Oak and Beech are the best woods for the construction of siege engines, or at least the best timber for such purposes to be found in the Provincia Narvonnia. I’m told that if we’re ever forsaken in Skandia, fir is a good substitute.

* The Campaign Journals of General Aurelius, volume I

☀

11th Day of New Summer’s Moon, 297 AC

Henry’s arrow took the pheasant in the chest.

The bird had been pecking around on the forest floor, where its gold, black and white feathers stood out to Henry’s trained eye. He lowered his black longbow of Iebara wood, rose from the brush, and walked over to fetch the dead pheasant, using some of the twine he’d brought along to tie its feet to his leather belt, after removing his arrow.

“Good to see you haven’t forgotten what I taught you, lad,” his father, Robert, said, coming up behind him silently. Never in his life had Henry been able to hear his father move.

“Had plenty of chances to use it,” he said, glancing over their take for the morning. They’d started just as the sky was light in the east, moving through the crepuscular Ardenwood like a pair of shadows. Now that it was well and truly day, between the two hunters they had bagged three hares, a duck, and now the pheasant.

“On game, or on men?” His father asked him, and Henry frowned.

“Both.”

His father put a hand on his shoulder. “No shame in it,” the old hunter said. “You did what you had to do for your lord, didn’t you?”

“Aye,” Henry said. “But it don’t make the dreams go away.”

“No,” Robert said. “I reckon nothing for that but time, and a good wife to be there when you wake.”

“You just want grandchildren,” Henry shot back, with a grin, “So Ma will get off your back.”

“Caught me,” Robert admitted, with a shrug. “This is enough. Let’s get them back and cleaned.”

“It’s only enough because of the Graal,” Henry pointed out. “If it wasn’t for that, we couldn’t hunt enough game to keep the entire village fed.” Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of a massive white wolf with red eyes, moving alongside them through the foliage. “Wait,” Henry said, and his father paused. The wolf met his eyes, fearless as any man, and nodded its head south.

“What is it?” Rober asked.

“One of the Horned Hunter’s wolves,” Henry said. “Wants us to follow it.”

The old man shook his head. “You’ve had more truck with faeries in two moons than most men in a lifetime.” But despite his protests, he followed his son, who in turn followed the great wolf.

Henry could hear the axes and the saws even before they reached the southern edge of the Ardenwood, and he crouched, using all of his craft to remain out of sight and silent. His father disappeared, somehow, between one glance and the next, but Henry wasn’t worried about the old man; Robert probably knew this forest better than any other man alive. By the time Henry had crept forward close enough to get a good look at what was happening, he was less than twenty yards from the commotion.

Under the guard of watchful men in green and gold tabards, wood cutters were taking timber from the Arden. From what Henry could see, they weren’t being very discerning about what kind of wood to cut: he saw an oak come crashing down, while not far away a beech was being stripped of its branches. There were guarded wagons, already half full of logs.

The only thing the workers let be was a small stand of Iebara trees. Oh, they tried their luck, for certain: but once a man had nearly taken his own head off from the rebound of his axe for the second time, the soldiers called out to put a stop to it.

“Nothing with black branches!” a man in a dented helm shouted. “You’ll wreck the axes.”

“Fools, the lot of them,” Robert whispered, appearing on Henry’s left. “They don’t know the right songs to cut an Iebara tree.”

The great faerie-wolf had crept up with them, as well, and Henry thought it uncomfortably close, particularly when it began to growl low in its chest.

“What is it, then,” Henry asked the creature. Angelus, it was as big as a horse - a horse lying on its belly and barring its yellow fangs. The wolf nodded its head toward the men. “What, you want us to get rid of them?”

The wolf grinned. It was not a pleasant sight.

“Angelus save us,” Henry cursed, then began to work his way backward, slowly and carefully. “Fine. But we need more than two people.”

The wolf followed them all the way back to the clearing by the stream, where the people of Camaret-à-Arden had slept the night before. “Who goes there?” a man at arms by the name of Edmund called out, as they approached.

This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

“You know me, Ed,” Robert called back. “Just me and my boy.”

“And that terror of a wolf,” Ed remarked. “One of them that came with the Horned Hunter, ain’t it?”

“Aye it is, and don’t get too close,” Henry cautioned him, and proceeded to where the villagers were breaking their fast. “Here, Da,” he said, handing two hares and the pheasant to his father. “I need to talk to John Granger.”

“I don’t envy you that,” Robert said. “Your Ma and I will get these sorted quick enough, don’t worry about us.”

Henry clapped him on the back, then turned off to the left, toward where he could already hear the ring of steel on steel. The wolf trotted at his heels eagerly, but sat back on its haunches when they reached the edge of the clearing, where John Granger and Yaél were practicing.

The squire had her gambeson and chain on, and her helm, as the two of them had to make do with live steel. Of course, Henry realized. No one would bother grabbing practice swords when evacuating the village. Still, even if Granger kept them moving at half speed, he wouldn’t have wanted to risk his skin practicing like this. He caught the eye of the master-at-arms, and John gave him a nod in return.

