Dark Wolves

by J A Deriu

  She stopped, and he heard her heavy breathing for long moments before she got up and left the room. She had left the candle burning. Nico sat up and watched the door to make sure that she was not coming back. He collapsed onto the mat. His head was clouded with strange thoughts. He tried for an uneasy sleep, knowing that the monks would be awake soon.

  He heard noises at the door. The candle had burned to a glob of wax. The door opened. It was Anton. Nico sat up stiffly. His heart thudded in his chest. Behind the count was the Mongol and the cowls of some of the monks.

  “Get up,” said Anton. “We do not have much time. There are reports of Ottomans coming. We must do what we must do, and we must do it now.”

  “What? I don’t understand.”

  “There is no time for talking,” the count said. He turned to those with him. “Take him. Hurry.”

  Two of the monks came toward him. Their cowls fell off their heads. They were young, solid men. They pulled him up by the arms. The Mongol watched with his arms folded. The count pushed them to hurry. Nico was pulled out of the room and into the passageway. There were others outside. The monks were strong, and Nico’s feet hardly felt the floor. They moved in silence through dark corridors, deep into the monastery, and then down many steps.

  He was taken into a dim room, which was only lit by a thick fire. A man stood as if he had been waiting for them. He was bald with a head shaped like an oval. He was wearing a singlet and sweat beaded down his muscular body. The room was hot. Nico was turned to face away from him. He was led to a chair, but the monks prodded him to kneel and not to sit on it. His chest was pushed against the seat of the chair, and Anton appeared on the other side. The count gripped Nico’s arms tightly and pulled them toward him so that Nico was strained over the chair. “This is important,” he said with a grim face. “Whatever happens, do not have fear.”

  Nico looked over his shoulder to see that the bald man was studying him with cold-blooded eyes. He had powerful arms, and with one firm yank, he tore Nico’s shirt off. He then moved out of Nico’s vision, and the clanking of iron could be heard.

  “This man is a master,” the count said with a firm jaw. “This is a blessed moment. Do not have fear.”

  “What? Why?” was all that Nico could mutter.

  The count pulled at his arms tightly, and one of the young monks pulled at his hands so that Nico was unable to move. Both of them were looking at what was behind Nico. He turned to see that the bald man was back. He was holding something and considered it with goggle eyes. It was a long, thin iron. Nico winced when he saw that the end was orange with heat.

  “Don’t look,” the count said. Nico forced his eyes closed and strained his face. He felt a pinprick underneath his back shoulder and then searing pain. Nico yelled. A monk threw water across his face. The bald man pricked him again, this time longer, and dragged the needle across his skin.

  The count strained with his effort to hold Nico. The scrapes increased in length and moved in careful lines and patterns. He became accustomed to the pain. The heat in the room, the water on his face, and his numbness, nullified it. The count loosened his grip. Nico had stopped struggling. The bald man was doing his craft with a steady hand. The count let go and stood. He moved behind Nico.

  Sweat dripped down over Nico’s face. The count made noise behind him. “Look, Prince, look,” he said.

  Nico turned his head. The Mongol stood in a corner. He had been watching with his arms tightly crossed and a curious face. Anton was holding a long mirror. It was dirty and cracked at the edges. The bald man had stepped away to the fire. Nico could see the reflection of his back in the mirror. He shivered. The bald man was a tattooist, and he could see clearly the work that he had done. Across the top of his back was the outline of the double-headed eagle. The heads faced away from each other, and between the heads was the crown of the tsar. He felt pain, grief, rage, and laughter all boiling together.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “Do we open it?” Greta asked.

  “No!” the Templars said at the same time.

  Clavdia studied the chest. It certainly looked ancient, and its stale smell dominated the tent. “Where did it come from?”

  “It was left at the perimeter,” Captain Marco answered.

  “Is it authentic?” Fulke the Bear asked.

  “How can we know?” Captain Miles said.

