Wolfskin (27 page)

There was no good reason to suspect they would find Ulf there. Still, something compelled Eyvind that way, a chill in the blood, a darkness in the mind, a feeling whose roots were ancient and shadowy. Like a wolf, he scented evil in the air, but he did not flee from it, as a wild creature might in order to survive. Instead, he made himself hurry toward it, and for the first time in his life he thought he felt fear. It seemed to him they were poised on the edge of another cliff here, a cliff made not of stone and earth but of suspicion and jealousy, fear and hatred. Take a step too far, and all would tumble into darkness.

Eyvind moved cautiously, with what speed he could. It was necessary to allow for Somerled, less fleet of foot, less clever at balancing, less strong in endurance. And Somerled was distressed; his white face and angry eyes attested to that. Perhaps that was not as surprising as it seemed, Eyvind thought, as he made his way gingerly down a crack in the cliff to a place where a ledge allowed better views to north and south. Maybe it only took one fright like this to make a man realize the worth of family. It was possi
ble Somerled's cutting comments about his brother were merely part of another game.

Although the ledge was high above the ocean, still the salt spray stung him. The waves below were huge, smashing the cliff face with unremitting fury. Birds flew by with harsh cries, diving close enough to unsettle his balance. Eyvind made himself breathe slowly, but he could not change the rapid thudding of his heart. “Thor,” he whispered. “Help me to see. Help me to hear as the wolf does. Help me to be strong.” He hardly understood why he had said this. He was already strong. When there was no fighting to be done, he made sure he ran and swam and shifted stones, he made sure his body would be ready for whatever challenges it must face. Yet the words were on his lips: a prayer.
Help me to be strong.

Then he looked up and to the north, and he saw something. A scrap of color, blue, white, red, something suspended below the clifftop, an old net, an old sail, moving where the wind caught and lifted it.

“Somerled!” he called. He narrowed his eyes against the sun, and put up a hand to sweep aside his hair, which the wind was blowing insistently across his face. “No, don't come down here, it's not safe. But I can see something, up yonder.”

“What?” Somerled yelled from up on the clifftop. “What can you see?”

“I don't know,” Eyvind whispered. But he knew. What he had seen, though his mind was refusing to put the pieces together, was a man. That was a man hanging there, somehow dangling between land and water, held cruelly balanced in air. Ulf's blue tunic, Ulf's white face. Ulf's blood.

Heart pounding, Eyvind scrambled back up, forgetting caution. Pieces of rock crumbled and fell, his foot slipped, he snatched at a clinging plant for purchase.

“Slow down!” Somerled was stretching down a hand to help him. “What's wrong, what is it? You look as if you've seen a ghost.”

“This way.” It seemed to Eyvind that if he did not tell, if he did not put into words what he had seen, then it might still prove to be a mistake, or some bad dream from which he would emerge sweating and relieved. They walked northward until they reached a spot Eyvind judged to be roughly above the place. There were no pathways, no convenient fissures or ledges, merely the clifftop, flat and grass-covered, then a sudden descent to oblivion.

“No wonder they missed it,” Eyvind said, trying to keep his voice under control, not to alarm Somerled. “You can't see anything from up here. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe it's nothing.”

“What?” demanded Somerled. “What did you see? Tell me!”

“A man, I thought.” Now there was no choice but to tell. “A man down there on the cliff. I don't know how we could reach him, Somerled. It could have been just an old sail or a net. It could have been just a trick of the light.” Nonetheless, he was casting about, seeking the smallest chink or crevice where he might climb down somehow, and make sure one way or another. Above them, afternoon clouds were building.

“Ulf!” Somerled shouted, and strode so close to the edge that it seemed he would go straight over with no hesitation whatever. Eyvind grabbed his arm, and they both teetered off balance.

“Don't be stupid,” Eyvind gasped, using his full weight to wrench the two of them back to safety. “Holgar's got a rope; we'll use that if we have to. And it'll be me going down there, not you. Take a deep breath and try to stay calm. I told you, I may be wrong.”

They called out to the others and heard a faint reply. While they waited, Eyvind lay on his stomach and edged himself closer to the drop while Somerled held him by the ankles. After a little, Eyvind shut his eyes. It was not the sight of the boiling sea far below that chilled his heart and froze the blood in his veins. He wriggled his body back, and for a moment could only sit there on the ground with his hands over his face.

