The Mad Puppeteer

Rain! Ungol thought. A thousand mothers curse this rain!

It fell in relentless torrents, drumming on helms and cascading down shields. Ungol took pride in the fact that his children had not broken formation. They sloshed through the mud, backs bent against the storm’s onslaught, miserable as desert rats in the ocean, but holding ranks.

They marched toward the doomed village of Cheydenvale. They marched toward glory.

Ungol had built the Fiendish Host. He had birthed it, shaped it in the womb of his mind, shared its growth pains, watched its first steps. Now, Ungol’s child had grown, and he had an army that was feared and hated by all. There were few things that made his heart race like watching commoners react to the black cloth tied around his arm—the way their eyes went all big before they averted their gazes and moved out of his way. Sheep acting accordingly in the presence of a wolf.

But there had been murmurs lately, murmurs that the Host had gone soft, murmurs that the Host was no longer reliable. It had all started after that accursed business at Fallen Sky. So many things had gone wrong on that job—the first contract the Fiendish Host had ever failed to complete. Ungol wished that he had led the raid himself instead of trusting the mission to a lieutenant. He still seethed at the thought of a pathetic, pampered lord defeating his seasoned warriors—his children!

Well, after today, the Host’s glory—Ungol’s glory—would be restored. The coming bloodbath would cleanse all doubts, enthrone Ungol on a dais of death, and exalt his children in infamy forever. Their employer wanted no evidence left, so the Host would leave none. But there would be whispers—there were always whispers—and it would be known, or at least guessed beyond reasonable doubt, that the Host had been responsible for the massacre of an entire community.

Community, Ungol scoffed to himself. He squinted at the far side of the clearing they were traversing, barely discernable through driving sheets of rain. He’d seen the reports from his vanguard—an assortment of barely-standing dwellings filled with barely-living people in the middle of a mother-forsaken forest on the far edge of nowhere.

Community. The people that lived here were no more than sheep, unable to alter the path of their sad existence, unable to escape their coming fate—fit to be herded, slaughtered, fed to the machinations and whims of those in power, those who deserved to live, those who were wolves.

For the umpteenth time, Ungol tried to swipe a hand across his face to wipe away the water. So much water. What a miserable place to live. He would be saving Cheydenvale’s villagers long years of suffering, long years of hardship. He’d be handing them a gift, really. Ending their misery. Sending them swiftly into the long midnight. People always clung so desperately to life, but for what? Work, strive, suffer, die. All of it pointless. What the Fiendish Host was doing was a kindness.

Ungol smirked. Perhaps when he grew old he would write a book, a philosophical text, something to shake up the priggish false morality propped up by so many. He looked up, squinted against the rain. Almost across the clearing. Then a short march through the trees, and the sword work would start. Ungol’s smirk widened.

Somewhere on the right flank, above the pounding rain, there was a scream.

Then another.

And another.

Against the coal-gray mantle of the sky, Ungol saw flocks of arrows diving like stormbirds, and he immediately started shouting.

“Hold ranks! Hold steady!” He pushed a man back into line.

The volleys came swift and precise, always on the right flank. Those on the right were pushing left, trying to escape the line of fire.

In those first few minutes of chaos, Ungol felt the consciousness of his army shift, and he knew in his bones that it was already too late.

“Back into line! Forward! Across the clearing!”

But they were running, fleeing the relentless volleys. Order honed through years of training gave way to utter disarray, and the Fiendish Host, scourge of the desert, scampered for the treeline to the left of the clearing like fieldmice to burrows.

Once in the shelter of the trees, Ungol glanced at the trail of bodies left in the clearing. At least a third gone! Such a waste. Such a bloody, damned waste!

Seething with fury, blood pounding in his ears, Ungol shouted curses at his remaining children, striking anyone who didn’t form up. They were in a shallow gully with steep sides, not unlike the washes he was accustomed to navigating in the desert. He glanced at the high ground, unable to shake the feeling that there was something up there watching them—watching him.

