Chapter 21: Chapter 13: Wolves in the Mountains - Part 1

The next morning as they prepared to leave one of Caden’s men called out in alarm to the rest of the camp. Caden, Sir Anselm, Eser Vir, one of the two Heralds, and a few others all rushed to the source of the voice to find the man was standing over a frozen figure half-buried in snow some distance from their camp. The corpse was sitting there, his limbs so stiff that he was like a perfectly preserved statue of a man eternally cursed to rub his hands together for warmth.

“I know this man,” said the Herald, his breath passing through the mouth of his mask in a fine mist. “He’s one of ours.”

Eser Vir knelt to examine the body. “He must have been out last night and couldn’t find his way back,” the warden deduced. “You couldn’t see a foot in front of your face in that storm. But why would he have come out here alone?”

“Perhaps he needed to piss,” grunted Anselm.

“Or perhaps he thought he saw something out here,” said Caden. “And did not want to raise the alarm on a trick of the eye.”

“We’ll be more careful from now on. This is the fourth man we’ve lost,” said Eser Vir, who seemed to be taking part of the blame upon himself.

“We’ll have to leave him here,” the Herald said. “But we can at least bury him in the snow.”

“It won’t stop a bear from sniffing him out,” the Warden replied. “But as you will.”

For the next several minutes they piled the snow up and around him, leaving a mound on the mountainside in which the dead man would sit for eternally. When they returned to the rest of the camp they found they were all packed and ready to go, and after a short breakfast they continued their journey.

Despite the loss of another of their men and the snow slowing their movements, the sky was clear and blue and the sun, when it touched their skin, was almost warm. This put them in high spirits, and as they travelled around the mountain they joked and laughed until, when they reached the far side, they descended into a wide valley that had no snow and showed the first signs of spring.

When they reached the valley floor, climbing down rocky terrain to do so, Eser Vir led them to a small river partially obscured by woodland and they stopped there to rest and fish.

“I thought these mountains would be completely inhospitable, a wasteland from end to end,” admitted Caden, who sat upon a fallen tree as Eser Vir gathered plant fibre and rolled it into twine in his hands.

“This is a rare place in these mountains,” said the warden. “And as you have seen, getting here is hard. You may have noticed that the pass through these mountains is… Well, not really a pass at all?”

“I had,” Caden admitted.

“There is no remaining road that leads all the way through, only a path of least resistance. The trail we Black Wardens guard is, realistically, less of a trail and more a method of reaching places such as this. These valleys are like steppingstones, like lonely oasis’s in a desert, and they will lead us through to the other end in as much of one piece as possible,” Eser Vir explained.

“Hard to believe that the Philosopher King and his men passed through here once already. They don’t seem to remember the way.”

“When the snows have fully melted variations in the pass open up. Trails that are slightly easier, or slightly quicker, that in winter are impassable. I know which route they took to get here – they would have gone by what is left of the Auld Road for much of their journey, but you couldn’t find it now. There is so much snow the landscape itself changes, and walls of ice cut off entire ravines and gaps in the rock. Even in summer, when the snows are gone, it’s not the easiest road to walk.”

Caden nodded and looked at the brown soil between his boots and silently gave thanks that, for now, it was not snow or ice. “How long will we be staying here for?” He asked.

“We won’t camp here, but we’ll be in this valley until tomorrow,” said the warden. “We will not get a chance as good as this to resupply for another week or so and our progress has already been slowed. There are fish here in the river, and we can forage edible plants. There’ll be hares and deer in this valley too I wager, though I haven’t been here so early in the spring before.”

Over the next hour they caught several fish from the river, then on Eser Vir’s command they picked up and walked further north along the valley floor, stopping only to gather edible plants that the warden showed them. Caden and his Kingsguard led them from the front, with Ethelyn trailing up and down the entire length of the column as she picked and examined specimens of local flora that she had never seen before. At the rear lagged the Ekyrians in their armour, which Caden began to realize had slowed them as much in the deep snow as it did then on that clear valley floor, and that no matter the difficulty of the terrain or how far they travelled it never seemed to fatigue them.

“Where are the Heralds?” Caden asked at one point, and it was Arthur who answered him.

“Talking together some ways behind us,” the young knight said. “Shall I get them?”

“No. But they have been strangely silent on this journey,” Caden said.

Arthur nodded and ran a hand through his hair. “Do you think it’s really true that one of them is The Philosopher King in disguise?” He asked.

