The Wolf

by Leo Carew

  Roper stopped in front of them. “Thank you for summoning me, Captain,” he said as calmly as he could. “I hope you feel you can ask for me whenever you need help.” Uvoren was straight-faced, a touch of humour in his eyes. He had heard Roper, but his words were barely worth considering. A nineteen-year-old was no more than a wasp to the Captain of the Guard. He was the most esteemed warrior in Albion. The lad was weak. Roper did not have his skill, his strength, his experience or his resolve.

  “He’ll summon you whenever he pleases, Roper,” said Asger, glancing knowingly at Uvoren, who had eyes only for Roper.

  Roper snorted at Asger’s words. He had developed a deep disdain for the Lieutenant of the Guard, whose face was glistening even on this cool morning. He was Uvoren’s lapdog; a yapping irritation who possessed no great talent at anything and yet had somehow managed to make it to his elevated position on Uvoren’s coat-tails. If Uvoren made a joke, he was the first to start laughing and the last to stop. If Uvoren made a comment, Asger would agree with it fervently until Uvoren decided that perhaps he had not been right after all, at which point Asger would say how wise that was. He would talk happily with anyone, until Uvoren came into a room. Then he would look superior and aloof, regularly looking over at Uvoren and rolling his eyes as if to say that this company was not worth his time.

  “You’ll refer to me as ‘lord,’ Asger,” said Roper. He paused. “You’re always sweating. It must be warm, spending so much time with your head up Uvoren’s arse.”

  Even Uvoren laughed at that. Asger bristled but Roper just nodded to them and spurred his horse forward, Helmec falling in behind him. He felt a not inconsiderable glee at enraging Asger.

  Roper took the head to the physician in the Central Keep and requested that the flesh be stripped from it and the skull returned afterwards. The wire-haired man he left it with seemed surprised but pleased to help. Roper would bury the skull somewhere in the wilds, where Anakim bones belonged. He then returned to his quarters to drop off Kynortas’s valuable battle helm, which, in truth, he was glad to have recovered.

  There was work to do.

  His quarters were on the highest floor of the keep, in one of the many towers that braced its exterior. The spiral staircase outside took him down to the foundations. Here, in a cave-like chamber twenty feet high and capped with vaulted stone, Ramnea’s Own Legion, the Black Kingdom’s finest, had their training hall. Thick stone walls and dozens of shafts, lined with polished copper alloy which directed cold air and golden light into the chamber, kept it cool and light all year round.

  Following Roper was a fully armed and armoured Helmec. Roper himself wore his plate armour (patched and sealed by the Hindrunn armourers) and carried one of the great swords of his own house, Jormunrekur. It was called Cold-Edge and had been bequeathed by his father four years before when Roper had reached the age of fifteen. It was one of the most distinctive weapons in Albion: a straight-bladed cleaver of the very finest temper and alloy. The Jormunrekur had all the best swords. His father’s war-blade had, perhaps, been even finer. Bright-Shock, it was called. Its blade glittered with diamond-dust, embedded in it during its forging. Even against other Unthank-weapons, it had been known to break them apart before the fight was over. An uneasy legend had also grown up around the sword. People said that Bright-Shock thirsted for blood like no other blade and that, if its thirst was not satisfied during battle, it would drive its bearer to commit murder. That weapon had been lost: it had been in Kynortas’s scabbard when he was dragged into the Suthern ranks.

  Roper was glad of Cold-Edge and the memory of its receipt when he saw the legionaries’ faces. Those who were running around the great track that encircled the hall stared at him with hostility as they passed. A squad of legionaries at sword-play beyond the track fell still and gazed at him with aggressive curiosity, their lictor joining them in conspicuous inactivity.

  “Wait here for me, Helmec,” said Roper. Helmec had bristled at the lictor but did as he was told, standing by the door as Roper crossed the track and stalked towards the legionaries. The lictor said nothing as Roper approached. Nor did he bow, though it would have been the expected level of deference.

  “What are you staring at, Lictor?” asked Roper, coming to a halt before the officer. Roper was taller than he and stared down at the smaller man, standing as his father had taught him. Back straight, shoulders back, hands joined behind his back.