A white spear of lightning pierced the sky, and Ungol gasped. Four figures stood atop the hill, illuminated in the sudden glare. There was something foreboding about them, something fell. They stood motionless, looking down at him like harbingers of death, unsheathed blades gleaming like the ravenous fangs of hell.

The sky went dark again and Ungol’s blood turned cold.

He shook himself and turned back to his children. What was wrong with him? It was only four soldiers!

Ungol screamed the order to advance, and his army seethed forward, pikes and swordtips bristling. Another lightning strike lit the forest, and the trees around the warriors on the hilltop teemed with activity. Arrows began raining down once again.

In that moment, Ungol knew two things. First—he knew that the Host had been tricked, for he now saw the full force of his foe, a handful of archers and four men at arms. And second—he knew that the Host would take the hill. They would suffer losses, perhaps as high as fifty percent, but they would take the hill.

The periphery of Ungol’s vision became blurry as bloodlust filled him. The battle was upon him, and he surrendered to its calling. These were the hours he lived for, the hours when destinies were seized and when men became wolves.

Minutes passed. Step by step, slowly and methodically, the Fiendish Host advanced up the slope. Feathered arrowshafts flew back and forth among the trees. For each opponent the Host slayed, they paid with five of their own. But they were moving forward, up that hill. The stream of arrows from the enemy was dwindling, like a parched river nearly dry.

And then, a sound.

Above the bone-rattling claps of thunder and the screams of dying men and women, a bestial roar swelled, like nothing Ungol had ever heard before. The father of the Fiendish Host turned to look up the gully, and his jaw dropped. He tried to speak, but he couldn’t form words. He extended a single shaking arm, the arm that bore the black ribbon, to point at the monster bearing down upon them.

͠

Atop the gully, Xavier felt the defense crumbling. Only half of Cheydenvale’s hunters remained, and their quivers were all but empty. Camel caught his eye and flashed a hand sign. Retreat?

Xavier shook his head. This high ground was their one and only chance to hold back the foe. There was simply no other place to make a stand. If the Wolverines retreated, Cheydenvale would fall.

Xavier chanced a look around the tree he was using as cover. The opposite side of the trunk was filled with enemy arrows, so thick as to be the plumage of some strange bird. The Fiendish Host was close enough now that Xavier could make out faces. Soon they would be within sword range.

Looking past Camel, Xavier saw Gustave checking the straps of the shield bound to his forearm. Further down, Grim dove between trees, firing as he went. One of the few remaining hunters tried to follow Grim’s lead and got himself shot in the face.

On Xavier’s other side, Kipp stepped out, bowstring taught. An enemy arrow took her in the arm and she screamed in pain, letting her own shot fly wild.

Another hunter sprang to her side and began dragging her from the front. “Fall back!” cried the hunter. “Fall back!”

“No!” Xavier shouted in reply, at once recognizing the hopelessness of their situation but also the dire need to carry on. “Hold for all that is dear to you!”

“Hold for your mothers and fathers,” Gustave shouted, “hold for the lives of your children!”

Kipp wrenched free of her fellow. “Hold for Cheydenvale, Jewel of the West!”

“For Cheydenvale, Jewel of the West!” The cry rose, ragged and raw, spreading from man to woman to man like a flame, growing in strength, until Xavier could not only hear it, but feel it in his chest. “For Cheydenvale!”

And then a new sound filled the forest, a roar, horrific and primal. It swelled, became deafening. Xavier looked, and could only stare.

Surging down the gulley was a mass of debris—boulders and vegetation and entire tree trunks—born along by an unctuous swath of muddy earth.

The mudslide was upon the Host before they had time to react. The rear of the army, the half that was lowest on the slope, was swept away in an instant—just gone. The rest of them pushed forward, breaking ranks, trying to make the safety of the hilltop.

Xavier sprang from the trees and saw Gustave and Camel doing the same. “Drive them back!” Xavier shouted. “Draw swords!”

Grim fired his last arrow and cast his bow aside, howling, “Death! Death! Death!”

The hunters leapt forward, some with blades, some with clubs, some with fists, less than ten in all. “Death! Death! Death!”

