“The Army of Boorn, in my day,” Helmut said, “was composed only of men, and it was the best army in the world. Its officers and soldiers—what have become of them?”
“Of the officers—there is talk of midnight executions in the dungeons of Marmorburg. The men, of course, are in the main far too proud to serve under the half-wolves, who have been given all positions of power. As their enlistments expire, they leave, and Albrecht makes no effort to retain them. Some have taken service with private guards, others have quit the Gray Lands in disgust, many have drifted south, whence we have gathered not a little of this intelligence. But, one thing with another, soon Boorn will be a half-wolf enclave.”
Helmut made a sound in his throat that was not far from wolfish in itself.
“Meanwhile,” Dravidio continued, “the real wolves come also to the haven Wolfsheim has created for them. They say that now the Frorwald seethes with them like a barbarian’s head with lice. It is as much as a man’s life’s worth to walk or ride through there without a half-wolf escort or a certain special scent to rub upon himself which is recognized by the wolves as a safe conduct pass. And to rule the wolves, perhaps as Albrecht’s lieutenant, from nowhere—unless it be hell—has come the most terrible wolf of all, a great black she, truly a queen among wolves, and as clever, or more so, than any man.”
“And no human offers resistance?” asked Helmut sharply. “What of the lords of Boorn?”
“A few, led by Hagen of Markau, petitioned the king to end these evils, but Albrecht denied their requests. Now, such pressures has he brought upon them that all but one have knuckled under to his rule. Only brave Hagen stands against him hard and plain. But Markau now has other worries.”
“What mean you?”
“The town and castle are under siege.” Dravidio lifted a hand to forestall Helmut’s question. “Not by Albrecht’s army, but by a stranger one. The lands, town, and fortress of Markau sit, as you know, in the Frorwald’s very shadow. And it is wolves, under, one might guess, the intelligent direction of the Black Wolf herself, who lay siege to it. So numerous and ferocious are they that Markau’s herds and flocks and all the peasants have been driven into the protection of the town and castle walls. And though Hagen’s knights sally forth against them, they are like shadows, disappearing into their coverts, only to return when the thrust is over. No fear of men have they, under the Black Wolf’s rule, and not even Hagen has force enough to keep them at bay. So he is locked into Markau, and the lesson is not lost upon others who might stand with him against King Albrecht.”
“It sounds,” said Helmut grimly, “as if there’s work enough for me in Boorn.”
“Aye, more than you guess,” said Dravidio. “Certain intelligence have we that Albrecht and Kor, King of the barbarians in the Dark Lands of the North, have exchanged emissaries and plan a meeting.”
Helmut sprang to his feet, knocking over the wine before them.
“What?”
he roared. “The King of Boorn treat with the barbarian swine?”
“Indeed. One can but guess their purposes, but Albrecht must do something with the huge army he builds. A conjecture would be this: alliance with Kor and the Dark Lands tribes—then an attack, for plunder, on us here in the Lands of Light… and to stamp out the New Learning before it can transform the world into one quite unlike that in which King Albrecht feels so comfortable. We cannot hope to resist, of course; too long have we relied on Boorn for our protection, on its determination to hold back the Darkness until we can bring forth the Light.”
Helmut’s single mighty hand clenched and unclenched. “But why should he make alliance with the cursed barbarians?”
“Unless he does, he cannot turn his back on Kor to attack us.”
Panting slightly, as if he had been running, his eyes shining like burnished steel, Helmut seated himself. Presently he turned to Sandivar. “I want Rage,” he said in a terrible voice, “with which to lay about me; and I want Vengeance, on which to ride. And I want Death and Destruction to run at my stirrup-irons. And all this I want quickly, for I shall not wait long ere I am off to Boorn.”
“Aye, there is even more need for haste than I had foreseen,” the old man said. “This matter of the Black Wolf—that I had somehow missed. Still, these things I have promised you take time to fashion.”
“The resources of my kingdom are yours,” said Carus quickly.
Helmut stood up. “Then let us to bed, for early rising. Not one second longer shall I spend ere I cross the Frorwald into Boorn than is required. Much thanks for this evening’s entertainment and for the intelligences you have given us.” He was speaking naturally to Carus now as his equal. “Sandivar, will you—?” And he put out the stump of his hand for the old man to grasp and scramble to his feet from the cushions on which he had sat cross-legged. Then Helmut turned and stalked from the hall.