  “Nothing,” responded the officer, returning Roper’s gaze.

  “For your sake, I shall assume that your shocking lack of respect is because you do not know who I am,” said Roper, taking a step closer to the man and raising his voice. “I am, after all, new to my role. My name is Roper Kynortasson, of the House Jormunrekur. I am the Black Lord; your master. You refer to me as ‘my lord.’”

  “I know,” said the lictor.

  “I know, what?” repeated Roper, leaning very close now.

  “I know, lord,” said the lictor sourly.

  Roper straightened up. “Your men should still be training, Lictor. The Second Trumpet has yet to sound.”

  The lictor blinked and stared at Roper for a moment before turning back to his soldiers. “Did I say you could rest?” At once the legionaries began sparring again. Roper regarded the lictor coldly.

  “Where does the Guard train?”

  “Why, lord?”

  “I don’t answer to impertinent lictors. Answer me, man. Where does the Guard train?”

  The lictor gestured to the centre of the hall, where Roper could now make out the banner of the Sacred Guard: a silver eye on a black, starred background, hanging from one of the pillars.

  “What is your name?” Roper asked the lictor, still staring at the banner.

  “Ingolfur, lord.”

  “I shall remember you,” said Roper, looking the legionary up and down. “Carry on, Ingolfur.”

  The lictor, still refusing to bow, turned back to his soldiers while Roper marched towards the silver eye. This he had learned already; men in a group might condemn and scorn him, but they grew much less brave if singled out.

  While others stopped to stare as Roper passed, the Sacred Guard, when he finally reached them, did not even acknowledge him. They were also sparring, using the heavier, blunted steel blades that were employed during training. When in battle they used the lighter, Unthank-silver that all the best Anakim blades were made of; it was almost miraculously easy to wield. The echoing clang of the blades made the training hall sound like a foundry.

  The guardsman closest to Roper was another face he had memorised: Gosta, one of Uvoren’s war council. Most of the rest of the Guard fought with tight, economical movements; disciplined and fit. Gosta was more like a rabid dog, slashing harvestman-style at his evidently intimidated opponent and spitting vile curses as he forced the man back. Suddenly, Gosta lunged and beat aside his opponent’s blade; his own sword ricocheted back towards his opponent’s head and delivered a mighty, edge-on stroke to the man’s unhelmeted head. The crack of that blow cut through the training hall, making even hardened guardsmen stop to look up. A couple of pairs even stared open-mouthed as Gosta’s opponent crashed to the ground. Gosta turned away and moved to take a sip from a water-skin behind him.

  “Almighty god, what was that?” muttered Roper, watching Gosta’s victim lie unconscious on the floor, hair shining darkly with blood. Roper looked up and met another pair of eyes he recognised: lightning blue, framed by a face of surpassing handsomeness. Pryce; whom Roper remembered as the protégé of the man he sought named Gray.

  “You’re on half-rations for the rest of the week, Gosta,” said Pryce, turning back to his sparring partner. “You play too rough.”

  Gosta said nothing, staring expressionless at Pryce as he took another sip of water. Roper stepped forward now, over the prone guardsman, and hailed Pryce, who did not acknowledge Roper and would have begun sparring again had not his partner held up a hand and motioned in Roper’s direction. Pryce turned back to Roper.


  “I need a service of you, Lictor,” said Roper. “I wish to know where the guardsman named Gray is.”

  Pryce gave a snort and sheathed his sword, turning away from Roper and towards his own water-skin. Roper looked from the departing guardsman to the partner he had left behind, who also sheathed his sword and offered Roper a bow.

  “You are Gray?” asked Roper, inspecting the guardsman. He wore a black tunic with the Almighty Eye over his heart. On the right side of the tunic was the crest of House Alba: a rampant unicorn.

  “Yes, my lord. Gray Konrathson.” The guardsman straightened up. He was tall, this guardsman. Tall, broad and straight-backed. His face was plain but for a pair of engaging, dark-brown eyes that peered from it. And Roper realised he had met this man before. This had been the guardsman carrying the white flag when they parleyed with Earl William before battle.

  “Gray,” said Roper, “we’ve met before, you and I.”

