Ivar grunted to show he agreed, but he had to pee, and he was feeling distinctly queasy with that powerful stink of goat cheese right beneath his nose, yet he wasn’t sure he had the strength to get up off the log bench.
“Do we have horses?” he asked finally. “Or can you ride?”
“I can ride!” Erkanwulf slapped the tray down beside Ivar and moved away, his shoulders tense, by which Ivar deduced muddily that he had offended him. “My lord.” He walked out into the clearing, quiver shifting on his back, and fastidiously wiped off the tiny scroll before tucking it into his belt pouch. Now he didn’t need Ivar at all.
Who did, after all? Not even and not especially his own father, who had given him to the church as a punishment, knowing that Ivar had far different hopes and dreams, which by now had disintegrated into ashes and dust.
It was all too much. He retched, but there was nothing more than bile in his stomach, and after a few heaves he just sat there shaking and wishing he had actually died on that cart. He rubbed his hands together to warm them and caught a finger on the ring Baldwin had slipped on his finger—a fine piece of lapis lazuli simply set in a plain silver band. Ai, God! The token reminded him of Baldwin’s stricken face; he had to survive if only to let Baldwin know he wasn’t dead. It wasn’t fair to allow Baldwin to go on grieving over a man who was still living.
Yet why did living have to entail so much misery?
For some reason he wondered where Hanna was, or if she were still alive, and the thought of her made him begin to cry, a sniveling, choking whine that he hated although he couldn’t stop because his stomach was all cramped and the mallet in his head kept whacking away in time to the pulse of his heart. Just before he wet himself, he managed to push up and reel, stumbling, to the edge of the forest and there relieve the pressure. He shuffled back to the bench and curled up beside the stump, praying for oblivion.
Lady Fortune, or the saint to whom the chapel was dedicated, had mercy on him. He slept hard, without dreams, and woke a moment later although by now it was dusk. An owl hooted. He recognized that sound as the one that had startled him awake.
His headache was gone and although his mouth was dry and had a foul taste, he could stand without trouble even if every joint felt as stiff as if he needed a good greasing.
“Erkanwulf?” he croaked. “Ho, there! Erkanwulf?”
There was no answer.
I’ve been abandoned.
Wind creaked the branches. Twigs rattled and murmured like a crowd of gossips. A pale light bobbed away among the boles, and he rubbed his eyes, thinking some mischievous demon had corrupted his sight to make him see visions, but the light still wove and dipped like that of a will-o’-the-wisp. He got a sudden creeping pricking sensation in his shoulders and back although he stood with his back to the curving chapel wall, which was a stout shield, a comfort to the righteous.
“Erkanwulf,” he whispered, but no answer came, nor did he see any movement except that of the ghostly light.
He heard voices. He took a step back and rammed up against the stump, tipped backward, and was brought up short by the huge iron Circle. The sharp cold of iron burned through cloak and tunic to sear his flesh.
A torch wavered into view, followed by a second, and a dozen soldiers thundered cursing into the clearing. They stopped and turned, standing back to back and holding out their torches to survey the lay of the ground.
“This must be the old church what the man said,” said one of them. “But there’s no graveyard, just this old tree and that bit of a ruin there.” He gestured toward the chapel, but evidently none of them saw Ivar hiding in the shadows. “Captain was right. It were some kind of trick to sneak a man out—”
They stilled so abruptly that the hush that fell had a presence as though it were itself a vast and ominous creature stalking the stalkers. Light flickered deep within the woods. A breathy whistle broke the silence, then stuttered to a stop. Branches rustled. A cold wind brought goose bumps to Ivar’s neck.
“Hai!” shouted one of the soldiers before pitching over onto his face. A thread of light glimmered in his back, then dissolved into dying sparks that winked out one by one.
Shades emerged from the forest on all sides, creatures that had the bodies of men and the faces of animals: wolf, lizard, lynx, crow, bear, vulture, fox, and more that he could not identify as their darts flew into the clot of soldiers, most of whom shrieked and ran while a few lifted shields and leaped forward to fight. Yet the shades had no solid substance, nothing to receive the strike of an ax; they could kill but were themselves immune.
