Night of Wolves

9

Jerico felt lost in a storm of people, and nothing made sense. At first it was only a trickle, a single family claiming the wolves had come. He grabbed his shield and mace, but before he could leave, another family arrived, holding their bleeding son in their arms.

“Two of ’em!” the father cried. “They got Terry. They got my son!”

Fearing the full attack to come, he sought out Darius. Not finding him, he instead located Daniel and his men, who had also prepared themselves for battle.

“Death may be coming for us,” Daniel said, “but we’ll meet it armed and ready. Gods willing, we’ll take plenty of them with us!”

They marched to the center of town, and that was when Jerico found Darius. He waited there, looking strangely calm amid the din. People were shouting, asking questions. He ignored them all.

“Jerico,” he said, seeing him. “Two attacked the outer farms, Douglas and Wheatley. I saw more, but they kept back, circling.”

“Why didn’t you chase them down, then?” Daniel asked, pushing people aside to join them.

“Because I am no fool,” Darius said, glaring at the older man. “They’re circling, don’t you get it? We’re completely cut off from the world. Every road, every farm, even the river…the wolf-men watch them all.”

The realization hit Jerico like a blow from his own mace.

“We’re trapped,” he whispered. “What do we tell the people? What do we do?”

“My baby!” a mother wailed behind them. Jerico couldn’t think of her name. She was a lost face in a sea of frightened villagers. Several more wandered about, bleeding, and Jerico saw the wounded man in a cart sitting beside him in the square.

“We need to get the wounded somewhere,” he said. “I can heal them, though it’ll take much of my strength.”

“The attack isn’t coming today,” Daniel said. “You have time.”

“How do you know?”

“Because if it was coming today, they’d bloody well do it. They’ve given us warning now, which does them no good. That means they plan on keeping us here, nice and quiet, while they starve us, weaken and frighten us.”

Jerico glanced to Darius, who nodded in agreement.

“Move the wounded to the inn,” said the dark paladin. “I’ll check the roads north. Daniel, send men to check the south. Have the rest try to keep order here. We need to take stock of what we have, in both food and weaponry. If they’re to trap us, then we need to lay a trap right back. We are the cornered animal, gentlemen, so let’s act like it.”

Jerico stepped back, pushing his way toward Dolores’s inn.

“Bring your wounded!” he shouted to them. “All hurt, all bleeding, come to me at Dolores’s!”

Inside he found Dolores sitting on a stool, her hands crossed on her lap. She was crying.

“We’re all to die, aren’t we?” she asked.

“Someday,” Jerico said, clearing space on the floor. “But not today.”

“I’m not scared of dying,” she said as the first of many followed, carrying wounded or bearing wounds themselves. “But to die to them…to be alive when they…they…”

“Dolores!” Jerico looked at her, refusing to let his gaze falter. She stared at him, tears running down her face, and her old lips quivered. “Not now. Not ever. Help me, please. Blankets, bandages, and towels for the blood. Your passing will be in your sleep, even older, and even crankier. You think a damn wolf can chew through your leathery hide?”

She smiled at him, and whatever daze she’d been in crumbled.

“Lay ’em the other way,” she said as Jerico put the first down. “More room. Ugh, so much blood. You got a needle for stitches?”

“Something like that,” Jerico said, closing his eyes and putting his hands on a man’s chest, lined with eight vicious cuts. Where his fingers touched skin they glowed with white light, and after a quiet moment, the light plunged within, smoothing over the flesh and knitting torn muscle.

More and more came in, crowding the small inn. Dolores guided them to corners, and she wrapped blankets across those Jerico healed. The sobs of both healthy and sick echoed upon the walls.

“Jerico!” a boy cried out. He glanced that way, saw Perry kneeling over Jacob Wheatley.

“Close your eyes and be strong,” Jerico whispered to a woman who had lost her arm. He’d closed the wound and wrapped it with a bandage, the best he could do. Walking to Perry, he stopped a moment, a dizzy spell coming over him.

“He stayed back ’cause I couldn’t keep up,” Perry said, glancing down at Jacob. “You’ll help him, won’t you? I don’t want him…him…he can’t die. It’ll be all my fault. My fault!”

Jerico knelt to examine the wounds. His back was bleeding, but it appeared to be from shallow slashes that would only prove fatal if they became infected. The bite on his chest, however…

“Be with him,” Jerico prayed, his hands on the rupture. The blood felt hot on his fingers. The light bathed over them both. Slowly, the change unseen through the light, the skin closed into a long, angry scar. When finished, Jerico leaned against the wall and gasped. So many. He had never been the greatest at healing, and facing so many wounded, so many clawed and mangled people…

“Come on,” Dolores said, offering her hand. He took it and stood.