  “It does not matter,” Clavdia said. “The news must be known. It is in our possession.” She crouched to observe it closely. It looked to be made of stone that was tinted to a faded golden brown. She restrained her hand from touching it. The carvings were hard to discern. She stepped away. “All right, it’s time to move. Break camp. Where is the morning report?”

  Captain Marco shot out his hand and handed her a piece of paper. The casualties from the day before had been one dead from sunstroke, one missing, and six motor vehicles out of action and abandoned. They had outrun the pursuing army. Water and morale levels were both solid. Another hard-day’s march, and they would be in position. If secure contact was possible with associated forces, notification had been made of the location. Some key forces were still landing. The Abyssinian rebels had reluctantly acknowledged the plans.

  She handed it back to Marco. “All good. That is coming with us.” She pointed to the artifact. “No one open it.”

  Clavdia surveyed the landscape. Ragged mountains lay behind one corner of the scene. In front of the mountains were craggy hills, where Richord supervised the digging-in of the gun batteries. His obsessive precision was important to ensure they were placed to match their ranges and intended fire zones. Lying alongside one flank was a dry riverbed, which Miles had reported was still soggy from winter rains. In the forward view, the terrain was clear to the highway. The shah and his forces would come from one end, and the pursuing local Persian Army and its allies would come from the other. At the moment it was full of the Volunteer forces and the mishmash of others who had followed the Templar battle group. They yelped as they were greeted on arrival at the camp. Behind her the Templars were digging their Roman perimeter ditches, fixing the wooden palisades, and setting up their tents. She moved to the camp and rubbed her hands in preparation for what would be the tough work.

  Greta came running toward her. “She is here, Lord Commander. The leader of the Abyssinians. The one that calls herself the queen of Sheba.”

  “All right. Set her up in the in the reception tent.”

  Tulock stood as she entered. He was wearing a leather jerkin and a long Arabian knife sheathed at his waist inside a thick sash. The queen of Sheba was seated with her hands placed neatly on her lap. Her hair was pulled back, and she wore the plain brown-black clothes of a soldier with her boots and strapped leggings to her knees. The only color was the embroidered golden head of a lion on her tunic. “The queen would like to thank you,” Tulock formally said. “The promise of your force has been fulfilled.”

  Clavdia looked at the queen. “I accept her thanks and welcome the free Abyssinian Army.” They had arrived in the last hours in platoon-sized groups, mainly on horse-drawn wagons. Templar scouts had reported that their weapons were single-shot long rifles with bayonets attached, and others carried old-fashioned pikes. “We have counted one thousand. We had talked of a much higher number.”

  “Ah, do not fret, Lord Commander.” It was Tulock who answered. “They are coming. The queen is concerned that this is not the optimum place for a battle. She would have preferred a battle on the plateau, and if not that, she would have wished that the capital is defended.”

  “I see.” Clavdia hesitated, unsure of what to say. The capital was not a fortress. It barely had walls. There was nowhere to defend except for the palace, which would not accommodate the force size. “We will sit with your generals and explain our strategy once they are settled.”

  “Generals? There are no generals. The queen commands,” Tul
ock said.

  Clavdia looked at the queen. Her blank expression had not changed, and she seemed to look through Clavdia, but she was sure that the queen understood every word. “Then once the queen is settled, we will outline our battle plan and order of battle. In the meantime, please pass on my condolences for the death of her brother.”

  “Ha.” Tulock smirked. “None are needed. His demise was by his own actions. He will not be missed.”

  Clavdia saw a flutter of movement in the line that was the lip of the queen.

  She left the tent. Miles was waiting outside on horseback, pulling at the reins to control the horse, which was pacing. “Lord Commander, there has been a skirmish at the fork of the dry river. An advance of the Persian Army has touched our forces. I am going to see. Get on. We ride as Templars of old.”

