CHAPTER THE TWENTY-NINETH
It was the deep of winter. The flurries were heavier now and persisted longer. The sky never ceased being a petulant grey.
It was two weeks since Rosa and Sigurd piled furred cloaks on their shoulders and rode resolutely, silently out onto the high road. The memory of the brief rule of Rosa, though not much diminished was already fading about the edges. The people of the Veld were warmer with Lilia now, too. Though if it were merely their duty to smile, or a growing understanding that she had been lied about and maligned, she did not know. Time would let her heal matters. Give it time.
"Still spending your days here?"
Lilia looked about, not in fright, but sharply all the same. She was bathed in the grey light of a winter noon, and the wind stirred the loose strands of her hair. Strewn about her feet lay the suggestions of a slumbering garden: old pots, a broken trowel, heaps of frozen manure. Here and there, the walls were still greened by ribbons of moss but there was a shimmer of frost lacing them too, and icicles clung anywhere one thing overhung another.
"Kveldulf." Lilia's expression wavered from one of wandering reflections to more serious thoughts. "Yes. But seldom." She considered her own words. "And only to be alone. To have time to think. I don't want to remove myself too much. That was a part of my mistake in the first place."
"I'd have thought you'd be done entirely with hiding away in corners." Though he did not mean it to be harsh, his voice lacked humour, and he found himself sounding cold rather than joking.
When she answered, it was only after staring at him for some few moments with her forehead drawn in thought. "A sparrow can no sooner change the dun of its feathers than I can change who I am." A snowflake landed on one cheek and she brushed it away with a smile. "So what does bring you out in the cold in search of me? I think I remember asking you something like that once before. When we first met."
"I remember. Yesterday I had word from one of your hunters. He found a carcass, torn apart and dragged deep into the woods."
"Another sheep or goat?"
"No. An ox this time. There were clear gouges in the snow, so he says, and deep paw prints."
"There are bears in the woods. Father killed one when I was a girl and the pelt is still on the floor of Rosa's old room."
"Bears sleep over winter. And a whole pack of wolves couldn't drag off an ox." Kveldulf looked up at the willow branches drifting on the air. "There were other things. Strange sounds the man could not explain, and markings on the ground, and cut into the trees. He was shaking and pale as a ghost when I spoke with him. So I asked Gnissa to follow the tracks this morning. He has been spying for me."
Lilia looked at him with a curious gaze.
"The greedy little raven is just holding up his end of a bargain we made."
"Oh," said Lilia. "And?"
"He found her."
Her voice lowered, but had a playful touch to it as she said, "So you'll be off to trudge through the snow?" There had been a distinct change in Lilia's tone over the last two weeks. She no longer shied or withdrew from people. She smiled more often. She joked. And it was a sly, knowing sort of smile that suggested there might be more changes to come.
"Yes. I think things here are settled. And you are doing well. Happier now." A moment after saying this, he wondered if he was being too familiar, shifted uncomfortably, and said, "In your rule, I mean. I was worried that some of the folk of the Veld might make trouble for you, but I don't think that is likely. Not now. It's safe enough for me to take myself away."
"Thank you." She walked slowly about the thick trunk of the willow touching it lightly with her fingers as she did. I think I know what you mean. Thank you." She moved as if she were marching lazily through cobwebs. Peeking around the willow, an expression of curiosity lit her eyes, "so will you go and hunt your she-wolf now?"
"I will. Though, for what I have in mind I must see Helg first. Pick up a few things from her. I've been in contact over the last few days." He looked up. The sky was an inter-bleeding of greys and black.
Her eyes darted to his belt. "And that will not be sufficient?" He had four knives now, not three. The fourth knife had been added three days after Lilia was crowned. The blacksmith had to grind the bone fragment into a fine edge for hours--he destroyed four whetstones doing it--and even then he had to burn it with forge-fire to scour away some of the excess bone. But in the end, he was able to make the piece of bone into a dagger. The Freer had not been happy about giving up his relic, but he had grudgingly accepted the helm of Feold to put on display in the shrine instead--after some protracted squabbles, of course.
Kveldulf glanced down at the bone dagger. "This will deal the last blow, I think. But I need to get close enough, and I worry she will vanish as soon as she scents me. I've been stopping by Helg's cottage now and again. She has been brewing up something for me. Here's hoping it works."
"Her tea no doubt." Coming out from behind the tree she grinned, "or the herb brandy. Nice stuff, that."
"Have you any word of your sister?"
Leaning against the tree and folding her arms she let the wind play with her hair, let strands of it float about in front of her eyes. "Maybe you can get me some. A bottle, if Helg can spare it. I did like her brandy. Sweet, but with a rough edge." She turned to look at Kveldulf seemingly caught up in a daydream then whispered suddenly, "Ah yes, my sister. I have been trying to forget. I do not suppose I shall ever see her again."
If you are lucky, is what Kveldulf almost said. Instead he nodded and sucked cold air in through his nose, a deep draught that he exhaled out in a long moment of thought. "Perhaps she will return. You gave her nine years to mend her heart. Time heals wounds. All wounds. So I am told."
"So you are told. So I am told. There are some wounds that go too deep for time. What heals those?"
"An end, I suppose," and Kveldulf thought about this for a moment. "Death."
"Death. How cheery you are. Death? An end to earthly woe. Though, I hope Rosa and Sigurd... I hope they are able to find a happier way to heal their wounds. I hope that I may meet my sister again before we do grow old and die. I hope our wounds do not go too deep for healing. That is all the thought I can spare for my sister without having to stop myself breaking into tears. I have always found it too easy to waste hours in self-pity. It is a habit I mean to break. If I dwell on her too much, I will be right back there again."
"Then hope for them, and be ready to welcome them back, if they return and Rosa is mended. And if they should disappoint you..." Kveldulf made to add something to this. Lilia looked at him expectantly. There had been rumours. Had Lilia heard them? Had anyone told her? It didn't matter. A rumour, that was all.
"Yes?"
"Nothing. I want to see those markings in the woods. I will be gone tonight. A few days, perhaps."
"Goodbye, Kveldulf. Have I thanked you?"
"You have. A number of times," he smiled, "but do not shrug me off so quickly. I will be back no doubt, hungry and cold from the hunt."
She looked at him and her eyes met his and searched. "No," she said, "if you have found what you are hunting you'll not be back."
He was going to dispute that. No, of course he would return, if only to say goodbye, and wait out the winter. He was about to say so, but decided that it wasn't worth getting indignant.
"Goodbye, Kveldulf. And thank you." She gave a soft laugh, "another time. I don't think you have known what you have meant to me."
