by Kyle Tolle
As he worked to reload his musket, Vurm spotted Hantle. “Are the cannons with you? They moved quickly.”
“No, sir,” Hantle replied. “I ran ahead to find you and decide on a place to deploy them, so as to waste no time when they are arrived.”
“We’ve had difficulty even trailing it to this point,” Vurm said, packing his shot. “It’s quick. This is a fine location for the cannons, but if it moves off again, we’ll have to reevaluate.”
Hantle addressed the soldiers. “The wolf can be damaged. I’ve done it. See the ear? The gash along the shoulder? Those wounds are from prior nights. We can fell this beast, if we work together.” The soldiers let up a war cry and, when their muskets were ready, fired another round.
The wolf raised its head and revealed a group of people clenched in its teeth. The sight of legs flailing and hands clenching initially struck Hantle as comical, but the sense of dread returned when the beast chomped and shook its entire body side to side. Limbs separated from the poor individuals arced away and tumbled through the air. When the wolf stopped shaking, it swallowed and licked the fresh coating of blood from its snout. It barked with excitement and surged a few blocks ahead.
“Damnit,” Vurm said. “If it ever stops moving, we can spread out to surround it.” He spoke to the soldiers, “Forward! Advance on it from the rear. We need to press in as close as we can and continue to fire at its stomach.”
Hantle stayed at Vurm’s side as he and the squads picked a way through the rubble-strewn roads. The cannons would be farther behind, but Hantle’s preference was to move with the vanguard and join the battle until the artillery arrived. He passed through a haze of smoke that wafted from a cluster of stores and homes. Fire followed close on the wolf’s heels, engulfing what the wolf did not trample. Hantle climbed over the fieldstone wall that demarcated the newer section of town and reached an intersection, where he stopped, for he had come upon the wolf as it drained water from an ornamental pool.
The blare of a horn sounded and Hantle traced it to Mayor Rhet, who stood with his council members on the town hall’s veranda. The hall, with its position on the hill, rose higher than the wolf, but only just. Hantle could hear nothing the mayor shouted, but neither did those nearer give it any heed. The wolf, however, momentarily looked up from the pool, and a wave of pandemonium swept through the scores of fleeing civilians within its reach. It sparked fear into the council members too. They hurried into the town hall, with the mayor right behind. Was that all the leadership of Harsenth would do? Were they already giving up? Would they too flee?
When the wolf finished its drink, it set upon the stone buildings bordering the pool. Hantle, Vurm, and the soldiers formed a line just a block from its rear legs. With a hand signal from the lieutenant, they peppered the wolf with another volley. All except for Hantle. He had the wolf in his crosshairs but could not pull the trigger. The creature, along with the rest of the world, went out of focus. Two blurry beasts loomed before him, then three, then only one. He lowered his weapon and gripped the remains of a wall for support.
The force reloaded around him and, before his vision cleared, another barrage of musket balls sailed through the air. The wolf must have noticed these shots because it sidestepped its rear legs to one side while keeping its head lowered in a group of victims. Vurm and the soldiers fired a third time. With an aim finally sharp, Hantle contributed a shot of his own. The wolf kicked a large building, causing it to collapse to the street, but the structure managed to stay largely intact. In order to separate stone from mortar and search for people within, the wolf was forced to paw and bite at it. A small bit of hope crept into Hantle as he realized the creature could not raze the stone buildings as easily as the wooden ones. Neither did the flames spread as greedily. He caught Vurm’s eye and pointed. “The stonework has slowed the wolf.”
“Yes, it has.” The lieutenant shouted to the force at large, “Keep firing as you can. It won’t move as quickly through these buildings. That will give us the chance to encircle it.”
Hantle counted heads. Between the troopers and the civilians that had joined along the way, there had to be nearly eighty in their group. It was by far the most sizeable force Hantle had seen yet. Behind him, he heard the distinct clattering of wagon wheels on cobblestone and looked to see the cannons rolling along, having just come through a break in the fieldstone wall a block away. At last, the cannons were near enough to turn the tide. “Lieutenant,” Hantle said, “the cannons are near!” He shouted for the artillery soldiers, who acknowledged him and directed the horses toward the intersection. A vision before him played of the leviathan toppling onto the town hall, dead from the cannonball launched by the torch he would hold. Perhaps it was a blessing the thing paid them no attention. The fell stroke would soon fall, unseen.
