The Wolf At War

by Terry Cloutier

  I knelt, curious as I carefully unwrapped the cloth. Inside was a thick, leather-bound book the size of my hand. I closed my eyes. It was Waldin’s copy of the codex, just as I had feared that it would be. After so many bad things had happened trying to find the damn thing, now here it was in my possession when it no longer mattered. I stood, glaring down at Rorian as I held up the book. “Where did you get this?”

  “You know where.”

  I nodded, having a pretty good idea. “You went to the Ascension Grounds?” I asked, impressed despite my dislike for the man. It would have taken a brave man with nerves of steel to go searching for the codex with all those purple-robed priests and Piths around.

  “Yes,” Rorian simply said.

  I fingered the codex as I thought. “How did you know where to find it?”

  “Waldin’s journal,” Rorian answered. “The Sons kept it, though I don’t think any of them bothered to read it. I saw Verica’s drawing and figured that since she wrote she was going south, it might have something to do with the Piths. I eventually found a Pith village and the people there told me where the place on the drawing was, though I had to go about getting that information carefully.” He smiled, a hint of the arrogant man I remembered in his voice now. “I was pretending to be one of them, after all, and it was something that I should have known already. It took a while once I found the Ascension Grounds, but I finally located the codex underneath a carved stone marked with a large W. I assumed that was for Waldin. The codex lay beneath the stone in a hollow. It looked as though no one had touched it in generations.”

  “You actually got Piths to talk to you?” I said, surprised that they hadn’t just killed him outright. Piths were naturally suspicious of strangers. Especially ones who didn’t look like a traditional Pith.

  Rorian gestured to his dirty robe. “No Pith would refuse speaking with a Pathfinder, Hadrack.” He smiled at the look on my face. There were streaks of faded purple in his robe that I hadn’t noticed before. “I told you once that I have special talents,” Rorian added. “I wasn’t joking when I said that.”

  “But why go all that way and risk your life?” I asked. “You were paid handsomely for your help the first time.”

  Rorian sighed. “There is never enough money in the world, Hadrack. An opportunity was offered to me, and I took it.”

  “By the same bastards who hired you before?” I growled in disgust.

  Rorian shook his head. “No, not them. This was a contract from a rival client.”

  “Who?”

  “His name is Lord Boudin,” Rorian said.

  “Him again,” I grunted, feeling a deep-seated hatred for a man that I had never even met. “Isn’t he a Cardian as well?”

  “He is,” Rorian said. “He and my prior employer have been competing to find the codex for some time.” He glanced up at me. “I believe you met several of Lord Boudin’s operatives during the Walk, if I’m not mistaken?”

  “Emand and his bitch of a wife,” I replied, understanding now.

  “Yes,” Rorian agreed. “Lord Boudin’s spies learned my wife and I were taking the Walk. He correctly guessed that I might have an idea where the codex was, but he couldn’t locate me to, um, ask politely to tell him what I knew.”

  “So he sent Emand and Laurea to befriend you and try to find out that way.”

  “In a round-about way,” Rorian said. “They were instructed to kill me once I found it, but you got in their way. Lord Boudin only learned you had taken my place after the Walk began. He managed to get word to Emand, who clearly was not as competent as his reputation had led people to believe.”

  “Yet, after all that, you still agreed to work for Lord Boudin?”

  Rorian shrugged. “Business is business, Hadrack.”

  I nodded, not the least bit surprised by his answer. I had given little thought in the past few months about what Emand and his wife were doing on that mountain. Now I knew why they had been there, though I still had more questions for Rorian.

  “What does Lord Boudin want with the codex?” I asked. “He captured Calban weeks ago and plans to seize the throne with that bastard Pernissy’s help, so I don’t see what good it will do him now.”

  Rorian’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “Really? I hadn’t heard anything about that.”

  “They might have already marched on Gandertown by now for all I know,” I said.

  Rorian stroked his beard as he thought, absently pulling something dark and clingy from the tangled hairs before flicking it away. “So, Lord Corwick is working with Lord Boudin now. That’s interesting.” I bristled at the name and Rorian added, “I mean Pernissy Raybold, of course.”