He nodded, and turned to go, then paused. "Lilia?"
"Yes."
"You should not mistake me for that."
"What do you mean?"
"I am not that thing in your head. Whatever it is, I am not that." He looked at her sadly. "There is no way I could ever be that."
She was quiet for a time, and said in the end only, "I know."
At the door to the garden he stopped, kicked some snow and sludge from his feet, and cast a glance over his shoulder. Lilia was watching him. The angle at which the sunl
ight struck her emblazoned the folds of her dress and her hair with white fire. She smiled and waved at him.
He nodded to her, turned and left.
-oOo-
Helg's cottage was stuffy from being shut tight against the cold for days on end. Rich, flavoursome smells mingled with subtler, acrid scents, and the throat-itching hearth smoke. Although Helg was home, Gnissa was absent. He was not on his perch, a favourite rafter where could sit, sometimes with one eye open, watchful, although more typically, he simply slept away the fire-warmed drowsy hours.
It took a moment for Helg to pour a greasy black soup into a waterskin, cork it up and then grease the seal to keep it from leaking. "Just finished it this morning. Not sure how well it'll work, or if it'll work at all, but far as I can tell everything that Snoro put in his little potion, is in this. The amounts and quantities?" A shrug. "That I cannot say more than, well, I put as best a guess into it as I could." Handing the waterskin to Kveldulf she patted him on the arm and said. "It took me a while to nut out all the smells, you know. A dash of wormwood. A taste of vetch. A smidgen of monkshood. I hope I've got it right, but... well, you know. Maybe. Maybe not."
"It will do." He took the waterskin as if it held the blood of a saint. With a protective care he tucked it away in his satchel. "And my thanks."
"Thank me not. Just come back to tell the tale. And, good luck. Don't want to imagine what you've got in mind." She waved a hand at him, "probably some silly fool of an idea," and she sat down on one of her short, worn stools. "Me, I think I'm going to take up a few more hobbies in my old age. Nice safe hobbies. Something harmless and quiet that doesn't attract odd sorts like you. Here, do you need a wool jerkin? I think I'd enjoy doing a bit more knitting. Gnissa suggested it."
"No, thank you."
"Hmmm." Her small shoulders heaved with a round shrug, "Shut the door behind you, when you go."
The door creaked slightly and a shower of snow from the thatch above shook loose, sprinkling Kveldulf's face, and shoulders as it closed. A fur-trimmed hood drawn tightly forward and a scarf about the face made the cold a little more bearable. Jogging his shoulders and rubbing his arms to work some warmth into them, Kveldulf looked up into the trees. In the nearest oak a black shape huddled.
"Well? Time to make good on our bargain. I found you a nice, warm house. Now if you'll lead the way?"
"Reduced to a common guide for a filthy, hairy human." Gnissa ruffled his feathers. "If my poor mother and father saw me now."
Kveldulf smiled without replying, and set off into the woods. Gnissa swooped ahead, a silent black shadow among the trees.
The world had turned to white. Hazy mist lazed through the hollows and left feathers of ice where it touched Kveldulf's skin and clothing. The crunch of snow beneath his feet became a constant rhythm. His mind wandered.
As he walked he reflected on the world around him. He wondered why wrens sing all year long, but all the other songbirds fall silent. And how does such a little bird produce such grand notes anyway? He stopping to listen whenever he heard the song, but could not spot the drab brown wren. He passed a scrubby bit of woodland. Is gorse wood useful for anything? Gorse trunks look solid, but no one ever uses the wood. Maybe it is too soft, or splits easily? Why does snow look white when water is clear? He gritted his teeth, and fought through a knee-deep drift of snow. The cold numbed his legs and his toes felt damp and swollen.
He moved ceaselessly until her came to the edge of the valley that the hunter had described to him. It was deep and narrow and the woods thinned out to a few copses split by swathes of wild heath. In the lee of one straggle of pines was the remains of a campfire; a small smudge of black turned grey by a dusting of new snow. The hunter, Broffar Longstride, had mentioned that he had made a camp here, so the fire was not unexpected. Searching around, Kveldulf found a few fire-singed, gnawed bones, that had since been worried by foxes or badgers.
Standing straight, he gazed out at the valley. It swept away, up towards stony hills that dissolved in the fog. A black speck appeared in the distance, grew larger and flapped to a perch on a skeletal branch. Gnissa fixed one golden orb on Kveldulf. "Not far now, just past that line of black firs, you'll find lots of strange runes and marks cut into the trees. There are piles of bones and petty charms too. I think she's settled in for the winter and put up some alarms. Uphill, there is a frozen, swampy glen, and in that a cave. She lairs there, and her soul comes and goes, bringing meat back. Occasionally something covered in rags and filth stirs and eats some meat. When she wakes the wolf vanishes, but she's never awake for long." Gnissa fluffed out all his feathers. "Now, can I go? I'm freezing my feathers stiff out here."
"Thank you."
"Ah, don't thank me, just leave me be." Gnissa took to the wing and glided away. The last Kveldulf saw of him was a glossy blue-black shape merging with the shadows of the downhill trees.
Wild tracks crossed the valley from pine-topped ridge, to pine-topped ridge. He looked at them, carefully. Rabbits. A stoat. Two foraging badgers. Nothing preternatural.
Sloughing on through dunes of snow, he was soon leaning into a bitter wind that raced down the valley. Kveldulf kept his eyes ahead, hunting for movement. A snaking furrow trailed in his wake as he reached the first of the low slopes. Fighting uphill, swinging arms, grabbing at branches for purchase, Kveldulf came to the crest of the first ridge. There were taller trees here, and on one, the white wood gleamed where something had cut the bark.
Kveldulf was breathing heavily as he put gloved fingers to the grooves cut into the tree. Old runes, the oldest Kveldulf knew, cut in the shape of a serpent, twisted in knots, and biting its tail. The words made no sense though. Gibberish. If they were a charm, Kveldulf was unfamiliar with it. Further along and the same thing marked another tree. More runes gouged into the trunk. Further up the hill and he found more, but these wounds were fresh, the sap was still sticky and oozing from the bottom of the cuts.
It was then that Kveldulf saw the first of the droplets of red, bright against the snow. He followed the trail tentatively and went no more than a few paces before drawing his bone knife. There was something, a shape, lurking in the trees ahead. Crouched low, he crept forward, brushed through some dried bracken, and stared.
In a clearing, overhung by snow-heavy pine and fir stood a roughly hewn stake of wood planted firmly into a heap of snow. The wood was thickly coated with a clotted blackish red. Upon the point of the stake a horse's head had been speared. The eyes were pecked out, so that its gaze was hollow and staring. Its mottled tongue lolled to one side of its mouth. Aside from the smell of slowly putrefying flesh there was a strong scent of urine, and a few small piles of stones and dead leaves heaped in small cairns about the base of the stake.
