Wren did not spend much time with his family. They were the third of five families for whom he and one of his students, Calre, had helped get up the mountain in one piece. His grandmother was elderly, and had she hobbled up herself the wolves would have had a bony feast. Fortunately, the wolves weren’t sprinting up the mountain. Wren did not know why.
They spoke as they climbed up the mountain, ahead of the rest of the family so he could bring more of the sickly and old up after her. She prayed to Old Mountain for his victory, for she knew him. Knew that he would fight those wolves, no matter how much their family were to tell him to stay safe. He could not run from this fight. No matter how much dull pain was in her voice as she sung the blessings of the mountain god, to give him strength and protect his life. There was pain in her voice, the pain of those who have seen loss and have come to terms with it. Wren was almost glad when he got her to the top, kneeled at her feet, and left. She was prepared for those she loved to die today.
Wren wasn’t sure he was.
The top of the mountain was not actually the mountain’s peak. It was the largest of all the terraces, a massive cut so that the mountain’s true peak looked more like a tower jutting out of it. It normally only held the village shrine and Old Boya’s hut, but it had space for the town’s large communal events.
They had time to prepare at the top, but there was little to do or say. There were twenty hunters in the village of 300, but they were used to outnumbering larger opponents and exhausting the enemy to death. The largest fighting force was miners with picks, slow unwieldy weapons near useless against nimble opponents. Farmers who worked the terraces the wolves were climbing up were wielding mattocks like clubs. Icebreakers may have been the best prepared: their shavers were long enough to be short spears, and they also were equipped with axes in their off hand. Among the villagers not a single one had a shield. Him and Craai’s students were probably the closest thing to warriors, for Koushan had never known war since the mountain god had slept.
They watched below, seeing the wolves massed in the moonlight. One hundred and fifty was the rough count, with Gale claiming there were five pack leaders and one “Wolf King” after a conversation with Selene. She knew more than she had let on.
He was waiting near Old Boya with Craai now. Looking over the side.
“Have you ever seen anything like them, Old Boya?” Craai asked.
“The creatures from the Bile are the matter of many a tale. Always hungry, the stomach of the Old mountain kept starved for a thousand years. No poison can hurt them, but they know that outside of their home humanity will hunt them down. They would only leave when a beast of power comes, a beast they believe can bite off a chunk of an empire and grow the forest.”
“Gale said that there was a Wolf King was with ‘em. Is that what he meant?”
Old Boya chuckled. “I suspect his magic friend told him that. An interesting person. Today is the vernal equinox, it is unsurprising that everything comes to a head on this night.”
Craai and I both looked at him incredulously, and he chuckled with a faint smile on his aging face.
“Gale came to me when he found her. I was like him when I was a child, curious of old tales. A young mage teleported into the Bile? He is too kind of a boy to deny me my joy.”
Craai spoke. “I guess I should have realized. Pretty sure his parents don’t even know. What’s an equinox?”
“We have the winter festival on the shortest day of the year, and the summer festival on the longest. Today is the day in between, when light and day are even mixed. In farming villages it is an auspicious occasion, for it is the end of winter.”
Wren realized that this was his chance to get any perspective on his crazy day. He hadn’t really had a moment to process it, and the first person he would have come to for advice was right in front of him.
“I saw a spirit today. I think the wolves are here for her. The girl, not the spirit.” Wren blurted out.
Old Boya paused for a moment, gauging whether he was serious. When Wren saw the faintest streak of worry across his face, he went on. “She-They-It said that I would meet a stranger and fight a monster today.”
“Never presume to know what a spirit means.” Old Boya chastened, but even Wren could see he was shaken.
“I- I’m scared.” Wren spoke haltingly. “Too much is happening too quickly.”
“Do not speak more of what it said. Do not follow any prophecy they make, nor avoid it.”
Craai asked, concern poorly hid. “We got the giant pack of wolves beneath our mountain. Who cares about a spirit? Seems a little backwards.”
Old Boya leaned back on his stool and for a moment they were no longer in danger but at a fire burning low, hearing wondrous stories with full bellies. His hands waved in the air as he spoke, and in the moonlight he came alive.
