The Wolf

by Leo Carew

  Uvoren glanced at the Sacred Guard, back at Pryce and then let out a roar of laughter. He hefted Marrow-Hunter in his hands and chuckled at the expression on Pryce’s face. “I don’t take orders from disgraced lictors whose allegiance flits from one man to another like a sparrow,” he said. “Settling everywhere but at his captain. If the Black Lord wants to speak to me, he can come and find me here; with my Guard.”

  Pryce rolled his eyes and swore tiredly. He dismounted and took a step towards Uvoren, ignoring the war hammer that was raised as he approached. “I’m tired, sir,” he said softly, barely moving his lips. “A friend of mine has died because of your stupidity. So I’m going to ask you one last time. Present yourself to the Black Lord. Face justice at his hand. Or at mine.” And he drew his shattered half-sword, holding it low before him.

  Uvoren just laughed again. “You propose to duel me?” He cast an eye over Pryce’s truncated sword. “With that? Is this a joke?”

  Pryce was still a long moment. Still in the way that a snake’s head is motionless as it gathers its coils behind it. He just stared at Uvoren, who had stopped smiling. Then he lunged at the captain with his astonishing speed: half-blade raking upwards towards Uvoren’s face. It was not even a blow to kill: it was a blow to hurt and to maim.

  But the captain had been expecting the attack and thrust his hammer forward, stepping close and body-checking Pryce forcefully. Pryce staggered, his blow deflected and his blade flying out of his hand with the force of Uvoren’s parry. He tried to dance backwards but Uvoren had trodden on his foot which was now pinned to the ground and Pryce fell hard, twisting to the floor. He gave a little grunt as his ankle was forced into an unnatural extension by the pressure of Uvoren’s foot, sprawling to the ground as Uvoren took a massive overhead swing at his head. Pryce twisted aside, ripping his foot free from beneath Uvoren’s boot and rolling away from the war hammer, which hit the earth by his head with a flat smack.

  Pryce scrambled away, staggering upright as his torn right ankle almost gave way beneath him. He hobbled back from Uvoren, unarmed and injured. Uvoren was smiling again. “I didn’t expect much, Pryce. But I expected more than this. You can’t fight me.” Pryce was limping badly as he cast around on the floor for another weapon, but there were none in evidence. Uvoren stood between him and his shattered blade, war hammer raised.

  Then the captain rushed at Pryce, checking just before he hit the guardsman, who attempted to retreat as Uvoren swung Marrow-Hunter at him. Pryce ducked, the war hammer moaning as it swept through the air just above his head, but Uvoren kept swinging and managed to manoeuvre Marrow-Hunter’s weight so that the steel handle struck Pryce on the chin. Pryce staggered back, dazed, but his practised legs operated without input and, in an odd, hopping sprint, he managed to withdraw from Uvoren’s range. His eyes swept the ground once more, seeking a weapon of some kind.

  Then a voice shouted behind from behind him. “Pryce!” Pryce turned and saw Leon, the guardsman who had killed Lord Northwic beside the sea, drawing his sword. He tossed it at Pryce’s feet and Pryce stooped quickly to snatch it up, eyes always on Uvoren. The captain’s eyes were wide at this display of support from Leon but he quickly recovered himself, giving a little snort.

  “Come on, then, Pryce!” he roared. “Come and face me!” Uvoren lunged forward. Pryce was struggling to manoeuvre himself on his injured foot and took a clumsy swing at Uvoren as he retreated. Uvoren blocked and countered in a diagonal blow that Pryce had to pivot to avoid, putting him off balance. Uvoren, poised and balanced still, mirrored Pryce’s pivot with far more control and raised a leg, booting Pryce in the chest. The smaller man was sent sprawling backwards, where he almost lost his sword again. He re-gripped the handle and was on his feet once more before Uvoren had time to crowd him, sword raised and threatening.

  There was something beneath Pryce’s foot. Looking down, he saw that their latest exchange had placed him at the site he had lost his sword last time and that its blade’s ragged edge was beneath his boot. Pryce stooped suddenly to snatch at it with his left hand, so that when he straightened, he was facing Uvoren with two blades.

