The Wolf (Under the Northern Sky #1)

by Leo Carew

He wore Kynortas’s battle helmet, the helmet of the Black Lord, with his hair threaded through the back in the style of a Sacred Guardsman. He looked every inch the warlord; the visor and cheek-plates of the helmet even hiding his young, unmarked features. Even Uvoren on seeing him had smiled slightly and nodded. “You cut an impressive figure, my lord.” He and Roper had...

The sun had broken through the dark blanket that had covered it for months and bathed the Hindrunn in watery gold. Roper led the army through the streets that were lined once again with women and children. Eyes penetrated Roper’s armour like nothing else as he rode Zephyr towards the Great Gate. There was no ridicule this time. Perhaps it was the assassination attempt that Roper had foiled alone. Or perhaps it was the fact that he was leading the army that was finally to take on the Sutherners. Or maybe it was just that...

Roper’s gamble was more than simply ceding the Hindrunn and a host of armed men to Uvoren’s control. He faced dreadful odds in battle against the Sutherners too. He led forty thousand men and eight thousand heavy cavalry. Nobody knew how large the Suthern force they rode against was, but their best reports indic...

Roper ignored it all. His face was set, his doubts hidden behind it and able to escape only when he opened his mouth. So he said nothing.

He raised Cold-Edge over his head in a retrospective salute to the crowds who lined the street, wondering if he would ever re-enter this fortress. And to his very great surprise, somebody behind him cheered. The noise swelled as the crowd took it up and began to applaud. Roper had not even considered what leading the army would do for his popularity. It had been a way for him to gain enough allies and martial repute to flatten Uvoren, as well as banish the Sutherners from this land. He had forgotten that the people of the Hindrunn would love it.

Leading an army was more complicated than Roper could ever have predicted. The legionaries were trained from the moment they entered the haskoli at the age of six to forage and procure their own food. Nevertheless, keeping the legions fully supplied was a near impossible task. Close to fifty thousand soldiers (including the troopers of the Cavalry Corps, whom Roper had discreetly removed from the fortress before Uvoren realised he was taking them), eight thousand horses and god knew how many beasts in the baggage train required vast granaries of wheat, beans, barley, oats and rye, as well as a small army of sheep for slaughter. They had taken supplies for two weeks with them, each warrior carrying much of his food on his back, but they would struggle to find more out in the field. They were two days’ march out from the Hindrunn when someone realised that while each legionary had, as always, brought his own bow, they had no arrows with them. The legates informed Roper that this was usually the duty of the Skiritai. Tekoa, who commanded them, exploded that they had been working harder than anyone had a right to expect and that it had been somebody else’s responsibility to bring the bloody arrows. Men were sent back to fetch them. Hours after the men had returned with wagons of arrows (still not enough; they would blaze through them in just a few minutes of battle), a trooper of the Cavalry Corps had reported to Roper that they were low on horseshoes. Roper had asked how that...

Morale was low, but any thought of desertion or retreat was out of the question.

A desire for vengeance flourished and Roper encouraged it, though Gray cautioned that this was not the way of the legionaries. Such all-consuming emotion was possession, pure and simple.

Survivors began to appear first. They fell into the army with enough gratitude to make Roper ashamed. They wept at the sight of the legions marching to their salvation after being helpless for so long. At the van marched the Sacred Guard: men so highly esteemed that many survivors ran to embrace them or fell sobbing at their feet, assuming that their presence meant victory.

And Roper? They stared in awe at this great warlord. It had been whispered that the Jormunrekur were spent and the Lothbroks poised to succeed them. But here was a shining warrior: tall, stern and covered in steel, atop the biggest horse they had ever seen, riding at the front of a great army. They blessed him, thanked him and swore loyalty to this new lord.

“How are we to fight them, lord?” asked another. “We’re not short of choices on that front,” said Roper breezily. “Guerrilla tactics are an option; make this land a frightening place for them. I favour pitched battle, though. Let’s make sure they know they only got this far through luck.” There was a murmur of agreement at this and Roper bade them goodnight, moving off into the darkness. Everywhere he was followed by a combination of Gray, Pryce and Helmec. With Gray and Pryce in particular, it enhanced his esteem to be seen with such men, and it did not hurt that they had taken quickly to Helmec. The three had become something of a triumvirate and were often to be found laughing together.

