part0012

Sheep lay slaughtered across the yard: flesh torn, guts strewn, wool blood-matted in the churned mud. By the small sod hut was the shepherd’s dog, which had fared no better. Within was the shepherd, who had fared far worse.

The shepherd’s eyes bulged and his mouth gaped, horror-struck. His body was split from throat to groin. His ivory rib cage, pulled apart in splintered shards, exposed a dark, glistening hollow. His limbs splayed outward to the hut’s four corners. The thick meat of his thighs and upper arms had been mauled.

Men from the village gazed upon the grim scene. They were farmers and fishermen, not warriors. They clutched axes and cudgels, not swords and spears. They wore no coats of mail, no leather. Their faces were ashen and their knees quaked.

What some had suspected, and others had feared, could no longer be denied in the stark, raw face of this savage butchery: A wolf had come to their lands.

Not a normal wolf, though. No shadow-slinker or lone-lamb-stealer had caused this type of damage. This was the work of something else–a great wolf, a god wolf, a chaser of Mani, whose brightness last night had been white and full.

The townsfolk knew it as truth, as well as they knew their own names, as well as they knew the name of the slain shepherd: Utli Olafsson,their neighbor, their kinsman, and their friend. Like Utli the shepherd, Baudr the huntsman has also been their neighbor, their kinsman, and their friend. Baudr had gone missing, vanished along with his dogs from his cottage without a trace. His uncertain fate now seemed undeniable.

Gottar did what he could to guide them and to assuage their fears. They looked to him as if he were a lord, for he was the wealthiest and most prosperous. He’d made a modest fortune through trading, then married the sole daughter of a man land-rich but poor in silver.

Gottar had no lofty aspirations, comfortable in the small authority of being the one before whom disputes were brought, the one whose counsel was sought, and whose advice was followed. When he spoke, men hushed to listen.

The barrier surrounding the cluster of huts and houses was a mere low fence of sticks to which they added logs and brambles. They secured the cows and oxen in their byres and penned up the goats and pigs.

Men and strong boys, armed with staves or pitchforks, stood watch while others took their turns seizing what scant sleep they could. Torch poles jutted from the earth, waiting to be set ablaze.

Vidrtoft had no longhouse, no great jarl’s hall. Gottar thought sometimes of building one, but the lodgings he’d gained from his father-in-law served him well enough, and he preferred to save his money and not spend it on meaningless displays.

The village did have at its center a wide round ring of cut stones topped with logs and a shingled roof. In ordinary times, this was used as a place for gatherings and feasts, as well as working. It served now as a fastness, where the rest of the folk could be brought–the children and eldren, the ill and unfit and infirm. But even they had their tasks. Only the smallest babes and frailest invalids were not expected to lend their hands. The grain must be ground, the fires must be tended, the wool must be spun, and the chores must be done.

Word of Utli the shepherd’s fate had spread rapidly, details exaggerated in each telling. Whispered recounting of Baudr’s disappearance was no longer attributed to simple accident or mischance. Some mentioned the savaged remains of boar and deer recently found.

The prospect of night loomed a darker and more ominous shadow than ever before.

The snares had done well that day, so Baudr the huntsman ate well that night, as did his dogs. The beasts sprawled in a companionable pile by the fire, and Baudr stretched himself out on the raised platform that served him for sitting and sleeping.

He smiled, content in the quiet.

Now and again he did think of marriage–he knew a fine widow, the wide-hipped Andin, who’d let it be known she would not mind another husband–but few women would be willing to leave the village for the solitary life that he enjoyed.

He’d long since had more than his fill of company. In his youth, he’d served a jarl. He’d bent his back to the oar of a dragonship and had been paid in good coinage. The closeness of such quarters had not suited him; the press and stench and ceaseless talk of his fellow sailors weighed on him like a heavy cloak. And he found that he far preferred putting his skill with a bow to good use against game rather than men.

His cottage sat, small but snug, in its hollow between a boulder and tree. When the mood or need took him, and he had ample pelts and smoked meats to trade, he could travel to Vidrtoft. Sometimes folk came from the village to hunt or cut timber, so he was not always without visitors.

For the most part, however, the villagers avoided the forest wilds and feared what superstition had taught them since the cradle–whispers of witches and trolls and other strange monsters.