Delaying a bit, Sandivar looked at Carus. “Doubt you still that he is Sigrieth’s son?”
Carus shook his head thoughtfully. “Nay, not one whit. For if ever walked a king, yonder now he goes.”
CHAPTER VI
In a valley north of Neoroma lay fair meadows and great plains and here, as everyone knew, were raised the mightiest horses of the earth, white as fresh snow, taller at the withers than a tall man’s head, with great intelligence and even greater ferocity. For they were bred for war; and even the mares were terrible in combat; the stallions were worth an army. Only great kings rode these, for no other could afford the price. The breed was known as the Ronns, for the family that had evolved it; and it was with Eleera Ronn, that clan’s present head, that Helmut and Sandivar spoke now, leaning against a fence of thick, square-hewn cedar palings and watching the arched-neck, raised-tail canter of a few choice specimens within.
For the owner of such an awesome stud, Eleera Ronn was an unprepossessing man, short, his eyes mild and gentle. Everything about him bespoke great patience, without which one could neither train horses nor sell them for the most handsome price. “There, gentlemen,” said he, gesturing, “the pick of the lot, my finest six-year-old stallions, fully trained for war, yet so gentle that my daughter, who is only five, can ride them with ease—for they know her. This half dozen yonder represents, let me say, the culmination of the breeder’s art; no finer beasts have ever walked the earth.”
Helmut said nothing, continuing to watch the gait and pace of the horses inside the enclosure. Their manes streamed like fine silk; their nostrils flared red; they went like dancers over the earth—and yet, somehow, they left him unmoved. He turned to Ronn. “And these are all you have?”
Ronn frowned. “Aye. Find you fault with them?”
“No.” Helmut shook his head. “And yet—” At that moment, from the row of stables, built of massive logs, there was a crash and a great neighing scream. The crash came again and again and again; and the screaming went on. Helmut whirled, hand on sword hilt. “What—?”
Ronn laughed, a little bitterly. “Nay, master, be not alarmed. What you hear is tragedy—madness.”
“Madness?” Helmut was already striding toward the sound; and Ronn and Sandivar hurried to keep up with him.
“Aye, madness,” Ronn said above the screaming. “And so it happens once in a great while, that something in the breed produces an animal so ferocious that not even we can bend it to our will. And ’tis a pity, for yonder beast is greatest stallion of our stud. But mad as can be, with a killer madness.”
Helmut halted, turned. “A killer madness?” His eyes slitted. “Be he trained?”
“Aye, fully trained, but what worth that when no one can approach him, much less straddle him? Your lordship would do well to stand clear of him—totally unpredictable is he. One moment mild as milk, the next as you hear him now, screaming and kicking and biting and bent on destroying anything that lives within his reach. He will, alas, have to be destroyed; useless is he for a war-horse, and that vein of insanity must not be passed down to his get.”
Sandivar said, “Maybe he is only tired of waiting.”
“What?” Ronn looked at him and blinked.
“Nothing,” said Sandivar. “Let us see what happens.” The screaming and kicking had reached crescendo now; it was like the sound of a battle.
And it made Helmut’s blood beat faster. Something stronger even than his own will impelled him toward the sound. Then he reached the stall in which all this thunder rolled. Its double doors were pegged tightly shut. He drew his sword and with its hilt knocked pegs from latches, as behind him Ronn yelled in sudden realization: “No! No, no!
Look out!”
But then the doors flew open, and the great horse was free, kicking, plunging, snorting as it came, eyes rolling, huge teeth snapping. Barely did Helmut miss being overrun by it as it curveted past; and he felt the wind of a huge hind hoof on his cheek. “Quickly,” Ronn quavered, and drew Sandivar into an empty stall as the animal stretched its neck and charged. The door slammed shut just in time; the neighing, whinnying beast skidded to a halt in a cloud of dust, then reared and whirled. It saw Helmut, twenty yards away, pinned back its ears, showed the whites of its eyes, and shook its head. Then, with a clashing of teeth and a thunder of hooves, it came head on at him.
Yet he stood calmly, as if this enormous deadly animal were only playing a game. Even Sandivar cried out as the charger almost overran him; but at the last minute Helmut stepped aside, and the clicking teeth snapped shut on empty air. Then his one good hand was tangled in that mane, and even as the stallion reared, Helmut leaped nimbly to its back.
