Wolves of Midwinter Fire

The snows came down heavy in the winter-tide, and they drew fast around the hall of Elweag. The days were dark under low skies, thick with gathering frost, and the nights were silent and deep, unharrowed save for the baying of wolves in the dark hills. Here the armies of King Arnan – such as remained of them – had withdrawn to hide from their enemies, and here an uneasy peace reigned.

The hall belonged to Balra, the young son of Torgged, whose death had begun the war. He had opened his hall to the king, and here the blind king held his exiled court. Many of his thanes had slipped away, escaping to their own lands with their own men. Only those who had been driven out still remained here, and even in the hall itself there were those who gathered in shadow and whispered that Arnan had failed, and that Balra should be king.

The great pillar of Arnan’s remaining strength was his thane Haldr, and since the loss of Arnan’s hall, his prestige had fallen far. It was his own strength that sustained him now. Men knew him for a fierce warrior. He was a big man who bore scars and did not fear battle, and none dared to challenge the king within his sight. Without him, the blind king would be easily put aside, and blood would run on the ancient floor of the Shield Hall.

Haldr sat beside the king, his sheathed sword across his knees, and he watched. The fire was built high to keep the cold without, and the men gathered close around it at night. He watched their faces, knowing this winter was like a passage through the underworld, and those who wished to see the light again must be wary. The cold was murderous this year, and pressed in upon the walls, seeking a way in. Men stuffed cloths beneath every door and hung heavy furs over the windows to keep out the knifelike drafts. The wind bellowed like a beast stalking the forest.

Balra sat across the fire, his own supporters close to him, and every night it seemed some of Arnan’s men had shifted to his side of the hall. Haldr was glad that the king could not see it, but he wondered what he would do when there came a tipping point, and more men faced him than stood beside him. He did not think Balra would fight him personally. The boy was not a great warrior, and he still limped from the wound Hror had given him. That he had gouged out the usurper’s eye won him some respect, but Haldr knew if he faced the boy in open combat, he would kill him.

The men were caught between two choices, and neither seemed a good one. Arnan was a rightful king and a son of kings, but he was old and blind, and it seemed his spirit was broken. Balra was young, but he was indecisive and was swayed by his self-interested councilors. Neither man had the force or will to make for a king men would gladly follow. Beaten, driven back to this single shield hall, the kingship itself seemed a small thing. It might not survive the winter.

The side doors to the hall burst open and twoscore men surged to their feet, grasping for their weapons. A woman reeled into the hall in a cloud of snow and slammed the door shut behind her, then slumped to the floor, and then they saw the blood on her. Haldr hurried to her side while the other men stood and watched, unsure if they were about to be attacked.

He drew the girl up, saw she was a matron with gray in her hair and that she was wounded on the arm. Before she spoke he saw the marks of teeth and knew what had happened. “Wolves,” she moaned, clutching at him. “Wolves among the sheep. And something else, something moves in the dark.” Her eyes were intense, as though lit from within, and then she seemed to fade. Other women of the hall came to lift her and carry her, and Haldr let them take her away.

He stood. Wolves would kill the sheep and the goats, perhaps cattle as well. They needed every animal to feed the people through the cold, and if the wolves grew bold enough they would hunt men as well. He looked at the blood on the floor and realized they were already too bold. Something moves in the dark, the woman said, and Haldr suppressed a shudder. He knew more things than wolves hunted in the night, he had seen them before.

Quickly, he went to the chest and lifted out his mail shirt, drew it on and fastened his furred cloak over it. He went to the wall and took down a spear inlaid with a hammered bronze sign of the Speargod. “Who will go with me?” he said, and then he looked at them, that sea of milk-pale faces sick with fear and uncertainty. “Is no man brave enough?”

Two men moved the join him, then five, and at last he had ten. He watched as they gathered their weapons and prepared themselves for the cold. At last he looked at Balra, and fixed him with a stare. “Are you brave enough to defend your own hall?”

There was a long, silent moment, and men watched to see what the young thane would answer. Would he take up a spear, or would he stand back and let other men defend his hall? Haldr knew he could not simply hang back and retain his position. Men would see him as a coward, and that would end his ambitions. He kept his face impassive as Balra stood and met his gaze.

