Glen Cook - Surrender to the will of the night

Februaren and Iron Eyes made the arrangements. Crows and wolves observed, remaining at a safe distance. The crows kibitzed. An occasional wolf crawled forward, got hold of a fallen pack mate, dragged it away until one of the Aelen Kofer decided to object. Iron Eyes told Februaren, “That’s clever. The perfect trick.”

It tricked no one.

Iron Eyes, not counting chickens, already had another plan running. Some of his people brought rails from the fence. Wolves paced them but took no risks.

Heris wanted a look at the countryside roundabout. She went up top, came back down. “The wolves are waiting for something.” The beasts were gathering out where they could not be seen, with numerous comings and goings. At least two dozen more had come from somewhere.

“Probably expecting the Bastard.”

Aelen Kofer work parties used fencing to bridge the moat off to the right of the gate. They started building a ladder. Heris told them, “Wait.” She took a coil of rope from a dwarf, turned sideways, then dropped one end from the top of the wall. A half-dozen dwarves swarmed up. They climbed like monkeys despite the clutter they carried.

Those six readied their crossbows, stepped forward, sighted on the two old men. Then dove back so violently that one knocked Heris right off the wall. She did miss the makeshift bridge. Which meant an intimate encounter with icy, nasty, shallow water. She came up cursing, turned sideways, got back up top in time to watch a fog of burned firepowder clear from the little courtyard. Dripping, starting to shudder in the breeze, she demanded, “Anybody hurt?”

The dwarves could not hear her. The bellow of the hound had stolen their hearing briefly. Heris had trouble hearing herself, but because of water in her ears. She had been falling when the hound roared. The wall had sheltered her from the noise.

A dwarf pulled her back as the lighter falcon barked. The glimpse she had gotten was of two old men reloading the hound, now aimed for a blast through the gateway.

All six dwarves popped up and loosed quarrels. Shrieking crows whipped around them. There were no cries from below.

Heris turned sideways. She materialized four feet behind the hound. One old man had his left hand pinned to its wooden mounting frame by an Aelen Kofer bolt. Heris smacked the other one with her fist. “Ow! Goddamn! Why didn’t I bring something with me?” She grabbed both torches, turned sideways, chucked them into the moat from the top of the wall. “That’s your cue, Double Great!” She swatted a diving crow. And watched just long enough to make sure the Ninth Unknown understood.

She turned yet again.

One groggy old man was trying to cut the bolt nailing the other to the hound’s frame. Which, at a glance, told Heris why Piper had rid himself of the big bore weapons. The machine could not be moved easily. And recoil had cracked its supporting frame after one firing.

A mob of dwarves trundled into the courtyard. Overhead, angry crows registered their disapproval by defecating on the fly.

Cloven Februaren and Korban Iron Eyes were not among the arrivals. “What now?” She decided to go see. Nearing exhaustion, she walked out this time. And reached the drawbridge in time to see Iron Eyes and the Ninth Unknown become involved in another engagement with more wolves than ever before. Wolves who seemed desperate but unenthusiastic. This time they encountered Aelen Kofer and human sorcery before they got close enough to be ripped up by Aelen Kofer steel. This time the survivors left with their tails all the way under and their bodies riding low.

Februaren and the dwarves grabbed lupine corpses and headed inside the castle. Crows followed. Several died as dwarves lost their senses of humor.

Heris needed not ask why all the excitement. She had her answer once she got a look at the dead wolves.

Some of the fallen from the first attack had begun to shift shape. The largest wolves, the ones with the heaviest, darkest fur. The leaders of the vast pack.

“I don’t know,” Februaren said, answering a question she had not yet asked. “Changed by the Night. By the one who lives here, maybe, using whoever was unlucky enough to be passing by. Making himself a fierce pack of protectors who dared not run away. Because everywhere else would mean an agonizing death at the first hint of a change. Damn those things!”

A skilled sniper of a crow had gotten him in the forehead with a nasty load.

The old man dug into one of the pouches hanging from his belt while muttering in Archaic Brothen. He found something, flung it into the air, shouted. To Heris it looked like a fistful of peppercorns.

Each peppercorn shot off toward a crow. The air filled with little pops as those hit feathers at high velocity. A hundred birds gave up flying, fell, lay twitching. The rest fled, making more noise than ever.

“Not a very nice man, the Bastard.”

“Blood will tell, child. What about in there?”

“The falcons have been captured. And the two old men. I don’t understand what’s happening. The dwarves were standing around waiting for orders when I left.”

The dwarves had gone into the fortress while Heris was outside. They had found nothing remarkable. The dizzy old men were the only inhabitants. Though there was a suite on the second level that showed signs of regular use.

Its user appeared to have been absent for some time.

The inside of the castle consisted mostly of storerooms generously stocked with supplies suitable for use by men, dwarves, or wolves.

Howling from the woods roundabout made clear what those beasts thought of the change of management. The crows were out there, still, but had grown contemplative.

The Aelen Kofer indulged in a huge feast, underwritten by the Bastard. They ate their fill, drank their fill, burned firewood profligately. Februaren and Heris joined in, some, though she spent time communicating with Piper while Februaren tried to crack the glamour imprisoning the minds of the two old men. He had no luck.

They were automatons shaped by the man who was not there. They did not speak. Left alone, they went back to managing the castle. They ignored the intruders now that they were inside.

Februaren told the Aelen Kofer, “Leave them be. Let them work. But keep them away from any weapons.”

It was late. Heris said, “I need some sleep. I’m seeing things that aren’t there. Our guy hasn’t come around. So what’s next, Double Great?”

“We wait. The Bastard will come home, eventually. And the things you’re seeing are there. The Night is strong and active here. Much more so than anywhere you’ve ever been before.”

“There’s a confidence booster. That’ll help me nod off. Just wait?”

“Yes.”

“Won’t he notice that something is wrong as soon as he gets near the place?”

“He may. I doubt it. He won’t be looking for it. He’s never had this kind of trouble.”

The Aelen Kofer had found no stable inside or associated with the castle. There was no sign that horses had visited in modern times. The Bastard came and went by extraordinary means.

That was troubling.

But maybe he just walked.

The wolves made a last try at midnight. A dozen wore the shapes of men. They came in the company of swarms of minor Instrumentalities, but otherwise unarmed.

Though they had been warned not to relax most of the Aelen Kofer had shed the misery of their mail. Several would pay the price in blood.

The Ninth Unknown had created booby traps using the hound and the falcon. They made the difference.

Nevertheless, the struggle was grim.

Come sunrise Februaren counted corpses and concluded that the Were had been exterminated. They had not appeared interested in surviving. Lacking leadership the ordinary wolves should now move on.