Roland Green: Great King_s war

Kalvan never saw whether or not his shots hit; he was thrown back in his saddle as his horse reared and struck out with its hooves at the attacking wolves. The next thing he knew, he was on the ground and the black wolf was worrying his left boot.

Kalvan tried to pull out his sword, but it was caught in the scabbard now pinned under his left leg. He found his knife at the same moment the black wolf realized its prey wasn't dead or stunned.

The wolf lunged and Kalvan threw his knife. The blade sank into the wolf's shoulder, but the oversize beast never even flinched. Suddenly he could smell its carrion-laden breath, stinking like the Hellfire and Brimstone his minister father had so often and so eloquently described. He closed his eyes and braced himself for terrible pain.

Instead of pain, he heard a deafening explosion. Then the wolf smashed into him, knocking the wind out of him but thankfully not sinking its teeth into his flesh.

He opened his eyes to the blurred movements of someone throwing off the wolf carcass. The next thing he saw was the face of Captain Nicomoth, his aide-de-camp.

"Your Majesty! Are you hurt?"

He looked down and saw bloodstains on his breeches. He quickly felt his legs. No pain or cuts; the blood must be the wolf's. He shook his head, sighing in relief. The prospect of a bite-wound without reliable antiseptics was bad enough, but more than a score of his subjects had died this winter of rabies. That possibility frightened him more than all of Styphon's armies.

"Sire…" Nicomoth stammered. "I don't know what to say…I can't understand how you rode so far ahead of the rest of the party. What will I tell the Queen?"

"Nothing, Captain. She has a breeding woman's fears, and I want nothing to upset her now." Particularly since I'll be on the sharp end of her tongue, not you! "Understood?"

"Yes, Sire."

"What about our party? Was anyone hurt?"

"Yes, one. Petty-Captain Vantros. He was badly mauled by one of the wolves. He will most likely never use his left leg again."

If he survives, thought Kalvan, cursing to himself. One more victim of the hard winter and one less trooper to fight the war that would arrive with spring.

"Mount up," he ordered. He waited until Vantros had been strapped into his saddle before giving the order to move out. He examined what the wolves had left behind: the body of a heifer calf, dead and already half-eaten in the few minutes the wolves had been at it. He could also see the fire more clearly now; it was the thatched roof of a log barn, blazing merrily and quite out of control. In the glare he saw figures in peasants' clothing darting among the other farm buildings, beating out embers with old sacks or dousing them with buckets of snow. Two stood guard over what looked like a cow and a couple of pigs. Half a dozen clipped turkeys ran in circles.

No bandits, just an accidental fire and an escaped calf to draw the wolves. They had paid a high price for their half-eaten meal, too. Now what could he do for the people on the farm? Kalvan dug in his spurs and set his horse at the slope.

He didn't find any surprises at the farm: animals with their ribs showing, a father and two grown sons with eyes too large in thin faces, the plaintive cry of a baby from inside the house. The men stared at Kalvan without making the slightest sound or gesture of respect. Was it because they didn't know him, or were they too awed by the presence of Dralm-sent Great King Kalvan? Or maybe they just thought their being hungry was his fault.

A big war or a long one in an agricultural society always meant trouble; some parts of Germany took two centuries to recover from the Thirty Years War. Last year's war with Styphon's House had been both long and big, with raids all over the place, even when the main armies weren't in the field. There'd also been a high percentage of the peasantry sucked into the poorly trained militia, where casualties were always the highest. Cannon fodder.

Crops that weren't burned by the enemy or trampled down by either side rotted in the fields because the harvesters were dead, on campaign or had run away. Hostigos had harvested barely half its normal crops, war-ravaged Nostor still less. The people of Hostigos were facing a hungry winter even before the snows began and the temperature dropped. It was the worst winter in living memory, so everyone said-and Kalvan wasn't about to argue. He hadn't felt cold like this since Korea.

All winter snow had clogged the roads, so there was no carrying food from places that had a surplus to those where rations were short. To fill their larders, people went out and hunted; even a winter-thin groundhog could keep a family from starving. More animals died of hunger, unable to find food under the snow and ice. Wolves that had grown fat on escaped livestock and battlefield dead suddenly found themselves going hungry.

It was inevitable the wolves would turn on the hunters, then on travelers, then on isolated farms and even small villages. Men who might risk a blizzard and death from exposure wouldn't face being dragged down and eaten alive by starving wolves.

He knew that for this winter, the main enemy wasn't Styphon's House. It was the wolves, which were going to gnaw his Kingdom out from under him if they weren't stopped. That was what had brought him to swear a public oath two days ago that he would bring an end to the wolves' reign of terror. Hunting parties would go out everywhere the wolves were a problem. Which also meant leading one himself, to set an example, which was why he was out here tonight, slowly freezing in his saddle and doing a cavalry lieutenant's work.

"We took seven wolves as the price of your heifer," Kalvan told the farmers. "You may have the skins, and the bounty for them."

Wolf-bounty was five ounces of silver, or five talos-a silver coin about the size of a silver dollar, with a stamped image of a young King Kaiphranos on the face and a two-headed battleaxe on the obverse. Kalvan had recently added an official gold coinage, a one-ounce gold piece called a Hostigos crown, minted from the loot taken from Styphon's temples.

Maybe the silver from the bounty would keep the farmers alive until spring, maybe not. "Also, I will have soldiers come and rebuild your barn. In the spring," he added; there was no hope of finding fresh thatch in the dead of winter.

"Dralm Bless you, Your Majesty!" the father said. He bowed his head. "It has not been easy this winter, Sire. We have prayed to Dralm and Yirtta Allmother…" His voice trailed off as the baby started crying again.

"Go on praying," Kalvan said. "When you can spare a prayer for someone else, pray for Queen Rylla-she's with child, too."

The three men managed a smile at that news, which lasted until the ridgepole of the barn cracked and fell into the fire. Sparks flew up again, geese squawked and they dashed madly for the buckets and sacks they'd left to greet Kalvan.

He thought of writing out his promise and leaving it with the farmers, and then he remembered they most likely couldn't read. Only nobles, priests, scribes and clerks read here-and now; like the Middle Ages back home. Also, parchment was scarce and expensive. Which reminded him to stop off at the paper mill on the way back to Hostigos Town to give those poor bastards some encouragement! They were working hard with what little knowledge of papermaking he'd been able to dredge up out of his memory. Unfortunately, to date, all their results were still various grades of foul-smelling mush.

That too would eventually change; there were already quite a few people learning their way around Kalvan's new world: Rylla, of course. Ptosphes, First Prince of the new Great Kingdom of Hos-Hostigos. Count Harmakros, Captain-General of the new Royal Army. Trader Verkan the Grefftscharrer. Master Ermut, here-and-now's first experimental scientist. Count Phrames. Chancellor Xentos, also Highpriest of Dralm. Brother Mytron, the healer priest who had listened with great interest to the lecture on antiseptic techniques Kalvan delivered the day after he learned Rylla was pregnant.