Yorath the Wolf

by Wilder, Cherry;

  We both laughed sadly, thinking of Rieth, blond and empty-headed, who had died at the Adderneck.

  “You’ll go to the west,” said Valko. “It will not be a soft duty. I’ll dress it up for your company as a secret mission. The Lord of Pfolben may be mounting an army against us. You must come round from the coast and check the garrisons at our two fortresses by the Southwood. Understood?”

  “Understood.” I told no one but the Owlwife of Valko’s revelation. I had thought so long about my parentage that it sickened me; I turned my mind away from it. I knew that Caco had lied about Nils, the soldier, and Vida, the lady of Lien. My silver swan meant nothing. My mother was doubtless some lady of the court, even a country girl in service at the Palace Fortress. I had the notion that many had known my true parentage and laughed behind their hands. I even saw a likeness to Prince Gol in my own face.

  The Company of the Wolf went dutifully into the west, into the Chyrian lands. We rode now into the poorest part of Valko’s realm, a strange and savage country, flecked with the tall dolmen of an older time. The folk were dark, not really small-built like the folk of the Firn in the Chameln lands, but short by our standards. We rode among the hamlets and lonely farms like invaders, the giant tawny warriors who had come through the mountains. The ways were foul, the summer wet and cool; there were high tides flooding the coastal villages. We took what money we could from the wretched people and heard no word from Krail.

  So having taken little enough part in Valko’s triumphs, we had no part in his misfortunes. Duro lost four hundreds on the plateau and lost his own life with them. Everywhere the forces of the Great King found the best lie of the land, the best weather, the best forage, and it was said that the Duarings had come into their own. Valko came home lame before the summer was half done, carried in a litter.

  We heard of all this furthest south in our ride as we came to the fringes of the Southwood. A crowd of ragged villagers poured out of the trees, and among them were two men from the southernmost fortress, Lowestell, sent to find help. The news from Krail was terrible, the news from Pfolben worse. The sleeping giant, the Southland, and its lord, had awakened. Lowestell had been stormed, its garrison beaten; the other fortress, Hackestell, was under siege. A mighty southern army ranged over the High Plateau in the name of the little Prince Rieth, the Heir of Mel’Nir. The Lord of Pfolben, I recalled, had ever been a friend of the royal house. The Princess Fadola—my aunt, the Princess Fadola—had told me so at Silverlode.

  I withdrew to the nearest village, a miserable heap of stones called Coombe, and sent my own scouts back into the coastal lands we had left. Taxes would be remitted, we would literally give back the small heap of coin we had just collected and pay more besides if forces could be levied to raise the siege of Hackestell. I woke early in the morning in my tent and heard a noise like the sound of the sea. I had almost a ten-span of men and women eager to fight for Valko of Val’Nur, with more pouring in.

  We divided and disciplined our horde as best we could and armed them with whatever came to hand. The Chyrian land seems to have an old dark-green net of short grass stretched over handfuls of stones, right for throwing. I went out with Chyrian scouts, on foot, and they led me through bog and briar to an old scrap of wall on top of a low ridge, two miles from Hackestell. We could see the southerners camped round the outer walls of the fortress, an excellent encampment. We went closer still, crawling through a patch of heath on our bellies, and came so close that we could smell the food cooking, see the wives hanging washing on the bushes. There were lookouts posted, but clearly no one expected an attack from the south or the west. I judged that there were three hundred troopers besieging Hackestell.

  I sent the better part of the company north again, by night, and on the first fine day for half a moon, they came riding down the high road in bright sunshine. The besiegers—bored as only besiegers can be—brightened up and quickly came to horse. The little troop of the Wolf cantered and challenged at a safe distance. The besiegers moved out a little; the Wolves retreated. It could not go on too long. Before the southern hundreds drew themselves up to charge these insolent troopers, I came from behind a screen of brushwood, mounted on Reshdar, with Chandor, my standard-bearer. Ten of my men rode out from hiding. I gave a long battlecry, and it was echoed by a thousand Chyrians. I charged down a long slope with my men strung out among the horde. We swooped down on the besiegers of Hackestell like the Dark Huntress and her war-hounds. The savage looks and cries of the Chyrians had alarmed my own Wolves. They remembered the wild northern tribes of the Chameln lands.

