Of Limited Loyalty

Chapter Eighteen

2 May 1767 Dire Wolf Draw Westridge Mountains, Mystria

The wolves came after darkness fell, silent as death, dark as shadows, only betrayed by sparks of firelight glinting in amber eyes. Nathaniel couldn’t figure out why they’d come. Growls and snarls in the distance had communicated the fate of the three they’d already killed. If the valley was at all like Little Elephant Lake, they should have had more than enough to feed on. Could have been they didn’t like the intrusion. In his experience, however, despite their fearlessness, they’d always been inclined to let men pass unless someone was bleeding or food was scarce.

The meager fire provided a sphere of light just less than thirty yards in diameter, so when they came, the dire wolves came fast. Nathaniel, crouching behind the low wall, tracked the biggest of them and shot. The bullet caught it square in the chest, dropping it. Other wolves leaped over it, giving him just enough time to club his rifle before they hit.

Other shots had killed wolves, but the holes in their line closed fast. Rathfield hit another with a pistol-shot, then cast aside the handgun and stabbed with his rifle. The bayonet was almost long enough to go clean through a dire wolf’s chest. The beast’s momentum and weight forced Rathfield to raise it, thrashing, as if his rifle was a pitchfork, tumbling him back from the line.

Makepeace, roaring like the bear that had once mauled him, stepped up with a long knife in one hand and short ax in the other. He split a skull with an overhand blow and buried his knife in a wolf’s breast. The stabbed beast twisted, ripping the knife from Makepeace’s hand, then closed its jaw on his left forearm.

Beyond him Kamiskwa brandished his warclub, in the half-light looking every bit the sort of demon that preachers warned would torture the unworthy in Hell. The heavy wooden club came up and around in an arc that crushed skulls. Blood sprayed from the obsidian blade as it slashed through thickly matted fur. Kamiskwa matched the wolves’ snarls with curses and challenges, then broke those that came at him.

Owen fixed a bayonet to his rifle, just as had Rathfield. Owen benefited, however, from having had years dealing with wild creatures. Instead of stabbing heavily as one might with a man, intent on driving him into the ground, Owen’s strokes came quickly. He slid steel into their breasts, then pulled it free. His rifle butt came around to fend them off, driving them back so they could bleed out.

Two wolves came over the wall at Nathaniel. He caught one with his rifle’s butt, hitting it a straight-on blow right between the eyes. It fell back, twitching. The other one came on and bit him in the leg. It tugged, teeth finally piercing deerskin and the flesh beneath, and pulled Nathaniel down to one knee. He drew his tomahawk and killed it, but it took four blows to sever its spine, and that didn’t loosen its jaws.

The wolves kept coming. The low wall had done its part, but had collapsed near the middle. The wolves leaped over the dead and through the gap. They turned left and right, snapping at men’s flanks and legs. The fight might have been lost there, save for Ian Rathfield.

If Kamiskwa had been a demon, Rathfield returned to the line a man possessed by demons. He shrieked inhumanly, his face a mask of fury. He waded into the wolves, heedless of their worrying his legs, and smashed them with his musket. He knocked two flying, then a third, and shattered his musket’s butt on a fourth’s skull. That didn’t matter, however, because he just reversed the weapon and stabbed with the speed of a scorpion. When a wolf finally got hold of his rifle’s sling and tugged it out of his grasp, he bent down, grabbed one of the stones that had been in the wall, and hurled it two-handed, splattering that wolf’s brains.

Screaming defiantly, he stepped over the wall, kicking dire wolf bodies out of the way. Makepeace came quickly up beside him, but the wolves had already decided to retreat. A handful limped away into the darkness, their howls short and pain-filled.

Owen and Makepeace sorted out the bodies, slitting throats. Kamiskwa, using an obsidian knife, cut the jaw muscles of the beast with its teeth in Nathaniel’s leg. As he did that, Nathaniel reloaded his rifle-both because it needed to be done and it let him think about something other than the pain.

Rathfield, fists balled, stared into the darkness after the wolves.

Nathaniel nodded to Kamiskwa. “Thanks. We’ll be needing to find us some mogiqua.”

“I have dried leaves I can make into a tea. After brewing, we can use the wet leaves for a poultice.”

