The Howling of Wolves by Paula Lofting

A story from the Sons of the Wolf saga.

In the aftermath of a great battle during the 1058 invasion of England
by the Norse, Wulfric and his father, Wulfhere, must cope with the untimely
death of Wulfwin, Wulfric’s twin brother, whose demise, whilst
having been met on the field of slaughter, bears all the hallmarks of a
murder rather than a battle killing. No one believes them when they
protest that Wulfwin’s death was suspicious and that the likely perpetrator
of the crime is Wulfhere’s arch enemy and nemesis, Helghi, with
whom the Wulfheresons have feuded for many years.
The Howling of Wolves is a little standalone spin off from the main
books and incorporates elements of the narrative from the saga.

June, 1058
Somerset
The battle was over. Wulfric stared at the body of his twin as it lay wrapped in its burial shroud, resembling a moth in its cocoon. Had he just seen the chest rise and fall? He shook his head. Surely not. He’d seen Wulfwin’s death mask as he’d washed and covered him and knew it impossible that he still breathed. He shut his eyes and moments later opened them again. The cadaver lay still, just like the line of other slaughtered warriors. Sadly, Wulfwin was quite dead. He’d stopped counting the corpses at one hundred. He figured there must be at least the equivalent to add to it. So many dead, despite their victory. A large trench had been dug in which the bodies were lowered with much respect. Father, badly injured during the battle and having his wounds tended to, was unable to say goodbye to his son. Leofnoth, Father’s friend, stood in his stead and had helped Wulfric carry his brother to the death pit. They deposited him in the ditch with a companion on either side, so he would not be alone. It felt strange to touch the lifeless carcass, knowing that a soul no longer inhabited it.
The priest took some time to walk around the site, sprinkling holy water over the dead, and reciting the rites in Latin. When done, he made a sign of the cross over them, and the ceorls cast the earth back in. Prayers said, the corpses were left to start their rot in their earthly resting place. Leofnoth patted him on the back comfortingly and turned to leave. Wulfric found he could not, and remained, joining those who wished to stay and sing a lament.
The evening was still. Warmth clung to the air and the sun still held sway over the day like a watchful mother. Across the meadow of slaughter, Norse prisoners dug a hole for their own dead. Wulfric heard the huscarls barking profanities at them for being ‘lazy sons of whores’ when they didn’t dig hard enough. He felt no anger toward the enemy, for it was not they who’d killed his brother, he was certain. Nay. It had been the hand of their family’s arch nemesis, Helghi. Or someone close to him. His son, Eadnoth, perhaps. Or their kinsman, Hengest. Or someone else in their pay.
Neither Wulfric nor Father had been believed, when they’d protested Wulfwin’s throat could not have been cut by the Norse Wícinga. The incision had been too clean to have been given in battle. A killing like that was hard to prove as murder, but they alone were convinced of the truth. Wulfric, numb with grief, scooped up some dirt, sniffed it, then threw it down where his brother’s corpse hid in the soil. The pungent odour of moist, brown earth filled his nostrils. As a warm breeze played with his fringe and caressed his cheeks, he thought he would never forget the smell of that dirt. To his amazement, a gathering of twigs and leaves rose upwards, spinning like a whirlwind, picking up momentum as it reached where he stood at the edge of the pit.
Whoosh! His hair whipped back. The wind roared; whistled through his ears and blustered against his blood encrusted tunic. He gulped mouthfuls of air, trying to refill his lungs, and let out a loud gasp as his breath returned, and with it, the familiar odour of his brother seemed to embrace him before moving on.
Wulfwin had passed right through him.
The day after the battle, Wulfric did not rise at the sound of the morning horn. Sleep had evaded him, left him lying awake most of the night in the hope Wulfric might let him know he was still here. But nothing. Surprised when the tent flap opened, he blinked. The sun streamed through, blinding him.
“What are you doing? Why haven’t you risen?”
For a moment, Wulfric thought it his brother who stood before him, but it was his father, Wulfhere, eyes rimmed with red, the torn flap of his cheek stitched into a curve. His complexion was the same pallid shade of green of Wulfwin’s just before they’d wrapped the shroud over his face.
“What is there to get up for? Wulfwin is dead and that bastard, Helghi, goes unpunished.”
Father stood awkwardly in the entrance, clutching the tentpole as though he were about to pass out. “We break our fast. You should eat something. Come, if you want to.” Wulfhere turned to leave.
“Wait. I’ll come,” Wulfric said, crawling out of his bedding.
Noon came and at last the fyrd was ready to march back to Gleawecaester. Father, obviously in pain, waved away attempts to get him into the wagon with the other injured. “I will not ride in a litter like an old lady, but like a man,” he had insisted.
Why Father had to be so stoic, Wulfric could not guess. He’d always been that way. Wulfric clasped his hands together allowing Father to lever himself awkwardly into the saddle, his injured leg stiff and obstinate, hose stained with blood. A sword thrust had also gouged into the flesh above his hip. He was not in good shape.
Wulfhere rode in silence. Gloom wafted from him like a bad smell. His stallion, Hwitegast, was unusually subdued for such an animal often flighty around other horses, especially the mares. The pair of them and made a melancholy couple, but were not alone in their grief. The men of Súþ Seaxa lost many men to the Norse, and amongst those revelling in glorious victory on the journey, were those grieving for the friends and comrades who would never again join them in the warriors’ meadhall.
Wulfric glanced at his father riding beside him. The sweat pooled on his face. “You should have gone with the rest of the injured,” Wulfric told him sternly.
“Many are worse than I, Wulfric.”
A passing rider called to them, “Wulfhere, ’tis a great scar you will have there, ruining your pretty looks. Will your wife still love you?”
Father returned the rider’s jest with an unenthusiastic smile. Wulfric scowled his offence, and the man, realising his mistake, rode on in awkwardness.
“Do they think they can jest when we have lost my brother?” Wulfric said angrily.
“Life goes on, Wulfric.”
Wulfhere bit down on his lip.
“You are in pain, Father. You should have gone in the wagon.”
“I am all right,” Wulfhere told him.
“Nay, you are not.”
“There was no room, and I can ride. Do not badger me.”
Wulfric said no more of it. He was afraid of losing him as well as his brother, but Father’s stubborn resistance to comfort defeated him. Bruised and battered himself, Wulfric counted himself lucky to have come out of his first fight largely unscathed. As one of the younger warriors, he’d been protected by the older men. At only sixteen, he’d started out on the venture with excitement. Father had caught him and his friends acting out their boyish bravado, boasting about their supposed prowess, as if combat was no more than a game. Father, incensed
by their foolhardiness, warned them, lecturing them that they should be fearful, not full of unqualified confidence, for without fear they would be like apples on a tree waiting to fall at the slightest gust of wind.
“It wasn’t meant to have ended like this, was it?” Wulfric murmured. “We were to have returned together. All of us.” He gulped, stifling a sob. “Half of me has died, Father.”
Without looking at him, Wulfhere replied, “I know.”
“Father?”
“Aye?”
“He will hate us for leaving him?”
“He will understand. Besides, he will not be alone.”
“He wants vengeance. I feel it.”
“He will have it, I promise you.”
Father turned to him and their eyes locked.
“How? How will we avenge him? When?”
“We will bide our time, Wulfric.”
“I don’t want to bide my time, I want to kill Helghi – now,” Wulfric muttered.
Father looked away wearily.

The King’s Stronghold at Gleawecester
Wulfric dipped the compress into the basin, squeezed it out, and dabbed at Wulfhere’s sweat-drenched face. Father’s closed eyes flickered, and rapid movement beneath the lids indicated that his sleep troubled him. Tears spilled down Wulfric’s cheeks. God, please, do not take him from me too. How could he go home without his brother or his father? Æmund, his sister’s husband, appeared beside him and handed him a bowl of stew. Wulfric put down the sponge, took the meal, and gazed at the unappetising contents.
“How does he fare?” Æmund enquired.
Wulfric put aside his supper, his stomach clenching. “He should have ridden in the cart with the injured,” he replied. “And he should not have worn his mail over the wound…” he paused, stared at his fevered father, then continued, his voice increasing to an angry crescendo, “causing the stitching to undo and open the gash.”
