Wolfskin (26 page)

They had taken a full complement on the
Golden Dragon,
to show her speed under oars: thirty for the crew, including Eyvind and Eirik, and with them Ulf and his brother. Engus had brought ten of his own warriors, and the indispensable Brother Tadhg.

Ulf was concerned for his ship's security. It seemed to him a high tide and a strong wind might be enough to drive her off the shingle and out to sea, leaving them stranded, but Engus said that would not happen. There would be the usual mist, no more; the ship would be safe, and so would they as long as they made camp while they could still see their noses before
them. Best move quickly. Ulf was not convinced. The ship was his jewel, his treasure. So he left a good number of his men by the anchorage, and these were willing enough to stay behind, having seen the way that track went up and up like some pathway to the heavens themselves. They'd make a fire, and catch a few fish, and be ready when the others came back. Two of Engus's men remained with them.

Eyvind enjoyed that day. The pace was brisk, the climb hard. He liked that feeling, once so familiar, of pushing himself until every muscle in his body ached. Besides, the grandeur and beauty of the place were irresistible. For all the barrenness of the slopes, devoid of even the smallest tree, High Island put him in mind of home. This was a wild, dark, secret land, a land where there was not such a distance between man and god. His companions were mercifully silent, saving their flagging energy for the climb. Ulf's seasoned warriors struggled, panting and rubbing their backs, while the islanders seemed tireless. Evidently they were not such weaklings as their stature suggested.

They reached the sacred place, and waited by the track while Engus took Ulf close. It was a great stone, lying on its side like a stranded whale.

“It is a tomb,” Brother Tadhg told them. “Hollowed out inside, with chambers and a passageway. Very old: hewed in a time before memory.”

“What's it used for?” asked Holgar.

“I'm told it is a place of ritual, a men's place,” Tadhg said. “They gather here on the day the year turns to light, and celebrate the sun's rising. It's said to ensure seeds germinate and crops grow lush.”

“Looks like the work of giants,” Eirik mused, “or maybe hill trolls. Something with great big hands and tools to match.”

“How do you know all this?” Somerled challenged the priest. “It's clear you yourself cannot be part of this inner circle; your own faith must scorn such observances. You are an outsider. Do you not think these notions primitive? Sun worship?”

Tadhg smiled. “My adherence to the Christian faith has not rendered me deaf and blind. There are many paths to wisdom, and they can be more closely aligned than they seem.”

“Really?” Somerled's brows lifted. “And what of my brother, the worthy Ulf? Have you brought him around to your way of thinking yet? When can we expect to see him with a cross around his neck, and a penchant for forgiving those who murder his mother, or violate his sister?”

“Somerled!” Eyvind hissed. The other men glanced over, not prepared to speak, but plainly unsettled by this turn of the conversation.

“I can but ask,” said Somerled.

“As to that,” Tadhg replied, touching the wooden cross that hung around his own neck, “you must seek an answer from your brother. He is his own man: a man who thinks deeply, and does not reach decisions lightly. Our faith is not quite as you describe it. You should let me tell you, sometime.”

“Huh,” scoffed Somerled. “I need know no more than I do already. You may turn my brother away from the true faith of our homeland, but you'll have no luck with me, nor with a single one of our people. These beliefs are not for a red-blooded man. They are no more than a smokescreen to hide behind, when you lack the valor to defend what is yours with cold iron.”

“But,” Eyvind said, remembering the wolf, “a true measure of bravery, surely, is to walk toward your enemy with no weapons at all. A real hero wears only the armor of his own courage.” He felt a blush of embarrassment rise to his cheeks, and hoped his words had not sounded too foolish.

Somerled laughed. “And you a Wolfskin, Eyvind! Shame on you! Where would you be without your big axe and your fine sword? Don't tell me you, too, are turning soft.”

Tadhg seemed unperturbed. “Your friend speaks wisely,” he said. “There is more than one kind of courage. I hope it does not take you too long to learn that.”

