Harry Turtledove - Wisdom of the Fox

Gerin pushed aside the small-leaved branch of a willow sapling to peer out into a small clearing. At the far edge of the open space, the longtooth crouched over the monster's body.

" That's the one the peasant shot," Van breathed into Gerin's ear. The Fox nodded; part of an arrow shaft still protruded from the creature's left buttock. He wondered whether it had deliberately broken off the rest or the shaft had snapped as it ran through the woods.

The question was irrelevant now; the longtooth had seen to that. The great twin fangs that gave it its name were red with the monster's blood; it had torn open the creature's throat. Longtooths, fortunately, were solitary hunters—had they traveled in packs, they would have been an even worse plague than the monsters. This one, a big male, was almost the size of a bear, with massive shoulders and great taloned forepaws almost as formidable as its fangs.

It growled warningly at Gerin and the other warriors. The long, orange-brown hair on its neck and shoulders—not quite a lion's mane, but close—bristled up to make it look even larger and more threatening. Its little stumpy tail, the only absurd part of a thoroughly formidable creature, twitched to show its anger at being interrupted over a meal.

"Let's kill it," Parol Chickpea whispered hoarsely.

Up till then, Gerin had thought Parol's sobriquet came from the large round wen by his nose. The comment, though, made him wonder if a chickpea was what Parol used to do his thinking. He said, "No, it's done us a favor. We'll just go on our way and see if we can find the last monster."

Parol grumbled at that, but went along when everyone else moved away from the clearing. Gerin was sure the longtooth would be contentedly feeding for some time. All the same, he didn't go very far from his followers, nor they from one another. The price of being wrong about what the great hunting cat was doing was too high to pay.

Perhaps because the warriors stayed tightly bunched together, they didn't flush out the last monster. After another hour's search, Gerin said, "I fear it's got away. The gods willing, though, it won't be back in these parts anytime soon—and if it is, it may run across that longtooth."

"That would be good," Drago rumbled.

"So it would," Gerin said. "A longtooth is more than a match for one of those things, or two, or even four. But if a pack of them set out to drive a longtooth from its prey, I think they could do it."

"Best thing to happen there is that they kill each other off," Drago said. Gerin nodded at that. Somehow, though, things seldom worked themselves out so conveniently, at least not where he was concerned.

The warriors made their way back toward the peasant village. When they came out of the woods, not only the serfs but also their drivers raised a cheer. The cheer got louder after Gerin yelled, "Two of the creatures dead," and did not subside when he admitted the third had escaped.

He gave Remon a silver buckle for wounding one of the monsters. The serf, a young, well-made man, puffed out his chest, stood very straight, and did his best to act like one of the warriors who'd accompanied the Fox. Gerin thought that at best unconvincing, but it seemed good enough to impress the young women of the village. To Remon, their opinion doubtless mattered more than his.

"Sun's going down," Van observed.

Gerin glanced westward. The outlander was right. Gerin suspected his friend had an ulterior motive for the remark—several of the young women had also noticed him—but decided not to make an issue of it. "All right, we'll pass the night here," he said.

The villagers brought out their best ale for the nobles in their midst, and roasted a couple of sheep the monsters had killed. The rest, Gerin was sure, would be smoked or sun-dried or made into sausages. Nothing went to waste. He'd seen oaks in the woods nearby. No doubt the hides, however torn, would be tanned and used for winter coats or capes.

Remon disappeared from the celebration with one of the pretty girls who'd exclaimed at his prowess with a bow. There was prowess and then there was prowess, Gerin thought.

Several of his comrades also found themselves companions for the evening. As Van headed off toward one of the huts with a young woman, he turned back to Gerin and said, "You sleeping alone tonight, Fox?"

"Yes, I think so," Gerin answered. "Another cup of ale and then I'll roll up in my blanket."

"All very well to be a one-woman man around the keep, Captain," the outlander said, "but you're not around the keep now."

"I don't tell you how to live your life, and I'll thank you for granting me the same privilege," Gerin said pointedly.

"Oh, I do, Captain, I do, but if I think you're a silly loon, you may be sure I'll tell you so." Van turned back to the girl. "Come along, my sweet. I know what to do with my time, by the gods." She went, not only willingly but eagerly. The Fox shook his head. Van had a gift, that was certain.

Van also reveled in variety. Gerin snorted. "If I need a different woman so soon after I found one, then I didn't find the right one," he muttered to himself.

"What's that, lord Gerin?" Drago stared owlishly. He'd put his nose into the ale pot a great many times. He'd sleep like a log tonight, and likely bawl like a hurt ox tomorrow with a head pounding fit to burst.

Gerin was just as well pleased the Bear hadn't caught what he'd said. He did his best to keep his private life private. In the tight little world of Fox Keep, that best often wasn't good enough, but he kept making the effort. And Selatre, unlike Fand, did not strike him as one to relish trumpeting her affairs—in any sense of the word—to the world at large.

He glanced up into the sky. Only Elleb shone there, a day before full. Swift Tiwaz had just slipped past new, while Nothos was approaching it. And golden Math, almost at her third quarter, would rise a little before midnight.

Math was the moon that mattered now. If she returned to the waning gibbous shape she'd had when Fabors and Marlanz set out for Aragis' lands before the Archer's chariots came north—if she did that, then all of Gerin's carefully laid plans would go awry.

"In that case, I'll have to try something else," he said, again to Drago's puzzlement—and to his own, for he had no idea what that something might be.

* * *

The sweep through the southern part of his holding netted the Fox several slain monsters. More to the point, it showed the serfs—and the monsters, if they paid attention to such things—that he and his vassals would defend the villages in every way they could.

Parol Chickpea was the only real casualty of the sweep: one of the monsters bit a good-sized chunk out of his right buttock. Gerin heated a bronze hoe blade over a fire back at the peasant village from which they'd set out and used it to cauterize the wound. Parol bawled louder at that than he had when he was bitten, but the wound healed well. Then he had to endure being called Parol One-Cheek all the way back to Castle Fox.

Two days after he'd returned to the keep, Gerin was up on the palisade when a chariot came streaking up from the south. He started worrying the instant he spied it: no one bringing good news would be in such a hurry. In any case, it was too early to expect Aragis' men.

He hurried down from the palisade while the gate crew was letting down the drawbridge. "What's toward, Utreiz?" he asked when the chariot came into the courtyard.

Utreiz Embron's son was one of the leaders of the force holding the Elabon Way open through Bevon's holding: a slim, dark fellow, a better than decent swordsman, and a long way from foolish—a rather lesser version of Gerin, as a matter of fact. He scowled as he got down from the car, saying, "It's not good news, lord prince."