Baudr could not deny that they were wholly unfounded; he’d had moments of unease himself. Once, some years back, he’d found a man’s skull, badly battered, with no explanation of who he might have been or how he came to be there. Another time, more recently, he had glimpsed in a glade what he thought was a woman, tall and proud-breasted, beautiful, naked…but he remembered stories of sorceresses and did not call out or approach her.

Thinking on fables of old, Baudr dozed into a deep sleep, but he woke to his mutts, tails tucked, hackles raised, whining while staring at the door.

Baudr rose from his bed, troubled. These were hunting dogs, fierce and fearless, harriers of boar and bear alike.

Then he heard a loud rustling and thrashing, a crashing through the brush. He judged by the direction that something had fallen into one of his snares, something large.

He secured his bow and knife and walked around the trembling dogs. When he opened the door, they did not rush out barking and baying but scrambled backward with piteous yelps.

A pale full moon shone down through the boughs, guiding him toward the source of the disturbance. A musky, pungent, wild scent hung in the air.

Before him, tangled in the snare, was a great beast, a wolf larger than any he had ever seen. Enormous. Immense. Bunched with powerful muscle beneath a thick coat. Its eyes glowed like embers. In its struggle to escape, it had only become further ensnared.

He could hardly believe his luck. The pelt off this brute would make a cloak fit for a king, and the story alone would ensure that he never lacked ale or mead.

As he stepped forward, nocking an arrow, the wolf’s ember eyes found him, burning, searing in their heat and hatred. Baudr faltered at the keen intelligence he saw there.

As he moved closer, the snare broke, leather cords snapping like twine. With a heave, the wolf righted itself and shook off the tattered restraints. It growled, a low and furious noise that Baudr felt vibrating through his breastbone.

He loosed the arrow. It landed in the wolf’s side, buried fletching-deep between ribs. But he might as well have just pricked the beast with a thorn; it lunged at him before he could make another move.

A sharp, slashing agony opened his belly. His entrails tumbled out in a slippery, stinking tangle, slapping wet and heavy against his thighs. He fell hard to the ground, clutching at his insides to try and hold himself together. From some vast distance, his dogs wailed.

As his life flooded out of him to darken the forest floor, the wolf’s muzzle lowered. The burning-ember eyes seemed to drink in his pain. Then its jaws closed on Baudr’s throat, and he saw nothing more.

Vjan, warming his bones by a hearth where bread baked on flat rocks in the coals, met her eyes. “Hmm?”

Even at such a tender age, how like her mother she was becoming–the same chestnut hair and clear gaze. She would be as beautiful, but if she proved even half as spirited, she would have a tough time finding herself a husband able to withstand such willfulness.

“Will you tell us a tale, Old Father?” Ferilke asked.

Vjan learned forward. “A tale?” He stroked his white beard.

The others in the room took up the clamor, voices rising in excitement. “Please, Old Father, please!”

“A tale, a tale,” Vjan said, still musing. He asked the air before him, “Are these good and diligent little workers deserving of a tale?”

“Yes!” came a begging chorus.

He glanced beyond the circle of their eager faces, seeking objections from his fellow eldern but finding none. “What manner of tale would you have?”

“Freya and her Cats!” Kjarte cried, her golden, tousled curls bouncing.

“That’s a girl’s story,” said Tygg, his plump face twisting into a sneer. “I want battles and blood!”

“Sigurd and the Dragon!” another voice called out.

“Longships and Plunder!”

Once the commotion died down, Ferilke whispered, “What of wolves?”

At her words, the clamor arose anew, led by Hrugar, Gottar’s son. He often took to his half-sister’s suggestions as if they were his own.

Vjan hesitated and frowned. He glanced around. Bjolf snored, drooling onto his scrawny chest. Uma, swaddled in blankets, coughed weakly. Deaf Lindis hummed to herself while she carded fleece. Neunn was oblivious to all else as she cradled her precious new grandson. Thura, kneading dough, nodded at him. So did Suthor, his gnarled fingers coaxing the shape of a horse’s flowing mane from ivory.

“Wolves, yes, wolves!”

“Old Father, please?”

“Tell us of wolves!”

“Yes, a scare-story!”

“And killing! Lots of killing!”

