The Wolf

by Leo Carew

  “No denying that,” allowed Northwic.

  The two generals sat on horseback atop the ridge from which Roper’s forces had retreated. The rain continued to thunder down but they were kept dry by a canopy, borne by four aides who waited patiently at each corner, water dripping down their faces. Most of the Suthern army was elsewhere, committing the Black Kingdom to the torch and the sword, but below them several thousand soldiers worked in the flood waters.

  The pale, rain-bloated Anakim corpses were being stripped and searched for anything valuable. Their prized arms and armour, of which the legionaries had been so proud and which they had treated so lovingly in life, were piled haphazardly to be melted down and re-forged to a more useful size. The rough woollen clothing, though utilitarian, was robust enough to be put to further use. But the most valuable plunder was within the corpses themselves.

  Bone-armour.

  The Sutherners sliced through the rain-softened skin to expose the overlapping bone-plates beneath. They sawed and wrenched at the ligaments that held them in place, hauling out the flint-hard plates and piling them up. These were not the stark-white or light-cream of other bones; they had a reddish, rust-coloured hue to them. They were lighter and harder than any steel developed by the Sutherners, and Bellamus had very particular ideas about how he would use such a material.

  After the battle, an enormous corpse had been dragged up the ridge for his inspection. It was different from the others. Bigger; more magnificently equipped. Those who had seen the individual felled by an arrow to the throat reported that he had been an officer of some kind, mounted on horseback. Bellamus recognised the face. “So we got you,” he had said sadly to Kynortas’s body. “And if you’re dead, that means your lad now rules.”

  Bellamus frowned down at the body. “Fetch me his helmet.” The master of the horse which had dragged the corpse unbuckled the great war-helm from Kynortas’s head and passed it up to Bellamus. He ran his fingers over it, turning it over in his hands. As he had thought, it was not steel. It was some kind of alloy, duller than steel but also more beautiful. It was almost marbled, with shades of cloud, gloom, iron and moonlight merging and overlapping. “The famous Unthank-silver. Never before have I seen it used for anything other than a sword.” It felt too light for the brutality of combat, though Bellamus knew the Anakim did not suffer equipment that was just for show. War was their business and if this battle helm felt light in his hands, that was no more than a demonstration of how little he knew. He tried it on: much too large for his head.

  “Unthank-silver, lord?”

  “I’m not a lord,” said Bellamus to the horse-master. “Just a commoner, like you. It’s the alloy that Anakim make their swords from. Can’t say I know how it’s made but I hear that when two Unthank-weapons meet in combat, they shed white sparks like a blacksmith’s anvil. Maybe there’s a clue in that.”

  If there was, it mystified the horse-master.

  Bellamus took the helmet off and examined it once again. “Magnificent.” A metal crest ran from the front to the back of the crown, with a perilously sharp blade, shaped like the edge of an axe, on the front of the crest. Overlapping plates which would provide flexible protection for the owner’s neck ran down the back and an alloy visor and cheek-plates concluded the comprehensive defence. “A shame for the Jormunrekur to lose it; I’m not sure they could afford its replacement nowadays. We shall send it back to them.” He tossed it back to the horse-master and bade him reattach it to the corpse. He had intended to send the king Kynortas’s skull. But the king could have another present. He had a different use for this one.

  Bellamus discovered a mighty sword still in Kynortas’s scabbard. It appeared to be made of the same metal as the helmet and so was light and strong, but it also glittered strangely in the grey light of the day. The edge was shining somehow. It was too long to be practical and he could barely close his hand around the grip, which was built for a hand on an altogether different scale. Even so, Bellamus strapped it on. There was more than one way to use a weapon like this.

  Bellamus had told Lord Northwic that Kynortas was dead, though he had neglected to mention that his body had been recovered. Now he and the lord rode along the crest of the ridge together, moving slowly enough for the canopy to keep up with them. Thunder was beginning to rumble in the mountains to the north and a bolt of pale lightning splashed shadows across the battlefield. It made the flood waters boil where it struck them. “This is a bleak country,” said Lord Northwic, staring down at the labourers who toiled over the Anakim dead. “We must rid ourselves of the Anakim, but beyond that … it isn’t worth the taking.”