“What? What?” Somerled's tone was frantic.

“Somerled, this is bad news. It looks as if he is down there; certainly, I see a man. But I can't tell if he is alive or dead. He seems to move, but perhaps that is only the wind. There are many gulls squabbling around him, and there's blood.”

Somerled grew even whiter. “How can he be there?” he asked. “Is there a ledge, is he somehow wedged in the rocks? If he is dead, why doesn't he fall?”

Eyvind hesitated. “He seems to be…to be somehow caught,” he said, “though I cannot see clearly. He's held by something, a net perhaps, which has been abandoned here; that's all that keeps him from falling into the sea. He's–he's hanging in the air.”

Somerled said nothing. They looked at one another. Between them, unspoken, were the words of the curse that had dogged Ulf since he was a child.
Neither on land or water…

The others came running up, and Holgar did indeed have a rope. After that it was quick. Eyvind tied the rope around his waist; the others anchored it while he climbed down. He had seen death before, death in
many forms, most of them violent and bloody, for that is a Wolfskin's very existence. But this made him tremble to the core, it made his heart quail. There was a net, as he had thought. The net was hooked on the rocks, perhaps flung there by some capricious wind, for this was a place where everything was larger than life, the cliffs tall beyond reckoning, the waves monstrous, the wind a demon's flail. Perhaps this net had once held a fine catch of juicy cod or shining mackerel. Now it had captured a man: Ulf, dreamer of dreams. His face was bone-white; there was no blood left in him. One eye stared blankly seaward. Birds had feasted on the other, brazen gulls that swooped close to Eyvind's face as he cursed and swung his arm to fend them off. There was something tied over Ulf's mouth, a strip of stained cloth: a gag. Eyvind edged closer. His foot slipped, his hands clutched the rock, slick with the residue of birds. The rope tightened, holding him safe. Thank the gods Engus had let Holgar stay; only a Wolfskin had the strength for such a task.

“All right, Eyvind?” came a call from above, and he called back, “Yes,” but it was not all right, it was desperately, terrifyingly wrong. He reached out a cautious hand. The gag was tight; behind it, strange, dark stuff blocked Ulf's mouth, spilling out to stain the stretched cloth green. Seaweed. He would not think about the curse, Eyvind told himself. His fingers worked the fabric away from Ulf's bloodless lips and cleared the other man's teeth and tongue of their choking burden, for this seemed an obscenity that must be put right, never mind that Ulf was gone far beyond helping. He would not remember the foretelling. But it was there, all the same.
Tastes the salt sea…

He would have to cut Ulf loose somehow, so he could be hauled to the top. But he'd need to do it carefully or the dead man would simply drop, to be smashed by the rocks and the waves as they played out their hard battle far below. Ulf had been granted no dignity in the manner of his death; he must at least be brought from this place and laid to rest with proper ritual. Somerled would expect that. Margaret would expect it. Who would tell Margaret? He got the last of the weed from Ulf's gaping mouth and paused, his hand resting on the other man's neck.
I'm imagining this,
Eyvind told himself.
It's fear and shock and too much time for thinking.
Ulf had been missing since yesterday: a whole day and night, almost. Here on the cliff, where nobody could see him. His mouth plugged so nobody could hear him. Ulf was hideously, indisputably dead. And his body was still warm.

Eyvind could not bring himself to think further; his mind recoiled from the possibilities. Quick, then, he must release Ulf from these bonds, and hold onto him, and get the others to haul them up. No, that wouldn't work. The two of them together would be too great a burden even for Holgar's strength. Eyvind himself was a very big man. That meant he must untie the line that kept him from that final fall, and tie it around the dead man. And then he'd have to hold on somehow, and wait.

He called up to the others, telling them Ulf was here, telling them Ulf was dead. There was no way to soften that blow. They must wait, he yelled, until he tugged twice on the rope, and then they must haul it up.

