They forded the stream, picking up the pad marks again in the soft earth on the far side, and pressed on. All that morning while the sun rose high into a sky of drifting cloud and storm-washed blue, and the broken tumble of light and shadow sailed lazily across the High Chalk, Drem and his companions followed the trail of the big dog wolf through the deep mazes of the forest; very occasionally by a pad mark, more often by a single brindled hair on a low-hanging thorn branch, by a few side-brushed blades of grass, by the distant alarm call of a jay; by all the thousand and one signs, not there for any save the trained hunter, that told of a wolf passing that way. The hazel scrub and wild fruit trees and the red, sap-bloomed alders of the forest fringe had given way by little and little to the small, dense damp-oaks of the Wild, and as they pushed farther and farther into the dark heart of the forest, dense tangles of yew and holly crowded ever more thickly about them. It was not a tall forest, but a dark one; grey-misted, brown-shadowed, green-gloomed, and the hunting band, moving with the light swiftness of questing hounds, moved in a twilit world, where the sunlight, splashing in through the tangle of bursting oak twigs overhead or between the black rook-wing branches where a yew had fallen, seemed to burn with a brilliance that was sharp-edged as a sword cut and gave off none of its light into the misty glooms of the surrounding forest. When summer came and the trees were in full leaf there would be no sunlight at all, even to stripe and dapple the darkness. A cold and heavy smell hung between the trees, and there were few birds here. Only suddenly, not far off, a jay screamed its warning.
Drem checked an instant, the little cold thrill closing round his heart; then he began to run, circling wide so as to come upwind on the place where the jay had sounded its alarm call. And the rest of the band were hard behind him; a swift and silent running of shadows among the trees.
Stronger light glimmered through the twisted and crowding trunks ahead, and somewhere to the right the jay called again; and slipping low under the drooping branches of a great forest yew, he found himself crouching on the edge of a clearing. In the midst of the open space, a dense mass of thorn and elder and wayfaring trees thrusting up into the light and air, almost hid from sight a kind of low, overhanging cliff of earth and rock, caused maybe by some landslide in the rains of a long past winter, that closed the far side of the clearing. But Drem knew as surely as though he could see the cave mouth with his own eyes, that somewhere in there, under the dark overhang and the crowding bushes, was the lair of the wolf that they had trailed so far.
He made a small, swift sign to the others behind him; and knew, though no breath of movement told him so, that they had slipped away, right and left, to draw their ring about the place. Drem crouched motionless in the brown gloom under the yew branches, his hand clenched on the spear shaft until the knuckles shone white. His nostrils windened, and little tremors ran through his body, houndwise, as the smell of wolf came to him down the wind.
The faintest movement, the swaying of a branch in one place, the stirring of a tall bramble spray in another, signalled to him that the others were in place all round the clearing. This was the moment, then! He stood up. The others were up almost in the same movement; he could see them all round the circle, closing in towards where, somewhere in the dense scrub before them, the wolf must be aware of their coming and watching them come. The time for silence was past now, and they began to shout, their voices chiming together and rising into the tree tops. ‘Ty-yi-yah-eee!’ And with the rising voices, Drem’s heart seemed to rise too, beating upwards with a wild exultancy: ‘Ty-yi-ee! Yah-ee-ty-yi-yi!’ as they came closing in through the long grass and the brambles.
And then suddenly the wolf was there. With a crashing of twigs and small branches it sprang into the open, then, seeing the hunters all about it, checked almost in mid spring, swinging its head from side to side, with laid-back ears and wrinkled muzzle: a great, brindled dog wolf, menace in every raised hackle. Then, as though it knew with which of the hunters it had to deal, as though it expected him, it looked full at Drem. For a long moment it stood there, tensed to spring, savage amber eyes on his as though it knew and greeted him. The rest of the band had checked at a small distance, spears ready; but Drem was no longer aware of them; only of the wolf, his wolf. The thing was between him and his wolf, life for life, and the Warrior Scarlet.
