Wolf Blood (15 page)

My throat is dry or I might be tempted to curse him. I don’t understand why he is taking such pleasure in this. I don’t understand. It doesn’t help that I can still see phantoms wherever I look. Even the northman’s hard slap hasn’t knocked any sense into me.

I try to twist so that I can see Morcant and gauge how he takes this news, but I get another slap for my trouble. The grey creatures watch, apparently unmoved. I have finally worked out who they are: the Wild Weird who lived in this land before all else. I still don’t know why I am able to see them, but it is possible that they too are real.

I walk at the same steady pace as the soldiers. The rhythm of it, not quite a march nor yet a shamble, begins to act as a chant or a ritual drumbeat. The jangle of the soldiers’ belts, the slap of their feet on the mud lull me into a trance, take me to that other place where visions come. I think I moan and once I know I cry out: all I see are images of death and burning as if the whole of this vast land is ablaze and every warrior in it, fighting to the death. Even the grey creatures are dying, melting away with each tribal death.

I think the commander is worried about me. Someone feels my forehead which burns as if with fever. Someone lets me sit and drink a little watered wine. I dare not take too much as I know it will only make things worse. Wine always loosens the stretched threads that anchor me to the here and now. Someone unties Morcant too, though they have muzzled and tethered him. A live sacrifice kept fit and whole until death is likely to suffer greatly and increase the power of the offering. I think I might be sick.

While we rest, the soldiers build a fire and start to cook their evening meal. They send the Keltic traitor to ask me if I need anything. I refuse to speak. Something has happened to my loyalties, something I didn’t expect: the Romans have become my enemy. I don’t want the Romans to do to Ger’s clan what they did to the Chief’s hall. I was raised as a Brigante warrior. I will fight for my tribe against its enemies. The Romans have just become my tribal enemies and I will fight against Rome itself if I have to.

My visions cease once we stop marching. My head clears. I’m not going to walk to my death like a sheep to the butcher’s knife. I’ve done with slavery and dumb acceptance of my fate. I was wrong. I’m not yet broken, only dangerously cracked. There has to be a way to escape. I have to reclaim my sword, my sword belt and my pouch with that scratched bark for Caratacus.

I can’t do much but sit for a while. The smells of cooking make me weak with hunger and I don’t have the strength to turn down food when it is offered. It is only then, when my belly is full, that I notice Morcant sniffing the air, tense and wary. His human shadow is as alert as the wolf. Something is coming. Morcant the spectral man meets my eyes and signals. I will be ready.

The Romans have left my hands unbound. They might well regret that.

I mime that I need to relieve myself. The soldier guarding me leers and makes some remarks I’m glad I don’t understand, but the northman gives permission. I am surrounded by armed men – what can I do? I lower my eyes and walk like I’m a slave again. These men are all used to ignoring those who serve them as I am – or was. I round my shoulders, hide my height, shuffle as though the fight has been beaten out of me. I stumble into a soldier cleaning his sword. He grunts and says something I’m pretty sure is obscene. I allow him to hit me with the flat of his gladius. I moan a bit to make him know how much it hurts. It stings and I will have a bruise there if I live to see tomorrow. I endured worse every day in training as a girl. The pain focuses my mind. It reminds me that I’m not dead yet. I have lost fitness in the months of slavery, but I’m still quick as a bird. These Romans wear their pugio so obviously they almost invite theft. This blade is not as fine as the last one I purloined, but it will serve me well enough. The legionary doesn’t notice. I slide it up my arm, hiding it inside the sleeve of my tunic, and when he is done with his yelling and beating, I shuffle awkwardly away.

I disappear behind a tree to reorder my dress so that the pugio is hidden under my cloak. The wolf is tethered away from the fire – he would put anyone off their food. He is enormous. I can see that he is doing his best to look like a beaten dog; his head rests on his paws as hounds lie at their master’s feet. I need a diversion.

