The Wolf

by Alaric Longward

  Tall men, blond, red-haired, dressed in leather and tunics, their shields freshly painted, their framea and heavier spear bristling, were chanting from behind their shield rims. They were holding the shields before their mouths and made the barritus yell, a scream that echoed in the fields and over the water, across the village with stubborn savagery. It sounded eerie and dark, promising us all a balefire and grieving widows.

  A Quadi stepped out of the lines.

  He was tall, thin, and naked, his ax high and wide, holding large shield aloft.

  “Come, sons of dogs!” he laughed. “Come, bastards, and dance with me! Come and show me your arse, and I’ll ram it hard, lads!”

  A Chatti roared and charged him.

  Javelins shredded our man, and he fell on his face.

  “Kill the shit!” I called out. “Kill the yellow bastards.”

  Our men lifted javelins and began lobbing them at the enemy. They struck point-blank at the enemy ranks. Three tore to the enemy champion, who fell amid his men, howling and pulling at one that had impaled his chest. The great enemy chief under his golden disk, a young man with a long beard, was exhorting his men.

  “Keep them out! Push them to ruin. Fight for your kin!” he roared in the second rank. “For Tudrus, you lord! For me! Bring me their shields to piss on!”

  The enemy shifted, and hands pumped. More javelins and stones crashed into us. One stone struck my helmet, another my thigh, painfully, and we threw our last missiles at the enemy. They impaled flesh, shield, and armor, and then, we rushed forward. Shield struck shield, men roared, and we pushed, and our second ranks tore to the enemy first ranks ferociously with spears. Our numbers overlapped the enemy on the right, and pushed behind them. On the left, our men were hacking into the bridge, trying to take it from the desperate people hoping to escape using it. Hundreds of the refuges were now in the river, swimming madly, and others were disappearing under the water.

  I pushed my shield forward, and again, grinding it at the man before me. Odrick was cursing next to me.

  We could do little else, and it was for our rear rankers to do the killing and the Chatti on the sides to flank them.

  I pushed and tried to get my weapon out.

  My long sword was caught in the press, and I could just very ineffectively push it at faces and the shredded shield before me. The man before me died, as a man behind me stabbed a long spear at the Quadi face. Another took his place, unsteadily pushing his shield at mine. I kept my head low, took terrible hits to my shield, and felt it was coming to pieces, for someone was bashing an ax at it, and I kept pushing and praying.

  “Lord, they are—” Odrick said next to me and then fell out of sight, cursing, as he had tripped.

  A man took his place and caught an ax in the face.

  A Quadi retracted his ax, and I managed to free my sword enough to stab at his eye. The blade went deep, and he fell. The holes were replaced, and we pushed on, panting, chanting, crying, begging, pissing ourselves, and crying. Suddenly, the men who had gotten behind the enemy, between them and the riverbank, could be seen rushing the standard of the enemy.

  Tudrus was roaring. I saw him.

  The young adeling of the Quadi was howling his curses at his men, and many turned to kill our men behind them.

  It cost them cohesion in the front.

  Our Chatti struggled doubly hard, Odrick yelling at them, “Push! Kill the motherless cow-fuckers!”

  They did.

  A handful of the enemy fell before us, and I stumbled over one and crashed to the milling mass of the enemy formation beyond. I hacked down with my sword, cleaved into an arm, then took a crude slice off a skull, and I saw Tudrus hacking down with a massive ax at me, his face a red mass of anger.

  “Eat the blade, Chatti bit of gristle!” he called, and the ax came to my shield and threw me to the ground. I saw the dreadful ax-blade hovering and slashing down through my weakened shield and into my side.

  It hurt terribly. I was sure to have a broken rib, or two, if not a gaping, deadly wound.

  I had no time to check.

  I decided the chain had saved my life, at least for a moment. I kicked at him ineffectually, and he came at me again. He bashed the ax right, killing a Chatti trying to put a shield over me, and pushed another man down, trying to get to me. He stepped closer.

  I moved my leg instinctively.

  He stepped on it, tripped, and fell on his side.

