by Tony Daniel
Only the Nesties knew, and they were sworn to follow their king’s orders and to keep their king’s secrets.
They’d been ordered to eat the bloody, black Roman bread.
The thing that smelled of death came into their minds.
Now they took their orders from the black thing.
For some, this had come easily. A transfer of allegiance.
Maybe it was because he had been too devoted to Siggi. Maybe it was because there was something physically different or wrong with him. When the black thing had moved in and taken control, something was snuffed out in Steel.
There was no fire inside.
His plans to make a life for himself, to marry Silke Leeuwenhoek and start a family? Gone. Instead of asking her father for her hand as they’d planned, Steel had gone out drinking that night. Alone.
Silke had been bewildered and heartbroken. She had moved on.
He didn’t know how to tell her that he felt like a burned lump of charcoal inside. That he was crumbling away.
The only thing keeping him going was the harsh will of the dark thing. There was hierarchy and order. He had always liked that about the Legion, especially after the way he’d grown up on the streets. He became the bloodservant of his section commander, that commander answered to his captain, and the captain answered to Prince Trigvi. The prince belonged to the black thing.
Then the will of the black thing had suddenly disappeared.
It was replaced by the mind-thought commands of Prince Trigvi alone.
He hated marching on Shenandoah. They were allies. It wasn’t right. His mother had come from Shenandoah, from Kohlsted. He felt like he was marching against his own people.
Now they were going west to do what? To avenge Prince Gunnar, and get paid a blood price, yes. That was fair.
But once they had started out, the blood price had seemed less and less of the purpose of Prince Trigvi.
Instead of settling the blood feud, he had made it worse.
Near the border, they came upon Adelbert von Dunstig and his band. It could hardly be called a company, much less an army. Fifty men-at-arms and Adelbert had traveled east to offer terms. Gunnar was dead. Now there was a huge amount of silver and a vast eastern territory for a blood-price settlement.
Soon after Adelbert had entered Trigvi’s war tent to talk with the prince, the Legion itself had been ordered to attack the men of the mark, and to leave none of them alive. Even if they’d wanted to, they couldn’t have avoided killing. They were not the prince’s men-at-arms anymore. They had become the prince’s bloodservants.
His slaves.
The fifty men of Shenandoah hadn’t stood much of a chance against a thousand. Only one man, a crazed and deadly fighter, had escaped, and it wasn’t the duke’s son.
Adelbert was captured. The rumor was that Trigvi had cut Adelbert’s throat and sent his severed head home to King Siggi as a trophy.
It isn’t supposed to be this way, Steel thought. Shenandoah is our ally. They are Kaltemen. Why are we marching against her?
He wanted to talk to his brother about this, but Rask was not along on this march.
He had left with the black thing, six months ago. Rask and the Hundred had ridden out of the Krehennest castle garrison one night. The dark thing was leading them. They had vanished in the night.
Steel felt truly alone without his brother. He wanted to be fighting Tiberians, raiding colonies, patrolling the Chesapeake. Those were the things Nesties were supposed to do. The things they were good at.
Instead they were well inside the Mark of Shenandoah’s boundary, marching through Dornstadt Pass.
His master’s will was gone. The black thing’s hatred. The black thing’s drive. Gone.
Now he only had Trigvi as a master. His mind-command wasn’t enough after the crushing will of the black thing.
Steel thought about killing himself every day. He planned how he might do it. But the last spark inside him that hadn’t been put out by the black thing and the bloody bread wouldn’t quite let him do it.
So he’d rode onward.
Steel’s entire company was passing around a case of the runs. Steel was over his, but his men were constantly ducking into the woods, or squatting down wherever they found themselves if they had to. Some had cut out the back of their trousers, their butts covered only by their tabard, so they could squat sooner. A couple were trying remedies such as eating sand from the bottom of rainwater puddles or even plugging themselves with wine corks. Steel highly doubted either was effective, but he let them go ahead, since it eased some of the boredom of the westward march.