“I have needle and thread,” she continued. “Save those beyond all but Ashhur. The rest, well, they can do with a bit of stitching for now.”

“Thank you,” he muttered.

They triaged the worst, Jerico praying at their sides to close gaping wounds while Dolores moved about, sewing shut minor cuts and applying tourniquets when it was clear the limb was lost. By the time he was done, there were forty men, women, and children lying on the floor in blankets, with the lesser wounded staying in various rooms, including Darius’s. Seven died, and quietly Jerico took them behind the inn for eventual burial.

They cleared out every piece of furniture but for two chairs, and Jerico sat in one beside Dolores, looking over the many. They were crying, sleeping, or staring into the distance. Dolores had had to force all family members out. In some ways, that had been the worst. No matter how often Jerico told them there was no room, that they had to leave, they still sobbed, still clutched at their loved ones as if they might never see them again. Breaking that up felt wrong, but he knew it must be done.

“Jerico?”

The paladin glanced up to see Darius standing at the door. He gestured outside, and Jerico nodded.

“Will you watch them?” he asked Dolores.

“Go on,” she said. “You have much to do, but don’t push yourself. Hate to find you on my floor with the others.”

Jerico stepped carefully among the bodies, then followed Darius outside. Daniel had returned, though his men were still hurrying about the town. Things had calmed down, but only a little. It seemed like everyone had a task set before them, and that kept down the bulk of the panic.

“So what’s the story?” he asked.

“Patrols to both directions,” Darius said, and Daniel nodded in agreement.

Jerico sighed, wishing he was a cussing man. He knew plenty that felt appropriate for the situation

“Where’s Jeremy Hangfield?”

“Taking stock of our supplies,” Daniel said. “We got lucky. With everyone preparing to move out, most had gathered up their belongings and brought them into town already. Because of this, we got plenty of food to live on, at least for a week or two. If they plan on starving us out, it’ll take time, time I doubt they have. Sir Godley will notice something is up, if not one of the other towers.”

Jerico caught sight of a man in black robes approaching, and he raised an eyebrow.

“That your friend?” he asked Darius. The paladin turned, and seeing the man, bowed on one knee in respect.

“Pheus, you’ve returned to us,” he said.

“I have,” said the priest, glaring at Jerico. “Two wolf-men accosted me on the northern road.”

“How did you escape?” Jerico asked.

Pheus gave him a look of such contempt it chilled his blood.

“I killed them, of course.”

“We’ll need all the help we can get,” Darius said. “And the question is, do we hunker down, or try to punch through their circle?”

“They’ll harry us for miles,” Jerico said, shaking his head. “No matter which direction we go, it sounds like they’ll be watching. Our best chance now is to protect ourselves and hope someone notices our isolation; the traders they attacked last night, perhaps.”

“What about sending off a boat for aid?” Daniel asked. “Down south to the nearest tower, or better yet, to the Citadel?”

Jerico winced, and he saw both priest and paladin of Karak look his way. Darius’s eyes revealed nothing, though Pheus was clearly amused.

“The Citadel is no more,” Jerico said. “We will get no aid from them.”

He turned to leave. A hand grabbed his shoulder, and he spun, his hand reaching for his weapon. Darius pulled away, and he looked at the mace with a mixture of betrayal and anger.

“I wanted to thank you for what you did in there,” he said, gesturing to the inn. His voice lacked what conviction it might have had, though. Jerico released the handle of his mace and nodded.

“We’ll gather everyone into a few places to sleep,” Daniel said, glancing between them. He clearly felt the tension in the air, and he pushed on to change the subject. “Will make it easier keeping watch. Need to get our food into safe places too, so they can’t destroy it. Oh, and last of all, we need to stay off each other’s throats. Times before a battle can make even the kindest men turn to ogres. Let’s all remember that, eh?”

“I have wounded to attend,” Jerico said. “Excuse me.”

He returned to the inn, feeling both furious and embarrassed by that fury. Darius had meant no insult, yet he felt hot under the collar anyway. It was just the way that priest stared at him, with a mocking glint. No doubt he’d cheered when the Citadel fell. No doubt he expected Darius to feel the same way. Did he?

“Any news worth sharing?” Dolores asked him, keeping her voice low so as not to wake the sleeping.

“No,” he said. “What hope we have is little.”

She frowned.

“Out in the back,” she said. “Will you take care of ’em?”

He sighed. His temples throbbed, his forehead ached with every heartbeat, but still he nodded.

“Might be the only chance we have to bury our dead,” he murmured.