Xavier led them, bounding down the hill, Godric in hand, wind singing through the trees around him. Gustave was half a step behind, steady as a shadow, stalwart as a rampart of stone. Camel and Grim and the hunters followed, bellowing at the top of their lungs. “Death! Death! Death!”

And so it was that the final heave of Cheydenvale met the last gasp of the Fiendish Host. Weapons gleamed in lightning flares as rain pounded the earth to mush. The wind shrieked its gleeful challenge to the earth and the earth responded, the roar of the mudslide growing louder and stronger still, the flood proliferating, rising until the entire gully was filled with the surging detritus of the forest. Xavier and the defenders of Cheydenvale stood at the brink, voices raised in victory as they cast the final members of the Host backward into the doom-current of the storm.

͠

On the nine and twentieth day since the Battle of the Vale, the air was light and crisp. The cicadas had finally brought their ballad to a close, and a tranquil quiet hung over the forest. Xavier’s breath made little clouds as he sat musing on the change that a new season could bring.

Rebuilding Cheydenvale after the storm had proved to be therapeutic. Looking down at the village now, at the sturdy roofs with their stone chimneys, Xavier was filled with a surprising warmth.

A solitary figure was making its way up the hillside to join Xavier, who preemptively brushed the fallen leaves from the stone next to his own.

Gustave was panting only slightly by the time he made it to Xavier’s vantage point, and he dropped onto the stone with a hoompf.

“Next time,” Xavier asked with a grin, “shall I choose a spot farther downhill?”

“Yeah, funny,” Gustave replied as he wiped his brow.

For a while, the two of them just sat there watching the smoke rise from the chimneys. It was quite amazing, Xavier thought, how light his pockets felt, now that he no longer carried the treasure of Ahsakard.

The somber quiet of the great hall rested upon Xavier, filled him. The little specks of dust dancing in the light from those high windows was meditative.

“You’re leaving.” Alstier’s voice echoed slightly in the empty space. It wasn’t a question. It wasn’t an accusation. It was simply a statement from a wise and perceptive woman.

“Yes,” Xavier replied. “Tomorrow. The brunt of the storm damage has been rebuilt, and we feel the time is right for us to move on.”

The steward smiled, and before Xavier could change his mind, he said, “I have something for you.”

Allstier waited, wrinkled knuckles clutching the back of one of the chairs set around the dining table. Xavier took a breath, pulled the treasure of Ahsakard from his pocket, and laid it on the table. Though he set it down gently, it thunked heavily on the wooden plank.

“This is—”

“One of the twenty-two lost pieces of the treasure of Ahsakard,” Alstier breathed.

Xavier looked at her in surprise. The old woman’s eyes were bright with something halfway between wonder and reverence. “You know of it?”

“Know of it?” Alstier swept around the table, frizzy hair buoyant on an invisible breeze, coming near to peer at the little statue. She seemed almost hesitant to touch it. “Of course we know of it.”

Finally she picked it up, held it to the light, turned it in her hands.

“Long have my eyes desired to look upon but one of the fabled sand squirrels,” the old woman whispered. “Objects of beauty indescribable.”

“But how…?”

“The forge of the great artisan, Ahsakard, was here in Cheydenvale, Xavier White. It was in this village that Ahsakard crafted the squirrels from gold that he had delved out of the depths of the Old Kingdom. They say the earth itself holds magic over there”—Alstier nodded toward the west—“on the far side of the mountains.”

“Ahsakard lived in Cheydenvale?” Xavier could hardly believe it.

Alstier nodded, still gazing in awe at the statue. “Every historian and treasure-seeker can tell you how the twenty-two pieces were scattered over the centuries, lost to legend. But few remember that it all began here—right here—in Cheydenvale.”

Xavier opened his mouth, but he didn’t know what to say.

Alstier smiled and put the golden figure back on the table. “Many wonderous things were created in Ahsakard’s forge. Many things that remain to this day. And so, I too have a gift for you, Xavier White. A token of our thanks.”

Alstier snapped her fingers, and the mousey maid teetered out of the hallway, burdened by a great object wrapped in a blanket. When she reached Xavier, she presented it to him.

