The Legend of the White Wolf

Beris m'Lobik Etavo looked out at the heat already rising from the road and shuddered. Even after ten years he was not used to this weather. He missed snow. He missed his breath hovering above him like a guardian ghost. He missed crunching through frozen fields and drinking from frozen streams. This wasn't winter, not with his sweat streaming down and his eyes dry from the heat; this was a mockery, some Southern joke on him, this winter more baked than the summers back home.

He shuddered again, and sighed at the thought of home. The North Country, home of the great Clans, and Etavo the greatest of them. Among the greatest, he told himself sternly. Many here felt Etavo too proud for its own good, and he wanted to give them nothing more to resent. He hadn't lived in the rolling hills and thick forests since he was a lad, yet every slope, every tree was graven in his mind; every change in the weather as well, from the cold sharp north wind screaming off the plains to the full and fragrant west wind rolling black clouds of lightning before it, from the brief summer squall that eased the mild Northern heat to the bitter blizzards howling through the long dark nights, locking everything in ice, freezing even the smoke from the chimneys of the longhouse of Etavo.

"Damn!" Beris glared at one of his men, chewing a biscuit and leaning against the guardhouse. He had forgotten his ration bag this morning; t'Fodt would not relieve him for hours yet, and he was hungry. And what if t'Fodt forgot his ration bag, too? Beris knew that Vinkin, the watch commander on the outer gate this morning, had already eaten all his food, the greedy bastard, and the men had little to spare. Beris sighed. Nothing for it but to wait for t'Fodt and hope he brought enough to share.

He went into the guardhouse, chagrined at himself. Not two months ago he and his men had force-marched three days through a driving winter rainstorm without food, and here he was worrying about missing his breakfast by a couple hours. That's gate duty for you.

Beris swiped once more, absently, at the spot of lamp oil on the knee of his uniform trousers and glared at the ineffective rag. Back from the field six weeks, five of them on gate duty. That's what happens when you mess up. His uncle had warned him: "Mess up once and they won't let you forget it." Beris had nodded sagely. He had not imagined he could mess up even slightly, certainly not enough to earn the eternal enmity of the Legion command.

Gate duty!

The five men playing cards in the next room had almost sixty years of border skirmishes and reprisal raids among them, and there they sat, day after day, waiting for some enterprising barbarian chieftain to somehow make it intact a thousand miles inside the Empire to attack this one gate. Until that happened, there was nothing but mind-numbing boredom and bad wine. It was a waste of time, and a waste of talent. His men were warriors of the Burning Wind, not gate guards. They needed open air and the smell of woodsmoke and blood. They needed an occasional skirmish with a daring barbarian band and a day or two terrorizing a dusty border town.

"Keep your nose clean and don't volunteer for anything," his uncle had said. Beris had heard the tales of his uncle's time with the Legion: tales of unrestrained valor and heroics, of perilous chances taken and uncounted dangers overcome. Nothing had been too risky for the young Etavo Clan-leader; he had feared only that something might happen without him. Beris had smiled, hearing these counsels of restraint from a man who never held back from anything. He would make his uncle proud, he had sworn; he would bring endless glory to Clan Etavo -- and he couldn't do that by letting others take the chances.

No opportunity for glory had presented itself his first four years with the Legion. A junior lieutenant could do only so much without direct approval. Blowing his nose was allowed, but single-handedly defending the Empire from invading barbarian hordes was not. When Fate took a hand, in the form of Myesti lances through his three immediate superiors, Beris was ready. Glory, however, was not. The Myesti overran the border defenses. For the first time in its long history, the 23rd Legion, the Burning Wind, called for help -- from the despised dirt farmers of the 15th, no less -- and was recalled in disgrace to Echan, the Capital of Empire.

The Heavenly City of Splendor was not kind to disgraced lieutenants. People who had known him since he worked the counter in his father's shop crossed the street to avoid him. The quartermaster seemed to delight in giving him only the oldest, most decrepit equipment -- such as the lamp still leaking on the table beside him, waiting to stain his uniform again. The cooks went out of their way to serve him gristle and bone. What wine he could get was barely short of vinegar.