The survivors they encountered were able to point out to Roper’s forces the places they had buried their food supplies, supplementing the legions’ rations as they advanced. And, seven days after marching from the Hindrunn, they found their first Sutherners. Outriding Skiritai discovered a band of stragglers, slowed down by half a dozen enslaved Anakim women that they dragged with them. The Skiritai made short work of the Sutherners, releasing the women. From that point on, they encountered pockets of stragglers every few miles. Knowing this must mean they were drawing near the main Suthern horde, Roper sent the Skiritai ranging further than ever before, scouring the hills for leagues around the army. On the eleventh day, they discovered the enemy. A pair of mounted rangers reported to Roper. They had found soldiers by their thousand, perhaps six leagues, they said, to the north-west.

There lay the Suthern army. Or, at least, some of it. Tens of thousands filled the valley in which a semi-permanent camp had been established. Tents studded the floor with cooking fires generously interspersed among the men, most of whom were sitting and tending to equipment. “They don’t even know that we’ve left the Hindrunn yet,” said Roper, watching over the scene. “Can anyone see any sentries?” “There,” said Gray, scouring the valley with an experienced eye, and pointing at a miniscule pair of figures standing on the other side of the valley. “And there … And there.” The five of them sank lower to the ground. This valley had once sheltered a forest, but the trees had been stripped, cut and piled at the sides in a firewood stack that doubled as a crude barricade. It was as though the Sutherners thought you could not camp in a forest: there was either space for soldiers or for trees, but not for both. “They get nervous when they can’t see, don’t they?” said Helmec. “They have struggled with our country, lord,” said one of the Skiritai. “We have found Suthern skeletons everywhere we’ve scouted, usually killed by bears or wolves. That is why they clear the forests. Those we capture are usually grateful that we’ve found them. Until they’re executed.” The other Skiritai laughed. “Gestur; Margeir,” said Roper. He had discovered the names of the two Skiritai rangers from Tekoa before they had departed and they crawled a touch closer. “I trust you have the measure of these inte...

“I would be grateful if you could assess this army thoroughly. I need to know how many men they command and how many cavalry. Tell me how they are feeding themselves when they are clearly so ill-at-ease here. Tell me if they have split their forces. Gather as much information as you can and be back to the army before dusk tomorrow.” The rangers obediently returned to their horses and departed. “As for us,” continued Roper to Gray and Helmec, “back to the army. We can do no more until we know what we are facing.” The three mounted their steeds and retraced their tracks. They were forced to tack up some of the steeper hills, so slippery was the terrain. Back with the army, Roper established extra fortifications for the camp and asked Tekoa how the Skiritai could best keep an eye on the surrounding landscape without drawing attention to themselves. “Figure-of- eight patrols,” Tekoa had replied. “Parties of three on foot, orbiting the camp in overlapping figures-of-eight. The centre of the ‘eight’ is the camp, so they can collect fresh news and orders before heading out again.” “Very good,” said Roper, nodding. “And I have some more specific requirements of your men.” Tekoa’s eyebrow rose as Roper explained what he needed. “It sounds like you’re planning something foolish, my lord.” “I have many plans. This one I hope not to use.” “It is as well to be prepared,” said Tekoa dubiously. They had a secure perimeter and well-fortified camp; now they just needed to wait. Roper walke...

But Kynortas had been of the belief that idle men, particularly idle warriors, make trouble. And it does not do to spend too much...

“A hundred and fifty thousand,” said Gestur, the more voluble of the two. “It was hard to work around their sentries, lord. Even so, we are confident that it is above a hundred and thirty thousand infantry and twenty thousand mounted knights.” “Twenty thousand knights,” said Gray mildly. “Damn.” “There aren’t twenty thousand knights in the whole of Albion,” said Tekoa. “Not even ten thousand. They must have support from the continent.” “So it sounds as though we can assume we are outnumbered four to one,” Roper surmised. He took another spoonful of hoosh, frowning into his bowl. “What else?” “They have kept their forces together: all of them are within the valley. And they are getting their supplies from a huge wagon park in the north.” “We thought that was so that their forces were defending it from our likely direction of approach.”