Kveldulf held deathly still. This gruesome find in an ill lit glade was not what he had expected. Had this been put up after Broffar had walked into this valley two days back, or had he seen this and been to afraid to speak of it? There were old stories from the north in which a heads of wolves, horses, or men were struck on the tip of a runed spear. Such things were meant as curses. But Kveldulf was already quite heavily cursed in his opinion. What would another hex do? Give him a head cold?
He snorted at the thing, then glanced about. What footprints might have marked the ground were already snowed over.
Edging away on arms and knees, Kveldulf skulked back through the cold, damp drifts. He turned and retreated down towards the remnant of the hunter's camp. If he pushed on uphill, there was too much risk of her detecting him and vanishing. Then, this would all be for nothing.
He was shivering uncontrollably by the time he reached the bottom of the valley. As he walked, he kept throwing looks over his shoulder every few footsteps. Initially he was on edge, almost jittery, but relaxed somewhat as he neared the hunter's camp. Yet it was when he was almost back at the camp and feeling safer, that a rustle in the trees surprised him. A movement of something large in the undergrowth caught his eye. Falling to one l
eg Kveldulf stuck the bone knife blade-first into the snow for easy reach, and unslung his bow. Notching an arrow, he drew it back to the tip of his ear and watched with narrowed eyes. He was beginning to think he had imagined a phantom, when the furtive shape moved a step again. Training the dull-grey tip of the arrow on the thicket, Kveldulf let the arrow loose.
Black crows arose in a flock, startled by the twang of the arrow. The gurgling cry of a deer was drowned under the crow-calls as it kicked and leapt into the air. Kveldulf ran forward and fell on the struggling deer. He had sent a good shot. The arrow had passed straight into the animal's neck. Fumbling for a moment, Kveldulf pulled out his steel knife and dug it into the throat. Blood bubbled over the snow. One... two... three more kicks, each slightly more feeble. The deer let out a last gurgling wheeze, blinked, and then it was over. He stood up and looked at it. It was young. This might well be its first winter. But opportunity was opportunity.
Gutting the deer, he heaped out the purplish innards and black-red gore into the snow for the crows. As soon as it was cleanly gutted he hefted the carcass over his shoulders and began trudging down the trail he had forced through the snow on the way up. At the hunter's camp he made a pleasantly hot, if smoky fire. A rudely fashioned prop for a cauldron came next. That done, Kveldulf took the waterskin out of his pack, and slowly tipped the thick, black liquid into a copper cauldron. It glooped and sloshed as it went in. He poured about half of the contents, before stopping the rest and putting it aside.
As he dropped a thick hank of meat into the pot Kveldulf squinted into the distant snowy haze. He had a good view of the whole valley from here, and at the far end of the slope, off in the direction of the Veld, two small shapes moved through the snow. At first he mistook them for more deer, but as he watched he grew more sure that they were people. Hunters? Both were cloaked, and garbed for a long, cold journey. He wondered if he should wave them over just to tell them to go away again. But it seemed plain enough that the twist of smoke from the fire would draw them to him if they meant to come this way.
While he watched, the two distant figures, delicate flicks of his knife sliced away strips of meat to plop into the pot. The deer was winter-lean, so there was little fat unfortunately. A pity, fat might have made the brew taste better. Still, when the simmering steam rose and drifted on the air, it teased Kveldulf's nostrils. It smelled quite nice. Good, even. His stomach grumbled in protest, and he had to put aside the butchering to fish a piece of salted meat out of his own store. As soon as he swallowed that, he chewed on some bread and took a drink of red wine to wet his mouth again. Wiping the wine from his lips, he looked up to see if the interlopers were any closer. They were both cutting a determined path through the snow towards him, but it was hard going. They were closer, but not by much.
Gazing intently as he was, it took only one soft sound from the snow behind him to snatch all interest from the two strangers. Kveldulf smiled. He leaned forward, and sniffed the stew, then said, "Good evening."
Her voice came out of the elder ages of the earth. Out of dark forest. Out of shadow. "My death, I did not know you for a moment. I was about to break your neck and eat your innards."
"That would have been embarrassing then," said Kveldulf. "You could tear great hunks out of me, and still not kill me."
"True, my companion, my sorrowful one. True. What are you doing here?"
"I thought to come and visit, but you are always so skittish." He smiled. "So I thought I'd light a fire and let you come to me."
Kveldulf could feel hot breath on his neck, rich with lavender and other stranger perfumes. He blew on a ladle of the broth and watched the steam curl away. He fingers were numb so he tipped the spoon back into the cauldron, and began rubbing his hands together over the smoky fire.
"There are some deer guts on the hill. Follow the carrion crows, if you want it."
"But I did. And I have. And the trail of blood led me here. And here I find my death, awaiting me. Why, I wonder?"
"I was hunting."
"We are always hunting. The eternal hunt. You and I, always."
Kveldulf rubbed some blood into his white fingers and then blew on them. "Call it that if you will." Then he looked up at the black fir trees, the snow drifting in crazy spirals from the sky. "I do not understand you."
"Nor I, you. I gave you life. A life to do with what you will, when you will. To live a roll of years beyond the imagining of men, and all I asked for it was that you bring an end to my time when I grew tired of the eternal hunt. When the time comes, and when I ask you to put and end to my eternal hunt. Not when you choose it. That is not the way a good death behaves."
Kveldulf allowed himself an ironic laugh. "You never imagined that I would be the first to weary of your hunt eternal?"
"So you pursue me." Her words fell away into a heavy fold of laughter. "To end things before their time. To usurp fate. I will not say it has not been," she paused a moment, "amusing. We have run together. You have gone mad with me so many times. A beautiful madness of we two us. We have hunted together, though you never remember in the morning. We have chased wild in the night. We have loved in the night. Don't you recall, my lovely little death?"
"I do not."
"You never do." She paused. "You should watch yourself though. All games grow dull, in time. I can always find myself another death. A more tractable death."
The spoon clanked against the lip of the cauldron. The sound of it echoed about the tree trunks, before being swallowed up by the snows.
"Give me some of your kill, brother."
"The raw meat? Hmmmph. If you like."
"What else would a wolf eat, my hateful lover?"
