“And the Black Wolf?” asked Sandivar, breathing hard in a strange way.
“At Markau with the others.” The King Bear told him that.
“Better,” said the wizard and relaxed. Then: “So many fighting creatures I had not guessed that either of you could put into the field.”
The King Boar snorted. “Think you we have not allies? Except for sows and young, the army that you see here is reinforced with everyone of our kind within a circle of a dozen leagues, for fleet of foot are we. All told, there are more than a thousand of us.”
“We are not so prolific,” growled the King Bear. “But we too have called in allies from round about. Seven or eight hundred have we here.”
“And still may be outnumbered by the wolves,” said Helmut, when this had been translated.
“Aye, are outnumbered. Our scouts have been out. Perhaps it will be two to one, maybe three to one. And even now they draw back part of their army from Markau to the Frorwald, so that if we cross, it is best that we do so quickly. Besides, I am eager for combat.” And the King Boar ground his tushes.
“So am I,” said Helmut, when this had been translated. “But we cannot fight without a plan. And so we go like this, myself, the old man, Waddle and the dogs out at the point.” And he drew a wedge. “The bears on this flank, the boars on that one, and both in depth. Thus we shall sweep this section of the Frorwald and go on through to Markau, where the hunting may be even better.”
The animals comprehended. “They want half an hour to dispose their forces,” said Sandivar.
“Aye,” said Helmut. “We have that long till sunrise; and good luck and good hunting go with you all.”
“And you, Knight of the Morning Star,” came the bearish grunt. And the bear growled also: “May your thirsty sword drink deep. Good hunting, Morning Star,” and shambled away.
“They have accepted you as general,” Sandivar murmured. “No small honor.”
“You have a persuasive tongue in any language,” Helmut said; but he was pleased. Then he said, “Of course, we are being watched. Surely the Black Wolf will have left scouts to overlook this plain.”
“Indeed. But she will not expect so great an army, and her forces are divided, she herself undoubtedly elsewhere, outside of Markau.” Sandivar frowned and turned away, as if it were a subject he cared not to discuss.
One half hour later, precisely, they started. Vengeance trembled with eagerness; the dogs were in a frenzy, and Helmut felt his own heart thudding with excitement as he mounted and the big horse began to climb the hill. He drew Rage; and the sword came from sheath like an eager bird flying. The sun was up now, and high above them lay the dark, tangled forest, streamered with mist and fog, only a single little trail at this point vanishing into it, then lost.
As the deep woods, tangled and mossy, closed about them, they were vaguely aware, though there was no sound, of movement on the forest floor on either side. That would be their allies.
Helmut looked at Sandivar and wondered if the old man were up to what lay ahead. To cross the Frorwald at this point, even without having to fight their way through, would take a good eight hours of riding over steep and rough terrain. But they would have to fight, by day and night both, probably unceasingly and without rest. Once the battle had fair begun, there would be no time to see to Sandivar, and when the old man became exhausted—
Although Helmut could no longer love, he was grateful to Sandivar and knew how much he needed him. Fighting man he was, but politician or learned and wise king, no—not yet. Even if he regained the throne of Boorn, he would need good counsel, a reliable first minister; and—Then he broke off thinking, for already there was action.
It flared sporadically on both flanks, not all along the line, but here and there, short savage battles full of horrible growling and snarling and grunting. What was happening was that they were encountering the outposts of wolves which had not dropped back or bitches defending cubs too young to move. But as of yet they had not struck the main force—
On up into the Frorwald they climbed, and now the fighting became more general out there in the tangled darkness of the forest; the wolves were becoming more numerous as the day dawned; trotting unaware, these first ones, back to covert after the long night’s siege… But by now the Black Wolf would have full news and surely would send a strong and disciplined force—
And then he smelled them, and the forest sighed with their movement, and Vengeance whinnied, and Waddle growled; and the two wolfhounds could not be held. And then he saw them, too; and even he was awed, for it was a mass of wolves never dreamed of by mortal man. The very forest was like the hair of a flea-ridden dog with them, and there they were ahead, too, on the trail, charging at him, a great solid clot of gray, white fangs flashing, slanted eyes yellow with hatred, red mouths open and foaming. A cry burst from his throat:
“Boorn and Victory!”
And then, Rage chopping as he leaned out of the saddle, he put the war-horse at them.