“Twenty thousand knights is a daunting prospect,” said Tekoa as soon as the rangers were out of earshot. “We will need to find a location that nullifies their cavalry.” Tekoa glanced at Roper, aware that he had already been asked to locate just such a site. “Agreed,” said Gray. “Somewhere we cannot be flanked,

“Perhaps we could win,” conceded Roper. “Let the Sutherners wash over our line again and again until they break; hope that our cavalry can somehow contain twenty thousand knights. But we would lose thousands, perhaps tens of thousands. There is also a good chance that we would lose the battle. Do you deny it, my advisors?”

“I tell you, my mind is not on the Hindrunn,” insisted Roper. “It is on the future. If we lose half our army here, we would win the battle but lose a war that will last for generations. We must preserve the legions in the course of victory, otherwise all we have done is pay blood for time. We cannot repel the Sutherners for ever, not unless our victory here is overwhelming.” There was a pause as Gray continued to look shrewdly at the Black Lord. He turned his gaze to Tekoa. “I accept that, Legate,” he said respectfully. “Let’s hear his alternative.” Tekoa’s face was flushing a familiar deep red and he glowered at Roper. In the end, he nodded curtly.

Even with soldiers as robust as the legions, the mood on campaign was not always so positive, but Roper’s understanding of small gestures and the impact they had on morale was telling. So far he had been everywhere; he had let no one see him asleep. He had kept the watchmen company on the camp perimeters; had shared his fire and his hoosh, and appeared to know the names of every soldier under his command. Any time he was questioned, he had an answer, both frankly honest and reassuring. He appeared secure, calm and serene and was beginning to exert the kind of influence that Kynortas had had early in his reign. Despite his flighty reputation, the legionaries were coming to admire this new Black Lord. He showed willingness, energy and what appeared to be competence.

Asger was on his feet at once. “More cowardliness from a second-rate leader, who proves himself yet again unwilling to commit to combat,” he said importantly. There was an unease around the circle that suggested he was not alone in this opinion. “You haven’t the stomach for this, Roper.” “Regardless of your opinion, you call me ‘lord,’” said Roper. “Your comments have been noted, Asger.” “You propose to retreat, lord?” said another legate impatiently. His name was Skallagrim; legate of the Gillamoor, one of the five auxiliary legions travelling with the army. “No, I propose to use our country as best we are able to weaken them before we fight them head on.” Roper paused and then allowed himself a rueful smile. “I think everyone here knows that we have nowhere to retreat to. The Hindrunn gates are locked to this army.”

A horn had sounded. It moaned low and faint through the mist. It came once. Then twice. Then a third time. “Enemy Attacking,” muttered Bellamus. Lord Northwic was on his feet at once, barking orders at his servants who now scurried out of the pavilion to fetch his armour, saddle his coursers, find out how far away and in what direction the enemy was, and half a dozen things besides.

He did not fight in battles. He preferred to give orders from an unobscured vantage point and so wore two thick layers of leather with chain mail in between to protect him against arrows.

but decisiveness was a disproportionate advantage in war.

The Anakim’s advantage lay in facing an unprepared enemy whose resistance would be scattered and half-hearted. If Bellamus could assemble something unexpectedly stubborn, there was a chance he could hold them. If he could hold them, Lord Northwic would be able to bring reinforcements and overwhelm them. He doubted they were facing the whole Anakim army. The chances of a full call-up approaching undetected were negligible. In any case, his spies had told him of the leadership crisis unfolding in the Hindrunn. It seemed unlikely that one general had managed to gain control over the whole army. This was a splinter force: it had to be, and together he and Lord Northwic could turn this surprise attack on its head. But he had to be fast, and he had to be decisive.

This Bellamus had learned first of all: whatever your plan is, execute it with utmost certainty.

