The Wolf

by Alaric Longward

  “You caused it all,” Antius said. “Now pay for it.”

  I nodded with anger. “Yes. I will go to that town for you, and I will take it. Who will survive will be forgiven.”

  Cenhelm nodded. “Kill me a king, Maroboodus. Kill me a king, take the town, and I shall accept you fully. Do that and Rome shall forgive you. Do not and you are not welcome anymore. I respect you, Maroboodus, for your cunning, for your bravery, and the risks you have taken. Make a hero of yourself, Maroboodus, and men will sing other songs of you than one of betrayal. You must not fail. I mean it. Do not come back, if you do not get there nearly unnoticed.”

  I nodded. “Nearly unnoticed. Will it be hard to get there?”

  They nodded.

  Tamura spoke tiredly. “We cannot get there without being noticed. The woods are thick and unsuitable for horses. While my scouts have already been able to get to the town, now, the enemy has filled the woods with parties of guards and the main trails are filled with their columns. We can ride the river bank to the north, but we must cut to the woods at some point, and they have men deep in those woods, and they know them well. Every trail has guards with horns. Their columns are facing us, but they do not want to get flanked. We could surge through. If we get caught too fast will give the enemy king time to run away. We must take the town when they are already fighting, and that way we can catch the army unawares. And still, it will be really hard, almost impossible to get hundreds of men through without those warning horns braying.”

  I touched my beard, thinking. “And they watch all the trails.”

  “They have men with horns on the trails,” she said. “Most all I have seen.”

  “I heard there is a bridge in the town?” I wondered. “They cannot swim over?”

  Cenhelm nodded. “The town bridge? Fields fill the land around the town, but a deep river runs through it. No walls. There are warehouses and a major hall on this side of the river, just next to the bridge. Celts built the town and even roads and the bridge. It is a wonder of construction, even to our Roman friends, that bridge. You might swim over the bridge, but you will lose men, and horses, and most of the weapons.”

  Antius was just staring at me, his eyes cold.

  To kill the enemy king, to capture the land, meant everything to him. He depended on it, like Rome did.

  Cenhelm went on. “A thousand people call it home. Traders live there now. Riches. We must kill most of those people, so other people will know better than to trade with someone else than us.”

  “And you don’t think we can do this?” I asked Tamura. “Unseen? Is there any route we could try?”

  She shrugged. “I told you. Not, unless we grow wings and ride the winds. They watch the forest trails. The forest itself is nearly unsuitable for horses. Probably we could sneak, but it would take too long. Unseen? No. We will have six hundred men, five of yours and some eighty of mine, and that is a lot to move through the woods. If we get sighted, they will rush more people to the town, and they will be ready. We might even fail.”

  “You will get all our horses,” Cenhelm said. “The Chatti must ride.”

  “Does the enemy Thiuda have a war-lord, who wears a distinctive banner?” I asked.

  Antius smiled wickedly. “There he is again. Scheming.”

  Cenhelm nodded. “There is a war-lord who has his men paint a white star on their shields. A white star and a half moon. But they will know where such men fight.”

  I looked at Tamura. “Do we know what kind of men are watching the trails?”

  Tamura frowned. “War-chiefs. Good men. They have guards and a horn. One trail, north of here some ways, is guarded by the father of King Cynefirth. Old as a tree and blind. He was an honorable man, they say. They call him the Owl.”

  I smiled. “Honorable man, you say? Are there many refugees fleeing west from these lands?”

  “They mostly left the land last week,” Cenhelm said. “Some hardy men stayed, while their families left, but they too are all leaving for west.”

  Tamura waved her hand to the west. “There are some.”

  “So,” I said, thinking. “We shall have to get to a man with a horn. Let it be this Owl. Let them see refugees seeking help, and we will have a chance.”

  Tamura shook her head.

  I winked. “We will just have to act well.”

  Cenhelm nodded, and Antius spoke. “A ruse and a lie, and we shall see our fortunes much improved. You must leave this very night. And you must hurry. You have very little time. Tamura will get you to the trails unseen. Maroboodus will get you through unnoticed. The centurion Lucius goes with you, as will his two men. Geirr and Fulco?”