“Bring me my armor,” Balra said. “I will go into the night.”

o0o

Twelve men went forth into the bestial dark, spears and swords held ready, torches blazing to throw back the night. The sky was dark and low, the snow glittering on branch and fence-beam, and the wind blew cold and hard from the unseen north.

Haldr went first, feeling each year upon him like a weight. He was an old man to carry his burdens, but there was no one else to carry them, and he would bow to the earth itself before he broke. He carried a lantern in one hand and the spear in the other, and he led the men toward the pens. There was blood in the snow from the woman who had escaped, and then more around the body of another shepherd, killed when he came to see what disturbed the animals.

This was only one of several pens to hold sheep and goats, and when they passed the savaged corpse and looked inside, they saw nothing but blood. A dozen beasts lay slaughtered in the bright snow, red freezing around them in pools. Even in the brittle cold of the night air, the stench was powerful, and the men shied away from it. Battle was one thing, but this was simple butchery.

Haldr bent down and saw the tracks of wolves in the hard-packed snow. “Three wolves, maybe more,” a man said.

“It would have to be many more to have killed this many,” Balra said, looking at the prints. “A pack.”

Another man turned away and spat, trying to hide his revulsion. “If we hunt them in the dark, they will tear us to pieces.”

“This one was not killed by a wolf,” Balra said, crouching down with a torch held close. “This one died by a spear-stroke.”

Haldr stood, feeling uneasy, and he went to where Balra stood. Indeed, he saw the goat had been slain by a single spear-thrust. He turned and hunted through the snow around them and he found no human tracks, no marks of man, and he felt cold.

“The woman said something else walks in the dark,” Balra said, and Haldr gave him a hard glance, hoping to quiet him. The men did not need to be more frightened than they were.

“A renegade,” Haldr said. “A hunter with hounds from the forest hills. These were not wolves, then, they were dogs.” He glanced at Balra, then turned to the men. “He will have left a trail in the snow, we can follow him.”

“Into the hills, at night?” a man said, his voice uneven, and he drew back as though ashamed of himself.

“If he is a simple poacher,” Balra said quietly. “Why did he kill so much, and take nothing?”

Haldr knew the legends as well as the men did, and he did not want them to think too much on them. “So many have deserted this winter,” he said. “Some must still live in the hills, scavenging for food. Most would have enough of a grievance to kill for spite.” He went to the back of the pen and held his lantern high, revealing the hole torn in the fence, the beams splintered to make a way in. Wolves would have simply leaped over, but he said nothing of that.

Instead, he turned back to face the men. “I see no hoofprints, so he cannot have gone very far. He could be carrying a single sheep, or two. They would not be missed in this slaughter. We can follow his trail, and kill him. We must, or there will be more butchery, and more empty bellies.”

The men looked afraid, and he focused his gaze on Balra, who once again had that smooth, uncommitted look on his face, as though his mind were far away. Haldr pointed at him with his lantern. “When the children cry for meat, will you tell them you were too afraid to hunt down a thief?” He was angry and not certain why. He knew Balra was his rival, and only wished he would act as if he were, and not seem so distant.

For a long moment Balra was silent, and then he looked at Haldr, and there was a very faint, very slow smile on his young face. “I am not afraid.” He drew his sword and came forward, lantern held high so his brows shadowed his face and made him seem a man of darkness. “Let us go and hunt, and come back with blood.”

o0o

They went out into the night, squinting into the wind, each man afraid but unwilling to show it before his fellows. Haldr went in front, torch high and spear poised to strike. Outside the fences and the confines of the hall, the wind was far colder, and it seemed to claw down inside the collars and hoods of their winter furs.

Haldr felt the heat of his old burns with every motion, and for once he was almost glad of the pain that always followed him. They climbed the fence at the edge of the pasture and crossed the open land, following the churned path of wolf prints in the snow, until they came to the shadow beneath the eaves of the forest. It seemed to stand larger and darker than it should, and the silence of the night was all around them, expectant and endless.

“I see no human tracks,” Balra said, his voice calm and almost mocking.

Haldr kept his face away from the lantern, so his anger would not be seen. “Dog tracks would hide them, easily. The marks of one man would be wiped away.” He saw the men glancing at each other, rubbing ice from their faces as they did not speak of what they feared. “You wish to turn back?”

