“The wretch died on us—the questioners took him along too quickly. The man was for certain one of Baldemar’s messengers. All we learned is that the old fox shows no sign of breaking camp.”
Julianus stared blackly at the river. “Baldemar’s forces have been massing on that ridge for two months now. His friends have come to his aid. Why does he not strike? Did that fall knock out his wits?”
“The fellow did speak one bit of odd nonsense…something about a great black wolf that would soon come to Baldemar’s aid.”
Julianus swung round. “Nonsense…? I think not,” he said sharply, beginning to pace. “More tribal reinforcements on their way, some clan under a wolf standard, perhaps?”
“Or a lightheaded fantasy conjured up by the undisciplined barbarian imagination,” Secundus countered.
“You do not understand these people. Their poetic fancies near always have some plain and obvious material reality at their core.” Julianus felt a welling of unease. He would have to go through his natural history texts and field reports, and search out all references to the northern savages’ beliefs concerning wolves. Something was afoot, he was certain of it.
“If that is all,” Julianus waved Secundus off with distracted impatience, “you may go.”
Baldemar cannot slip through my net now. By the girdle of Nemesis, this is a battle I dare not lose.
If he did, he knew for certain he would be recalled. And by winter, he would be ashes. In Rome a fresh round of prosecutions had begun. Nero, it seemed, had seen a comet, visible three nights running, and it was common knowledge that comets heralded the death of great monarchs. But Nero’s astrologer, Balbillus, assured him the dread omen could be diverted onto others’ heads if important members of the nobility were put to death in his stead. Julianus believed he lived on still only because of his great distance from home, and his usefulness in performing a task that brought no glory—a dismal chore no one else was qualified for, or wanted. What was more frightful was that this time Nero was exiling or poisoning his senatorial victims’ children. Julianus had long accepted that his own fate had played itself out. But young Marcus—his difficult, bafflingly brilliant, lost-and-found son, who in the last years had begun to amaze all his tutors—must live and flourish. Or else his own life’s work would have been in vain.
It was for his son’s sake that he ordered Secundus back just as the chamber’s guard stood crisply aside to let him pass.
“Secundus! An amendment to the order. Give Wido all one hundred of my archers. I want that rascal to have no excuse for defeat.”
CHAPTER VIII
ON THE NEXT MORNING WIDO GOT his hundred archers. He ordered a boar roasted in celebration and sent a solemn promise to Julianus that on the morrow he would strike at Baldemar.
But it was never to be, for this was the eve of the Wolf.
Midway between dusk and dawn, Baldemar summoned a priest of Wodan to blow the cattle horn and call his forces together. High above a stand of aspen rose an expectant moon, one day from full.
An aurochs was taken from the priests’ herds and sacrificed with great secrecy. As the warriors stood grim and silent before Baldemar, Geisar and Sigreda sprinkled the animal’s blood on the wind over their heads. If they took offense at being left out of the plans until the last, nothing showed in their faces as they droned the victory incantation.
At the ceremony’s end Geisar and Sigreda shared a horn. Baldemar saw to it the mead was strengthened with a draught one of the medicine women prepared for him, a blend of valerian, passionflower and poppy, so they would fall into a heavy sleep. He wanted them kept from mischief until the battle was done.
Then Baldemar came before the assembled warriors to give his encouragement. He could walk now, if painfully, leaning heavily on an oak staff. Only then did he tell them of the coming prodigy in the sky—had they been given knowledge of it sooner he feared a deserter might have found his way into Wido’s camp with the news.
“When you see, do not fear,” he told them. “All the Holy Ones agree, the Wolf comes to aid us. He signifies evil only for the betrayer of his people, and all he shelters in his lair.”
He told them next of the arrangement of the pits and stakes. “Move slowly, follow carefully behind those in the vanguard, and these traps cannot harm you. Roman cleverness is despised of the gods. It shall avail them nothing.”
