The Wolf At War

by Terry Cloutier

  “A good ploy,” the big man said grudgingly. He glanced at Grindin, who was moaning now as he lifted his head. My helmet slipped off the apprentice, and I could see him staring in befuddlement at it where it lay in the muck.

  I nodded, taking a moment to catch my breath. “I’ll make this as quick and painless as possible,” I said as I began to stalk toward the man. “I promise.”

  The big Cardian laughed. “We’ll just see about that.”

  I was true to my word, despite the Cardian’s bravado, and the struggle was brief and quick, though not before he managed to cut through the mail along my right side with a lucky strike. The gash was small and didn’t hurt at all, though I could feel a persistent wetness trickling down my side from the wound. I ignored it as I plodded through the water to the spruce and dragged Grindin out by his filthy robe. The apprentice protested feebly and tried to flee, so I slapped him across the face several times until he fell, then kicked him in the stomach as he lay in the mud. I crouched down and took back my gloves, ignoring his hiss of pain as the mail hooked his broken finger. Then I picked up my muddy helmet and washed it clean in the stream before putting it back on my head.

  “Come on, you ugly bastard,” I grunted as I lifted Grindin and threw him over my shoulder once again. “I’m tired of this damn place. Let’s go find my men and get out of here.”

  3: Pernissy

  I decided to head east after my run-in with the three Cardians, then circle back to the south and try to either locate the hamlet or find the trail that would lead me to the dead ash tree where I’d last seen my men. I had no idea where I was or how many of the enemy were spread out through the trees looking for us, or, for that matter, what had become of Jebido, Wiflem, and the others. The men I had brought with me to Thidswitch were all experienced fighters, and I was confident that they had survived the surprise attack and had struck back with the kind of fury and tenacity that had made them feared across the kingdom. The trick for me now would be trying to locate them in the sprawling forestland before the Cardians found us first. Tramping through the woods was not a task I relished at the best of times, even less so with a foul-smelling apprentice draped over my shoulder. I decided I had carried Grindin’s sorry ass far enough, so I set him down to walk on his own.

  “Try to run or cry out,” I warned, “and I’ll cut that withered excuse of a sack from you and feed it to the village hounds.”

  Grindin visibly paled at my threat, and he kept his mouth closed and his feet moving as I prodded him ahead of me with my sword.

  I kept a watchful eye out for Cardians as we progressed, but heard and saw nothing that indicated they might be anywhere close. Had they given up the search? It seemed hard to believe after all the trouble they had gone through to draw me here. We walked east through rough forestland for over an hour, with the sun finally beginning to set in the west behind us. The deep shadows cast by the trees twisted and danced like the fabled forest folk my father had told me about as a child. Soon it would be pitch dark out, which would help hide us from our pursuers, but would also make locating the trail or the village that much more difficult. Without the light, I knew it would be very easy to become lost in woodlands of this size.

  “Why couldn’t you just leave things well enough alone?” I heard Grindin whisper in a surly voice. The bald apprentice looked over his shoulder at me while clutching his injured hand to his chest. I could see he expected me to strike him for his insolence, which I was sorely tempted to do.

  “Leave what alone?” I growled instead as we skirted a small peat bog. The pungent aroma of decaying peat, dead animals, and bog scum tickled my nose, reminding me strongly of Patter’s Bog.

  “What happened at Corwick,” Grindin said with a slight whine in his voice now. He watched me warily for any signs of violence, then, when I showed none, he returned his attention to the way ahead. “I mean, it was so long ago, and it wasn’t personal. Surely you know that? We were just doing what we were told like any good soldier would.”

  I stared at the back of Grindin’s bald head with loathing. Every one of these bastards fell back on the same, tired excuse when faced with their crimes. It was never their fault. Wolf’s Head was bare in my hand, held by my side. It would take less than the blink of an eye to lift the blade and plunge it into the apprentice’s back. I had to force myself not to do it, determined to keep the man alive until I fully understood everything that had happened here today. “It was personal to me,” I said, trying to keep my voice even. “You murdered my family and my friends.”

  “On Lord Corwick’s orders,” Grindin protested. I growled low in my chest, and he hurried to say, “I mean, on Pernissy’s orders, lord. What else could we have done?”