He shivered a little when she called him that. He wasn't sure of the truth of it, and did not want to know, either. He had no idea how deep his madness might have run when running wild in the shape of the dreaming wolf. Kveldulf eased himself around and met her unblinking gaze. Her black, twitching nose was not more than a hand's span from his face. Her teeth were like jagged white knives. Her tongue was as hot and red as blood. And her eyes... those eyes were the eyes of a goddess, gold and deep and transfixing.
"But you are not a wolf," said Kveldulf. She growled, and the ruff of skin over her snout wrinkled. "The body you wear now does not eat. Your teeth are for killing, not devouring. You are wild magic gone awry." He waved a hand at her. "Dreams, gods, spirits, these things do not need bread or meat. And yet you drag your flesh away somewhere else... so what are you really? A wolf or a feeble little starveling in the woods?"
She backed away, just one tiny half-step, but her hackles raised, and one threatening foot pawed the snow.
"No, you are as much a wolf as I am. And I am no wolf. You?" He stood up, and brushed snow and grit from his knees. "You, the real you, is away up there somewhere." He pointed a harsh finger at the hills. In the snowy hills there is a cave. A little birdie told me. And you are there, sleeping away the hours."
"I am the goddess of wolves." At that moment she leapt forward, and Kveldulf's hand sought his bone knife. But it was not there. A flash of memory struck him. Somewhere on the hill it still stood, stuck in the snow, glinting in the dim evening light no doubt. In a moment of panic he reeled away, towards the trees where he could at least dodge and hide. But as he looked up something vague, but huge and menacing appeared out of the air. The she-wolf stopped, snarled and lashed at the shadow with her teeth. Something wet ran down Kveldulf's cheek. He touched a finger to it and found a smear of red.
There were two wolves now, circling one another, snarling, growling, and baring teeth. The wound on Kveldulf's cheek was already caking and healing.
"No." Kveldulf heard his own voice ring in the air. "I will not have this. We will not gain anything by savaging one another until we are bloody pulps. He steeped briskly to the pot and lifted it from the fire by its handle of looped willow. Careful not to spill any of the broth, he laid it down in the snow.
"He is meat, lover. Real meat. Meat
for humans, and for gods too. For what god eats raw flesh? It must have been a long time since you've last tasted cooked meat. Herbed. Spiced. Take it away to your hiding hole. Eat it, and maybe, just maybe you'll remember a little of what it is to be human."
She paused, and her eyes of gold flickered from the pot to Kveldulf, and to the other wolf that stood not far away. For a moment, he was sure she would simply give one last bitter snarl and trot back to the hills. But in her eyes, he could see greed, and memories. It had been a long time since she had eaten cooked meat, though she still remembered.
"Take it. I give it freely." He held his voice steady. "A gift from me to you."
"And then what?"
"And then maybe we can talk. You and me. I am tired of this dance. I think you are right. We would be better together than forever chasing after one another. We can talk about it. Tomorrow, if you like. For now, enjoy my gift." He gave her a small bow.
Slowly, she stepped towards the cauldron, sniffed it, like a dog sniffing a hank of meat and all the time keeping her eyes on Kveldulf and the shadowy spectre that now padded a wide circle around her to lurk at his side. As careful as a mother wolf with a pup, she lifted the cauldron by the handle in her pink mouth and then loped away. Soon, she was no more than a receding blur just visible through a fog of light snow.
Kveldulf looked down and reached out his fingers, spreading them in the fur of the shadow. "I can see you," he said, "you are almost solid, and I can feel you, too. While awake. What does this mean?"
"I know not," replied the wolf-wraith, "perhaps our own death is near." It laughed as it vanished, and his fingers then clutched at nothing. Though the words he had heard just now came not from his mouth, each still seemed to awake from somewhere deep inside his soul. As if the conscious and unconscious factions of his mind had spoken to one another. It felt familiar. Somehow comforting... and now strangely disturbing to be left alone.
Glancing up again, Kveldulf strained his eyes to catch a last glimpse of the she-wolf. She was nearing the verge of a thick stand of firs far up the hill. In a moment she was gone. One extra shadow amongst the gloomy undergrowth.
"I wonder how long Snoro's brew will take to have an effect on her?" Suddenly Kveldulf wished he had taken the time to test the brew on himself first, to check and be sure that it suppressed the wolf-shaped dreams, as Snoro had promised. If not, then there would be a nasty surprise in store when he hiked up into the hills in an hour or two.
Trudging up the hill, he made a quick path through the thickening snow towards his knife. Soon her could see its bone-white blade gleam and wink at him in the reflected light.
"That would have been the wise thing to do," he mused. "Test it on myself first. What was I afraid of? That it would work? That I would have an easy way out? Still, things have turned out better than I hoped." He had thought she would be suspicious of the pot of meat, but her blind wildness had been to his advantage in the end. She might have been alone and wild for so long she didn't even remember what a poison was. After all, wolves do not set traps and leaves poisons. That is human business, and a mystery that belongs to people.
As he drew the bone knife out of the snow, he remembered the two wandering woodcutters or hunters or whoever they were. Peering back down the curve of the valley he discovered that the two strangers had vanished. He furrowed his brow. Perhaps they had seen the wolves fighting and then fled? It did not matter, Kveldulf had to prepare for tonight.
He drew the bone blade along his palm and watched, impassive to the pain, as a thread of red appeared and trickled over his hand. A few heartbeats later, the wound remained open. It stung like nothing he had felt in two hundred years. This was the night then. This was it.
One last, long night.
-oOo-
The long shadows of trees made bars of black and silver on the snow. The sun was an angry orange globe, sinking behind layers of mist in the west, and partly hidden by a ridge of trees.
Kveldulf stood in a drift of snow, brushing off the bone knife. He held it up to the last light of evening, and watched a bloody glow slip along the blade. Slapping the longknife back into its sheath, he laboured through the snow, up the slope. He passed the rune-cut trees with their old scabby bark and black needles. He passed the scrub of thorns and gorse, and paused at the staked horse's head. In the half-light of dusk it was a black visage, gory in outline, but without power to do more than frighten. Walking up to the stake, Kveldulf considered it a moment, then kicked it over with one heavy heel of his boot. It fell with a muffled thud into the powdery snow, and left a rude outline of its shape in the white. Already snow was covering it. Soon it would be hidden. Forgotten. Perhaps next summer, a hunter would find the skull and wonder how it came to be here. Perhaps a bear would find it in spring and chew the bones to splinters.
He turned his back to the bloodied urine-strewn grove and walked. Upwards. Closer to the lair of the she-wolf.
For how many years had he walked the world's road? Too many to count. Sometimes, he felt he must have crossed every muddy track, every hedged byway, and every old, straight road from the frozen north to the vineyards of the far south. The soft trudge of his boots was as familiar a sound as the beat of his own heart.
