be a good way to slip past the troops. I nodded and grinned a leery grin back at him. I slipped the hood over my head. He did the same.
The first thing was – it hurt. It hurt so bad! A pain like molten metal poured over me. I stiffened, I screamed, and as I screamed I fell down on all fours and my scream became a howl…
I come from a proud family, but look at my life. My brothers fed to a pig, my father slaughtered and his skeleton hung from the gateway of our enemies. My sister is a concubine and I've been brought so low that it's an old pig- woman with spit on her lips who has to rescue me. I've slept with my own sister, though I swear to all the gods, I never knew who it was at the time. These things I couldn't help but the most shameful thing I did to myself when I put that wolfskin over my head. It began with shame, because I only put it on because Styr taunted me into doing it. A father has to show his sons how to be brave, but he also has to show them the difference between bravery and foolishness. Styr was a poor learner at that lesson, but to let his ignorance become my sin, that was unforgivable. And it ended… well, you'll see.
It was like a drug. I don't remember much. It was like the Berserker troops, the ones who dedicate their lives to Odin before a battle and take hallucinogenic drugs to drive them mad. I remember leaping out of the window and coming down among the gangmen in the street. Styr was coming down too, out of the other window in the bedroom. First floor – should have broken our legs to bits. At the back of my mind – yeah, I still had a little mind at that point, with the skin fresh on me – there was the thought that this was it, I was bound to die. All those guys, and we were jumping right into the middle of them. It was mad, I couldn't understand what drove us so crazy that we dived down straight into the gunfire. Those men were armed with automatic weapons, some of them had armour-piercing cannon mounted on the roofs of their vehicles. There was a stream of gunfire headed straight at me; I could see the tracers coming my way.
As soon as I hit the ground I discovered my size. With all four feet on the ground I could stare straight over the top of a parked car. My mouth felt like a bomb ready to go off. I was in an incredible rage. I fell in among a group of gangmen and tore at them. I could hear Styr's howl close at hand. Then as I turned into a stream of gunfire, I realised I was immune. The bullets just grazed over me. Someone released a small shell; it burst against my side like a warm flower and I knew in that second that nothing could stop us. I howled like a demon; Styr howled too, in triumph, and we turned on our attackers. Our strength was another drug. We could do anything. We didn't just tear the gangmen to pieces, we tore their vehicles to pieces. We even twisted their weapons between our teeth.
I don't know which god or devil made those wolfskins. They were evil things, because when we'd finished with the gangmen, we turned on our own people. And when they were finished, we headed off away, looking for still more blood.
I remember snatches. The wolf had taken over by this time, but there were moments when I was lucid. Not that it stopped me. I was an observer of my own jaws. How they tore the limbs from a man. How they seized a child and severed it at the waist. Yes, yes – children. The monster had no mercy. Bits like that I remember, but most of it I found out afterwards. The story amongst Londoners was that two monsters from the halfman lands escaped into the city. They – we – left a swathe of death and destruction right into London as far as King's Cross. People torn to pieces, animals torn to pieces. The good, the bad, the rich, the poor. Most of it was in the slums, though. Now, why should that be? Why should creatures loving only blood want to kill the poor first? All I can think is, that there's more blood in the slums; the people are packed closer together.
After, when I was a man again, I went to visit the homes of the killed and maimed. I saw the houses ripped to pieces, the teethmarks in the brickwork, the body parts littering the ground. The endless procession of shocked faces. I went there as a spectator. I couldn't believe that the fragments of memory were real; I wanted them to be dreams. I pretended to be a benefactor to the victims. I gave money; I was generous. But I'm a Volson. Before this I never had to feel guilty. Now when I look at myself in the mirror I see that I lost something holy inside when I put that skin over my head, all because of my foolish son.
Enough of this talk about killing. The whole world's full of blood, I'm sick of it. But there's more to tell about that night.
When I came to myself I was in the halfman lands. The light was colouring the sky. I was still a wolf in form but inside I was turning back into a man. I found myself growling low in my throat, crouched on all fours. I seemed to have shrunk. My mouth was thick with the taste of blood. I had wounds on my head and shoulders.
