Fenrir
When Cathryn was satisfied they had followed the river for long enough, she steered them away and headed deeper into the forest. But some time after midnight, when Ylva was lost in thought and her eyes were growing heavy, Cathryn pulled hard on the reins and brought the horse to a sudden standstill.
‘What is it? Why did we stop?’
Cathryn held up her hand.
‘You hear something?’ Ylva imagined bloodthirsty Ulfhednar, and wondered if Bron could be right about the men who were hunting them. ‘Is it the three-fingered man?’
Cathryn shook her head and tightened her fist, signalling Ylva to stop talking. She cupped her hand behind her ear, so Ylva did the same and leant sideways to look around Cathryn’s wide body. As she focused her hearing, she noticed the horse was listening too – both ears were pricked up and turned towards the forest ahead.
And then Ylva heard it.
Perhaps an animal. Perhaps men. Or perhaps it was both. Whatever the sound was, it was coming from the trees ahead of them.
Hindered by her broken arm, Cathryn climbed down from the horse with all the grace of a greedy sow. Ylva almost heard the animal heave a sigh of relief that he no longer had to carry her weight. The enormous woman paused to catch her breath then gestured to Ylva to climb down.
‘Is it them?’ Ylva whispered when she was standing beside Cathryn. ‘Have they found us?’ Her insides squeezed tight and a violent shiver ran through her.
The horse was afraid too. It pulled back on the reins as if something was agitating it. His ears turned and focused, all the time staying pricked right up. Cathryn controlled him and hitched his reins to a nearby branch. ‘Stay behind me and be quiet.’ She drew her sword and headed into the trees on foot.
Ylva tugged the axe from her belt and followed. After a few steps, she glanced back at the horse and saw Geri sitting beside it. Mouth open, tongue hanging to one side, he looked as handsome and strong as she had ever seen him. His fur was clean and smooth and his eyes were bright. He wasn’t really there – Ylva knew that – but she would keep him alive and call on him whenever she needed him.
It surprised Ylva that Cathryn moved with hardly a sound. The way she had come down from the horse suggested she was in pain, that she was struggling, but now she was on the ground, she moved like a predator. Ylva walked in her footsteps, placing her own boots into each impression in the snow. When Cathryn crouched, Ylva did the same.
They had crept no more than fifty paces into the forest when Cathryn stopped so suddenly that Ylva almost bumped into her.
Cathryn pointed at a trail by her feet and whispered, ‘Bear tracks.’ She put her fingers into the deep, clear prints.
‘You’re sure it’s not them? The half-skulls. The Ulfhednar?’
‘Hush.’ Cathryn looked to the right, where the tracks had come from, and ahead where they disappeared deeper into the forest. ‘These are fresh.’ She leant forward, peering through the trees, then stood and followed the tracks before she stopped again and pointed at a large pile of droppings.
‘See that? Definitely a bear. A big one.’ Cathryn crouched and touched the dark pile. ‘Still warm,’ she whispered. ‘He’s—’
A loud breathy grunt came from close by.
Ylva flinched at the sound of it but Cathryn put out her arm to stop her from moving.
The breathy grunt came again, followed by a rumbling growl. Terror flooded Ylva’s veins like molten iron. She had never even glimpsed a bear, but she knew they were feared as much as trolls and dragons. She’d heard about monstrous creatures standing taller than a giant and weighing more than ten men. A horrifying beast that could outrun a horse and take off a man’s head with one swipe of its claws. Only the greatest Viking warriors could fight a bear and survive. To her it didn’t make any difference if it was Ulfhednar or a bear out there in the forest – she didn’t want to meet either. ‘We have to go.’
Ylva pushed against Cathryn’s arm, wanting to turn and run back to the horse, but Cathryn held firm and glared at her. She shook her head. Running was the worst thing they could do.
So Ylva fought her instinct to flee. She swallowed her fear and stood her ground, waiting for the monster to crash through the forest towards them.
But no attack came. Somewhere in the trees the bear grunted again, then it growled long and hard, and Ylva heard a sharp dog-like yelp. A moment later, there was an eruption of snarling and rumbling, and through the trees Ylva saw the bulk of the fearsome creature. Muscle and fat moving beneath fur that was black in the night. And each time the bear slammed a massive paw on the ground, the earth trembled.
But the bear wasn’t coming towards them. It moved to and fro in the forest ahead, first one way, then the other, disappearing and reappearing through the trees. As it backed away, it growled hard and stood on its hind legs, and a second shape blurred in the night; smaller and closer to the ground, but no less ferocious.
Cathryn leant in and put her mouth to Ylva’s ear. ‘Wolf.’
They stayed where they were, watching, not making a sound. The forest ushered an ice-cold breeze towards them. Heavy flakes of snow began to tumble through the naked treetops. And in the small clearing ahead, the wilderness played out before Ylva’s eyes. A bear and a wolf locked in battle.
The wolf was ferocious, like Fenrir himself, but the battle was one-sided. When it leapt at the bear, widening its jaws, the bear lashed out with an enormous paw and smashed the wolf against a nearby tree. The wolf yelped a pitiful high-pitched sound, and crumpled into the deep snow. It tried to get up, but it was broken and beaten, at the mercy of the larger creature. The bear was in a frenzy now; it ran at the injured wolf, trampling and swiping, rising on to its hind legs and bringing its full weight down on the smaller animal, biting at its lifeless body before finally becoming calm and standing over it, steam rising from its nostrils.
The bear stood for a while, as if waiting for its victim to be resurrected. It put its snout closer to the wolf, nuzzling and poking at it, but the wolf lay still so the bear lifted its head and turned in Ylva’s direction. Snowflakes settled on its dark fur.
Even from where she was, with the blood thumping in her ears, Ylva heard it sniffing the air.
It knew they were there.
Afraid to make a sound, Ylva held her breath.
On the other side of the glade, the bear reared up on to its hind legs and stood with its back straight, its head towards them. It remained still, like a statue, watching the trees.
Ylva eased the air from her lungs and took another breath. The cold stung her eyes, and when she reached up with her free hand to rub them, the bear thumped back down on to all fours. It raised a massive paw and slapped it hard on the ground, clacking its teeth together and blowing hard through its nose.
When it lowered its head and put back its ears, Ylva knew it was about to attack. She didn’t know how she knew, she just knew.
