by Vox Day
“Can you not stop those?” she asked the two mages. “What you wait for?”
“I would think we probably could, but we’re under strict orders not to reveal ourselves.” The older battlemage shook her head. “The ulfin don’t even know we have battle magic, since your people don’t. It would be most unwise to show our hand this early. Unless we can be certain to wipe them out completely, we do not dare.”
“If it is bad magic, many Dalarn will die!”
“Don’t you think we can signal the prince now, Blais?” Patrice pointed to the mass of aalvarg. “I’d say it’s more important to kill the two whatever she called them, the wolf-mages, than a hundred of the regular sort. If nothing else, a cavalry charge by a few hundred horse should distract them nicely and interfere with any spellcasting.”
“Yes, that’s true, I suppose. But I’d quite like to see whatever it is they’re preparing. Right now, we have no idea what their capabilities are. This won’t give us a ceiling, but at least it will provide us with a conceptual floor of sorts.”
Fjotra was aghast. She didn’t understand what they were discussing, but one thing was clear: They were willing to let her people die in order to satisfy their damnable curiosity about wolf magic. She reached out and grabbed the front of the silvered breastplate that Patrice was wearing over his blue robes.
“If you no sound horn now, I jump up and scream!”
The two Savonders looked at each other, then at her.
She glared back at them, undaunted. They might be masters of terrible magics and capable of turning her into a fox or boiling the very blood inside her, but she knew they wouldn’t dare, not so long as she had the favor of their king’s son and heir. Or as long as they were planning to stay within the high-walled safety of her father’s great fortress. Of course, they could simply bind her mouth, either with rags or by magic, but threatening to scream and alert the enemy was about her only option.
“We’ve already learned a considerable amount,” Patrice admitted. “And we really should save as many of those northmen as we can. God knows the Reaver King needs every man he’s got, and every one we save today means one less man-at-arms we’ve got to bring from across the sea when the king decides to add the isles to the realm.
Blais glanced down at the pattern that the two wolves had nearly finished marking on the ground. He sighed, but at last he shrugged and reached for the horn tied to his belt. “I suppose we have our orders.” He adroitly untied the leather thongs, raised his horn to his lips, and blew three sharp blasts. The heads of the aalvarg jerked up in almost pefect unison as the signal echoed across the battlefield below, followed by a loud cheer from the Dalarn shield wall.
The two wolf-mages, however, paid it no heed. Their complicated pattern completed, they appeared to be snarling and growling, although at such a distance it was impossible for Fjotra to see exactly what they were doing. She wished for another water lens. The steam rising from the pattern in the ground abruptly flared red, and the assembled aalvarg began to howl, loud enough to drown out the cheers of the Dalarn warriors as well as the rumbling sound of the Savonders who were beginning to ride out behind and below her.
“Did you feel that?” Patrice asked Blais, sounding worried. The older battlemage nodded.
“Let it be. Whatever it is, we’re not to interfere further unless the prince is in danger. We don’t want them to know we have magic too.”
“What is it?” Fjotra pulled at Patrice’s sleeve.
“The spell. Whatever powers those two mages summoned with their piss magic is being released now. Blais and I can feel it, but we don’t know what it is. We could try to break it up, but if we did, their mages might learn about us, and we can’t have that.”
But when the two companies of cavalry entered the field, they discovered the nature of the aalvarg spell. The mass of aalvarg began frothing at the mouth and snarling uncontrollably. Fjotra recognized it immediately—even in monstrous beasts, it was impossible to mistake the signs of a berserker. Only instead of five or ten battle-crazed warriors tearing off their clothes and biting at their shields, there were nearly three hundred wolf monsters going mad with rage!
The two mages recognized it too.
“Well, it must be a new experience for your friends to see the berserkers on the other side for a change.” Patrice commented. His tone was cool, but his eyebrows had nearly climbed to his hairline.
“Why you say that?” Fjotra was confused. There were often berserkers on both sides when the tribes fought, which, prior to coming of the wolf demons, had not been uncommon.