Vjan lifted his hands to calm them. “As you will, as you will,” he said, relenting with a laugh. “Sit now and hush. Hear me well as I tell The Saga of the Fenris Wolf.”

Once it was that Loki, the wicked god-tricker
Made a visit to Jotunheim, land of the giants
There, with Angrboda, she who brings sorrow
He sired three children foretold of great mischief

These were their names, that monstrous brood:
Jormungandr, the Serpent of Midgard, world-circling
Hel, flesh-hued of one half and ash-black of the other
And Fenrir, the Fenris Wolf, ever-hungry for fame

By prophecy, the three offspring boded ill for the gods
From the nature of their mother and their father worse still
So the Aesir resolved to do what they could
To fend off this end fate and delay the destruction

The Serpent, they cast into the depths where Njord rules
And wave-maidens polish the bones of the drowned
Hel was made queen of the cold grey corpse-halls
Hunger upon her table and sickness for her bed

Fenrir, they took to Asgard, high home by the Ash-Tree
To be raised under watch of the All-Father’s eye
Fed and cared for by Tyr, who alone of the gods
Could stand safe his ground in the very wolf’s lair

Odin saw with concern how each day Fenrir grew
The muscle, the sinew, the breadth of his chest
Becoming a larger and more fearsome brute
Destined to cause all the Aesir much harm

It was then decided that the wolf must be bound
Tethered and fettered to tame his fierce temper
Something to which they knew that he would not consent
So they sought instead to ensnare him with wile and guile

First they brought Leyding, of leather, greatly strong
“Try yourself against this,” said the gods,
“For one such as you, famed as you would be,
A simple strap such as this should pose little challenge.”

And Fenrir, judging it not beyond his strength
Gave the gods leave to bind fast his four legs
At his very first kick did Leyding break and snap free
Loosening him easily from the fetter’s grasp

Next they brought Dromi, the iron-forged chain
Twice as strong as Leyding had been at the least
“True fame,” the gods told the wolf, “cannot be had without risk.
“If these bonds will not hold you, then nothing will.”

Well, Fenrir saw that this chain was strong, of stout make
But he knew as well that his own strength had grown
So he again let them bind him, four legs fettered
And the wolf set himself once more to the test

He pushed and he pulled and Dromi still held
He clawed and he kicked until foam flecked his lips
He heaved and he strained with all of his might
Then the iron links shattered, the pieces flew high

Now, bolder in boasting than ever before
He went with the Aesir across the dark lake
To Lyngvi, the island, the place thick with heather
For a feast-day as the fresh wind blew

There, he was shown Gleipnir, the silken band
Slender and fine, finer than Freya’s fair hair
The gods passed it about amongst themselves
Marveling that they could not rend such thin cloth

“Oh, but the Fenris-Wolf could,” some of them said,
“For did he not snap Leyding, the stout strap of leather?
And did he not shatter Dromi, the iron-forged chain?
This wisp, this mere ribbon, this would be nothing!”

The other gods, laughing, said, “If even we, even Thor,
Odin’s son, thunder-maker, cannot break this thin band,
Then surely it is beyond the wolf Fenrir’s famed strength
And we need have no fear of him for evermore.”

“I will consent that my legs be bound again,” Fenrir said,
“If one of you, high Aesir, great gods and wise,
Will set his hand whole within my mouth
And let it rest there as a pledge of good faith.”

For although the Fenris-Wolf’s pride felt the sting
He suspected deception, some clever craft
Demanding this proof against any misfortune
Which, of course, none of the gods were eager to do

At last there stepped forth the brave god of glory
Settler of duels, justice’s champion, bold Tyr
Who placed his hand between the wolf’s jaws
To hold it there as Fenrir’s legs with Gleipnir were tied

This then was when the trickery came revealed
The fine band had been in Svartalfheim dwarf-made
Fashioned by them from six impossible things
So Gleipnir would be just as impossible to break

Of the beard of a woman and the breath of a fish
Of a bear’s sinew and a bird’s spittle and a mountain’s roots
And the sound of the footfall of a cat was it forged
Which is why these things are found nowhere else in the world

The stronger the wolf fought, the stronger the band grew
Until Fenrir lay helpless, well and fully bound
The gods, relieved at this, made joy and celebration
All save Tyr, whose hand had been in one bite taken off

