Read Wolf Blood Online

Authors: N. M. Browne

Wolf Blood (6 page)

The limping warrior’s sword is raised ready to strike me, but he has no real stomach for this fight – I see it in his eyes. As he steps the final pace towards me I dance out of his way so that the first hack of his butcher’s blade misses me entirely. His long shield catches me a glancing blow on the arm and that in itself is almost enough to knock me over. Now that I am closer to him I can see that his shoulder is a mess of dried blood. I can hear the agony in the timbre of his voice: the cry he gives is not of aggression but of pain. I am so close his breath is in my face. To me he already smells of defeat. I act quickly and I stab at his chest before he has time to raise his longsword a second time. I put my strength behind the thrust and time it right. He buckles. I don’t flatter myself that I could better him were he fit, but he is not fit and I finish him cleanly. A mail shirt would have saved him and I am pleased that the female wears Lucius’. It might keep her alive long enough for me to help her. I grab the sword from my enemy’s dead hand and sheathe my gladius. It’s a while since I have held a Keltic weapon, but the length and heft and weight of it seem natural to me. It’s a fine weapon with a well-honed edge and I am grateful I did not feel its deadly touch. I am alive. My blood sings with the joy of it and I run towards the woman.

She has a fighter’s focus. She grunts with the effort of fending off the powerful attack of the Chief’s man. It would have been easier with a shield to absorb the blows. She has nothing but her own sword to keep his blade from biting home. Desperately she parries each slashing sword stroke. She is using her own sword two-handed, bracing against the impact of each powerful hit. Thus far her blade has not shattered and she has not weakened, but she is yet to find an opening to counter-attack. She’s tiring. It is in the lines of her face, the grimness in her eyes.

Her opponent wears no protective armour. I come up quickly behind him and with one clean two-handed blow hamstring him. His scream sends all the birds from the treetops and he crumples to the ground. She finishes him cleanly. The ground is pink where blood is diluted by slush, red and dark where it has pooled next to the fallen Chief. There are other men nearby – I can smell them. Maybe they’re the Chief’s reinforcements.

I yell, with what breath I have left, ‘Let’s get away from here!’

She nods. Her blackened mail is stained with blood, though I don’t think it is hers. She’s panting with exertion. ‘Thanks,’ she says, letting her sword arm drop. She’s lost her helmet somehow in her struggle and her face is splattered with gore. She bends over to recover her breath, gasping. Her sword is also stained and her hands tremble with weakness. She did well to fend the warrior off and without her I would have been dead within the first minute of this fight, mown down by the mounted warriors.

The Chief is not dead. He groans, a sound of such agony that I am about to kill him as I would an animal to end his suffering, but the female shakes her head.

‘He doesn’t deserve a swift end,’ she says and I am glad that, for now at least, she’s not my enemy.

Chapter Nine

Trista’s Story

Morcant fights well enough when the wolf is roused. I stand to recover myself and watch him as he jogs towards the pony. He even moves differently when the wolf is awake. One of the two mounts has escaped but the remaining pony senses the wolf and bucks and rears in terror. Morcant looks puzzled. His frown deepens when Bric, the war dog, will not approach even though his master lies bleeding. It’s true: Morcant really doesn’t know what he is.

The Chief screams. I have to fight my instinct to grant him mercy. I don’t think I’m cruel, but I hope he dies in agony – for Cerys and Elen and all the other slaves he brutalised. He killed my brothers too at Ragan’s Field, even if his men wielded the final blows: Evan, Bryn and Kai the black-handed. He didn’t kill Gwyn; that honour was mine. The Chief’s cries remind me of Gwyn’s torment. I find my helmet in the dirt and pull it hard down over my ears to block them out.

In my memory Gwyn will always be hale and fit and mocking me. ‘Cariad, I tell you, good though you are, you’ll never match a man in the killing ground.’ How wrong he was.

There’s no shame in shedding tears for the lost but I don’t want Morcant to see me cry so I blunder after the pony, whispering the words my father used on his chariot horses. The wolf is still alert, sniffing the air and listening intently. He paws the ground impatient to be off. Morcant doesn’t have to tell me that he thinks someone else is coming.