To better conceal themselves the warriors were draped in the skins of black-coated animals, and they darkened their faces and arms with lampblack; the open circles left about the eyes gave them the look of owl-eyed demons. Baldemar then brought out the standard, and one of these frightful creatures stepped forward, a warrior with proud carriage, slender limbs, and soft, clear voice. It was only by that voice that she could be distinguished as Auriane. Baldemar placed the tribal standard in her left hand, signifying he transferred his own war-luck to her.
This brought subdued calls of “Daughter of the Ash!” He embraced her in a manner that was outwardly stately and formal; only Auriane knew the fierce hope and love in that embrace.
The warriors descended to the plain in twos, the Companions first, then the common warriors of the Chattians, and last their allies from other tribes. All were armed alike with two native spears and round wicker shields slung over their backs, except for Auriane, for whom the standard served as a shield, and Baldemar’s senior Companions, who also carried longswords. They fanned out in a wide semicircle into the moon-washed sea of sedgegrass about Wido’s fortress, creeping forward on hands and knees through the aromatic grasses, avoiding the northeast side because that was the direction of the night wind. They halted just before the great circle where the grasses had been roughly trimmed by Wido’s men.
Auriane felt she clung to the earth to make herself smaller. For long after, she would remember the clean, grassy fragrance of the sedge mingled with the bitter taste of terror at what was to come. She sensed the standard was potent and alive; cold fire glowed in the bony sockets where once a cat-spirit dwelled.
When the wind was still, they heard laughter drifting out of Wido’s camp. It did not, Auriane knew, signify that they were not alert. The Romans especially were never fools. She guessed they touched neither wine nor mead.
She heard Sigwulf curse nearby and looked over questioningly. Snakebite? Fire ants? She could just make out the outline of his wicker shield. She crawled close, and he quietly signaled that nothing was wrong.
They heard a wild thrashing, followed by a dog chorus—several stags had been released as Baldemar had directed and, hopefully, were seen by Wido’s sentries. Baldemar’s purpose was to cause the camp’s hounds to bark so that if later the dogs detected human scents, the sentries would be more likely to ignore their clamor. This was also the signal to move forward again. They were adders in the sedge, wriggling ever closer. The grass was shorter here; only the dark concealed them now. As they crawled, they tested the ground with the points of their spears. Suddenly those in the forward rank encountered places where the earth gave way—the first row of pits, carefully concealed with brush. In them, Auriane knew, were sharpened stakes and upright spears meant to impale the unwary runner. Slowly, laboriously, the mass of warriors threaded their way around them. When they had passed three rows, there were no more; here all froze against the ground to await the aid of the moon.
Auriane turned her face anxiously to the lunar disk. It lay low in the sky, seeming sated, overfull, too drowsy to ascend. She wondered if Baldemar ever feared the Wolf would not come. The matter seemed not to have occurred to him. “As I own the field of battle,” he had said once, “so Ramis owns the moon.” But Decius hinted at a larger world where a different order prevailed.
Decius, you scoundrel. You put a seed of doubt in me, and it is sprouting. Your impiety will offend the Wolf and he will not come.
The moon itself seemed to gently mock her with a chill smile that told nothing. Cold clear words formed in her mind that seemed to issue from it: You cannot escape me t
hrough far wandering, for my light falls everywhere. I am your teacher. I do not wait for your command or for your obedience. I wait for you to come of age.
Soon the eastern sky would pale to gray. She felt a grip of panic—dawn would reveal them to the arrows and spears of the camp. Now she could see smoke curling above the palisade.
Inside Wido’s camp many were arising. The sentries stared placidly out at the plain. One sentry did have a lingering sense something sinister was in the ocean of grass, but it was nothing he could name. He stared hard into the darkness.
And he was jolted to attention. Something descended the ridge from roughly the position of Baldemar’s camp—a white shadow that seemed to wrestle with itself, rippling like a shroud just above the grass. Smoothly, steadily, it approached. The sentry shouted for Wido.
Baldemar’s forces saw it, too—a thing formed of moonlight gently moved closer.