“One thing to hunt a man,” Balra said. “But what of hunting something else?”

“Then go back, and tell the women you ran from the fear of children’s tales!” Haldr said, turning so the light fell upon the blade of his spear. “Go back and show you are afraid!”

He saw a light glimmer in Balra’s eye, and then the younger man came to meet him, approached until they stood face to face, and Haldr gripped his spear and held it across between them like a barrier. Balra smiled. “I will not go back. I am not afraid, no matter how you wish me to be. Walk with me, king’s champion. Let us stalk this thing which kills with a spear, and walks on the feet of a beast.”

He rapped his sword against the blade of Haldr’s spear, and the men flinched back from the sound. Balra turned and made his way ahead into the dark, his lantern held before him. Haldr looked after him, and for a moment he almost gave in and drove his spear through his back, but instead he only followed. The wind cursed them, and the men looked to the hills as they heard the songs of wolves.

o0o

The hills by night were a land of shadows and ice, the men staggering, using their spears as walking canes to keep from falling as rocks turned beneath their feet. The trees reached out with barren black branches like claws, and the light from the lanterns seemed to make them move, hands reaching for them, unseen watchers slipping away just out of sight.

They were afraid, and Haldr could feel it, knew their courage was thin and held by sheer will, and his will was part of it. They followed him, because he was the king’s champion, he was the hero who had driven Crune from their midst and fought the undergods. Only now he was in the night hunting an unseen beast, and he knew there was only a thin reason for it, but now he had challenged Balra he could not turn aside.

They came down into a hollow, open to the sky, and when he looked up he saw the clouds growing tattered and thin, stars beginning to shine through, and he saw a cold sliver of moon, like a hooked blade seeking a throat. Haldr pushed ahead of Balra, to the center of the clearing, and he looked up at the sky, and when he lowered his gaze the woods were full of glimmering eyes.

He stared for a moment, and then he lowered his spear and braced it against his side. “Ware!” he screamed, and the men came alive, cursing as they formed a tight knot. They faced outward, spears and swords forming a wall of points. Their breath plumed like smoke in the frozen air, and he knew they would run all too easily. “Hold close!” he shouted. “Keep those lanterns high!”

He heard breathing from beneath the trees, and he saw more eyes, more than he would have thought to see. He heard the wolves huffing and growling and treading heavy upon the snow, and then he looked up and saw another pair of eyes high above the ground – higher than the eyes of a man. He drew in a great breath, and then the circle closed.

Great black wolves came to them from every side, and their eyes glimmered like silver and their mouths glowed as though from a ghostly inner fire. They rushed with bared fangs gleaming in the light of the dead moon. They did not look like ordinary wolves, for they were too big and too heavy, strange beneath the skin. They made no sound, so all that heralded the charge was the sound of feet churning the hard snow, and then they struck like the blow of an axe-blade.

In a moment the men were engulfed in a maelstrom of snarling beasts and flashing teeth. Spears struck and the wolves screamed as they were impaled, and then they were past the line and it was the men who screamed as they were ripped off their feet. Haldr struck a wolf down, then another, and then they were too close and he hurled his spear into them and drew his sword. Teeth ripped at his legs and he felt blood gush hot in the deathly cold.

The man to his left was knocked down and dragged shrieking into the mass, three of the beasts ripping at him as he thrashed. A huge wolf rose up before Haldr, teeth coming for his face, and he brought his sword down in a vicious blow that split the monstrous head in half. Blood painted his face, feeling hot as a fire.

The beasts crushed in upon him, and he ripped his sword free and struck left and right to try and force them back. Men died screaming all around, and he could not save them. He drew back his arm and smashed the lantern down on the snow, shattering it apart in a blossom of fire that seemed bright as the sun. A burning wolf howled and fled from him, and he stood for a moment alone, bloody sword in his fist, lit by boiling fire.

All around him, men lay dead, torn open and twitching in lakes of blood that smoked in the winter cold. Haldr looked at the circle of the wolves and there were still too many of them. At least six lay slaughtered on the battlefield, but there were a dozen more watching him, breathing fire and licking blood from their teeth. He had followed the trail into a trap, and there would be no escape for him.