They’d stopped for the night. Steel ordered his men to make a quick road camp with tarps, but no tents. While they were doing that, he’d told his sergeant he was going to scout for a stream for the wagon teams. The sergeant nodded glumly and started spacing his men in the driest place he could find.
Steel slipped into the woods. He rode a ways and did not find a stream. Then he rode a ways farther. He stopped his horse, and they stood still.
He was about to rein his horse back, in fact part of him thought he was turning the horse around, but he didn’t. He lightly kicked his heels into the horse’s sides and rode farther. This time he didn’t stop. He rode into the night. Soon the horse began to stumble because it couldn’t see. They were following no path. Steel got off and led the horse forward.
He stopped at dawn beside a stream and ate some hard bread while the horse guzzled water. Nearby was a meadow with some grass that had survived the winter. He would let the horse graze.
This was where he would die.
His true master was gone. He had nothing left inside.
Maybe this blankness inside was a sickness that only struck one in a thousand who ate the ater-cake. It didn’t seem to affect the others like it did him.
That was his bad luck.
He was no longer a Nestie. He wasn’t Steel anymore.
He was once again Alvis Torsson.
And Alvis Torsson was dead tired.
Alvis slept.
He dreamed of his mother. It was nothing special. She was telling him to mind his muddy boots after he’d come in from playing. He hadn’t had such a dream in a long time. He couldn’t really remember what she had looked like anymore.
But here she was. Telling him to wake up, company was coming!
Alvis Torsson did awake—and found himself surrounded by four bears.
They stood on two legs and carried wicked looking halberds. So not bears.
Bear men.
Steel reached for his sword. One of the bear men stepped forward. It? He? It turned its halberd sideways and slapped the flat surface down on top of Steel’s head.
Darkness.
This time Steel slept a much deeper sleep with no dreams.
Chapter Twenty:
The Valley
“Wulfgang, remember that spot!” cried the duke.
Wulf did his best to memorize the area of the bald eagle attack, trying to picture in his mind what the landmarks around it might look like below, at eye level. He hoped Finn had also marked it, because even though he was good at tracking, Wulf didn’t entirely trust himself to find the place once they rode down. He knew how easy it was to get lost and turned around in the woods, because he’d done it enough times on his own.
They moved back from the overlook and went to get their horses. Grim and Harihandel had them ready. Just before they mounted up, Wulf turned to his father. “Father, why did you send Adelbert to Sandhaven? It should have been me.”
Duke Otto, who had been about to climb into his saddle, stopped. He turned to Wulf, and stared at him. After a moment, he motioned Wulf over to himself. Wulf, who was only a pace away, stepped to his father. Duke Otto pulled him into a strong embrace, hugging Wulf to his chest. To Wulf’s complete surprise, his father kissed the hair on the top of his head. When Wulf looked up, he saw tears in Duke Otto’s eyes.
“Never in a thousand autumns,” his
father said. “They would kill you.”
The Duke finished mounting his horse.
“And they won’t kill Adelbert?”Wulf asked.
“Not the Siggi I know. He’ll be fair.”
Before Wulf could say anything else, the duke kicked his horse and they were off. Duke Otto led the way, while Wulf and Finn followed behind in file. They worked their way down a narrow trail that led them under the top of the cliff where they’d just been standing. Then they headed into the woods and left the trail. Now the duke gave way to Wulf and the hunt master, and Wulf tried to make sense of what he was seeing and tried to figure out where he was, and where the eagle and wolf might be.
The smell of early winter was in the air, and the horses’ hooves crackled in the fallen leaves. There was a chilly breeze and Wulf drew his wool cloak tighter around his shoulders.
A screech came from a nearby beech tree. Wulf smiled. He recognized that voice. It was the little screech owl, Nagel.
He put out an arm, and down Nagel came to land on his glove. She then hopped from his arm and onto Wulf’s shoulder. For a moment, he was going to shoo her off himself. She might take a shine to his ear and bite out a chunk. But she seemed chilly and tired after her mighty flight to lead the eagle to the wolf, and appeared mostly to need a perch that was not jostling all about, as his wrist would do.