“A general who rides a destrier?” said one of his bodyguards as soon as they were out of earshot. “What is the range of that thing, four hundred yards?” “A strange choice,” agreed Bellamus. More appropriate would have been a courser: faster, lighter and much better suited to spilling orders over a battlefield. A destrier—a full and heavily muscled battle horse—was a shocking beast to ride into combat but would tire quickly beneath a general. Still, Bellamus had been impressed by Roper, who seemed to have grown into his role in what must have been testing circumstances.

What if it is a diversion? What are they distracting us from? There was one obvious clue to that: they had attacked the southern end of the valley. If this was a diversion, it was probably calculated to tie up their forces away from the northern end. And what is at the northern end?

At the northern end of the valley: the wagon park. Their supplies, their equipment; their lifeline in this alien world. At that moment, the vast majority of their army was flooding towards this Anakim force. They had responded mindlessly, like a pack of dogs, to this simple threat, and had left the irreplaceable undefended. Bellamus had no proof, but it suddenly seemed glaringly obvious. “And we’ll be too bloody late,” he said bitterly.

She loved the throng as the legions returned. She loved the vigour of the feast that followed a successful campaign and the euphoria of the markets as legionaries who had been on marching rations for months bought everything they had desired in that time. She loved the talk of what had happened at war: the stories that circulated of campaign and the inevitable rash of betrothals that followed.

Roper’s business was now Keturah’s business, and Roper needed Uvoren’s war council to be destroyed. Vinjar Kristvinson had to fall and perhaps his wife would have the key to that. Keturah thought of herself as much a warrior as any of those away on campaign. This was her battlefield and Sigurasta, whether she knew it or not, was one of her allies.

“But I’ve seen it close and I’ve seen many of the faces it wears. It is better to know that it is coming.”

Have I given him too much? She did not know, but she thought she knew him and that the push she gave him would barely have made an impression. He would remember the laugh and the caress that had preceded it. He would not remember the push. She had to give him a little more each time. Enough so that he would think that he might be able to win her by charm and not have to resort to force; not so much that she ran out of room before her father returned. She needed him back soon. Time was running out for her.

They did what they could for the wounded, but often what they could was as simple as a knife to the heart.

“It feels … it feels as though my lungs are bruised,” he said, voice growing thinner and thinner as though he scarce had the heart to finish the sentence. Bellamus supposed this had weighed particularly heavily on Northwic, who bore ultimate responsibility for this army. It was his organisation which had been so ruthlessly exposed by this attack. Bellamus knew how that felt. He had seen defeats that left him utterly bereft; empty to the extent of feeling physically shrivelled, each breath like trying to swallow butterflies. At that moment, Bellamus himself felt more as though he had been slapped in the face. The word Northwic had used to describe this raid had lodged in him. Dismissive. The masters of this dreamworld had appeared at last and treated their efforts with contempt. Northwic and Bellamus had torched their way through the Black Kingdom, and the response had been silence. In retrospect, that silence seemed ominous. There was a bitter taste in the valley. Though Bellamus would not admit it, he was beginning to feel lost in this wasteland. From afar, the Anakim had fascinated him. In context, surrounded by an order that was alien to Bellamus, they were more disturbing than fascinating. The haughty, snow-dusted peaks were the overseers of this capricious wilderness, at whose whim you operated. On their return from pursuing Roper, Northwic’s forces had turned a corner on one of the tortuous Anakim roads and startled a grazing aurochs. The enraged bull had marauded th...

The Black Lord in particular had been at the heart of that effort. He had not ridden alongside the legionaries. He had walked with them, sharing each league, blister and flooded road. He had stumbled with them in the dark of a moonless night as they approached the Suthern encampment. On

So many names, it was a miracle that he knew them all. His secret was that every spontaneous interaction was planned; before he joined a group of men for the march, he would consult their officers. He cooked his own meals, tended his own weapons, minded his own mood and that of every man around him.

But he always kept that to himself. He had made his choice. This was how he led: by example and without compromise.

When a man strikes at you with a sword for the first time, you find the keys to a room which must never be opened except in battle. Some men have it, some men don’t.” “Peace is boring,” explained Pryce, more glibly. “Nothing compares to the thrill of one-on-one combat once you have tried it. Everything afterwards seems …” “Flat,” suggested another guardsman and Pryce shrugged, accepting the word.