Somewhere, a nightingale sung a few crisp notes, and Kveldulf paused to listen. It was not until the bird ceased its nocturne that he realised he was listening so intently because he might not ever hear such a song again.
He pressed on.
The signs of the she-wolf grew more frequent. Most trees were scored and marked with uncanny runes now, cut with the most primitive of tools. There were piles of flint and ochre now, and branches and twigs, arranged in patterns and whorls in the snowy earth, and everywhere a pungent smell of urine curtained the air. Kveldulf wrinkled his nose, and crouched down, sniffing. Not wolf urine, human. So she must have been coming out this far in a human body to mark her ground.
Passing between three lanky, rough-barked birches, Kveldulf found a trail. The snow had not fallen quite so heavily here, and was caught mostly in the spreading branches of the trees. The frozen earth peeked through in patches. Moving along the rough path, more traces of her existence became apparent. Bones thrown haphazardly into the snow, some with sinew and gristle still attached. Scuff marks. The rank rot of human waste, made worse by bowels fed mostly or only on meat.
The path climbed a short distance farther, coming to a ridge, and then falling away into a hollow. Little more than a dimple in the flesh of the earth. Bleak, dead reeds suggested swampy ground in summer, and a few rotting willows lined the far end of the glen. All around the rim of the hollow tall black firs crowded together and leaned inwards deepening the already murky light. Three of the firs spread their tangled roots over a large jut of limestone, and beneath the cracked and worn rock was an overhang. Though it was not deep enough to be properly called a cave, it had enough of a roof to keep the rain off, and perhaps shelter a small fire. He watched it for a while, silent. There was no sign of charred wood, or blackened earth. There was no sign of movement either. There lay in the lee of the overhang only a pile of hides and furs.
The glade was silent, and Kveldulf's vision became painfully acute. He could smell the rags from here. Sweat and decay. Drawing his bone knife, and holding it as a murderer holds a dagger, Kveldulf made a way through the reeds, rustling them apart as he walked. His nostrils were twitching now, his eyes darting from the pile of skins to the woods. The cauldron lay forgotten to one side of the overhang, tipped on its side, muddied and spilling its contents of black stew over the ground.
A sound.
Kveldulf stopped.
There it was again. A hushed murmur.
He took a step forward, but could barely believe what he saw as the skins heaved and then settled in a more comfortable position. She was under those pelts. But there was so little bulk. She must be hardly more than a skeleton.
As quiet as a fox Kveldulf edged closer. The bone knife he held raised in line with hi
s shoulder, his other hand out stretched, and ready to catch her and hold her back if she should wake and attack. She did stir, and Kveldulf held his breath. As she rolled over, he saw her face.
She could have been any beggar from any street in any rank city in all the world. Her face was mud-streaked, and sunken. Her hair matted, unkempt, unwashed, and in so many tangles that it looked like snakes had rooted themselves to her skull. One arm stretched out, uncovered by the skins, and it was covered with scabs. Her fingers were swollen and the nails chipped and caked with blood and dirt. Stew still clung in black dribbles along her arms and encrusted her lips. She must have spooned it greedily into her mouth with her bare hands.
And she was smiling. Not an evil, cunning grin, but something else, a smile of the innocent, of the restful. It occurred to Kveldulf in that moment, that this was perhaps the first night of release this woman had known from the nightmare that was her eternal hunt. What did she dream of to make her smile? The past? Friends? A lover? A husband? Children?
He sank to his knees and searched her face for some trace of the evil, some hint of the wickedness he had expected. He longed to see a demon but found only a wretched human being.
Staring a long time at the face he could not put out of his head the notion that this was little more than cold murder. Was he right to stab this fragile, sleeping woman? But, were not murderers caught and hung in every city every week? And had not this woman murdered more children and women and men than any of those petty killers? Twice he brought the dagger up, readied it, and then let it fall lax again in his fingers.
The first warning he had was the sharp hissing snicker an arrow makes as it cuts through the air. A thick shaft with feathers of bright crimson struck the ground not far from Kveldulf. It stood there quivering. In the moment that Kveldulf spun about to face his unknown would-be assassin several things happened. He heard a guttural shriek of surprise come from the pile of skins, but as he sped around, he was able to take in only the two people standing at the crest of the rise.
Her cloak was thrown back over her slight shoulders, and she wielded a heavy war bow with powerful grace, almost as if it were a toy. Her eyes were filled with fiery, beautiful anger, and her full lips were pressed thin. The other, the one with her, he still wore his cloak, and stood a few paces back. His shoulders were hunched, and there was a confused, troubled expression on his face. Though he stood quite still, as if he were carved of rock, his eyes danced here, and there, and back again.
So the rumours were true. They had not left the Veld.
"Betrayer," spat Rosa as she raised the bow and notched another heavy arrow.
In that same moment something reeking with filth struck Kveldulf from behind. He toppled face first into the snow and grime. He struggled a moment, then brought an elbow back and up at the weight. He heard a slight whimper as he felt the blow connect.
Even as he rolled over, and firmed his grip on his longknife another arrow struck the earth. A moment later he had to weave away from fingernails that were so jagged, and thick, and filthy they resemble the claws of a wild creature.
The wild, half-starved woman had thrown off her skins, and was now crouched naked in the snow. Spittle and saliva frothed at her mouth, and she stared at Kveldulf with a wide-eyed, feral rapacity. Utterly unaware that anyone else stood at the verge of this little den.
"Traitor," said Rosa, and Kveldulf spun his gaze around just in time to she her loose another arrow. He ducked, and this one hit the rock before falling with a thud into the snow.
Kveldulf backed away, defending himself against another sudden onslaught of wild claws and yellow teeth, while arrows snickered through the air. And as he fought something new and shadowy began to grow in form and presence nearby. Blurred, at first, then more solid, something powerful and grey was gathering at the edge of the hollow. He blinked, and shook his head, then saw it clearly. A great grey wolf emerged from the air as if it were coming out of a bank of mist. Those eyes so full of amber and gold first set on Kveldulf and for a moment he saw his own gaze reflected.
Disorientated, sickened, he stumbled backwards and found himself grappling with the wretch's claws. She was weak, too sickly to do more than scrape and buffet, and though once she tried to bite his neck, her dull teeth could not break the skin.
A snarl ground the air, and both Rosa's and Sigurd's voices rose in alarm. Another arrow sung from the bow but not at Kveldulf. He felt a sudden jab of pain in his side. She had sent an arrow into the wolf, and he felt it.
Struggling, he had to concentrate on not closing his eyes. It was when his eyes shut, even briefly, that he saw through the wolf's strange, rust-hued vision. Saw Rosa's terrified face and Sigurd with his flashing sword trying to protect her.
