In The Grip Of Old Winter (26 page)

Wulfwyn said, “Eorl Oswald’s
need must be great. Come.” He grasped Peter’s shoulder and shone the torch back
down the tunnel - and gasped.

Peter gripped his knife. He’d
need to fight if the barghest attacked, but the torchlight didn’t shine on
white teeth sharp as daggers. Water drops sparkled and twinkled as they fell
through the torch’s beam and the drops fell faster and joined together to
become thin streams. Muddy bubbles blossomed on the tunnel floor. They expanded
until they burst and the water ran and gathered at his feet. The walls glistened
and dislodged earth fell in large lumps which dissolved into mud that oozed as
it slid and tumbled down.

Peter’s hair soaked through
as the water fell faster. It streamed past his boots as it ran towards the big
puddle. “The tunnel’s going to cave in.”

“Or we shall be drowned like
rats in a flood,” said Wulfwyn. He gripped the seal-amulet. “These charms
cannot be known?”

“I can’t... I don’t... No.”

“Then we must run.” A clod of
earth dropped from the roof and landed in the water with a loud splash. “As
swift as the wind.”

Water blurred Peter’s sight
and he wiped the drops away with his sleeve. Wulfwyn leapt forward and Peter
sprang after. With each splash they made, its echo repeated, along with the
drips and the gurgles and the suck and sigh of the mud as it broke apart and
slid into the water. A lump landed on Peter’s head and ran in a gritty stream
down his cheeks.

As they approached the large
puddle, the water deepened. The surface rippled in flurries of little waves.
Wulfwyn waded in up to his knees and reached back to grab Peter’s hand.

Peter grunted as he forced
his legs through for, faster and faster, the water streamed and dripped and
flowed. Sudden currents and eddies formed above and below the surface that buffeted
against his boots and threatened to topple him over.

The water reached his knees
and with his next step it streamed into his boots and over his feet. Icy cold,
the shock made him hold his breath. Small waves, caused by their struggle,
splashed against the tunnel walls, first on one side and then on the other and as
they swept backwards and forwards, each one reached higher on Peter’s body.
They soaked his jeans and he gritted his teeth as each wave splashed a bit
harder.

From behind, louder than the
waves and the drips and the gurgles, there came a
rumble
and a
thump
.
He spun round and so did Wulfwyn as he aimed the torch. The roof bulged and
then dropped and in a foam of white froth, a wall of water cascaded into the
tunnel and tumbled straight towards them.

Wulfwyn grabbed Peter’s
shoulder and half-pulled, half-lifted him out of the water and swung him round
to shield him from the impact.

The water rose fast and
Peter’s boots lost contact with the tunnel floor as the sudden rush slammed
into Wulfwyn’s back and threw them both off balance.

Glass shattered and the torch
went out. Peter scrabbled to find a footing. Wulfwyn let go of his shoulder and
Peter’s arms and legs went in all directions as he tried to make contact.

Water
hiss
ed and
splashed into his face as the tunnel filled. The weight of his sodden clothes
dragged him under, but his boots scraped the ground and he pushed down hard and
his face cleared the surface.

The water’s speed increased
and the
hiss
became a roar. Each time the water closed over his face, he
sank further and needed to hold his breath for longer. His eyes stung, but he
kept them open, for the seal-amulet glowed red and the marks shone bright
silver. He wanted to hold it, but needed both hands to keep afloat, so the
seal-amulet drifted and twisted in front of his face and he focused on it as
the one light in the dark.

The weight of water on his
shoulders and against his back, where it struck like a fist, gave him less and
less chance to recover his breath. His lungs hurt from the pressure. Whenever
he gasped for air, he swallowed more water. The tunnel must be almost full. He
needed to stay upright, but every time he went under the force of the current
threatened to flip him over in a somersault. He’d die if he went down and not
up.

His hand scraped the tunnel
wall. If a root stuck out, strong enough to hold, then he might be saved until
the water dropped. For it must drain away in the end. He sank again and whirled
his arms to stop from turning over. His chest tightened and his cheeks bulged
from the air that longed to be released. He kicked upwards and his face cleared
the surface, but his head banged the tunnel roof and he let go of the knife.

