Authors: Brian Bates
Wulf put his left arm around my shoulders, hauled me to my feet and hustled me up the slope, past the fire-pit and into the shelter. I collapsed on my back on the pile of moss that served as my mattress.
‘The web of power protected the land around the camp, but you had to step into the river!’ Wulf muttered accusingly. ‘The spirits are waiting for the smallest error and you did not disappoint them.’
He pulled at my tunic. ‘Take this off!’ he ordered.
I did as he said and sprawled back on the moss as Wulf examined my body carefully, inch by inch, by the dim light. Suddenly he stopped and pressed his forefinger into my stomach. I gasped as a searing pain shuddered through my body.
‘What happened here?’ Wulf demanded. He was pressing the small patch of bare skin on my stomach, where I had wiped off the paste.
‘You removed some of the protective salve and your soul was stolen through that gap. It was no wonder that the spirits almost succeeded in taking your soul earlier in the evening and have now succeeded in stealing it. I gave you effective protection and you destroyed it.’
Wulf sat back on his heels and gazed at me in silence. He seemed to be trying to reach some sort of decision. I lay in silence, unable to offer any excuses or arguments. When he spoke again, it was in a calm, quiet voice.
‘You are now an empty shell, Brand. Your soul has journeyed to the spirit-world. This is a special privilege, for the spirits will reveal to your soul the ways of wyrd. It has happened too soon; you are not able to be with your soul, observing all that is happening. If you can retrieve your soul, the secrets of wyrd will be yours, for the spirits will have imparted their knowledge. But if you fail to recapture your soul, your life will be extinguished like a fire in a rainstorm.’
A BREEZE sighed softly from the river and my whole body trembled like a dry leaf. I tried to take a deep breath, but I could breathe only in short, shallow, rapid gasps and I felt as if I were going to faint. Again, I felt strangely empty inside as I had done earlier in the evening.
Wulf grasped me under the armpits and half-carried, half-dragged me to the fire-pit. I slumped against the fallen tree-trunk we used as a seat. I felt stunned and disoriented, my thoughts were confused and I was quite incapable of talking. Yet there was an important change in my state from the panic of a few moments ago; deep down within me, I knew that I would be safe with Wulf, if only I could show him that I was willing to accept the challenges he presented to me. If I could prove my worth to him, he would ensure that my encounters with his spirit-world did not kill me. I had confidence that, if necessary, Wulf could pull me from the brink of death.
The breeze blew again and I shivered uncontrollably; I felt frozen as if a winter gale were blowing bitter barbs of hail through my skin.
Wulf was moving rapidly in front of the fire-pit, piling wood on to the fire and raking it into a blaze. I pushed my freezing feet nearer the flames but could feel nothing they were like blocks of ice.
He plunged a hand into a linen sack, dropped some herbs into two cups and poured over them hot water from the pot simmering on the hob.
‘Drink it!’ he ordered, sitting down next to me and staring into my face. I swivelled my gaze towards him. His eyes seemed huge in the firelight and his face looked tight and strained.
‘Brand, we have to increase your life-force. Immediately! It is a matter of the utmost urgency, for you cannot survive long without your soul.’
He spoke quietly and calmly and I watched him talking fascinated by the movement of his mouth. The words washed over me like a gentle drizzle; I could not make any sense of them.
‘With your soul gone, your body will use all of your life-force to create a shadow-soul. But a shadow-soul cannot last for long soon your body will burn itself out trying to maintain the shadow, your head will get hot, you will sweat, you will ache and within two nights you will die. Our only hope is to attempt a sudden, massive increase in your life-force so that you can project your shadow-soul into the Underworld. There, if the spirits are favourable, you will be prepared for a long journey to the spirit-world. Then, if you can summon a guardian spirit, you may be able to recapture your soul. Things could go wrong at any stage, of course, in which case you would be dead anyway.’
He paused to wipe sweat from his brow, watching me closely like a hawk. I stared straight back at him I had just heard him pass sentence of death on me, for it was difficult even to conceive of doing all those things in two days. The chance that we would be successful in all those endeavours seemed to be non-existent.