Now to find the kill.
There’s a big oak tree, but then there are hundreds of big oak trees in this forest, Wulf thought.
Finally, they came to a stream, and Wulf decided to assume it was the little creek he’d glimpsed from above.
But which way on the creek, up or down?
Nagel came to the rescue. She squawked and fluttered off his shoulder and landed in a tree that was clearly to the right.
I guess that’s as good a clue as any, Wulf thought. Nagel was the most intelligent bird Wulf had ever hunted with by far.
He turned in the direction the owl indicated, and the three horsemen and their mounts splashed down the middle of the creek. Nagel quickly flew back down and again mounted Wulf’s shoulder.
They tramped on as quickly as they could. Everybody knew the eagle might have more than she could handle in her talons.
It seemed to Wulf that they had gone way too far, but then he noticed an overhanging cliff and realized it must be a rocky area he’d seen from above. The attack had been directly across the creek from that rock.
Then they heard the cry of an eagle and knew they were in the right place. As Wulf made his way through the tangled vines that hung from the trees near the creek, he heard it again. Then they were in a clearer patch of woods, and in front of them was an explosion of hair and feathers. That must have covered an area of ten or twenty paces. And near the middle was the bald eagle.
She was sitting on what looked like a small mound of earth. Her wings were spread out to cover and hide it.
The sight caused Finn to smile for the first time all day. “She’s mantling, m’lords, dropping her wings like that,” he said. “That’s a good sign, it is.”
Wulf and his father dismounted.
“She is, by Sturmer. She’s got it!” the duke said excitedly. He turned to Wulf and smiled broadly and innocently. “What a day for a hunt, isn’t it? And what’s your name again, sir?”
Wulf blinked. “I’m Wulfgang von Dunstig, sir,” he answered. “I’m your son.”
The smile on the duke’s face became puzzled, but then he brightened again. “My son!” He turned to Finn. “This is my son. He is, isn’t he?”
The hunt master didn’t know how to reply. He looked to Wulf, who nodded.
“Yes, Your Excellency.”
“He’s a grown man?”
“And a good hunter, Your Excellency.”
The duke turned back to Wulf. “I have a son,” he murmured to himself, shook his head and smiled.
I want him to fade away happy like this, Wulf thought. To always see the world like it was the first time, especially at the end.
“We’d better take care of the bird, Your Excellency,” Finn said as gently as his gruff voice would allow.
“Yes, yes.”
Duke Otto took a spear from a holder on his horse’s saddle. Wulf drew an ax from his side for his left hand—and his new dagger for his right. Grer had finished the knife two days after the fight with Gunnar.
“It’s a good blade,” the smith had murmured as he took it to polish and install a handle. “And had the best quenching I ever saw, too.” He only smiled a little when he said it.
Wulf still had the gauntlet on his right hand, and this hid the mangled flesh of the scar, but even through the leather of the glove, the dagger fitted perfectly into the hollow between the scar tissue of his palm.
Wulf and his father walked slowly toward the eagle. This close, Wulf could see blood spatters across her white head feathers. A piece of torn flesh was in her beak.
In Duke Otto’s other hand, the one that did not hold the spear, was something shiny.
A fish, Wulf realized. A trout minnow. The shine came from the scales.
Duke Otto dangled the fish by its tail. He knelt a step or two away from the bird and clucked to get the eagle’s attention. He had been holding the shaft of the spear in his gloved hand, and now the duke slowly set the spear down in the leaves beside him. He put the fish on the top of his gauntlet. The eagle eyed the treat. Duke Otto raised his gloved arm, forming the familiar perch. He clucked again.
For a moment, the eagle didn’t want to move. Then she pulled her wings back in and tried to fly over to land on Duke Otto’s arm. This didn’t work. One of her wings did not fold right. It dragged along the ground, and her try at flying turned into a clumsy hop.