“Thank you, Ailsa.” Xavier said. He had learned from Grim that her name was Ailsa. And he was not so naïve as to have missed that Grim was conspicuously absent from his inn room on most nights. The young woman blushed and promptly skittered out of the hall.

“Well, go on, open it.” Alstier was positively beaming.

Xavier undid the blanket to reveal a very old shield. He looked immediately at the mantle over the fireplace and saw an empty spot on the wall above the two halberds. The shield had been dusted and polished to a brilliant gleam.

Xavier examined the shield, ran his fingers along the edges, traced the coat of arms imprinted on the front. It was a fine piece of equipment, perhaps one of the finest he had ever held. Xavier glanced at the hallway through which Ailsa had disappeared. The kitchen door stood open, and Xavier could see the very spot where he had stood one month earlier and attempted to convince his friends to abandon Cheydenvale in its hour of greatest need.

“Good steward,” Xavier said heavily, placing the shield on the table, “this means more to me than you can know, but I cannot accept it.”

Alstier’s smile faltered; confusion showed on her face.

“However,” Xavier continued, “if you’re looking for a hero to give this to—a real hero—I might know of one.”

Gustave leaned forward so that he could remove the shield slung over his shoulder. He ran his fingers along the edges in much the same way Xavier himself had. “Have you seen this?” Gustave asked.

“Alstier showed it to me.” The way the sun caught the metal was truly magnificent.

“The Escutcheon of Cheydenvale, forged by Ahsakard himself. This must be at least 600 years old, but its quality is…” Gustave trailed off as he shook his head appreciatively. “Here, look at the coat of arms.”

Cheydenvale’s ancient insignia had four quadrants. Two of them—the lower left and upper right—bore the mark of Ahanianna, the empirical throne city of the Second Age. The upper left section contained a stand of trees. And in the final quadrant was, impossibly, a wolverine perched on a rock.

“Destiny, eh?” asked Gustave.

“Destiny,” replied Xavier, passing the escutcheon back to his friend.

Gustave set the shield aside and dug out his newly-acquired pipe, bought from a local carver. He took his time tapping the bowl full of leaf. “You know,” he finally said, “it is beautiful, after all.”

Xavier produced his own pipe. “What’s beautiful?”

Gustave leaned over and offered Xavier the leaf. “The jest, as you so eloquently called it back in that kitchen.”

“The beautiful jest,” Xavier said quietly.

Gustave nodded. “Nothing in the Two Kingdoms is perfect, humans least of all. Every one of us has darkness within our nature, and every one of us must either do battle against that darkness or succumb to it.” He lit his pipe and inhaled. “Now, let’s talk about this jest of yours. You say that all your virtue is just an act, just a fiction. But I say it’s a sign that you have not succumbed. The fact that you are engaging in the jest at all tells me that you have chosen to do battle against the darkness.” Gustave blew a smoke ring. “And that, my friend, is a beautiful thing. Because that’s all we can do—get up, day after day, and choose to fight the battle.”

“Hmm. Gustave the philosopher.” Xavier looked sideways at his companion, moved by Gustave’s words.

Gustave shrugged and grinned. “Large weapons and life lessons. That’s what I’m here for, remember?”

Xavier chuckled. “I remember.”

And Xavier chose to say nothing more, for what more was there to say? There was a time for words, and a time for silence. And perhaps the first mark of a good man was simply to have the wisdom to know the difference between the two.

Cover image by france perles on Unsplash

Chronicles of the Wolverines
The Mighty Wolverines
Scars of Drehana
Lost to the Night
Fallen Sky
Escape from Bleeding Basin
A Beautiful Jest part 1
A Beautiful Jest part 2
A Beautiful Jest part 3
A Beautiful Jest part 4

Author’s note:
This ends what I have come to refer to as phase one of the story of the Wolverines, a story I began all the way back in February of 2018. Xavier, Gustave, Camel, and Grim will return for more adventures, though perhaps not for some time. There are a few of you who have been reading these stories from the very beginning, and your enthusiasm and support has meant more to me than I can express. For all those who have joined in along the way, I am grateful to you for taking the time to read some of my words.
-Robert