“Best be getting Colonel Rathfield on the outside of a swallow or three.”

“Agreed. He is tired.”

The way he said it, Kamiskwa meant the man was in shock. Nathaniel guessed it was the simple ferocity of the fight more than it was pain. Everyone save for Kamiskwa had gotten gnawed on, but none of the others were still locked in the fight.

“Colonel.”

No response.

“Colonel Rathfield, sir.” Nathaniel slowly stood. “Colonel, I’ve got me the first watch. You go and rest now.”

Rathfield turned slowly, his eyes eventually focusing on Nathaniel’s face. He looked him up and down. “Woods, you’re wounded. Get that taken care of.”

“Begging your pardon, sir, but you’re more gnawed on than I am, and I have a rifle. Kamiskwa will fix you up.”

Rathfield looked down at his empty hands then found the splintered remains of his musket on the ground. “It will take some work to fix that.”

“We’ll see to it, sir.”

The Norillian nodded torpidly. He turned and watched Owen and Makepeace stretch the wolves out and begin skinning them. “Is this a time to be taking trophies?”

“Ain’t quite looting the dead.” Nathaniel jerked a thumb toward the bodies. “Iffen they’da kilt us, they’d have eaten what they could, left the rest for crows and the like. I ain’t much for eating wolf-don’t know many who is-but them furs is worth something. So we’ll take what we can use, leave the rest for the scavengers. It’s the way things is done here.”

“I see.” Rathfield pointed to the wolf he’d brained with a rock. It had been one of the larger ones, and had a coat that ran more to black than gray. “Please, save me that one, and the one I broke my musket on. I will do the skinning if you’ll show me the proper way. I think the Prince would like a specimen. And there are men of my acquaintance in Norisle who’d not believe lest they run their fingers through the pelt.”

“I reckon we can do that.”

By the time Owen and Makepeace had finished skinning the wolves and dragging the carcasses away from the campsite, Kamiskwa had bandaged Rathfield’s wounds and made him drink mogiqua tea. That put the Norillian to sleep, so the others skinned the two wolves he wanted saved for himself and piled the skins near the fire. They’d killed seventeen of the animals, which made it the largest pack Nathaniel had ever heard of, and that wasn’t including the three killed previously.

Owen took over for Nathaniel. “If he complains we skinned his kills when he wakes up, we’ll tell him we wanted to get the carrion away from camp.”

“I don’t reckon he’ll remember much.”

Owen raised an eyebrow. “You’re smiling, and I’m guessing your amusement is at my expense.”

“Ain’t it at all, Owen.” Nathaniel shook his head. “I was just remembering what I thought of you when I met you and how that changed. The Colonel, he done changed my mind a bit this here night. I kinda figured that once he went down, that was all the fight he had.”

Owen glanced over at where the tall man lay stretched out. “Given what they say about him being a hero, I shouldn’t be surprised, but had you asked me before how he’d act, it wouldn’t have been like that.”

“I agree.” The Mystrian hunter frowned. “You remember Rufus Branch?”

Owen rubbed at the back of his head. “Tried to crack my skull with a musket and tried to murder you. Makepeace’s brother shot him in his hindquarters. He’s long gone.”

“Three year now, and ain’t lamented.” Nathaniel’s eyes narrowed. “Thing of it was that he was sneaky and more inclined toward lazy and coward than otherwise, but the few times he got into the thick of it, he’d fight like he weren’t human. Reminded me of the Colonel.”

“What do you think does that?”

Nathaniel shrugged. “Used to think it was what a coward does when he just cain’t be no more scared. I mean, some of ’em, they’ll just curl up in a ball and whimper. But there’s a set-always the ones who don’t seem to have a terrible great liking for themselves-just lose their minds. I ain’t much for that, even if they’re on my side in a fight. Don’t mind a man killing a lot, just want him thinking while he does it.”

“You think Rathfield a coward? Deep down? That doesn’t make any sense. He won the battle of Rondeville all by himself.”