  Uvoren was standing off, looking hungrily at Pryce’s injured ankle. Both of them knew that was an almost insurmountable weakness. A weapon of Marrow-Hunter’s weight could not be blocked with a sword. At full swing, its momentum was too great. It had to be dodged: a task of exceeding difficulty with only one working foot. But Pryce did not look worried. He looked furious. One of Uvoren’s blows had reopened the cut that Garrett had made on his jaw and it was bleeding freely again, with Pryce spraying a crimson fountain on each exhalation. “With one foot or two,” he snarled at Uvoren. “Half a sword or a whole one, I will break you apart, Captain.”

  Then Pryce charged. He stuttered forward on his unstable ankle, twisting slightly as he surged towards Uvoren but maintaining his course. Uvoren used his greater mobility, stepping one way in a feint before bringing the hammer across in a sweeping final blow, designed to crush Pryce, who was too weak and moving too fast to change direction. Pryce twisted at the waist, trying to limit Marrow-Hunter’s impact so that it clipped his shoulder instead of striking him full-on. There was a noise, somewhere between a crack and a pop, and Pryce’s right shoulder buckled visibly beneath the blow, Leon’s sword falling from his grasp and onto the ground.

  But Pryce had not stopped, was still moving, and brought the savage shard of metal in his left hand up over the inside of Uvoren’s wrist, sawing it into the flesh and screaming in fury. Uvoren bellowed, Marrow-Hunter falling from his weakened fingers as Pryce span away, his right arm swinging uselessly. Uvoren stooped and lunged for Marrow-Hunter with his left hand, but Pryce’s broken sword came out of nowhere, spearing into the hand and driving through, deep into the ground. Uvoren leaned forward, his face screwed up against the pain, gasping. He took several deep breaths and spat on the ground, glancing at his useless right hand which was tilted back, fingers extended and unresponsive. He was pinned to the floor by Pryce’s sword, driven through his left hand.

  Pryce turned away from the stricken captain, breathing fast. His right shoulder still looked visibly depressed and he seized his own wrist, levering it upwards, face quivering with the effort until, with a pop, the shoulder resumed its socket.

  “Help me!” gasped Uvoren, casting around at the guardsmen. “Kill him! Kill him!” But nobody moved. The guardsmen looked on, expressionless, at the scene playing out before them. Leon was nodding slowly at what he saw. Not a man spoke out for Uvoren, as Pryce turned back towards the Captain of the Guard, his right hand held tight in at his chest for support. He picked up Leon’s sword in his left hand, and walked to stand before Uvoren. The captain was on one knee, still pinned to the earth by that sword through his hand. Pryce stepped right into Uvoren, aggressively close so that the captain was forced to crane his neck upwards to look into Pryce’s face.

  “You bastard,” said Pryce. “You total, total snake.” Blood was dripping from his chin and it splattered onto Uvoren’s cheek.

  Uvoren glanced at Pryce’s right shoulder, relocated now but still grossly asymmetrical. “You are a madman,” he said softly. Then he bowed his head. “Make it quick.”

  Pryce smiled. “No. Look at me, Uvoren. Look up at me.” Pryce slid Leon’s sword beneath the captain’s chin and tilted his head upwards. “My face is the last thing you will ever see.”

  Uvoren stared upwards for a moment. Then he shut his eyes tight.

  Many of the knights survived the lightning strike and subsequent slaughter on top of Harstathur. The momentum shift was so drastic and so evident that, to most, the prudent option had seemed retreat. They rallied by Bellamus and Garrett, who had somehow found a horse on top of the plateau (though accounts differed as to whether the horse had already been riderless or whether Garrett had knocked a Suthern knight from his saddle to take it). With Garrett by his side, Bellamus had then shown extraordinary nerve by approaching Roper’s banner with a white flag to bargain
for the lives of his shattered army.

  Roper received him on horseback, Gray and Tekoa on either side and a cluster of legates and aides waiting behind. Gray was slumped in his saddle, barely equal to holding his head up. Tekoa had a bandage round his head from where his eyebrow had been split by Uvoren’s fist. “Not a customary time for parley, Bellamus,” Roper observed as the two groups of horsemen met. He glanced at Garrett, mounted next to his master and covered in grime, with Heofonfyr still clutched in his hand. Bellamus looked calm and spread his hands in a gesture of regret to Roper.

  “The victory is yours, my Lord Roper,” he said. “I applaud you; it was quite a battle.” He paused and smiled ruefully. “I thought I had you at the end.”

  “But the Almighty intervened.”

  Bellamus looked carefully at Roper. “Fortune, more like. We could have played that game a thousand times. Only one of those times would the lightning have broken my knights. It might have struck the Sacred Guard.”