Æmund, a few years older than him, put a comforting hand on Wulfric’s shoulder. “Am I going to lose him too?” Wulfric asked.
“Nay, he will live. Wulfhere is a strong man, has taken worse injuries, or so my father says.”
“He always did come back from battle wounded.” Wulfric paused for a moment, reflecting. “Your father does not. How so?”
“Father says that Wulfhere puts himself in the middle of the fight every time. Remember, he fought the champion fight ‘ere the battle had even started. My father, well, it has become his custom to keep himself out of the way as much as he can.”
The tent opened. A tall fair-haired man, his woad-dyed tunic partially
concealed by a rich scarlet cloak, stood with the light behind him. It took Wulfric a moment to realise who it was. Astonished, he attempted to stand as Earl Harold entered with his huscarle, Tigfi.
“You will excuse me for intruding,” the earl said, “Please, stay seated.
I came to see how Lord Wulfhere is. We are all sorely anxious for him…. And –”, he turned to Tigfi who rummaged in his satchel and handed the earl a small pouch, “I wanted you to have this.”
The earl, crouching, stretched out the purse and Wulfric took it silently.
“It is your brother’s wergild. Your father left it in my chamber when he collapsed.”
Wulfhere made a groaning sound and muttered some incoherent words before quietening again. The earl gazed at him, his face etched in sympathy. “I will pray Lord Wulfhere recovers soon,” Harold said.
As Tigfi drew aside the tent flap for the earl, Wulfric got hurriedly to his feet. “My lord,” he said, “I must ask of something you.”
Harold paused. “Aye, lad. What is it?”
“Did my father speak with you about my brother’s death?”
“He did… He mentioned it. And I have told him he should bring the matter up with the hundred moot. If what he says is true, then the truth will out.”
The earl exited the tent and Tigfi turned to Wulfric and said, “It is best to leave it to the king’s law, Wulfric. If your brother was killed by Helghi, then as Lord Harold says, the truth will out.”
The truth will out…
Wulfric doubted that it would.

August 1058
Home
Wulfric shivered as he entered the gates of Horstede. It was as though he’d stepped into a cloud of misery. The homestead was usually so full of life at this time of year. It was haerfest monath and the steading should have been alive with activity and merry-making. Something did not feel right. It was as if the place itself already knew that Wulfwin was not with them. Or perhaps it was them who had brought the shadowy atmosphere with them.
Father and Wulfric walked at the head of the group who were just as gloom-ridden as the place they’d walked into. Leofnoth, his son, Æmund, and Wulfhere’s young fyrdsman, Yrmenlaf, followed behind. Mother appeared from inside with her maidservant, on her heels. Both women were beaming to see them.
His younger sisters, Winflæd, and Gerda, scurried past him, eager to get to Father. Wulfhere held them as they clung to him, kissing and embracing him with veritable violence almost. Then older sister, Freyda, appeared briefly on the porch before rushing back inside, the look on her face was fearful of seeing anyone. Wulfric expected her to be big with child by now. It had been all that Æmund talked about on the journey home. Yet the girl was as slender as ever. If
the babe had already arrived, then it must have come early.
Æmund, her husband, pushed Wulfric aside, and leapt up the porch steps after her calling her name.
Wulfric saw Mother’s eyes rake the scene, then her gaze settled on him and she smiled warmly, before looking around. “Where is Wulfwin?” she asked, her face suddenly grave. “Why is he not here?” Sobbing, Wulfric fell aganst her, draping his arms around her. A great scream came from her and to his dismay, she wriggled from his embrace and ran up the porch steps wailing.
“Could you not have brought him home, instead of leaving him in a ditch for the worms to nibble at?” Mother demanded when she had recovered a little. Too busy berating Father, Mother had failed to see to Wulfric’s well-being, the son that was still alive. Nor did she even think to inquire if Father was all right. When Wulfhere walked silently away, leaving her scolding the air, she then turned on Wulfric. Unable to stand her complaining any longer, Wulfric escaped outside to seek peace on a grassy patch behind the chapel. As he hurried there, her wretched sobbing echoed from the hall until the distance was enough to no longer hear it. He leaned against the stone wall, and after a while he took out a piece of whittling he’d been working on, something for Wulfwin – a wolf tacen perhaps.
“Does she never stop?”
“You know how Mother is,” his dead twin said.
“No one has come to see how I am,” he groaned as tiny pieces of wood shaving fluttered to the ground around him. “Not even Mother. Not even to continue her damned complaining. Does anyone care that I have lost you too?”
“They only care about themselves, my brother. You should know that by now.”
Wulfric smiled. So used to having his life-long companion always there to talk to, it seemed only natural that he would answer when he spoke his thoughts aloud. “It is all they ever cared about.”
About to walk back to the hall as the sun was going down, angry voices caught his attention. He looked across the expanse of meadow. Framed against the orange glow of sunset, his sister Freyda walked with her husband, Æmund. They stopped in the shade of an old oak. Æmund crouched to look at something on the ground. Behind him, she stood with her cloak about her, shoulders moving; crying.
He watched silently, curious as to why they were there. Was that a grave marker, so far from the chapl grounds? A little wooden cross?
He saw Freyda touch her husband’s shoulder. Æmund put a hand over hers, then moments later withdrew it sharply. He stood and turned from her, appeared to wipe tears from his eyes, and she reached out, her hand grasping his arm. Æmund shook her off, and said something he could not properly hear, but could tell had been said in an anger before storming away. The tension between them reached Wulfric across the meadow. Wulfric stood, instinctively protective, the sensation strange. The only person he’d ever felt protective of was Wulfwin. Freyda slunk to the ground, the air was filled with the miserably sound of her tears.
He paused and thought, before deciding he would go to her.
“Was he being unkind to you? Æmund, I mean,” Wulfric asked as he approached.
Freyda turned, a look of surprise on her tearstained face. Wulfric sat down and gazed at a little burial mound, covered in handpicked flowers. “What is this?” he asked, knowing the answer before she gave it.
“My baby,” Freyda answered in a low voice, not looking at him. She sniffed and wiped away tears.
Wulfric’s heart missed a beat. Now he knew the reason for the misery
that had greeted him on his arrival home. He ventured an arm around her. A hint of surprise glimmered in her eyes and she did not flinch, so he pulled her to him, not really understanding why he was doing it. Freyda looked up and stared at him questioningly, then allowed her head to rest against his chest.
“I know. This is unlike me,” he said, with a smirk.
As small children they had played together, but in their dolescence,Wulfric’s sister thought herself too high and mighty for her younger siblings. Now that she’d seen eighteen summers and he sixteen, would things be different?
More tears fell and he held her closer. He had never comforted anyone, not even his brother. And yet it felt right to ease her distress. Her tears fell for some moments before abruptly withdrawing. “Wulfric, I am so sorry about Wulfwin.”
Her words hit him, his chin trembled, and pushed aside the tears that escaped his eyes.
“What happened to your child? Why was Æmund angry?” he asked after a few moments, not really wanting to talk about Wulfwin for fear of showing too much emotion.
“We called the babe Eadric. Oh Wulfric, I am to blame for his death. It was my fault he was not baptised. T’was my fault he could not go to be with God!”
“Why? What did you do?”
Freyda pulled away from him and wiped her wet face with her sleeve. “Just after you all had gone with the fyrd, I worried about Winflæd being here, what with Mother and Sigfrith both unwell, trying to cope with everything on her own. Father sent for me, but Æmund forbade me to leave our home. Said it was not safe for me or the bearn to manage the journey. I just couldn’t bear to be in Hechestone without Æmund there, and thinking about poor Winflæd here in Horstede, so I disobeyed him. He was right. I should not have left… The child came early. Too early. He didn’t have the strength to live, and he died.” She burst into tears again.
“God, Freyda. You should have done as you were told, girl.”
“I know. You think I’m a bad wife, don’t you?” She was wailing like a child.