The fire is always in me and it is easy to make the cook fire blaze and spit. The men round the fire leap back, a cloak catches and they have to beat it out. The flames are high as a man’s shoulder. They withdraw in panic and in their conversations I hear words that sound like curses. While they argue over what has caused the problem and how to fix it, I wander over towards the wolf and slice through the hemp rope that binds him. He licks my hand and I scratch the fur behind his ears.

I can tell by the wolf’s eagerness that whatever is coming is nearly with us. We must be ready. He gets unsteadily to his feet. The Romans have hurt him. I run my hands over his back; there is no blood but the awkward way they carried him must have pulled muscles and ligaments. His tail and ears are down. There is nothing I can do to help him.

‘It’ll be all right,’ I whisper to him in my own language. Somehow both of us have temporarily forgotten the men who are our captors. The northman sees me standing with the liberated wolf and yells something. His men grab spears and I know that we must run. There is no need to speak. We are of one mind in this – we run for the treeline as fast as our various injuries allow.

My side feels as if a spear has pierced it, though I know that it is only the after-effects of the beating I was given. Still I run. The steady smack of feet tells me that the men are not far behind. The wolf has stopped. Could it be that he waits for me? I am gasping, my chest is heaving, my lungs are on fire. I wish I could make sense of the Romans’ language, for the air is thick with commands and it would help if I could understand what is going on. The wolf looks at me. His eyes glimmer in the darkness like steel. I rest my hand on his head. Is it time to stand? For the first time I notice how the grey folk surround Morcant the shadow man. He speaks to them and it looks to my incredulous eyes as if they understand. They turn as I turn to face the men running towards us. I stand knee-deep in an army of shadows. Their presence chills my bones. I don’t know what harm they can do to the bulky well-armed men who, even in the gathering darkness, are so much more real than these phantoms of smoke and air.

I remove my hand from Morcant’s head, raise my stolen dagger and yell: ‘Charge!’ as if it were my war cry. The sound rings out and releases us both. Morcant leaps. He is a blur of bunched muscle, of raw power. He hurls himself at the first of the legionaries, knocking him to the ground. The gladius falls from the man’s hand. Someone screams. A man wields a blazing brand stolen from the fire as if it were a weapon, but a grey snake with human arms launches itself at him, winding its body around the man’s throat so that for a moment his eyes bulge and he seems to gasp for air. The brand falls to the ground and everyone is yelling at once. The power of the grey people is limited but they distract and disrupt and in battle any small advantage can be made to count. I scrabble for the sword, darting quickly between the feet of my enemy. I duck an ill-timed, half-hearted blow because everyone is looking at Morcant. My own eyes are fixed on my enemy. A man screams in agony as I hear Morcant’s growl, and I have to guess the rest. From the corner of my eye I see the wolf’s open maw ripping at the man’s throat. Blood sprays. Men who should be able to best me are backing out of my way and a tide of the shadow creatures are with me, entangling the legs of my enemy, creating chaos and confusion.

Distantly I hear the she-wolf howl. Not now. Why can’t she leave him alone? He cannot afford the distraction. Morcant stops mid-stride, throws back his huge head and howls a response. It echoes and for a moment it is all that there is in the whole world.

All other sounds cease, rendered meaningless by the primal power of his voice; there is only the beast and his mate filling the night with their haunting, marrow-chilling cry. The men watch him in a kind of awe. He is the biggest wolf I have ever seen and his cry lifts the hairs on my neck and chills my blood – and he and I are allies. The men watch, their eyes wide. Morcant is a creature of legend.

The awe does not last for long. These Romans are not much given to it. A spear misses Morcant by less than a hair’s breadth. The men are responding to commands now in better order and our feeble chances of survival diminish further. I pray more earnestly than I have ever prayed before to the local gods to add their power to that of their minions.

I drop into a fighting stance. I could wish for a better sword than this gladius and a few more warriors beside me but there is a kind of freedom in knowing that I cannot survive. There is liberation in knowing that all I need do is fight for my honour as a warrior and reduce the ranks of my enemies by as many men as I can. I sing out my ululating war cry and there is a kind of joy in it. There is no dishonour in such an end – even Gwyn would admit that.

