Chapter 5 – Knights of the Andelin #4
“Not that I can see…oh, but that poor horse!” she exclaimed. “One of them has a gash on his back, the poor thing…”
And while she wouldn’t call the caravan damaged, it certainly showed signs of wear.
She had seen the construct before it departed: a long, narrow wagon covered completely in thin sheets of metal, just sufficient to accommodate eight men.
She couldn’t imagine sleeping in such a thing, so hot, airless, with the devils shrieking and savaging the sides all night. The bare thought made her shiver.
Outside the gate, she could see the soldiers arranging themselves in the same defensive lines they had made inside, and she clapped a hand over her mouth as one man suddenly lifted his spear to jab at something in the dark, followed by his fellows on either side of him.
Three men instantly moved to fill the gap in the line, then moved back again when whatever it was, was dead.
A few spaces down, three more men repeated the maneuver.
It was an impressive sight, and reassuring; they were so brisk and disciplined about it.
“They’re killing devils,” she reported, her eyes wide as she absorbed every detail for future contemplation. “I can’t see the devils though… ”
The words had hardly left her mouth when there was a burst of shouting and suddenly a dozen men were down at once. A huge dark shape exploded into the ring of torchlight, so fast that at first Ophele couldn’t tell what had happened.
“Re-form, re-form!” Someone was shouting, and the men hustled to fill the gap even as the dark shape charged forward, head thrown back as it howled fit to freeze the blood.
A wolf demon. That was a wolf demon. Ophele had seen plenty of sketches by now, that shifting, spikey black shape, its fur bristling and almost smoking.
But those sketches had not conveyed the way that black mane dissolved into the air, nor that glow of poisonous green within the smoke—
Stars, it was huge! Those many layers of defense were collapsing on it, slamming their shields into its sides to slow it down rather than trying to intercept its charge.
“It’s a wolf,” she said, feeling a hand clutching her wrist, preparatory to hauling her down. “No, I think they have it, but there are more things beh—oh!”
Her other hand clapped over her mouth as the wolf demon’s head was suddenly separated from its shoulders.
“What, what?” Genon demanded urgently.
“It’s dead,” she said, her eyes enormous.
The wave of blood as it was decapitated was black, splashing out thicker than water, something she had never seen, never imagined.
It made her feel a little sick. But she was not a child to be sheltered from such realities, she told herself sternly.
And in any case, she only had the barest glimpse of that huge, smoky body falling before the soldiers rushed in, hiding it from her sight.
“They’re all right,” she added belatedly.
She could see more fighting, but it looked organized to her.
It was tempting to think the wolf demon was the initial assault, intended to open gaps in the defense for other devils to exploit, but after many interviews, Ophele thought that was giving the beasts too much credit.
Devils were cunning in the way wolves were cunning, but they were not intelligent.
It was over before the devils had time to test the defenses.
The caravan rolled through the gate in a tremendous clatter and the rows of defenders withdrew in such perfect, organized unison that Ophele boggled, watching the rear lines turn one after another, with Sir Jinmin’s massive shape bringing up the rear.
As the gates creaked closed, she only wished she had gotten a better look at that wolf.
It occurred to her that the Duchess of Andelin should probably not be standing on a hogshead when she greeted the returning heroes. She lingered just long enough to see Remin, alive and uninjured, and then let Genon help her down, brushing out her skirts anxiously.
“If you like, m’lady,” he said politely, offering his arm, and Yvain and Dol followed behind as they hurried toward the caravan, which was already disgorging its passengers.
The men were forming up on either side of the road, an honor guard of sorts, and as they cleared a path for her, she wished she were wearing something a little finer than an ink-spattered purple gown.
Remin said that before he spoke, he often set out a few sentences in his mind, and Ophele tried to do the same as she reached the circle around the caravan and then stopped, waiting.
The stink of both the caravan and its occupants was incredible, weeks on the road in that sweaty, airless box and no baths.
They would be filthy, hungry, and tired, and her responsibility to them was both honor and hospitality.
A flick of Remin’s eyes beckoned her forward, and Ophele approached obediently as the travelers assembled.
