Wind Night, Wolf Night

by Norman Grey

“I was happier before all this, you know.”

“That’s only natural, now that you’ve finally grown up a bit. It’s harder to fill a well than a thimble.”

“Heh! If you squint just right, that was almost a compliment.”

“Anyway, we don’t matter. The mission matters.”

“Of course. Of course. Only... does it never strike you as odd that we know nothing about the man? That he simply gave us the job and we took it?”

“The man was sent by the One Above the Gods, we all know that. And he didn’t give us a ‘job,’ he gave us a purpose. It’s what we needed more than anything, after that night.”

“And we’re... we’re quite sure that the One Above didn’t send the wolves in the first place?”

“For the love of the Devil, don’t blaspheme!”

“Of course.”

* * *

From the mountain they came, thirsting. Loping swiftly through the flower-meads of old, they descended on the high-walled city with foam on their muzzles. We had no warning. Just as they came snarling to the gates, a mighty wind swept in from the Northeast, and borne upon its wings came a mighty murder of crows.

In those days, we of Urd Thlol looked on the wise, quick crow as the happiest of omens. But in that day, as they drew ever nearer, we soon perceived a strange and terrible thing: they were all facing Southwest. Toil as they might against the wind, they were driven backwards to our tall stern parapets.

Then the clamoring rooks flew clockwise round the city, and the slavering wolves ran widdershins. The wind veered off its straight relentless course and began to swirl in howling circles, following those two opposing wakes, till the proud city of our people was enclosed on all sides by a cyclone of black feathers and grey fur, self-dueling, twisting first this way, then that. Crouched in our houses of stone, we clutched the hilts of our useless weapons and awaited whatever doom was at hand.

But as we stared up through the storm’s eye into the blinding darkness above, the cerements of cloud drew back and we beheld the bone-white glow of the Moon. She was a hard, sharp crescent and, just a hair to her right, almost within the cusp of her curve, was the never-blinking gleam of the Wayfarer’s Star. And from that night forward, that unfailing lodestar became the new good omen of our tenacious diaspora.

The walls of our city — ruins of the ancient world, on whose foundations we had raised our home — were so cunningly constructed that no direct force could topple them. But, slowly, the buffeting lunacy of that shrieking bifurcated gale began to shear the walls horizontally. First small, then ever-larger flakes of mysterious rune-scrawled obsidian cracked apart and went spinning away into the awful cyclopean wind.

And the wind grew. It grew stronger, taller, as we shook our fists and cursed, till the impregnable fortifications scattered to the firmament like a startled flock of sparrows. For whatever reason, the wind — funnel-titanic, vast, filling the whole heavens — never entered the city limits, never trespassed on our streets. But it scarcely mattered: without its walls, the majesty of Urd Thlol could not possibly survive.

Nor could we hope to fend off the uncountable wolven hordes beyond our crumbling gates. In all our long history, no tale had ever told of them mustering in such numbers. We would surely give an accounting of ourselves, surely perish wielding well-blooded instruments of war; but perish we surely would.

Another doom, however, was decreed for us. At the storm’s crescendo, the wolves themselves were sucked into the funnel and, ululating sanguinarily, they hurtled upward to be lost forever to the skies. Then the crows, whether in victory or despair, abandoned the cloud-tombs of their lupine cohort and, as ripples flee a swiftly surfacing monster at the center of a lake, they burst outward from the fallen walls of our once-noble city and fled to every corner of the compass.

Then silence fell.

* * *

And for his pains, received the grimmest curse a warrior could fear: to gain the power of the very God he had slain, such that all who heard his voice must obey it. How, then, could he ever again know true battle, for — though he could and did possess himself in silence — he would always be aware that if the need or even the whim were great enough, he could end things with a word. And the more he used this power, the less his inmost self would balk at using it.

But perhaps, after all, it was a gift, he might have thought. Perhaps it was a calling. To put aside the blade and walk the lands, a prophet of the One Above the Gods. For none who heard his words could doubt their truth.

And yet, he had no gift of omnipresence! Heralds were required — men of strength and courage, such as he had been, men he understood — who could bear the message into foreign places and could fight for it at need.

Now, he must have asked himself, whom can I trust with the burden of such a mission? Whom shall I send? Thus began the long quest to find his questers; and how, or whether, it has ended, none can tell.

“Anyway,” shrugged the Lute-strummer, “that’s how the story goes.” So saying, he lifted the tankard and finished his ale at a draught.

* * *

In the skies above Trellem Vay, three rainbows hung. But not true rainbows: rather, three concentric every-colored rings that nowhere touched the earth. In the farmlands beyond the city, sporadic lightning flickered, lancing upward from the soil to disappear into the unquiet heavens.

Great walls enclosed the capital city of Avalorium — but not as great as ours had been. When our forces surrounded Trellem Vay, they closed their gates and filled their battlements with spears. When our delegation rode to the gates under flag of truce, the shrewd old king himself came to call down to us from the parapets.

“Soldiers of Urd Thlol! To what concatenation of vicissitudes do I owe the distinction of such illustrious invaders?”

“You mistake us, Your Majesty,” our grey commander called back up. “We bring glad tidings.”