They brought next a stone slab pierced with holes
And strung a cord through it, anchoring it with a deep peg
Gjoll, was the slab named, and the anchor-peg Thviti
To the cord, called Gelgja, Gleipnir was tied

Fenrir, fettered such that he could not fight free
Howled wild howls and bit wide in his wrath
Teeth gnashing until his mouth was sword-struck
Slicing his gums so that the wolf’s blood ran red

Then it was that a fury filled Fenris-Wolf’s heart
He summoned his son, known as Hati, moon-chaser
The hater, the enemy, black wolf of the night
Brother to Skoll, who gives chase to the sun

In Hati and in Hati’s sons he stirred madness
A ravenous craving to devour and destroy
A blood-lust, an unspeakable hunger for flesh
Sated only by making them eaters of men --

They all were startled, young and old alike. The baby let out a sound somewhere between a wail and screech, then began to cry. Even the crone, Lindis, deaf as a stump, dropped her hand-carders so that the fluffs of fleece fell smutty in the soot and dust.

Gottar strode past them without acknowledging their distress. “What, by Thor’s thunder, are you doing, telling them tales such as this?”

Children scattered, all except for Gottar’s own.

Hrugar looked as if he would have liked to join the scatter, but Ferilke stayed where she was, beside the old man, and this seemed to have shamed Hrugar into staying as well.

Ferilke. Gottar could hardly look upon her without seeing the face of her mother, Ulrika.

“There’s no harm in tales– ” began the old man.

Gottar clenched his jaw. “Men are dead, livestock slaughtered! Wolves roam the woods! And you sit here spinning tales of Fenrir?”

“It’ll be a caution to them to not stray far from home.”

“It’ll be night of no sleep, if they’re up all the night with the terrors!”

“I’m not afraid,” said Ferilke.

Hrugar’s eyes were wide, but he bobbed his head. “Nor am I, Father! They’re just stories.”

“Well, of such stories, we’ve had enough!” Snorting, Gottar turned away.

The storyteller had gone from placatory to indignant. “These tales serve a good purpose!”

Gottar spun to face him. “To cause panic with foolish superstitions? To distract men from their honest and profitable labors?”

“Not all in this world can be reckoned by money!”

“All that matters can be,” Gottar told him. “You’ll see for yourself; tomorrow in the clean light of day, when this rogue wolf lies dead like any other, they’ll laugh at themselves for their meaningless fears.”

Outside the fence of logs and brambles, a lone goat bleated plaintively in the dusk. The moon rose fat and full, shedding a silvery shimmer through the night mist.

The men and boys waited. Hands gripped tight to the hafts of pitchforks and rakes, palms sweating, knuckles aching from tension. Their expressions in the torchlight were drawn and grim-set.

They had dug pits in the fields, covering them with stretched hides pegged down and disguised by a thin layer of dirt. Beneath these were stakes, roughhewn ends jutting upward.

A goat, tied by a rope, continued bleating.

Women served meals that went largely uneaten. Children fretted, too overwrought for sleep. A hushed expectation hung in the air.

Clouds crept across the sky, veiling the moon’s white face, obscuring its pale shine. The goat’s bleats became screams. A huge shape moved swiftly in the shadows. There was a sudden violent commotion, the goat brutally silenced, a thudding crunch followed by a pained, piercing howl.

Men rushed from the village, armed with their tools and torches, to the place where one of the pit traps had collapsed.

They brought ropes and chain, intending to haul up their prize from the hole after they stabbed and hacked every last trace of life from it. But when they peered into the pit, they saw only the goat’s bloodied carcass impaled across the many stakes.

A hot, snorting chuff of breath made them turn.

The wolf sprang among them, teeth flashing. It tore flesh from bone and ripped away one man’s scalp, leaving a ragged hairy flap. His skull gleamed all along the side of his peeled head. Some men stumbled into their own traps, sharp wood punching into their throats and guts.

Pitchforks jabbed, scythes and cudgels swung, and two men tried to sling chain over the beast. But a twist of the wolf’s body yanked the end from one of the men’s grasp. The other held on, shouting for help. A weak link gave with a crack; iron flung against the man’s chin with such force that his lower jaw shattered into a dripping red ruin.

