The Wolf

by Leo Carew

  “What is he thinking?” muttered Uvoren. Behind the Sacred Guard, the front of Ramnea’s Own Legion was beginning to come into view, their armour looking just as polished as the men who marched with Roper. Uvoren leaned close to Tore. “Do you think Boy-Roper stopped to polish up his soldiers?”

  “That’s how it looks,” said Tore. Uvoren appeared convincingly relaxed but Tore, like the men on the wall, seemed edgy.

  A trumpet wailed from the column in front of the walls and, in perfect order, the marching legionaries halted. “Steady lads,” said Uvoren lightly; several of his soldiers had flinched at the trumpet.

  A voice, like Roper’s but a little deeper and a little harsher, rang out across the night. “Open the gates! The Black Legions have returned to the Hindrunn!”

  Uvoren beamed to himself on the dark battlement. He could hear more soldiers marching in the streets behind him; coming to reinforce the men on the wall now that it was clear Roper’s entire column was focused on this point. “The fool wants to die. He thinks standing among the Sacred Guard is going to save him. How touching!”

  “You would fire a cannon into the Sacred Guard?” murmured Tore.

  “Ballistae, then,” conceded Uvoren. He nodded at the two ballistae crews that stood either side of the gatehouse and they began to prepare their weapons. They were like enormous crossbows, the crews cranking the bow back and preparing to load. The Black Lord still waited, staring up from beneath his gleaming helmet to where Uvoren stood. Men still marched behind the wall. There was a satisfying snap as the ballista crews finished drawing their weapons and allowed the strings to rest on the triggers.

  “Halt!” bawled a voice from behind Uvoren. Irritated, the captain swung around, a remonstration already building in his throat. The only sound he uttered was a slight hiss as the breath escaped his lungs. His mouth fell open.

  Five hundred warriors stood behind the Great Gate, swords drawn and armoured in plate and mail. They held three banners at their head, the emblems described in cream on a background of black cloth. On the left, a serpent devouring the roots of a tree. On the right, a rampant unicorn. And in the middle, a snarling wolf. House Vidarr. House Alba. And House Jormunrekur. This force was led by a single warrior, tall and broad, who stood alone at the front of the formation.

  It was Gray. His feet were spread wide, his sword was in his hand and he stared up at Uvoren, jaw set.

  “What in the name of god?” Every warrior on the battlement had turned to stare, dumbstruck at the sight of these warriors behind them.

  “Who are these?” hissed Tore. “They’re already inside!”

  Uvoren’s mind was racing. “Those bloody wounded. That sneaky, underhanded bastard.” His face resembled the wolf on the Jormunrekur banner. Wave after wave of revelations were washing over him, pummelling him and making him screw up his face against it all.

  There had been no defeat. Merely a tale to get him to open his gates to a bunch of Roper’s most loyal soldiers, tricked out to look injured. Now they stood, fully armed, armoured and ready for combat. The intent of these warriors was clear: open the gates, or we will kill you and open them anyway. Uvoren’s best warriors would be stuck on the wall as the army flooded through the Great Gate. It would be a massacre; one that Uvoren, so close to these five hundred warriors of Roper’s, might not even get to witness.

  Uvoren stood still for just a moment, staring down at Gray. The silence was broken only by the sound of the bolts being loaded onto the ballistae either side of him. Tore was glancing rapidly from Uvoren to Gray and back again. Gray could have been a statue. Uvoren was not even breathing.

  “Open the gates!” shouted Uvoren at last. His grin returned. “Open the gates! Welcome the Black Lord home!” He turned away from Gray’s forces below him and strode to the edge of the gatehouse. He gestured calmly to the ballista crews: Unload, now! and made his way down to ground level. The portcullis groaned as it was raised and the bolts of the gate shot back, making Uvoren flinch a little at the noise.

  Gray and his five hundred still stood behind the gate and Gray still stared at Uvoren as he strode forward.

  “Gray Konrathson,” Uvoren said softly, coming to a halt before the guardsman just as a ticking noise behind told him the gates were opening. “It seems you serve a new master.”

  “My master was always the Black Lord.”

