The Ritual

got lost. We were attacked. By an . . .’
    ‘You took the wrong path, my friend. Let me tell you that.’
    ‘What do you mean?’
    For the first time since they met, the youth stopped grinning, or pulling stupid facial expressions and fooling about. He was suddenly serious. He looked over his shoulder at the open door, then
back at Luke. ‘What did you see?’
    ‘What do you mean?’
    Fenris grinned, shrugged. ‘Your friends, how did they die?’
    ‘They were killed . . . by something. Out there. In the trees . . .’ Luke was confused; was lost for words. Did the right words even exist to explain what had happened to poor Hutch?
And Phil? Dom too? Luke dipped his head, then looked up at Fenris. Why was he grinning?
    ‘What were their names?’ Fenris asked, but more to change the subject Luke suspected, than through any genuine interest in his friends.
    ‘Why?’
    ‘No reason.’ The youth straightened his face and pulled what he must have imagined was a fierce evil expression. Then seemed to grow bored of that pose, and grinned again instead.
‘So what do you do in London, Luke?’
    Luke’s suspicion flexed. He’d been found with no ID; his passport and wallet were lost in one of the discarded rucksacks. He wondered what he should say, how he should answer the
questions the youth had probably been sent to ask him. ‘I sell CDs.’ Say as little as possible, he decided.
    ‘You like music?’ The youth seemed excited by this possibility.
    Luke stayed quiet. But looked at the man’s shirt.
    ‘You heard Gorgoroth?’ Fenris asked.
    ‘Of them.’
    ‘Uh?’
    ‘I have heard of them.’
    ‘You know true black metal?’
    Luke shrugged.
    ‘Which bands?’
    Luke became annoyed at himself for trying to think of the name of bands whose CDs they sold from the tiny black metal section of the shop. ‘What does it matter?’
    ‘It doesn’t. Which bands?’
    Luke sighed. ‘Dimmu Borgir.’
    The youth spat. ‘Poseurs!’
    ‘Cradle of Filth.’
    The man shrugged, indifferent, yawned.
    ‘Venom?’
    He smiled. ‘The masters! Now we are getting somewhere, Luke from London.’ Then he lowered his voice into a deep mocking tone and frowned. ‘But you clearly need to be educated,
my friend. You need to hear Emperor. Dark Throne. Burzum. Satyricon. Bathory. And you will hear them all while you are our guest in this forest of eternal sorrow. And maybe, maybe, if you are a
very good boy, we play you Blood Frenzy too.’ The youth feigned disappointment at Luke’s lack of recognition of the name, and at his continuing bewilderment. ‘Blood Frenzy! My
band. You work in a CD store, and you have not heard of Blood Frenzy. Luke! Very stupid of you.’
    ‘Fenris.’
    At the mention of his name, the youth stopped grinning. ‘That is my name.’
    ‘I need to take a piss.’
    Fenris barked an order at the old woman, who had done nothing but stare at Luke since her arrival. Slowly, she moved across the room and vanished through the door, her little feet loud against
the uneven floorboards.
    Luke removed his eyes from the open door, trying to suppress the keen interest in it they had revealed. ‘And then I want my clothes, Fenris from Sweden.’
    ‘Norway! I am Norwegian. A Viking!’
    ‘OK, Fenris from Norway. I want to leave here. Thank you for taking me from the forest. I would have died otherwise. But my friends were murdered, and I need to report it. And now you and
your friends are making me feel nervous.’
    Fenris smiled. ‘Then you are a very wise man, Luke from London. Because wolves and devils and fire are to be feared when they are on the wild hunt.’
    ‘I don’t understand.’
    Fenris grinned his yellow grin.
    The elderly woman returned to the room, with a large wooden bucket she could barely carry. A very old one, a museum piece, the sides bound with circular iron bands. Fenris watched her struggle,
but made no attempt to help her.
    The voice of the second youth suddenly boomed from downstairs. He spoke in what Luke had correctly suspected was Norwegian. Fenris rolled his eyes. ‘I must go, Luke. But we will speak
again.’ He nodded at the chamber pot the old woman had placed at Luke’s feet. ‘Please, feel free to piss.’ He turned and walked to the door. The old woman clip-clopped
loudly after him.
    Luke heard the key turn in the door lock. ‘Why? Why lock it? The door?’ he called out.
    No one answered him.

FIFTY-ONE
    The cutlery was made from either bone or wood; Luke