The wolf sprang.
With a snarl it launched itself toward Duke Otto. Wulf’s reaction was quick. The wolf was closest to his left side, so he swung the ax in that hand.
He caught the wolf in the side of the throat with the battle ax blade. The ax stuck in the animal’s muscle. Wulf held on. He yanked the animal toward himself. It snarled and twisted to get at his arm.
Screeeeech!
From Wulf’s shoulder, the little owl launched herself at the animal’s face. She shot like a bolt across the space between. One talon caught, the other missed and sank into the animal’s nose. The wolf cried out in pain, and gave its head a vicious shake. The little owl flapped away.
Wulf drew back.
—and plunged the dagger into the side of the wolf’s head, putting all his weight behind the blow. The blade slid in just before the hinge in the jaw and swept upward into the wolf’s brain.
The wolf yelped. Its feet kicked in spasms. And then it died. Wulf rolled it over to reveal the stomach.
A male wolf. He’d separated from the pack, and it had cost his life.
He was torn open with his guts hanging out. The eagle must have done this. There was no way he could have survived for long, even without Wulf’s stabbing him. The fact that he had managed to attack one last time was amazing.
Wulf pulled out his dagger and sat back, breathing hard. The eagle had dragged itself over to his father by this time and crawled onto the duke’s arm. It sat calming, crunching on the tail of the trout.
Wulf shook his head. He felt his sight swimming.
Breathe deep, he thought. Hold it for a two count like Koterbaum taught us. One. Two.
Someone was handing him something. It took Wulf a moment to realize it was Finn, giving him a pick-up piece, a reward to feed up the little owl.
Wulf sat looking at the dead wolf. His eyes were closed. His mouth was slightly open.
Wulf heard the distant sound of thunder. Was it going to rain on them going home?
This was a wild animal, and huge. He had dragged down buffalo calves. He might have killed his father or himself.
Still, he was beautiful.
The thundering sound grew louder.
That’s horse hooves, Wulf thought. A lot of them.
Then he
heard the battle cries of men.
Chapter Twenty-One:
The Owl
There was a crackling in the forest to the east of them, and a rider appeared. He held a bow with an arrow nocked and pulled back. He wore a hauberk speckled with mud. He had blonde hair, held back with a leather headband.
Like Gunnar’s, Wulf thought.
The man’s aim settled to a deadly stillness.
He’s found his mark, Wulf thought. He drew his dagger.
The man let loose his arrow. Despite the noise, Wulf could hear the twang of the man’s bowstring.
Duke Otto was just turning to look at what had caused the commotion. The arrow struck him in the side, under his arm. The eagle flapped away on its broken wing, then fell into the leaves nearby. The arrow that hit the duke sank deep, and its point came out in the middle of his chest below where his sternum would be. When it did, blood gushed out.
“Father!” Wulf cried out.
The duke tried to speak, but a bloody bubble came from his mouth.
He slowly reached out his arm toward Wulf.
The duke’s lips curled into the faintest smile.
Then his torso slumped sideways, as if a string holding it up had been cut.
“Father, no!”
Wulf looked back up at the man on the horse. Now the other was aiming an arrow right at him. There was nothing Wulf could do.
A blur of motion seemed to crash into the man’s face. He let out a yell of surprise and, at the same time, shot his arrow.
There was a sharp pain in Wulf’s left arm. He looked down to see that the arrow had hit him in the upper arm near his shoulder. It had passed through the muscle. A deep flesh wound. Only its vanes showed on one side. On the other, the rest of the arrow hung out.
Wulf threw his dagger at the man as hard as he could.
He’d never been very good at getting a throwing knife to stick, and this time was no different. He completely missed the man. He hit his horse. The dagger pommel smashed into the horse’s face below its left eye.
The horse reared, and the man came crashing off and landed with a heavy whump on the leafy forest floor. For a moment, he lay scrambling like a bug turned upside down.