  “They have been beset by unusual quantities of rain just as surely as we have,” said Bellamus mildly. “I can imagine this looking quite beautiful in the sun, in a rugged sort of way.”

  “Wilderness,” replied Lord Northwic dismissively. “These mountains are the cankers on the face of the earth. Below the Abus, good ripe soil; tilled, farmed and ordered. It is a little closer to paradise. This …” he flicked a clawed hand at the forest that occupied one end of the ridge, tree tops shifting in the wind. “This is the country of the wolf and the bear and the wildcat. Their villages are isolated by the distance and the wild. They share their land with the barbarous and the chaotic. No wonder they are so wild themselves.

  “I wonder, can it even be pacified? When we have defeated the Anakim, can this land be tilled, or is the earth too shallow and too filled with rocks? Will the site of the forests support pasture land for cows and sheep, or is the earth too sour?”

  “We shall have to keep the Trawden forests standing,” said Bellamus. “By all accounts a legendary hunting ground.”

  Lord Northwic grunted. “So this is your plan. Take the north and you shall be its master.”

  Bellamus smiled briefly. “Nobody else seems to want it. His Majesty even speaks of building a great wall and forgetting that half of this island lies to the north. Give the north to me; I’ll pacify it.”

  “Is it just the north you want, Bellamus?” Lord Northwic was looking sidelong at him and Bellamus knew at once what he was referring to. “I was as young as you once. Even younger. I can see how you act around Queen Aramilla. She is the only one of us you keep your distance from.”

  “Better not to play with fire,” said Bellamus, not returning Lord Northwic’s gaze.

  “Yes, it is,” said Lord Northwic forcefully. “In the eyes of both God and man. Be careful with her.”

  “I barely know her,” said Bellamus.

  “I know you both,” said Lord Northwic. “She is inscrutable. But you are hiding something.” Lord Northwic spoke harshly but Bellamus knew that, whatever his words, the old man rather liked him. In any case, he was in no danger. The man who suggested to the king that his wife was having an affair was at greater risk than either of the accused. The two men rode in silence for a time. “Perhaps we should move to take the Hindrunn,” suggested Lord Northwic.

  “Bad idea, Ced,” responded Bellamus. Lord Northwic was relaxed in his leadership and did not object to the informality. “With the legions still inside, that nut is un-crackable. They would like nothing more than for us to attempt a siege.”

  “More plundering, then,” said the lord, unenthusiastic.

  “More plundering,” agreed Bellamus. “The more loot that floods the south, the more warriors will come to our cause. It is also our best hope of bleeding the Black Legions from the Hindrunn before we have to attack it.”

  “And what do you know of their new leader, the lad Roper?” asked Northwic.

  Bellamus had risen to prominence as the Anakim-specialist of Erebos—the continent to which Albion was tethered. Nobody navigated the shadows quite like the upstart and nobody had the same ability to speak to Anakim on their level. He understood them: their motivations, their customs, their concerns. He had spent time with them in the Alps, in Iberia and now Albion. They had become his trade. Most observed the hopeless shortcomings of the Anakim ton
gue, their crude silhouetted art, their baffling, nonsensical maps, their lack of writing and their barbarous ways, and gave up trying to treat with them. Not Bellamus. His fellow Sutherners intrigued him. The Anakim fascinated him.

  Bellamus had charmed and bullied and bribed to achieve what the nobles of Suthdal had considered impossible: a network of reliable Anakim spies within the Black Kingdom itself. In previous invasions of the north, their knowledge of the enemy they faced and their tactics had been woefully inadequate. Bellamus had made himself indispensable through knowing more than anyone else; and had shown a scarcely credible flair for command to boot.