It seemed to him that the open jaws with their lolling tongue were grinning at him as he leapt forward and ran in low, his spear drawn back to strike. And at the same instant the wolf sprang.
Quite what happened he never knew; it was all so quick, so hideously quick. His foot came down on something agonizingly sharp that stabbed through the soft raw-hide of his shoe and deep into his flesh—a torn furze root perhaps—throwing him for one instant off his balance. It was only for the merest splinter of time, but twisting to regain his balance, somehow he missed his thrust; and the wolf was on him. He had one piercing flash of realization; a vision of a snarling head that seemed to fill his world—yellow fangs and a wet black throat; and then sky and bushes spun over each other. He was half under the brute, he felt a searing, tearing pain in his right shoulder, he smelled death. The wolf’s hot breath was on his face as he struggled wildly to shorten his spear for a dagger-stab, his chin jammed down in a despairing attempt to guard his throat; while at the same moment something in him—another Drem who was standing apart from all this—was knowing with a quiet and perfect clearness like a sky at summer evening: ‘This is the end, then. It is Gault’s fire for me . . .’
He heard shouting, and at the edge of his awareness caught the downward strike of another spear blade. There seemed to be another struggle rolling over him, and confusedly he knew that the wolf had turned from his throat. He heard its snarl rise to a sudden yelping howl; he was aware of a great weight gone from him, a crashing away through the bushes, a burst of more distant shouting; a moment of oddly terrible quiet. And in the quiet, scarcely knowing what he did, he dragged himself to his knees, shuddering and gasping for breath, his spear still in his hand. And Vortrix’s arm came down to him, helping him to his feet.
Blood from the long fang-slash in his shoulder spattered down, bright on to Vortrix’s hand, just as it had done on the day so long, long ago, when they had become blood brothers. They looked at each other across the silence, and then, ashamed to look at each other because of what had come between them, looked away. The other boys were gathering about them, breathing fast. Someone said, ‘The brute is clear away—na, the lair is empty. We shall not see that one again.’ And someone said: ‘It was no ordinary wolf. Surely it was a ghost wolf, or it could never have escaped after that thrust of yours, Vortrix.’
Drem leaned weakly on his spear and looked at Vortrix again. ‘You should have left the thing between my wolf and me,’ he said, but his mouth was so dry that the words came out only as a choking whisper.
Vortrix was deadly white, grey-white to the very lips, and his eyes looked blind. He shook his head, but said no word. There was nothing to be said, Drem knew, nothing to be done. Even if he could stop the bleeding in his shoudler and track down the wounded wolf again and slay it—before sunset, it must be before sunset—it would do no good, for Vortrix would have had a hand in the killing; and the killing must be between wolf and New Spear alone. That was the custom.
Everything seemed unreal and far off. Somebody brought him a handful of moss to press against his shoulder, and he took it, slipping his arm through the thong of his spear, and gathered himself slowly upright. He looked about him at his fellows; and the familiar faces looked back, silently, not quite meeting his eyes. He saw that as though by common consent, they had parted their circle about him, and understood that the gap was for him to walk out through; out and away. His brothers of the Boys’ House were offering him the only mercy that they had it in their power to give; that he might go now, to live, or more likely die, as the forest chose, instead of coming back to face the shame. He was free to turn to the forest as he had turned to it that night six
summers ago, when it had all begun. It would be the easiest way. But that night six summers ago had been the last time that Drem had turned tail. He had fought so long and so hard that now he couldn’t stop fighting; he couldn’t take the easy way, though he longed for it.
‘The forest is all around you,’ Luga said.
Drem shook his head. ‘Na,’ he said. ‘Na.’ And could say no more because of the dryness in his mouth. He gathered himself together, and slipped the spear thong up to his shoulder; then, still pressing the reddened moss against his hurt, turned back in the direction that they had come. The others fell a little behind, but Vortrix walked with him.
X
‘Brother, My Brother!’
AT DUSK THAT evening, having faced Kylan, having faced the Boys’ House, Drem went home.
