Wisdom of the Fox

Bewildered, the baron looked south and saw the most unlikely rescue force conceivable thundering toward Fox Keep. Wolfar of the Axe, in man's shape once more, still had with him a good third of the two-hundred-man army he had led before the werenight. Gerin more than half expected Wolfar's men to ignore the Trokmoi and attack him, but they stormed down on the barbarians, the bloodthirsty baron at their head.

The Trokmê noble tried to rally his men yet again. Wolfar rode him down. At his fall, the woodsru

Gerin did not let his men join the pursuit. He kept them drawn up in battle array at the breach, unable to believe his long-time enemy would not try to deal with him next. Their numbers were near even, though Wolfar's men were fresher. But when Wolfar returned from the killing-ground, he and his vassal Schild stepped over the contorted bodies of the Trokmoi who had died before the palisade to approach Fox Keep unarmed.

"I ought to cut your liver out, Fox," Wolfar said by way of greeting, "but I find I have reason to let you live."

The notion galled Wolfar so badly, he could go no further. Schild spoke for his chief, over whom he towered—he was as tall and lean as Wolfar was short and stocky, and was one of the few men serving under Wolfar whom Gerin respected. He said, "As you can guess, once we pulled ourselves together after whatever madness struck last night"—Gerin started to explain the werenight, but decided it could wait—"we came north after you. But a little south of here, we caught a woodsru

"Aye, it's true. Dearly bought, but true."

"Then you've earned your worthless life," Wolfar said, looking toward the corpse of the demon Duin had killed. It was already starting to stink. "You've done a great thing, damn you, and I suppose I have to let it cancel what's between us from the past." He started to offer Gerin his hand, but could not bring himself to do it. The Fox knew there was still no liking or trust between them.

That was not so of their men—soldiers from both sides broke ranks to fraternize. In their shared victory over Balamung and the Trokmoi, they forgot the enmity that had existed between them. Though he did not want to do it, Gerin felt he had no choice but to invite Wolfar and his troops to help man Castle Fox and make it defensible once more.

To the baron's secret disappointment, Wolfar accepted at once. "A holding with too few soldiers in it is almost worse than none at all," he said. "I worry about my own keep; the men I left behind rattle around in it like dried beans in a gourd—do they not, Schild?"

"Hmm?" Schild gave him an unclassifiable look. "Aye, my lord, the garrison there is very small indeed."

As Wolfar's men filed into the holding, Gerin assigned them duties: some to the palisade, others to help some of his own men plug the breach, still others to help the wounded or fight the fires still flickering in the outbuildings. Wolfar did not object to his dispositions. He seemed content to let the Fox keep overall command inside Fox Keep.

Gerin was glad to find that Rihwin's injury was not serious. "You're not hamstrung, and the arrow went clear through your leg. Otherwise we'd have to cut it out, which is nothing to be taken lightly," the baron told him. "As is, though, you should heal before long."

"If I put spikes on my wrists and ankles, do you think I'll be able to climb trees like a cat?" Rihwin asked, adjusting his bandage.

"I see no reason why not."

"Odd," Rihwin murmured. "I never could before."

"Go howl!" Gerin threw his hands in the air and went off to see to other injured men. If the southerner could joke at his wound, he would soon mend.

Had they taken place at any other time, Gerin would have reckoned the next days among the most hectic of his life. As if was, they scarcely stood comparison to what had gone before.

True, four days after Balamung's fall, the Trokmê chieftain who had turned longtooth in the werenight led an attack on Fox Keep. By then, though, the breach in the palisade was repaired, and the holding had fresh supplies drawn from the countryside. Nor did the woodsru

Then the ladder went crashing over. Half a dozen Trokmoi tried to leap clear as it fell. The ladders that stayed upright long enough for the barbarians to come to grips with the Elabonians were few. After their leader was slain inside the keep, they lost their eagerness for the fight.

In a way, that second attack by the Trokmoi was a gift from the gods. It further united Wolfar's men and Gerin's against a common foe, and again reminded them how petty their old disputes were now. A good lesson, Gerin thought. He regretted that the province north of the Kirs had not learned it sooner.

Wolfar, surprisingly, seemed to take the lesson to heart. He did not much try to hide his animosity toward Gerin, but he did not let it interfere with the ru

Gerin would sooner have seen him surly. He did not know how to react to this new Wolfar.

For Schild, on the other hand, his admiration grew by leaps and bounds. When the Fox learned from a prisoner of a band of Trokmoi pla

On the raiders' return, Wolfar was so lavish in their praise and so affable that Gerin's suspicion of him redoubled. But beyond this uncharacteristic warmth, the thick-shouldered baron as yet showed no hint of what was in his mind.

"He's given me every reason to trust him," Gerin told Van one night, "and I trust him less than ever."

"Probably just as well for you," Van said. Gerin was not sorry to find his worries shared.

Word of Balamung's death spread quickly. It raised the Elabonians' spirits but disheartened their foes, who had leaned on the wizard's supposed invincibility. Two days after the defeat Schild had engineered for the band of southbound barbarians, a large troop of Trokmoi came north past Castle Fox. Except for keeping out of bowshot, they ignored the keep, intent on returning with their booty to the cool green forests north of the Niffet.

Another large band came by a day later, and another two days after that. As if the appearance of the third group of retreating Trokmoi had been some sort of signal, Wolfar stumped up to the Fox in the great hall and said abruptly, "Time we talked."

Whatever Wolfar had been hiding, it was about to come into the open. Of that Gerin felt sure. Stifling his apprehension, he said, "As you wish. The library is quiet." He led his western neighbor up the stairs.

Wolfar seemed less disconcerted by his strange surroundings than Gerin had hoped. "What a bastardly lot of books you have, Fox!" he said. "Where did you pick them all up?"

"Here and there. Some I brought back from the southlands, some I've got since, a few came from my father, and a couple I just stole."