  He rode the horse with the skill of one who had been on horseback from the time he was a boy. They sped across the flatlands. One of her arms was around his waist. Her other hand held the muscles of his shoulder. The soldiers marching to the camp stopped to watch as they passed. They quickly crossed into country with denser vegetation, and Miles guided the horse to avoid the bushes and stunted trees. She lost sight of the camp. Miles pressed the horse to go faster, and it kicked up the loose dirt.

  The fighting was on rocky land that was spotted with cacti. The Templars were looking up to higher ground with the rocks as cover. They dismounted from the horse, and Miles tied it to a tree stump. They were well out of the range of the shooting. Some resting Templars saw them and a Templar with the thick legs of an infantryman walked across to them. They could hear the firing in the background. “Keep your heads low,” he said. “The action is on the other side of that ridge, but if any of the Persians get up there, they are firing with the wind.”

  “The Lord Commander is here to see firsthand what is happening,” Miles said.

  The Templar looked at Clavdia and completed a rushed Templar salute. “We have been here for near an hour. We were on patrol, foraging for horse feed and timber for the fires. We came across a contingent of the Order of the Holy Ghost. They were tracking through here to join the main camp. They had been pinned down. There are Persians on the other side of the ridge, not sure how many. We thought they might be scouts, so wanted to kill them off before they get anywhere near a look at the camp.”

  “They are not scouting,” Clavdia said.

  “Scouts don’t stay for a firefight,” Miles finished.

  “Yes, we need to see what is over that ridge. How many of you are there?”

  The Templar looked up toward the rugged ridge. “I have thirty-two in my squad. There are at least a hundred of the Holy Ghosts. But they are everywhere, like herding kittens. There are many over the ridge. You can hear the firing. I thought to hold this position and the high point to make sure the Persians don’t come over. I have nowhere near enough to get all of the Holy Ghosts out.”

  “Yes, you are right. What is your name?”

  “Sergeant Polak, Lord Commander.”

  “All right, let’s have a look, Captain,” Clavdia said, turning toward Miles.

  They kept low and scurried up a track. Templars were hiding behind rocks. Their bayonets were fixed. “Selkirk is up there,” the sergeant said. “He holds the highest point. You can overlook from there.”

  Selkirk was a gritty-looking soldier, sunburned, with his Templar cap on backward. “The Ghosts are in the trees along the creek,” he said, pointing downward with one hand and using the other to turn his cap the right way. “The Persians the other side. We have been trying to give the Ghosts cover, but range is bad. If we try and get closer, we need to go down the hill, and we are open. I have lost two. Another one is back there with a bullet in his arm.” The position was on a crest with boulders providing protection.

  She studied the scene below and then turned to Miles. “There are hundreds of Persians. This is a decent-sized probe, or more likely a shaft of their advance.” She turned to Polak and Selkirk. “You have done well to hold them up.” Two of the Order of the Holy Ghost sat in the hollow wearing their coal-black uniforms with a white star on the front. “How many of you are down there?”

  “Three hundred,” the Holy Ghost answered.

  “Hmm, what do you think, Lord Commander?” Miles said, his hands gripped the rock.

  “Lend me your binoculars, Sergeant.” The creek was shallow with barely a trickle of water. The trees were reasonably thick on each side, enough to provide cover. She could see the Ghosts. They were battered, a few kneeling and keeping a lookout, the others resting, drinking from water bottles. On the other side of the creek, she could see the top of a bayonet, the flash of checked tunics, the black and cherry of the Persian colors. She lifted the binoculars to look farther. “By the head of Saint Euphemia, what is that?”

  She handed the binoculars to Miles. He adjusted them. “Damn, I have never seen anything of that kind.”

  “I think I know,” Clavdia said. She narrowed her eyes. The mechanical beasts plodded forward. There were three of them. The pillarlike legs lifted a little, folded at the knee, and with the hoof raising dust, landed. “Mechanized elephants. They are steam powered.” She looked at Polak. “Those men need to get out of there.” Atop the machines was a tower full of Persians and the smoke-belching steam engine that powered the machine. The sun glinted off the plates of armor, and the steam billowed a trail. They were moving toward the creek with many foot soldiers jogging behind.

