only hope our friend the wolf is there.”
“Don’t worry, I’m certain we’re on her trail.”
“Oh yes, you and your famous intuition! On the other hand, the tracks back there did point this way.”
They finished their meal, pulled their heavy cloaks more closely around them, and continued their march up the bleak valley.
CHAPTER TWO THE HAUNTED VALLEY
The storm grew worse by the minute. The wind gusted, driving the snow in their faces. Cold and half-blinded, they staggered forward, depressed by the darkening sky, aware that the vague path in front of them had disappeared altogether.
“Fine spring weather,” Rigg shouted, attempting to be cheerful. Ari growled but said nothing.
Shivering, bundled up in their cloaks, they trudged past giant boulders and crossed stony wastes where the rocks seemed to have been smashed by Thor’s hammer. Walking was difficult, and from time to time they slipped, or their boots sank in half-thawed muddy earth.
After a while they caught a glimpse of a tiny, slow-trickling stream, absurdly fringed with snow. On the left the dreary curtain of the storm parted to reveal the grey ghosts of cliffs and, more strikingly, the great cleft of a valley, like a portal to nowhere between the looming rock ramparts.
“That’s it! See where I’m pointing? The Valley of the Nine,” Rigg shouted.
“I do see it,” Ari replied. “But just what can we accomplish there in this storm? Lie down in the snow and have a sleep? Or ask Madam Wolf to share her den with us?”
“Have you forgotten Erik’s cave — the place where Grandfather used to camp over during the sacrifices? It’s weatherproof and there should be some dry sod and a bit of kindling there. We can last out the storm as well as the wolf can. And then take home our trophy in the morning.”
“So we’ll spend the night in the Valley of the Nine? I can’t say I relish the idea.”
“You’re surely not afraid of meeting a ghost, or a fetch, or one of Loki’s evil children?”
“It’s an unpleasant and uncomfortable place, that’s all.”
Rigg laughed, but he was trying to keep his courage up. He had hoped they would track the wolf quickly, bag their prey, and return to the settlement that very day. But the sudden bad weather had made that impossible. Tyrkir, the rune master, would have reminded him that Hagalaz, the rune associated with ice and snow, had changed his life in Vinland and set him on his quest there. Would this spring snowstorm do likewise?
When he was much younger Rigg had been taken to the Valley of the Nine on only two occasions, once to join in a ceremony imploring the god Freyr for a good harvest, and once to witness the sacrifice of a man. He remembered a narrow valley, a grim, rocky place that swallowed the sunlight. And now his aunt Freydis, a witch woman if there ever was one, had power over it. Perhaps he had been too breezy and light-hearted about their excursion there.
He sighed, squared his broad shoulders, and led the way forward. Ari followed. Minutes later, through the swirling snow, they saw that they had arrived at the turning place.
“Look!” Ari cried out. “There’s the marker. The snow hasn’t covered it. It’s here that we go west and into the other valley.”
Rigg nodded, blinked, and saw a great boulder clearly marked with the sign of Elhaz, the rune of protection. That sign, which resembled a stick with three prongs at the top like elk’s antlers, had been scored deeply in the stone — by Erik himself, long years before — as Rigg had been told. His grandfather had set it there to keep away unwanted visitors and evil spirits, and to mark the Valley of the Nine as a sacred place.
The two young men approached the marker stone slowly and with a certain caution. This was really the point of no return, the place they should turn back if conditions seemed to warrant it.
But Rigg found himself more determined than ever to press forward. He leaned across the great boulder, brushing at the wet stone with his gloves and peering at the sky for a sign of better weather.
Then Ari, who was circling the marker in an almost aimless fashion, kicking with a certain disgust at the still accumulating snowdrifts, suddenly cried out.
“Rigg! Come here and look at this. It’s impossible! I can’t believe what my eyes are telling me!”
Rigg hurried over to where his friend stood and gazed down where he pointed.
He swallowed hard, closed his eyes, and shook his head lightly, as if to clear his vision. But there was no mistaking what he saw in the snow. It was a set of human footprints, partially obliterated by the storm, but still quite recognizable.
The two young men looked at each other, speechless, then ran forward together, following the tracks, which were fast disappearing as the wind stirred and shifted the snow blanket.
“It can’t be!” Rigg muttered. “These are fresh tracks and there’s no one here. No one could be here!”
“Look where they lead,” Ari said. “Straight toward the Valley of the Nine.”
“We saw no one. We heard nothing.” Rigg spoke softly, as if confirming this to himself. “There must be an explanation. Perhaps they just look like tracks. Or perhaps these are last year’s tracks, and the snowdrifts have made them look fresh.”
“On this stony wasteland? It’s impossible.”
“I know!” Rigg had another idea. “It’s the wolf tracks — the wind has changed their shape. See — they’re not very large. Not made by a man, I think.”
“Why didn’t we find them before? We couldn’t have missed them. The wolf didn’t land from the sky.”
Rigg had no answer. He merely shrugged his shoulders and kept his eyes fixed on the tracks. They walked on, following the trail and not speaking. After a while they both saw, with great relief, that the sky had lightened, that the snow was letting up. Low clouds, milky white and luminous, filled the sky behind the valley’s western wall. A gash in the highest part of the cliff revealed the rocky entrance to the Valley of the Nine.
Rigg’s mind was still churning with wild speculations when the two friends stopped, dumfounded by a new sight that caused them even more consternation.
“Now I believe it!” Ari cried out. “I believe in the hamfarir, the shape journey! See, right before our eyes, a spirit has left the body of a man and taken on the form of an animal. What else could those tracks mean? Unless I’m going mad! I’m not going mad, am I, Rigg?”
“You’re not going mad,” Rigg said slowly. He stared down at the place where the human tracks had changed and become, quite unmistakably, the tracks of a wolf.
“I see the impossible, as you do. I’m confused now and I understand nothing. But, think, Ari, what killed the sheep in the settlement must have been a real wolf. I don’t know who these human tracks belong to, but I know they are real human tracks. And these are real wolf tracks, beyond any doubt.”
“And the one has changed on the spot and become