Was this some new trick to the curse? Become aware of the spirit wolf, fully aware, and the wolf leapt full formed out of the dreaming, and into the world of the waking? Was this the way of the she-wolf and witch? Did the witch need to sleep to summon her wolf after all? Kveldulf was suddenly deeply glad of Snoro's last potion. It was all that was preventing there from being two wolves in the hollow, no doubt.
Kveldulf was dimly aware of Rosa's voice as he bucked, and threw off the crazed wretch once more, then scrambled fully to his feet.
"Warlock," Rosa screamed, "traitor and warlock!"
Kveldulf sensed that the next arrow was aimed squarely at him though he was unsure how he knew this. He was starting to feel as if he was seeing everything through two sets of eyes. And the wretch attacked again too. He had to fall back, dodge, and then he tripped on his own heels, with her flailing after him, snarling.
The thud of the arrow seemed for a moment to be the only sound in the world. Silence smothered everything. With manic eyes the wild woman looked down at the arrow and with one scrawny hand she touched it. Her eyes were appalled and a little disbelieving as she sunk to her knees and grabbed the shaft with hands. It was planted firmly between her pendulous breasts and red blood leaked over her stomach. At her mouth, blood foamed and bubbled.
She fell then, and lay contorted, struggling and raving, with sounds that were more animal than human. The arrow had not killed her. And yet the wound was not healing. With the potion weakening her and suppressing the wolf-spirit that protected her these long centuries, the wound was mortal. She was slowly, painfully dying. Kveldulf could see nothing for it now. He took the bone knife and as cleanly as he could drew it across her throat. Red wetness bleed over her and stained the snow crimson. She convulsed just once.
He heard drums beating.
Distant drums.
The world was snow and reeds and pine.
The night arose from the earth. The drums were louder.
The world was day and brightness.
The world was dark and full of sparks and stars.
The world shifted.
The drums were louder.
Kveldulf was on his knees. He could feel the life slipping out of him. He could feel the weakness and the pain. He could feel his body ageing and dying.
Stars whirled about him.
Dizzying.
Dizzying.
Time was dizzying.
Time stopped.
Kveldulf was in the night. The eternal forest of the night. The shadow place. The place where the dead wolves go.
They were all around him, tall spectres in the night. There were fires, great pine-wood blazes that shot embers into the clouds and other, smaller candle flames that flickered inside skulls, both human and animal, set on stout poles. The dead stood silent in the shadows, their faces hidden beneath sooty whorls of paint and wolf-skull masks. They were naked but for the ragged hides that were heaped across their shoulders. Some had been beating drums, but they stopped and silence fell.
And Kveldulf understood. He saw all the old rituals. He saw the hunters and the pack. He saw the blood and the bones. He knew. All of it. The feral magic. The rites. All of it. He was there in the darkness hundreds of years ago around a smoky fire. T
here in the night, hunting the warriors of the other clans and tribes. He was one of them. Among them. A wolf in the pack.
There was a new member for the pack, thin and pale and naked. The woman, shivering, newly-dead, she was taken up from the ground and led away into the troop of shades. Out of sight.
"Welcome sister," said one voice and then the others joined the first. The drums beat again and there were howls from the crowd of spectres. The shadows in their wolf-skins and paint, then turned their black and hollow eyes to Kveldulf.
"What is to be done with this one?" The voice was made of ice and storms and wild hunts. It was impossible to tell from which of the motionless shadows it came.
"The wolf-rune is gone from him. He has killed his own wolf-giver. It is forbidden to do so, by our old laws. And she who gave him the wolf-rune is with us now."
"But he has passed the wolf-rune to another."
"He has savaged one of the magic-blooded. The rune will survive in her as long as this one lives--whether he is wolf-hearted or not."
"The sorceress."
"The new bearer of the rune knows nothing of the Spirit of the Pack."
"He knew nothing."
"Kill him. Eat his flesh."
"Kill him."
"Lap his blood."
"Why? We are not hungry. We are dead. Kill the rune-giver and the Spirit of the Wolf will die in the new rune-bearer too. Let him live on. Let the wolf-rune live on."
"Kill him."
Kveldulf managed to claw words out of his throat. "You think yourselves wolves? You have been dreaming too long. You are not a wolf. You are wolf-skinned, wolf-hearted--that is all."
"Chew his flesh. Eat him."
"Snap his bones."
"Eat his marrow."
"No. He was one of us. A little bit of him still is. We do not eat pack. Let him go back to the world of life and light. I am tired. We are tired. Let us rest for now."
"The Spirit of the Pack has spoken. And so it is."
The drums beat again. Kveldulf saw he stars turn in the sky. The shadow place slipped away from him. He was a leaf blown up out of a deep well. When he came back to himself light and warmth flooded his skin.
He breathed deep the living air.
And gasped.
And breathed again.
Kveldulf was on his knees, staring at a lifeless body sprawled before him--the nameless and half-starved woman. He was shaken from a state of mindless shock by Rosa's cries. There was no anger in her voice now, just fear.
Getting to his feet, Kveldulf turned to the scene at the edge of the hollow. Rosa lay propped against a tree, her bow forgotten on the ground, while Sigurd moved before her, keeping the wolf at bay with his sword. It was pointless. Rosa was bloodied all down one side of her body from arm to foot. She was pale and barely breathing. The wolf, though it still circled menacingly, was fading. Within moments it as translucent as evening mist and soon it faded away to nothing. Kveldulf felt the wolf return to him, a small piece of his soul came back, and nestled deep down inside, and then he felt it go to sleep. It was done.
He would no longer dream of the wolf. He was mortal again.
Sigurd's sword arm was trembling when he turned to Kveldulf and his eyes were haunted.
"I suppose you must kill me now too," said Sigurd."
Kveldulf crouched. His fingers were shaking. He cleaned the bone knife on the snow, then slid it away. "No."
"Then I will have to kill you." Sigurd raised his sword, though he put little heart into the gesture. "For you have killed the one who I love."
"No. She is not dead yet. And it would be best for Rosa if you didn't kill me. And best for you. She was bitten by the wolf wasn't she?"
Sigurd was pale. "Mauled by that demon hellhound you summoned, yes."
"She was bitten by the fetch," said Kveldulf more to himself. "Then through me, the curse has already passed to her."
"Draw a knife. I will not fight you unarmed."
"I called you friend once, Sigurd. Let me call you that again now. Let us not kill one-another blindly and stupidly and pointlessly in some godforsaken gully."