He shouted and in shock, went
under backwards.

Water filled his mouth and
nose and ears. His body rolled and he twisted, desperate to find the surface.
He thrashed his arms, but it made no difference, because he sank and rose and
he didn’t know up from down.

The seal-amulet floated in
front of his face and he gazed at the silver marks as his mind darkened. He
didn’t attempt to think about what they might mean, just watched them revolve,
fascinated, as his sight faded. A fourth mark shone bright. A horizontal line
broken in the middle by a lightning flash. His eyes closed and the mark burned
in his mind’s eye. Lightning, a flash, that forks and strikes and frightens. In
the black water, his cold fingers flicked and white light bloomed beyond his
closed lids and gathered him into its brightness. The whiteness dazzled so that
it hurt and he squeezed his eyes tighter. Harder, brighter, deeper into his
mind the white light spread and he lost the strength to fight and opened his
eyes and passed into oblivion.

***

Part Three

Blurred images, sensations,
broken by fragments of time that unravelled and departed. An awareness that he
might not be dead, because he hurt and he didn’t want to experience any more
pain and so he turned away and awareness softened and left. Yet each moment
lingered longer than the last, so that escape became more difficult. The threads
of wakefulness and light hooked deeper and pulled him back to life, so that he
lost his decision to choose and opened his eyes.

A fire crackled close to
where he lay, but his sight blurred and he blinked hard to focus. The warmth on
his bare arm made him tingle. A gentle weight, cosy and comforting, pressed
close against his body. His stomach ached and his chest hurt and he thought
that if he moved these pains might increase and so he lay still.

Why did he have a bare arm?
Who lit the fire? He stretched his leg and the cosy weight that covered him
tickled his skin. His leg must be bare too.

The fire burned and the
orange flames flicked as the wood charred. Not a big fire, like the
skin-walkers, but a fire that might burn in a hearth or at a camp.

Did he lie here alone? Had
they gone, the person who lit the fire and left him to wake when he wanted?
What happened to Wulfwyn, Godwine, Eorl Oswald, Eorl Bosa - the barghest? He
shifted sideways and pain jabbed his stomach. If he stayed still, it didn’t
hurt and he held his breath until the sharpness eased. His tongue, his mouth,
his lips, didn’t have their usual soft moistness and now he tasted sick at the
back of his throat.

With a deep breath, and ready
for the stomach pain, he pushed up on one elbow. His stomach lurched,
tightened, stabbed like needles. He concentrated on the fire and breathed fast
until the pain lessened.

Two large animal furs covered
his naked body. What had happened to his clothes? The seal-amulet, dull and
cold, brushed against his bare chest. He lay at the tunnel entrance, now dry
and with not a drop of water in sight.

On the other side of the
fire, propped against the wall, stood a large branch and from it hung his
clothes. With slow care, so as not to cause too much pain, he first knelt and
then stood. His stomach hurt, but now with an ache rather than a sharp stab.
The skin around his belly button flushed red and it throbbed when he touched it,
as if sore after being hit.

He swallowed to stop the sick
taste in his mouth. To be outside and naked, even though no one saw, made him
anxious with embarrassment. He stepped past the fire and pulled his clothes off
the branch. The cuffs on his shirt, the trouser bottoms on his jeans and his
socks might still be damp, but as he dressed the fire’s warmth lingered, so
that most of his clothes felt dry. The newspaper in his boots, that mum had
stuffed inside to stop his feet from slipping, must have disintegrated in the
water. When he squeezed his woollen gloves, they dripped.

The backpack hung from the
lowest branch and underneath it a small puddle turned the earth muddy. The last
few sandwiches must be ruined and perhaps the flask too, but he didn’t open the
backpack’s flap to look. The torch must be somewhere in the tunnel, lost and
broken. His knife lay beside the branch.

He glanced up at the bramble
bush’s sharp thorns. The slope up to the forest floor, though steep, wasn’t
smooth, for tree roots curved in and out of the soil to form shallow steps.
When he reached up high his stomach hurt, but he struggled up the slope until
he lay under the thorns.