“I am Old Boya, elder of the village, old beyond my years yet long unborn during the tales I tell. When you are old and wise, when whiskers grow white on your face, you will tell the stories I tell and new stories that happen as you live to your children’s children. When you have told a tenth of the stories I have, you will be able to see the stars and hear the whispers of the wind and know the portents of the future.”
“Spirits are neither good nor evil, but as surely as they never lie they always speak to mortals before great change. Were I young, such a thing would be exciting, but now I am old and happy. Change may bring the end to many things I cherish.” He paused.
“In times like these, change is needed.” Wren idly said. “We are being robbed by the merchants. The rocks and ice we send are magic, gifts from Old Mountain himself; their worth should be measured in gold and platinum, not bread and stringy meat.”
“Wren! Now is not the time!” Craai responded, but Old Boya only chuckled.
“And so I do not despair, because you two and Gale will carry the torch.”
“When do you think they’ll start?” Wren responded. He looked back down at the wolves, moving slow near the base of the mountain. They were nearly a mile away by Wren’s eye, and they didn’t surround the mountain, but were circling around it. The three moved to keep an eye on them.
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“If you’re right, they’ll be hunting for her smell. Wolves are pack animals. I suspect she killed one of them when she was there, and so they are tracking her. Normal wolves are incredible trackers, and monsters with a trace of magic will be mind boggling.”
“Old Boya, do you think more time will be good or bad for us?”
“If we can hold out until the Jarlduke comes we are good, but every second of anxious waiting makes us weaker.”
Wren considered the situation. The Jarlduke would not come too soon. It would take a while, and if the wolves attacked before then in the current uneasy chaos it would be over quickly. He looked at Craai, and knew they both had the same idea. She said it.
“Let’s all get up over here and get Selene - the mage girl - right up to them. They’ll bound for us, and we’ll defend the slope.
It was particularly steep here. Old Boya slowly nodded, and Wren got the villages to form an arc with their weapons out while Craai got Selene.
She walked next to him at the front of the arc, and the largest wolf’s eyes immediately trained on her a mile away. He howled and roared loud, and the wolves started to ascend the mountain in leaps and bounds.
They had a few minutes at most. Craai whispered to Wren from behind. “Speech time, golden boy?”
“Hmm?”
“You’re the hope of the town. Escaping, going to one of the twelve Schools of the Empire, genius of the spear. Rouse their weary souls with your many dashing words”
“You could.” He replied.
“Yeah but I’m two tits too good to be a golden boy in this village.”
Wren grinned at her, and for a moment he remembered getting ready for the spar with the Nemean student. His parents had been watching, but just before he was with Craai, Gale, and Old Boya, trying to keep calm. Now the same three people were behind him and Selene. It felt good, to remember. “Two feet too short. I’ll lift you up.” He responded.
Before Craai could respond Old Boya started speaking.
“Children of the Old Mountain, we face his love for us. The creatures that he made to guard us have gotten lost, and now the bile has gone up past the teeth. When Old Mountain wakes up our children will tell him about it, and like any parent he’ll apologize, and put more water in his drink for a few weeks.” A few people chuckled.
“Do not be scared. Many of you are not warriors, but the blood of the greatest to ever live runs in your veins. We were once the terror of north and south, from the mountains to the sea, but like any parent Old Mountain sheltered us from danger. Now we must show him that we are old enough to venture into the wild world. Show him that he has raised hardy veterans of icy rock, warriors who would make our ancestors proud.”
The crowd churned, desperate for his words. His hope and rage.
“Do not fear the baying howles, for our roar shall bring true terror. Do not fear the gnashing teeth, for that is where we have grown. Do not fear the beasts made of Old Mountain’s Bile, for his Blood runs far thicker.”
The fastest were nearing them now.
Craai screamed. “I do not fear!”
The second time, Wren joined in the chant.
“I do not fear!”
“I do not fear!”
They could see white fangs now, but the howls were drowned out by their roar.