They were all at the evening stew, round the hearth in the familiar house-place; and they looked up and saw him leaning in the doorway, on the dim edge of the firelight, with the remains of the Wolf Pattern still on his forehead, and the dried and clotted wound in his shoulder. And for one moment it was in the hearts of all of them that he was a ghost. He saw it there; he saw the fear in his mother’s eyes. Well, in a way he was a ghost—dead to the Tribe. A boy who failed in his Wolf Slaying and did not die was dead to the Tribe. It was the custom.
Then Whitethroat, who had sprung up with the other hounds at his coming, gave a piercing whine and came running to him, crouching low, in very different manner from his usual joyous greeting, and the still moment, the icy moment, was past. His mother had risen swiftly to her feet. ‘What is it? Ah, you are hurt—your shoulder—’
Drem looked about him. He saw that the loom by the door was empty, and a piece of cloth lay folded at its foot as though it had been newly cut from it; fine chequered cloth of Warrior Scarlet woven with the dark green of juniper leaves. And his heart twisted with a physical pain under his ribs. He said hoarsely, ‘If that was meant for me, my mother, let you take it for a new cloak for Drustic. I have failed in my Wolf Slaying.’
He thought that he should never forget his mother’s cry. It was not loud; quite a little cry, but it seemed to be torn from her raw and bleeding, and it hurt him as he had not known that it was possible to be hurt.
Cathlan, the Grandfather, on his folded bearskin beside the fire, leaned forward to peer at him through the wreathing smoke fronds, his golden eyes almost hidden under the down-twitched grey-gold brows. Then he tossed the bone he had been gnawing over his shoulder to a waiting hound, and spat harshly and disgustedly into the flames. ‘What did I say, son’s wife? What did I say, six summers ago?’
Drustic was staring at him, too, his pleasant square face bogged deep in trouble. He opened his mouth and then shut it again, as though he wanted to say something but couldn’t think what.
Drem came in to the fireside—the first time in three years that he had crossed the threshold of his home; the last time, maybe, in all his life—and squatted down, with Whitethroat crouched against his knee. ‘Is there no food for me?’ he demanded, harshly defiant. ‘I have not eaten for a night and a day.’
His mother was pressing her hands across her forehead. ‘Food? Yes—yes, there is food. But first—at least let me bind your wound.’
‘It will do well enough as it is,’ Drem said. ‘I want food before I must be away, no more.’
Blai, unnoticed in the shadows until that moment, had risen to her feet. ‘I will see to it,’ she said; and brought him a bowl of stew and a barely cake, and gave them to him without another word.
He took them from her and ate furiously. He had not eaten for a day and a night, as he said; one did not eat before hunting, and besides, he had been too afraid. But there was nothing to be afraid of any more, because the worst thing that could possibly happen to him had happened. So he ate fiercely and swiftly, tearing the meat from the bones with his teeth, and tossing the bones to Whitethroat against his knees. It was his mother and brother and the silent Blai, watching him, who did not eat. The Grandfather ate, but then nothing in the world would come between him and his food.
When at last Drem could eat no more, he rubbed his hand in the brown, piled fern to cleanse it, and looked round him; a long, long look; at the faces of his kin, at the familiar, firelit, shadowy house-place. He saw the firelight falling saffron coloured across the hearth stone, the long, jagged knot high up on the roof tree where a branch had been when it was a growing oak tree in the forest, the dappled cream and tawny deerskin hanging before his mother’s sleeping stall, and the bronze and bull’s-hide shield hanging from the edge of the loft, that would never now be his to carry. All the long-familiar things that he had not seen for three years, and after tonight, would never see again.
Then he got to his feet, saying to Whitethroat, ‘Come, brother, it is time that we were away.’
His mother, who had remained standing all the while, braced against the roof tree, as though she were bound there, came and set her hands almost timidly on his shoulders. ‘Where are you away to? Cubbling, what will you do?’
‘I will go to the Half People, as you said six summers ago—you and the Grandfather both—that I must go if I failed,’ Drem said. ‘I will go to Doli and the sheep.’