With a leap and a bound, the wolf fled from the field, leaving corpses and carnage in its wake.

So many had died. Youths and men alike, gutted, dismembered, lifeless in pools of blood. Others lived, though for how long remained uncertain. Few had escaped only with scratches, and fewer still had survived unscathed.

Gottar himself was among the latter. The wolf had merely knocked him aside in passing.

A mother, whose barely-bearded twin boys had fallen beneath savage bites, wailed over their corpses. As for the rest, their lamentation had to be set aside for later. Too much else remained that needed to be done.

The wounded were brought to the center of Vidrtoft. The dead were lowered into the very pits intended for the wolf.

Vjan, bent over his gnarled walking stick, moved to and fro among the gathered, offering words of comfort.

With some, he joked and was jovial, telling them they would have proud battle scars to boast of. With others, he made promises to see that debts would be settled and messages delivered. He spoke quietly of the gods or warmly of times past.

It was only much later that Hruga, Gottar’s woman, burst through the door to ask if anyone had seen her son, Hrugar.

A quick search was made, the children questioned, but it soon became clear that both Hrugar and Ferilke were gone.

“I didn’t,” objected Hrugar. “I came along, didn’t I?”

They had slipped from the village during the bustling activity, Ferilke confident that no one would notice their absence until mealtime at least. It was an easy matter for her to guide Hrugar through gaps in the fence, cross the fields, and enter the forest.

In the dense trees, Ferilke unloaded the dried meats stolen from the town’s stores and waited. Finally, the wolf had come. Sun-dapple and leaf-shadow played over its pelt, dark grey streaked with silver and ivory and black.

Ferilke withdrew a long, thin ribbon of silk.

The wolf’s amber eyes regarded the ribbon warily.

“Just like in Old Father’s story,” she said. “No iron chain or leather strap…this will be as nothing to one of your great strength. You could break it with ease.”

The wolf’s eyes narrowed. Its lips skinned back, baring sharp, bloodstained teeth.

“Open your mouth, then,” Ferilke coaxed the wolf. “Let Hrugar put his hand between your jaws.”

Hrugar jumped back. “What? Why?”

“To prove our trust and good will, as Tyr did,” she said.

“What if I won’t?”

“Then you’ll be a coward, not brave like Tyr.”

“You wouldn’t tell!”

Ferilke pointed at his chest. “I would and I will.”

Hrugar looked from the waiting maw to his hand, curling his fingers again. “It’ll bite me.”

“Only if it can’t break the band.”

“But, in the story–”

“That was Gleipnir, made by dwarves,” she said, impatience becoming exasperation. “This is a plain silk ribbon my mother wore in her hair.”

Still, the wolf waited, slaughter on its hot, damp breath, amber gaze fixed upon the boy.

Hrugar slowly extended his arm. His hand shook, fingers trembling as he unclenched to slide them between the sharp, pointed rows. He glanced once more at Ferilke, pleading.

“You see?” she said to the wolf. “We trust that you mean us no harm, so you must trust that we mean none to you in return.”

She crouched and brought the silk band close to the wolf’s foreleg. The fur was warm and soft to the touch. She slipped the ribbon once around and tied a loose knot just above the broad paw.

“Ferilke…” whined Hrugar.

“Hush.” She began to stretch the ribbon toward the other foreleg.

The wolf’s jaws snapped shut with a vicious crunch. Skin ripped and blood sprayed. Hrugar shrieked.

Ferilke recoiled from the wet, red spatter across her face. She landed hard on her back, struck breathless as much by the impact as she was by what she saw happening before her.

Hrugar attempted to pull his arm free, but the wolf held fast, clamping down all the harder so that there was a terrible grinding and cracking of brittle bones.

“No!” Ferilke cried, but the wolf paid no heed.

More blood gushed as the boy struggled in the relentless toothy grip. Urine soaked the front of his breeches. His free hand slapped madly at the wolf’s furry head. He fell, feet tangled, to thrash and kick upon the ground.

“I didn’t bind you! I didn’t finish! And it’s only silk. It would have broken!”

To this, as well, the wolf paid no heed. It stood over Hrugar, powerful shoulders bunched. It gave a mighty wrench of its neck. With the gruesome tearing of meat and gristle, the boy’s hand came loose from his arm, trailing veins and tendons, vanishing in a single gulp down the wolf’s gullet.