The red mist of the death-rage cleared away from my eyes, the wolfskin fell away as the light brightened the air. When the skin lay under me and I was myself, I saw what it was I was chewing. It was a wolf: Styr. It took a while for me to realise.
I'd killed my own son.
In the end we'd turned on each other. I don't remember the fight, but it must have been something to behold. We were in among the derelict remains of a row of shops. The earth was torn up by our struggle, the masonry knocked down, the brickwork smashed to pieces. One of the shops had once sold electrical goods, and we'd scattered the rusted hulks and innards of old washing machines, fridges and dishwashers all around. Styr lay over a heap of crushed metal, still a wolf. His throat was missing.
Nearby I could hear running water and I crawled off to wash my mouth in the stream. I drank, splashed water on my face, stared at the early morning light flickering on the running stream. I thought to myself, is this real? I thought, will I really have to live with this? Because I couldn't see how I could do it.
As I came back to him the sun was coming up over the broken buildings, lighting up the world of no-one's land -rusted cars, fallen brickwork, scattered joists, weeds and small trees breaking up the roads and pavements. I was human. I lay down by his side and began to cry.
I lay for hours. By the time I pulled myself upright and tried to see through my grief, the sun was high. I was human again, but less than I'd been the day before. I laid my hand on the wolf. He was as cold as the stones. I thought, where's my Slyr? Is this really him? I had this crazy idea that I could bring the human part back to life.
There was no question of burying him. No matter how deep his grave the halfmen monsters who still lived close to the Wall would have got him back out. No flesh went to waste in this place. Instead, I gathered sticks and bits of dried wood. There wasn't much. All the old house timbers had been taken away ages ago, but there were old branches from trees and the weather had been dry. There were more than enough for my purpose.
I got some comfort from the work, heaving at the branches, building the pyre. It was about half built when I saw the fox. It came out of the buddleia and silver birch trees growing in a copse nearby, and sniffed the air in my direction, before emerging into the open and stepping daintily across the weeds, towards the dead wolf.
It was good to see it, the little vixen, a pretty little thing trotting over the rubble and through the tall weeds. It had a spring in its step and it's always a pleasure to see a wild thing. It came right up to Styr and leaned forward to sniff lightly at his head. I tensed up. Was he just meat to it? It climbed up the body onto his face, and began to lick him.
I let out a shout and ran towards it I thought it was after the blood. I ran about three steps expecting it to make off, but it didn't. It stopped and turned to stare at me – a long, cool stare. I met its eyes, like you would a man's, and I knew then, that was no fox…
Unlike most men, I've seen the gods. Odin has laid his hand on my shoulder and made me a present of a knife. But this wasn't Odin I was watching.
The fox turned away from me and carried on, licking and nuzzling with its pointed nose. It was stretching out its bushy tail in an odd way and making strange little movements with its jaw and feet, as if it were singing and dancing under its breath. I just stood and watched. With its nose, it began to push at the wolfskin. I saw the skin part. The fox nosed and pushed, and the man Styr was inside the skin. The fox turned to look at me again for the second time, a knowing, clever sort of look. Then it tipped back its head and it laughed at me. I felt my body tingle from head to foot, because that was a human laugh. A fox that had a voice! A mocking, knowing voice. What did it mean? I have no idea, unless it was that Styr could never die because Styr had never truly been alive. Maybe. It said nothing, but it looked at me again and I knew that it wanted me to help it. I ran forward and together we stripped the wolfskin from Styr's body. It was hard work, he was cold and stiffening by this time. I myself pulled the skin over his head. His eyes were open, glazed and grey. But the wound in his throat had gone; only the wolfskin was torn in that part.
By the time we were easing his foot from the paw, his body was becoming supple again.
When the skin was off I stood back. The fox began to lick him. Its long pink tongue washed his feet, his body, his face. I was there to see all this; I saw the colour come back in his limbs as it licked away the cold of death. I