Vengeance went into them like a great ship into breakers. They sprang at his throat, but his throat was armored; they sought his underbelly, but that was armored, too. And his hoofs were shod with steel, and his jaws were like a guillotine, and even as Helmut slashed right and left and laid about with Rage, Vengeance took his toll. Those huge teeth closed mercilessly on spine after spine, and then gray bodies flew like rags.
The hounds, too, swimming in that sea of wolves, were in their glory. This was all they’d ever asked of life. Chop, chop, chop went their jaws tirelessly, and with each chop a wolf’s life went out. They bled, the hounds did, from slash here and bite there, but what blood they shed was but a droplet compared to the flood of wolf blood they loosed upon the ground…
And Waddle—great Waddle—roaring terribly in his fury, slammed right and left with those massive forepaws that could rip apart an oaken log. With each bat, a wolf went flying limply; and Waddle’s teeth did horrible duty as well, until his face was smeared and drenched with wolfish red. Meanwhile, upon his back, Sandivar clung tightly and, when chance offered, took his toll with short sword.
Thus the battle erupted all along the line. The chevron of bears and boars collided with a solid line of wolves. Like Waddle fought the bears, flinging wolves around like ninepins. But the boars were even deadlier. Thick-hided and protected further by a layer of fat, they had tusks like sabers, and they used them to disembowel. A single raking jerk of the King Boar’s massive head, and a wolf would find itself wallowing in its own entrails.
Not that the wolves did not take sore toll. They had strong jaws, too, and were accomplished fighters. Here, with a moaning bawl, a bear went down; there, with a dying shriek, a boar.
Meanwhile, Helmut, in his armor, had leaped down from the horse, and now worked his way along the path with his great sword flying and the iron fist in constant action. The morning star’s spikes and weight came down on skull after skull; the keen double-edge of Rage thrust and hacked, never without effect. Beside him fought the dogs and, protecting his rear, the big war-horse, and somewhere about there was always Waddle—
All morning long, they fought, working up the hill a foot here, a meter there, leaving behind a terrible scatter of dead and wounded. Mercilessly kites and ravens gathered in the sky, to gorge themselves, and when the turmoil was fair past, dropped down.
By noon there was a respite. The wolves drew back. But Helmut and his armies never rested, but pressed on to take all the ground they could. They crested one ridge of the Frorwald, swept down into a hollow. There, in tangled thickets, the wolves met them again.
Tusk and fang and claw and hoof, sword and mace—Helmut almost stifled in his armor now and longed for water, but there was no time. Then he cast a glance at Sandivar. Clinging to Waddle, the old man’s face was ghastly white, exhausted.
Helmut slashed halfway through a gray throat, as fangs clicked fruitlessly on armor steel, and then, with an instinctive flick of that mace-fist, crushed a skull. Thus he waded through a sea of gray, leaving behind a wake of red, until he had reached the roaring Waddle. “Sandivar!” he screamed above the din.
“Aye?” came the answer faintly.
“Tell Waddle to follow me!” Then Helmut hacked on past, with Vengeance right behind him, great neck arched, hind hooves flying, and wolves dying with every step he took.
Near the trail across the Frorwald grew a beech tree of unusual size, with giant, spreading limbs. Helmut and Vengeance, Death and Destruction, ranged themselves around it, fighting off wolves, as Waddle shambled within the circle that they made.
“Up this tree!” bellowed Helmut at Sandivar. “Up it and wait! We’ll come back for you when the battle’s done!”
Sandivar began to protest. Helmut would not brook it. “By the Gods, am I not general here?” He struck the head off a great gray wolf that tried to knock him down. The headless carcass fell at his feet, twitched, lay still; and the bodiless head’s jaws snapped together once, with a solid click. “Up that tree! And Waddle shall remain as guard, for he, too can climb, should he be outnumbered.”
So it was, though Waddle grumbled. Sandivar perched himself on a huge limb, and the bear took station below… Then Helmut fought his way back into the general melee…
By afternoon, Hagen of Markau became aware that something strange was up.
Hating daylight as they did, the wolves rarely or never showed themselves from dawn to dusk. Only when lured out by prey like Marlino and his detachment did they emerge from the tall grass or uncut grain or swales or coverts where they lay. No doubt ever that they were there, but in daylight never visible.