“I don’t know,” Caden said. “I met him in Chaverne… Or a man claiming to be him, but truthfully? I’ve not seen either of those Heralds without their masks.”

“Don’t worry, Sire,” said Arthur. “Whatever he has planned, your guard will be there with you.”

Caden laughed. “Thank you, Arthur,” he said.

Not far behind Caden and Arthur, Sir Anselm had been keeping his eye on the surrounding area and scanned the walls of the valley for anything that might appear to him as out of the ordinary. On both sides, east and west, the valley walls were the bases of three different mountains, and they sloped up hundreds of feet until, far above them, the dark grey rock became white and covered in snow.

“There are wolves up there,” Anselm grumbled. “I would swear they’re watching us.”

Eser Vir, who happened to be walking near Anselm when he spoke, paused for a moment to look himself. “Are you sure?” He asked, sounding not alarmed, but cautious. “I don’t see them.”

“They’re up there,” said Anselm. “See those rocks? They’re taking cover in them.”

On the eastern mountain several large rocks were jutting out, and between the stones three white wolves seemed to lower themselves to the snow to hide. Eser Vir narrowed his eyes and said, “you’re right, I see them now.”

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“They’re only wolves,” Anselm concluded. “But I’ve never seen a wolf stalk a man from so far away. They must be clever bastards.”

“Sometimes the tribes in these mountains train wolves,” revealed Eser Vir. “It’s unlikely, but out here it pays to be careful.”

Suddenly Eser Vir raised his voice, calling out to all the men along the column. “Everyone, stay together and keep moving. There’s a chance we’re being watched!” He shouted, and though his listeners at first looked between themselves in confusion they soon began to follow his command. They grouped together, tightening their march to avoid separation, and began to follow the Black Warden – who ran to the front by Caden so he could lead them to the destination he had in mind.

As they continued to walk several men began to point out yet more figures on the mountainside, like flecks of dirt in the snow, who stood and watched them brazenly. There were only four at first, but from around the mountain sides and from behind the rocks came more – ten, then fifteen, then twenty.

Caden had been watching them, but once he lost his count of how many there were he turned forwards and pressed on in Eser Vir’s wake. Suddenly an arrow hit the ground with a distinctive thud not fifteen paces away from their marching column, a dark stick protruding from the top of the riverbank like a miniature stygian spear.

“They’re testing their range,” said Caden.

Eser Vir nodded as he marched. “They won’t waste their arrows from up there. The wind and the fall brought that arrow, not the power or skill of the archer,” he said.

“My men did not pack for battle,” Caden told him. “We have few shields, little armour, and only a few bows. The Ekyrians do not seem to have bows at all.”

From behind them came one of the Heralds who did not run, but never-the-less moved at such a speed that his robes seemed to glide over the surface of the ground as though it were ice. “What say you, Warden? Would you have us hold here and fight? I need only order my guard,” said the masked man, who kept pace with little effort.

“They will have us surrounded,” explained Eser Vir. “Yet they will not attack separately. They will wait until each of their warbands are ready, then attack us from multiple directions. We need to force them to fight us from one direction, or otherwise defeat each group of them alone before they can coordinate.”

“We have no way of doing the latter, and this valley is too wide for the former,” said Caden. “You mean to take us back into the mountains.”

“We would be able to hold a narrow pass against them,” said Eser Vir.

Suddenly a cry came out from somewhere behind them in the column. “Men running towards us from the south and east!” Called an exotic voice.

“They are trying to stop us reaching the passes,” said the Herald, before his voice turned like a war-horn that bellowed across the valley. “All men, run!”

Soon the rhythmic marching of the column turned into the beating of boots that ran across hard ground, and the more they ran the more the path of their column became churned into a trail of mud. In the distance around them the wild figures were running down the mountainsides and hills and up through the valley after them, and with each passing second more seemed to appear from the wild and let out shrill war cries that conjoined into a terrifying chorus of violent hysteria.

Yet as their enemy grew closer, so too did their salvation. The end of the valley was in sight now and the walls of it began to close to form a narrow pass that led up and back into the northern peaks, and with each step the column took towards it the harder each man began to run.

They ran for many minutes more before they reached it, each of them labouring to breathe or to overcome the burning of their leg muscles. Yet, with a mist of cold breath hanging over them, they finally poured into a space which was perhaps wide enough for five men to walk abreast, and as those at the front took to catching their breaths those behind turned to guard it.

