Authors: M. D. Lachlan
Wolfsangel (57 page)
The wolf was writhing like a hooked eel on the floor of the cave, the witch still immobile with that spear in her hands.
‘Death and agony, always and for eternity,’ said Adisla.
Feileg shook his head. ‘This, for eternity,’ he said and hugged her to him. ‘The love you sent to me when we parted at the pool, the love we share now. Go, Adisla, and go with that love.’
He looked at the wolf. Its body was reforming. There was a sound like someone cracking a joint of mutton and the shoulders became recognisable again. It stretched out its forelegs and they too snapped back into shape.
‘You’ll die.’
‘I am not afraid to die. I am more afraid to live if I cannot save you. Go. Go! You once risked your life by setting me free, now I do the same for you. Go!’
The wolf breathed in and there was a tearing noise as its lungs pushed its ribs back into position.
Adisla squeezed his hand and kissed it.
‘Leave here,’ she said.
‘ I will come back to you. I vow it.’ He shoved her into the tunnel.
‘Feileg!’ Adisla’s arms stretched after him, but he had gone back and she had no strength to move.
The wolf had got to its feet, complete and whole. In the small cave Feileg realised just how big the animal was, its green eyes the size of shield bosses and its teeth a hand span each. It towered over Feileg and the skinny body of the witch. It looked at Adisla in the mouth of the tunnel, at the torture rocks and at the witch. Then it fixed the witch queen with a hard stare and drew back its teeth. She was unmoved, just staring ahead with that spear raised.
Feileg saw what he needed to do. He had hated Vali, resented him for tying him and for being loved by Adisla. But hadn’t it all been for the best? Without Vali he would have never known what it was like to be loved, to feel a kiss returned or see an affectionate look in a woman’s eye. His destiny had been tied to that of the prince, and though it would have been simpler to cut him where he stood, fighting was not the way forward. He’d had enough of that.
Feileg put down the Moonsword at the monster’s feet.
‘Prince,’ he said, ‘come back to yourself.’
The wolf hacked and coughed and words began to form. ‘I am here . . . I am here . . . I am known to you . . . I am . . .’
It seemed to be having difficulty framing its thoughts.
Feileg spoke. ‘This lady, this child, she is your cure. Bow down before her and do as she bids. Her magic is famous in all known lands. Let her help you, Vali. For the love you have known. For Adisla, relent.’
The wolf lowered its head and bowed down before the witch queen.
For the first time Feileg saw the terrible child move. Her head turned towards him and her gaze met his. Feileg felt those spider claws scuttle across his brain again as a rush of thoughts and sensations. He saw what a fool he had been. The wolf was all that was standing between him and what he wanted. With Vali gone, Adisla was his, her past cut away, her future free. He thought of his disgust at seeing the prince gnawing at those bodies on the ship, Vali’s slaying of the brave Bragi, his murder of the hunters. Why should he be cured? He had forfeited that right with his murders.
Feileg took up the Moonsword and struck.
Adisla screamed as the bright arc of the sword flashed through the air to sink into the animal’s flank, but the blow was inexpert and poor. The wolf rounded on Feileg, driving its teeth into him, ripping away the flesh from his side and smashing him to the floor. The animal threw back its head, opened its jaws and swallowed the meat down. Adisla was too weak to move.
The witch smiled. The next stage was now plain. It was more than a spell though; it was an expression of something eternal, powerful and undeniable - like a rune, she thought. Yes, a rune. She stroked the piece of leather with the thumb of one hand while the other still held the spear shaft.
The wolf snarled, muscles bubbling on its body as its brother’s blood dripped from its lips. It was transforming, not so much physically this time, but magically, the witch could sense. That was the key, as the rune Loki had given her had shown - the two brothers becoming one. It was all in place, all ready for the final stage.
The witch reversed the spear shaft, wedged the butt on the floor and leaped forward, impaling herself so that the point came out of her back.
To Adisla, reality seemed to fall apart.
56 The Dead
The witch was a little girl again, lost in her first memories. What were her first memories? The dark and the cold, the faces of the women smeared with their ghost paint, the weak light of torches and the damp smell of the caves.
They say with spells in tunnels darkAs a witch with charms did you workAnd in witch’s guise among men did you goUnmanly your soul must seem.
The voice, the witch queen knew the voice. If was him. Who? Him. The mocker. She giggled. Yes, the mocker who was not so clever as he reckoned. Loki, the liar, who thought he could stand apart from the affairs of the gods and laugh. Not so. She had hooked him in and made him play his part too. Did he think those fetters just held his body and that his mind was free to wander the worlds as a man? No. He was snared and trapped and pinned and tethered, shackled and bound in every movement of his thoughts. She had done for him, that red-haired fellow, that night caller, that smirker and snickerer and enemy of death.
Had the women of the Troll Wall known who she was? They had made her their queen when she was six. She had all the runes, all of them, as no mortal ever had before. Had they known?
The truth had been obscured from the witch, but as the spear sent its energy of pain throughout her body, she saw what it was. She had killed them, every one, the girls, the boys and her sisters; she had slipped into their minds at night to whisper suicide; she had strangled, drowned and burned them in their trances and she hadn’t done it to weaken herself, as an extreme measure to preserve the magical gains of the sisterhood, but because she was a fearful and jealous god who despised them for their power. She had hidden her intent from herself, afraid that her earthly form might rebel and try to avoid its fate. She touched the triple hanging knot at her neck. One thing hidden inside another inside another. She had thought she had hidden the wolf from himself to hide him from the god. In fact, she had hidden him from herself. Now the deception unravelled and she knew who the wolf had come for. It had come for her.