“Spread out,” Vurm cried. “Form a circle around the wolf and close it in. The cannons at the rear and the muskets all around will overwhelm it.” A great clamor arose as the wolf dragged a claw through the town hall, crumbling a portion of it down the hillside. The musket fire paused as the soldiers stood and watched. “Go,” Vurm ordered, and the force advanced.
The artillery soldiers arrived and set about deploying the cannons. It was then that the havoc around them really struck Hantle. Most wagons on the streets were unable to move because of the flood of people moving on foot. Cattle, chickens, and dogs made a racket as they too fled. A layer of clouds overhead wiped out the view of the stars and the wind shifted, carrying the wails of people trying to escape the choking smoke and raining ash as much as the fanged menace. Hantle coughed on a passing plume and batted ash from his face. Focusing on the wolf once more, he noticed how the fires in the streets under it cast an eerie tinge on its coat of fur that, when combined with the blood from its feasting, made its snout and neck look like smoldering coals.
“Hantle.” Hantle turned and saw the soldiers pour powder down the barrels and lug the cannon balls from the cart. “You have to move,” Vurm said. “You’re right in the way.”
Hantle’s daze broke and he moved to the side. “Sorry,” he muttered. He had lost track of what they had been doing. “How . . . What can I do to help?”
“Just stay right there.” The soldiers packed the shot with long rods and Vurm rotated a crank to adjust the aim.
The wolf, intent on digging through the town hall and its rubble, had not moved in some time. It would be the easiest shot they could have hoped for.
One of the artillery soldiers said, “Ready.” Vurm nodded and extended his hand for the torch, which another worked to light.
A sergeant arrived at their side and slid to a halt, shouting, “Lieutenant, Lieutenant Vurm!” Her chest heaved as she caught her breath. Hantle turned toward the sergeant—
Hantle’s forehead impacted the ground and rebounded. A stupor drove in through the bruise caused by the roof in Founsel. He let out a grunt and his leg muscles failed to move as instructed. A cacophony had washed over him, now followed by multiple, smaller boomings, perceptible more through his contact with the ground than through the great ringing in his ears. He turned his head and saw a ball of flame rise, slowly morphing into smoke.
Fragments of wood, metal, and stone rained to the ground around them. Hantle covered his head until the bombardment ended, then watched the black mushroom billow higher, fueled by something still burning, until it reached the clouds themselves. He looked to the wolf and pushed himself to his knees. The beast had paused to eye the source of the explosion. The final stones flung by the wolf’s digging flew through the air to crash into buildings farther off or bury into the ground. Hair standing on its hackles was wild and frayed, like the wire of the coop in Founsel. Hantle could still see his boys’ blood dripping from the rooftop, glinting in the sunlight.
A groan in the street to his side drew Hantle’s gaze. A mother clutched an infant to her bosom and struggled to climb over a pile of timbers barricading her way. But the groan was not from the woman: a storefront wall
listed and leaned farther and farther from the upright. As Hantle’s feet were still unwilling to participate in moving him, he could only watch as the wall lost its balance and buried the woman and her bawling babe under several thousand pounds of granite block. Yet another two he failed to save.
Vurm crouched down, slung an arm around Hantle, and helped him to his feet. “You okay?” he asked.
“I think so,” Hantle said. “Hit my head when I got thrown. Legs felt like they had gone numb.”
“How about now? Can you stand on your own?”
Hantle tested his footing and, once sure of his steadiness, nodded. “Yes. What happened though?”
The sergeant, with her breath returned, wiped sweat from her brow and said, “A weapons cache. The building had caught flame and its roof must have finally collapsed and lit the ordnance within. I tried to find the lieutenant so that we might draw the wolf near it before it exploded, but ran out of time. Obviously.”