His mouth worked silently for a bewildered moment. "Friend? Friend? Does a friend betray? Does a friend give succour to one's most reviled enemy?"
Kveldulf turned and walked towards the crevice, giving it a cursory look over, and then crouched down next to the half-spilled cauldron. "Really? Lilia is your most reviled enemy?"
Sigurd was silent for some time. He let his sword drop until the tip scraped the snow. "I barely knew her."
"Some enemy then."
At that moment Rosa shuddered and moaned. "Sigurd. Please. Help. I am cold. There is ice in my blood."
Sigurd turned to her and put his hand on her brow. "The wound was not so bad. It is shallow, but it bleeds like a deep gash through an artery." He moved a stray strand of blonde hair from her face. "She is so pale. Was the demon's saliva poisonous? What have you done to her?"
"Were you also bitten by the wolf?"
"No. It was determined to have her. It just ignored me. Even when I landed two good strokes on it."
"It wouldn't matter anyway. You've never dabbled in the witch arts have you?"
"No."
"I did. Years and years ago. I used the sorcerous arts to track and hunt unnatural things back then. A person needs to have some magic in the blood for the curse to enter. I know that now. I saw it. I lived it in the darkness. Rosa's sorcery--it has allowed the wolf to enter her. It's why so many others were bitten, but were never changed. They didn't have any magic in their bloods. The curse needs a door to enter through."
"What curse?"
As the heat of the fight left Kveldulf, he felt two lines of pain down his back and wondered if the sword-strokes went deep. Sigurd was a good soldier. Kveldulf was lucky that the blows were not lethal. "I will explain as much as you need to know. I have been accursed a long time Sigurd. How do I put this in a way that you will understand? This dead wretch was a sorceress who put the curse on me many years ago. Through her death I am finally freed from the hex, but without meaning to, it seems that I have passed the curse to Rosa. As long as I am alive, the curse will live on in Rosa--so there you are--kill me if you like. Strike me a blow across the crown as soon as my back is turned. My death may well save her."
Sigurd was silent, his face unmoving.
"No?" said Kveldulf. "Not willing to murder me in cold blood? Then start a fire, and keep Rosa warm. Give her some of this too. With one so new to the curse this may well be a cure, for all I know." His shoulders rolled with a shrug as he carefully set the copper cauldron upright. "Perhaps."
"You may mean only to poison her further."
"Trust me."
"Why?" Sigurd was prickling with anger now. "What cause do I have to trust a faithless warlock?"
"Because for you, there is no other choice," murmured Kveldulf.
-oOo-
A fire glowed in the hollow, casting flickering shadows through the glade. From where Kveldulf sat on the cold, wind-swept jut of rock above he could look down at the bloom of flame, at Rosa stretched on her cloak by the fire, and at Sigurd waiting by her side.
Sigurd was already consumed by grief. He was slowly giving up Rosa for dead, and sat silent and motionless, watching her every breath as if he wanted to commit it to memory forever.
It occurred to Kveldulf that the snow hunters who cared for him so many years ago must have thought he was as good as dead. What made those men bind the wounds of a dead man? What made them spoon soup into his mouth. The curse takes time to awaken. He'd spent many hours near death before the magic came to its full power and healed him. It was still a vivid memory, awaking one morning to find the round yurt splattered with blood. To find bodies and pieces of bodies. He had assumed the she-wolf had returned and in some fit of humour funny only to herself, left him alive amid the carnage.
Now he knew better, and the thought sickened him. He wondered what it must have been like to
have a confused, wild dream in the shape of a wolf gather out of their sleeping patient. He wondered how many of the snow hunters escaped. He wondered what legends they must now tell of the cursed stranger who killed most of a hunting party in his sleep.
Kveldulf shifted his weight against the chill rock and looked up to the sky. There were rifts in the clouds through which he could see a dozen diamond stars. He held his hand up and stared at it. He could feel the flesh ageing. He could feel his body dying about him. Time, that he had cheated for two centuries, owned him again.
Would he live to see his homeland in the north once more? Or the great sprawling cities of the south? Knowing his hours were limited made the world a different place. There was urgency in his life again. Need. Frustration. Hope. All the emotions he had forgotten and which most people take for granted; the urges that spring from the need to do something, anything before death comes. These, once again clamoured for place in his thoughts.
But he knew he was not going home. Not in any mortal shape, anyway.
A hushed sound broke his reverie, and Kveldulf gazed back into the hollow. Sigurd was crying. For a moment he did consider just skulking off. He could so easily just leave Rosa and Sigurd to the ends that they plotted for themselves. But as soon as he thought this, he knew it would not happen. He could not abandon anyone, not even this woman who had murdered others, and hoped to murder him. Her would not abandon her to the cursed existence he had known.
It took a moment to rub feeling back into his legs when his stood. A careful step at a time Kveldulf picked a path down the rocky outcrop, holding onto the thin branches of trees as he went.
"Is Rosa awake?"
Sigurd looked up. His eyes were rimed with red and shadowed by heavy, blood-purple rings. His hair was unkempt, too, and his face hung in an emotionless, lifeless mask.
"I am," said Rosa.
"May I speak with you?"
Sigurd edged over to let Kveldulf kneel next to her. He was holding her right hand cupped tight in his two.
"You may die," said Kveldulf and Rosa stared at him with painful, knowing eyes. "But if you live, you will wish you had died. That half-human creature that was here, her that I have now buried, that creature is what you will eventually become. There is a curse in your blood now Rosa. I can see it in you. I know it, for it was once in my blood. Do you understand?"
She gave a slow nod, and Sigurd squeezed her fingers tighter. The fire crackled, and popped, and log split, sending sparks up into the air. Kveldulf watched them drift upwards and tried to remember the last time he had thought about how beautiful wind-carried embers were. It was so long ago. He felt as if he had forgotten how to see beauty.
"I can save you." He paused. "Though it will cost me."
An expression of hope spread on Sigurd's face, but Rosa seemed reluctant to show any sign of emotion. Did she expect mercy from her betrayer?
"But for this, I have to ask something of you." Kveldulf hesitated, looked at Sigurd's expectant face and Rosa's suspicious gaze as he considered how to phrase this. "You must swear a vow to me. One vow you have broken already, after a fashion. You should have been gone from the Veld by now."
"Lilia does not rule the wilds." Sigurd spoke quickly, justifying the broken oath. "We have left the Veld, or that part of it she rules. But--"
"Revenge," murmured Rosa, "I had to have revenge on you, betrayer. Sigurd, argued against this. Do not blame him. I told him I would seek vengeance with or without him. He chose not to abandon me. He is a good man."