  I rolled over him, and my sword was coming from high, bashing for him.

  A Quadi smashed a cudgel at me. It struck my chest, and I fell back, clawing in the mud to get back up. I saw Tudrus pushing up as well, grasping at our men and his to keep his balance in the press, as he was on his knees. I was pushed on my back by a rushing Quadi warrior, and when I saw he lifted the ax, I knew I’d die.

  He swung, and then howled as an arrow struck his shoulder. He fell back, and his men, cursing, hauled him off.

  I turned and saw Tamura riding off, looking at me in triumph.

  “Shit,” I said, vomited, and made my way up.

  When I regained my senses, and crawled to my knees, I saw we had taken the town. Our Chatti were standing on the other end of the bridge, the length of which was filled with corpses. The river was full of floating dead. The banks on both sides were scattered with dead and wounded, and men were crawling away from the village, crying piteously.

  Over the bridge, Sarmatians were hunting a scattering mass of fleeing people, some warriors, some women.

  I turned to look behind.

  Tamura looked down at me. “I owe you nothing now.”

  I nodded and looked at her bow. She had nocked an arrow, and there were only a few of my men near.

  She smiled and shook her head. “Not like this. Later. The Chatti need you. Now, we must hold the bridge for my future husband. We hold it, and later, we shall deal with our differences.”

  I smiled, relieved, as I tried to see if my guts were flowing out. They were not. “Where is Tudrus and the Quadi?” I asked her.

  “Tudrus escaped,” she said. “He swam the river with many of his men. Twenty or so. A tough bastard to do so with an arrow in his shoulder. Get ready. We have a day or two to prepare and rest.”

  She rode off and began sending riders in every direction.

  I got up and found Oldaric.

  There were three hundred Chatti left.

  There would be thousands of the enemy coming for the town.

  CHAPTER 18

  I watched the Chatti burying treasure. They had found Roman and Celt gold and silver, sacks full of it. They had uncovered the personal horde of Cynefirth, with plates of Celtic bronze, Roman glass, which every man had stared at in wonder, and jewelry by the handful. It was no good in the depths of Germania to pay for anything, but all of it was beautiful, and more, a sign of victory. The Quadi had been humiliated, their people scattered, their treasures taken. Heavy pillars of smoke were coming out of the many halls and houses as we were burning most of the town. The real wealth was being herded north. There were hundreds of fat cows, which were under the guard of twenty men. Horses, dozens of them, were tethered together and pulled away. Some the enemy would recover, but most not. They would disappear into the lands of the Chatti.

  I kneeled and put my hand on a pile of treasure the Romans loved the best.

  There were many sacks full of golden, dusty chips and chunks of Freya’s Tears. They were unworked pieces of it, golden and gray, and I wondered at the bubbles and even the occasional insect inside them. They said Freya mourned her lost husband, and her tears fell to the sea where they washed to the shores, and if there were goddesses who cried, I imagined the tears to be just like these ones.

  “Hurry up,” I snarled.

  The Chatti nodded and cursed. Oderic wiped his hand on his face. “They won’t be here until the morning. Later, likely.”

  “Still, hurry up,” I told him, and tossed the amber back. I watched the night. “We are not the only one
s who can make surprises.”

  He snorted. “You know, the Sarmatians won’t be happy about this. They have earned part of it.”

  “They have,” I said. “Tamura will have to explain it to her men.”

  He laughed. “If you think she’ll spare your hide so her men get paid, you are a fool. They’ll just nab one of the boys and make him talk.”

  I nodded and rubbed my face.

  “You need to kill her,” he said, digging furiously with a pickax.

  “She says she is…” I said, and went quiet.

  He looked at me like he would a man eating a turd. “She’s…what? You don’t mean… It is not your problem.”

  “It is.”

  He chuckled. “It is yours?”

  “I…yes?”

  He laughed, the bastard, and went on digging.

  It had been a day, and we had rested and were making ready. We had no idea of the worth of loot, but it must have been great.