He watched the wolves slink back, and he knew they were waiting for the fire to die down, for him to be caught in the dark, alone, and then they would come for him. He looked for another lantern and found one extinguished in a pool of blood, he splashed the oil that remained into the fire and it flared up again, but it could not last. He prized a fallen axe from a severed hand and gripped it in his left fist, readied himself for a last moment of blood and fury.

The wolves slunk away into the shadows of the forest, and then he heard the monstrous tread of something far larger. He stood at bay in the fading fire and watched as something dark walked between the trees, and then stood towering over him. It had the feet of a giant wolf, but it stood on two legs like a man. It carried a spear as long as any two spears, and the iron point was long as a sword blade.

It had no face, only eyes. Antlers reared above its head, branched and pointed like thorns, but even the firelight could not cast any reflection upon the darkness it had in place of features. The wolves prowled around its legs, and Haldr met that cold gaze and knew he faced now a greater creature of the dark than he had brought low before. This was no creeping revenant, this was an Undergod – the one named the Huntsman, and it hunted men.

Haldr looked up at it, and he should have felt fear, but all he felt was a despair that gnawed at his bones. What hope did men have against creatures of darkness? Against fell gods that stalked and slew and lived forever? He touched his thumb to the blood that ran from his wounded legs, and with it he marked the sign of the spear upon his face.

“I will not cower!” he shouted. “I will not bow to such as you! Come and make an end of it!” He held his axe and sword high, and the Huntsman came for him like a racing dark storm. The great spear lashed down and Haldr sprang back as it smote the earth, ripped free in a spray of scattered flames.

It struck at him again and he blocked the stroke with both his weapons, then rushed past it and hurled himself at the Huntsman’s legs. He struck with his axe and missed, fell in the bloody snow, and then teeth caught at his feet and dragged him back. The snarling wolves surrounded him, and he cut at them furiously. He looked in the golden eye of the one that was fastened on his leg, and then he chopped off its head with his axe.

The spear came down again, flashing like lightning, and it pierced him through and pinned him to the earth. He felt the cold of the steel inside him, stealing his breath, and blood flowed up from his mouth and stained the snow. Haldr imagined he could see his blood flowing down through the frozen surface, down into the earth and into the rocks and the roots.

The Huntsman ripped the spear free, and Haldr’s own blood scattered down upon him. A wolf lunged in to drink it and he turned and hacked its leg off with his axe, then threw the weapon aside and used his hand to crawl forward. The wolves put their teeth in him, devouring him, their fangs scraping on his armor, and then the Huntsman stepped close, spear raised to kill.

Haldr bared his own teeth, and in his last moment he slashed with his old sword and cut deeply into the Huntsman’s ankle, bringing him down to one knee, a cry of wrath and agony echoing to the stars. He smelled it, the terrible animal stink of the thing, the heat of its flesh so close. He looked up into one glowing brazen eye and screamed his curse upon it, and then it struck down with the spear again and he was gone.

o0o

The wolves feasted under the stars, and the sounds of ripping flesh and bone were terrible to hear. Balra watched from his place in the trees, watched the Huntsman tear out Haldr’s heart and devour it, and then the dark god stood again, crippled, leaning on its spear like an old man upon a cane. The wolves snarled and tore at Haldr’s corpse, until it was nothing recognizable as human.

When they were done, Balra stepped forth into the faint light of the dagger moon. The wolves turned to look at him, their eyes shining fire, and he trembled, but he did not stop. He held out his sword and dropped it to the snow, and the wolves watched him as he approached, measuring each step. The Huntsman’s eyes watched him, and he felt the weight of the terrible gaze.

The wolves parted and let him pass, and then he fell to his knees before the dark god, and bent his face to the bloody snow. “I come as a supplicant,” he said, his voice shaking. “I will worship you, and bring other men to worship you. Spare me, and allow me to be your servant.”

There was a long silence then, beneath the stars, and the wind was the only sound save for the breathing for the wolves. Balra remained on his knees, breathing smoke into the winter air, and he awaited a sign. The shadow moved, and he held still as death as the bloody spear came down, slow, and touched the back of his neck, and the wolves howled as one.