The Sword of Morning Star (10 page)

Even yesterday one last attempt had been made to break out. Hagen had wanted to lead it himself, but his lieutenant and chief fighting man, Marlino, had set himself against that. “Nay, sire, though I know you welcome the risk. But without your cool direction here, all Markau is finally lost. I myself shall take the lead—”

It had been a fine, bright day. The meadows around Markau drowsed in the sun, and there was no sign of the wolves which had thronged them the night before. Hagen almost let himself feel hopeful as he bade farewell to the six armored knights on armored horses—all he could spare from his slender defensive forces. “If you get through to Count Bomas, bid him by all the favors he owes me, including the gift of his life saved in warfare, to gather every soldier, every , huntsman, and every man at arms he can lay his hands on, to spread the alarm throughout the country to the other lords, and to come at once…”

“Aye, my lord.” Marlino touched his helm in salute, then pulled down his visor. He signaled to his command. Then the gates swung briefly open, the armored knights on their big war-horses thundered out, the gates slammed shut.

They went at full tilt across the meadows, those brave men, with hunting lances ready in case they were attacked. But nothing stirred in the drowsy morning, and Hagen began to think that they would make it.

But, of course, he had been wrong. The Black Wolf had waited only until the men were out of bowshot of the village.

Then, when, viewed from the tower of the castle, the knights were but the size of toys, the wolves suddenly appeared. Magically, from bush and swale and gully and thicket they materialized; out of the high grass and ripe grain, uncut now for so long, they swarmed; and all at once the six mounted men were beset by wolves, at least a hundred.

The steeds, so bold against a human enemy, were terrified by the sight of so many savage animals. They redoubled efforts to outrace the enormous pack now swarming after them. Hagen stood watching, helpless, cursing, knowing there was nothing he could do… And then the wolves caught up.

A dozen died under lance thrusts in the first instant, but what were a dozen in a throng so great? The horses, finding themselves in that sea of animals, reared and kicked; but the sharp fangs of the wolves were snapping remorselessly, virtually devouring the poor animals alive. One after the other went down in that surging ocean of gray fur, and Hagen could faintly hear their screaming. It did not last very long.

Then the unhorsed knights arose, in full armor, out of all that turmoil; and as their swords flashed bright in the dazzling morning sun, Hagen regained hope. But it died quickly, for the sheer weight of numbers bore the armored men down again, and a man in armor, flat on his back, does not easily arise. Once or twice, they struggled to their feet, only to be knocked down again. Then, their strength exhausted from dealing with that weight of iron, they lay still.

Hagen could imagine what it had been like to be one of those armored knights sprawled flat, sword knocked from hand. He could imagine the horrible sound of fangs gnawing fruitlessly at the hinged and solid iron, the overpowering rankness. He could imagine, too, the fatigue that came from lifting all that weight of steel, then being overwhelmed and pushed back down, and this over and over until the man inside the shell was strengthless, lying there panting, his body bathed in its own moisture and his need for water terrible.

It took every ounce of will and courage Hagen owned in the ensuing thirty-six hours to keep himself from sallying out in a vain attempt to aid them. But he knew that to do so would only be to sacrifice more men in the same horrible way. So somehow he held himself in check, though he stood on the city wall and cursed and shouted at the distant gray blot that swarmed over the downed men like ants across a sweet. Beyond that, though, there was nothing he could do.

And when he had seen at last the wolves turn away from the bright-gleaming armored blotches in the meadow (this afternoon; the horses long since were gnawed bones) he had known that it was indeed all over…

A footfall behind him caused him now to whirl.

“Nissilda,” he said.

“Aye, Father.” His daughter, clothed in spotless, flowing samite, was nineteen, tall, slender, yet full-breasted and full-hipped. Blonde hair like pure gold, bound back from a high white forehead by a fillet, flowed down her back and shimmered in the candle flame. Lovely as she was, had she been daughter of any lord but Hagen she would have been married already, and advantageously; but Hagen, widower, was loathe to part with her. And so he had not pressed a match upon her but had waited until she found someone who suited her fancy and engaged her heart. Such a one had not yet come along—

She came to stand beside him, almost as tall as he, and took his rough hand in her soft one. “They come again,” she said.