A howl set Hantle’s chest to reverberating. The canine looked to be reveling in the chaos; its monstrous tail wagged and buffeted the town hall. Terror gripped trooper and civilian alike. Hantle stepped toward the cannons. “We’ve still got the artillery.”
“Yes.” Vurm crouched beside one of them to double check its aim. “Quickly now. Before it moves off.”
An artillery soldier picked the torch off the ground. Its flame had been extinguished by the shockwave, and he pulled steel and flint from his pocket to relight it.
“This one’s ready,” Vurm said. “I’ll check the other. Hantle, set the torch to the fuse.”
Hantle took the torch from the solider and approached. The ground shook and Hantle braced himself, expecting another explosion to wash over them, but it was the wolf, pouncing on the town hall. Just hold still, he thought. He lit the fuse and the cannon lurched back as its projectile sped off. Instead of impacting the wolf, however, the cannonball embedded itself into the hillside. He looked to the Lieutenant. “What the hell?”
Vurm’s eyes went wide and he looked through the sight again. “The bastard thing’s thrown off the aim with its pouncing.” Metal scraped against metal as he cranked once more.
The wolf lunged away from Hantle to follow a street where it scooped up a line of evacuees. “No!” Hantle shouted and kicked at the cannon’s wheel. “Vurm, can you re-aim to follow it?”
The lieutenant watched the canine for a moment, occasionally looking back through the sight. “I’m afraid it’s out of range. We’ll have to haul them closer.”
“Shit.” Hantle threw the torch to the ground. “That’ll waste even more time.” The roads were in such terrible condition and filled with so much wreckage that he was not sure whether they could follow it any farther. That became irrelevant, however, when the wolf drove along the road (devouring the entire line of people as it went), continued beyond the eastern fringes of town, and disappeared into the dark. The chance was lost.
The clouds overhead appeared to have thickened and a peal of thunder rolled in from the distance. A girl wandered toward the cannons, looking disoriented and wearing ragged clothes. Vurm knelt before her, wiped blood away from her ears, and inspected a head wound.
“That way lies Bansuth?” Hantle asked.
“Yes,” the lieutenant nodded. “Though a far ways off.” He took a kerchief from a pocket and dabbed dirt and ash from the child’s injury.
Around Hantle, the bones of Harsenth were shattered and scattered, but some of the people had survived. He had not failed them entirely. Would the demon travel as far as Bansuth tonight? Or would he have an opportunity to beat it there?
Lieutenant Vurm lowered his voice and spoke to the girl. “Do you know where your parents are, dear?” She gave a squeak and began to cry. “Hey, hey.” He pulled her into an embrace. “You stay with us, and we’ll see if we can find them.”
Hantle looked down at the lieutenant. “Will you pursue the wolf with me?”
Vurm looked shocked. “You want to chase it? After it left on its own? You could help us here instead. With all the injured and lost.” He nodded to the girl. “Ones like her.” The girl sniffled and picked at her tangled hair. “And,” Vurm continued, “what if the thing comes back?”
“I doubt that will happen. There’s only scraps left here.”
Vurm gave a resigned shrug and stood. “Scraps we may be, but we survived. We have homes and families and friends to tend to. And I have my duties as lieutenant.” He led the child away.
Hantle considered the options. The town was largely destroyed, but it was not devoid of life, like the other places he had left behind. Staying was an attractive notion, but he had still not slayed the wolf. It was out there. The ones alive in Harsenth were ones he had saved, okay, but how many in Bansuth were now in danger? His duty here was done. Bansuth ought to have an even larger army. Might they fare better if he did not make another colossal mistake? The clouds above let loose and rain poured down.
Decided, Hantle walked after Lieutenant Vurm. “I cannot stay,” he said. “I am glad you have a chance to put the town back together. But there are thousands of lives ahead to rescue from the beast.” The numerous fires nearby sputtered with raindrops. “What lies between here and Bansuth?”
Vurm stopped the girl and faced Hantle once more. “Small homesteads in a few places.” He took a deep breath before going on. “I’m sorry you lost your family, Hantle, but saving others won’t bring them back.”
“No”—Hantle shook his head—“it won’t. But it will keep others from needlessly dying like they did.” Through the raindrops, he thought he saw a hint of understanding cross the lieutenant’s face.