Then the largest one leaped ahead of the rest. The Wolf King, an absolute giant of white fur and whiter teeth. Wren was near the edge of the cliff and saw it come ahead of the others.
From the distance it looked twice as big, and it could leap at least twice as far.
He stopped chanting and started tracking its movements. And while he did he heard a softer chant from Selene next to him, punctuated by the steady chant of the crowd.
“When high noon’s light has come and gone.”
“I do not fear!”
Wren finally understood the spirit’s message as the beast leapt twenty feet in the air, bypassing the massive incline that separated terraces. If the beast could jump that high, it could bypass the wall of makeshift weapons at the edge. It would wreak havoc on their already pathetic defense. Gale was near the front. One claw slash would kill him.
“When dusk begets its vile spawn.”
“I do not fear!”
It would leap over the final slope to them, the place they had planned to cull the wolves. The steep sides which should have given the wolves unsure footing would instead be a trap, for anyone knocked into it would not be able to regain their bearings before being set upon by wolves.
He probably wouldn’t be able to defeat that thing. But if he kept it off the mountaintop, he could give everyone else time. Then its thrashing wouldn’t be in the tight ranks of the villagers but in the path of the wolves. As it leaped to the terrace beneath, he started to run. He had only four steps to accelerate, but each bound of what Gale had named the Wolf King was the length of two men.
“When midnight comes, do not fear death.”
As he lept, he felt the eyes of every person present. He screamed alone, into the void of their surprise.
“I DO NOT FEAR!”
The beast had leapt too, and it soared upward as he flew towards it. It was gigantic up close; it’s body was vertical as it leapt, and it was well over twice as tall as Wren was.
Each moment was an eternity. He moved his spear forward, aiming to stab at its neck. It noticed him, and started to lower its jaw and raise its left claw to protect its heart. Wren rotated the spear tip just slightly upward, into the wolf’s jaws. It entered its mouth, and he dug into flesh.
Thirty feet off the ground, time slowed as the dance of death began.
The wolf howled in pain, but quickly bit down on the spear. It had a grip far stronger than Wren’s, and as it whipped its head to the side it bit down, breaking the spear tip off and sending Wren tumbling down the slope.
It also fell down to the sloped ground, and while Wren now had nothing but a stick it was back on land and it lunged. He dodged to the side, but it whipped its hind leg out and clawed. His muscles were moving too slowly, but he ducked just underneath to grab the leg and tried to punch its underbelly. It pivoted away and now Wren was inching through time, forcing his upper body to twist and turn to avoid its limbs. He was buying time, for without his spear he didn’t have anything that could seriously injure the much stronger beast.
The final blow was a massive swipe of its claw. Wren saw it coming, knew with certainty that he was too slow to dodge. Fortunately, his stick prevented the claws from slicing him in half. Unfortunately, it did next to nothing to block the brute force behind the blow. This leg had allowed the creature several times Wren’s size to jump thirty feet into the air. Pushed against his much lighter body, he was shoved far away from the mountaintop.
Once again, Wren was flying. This time, he wasn’t ten feet in the air. He was rolling backwards, the slope of the mountain getting farther away as he traveled. He looked behind him. The eyes of the villagers were still on him, but even from this distance he could tell that their faces were covered with fear.
Despite his imminent demise, he couldn’t help but feel disappointed in himself. He was supposed to be a genius with a spear, wanted to be the hope of the village, dreamed of being the greatest in the Little Teeth. How could he fail their expectations so badly?
He couldn’t take his eyes off them, the village he would soon have been a part of. And so he saw Selene finish her chant, raising her arm towards the sky.
“The Sun never dies, for I bring the Dawn!”
A sword was in her hand. It looked rutsy and worn, but the hilt started to emit golden light the color of the sun. It traveled upward, rising from the hilt to the end of the edge.
As Wren fell to what would probably be his death, he had to admit that it at least looked impressive. Next time he fought her, he wanted to fight that blade, spear in hand.
He was moving fast. He couldn’t have rotated his body fast enough even if the kick hadn’t broken several bones in his body, but he could crane his neck to see where he was landing.
He hit a house rather than rock. The roof caved in, and that saved his life.