What comes for us now? Auriane thought. Gradually she realized it was a line of five or six white-robed figures. We are done. Geisar and Sigreda have awakened too soon.
Sigwulf saw, and thought the same. “Foul night! They come to betray us!” he whispered to her.
And from the palisade, Wido saw them. Geisar? he wondered, squinting. Can he be fool enough to approach me so openly? What does the cursed idiot think he is doing?
“Ride out there,” Wido ordered a young Companion, “and demand of them their purpose.”
“That’s nothing human out there. If I go, I want a rowan spear made beneath a waxing moon and fifty good men at my back.”
Auriane could see them better now; six Holy Ones walked in a file. The lead figure moved with a gentle rocking gait; Auriane guessed this was a woman. Her robe sparked with faint luminescence as though it were embroidered with star matter and gold. She strode with serene confidence, halting when she came within spear-casting distance of the circle of concealed warriors. Then she stood solemnly still. Auriane drew in a startled breath—it seemed the woman had no face. Gradually she realized the ethereal figure was masked.
From Wido’s camp came shouted questions as many crowded on the palisade.
Then a wild warning trill rose up, not unlike the harsh music of swans. It seemed to arrest all nature. She realized the attendants who followed the masked one had lifted flutes and brass horns to their lips; they blew with all their souls, making a chaotic wail that pulled the breath from her body, that tore at time, that cried out in protest at all the grisly terrors of life since the first predator’s claw slashed the first warm throat. It was a hymn to bones, calling them to bloody rebirth.
It brought dazed silence to Wido’s camp.
And then Auriane knew the lead figure was Ramis. Who else would so defy normal good sense and walk into the midst of a battlefield? Those about her began to guess it, too—she heard them softly mutter Ramis’ name and knew hands moved in the dark, making the sign against sorcery.
But if it is she, Auriane thought, then she must be calling the Wolf. Yes, it must be.
Slowly Ramis raised her arms; they were gently curved like two crescent moons. She seemed to lift the trilling to more urgent pitch; it was evil noise potent enough to pull giants from the earth. Auriane wanted to stop her ears but she was afraid to move. Finally she forced herself to look at the moon.
Softly, slowly, it began to shut its eye.
At first she was seized with childish terror at the sight of the unchanging, ever-changing moon abandoning them on a clear night, leaving a strange bloody shadow where its whiteness had been. Then she allowed herself cautious ecstasy.
Decius, you were a fool to doubt our ancient wisdom.
Cries of terror and howls of despair rose up from Wido’s camp. Auriane saw shadows darting on the palisade, colliding with each other; some fell prostrate, others fled for their tents.
The gate to vengeance was flung wide.
Auriane felt she joined the wind. She shot up, the cat-skull raised high. She did not even hesitate to make certain the others followed after, bolting over the grasses in mad free flight, veering sharply right, where the old West Gate lay. Close behind her came the ladder bearers and fifty Companions, all running stealthily as a river underground.
When the main body saw Auriane rise up, torches were lit from fire-sticks and fires bloomed all along their lines. They clashed spears against shields and began making the cries of wild beasts. Then the thousands rose up all at once and sprang straight toward the wall with Sigwulf at their head, their wolf howls, growls and crashing sounds making a frightful noise meant to distract Wido’s men from the assault on the West Gate. It was dark still, though dawn was close, and the disappearing moon threw all into greater gloom.
To those on Wido’s palisade it seemed an army of trolls sprang up from the earth, summoned from Hel’s caverns by the shrieking flutes. Most fled in terror; only the Arabian archers managed to keep their wits. They lifted their bows as one and took aim.
Simultaneously Auriane and the ladder bearers closed in on the West Gate. It must be taken swiftly; Wido’s men would be quick to realize they’d been diverted.
Quietly the ladder was put to the gate so two warriors could ascend it and unbolt the gate from within.
At the same moment the Arabian archers let arrows fly. The men following Sigwulf died by the dozens. Their startled shrieks encouraged the archers—evidently these monsters could die like mortals. They sent out several more volleys.