  I looked at the burning halls and wondered where Tamura was. The Sarmatians had been out all day and night, and it seemed we would be fighting soon. The enemy had left the woods in a hurry, had been traveling fast as a wolf on fire, and Cenhelm, Tamura claimed, was close behind.

  I limped back for the bridge,

  I put away the pouch, avoiding looking at the corpses.

  It bothered me. The battle. The butchery.

  It was a war in the Sarmatian way, in the mercenary way. It was the Roman way. I had been part of it. It bothered me how little I had minded the blood when we had fought.

  I noticed Tamura sitting on her horse, next to the bridge. I hesitated and then walked on. She turned to look at me. Her lance was set across her lap, and she eyed the work we had been doing on the bridge. Men were heaping wooden tables and planks in a semicircle to cover the structure. They had dug a ditch before it.

  “We should pull it down,” she said. “Just pull the bridge down.”

  “Then, they might not come back here,” I said. “They might try to flee north and south, and they would escape to fight again. This gives them hope and purpose. As Cenhelm and Cato desire.”

  She nodded. “It’s a risky trap. They will come here, enraged for their losses,” she said. “They won’t be stopping to taunt us or to discuss. Many will be able to swim over.”

  I nodded at the end of it. There, we had blocked the bridge with trunks and a ditch. Fifty men would guard it.

  “We should eat and rest,” I said. “We have much to do and little time. They are near?”

  She nodded and watched the eastern road. “They are coming. They abandoned the forest as soon as they could, and the Hermanduri are herding them this way. They are coming relentlessly, both them and our people. My scouts say there are lines of corpses on the roadsides. This will be the end of the Quadi.”

  I nodded, not sure what to say. I wiped blood from my face. There were still wounds that opened when I moved. I looked at the corpses.

  She smiled. “You came to the Hermanduri to seek a place. And you cannot stomach it.”

  “I came to find vengeance and lost my friend for it,” I said.

  She nodded. “You need to find new friends.”

  “You and I need not fight,” I told her. “You realize that the Romans were going to kill me and you both. We dealt with the issue, but you need allies still. Cenhelm might have planned your death with the Romans. He might have decided to marry your daughter and still gain support. We don’t know him, really.”

  She regarded me with amusement. She shrugged. “And perhaps Cenhelm trusts I would manage to kill two former guards of Akkas and a centurion who had been harassing him ever since he came back from Rome.”

  I smiled. Perhaps it was so.

  “Is there a place for me with Cenhelm, if I survive?” I asked her.

  She shrugged. “If you survive. Perhaps.”

  “Motivating,” I said. “He has my ring.”

  “He is a good man,” she said. “He might forgive you, as he promised. But I won’t. He knows that. You caused me great hardship, Maroboodus. I made a promise to my gods I would defeat you. I shall not step back. But I shall tell your child you were brave.” She leaned down and tapped my face. “They will be here on the morning. Get ready. I am sorry you have no good options left. You might be able to be a Hermanduri, but not while I live. You make your choices.”

  I nodded and felt lonelier than ever.

  “Don’t worry. Perhaps your father, your uncle, and that cousin of yours will run to your spear. You might get your revenge before we must fight. I’ll pray to my god for you to meet them.”

  “Thank you,” I said and prayed to Lok instead.

  I prayed Ingulf would not be there.

  We slept on the bridge, amid the dead.

  In the morning, horns awoke us. The enemy had come.

  Father wasn’t with them.

  ***

  The morning was cold. A bitter wind blew from the mountains, and clouds rushed across the sky, gray patches on pale blue. The day seemed destined to end in rain, as darker masses were following the clouds from the south. The men were waking up to eat something and to cast an occasional look at the specks on the horizon— riders of the Quadi who were coming forward to scout. Some managed to survive the Sarmatians who pounced on them, most didn’t. The riders had not slept all night and had spent most of their arrows harassing the enemy since early morning. Apparently, hundreds of the enemy had made it to the mountains and the north, but there were thousands of them coming along anyway, and they would know the bridge yet stood. They knew they were in trouble, but also knew they might take the bridge and defeat the Hermanduri along the river.

  We were prepared.