  The southerners had no chance. They turned in disorder, seeing an army rush down on them from the west, and the main body of my troopers took them in the flank. The men of Val’Nur within the fortress, seeing this unexpected deliverance, did what they could. They fired a few last arrows, hurled stones from their walls, and at last flung open their gates and rushed upon the foe. The awful shrieking cries of the Chyrian horde turned to songs of triumph. Hackestell was relieved.

  I knew the commander of the fortress for an old friend. It was none other than Trenk, the officer who had served Knaar, at Cloudhill and at Silver-lode. Now he was garrison captain of the hundred men at Hackestell.

  “Godlight, lad,” he said to me after his formal greeting, “you have more luck than the Shee. This is an army . . .”

  My troopers were engaged in saving the southern horses. The Chyrians were being driven back from their plunder and mayhem in the camp.

  “An army to save Krail?” I asked.

  Trenk had more news of the southern army; the besiegers had taunted the garrison with stories of its advance, but that had been ten days past. Now the host of Pfolben was out of reach; perhaps they had already attacked Krail. We sat down in Hackestell that night and held a council of war. We admitted two local leaders to our conference. One was a young priest-warrior, Druda Strawn, the other a retired kedran captain who had served in all the lands of Hylor. Emeris Murrin was a middle-sized, brown-faced woman of about fifty, and she had a keen military judgement.

  We stared at the map and saw that the golden city of Krail with its citadel, its bridges, the outlying barracks, was a place almost to defy defence from within.

  “Marshall Yorath,” said Captain Murrin, “we see it wrong. The city was never meant to be defended. Only the fortress was built for such a pass.”

  What she said was true, and we had all become too much bound to Krail to see the truth. I thought of the wives and children left at the Hunters’ Yard, even of the Owlwife who had special gifts for survival. Valko was a war lord; he would stock and defend his citadel.

  “We must save both the citadel and the city,” I said. “If the southerners are within, we will drive them out; and if they are not yet come in, we will keep them out.”

  “Brave words,” said Druda Strawn. He was tall and thin with a dark skull face and lank black braids. He did not conceal his feelings of contempt for our council.

  “You must walk on the high ground,” he said, “as those others have done from the southland. It is the last stronghold of the light folk in all the lands of Hylor. They are strangers to you . . . ‘fairy folk’ or the like, though in old time they saw the men of Mel’Nir enter through the mountains, and they talked with their kings and nobles. But you must not forget that the high ground is their land.”

  “We mean no disrespect to the Shee,” I said. “Would they help us, Druda Strawn?”

  He laughed. “They do not waste words on soldiers, Marshall.”

  “Druda Strawn,” I said, “I am sure you are in better standing with the Shee than any here, but I spoke with an Eilif lord five years ago and it was in the Green Fort, far in the northeast, by the Great Eastern Rift.”

  He looked at me very closely then, his green eyes glittering.

  “I will go up this night when the moon has set,” he said. “I will commune with the Shee and ask them to show the lie of the land at Krail. Then I will bring word to this cou
ncil.”

  Trenk was restless, even Kedran Murrin a little skeptical, but we let the young priest-warrior go out and climb the plateau, which lay only a mile or so away from Hackestell fortress. We hung about “waiting for the fairies,” as my officers put it.

  Answer was not long in coming. Druda Strawn rode back smiling grimly and began to place counters on the map. Here were the southerners: troopers, light horse, encampments . . . he had been shown it very plainly. The army of the south, ten thousand strong, had divided above Krail on the plateau. Two thousand had invested the citadel and sent an occupying force into the city while the rest went on to seek combat in Balbank or to meet up with its allies, the armies of the Great King.

  “Is the king’s daughter with them?” asked Kedran Murrin. “Is the new prince there, the child?”

  “I doubt that,” I said. “For if Prince Rieth fail but one finger joint, Ghanor the King is likely to have him killed because of the old prophecy.”