“Don’t you talk like that,” Dolores said. “Not where they can hear. Thought you smarter than that.”

Jerico accepted the berating in silence, then left the inn once more.

At Jeremy’s mansion he found a shovel, and he brought it with him to the inn. There was plenty of open space behind it. Normally the people of Durham buried their dead at the corners of the fields, returning them to the ground that allowed them to prosper. There would be no such act, not with the wolves closing in. The ground was soft enough, and he dug the first of many graves. After he was done with the second, and the sun had started its descent, coloring the sky pink, Darius arrived. The dark paladin watched for a moment, left, and then returned with another shovel. Jerico put the bodies in, and Darius covered them up. This they did until the seventh, and both stabbed their shovels into the ground and leaned their weight against them.

“I’m sorry about the Citadel,” Darius said.

“Are you?”

Darius sighed, and he looked away. When he looked back, he knew for certain his answer.

“Yes. I am.”

Jerico gestured to the graves.

“Hundreds of my brethren died. I saw them in a vision, granted to me by Ashhur. No one will dig them graves. No one will gather before them to mourn. The dead tore apart their bodies and cast them to the dirt. Who deserves such a fate? Who would hate us so?”

The Voice of the Lion, Pheus had said. Darius knew that name, though he had never met him. The fabled prophet of Karak, his priest since before the Gods’ War. Eyes of blood and fire, and never the same face. He was a relic of a more fanatical time. At the Stronghold, Darius had been taught to honor him should they ever meet, for none were supposed to be closer to their deity. And now he had brought low the Citadel. Would Jerico understand? Could he? Were they truly at war, and Jerico an enemy he had befriended?

“I fear whatever answer I might give will offer no satisfaction,” he said.

“You’re probably right. Every part of me wants to leave, to go to the rubble and see it for myself. I don’t want to believe it. I might never, really, until I see the wreckage. How could…how could Ashhur abandon us so?”

The crisis of faith seemed too personal, too close to home for Darius. He turned away and gestured to the setting sun.

“We should go inside and rest. Unless the wolf-men are exceptionally clever, they’ll attack at night, which will be when you and I must stand guard. It’ll be a long night, and following a long day, but we’ll endure. Won’t you, Jerico?”

Jerico stood and clapped Darius on the shoulder.

“Forgive my behavior, Darius. I’m tired, scared, and sad. That priest of yours, when I see him looking at me…I feel more alone than ever. And hated, too. I never should have disrespected you so.”

“All’s forgiven,” Darius said. “I’ll be with the wounded at the inn. Daniel’s men are watching Jeremy’s estate. That leaves the tavern for you.”

“Thank you,” Jerico said.

“For?”

In answer, he gestured to the mounds of dirt, the only marker for the seven dead.

“Think nothing of it,” said Darius. “They won’t be the last. Together, life and death, the fate of the village rests in our hands, both yours and mine. Peaceful nights, Jerico.”

“To you as well.”

They split for their respective assignments.

S he’d always liked the privacy of her room, and that’s what Jessie Hangfield missed most of all. Keeping her bed to herself had required little argument, but three other women slept on the floor. They shuffled, cried, and snored. Every noise bothered Jessie to no end. There were summer nights where even the song of the cicadas could keep her staring at her ceiling for hours. Hearing such inconsistent noises breaking the quiet only reminded her she was not alone, and not yet asleep despite how tired she felt.

Jessie shifted to her side and stared out the window of her room. The glass was recently cleaned, product of a strange delusion that she should tidy up the place before the swarm of guests invaded her father’s home. It was only when the women arrived that she realized how stupid she’d been. A pink talking rabbit could have greeted them at the door, and they still would have thought nothing of it. Their eyes were wide, but seeing nothing. She knew them all, and she felt too scared to ask them of their families.

“Blessed of the light, watch over me,” she heard Lyla pray. Lyla was beside her bed, wrapped in a thin blanket she’d brought from her home. It was the fifth time she’d begun the ritual prayer to Ashhur. No matter that others were trying to sleep. It seemed that ritual cadence was the only thing keeping her sane. She was not that much older than Jessie, with a handsome husband and a newborn babe. No amount of courage could have convinced her to ask where they were, nor ask her to be quiet.

So she shouted it mentally. Shut up, shut up, shut up! It was unfair, absurdly unfair, but this was her room. She wanted to bury her face in her pillow and scream until her lungs gave out, to cry until her pillow could take no more tears. Every noise she heard made her heart stop. Every weird creak was the step of a wolf. Jessie could imagine one leering over her, its mouth drooling, its yellow eyes glowing in the darkness. Tears ran down her face, and she wiped them with a blanket. Lyla began her prayer for the sixth time. Jessie whispered the words along this time, begging Ashhur to let her sleep, to let her forget the day’s horror for only a few blissful hours.