  “He was always said to be promising,” he answered Lord Northwic. “But whether he actually commands is in doubt. I am told that a senior officer in the country, a warrior named Uvoren, has been making arrangements to take command should Kynortas die in battle. We met him, incidentally,” he added, glancing at Lord Northwic. “He was the one with the war hammer, on Kynortas’s left side. And the wildcat engraved on his chestplate.”

  “Kynortas in the middle, who embarrassed poor Earl William,” said Lord Northwic, screwing up his face so that his eyes disappeared from view completely in his effort to remember. “Uv … Uvora?”

  “Uvoren,” corrected Bellamus.

  “Uvoren on the left with the war hammer. Roper was the big lad on the right. What about the other one?”

  “I don’t know,” admitted Bellamus. “A Sacred Guardsman, from his armour.” The two rode in silence for a while longer, Bellamus content to stay quiet; absorbing the saturated landscape and delighting in the smell of the rain.

  “I’m not sure this is a campaign we’ll get to finish,” said Lord Northwic, at last.

  Bellamus looked shocked. “My lord?”

  “For goodness’ sake, Bellamus,” Northwic snapped. “If I ever actually told you anything you didn’t know already, I’d feel disappointed.”

  Bellamus laughed.

  The news from the south was that King Osbert, who truly feared the Anakim, was minded to withdraw the army now that Earl William had been killed. Letters had streamed north, illustrating a king who thought he had done enough to placate God’s anger, and who thought, too, that they should take all they had gained and retreat. Northwic, though a powerful lord, was not considered to possess quite the level of vaunted nobility required to lead an army north of the Abus. Winter was fast approaching, and the first battle had gone better than anyone had dared hope. The rumours said King Osbert was considering leaving the campaign at that and calling it a success. It could only get worse from here.

  If true, it would spell disaster for Bellamus’s ambitions. He had invested every favour, every piece of influence and wealth he had in this push north. To have it ended so soon, or else to have to deal with another earl sent north by the king to replace Earl William, could ruin everything. But he had few worries. At the first letter, he had sent a reply south with a swift rider, asking Queen Aramilla to intervene on his behalf. She had not failed him yet.

  “I’m sure His Majesty will see sense,” Bellamus said after a time. “It would be madness to leave the campaign here. We have an opportunity that is unlikely to present itself again.”

  Northwic nodded. “So who killed Earl William?” he growled.

  “I can only guess at that, but one man does fit the description,” ventured Bellamus. “Another Sacred Guardsman of considerable renown called Pryce Rubenson. He’s a famous sprinter. They say he’s faster on foot than a horse with a rider over any distance and any terrain. And perhaps the most courageous warrior in the north.”

  “See if you can confirm that,” said Northwic. “And make him pay.”

  “As you wish,” said Bellamus.

  “You’re a valuable man, Bellamus.”

  “You know how to use me, lord.”

  Lord Northwic snorted. “Yes, I do. Let you do exactly what you want.”

  The Black Kingdom was being overrun. The defeat on the flood plain, which had been so humiliating that nobody had wanted to name the battle, had left the Sutherners free to rampage north of the Abus for the first time in centuries. It was as though each soldier had endured that wait personally, such was their appetite to loot and burn.

  Especially to burn.

  It was common enough, when at war, to set villages and granaries ablaze as you passed through them. It weakened the enemy’s morale, hampered their ability to resist and signified the helplessness of the occupied territory.

  Even this, however, did not explain what was happening to the east of the Hindrunn. From atop any one of the great granite walls, or the towers that surrounded the Central Keep, an immense cloud cast the east into shadow. It smothered the light from the sky and stained every sun- and moon-rise a bruised red. Every soldier in the Hindrunn had seen it: the very sky swamped by the atomised infrastructure of their country. Scouts were flooding in, reporting a conflagration so dense that they could not pass through; a wall of flame that swept clear the lands at the back of the Suthern army.

  The news grew worse.

  The Anakim had always been outnumbered by the Sutherners, but their warlike society and forbidding reputation had made most think twice before attempting an invasion. Now, with the news that they had won a great victory, Suthern reinforcements were streaming north, swelling the ranks of the army that was now commanded by Lord Northwic. He was commanding well, this lord, and seemed content to keep clear of the Hindrunn, seeking instead to vaporise the land around it and so draw the legions swarming angrily from their nest.