This morning, though, he had seen more and more of them. At first just one or two, slinking out of cover and trotting off toward the Frorwald, but then more, and more after that. On the city wall, now, in the blaze of day, Hagen stood with Rustung, his chief man after Marlino, and watched in puzzlement as first this swale, then yonder field, or that gully over there, disgorged their hiding wolves, which trotted all in the same direction—toward the Frorwald.
“I understand this not,” said Rustung. “Master, can it be the siege is lifting?”
“That I do not know. But at least some of the besiegers are drawn away, for what purpose I wot not. Still—look there.” He pointed to the bright dazzle of the afternoon sky above the Frorwald, where flights of birds floated and sailed and stooped and dropped. “And what does that remind you of?”
“In faith,” said Rustung, “‘tis like the air over a great field of battle.”
“Aye,” said Hagen. He rubbed his face thoughtfully. “Now, hear me, Rustung. I want every knight and man at arms, every page and peasant, every artisan and guildsman—in short, every male of Markau who can fight—I want those armed. Issue swords and halberds, and have we not enough, then enjoin the peasants to use their scythes and pitchforks. But I want all men armed. I think later today we shall make a sally—maybe our last, ever.”
Rustung looked toward the spot, far distant, where the wolves had at last worried armor apart with their iron jaws, and where now bright metal gleamed amidst bright bones; he and Marlino had been comrades since their childhood. “Aye, sire,” he said. “I give the word at once.” And he dropped down off the wall.
Hagen stood there a moment longer. The gray shapes still trotted toward the Frorwald in a steady stream; he’d had no idea one swale or gully could conceal so many. Probably there were hundreds more left behind. And he had not seen the Black Bitch herself…
Still, he could not press down the hope arising in him. Those buzzards and kites meant battle in the Frorwald; whatever happened there, it drew away the wolves and gave him a last fighting chance. More than that he had never asked. He called his servants to him and began to don his armor.
Nissilda entered as he buckled sword back on. “Rustung says you sally out, Father.” Her lovely face was pale.
“Aye, when the time comes. Something draws the wolves away. In a little, we shall fall on them from the rear.”
“And should chance go against you?” Her voice, with fear in it, nevertheless did not tremble.
“Then there’ll be naught left in here but women and children. You and your handmaidens see that each has a dagger. And when everything is burned that will burn, and the wolves come over the wall, you must supply the example; a single blade is better than tearing fangs. Fear not, though; I would not go out if I thought I’d fail.”
“No, certainly not.” She smiled, with a courage he was sure she did not feel. “Did I not say that I had prescience that we would be delivered? Now it comes true; that is all.”
“We’ll see,” said Hagen, and yearned to touch her, but could not, for he was steel all over.
For hours now had the battle raged, the two lines surging back and forth, intermingling, but the wolves, at last, pushed back. At great cost—sorely wounded bears and boars were everywhere: Vengeance’s flanks were streaked with bloody foam, and the wolfhounds ebbed red from a dozen slashes each. Sandivar on his perch was far behind, for they had fought, today, almost all the way across the Frorwald. Within his armor, Helmut gasped for breath, and his exhausted arms seemed turned to lead; if only he had chance to rest and drink. But that was not to be, for he was general, leader, and must always take the forefront. And so, mustering all his strength, he hacked ever forward, Rage’s edge undulled, the morning star fist taking its toll as well.
But he knew now the day was still in doubt. The bears and boars had been cut up badly, though they would not quit. But the number of wolves drawn into Boorn and concentrated here at Markau by the Black Wolf had been badly underestimated. Multitudes had Helmut’s armies slain today; yet it seemed that two wolves grew where one was cut down. Though they had made it this far, if the wolves kept coming as they had, sheer exhaustion was bound to overwhelm his forces by nightfall. And nightfall, surely, was what the Black Bitch waited for to mount her most ferocious attack.
The bright and merciless sun that shone on living, wounded, dead, and dying circled around the sky from south to west and went farther down the sky. Then, surprisingly, the wolves disengaged, dropped back, and Helmut leaned against a tree, daring to raise the visor of his helm and panting. He was not deceived. The Black Wolf was regrouping her forces, waiting for the coming of her ally—night. And weary as he was, the young prince knew he must not delay—to rest now would be fatal. He clamped the visor shut, his sword flashed red as he waved it furiously. “Forward!” he bellowed, and moved on.