  I grimaced. It had slipped my mind that Pernissy was a Raybold, which just added another layer to the hatred that I already felt for him. “That sniveling worm, Son Oriell, is helping the bastards,” I said as an afterthought.

  “That’s right,” Rorian said, his eyes lighting up with sudden understanding. “I had forgotten that the First Son and Pernissy were allies. That would explain why they still want the codex. Even if Pernissy were to take the crown, he would still have to deal with a hostile House led by the Daughters. He and Lord Boudin must be hoping the codex can change that by naming The Father.” Rorian grimaced. “They are going to be very disappointed.”

  “Good,” I grunted, pleased Son Oriell would never gain the kind of power that he so obviously craved. I lifted the codex. “But why bring this to me if it names The Mother? Why not just take the codex back to Lord Boudin and collect your payment? It’s meaningless now.”

  Rorian sighed as he stood. “Because I can’t allow a man like that to get his hands on it now that I know what is inside. I can be an unscrupulous bastard sometimes, but even a man like me has a line that he will not cross.” He closed his eyes for a moment, wobbling with fatigue before he looked at me again. “I almost destroyed the codex so many times on my journey back to Ganderland. But in the end, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. It was as if the gods were watching and judging me, Hadrack. I couldn’t shake the feeling that terrible things were going to happen if I rid myself of it.” Rorian shook his head, suddenly looking miserable. “I wish that I had never laid eyes on the damn thing. But you can’t unsee something once you have seen it, much as I dearly wish otherwise. After I read the codex, I wandered for a time in the land of the Piths, not knowing what I should do. But then I reached a village, half-starved and out of my head where I heard tales of a great Pith victory at Gasterny and that a Peshwin named Hadrack, who was also a Ganderman, had won a Tribal Challenge. That is when I knew you were the man I could entrust the codex to.”

  “Why me?” I asked with a frown. Nothing but misery had followed the codex since I’d first learned of its existence, and I wanted nothing more to do with it. “Why not give it to Daughter Gernet or the king and let them deal with it if the words inside are so troublesome?”

  “Because you are both a Pith and a Gander, Hadrack,” Rorian said. “Which gives you a unique perspective on this that no one else has. You are also a man who cares nothing for power or wealth, which will allow you to view this objectively. I saw something different in you when we first met, and even that bastard House Agent told me that there was something special about you.” He tapped the codex with a finger. “Whoever possesses this book will hold the power in their hands to change everything we believe in, if they dare to reveal it. I know my weaknesses, and it’s a responsibility that can’t be left up to me. That is why I had to find you and give this to you and no one else.” Rorian put his hand on my shoulder. “You are as honest and as morally incorruptible as any man that I have ever met, Hadrack of Corwick. Read the codex, and then you will understand everything.” He sighed and dropped his hand. “I am sorry to do this to you, but you are the only one I trust to decide what is the right thing to do. I wish you luck.”

  Rorian left then, and I stared after him in bemusement for a while, then I sat and started to read by the light of a singl
e candle. The words inside the codex were small and precise, written efficiently. There was little that I found interesting in the beginning. Merely daily musings from the First Son and Daughter about what life had been like at the Complex on Mount Halas many centuries ago. Then I came to the section that had ignited a war between the two sides of the Holy House, and my mouth dropped open, not certain that I had read the words correctly. I started over from the beginning again, hoping that I had misunderstood somehow as growing horror gripped me. But the words were just as clear the second time around as the first, and as much as I wished it, there could be no misunderstanding what they meant. I sat back on the stool and stared at the codex in my lap in dismay, my heart thudding in my chest. Now I understood why Rorian had looked so haunted and why he had been so eager to rid himself of the codex.

