Jurgen shifted again. “Hush, man. Watch your tone. Our hosts may be ignorant, but they’re smart enough to know when you’re mocking them, even if it is in a language they don’t understand.” He twitched again, the merest of suggestions towards the warlord and his mumbling priest. The Picts scowled back. Ælrik held up an open hand in apology and indicated to the priest to continue.
Mumble, mutter, mumble. The priest scribbled in the dirt, the lines forming glyphs and symbols. Jurgen strained to see them and nodded. He pointed. “This one is Algiz — the rune of protection and concealment.”
“And that means?”
“It means we are dealing with a hidden enemy. An enemy that uses the darkness to hunt its victims. But tonight it also means that we, too, are protected by the clouds that conceal the moon. Without bathing in her shining light, the beasts cannot take on their true form.”
“So they can be killed when it’s a bit cloudy? You jest, surely!”
“This is no jest, my friend. These are not ordinary wolves.”
“Yes, I thought we’d already established that, Jurgen. These are not wolves at all! These are men dressed as wolves. And men, whether they wear the skin of a wolf, a bear or a flea-ridden alley-cat, I can kill.” Ælrik stood and gave a stiff bow to the Pict warlord. “Jurgen, tell them we thank them for their hospitality and their information. I will inform our commander that we have a rogue band of Norsemen wandering around the countryside, and we’ll hunt them down as we would a wild boar for a feast.” He bowed stiffly again and turned to walk away from the fire.
A hand rested on his shoulder and he spun back, the warrior instinct immediately kicking in, his sword half drawn from his scabbard before he’d finished turning. He stared straight into the cracking blue woad and wild eyes of the priest. The smell of rotting meat rolled forward in blasts from the decrepit old man’s mouth. Strands of putrid venison stuck between the stumps of his decayed teeth. The man’s breath could have knocked down Hadrian’s Wall itself.
“She comes. For you and your warriors. Her wolves come. They will devour you all!” The last words were snarled and filled with utter hatred. Damnation. The priest had understood every word, the foul little runt! Ælrik was tempted to draw his sword from the last half of the scabbard and run the disgusting little man through. But if he did, he knew he’d get no more than three steps before the entire tribe of blue-painted lunatics would be on him and tearing him apart. He had enough to worry about knowing there was some rogue Norse raiding party wandering the countryside between here and Berwick garrison, without having a horde of angry Picts chasing them through the badlands as well.
He sheathed his sword slowly, making damn sure the priest could hear the metal sliding back into the scabbard and know just how close he’d come to feeling the cold kiss of English steel in his belly. His eyes never left the wild, staring orbs of the priest. White foam collected in the corners of the Priest’s mouth. The old man panted heavily, sending waves of foul breath washing over Ælrik. It was all the soldier could do to stop himself vomiting in the priest’s face. He glanced at the taloned hand of the priest that still gripped his shoulder, and then back to the Pict. His eyes narrowed and he snarled at the vile little man. “Unhand me. Now.” The authority in his voice — a voice used to giving orders — made the Pict retract his hand reluctantly and withdraw a pace. Ælrik could see him vibrating with anger, and sensed that the mood was spreading throughout the tribe. Angering a priest amongst these heathens was never a good move. The mood around the campfire was turning ugly. Time for a tactical withdrawal.
“Jurgen, the horses.”
Jurgen sprang up, said a few hasty words of thanks to the warlord, assuring him they would be on the lookout for Skadi’s Wolves as they journeyed back towards Berwick.
The warlord laughed. “You’ll be looking for them? Northman, they already have your scent! You’ll meet them soon enough!” He laughed again and, kicking dirt over the fire to extinguish the flames, barked a command at his followers. In a heartbeat they had melted back into the darkness. All except the priest.
The old man stood motionless by the smouldering embers and watched as Jurgen and Ælrik mounted their jittery horses. Ælrik gathered up his reins and, with one last dark look at the old priest, dug his heels into his mount’s side. The horse leapt from standing start to flat gallop in just a few paces.
Jurgen paused, his hand on the pommel of his saddle. He turned and briefly bowed to the priest. The priest shook his head sadly. “You are a warrior. They will come for you too. I cannot give you protection. You have made your choice.” The priest paused, and then picked up a pebble. With the burnt end of a stick, he scraped a shape onto the surface and held it up to the young man. “You are of the North. Perhaps Skadi will forgive you more readily than she will that Saxon dog. Take this.” He thrust the pebble into Jurgen’s hand, turned and vanished into the darkness.
Jurgen frowned, and glanced down at the stone. On its surface was a roughly shaped rune — Algiz. Protection. He pocketed the stone, looked around the deserted camp one last time, and spurred his nervous mount into following Ælrik. The horse needed little encouragement — it was keen to leave this place. It could smell them coming. It could sense them on the breeze…
Eyes, surrounded not by blue woad but by coarse, short hair, watched from the darkness. These weren’t eyes full of fear, but shining golden orbs with elongated pupils. Eyes full of blood lust. The shadows twisted and writhed, as if the owners of those cold, gold eyes couldn’t quite decide which form to take. The darkness rippled and contorted. A mouth twisted into a muzzle and curled back to reveal teeth that gleamed like polished walrus ivory. A low, throaty snarl rumbled slowly through the forest. It was joined by others, each one singing the same song, calling to their mistress to unleash them, to let them run the warriors down, to hunt, to chase, to feed.
“No. Not yet. We wait for the moon’s light to shine upon you. Then you may hunt.”
The darkness had a fractured, broken voice full of ice crystals and venom. A voice of the north, where the green, flickering lights of Asgard rippled and danced across the night sky. A voice that wrapped revenge in warm fur skins and set it loose across the frozen wastelands. The voice of a giantess with a heart that had no mercy for her enemies. Had she not challenged the gods themselves, and won? Had she not tormented Loki with the dripping toxin of a viper until he begged her to release him?
She knew no fear. And she knew no mercy, either. Mortal warriors like these two were nothing to her. They would lead her to a far greater bounty, a bounty that would generate more and more of her children until they grew into an army that would sweep the hated Saxons from this island — an island she claimed as her own. Then she would bring the ice, and a hundred winters and a hundred more…
Ælrik slowed his horse to a walk. A flat-out gallop through the darkness was foolish in the extreme. It would take just one tree root or one rabbit hole to send his horse crashing to the ground, screaming and snorting as its leg snapped. Then he’d be forced to either ride two-up on Jurgen’s horse, or run the last few miles to Berwick garrison. And if they really did have a band of Norsemen, or demons, or whatever on their tail, then trying to outrun them would be just as foolish as galloping a horse along a trail in the dark. He’d never make it.