push the thoughts away. No wild animal would attack her. No, she thought, it should not be the animals that frightened her. There were worse things in the woods that night.

  She had watched in rapt silence as Dunston had daubed mud over his shiny axe and rubbed the mire on his face and beard. She knew he had once been a warrior, and she had watched him fight at Briuuetone, but now she had seen the true nature of the man. He had killed without thought, and then, painting his face so that he seemed more beast than man, he had slunk off into the night to kill again.

  The sounds of Ithamar’s torture had ripped at her soul, terrified her. After witnessing the aftermath of these men’s tortures in Cantmael, she could well imagine what they
had been doing to the monk.

  When she had finally found the courage to ask Dunston what he meant to do, he had turned to her and she was sure there had been a savage gleam of hunger in his eyes.

  “I am going to even the odds,” he had said.

  He had promised to return, but as she lay there in the darkness, she trembled to think of him coming back for her drenched in blood and stinking of death.

  She tried to push such thoughts from her mind. It was unfair of her, she knew. He had shown her nothing but kindness and he was risking his life for her. And yet there had been something in his gaze since he had slain the man that unnerved her.

  *

  She awoke, surprised that she had slept at all. She was more shocked to find that the grey tinge of dawn illuminated the clearing. The clouds that drifted high in the sky above the linden were painted pink by the rising sun.

  A rustling movement made her reach for her knife.

  “Hush, Aedwen,” said Dunston. “It is I. Here, drink some water.” He handed her a flask. “We must be away from this place.”

  Gone was the blood and mud from his face and hands. He must have scrubbed himself clean in one of the many streams that trickled through the woods. His kirtle was stained. She chose not to wonder what substance had made the dark marks on the wool.

  Shoving into her hand a piece of the hard cheese the charcoal burners had given them, Dunston rose and busied himself picking up their few belongings. She watched him as she chewed on the smoky cheese. He was moving with none of the grace and fluidity she had seen when he had faced their enemy. He grimaced as he bent to pick up his bag, pushing his hands into the small of his back and groaning as he straightened. With the grime and blood removed from his face his skin appeared sallow, his eyes bruised and tired. She could scarcely believe she had been so fearful of this old man.