“I would have you track the savages who did this to my father. You say you are a hunter. I want you to hunt them. And when you find them, I want you to kill them all.”
Four
They walked in sullen silence.
Aedwen watched as Odin bounded before them, flitting into the trees and then returning sometime later, tongue flopping, tail held high. She wished she could be as carefree. It would be wonderful to be content to run through the forest, in and out of the pools of sunshine that dotted the path beneath the trees. But her mind was a turmoil of emotions. After the initial fear and horror of her father’s death, she had set to thinking and praying. She had awoken deep in the darkest part of the night and had been sure she had the solution. She had lain there and listened to Dunston’s snoring, comforted by the sound that reminded her of her father. She had tried to turn her thoughts away from her father’s body, shrouded, still and stiff in the hut, but no matter how hard she prayed, her mind kept on going back to her father’s corpse. She had cried then, silent tears rolling down her cheeks in the darkness, but when the first light of dawn drew a grey line beneath the door of the hut, she had been resolved. She knew what she must do and she had been certain that the grey-bearded man who had found her would accept her challenge.
How wrong she had been.
They had barely spoken since his refusal to seek out her father’s killers. He had said that her idea was foolish. He would stick to his plan to take her and her father to Briuuetone and then he would leave. She had felt the fury building within her, like the tension in the air before a thunderstorm. She had been about to scream her anger at Dunston, but something in the set of his jaw and the furrow of his brow, gave her pause. She recalled the last time she had raised her voice to father. She could barely remember what she had been angry about, but her ire had been sudden and terrible. When she had calmed down, father had said something she would never forget, and she thought on those words now.
“I am your father, and I love you. But make no mistake, if you speak to others the way you have spoken to me today, things will go badly for you. Only kin will put up with that kind of foolish rudeness and even then, a father’s patience has its limits.”
And so, rather than scream and yell at Dunston, she had fallen into step behind him, sour and bitter resentment washing off her like a stink. For his part, he had seemed to be pleased not to speak, conserving his energy for pulling the heavy cart that creaked and groaned over the rutted ground.
More than once, she had needed to help him, lending her small weight to his considerable bulk to heave the cart over a thick tree root, or around a boulder jutting into their path. Not once did she say a word to him, instead doing what was necessary, and then resuming her brooding; an ill-tempered shadow trudging in his wake.
They saw nobody else all that morning. The forest was teeming with wildlife. Magpies chattered and wood pigeons cooed in the canopy and once Odin frightened a partridge from where it rested in the bracken. The bird burst from the undergrowth in a fluster of beating wings and narrowly avoided becoming the hound’s meal. But despite the numerous animal denizens of the woods, no humans crossed their path.
Dunston led them unerringly through barely visible deer tracks until they eventually reached the road. Aedwen began to understand how lucky she was that Dunston had found her. Without his aid she would have surely been lost forever in this dense world of twisted trees and clinging brambles. Again she thanked the Virgin for sending him to her, and like someone going back to scratch at an annoying nettle rash, she once more pondered how to have the man do her bidding.
The sun was high in the sky when they came to a fast-flowing brook that the road crossed over by way of a simple timber bridge. The cart clattered over the mossy boards of the bridge and on the far side, Dunston eased the cart’s shafts down and stretched, reaching his hands to the small of his back. He grunted as he massaged at his aches and he winced as he bent his right knee to sit with his back to the cart wheel. His forehead was beaded with sweat, but he seemed hale enough. She produced the remainder of the oatcakes from where she had stored them in a bag and handed him one.
He nodded his thanks, broke off a piece and chewed for a time before washing it down with water from a leathern flask. She ate in silence, and accepted the flask from him. The day was warm, and she was thirsty.
Odin gnawed contentedly at a bone he had found somewhere in the depths of the wood.
“I understand that you are filled with anger at the men who did this to your father,” Dunston said, breaking the hush that had fallen over them. “But it would be madness to chase after them as you wish.” He took back the water bottle from her and drew another deep draught.
“I cannot bear the thought of those men roaming free.”
“If I could track them, what then? A girl and an old man against four men.”
“You are not so old,” she said, a glimmer of mischief in her eye. “You look like you would be able to defend yourself in a fight.”
Was that a slight smile nestled within his beard? He snorted.
“Defend, perhaps. But to seek out a fight with men like that would be foolhardy. As I said, I am no longer young and I am no warrior.”
She had been watching him closely all that morning, the way he carried himself. Walking lightly on the balls of his feet, his blue eyes never missing anything. She had noticed that his muscled forearms bore many scars, a pale cross-hatching of lines against the tanned skin. She tried to imagine how he might have come across such wounds and could only conclude they were from cuts delivered by enemies standing against him in a shieldwall. Then there was the large axe he had picked up and placed into the cart before they had left his hut. It was a broad-headed, wicked-looking thing; a weapon more than a tool used by a woodsman, she thought. The axe’s dark iron head was swirled with intricate patterns of silver, which had been cunningly forged into the metal, and the long ash haft was carved with runes and symbols. The lower end of the shaft was tightly bound in old, worn leather.
He had said nothing when he had fetched it from a trunk. It had seemed almost as an afterthought. But he handled the hefty weapon as if it weighed nothing and as he had strode from his hut, axe-head gleaming in the morning sun, a sudden chill had run through her. He was certainly not young, but he looked like a warrior to her.
More than that, he looked like a killer.
She reached out her hand for the water flask again and he tipped it up to show her it was empty. Pushing herself up, she made her way down to the water’s edge. It was cool in the shade of the bridge and the water was clear and cold. Silver daces darted and snaked languidly beneath the surface. She plunged the flask’s neck into the water and watched the stream of silver bubbles gurgle up from the opening.
“I understand,” she called back to Dunston. “This is not your fight. Why would you put yourself at risk for me…”
“Do not besmirch me as a craven, girl,” the old man growled. “To what end would we hunt these men? To slay them, you say. Even if we could do such a thing, you will find no peace from revenge.” He heaved himself to his feet with a grunted groan of pain. He tested his knee, flexing it and grimacing at what he felt. “Trust me on this. No,” he said, once more lifting the shafts of the cart and setting off again southward. “We will go to Rothulf, the reeve. He is a friend and a wiser man than me. He’ll know what to do. Besides, justice is his job.”