  Uvoren would have none of this. He met every day in the Chamber of State with a full council of war, the immense oak table crammed with all fourteen legates; representatives from the great houses of the realm; the heads of the offices of state; the Chief Historian and her deputy; and the leaders of various towns who had sought refuge in the Hindrunn from the Suthern horde. Roper was there too, listening as the same voices clamoured again and again for an audience. They would stand and repeat their perspective, either to a rumble of agreement or baying dissent. It seemed that most of those around the table who spoke shared Uvoren’s thoughts on the matter.

  The legions should be kept in the fortress. It was regrettable that the surrounding lands were being put to the torch but they had to look to the long term. Within the Hindrunn, they would outlast any attack. As long as the real wealth of the Black Kingdom—the legions—was kept safe, then they could retake all they had lost.

  The Chief Historian was one of the few prepared to speak out against this course of action. A woman of steel-grey hair, angular features and unswerving rectitude, her role was to provide perspective on the situation, drawing the council’s attention towards historical precedents. “You should all realise that this may be the first time the Hindrunn has been used so defensively. Its construction was justified as a wasps’ nest, not a strong-box. In all previous invasions, the councillors have concluded that we cannot survive without supplies provided by the kingdom, and we have met our enemies in the field. Outside the walls of this chamber, the Black Kingdom is in flames.”

  “We are the Black Kingdom,” growled Uvoren. There were not many prepared to speak out against him; it was obvious which way the wind was blowing.

  So the legions sat inside the Hindrunn. And waited.

  At his first full war council, Roper, trying to limp as little as possible on his damaged thigh, strode straight-backed to the Stone Throne and sat down in it, coldly meeting the gaze of anyone who looked at him. That had raised eyebrows, but Uvoren had not dared repeat his lie about three days of mourning in front of so many. Beyond that, Roper had no idea how to progress. He had tried to speak in the councils but Uvoren had snarled at him to be silent, followed by the rumble of agreement. That was becoming Roper’s default position. Silence.

  Five full days after the legions’ return to the Hindrunn, they were still there. Another council had ended with the decision to weather the storm behind granite. It had further been decided that t
he gates were to be shut to the swarm of refugees arriving at the Hindrunn. Uvoren said they were to stay outside the walls, citing concerns over hygiene. As the numbers of refugees grew yet greater and became a restless mob at the fortress gates, Roper suspected the decision would be attributed to him.

  Roper stood from the Stone Throne as the council filed from the room. He watched as the Chief Historian arrested one of the other councillors, placing a hand on the man’s shoulder and whispering in his ear. The man, who, Roper had learned, was called Jokul, stood motionless and listened, still facing the door. The other councillors, thwarted and frustrated, had eyes only for the exit. They split around the pair, before finally Jokul turned and looked directly at Roper, locking eyes with him. The Chief Historian was still murmuring in his ear as Roper and Jokul shared a long appraisal. Finally, Jokul nodded. He had not said a word. The chamber drained until it was just the three of them, Jokul and the Chief Historian both examining Roper. Uvoren was last out of the door and looked back at them. He snorted, calling something to the sweaty-faced Guardsman Asger, who laughed uproariously and tried to steal a glance at “Boy-Roper” before Uvoren shut the door.

  Roper knew about the Chief Historian, and had been watching Jokul over the last few days. He was one of the few who had stood against the idea of sheltering in the Hindrunn. Even more unusually, when he spoke, his words were not treated with scorn by Uvoren and his baying supporters, but warily considered. He was treated delicately, like one of those toxic-mouthed snakes that sometimes arrive on trade ships from distant lands, which even Uvoren dared not enrage. There was no obvious reason why. He had no reputation in battle, he was not backed by any great house that Roper knew of, and he was certainly no orator. Indeed, when he spoke, it seemed to suck the energy from the room.

  “May we speak, lord?” the historian asked.