That drove the mighty horse quite insane. It gave a squeal of the sort that means a killing rage, and it bucked and plunged and jumped and fought, all the while twisting its head back to sever either right leg or left, whichever it could get a grip on. But Helmut never gave it chance to do that, and his strong thighs gripped the great white flanks like steel, his hand wrapped hard and tight in flaxen mane; and the earth seemed to tremble like a struck drumhead each time those four iron-shod hooves came down.
For moments, then, as Sandivar and Ronn looked on and the other stallions in the pen whinnied in excitement, man and horse fought. Dust rose and thunder rolled; and there was that killer scream and once or twice from out the turmoil a hot-blooded war cry, the battle shout of the line of Sigrieth:
Boorn and Victory!
Ronn, beside himself with fear, unlatched the stall in which they sheltered. “Now,” he chattered, “I’ll run for a crossbow and put an end to the brute—”
Sandivar’s hand gripped him. “No. Yon rider has had ten years with the great masters of riding, handling war-horses. Only hold a moment more—”
All around the stables and the pens that battle raged. Time and again the stallion did its best to scrape Helmut away against a fence or wall; but always the pressure of that great, muscular left arm on the mane was more than the brute could bear, its head came up, and willy-nilly it was pulled away, its design against its rider broken. Now the soaring jumps, and bucking plunges, though still fantastic in height and distance, were not as great as in the beginning, and with each jump, their ferocity diminished yet a little more. “By the Gods,” Ronn whispered in awe, “it’s possible that he will—” Then he screamed:
“Brave knight, look out!”
For in a mighty sideways throw, the horse had sailed high, and now it was coming down not on its feet but on its side, determined thus to throw and crush its rider.
Its weight of nearly a ton shook the earth when it hit. Dust rose and swirled, and even Sandivar held his breath. But as Helmut felt the horse soar with that one last leap, then fall over in the air, he flung himself clear, landing on his feet as nimbly as a cat. When the horse’s bulk slammed into the ground, Helmut moved swiftly. The stallion regained its senses to find its head pinned down by the weight of its erstwhile rider, who now sat on its cheek, pressing its nose to the earth while he scratched the horse between its ears with his one good hand. “Now, bold fellow,” Helmut murmured soothingly. “Now, now, now…”
The white stallion struggled and could not rise. Its vast bulk gave one titanic, spasmodic heave that accomplished nothing. Then, its breathing hoarse, it lay quietly.
“Man,” whispered Ronn, “did you see that? The horsemanship and now—But look, he arises. And now the beast will—” For sure enough, Helmut jumped to his feet, freeing the animal, and stood there with hand and stump on hips, looking down at it.
Then the great horse scrambled up, teeth bared. “Oh, it will eat him,” Ronn groaned, “it will eat him alive.”
“Not so,” said Sandivar. “More than a horse will it take to eat yon warrior. Behold.”
It was almost ludicrous the way the white stallion came then to the man, like a giant cat wanting only to be petted. It approached him almost with timidity, and it put its massive head down; and when it did that, Helmut smiled grimly and scratched it again between the ears. Then he tangled his hand in its mane, and it crouched docilely for him, and he mounted. Astride once more, with only his heels and the pressure of his thighs, he put the big white war-horse through all its maneuvers, and it performed beautifully, graceful as a swan in its capriole, towering in its levade. Then, still with that grim smile on his face, Helmut cantered over to Sandivar and an awestricken Ronn. Looking down at Ronn from his great height, he asked: “How did you say this one is called?”
Ronn’s eyes were wide. He licked his lips, and his voice was a croak when he answered. “Vengeance. That was what we had named him—Vengeance.”
“Aye, so I guessed,” said Helmut, and he shot Sandivar a glance. “And what is your price for him?”
Ronn let out a long, sighing breath. “There is no price, sir, my lord. He is yours.”
“Then, my thanks. Come, Vengeance,” and Helmut dismounted and strode away. With complete docility, the huge beast followed him, nudging at his back from time to time because it wanted to be petted…
Sandivar released the she-bear Rowl to return to her home and kept Waddle for his mount. But the big bear was hard put to keep up with the stallion as Helmut and Sandivar rode higher and higher into the Mountains of Dolo, great towering peaks with forested flanks and snowcapped tops. It was a labyrinthine way they followed, along rushing streams, until finally they reached a long valley, green and starred with flowers, that lay between dark and tangled forests on either slope. At the valley’s far end, there was a small, rustic hut.