“But there are those who will judge and despise you for loving the fight, lord,” continued Pryce, impatiently. “They will think you a barbarian, incapable of controlling your base instincts. They do not feel what you feel and cannot appreciate that neither you, nor they, have the power to change their own nature. But they rationalise their own nature, and like to deem it superior to other men and imagine they have tamed something that you cannot.”

“That is why this is the best man in the Black Kingdom,” said Pryce, pointing past Roper to Gray, who waved his hand dismissively. “His courage is far superior to mine as he is always acting in spite of fear which I do not feel. It is one thing to be born for this role. It is another to make yourself fit for it through total mastery of your emotions.”

“Does anyone here remember Reynar on the battlefield?” Gray looked around and chuckled. “Of course not. Oh dear, does that make me the oldest here? I suppose it does. He was not as wild as Pryce here, nor as ferocious as our friends Leon or Uvoren. When he fought, it was as though each action was undertaken not to slay the enemy, but to preserve his peers. To be sure, he cut down as many foemen as any other man in battle, but his blows and parries were as frequently in service of the men either side of him, as against those before him. On many occasions, fighting on his left, I knew I was about to die and Reynar’s sword preserved me, sometimes at the expense of his own wounds. He appeared to trust me; I did not feel protected or watched by him and yet, on several occasions when I was too tired or my skill was not enough, I was delivered just in time by Reynar. He must always have been aware of me; me, and the man on his right, whoever that happened to be. In him, I thought I had seen the ultimate incarnation of a warrior. One who fights for love of his peers rather than love of glory. You had to watch him closely to know it; he did not speak of such things and most only saw the celebrated warrior. But I believe that by the end I knew him well, and that I was correct in my assessment.

“Reynar handed me his sword, bade me take care of it and ran onto the bridge. He was sprinting for the fire-thrower, though he must have known he would never have made it. They turned it on.” Gray stopped again and took a spoonful of hoosh. He looked up at Roper and gave a depleted smile. “On that bridge, Reynar was finished. There was so much fire that afterwards we saw no trace of his body. Just empty armour and an upturned helmet. All I remember is him running head on into that jet of flame, raising a hand as though to shield himself from its heat.

Ramnea, she was called, and she was a beauty. Long, thin and paler than any Unthank blade that Roper had ever beheld. Her handle was engraved whale-bone and she seemed almost to glow in the dying light. She shared her name with the dog-headed angel of divine vengeance, and it had been an act of unusual generosity to bequeath the sword to Gray.

She reminds me that by shielding myself from what I knew must be done, I allowed a great man to die for me. To that example, I dedicate my life.”

Later, Pryce left the fireside and headed for the outer rim of the camp. He collected a thick leather roll of supplies: bleached linen strips, phials of vinegar in which betony had been soaked, spools of silk and catgut thread, curved steel needles, four tweezers (two needle-nosed, two flat-nosed), several leather tourniquets and a sharp knife. He skirted the camp perimeter, raising a hand to the sentries who hailed him, and soon found Gray staring out into an ink-black night. The moon and stars had vanished without trace behind dense cloud. “Old fool,” Pryce said irritably. “What?” “Show me your leg.” Gray lifted his chain-mail skirt to reveal a jagged wound in his thigh; deep and clotted thickly with blood. “Sit,” commanded Pryce. Gray sat, stretching out the injured leg before him, and Pryce began to clean it with a linen cloth, soaked in the betony vinegar. “How did you get this?”

They knew each guardsman’s name. They knew the name of his sword; what deeds it had performed.

Roper prayed for his brothers in the northern haskoli. He prayed for the souls of his father and mother. He prayed to become a better man. He prayed for a secure throne from which he might rule the country justly and effectively.

“Not as fast as Pryce,” he said. “But he looks faster because his movements are so economical. That man has perfected sword-craft. He’d skewer Pryce.”

You have badly wounded the Suthern army; they will be exhausted and malnourished and perhaps even diseased, but never underestimate the danger of the wounded beast.