The gleaming sight of the two massive groups of horsemen cantering toward them was enough to nearly sober the maddened aalvarg. But their magical courage soon returned, and despite the furious efforts of the aalvarg commander and his officers to arrange them into some sort of defensive position that would allow them to face both cavalry forces at the same time, first one aalvarg broke away from the pack and charged at the shield wall, then another. Soon they were followed by a third, then a fourth, and before long nearly all the monsters were baying and charging recklessly back toward the Dalarn warriors.
It was a terrible sight to see that maddened grey flood rushing at what looked like a painfully inadequate dam, but even though the front two lines of the wall staggered as the crazed wolf-beasts leaped fearlessly upon their shields and impaled themselves on spears, they did not break and run.
A grey flood of wolf flesh surged toward the shield wall, which now looked tragically weak. Like a storm wave crashing upon rocks the crazed wolf-beasts leapt savagely upon the shields.
The front two lines in the shield wall staggered but held, and scores of aalvarg squealed, impaled on spears. The warriors shouted and steadied and kept their shields raised.
“Perfect!” Blais exulted. “Those furry bastards finally stuck themselves in, precisely as we’d hoped. And here comes the prince, precisely in time to hammer them against the anvil.”
The Red Prince looked a brave and formidable sight in his crimson armor. The powerful black horse upon which he rode was nearly as magnificent as the prince himself, and behind him rode a burly man-at-arms who sat his horse with all the grace of a sack of flour. But the man’s arms were thicker than Fjotra’s thighs, and he held a staff upon which the prince’s unadorned red flag proudly sailed beneath another flag bearing the royal crest. Behind them rode two hundred armored horse, the bulk of the Savonder force, looking calm and lethal.
A horn blew once, and the armored riders lowered their lances in unison. It blew again, and the riders picked up speed but held formation. One giant arrowhead of riders aimed at the aalvarg right, the other aimed at the opposite flank.
The riders on the left struck their target just moments before the riders on the right. A tremendous cacophony of shrieking metal, crunching bones, and horseflesh slamming hard against wolfish muscle. Aalvarg died by the scores almost immediately, and panic erupted in the middle of their ranks.
Some of the beasts tore at each other with their claws and jaws even as their companions closer to the edges fought desperately and died—some spitted on the ends of the knights’ long lances, others having their skulls crushed by the heavy warhammers wielded by the stronger knights.
Inspired by their reinforcements, the Dalarn in the shield wall began to sing as they fought to straighten out and stabilize their line. Their deep voices provided a haunting accompaniment to the high-pitched howls and screams of the wounded and dying aalvarg.
Many warriors didn’t even use their weapons but simply pressed their shoulders against their companions on either side and, using their shields alone, manfully shoved back the wolves snapping and clawing at their faces.
Too berserk to pay any attention to their leader or even bother to defend themselves, the aalvarg were surrounded on three sides and slaughtered as fast as the Savonders could cut them down or trample them.
“They’ve got to get those mages,” Patrice shouted to Blais.
> “But how will they know to do that?” Blais responded. “If the Red Prince or one of the other captains even notices them at all, they’ll think they’re just animals like we did.
But if the Red Prince didn’t notice the two wolf-mages, he most certainly had his eyes on the aalvarg leader, who was still standing toward the rear, his disbelief at the overwhelming devastation being wreaked in a matter of moments by the heavy human cavalry palpable even on his lupine face.
Fjotra watched as Prince Karl, having lost his lance, smashed his mailed fist into the jaws of a scrawny, undersized beast that snapped at him, then drew his sword and brought it down in a vicious sweeping motion, causing a fountain of dark red blood to erupt from the throat of another aalvarg. He raised the dripping blade high above his head in what was either a salute or a threat directed at the enemy leader, then spurred his horse toward the aalvarg.
The big horse launched itself forward, and the Red Prince brought his sword around in a powerful side-stroke.