Engus's men prepared a fire; turves of peat had been stored up here for just such a purpose, kept dry in a low stone hut. Eyvind went off with his bow and brought back two hares already starting to grow their white winter coats. Even here it seemed there was no bigger game to be found, no deer, not even the goats Somerled had mentioned. Somebody's sheep wandered on the lower slopes, but one could hardly shoot those.

Ulf was very quiet when he came back, as if what he had seen had set an awe on him that would linger far beyond this day. They ate their meal and walked on. One could not come all the way to High Island, Engus said, without going to the sea cliffs. There was a rock stack there, which surpassed even the stone giant off the coast south of the Whaleback. This was a veritable tower, majestic in its size, an ancient marker of boundaries. It was fitting that they should see it. There would be beds and a fire and roast mutton at the western settlement. In the morning they would return to the anchorage.

The climb had taken its toll. Some of Ulf's men stayed in the valley to make camp and hunt, and some decided to head back to the ship and wait
the time out there. Engus sent two of his own men with each group; it was clear he was not prepared to leave any of Ulf's party on High Island unsupervised. It was therefore a much smaller group that made its way westward down to a fair bay then, after a rest that was all too brief, up and up again along the coast to a place lofty as an eagle's nest. The track was treacherous; Eyvind had never seen cliffs so high. Here and there the ground was crumbling; great chunks of it had split away and now stood on their own as if ready to collapse into the raging ocean on the slightest provocation. Birds screamed overhead. There were fissures and cracks in the rock, and the wind caught at hair and cloak, tugging him insistently toward the edge. He was glad he had no fear of heights.

It was nobody's fault that the mist came in early and swiftly. One moment they were striding along, wondering exactly what King Engus meant when he said it wasn't much farther, and the next they were enveloped in a thick, gray blanket and could scarcely see their own feet on the ground, let alone their companions. Eyvind halted. He heard Engus calling, and Tadhg translating,
Stop! Stop here!
They gathered in a hollow; it was quite clear they could not go on in any direction, not until morning. The plan had been to return to the western bay, where a scattering of fisherfolk dwelt, and spend the night there in relative comfort.

“I regret this greatly,” Engus told them. “There is no choice but to settle down here and wait for tomorrow's sun to disperse this mist. Are we all accounted for?”

They moved in closer. Eirik was there, with long-legged Holgar and tow-haired Grim. But Ulf was not there, and neither was Somerled. And when King Engus counted his own men, two were missing. They called through the mist: “Ulf! Ulf, where are you? Somerled!” And once or twice, at first, they thought they heard a faint response. After a while, they stopped calling. The mist clung so close, it was no longer safe to attempt to bring a man to your side by sound, not with such treacherous ground to cover.

“With luck they're all together, as we are, and can shelter well enough till morning,” Eirik said. “A pity we can't make a fire, they might see that. It'll be a long, cold night.”

As Eyvind lay miserably awake, shivering under his wolfskin, the last thing he saw between the shreds of mist before the light faded was the straight-backed figure of Brother Tadhg, sitting with his wooden cross in his hand and his lips moving in prayer.

Morning came, and there was no sign of the others. Eyvind was eager to begin a search, for there was a chill feeling of dread creeping over him that could only be banished by immediate action. Engus made them wait. The mist still lingered, though a faint sun tried to pierce the veil; it was not yet safe to venture forth. Eyvind paced, biting his nails to the quick. Eirik watched him, frowning.

“All may be well,” said Brother Tadhg. “If they are as wise as King Engus, they will be sheltering in a place of safety as we are. We may see them approaching as soon as the day clears.” But there was a pallor about his features, and his fingers seldom left the cross.

At last the mist began to lift. They divided into four groups, two men in each, one of the islanders and one of Ulf's party. King Engus himself set off with Eirik; Eyvind was paired with a silent, black-bearded fellow, who moved swift and sure on the difficult terrain. The only man left behind was Brother Tadhg. If the others returned before the search parties, he could explain what was happening and so prevent a pointless exercise of tracking in circles.