  I saw that Druda Strawn looked at me more closely than ever. “The king is an old man,” he said, “and cannot live long. Would you be bold to kill such a king if he came within your reach, Hem Yorath?”

  “Ghanor of Mel’Nir is an evil old ruffian,” I said, “but I do not fight with old men.”

  I turned to the map again.

  “We will not disturb the Shee on the High Plateau after all,” I said. “I think I see where we should come into the city.”

  “Wait!” said the priest-warrior, “there is more . . .”

  He lifted up his round bronze shield, stripped off its woven cover and propped it up on a settle.

  “Watch,” he said harshly. “You must see all before the image fades.”

  Then he gestured, and the shield was like a mirror filled with whirling mist. When it cleared, I saw the city of Krail spread out before me, as if seen from the plateau. A fine day, the standard flying over the citadel . . . I saw the camp of the southerners and some movement on the city waterfront near the bridges. A normal traffic of boats on the river but no sign of fire or destruction in Krail itself. The image began to fade.

  “Were those southerners unloading grain?” I asked.

  Trenk smiled, my captains, Gorrie and Hallin, shook their heads, Murrin blinked sadly. No one had seen an image in the shield except myself and the priest.

  “The Shee have done us good service,” I said, “but they have the knack of making mortal men look fools!”

  So we began the rescue of Krail while the army of the west sat down by Hackestell Fortress and feasted on the ample provisions of the southerners. Riders went out that night to the river Demmis; all produce, all traffic of fish, grain, fuel into Krail was stopped. We marched the horde by easy stages in a wide sweep to the northwest, training them a little as we went. I sent back into the Chyrian towns and villages not only the gathered taxes but extra foodstuff that had banked up in barges and fisherboats along the river. I bullied the riverboat captains and traders and scattered promises of payment in the name of Val’Nur.

  We crossed the river many miles below the city and approached it from the west, through the rolling cotton fields that lay about the Plantation. Our excellent Chyrian scouts brought back word that the barracks was tenanted by wives and widows and by wounded men of Val’Nur, with only a few southerners patrolling at the entry to the city. The southern general, Egenar, had fallen into the same trap as we had done . . . his army still drew sustenance from the undefendable city across the river. Our plan was to besiege the besiegers, and far off in Balbank an army of Val’Nur had turned home towards Krail.

  We came in by night. We had sent no word into the city . . . too many burgers seemed to be on good terms with the occupying force. When our cry went up, “A Rescue! A Rescue! Swords to Val’Nur!” the citizens either wisely kept their beds or rushed out and attacked the southerners. The garrison captain in the center of the city saw his danger too late and rushed to hold the bridges but in the light of dawn we secured them all. I had feared my Chyrian troops as much as the southerners, but days of good food and the awe they felt at entering the capital kept them from excess.

  There was a spirited battle for the Hunters’ Yard, where southern officers had been billetted. Our own folk turned up unharmed, camping in the barn with much of our treasure squirreled away. The true joy of a soldier’s life is the moment when he gets down from his horse and takes his loved wife in his arms. I found the Owlwife there, in the owl-haunted barn, and as I held her close she whispered, “It has begun!”

  Outside all the citizens of Krail were on the streets cheering. “Yorath!” came the cry, “Yorath! The Wolves and the Westlings!”

  “Do you hear what those Westlings call you?” whispered Gundril Chawn. “Ruada Yorath . . .”

  “What does it mean?”

  “Prince Yorath,” she said. “It is the name given to princes of the blood.”

  So I was a hero in Krail and the leader of heroes. I can say that I trusted this acclaim very little, but I used it without scruple. In the service of Yorath, his Wolves and his Westlings, the city was brought to order, the wharves were tightly held, good intelligence was brought in from east and west. Across the Demmis loomed the citadel; it had a patched look, for all the windows that had made it a pleasant place had been bricked up back to arrow slits. We knew who was within, from Valko and his lady Nimoné to their servants and the hundred men of the guard, all trained cross-bowmen. The Sword Lilies were there too and a remnant of the Third Hundred, “Valko’s Own,” the two regiments who had fought a rearguard action against the southerners when the siege was set down.