  I watched as the two former bodyguards of Akkas walked to him from the corner. The twins were silent and deadly and had hands on ax hilts. Their faces were painted black, and their eyes spoke of deep resentment.

  I nodded. And bowed.

  I turned to go.

  “Maroboodus?” Cenhelm said. “The ring. Leave me the ring until we have won. You love it well, and it shall show men I truly master you.”

  I hesitated and cursed in my head. Antius stepped forward and opened his hand.

  I took the ring, lifted it, and placed it in his hand.

  I turned and left. Tamura followed me.

  “The Romans mean to kill us,” she said. “And I am not sure Cenhelm is part of it.”

  I nodded. “We have some planning to do.”

  CHAPTER 16

  We rode through a night of light rain. It was as if the gods had conspired to aid us. Covered in our cloaks, we rode the river bank. Tamura rode ahead with her best scouts, and when it was clear no enemy was near, she took us to the trees. There, slowly, creeping forward, her archers killed many enemy scouts.

  No horns rang yet.

  Soon, she found a trail to the west, and we rode along it. The trail was filled with spider webs, and none had likely passed it for a while. The scouts rode ahead all the time, bows ready, the Sarmatians experts in scouting, and Chatti followed. The Chatti feared the night, and their horses were not happy, either. Each sound made me cringe, sure we could never go forward unnoticed.

  The Romans meant to kill us. When?

  I looked at the two men whose names I had just learnt.

  Geirr and Falco were silent and rode behind Lucius, whose armor was covered by a cloak. He rode silently, brooding.

  “Surely, Chief Maroboodus,” the infuriating Oderic murmured, “you knew they would make impossible demands on you. You give the worst task to men you don’t mind losing. And those two? Left and Right?”

  “Falco and Geirr,” I said.

  “Left and Right,” he said, and looked at the centurion and the two bodyguards, “will execute you like a lamb if you make so much as a wrong noise. They will, anyway, at some point, noise or no noise. You must be careful, my friend. Watch the Sarmatian too. She is not… You made your mark on her. She won’t forget it.”

  “I know! You know I know.”

  Oderic nodded. “Look out for the girl. Cenhelm wouldn’t let her die, his sweet bride. The Romans are not after her.”

  I smiled. “They might be. Cenhelm says he forgives her, and he really needs allies in the east. What if he has her killed to please Rome, and Cenhelm plans on marrying Saruke after we both die. I spoke with her on this subject before we left. She is not sure.”

  He looked astonished. “Oh, that is right! Damn, but that is true. You have an evil mind, my lord.”

  I shook my head, almost insulted by his gossiping and scheming. It all seemed to lead to my death. “We have a plan,” I said. “Worry not.”

  He smiled. “I always worry, when men say that. I suppose you might be allied for a moment, but they are beast-riders,” he said. “They ride across the land at night, around fire, and mate with animals. You must plot with her, and then kill her.”

  “Thank you for your advice,” I said. “I feel like I truly need it. I do. I do thank you for it. Where are we?”

 
We had turned north in the woods.

  He looked around, smelled, farted, and laughed. “I don’t know.”

  I nodded, and we rode on. By morning, the Sarmatians stopped our ride and took us to the woods, deeper than most, green as anything I had ever seen. The cavalry stopped and rested. Riders came, and they went, and Chatti were looking at those scouts with worry.

  We listened, as in the south, horns were being blown. Cenhelm was fording the river, and there would be battles in the woods.

  I got up and turned and found myself looking either Geirr or Fulco in the eye. He nodded at the centurion, who was walking for the Sarmatians, waving his arm. We went forward. I kept a hand on my Roman sword and looked at the Sarmatians sitting in a circle.

  “They will have bad news,” the centurion said with a smile. “Sacrifices will be needed. Perhaps she still has her heart set out for your blood.”

  I snorted.

  “She will have bad news,” he said again darkly. “It is war. It is always so. We were once in just such a wood, and then we were summoned, and told the enemy had been reinforced by triple our numbers. We shat our legs, we did.”

