The Ice Storm
Chapter Twenty
Two days out from Castle White brought the first doubt to Wendell's mind. Just a small one, a nagging worry whenever he looked back over his shoulder, down the straggling line of men who followed him. They were exhausted, though they might never admit it to him personally. They were all astride the well bred horses that Wendell's stable was famous for, but the noble steeds hung their heads with seeming shame now, hides heaving and ribs showing through sparse coats. There was precious little feed for either man or beast, and no time to be lost in scavenging for it.
Wendell scanned the gray sky. They had passed the border this morning, crossing officially into enemy territory. Like all inhabitants of the Nine Kingdoms, Wendell felt out of place simply for that reason alone, not just because they were marching to make war on a formidable foe. He knew he was not as well travelled as some of the other rulers, preferring always to stay in his safe and (usually) orderly Kingdom. It had always provided him and his people with everything they needed. But it was a dying thing now. They had passed through several empty villages on their way north. No living souls greeted them. Houses were weighed down and crushed with ice, their owners dead, or fled to the Castle, or hiding someplace awaiting the end of the world.
Up the trail a little ways was Rupert, blowing his nose noisily into a gaily stitched hankerchief. Wendell nudged his stallion forward. Rupert looked pale and worn beneath his hood, and it was another blow to Wendell to see his old friend looking so...old. But his loyal advisor had stoutly refused to stay behind and tend the Castle as Wendell had wished him to do. Neither had Tony Lewis stayed. Wendell had cursed both men at the time for so blatantly refusing his orders on the matter. Was he the King here or not?
"Time to call a halt for the day, Rupert" he said as he drew closer.
"If it is still day, my Lord. Hard to tell under this infernal murk" Rupert replied, gesturing to the black sky.
"True enough, but my sore backside tells me it's been in the saddle since the daybreak!" Wendell laughed. He was oddly pleased that Rupert chortled in response to his jibe, not allowing himself to hear the forcedness of it.
The guards and soldiers dismounted quickly when the order came back to them. For tired men, they sure put on a burst of speed when 'tent' and 'rest' were mentioned, Wendell thought, though he could hardly blame them. They were only fifty in number, all he could spare from the various rescue and supply efforts going on throughout the Kingdom. A mere trifle in the face of the Ice Queen's rumoured army of thousands, but they were good men, well trained and armed. Wendell just hoped they could break through the lines of defence and breach the Ice Palace itself. Only one arrow, one thrown knife would do it. Wendell found himself hoping in a strange way that was totally new to him, that it would be his arrow that pierced the evil Queen and saved his people, even if he paid for it with his life.
Later he sat with Rupert and Tony around a tiny shielded campfire. Tony was fussing with his baggage, including a strange looking box with heavy locks on it. It looked like a Tenth Kingdom object, but his Hero of the Realm had declined to comment on it when he'd asked him what was inside it.
"Never mind me Wendell. It's not a good thing I carry, but it will do you no harm, I promise" he had muttered. A vague answer, but Wendell had let it pass. They had travelled on many adventures together, he and Tony Lewis, and was entirely happy to take his word on any subject, except on playing cards.
Wendell was staring into the coals waiting for his soup to heat through when he heard one of his guards cry an alarm signal. He leapt to his feet along with most of his men, peering back down the lines to where the call had come from. It was the scout posted at the rear of the troop who now added to his warning.
"Wait". Wendell watched as his men held their swords in readiness. Further away, voices murmured in the darkness. His guards were talking, he realised with relief. There were no battle cries or shouts. One by one his men sheathed their weapons, but Wendell found himself unable to relax his grip on his own sword. Too tense for too long. Part of him ached for the release of battle, he knew. Men were coming forward now, a smaller unarmed figure in their midst. As they drew close, Wendell knew with a thrill that he recognized the figure.
"Giles-wolf?" he asked, part greeting, part query.
"King Wendell" the wolf replied, bending forward at the waist a fraction. Wendell could tell he was pleased that his name had been remembered, and hoped desperately that he wouldn't be expected to recite the half-wolf's lupine name, even if he could pronounce it. But evidently he was going to be spared that embarrasment as the half-wolf turned to whistle softly into the trees before facing Wendell once more. "It has been many cold months since we last met at the cub's blooding. Wolf's family is bonded to mine, and we heard that Virginia cub-mother had been taken against her will into the north..."
"She was taken right from under my own roof" Wendell sighed. "We have hunted far and wide, but we have guessed that one of your northern kindred must have done the thing at the bidding of the Ice Queen. Three days ago I saw in a Mirror a vision of Virginia and knew her captor to be the envoy Yacobe. I also saw that they had not yet reached the Ice Palace, though that may have changed now"
"And Wolf himself? Where is he?" pressed Giles.
"He has been gone from my Castle for weeks now, escorting my wife-to-be back to her home. I know that they reached there safely, for we had a messenger bird. I can only assume he is on his way back even as we speak. I'm hoping he will be able to pick up our trail" Wendell continued. In the corner of his eye he saw Tony open his mouth in seeming surprise, then shut it again swiftly. Distracted, Wendell shot him a glance, wondering. Was something else going on that he was unaware of? But before he could question his friend the half-wolf was speaking again, urging his attention back to the present.
"Good. I have with me many of my folk, King Wendell. Rare it is that so many of us would come together in such a fashion, but we have managed it. For a human, Virginia is special to us, as she is to you. And like yours, our people are suffering under the bite of this winter. Outlast you we may, but in the end we will also perish if the spell is not lifted and this ice cast forth from our lands".