Hantle had forgotten the sergeant until she spoke. “You must have a death wish,” she said, “if you’re chasing after that thing. It was the definition of terror.”
Hantle tensed up. What did she know of his struggles? And how could he even hope to express it? He was spared a response when Vurm said, “Death is not the only way to destroy a person.”
It seemed that Vurm did understand. Hantle met his gaze and gave a small smile of gratitude. Perhaps the lieutenant would do Hantle a final favor. He asked, “Do you have a horse to spare?”
“Yes, you’ll need one to get to Bansuth, won’t you?” The lieutenant resumed his walk. “We can give you a horse and provisions.”
Hantle soon had a pack, jacket, and torch. He placed his powder horn and ammunition in the pack and mounted his steed. Once in the saddle, he fastened his musket in a sling that ran under his leg. The horse stepped anxiously as lightning streaked the sky, and he checked the reins. “Thank you, sir.”
Vurm tipped his kepi, water running off its brim, and said, “Good luck, Hantle.”
With a kick, Hantle’s horse trotted down the road. The sun would not rise for another hour or more. The muddied path would be his companion until he arrived at Bansuth. Thunder crashed overhead. To Hantle, it sounded like the wolf’s jaws snapping shut.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
HANTLE TUGGED on the reins and slowed the horse from a gallop to a trot. The press to Bansuth would be long and he could not afford to exhaust the animal. As morning had come, the rain let up. While his legs were drenched, the jacket had kept his torso warm and dry, a thing for which he was grateful, for the air had a chill to it. His arm ached as he slid the pack from his back. Inside, he found nuts and jerky, also dry. Both pack and jacket seemed to share the same coating. The road sloped upward and, bouncing with each step of his mount, he chewed on a strip of jerky. He rummaged through the rest of the contents to find a clay jar of oil for the torch and an herb sachet. A sniff told him it contained jursant. That would be helpful as he pushed through the night.
A few final booms of thunder brought to Hantle’s mind the cannons in Harsenth. He could not stop thinking of how the night should have gone: one cannonball shattering the wolf’s leg, another impacting the beast’s neck. As it collapsed to the ground, Hantle would have run up to slit its throat, to let the demon b
leed out onto the ground as reparation for all the blood it had taken.
In reality, though, he had been too slow, too late. He was the fool who led the lieutenant and two squads away from the city they were meant to protect. His mistakes had harmed Harsenth in the same way his family had been harmed: they fell prey to the wolf. And it was not just his family who had died. Indeed, Rounfil’s corpse still lay pinned under the roof in Founsel. What animals now picked at his skin, tore into his abdomen, or bore into his eyes? He shook off the gruesome thought and stifled a yawn.
All of his travels since Founsel blurred into a single long day. The constant motion sapped him of energy and concentration. He rode for the death of the wolf and vengeance for his family, yet how could he expect the coming night to be any different than the last? He would be a drained man against a draining force. Even the cannonballs might not be much to its new size. It seemed pointless, but, in spite of that, he kept on. Why? What did he chase? There was some reason for him to push on to Bansuth. If he could shake the fog from his mind, he might have a chance to pinpoint it.
Hantle’s head drooped, but he caught himself before sliding out of the saddle. When was the last time he had rested? Back when he had a family, a village, a future, wasn’t it? It was near to midday, but not much warmer than it had been at dawn. Clouds above dispersed enough to reveal the Knuckles, separating the Far Finger from the Fist. He stared in awe at the dark craggy peaks. In spite of the countless miles from here to there, they towered over him.
Coming around a bend at the base of a hill temporarily put the mountains out of his view, so he looked to the ground. Thick brush bordered the road on his right, but through it led a small path that ended in a clearing. Farther back, he could make out the shape of a homestead, now in ruins. He had passed other homes earlier and took the time to look for any who might have survived. None had, of course, and he had since given up that specific hope. Something else drew Hantle to pull back on the reins: thirst. In his rush to set out from Harsenth, he had left without any water. Yet another way blind obsession left him unprepared. He dismounted and led the horse along the muddied path to the farmhouse.