Wulf raised his cup of herb tea to his mouth, but put it down again without drinking. He turned to look into the fire, in silence, and when he did turn back to me his eyes were moist. He spoke in a barely audible whisper:
‘Of course, Brand, we may have less than two days, for your soul is journeying in the spirit-world. At any time your soul could encounter malevolent forces and be killed.’
Dimly, I pondered how a soul could be killed. Now that I had heard it put baldly, it seemed an entirely reasonable supposition.
Wulf cleared his throat and continued talking in a very quiet voice:
‘I once knew a sorcerer from this forest who travelled in his soul to the spirit-world to retrieve the lost soul of a sick woman.
‘He laid his physical body before a fire in the spirit-house, surrounded by onlookers. Then he released his soul and began singing and chanting describing the journey of his soul; suddenly he began to tell of dangerous spirits approaching him and as they neared him he went to meet them and tried to reason with them, but they attacked him. The sorcerer described a terrible battle, his voice hoarse with anguish, and he cried out that they had sword-ripped the belly of his soul-form. Then he fell silent.’
Wulf paused again, staring at the ground, apparently wrestling with thoughts and emotions. ‘Everyone crowded forward to see if he was all right. There was an enormous wound across his stomach. Yet none of the people had touched him.’
There followed another pause before Wulf spoke again:
‘The sorcerer died. He was close to me, for it was I who first introduced him to the spirit-world. But let us hope that your fate will be different.’
I could not contain myself and I burst out laughing. Wulf’s story was so terrifying so doom laden and so final that there was nothing I could do but laugh. The forest crowded in around me and I knew now that before two nights had passed I would almost certainly be dead. I laughed long and hard, hysterically at first and then in a deeper and more releasing manner. Finally I began to relax. Death was so probable that somehow it ceased to be a threat. It was still frightening but it was so imminent that it seemed to lose its paralysing grip on my senses. No matter what I did, I would almost certainly die and so there could be no limit to what I could do. I would fight to stay alive, but would expect to die. I laughed until tears trickled down my cheeks.
Finally Wulf grabbed my tunic and shook me to command my attention.
‘Brand, listen to me. Listen! We must hunt for an ally so that we can increase your life-force thirty-fold. Tonight.’
‘We are hunting tonight? In the dark?’ My voice sounded loud and harsh and startled me.
‘We are hunting for power. The plant is spearwort. It is a fearsome plant and can be hunted only at night when it is most vulnerable.’
I laughed again, loudly.
‘How will spearwort help me?’ I snorted sarcastically. ‘By killing me?’
‘You will have to kill spearwort first and that is no easy task,’ Wulf replied coolly. ‘But if you are successful we can, with the help of spearwort, project your shadow-soul from your body like a luminous personal spirit. Then you will be able to journey to the Underworld, where the mighty smiths of magic will prepare you to journey to the spirit-world.’
I shrugged my shoulders to indicate that I had no objections to a night-time hunt. Since I was doomed to die in any case, everything seemed possible.
Wulf opened his hands and began to pass them over my body close to my tunic but without touching me. He seemed to be feeling for something with his palms and I was suddenly reminded of his cure of the horse at Cydda’s farm. He nodded, apparently in satisfaction.
‘The shadow-soul is breathing out your shield-skin, preventing your body from crumbling and keeping it alive. But it cannot continue for long. We have no time to lose. Come on!’
Wulf began to make preparations to leave. My fingers still trembled with cold, but I realized that my body was no longer numb and frozen. Unsteadily I strapped on my shoes, wrapped my cloak around me and as soon as we were ready, Wulf led the way from the clearing Northwards along the riverbank, setting a slow pace, allowing me to stay close behind him.
A pale moon glowed intermittently between drifting clouds and shimmered through the forest canopy like silver star-dust. Shrubbery winked and rustled as we pushed past and the soft ground-cover wriggled under my feet. At first I had difficulty walking I felt as if my body were pivoted at the navel and my feet were slipping about on ice. Gradually I gained control of my balance and concentrated on treading close behind Wulf. Suddenly he stopped and I walked straight into the back of him.
‘Be careful!’ he hissed. ‘Now listen. Spearwort is an extremely powerful and dangerous force. It will be expecting us and as soon as it knows we are coming it will lay a trap. It will send forces after us.’