  The southern general, Egenar, knew that his position had become more perilous with the loss of the city and of the river traffic. He hurled all his might, including his siege engines, against the citadel, to reduce it before the winter came or the relieving army of Val’Nir returned. We looked on helplessly. I rallied the Westlings and moved out a little to the north, but the river bank was firmly held. Sharpshooters with crossbows and the Chyrian short bow on the Old Bridge and the High Bridge did better.

  The best help of all came from a bunch of irregulars who called themselves the Sewer Rats. Forbian Flink brought me forty beggars or “veterans” from Darktown who claimed that they regularly crossed the river swimming or on floats and scavenged the sewers and the mudflats below the citadel. They had plans. The southern camp was bewitched: the siege engines burned where they stood, fires broke out in the baggage wagons, the pickets were loosed every night. The bane spread into the unreaped fields beyond the Southern camp, which might have given them provisions. Soon they were in the midst of blackened wastes, the besiegers besieged indeed.

  Far away in Balbank two armies of Val’Nur were still disputing the free zone with the armies of the Great King. In all the years of campaigning, little had been gained; thriving towns had been sacked, and the countryside stripped bare. Knaar of Val’Nur, for his father’s honor, took a part of General Flieth’s hundreds and was riding homeward over the plateau to relieve the citadel. He offered no battle to the southern army, clustered about Lort and the edges of the plateau. He came in time to chase Egenar, who broke off at last. The defeated general dragged the remnants of his siege army across the plateau, harried by Knaar’s light cavalry. When the pursuit was broken off, Egenar’s troops could not face the long way home. They went another way and fell upon the Great Eastern Rift and plundered it from end to end.

  There was great rejoicing in Krail when the siege was lifted; the bridges were flung open, and the bells rang out from the garrison fort and the Meeting House. I rode over the Moon Bridge at the head of the Wolves, and the city and the citadel rang with my name. Valko, just able to sit a horse, came to meet me, and we rode in triumph through Krail. The wheel had come full circle: what I had begun at Silverlode, my care to save the rift, went for nothing. My act of mercy towards the Princess Fadola had raised up an army against Val’Nur.

  Even the timing of this triumph was not good. Knaar arri
ved when the siege was over and was slighted by a quiet welcome. His brother Duro was dead, had died a hero. He was left with no one to hate unless it was Yorath, lucky Yorath, rumored to be a prince, who had stolen his father’s good opinion. Everywhere he heard shouts for Yorath, his Wolves and his Westlings. I was indeed the hero of the hour.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Knaar swirled the golden wine in his crystal goblet and looked out moodily at the water. “This room reminds me of the Old Armory in the citadel,” he said.

  We were wintering out of Krail for the first time, at Selkray, that villa on the seacoast where my company had spent the first year of the war. The room where we were sitting looked out at the stormy western sea. The year was ending, the year of changes with the mystic number 333, and now we were both great men. Our officers sat at a respectful distance. Music played, two young girls in robes of painted tissue were dancing. Off in a corner a scrawny fellow was scribbling in a small Lienish book: Brother Less, the chronicler of great men.

  “They are sisters,” said Knaar. “Come Yorath, are you still such a bashful monster?”

  Knaar had become more lecherous since his marriage. His bride was Sisgard of Quentlon, daughter of the fiery oberst, and she was at the citadel in Krail awaiting the birth of her first child. Knaar was Lord of Val’Nur. I wondered that I had ever thought him like his father. I had come to know Valko better after the siege was raised. I was a welcome guest in the citadel and helped the lord ride out in the spring on his last campaign. Things were going so badly for Val’Nur that there was no question of keeping me from the field whatever my parentage. It had been a year of splendid fights and splendid victories. I rode out as a General of Val’Nur and boldly quartered the prancing black horse of the Duarings upon my personal standard.

  “I think you are still hankering after your jade,” said Knaar, “your witch woman . . .”

  “Always,” I said lightly, taking a sip of wine.