But the aalvarg leader wasn’t there. Fjotra watched, astounded, as the aalvarg abruptly transformed himself into a giant mottle-furred wolf, just in time for the prince’s sword to slash through the air a handsbreath above its head, where its chest had been but a moment before. The transformation happened without warning, in a flash as quick as any lightning.
“Did you see that!” Patrice cried out in awe.
Neither Blais nor Fjotra replied, both struck dumb by the incredible sight.
The force of his missed swing nearly caused the prince to lose his balance, and his unsteady seat was made still more precarious by the jaws of the wolf as it slashed at his horse’s right leg as it passed by.
But the prince’s steed was trained for war, and the prince himself was an excellent rider, even in his heavy armor, and he managed to stay in the saddle to bring his horse around for a second pass. The aalvarg leader had no intention of fighting to the death. The big wolf broke and ran toward the forest with the two mage-wolves on either side of him. When it reached the edge of the trees, it lifted its head and howled. There were four or five answering howls, and five more dark-furred wolves extricated themselves from the melee and began to flee after the three sigskiftings.
Four of them managed to evade the cavalry that was milling about, but one was knocked from its feet as it tried to dash between the legs of a knight’s horse and was trampled instead. It rolled sideways and struggled to its feet, but one leg appeared to be broken, slowing it down.
As it limped after its fellows, a squadron of knights burst through the rapidly thinning line of aalvarg berserkers, and one of them casually drove his lance through the beast’s body, behind the shoulder. The lance broke off, and the wolf slumped to the ground, its body convulsing violently. Gradually, the erratic movements slowed until they finally stopped, and as Fjotra and the two mages looked on in amazement, the dying wolf transformed back into its monstrous half-man, half-wolf form at the moment of death.
“Can they all do that?” Patrice wondered.
“The shape-shifting or the magic?” Blais asked him.
“Both, I wonder,” Patrice replied. “Hopefully not the latter, or we’re in for a world of hurt. I’m not sure they’re related. We both felt the spell when it was being prepared, but I didn’t notice anything when the first one changed, or when the others did.”
“I felt nothing either, not even when that last one died, and I’m sure I would have noticed. It might be a good sign if the magic isn’t related to the transforming ability. Perhaps the shapechanging is some sort of intrinsic magic for some of them, or perhaps even all of them. If so, then the likelihood that every single one of them is a mage of some sort is low.”
“We need a prisoner,” Patrice concluded, and the other mage nodded as he banished all three of the magical lenses they had been using.
“One of the shapechangers would have been best, but even a common beast could prove useful. We had better get down there quickly before they finish killing all of them. It’s going to be difficult capturing one when they’ve all been driven berserk by that spell.”
Fjotra gingerly touched with her finger the water that had fallen on the grass. It looked for all the world as if it were simply dew, albeit late in the day as well as the season.
Patrice rose stiffly and extended a hand to help Fjotra to her feet. She took it gratefully, for after lying so long in the cold grass, her legs were stiff and unsteady too.
“It shouldn’t be difficult to break the spell,” Patrice said. “And we can always put one to sleep with a soporific.”
“Absolutely not! We don’t show them anything.” The older mage’s tone was uncompromising. “I can only imagine how many eyes are upon us. We know they have at least two mages, perhaps as many as seven, and most likely dozens more. Even if we’re stronger than them, and I think we can safely assume that we’re better trained, we don’t dare put ourselves in a position where they will target us. Besides, it’s always wise to hold your cards until you have no choice but to reveal them.”
They made their way down the hill, which was steeper on the northern side that abutted the battlefield. Fjotra slipped several times, but she waved off Patrice’s attempt to take her hand. His constant attentions were well within the bounds of propriety, but they were beginning to annoy her. She didn’t know how it was in Savonne, but it was not the place of a shaman to pay court to a king’s daughter no matter what eldritch powers he commanded.
