SNAFU: Wolves at the Door

The gate guard turned to his colleague. “Sound the alarm!” One guard nodded and sprinted off along the battlements towards the alarm bell, while his compatriot slid down the wooden ladder and ran to the gate. With a grunt, he heaved the heavy oak bar out of its resting place and hauled on the handle.

When there was just enough room to squeeze through, Ælrik stumbled his way in, spun, grabbed Jurgen by the scruff and hauled him through. “Shut it! Shut it now!” The guard slammed the gate shut and Jurgen helped him lift the oak beam and slot it back into position.

The clanging alarm bell brought the few mobile occupants of the Garrison scurrying out into the courtyard. Limping soldiers on crutches, those with bandages around their heads or with their arm in a sling, stood bleary-eyed and confused. The three monks scurried out like brown rats, twitching their noses and scuffling their sandals through the horse-shit and mud. “What’s this? What’s this?” The eldest of the tonsured fools scuttled up to Ælrik. “Are we under attack?”

“Why do you think my men have sounded the alarm, you dolt? Of course we’re under attack! And by something unholy too, Father. So we may have need of your skills and machinations before this night is through!” Ælrik glowered at the monk, his instinct to backhand the damn fool battling with his reverence for the supposed authority of a priest.

The oak gates shook violently as a force slammed into them from the outside. The beam held. Just. Another violent judder shook the entire gate. Small flakes of stone and mortar floated down. From the other side of the gates came snuffling and growling – deep, guttural and primeval. Claws scrabbled and dug at the wood, scraping and scratching into the oak planks.

Ælrik, Jurgen, the guards and those men that could stand and move stepped slowly back, drawing their swords and readying themselves. The gates were strong, but would they be strong enough? Another shudder shook the gates as the beasts on the other side threw their weight at the oak.

“What manner of attack is this?” The oldest of the monks stared at the shaking gates and crossed himself frantically.

“Demons, Father. Demons with big teeth and a taste for Christian blood!” Ælrik snarled at the monk. “Vile hounds from the north. They delight in the name of Skadi’s Wolves.”

“God preserve us!” The monk wailed. “Not here, not again!”

Before Ælrik had a chance to ask the monk what he meant by ‘not again’, the gate juddered violently. A sliver of wood broke away from one of the planks, and a single golden eye filled with menace and evil peered through. The owner of the eye snarled and growled, a long, low rumbling that lasted several heartbeats. Taloned fingers, part human, part animal, curled through the small gap and started to worry and scrabble at the planking.

Before Ælrik or any of his men could respond, a monk leapt forward. The silver cross that usually hung from his grubby, knotted cord was in his hand and pointing straight at the beast’s golden eye. The monk, yelling for the power of God to protect him, plunged the long shaft of the cross deep into the wolf’s orb.

The screaming was horrific. The beast disappeared from view and continued to howl in agony, the silver cross still embedded in its eye. Thrashing and snarling came from beyond the damaged gate, as the injured beast yelped again and again like a kicked puppy. The smell of burning flesh filtered through the gap in the wood; an odd, acrid smell that stung the back of the men’s throats.

Above the animal sounds rose a scream of absolute fury that stopped every living creature – man and beast – in its tracks. The sound of a furious ice giantess. “NO! You dare defile my children? You dare? Kill them! Kill them all! Spare no one!”

The gate shook violently as the beasts launched a barrage of attacks. The sound of splintering wood sent the men back further. Ælrik had a nasty feeling that English steel, while it may have been good for skewering Pictish priests, would be no match for these hellish creatures and their furious mistress. “Priest! How is it that your man’s cross had such an effect?”

“As much as I’d like to say it’s the power of our Lord God Almighty that smites them, it is the silver. They cannot bear its touch. That and the touch of the sun’s rays.” The monk held up the cross that dangled at his waist. “See this?” He indicated to the main shaft that tapered down into a point. “Have you never wondered why our crosses are shaped so? It is because we know of these beasts.”

“Then you know how to fight them.”

“Normally? Yes. But they’re too great an enemy for us to fight, soldier. We must flee.”

“You do and I’ll cut you down myself!” Ælrik snarled. “We have just an hour until dawn. We hold them off. We fight!”

The monk shrugged. “Then we’ll die. I suppose it is God’s will that we die alongside you and your men.”