SNAFU: Wolves at the Door

With a howl, the shapes finally settled on a single form. Bones cracked, broke and reformed, sending the morphing creatures into spasms of rage and agony. Thirteen men became thirteen raging, slavering wolves – bigger, faster and more vicious than any pack that ran through the wilds of the northern lands. These were Skadi’s Wolves – feared not only by mortals and their mothers, but by the Gods themselves. The Christian Fisher King’s mewing men would be no match for their fury.

Baying and howling, they looked to their mistress to release them. She smiled, petted the largest – a massive, black-furred, golden-eyed monster with a maw that would swallow a baby whole – and raised a glistening, frost-covered hand. She curled all but one finger into a fist, ice crystals dropping from her skin, and pointed at the garrison. “Feast, my children. Feast!”

With a final group howl, Skadi’s Wolves were unleashed…

* * *

“What in God’s name was that?” Ælrik skidded to a stop and spun around in his saddle.

“That was our doom calling us! Ride, you fool, ride!” Jurgen kicked his horse into a gallop, no longer concerned by possible tree roots or rabbit holes. They had just a mile to go before they reached the garrison. He knew his horse was almost at the end of its endurance – he could see the vein in its thick neck pulsing frantically. Damn it, the blasted creature’s heart was close to exploding through sheer exhaustion and terror. “One mile, damn you, one mile!” He kicked the animal in the ribs, urging it on. If the wretched creature collapsed at the gates then it was of no matter. But they needed to get to safety before the Wolves descended upon them.

Ælrik scowled. “No man howls like that…”

The demonic, blood-curdling howling screamed defiance, vengeance and a lust for blood that only the beating heart of a terrified, dying man would slate.

“Lord God Almighty, protect us!” Ælrik kicked his heels against his horse’s ribcage and the creature leapt into a gallop with no further encouragement.

One mile.

That’s all.

Just one mile…

* * *

The garrison at Berwick was almost deserted. A few lame and injured soldiers, still beaten, bloodied and bruised from recent running skirmishes with the Norsemen, were all that were left. One cook, one stable boy and a couple of guards to protect the gate made up the company. It would be a pitifully weak defence against anything that may come from the north. But the Garrison walls were three feet thick in places, and the gates were made of solid English Oak that age had hardened to the strength of iron. Besides, all the problems were to the south, where York was now the focus of King Æthelstan’s attentions.

Every man who could fight had marched with the King. All that was left in Berwick were those who would have simply slowed the column and become a burden to their comrades. Three monks had volunteered to stay and tend to the sick and the wounded, raining muttered benedictions and blessings on those who could not escape their pious mumbling. The monks did nothing except remind the dying soldiers of their impending mortality. Their poultices stank and stung, the bandages were merely sack cloth cut into strips, and the gruel they slopped into wooden bowls would not have sustained a child. Yet here they were, these monks with their tonsured heads, their filthy brown robes and their stinking, dirt-caked skin – and large, solid silver crosses swinging from their waists. The grubby, once-white cords that held their robes in place each carried a silver cross so large that, if melted down and beaten into coins, would feed and clothe a family for a year. Many of the soldiers, who were still struggling with their faith, felt a jarring at the juxtaposition of supposedly penitent monks displaying such ostentatious wealth so flagrantly. No wonder the men of the North constantly raided their shores, if they knew that such riches were on open display and there for the taking!

Many of the northern soldiers blamed the monks in no small measure for the violence that had plunged their land into such black and bloody turmoil. And now the sanctimonious bastards had the audacity to tell them to be grateful for God’s bounty of watery gruel and stale bread? Damn them all! Damn them and their Fisher God…

The gate guards were roused into slothish movement by the sound of pounding hooves and shouting. “Open the gate! Open, in the name of God and the King!”

A screaming whinny indicated a horse that had finally given up and collapsed, its heart now just a flapping, bloody mess of torn muscle in its chest.

The gate guards rushed to the observation point to see who demanded entry at this hour. “Who goes there, calling by the name of the King?”

“Ælrik and Jurgen! For the love of God Almighty, man, let us in! We’re under attack!”