I haven’t ridden for too long so my vault on to the beast’s back is so clumsy I almost fall off backwards. Thankfully Morcant doesn’t see this graceless manoeuvre as he is still gathering up our gear and collecting our spent spears like a good soldier. His lodged in the chest of one of our enemies, mine in the Chief’s eye. The Chief howls like a beast as the spear is withdrawn and that sets the pony off again. Unfortunately his scream will carry a long way, a beacon to any of his allies still alive.

Morcant jogs after me towards the bank of the river, swollen with meltwater and white with foam. I don’t try to speak over its roar but point across to the other bank. The pony bucks and rears. I have to keep stroking the warm flesh of its neck and whispering Da’s magic into its ears to keep it from bolting. When we plunge into the freezing water, I am blinded by a numbing spray of icy needles. It takes my breath away. I close my eyes. I yell prayers to the goddess of the water. I have to trust to her grace and the instincts of the pony to see me across. I glimpse Morcant as he wades after me, flinching as he enters the river. Such cold could kill him.

I strain to hear sounds of pursuit but I can’t hear anything but screaming above the roaring water. I think it might be in my head. Surely the Chief will be dead by now. It is my right and duty to avenge those the Chief harmed. I’ve done what had to be done. I say it over and over.

Morcant is blue with cold when we reach the steep bank at the river’s other side. I can hear his teeth chattering as he hauls himself out. I wish I’d thought to strip the Chief of his fine, fur-lined cloak. I would have nothing of his, but there is no reason why Morcant couldn’t have benefited from our victory.

Morcant glares at me and I remember to look away as he wipes himself dry and dresses himself as quickly as he can in dry clothes from his pack. I hear the distinctive bark of Bric across the river and the Chief’s scream. I was wrong – he is still alive.

When Morcant is fully clothed, we head for the deep wood, where two people and a pony might lose themselves.

‘Do you think there are more of them to track us?’ Morcant asks. They are the first words either of us has spoken since the skirmish.

I shrug. ‘I’m surprised anyone survived the massacre. He might get help from other Parisi tribes.’

Morcant is impatient.

‘I can guess as well as you can. You’re a seeress – can’t you foresee it?’

I try to answer him but I am already tumbling into the darkness.

‘Trista!’ Morcant’s voice is sharp. It brings me back to the moment. Thank all the gods I was only gone for an instant. The pony tosses its head and skitters out of Morcant’s way as he tries to come closer to me.

‘What happened? I thought you were going to fall off!’

I am slick with sweat and my heart is racing with the shock of his voice calling me back.

‘I was having a vision – nothing that helps us. Something I have been seeing since childhood.’ His look is questioning; even the wolf, looking at me with one paw raised as if to run, is curious. ‘I keep seeing a man imprisoned. He is no one I know . . .’ It’s too difficult to explain. I have visions all the time and most of them make no sense. We have more urgent problems.

‘You can’t see if we will be followed?’ I shake my head and Morcant’s expression tells me clearly what he thinks of my gift. He’s right.

‘The Chief is still alive. If he can, he’ll follow us. He’ll want his revenge for what we did,’ I add. Perhaps I should have finished him when I had the chance. If he survives his wounds, I know I’ll never be free of him. ‘I could let the pony go? That would set a false trail.’

He doesn’t reject the idea so I dismount stiffly and slap the pony’s skinny rump to send it on its way. It finds some grass emerging from the melting snow and begins to graze.

‘Chase it away, will you?’ I ask Morcant and at his approach the terrified beast runs crashing through the trees.

‘That might confuse them,’ I say. I am beginning to wonder if maybe the Chief’s fate is bound up with my own, that there is some geas upon us. Such things can happen.

The two of us stumble on for a while before it becomes clear that we both desperately need to rest. Although I hate to show weakness, I call for a break. The look of relief on his face suggests that he is as keen to stop as I am.