His stomach growling, Beris stepped out of the guardhouse to inspect the gates themselves. The outer gates were always open in these times of peace. Each twenty feet tall and twelve feet broad, three-foot-thick oak bound in iron, they were not the sort of thing Beris wanted to open and shut all day, however beautifully balanced they were. The inner gates, much smaller with the constricting channel of the passage through the walls, were iron grillwork, left open only by day, though always ready to close. Beris commanded the inner gate today, working out of a tin-roofed shack inside the wall; it would soon be an oven. He preferred the inner gate, but he hated the shack; much better was the small stone gatehouse by the outer gate, which at least stayed cool through the day.

"Morning, Vinkin," he called to a man leaning against the outer gate. The man glanced over his shoulder and waved a desultory hand. He looked no happier than Beris.

It was time to check the progress of the card game. Just as Beris turned the watchman called out, "Horseman approaching! One, coming fast."

He joined Vinkin at the outer gate, and together they followed the watchman's pointing arm. There, just out of a bank of mist some two miles away, a small black dot sped along the road.

"Five minutes?" Vinkin asked.

"Closer to ten, I'd say," replied the watchman.

The road ran straight as a knife edge from the gate all the way to the hills ten miles distant. Normally, the size and composition of a party was apparent to alert gate guards for at least an hour before it reached the gate. Today perhaps the guards were not alert, or perhaps they were fooled by the shimmering waves of the mist burning off. Even as he watched, the dot became a rider, and the rider winked out, only to appear a second later that much closer. He could not see the horse's legs, and for a moment he imagined this was a strange two-headed beast flying through the air toward him, propelled by the searing blast of this damned southern heat.

"I'm going to half gate," Beris said, turning back to his station.

Beris called his men out. They closed one of the inner gates, leaving a space barely five feet wide. If the rider wasn't recognized, or wasn't stopped at the outer gate, he would be stopped here. Sergeant Manek and two men stood ready to slam shut the open gate; the other three men joined Beris in the cool passageway between the gates.

Their uniforms were perfect, he noted with pride, cuirasses polished, plumes crisp and bright, every pleat, every fold, every belt and strap precisely in place. His own uniform was far from perfect. His tunic was wrinkled and dark with sweat; his boots were dusty; his trousers were improperly bloused and the oil stain on his left knee stood out like a boil. He wiped his face, his boots, and his knee, and turned to face the approaching rider.

"See him yet?" called Beris.

"No uniform. Green or blue cloak, red hair. Horse is a beauty; bay, with a blaze."

Not a military courier, then, not dressed like that; didn't sound like one of the regular diplomatic couriers, either. Not the ones from the south, at least.

"Know him, Vinkin?" Beris called.

"Not from the Ogre of Denibor."

"You'll detain, then?"

Vinkin shrugged. "That's what I'm here for." Both lieutenants fell silent, eyes fixed on the approaching rider.

"Lieutenant?"

"What?" Beris snapped, not looking away from the vision on the road.

"Your plume, sir."

Beris glanced at Sergeant Manek beside him, a grizzled veteran who looked fresh for the parade ground and held stiffly before him the bright golden-plumed helmet of an officer of the 23rd Legion. He took the helmet, noting with disgust that he still clutched the rag. He tried to put the helmet on with one hand while stuffing the rag in his tunic with the other, and managed to do neither well.

The silence was soon broken by the steady patter and then thunder of hooves.

Then:

"Out of the way, fools!" A whip cracked, Vinkin's men scattered, and the bay burst into the passageway.

"Close it!" Beris shouted.

The horse bore down on him, blowing steam, wild-eyed. The gate clanged shut behind him, the horse barely a dozen feet away. The rider pulled it up short, rearing and screaming.

"Open that gate! I'm coming through!"

Two of Beris's men caught hold of the bridle; the horse stamped and snorted in agitation, but quickly fell to merely fidgeting. The rider, a beardless man with red hair brighter even than Beris's unruly mop, and eyes as wild as his horse's, glared down at Beris and raised the short whip he held in his gloved left hand.