There was a tiny crevice near the net where he could wedge his toes, the merest illusion of a safe purchase. Letting the rope take his weight, he drew the knife from his belt and began to cut. He must free Ulf as far as he could until it became too perilous to cut more; he must fasten the dead man to the safety rope before he severed those last ties. Odin's bones, the bonds around Ulf's wrists were tight indeed, and the man had fought hard against them. There was blood down his left side, staining the blue tunic scarlet. Eyvind reached to find the strand of net that pinioned that left hand. His fingers encountered something hard and sharp: naked bone. In his desperate struggle to free himself from these bonds, Ulf had flayed the flesh from his wrist; he had nearly severed his own hand. It had not helped him, for it seemed the cords that held him had only grown tighter as he pulled against them. That wound in itself had been enough to kill him; his blood had drained from his body. How could the strands of a net wind so tightly around a man? What had he been doing, alone on the top of these perilous cliffs? If he had slipped and fallen, surely his natural path would have taken him out beyond this place where the old net hung. And what about the seaweed?
Don't think so hard, Eyvind,
he told himself, hacking at the cord.
It only hurts your head.
And yet the thought he wished most fiercely to banish would not leave his mind, but played itself over and over.
Somerled is so good at knots.
It was not possible, he would not consider it; he had seen his friend's distress, back there on the clifftop.

The rope parted; Ulf's dead arm fell limp by his side, the hand hanging by a thread of skin, a shard of bone. Eyvind gritted his teeth and reached to start on the other wrist. He had to lean across, his body pressed against Ulf's, the staring eye not a hand's breadth from his face. The knife slashed; the bonds were severed. Ulf's body sagged forward, but the net still held.

“Right,” Eyvind whispered to himself. “One step at a time.” He held the knife in his teeth; it was necessary, now, to find a position in which he could cling on and at the same time use his hands to untie the rope. Impos
sible. There was no choice but to trust those last shreds of net. He edged across until the tattered web of cords was around his upper body. He leaned back cautiously against it, testing its strength. It seemed to hold, just; the real test would be when he untied the rope from around his waist.

“What are you doing?” Holgar shouted. “Is everything all right? The mist's coming in, you'll have to hurry!”

“Wait!” he called. And told himself,
Don't think, Eyvind, just do it.

He untied the rope. The net creaked ominously under his weight. He reached to put the rope around Ulf's body. There was something in the way, something caught behind: the buckle of Ulf's belt, twisted around and tangled with his bonds. The knife: he'd have to cut blind. Thor's hammer, this was an embrace to make any right-thinking man recoil, to hold a dead man thus in your arms and look into the socket of an eye picked clean by hungry seabirds; to feel his body pressed to yours and know that within the space of that last desperate search, he had probably still been alive. How long had he hung here, fighting against the encroaching darkness?

Eyvind severed the buckle from the belt, though it was still entangled with a network of knotted cords. It was a fine piece of craftsmanship, intricately wrought in silver; he knew it had been Ulf's father's. Eyvind stuffed it into the pouch at his own belt, cords and all, and slipped the rope around Ulf's waist. A good knot; it would be enough, for Holgar knew what he was doing, and would have this burden up quickly and neatly. A slash here, a cut there, and Ulf was free of the net; the shreds that held Eyvind shivered and trembled.

“Right!” Eyvind shouted. “Hold tight; I'm letting him go now. Haul him up, then send the rope back down. And be quick about it, will you?” He tugged at the rope once, twice, and then he released his hold, and Ulf's body swung free to hang, like some crude effigy of a man, dangling sickeningly high above the sea. The wind snatched at the chieftain's dark hair, and sent the stained wool of his tunic fluttering like a banner. He moved in ghastly semblance of life, and vanished from sight as the men on the clifftop hauled on the rope.

 

They told Eyvind, later, that he had been very brave: a hero. This was wrong, of course. If he had not done what he did, someone else would have: Eirik, Holgar, any of the others. If he had been a clever man, if he had been good at working things out, he would have looked on the clifftops first, instead of wasting time scouring the hillsides. Perhaps, then, he might have
found Ulf still alive. Then he would have been a hero. But he had got it wrong, and all he had rescued was a blood-drained husk of a man, a limp, white thing with one eye gone: the stuff of nightmare. Expert hunter though he was, Eyvind had misread the signs. He had felt a shadow, that day, and had not known what it was. But soon enough he understood. It was not just a premonition of Ulf's death; it was a warning of things to come. For that day ushered in a time of darkness such as he had never known before.