  “You could have said no,” I spat, feeling the need to kill the man welling up inside me again. I pushed it back down, determined to control my urges. I knew Grindin’s death wasn’t that far in the future. I just needed to be patient until the time was right. I toyed with different images of my blade cutting and slicing into the Son-In-Waiting’s vulnerable flesh instead, which made me feel somewhat better.

  Grindin snorted, clearly gaining courage from my unexpectedly calm reaction to his words. “Said no, lord?” he asked sarcastically. “Have you met Pernissy?” He paused to look back at me again. “I once saw him thrash his falconer to death because his favorite bird lost several tail feathers.” Grindin shook his head. “The man does not react well to disobedience, lord. In any form. We had little choice.”

  Grindin started to head west around an alder thicket, and I thumped him in the ass with my boot, indicating he take the eastern route around it instead. “You forget that I was there and saw everything,” I grunted. “Pernissy left. You could have ridden away once he was gone and let those people live.”

  “And go where?” Grindin demanded. “He would have hunted us down.”

  “Jebido left his employ when he found out what happened,” I pointed out. “That’s what an honorable man does.”

  Grindin sighed. “The Captain was always a better man than me back then, lord.”

  “He still is,” I replied gruffly.

  We walked on in silence for a time, until finally, Grindin asked, “Is it so hard for you to believe that maybe I have become a better person since Corwick, lord?”

  “Yes,” I said bluntly. “But even if by some miracle it’s true, I don’t care.” I paused, then grabbed the bald man by the back of his robe, stopping him in his tracks. Had I just heard something from the trees in front of us? I turned my head at an angle to listen. There was nothing now but the faint rustling of leaves and the birds singing. Finally, I motioned for Grindin to continue onward. “Do you actually think that by taking the vows, it somehow absolves you of what you did?” I asked, amazed at the audacity of the man. “That the crimes of murder and rape can just be wiped clean by putting on a flea-infested robe?”

  “Of course they can,” Grindin responded immediately. “I belong to The Father now, and He has cleansed my soul of all my past sins.”

  I rolled my eyes. “The only thing He cleansed on you is your ability to think,” I retorted. “Assuming, of course, you had any to begin with.”

  Grindin started to reply, and I hissed at him to be quiet, certain this time that I had heard something. We paused in the deep shadows of a gnarled oak, where I put my hand on the back of the apprentice’s neck and squeezed, my message clear. We waited in silence, listening. A twig snapped a hundred yards to my right, breaking the forest's stillness, then a second cracked loudly from the same direction. Someone was coming our way.

  I pressed my lips to Grindin’s ear. “If you move from this spot or make a sound, I promise I’ll find you. And when I do, I will slit the skin off of you strip by strip. Am I clear?”

  Grindin swallowed and nodded. I squeezed his neck one last time, then slipped away, my sword ready as I cautiously made my way toward where I’d heard the sounds. I made it perhaps fifteen paces before terrified screams arose fr
om behind me. I cursed and turned back, running for the oak as Grindin’s cries grew louder and shriller. I could see the apprentice on the ground by the base of the tree, his shadowy form surrounded by dark, distorted figures. I shouted and raced toward the fallen man, a part of my brain wondering at the irony of me trying to save someone who I had sworn to kill. I raised my sword to strike at the closest assailant, then hesitated as I got a good look at the man’s face. He was old and shrivelled, his white hair long and wild, with gruesome bumps and sores twisting his features into a nightmare of ugliness. Lepers, I realized.

  “Wait!” Grindin shouted, lifting a hand to me. “Hold your sword, lord! They are my friends!”

  I stepped back as the lepers around Grindin grunted and mumbled like crazed beasts as they struggled to lift the diminutive Son-In-Waiting. Finally, they got the bald man to his feet, and they began to talk all at once in a strange lisp that I could barely understand.

  “It’s all right,” Grindin said, reassuring the lepers. “I’m fine. No harm done.” He glanced at me with a sheepish look. “I thought they were forest ghouls at first, lord. They scared the wits out of me when they appeared from the shadows like that.”