He took his time to catch his
breath and though the twigs and branches hid his view, he heard the spit and
crackle of another, larger fire. He wriggled forwards and gasped as pain shot
across his stomach. Thorns snagged his hair and his anorak. He used his elbows
and feet and squirmed like a snake as he raised his stomach off the ground.

With his face down to avoid
the thorns, he came out from under the bush.

A large bonfire burned and
beside it stood Wulfwyn and Godwine, their hands clasped before them, their
heads bowed. Peter knelt and then stood. A smell, like hamburgers on a barbeque,
mixed with the dry heat of charred wood. Why did Wulfwyn and Godwine stand so
still and silent?

He approached, careful to
stay quiet, though his heart thumped.

Wulfwyn heard him first and
glanced round. Tears streaked his cheeks and when he saw Peter his lips
twitched as if he meant to smile, but pain or conflict made it impossible and
he faced the fire again.

Godwine stepped back, like
people in church after they’d taken communion, and as he came closer, Peter saw
that he cried too.

His heart thumped harder.
“What’s happened? Where’s Eorl Oswald?”

Godwine laid a hand on his
shoulder and together they watched Wulfwyn and the fire. A log cracked and
broke and a shower of sparks scattered across the forest floor.

Peter whispered. “Suppose the
spae-wife or the carrier sees?”

Godwine shook his head and
pointed up the slope to the ridge high above.

The snow gleamed bright on the
bare ground beyond the tree line, where nothing moved or caught Peter’s
attention and he wondered what Godwine meant.

Wulfwyn turned away from the
fire and joined them. His eyes still glistened, though tears no longer fell. He
placed his hand on Peter’s other shoulder and gave it a gentle shake. “It is
good that you live once more.” He gazed back at the fire. “It is good that we
all live once more.”

Godwine scrambled under the
bramble bush and dropped into the tunnel. Peter wanted to know why they had lit
a fire, to understand their sadness, but the outlaws’ mood stopped him from
speaking out loud. What happened to Oswald and Bosa?

He and Wulfwyn stood in
silence as the fire died down and when the flames diminished Wulfwyn said,
“Eorl Oswald has passed through the veil of shadow that separates this life
from that to come.”

The sick taste in Peter’s
mouth sharpened and he swallowed hard. “He’s dead?”

“The barghest came upon him -
and the spae-wife and the carrier - but the barghest attacked first.”

Peter’s stomach tightened.
“You’ve - you’ve burnt Oswald?”

Wulfwyn jabbed the heel of
his boot into the ground. “It is with the spirits of the earth where his bones
must be laid. That is the respect due an Eorl. The earth is hard and we have
not the tools to turn the soil, so we build a pyre and commit his body to the
spirits of the fire and air and know that his bones will find the spirits of
the earth when the snows melt and the frosts depart. The journey will take him
longer, but it will be complete.”

Peter stared at the fire and
then burst into tears. His stomach ached as he sobbed and Wulfwyn placed his
arm around his shoulders and pressed him close.

Grief, mixed with anger and
frustration, made it difficult to draw breath. The harder he wiped his eyes,
the faster the tears flowed. “I... I saved him before... I don’t want him to
die, because... because it isn’t fair.” If the seal-amulet worked in the tunnel
when he wanted it to, then Oswald didn’t have to die. “I tried...I really
did... but I can’t... it won’t...” He wanted to rip the seal-amulet from his
neck and hurl it into the fire. “It’s my fault... I want to go home.”

Wulfwyn spoke and his voice
sounded distant so that Peter gulped, long and deep, to ease the noise of his
grief.

“The will of the fates is shrouded
by strange meanings and when they are loosed upon the land they oftentimes
bring pain. The course of a river is never known until it flows.” He released
Peter’s shoulder. “Yet the fates served you well. For the waters sent to drown
us, departed. You lay upon the tunnel floor with your hand raised and shaped as
if in ritual and the seal-amulet glowed with a different mark that did not show
before.”