The battle was still winding down, but the violence was too far away to be dangerous. About fifty or sixty aalvarg were still alive, having been surrounded and forced into a defensive circle that was steadily growing smaller as the knights and mounted men-at-arms repeatedly smashed into them and struck down four or five of the beasts, then rode away just far enough to regroup and do it again.
Twice, the Red Prince halted his knights and tried to convince the undaunted beasts that continued resistance was hopeless, but either the surviving aalvarg didn’t understand his language and gestures, or else they were too maddened by the magic of the wolf-mages to consider surrendering.
Finally, Fjotra saw the prince’s shoulders slump, after which he had a brief conversation with one of his nobles that was followed by half of the riders assembling themselves into what she could see was a large wedge formation. The final outcome of the battle was never in doubt as the heavily armored knights rode over the remaining aalvarg to the rousing sound of Dalarn cheers, as if the powerful beasts were little more than helpless kittens.
The battlefield, once Fjotra and the mages reached it, was even more ghastly than she had ever imagined one could be. Everywhere she looked, there was blood, mud, and furry bodies missing limbs or torn open. In some particularly awful cases, the dead were barely identifiable as corpses. Here and there, scattered in amongst the bestial creatures was a motionless human figure encased in bright steel—or worse, a slain Dalarn warrior. To her relief, there were not many of them.
But if what she saw was terrible, what she smelled was even worse. The stench was unbelievable, and she desperately fought the urge to retch. Many, if not most, of the ulfin-wolves had fouled themselves as they’d died. The blood, the horses, and the acrid sweat of the hundreds of men around her were blended into a hellish miasma that threatened to overpower her senses.
This was victory? It was more like a vision of a unthinkably gruesome Hell. There was no glory in this. There was nothing noble. Even the bestial demonspawn aalvarg were pathetic in death. They looked much smaller and scrawnier than she remembered them being during the terrifying flight from Garn.
The noxious smells and sights of death were finally more than her stomach could bear. She doubled over and vomited. Patrice grabbed her arm, holding her upright, and she was too grateful for the support to take any offense at his touch. The very last thing she wanted was fall onto her hands and knees in the dreadful blood-soaked swamp.
When she finished, she pushed back the hair that had fallen over her face a
nd spit several times to clear the taste from her mouth. The air didn’t smell any better, but at least the insidious pressure in the pit of her belly had been relieved.
“What are you cretins doing bringing the reaver princess down here?” she heard someone demand in a loud and angry voioce.
She turned around and was startled to see the Red Prince, his armor already clean and wet from a recent sluicing, standing before her on foot. He was unhelmed, and his hair was wet, but there was still an amount of dark blood on the armor that protected his right hand and arm. He wasn’t as tall as the warriors of her people, being not much taller than she was, but he radiated such magnificent confidence that she found herself almost in awe of him.
She instinctively curtsied, as the comtesse had trained her.
The act drew a wry smile from the royal Savoner.
“I daresay that is the first time anyone has curtsied to me on a battlefield. I think I rather like it. I may very well demand it of my captains in the future. But Your Highness, you should not be here. It is no place for a lady.”
“I am well, thank you. I was ill at first, but I am much better now. We came down because your lord mages want a prisoner, and they did not think it wise to leave me alone on the top of the hill.
“Bloody damned fools, mages,” the prince growled, and despite all the horror surrounding her, Fjotra found herself smiling at Patrice’s discomfiture. “Well then, did you at least manage to keep your magic to yourselves as I told you?”
Fjotra saw Patrice nod, although she wondered if the magical far-seeing lenses counted.
The prince looked satisfied, though, and waved over a knight who was still mounted. “Michel! See if you can find two wolves that aren’t dead. Bind their front legs, tie their jaws shut, and get them cleaned up. You’ll probably have to march them back on foot, since the horses don’t seem to like the way they smell. Can’t say I blame them either. The cursed monsters reek to high heaven, and that’s before they shit themselves! Bring them to our noble battlemages here once you’ve found a likely pair. See if they meet with their liking.”