  The Father was not named the supreme god, just as I had expected, but neither was The Mother. There was a third, even mightier god than either one of the First Pair. This god formed our world out of eternal darkness, creating a blazing sun to add warmth and light to the sky and a foundation of rock to bear the weight of all life that would soon rise from the lands and seas. He then created The Mother and The Father from the soils of this new world, charging them and their descendants to be the stewards of all that He had made. This greater god had forged many worlds in this manner across something called the cosmos, and He was known by many different names.

  But I only recognized one of those names.

  The Master.

  Everything Rorian had warned me about the codex was true, and I spent hours pouring over the revelations within its pages. Why had the truth been kept from us? When had any mention of the Master been cleansed from the House's writings and teachings? And on whose orders? It was a mystery that I didn’t expect would ever be solved. If not for Waldin discovering the codex where it had lain hidden for centuries, no one would have ever known. I fully understood the dilemma Rorian had found himself in now, and I cursed the bastard as I stared down at the only evidence there was that the Master had been the beginning of us all. The Piths had been right all along, I realized. I felt a thud in my gut. Which meant Einhard had been right all along, too.

  I glanced at the candle that flickered and twisted beside me, knowing that it would take only moments to set the ancient pages alight and the problem would be gone forever. But did I have the right to do it? Who was I to decide such a thing as big as this? I stood and carefully placed the book on the table beside me, then turned my back. I closed my eyes and rubbed them with the palms of my hands as I tried not to think about what I had read. Rorian was right, though. Once you have seen something, you can never unsee it again.

  Waldin had left cryptic messages in his journal, talking about the great lie, but I had given his words little attention at the time. I had been focused on finding out what he had done with the codex and nothing else. But Waldin and Verica were the only ones who had known the truth about the Master—them, and I suppose those few who had escaped Oasis with the Daughter-In-Waiting. Had Waldin finally returned to Mount Halas only to find Verica gone and her message in his journal waiting for him? It seemed unlikely since, in my opinion, he would have taken it with him when he left. But what if Waldin had learned where Verica went another way? What if she had gotten word to him and he had never gone back to Oasis and instead had traveled south to join her?

  My eyes snapped open as a sudden realization hit me. Verica had fled with the codex to where the Piths' lands now lay. If Waldin had gone to her there, it was altogether possible that many of the Piths could be his and Verica’s descendants, which, after what I’d read about those two, would explain a lot about Piths. It was a sobering thought to realize that Waldin was probably responsible for how the tribes viewed the rest of the people in this world now. Why Waldin and Verica had decided not to include The Mother and The Father in their teachings was something that I knew I would probably never learn.

  I turned, pausing to pull on a tunic before I grabbed the codex and headed outside. I didn’t know where I was going—I just knew I needed to be out in the open where I could think clearer. Morning was still hours away and the night air was crisp. I could see my breath as I walked through the camp as a half-moon lit my way, with twinkling stars filling the sky. The Piths believed that an Ascension Ceremony was necessary to lead a soul to the Master, but I now knew they were mistaken in this. Like ours, Pith souls went either to The Father to burn and be reborn or to The Mother once it was pure enough, where She would then send the cleansed soul on its way along the final path to the Master.

  Not Ascending a soul did not mean it would be lost to wander the paths forever as the Piths believed. In fact, there seemed no real purpose for the Ascension at all that I could tell from what I had read. Perhaps the ceremony’s roots lay at the feet of Waldin and his perversions. I wasn’t sure. I felt a momentary glow of happiness as I thought of Ania, Eriz, and all the others who had fallen at Gasterny and had never been Ascended. Ania had been so terrified of just such a death, and I could rest easy now, knowing that she was not lost along the dark paths like she had feared.

  That glow quickly faded, however, as I realized the enormity of the burden that I carried. What was I going to do? I felt suddenly very small and insignificant beneath the expanse of the sky as I clutched the codex to my chest while I moved through the camp. Soldiers slept everywhere on the ground and around the dying embers of campfires, with only the shadowy forms of the sentries in the distance moving to break the stillness of the night. Einhard had promised no attack would come until the morning, but he hadn’t said that the sun had to be up when it did, so we were taking no chances.