“Yes. Are you afraid, daughter?”

She shook her head. “Oddly, no, not even after all the horrors we’ve endured.”

“And why is that?”

“I cannot say.” Nissilda’s voice was soft; she had to raise it to be heard above the increased volume of the howling as the watch fires flared now from every wall. “It’s only that I feel it in my bones that this shall pass, that we shall be delivered.”

Hagen sighed and leaned against the window stool. Oh, they were out there, all right, by the scores and hundreds. “Would that I had your faith,” he said. Then he touched his sword hilt. “This shall I vow. That fang you shall never feel, except the long one I myself wield.”

“Such thoughts are not to be entertained,” she said quite calmly. “Now, you have not eaten, and your dinner is laid. Come and eat.” And she led him from the hall. But there was no place in the castle where he could not hear the howling.

“To cross the Frorwald?” That had been the incredulous cry of the burgomaster when Sandivar had presented his plea for help. “No, impossible, quite impossible. Grateful are we for your release of us from the tyranny of the half-wolves, so long as there is no retribution. But we are neither politicians, nor are we fighting men, but only honest farmers. Good Sandivar, ask not that of us which we cannot do.”

And there had been so much honesty in his face, such agreement on the countenances of the others of his village, that neither Sandivar nor Helmut could doubt the uselessness of seeking aid here. When they were in their room together, having dined and drunk, Helmut addressed the older man: “Now what?”

Sandivar paced the room. “We still must cross the Frorwald.”

“Then we shall hack our way through alone. With Rage and Vengeance, Death and Destruction—”

“Do you think the Black Wolf is a fool?” cried Sandivar.

The intensity of his voice astonished Helmut. “I know nothing of the Black Wolf.”

“And that because you were too young to remember the day that she from Boorn was banished by your father, Sigrieth.”

“What?”

“You heard me.” Sandivar’s cloak swirled as he paced. “Wolf, say you? Aye, not wolf but wolfess, a lady of the court who lured man after man to destruction, and simultaneously studied in what she thought was full secrecy the arts of necromancy, sorcery, her object to capture the heart of the great Sigrieth himself and make him captive. Kierena was her name, and lovely was she in a dark, dangerous way, if ever woman had black loveliness. Albrecht, though married, loved her and was her helpless slave, though little cared she for him, Sigrieth being her chief aim. But she was caught in sorcery, caught cold, red-handed, and banished from the land—as your father had proclaimed that all sorcerers must surely be,” he added in a curious voice. “But now she has come back, taken the form of the great black wolf, which she has been known to assume before (it was an art that enchanted Wolfsheim); and it is she we have to deal with in the Frorwald. Nor think you that she is weakling female: her sorcery has she perfected, obviously, and her heart is made of stone. So, thus—and thousands of her liege men, from all account; I mean the wolves. Great are you and Rage and Vengeance, fierce in battle Death and Destruction; Waddle, too, is terrible and I, if I may say so, no small foe. But still, the task is an army’s task—and we have no army.” He poured himself a glass of wine and drank it. “A quarter of the way might we hack our progress twixt here and Markau, maybe even a half. But at last we would be overwhelmed, dragged down and made a meal of, ere ever we reached our goal.”

“But the villagers will not fight. So if we have no army, we must do without one.”

Sandivar finished the wine. “We shall have one,” he said at last.

“And get it where?”

The old man laughed. “Fire, you must have heard, must be fought with fire.”

“Aye. But the time is poor for cryptic riddles.”

Sandivar poured more wine. “Come,” he said. “We have a rendezvous to keep.”

“Oh? With whom? And where?”

“The whom shall you learn ere long. The place—” Sandivar grinned, “a turnip patch.” He tapped Helmut on the arm. “Come—and bring only Waddle and your sword.”

In the darkness, they strode along the main street of the sleeping town, with its tightly locked courtyards and no alarm from any dogs—all now long since killed by wolves and boars and bears. When they had reached the street’s end and nothing lay before them but open country, Sandivar turned and struck off across plowed ground. “Not turnips after all,” said he, “but beans, or what’s left of them. But then, I never was a farming man.”