“I think you had better let me go first,” Sandivar said. “Our welcoming committee may perhaps be o’erenthusiastic.” And as Helmut reined in Vengeance, he urged Waddle on ahead. Then, as they neared the middle of the valley, there arose a sound from the hut fit to chill the blood—a baying and howling like all the tortured souls in hell ascream at once.
Vengeance reared and bucked, and even Waddle spread his legs and balked. “By all the Gods!” shouted Helmut. “What’s that weird serenade?”
“A moment now and you shall see!” Then they came, from down the valley, and Helmut swore an oath and reached for his sword. But Sandivar spoke sharply, and he rasped it back to leather.
There was a full dozen in the pack of dogs, and each of them was monstrous—great gray wolfhounds, all jaws and shoulders, streaking toward Helmut and Sandivar as if they would devour them alive. Sandivar dismounted from Waddle and went to meet them, and they surged around him, and he disappeared from sight in the welter of beasts, any of which was large as a man. For a moment Helmut feared that Sandivar would be torn to shreds; but suddenly the hounds dropped to all fours and were docile. It was as if the sorcerer had spoken to them in their own language—and perhaps he had.
Anyhow, Helmut had a chance now to appraise these beasts. They were blued steel in color, with only faint white markings here and there, and each wore a leather collar spiked with bronze as protection in combat. Fearsome as they were, he sat straighter in the saddle when he spotted two among them so much larger and more dangerous-looking that the rest looked in contrast like half-grown pups.
Now the hunter and dog-breeder who was master of this pack came to make them welcome. Gad Dano was not a lovely person; living alone in this remote valley, there was much of the wild animal in him, too; it flickered in his yellowish eyes and in the way his teeth gleamed white from time to time in the midst of a ratty beard. His costume was completely furs, wolfskins that smelled, as Sandivar whispered to Helmut, as if the wolf were still within them; and his voice was a hoarse croak, as if it were so rarely used that it had rusted. “Aye,” he said, pointing to the forest on one mountainside. “There is still light left for hunting—these hounds hunt best by sight, you know. Now, if you are not too tired, I doubt not but what we can start a few gray devils from their lairs.” Behind the hut, he chained all the dogs but those two grim-jawed giants and then saddled a mule for Sandivar while Waddle went into the other forest to forage for supper. Dano swung into the saddle of his own sturdy mountain nag. “Come, Death,” he said. “Come, Destruction.” And the two great dogs swung alongside him to lope by his stirrup-irons.
Higher and higher into the forest they climbed. This was all spruce of great antiquity and dark as the inside of a saddlebag. Clouds, at this altitude, drifted by like fog, and there was a constant drip, drip of moisture from the trees, so that the forest floor and every piece of fallen timber was coated with velvety moss. Beneath Helmut, the big war-horse, Vengeance, ascended the steepest slopes with ease.
Presently Dano spoke to the two hounds, and they ranged out ahead. The horsemen held their mounts in a clearing, waiting. “Lately,” Dano observed, “wolves are getting scarcer. Almost as if they’re leaving this range for somewhere else.”
The words had barely left his lips when sound exploded up ahead, a terrible snarling and growling. Then something big and gray shot into the clearing, and Sandivar’s mule brayed and reared as a gaunt gray wolf dashed straight under its belly. Another like it dashed beneath the nose of Dane’s mount and was gone. A third, a fourth, as Helmut reined his steed around, and then the wolves had vanished in the timber.
But hot on their heels came the hounds. Like two gray blurs, Death and Destruction streaked across the clearing and disappeared.
“Gone away!” yelled Dano and kicked his nag. “Come on!” And, oblivious of risk to life and limb, he put the horse at full gallop down the mountainside, after dogs and wolves alike. Helmut and Sandivar, no less recklessly, followed close behind.
It was a wild, breakneck journey down that mountain, the horses sliding on their haunches, leaping high and clean over the spiked obstacles of ancient logs, and catching the excitement of the hunt, so that now the men could not have stopped them even if they’d chosen to. Helmut soon outdistanced Dano, for Vengeance’s huge hoofs were sure, and his great stride ate up the ground. Then they broke from the edge of timber, and Helmut pulled up so quickly that Vengeance reared and pawed the air.
Below them, on the untimbered slope the wolves were in a race for life. They grew big, this mountain species, not much smaller than the hounds, and equally as savage. For now they chose to flee, four gray fleet blurs against the green, but Helmut wondered what would happen when they turned at bay and it would be two to one against the dogs.