Wulfric shrugged. In the last few years, they’d not had much to do with each other, but there he be, comforting her, feeling her pain. He wondered if this was what it was to be a man.
“You’ve not always been good,” he said, as though he had thought it all very carefully before answering. “All that trouble with Edgar… Promising to marry him and then marrying Æmund.”
“And you? The things you and Wulfwin used to do to Winflæd and Tovi.” There was a slight hint of harshness in her tone.
“I-I know,” Wulfric said, gravely. Then, havng pondered on it said, “We were not very good to them. But – sometimes… well, they asked for it.”
Freyda giggled through her tears and gave him a playful smack. “You terrorised them. I remember when you put poor Tovi down the well! And the time when you threatened to hang Winflæd as a witch, tying her to the fence by her hair.”
Wulfric barked with laughter at the memory, then worried what she must think of him.
“And the day the earl came to stay, you stopped Tovi from joining the hunt because you left him hanging from a tree!”
Wulfric was relieved to see her smiling. “Aye, I do believe we were very bad to them.”
They laughed together and Freyda said, “I didn’t mind, because all the while you boys were tormenting them, Mother and Father didn’t notice me running off to meet Edgar.”
“Like the dutiful Christian daughter that you were,” Wulfric grinned. He mimicked his mother and they giggled loudly.
“They could be brats some times,” Freyda said.
They sat in companionable silence whilst Freyda picked the dead flower heads from the little grave. “Winflaed – she has grown up a lot. She saved my life when I lost Eadric. If it was not for her – and Mother – I do not think I would ne here now.”
After a few moments of silence, Wulfric asked, “Do you think we will be forgiven for our sins?”
“Not I. God won’t forgive me. And neither will Æmund.”
“Æmund will see that you did not knowingly cause your child’s
death.”
Freyda turned sad eyes to him. The sun reflecting in them made them shine like bright emeralds, a reminder of Mother’s eyes before they had become filled with such bitterness. “It was my fault,” she said quietly, and Wulfric felt her anguish. “I failed my little boy. I failed Æmund. I should not have left Hechestone. I should not have ridden that damned horse. And I should not have disobeyed my husband.”
He once more gathered her close and held her, feeling her slight frame tremble against him. Wulfric wondered about the little boy whose bones lay in all that earth. His nephew. A child who had died before it was born. He understood his sister’s agony. Just as he’d shared their mother’s womb with Wulfwin, she’d also shared hers with the little mite.
A thought came of his twin. He should have known something bad was going happen to him. Hadn’t Wulfwin tried to warn them of Helghi’s murderous intentions? He could still remember that portentous gesture his brother had made with his hand, slicing his throat, the sign of malice that Helghi had made.
“Wulfwin’s death was my blame,” he announced, breaking the silence between them.
“How so?” She had been leaning her head against his chest but pulled away to look at him.
“I lost Wulfwin in the chaos of battle. When the lines broke… I should have looked for him, found him. Been at his side. Then that bastard, Helghi, would not have got to him.”
“Father says it cannot be proven.”
“It doesn’t need to be proven. He did it. I know it. Everyone knows. And Father knows it too. He just –”
The breeze caught a few strands of her golden hair, fluttering from the cap she wore. His body went cold. Goosebumps ran across the surface of his arms and legs. The back of his neck went rigid.
“Did you feel that?” he asked in almost a whisper.
“Feel what?”
“That chill? Like a cold gust of air just blew through us.”
“No? I felt nothing. Just the wind.”
“Look! It is him!” Wulfric jumped up. Some feet away, under the big oak tree that spread its ancient limbs out over the horse’s paddock, stood an ethereal shape. A faint mist surrounded the figure, and it was laughing, beckoning.
On her feet beside him, Freyda said, “I can’t see anyone.”
“Over there, by the horse’s paddock.” He turned to face her. “Wulfwin.”
“Wulfric, no one is there.”
Looking back, his twin was still laughing, a scene from one of his memories. He seemed to beckon him. He placed his hands on either side of her shoulders and turned her to face the ghost. “See? There.”
She caught his face and jerked his head to face her. “Look at me, Wulfric. Wulfwin is not there!”
He gazed again to where his brother had been. Freyda was right. No one was there.
“But I saw him.”
“You couldn’t have. He is gone. Wulfric, Wulfwin is gone.”
“I did see him, there, in the pasture, calling me.” Wulfric’s eyes welled with tears.
“Listen to me, Wulfric, you’re grieving. That is all it is. I used to think I could hear my baby boy crying at night. I wanted so much for him to be alive that I imagined it.”
She drew him to her, arms around him tightly. He sunk into her embrace
and silently shed his anger and despair. She was right, hard as it be to accept. He just wanted a chance to make amends for not protecting him – for letting him die. Grief had maddened him.
Wulfwin was not coming back.
That evening, sleeping in the space he’d once shared with his twin, Wulfric struggled to sleep. They’d shared everything, even their dreams. And now, without Wulfwin, he would be spending the first night home from what would have been their first battle together, alone. But this was not the only reason slumber would not come. Mother was still tearing into Father, and what with Freyda and Æmund arguing well into the night, it was no small wonder he could not doze off.
Over the next few days, Wulfric spent much time lying in his bed chamber, curtained off in the hall. If he did get up, it was to wander about the homestead like a wraith. Sometimes he caught his family staring strangely at him as he slouched around, muttering like a lunatic, forgetting to keep the conversations with Wulfwin in his head. He liked to search out places where he and his brother once hid together, plotting their devilish antics. Their favourite had been in the
space behind the woodshed. There now, he stroked the bench they had fashioned together from a log. The smoothness of the wood through the
tips of his fingers drew the memories of them together into his mind.
He lowered himself down to sit and leant against the ram-shackle building,
imagining that Wulfwin was beside him. A smile formed on his lips as an old conversation came to his mind.
“Tovi always had to come and spoil things, didn’t he, Wulfwin?”
His brother nodded, a mischievous glint in his eye. Was Wulfwin’s voice and image only in his head? Could it really be him he saw and spoke to? Or could it be just grief, playing tricks with his mind, as Freyda had said? Nonetheless, he took comfort in knowing he could summon Wulfwin’s spirit anytime he felt like it – real or not.
The quiet tranquillity of the warm afternoon away from the noise of
the homestead, began to filter into Wulfric’s mind. Still laughing with
the ghost of his sibling, Wulfric tried to stop the sleep from coming, but
his eyes grew heavy and heavier until he fell into slumber.
*
Wulfric’s eyes flash open. Surprised, he finds himself on the ground and
quickly springs into action. Had he been sleeping? The impact as the lines are forced back causes the men to tumble and fall over one another. On one knee, Wulfric crouches behind his shield. The air fills with screams as blades plunge into flesh. The noise
of squelching blood and innards terrify him. Now on his feet, he grabs his spear. Where is Wulfwin? Where is his brother? The shieldwall is torn asunder and its warriors are no longer standing side by side.
Heart pounding like a hammer on an anvil, he sees all around is chaos. The Wícinga are big men with giant axes that swipe across the shoulders of his battle companions. Heads, still with their helms attached, fly from their necks and the stumps are left looking like fresh meat.
He searches for Wulfwin but cannot find any familiar faces amidst the clash of weapons. He breathes through his nose and is immediately hit by the stench of blood. He tastes the foul globules of gore lthat land in his mouth.
“Wulfwin! Wulfwin!” Wulfric wonders if it is really he that shouts. His voice sounds distant even in his own ears.
The noise of battle diminishes as though he is suddenly leagues away, but still the fighting goes on. Then the howling comes. A faint voice calls… “Brother… Come to me! Come… The wolves…They are howling.”
Wulfric listens for the voice. He is standing still. All else circles him
like a wheel.
He hears it again, very faintly. “Wulfwin?” he calls.
Looking before him, some yards away, he sees Father’s banner, Running Wolf. It flaps furiously in the wind. His brother is there, like a maddened boar. He gives good slaughter with his long-shafted spear, protecting the standard and its terrified bearer, Yrmenlaf.