Eyvind and his partner went northward and inland. The pace was relentless. When they could run, they ran. With what breath they could spare, they shouted the names of the lost men. They could hear the other searchers in the distance calling the same names, but there was no reply. Time passed. They rested briefly, and Eyvind shared the contents of his skin water bottle with the islander. They went on. Rain fell for a time; the rocks underfoot became slippery, and Eyvind was glad they had not taken the clifftop route. Yet perhaps they should have done. A long time ago, he had helped find straying stock and, on occasion, lost children in the mountains above Hammarsby. Maybe what he should do was go back, and look where nobody else was prepared to look. A pox on Somerled. It would be just like him to be sitting there neat and cool when they returned, saying with an air of faint surprise,
Oh dear, Eyvind. It was only a game.

The sun was at midpoint. They had been searching all morning, and were heading back to the start with nothing to show for themselves.

“Shh,” Eyvind hissed suddenly, for he had heard a cry, faint but unmistakable. He cupped his ear and pointed so the islander could understand. There it was again, from higher up the craggy hillside, a sound that was the voice of a man in some distress. They scrambled up together and found one of Engus's warriors lying behind a rock with his leg bent under him in quite an improbable position: broken, no doubt of it. The fellow was gray
in the face and sweating hard. They worked quickly. The man screamed as Eyvind splinted the leg with arrow shafts and a binding torn from the other islander's undershirt. There was no asking,
What happened?
The fellow was in too much pain to speak coherently. They carried him down as best they could; it was too far to the bay, where such useful items as a flat board or a flask of strong drink might be found. When they got back to the place where they had slept, there was Somerled, looking pallid and drained, and the other of Engus's men who had been missing was sitting nearby, his expression angry and confused. Neither appeared hurt. There was no sign of Ulf.

“Where's my brother?” Somerled was demanding. “What's happening here? There is surely some mischief at work!”

“It is strange indeed that you were separated thus in the night, and stranger still that we have found all but your brother,” King Engus said. He, too, sounded edgy. “But there's a decision to be made now. This man is badly injured. We must get him off the cliffs. And it is already late: not long before the mist closes in again.”

“We'll carry him down,” Eirik said, “my brother and I, and Holgar and Grim here. We can put together a sort of sling, using our cloaks; he'll be more comfortable that way. It won't take long to get to that settlement in the bay.”

The man's breathing was shallow; Eyvind thought he had fallen some way. Perhaps a broken leg was the least of it.

“Very well,” Engus was saying. “But—”

“What about my brother?” Somerled's voice was shaking. “We must find Ulf. Perhaps he, too, lies somewhere in these accursed hills with broken bones. We must search again. These men cannot go back.”

“My own warriors will remain and search,” Engus said, glancing at Somerled. “We've no intention of giving up. We may yet find your brother before nightfall.”

Somerled's face was white, his mouth a thin line. “Not good enough,” he said coldly. “My brother went missing in company with your own men. They are returned and he is not. How can I trust these same men to bring him back safely?”

Tadhg translated, blank-faced.

“What are you implying?” Engus drew himself up to his full height, brows creased ferociously. “Are you suggesting there has been some foul play here?”

“Somerled,” said Eyvind quietly.

“What?” The tone was like a whip crack.

“I will stay and help you search. Both Holgar and I, if you like. King Engus has three fit men left to help carry the sling down the hill.”

“I don't—”

“Somerled. We're brothers, remember? Trust me. I'll help you with this.”

Tadhg had been translating as well as he could, while at the same time kneeling by the injured man, holding his hand in an attempt to provide comfort. Now he glanced up at Eyvind.

“Brothers?” he queried. “Is it not Eirik here who is your brother?”

Eyvind rolled back a sleeve to show the long scar that still marked his left forearm. “Brothers of another kind,” he said.

Tadhg nodded. A small frown appeared on his tranquil brow.

“Pledged to help one another,” Eyvind added, not sure why he felt some further explanation was required. “Now we must go and search. Ulf may be lying hurt somewhere, and it's late.”

“Go with God,” said Tadhg.

There were not many gods in evidence that day, or if there were, they were cruel and savage deities, suited to these wild shores. Engus would not leave the Norsemen to search alone; he insisted one of his own men stay. Tadhg offered to help carry the sling. Holgar remained behind. They split up as before, Holgar with the islander going inland, Eyvind and Somerled tackling the cliff edge.