  “But you are a Sacred Guardsman,” said Uvoren, taking a finger and prodding it hard into Gray’s armoured chest, a little smile on his lips. “And I am the Captain of the Guard.”

  “And that’s all you are, Captain,” said Gray. Uvoren was very close to him, eyes boring into Gray’s. Uvoren was a little taller than the guardsman and looked down at him coldly, stepping a little closer. Gray’s sword, still clutched in his right hand, moved very slowly between them, coming to rest just below Uvoren’s chin. “That’s all,” he repeated softly. “That’s all.”

  “Uvoren!” called a voice behind him. “I thought you were going to open fire on us!”

  Uvoren whirled around, the grin returning to his face in the time it took him to turn. “My lord!” He and Roper strode towards each other and embraced like brothers. Uvoren broke away first, gripping Roper’s shoulders and beaming at him. “We merely wanted to greet you properly!”

  Roper laughed delightedly, looking into Uvoren’s face with genuine pleasure. “Githru was a triumph, Uvoren! The campaigning season is over and the Sutherners have been driven south of the Abus.”

  “Oh,” said Uvoren, allowing the grin to slip a little. “I wonder where the rumours we heard came from.” He stared at Roper for a moment. The boy was bigger than he remembered. Broader, taller and certainly bolder. Roper shrugged. At his back, the legions were re-entering the fortress. Uvoren’s forces on the battlement were looking on, nonplussed. “And I thought these men were your wounded.” Uvoren jerked his head behind him to where Gray and his five hundred stood.

  “You are surely overjoyed to be mistaken,” said Roper.

  Uvoren re-engaged his smile. “Naturally, lord. Come!” He turned away from the gate and placed his hand in the small of Roper’s back, steering him towards the keep. “We must prepare a victory feast!”

  “Gray.” To Uvoren’s fury, Roper slipped his grip and headed instead for the veteran guardsman. He stopped just before Gray, who offered him a smile and a deep bow. Roper raised Gray up and the two embraced tightly. “Thank you,” said Roper as they broke apart. “Thank you for everything.”

  “‘Don’t think about the Hindrunn,’ I believe was my advice to you,” said Gray. “Where would we be now if you’d listened to that?”

  “You also gave me another piece of advice. ‘The greatest warriors can fight in any theatre, but the greatest leaders do not need to fight at all.’ And here we stand. We’re back, brother.”

  Part II

  WINTER

  13

  The Honour Hall

  Victory.

  The word was nectar to Roper. He and Gray wandered through the streets as though drunk. The cobbles were deserted: the residents had dared not emerge.

  “Victory!” Gray would hiss, to Roper’s joy.

  “Again,” demanded the Black Lord.

  “Victory!”

  It did not matter how late the hour; they would have a feast. A successful campaign always ends in a feast and this one would take hours to prepare. All the warriors would attend, each at one of the barracks sprinkled throughout the Hindrunn. Cauldrons of birch wine, mead, ale, cider and beor would make the tables bow before the food even arrived. Such food! It was not salted, nor smoked nor dried. Freshly slaughtered pork, beef or poultry, roasted over charcoal and stuffed with ramsons. With it, burdock baked in clay ovens and flagons of buttermilk.

  Roper’s feast would be the most magnificent of all. Two hundred of the country’s most esteemed figures: legates, councillors, historians and warriors, would process up the steps into the Central Keep and cram into the Honour Hall. Those who had fought
most bravely on campaign would be rewarded with an invitation and perhaps a place at High Table with Roper and his most honoured guests.

  No one had known there would be a feast, so celebrations had to be started from scratch. The clay ovens were packed with wood and brought up to temperature. A small battle was fought between an army of pigs and their drunken herdsmen. After but half an hour, the herdsmen declared themselves triumphant and their vanquished enemies were loaded onto wagons to be sent to the kitchens. The drink was lifted from cool cellars by the jar and barrel, swinging pendulously beneath cranes and dumped onto carts from which they were distributed around the citadel. They were almost ready to begin cooking before anyone realised that the chefs were nowhere to be seen. They were still hiding within their barricaded homes, unable to tell the difference between the noises outside and the sound of an army sacking the fortress.

