Chapter 5


The man on the stretcher was feverish and his skin was slick with an almost deathly pallor. His eyes blinked at those around him, showing that despite his sickness, he was very much alive. He had been wrapped in his own mantle which was the colour of the ocean at its deepest and, despite his lack of armour or weapons, the straight cut of his hard wearing blue tunic, and the tight fitting long woolen undergarments beneath, showed him to be an officer of the Millitarum Mare. He shivered, and Holfa bade some of the other wolves bring fire closer to the invalid along with furs and blankets which they laid against the form which, compared with the hulking lupines, seemed frail and small. The large wolf put a leathery pad to the man’s forehead and felt the heat coming off it with a frown. He looked back to the lizards who were quick on his heels, and they stood over the soldier together, with lined brows creased in thought. Cole turned to Columbanus who had a clawed finger under his chin as he made his inspection.

‘Brother, you’ve had some medical training. Will the fellow live, or no?’ Cole asked with urgent concern, touching the close cropped hair tenderly and feeling the sweat soaking it.

‘The worst of it’s over now,’ said Columbanus ruminatively, tracing the contours of the man’s shivering torso with a practiced hand, ‘yet I think that he should have died, considering. A person's body can only take so much exposure. This man has been in the sea, unless I’m mistaken, and the shock alone should have slain him at once.’

‘A true miracle,’ said Cole with feeling, his claw fondling his sunburst pendant as he spoke. ‘But, where was he found?’ He asked, addressing the red furred wolf who’d brought the body.

‘My boat picked him up not far from here, sir. He was clinging to wreckage and was hardly breathing when we took him aboard. I was as surprised as you that he survived. Perhaps the gods have looked on him kindly?’

‘God, you mean,’ Columbanus grumbled, making an unconscious genuflection against the unfettered heathenry of the northern folk. ‘We should get him inside to keep him warm, for now. He’ll recover, I’m almost certain.’

The young officer was borne into one of the slope-roofed halls where a bed was made for him with twin braziers burning either side. Columbanus stripped him of his clothes, which still held the damp as well as the strong smell of salt and burnt wood, and began vigorously rubbing linseed oil into the very pores of his skin. Cole stood close by with a breviary open in his claws reciting canticles for healing in a low but pleasant plainsong. The wolves, Holfa and Fulvyar stayed some way back, confused by the foreign practices of leechcraft, and they both held their tails in a firm grip of anxiety as they waited on good news that the castaway might survive his ordeal.

When Cole uttered the last versicle and Columbanus had done all that he could, wrapping the body in woolen sheets like a swaddled child, the pair pulled themselves away and spoke in gentle reassurance to the waiting wolves.

‘Never fear,’ said Columbanus, ‘the boy will live, and should be free of his fever by the morning. What he needs most now is rest.’
Fulvyar exhaled in relief and let his tail fall from his grip to wag a little behind him.

‘All Father be praised,’ he said. ‘His fate lies heavy upon me, sir. The death of a stranger is a fell omen before any endeavour and see, he is so young.’

‘The brother knows his business well,’ said Holfa softly, embracing Fulvyar’s shoulder with a paternal firmness. ‘If he says the youth will live then there can be no doubting it.’

‘We also should rest,’ said Cole as he marked his place in the book and stowed it away in the large embroidered scrip hanging on his soutane. ‘The hour grows late and we should be away on the tide by the second hour of the morning.’

‘But, what about him?’ asked Fulvyar anxiously, indicating the young man on the bed. ‘Should we not delay until he’s well again? He has no kin in these parts, of that I’m certain!’

‘Your concern does you credit, Master Wolf,’ said Cole with a smile. ‘You’ll, doubtless be relieved to know that he will be accompanying us on our voyage. His colours are of the Ultimarine Navy and we will restore him to his people once we reach the continent. Now we must all get some sleep, as the morning will be a busy affair.’

The group were in agreement and found themselves places to sleep in the hall, which had two large rooms and few windows to let in the cold. They had no easy time of it, but, after much tossing and turning on the unsprung straw stuffed mattresses, they eventually found themselves soundly asleep.