  Tamura was turning as she watched us. She looked like she belonged to the woods and gave the centurion a nod. She twitched out of her armor and sat there while a Sarmatian removed her tunic, and began applying salve to a wound. Half nude, her hair plastered in her head, she stared at us in the light of a very small fire.

  The Roman, moved by the fierce looking woman, sat down before her, and I stood, afraid to sit down anywhere with Falco and Geirr near me.

  She shook her shoulders and waved the man off, and then grasped her terrible lance and placed it across her knees. She looked at me with fury. “Bad luck.”

  “Eh?” I asked.

  “There is a group of Quadi sitting on the trail to west, here in the northern edge of the woods. They have twenty men, and one has a large horn. They are there, vigilant.”

  “That was known, no?” I snarled. “Is it this Owl?”

  She nodded.

  Lucius shrugged. “We will trick them. We will kill them. We get close, and kill them. Cenhelm will fight today in the woods. You hear him, don’t you? Now is the time. If they blow a horn, we just simply must hurry. We won’t go back. We just take our chances.”

  She shrugged. “The Owl is sitting on top of a rock.”

  We blinked.

  “He is sitting on top of a very high rock, set on the side of the trail,” she said. “He is blind and stubborn and guards the land like an owl. Worse, my men were watching and saw how they turned away Quadi warriors who were fleeing our people. They didn’t get near, or past. They don’t let refugees near them.”

  “So,” I said tiredly. “They don’t take refugees. Not even the kind-hearted Owl.”

  She rubbed her face and bowed to Lucius. “If we must, of course, we shall just ride over them. The enemy will warn the town and might get many more men there, and we might fail to take it. Cenhelm will be in the woods for a week, fighting, and who knows what that will entail for the war. It will be the end of Maroboodus here, though. His future hangs in balance over taking that bridge.” She smiled faintly.

  “So?” the centurion asked. “We won’t try to bluff our way there?” He nudged my leg, and I stepped away. “Think of something new?”

  Geirr and Falco were looking at me like two gluttons would a smoked deer-haunch. They wanted to tear my meat apart.

  “If we ride west on the road,” I asked her, “how long do we have until we get to Melocabus?”

  “Half a day from the edge of the woods to the town and eight hours from here to the edge of the woods,” she said. “If we ride free and are not harassed.”

  “We must risk it. I will go,” I said, “and I will deal with the man. I just need to get close. I’ll make sure they lose their heads and the horn.”

  She blinked. “They won’t let you near. Do you have wax in your ears?”

  Lucius leaned forward. “I say we ride through the woods.”

  Tamura cursed. “I tell you the woods are too thick. I also say they have more men with horns all over the woods,” she said. “We go through the very place where we know what’s waiting. That’s what we do.”

  I smiled. “We shall still be refugees,” I said. “The plan I made, we still try it.”

  “They don’t take well to refugees,” she snarled. “It won’t—”

  I winked. “Sure. They will look nervously on any man that approaches them, and they will turn them away. They will be twitchy as a virgin in bed. Unless, we have a helpless, hapless woman with us.”

  The centurion laughed.

  I looked at Geirr and Falco. “I need them with me.”

  Lucius smiled. “I’d not have it any other way.”

  Tamura was blinking. “You don’t mean … that I am that helpless woman? You don’t mean I—“

  I nodded. “Yes. I do. Listen. We need to prepare.”

  They did, and we planned, and then I planned some more with Tamura alone, and soon, we were ready. Geirr and Falco, and Tamura and me, moved out.

  I smiled when we left.

  ***

  I was riding, and Geirr and Falco, unarmored, were pulling at a wounded, heavily loaded horse.

  Tamura was walking next to us, her face a furious mask of rage. She was smiling in a rictus grin that would frighten any living man. She wore a bloody tunic, and had blood and sooth smeared on her face, and I wore my armor under a ragged cloak.

  I too, was bloody, and sooty.

  We rode up the road and stared ahead. The trees were overhanging a well-traveled trail, and then, Tamura whispered, “There. See. The rock.”