As he spoke, more movement within the trees revealed yet more wolf folk, both full and half breeds. Many of his soldiers eyed them with suspicion, so long had they been used to treating wolf-kind as enemies, treaty or no. But in this barren land far from home, stronger still was the bond of men and beast who would fight now together for a common cause. Wendell was never so proud of anyone in his life as he was with the first soldier who extended a hand in friendship to the hand of a half-wolf, and he suspected the wolf Giles felt the same way.
"And are you the leader, the alpha of this lupine army?" he asked.
Giles barked a short laugh. "Ah no. If it's one thing we are determined to avoid, it's the tricky issue of leadership. Thus we have agreed that it would be the best thing for all of us if we were to put our alpha ranking on you, King Wendell, unblooded as you are. If you will have us, that is"
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Despite the travails of her journey Scarlett knew she was feeling more at ease than she could ever remember. And the strangeness of the situation played no role in her reactions at all, she knew. Was it a lupine thing, to so easily adapt to one's new circumstance? She had to suppose so, for she certainly could not imagine the stiff-backed protocol loving woman she'd once been taking to such change with so little emotional drama. Briefly she wondered about Wendell, and what he might think to see her now. It made her laugh low in her throat. She had never had any doubts that his love for her would continue. Maybe it was both a lupine and a thing of being in love that influenced her now.
"We amuse you, Scarlett-wolf?" spoke the elder of the half-wolf clan who had discovered them yesterday. Scarlett could tell from his posture that he was offering a jibe, and the hidden undertones of the wolf that whispered...tellme tellme tellme. It was a trick he played on her, she knew, one used on a lesser ranked wolf designed to get that one to reveal all their secrets. She smiled and laughed again.
"She is newly blooded and newly mated" Wolf spoke from across the fire.
"Ah". The half-wolfs nodded in apparent understanding, and Scarlett hid her flaming blush that crept across the cheeks. Well, she was not all that newly 'mated' in one sense with her Wendell, and she suspected that they knew that anyway. She tried to pinch her inner arm in an attempt to try and act less like a lovelorn fool and more like a queen that she once had been.
"So, Ruby's grandmother was a half-wolf herself" she repeated, picturing in her mind a portrait that had hung for years in the main hall, one she had stared at with such an air of admiration to be descended from such a one.
"Yes she was, young Scarlett" said the storyteller, a female half-wolf about her own age. The story of Little Ruby Riding Hood (from the lupine perspective) had been told many times over the past few hours and still Scarlett wanted to hear it again and again. Just as well that the wolfs seemed to have no recitence in relating it to her. They were delighting in her discoveries as much as she was, she realised. "She was one of us who preferred always to live amongst the human folk. We do not hold it against her, after all, are we not humans together as well? And in those times wolf folk were more tolerated, despite what your history tells you"
"So it was known that Grandmother was wolfen?"
"Oh yes, but then such things were not often topics of discussion, since no one particularly cared one way or the other. Folk were more accepting of each other as valuable individuals than they are today. And Grandmother had had a great love with a human man"
"And the came Ruby"
"Aye. That one was always a proud creature. Vain and arrogant. She was tail-less and without voice, and so knew not that she was herself born of the forest that she so feared. And yet even so, when she first looked on he who later became known as the Bad Wolf, part of her responded in kind. It was a new thing for her, but not unexpected given that she was a young woman"
"Who was he, this big Bad Wolf?"
"His human-use name was Banner, so called because he loved to let his tail fly in the wind. He was of middle years but still strong and healthy, and certainly what humans would call 'handsome'. Banner had visited Grandmother for many years, often staying within her bed although they were not mated. They loved each other and were happy. But young Ruby would understand none of that. She wanted Banner's attentions for herself although she would never say it aloud, nor would she even know why. Had she been raised among wolfs, maybe then she could have been eased through those difficult years that all wolfs know, but she was ignorant, and first love is first love, a dangerous time for wolf and human alike, yes?"
"Yes, I understand the danger of it"
"She found them together that day, in her Grandmother's cottage. And it was indeed a wolf in human guise, but that wolf was her Grandmother, not Banner himself. Ruby fled the cottage even though neither had tried to harm her, and in her anger she went to a Huntsman and begged him to end the monster she had seen in the cottage. The Huntsman who had in secret longed for the young woman Ruby, went of course to the cottage and in that sacred peaceful place a life was taken. But you know, that we think was not the worst to happen that day"
"What could have been worse?"
"We think, no, we are sure that Ruby intended for her Grandmother to perish that day, not Banner. Grandmother was the 'monster' in her eyes. But Grandmother survived, as of course the innocent Huntsman would not have thought to harm an old woman. And now Ruby could not admit to having had such thoughts, and so she pretended to be joyful at her 'rescuing' of poor old Grandmother, and she ignored the womans tears. Soon, word spread of Ruby's courage and she found that she enjoyed the attention, making it all the less likely that the truth would ever be known. Only two people knew what had happened that day, and Grandmother became frail and ailing and when she passed away there was none to gainsay her granddaughter. But Ruby was a Queen by then, having won the hand of a Prince, and her Kingdom was founded on a terrible secret, one that each and every descendant has tried to hide to this very day"
"I didn't try to hide it. I just didn't know...never even thought of such a possibility"
"We believe you Scarlett-wolf. And yet one day, when you had struggled to birth your first child, or maybe even your fourth or fifth, one day you would have seen in your own hands the bloodied tail of a cub...and then, then you would have known the truth. And you would have railed against your mother, your ancient grandmother Ruby, for making you live the lie they had told, and you would have flung that child, or spirited it away, or left it to die exposed on the frozen windowsill..."
...so cold so cold so cold...
"Enough" Wolf spoke sharply. Scarlett, feeling crumpled under the weight of the tale felt his arm across her back, holding her tight against himself. She had been weeping, she knew. She wondered for how long, and for whom.