  I snorted and sheathed my sword as the lepers faded back into the trees. The shrivelled old man with the long hair remained where he was next to Grindin, and I could see a boy that I recognized standing in the shadows of the oak. It was Rin.

  I grabbed Rin by his filthy, greasy hair and dragged him forward. “Come here, you,” I growled. The boy trembled as I shook him roughly. “You led me into a trap!”

  “I didn’t know,” Rin protested.

  “Do you expect me to believe that?” The boy twisted in my grip and I let him go, booting him roughly in the behind with the toe of my boot. He fell awkwardly and lay staring up at me in fear, his swollen face looking harsh and unnatural in the waning light. I wiped my glove off on my mail with distaste, then drew my sword and put the blade to the old leper’s mottled throat.

  “What happened to my men?”

  The leper tried to speak, but nothing came out but incomprehensible mumbles.

  “They search the land around our dwelling, lord,” Rin said tentatively. “Looking for you.”

  I nodded in relief, my sword arm unwavering. “And the Cardians? Where are they?”

  Rin stood painfully. I could see a gash seeping blood across the back of his swollen hand from the fall. “Most are dead, lord. The others ran west toward the great river. Your men chased after them.” Rin shuddered. “I could hear their screams through the trees as your men slew them.”

  “How far are we from the longhouse?” I demanded.

  “Not far, lord,” Rin said, his eyes on the ground. “An hour, maybe.”

  “Good,” I grunted. “Take me there, and no tricks from you, understand? Do what I ask and there will be another coin for you.” I lowered my sword and glared at the older leper. “If your people try anything, I swear by The Mother that I will hunt every one of you down and kill you myself.”

  The old man grunted in acknowledgment, one eye barely discernable through his deformity. His swollen and cracked lips twitched as he mumbled something unintelligible. I glanced at Rin.

  “He says Cheny is a good man,” Rin explained. “He’s begging you not to hurt him.”

  “I won’t hurt him,” I promised the old leper, lying. I grabbed Grindin and spun him around as I motioned for Rin to lead the way. “He’s a Son-In-Waiting, after all,” I added over my shoulder as the leper stood watching us. “It would be a sin.”

  We set out early the next morning, having lost only two men to the Cardian ambush. Both Haspeth, and a hulking man named Dell, who had been another of Wiflem’s recruits, would be sorely missed, but I knew we had gotten off lucky. Had we been attacked by more competent warriors, things could have been far worse. Jebido rode to my right, with Baine on my left, and Grindin stumbling along behind Angry with a rope attached to my saddle tied around his neck. Wiflem, Tyris, Niko, and a razor-thin youth named Berwin brought up the rear, with Sim scouting half a mile ahead.

  “He’ll die before we get him anywhere near Corwick at this rate,” Jebido said as we headed back to Thidswitch. He glanced at the apprentice, who was lurching back and forth over the uneven, rocky path like a drunkard and begging for mercy in a whining voice.

  I shrugged. “So what?” The morning had begun foggy and cool, with a light drizzle falling that left a sheen of wetness on everything it touched. “He told me all he knows anyway. If he’s fated to die out here, then so be it.”

  I had spent the previous night sitting by a crackling fire, with Grindin tied spreadeagled on the ground beside me as I questioned him. If I didn’t like the answers to my questions or thought that he was lying or being evasive, I would draw Wolf’s Head from the flames and give the Son-In-Waiting a taste. Grindin’s answers quickly became very forthcoming after the first few times he felt hot steel, though he didn’t have much more to add to what I already knew.

  Jebido sighed, fighting to keep his gelding in line with me as we talked. Angry didn’t like the white horse one little bit, and he delighted in putting his muscular shoulder into the smaller beast whenever he could. “Have you thought this through, Hadrack?” Jebido asked.

  I could feel my eyes gleaming as I looked at my friend. “Oh, I’ve thought it through,” I said. “The murdering bastard is lucky that I didn’t just kill him last night and be done with it.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  I shrugged. “Because I decided the spirits of Corwick’s dead deserve to witness his final moments, just like they did Hervi Desh’s.”