  “We have, lord. On a day that I would rather forget, excepting our encounter.” Gray had an air about him; relaxed, unhurried. But his words made Roper suspicious. After weeks of enemies, kind words were hard to believe.

  “Walk with me, Gray. I require your service.”

  “Of course, lord.” They skirted around the training guardsmen and headed for the outer circuit, Gray casting an eye over Roper’s sword. “Cold-Edge,” he said, with a nod. “One of the great blades of the land. I always preferred it to your father’s weapon, lord.” He meant the lost sword Bright-Shock.

  “Why so?” asked Roper. He wanted to know what sort of man Gray was.

  “The balance,” said Gray. “A devastating cutting weapon but equally good as a thruster. And for the serious fights, you need to use the point.” Gray looked as though he had seen his fair share of serious fights. He would have been one of the older members of the Sacred Guard, with perhaps a hundred seasons behind him and many scars to show for it. The high ponytail he wore revealed he was missing an ear and Roper also noted a little finger gone from Gray’s right hand. “You know what the handle is, my lord?” asked Gray.

  “Tell me.”

  “Mammoth ivory. The tusks of a great beast, long since gone from this world. But they roamed this land in their thousands when our ancestors first arrived.” Roper looked down at the cream and black marbled handle of Cold-Edge, wondering if that could be true. “They arrived to find a frozen land. The landscape sliced apart by rivers of ice and earth so cold that trees could not grow, if the Academy is to be believed. Our ancestors, the first Anakim, carved out a home in the ice. They made fire from animal bones and shale and turf dug from the ground when they had no wood. They built their houses from ice or bone and shared this land with animals that today we would think of as monsters. Can you imagine such an existence? Were they driven to it by conflicts in the south? Or did they choose that life?”

  “Do you admire them?” asked Roper.

  “I do, lord. Either they did not know what they would find when they advanced north, or they knew it was a frozen wasteland and came anyway. They made our home and now, we cannot even retain it. The Black Kingdom burns and the Sutherners are rampant.”

  “Perhaps you can help me with that,” said Roper, as the two began walking around the track. “I would like nothing more than to unleash the legions and gain revenge on the Sutherners.”

  “Forget revenge, lord,” said Gray firmly. “But I can certainly help you regain this country.”

  “I wonder if you’d say that if you knew what it will take.”

  Gray looked shrewdly at Roper. “It will take one of two things, lord. The easier option by far is for you to flee the Black Kingdom. Perhaps defect to Suthdal? Head for King Osbert’s court. I hear he is obsessed by Anakim and would surely welcome you as an advisor, no doubt shower you with land and titles as well. Wherever you go, it would leave Uvoren unchallenged as commander of the legions. Then he could not afford to delay, as the considerable heat currently being directed at you would turn to him.”

  Roper did not speak, knowing that Gray had more to say.

  “That might well save this country. As your father will no doubt have taught you, the Black Lord is the ultimate servant of the realm. Regardless of the personal disgrace; regardless of your thwarted ambitions, that is the honourable course if you believe it to be in service of this burning nation.”

  “Do not presume to tell me my duty,” Roper managed.

  “The option evidently does not appeal,” observed Gray. “Understandably, lord. Which brings us to your other choice: you stay; you acquire allies and you break Uvoren. And then, perhaps you can see to the task at hand and reclaim our eastern territories. But to justify such a course, you must truly believe that you are a markedly better leader than Uvoren. Otherwise, it is far easier to give him command.”

  “Uvoren is a self-serving snake,” hissed Roper. “He would be a disastrous leader.”

  “Do not hate him, lord,” said Gray, echoing Jokul’s advice. “He has many qualities. But he will ignore yours; do not return the favour.”

  “He wants to kill me. He has extracted every possible advantage that he could from the death of my father. He keeps the legions in the Hindrunn and allows our country to burn because he knows I will take the blame. If he does not deserve my hatred, nobody does.”

  Gray looked disappointed by Roper’s vehemence. “As it happens, I want what you want.” A pack of legionaries ran past them on the track but Gray did not bother to lower his voice. “Your house is not spent yet and I will die before letting Uvoren sit on the Stone Throne. He and I are not friends, but I do not hate him. Soldiers master their emotions. Hatred would only cloud my ability to fight.”