“Did he? Or is that just the way the story gets told?” Nathaniel scratched at his throat. “He didn’t seem to remember how the moon was that night. I reckon if you don’t write down the details of this little set-to, ain’t none of us gonna remember it none too good, neither. And the way he told it at the meeting, he was all but dead when they found him. He’d not amember nothing. What if the men who found him made up their own story and when he done waked up, he just went along with it?”

“Rather than be labeled a coward?” Owen’s eyes narrowed. “But if that’s true, why would my uncle send… No, never mind. The question is, why did my uncle hope he’d die out here?”

“I reckon there ain’t but one man can answer that question, and he’s a mite far away for the asking.”

“I have no complaint about that.” Owen forced a small smile. “You go get yourself some sleep.”

The next morning Nathaniel woke up stiff and sore, but not nearly as bad off as he expected. He made sure not to let Rathfield get any clue as to how achy he was, since the Norillian wasn’t moving very quickly himself and appeared disinclined to want to talk much. Rathfield said nothing about the wolves and agreed to help Kamiskwa harvest mogiqua for poultices and more tea.

The others set to preparing the wolfskins for preservation. Using dull knives and stone scrapers, they took off every bit of flesh they could find, then lay the skins out to dry in the sun. Because of the canyon’s orientation and depth, they didn’t get nearly enough sunlight, and they didn’t have enough salt to even begin to cure the skins, but they did what they could.

When they finally lost useful sunlight for drying, they explored and discovered that about five hundred yards toward the southwest, the canyon narrowed considerably. Wide enough to allow a pygmy mastodon through, or a couple of wolves shoulder to shoulder, the canyon would have caught a wooly rhino fast. They set about harvesting small trees, trimming them, sharpening the ends and sticking them into the ground, pointing to the southwest. They cross-braced them so even seriously determined dire wolves couldn’t drag them out of place. While a jeopard would have leaped over the triple rank of spears without a thought, the barricade would be enough to keep the wolves out.

They spent three more days in the canyon. An abundance of the fern called mogiqua by the Shedashee encouraged their decision to remain. As a tea, or just chewed raw, it had a bitter taste and numbed aches and pains. Mogiqua poultices did the trick on wounds, preventing infection. The bites closed quickly and it didn’t appear as if they would scar too badly.

By the morning of the sixth day, everyone was ready to head out. Because the skins had not had time to properly cure, they opted to bind them up tightly and stash them in a small cave on the south side of the canyon. It never got any sun and would stay cool at least until their return trip. They blocked the entrance with stones and defecated nearby to keep animals away.

Though the trail they’d started following had become older, it hadn’t become any more difficult to read. The two men they were pursuing were making no effort to hide their trail, and were moving on with a fair amount of haste. While they found campsites with cold ashes, their quarry hadn’t left behind any bones to indicate that they’d hunted or trapped while traveling.

Nathaniel straightened up from where he’d been examining a footprint. “We hain’t gained nothing on them, but over that next rise, I reckon we might get a gander at where they’re heading.”

Rathfield, who carried the remains of his musket slung over his back, nodded. “Then, by all means, let us not waste the rest of the day.”

They came up through a narrow valley and at the highest point, where it opened widely to the west, they all stopped. The mountains gently merged with forested hills, which gave way to flat plains covered in lush green grasses. Nathaniel thought it might have been a trick of his vision that he saw black dots on the plains, but were that true, and at that distance, they would have had to be full-grown mammoths or wooly rhinoceri. The plains faded endless into the distance and Nathaniel suddenly felt very small.

Kamiskwa came up beside him and rested a hand on his shoulder. “There are stories of Gushneypak. ”

“Green Ocean?”

“Yes. There are Shedashee tribes living out there. We call them the foolish ones, Torenkii. They are always on the move, following the herds.”

“You have to go where the prey is.”

“That’s not why they are foolish.” Kamiskwa rested a hand on the knife at his belt. “They consider their villages to be islands in the ocean, but they forget what lives under the green.”

“What?”

The Altashee sighed. “The reason these mountains were raised, my friend, was to keep what lurks out there from bursting free. You think that the city we found was their furthest outpost, but you mark the distance from Aliantis and where it sank in the ocean. But you’re wrong.”

He pointed off toward the west. “They came from out there, and this is as far as they got, before the land itself swallowed them, and the grasses wove a net that would forever keep them buried.”