Gottar, angrier than he’d been in years and more afraid than he was willing to admit, stalked grumbling through the trees.

This was all the girl’s doing, of that he was sure. She’d goaded the boy into it, willful creature that she was.

It was unfair and unwarranted, he knew, to hate the daughter as much as he’d hated the mother. Ferilke had been little more than a toddler at the time, blameless. But now the wretched girl might cost him his son. For that, he could hate her as freely as he’d grown to hate Ulrika.

Ulrika had been opposed to the marriage, in love with some woodcutter whose father was poorer than her own. What began as unhappiness soon became bitterness. Not even the birth of their child had softened her resentment.

When Gottar had forsaken their cold and unwelcoming bed for Hruga’s, Ulrika had taken this to mean she could return to her own lover’s arms without consequence.

That was an insult Gottar’s pride would not bear.

At the boy’s first shriek, Gottar’s anger and weariness were forgotten. He plunged ahead, hearing more screams, Ferilke’s cries, and a terrible guttural growl.

Hrugar lay on his back, blood spouting crimson from his stumped wrist. The wolf’s forelegs straddled the boy’s body, muzzle burrowing beneath his chin.

A raging madness fell over Gottar, such as he’d not known since that day he’d followed his faithless wife to meet with her lover in a similar wood-grove. He’d meant only to give them both a sound beating. He had not intended to drive the man’s head again and again against a boulder, but he did not stop until blood smeared across the stone. What else could he have done but finish the act, conceal the crime, and let folks think instead that Ulrika and her lover had run off?

Gottar flung himself on the wolf, fists flailing. The boy’s screams ended in a bubbling gurgle. Gottar tore clumps of hair from the wolf’s pelt and pummeled its body. The wolf uttered a roar. It spun, hurling him aside.

When he raised his head, it was to see Ferilke huddled nearby, arms wrapped around her knees. Her face was tear-streaked, eyes brimming with piteous fear. He lunged at her, swinging his arms. Twice more did his fists strike his daughter’s face before the wolf’s jaws hamstrung him.

Gottar rolled sideways. His vision filled with the gaping black maw of the wolf’s mouth.

Ferilke moaned, waking with the slow, sludgy struggle of one fighting her way through a mire. Her surroundings were dark and unfamiliar. Warm, though, and the earthen smell was strange but not unpleasant.

She blinked until she could see clearly. She heard water trickling, chuckling over pebbles. She heard the wind sighing around the pine boughs.

Her head hurt with a low, dull throb. She sat up carefully, then felt at her face, finding it swollen and bruised, and remembered the blows from her father’s fists, the stickiness of blood still drying on her skin.

A shadow briefly blocked the cave’s opening. A shape entered, ducking under roots. Not a wolf but a woman…naked except for a length of silken ribbon hanging from one wrist.

They looked at each other. The woman’s amber gaze was intent. Her head tipped to the side so that her hair swept in a long fall over her shoulder–hair the same chestnut color as Ferilke’s.

“Mother?” she asked in a whisper.

“Yes.” she nodded. “Yes, Ferilke.”

Ulrika knelt beside the bed of soft moss where Ferilke sat. She untied the ribbon and held it out. Ferilke took it, running it through her hands.

“Mother,” she said, this time more sure. They embraced. “I thought you were gone. That you’d abandoned us.”

“So your father would have had it. He beat me and left me for dead. The sons of Hati found me. They saved me, took me with them, made me their wolf-wife.” Ulrika laved blood from the girl’s brow with rough strokes of her tongue.

“We traveled far through the forests. We roamed high in the mountains where the snow never melts. We raced in meadows, the grass standing tall as our shoulders. I was one with the pack. I hunted. I howled.”

“And now,” she said, smiling at her daughter, her teeth strong, pointed. “Now, at last, I have come home.” •

Christine Morgan works the overnight shift in a psychiatric facility, which plays havoc with her sleep schedule but allows her a lot of writing time. A lifelong reader, she also reviews, beta-reads, occasionally edits and dabbles in self-publishing. Her other interests include gaming, history, superheroes, crafts, cheesy disaster movies and training to be a crazy cat lady. She can be found online at www.christine-morgan.org.