  “Uvoren is a cancer of this country,” said Roper firmly. “And together, you and I shall cut him out.”

  “Yes, lord,” said Gray, and there was suddenly a touch of darkness in his voice. “Well, for that, you have me at your back. Pryce too.”

  “It doesn’t seem as though Pryce will follow me,” said Roper dryly.

  “Pryce will follow me, though,” said Gray. “He is my brother.” He meant brothers in the way that men who fight together in the battle line are brothers. Who have seen each other at their most terrified and their most exhausted under the great pressure of the fray. Who, having seen each other stripped to the very core, know every wrinkle of each other’s character; have relied on one another utterly, placed their lives in the other man’s hands and found their comrade up to the challenge. Brothers by choice.

  Roper had two blood brothers of his own: twins, the effort of whose delivery had killed their mother. They were further north, in one of the haskoli: academies set amongst the mountains to train the young warriors of the country. Prospective heirs to the Stone Throne were no exception: at the age of six they were taken from their mothers and transferred to the haskoli, deliberately constructed in areas as cold and steep as possible. The boys would learn to use the sword and spear, but, most of all, the haskoli taught grit. The strength to take punishment again and again without complaint. The fortitude to face overwhelming force and not indulge in the luxury of panic. To bear the burdens and expectations of being part of the finest army in the Known World. In short, to create the kind of character whom you could call brother.

  Roper had not thought of his brothers for weeks. No doubt they would have heard the news of Kynortas’s death by now, but they were probably in considerably less danger than he. There would be no sense murdering the second and third in line to the Stone Throne while its primary still lived.

  “So I can rely on your support when I speak in Uvoren’s war council, Gray?” asked Roper.

  “Certainly, lord,” said Gray. “But I would suggest that you shouldn’t play your hand too soon. Currently, Uvoren does not believe you can seriously challenge his leadership. Make sure that the first he knows of your gaining influence is when you have enough power to force his hand. You need to marry and gain the backing of another of the great houses. Even
then, this is a near impossible task. The influence you have at the moment may persuade some to back you, but to take on Uvoren directly, you will need to prove yourself as a leader. And it is difficult to see Uvoren allowing you an opportunity to do that.” Gray lapsed into silence.

  “Let me worry about that,” said Roper. “I have a plan.”

  “I hope it’s a good one, lord,” said Gray as they reached the archway by which Helmec waited. “I said I’d die to keep Uvoren off the throne, but I’d really rather I didn’t have to.” He offered Roper his disarming smile. “Have you given thought to who you might marry, lord?”

  “Many thoughts, few conclusions,” said Roper grimly. The thought disturbed him quite as much as taking on Uvoren.

  “Pryce has a cousin; Keturah Tekoasdottir, who would be about your age. It is time she was wed, and that would be a worthy alliance.”

  “Tekoasdottir?” said Roper, nervously. Pryce’s uncle, Tekoa, was the infamous head of House Vidarr. Roper had never seen him at the war council but had noted that a seat was always kept empty for him, even when the great table was crowded, lest he should decide to attend.

  Gray suddenly relaxed his face into a look of childlike terror, causing an unexpected peal of laughter to escape Roper. “Don’t worry, lord,” he said. “His bark is worse than his bite. But all the same, winning him round will be a challenge.”

  “Thank you, Gray Konrathson,” said Roper holding out a hand, which Gray took with a bow. “Perhaps Pryce could speak to his uncle on my behalf and soothe the beast before I come face to face with it.”

  “Lord, safe to say that nothing enrages the beast more than talking to Pryce.”

  Roper smiled and departed, leaving Gray to walk back to the centre of the hall where the Guard still trained. Pryce was sparring with another guardsman so Gray took a skin of water and sat and watched his young protégé. He was not very refined. Many of the Guard could do extraordinary things with a blade, bewildering opponents and onlookers in ways which Gray knew he could not achieve with a lifetime of training, but Pryce was not one of those. His movements were often wild and savage. Those who could defeat him easily in training were the technically advanced swordsmen, who could spot and exploit an exposed wrist or throat. The likes of Vigtyr the Quick or Leon Kaldison should be able to cut him down with relative ease.