  I headed down to the river, picking my way through hundreds of snoring soldiers that slept on the flattened and churned-up grasses near the palisades, where only hours before they had stood battling for their lives. A few of the men were awake, talking quietly to one another, but they barely glanced at me. No one was expecting a lord dressed in a simple tunic to be wandering among them at this time of night. The fortifications around both fords had been repaired and strengthened considerably. We’d also placed sharpened stakes in the mud along the embankments to either side of them as an added defense in case the Piths tried a similar tactic as before. It had been Baine’s idea, and I dearly wished we had thought of it sooner, as it might have saved a great many lives.

  “Out for a stroll, are you, my lord?”

  I turned to see Wiflem approaching. “Just checking over the repairs,” I said. I shrugged. “I couldn’t sleep.”

  “Me neither,” Wiflem said. “Care for some company, my lord?”

  I hesitated, about to refuse, but then something changed my mind and I nodded. Wiflem followed me as I made my way down to the riverbank to stand on the muddy crest. Bodies of Piths lay everywhere along the shore, with more corpses of men and horses lying in the water all along the raised bed of the ford. The current had managed to push some of those bodies over the edge into deeper water, though most remained, held in place by their armor, which glinted and flickered in the moonlight as the water lapped gently against mail, helms, and metal plating. The odd leg or arm on the corpses swayed along with the current, which was the only sign of movement on the water in an otherwise silent night. I knew in a few hours, once the sun rose, those corpses would start to swell and stink in the heat that was sure to come.

  “You look perturbed, my lord,” Wiflem said, eyeing me with concern.

  I gestured to the many fires lighting the Pith camp across the river. “Should I not be?”

  Wiflem shrugged. “Perhaps. But we have the upper hand now, my lord. Men believe in you and that we can win this fight. The Piths, on the other hand, have learned we are warriors to be feared. That will make them doubt when they try again in the morning. A confident soldier who believes in their leader will always triumph over one with doubts.”

  “Have you been taking lessons from Jebido?” I asked, unable to keep a smile from creasing my face.
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  “I have not, my lord,” Wiflem said seriously, not realizing that I was teasing him. “Though Jebido’s experience and knowledge is certainly worthy of listening to at any time.”

  “That it is,” I agreed as I fingered the codex.

  “Is that a prayer book, my lord?” Wiflem asked, glancing at the leather-bound tome.

  “Something like that,” I mumbled. I studied him as a thought struck me. “How old are you, Wiflem?”

  Wiflem blinked in surprise. “I am thirty-three, my lord.”

  I nodded. “And in all those thirty-three years, have you ever doubted what you were taught about the gods who watch over us?”

  Wiflem’s eyebrows furrowed. “Doubted, my lord? Why would I have reason to?”

  “You have seen much in your life as a soldier, I imagine,” I continued. “Great pain, hardship, cruelty, and suffering, along with all manner of other vile things that one person can do to another. Yet you claim your faith in those gods has never faltered even once, despite all of that?”

  “No, my lord,” Wiflem said firmly. “Not once.”

  I took a deep breath. “But what if I told you your beliefs were all wrong. That I could prove what you have been told your entire life was nothing but a lie? Would you still look upon those beliefs the same way after that?”

  Wiflem scratched at his beard as he thought. “It is an interesting concept, my lord. Yet I fail to see why such an exercise in critical thinking is needed at a time like this.”

  “You might soon enough,” I muttered. I stared across at the Pith camp, wondering if Einhard was awake in his tent, tossing and turning as he worried about what the coming dawn would bring. Then I snorted, knowing Einhard would be worrying about nothing at all. The Master and the Pathfinders had guaranteed him total victory over Ganderland, and he would believe his triumph over me in the upcoming battle was already assured. I paused, clutching the codex tighter to my chest. The Pathfinders had shown the Piths the way through the blood of Gander priests and priestesses, Einhard had said. But that way was wrong, I knew now, and the proof of that wrongness lay in my hands. I closed my eyes for a moment, aware now of what I had to do. Finally, I focused on the silent soldier beside me. “Go saddle Angry and bring him to me, Wiflem.”