Before I could point my flashlight up, a black shape landed with a thud on Michael, forcing him to his knees, then face first to the floor. The axe flew from his hand. I screamed and dropped the flashlight.
“Get it off me!” Michael yelled, desperately struggling with his attacker. I grabbed the flashlight, pointed it, only to see it wasn’t a wolf, but a man. A man in a tattered gray sweater. Michael thrust with all his limbs, flipping the man over. He landed on his back, where he lay, still silent. Michael scrambled away, climbed to his feet.
We crept towards the body and I shone my light in its face.
Mordur.
His face was deathly pale, his cheeks scratched. His eyes flickered open for a moment. “Uhhhn,” he moaned again, then shut his eyes.
“He just fell on me,” Michael said. “Or he was pushed.”
I quickly flashed the light around the barn again and up into the rafters. No one was waiting there for us. “Skoll’s gone,” I said. “He must have left before we got here.”
Mordur had a gash on his forehead, but the blood was dry. I knelt and put my hand on his neck. It was warm, his pulse strong. I breathed a sigh of relief. At least he wasn’t dead. Not yet, anyway.
“Mordur,” I said and gently pulled up one of his eyelids with my thumb. I shone the light into his eye. It was rolled back in its socket. “Wake up, Mordur.”
Mordur’s clothes were ripped all over, right down to his skin. His sweater had huge chunks out of it, showing his white undershirt.
“Take a look behind his ear,” Michael said urgently and knelt down next to me.
We tilted Mordur’s head, pulled back an ear. I wiped away a patch of dried blood and found a circular wound about the width of my little finger.
“It looks like a puncture,” Michael said. “Just like . . .”
“. . . what killed Uncle Thordy’s wife,” I finished. My hands were trembling now. Only a short time ago Mordur and I had been sitting by the fire, talking. Now he might not ever talk again. I checked his eyes again, but there was no change. “Wake up,” I whispered. “Wake up, Mordur. I’m right here.” I shook him.
“Angie.” Michael put his hand on my shoulder. “I don’t think that’s going to work.”
I examined the wound again. It looked familiar. It dawned on me that it was just like the one in Grandpa’s back. Is that what had been making him so sick? But if it was a similar wound, then how had Grandpa gotten it? My heart began beating even faster.
“We’ve got to get out of here,” I said. I lifted under one of Mordur’s shoulders, testing his weight.
“It’s a long way home. It’ll be tough to carry him back the way we came.”
“What else can we do?” I asked.
“I don’t know . . . we need something . . . a sled . . .”
“Why don’t you build a snowmobile while you’re at it?”
“Don’t get snarky, I’m just trying to help.”
I huffed out a breath of air. “Sorry, we . . . we just don’t have time to build a sled.”
“Why do you think it stuffed Mordur up there?” Michael asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Maybe it was like a good place to store its . . . uh . . . food. Like a meat locker. Maybe Uncle Thordy’s in these rafters somewhere, too.” Michael peered up. I pointed the flashlight, revealing thick cobwebs littered with dust.
I shone the light back on the butcher’s bags. “They’re bait, aren’t they? And the way Mordur was dragged here and stuffed in the rafters, almost like he was . . .”
“Bait,” Michael finished. “It’s like Skoll has set a trap.”