I light another fire. It may well draw the attention of our enemies, but without it Morcant will be chilled beyond recovery. We squat down beside the fire together and I make another potch of grain and root.

‘You know this is not the way to Armorica?’

He grins unexpectedly, showing sharp, very white teeth. ‘Armorica, Brigantia – one place is much like another to an outlaw.’

‘I thought you had family.’

‘My mother is dead. I’m as much a Roman to her kin as I’m a Kelt to my father’s. A mongrel doesn’t get much of a welcome anywhere.’

I spoon the hot food into my mouth so that I don’t have to reply. He’s as rootless as I am.

‘What about you?’

‘I’m kin to the Brigante Queen – according to my father anyway. She might have need of another warrior.’

‘Then you’d better get used to fighting with Rome.’ I am about to ask him what he means when he asks a question of his own.

‘Why were the pony and the dog so alarmed by me?’

‘You know the answer to that,’ I say tartly.

He has taken off his boots and is warming his feet, holding his toes so close to the blaze that he risks losing them. His feet are long and thin and I resist a curious urge to take them in my hands to warm them.

The wolf is dozing and Morcant is calmer with the wolf asleep. I notice that his strange eyes are now more grey than yellow: the gentle man is back. His voice is so soft I have to strain to hear it. He doesn’t look at me. ‘I almost believed you, about the wolf. Back there, when we were fighting . . . there was a moment . . . with the dog . . .’

He warms his foot and leg bindings, holding them to the flames. ‘How could it be possible? How could a man have two natures?’

It’s a good question. How can a woman see the future, light fire without flint? How can bards remember a thousand tales and a Chief murder and rape without conscience? The world is full of good questions and I’ve no answers to any of them. I listen to the crackling of the fire, the wind rustling the treetops, Morcant’s steady breath.

‘I don’t know how or why. I don’t know what whim of which god such a thing serves.’ I finish the last of my food and scrape the pot with my finger to avoid his earnest gaze. ‘I’ve seen you change, Morcant. I swear it. And tonight you will transform again.’ I shiver. I wish it weren’t true but it is. I will be as much at risk from him tonight as I was last night. I’ll have to be ready.

He is very close beside me. He looks stricken. It’s not easy being touched by the gods. No one knows the loneliness of it better than I do. I reach out to clap his hunched human shoulder. As my fingers brush his skin, I get a jolt of strange force. I leap back away from him. The wolf starts to full wakefulness and growls at me, but Morcant’s human eyes have already flashed a warning. For a moment I am assaulted by sensory information and I see what it was like for Morcant to stand before the Old One, the pack leader.
The Old One growls a warning, telling him in the set of his ears, of his tail, that Morcant is not welcome. The Old One’s scent sings of his virility, his power. The others are hostile and watchful, waiting to see what comes next. Then there is the she-wolf, the butt of the pack, exuding musk, signalling her interest with the set of her tail, her eager eyes.

I am stunned, unable to move or speak for a moment. It is another world, a revelation of subtle scents and sounds. For a moment I had the chance to see, but now am blind again.

‘What did you see?’ Morcant is aggressive. The wolf’s thick pelt bristles and his eyes bore into me as if he knows that I experienced his rejection from the pack.

‘Have you seen
my
children?’ Morcant’s smile is what anyone would call wolfish, and there is no warmth in his eyes. I shake my head.

‘I’ve seen what you can do, Morcant. Your senses are a gift. You must be able to smell anyone pursuing us. Are there men on our trail?’

‘Are you insulting me?’ The look in his eye makes me reach for my blade, but then the man flares his nostrils as the wolf sniffs the air. Morcant shakes his head and looks as sheepish as a wolf can.

‘There are men around, but I don’t think they are tribesmen.’

That is no comfort. If they are men of Morcant’s legion, fresh from murdering my fellow slaves, we may be in even worse trouble.

Morcant doesn’t say anything else. He must know that ordinary men lack his sense of smell. Now is not the time to discuss it. I don’t want to meet any men and neither does he. We put out the fire and collect our packs. Mine seems heavier by far than it did this morning.

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