The Sword of Wayland by Gavin Chappell
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‘What if they return?’
Oswald looked from Edwin to Bork and back again. The thief was deep in thought; the Dane was tugging at his beard meditatively.
‘But if they are men…’ Bork said suddenly. Another search of the area had revealed the imprint of a naked foot in the mud near the fire.
‘I’m not so sure that footprint was a man’s,’ Edwin replied.
‘It looked human to me,’ remarked Oswald. ‘A little large, but…’
‘It’s too dark to take another look,’ Edwin said, nodding towards the cave entrance where the gloom had begun to swoop up and swallow the forest in darkness. ‘But even if our visitors were human, it could still mean a fight, possibly against insurmountable odds. Besides, there’s the smell to consider.’
‘Perhaps they’re just more robbers,’ suggested Bork. ‘Ones who wash even less than you two.’
‘Robbers who smashed an oak stump with one blow?’ Edwin asked. ‘No. I’m convinced that they’re something worse.’
‘Perhaps we should move to another one of your hideouts,’ suggested Oswald. ‘If they have tracked us here. Maybe they’re the same ones who slew Egfrid’s men.’
Edwin nodded. ‘That’s a good point, and a good idea,’ he said. ‘But it’s dark now. There’s no way we could get to the closest of our hideouts in the dark, and we might be walking into a trap. It’s a long walk even in daylight, and I wouldn’t want to try it with enemies lurking around us.
‘I say we stay here tonight, but maintain a watch. This is a well-defended spot, after all - if they do attack. I’ll take first watch.’
‘I’ll take second,’ Bork rumbled.
‘That leaves me with the third, then,’ Oswald said with a smile. ‘I’ll grab some sleep.’
He woke to find Bork shaking him.
In the dim starlight from the cave mouth, the Dane himself seemed like a wild man of the woods, and Oswald steeled himself not to shrink away.
‘Any news?’ he asked. Bork shook his head.
‘Quiet as the grave out there,’ he said. ‘During his watch, Edwin thought he heard some noises, like something approaching through the woods below, but nothing disturbed me. Now I’m going to get some sleep.’ He wrapped himself in his cloak and he was snoring almost instantly.
Oswald went to the mouth of the cave. The night air was cold. Beyond the cave, the dark forest stretched away as far as the verge of the starry sky. All was still.
A distant wolf-howl split the night air far to the north, where a gibbous moon gleamed dimly through the clouds. Oswald turned his attention to the valley below. It was silent. He moved to the edge of the cliff and peered over. In these conditions, he’d be hard put to see a bride in her wedding gown. Sighing, he sat down, and his thoughts turned to Godiva.
A scrape from above him made him whirl round, and scan the beetling cliff above him. In the darkness, he could see nothing. He strained his ears, but caught no more than the hooting of owls in the distance.
After a while, he relaxed. Nerves, he told himself sternly. The noise had been a small animal of some kind, if anything. He sat back down and stared out across the silent forest.
His nostrils twitched. A smell had reached them, a stench like a swamp, or a midden, or a tannery. How far were they from the nearest settlement? As far as he was aware, the forest covered a vast triangle of land, with Watling Street to the northeast, the Fosse Way bordering it to the southeast and Icknield Street to the southwest. The closest settlement big enough to possess a tannery was Warwick, and that was miles to the south. A tannery…
In an instant, everything clicked into place. His heart thudding loudly, he turned to move, and as he did so, he heard a scrape from the rock behind him. Before he could get any further, a sickening, reeking stench enveloped him. At the same time, two strong hands clamped themselves over his mouth. Then the stars wheeled above him as he felt himself lifted up into the air…
The silence split with a single high-pitched scream, and Oswald got a brief, confusing impression of the silent night bursting into life. Small figures bounded up the cliff while larger, clumsier creatures stumbled after them. Fierce battle raged between the two groups, and occasionally, one or another would fall choking to the ground, cut down by one of its opponents.
A hum throbbed from the air around Oswald, and he felt his captor jerk suddenly. Struggling to move in the creature’s iron grasp, Oswald gasped, realising that it was toppling slowly forward. The ground rose up to meet them, and darkness surrounded the thane.
Pinned to the ground, Oswald could do no more than struggle feebly, while all around a chorus of screams and roars told him the enigmatic battle was raging on, the now familiar ‘Aroo-AROO-aroo!’ mingling with voices that seemed almost human.
Struggle as he might, the weight was too much for him. He ceased his attempt, and lay listening. The battle seemed to be dying down, although who was the victor and who the vanquished he could not know.
Slowly, silence descended upon the forest one more, broke every so often by an occasional distant roar or shout. Oswald renewed his attempts to shift the heavy body.
‘Bork?’ he called. ‘Edwin? Are you there?’
Suddenly, he felt the weight shift from his shoulders.
‘Quick!’ came Edwin’s voice. ‘Scramble out! We can’t keep it up much longer!’
Oswald heaved himself clear, scrabbling across the rock and getting to his feet. Dusting himself down, he turned to his two companions.
‘Thanks for that,’ he said gratefully. ‘I couldn’t move the thing…’ He broke off. They were staring in horror at the corpse.
Though not notably tall, the thing was as big and bulky as he had expected. Fur covered its ape-like body, but its arms and legs seemed almost human in their proportions. A brutal face scowled from beneath a sloping brow; lifeless eyes glittered beneath jutting brow-ridges and a thick nose. Its mouth hung slackly open to reveal sharp fangs.
Jutting from its torso were three arrows.
‘What in God’s name is it?’ whispered Edwin. He turned to Oswald. ‘We heard a scream - it woke us. But before I’d reached the cave mouth, the night was alive with battle. I thought at first that the king’s men had caught up with us, and that you were fighting them…’
Oswald laughed bitterly. ‘Nothing so heroic,’ he replied. ‘I was pinned down by that thing all the time the battle raged.’
Edwin nodded. ‘I realised that pretty quick,’ he replied. ‘Well, Bork and me crept to the edge of the cave and watched the fight, but we could make out very little. After a while, the combatants moved off into the forest, the larger pursued by the smaller. Then we heard you call, from under this…’
‘But what is it?’ Bork demanded. Grunting, he heaved the corpse up by its shoulders to glare into its dead eyes, but dropped it immediately. ‘It’s heavy,’ he said emphatically.
‘It’s a woodwose,’ Oswald said quietly.
‘Yes,’ Edwin said. ‘It stinks just like the others.’ He laughed. ‘I know a tavern south of here, down in Warwick, called the Sign of the Woodwose.’ He shook his head. ‘Didn’t look much like this, though.’
‘But the others,’ Oswald said. ‘The ones who were fighting them. Who were they? Their voices sounded almost... human.’
Edwin knelt beside the corpse, and touched one of the arrows.
‘Odd design,’ he remarked. Then he grabbed it, took a breath, and wrenched it out.
His eyes widened. ‘Look!’ he cried.
Oswald stared at the arrowhead. ‘That’s stone, isn’t it?’ he asked.
Edwin nodded, and felt it, ignoring the blood that clotted it.
‘Flint,’ he added simply.
‘Thor!’ breathed Bork. ‘Only one kind of archer uses flint arrowheads!’
‘Yes,’ replied Edwin quietly. ‘And I’d always thought them no more than legend.’
‘What do you mean?’ Oswald asked, bewildered. ‘What kind of arr
Edwin looked at him.
‘Didn’t your nursemaid ever tell you anything?’ he asked. ‘Nothing about woses and bogles, and dwarves… and elves?’
‘Elves?’ gasped Oswald.
‘Yes,’ replied Edwin, tapping the flint arrowhead. ‘This is elf-shot.’