‘So you heard,’ his mother said; and he saw her eyes straining in her beautiful, dagger-thin face, and the desire to hurt as he had been hurt rose within him. He had not forgiven her for that small, agonized cry.
‘You always wondered, didn’t you? Aye, I heard, every word. I was in the loft; I had come in by the roof strip meaning to drop on you like an earwig out of the thatch—a child I was; but I was never so much a child again, after that day . . . That was why I ran to the forest; only Talore One-hand found me and bade me come back and fight for the thing if I would have it. And I have fought, the Sun Lord knows that I have fought, these six years gone by. But the Grandfather was right after all.’ His voice, which had become a man’s voice in the past year, cracked, and steadied again. ‘Let you be glad of Drustic, as you bade the Grandfather to be glad of Drustic. You’ll not be without a son to stand with the Men’s side, when I am herding sheep.’
She cried out again at that, and her second cry seemed to undo what the first had done. He wanted to put his arm round her and drive his head into the warm, soft hollow of her neck as he had used to do when he was small, but he did not dare, lest he should weep like a woman. It was better to go on being angry. Anger was a kind of shield. His mother had dropped her hands from his shoulders. ‘Drustic is a good son, but it is better to have two sons—better two sons than one . . . And this time there will be no coming back.’
‘Na, this time there will be no coming back.’
He turned, with Whitethroat at his heel, blundering past Blai, whose pinched, white face swam for an instant into his sight as though it floated in dark water, and went out into the spring dusk. The ponies in the fore porch advanced soft muzzles to him, but he blundered past them also. Behind him he heard a movement as though his mother made to rush after him; and Drustic’s voice saying urgently ‘Na na, my mother, there is no good that you can do!’
And he plunged on into the dusk with the sound of sudden wild weeping in his ears.
He was going out, stripped and alone, from his whole world, leaving behind him his people, the comradeship of his own kind, even his own gods. Many of the Half People bowed themselves to the Sun Lord, but he was going not only to the Half People but to Doli; to the little Dark People, the children of Tah-Nu; and he knew that little by little he would lose his own faith that was sharp and fierce and bright as a spear blade; turn from the Sun Father and the open sky, to the older faith of Doli and his kind, to the warm suffocating darkness and the Earth Mother who gave all things birth.
He turned his steps towards the sheltered fold of the downs high above the village, where the turf-walled lambing pens stood for use each winter. In a little now, after the Beltane fires were burned out, the shepherd kind would take the ewes and their lambs up to the High Chalk a
gain, to the summer sheep runs, but now sheep and shepherds would still be there, and Doli with them.
It was long after dark when he came up the combe and saw the gleam of firelight from the doorhole of the low turf bothie beside the pens, and heard the faint rustle of the penned flock and the bleating of a lamb that had woken to find itself apart from its mother; and a great baying of herd dogs broke out, making him stoop quickly and catch Whitethroat by his bronze-bossed collar. Then a voice sounded, silencing the dogs, and a little bent figure came ducking out through the firelit doorway, and turned to peer down the combe.
‘Who comes?’
‘It is I, Drem,’ Drem called back.
Doli, for it was Doli, spoke to the dogs again, and they lay down on either side of him. He stood without any movement, leaning on his broad-bladed spear, and waited for Drem to come up to him.
‘It is past barley harvest,’ he said, when the boy stood before him; and that was all.
‘It is past six barley harvests,’ Drem said, ‘but I am come at last. You said once that I should make none so ill a shepherd. Do you think so still?’
‘How shall I say, I who have not spoken with you these six barley harvests past?’ And then as a silver wing of moonlight slipped over the shoulder of the combe and spread towards them, the old man looked up at him, slantwise under the grey tangle of his brows. A long considered look. Then he shook his head. ‘I am none so sure. I think that you are more ungentle than you were, six barley harvests ago. Yet it may be that you are gentler with the four-footed kind than with men and women. Why do you ask?’