  I watched the banks of the river from the bridge. The remaining boats had been drawn on our western edge of the river. The bridge had been blocked on west end by trunks of wood, planks, and doorways. The eastern end, the enemy side, had the semi-circle of wooden make-shift walls made of more trunks, planks, tables, benches, and the ditch before it. We would stand behind it, many ranks deep, hoping we wouldn’t have to retreat to the bridge.

  We would be swarmed by a determined, desperate enemy, and likely torn apart, if Cenhelm was slow. We were gradually building a thick shield-wall of spears behind the barricades as men drifted there, and we had gathered all the javelins and spears we could find. There were heaps of stones as well. I looked behind and at the other end of the bridge. There, the barricade covered the end of it, and it was held by fifty men on the bridge itself, already ready. Odrick was there and saluted me. I nodded and walked to the middle of the ranks. There were hundreds of us, all veterans. Very few of them had hair on their foreheads now. We waited patiently, and the Chatti were chanting, humming, and readying to fight with prayers to Donor, Woden, Tiw, and Freya the Fierce. Their spears were a thicket of trouble above us, and the half-moon was four ranks thick when everyone came to their place. It covered the bridge rather well, and I had made sure the ends near the bridge and the river’s edge had more men.

  The Sarmatians who were not torturing the advancing Quadi were seated in ranks to the side on their horses as their officers were riding before them, looking at each with ferocious grin. Tamura was with them, waiting silently.

  We waited as well. The morning grew older.

  Then, out on the road, we saw a cloud of dust. Then, around the road, we saw barley being trampled, and a cloud of dust spread.

  Tamura turned and nodded. The horses wheeled, and each man, some sixty strong, rode off behind her. They dashed past us, flashed a grin, and rushed for the northern fields. All held bows and what arrows they had left. They would make life miserable for the Quadi marching for us as most had shields on their left hands.

  I stood straight and lifted the spear. Every man turned to look. I yelled, “For our glory, for our loot, for our reward, we shall fight! Make corpses, many corpses, and each shall make us immortal!” I yelled.

  The Chatti, bloodthirsty mercenaries al
l, screamed their assent.

  They began putting down the spears they’d use for melee, plucking javelins out from their shield hands and the ground and readying for fight.

  The mass that was coming for us quieted all the chants, prayers, and whispers of the Chatti.

  Thousands were rushing forward. Their spears showed in the clouds of dust, swaying above them. There, too, I could see their standards. Amongst the first was a standard hung with white pelts and a skull. It might have been that of one of Tudrus’s brothers, or even Cynefirth’s. They marched forward in a sea of shields. The Quadi were tall, some bloodied from battles in the woods and likely tired, but on they came, like a wave. I saw the Sarmatians at the edges of the enemy formations. Here and there, a man fell from the arrows of the Sarmatians. There were occasional yells, and then, Quadi men were rushing forward to skirmish with the riders with little effect, but the mass of the enemy came for the burned town. Horns brayed, and far off, I heard Cenhelm’s horns and his drum, beating them onward.

  “Stand fast!” I called out hoarsely. “We need to hold them only for a moment!” I lied.

  They cheered, the Chatti preparing for a fight of their lives, the one they would tell their grandchildren, none of whom would believe them.

  Of course, they would have to win to tell any stories, or to have grandchildren.

  It didn’t look likely.

  The enemy ran closer, and then, the dust spreading around, the enemy arrived and saw the obstacle. Men were hesitating, crushing into each other, and finally, guided by war-chiefs, spread into a huge wall of tribes and clans, shields out, bristling with spears. They circled our formation, stood amid dead and ruins, and thumped their shields with spears, building into rage that should carry them over the bridge.

  I climbed to the wooden barricade and, unsteadily, pulled out my cock and pissed on the ditch before me. I took my time, grinned at the enemy, saw some of their vitka dancing out of the columns—naked, dirty men, waving idols and wands at me, and at my cock. I laughed at them, jumped down, nearly fell, and grinned at the Chatti.

  One of them, a red-headed, wide shouldered man who would stand next to me in battle, nodded at the Quadi, and I turned to look.