Granny Jane slept by the door. As if on clockwork, she rolled from her left side to her right every ten minutes. She snored loud, long, and with enough depth that Jessie thought it could pass for the growl of a bear. Her husband had died several years back, and as Jessie wiped tears from her face she wondered how in the world Granny’s husband had endured those many nights. Maybe he’d wedged cotton into his ears, or better yet, candle wax. That’s what she should have done. Despite her exhaustion, she pondered leaving her bedroom and searching the kitchen for some wax to use. But no matter how much she wanted to, she never worked up the nerve. The reason was stupid, she knew, but in her exhausted mind it didn’t seem to matter. She didn’t want to offend her guests, or make them feel they were unwanted. Because in truth she wasn’t a selfish girl, and she knew they’d all suffered far worse than her that day.

“Blessed of the light, watch over me. May I walk your road and never stray…”

A shape blocked the window, a small part of it glinting yellow. Jessie screamed. The window smashed open. As the shards fell, the wolf-man crashed atop of Lyla, its claws flinging blood in wild arcs across the room. Jessie screamed again, and blood splashed across her face, stinging her eyes. Lyla, poor Lyla…this couldn’t be happening. Her mind refused to believe it.

The third guest, a midwife named Wilma, bolted to a sit, screaming as well. She turned to crawl, her portly body nearly smothering Granny Jane on her way to the door. The wolf-man would have none of it. It leapt atop her next, its teeth sinking into the fat of her back. Jessie felt her bladder let go. The creature was so huge, and it flung Wilma’s head side to side, snapping her neck. The sound it made, like a heavy branch breaking on someone’s knee, spurred her to action. She rolled off the bed, away from the door. She didn’t want the thing to see her. That was all she could think of, that infantile desire to hide.

The thing snarled, and suddenly she found breathing difficult. The opposite side of the bed was not enough. She crawled underneath, quietly sobbing the whole while. As if from a hundred miles away, she heard shouts from further within her father’s house. Granny knelt against the door, her mouth open and her eyes wide. Her left arm reached for the knob, flailing at it wildly as if she’d forgotten how the contraption worked.

“Get out of here!” Granny shouted. At first Jessie thought she shouted at the beast, but then realized it was to her she cried. “The window, out now!”

Granny held the doorknob tight, and when the wolf-men tore into her, she never let go. Unable to stop crying, Jessie looked away and crawled for the other side. The window…the glass was shattered from the creature’s arrival. If she could sneak out and hide, she might survive. Stumbling onto her feet, she ran for it, unafraid of the jagged edges of glass that remained. Shards littered the floor as well, and they cut her bare feet. Something tripped her, and she cried out. Lyla’s body. They stared face to face, noses almost touching. Panic gave her speed she didn’t know she possessed. Her hands clawed at the window, and up she went, thinking only of escape. Something tugged her dressed, she fought, and then she was flying.

“No!” she shrieked at the top of her lungs, landing atop her piss-soaked bed. The wolf-man towered over her, blood on its claws and pieces of flesh hanging from its teeth.

“Four for Yellowscar,” it snarled, reaching for her throat.

The door burst inward, and in the distraction, Jessie dove once more to the ground. She rolled under the bed, her arms tucked against her chest. She closed her eyes and wished she could blot out the sounds. The wolf-man snarled, but several men were crying out. Steel hit claw, and daring to open her eyes, she saw the soldiers from Blood Tower had come. The wolf twisted and struck, but every time she heard it scrape against something, a shield perhaps, or maybe their armor. Another set of legs came through the open door. She wanted to run for it, but she feared getting in their way. Not knowing what else to do, she prayed the same cadence, her heart aching for poor Lyla.

“Blessed of the light, watch over me.”

A man cried out. Blood splashed to the floor.

“May I walk your road and never stray.”

The soldier hit the ground, his head facing hers. Air leaked from his torn throat.

“May I feel your arms around me when I fall.”

The life in his eyes faded, his arms twitching their last. The wolf-man growled deep.

May I sing your praises when I stand.

More cries. The legs of the soldiers surrounded the wolf, and she heard it yelp in pain.

Blessed of the light, may I love you, as you have always loved me.

A hand reached for her under the bed, and she took it. Crawling out, she looked up to see her father.

“Daddy,” she cried, flinging her arms around him and sobbing into his chest.

“There, there,” Jeremy said, stroking her head as beside her the soldiers dragged the bleeding, bound body of the wolf-man from the room.

She never wanted him to let her go.