Their foe had stopped running now, a savage host of perhaps three hundred beings with dark grey skin who wielded primitive hunting weapons and wore fur. It was only now that they had stopped that the men in the pass realized how close they had gotten – within a hundred meters or so – and Caden looked back over the heads of the men behind him to see who hunted them.

The Dwellers, as Eser Vir had called them at the gate, had paused to collect themselves, and the largest of them seemed to gather in some meeting of strategy while the rest stood by and waited. Some of them, particularly the women of their host, mocked the company by flashing themselves, and this seemed to amuse the rest to the point that something primitive and similar laughter could be heard.

“I thought you said they wouldn’t attack us in force?” Caden asked the Black Warden, who was leaning against the pass wall and tightening the string of his bow.

“It seems I was wrong,” said Eser Vir. “Herald, can your Ekyrian guard hold the front of the pass? Your men are armoured, whereas the Sarkanians are not. They will use bows to weaken us first.”

“They can,” said the masked man. “These wild things are not our match in war.”

Then, with all the grace of a woman of her station, Ethelyn stepped through the column with her mahogany hair glinting in the sunlight and approached the Herald. She leaned close to the side of his mask and whispered into his ear words that Caden could not decipher. The Herald paused a moment, then nodded and seemed to stand straighter than he had stood previously.

“Me and twenty of my guard will remain here and block them from pursuing,” said the Herald.

“What?” Asked Caden, who was taken aback by the Herald’s words. “That’s suicide!”

“Yet it is necessary,” the Herald replied, and as he spoke the second Herald stepped out from the rest of the men and stood beside the first; a masked twin.

“You have seen how they scale these mountains,” said the second, his voice identical to the first’s. “If we wait here, they will simply climb behind us.”

Caden looked towards Eser Vir to see if there was a truth to those words, though Caden already knew that there was. The warden’s expression confirmed them, then Caden shook his head and looked away. “Too many of your men have already given their lives for my sake, but I will not stop you,” he said.

The first Herald might have smiled, but there was no way to tell under his expressionless face of silver. “It is my job to protect the Philosopher King. I am his Herald, and soon I will also be the herald of his enemy’s destruction.”

The second masked man stayed silent, as did Caden and Eser Vir. The Herald looked upon Caden and said, “you must leave now. Get as far into the mountains as you can – lose yourselves under Eser Vir’s guidance. I shall strike out and keep them occupied long enough for you escape.”

Caden had wanted to find another way, to come up with some solution that did not sacrifice the lives of nearly a sixth of their remaining men, yet he could think of none. He decided to say something, but the first Herald had already turned and gone towards his guard to relay his orders, and the second now looked blankly upon Caden as though expecting something of him.

“Everyone, we keep going,” he said, his voice quiet and unheard.

“What?” Ethelyn asked him.

Caden cleared his throat, and spoke again but louder, “everyone, we keep going!”

The men noticed him then, and as Caden began to run through the pass they began to follow him – Eser Vir first, then Ethelyn and the second herald, then the sarkanians and ekyrians. Caden did not turn to look at those they were leaving behind, for he knew that they would not survive the day and refused to dishonour them by slowing. Eventually they put some distance between themselves and the opening of the pass, and Eser Vir took over Caden’s lead to navigate it.

“Caden,” said Eser Vir as they ran, his breathing as audible as his words. “Eventually they will catch us.”

“I know,” Caden replied. “But what can we do?”

“There are other paths in these mountains, other roads we can take. They will not expect us to use them, for they are longer and far more dangerous than this one, and perhaps doing the unexpected is what will save us,” the warden explained.

“Longer? How much longer?” Asked Caden.

“Five days.”

Caden went silent so that he could think. The road would be longer, and harder, but if they stayed on their current one, they were almost guaranteed to die. “All I care about now is keeping these men of mine alive. They are here because of me,” he eventually said. “So, we should let them decide.”

“No,” snapped Ethelyn from behind him. “You are the King of Sarkana. If you are to take them to victory they must trust you to lead, to make these decisions.”

Caden’s legs were beginning to burn from the effort of running, and his breathing was growing heavy for all the discussion. He wanted nothing more in that moment to be back home with his younger brother, with his friends and his warm hearth fire and a hot, roasted meal and cup of ale – or perhaps even a fine Lavellan wine. He gritted his teeth, knowing none of those things were in his future if they did not survive the mountains, and gave Eser Vir his answer.

“We take the longer path,” said Caden.