"Who are you and what is your business?" asked Beris.

"None of yours, that's certain. Open the damned gate, you fool, or it's your head."

"Who are you and what is your business," Beris repeated, his voice steady. He was acutely aware of the figure he cut: an Officer of the Guard in rumpled trousers, with his helmet crooked and a dirty rag hanging from his sweat-stained tunic. He cocked his head sharply to one side, and the helmet settled satisfyingly into position. He could do nothing about the rag without calling more attention to it.

"What's your name?" the rider demanded. "I'll see to it you never command anything more than a pig sty as long as you live."

"Who are you and what is your business?"

Three guards from the outer gate arranged themselves behind the rider, swords bright in the morning sun. The rider glanced quickly around. Six guards, all with grim faces and sharp swords, two holding his mount and three blocking his rear. He turned back to Beris and snorted.

"You are zealous in your duty, it appears. If you must delay me, I can only repeat that it will not go well for you."

"Who are you and what is --"

"And what's my business, I know. Iloban Korialis, with an urgent message for the General of the Left. Now open the gate and let me deliver it."

"The General of the Left?" A civilian courier for the General? This was rare.

Iloban Korialis rolled his eyes. "Surely you've heard of him. General Toras ng'Artu Etavo? Supreme Commander of the Imperial Left Wing? Viceroy, for the nonce, in the Capital? I think he's rather famous, don't you know."

Beris frowned. This man was beginning to get on his nerves. He signaled a guard from the outer gate to take the man's stirrup. "If you care to dismount, you may wait in the gatehouse. I will inform the General's staff."

"You're serious about this, aren't you?"

Beris stepped forward and returned the man's glare. He swallowed his retort and kept his voice cool and detached. "If you care --"

"To dismount. All right! It's obvious if I don't one of your savages will help me." He swung his leg over and slid off the horse, almost landing on Beris's feet. With short sharp strokes of his whip, he slapped dust off his cloak and onto Beris. "You may be sure the General will hear of this," he growled. "Well, be quick about it."

Iloban Korialis was a tall man, and large. Beris had to look up to hold his gaze. Without looking away from the ice-colored eyes, he said, "Sergeant, be so kind as to send word to the General's staff, won't you?"

Sergeant Manek, on the other side of the closed inner gate, nodded. "Yes sir." He turned to the guard beside him and said softly, "You heard the officer, lad. Hop to."

"Now, sir," said Beris, "these gentlemen will escort you to the gatehouse. Water and wine are there to be had. I'm sure it won't be more than half an hour."

Beris wheeled away. He could no longer abide this insolent peacock, this trumped-up farmer, with his fine clothes and his fine mount and his fine sneer. Savages, indeed! Did he not know the General, too, was a savage? The inner gate opened at his approach, and he marched smartly through, leaving Iloban Korialis to the hospitality of Vinkin.

Not much less than half an hour later, the guard returned with a winded aide-de-camp and Beris nodded them through to the outer gatehouse. He listened wryly to the aide's fawning apologies, and to the rider's renewed threats. Beris held the bay, brushed and watered, though hardly rested, at the inner gate. Iloban Korialis snatched the reins from Beris's hand and swung angrily into the saddle.

"When you see the General," said Beris as the other turned away, "tell him that Beris m'Lobik Etavo, lieutenant of the Burning Wind, sends his regards."

The other barely glanced at him. "Of that you may be sure." He kicked the bay into a canter and clattered into the Heavenly City of Splendor, leaving the aide to follow in his wake.

"Enjoy your stay in the city, Iloban Korialis," Beris said to the settling dust.

A few minutes later, his report barely started but already stalled, Beris looked up from his desk to find Sergeant Manek in the doorway, a leather pouch in his hands.

"Yes, Sergeant?"

"It appears the gentleman left this behind, sir. Perhaps you'd care to hold it for him." He placed the pouch on the edge of the desk and silently withdrew.

The pouch contained a round of cheese, two wrinkled apples, and a chunk of black bread. Beris laughed out loud. It wasn't the first time Sergeant Manek had reminded him who it was that kept armies running. Young t'Fodt could keep his food.