"You have to let go of all your fears and rages, Rosa. Give up your hate. Your wrath. Either turn it to something useful, something good, or let it go. You will have to be brave, and kind, and loving. You will have to rise above the petty, ugly things life has done to you." Kveldulf was starting at the fire now. He could not look her in the eyes for fear that he would detect some hint of deception there. He wanted to believe. "You will have to change the world for the better, help those who cannot help themselves. Let Sigurd be the hero he was meant to be, and let you be his love to champion." He took a deep breath. The smell of burning pine filled up the air now and covered most of the reek of filth that still lingered in the hollow. "You have one another now. You have what you were denied in the Veld. Freedom to do as you choose. You must swear to me that you will make a true life for yourself. A good life. Swear to be kind and true."
For a moment no one spoke. The flames licked and leapt and shadows stretched and danced.
All else was still.
"It is said," whispered Rosa, "that a liar pauses before answering a question to consider how best to lie."
Kveldulf nodded, but answered, "I have also heard it said that only the truthful people pause for long, because they must consider deeply their heart's true thoughts."
She nodded, and looked up at Sigurd. Something intangible passed between them. Then said, "I swear."
"That is all I ask." Kveldulf got to his feet, and dusted off his knees. He opened some buttons on his shirt and took out the shimmering feather. Eerie gold light, warm and pleasant, spilled from it. "Take this. You need something to feed you magic anyway, or it will shrivel you up and kill you, and magic taken from a deep well of light and kindness cannot go very far astray." He put the chain around her neck and the feather lay on her chest, glowing and flickering, like embers in a wind-blown fire.
Twigs and ice came away from this arms and hands as he then dusting himself off. "I've some herbs to collect from the woods. I may be gone some time. Look after her, Sigurd." Kveldulf stood there for a moment, then said, "Sigurd. Hold a moment. Here, I've a gift for you too." He took out the bone knife and gave it to him. "This is worth a princely treasure. It will slay that which few other blades will kill. Keep it safe for a dark hour."
"I will, and Kveldulf..."
He was already turning to go, but paused and looked back. "Yes."
"Thank you. For whatever you can do."
Kveldulf collected a wineskin, still full, and a small pot. He glanced once over his shoulder as he walked into the benighted forest, before pushing his way into a drift of snow, and through a patch of last summer's bracken.
It took him some hunting before he found what he was looking for. A jagged-leafed bush struggling through a heap of icy snow under the shadow of a great oak. The steel knife sliced through the woody branches easily enough, leaving a few straggling strands of bark. Once he had enough leaves, Kveldulf carried the cauldron back in the direction of the hollow. He did not plan to go back to Rosa and Sigurd. Instead he cut his way up towards the rocky spur, and clambered up to its crest.
It was pleasant here and cold. Low moaning winds whistling over the stone.
Stripping the bush of its leaves, Kveldulf crushed and cut them on the rock before pouring the wine into the cauldron and mixed them in. He would let it soak for a while and drink as much as he could in one go.
In the hollow below, the fire still burned and the heady scent of pine resin wafted up to Kveldulf. Sigurd could do little for Rosa, but was doing what he could. Holding a damp rag to her brow, the gentle murmur of Sigurd's hopeful voice carried on the air.
There was of course, only one way to be certain that she would be saved from the curse.
For a time, Kveldulf stared at the stars breaking through the clouds, here and there, and thought about the past, about Yrsa, and his children. He wondered if Lilia would be happy, as ruler of the Veld. Wondered if her people would grow to trust her. He wondered if Rosa would keep to her word. He hoped she would.
When he stirred the wine, and found the leaves were well soaked, he lifted the cauldron to his lips and gulped the acrid, tainted wine. He remembered with a smile that it is said by some that a wreath made of nightshade and worn about the head is a cure for the ailments of witchcraft.
With the cauldron drained Kveldulf lay down on the rock. He bunched the doeskin cloak that Yrsa had so lovingly stitched for him about his arms and stared at the thick clouds and occasional stars.
/>
As the first flakes of snow touched his skin he felt a growing tingle in his toes, and fingers. He imagined for a moment that there was a wolf beside him, great and grey and warm. But when he stretched his fingers to it they closed on nothing. He was both relieved and lonely.
He did not know how much time had passed when the words drifted to him through his stupor. At first he thought the voice that descended through the haze of delirium and poison was the voice of the beyond. Dead gods calling him on. He forced his weary eyes open, and looked at the smiling face of Yrsa.
"Kveldulf, you need not have done this," she said. "I would have waited longer."
He smiled and his fingers touched her face. "This was the only way," he whispered through numb lips, "the curse is ended. Now that I am gone the line is utterly broken. This was the only way."
"I understand." Her ghostly lips felt cold on his.
It was morning before Sigurd discovered the frozen body on the crag.
APPENDIX
No long appendices here. I wanted to add in all of Gnissa's song for the curious. This is just a very slight adaptation of the tradition folk song, Twa Corbies, and is sung with the same tune as The Ants Go Marching (which these lyrics predate).
"There were three ravens in a tree, ha-raefn, ha-roc, ma-crawe,
There were three ravens in a tree, ha-raefn, ha-roc, ma-crawe,
There were three ravens in a tree,
And they were black, as black could be,
And they all flapped their wings, and cried,
Ha-raefn, ha-roc, ma-crawe,"
"Said one raven to his mate, ha-raefn, ha-roc, ma-crawe,
Said one raven to his mate, ha-raefn, ha-roc, ma-crawe,
Said one raven to his mate,
What shall we do for food to eat?
And they all flapped their wings, and cried,
Ha-raefn, ha-roc, ma-crawe,
There lies a thane on yonder plain, ha-raefn, ha-roc, ma-crawe,
There lies a thane on yonder plain, ha-raefn, ha-roc, ma-crawe,
There lies a thane on yonder plain,
Who is by some cruel foeman slain,
And they all flapped their wings, and cried,
Ha-raefn, ha-roc, ma-crawe,
We'll perch ourselves on his backbone, ha-raefn, ha-roc, ma-crawe,
We'll perch ourselves on his backbone, ha-raefn, ha-roc, ma-crawe,
We'll perch ourselves on his backbone,
And pick his eyes out one-by-one,
And they all flapped their wings, and cried,
Ha-raefn, ha-roc, ma-crawe,
This meat we'll eat before "tis stale, ha-raefn, ha-roc, ma-crawe,
This meat we'll eat before "tis stale, ha-raefn, ha-roc, ma-crawe,
This meat we'll eat before "tis stale,
"Til naught remain but bone and tail,
And they all flapped their wings, and cried,
Ha-raefn, ha-roc, ma-crawe,"
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