  “But it didn’t,” said Roper.

  “No. It didn’t.” The words were the same, but the two leaders meant entirely different things. “But sometimes that’ll happen if you dress men in steel and send them out with lances into a thunderstorm. So I think that makes the score between us one each, though both in curious circumstances. I’m looking forward to our next encounter.”

  Roper smiled thinly. “I think we both enjoy our encounters. But I doubt you enjoy them so much that you came here just to exchange these words.”

  “I’m here for the lives of my soldiers. There is no need to turn your fine victory into a farmyard slaughter. If you let the remainder of my army march home, I will send you two tons of steel from the south.”

  Roper raised his eyebrows. “I see you have learned to barter in steel rather than gold.”

  “I speak your language,” said Bellamus with a smile.

  “Steel would be welcome, but I want Bright-Shock back as well.” Roper glanced pointedly at the blade that Garrett clutched upright like a pennant.

  Bellamus sighed. “Heofonfyr is not mine to give. The king himself gave the sword to Garrett. I cannot deprive him of what is probably the best weapon in Albion.”

  “It was not the king’s to give in the first place,” said Roper harshly. He could see Garrett frowning as he struggled to translate the rapid dialogue.

  “Oh yes it was,” said Bellamus. “Even by your own laws, what is taken in battle is the property of the victor. Your father was killed by my forces and his army sent reeling from the field. His sword was mine, to use as I saw fit. I presented it to the king and he gave it to Garrett. The offer is two tons of steel for the lives of these men here.”

  “We could kill you all and take Bright-Shock now,” suggested Roper, shrugging.

  “You won’t. As you have told me yourself, ‘not under a white flag.’”

  Roper stared at Bellamus for a long while, and Bellamus stared back. Garrett rolled his shoulders restlessly and then went still. A Hermit Crab with an amber beard on Bellamus’s left moved his hand to the hilt of his sword.

  “No,” said Roper at last. “But a white flag can’t be your defence for ever. Maybe when you’ve left here, you could escape. You and your Hermit Crabs could take your swiftest horses and go south as fast as the road permits. Perhaps you’d make it over the Abus and live to fight another day. But no other Sutherners will escape the Black Kingdom. On that, you have my word.”

  Bellamus looked over the massed legions behind Roper, formed up and ready for pursuit. He let out a slow breath. “I would deeply regret that,” he said. He looked back into Roper’s eyes. “And I certainly would not forget it.”

  “After the destruction you have wreaked on my lands; after—” there was a brief pause in which Helmec’s name hung in the air before Roper—“after that; this was the very least you could expect,” Roper finished coldly. It would mean nothing to Bellamus. “The whole of Albion will know what happens to armies who cross the Abus. They do not come back.” Bellamus was nodding grimly and Roper glanced at Garrett. He addressed the giant hybrid. “One day, I will have my blade back. I hope you ride fast, Eoten-Draefend. Pryce Rubenson is very quick indeed and he wants your head.”

  “We have other ideas for Pryce,” intervened Bellamus. “We have not forgotten Earl William.”

  “You had better start riding south, Bellamus. I will give you one Anakim hour before we pursue. After that, we will kill any Sutherner we see.”

  “Then I must fly,” observed Bellamus. “We shall meet again, Lord Roper.”

  “Until then.”

  After Bellamus and Garrett had departed, Tekoa spoke. “You could have used that steel to help settle our debts, Lord Roper.”

  “Two tons of steel is not worth this army making it back to Suthdal alive. We gain more through the fear of slaughter. I wanted them to refuse to give me Bright-Shock,” he said, watching Bellamus and Garrett retreat. Tekoa and Gray exchanged a glance.

  They waited in silence for a time until Bellamus was nearly out of sight. He had done as Roper suggested and was at the far end of the field, he and his household guard mounted on well-fed coursers. They might escape. The Black Cavalry Corps rode destriers: too heavy to keep pace with the coursers that most Suthern warriors used. There were probably not enough mounted Skiritai to force Bellamus’s party to stop either. But they would stay close and hound his party on the road. One wrong turning, or a mud-slide blocking the road, or poor travelling conditions and they would be caught. Bellamus must trust to the fortune which had abandoned him in this place.