The spear seemed perfect, and the position she lay in on the floor perfect too, an illustration of the rune that had guided her. She had made a Wolfsangel of her own body.
She was everywhere, controlling; she sensed every mind on earth and could influence and touch them. In the moment of her greatest pain was her greatest magic.
She said her own name: ‘Odin.’ Her voice was cracked from years of disuse but the force of the god’s will pushed the sound through the reluctant throat.
The body of the witch was bleeding, blood spreading in a wide pool. The wolf put down his head to lap at it. Adisla could not take her eyes off what was happening in the cavern.
The witch stood. She pulled the spear from her belly and looked at the wolf, who looked back at her.
‘I have called you here to do this,’ she said.
The wolf drew back its lips, exposing its teeth.
‘It was this way, and it will be this way for ever,’ said the witch, ‘though it will never be easy for you, Fenrisulfr.’
To Adisla, it seemed that the caves no longer existed. She was at the centre of a huge blackened plain, where the shadows of ravens seemed to sweep over her, where smoke tinged the air and the cries of a dying battle could be heard.
The witch too was different. She was dressed not in that bloodstained shift but in man’s armour. She was carrying a shield and in her hand was a cruel spear.
‘I am Odin,’ said the witch, ‘all hater, all seer, lord of the hanged, lord of the slain, lord of madness, wisest in magic and battle bold.’
The wolf began to keen.
‘Come, Fenrisulfr,’ she said. ‘You are the slaughter beast, my enemy and my accomplice.’
The wolf sprang as the witch forwarded her spear and stabbed. Then the wolf had her by the throat, shaking her body like a dog with a doll until her feet came off the floor. Adisla saw strange bright shapes scatter from the witch, some fizzing to the ground, some melting like snowflakes on warm land and others hitting her. A sense of flow and current seemed to go through her, then a frozen feeling as cold as the north wind, then something that stamped and steamed and breathed was in her mind. Finally, a smell like fresh grass came to her and a sense of warmth like a spring day. These were runes, she knew, each with its separate power. They told her so. They spoke.
The witch had dropped her spear and was beating uselessly against the wolf’s muzzle. The animal did not relax its grip but tightened its jaws ever harder about her. Adisla saw rain showers, sunshine, a great tree that seemed to stretch up to the heavens, horses, a hearth. All the witch’s magic shook from her in the animal’s jaws.
Then the scene faded; the walls of the cavern returned. The wolf stood over the witch, guzzling her flesh.
Adisla felt the power of the runes and was restored and strong, all mysteries peeling away. Now, she knew, the magic was complete. The witch was Odin. The god had achieved what it wanted - death, its own and the queen’s, which were the same thing. The knowledge-seeking god had deepened his knowledge of death by experiencing it. The runes it had shed as its earthly self died seemed to burn within Adisla, offering insight and unhappiness.
The wolf fed, consuming the witch’s flesh in snaps and gulps. Then it shivered and coughed, shook, and finally lay down.
Adisla took up the Moonsword.
The wolf looked at her and spoke. ‘Do not. I cannot command myself if you do.’
Adisla raised the weapon above her head. It felt unbalanced and unwieldy. Feileg had hit the creature with all his strength, and though he had cut it, he had not killed it. She would not stand a chance.
‘I am ready for death,’ she said.
‘Not death,’ said the creature. Its voice was low and rough, the human words forced through the wolf throat and mouth.
‘Is it you, Vali?’
‘Her death has freed my mind from the bloody swamp. It is me.’
‘You are the worst of marvels,’ she said.
‘I am afflicted, but this was an ending. There are sorcerers. We can find them. There is a way back for me.’
‘At what cost? How many have you killed, my love?’
‘I do not want to kill any more.’
‘A wolf kills, Vali.’
‘No, Adisla, no.’
‘I have seen the truth. Feileg was your brother and you killed him.’
The great animal bowed its head. ‘The wolf killed him.’
‘You are an enemy of the gods. I have seen. This is your purpose.’
‘I will be myself again, Adisla.’
Adisla shook her head, tears cutting bright lines through the dirt on her face. ‘But I will never be me. We have loved outside our station; we have offended the gods. I want to go from you, Vali. I want to die.’
‘If you die, my love is so strong that it will call you back from the halls of the dead.’
‘I will live again, Vali. When the god died, a sharp magic entered me and I am certain that it means rebirth. But I will live again without you. You are hated by the dead god.’
‘I am part of his plan, as I saw on the field of the slain. He needs me to fulfil his destiny. I am his enemy and his helper.’
‘I want no part of that Vali.’
There was a noise from behind her, though she didn’t turn to see its cause.
The wolf bent his head towards Adisla. ‘I love you,’ he said.
‘Then forget me.’ She lifted the Moonsword and stepped forward to strike him.
Vali felt himself shiver. He knew he could not help but respond to a threat, but he fought with all his will not to attack her. He understood who he was now - a god killer, reborn in a thousand lifetimes to hunt down Odin in all his incarnations. What room was there for love in that? What place even for himself against the vast magical forces that laid claim to him? He wanted her but he would kill her if she moved against him. As with so much in his life, he had no choice - the wolf would answer violence with violence returned a thousand times.
The sword was bright in her hand and the sound of anger was in his throat. He tried to frame the words. ‘It isn’t finished. We will live again, and I will never rest until I have found you and felt you love me as you once did.’ But the words didn’t come, just the blood-hungry snarl of the wolf.
Adisla closed her eyes and struck, but the blow didn’t land. Authun was behind her and took the sword from her hand as it came down, stepping in front of her and pushing her back with the same movement.
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