He paused and glanced at the tree cover at the back of the clearing. Then he whispered into my ear:
‘We must hunt in absolute silence. When we reach the plant, try not to look at it directly for it has been known to kill with a look of power. Keep your gaze to one side of the spearwort and watch it out of the comer of your eye. You must try to get as close as you can to the plant, moving so slowly that it cannot even detect that you are moving I shall give you my knife. When you are within two or three paces, leap in and plunge the knife as deeply as possible into the ground at the base of the plant.’
Wulf pulled his head back and regarded me steadily.
I nodded, stiffly. ‘How will I know which plant?’
‘You will know. But remember, if spearwort suspects our presence too early, it could kill. Under no circumstances must you talk. Spearwort will not give you a second chance. You are hunting but remember, you are also being hunted.’
We resumed walking and, after a time, Wulf led us across a shallow ford in the river and we waded through the swift, cold current, swirling past our feet like some slithering animal pulling at our ankles. On the opposite bank we plunged into thicker woodland and the tree cover blotted out the moon. As we pushed through the undergrowth I sensed the presence of larger animals and once glimpsed the bulk of a bear watching us from a slight rise, behind a clutter of bramble and low branches. Wolves howled in the distance, foxes’ eyes glistened from hiding places and the undergrowth was alive with badgers scurrying for cover.
As the forest became more thickly wooded, our path twisted and turned around trees and shrubbery huddled together like children in darkness, and soon my face stung from the lashing of low branches. Wulf pushed on ahead of me. Suddenly I realized that I could no longer hear the swish of his legs through the undergrowth. I stopped in my tracks and listened carefully, sweat running salty into my mouth, but I could hear nothing I peered blindly into the surrounding shrubbery, but he was gone. Panic pounded in my chest and I stood rigidly like a trapped rabbit, trying to decide what to do. Then my heart leapt into my mouth: I heard Wulf’s voice. I knew that something must be terribly wrong for he had insisted on total silence. I turned and looked behind me. The low branches that I had pushed aside had closed behind me, blocking my view. I held my breath and listened hard. Wulf spoke again, this time from my right.
‘I am on the other side of the hawthorn. Can you come through?’
Quickly I scanned the bushes. Just ahead of me the red berries of a hawthorn gleamed like black stones in the darkness. I dropped to my hands and knees and crawled through a space near the base of the bush. To my relief, the familiar silhouette of Wulf’s cloak and hat loomed ahead of me. He had his back to me and seemed to be examining something in the trees to his left. I scrambled out from under the hawthorn and stood next to him, peering in the direction of his gaze.
‘What’s wrong Wulf?’ I whispered.
He did not reply, but continued to look away from me as if observing something in the trees. I tried to attract his attention again:
‘Wulf, why did you speak?’
Slowly he turned towards me, his face shrouded by the broad brim of his hat. As his gaze met mine, I went cold with horror; the face was grotesque, with eyes white and blank like stream pebbles and a black mouth opening and closing silently. I could not move or even tear my eyes away from the horrible face; it was like being trapped in a terrible nightmare. Then I heard a high-pitched whine and felt a tremendous pressure inside my head. Desperately I struggled to move away, but my feet were rooted to the spot. I was aware of the demon’s hand reaching towards me and suddenly I recoiled from a mighty blow which lifted me right into the air and hurled me through the bushes to crash into the undergrowth. I rolled over on my back, staring panic-stricken at the mass of waving and spinning branches, losing all sense of direction. Then the bramble branches parted and the shadowy figure came towards me.
Frantically I averted my face and tried to scramble out from under the shrub, kicking and flailing my arms wildly, but strong hands held me fast, gripped my head and slowly forced me to look back into the face. In a frenzy of terror I closed my eyes and screamed. When I opened them again, the face had changed—it loomed close still, but I was looking into the eyes of Wulf.
He helped me to my feet. I could breathe only in sobs and I was trembling uncontrollably. My entire body ached as if I had taken a terrible beating.
He put an arm around my shoulders and helped me from the thickets into a clearing under a large beech tree, where I slumped to the ground and sat with my head between my knees. Wulf squatted next to me. Neither of us spoke. I knew I had made a terrible mistake and Wulf had rescued me. My physical fatigue had interrupted my concentration and when I heard the voice I should have gone in the opposite direction.