  They were coaxed out and set to with gusto once they realised this was not a sacking but a celebration. Roper issued the summons for those who would attend his feast, with fifty-three Sacred Guardsmen, thirty-two Ramnea’s Own legionaries, twenty-one Skiritai, eleven Pendeen legionaries, forty-three auxiliaries and a score of berserkers joining the nobles of the country in the Honour Hall. Roper was not convinced all of the berserkers had earned their invitation but Gray had advised him otherwise. “Any feast with less than a dozen berserkers won’t be worth attending, lord.”

  It was hours past midnight when the kitchens finally declared themselves ready and the double-height doors to the Honour Hall (more bog-oak) were opened. Roper sat in the centre of the High Table, raised on a dais and overlooking the other great tables where his subjects sat. The Honour Hall itself was solid granite with a high roof of vaulted stone. Small windows that permitted no light on this moonless night were set just below the roof, with illumination instead provided by two-score blazing braziers which lined the walls. These cast their flickering light on the thousands of carvings that rippled the wall, depicting the outlines of endless scenes of battle, victory, slaughter, treaty, duty, hunting and coronation.

  That evening, Roper’s right-hand man was Gray and on his left sat a stranger: his wife. On her other side was Uvoren, and next to him was Pryce. On Gray’s other side was Tekoa.

  First, the drink. Roper noted that Gray, Pryce, Tekoa and Uvoren all took a horn of the buttermilk before helping themselves to anything more potent from the cauldrons. Pryce was especially partial to mead and passed his horn down the table so that another guest could fill it with the sparkling golden brew. Once it was returned to him, he stood and raised his horn. He did not wait for silence in the enormous hall, simply boomed: “First, the good stuff!” There was a cheer and the others raised their horns. “My Lord Roper!” he toasted and finished the horn. The others did likewise, with Roper’s eyes drawn magnetically to Uvoren, who had drained his own horn with a passable murmur of respect.

  “Why the milk?” asked Roper, leaning towards Keturah.

  She turned to look at him, her pale green eyes a bright corona around huge dark pupils. “To line the stomach of course,” she said. “This will last for hours and I suggest you do the same, if you want still to be conscious by the time the food arrives. Husband,” she added with a smirk.

  Roper took the buttermilk and then decided to try the beor, which was closest. It was horrible. He discreetly fed it to Keturah, who pretended to like it so as to tease him, and moved on to the more familiar birch wine.

  Gray stood now, raising a horn of ale. “There were many heroes at Githru!” he called and Roper noticed that the table fell remarkably still for Gray’s words. “None more so than Leon Kaldison, who almost split Lord Northwic in two!” There was a mighty cheer and they raised horns to Leon Kaldison, a powerful guardsman on Pryce’s left who acknowledged the toast with a nod. This one had a big reputation, Roper knew, as one of the Guard’s most highly esteemed fighters. Even Uvoren liked to joke that Leon terrified him.

  Through fifty toasts, the tale of the battle unfolded. It had hinged, as these battles so often did, on the Sacred Guard. Winds swept across Githru as the battle lines clashed, salty spray flying over the eastern portion of the field. The crash of the two lines striking one another was a punch to the guts; like an immense volley of cannon-fire, or a tremendous rolling wave of thunder. It was the sound of shields cracking and slamming into steel; of men smashing to the ground; of axes reducing wood to splinters. Beneath all that was a deeper, more subtle noise. It was the “ooph” of five thousand men having the air forced from their lungs.

  The battle that had followed was quite as intense as had been reckoned. Roper had anticipated a contest of skill: heroic flourishing of the sword and men fighting one-on-one. But Githru was about muscle. The Anakim line exerted huge pressure onto their Suthern opponents, who were warping and buckling beneath it. Bodies falling backwards as if time had slowed, held between the pressure at their backs and the more powerful, more inexorable force pressing from the front. The Suthern line churning and tumbling like ploughed earth. Swords almost forgotten. A great wheezing escaping from that dynamic arc where the two forces met, as the Sutherners being trampled underfoot fought for air.

