Tim Leach - Smile of the Wolf

I had thought they would come sooner. No doubt they had believed that I would run, that I would not be fool enough to stay as an outlaw. Word must have reached them from Borg that I had not taken my place on the ship. That the sun had set on my last day as a free man.

Those five days had been days of peace. I still had enough food, and had yet to shame myself by stealing from a shepherd’s shieling. I travelled in the day, singing my songs to keep myself company. I slept at night with my head against the flank of my horse, soothed by the gentle rise and fall of his chest, the heavy beat of his heart. For one last time I could be a happy traveller, could fool myself that I still had some kind of freedom.

On the day that I woke and saw those figures on the horizon, I set my heels to the sides of my horse. The chase began in earnest.

Many were the times that I thought I had lost them. I sought the valleys and narrow defiles to hide from their sight, pushed my horse as hard as I could. If the day of my exile had been but a month later, perhaps I might have succeeded. I could have travelled by night and hid in the day, and they never would have been able to follow me. But the late summer days were still long, the nights too short. I could not travel as fast as a free man, for I had to pick my way round the borders of every farm that I rode through, or take to the rocky, unpeopled terrain that slowed me down. Any man I saw might know me for what I was. Any man I saw might choose to kill me.

On some days I managed to get away from my pursuers for a time. A hard morning’s ride, an unseen valley with branching pathways, and those figures on the horizon would vanish for a time. Whatever tracker they had convinced to join them, he knew his trade well. If there was an evening where I could no longer see them, inevitably that next morning I would rise to see those shapes on the horizon once more. And my horse was beginning to tire.

How long would they follow me? How far would they go? They were men with farms, families, a winter to prepare for. Would they be willing to risk all of that to hunt down an outlaw?

All depended on who was with them, how strong their loyalty was. Björn would lead them, Snorri at his side, and those kinsmen he had rallied for the chase. There would be others there, tempted by something other than revenge and kinship. Some bought with silver to join the band, and there would always be those who hunted for the pleasure of killing. Half-tamed men who longed to murder, and who would take up arms in pursuit of any outlaw, no matter who that man might be.

My hope was the mountains, the winter, ice and snow and stone the only allies who might come to help me. And so I made my way towards the heart of our island, a tomb of ice and snow where no man could live for long.

I pressed on towards the mountains, praying for the snow to fall.

I could not say on what day it was that I came upon the river. A week after I had begun to run, perhaps it was more, for already the days ran into one another and I slept little.

It was angry, fast-flowing, high rocky banks on either side. Impassable for much of its length, though I knew where it could be forded. For I had come this way long ago, as I came up from the south to the west. Further south, there was a turn in the river where it grew slow and a brave man might force his horse through before the cold stole his strength. I could only hope that my followers did not know of that place.

I found it, that place where the river turned shallow. I had crossed it six years before, fleeing a part of the country that I could no longer call home. Now I crossed it again, running again, and turned my horse towards the north.

The mountains grew tall in front of me and I dozed in my saddle as I rode, for the sun was warm and the air still.

‘Kjaran.’

I shuddered at the sound, thinking it a word from a dream.

‘Kjaran!’

My name repeated. I lifted my tired head, looked across the river. They were there: a dozen men on horseback, the warband that pursued me.

I sat upright, reaching for the sword at my side, the taste of iron in my mouth. Yet they were on the other side of the river. A little more than a bowshot away, but it would take them half a day’s hard riding to reach me. I could not quite believe: it seemed impossible for danger to be so close, yet so far away.

It was Björn who had called to me, and now he did not seem to know what it was that he should say next. One goes on the hunt to kill a murderer, not a tired rider half-asleep in his saddle. Björn rode one of the largest horses I had ever seen, yet it was as though he were riding a colt, so small did it seem under him. He was not quite as tall as Hrolf the Walker, the great Viking whom no horse could bear, but there was something absurd in seeing his heels almost clip the ground as he rode.

They drew up on the banks and I saw one of them look down into the water to see if it might be crossed. I knew that a roaring torrent would greet him that no man could hope to swim through alive, sharp wet stones that no man could climb.

‘Come here, Kjaran,’ Björn said. ‘Let us speak.’

I saw no bow amongst them, but I came forward carefully. One of them might have a good arm and a spear to hand, and they did not need to strike me to kill me. They had merely to wound my horse and they would have me soon enough. And so I did not come to the bank as they did – merely came close enough to speak.

Yet still, we did not talk for a time. Merely stared at each other, while they drew no closer and I drew no further away, the only sounds the water and the wind. I had the thought, the mad, hopeful thought, that somehow we might both stay there. Found a settlement on each side of the river, ever watchful, unable to harm one another. That we would grow old looking across the divided land.

‘You go north, then,’ Björn said. ‘You think to go around the mountains?’

‘That is right,’ I replied. I looked beyond him, to the men who followed him. ‘How far will you go for another man’s feud?’ I said, and I saw Ketil Hakonsson there with them. ‘I am sorry to see you here, Ketil. I thought you a better man than this.’

Ketil shook his head. ‘You should not have stayed, Kjaran. Why did you not go when you could?’

I made no reply. I was not certain that I could have answered him.

‘A shameful thing, to run like this,’ Björn said.

‘A shameful thing,’ I said, ‘to hunt one man with a dozen.’

‘We should not speak with him,’ said Ketil.

Björn turned to him, his face red with anger. ‘I will speak if I want to!’

Ketil shook his head and looked at the ground. ‘We should not speak with him.’

‘He is right,’ I said. ‘We should not speak. Go home. There is no honour in this.’

‘No,’ Björn said. ‘But there is revenge.’ He turned to the warband. ‘I would speak with him alone. I would speak with the man who killed my brother.’

The others turned their horses and rode away. Björn dismounted, drew his hand-axe and knife and laid them upon the ground.

He came to the bank open-handed. ‘Let us speak. I have no weapon.’

‘You still have your sword.’

He spat on the ground. ‘You think I will throw that at you?’

I tugged on my horse’s reins, turned him away, and touched my heels to his flanks.

‘I want to speak to you about Gunnar.’

I should have kept riding. I should have spoken with him no further. But already I had stilled my horse and he knew that his words had found a mark. And so I swung down and walked to the bank.

‘What would you say to me?’

‘Vigdis told me the truth,’ he said.

‘What do you mean?’

‘You lied at the Althing. I know it was not you who killed my brother.’