Tim Leach - Smile of the Wolf

I rolled back from him, scrabbling along the snow on all fours. He stared at me, disbelieving, and he tried to stand, his hand reaching for the axe at his side. He tried to stand and his ruined leg gave way beneath him. I had felt the skin part deeply under the cut I had given him, but he did not know his wound until that moment. I could see the white of bone, the cords of his leg exposed like cut worms.

He embraced himself, arranging and rearranging his arms again and again over the wounds I had given him, for there were too many to cover. He was lost for a moment in his pain – eyes closed and teeth bared. Then it seemed that he remembered me.

‘Do not shame me,’ he said.

I looked beyond him, into the storm. Thinking that I had heard distant sounds, drawing closer. That they were coming back.

‘Do not shame me!’ he cried again.

But I turned from him and ran back across the snow. Back to the rocky paths at the heart of the mountains, leaving a dying man behind. And, before all sound was stolen by the wind, I heard him plead with me one last time.

I heard him plead with me to kill him.

I wandered, lost in the storm, looking for a place to die.

Every step I could feel the life pouring out of me, like blood from some deep and terrible wound. All I wished for was sleep, to lie on the snow and sleep.

There is a longing of a man who faces hopeless odds in battle. It is the longing to kill one man at least, to not die without spilling the blood of one who has come for you. You have killed one, the mind seems to say, and that is enough. Lie down and die if you wish, for you have done enough.

The snow fell thicker and thicker, the memory of the blood the only warmth that I had. And as I took another step I knocked loose a rock, heard it dance and scatter down towards my left. I followed that sound, and beneath the snow and stone I saw something. Not a path, but a gully that seemed to lead down from the mountain.

I stumbled down: careless, clumsy steps that were buried in snow, slipped across icy stone. I fell, time and time again. Slumping against the white blanket on the ground, closing my eyes for a moment of exquisite rest, then coming to my feet again.

‘One more step,’ I whispered to myself. One more step.

And then the ground levelling before me, the storm growing weaker and weaker until the way was clear and I could see where it was that the gods had taken me.

It was another world of black stone. A bare and empty valley, no shelter to be seen, no grass. No man had walked in this place for a hundred years at least.

I fell and could not get back up. Again and again I tried to stand, but I could feel some great, unseen weight upon my chest. I knew that I had gone as far as I could. At least I would not die in the mountains. At least I would not die at the hands of those who hunted me.

I looked out at the hand that had held the knife, that had maimed a man I had once called a friend, and I could feel nothing from it. I lay down in the snow and I waited to die.

I wandered from sleep to waking, time and time again. I had hoped to dream of Sigrid, but I dreamed of nothing at all. Only a silent dimness, like being under deep still water.

I woke one more time, and before me there was a figure in the darkness. He was no trick of the mind, for I could feel his heavy tread against the ground. I thought, for a moment, that he was one of my pursuers, that against all odds they had followed me to this place. But it was a man I did not know.

A ghost, perhaps, of another outlaw who had died in this place, come to guard his territory from the living. His clothing a patchwork of rags, his eyes rolling wild, a chipped axe held in his hand. Yet there was a dripping carcass slung to his back – a fox, skinned and bloody, and I knew that he was no ghost. For the dead do not need to feed.

He knelt beside me, unstoppered a leather skin that he slung around his neck. I could smell the sweetness of mead. Life was in that smell, and poetry and love. The strength to stand and fight again. I ached for it and reached out, but he drew it back from my hand.

He gave a bark and a cough – a man remembering how to speak. Then he spoke.

‘Why should I save you?’

I could not understand and did not answer. He grabbed my chin and shook me.

‘Listen! Tell me why I should save you.’

My lips moved, but no words came. He sat back, preparing to stand, preparing to leave me in the snow. And, his voice marked with regret, he spoke to me one more time.

‘What can you do?’

I knew then what I had to say. What it was that I had to offer this man, the only thing of value that I had in that waste of ice and snow.

‘I can sing,’ I said.

I remember nothing more after that.

When I woke there was no sky above, no mountains surrounding me. Only shadows dancing on the walls of a cave. And, close by, the sound and the feel of a fire.

I shrank from it as the first man to strike fire must have done, fearing his own creation, believing that he was going to burn the world away with his strange, flickering gift.

It endured only for a moment. Then I had a hunger for the fire, crawling as close to it as I could stand. I held my hands out to it and could smell the hair burning, yet I could feel no heat in my fingers.

As I moved, something stirred on the other side of the fire. A great shadow moved on its hands and knees to my side, for he was tall and the top of the cave was close to me.

I saw him better now than I had out in the snow. His hair was the colour of wet iron, tied back tight against his head, yet his eyes were alive with youth, or madness. When he turned his head to face me, by the light of the fire I saw that one ear was gone, a ragged lump of flesh and scar all that remained on the right side of his head.

He gave me a sip of water. I gestured for more, but he withdrew it after I had barely wetted my lips. He rested his head against one palm and stared at me for a time. Then he said:

‘I think you will die. A fever, most likely.’ He turned away, stirred the fire, then looked back to me once more. ‘I will give you a little food and water. I do not have much and I will not waste it. If you live a week, I will give you more. Do you understand?’

‘I understand.’

‘Do not foul this cave. Call me when the need takes you and I will carry you out.’ He paused. ‘It is a long time since I have shared a place with anyone. I will try to remember. But do not test me.’

Blackness came again – as swiftly as river ice breaking, cold dark water swallowing me. When I woke again, he had not seemed to move.

‘You are an outlaw?’ I said.

‘You think that a free man would choose to live in this place? You are as well, I suppose.’

‘Yes.’

He leaned forward, close enough for me to smell the stink of his breath. ‘Do you know who I am?’ he said.

‘I do not know you. Are you from the north?’

He leaned back, seemingly satisfied. ‘Yes. And you have come from the west?’

‘I lived in the south, once. Then in the west.’

‘And now, here.’ He leaned back against the wall of the cave and his eyes followed the dancing flames. ‘My name is Thoris. They call me Kin-slayer.’ He paused. ‘You know me now, I think.’

I had heard the story. ‘You killed your brother,’ I said.

‘Yes. I killed my brother. I wanted to marry his wife.’

He lapsed into silence. There was nothing else to be said. For a man may kill for many reasons. To answer an insult, to take revenge, to avoid shame. For silver or land or power. But our people hold no honour in killing for love.

‘When I found you. Whose blood was on you?’ he asked.