When the main part of Baldemar’s forces came up to the ditch and wall, hurdling the bodies of the fallen as they charged, they too began to move to the right, making for the West Gate, trusting it to be open when they gained it. They were easy prey for the archers, who ran alongside them and felled them at leisure, as if they shot wild beasts for sport in a hunting theater. The rain of arrows was relentless; Sigwulf, at their head, feared the new-made companions might bolt off in a panic.
At the West Gate, one of Baldemar’s warriors, a shadowy skin-clad form, pulled himself to the top of the ladder. Two Companions had volunteered for this most dangerous of tasks. Baldemar had rewarded these men in advance, giving to each a hundred cattle and a hundred rings. Auriane and her fellows waited, tensed to charge in.
As he dragged himself over the top of the gate, his body spasmed as though someone pulled with great force on a rope about his neck. Auriane watched with horror as he reared backward, arms extended, then dropped heavily to the ground. All thought him pierced by an arrow. The next Companion climbed up gamely, but he, too, was struck just as he cleared the top of the gate. Both lay twitching and dying at their feet.
“We are lost,” came a voice in the dark.
“It is the vilest of omens. Hel claims us!”
“The dark moon! It has been turned on us.”
Auriane raced to the first warrior, whose vacant eyes were already turned to the stars. She saw at once that it was not an arrow that pierced his throat, but the bolt of a ballista. Suddenly she knew what must be done.
She gave her spears into the nearest hands, seized the ladder and dragged it to the right while they watched her, wondering if terror had snatched her wits. Then, carrying only the standard, briskly she began to climb. There was not time to explain what she was doing or why, or to give directions to someone else. Their presence at the gate was known within; in the next moment every archer’s bow would be trained on this position.
“You must not, Auriane!” Thorgild caught her leg. “Do not curse us with your death!”
She struggled for a moment and got free of him. Then she climbed on, begging Fria to shield her.
She knew the war-engine called the ballista was one of the more cumbersome Roman war machines; normally, Decius had told her, it was manned by ten soldiers. That it had been correctly aimed must be counted to sheer luck; probably it was aimed always at the center of the gate. If she climbed in a different place, she judged, they would not have time to move it.
If I am wrong, I die.
She swung over the top of th
e gate, keeping her body low, braced to feel one of the powerful missiles knock her down to her death. But the next bolt tore past her harmlessly in the dark. She had guessed rightly. But there was still the gate to be opened.
Now I drop into the open jaws of the beast.
She hung for an instant from the inside of the gate; the distance to the ground was perhaps the height of a man. Now the sentries Sigwulf’s men strove to distract knew of this assault on the West Gate; shadow-men darted down the palisade walk toward her. And then they rushed at her from everywhere, hounds closing in on a hare. She dropped hard to the ground and rolled.
As she leaped to her feet, a flurry of arrows missed her narrowly, tearing through her hair, grazing her neck, the flesh of her thigh. The gate seemed to have sprouted quills. As she pulled at the rusty bolt, a javelin tore through the sleeve of her leather tunic, pinning her to the wooden planks until she freed herself by tearing the cloth. And still the bolt refused to move. Terror flooded in; the world about her moved with the languorous, dreamy swaying of a reed under water.
After all, I am to die. I do not want to go where you are, Hertha. I want to stay with Father…and Decius. Fria, Mother of All, lift me up, preserve me!
“Kill him! He opens the gate!” The cries were so close. All her prayers stopped in her throat, lodged there like a stone.
Then the balky bolt came free so quickly she fell sideways. From beyond the gate she heard jubilant cries.
She did not have to pull on the door. A hundred bodies pushed it in. In a short time all of Baldemar’s forces were streaming into the camp.
They flooded around her, shouting encouragement to her and to each other. A spear was put into her hands and she ran in their midst, charging into dark chaos. She scarcely heard the enemy’s shrieks of spirit-terror all about; she was only aware of the exuberant war cries of Baldemar’s Companions. As they broke in, they stayed closely packed together, a human spear thrust deep into the fort’s heart.
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