M. Lachlan: Fenrir

‘He is here,’ she said. ‘He is here!’

‘Who?’

‘The wolf, the wolf! The devil is come!’

Jehan cast his head around. There was a dark, animal scent away to his left. He could hear the breathing of a third person now, hear the girl trying to catch her breath in her panic.

‘We are clothed in the armour of God, Satan; you cannot harm us,’ said the monk. His voice was steady and calm, almost bored, like a teacher speaking to a naughty child.

‘ Domina,’ said the wolfman. He hacked out the word as if it was stuck in his throat, his accent guttural and strange. ‘ Domina.’ Aelis tried to make herself think. She had been taught Latin since her earliest years but she couldn’t even make her mind translate this simple word. The monk, however, was unafraid.

‘Do not call for the lady, devil; your business is with me.’ The confessor spoke in Latin too.

The wolfman ignored him.

‘ Domina. My name is Sindre that is called Myrkyrulf, and I am here to protect you.’

Finally Aelis found her Latin. ‘Against what?’

‘Against this,’ he said, and the doors of the church flew in.

Aelis would later recall only impressions of the first moments of the attack. There had been the flash of something, like a curve of flame, like a sliver of a blood moon glinting from the dark. It was the sword, she realised later, the sword that belonged to that hideous thing. It had caught the fire of the buildings that were burning behind the church, the blade sparking to life in an instant before turning from the light and vanishing from the sight but not the mind.

She had never seen a weapon that was curved like that. Its shape seemed like a symbol for murder, a shallow crescent of malice. And then that word that sounded like a talon tearing through the darkness.

‘Hrafn!’ It was the wolfman who spoke and though she did not understand what he meant it seemed to wake something in her, to bring images with it, smells and sounds. She saw a wide plain of the battle dead, saw ragged banners streaming in the breeze. The air was thick with what she at first thought was smoke but, when she identified the sound that accompanied it, she knew was not smoke. It was the buzzing of numberless flies. He was there on that plain, the wolf. She couldn’t see him but she could sense his presence, a hot snuffling and grunting thing creeping at the side of her eye that she could not turn to see with her full sight.

She stood up, blinked and shook her head, forced reality to return. She put her hand to a pillar for support. The vision had been so sharp and had come on her so quickly that she feared she was going mad.

The church was suddenly crazy with battle. Men hacked, kicked, bit and punched at each other in the dark. In the firelight she saw her brother, Eudes, his shield strapped on his back, slashing with his long and short swords into the enemy. The Danes had come, for sure.

Axe heads glinted in the dark, faces loomed and fell, spears were thrust and hacked down, friend became indistinguishable from foe.

The wolfman grabbed her by the arm and pushed her forward. ‘Walk towards the door,’ he said. ‘You will not fall.’

‘Aelis, Aelis!’ her brother was screaming but he couldn’t get to her, he was hemmed in by two opponents. The flickering light of the flames outside fought the darkness of the church; things flashed from the shadows, metal, wood, blade and spear tip, shields, faces, arms and feet. Three times men came at her, trying to grab her and pull her away, but three times the snarling shadows seemed to engulf them before they could touch her and they fell with terrible cries. She kept walking towards the door. Ten pillars from it, eight, now five, now two. She was nearly free. Then the arc of the crescent was sweeping down on her, the curve of flame that was that terrible sword.

‘Aelis, Aelis!’ Her brother’s face was contorted in anguish, as though melting in the heat of the burning buildings. Fire seared her skin; the taste of ashes and blood was in her mouth. The sword was a tongue of lightning stretching towards her. There was a blur of movement, a sound like a sack falling off a cart as the shadows reached out to smash the swordsman to the floor. Then she was running, bundled through the narrow streets by an unseen hand. She glanced behind her, tried to see who was driving her on. It was the wolfman. Even though she was running as fast as she could, he was just sidestepping down the alleyways, watching for pursuers as he drove her forward.

‘Hrafn!’ he screamed back towards the church, then he said something unintelligible, though she could tell it was in the Norse tongue. The words meant nothing to her but she caught their intent clearly. The wolfman was warning away his enemy, telling him that he would die.

She stumbled but the wolfman held her up. Where was he taking her? The moon was a lantern, casting the streets in a bright and empty light but leaving deep shadows beneath the eaves of the buildings.

Then they were out into the square and she saw where they were going — down the alley to the Pilgrims’ Gate. There it was, but locked and guarded. Two men-at-arms came forwards with spears.

‘Lady, we are here for you.’

The wolfman pulled her to a halt, ignoring the advancing warriors, still looking behind him.

‘Up into the house,’ he said. ‘Jump into the water and swim. He will not follow you that way. Fall prisoner to any but him. Do not let him see your face. Do not let him see your face!’

‘Who?’

There were two soft thumps, followed by a sound like the fall of a thousand coins. Both the men-at-arms had collapsed, hauberks crashing to the cobbles. Black-plumed arrows had caught one in an eye, the other through the neck.

‘Go!’ The wolfman leaped to shield her. Another soft thump and a heavy exhalation. The wolfman had taken an arrow to the back. He still had the strength to push her towards a door. She pulled it then pushed it. It opened and she fell into a small house.

Moonlight split the darkness inside and she saw the huddled faces of women and children looking at her in terror. She pushed through them to a ladder to the next floor. The room erupted in screams and clatter, as the crowd tried to avoid her, to get out, to do anything but sit in frozen fear. She went up one level, where sleeping mats were strewn around, and then to another above it, a lightless place. She felt around the walls, trying to locate a window. She bumped into something — a loom. It was a weaver’s house; there had to be a window for light to work by. She tripped and hit the floor heavily, stood up and pressed on, her hands frantic on the walls.

Then she found it. Cloth had been nailed across the window in a poor attempt to keep out the cold. She tore it back and looked out. She was not on the river side but looking into the street. Something down there slipped from shadow to shadow. Was it the wolfman? There was movement beneath the arch of a doorway. Then it stopped. A figure walked forward from the direction of the great church. He went to the arch and knelt at the edge of the dark. She shivered to look at him. He was a lean dark man, his hair thick with tar so it stood up in a shock. Something had been put into it — feathers, black feathers standing up in a horrid crown. He was completely naked, his body smeared in white clay and ashes so it shone under the moonlight, pale as a corpse. In his hand he carried a bow and on his back was an empty quiver and that cruel curved sword she had seen in the church, now housed in a dull black scabbard. There was something wrong with his skin too, she realised. It had a rough quality to it. She squinted forward through the dark. It didn’t look like smallpox, but she was too far away to tell.