“You’re not laying siege to my city?”

“Not unless we must.”

“Then do, by all means, gladden me.”

“The time of the Gods is over. Their temples will be torn down, and in their place you will build a mighty church to the One Above the Gods. Then, and then alone, there will be peace.”

Visibly surprised by these demands, the king considered. “You seek not gold or fiefdoms?”

“Majesty, we ask nothing for ourselves. It is for your own salvation, and the souls of all your citizens, that we must ordain these things. If they come to pass, then the folk of Trellem Vay will be richly blessed for a thousand generations.”

“Well, now. I consider myself an ecumenist, and I’m altogether willing to raise a church to the One Above.”

“That is well indeed. And you’ll destroy the temples of the old false Gods?”

The king’s expression hardened. “My people have worshipped their Gods for centuries. We won’t be pulling down their houses overnight. Besides, I can hardly allow myself to be seen capitulating to the obstreperous decree of outlanders, can I?”

“This decree is not ours. In the fullness of time, all nations will count you blessed to be the first to receive it.”

“Then, my good man, the fullness of time is not yet come. Now put up your flag and leave my gate before I order my bowmen to fire on you.”

In the waning warmth of afternoon, the creak of tautening strings was plain to hear.

“As you will.” Wheeling our horses around, we rode back to the encampment.

“That went as expected,” our lieutenant remarked. “What’s next?”

“We wait,” said our commander. “The power that made the world itself will unmake what stands in our way.”

The lieutenant dropped his gaze. “It doesn’t sit well, sir. They’re fighters like us. They deserve more respect.”

“That doesn’t matter. Only the mission matters.”

As he spoke, the triple rain-rings began to revolve. The outer and inner ring turned one way; the middle ring, the other. Faster and faster they turned, and the swelling tumult of fearful commotion in the city could be heard from well outside the walls. And then, from beneath those walls, the lightning came.

Each bolt, each blast, each jagged fork, exploded up from undreamt depths and ripped apart some portion of their defenses. Faster and faster came the lightning, and the plain stone walls were quickly blown to rubble. Neither side lost any time — we charged into the breaches, and their bellowing army ran to meet us. As the lieutenant had said, they were fighters.

It was a goodly fight.

* * *

For the quickest hand that ever held a weapon —
For the strongest arm that ever hewed a foe —
When the Darkness came to call
At his master’s mountain hall,
There was never any question where his swordpoint ought to go.

No metal blade can slaughter an immortal,
Nor human sinew sound their dirging knell;
Ere divinities be slain,
One must bargain for their bane
With the One who grins beneath the very bottom floors of Hell.

Ah, but once the battle-dust has finally settled,
And you’ve paid a darker price than blood or bone —
And the priests will not come near you,
For the Gods themselves now fear you —
Then what sacred undertaking can allow you to atone?

* * *

The battle was over. Everything was over. I stood alone in a red field. Trellem Vay and her people had fallen; Urd Thlol and her people, likewise. Ravens hopped and muttered in the windrows of the slain, and chop-licking jackals prowled. Cooling at my feet was the death-contorted form of the penultimate combatant. The only uprights other than myself were the shafts of spears which had chanced to fall blade-down. At this time of evening, the Wayfarer’s Star should have been visible on the horizon, but no gleam of her could be seen. The red sword slipped from my fingers, and I stood alone.

Then I saw two figures walking slowly through the dead. One was a man. The other, gnarled and scarred and nine feet tall, was a creature rare indeed in these Southlands. Only once before had I seen its like, in my youthful travels to the North. Its right hand, doubtless in some far-off unknown battle, had been severed; the left looked powerful as ever, large enough to crush a human skull. But in its strange grim countenance I saw both sorrow and honor, and I did not believe it meant me any ill.

The man, too, was a figure I’d seen only once before. A man in an old brown pilgrim’s cloak, with a face like the face of suffering itself. The prophet of the One Above, whom — so the legend said — none could disobey or disregard.

The ogre gestured at the carnage. “Fought well,” it grunted. “Brought glory. Urd Thlol never forgotten.”

“I don’t care about glory,” I sighed, too weary and heartsick for anger. “All my friends are dead.”

“Also mine. All tribe, all family.”

“Why? For what?”

The ogre glanced at the man. He nodded, and it leaned down so he could whisper in its ear.

“The reasons of the Gods are above the ones of men,” it said in a different voice. “How much more so are the reasons of the One Above the Gods!”

“Of course. Of course. But... if He wants to be known by all the nations of the earth, then why not simply make Himself known?”

Another whisper. “He does so even now. He reveals Himself through the actions and choices of His people.”

“Choices,” I said bitterly. “Did we ever have a choice?”

Ogre and man were silent.

“Just go. You needn’t worry. I’ll keep spreading the gospel of the One, till I die like everyone else.”

And then, at last, the man spoke aloud. “No,” he said, with the eerie intonation I remembered. “I make you free of any bond or obligation. Serve the One if you will, or serve another. But know that always, by all actions, we are serving someone.”

I knew it to be true. Night was falling, and wolves began to howl in the distance. They left me with a kind of valediction and faded at the rising of the wind.