Suddenly Wulfwin is still. He stares, smiles, and then nods to Wulfric who is close enough to see that someone has reached around his brother’s neck from behind. There is a blade and Wulfric shouts a warning.His eyes focus on the knife as it presses into the exposed skin of Wulfwin’s neck. Even from that distance, he can see the trickle of blood that runs into the gully of his brother’s collarbone; the skin that is unprotected by his mail.
He closes his eyes and the screaming starts.
With a sharp intake of breath, Wulfric woke. He lay panting, sweat running down his back, the sun hot on his face. He must have slipped from the bench and onto the grass, his heart still racing. He jolted himself to a sitting position, casting a look around him, gaining his bearings. He saw no sign of Wulfwin – or anyone else for that matter. Almost immediately the dream had begun to fade. He tried to claw it back. What had he seen? But he could recall nothing significant, just an image of his brother with a knife at his neck. Only a nightmare.
*
For the seventh night since arriving home, Wulfric lay, wide-eyed and lonely in bed. The wind whispered through the eaves like the faraway howling of wolves. During the day he longed for sleep, but at night it evaded him, and his head swirled with thoughts of Wulfwin. Most nights they talked, and this night was no different. As always, Wulfric told his brother of the misery he felt without him. Wulfwin, however, did not return his sympathies. He was not happy for some reason. Wulfric shivered with the ominous feeling of hostility that seemed not only to pervade the air, but also his skin, setting the fibres of his nerves on
edge.
It was the last of the hot weather months and still humid at night, but the atmosphere abruptly altered from warm to freezing. An aroma of damp, rich soil filled the space around him. The dark grew deeper, and he sank into a murkiness of shadows as if he had fallen into an earthly tomb.
“I know you miss me too brother, but I am not at fault. I told Father we should bring you home. I didn’t want to leave you in that hole. I’m sorry… If we had brought you home, then you would be here too….” The wind rose in a high-pitched wail and suddenly the mattress felt cold as snow, and it shifted, as though someone lay down next to him.
Afraid, Wulfric slowly turned his head and as he did so, an eerie voice spoke, sibilant and serpent-like; demonic, “But I am here with you, brother….”
He screamed as a face, white as ash, dispersed into the darkness like
splintered glass.
Wulfric sprang upright, shaking, perspiring, and puffing for breath.
The image of Wulfwin, now gone, had been lying on its side, head leaning on the palm of its hand as the real Wulfwin had often done when alive. Wulfric looked around, the darkness not as strong as before. Leaning forward, he pushed through the curtain and gazed out. In the hall silence reigned. Lying back against the bolster, he felt calmer. It must be a nightmare. He shut his eyes, and after a moment opened them again and looked to where his brothere had just been. There was nothing but empty space.
As time went by, the vivid dream of battle continued. So very real; the
crash of weapons, the cries of the wounded. And the howling – yes, the howling of wolves. It always ended the same. Every time, just as the blade was about to slide across his brother’s neck, Wulfric would wake up screaming, covered in sweat, with a feeling of impending doom. And something else? What are you trying to tell me, my brother?
Then, as the day wore on, those feelings would diminish. He’d shrug. After all, they were just dreams, weren’t they? Though he never spoke about the nightmares and the conversations with Wulfwin to anyone, he was often seen around the homestead talking to himself – or someone that could not be seen. Both Ealdgytha and Wulfhere believed there was something quite wrong with their son talking to the dead. But Father Paul advised them to leave him be, reassuring them it would help the healing process.
Then one day, his parents surprised him with a different idea of what
might aid his recovery. Growing up, Wulfric had never been able to fathom the inner workings of his mother’s mind. He could, if he wanted, recall some magical moments in the past when she’d smiled spontaneously or genuinely
laughed at some prank of his and his brother’s. These were, however, mostly old reveries. Since returning without Wulfwin, her expression had become grimmer, and mostly now remained that way. But on this particular morning, leading a young woman into the hall from the snowy, wintry afternoon, Mother’s features were aglow with pleasure, as if she were about to tell him something wonderful.
Brought to stand before him, the girl pulled back her hood to reveal a mass of unveiled chestnut hair, set aglow by the light of the hearth. He couldn’t help but stare. He chided himself as he tried and failed to draw his gaze away from her, only to discover a pair of startling green eyes fixed on him. The gentle curve of her plump, rosy lips displayed a light smile. Perfect. Her lips were perfect. He briefly looked at his feet, as Mother introduced her as Cynethryth, daughter of a local thegn. Wulfric risked glancing up and began to stare again, unable to draw his eyes from her. Catching him out once more, the girl’s grin broadened, pricking her freckled cheeks with attractive dimples. Thus, Wulfric learned he was to be married.
He hated the idea of having this marriage forced on him in order to help him forget the pain of losing his brother. Did they think him a child who could be placated with a puppy when an old dog had died?
“It will do you good to have a son of your own,” were Mother’s words of wisdom.
And the very thought he might father a brat or two filled Wulfric with terror. Nay, he was not ready for that responsibility. What he really wanted was Wulfwin back.
“As if a mere female could replace you,” Wulfric said to his brother
in their nightly talk.
“You didn’t protest much,” came Wulfwin’s caustic reply.
Wulfric shrugged. “Mother will get what Mother wants, regardless of what I say.”
“She will make a fool of you, that one.”
“Mother? Or the girl?”
“The girl.”
“Why so?”
“You’ll see.”

At first, Wulfric found his bride irksome. Her cloying, persistent expectation he would be at her beck and call was an irritation that he often could not hide. She was eighteen, and far more mature than any girl he had been with.
He could not deny the excitement of having a woman in his bed instead of a mere girl. And she was not unversed in the art of love, teaching him a trick or two he’d not known before. Her naked body in his bed was more than tempting, but with the deed done, he just wanted to get away from her, provoking angry outbursts from her which he returned in kind. Eventually the aggression seeped into their lovemaking and he soon discovered that they both held a liking for ferocious bed play. As much as Wulfric tried to avoid his new wife during the day, he would always find himself in their chamber at night and Cynethryth’s
loud screams of pleasure meant that they now had their own sleeping quarters outside the hall.
Occasionally they would arrive at mealtimes with scratches and bruises on their faces, inducing some odd looks from Mother and curious ones from Sigfrith. Father though, seemed oblivious to it. He regularly appeared preoccupied of late, often found to have an empty horn of mead in his hand. But since Wulfric had been married, he found himself changing. The more time he spent as a husband, the less he thought of his brother and the more he thought of his wife… and the less he dreamt.
Until one night…
Wulfric… Wulfric… Wulfric’s eyes opened. He surveyed the darkness, listening to the delicate snore of his sleeping wife, lying with her head on his outstretched arm.
Wulfric… His ears pricked. Who was calling him? Was he dreaming again? Sleep forced his eyes to close, before a light brushing on his shoulder disturbed him. His lids flew open as he felt himself shaken. He gently untwined his arm out
from under Cynethryth’s shoulders and sat up carefully, so as not to wake her.
A dark mass moved through the door as it creaked open.
“Wulfwin?”
Wulfric pulled on his clothes, threw his cloak around himself, slipped into his boots, and followed him into the night.
As he looked out across the green, the figure was hurrying across it, coming
to a halt by the twin towered gates. “Wulfwin? Is that you?” Wulfric called out in a loud hoarse whisper.
The dark human shape waved a beckoning shadowy hand, then disappeared
through the unopened exit, sinking into the structure as though swallowed by it.
“Follow me…” Wulfwin’s disembodied voice called.
Without realising how he got there, Wulfric found himself outside the palisade and down the track into the forest. The rime on the path gave him the sensation of crunching dried leaves and twigs under his feet. Frosty balls of breath floated around him, caressing his cheeks. He felt strangely detached from th cold. He was there, but not there.
In the distance he saw the dark mass that had drawn him out of his warm bed. “Wulfwin is that you?” he cried out and ran after it. “Wulfwin wait! Where are you taking me?”
Soon, the ghostly figure disappeared into a dark part of the woods, where the half moonlight could not penetrate. Wulfric stopped at the edge of the gloom, afraid to go in.
“I am scared, Brother. I don’t want to see.”