  “Lord Commander, if they run up the ridge, they will be exposed and fired on,” Polak said.

  “Look at those beasts, Sergeant. They will be no chance against them.”

  “There are at least a dozen men riding on each of them,” Miles said, “and they are well protected by the armor.”

  “They have weapons,” Selkirk said, after he took his turn with the binoculars.

  “Order them out of there,” Clavdia said. “They are going to have to run. We will provide the best cover we can.”

  “They are Holy Ghost Order, Lord Commander. Will they take orders from us?”

  Although the movements of the machines looked like they were plodding, they came quickly so that their size loomed over the scene below. They would be able to see over the trees, and the men in the towers fired as though for sport.

  “I’ll go down,” Miles said. “They will take my order.”

  She placed her hand against his chest. “Wait. It’s dangerous.”

  He looked incredulous. “I know.” He turned to Polak. “I will need a rifle. And get your men ready.”

  “You won’t need to,” Polak said. “Look, they are running.” The Ghosts had seen the mechanized beasts and were retreating. They dashed up the ridge without any cover. The guns from the tower aimed at them and started firing.

  Miles lifted himself to stand on a boulder. “Well, come on then,” he shouted to Polak and his men. “Don’t leave them undefended.” He pulled up a rifle, checked that it was loaded, and jumped down the slope.

  “What … by the head of … always so reckless.” Clavdia pulled a rifle from the hands of Polak and followed Miles over the edge. She had to dig her boots in to make sure that she did not tumble down the slope. There was distance to the skirmishing, but the mechanized elephants could be seen as though right in front, cracking the branches of the trees as they moved. The black of the Holy Ghost soldiers ran toward her. Miles, who was well ahead, stopped and aimed the rifle at one of the machines. He was in a hopeless position. He fired a shot. She reached him, tackled, and pulled him to the ground. A bullet thwacked nearby. They looked at each other without the need to say anything. The retreating soldiers had reached them and kept running.

  The Persian machines crossed the creek, crushing rocks as their huge legs dropped. The Holy Ghost soldiers who had not run were being fired on. They could not take cover with the beasts looking over them. Their bo
dies were convulsed by involuntarily movements and parts hacked away from the ferocious assault. As they fell more bullets were shot into them from the ruthless marksmen who filled the towers. Some were already splayed against the ruddy terrain. “There is nothing we can do. We must go back.” She pulled at Miles’s shirt, which had come loose.

  The yells of the enemy came up to them, mixed with the mechanical grind of the machines. The captain’s face was uncertain. He had an unfathomable desire to charge on, but it was met by his obedience to the command. They turned. It was a short dash to the cover of the boulders, but the path was covered by flying bullets. The Persians, due to the ferocity of the machines, had overwhelmed the forces below and were now coming out of the bushes to fire toward them and the fleeing soldiers. A Holy Ghost ran alongside them for a moment and then clutched at his chest, which was suddenly reddened and fell.

  A bullet screamed past and split a rock in front. Clavdia leaped over it, and Miles followed. She jumped for the boulder, landed atop, and fell to the other side. Miles collapsed next to her shortly. Screams came from behind. “A nightmare down there,” Polak said, standing to look over the edge. She stood and looked back to the carnage. Polak, Selkirk, and the others were gaping in shock. “I dread that those things can come up here,” the Templar nervously grumbled.

  They rode back to the camp in contemplative silence. Miles hurried to alert the captain knights. Pedro stood anxiously on guard duty at her tent. Next to him was Magnus of the Hospitallers. “Lord Commander, he said that he must see you,” Pedro hurriedly said.

  “There is no time,” she answered, pulling the flap of the tent open.