  There was no hope at all for the Suthern army. They had abandoned their armour and all but the lightest weapons on the battlefield. They streamed after Bellamus and his riders, hoping to stay ahead of the Anakim who still waited in calm ranks. Bellamus would soon be out of sight and then they would be left alone and leaderless in a foreign land. The Anakim would catch them; god alone knew what would happen then.

  “My lord.” A voice spoke from behind Roper. He turned to see that Pryce was approaching on the back of a Suthern horse. Roper looked him up and down, blinking.

  “Where is Uvoren, Pryce?”

  “Uvoren fell on the battlefield, my lord. He will not be able to answer for his actions.”

  Roper just stared. Pryce’s face was expressionless, but he controlled the horse with his left hand; his right held tight into his chest and his right shoulder considerably lower than the left. His face was caked with blood and mud. “A late casualty, eh?” said Roper at last.

  “That’s right, my lord.”

  Roper nodded brusquely. “Then Gray is Captain of the Guard. And you’re a lictor again.”

  “Thank you, lord.”

  “I wish he had made it back here, Pryce,” said Roper, after a pause.

  “He was never going to make it back here, lord,” said Pryce in barely more than a hiss.

  The hail had stopped. Roper had promised an hour and by his reckoning that meant that the Sutherners still had two-twelfths to get off the Altar. Behind them was left a vast sprawl of corpses and a felled forest of pikes. Crows and gulls were beginning to arrive already and pick over the remains, eliciting cries of pain from those who were still alive. Heavy clouds still hung overhead, but the air felt fresher and clearer and the light was fading from the field. The Sutherners would be hunted through the night. By the time the sun next rose, most of them would be cold and still.

  Bellamus made it across the Abus. It took him three days to ride clear of the Black Kingdom, and following him the whole way were the Skiritai. They did not harass or try to engage their more numerous opposition. They just watched and informed, and at night did their best to keep Bellamus’s party awake with incessant horn-blowing and riding through the dark. His last view of the Black Kingdom came after he was across the broad river. Shivering and wet, he turned back to the barren hills beyond to see the Skiritai still watching him from the far bank. The Anakim side of the Abus was their beloved wilderness; mor
e rugged by far than that tilled by the Sutherners. The gloomy forests that had once covered the whole of Albion spread over the hills like bristles atop a mighty slumbering boar.

  They were not forests like those in Suthdal. Ivy, honeysuckle, roses and the plant known as “moonlight” wound their way up the trunks of oak, ash, beech, hornbeam and elm; all enormous and ancient. It was more closed; the dense canopy creating shadows in which wolves, bears and lynx roamed. The timber grew straighter and truer towards the light above, a dense phalanx of pikes raised to the heavens. The Anakim hung giant eyes woven from willow-fronds from many of the highest trees (Bellamus had often wondered how they got them up there). The branches dripped with lichen. Handprints were evident in many of the trunks, as though the flesh of the tree was soft and yielding to the touch of the Anakim and only adopted its woody nature when faced by Suthern enquiry. The forests of the Black Kingdom did not rustle in the breeze; they shivered. They did not creak in storms; they groaned.

  Bellamus had known as much as he possibly could about the Anakim before he had ever set foot in the Black Kingdom. He had known their laws, their customs, their economy, their technology, their leaders, their heroes, their language and their history. But now, looking back across the Abus at the dark wilderness, he realised what he ought to have known all along. The level of his ignorance. He had interviewed every Anakim that he could possibly find about their land, their laws and their mindset. He should have realised how much they had not told him; how much that it would not occur to an Anakim to tell him.

  As he and Lord Northwic had pillaged the east of the country, he had expected the Anakim to swarm away from their force in the manner that his people would have done when facing invasion. It was true that some had fled to the Hindrunn, but most had simply stayed and died. They had no weapons, they had no defensive position and they knew they must face slaughter, but they had stayed nonetheless. Bellamus had been baffled. What was at the heart of this behaviour? Were they somehow incapable of seeing their doom in the armies that had crossed the Abus? Did they have a sense of imagination less acute than men of Bellamus’s own race, or perhaps an inability to comprehend death? It had taken many more interviews before one of them, the border-dwelling woman named Adras, had thought to tell him what none of the others had. The Anakim were connected to their land in a way the Sutherners were not. They did not feel the need to travel or explore. Their one desire was to stay and grow familiar, and with each passing season they loved their home more. They had known they would die in the Suthern invasion, but had preferred death to the alternative. Like a pack of wolves, they knew their territory and would do anything to protect it.