He heard in what could only be a resonance of his twin’s voice, “To see what happens in the light, you must go into the dark…”
“Is that really you, Wulfwin?” Wulfric stared into the blackness before him, dark and crepy. “What will happen to me if I go in?”
“Look, down there…”
Wulfric turned and beheld a shallow ravine. Moonlight shone as if to purposely show him what lay there. He saw a burial shroud covered in vegetation. Within the coverlet of leaves, a bright light glowed, and something pulsated with the rhythmic thump of a heart beating.
His brother’s death pall. What was it doing here?
“Christ! Wulfwin, you’re alive!”
He scrambled into the ravine and slid down its short slope. He fell to his knees and brushed away the dirt and leaves and tore off the shroud to reveal the face of his twin.
What he saw made him scream.
Hollow cheekbones, rotting skin, brown and wrinkled like leather.
And the eyes – black rot in their hollow sockets. Wulfwin’s voice hissed, “Aye, Brother. I am dead but not dead. Real but not real. It is not a dream.”
Wulfric leapt up. “Nay, nay, nay!” he cried out, hands over his ears.
He was unable to stop looking at the undead cadaver at his feet. The
thing’s lips moved. A voice spoke in a slow, harsh, grating tone, “Look at the hand…”
Fear coursed through his veins, and he scrambled up the bank, the
monstrous voice echoing. Look at the hand… the hand…
On the ridge he stood panting, staring into the ravine. The enshrouded
corpse had gone. The voice quiet. “If you are trying to scare me, it is working!”
“Trying to make you see…”
“See what? What?”
“The hand…”
Wulfric shook his head. It must be a nightmare! He looked down at his dirt-soiled hands and fingernails. He was awake after all. The darkness still loomed ahead, drew him to it, his eyes growing heavier and heavier, drifting into a deep, penetrating slumber.

Wulfric crouches behind his shield, as the enemy is attacked. He must protect Yrmenlaf and his father’s banner, Running Wolf. He lashes out with a spear, stabs anyone that comes near them. Screams of slaughter echo through the air, raw and terrifying as death takes anyone in its path.
A heavy blow by a huge-bladed axe crashes against his shield and causes him to go down. He rolls, slides, and is up again in a thrice. He hopes his brother Wulfwin is safe.
Running Wolf is nearby, and he realises he is not Wulfric, butWulfwin – or is he?
Suddenly, he is hauled rearwards, his helmet dragged off exposing his head. He struggles but can do nothing as cold steel bites into the skin at his throat. He tries to call for his father and brother, but what comes instead is the high-pitched whine of a wolf cub. The sound of despair.
Shock surges through him as he slips slowly to the ground. The gore-laden grass squelches beneath him. Warm liquid pours from his neck, saturating his mail. He grabs at the wound, hot blood gushes through his fingers. A gurgling sound. He is dying.
Unable to dam the exodus of his life any longer, his hands fall helplessly beside him.
Someone sobs loudly and he looks up as the light wanes. Father looks down from above, beside himself with grief.
“Wulfwin…”
He turns his head towards Father’s voice but all that can be seen is a man’s shadow. I am not Wulfwin, he thinks, and wants to say it out loud. But the words do not come because he is dead.
Wulfric gasped, panting, hands cover his throat. He inhaled deeply, replacing
the breath lost.
“Christ,” Wulfric muttered and sat up.
He had been in the forest all night. The sun was coming up and his bones ached with cold. A deep depression hung over him. What was he doing there? He struggled to remember. Standing up, he thought he must have been sleep walking.
Then Wulfwin’s voice came to him like a whisper in the wind: To see what happened in the light, you must venture into the dark.

Weeks later
It was a freezing cold Candelmæsse eve, late in the afternoon. Wulfric had been ordered out of the hall to help his father with pruning the orchard, but just as he usually did, he ignored the summons. He’d made himself comfortable as near to the hearth as he could without getting in the way of the women’s cooking. He lounged on a pile of animal skins, supported on one elbow. His dog, Brun, slumped across him, and he stroked the dog’s fur. Around him, some of the villagers were taking down the greenery that decorated the hall since Christmæsse tide to replace them with new for the coming celebration.
His eye lids grew heavy, and he almost dozed off. He could hear the chatter of the women as they attended to the evening supper. The cauldron pot that hung above the hearth bubbled away. The delicious scent of meat and vegetables waft abedout him, tantalising his sense of smell.
His eyes snapped open when through the back doors of the hall, stormed his father. Picking up a spear and shield, Wulfhere stomped out through the front doors, slamming them behind him. About to return to his relaxed state, Sigfrith’s announcement that trouble was at the gate jerked him awake and he sat up. He shifted Brun off of him, and the dog leapt up, tail wagging as Wulfric raised himself to his feet. Brun panted and circled himself with excitement as if it was time for a hunt. Wulfric approached the door just as Mother, her face etched in fury, pushing him aside as she came through.
“What is going on?” he asked as she returned to her cooking.
“Tigfi is out there with Helghi of all people and those awful men of his. They have come to discuss your sister,” she said.
“What?”
“Aye! It seems your dear Father did not attend the hundred moot summons, nor the shire court summons, and now Tigfi has orders to hand Winflæd over to that disgusting foul creature outside as a wife for his equally foul offspring!”
“Winflæd? She is but a bearn still.”
Mother rolled her eyes.
“And Eadnoth of all people? Father will never let her marry him.”
Ealdgytha looked at him with an expression that would have killed all the weeds in the kingdom. “He’s let them in the gates. He’s talking to them now.”
Wulfric listened. The rumbling of voices could be heard distinctly outside. Wulfric pulled one of the doors ajar and looked out. Father was arguing with Tigfi as Helghi ranted in the background. His piss boiling, Wulfric burst through the doors, sorely testing their hinges. There stood his brother’s murderer – the enemy – arms folded, watching as Father and Tigfi argued. There were others also, a woman and another man, standing in the background. Though it was Helghi who interested him most.
“Helghi! You lie and you know it! You killed my brother!” Wulfric lunged at the man with his seax drawn.
Tigfi, the local hundred reeve, knocked the blade spinning out of his hand. “Oh no you don’t.” As Tigfi dragged him away, Wulfric yelled, directing his ire at
Helghi, “My brother told me you threatened him like this!” and he drew his hand like a knife across his throat.
“Ælfstan!” Tigfi cried. “Contain this boy on pain of death should he move.” Then at Wulfric he said menacingly, “Wulfric! If you do that again I’ll have my men clap you in fetters. Stay there!”
As Ælfstan forced him back, Wulfric stood, sullenly making fists. A
perfect opportunity to revenge his brother now lost. He peered out from behind the burly blacksmith. To his annoyance, Winflæd snatched the seax from the ground.
“Don’t worry, I’ll make sure he doesn’t move.” The knife quivered as she threatened him with it.
Wulfric hissed. “What are you playing at stupid little girl?”
Winflæd scowled and looked away from him at Tigfi and Father. Tigfi had his arm around Father’s shoulders. He walked him forward a few steps. “I know this is difficult, Wulfhere, but it could get worse. Is there nothing we can do here? I know that Helghi is an earsling, but the boy may not be so bad–” Their heads turned to look at Helghi’s son who was picking at an unsightly spot on his nose. Catching everyone gazing at him, Eadnoth looked flustered and dropped his hand away from his face.
Wulfric felt a moment of disgust. This was the creature they wanted his sister to wed. He still thought of her as the wispy, plain, skinny thing, so unlike Freyda. He’d not bothered with Winflaed much since coming home. They had not spoken as he and Freyda had. He turned his attention back to Tigfi, hearing him talking animatedly with Father. Wulfhere suddenly turned and jabbed a finger in Eadnoth’s direction. “He is not getting my daughter!” Father then glared at Helghi, who drew breath deeply, his bearded cheeks lifting into a smile
as he let out a sigh of satisfaction. Wulfhere shouted, going toward Helghi, Tigfi holding his arm, “Helghi!”
“What are you doing, Wulfhere?” Tigfi demanded.
“You wanted a solution, I have one,” Father said. “Helghi?”