  I nodded. Ahead, there was a rock many men high. Around it rode Quadi men, and soon, one stiffened, and his horse snorted. My horse whinnied in return, and the man stood higher on his horse. Then, he yelled, “People! People are moving this way!”

  We saw them jumping up from shadows, having been resting. I nodded and rode on, seemingly unaware of their mission.

  One man, a tall warrior in leather mail and leather trousers, rode forward, his shield banging, spear held our way. He came forward fast and stopped not far from us.

  On top of the rocky buildup, there stood an old man.

  He looked up to the branches, listening like an owl. He was armored in an old chain and had a large shield in one hand. He held on to a horn with the other, and that horn didn’t quiver in his arms. He was waiting for a word.

  Friend or foe.

  I rode forward, and the enemy, now twenty or more strong, forming in a ragged rank below the rock, looked at us with suspicion.

  I stopped to stare at the man before me, and he gave us an evil look. “Well? What are you?”

  I spat. “What do you think. Trolls? Wood nymphs?”

  “Why are you here, trolls?” he demanded.

  I waved a hand to the east. “There’s a Hermanduri war-party crossing the land. They came up to my hall. Lost all my cows. Only barely got up and out. I would fight them with my two remaining men.”

  He looked at me with suspicion. Then, he looked at Falco and Geirr, and finally, his eyes went to Tamura.

  She was weeping softly, wiping blood and tears off her face.

  I turned to look at her and almost felt a pinch of pity in my heart.

  “She hasn’t eaten, and she is exhausted,” I said. “My wife needs rest.”

  “You haven’t eaten,” the man said blandly, staring at her. Her breast was bare under a torn tunic.

  She looked beautiful. She looked wounded, hurt, weak, and she went to her knees. Her hair was bloodied.

  “You let a wounded wife walk, man?” asked the warrior. “While you ride?”

  “Her horse fell just now,” I snarled. “Look, we escaped a burning hall. We were in a hurry, and had to fight. I dragged her out of the hall. My slaves, happily, were out in the fields, and aided us. She didn’t tell me—”

  He cursed. “Fool. Utter fool.
No worse a fool have I seen today. I saw a man who went back to fetch his dog from the Hermanduri, but this is far worse.”

  “What is it?” yelled the old man with a quaking voice. “What is going on down there. Gunther? Answer me.”

  Gunther turned and looked up at the old man. “Well, he… There’s a man with his family and two servants. They are seeking food and shelter. The man…he never noticed his wife is hurt. He is a damned fool. We should send them back, but she is…”

  “Pretty?” the Owl asked with a gruff hoot.

  “It has nothing to do with—” Gunther began, but was interrupted.

  “What sort of fool does he look like?” the former kind asked. “Is he a peasant?”

  “He wears rags on top of chainmail,” Gunther said. “He wears rags and looks filthy.”

  “Chain, you say? Like he has been traveling?”

  “He has the look of a traveled man,” Gunther said. “But he also looks like he has been burned out of his hall. Soot, blood.”

  Thank Lok for the soot on my face and arms.

  “He has wounds,” the man said. “And he has a sword.”

  “Oh?” the Owl asked. “My son didn’t send me here to be useless. Tell me everything, and not one thing at a time. Also, a sword? What sort of man wears king’s riches, and gives not his name?”

  “What is your name?” Gunther asked. “What do you call your house?”

  I spat and twisted in my saddle and spoke to Geirr and Fulco. “They want to know where my mother came from. Can you believe it?” I turned back. “And what men are you? Hermanduri?”

  “No,” said Gunther. “Not them. What are you?”

  “I am a Chatti, and she is a Gaul,” I said. “I have no lord, and I have no house. I lived by the mountains. There were many others. The sword is mine, and the chain I took from a man who chased us out of our burning hall. We killed him.”

  Gunther was looking up at the man.

  “Please, food, we need to rest,” I said tiredly. “If you are not Hermanduri, then surely you are against them. I can give you all the oaths under the sky, and over the root, and I will aid you. We will join you. Or your king. Where is he?”