James Enge: The Wolf Age

Morlock spun aside and rolled over the nearby wall. He made as if to back away; the wounded pikeman lunged at him recklessly. Morlock evaded the pike's hooked blade, waited until the pikeman was fully extended, and then struck down with Tyrfing. The glittering edge hit the pikeman's arm lying across the surface of the wall and severed it at the elbow like a butcher's cleaver cutting through a joint of meat. The pikeman shrieked words of fear and hate, staggered backward, and fell out of sight groaning behind the low wall.

Morlock shook off the horror of the pikeman's suffering. A werewolf he might be, but he was as mortal in human form as Morlock was, and it was unlikely he would survive two such terrible wounds. But Morlock had many deaths on his conscience already; adding the death of a slave-taker or two did not bother him much.

The others were coming for him now. Since there was nothing he could do to stop it, he encouraged it. He made clucking noises he hoped they would find insulting. He croaked out some abuse he had learned from crows. He tapped the edge of his sword on the bloodstained surface of the wall and waggled his free hand at them. Soon many of the raiders, manlike and lupine, were running toward him. At the moment he judged right, he turned and ran south along the stone wall.

He heard some of the raiders scrambling or leaping over the wall. Others were running along the eastern side of the wall. That was all right with him: his enemies had effectively halved their own forces.

His bad leg was troubling him, but he kept running as fast as he could until he heard the grating gasp of a wolf's breathing just behind him. He spun and braced his feet in a fighter's crouch, his sword at full extension. The wolf at his heels was impaled on the blade before he knew what was happening; the frightened howl had an unpleasantly human quality. Morlock repressed the horror of the other's suffering and shook him off his sword. He kicked the moaning wolf out of his way and lunged at the next one leaping at him. This one didn't howl; Tyrfing had passed through her throat, nearly severing her neck. She, too, was out of the fight until she healed. Morlock leaped past to meet the next raider.

Neither men nor wolves run all at the same rate. A disciplined military force learns to move as a group, applying a maximum of power at the expense of moving a little more slowly. These raiders weren't that disciplined, and Morlock planned to take advantage of it. During his sprint his pursuers had strung behind him in a long line, and what had been an unwinnable battle of one against many was now just a string of single combats in which Morlock had, at least briefly, the advantage of surprise.

His next opponent was a wide-eyed man armed only with a long pole. He was already skittering to a halt as Morlock came up to him. While he was still off balance, Morlock struck off his weapon-bearing hand with Tyrfing and punched him in the throat. The man fell gagging to his knees. Morlock kicked him in the face as he passed, and the man went down to the ground.

By then Morlock was facing another antagonist: a lean woman with roancolored hair and a long pointed sword. Morlock fenced with her for a few grim moments, then struck home with a thrust through her upper right chest. He wrenched the sword from her grip with his free hand and she fell, spouting blood from her lips, into the dust of the stubbly field.

The woman's sword was rusty, bent, unbalanced, notched along both edges-inferior to Tyrfing in every way but one: he could use it to kill with impunity. He ran on to fight his next antagonist.

After a few more single combats, Morlock looked about to see wolves and men gathering in a group to attack him. He turned and, leaping back over the wall, ran southward. His would-be attackers followed. Glancing back, he saw that their pursuit had broken up into smaller groups again, some on each side of the wall. He leaped back to the west side and ran north to attack again.

He was running out of breath by now, but he strove not to show it: they would be more likely to break off the battle if they thought him tireless. And, in a strange way, the grim prophecies of the cards buoyed him up: if he was doomed to die by drowning, he needn't worry about being ripped open by werewolves in an empty field.

He had struck down a few more men and wolves, and was thinking of a new retreat when horns and wolf calls sounded to the north. His antagonists fled northward to answer them. When he was sure they were leaving, he slumped gasping against the wall and watched them run.

There was some sort of fight going on back at the main body of the raiding party. In the failing light it wasn't at first clear to Morlock what was happening. Then he realized: encouraged by the absence of so many raiders, the captives had seized the opportunity to fight back.

Their chances didn't look good.

Morlock, of course, could improve them.

He shook his head, wearily. It was not his fight; he was already tired. This was his chance to flee south and escape the raiders.

On the other hand, the field was dry. Absent a sudden downpour, he was unlikely to drown.

He stood pondering alternatives and getting his wind back. He saw a raider lift the struggling body of a child, impaled on a spear point. As the raider brandished the spear, shouting in triumph or threat, the body grew slack.

Morlock found himself running forward then in long irregular strides. The slave-takers, intent on their rebellious captives, didn't notice his approach until he was almost upon them. Then he lashed out with both swords, torn by the sudden rage from within and the talic shocks from Tyrfing. He struck and struck. He was bleeding now, and his fire-laden blood lit smoldering fires in the stubbly fields. The werewolves, manlike and wolfformed, seemed more dismayed by this than anything. Now many of the former captives had seized weapons from raiders that had been killed or wounded. The raiders still had greater numbers, but seemed to lack stomach for fighting. Soon they fled, north and east, away from the bitter low wall and the bodies of the slain and wounded and the harsh vengeful cries of their former captives.

Morlock stepped aside and sat down on the low wall, ripping strips from his cloak to bandage his wounds. He kept an eye on the former captives as he did so. It was possible they would resent him as much as the werewolves. He knew nothing of these people, not even a word of their language.

He saw one woman with iron gray hair struggling with a long spear gripped in the hands of a dead raider. She was sobbing quietly. He kept a cautious eye on her; it was possible that some of the captives were quislings or traitors, and perhaps she was one. Otherwise why weep over the dead raider? Then he saw what was on the end of the spear: the child's body he had seen raised up as a rebuke or a threat to the captives. She was struggling to remove the spear point from the body without doing it further damage.

He got up from the wall and walked over to her. He brushed her hands away from the shaft of the spear, and she let him. The blade of the spear was barbed and had caught in the child's body. The child was dead, of course; it had been a girl, perhaps ten years old. Morlock put one foot on the corpse and tore the spear loose from the body.

The old woman screamed and struck at his face with weak fists. He ignored it. He broke the spear shaft with his hands and cast the pieces aside. Then he opened his hands and looked her in the eye.

She stopped hitting him. She stood back, still sobbing from exhaustion, fear, grief-or all three. The sobbing slowed to a halt.

Silence surrounded them.

"Kree-laow," said one of the former captives, pointing at Morlock.

"Venbe Land kree-laow," said another.

An argument broke forth. One of the issues seemed to be whether Morlock was or was not kree-laow-whatever or whoever that might be.