“What?” Helghi squared himself and folded his arms.
“Oh no you don’t, Wulfhere,” Tigfi groaned, still latched tightly to his arm.
Wulfhere ignored Tigfi, and barked at Helghi, “We fight. You and me. If you can get me to submit, then you may have her.”
Wulfric gasped. His father had not been in any shape to fight anyone since they had come home. To bargain like this with his daughter’s life was the height of idiocy.
“Father! Do not do this! You are still not well,” Winflæd shouted.
Father pushed her toward the hall. “Winflæd, go – in – side!”
“Don’t do this. Please?” she pleaded.
Tigfi said softly to her, “Go, Winflæd. This is not the place for you to be right now.”
Wulfric’s heart beat fast. His sister shrugged the reeve off. “Tigfi, my father is not fit. You can see how ill he is? He is weak as a kitten.”
Father looked indignant. “Why don’t you let everyone know how he easily he will pound me into the ground?”
Clenching his fist, Wulfric’s rage grew as Helghi, smirking, looked Father up and down as though measuring his chances against him.
Wulfwin’s voice appeared in his head, goading, “Kill him, brother! Kill the bastard!”
“Very well.” The sneer on Helghi’s face stretched to a wide grin that was more like a grimace.
Wulfhere nodded. “When you lose, your fat, bulbous, stinking shadow never darkens my door again.”
Wulfric could stand it no longer. He forced his way past Ælfstan.
“Father, Winflæd is right. Let me fight. I will fight Eadnoth. If I win, then Winflæd goes free.” He glared at Eadnoth. “And I will win.”
“Stay back, boy!”
“I am sick of you calling me a boy! I am not a boy anymore, Tigfi. You cannot treat me like I am!”
Wulfric’s eyes then flew to where Eadnoth stood. Sneering, Eadnoth crossed his arms and widened his stance.
“What say you, Eadnoth?” Wulfric stepped forward to stand nose to nose with Helghi’s son and felt himself whipped away by large capable hands. He turned and saw it was Aelfstan.
There was a lot of commotion. Raised voices were giving their opinions
on what should happen next. It was his sister who put a halt to them. She swung around at them all, eyes ablaze with such uncommon fury for her true nature. “Stop it, all of you! Have you not had enough of fighting?”
“Nay. That is exactly what we are about to do, little girl.” Helghi, his voice menacing, gestured at Wulfhere and himself. “Your father and I will fight it out and your fate will be decided.”
“Don’t, Father,” Winflæd pleaded.
She went to him, put her arms around him.
“I’d sooner wed you to Edgar than this godforsaken wyrmlicin,” Wulfhere said in a low voice, but Wulfric still heard him.
His sister’s head jerked up from where she had lain her head against Father’s chest. “Then it shall be done.”
“What?” exclaimed Tigfi.
Wulfric’s heart was still thumping. Had his ears heard correctly? His sister,
agreeing to wed Eadnoth’s brother Edgar. How could she agree to swap one bastard for the other? But Edgar was outlawed! And what’s more, Father had admitted to having…What? Did he hear right again? Had Father really rescinded the sentence of outlawry? Nay, nay! This could not be happening. Wulfric began to pace, shutting out the noise from his head with his hands.
When he could stand it no more, he released his ears and bellowed, “Winflæd, if you do this thing, you will no longer be my sister! And you”, he turned to Wulfhere, “will no longer be my Father! How could you release Edgar after what he did to Esegar and Freyda?”
Winflæd stepped up to him defiantly. “Stay out of this! Since when do you have the right to speak about who I should marry?”
“You conceited little bitch! I am your brother and have every right to dispute this matter. Tell her, Father.” Outrage whirled inside him. His sister’s marriage into Helghi’s family would mean they would have familial ties to the man who had killed Wulfwin. Something he could never countenance. It must be stopped.
Just then all hell broke loose. Voices talking at once. Amongst them he heard Wulfwin whispering, his words getting louder until they were blasting in his ears above the din of the others. Look at the hand…
“Who’s hand?” Wulfric shouted and all but collapsed with the stress.
“What?” Ælfstan, stared at him curiously. Wulfric, bent almost double, looked up at the blacksmith. “Nothing,” he croaked.
“Why don’t you go in the hall lad. Get away from this.”
Wulfric ignored him and gazed over at his sister and Father. What were they doing now? It looked like she was trying to get him to write his mark on something.
“Father sign, please.”
“Never will I sign this thing!”
Wulfhere had hold of Winflæd so tightly, Wulfric thought he would choke her. “If all of you do not leave my land now, I shall cut her throat and then no one will have her. Come, Winflæd, Wulfric, Ælfstan, Yrmenlaf. And you, too, Father Paul. Inside.”
Tigfi called out to him. “Wulfhere, we shall be back on the morrow, if your daughter is not handed over then, you may not have any land on which to order us out of!”
There was a deadly pause. Father stiffened; gone white with anger.
“How could you of all people do this, Tigfi?”
Wulfric felt relieved. Father still had some fight in him. Tigfi stepped cautiously toward him hands held up in placation.
“Wulfhere, I was charged with this mission –”
“To hell with your mission – to hell with the earl. What did he offer you – gold, land?”
Wulfhere spat, then releasing Winflæd, snatched the contracts.
“You know me better than that, lord,” Tigfi said as Wulfhere leant on the bench and put his mark on the contract.
“Nay! You can’t! You can’t!” Wulfric cried, as Ælfstan stood in his way.
He heard Father say in a low angry voice, “There will be no marriage celebration. No merry-making, or dancing – or feasting… Let the priest say the words over them – but not here, not in my home. I will not be witness to it.”
Father pushed past anyone who stood in his way, dragging his injured leg up the porch steps to enter the hall. Winflæd followed and as she went by, Wulfric spat in her face.
“You little bitch!”
Sigfrith went for him, shaking her fist, and he scuttled up the steps, making for the safety of the doors. “If you do such a thing to my lady again, I’ll set your arse on fire, you red-headed beast!”
Wulfric hid inside the porch. He peered out of the door and saw the she-viper, Sigfrith, wiping Winflæd’s face.
“I just don’t know what has happened to this family,” Sigfrith said tearfully. “He is one half of a devil, that one. God forgive me but thank the Lord, there’s only one of them now.”
Wulfric said nothing; did nothing. Just stood stunned. Wulfwin’s voice said, “She hates you too, Wulfric. She hates us. They all do. Now I am gone, they want you dead too”
Wulfric watched as his father forlornly clambered down from the rampart. The others had already gone inside leaving just Father to watch Winflæd borne away by Tigfi to her new home in Helghi’s household. It was all so confusing. Wulfric had been too young to have been involved in the situation that caused so much trouble between his family and Helghi’s, but over the years he had managed to piece together the story. It started with his older sister, Freyda, whose forbidden love affair with Helghi’s first-born son, Edgar, reignited a long dormant feud. Helghi and Father had been enemies long before this, and now it was their offspring who were reaping what their parents had sewn. The young couple met without either families knowing. Freyda and Edgar plighted their troth and the matter only came to light when they met one night in Helghi’s byre and accidentally burned the thing to the ground; not only the byre but Helghi’s hall as well. Remembering the bloodfeud of old, Lord Harold, Earl of Wessex and master to all men living in Súþ Seaxa, ordered the two men allow their children to wed so that there would be peace between them. Lord Harold hated feuds. But Father had no intention of allowing a daughter of his to marry to a Helghison and went against the earl’s wishes and promised her to his friend Leofnoth’s son, Aemund. Freyda had kicked against this at first but eventually she preferred her prospects with Aemund, who, unlike Edgar, was a thegn’s son, and not a mere ceorl.
A broken-hearted Edgar, kidnapped Freyda. During the rescue he killed Wulfhere’s beloved right-hand man, Esegar. But eventually, Freyda was freed, and Edgar outlawed. A furious Helghi, sought out Earl Harold and the earl demanded that Wulfhere offer younger daughter Winflæd to Helghi’s other son, Eadnoth, as recompense and so that the truce between them could be restored. Not that it had ever been a peaceful truce. Father reluctantly gave an undertaking to carry this out, though in truth he was never going to submit to the order. And then, Wulfric’s twin brother, Wulfwin, was slain during the fight against the Norse, his demise resembling an execution rather than a battle-death.
