had stuffed it into the cloth wound at his waist and examined it. It was a curious thing, roughly triangular but with rounded edges. On it, conforming to the shape of the triangle, was scratched a rough wolf’s head in the Varangian style.
‘Would you like it back, Chakhlyk?’ he said.
No, he thought, he would not give it back; he would wear it in the man’s honour. He unwound his silk neckerchief and tied the thong about his own neck, replacing the scarf over it. Even though he wanted the memento, he was superstitious and didn’t want the Norse god looking down at him and bestowing the same sort of luck as he had on the wolfman. The stone felt like a bond to Chakhlyk, something that made Leshii feel slightly less lonely, even though it was a connection to a man he had hardly known. He picked up the pelt and shook it.
‘Goodbye, Chakhlyk,’ he said. ‘I am sorry for what has happened to you. Your story may earn me a cup of wine at a fireside and I thank you for that.’
He managed to mount the mule and set off, heading east into the woods that lay like an ocean between him and his home. The animal took to being ridden well, and Leshii fell to talking to it, reassuring it when he was really reassuring himself. There were wild men in those woods who respected only a large caravan and plenty of guards. ‘There will be no bandits here, my mule, it is not the season, The grass is thick, is it not? Another short while and I’ll let you eat.’ Leshii shivered as he made his way through the forest. It was less cold in the trees than it had been on the coast but it still wasn’t warm. He put the wolf pelt on, pulling the animal’s head up over his own for warmth.
The track east was good, too good. It could attract bandits. He took it anyway, too old to hack through the denser forest. It was clearly a well-used trail, wet and too deep in mud for a man to pass through easily but no problem for the mule. Leshii would make good progress, he knew. After a day or two he would be far from the monastery and the villages of the coast.
It was a miracle he had come so far with the wolfman. On their journey from Ladoga they had travelled mainly by boat, and when they had been forced into the woods the wolfman’s ears and tracking skills had kept them out of most trouble. Twice he had faced attack, green men of the woods, filthy and bedraggled, barring his path. They hadn’t even bothered to ambush him by stealth, a lone merchant travelling the woods. They’d just come up to his animals and started unloading the packs. That was when Chakhlyk had struck. The first time three were laid motionless on the ground in the first breath of his assault, two more screaming for the trees holding broken arms in the next instant. Within ten breaths the wild men had disappeared. They were tree dwellers, outlaws hiding from normal men, and their traditions and ideas were strange. Chakhlyk’s attacks seemed to them like visitations from a myth, and they had run from him as the Christian men who had come against them had run, as if he was the devil.
But there was no Chakhlyk now; only fear of the trees, the many darks of the forest, the mottled and uneven light bringing a terror of imagined things, things half glimpsed that were almost worse than the terrors of the night and of things unseen. It was spring and the woods were blooming, but Leshii couldn’t enjoy their loveliness.
At least the mule ate well.
Leshii had rescued a waterskin from the monastery and could refill it in the streams, but as rain cast the wood in a slick green shine he felt miserable, old and vulnerable. He had no way to start a fire so just went on as far as he could into the evenings, found what shelter he could, which was not much, and hoped his exhaustion would overcome the cold and take him down to sleep. Most nights the cold won. He began to hallucinate with hunger and tiredness, became no more than cargo on his mule, allowing it to make its own way down the track. The animal seemed to know where to go, keeping straight on when paths split off, making good time in the wet woods. It was happy. The leaves were fresh from the bud and sweet, the pace easy and the old man its only burden.
After a week going east in the forest, Leshii ceased to care if he lived or died, so when he met Death he was ready to welcome him. Death was on his pale horse, his black cloak around him. Leshii saw him at a distance, down the track through a long avenue of trees. He was too tired to run.
Death shouted to him: ‘I thought you were him.’ He spoke in rough Roman, jabbing out the words as if they were dagger thrusts.
Leshii couldn’t speak. He just looked at the figure barring his path and nodded. Why he nodded he didn’t know.
There was something strange about the cloak. It had things thrust into it, things jutting out at many angles. What were they? Feathers, the merchant realised. It was Hrafn. Perhaps if he treated him as a normal man he would act as a normal man.
The merchant found his voice. ‘I have a fine mule to sell here, brother, a splendid Frankish animal. I need to sell him but my companions won’t let him go for less than a hundred dinars. I say he can go to the right man for eighty. Quick, they are coming in great numbers. If you buy him now even the mightiest of their warriors will not say anything against a deal done.’
Death spoke again: ‘I caught a sniff of the wolfman in my dreams and came this way to find him. Where he is, the lady is not far away. That skin you wear on your back, you took it from him. Is he still alive? Is the lady with him?’
‘He is dead but not by my hand.’
The Raven nodded.
‘Did he die protecting her?’
‘Does it matter how he died?’
‘How did he die?’ The voice of the rider was not emotional but Leshii could tell he was burning for an answer.
‘He was bewitched and came to kill her. But he broke the enchantment and tried to take her from the Varangians. They killed him, though he killed many of them.’
This news seemed to affect the rider deeply. ‘That enchantment sprang from the rune that lives inside my sister. No man’s magic could break it. Only a woman could do that, and a woman that held a rune, at that.’
‘He died defending her.’
‘He was not who he thought himself to be. We saw little about him but we saw that.’
‘Who did he suppose he was?’
‘The wolf’s victim.’
Leshii shrugged. ‘He was someone’s victim anyway. Are you here to kill me? You are a servant of death. I know you by the name Hrafn.’
‘Where is the lady?’
‘Taken. Gone east to Ladoga.’
‘On this road?’
‘By the sea. Your Whale Road.’
‘Then we have very little time. My sister has set a trap for her. If she is not successful in drawing her in, then we must take her at Ladoga. The end is near.’
‘What end?’
‘The wolf is coming and he is coming to kill. The lady, your King Helgi, me, my sister, you, very likely, and everyone that stands in his way. Ladoga will fall and who knows what else. The lady must die for it is she who brings him to the god.’
‘I have no idea what you’re talking about,’ said Leshii.
‘Odin is coming. The dead god, here on earth, seeking to die. We must frustrate his will. The god must live.’
‘I thought you were his servant.’
‘Sometimes we serve him best by opposing him. The god’s will is a complex thing. It seems possible Helgi is the incarnation of the god, though he may not yet know it himself. My sister’s visions are not clear. If he is Odin we must protect him from the lady who calls the wolf, even though he seeks her. The fact that he seeks her may be indication enough that he is the incarnation of the All Father. The god will come and the god will find his doom if we let him.’
Leshii didn’t really follow. ‘I wish my god would come,’ he said, ‘preferably with a nice pot of money.’
The Raven looked around him. He seemed nervous, thought the merchant.
‘I may need your help at Ladoga if the lady makes it there,’ said Hugin.