Most of the men have mustered so quickly that they’ve left their shields behind at the fireside. Without shields battle with a gladius is an intimate affair. I can feel the heat of their bodies in the chill of the night, smell their sweat. The reach of the gladius is so short that to stab them with it, I must move in close, as if for an embrace. My first attacker is a dark-eyed, dark-skinned man from somewhere far from here. I go in for a low and vicious blow. I am quick and strong. I watch his dark eyes widen with surprise then turn glassy as I send him to a still further place. I have to pull hard to free the gladius from his flesh. I ask a silent blessing on his soul and then step over him to meet the next foe: a tall warrior with the freckled look of a tribesman. I take a deep breath to steady myself. The Wild Weird are clustering around me, tugging at me, urging me – to do what? I exhale and my breath is fire. It is as if I have become a dragon of legend. It gushes out of me as though I am a blazing torch. The yellow tongues of flame lick my enemy’s face, his mail, his sword, hungry and eager to consume him whole. The heat singes the ends of my hair, blisters my throat and burns my teeth. My opponent screams a raw, desperate sound. He retreats, enveloped in flame, burning.

I take my place beside the beast. I abandon all thoughts of fighting hand-to-hand and set fire to everything that I can. No one dares approach us. The men are too busy stamping to put out the fire that consumes their cloaks, that catches their hair, that makes the clearing suddenly blaze with light and flames. The grey creatures, almost indistinguishable now from the dark smoke that billows on the wind, rush to fan the flames. Was it their power or my own that made that deadly flame?

The Romans are admirable in their way – so well-drilled they help each other and the tactic does not buy us as much time as I’d hoped. My lips are blistered. My face feels raw and scorched. The pain in my throat is hard to bear: I don’t think I can try this again.

Morcant is panting. His solid muscular flanks pulse with his breath. His open mouth frightens me; his teeth are so large and sharp. Neither the man nor the wolf seem likely to submit this time. I feel a sudden wave of regret, sharp and sweet at once. I wish that I had time to know him better. I wish that I could have paid my debt to Cassie; a seeress should keep her word.

As I had expected some of the men have run behind us to encircle us – an obvious tactic when they are so many and we are so few. Morcant presses his flank against my leg as close to me as he can get. He turns his huge head to look at me, and I find myself smiling. The man and the beast are one to me now: my friend.

Morcant snarls again and swipes the air with his tail. He leaves my side and paces out a tight circle, facing each of our enemies in turn, giving them the chance to see the size of his teeth, his claws, the strength contained in the taut muscles rippling under that thick covering of fur. All of them, to a man, take a step backwards. Those that had spears appear to have thrown them. I think we can thank the spoiling tactics of the grey folk for the Romans’ unusually poor aim. Without their shields the legionaries will have to move in close for the kill, close enough to feel the sharpness of Morcant’s teeth, to feel the thrust of my stolen sword tear through unprotected flesh, spilling the softer parts within. Some of them will die. This impasse lasts for no more than five rapid heartbeats, but it is all the time I need to say my goodbyes and pray to the gods that I might die a good death and find a good rebirth when my time with the shades of the dead is over.

I try to scream out my war cry from my parched throat. Nothing much happens and it feels like my throat is tearing. The northman finally finds his voice, gives an order and they step forward all together, one pace only. The human net around us is tightening. Morcant is ready to pounce and I am poised to pierce the lad closest to me. He is nearly my age and I can almost taste his fear. Something is wrong though – there is a disturbance and men are suddenly shouting. I do not take my eyes off the man I have chosen as my victim. I move forward thrusting and stabbing with my borrowed sword, putting all my weight and power into it. I should be assailed by weapons as my blade finds yielding flesh, but my victim’s comrades have turned away; the circle that surrounds us falls apart. My man falls. I hear a wild ululating tribesman’s cry. Could it be that we have reinforcements? Morcant is fighting two men, a blur of grey fur. Around him men scatter and behind them I see them: Ger and the men from the village.

The legionaries do what they can to fall back to the campfire to regroup. The first casualty is my betrayer, the man from Ger’s own village, who falls to the ground, a tribal spear through his chest.