Gray Wolf: The Demon-Haunted Forest (Part III)
Blood on Snow
The She-Wolf followed the road in a meandering path, alert to each snapping twig, each movement of shadows in the moonlight, each scent that drifted on the breeze. The northern lands could be treacherous to even the deadliest hunter, and every blind turn presented a hazard, a potential ambush site for men with arrows and musket balls. Her nostrils flared at a new odor, strong and earthy. The She-Wolf circled the remains of the frost giant, examining the wounds, the scattering of tracks in the snow, the lifeless serpent clutched in one huge hand, before moving onward.
Ulf had sojourned in the east, and the walled cities of the steppe were substantially larger than these overgrown ruins, but his legs and back ached as if he had been walking for days. Perhaps the scryers spoke truly when they claimed the forest distorted space and time itself, stretching it in places and compressing it in others. Of course, the scryers said many things that made little sense, and to Ulf, a day was a day, and a mile was a mile, and no magical talk could render things otherwise. The road ended at a vast open pit, and a faint light, sickly green like the aurora that shimmered on nights of ill fortune, emanated from its depths. He stood at the edge and stared downward, mesmerized by the light, until the pistol shot broke his concentration.
The ball struck just to the left of his spine, high enough to reach the heart, and were it not for the chainmail that protected his upper body, he would have died on the spot. Ulf was staggered by the blow, but he recovered with the practiced movements of a warrior, drawing the broadsword from its sheath as he wheeled to face his attacker. The knight was adorned in a black cloak that nearly reached his ankles, and the shoulder-length mane and dark beard were as neat and well-groomed as when he had passed through the village a week prior. Ulf caught a whiff of black powder as Sir Robert Thorne slipped the pistol beneath his cloak.
“Not very honorable to shoot a man in the back.” He flourished his blade in a looping figure eight. “Do you have another pistol, or would you favor a little swordplay instead?”
“Honor?” Thorne slid his own sword, a long falchion with a jewel-encrusted hilt, from its scabbard. “Everyone knows that the tribes beyond the Northern Sea are wholly without honor, savage and treacherous. You refuse to guide us, then you follow us to spy out our intentions and murder the men in my employ? I offered gold, but you’ll have payment in cold steel instead.”
He covered the distance between them in a walk, and Ulf waited, the point of his blade extended toward his opponent’s face. Travelling bards might sing of daylong duels, but in his experience, sword fights were short, brutal affairs – a lunge, a failed parry, and one of them would lie dead in the snow. He allowed himself a brief thought of Tyra, then Thorne was upon him, feinting a jab to his torso and swinging the long blade toward his unguarded legs. Ulf parried and shifted his weight as he delivered a sweeping overhand cut toward the junction of Thorne’s neck and shoulder, but the knight sidestepped, and as the stroke missed its mark, he delivered a short jab with the point of the falchion. A sharp pain radiated from his ribs, but Ulf’s chainmail absorbed the brunt of the impact, and he planted his feet as he shoved his offside shoulder into Thorne’s chest. The knight was taller, but Ulf was heavier, and Thorne stumbled backward as the broadsword slashed through the frigid air, its edge aimed for the neck with deadly precision –
– and missed its target. Thorne dodged the blow with a dancer’s grace, and as Ulf was carried about by the momentum of his own swing, he delivered a kick to the back of the Gray Wolf’s knee. The sword slipped from his fingers as Ulf went sprawling into the snow. A fine duelist you turned out to be. He staggered to one knee and fell again as another kick found his injured ribs, and he tasted blood as his head struck the frozen earth.
“And so it ends.” The edge of the falchion slid beneath his chin as Thorne forced his head upward. “I could flatter your last moments by saying that you came closer than most, but I’d be lying.”
The blade caressed his throat, and as Ulf stared into the dark eyes, he perceived the knight’s countenance as a blind man with eyes newly opened – Sir Robert Thorne’s eyes were bloodshot and his cheeks drawn, the haggard countenance of a man who has neither eaten nor slept. One corner of the mouth twitched upward, a feeble attempt at a smile, and as his own end drew near, Ulf perceived the truth at last. He is doomed, he thought. He was broken by whatever happened in that damned pit, and whether he kills me now or not, he has already lost – and he knows it. Later, he would ponder whether the knight understood the same truth, for as he prepared to deliver the killing blow, the blade hesitated at the peak of its backswing.
In a duel between the knights of the western tribes, a second’s pause would have made no difference, for the defeated was expected to die with honor, paying tribute with his life to the opponent’s greater skill. The Grey Wolf knew no such honor, for their bloodletting was primitive, valued only for its utility, and in the fleeting instant that separated life from death, Ulf drew his legs into a fetal position and kicked, driving both feet into Thorne’s stomach. The knight doubled over in agony, and Ulf struck with the dagger from his belt, driving the blade beneath the ribs as Thorne’s eyes widened in shock. As he drew the edge across and downward, the dagger skewered the liver and severed the arteries that delivered blood to the entrails, and Sir Robert Thorne, luckless knight of the western lands, staggered and fell. His mouth gaped in a futile attempt to draw breath, and a pool of crimson stained the snow as the eyes dimmed and grew distant. The feet kicked weakly at the frozen earth, then grew still.
And now, let’s see what mischief he has wrought. Ulf made his way through the rubble, and though he navigated the path with a Northman’s ease, his fear swelled and festered with the passage of each step. Neither pain nor death held sway over his heart, but he could hear the ghosts of the temple as they whispered in his ear, commanding him to live out the power of his doomed ancestors, the Gray Wolf of old who had explored and conquered and built at the price of their own damnation. The voices grew so insistent, and his own fear so overpowering, that he nearly lost his nerve for the second time; instead, he continued grimly downward. He marked the fissure at the edge of the pit and drew his sword, moving carefully as he made his way toward the blood-drenched altar that lay in the center. The girl stood before the raised stones with her back turned, small and vulnerable in the temple’s unearthly glow, and a wave of pity welled upward from his heart as he called out to her.
“Your friends are dead!” Ulf shouted. “You’ve toyed with powers that you don’t understand, but it’s not too late. I’ll take you to the seacoast and put you on a boat to the south. You can leave this place, and –”
The sword lurched from his grip, pulled free by an invisible hand, and vanished into the darkness. Ulf was struck dumb with awe as the girl turned to face him, for the old gods were unlike anything conceived by the mind of man, more beautiful than a winter dawn, deadlier than the sting of a forest viper. She returned his stare with black, pupilless eyes.
“But I do understand,” she whispered. “I have understood all along.”
To be continued…