Father accused Helghi of murdering him. There would never be peace now. Neither would Wulfhere willingly consent to a wedding between his daughter and the insufferable Eadnoth Helghison. Or so Wulfric had thought. And Father had let her go without a fight.
Helghi! Wulfric spat as the filth’s name left his lips.
Father walked toward him from the gates and Wulfric blocked his way. “Why did you let her go?”
“Leave it, Son. I do not wish to quarrel with you… not now.”
“The hell I will leave it!” Wulfric said, mirroring him as he tried to move out of his path. “Come on, Father. Tell me. Why did you let the murdering scum win?”
There was something so defeatist about Wulfhere at that moment. It angered Wulfric.
Rage built up inside him and he pushed Father.
“Don’t,” Father said.
“What’s wrong with you? Are you turning coward? There was a time when you would have torn Helghi limb from limb rather than let him win this thing.”
“I do not have to justify myself to you. Men do not always think of consequences when they do violence. A boy of sixteen-year-old thinks even less of them.” He moved to pass, but again Wulfric refused to get out of his way.
“I say you have lost your nerve.” Wulfric spat. He thumped his father’s chest with balled fists. Wulfhere staggered back. “You are a coward. What kind of a man allows his daughter to be carried off by the murderer of his brother, his friend, and his son?” Wulfric’s voice cracked with emotion.
“Don’t you think I want the same as you? I want revenge. I want to see Helghi dangling on the end of a rope. To see his eyes bulge and the stain of shit soil him as he cries for mercy!”
“Spare me the sermon, Father. I’ve heard it before, remember? In Kings Holme?”
Wulfric turned to walk away. Father caught his arm. “It will come, Wulfric, I swear it.”
“When?”
“That, I cannot say. But it will.”
Supressing a sob, Wulfric said, “When Wulfwin and I were little, he used to comfort me when I was afraid of the dark. He used to say to me, ‘Do not fear, brother, Father will protect us from the nihtgenga.’ I wonder what he thinks of you now, to see the weakling you have become. He asks me every night, ‘Where is my vengeance, Brother?’ And every night I must tell him I do not know.”
The muscles in Father’s jaw rippled as he clenched them, then, before he knew anything more, Wulfric found himself flung to the ground. He lay winded, head thumping with pain as it hit the earth. Father crouched over him, hands around his throat. Wulfric tried to pull them away, but Wulfhere tightened his grip.
Looming over him, a grimace of rage on his face, Father growled ,“Do you think it was easy to let her go to that pig? Knowing he was the man responsible for killing my son. Knowing that because of him my brother died – that Esegar died – and there is nothing I can do about it. Do you think it has not torn my heart out? You know nothing of what I have just been through in my head. Fighting is easy! I could swat you like a fly – just like that, I could crush the life out of you, but–” Father’s hands tightened, his eyes blazing like a madman’s. Wulfric desperately tried in vain to loosen the hold. He could not breathe. He
was going to die.
“Coward, am I?” Father sneered. “It takes more courage to walk away than to fight! Aye, it takes more courage than you will ever know, to see your daughter stolen from you and not be able to do anything about it.”
Wulfric gasped for air. Father let go and rose to his feet, stepped over Wulfric’s prone body, and limped away, back toward the hall.
Wulfric leapt to his feet, coughing and spluttering. He ran after Wulfhere, undeterred, as though Father had not almost choked the life out of him.
“Father! You have fought many battles. You fought and won the cheampa. Men sang your praises in the warrior’s hall – and now you speak words of cowardice, not courage.”
Wulfhere halted, faced him and enclosed on him, their foreheads touching. “Do not even think to talk to me of the things you know nothing of. You will regret your words to me one day – by God, you will! Aye, you will learn in the fullness of time, if you get there.”
Father walked on and Wulfric hurried alongside him. “You have lost your mind. We are warriors. Wulfsuna – a bloodline that stretches back
through our family since the first sons of the wolf came to this land.”
“Aye, we are warriors. But there are many kinds of battles to fight other than the ones you fight in the fields. As you go through life, you will find out what they are! Now, get out of my way, lyttel mana!”
Wulfric hurried after him. His brother’s voice nagged him, wanting his vengeance.
“Shut up!” Wulfric cried.
Inside the hall, he went to his mother. She was sobbing in Sigfrith’s arms.
“Farewell, Mother.” He bent and kissed her cheek.
“Where do you go, my son?” she asked as he collected his things. “Am I to lose all my children?”
“I go to Leofnoth. I’d rather eat pig scite for the rest of my life than stay here,” Wulfric said.
“You’ll get plenty of that there!” Wulfhere retorted.
“What about me?” Cynethryth hurried to him.
“You may come, if you wish,” he said, joylessly. He went through the doors, carrying his spear and shield, his wife securing her cloak and hurrying to catch him up.
They rode at a slow pace, through the night, his wife in pillion behind him. It was freezing. Frost floated on the air around them like smoke.
“Cynethryth?”
Her non-response and gentle breathing suggested she slept. He clung
to her hands that were folded about his waist so she did not slip. The road to his foster father’s homestead stretched out ahead of him, grim like a black abyss, similar to the dark mass in his dream the other night. As Wulfric gently nudged his mount forward, the ice he’d seen hovering in the atmosphere disappeared and looking around him he saw nothing but shadows, no moonlight, no frost. Just darkness.
“Wulfric…”
Wulfric gazes into the leaf-laden ravine. Beside him, his brother’s ethereal presence stands. He turns sharply to stare at the phantom and shakes his head. “Nay, I don’t want to go down there again. Don’t want to see…”
“You must…”
The pale death shroud is there in the ravine, he sees it through the covering of dirt, twigs, and leaves. A limb extricates itself from the rotting fabric, its decaying flesh drips off yellowing bone. Slowly other parts of the putrid corpse appear as it begins to climb out of its cocoon in jerking movements.
“Go into the darkness…” Wulfwin commands. His voice is like a demon’s, sibilant and snakelike.
Wulfric gazes around himself. The phantom Wulfwin has gone from his side without him seeing. He is there, down in the gully. “Come to me, Brother…”
Wulfric’s heart is in his mouth as the corpse of his brother sits up, head turned to look at him. He has hollow eye sockets, and strips of leathery flesh peel and hang from his face. His mouth is stretched into a weird, ominous grimace, exposing gumless teeth.
“You are not my brother! Go away!” says Wulfric, his hands over his eyes. He wants to run but feels rooted to the spot.
He peeks from between his fingers and sees the thing is on all fours, crawling toward him. The once thick, vibrant red hair now clings to the skull in long hanks shedding as the undead figure clambers to stand. He covers his eyes again, hoping the thing will go away.
Suddenly, a bony hand grasps him round the throat. Fingers digging into his flesh like claws. “Aghh!” His lids shut tight, blocking out the horror. “Why are you doing this to me?” Wulfric shouts as the skeletal hands tighten their grip.
“I told you to look at the hand!”
Wulfric reopens his eyes. The face of his brother is now that of the one he’d come to know more recently. The white veiny flesh of death had returned to the skull. The fibrous skin of moments ago gone. His brother’s voice is no longer like a serpent’s and he is shaking him and shouting, “Look at the hand!”
Cold, malodourous breath fans his face. The creature is so close to him, it is as if he is alive and not buried deep in a hole in Somerset. He recognises the familiar mix of woodsmoke, wool, leather, and body odour.
“What hand? Whose hand? What do you want me to look for?”
“Useless piece of scite! What kind of brother are you?”
“You are not my brother. He would not terrify me like this.”
“Look at me! Am I not Wulfwin?”
“What do you want from me?” Again, Wulfric closes his eyes, willing himself to wake from this nightmare.
Then the voice of the spectre growls like one of the old gods of yore blowing up a storm. “Vengeance!”