The last time she had seen Sir Huber was at the feast the night before he left, when he had danced with her and asked her to look after Remin.
At the time, the request had surprised her, but she understood it better now.
Huber and Remin had grown up together. And Remin had needed looking after, in the end.
“…did right, not to wait,” Remin was saying as she and Genon approached.
The surgeon went immediately to look everyone over, including a few soldiers who were sitting down, having been mauled a bit by the devils.
“We’ll have to think of a way to let you signal your approach in future, I would have sent men out to meet you. ”
“It was hard on the horses,” Sir Huber agreed. He looked a good deal leaner than he had been when he had departed, a bronzed whip of a man with his hair gleaming faintly copper in the torchlight. His eyes went to Ophele, and he offered a brief bow. “My lady.”
“I’m glad you came back safely,” she said, looking sympathetically from one exhausted man to the next. “Thank you for doing something so dangerous. Your Grace, might we send someone to Wen and Master Balad, to have food and baths prepared for them? ”
Remin blinked.
“Yes,” he said approvingly, and looked at a nearby soldier. He didn’t even need to speak the order. The man was off like a shot.
“Welcome home,” Ophele concluded, nodding her head as gracefully as she could. She hoped that was enough.
“Thank you very much, my lady.” said Sir Huber.
“My lord, I can tell you Ferrede lives, and we helped them bring in the harvest. Rollon had already built a common hall for sleeping and ordered the defense by the time we arrived. Elder Brodrim said the town would have been lost, were it not for him.”
Ophele had barely known Rollon before he left; she knew his name and his face, but that was all. He looked as if he had aged ten years since.
“That’s what I sent you to do,” Remin said quietly, extending a hand, with a brief but solid squeeze of the squire’s arm. “I will want your report tomorrow. Well done.”
“Thank you, Your Grace,” Rollon replied, standing up straighter.
“All of you have earned your rest.” Remin stepped back, nodding to Sir Huber. “Defenders of Ferrede!”
Sir Jinmin led a boisterous round of huzzahs, dissolving into cheers as a group of men led Sir Huber and the rest up the road, battered and weary, but moving under their own steam. It looked like half the town was about to descend on the unsuspecting Master Balad.
“You did well,” Remin murmured to Ophele as the stablemaster led the horses away and the rest of the men dispersed, with Sir Jinmin bellowing at the men on the palisade to point their eyeballs north.
Remin didn’t look hurt, but he was disconcertingly blood-spattered.
“It’s not my blood,” he added when he caught her looking.
“I know. I…saw,” she said, a little guiltily. “The wolf demon, I mean.”
“I wondered if you did,” he said. Filthy as he was, he didn’t offer his arm as they moved up the street together toward home. “Did it look like you expected?”
“Bigger,” she admitted. “I saw the pictures and everyone said how big they were, but it’s not the same as seeing a real one. And it was so fast. I see what you mean now, about not trying to stop them directly. It would just knock everyone over, wouldn’t it? ”
“Mmm-hmmm. And you weren’t scared?”
“No…” She looked up at him in surprise. “I wasn’t,” she said, feeling an unaccustomed glow inside, a feeling she had very rarely felt before. She was timid and cowardly and afraid of so very many things, but she was no longer afraid of this.
“That’s good,” was all he said, and the torches lining the long road home shone on a small, satisfied smile.
* * *
…blurred by smoke, Ophele wrote the next day, thrilled beyond words to have her very own firsthand account of the devils.
It appears to emanate from around the head and neck and streak backward, with black particles dissolving in the air.
This could be to obscure the movements of the devil, or to aid in concealment, though this purpose would seem to be undermined by the green glow of its eyes.
But perhaps that is a threat display that occurs when it attacks…
By now, Ophele had learned to give herself a few pages to babble before she attempted to incorporate her ideas into her treatise.
It only seemed sensible to her that there would be some logic to the natural world, discoverable reasons why things were the way they were.
Claws for bears, to dig and climb and fight.
Long snouts for hedgehogs, to poke their adorable little noses into narrow places for bugs.
So what purpose did the glowing eyes of a wolf demon serve?
Intimidation? And what was that flare of poisonous green she had seen glowing within its smoking mane?