Helmut, puzzled, kept his hand on his sword hilt as they walked farther into the night-shrouded field. Then, quite abruptly, Sandivar halted. He began to make, deep in his chest, a strange, piglike, grunting sound.

Things moved in the darkness. As Helmut drew the sword, a word from Sandivar caused him to sheathe it. Then Sandivar turned and seemed to speak to Waddle. Waddle instantly rose on his hind legs and began to make loud, growling, moaning sounds that carried far into the night.

Helmut felt the hair on the back of his neck stiffen. “By the Gods,” he whispered, “what witchcraft now?”

“Very little, except certain tribal chieftains must we talk to. Waddle and I now make arrangements for a meeting. Ah, careful, there!”

For, startled, Helmut had jumped as something materialized soundlessly from the darkness in front of Sandivar. It was, he saw, a wild boar, great of size, heavy in the front and lean in the rear, with bristles like iron and huge, curling tusks of ivory. Such boars were hunting game and man-killers, and only Sandivar’s admonition kept Rage still sheathed.

Sandivar made a sound of satisfaction. The boar grunted warily and champed its teeth dangerously, but Sandivar laughed. Then, more soberly, once more he began that stertorous succession of piglike grunts that seemed to come from his very entrails.

The boar backed away, almost as if in surprise. Then it grunted, and Sandivar grunted back; as something else even larger and more frightening loomed up close by, a darker blackness than the night, the boar wheeled and dashed off, faster than a horse could gallop. Helmut, confused by all this, whirled to confront the newcomer.

It was a bear, not so large as Waddle, but of no mean size. Suddenly it dropped on all fours and growled. Waddle growled back, and so did Sandivar. The bear rose up again, and so did Waddle. They touched noses; then Sandivar made a growling sound, and both dropped down. Abruptly, the bear whirled and scuttled off just as the boar had done.

“Now,” said Sandivar, “we must wait.”

“By the Gods,” said Helmut, “it would pleasure me to know what goes on here.”

“Messengers have I called up and sent,” said Sandivar. “You heard the villagers speak of a plague of boars and bears, driven by the wolves from out the Frorwald. Surely, thought I, we must at this time of night find both aforaging in such a field; and I was right. Now they go to find the chieftains and the elders of their tribes; and if you be not too sleepy, I think we shall hold our conference soon here in the bean field, in the dark of the moon, and, should luck be with us, come by an army to see us safely across the Frorwald and perhaps beyond.”

Helmut shook his head. “Never is your bag empty of its tricks, is it?”

“Once we have our forces, I shall leave the generalship to you.”

They waited. Helmut said, “Tell me. Why do you not use sorcery to destroy directly Albrecht, his half-wolves, the wolves, and the Black Wolf? Have you not so much power?”

“I have the power,” said Sandivar. “But I am not allowed to use it—nor would I if I could. To make you King of Boorn and Emperor of the Gray Lands by the snap of my ringers—what sort of king should you then be? But if you take the throne by your own risks and exertions, then you have earned your kingship. Moreover, I have said that the Black Wolf, Kierena, is also a sorceress. She would use sorcery against me; and since the Worldfire it is forbidden that two magicians duel against each other for supremacy. Always the magnitude of spells goes up until they hurl such power at each other as destroys all innocents around them. So only indirectly must I use my art; there are no shortcuts to such a throne as Boorn—one never gains it without risk of life.”

“That risk I gladly,” said Helmut. “Only—hark! By the Gods who rule us—!”

For now came moving across the fields from two directions such columns as he never had seen before. The one from the west was a file of wild boars, led by a pig of such size and length of tusk and fierceness of mien that he rivaled the monsters Helmut had fought in that gray underworld. Nor were the swine behind him much lesser specimens of their breed; not a one of them but whose head would have graced a castle wall—had the huntsman lived to take it.

And coming from the east shambled a line of bears, the one in forefront huge enough to dwarf even the enormous Waddle. A half dozen more of Waddle’s size or larger came silently behind this royal animal; and as he saw it, Waddle gave a peculiar moan and did what must have been obeisance.

All this with some clarity Helmut now could see, his eyes accustomed to the dark and the moon rising above the distant Frorwald hills. But what happened next Sandivar had to interpret, for the council of grunts and growls and other sounds was beyond his comprehension.