  The stench was overwhelmingly of metal. The churning mud smelt of metal. The blood smelt of metal. The grinding armour reeked of it.

  Three times they fought together and three times the result had been an exhausted standstill. The Sutherners would pull back before rotating their front line and assembling another wave which was hurled against the legions, still fighting for breath. The heavily armoured knights joined the battle line on foot for the fourth and final wave, going toe-to-toe in the centre with the Sacred Guard. There the brawling had reached a new pitch. They lost thirty-one guardsmen dead, another fifty or so injured. The knights well outnumbered the Guard, the legions were growing tired and being forced back from their positions. It had been Gray, Pryce and Leon who had saved the day.

  First, Pryce had lost his mind and charged shrieking into a dense formation of knights, knocking them flat rather than trying to kill them. His savagery was enough to create a gap and Gray had been the quickest to react to it. He piled in with his protégé, creating a spearhead which the rest of the Guard used to drive through the formation of knights, tearing it asunder. Lord Northwic had been behind, roaring his men on and, when they had broken through, Pryce, Gray and Leon had charged his bodyguards. Protégé and mentor had defended Leon as he carved through the household warriors to cut off the head of the army.

  That had been enough.

  But there was one tale Roper still wanted to hear. He leaned towards Gray. “So the plan came off without a hitch?”

  “It was just as we discussed, lord,” replied Gray. He did not attempt to keep his voice down, though Roper noticed that Uvoren had frozen a couple of places away. “We had enough corpses in the wagons for them not to bother inspecting those of us still moving. They let us right through to the surgery. Things got a bit sticky for a moment when the surgeons came poking around, but we managed to capture them all and hide in the surgery until we could hear you approaching. Getting to the Great Gate was just a case of looking like we belonged. Easy. The Hindrunn captured without a life lost.” Gray beamed at Roper, who thought that he might be Black Lord for another century and never again win such a victory.

  The meat arrived, with the centre-piece a magnificent boar roasted in honey and crisped with salt, borne by six serving girls who received the biggest cheer of the night. It was accompanied by the Goose Legion, the Duck Legion and the Chicken Legion, a pig per table that oozed butter and the intoxicating waft of ramsons and two hundred loaves of thick-crusted bread.

  Roper stood now (a little unsteadily) and raised his horn. Silence fell in the vaulted stone hall, the warriors absent-mindedly helping themselves to meat as they gazed up at Roper. He looked sternly around at them all. “First: to fallen peers!”

  “To fallen peers!” echoed the hall, getting to their feet in a great rumble and crack as at
least three benches were knocked over. They drank deep and a slight chill ran through the hall. There was a soft hiss as, under their breath, the warriors recited the names of recently fallen friends. Roper bowed his head, horn still outstretched before him, and repeated one name of his own.

  “Kynortas.” He looked up. “We will see them again. Second: the awards of valour!”

  This elicited a murmur of interest rather than the raucous cheer that had greeted almost everything else this night, and the silence intensified. “This campaign has not been two battles, but three, and on the first, we left the field before the Sutherners did.” Roper paused and held up his hands, as if to keep the good-natured jeer with which these words were received at a distance. They were laughing about what for so long had been his deepest shame, and he let out a breath that he had seemed to hold since that rain-soaked day. “It is not as glorious, but valour in a losing cause is surely the most heroic of all, and there would undoubtedly be fewer men celebrating tonight without the actions of Pryce Rubenson. Perhaps we would not be celebrating at all. For putting down Earl William when other men were looking to the hills, I award him the Prize of Valour!”

  Another roar.

  Roper turned to Pryce and beckoned him forward. Pryce stood to another great bellow of raucous joy and approached Roper. He bore the adulation of the other warriors lightly, wearing no discernible expression on his face. He dropped to a knee before the Black Lord and leaned his head forward, raising his hands. Roper laid his left hand on Pryce’s head and with his right produced a silver arm-ring. Pryce already wore one on each wrist and Roper added a third, bending it around his right wrist. “A rare reward, for rare courage.” He regarded Pryce, who looked up to meet his eyes. “I’d have given you two if I could.”

  “I am honoured with one, my lord.”