Yaél came in fast, feinting high and then cutting low, and Henry had to admit to himself that she was quicker every day. Nothing like Sir Trist, of course, but then the girl hadn’t been learning for very long, either. She’d make a good fighter if she kept it up, he expected. The magic Trist had used to heal her had done its work: she only had the slightest limp, after a night’s rest.

John Granger didn’t fall for the feint, of course. He knocked the real cut down into the earth as neatly as you please, with what Henry had heard Trist call a crooked cut, then flicked the tip of his sword up to hover a finger’s width from the leather stock at Yaél’s throat. It was one of the ones they’d made by hand up in the Hauteurs Massif.

“Good,” John said. “I’ve got the measure of you now. Trist gave you a good start, and you’ve got a natural speed I can work with. We’ll work your muscles every day, to give you some strength. For now, get a drink, and let’s hear what Henry has to tell us. I expect we won’t like it.”

Yaél ripped her helm off and threw it to the ground. She was red-faced and panting, sweaty black hair plastered to her forehead, which was all the more amusing to Henry because Granger didn’t seem winded in the least, even after he’d taken his own helm off.

“You sure that leg’s right?” Henry asked the girl.

“It’s fine,” she gasped, then took a drink from a wineskin the two of them must have brought for this purpose. “Trist fixed me up good.”

“What’s the news, then?” Granger prodded.

“This big boy here,” Henry explained, nodding his head at the wolf, “Brought me Da and I to the southern edge of the wood. There’s enemy troops there, cutting down the trees for lumber.”

“Siege engines,” Granger said, after thinking for a moment. “Firewood. Palisades. They’re going to need a lot of it. What’s the wolf want, then?”

“I think he wants us to stop them,” Henry said, then jumped when the wolf barked.

“That wolf’s a she, Henry,” Yaél said with a grin.

“Well I wasn’t looking, now was I?” Henry exclaimed, rolling his eyes.

“How many soldiers,” Granger asked. “With the woodsmen?”

“At least twenty,” Henry answered. “Used up all my fingers and toes.”

“About the same as us,” the older man mused. “But if we do it right, they won’t see us coming, now will they? Alright. Let’s get the men together. Grab your father, as well, and anyone else with a bow.”

“I’m coming too,” Yaél said, having caught her breath.

“Aye,” Granger said, after a long pause. “I suppose you are. Come on, then.”

The hunters went first: Henry and his father, of course, and a half dozen other men of the village with a bit of woodcraft. They’d shared the arrows around, and each ended up with half a score. Henry found himself a good place to hide, wedged between a hunk of pale limestone, thrust up from the forest floor, and a fallen tree. There, he waited with Yaél until his father joined them.

“Everyone hidden?” Henry asked, and the old man nodded.

“They all know what to do,” Robert assured him. “We’ve all hunted ducks before.”

“Aye. Give the signal, then,” Henry said.

Robert softly cleared his throat, then raised his hand to his mouth, and produced a raspy, two noted call - the sound of an adult male mallard. Henry rose to his feet, drew a black Iebara-wood arrow from his quiver, and sent it thirty yards straight into the throat of a man who’d just hitched up his sword-belt. A half dozen other arrows whistled out of the forest, as well, all but one of them taking an enemy soldier.

“Ambush!” a soldier in a shirt of rings and a steel helm shouted, drawing his sword. The woodcutters dropped their axes and ran, but fifteen soldiers pulled steel and gathered themselves to fight.

“Draw!” Henry called, nocking a second arrow to his bowstring. “Loose!” A half dozen more arrows flew, but this time the men raised shields to protect themselves. It didn’t matter; the second volley was only to provide cover. At his cry of ‘loose,’ every remaining man at arms rushed out of the forest at the enemy soldiers.

Yaél, too, leapt up from her hiding place with Henry and his father, and as soon as their arrows were off, she ran out of the Ardenwood into the sunlight, where the soldiers were trying to protect the wagons. She was fast, but her legs were still short, and the grown men outpaced her.

Henry fitted another arrow to his string, drew, and held, sighting down the shaft and following the squire’s path.

“The plan was to stop shooting once the men went in,” His father remarked.

“Aye.” Henry watched as Yaél crossed swords with a man nearly twice her size. They leaned against each other, sword crossed, and then in a move so fast he could hardly track it, the girl gave way. Somehow, instead of being gutted, she was inside her enemy’s guard, and then with a turn and a twist and a spray of blood, she’d cut his neck out.

“Stupid fucker shoulda worn a gorget,” Henry said with a chuckle. Thank Sir Trist for teaching him that.

As Yaél was clearing her blade, a second man came up behind her. Henry released, and nodded in satisfaction when his arrow drilled the enemy through his eye, without even brushing the metal of the helm. He dropped, and the girl was off again into the battle.

Henry drew another arrow from his quiver. “Don’t worry, m’lord,” he said. “I’ll keep her safe.”