  “He’s a Son-In-Waiting, Hadrack,” Jebido said with a weary sigh. “It’s not the same as with Desh. You need to get it through that thick skull of yours that you can’t kill him.”

  I shook my head. “No, he’s not a Son-in-Waiting, Jebido. He’s just a slimy rat turd walking around in a filthy robe. Nothing more, and nothing less.” I leaned forward. “And mark my words, I will kill him.”

  “The House will be furious when they hear about it, and the full weight of their power will fall on you,” Jebido warned.

  “What does that matter when weighted against my vow?”

  Jebido glanced across at Baine, where he rode his mare silently beside me. “I could use a little help here,” he muttered sourly.

  I turned and focused on Baine. “You as well?” I demanded. I looked back at Jebido, a challenge in my eyes. “What would you two have me do? Give the bastard lodging in Corwick Castle and shower him with delicacies, fine wine, and eager whores?” I blew hot air from my nose, furious at my friends’ lack of loyalty. “That bastard helped murder my family!” I finally shouted in exasperation as they remained silent.

  “I had no choice, lord!” Grindin sobbed from behind me. “I had no choice!”

  I turned. Green snot was running down the apprentice’s nose like twin rivers of slime. I pointed. “You shut your mouth!” I snarled. “Or I’ll cut your damn tongue out.”

  I caught Wiflem’s eyes where he rode behind Grindin, and he just stared at me stone-faced as I whirled back around, my angry gaze on Baine now. “Well, go ahead, then,” I said sarcastically. “Why don’t you explain to me why I should turn my back on my vow and let that murdering scum live?”

  Baine’s helmet hung on his saddle, and he hesitated as he ran his fingers through his long black hair. I waited impatiently as my friend thought about what he wanted to say. “What happens if you kill him?” Baine finally asked.

  “When I kill him,” I corrected.

  Baine inclined his head. “When you kill him, Hadrack. What happens then?”

  I shrugged in annoyance, not anxious to think about it. “What does it matter?” I asked evasively.

  “Humor me.”

  I sighed as Baine’s calm demeanor helped to cool my anger. “The House will most likely cast me out,” I said simply, sounding less worried than I actually was. Truth be told, I was terr
ified, but I couldn’t let my friends know that. Banishment from the House was a rare occurrence, and I knew if it happened, it would mean my soul would be lost forever, exiled to the shadowy world of oblivion where it could never be reborn. I had a sudden memory of Ania telling me her greatest fear was to spend all eternity looking for the right path to the Master. I now understood her fear, but even the threat of banishment and the consequences wasn’t enough to dissuade me from fulfilling my vow.

  “What else?” Baine prompted.

  “Isn’t that enough?” I grunted.

  “What about Tyden?” Jebido asked. “What will he do when the First Son and First Daughter go to him with their ruling?”

  I thought of Son Oriell and how much he hated me. I wouldn’t have a friend there, I knew, and even the First Daughter would be reluctant to speak up for someone who would kill a member of the Holy House. “He will come for me,” I said, knowing that despite what I had done to gain him his throne, King Tyden could not let my act go unpunished.

  “Yes,” Baine agreed. “He’ll take Corwick away from you too, and your name.”

  “There is no other choice,” I said stubbornly, though a part of me felt sorrow at the prospect of losing something so precious. “I’ll kill Grindin and then find Luper Nash and finish this. After that, I’ll go see the king and beg for leniency.”

  “You are being selfish, Hadrack,” Jebido said, his voice hard and judgmental. He shook his head. “And stupid as well. I expected better from you.”

  I stared at him in amazement. How was killing Grindin being selfish? I was willing to sacrifice everything that I had earned to fulfill my vow. Jebido should be praising me, not criticizing me. “What do you know about it?” I grunted, hurt more than I cared to admit by his words and lack of support. “Nobody slaughtered your family.”

  Jebido pursed his lips, and I could see anger burning along his cheeks. “So, what of Lady Shana, then?” he finally asked, his voice cold now. “Have you given any thought to what will become of your pregnant wife once you turn outlaw?” I stared at Jebido, startled. “That’s right,” Jebido said, his eyes frosty with judgment. “Now you’re starting to see, though I daresay it shouldn’t take us to point out what should have been obvious.”