The cry that rings out is subterranean. The strength of it blows the hair back from his brother’s deathly pale face and rumbles through Wulfric’s body. As his own mouth is forced open by the powerful gust of his brother’s roar, his soul is sucked out of him, swallowed into the dark mass and thrust into another time, another place…
Wulfric crouches behind his shield. Men around him are being attacked and he knows he must protect Yrmenlaf. He lashes out with his spear, stabbing anyone that comes near them. He hopes to God that his brother is safe.
An arm grabs him around the neck and pulls him backwards, tugs at his helmet until it slips over his head. He is surprised, and there is nothing he can do but let it happen. He looks down and sees a glimpse of a hand holding the handle of a blade. It is the assailant’s left hand. There is a blur of red, a blister or birthmark between the thumb and the forefinger.
He wonders momentarily why he has never noticed it before. Cold steel rests against his throat. He tries to call for his father and brother, but the only sound he can make is to howl like a wolf cub as the knife opens his throat. The ground squelches beneath him. He slips down to lie in the gore of other men. There is a gurgling sound as he grabs his neck, and the blood gushes from the wound through his fingers.
He knows he is dying. His hands have no strength to stop the flow of scarlet and they flop beside him. Around him he hears sobbing and his sight wanes. He looks up hoping to see the sky and glimpses the face of his brother, hovering above. “Wulfric…” He turns his head towards his brother’s voice. Wulfwin is smiling.
“I saw it, Wulf,” Wulfric says. “I saw the hand.”
Wulfwin is nodding and he has a look of happiness on his face as he gets smaller, diminishing into darkness.
Wulfric lies there waiting. There must be more.
Then he sees it. An image of that pockfaced son of a filthy swine; Eadnoth. Wulfric is standing before him as he squares up to him in his father’s courtyard as he had earlier that day. As Eadnoth crosses his arms over his chest, Wulfric sees clearly on the left hand, the bloodstained birthmark, like a blister, between Eadnoth’s thumb and forefinger.
His brother’s killer was Eadnoth.

Wulfric could not remember how he came to arrive at the home of Leofnoth, but when he awoke just before dawn, he found that they had slept in the barn. Looking around him, he did not recognise the place at first, but after some moments of searching for memory of what had gone before, he recalled the night ride up until the nightmare. As it all came back to him, his heart raced at recollections of the demonic brother and his incessant demands for vengeance. Could you not just have told me who it was that had killed you? Did you have to put the fear of God into me?
He bent over the girl lying next to him, deep in sleep. He shook her gently, but she did not stir. He lay back in the growing light and closed his eyes in the hope that he would return to the peaceful sleep he longed for and rarely received.
Then his brother spoke to him, as though it were his own thoughts. “Oh Wulfric, Wulfric. You do not know what it is like to be in this state, between worlds. I could not tell you who, because I did not know. I had to make you see for me. It is you that has shown me who murdered me. And now you must do your duty, my brother. You must give me my vengeance.”
“And it shall be done, brother of mine. It shall be done.”

Some days later
Wulfric lay in wait as he had done every day for the last week. Much time had been spent learning of Eadnoth’s daily movements. The murdering bastard regularly went hunting. After a few unsuccessful attempts to waylay his quarry, Wulfric realised he must have been in the wrong place, or the right place, at the wrong time. It took him some further days of enquiring to find out the route that Eadnoth seemed to take the most and at what time. As he crouched, hidden by dense foliage, anticipation pulsed through him. Something told him that today he would avenge Wulfwin.
The same rush of blood that had sent exhilaration into his veins at his first battle, washed over him at the thought of killing. He heard rustling and a tuneful whistling, accompanied by soft footsteps on grass. Moving aside the shrubbery, Wulfric flinched as his hand caught a prickle. Sucking the blood, he peered through the greenery and saw a pair of sturdy legs stride by, encased in grubby green hose and dirt-stained pale winningas, the biding that wrapped legs. He caught a glimpse of a hunting bow beside the legs as they went on their way. Wulfric had no doubt it was Eadnoth.
Peeping out of the bushes, he saw the back of the murderer. Wulfric remembered Eadnoth had worn the same green hood and the same weld
dyed tunic the week or so ago in Father’s yard. It had to be him. This was the opportunity he’d been waiting for. He would make it a slow death. He’d make the swine suffer. There would be no mercy for this horningsunu, son of a bitch. Helghi was about to know the pain of losing a son, just as he and Father had lost Wulfwin.
Wulfric crawled out of the bushes and unravelled the rope he’d held in his vigil. Elation rose within him as he found the length needed and made a noose. Flexing it between his fingers, he hurried along the lane, blood rushing through his veins as he caught up with his target. His heart leapt as he flung the snare over the hooded head, before the poor sod could turn and see who it was that attacked him. Pulling the noose tight, he dragged his terrified victim to a suitable oak tree. Tossing the rope over a strong thick branch that would carry the weight, he thought of what he was doing and was filled with righteousness. It was justice he was serving, and everyone will look up to him for having the guts to act. Well if Father wasn’t going to do it, then it fell to him, did it not?
He tugged down so the kicking, spluttering Eadnoth rose upwards. When it felt secure, he flung it over the branch again and heaved on it.
Knowing that the life of his brother’s nemesis was now in his hands gave him a thrill akin to ecstasy. But despite the joy, he did not want to see the eyes bulge, the tongue protrude, nor the blackened lips. He suppressed the feeling to vomit and hung on to the twine, stood on the end of it, panting, gritting his teeth as
the weight of the struggling Eadnoth threatened to bring the soon-to-be corpse
back down.
He could not say how long he’d stayed like that until he could not hold anymore, and the twitching body of his victim crashed to the ground. Wulfric collapsed and fought for breath, staring at the heap of dead humanity that no longer jerked with life. The deed was done. Wulfric laughed. It had been easier than he’d thought. “I have avenged you, my brother.”
Wulfwin did not answer. Odd, because he thought his brother would have been with him at that moment.
He crawled over to the carcass that only moments ago had been swinging from the tree. His heart pumped with the fear of what he would find. A strange thing to be worried about, for in battle he’d not concerned himself with the thought of slaughter or seeing the enemy with his blood spilled, guts sliced open, pouring onto the ground.
Wulfric studied the area. He would need to move the body; somewhere
where the undergrowth was thickest. He could not leave it there to be found. No one must know. Eadnoth must simply disappear, quickly before anyone came to see what he’d done. But the idea of touching the dead body made goose bumps rise on his flesh. Suddenly, he did not feel so good.
He stood over the corpse, glanced momentarily at the bloated face before swiftly looking away. Bile rose and he vomited to one side, heaving and heaving until he thought he had emptied his stomach.
“Wulfric? Is that you? What is it you have there?”
Ælfstan? The rest of Wulfric’s stomach sprang into his mouth as his father’s blacksmith approached. He tried to speak as he swallowed
down the hot acidic liquid, “I-I-”
“I came to find my nephew, we were going hunting, but he seems to
have grown impatient of waiting for me.”
Wulfric felt a stab of fear as Ælfstan came closer. “Yrmenlaf?” He spat the disgusting mucus from his mouth.
The blacksmith’s face that had been looking at him curiously, paled as his eyes rested on the body in the grass. “Christ on the Cross!” Ælfstan’s gaze went to the rope in Wulfric’s hand. “What have you done?”
“It was not me! I found him hanging. It was I who c-cut him down!”
Ælfstan buckled over beside the body of his nephew and held the youth to his chest. Tears streamed down his face.
Wulfric’s hands went to his ears. “Nay…nay!” he cried. “What have
you done?” Wulfwin mocked him. He was laughing. “What vengeance is this?
Stupid fool.”
Wulfric sank to his knees, his heart thudding, his head about to explode
with grief. What have I done?
The world suddenly caved in on him. There would be no justice for
his dead brother.
He had killed the wrong man.
The End

This is an extract from the HWF Hauntings Anthology

If you enjoyed Wulfric’s story then you may want to read more
about him and his dysfunctional eleventh century family in the
Sons of the Wolf series.

Also recommended is short-story by Lynn Bryant, amazing author of The Peninsular War Saga and Manxman series.

An Unquiet Dream