*

Dacius blinked against the low lights around him. He pulled his hands out of the thick blankets surrounding his body and rubbed the yellow rime from his red rimmed eyes. The blankets were soaked in his own sweat but he felt quite whole, only fatigued and a little thirsty. He sat for a while, letting his eyes adjust to the gloom and looked at the large room with its rush strewn floor and dark wooden walls wondering where he could have come to. After his misadventure he had thought himself doomed but this didn’t look at all like the paradise of Janah. He tried to move himself from the bed but found that his joints were stiff and he groaned as he dragged his legs across until he was seated. He heard a sound nearby and snapped his head toward it and was relieved to see a lizard in the black robes of the priest.

‘Father,’ he said, ‘how did I come to be here? Indeed, where am I?’

Cole gave him an earthenware cup of cold water which he drank from gratefully and the reptile hitched up his skirts and took a seat next to him looking at the officer with his bright, clear eyes.

‘You were brought here from the sea,’ the monk explained. ‘You were found there set adrift. Do you remember how you came to be there?’

Dacius thought about this but soon regretted searching for those memories which flashed before his inner eye with visions of fire, blood and death. He started to shake and sob and Cole held him close, shushing him gently as his eyes widened in dread.

‘My God, my God,’ he whispered to himself as the thought of the black serpent and its antlered head came to him unbidden. ‘It killed them all. All of them!’ his voice cracked as he spoke and Cole held him closer as the waves of trauma passed over him. ‘It was a dragon. A dragon, by heaven! Its breath was flame and it slew every one of us, it killed Navarch Brutus!’ His eyes were filled with tears and, without shame, he put his head on the lizard’s shoulder and let the sobs wrack his body as he freely wept over the comrades he’d lost.

Cole ran his claws gently through Dacius’ hair in comforting strokes as he gave the officer the time he needed to compose himself. The others were stirring now but they all kept their distance, waiting for Dacius to settle his mind before they revealed all of their strange company together.

‘It’s okay,’ said Dacius stoutly, wiping the last tears from his cheeks. ‘I will be better presently, but I suppose I had thought the whole thing only a nightmare but it was all true, and yet, it can’t be. Can it be that the beast was some trick of my imagination? But, no’ he reasoned. ‘To disbelieve the clear evidence of your own eyes, that truly is madness. But, Father, what is this place? Are we somewhere in Sviroff?’

Cole shook his head.

‘We’re in Vangermark, but don’t fear, we’ll be headed south soon enough. My companions and I have a ship and, in an hour or so, we’ll be away. Where were you stationed? Who do you need to report to?’

‘Navarch Brutus is dead, but the Praefectus Navem should be Harrodah, just near Golovdah. But, this needs to come to the ears of the Emperor. A dragon is loose in Telos, such a thing hasn’t occurred in an age!’

‘Indeed,’ Cole mused. ‘You’re right, of course. The Empire has to be warned against this threat and we will help you, I promise.’

The massive form of Holfa loomed over both of them and Dacius almost yelped at the intrusion of the great shaggy wolf with the kind and gleaming eyes, but seeing Cole’s lack of fear he quickly calmed down and managed to greet the creature with a subdued nod.

‘How is the patient, eh?’ Holfa asked genially. ‘Fit to travel?’

Cole nodded and stood, giving the wolf a quick hug, which was their usual form of greeting.

‘He seems quite recovered and his return to the mainland is most urgent. Are we with the tide, Holfa?’

‘The tide, she is ours!’ Holfa chuckled and with a surprisingly graceful bow he departed to find his tribesmen who were assisting in the loading of his longship.

The Heafoc was a fine vessel, much larger than those around it, with two sets of decks and cabins of the aft side, which was rare in such ships, but Holfa valued comfort, as well as efficiency when it came to travel. As it was no warship there was no snarling monster at the prow but rather the racing hare which was its namesake. The carving was intricate and the oversized lepus looked almost to be leaping from the deck. Holfa often joked that he believed that the totem had some power to speed the vessel along when the winds were intransigent or the tides pulled against the strokes of the oars. Fulvyar was mesmerised, as he had little knowledge of seafaring and everything was a novelty to him, he even grinned in wonder as he stepped onto the gently shifting deck, feeling it rock under his paws. He had no sea-legs, as yet, so it was a challenge for him to merely stand without accidentally pitching over, but he soon learned to use his tail to balance himself and began rushing around confidently, exploring every inch or the Heafoc, while the lupine crew chuckled at his wide eyed curiosity.

Cole stood on the forecastle with Columbanus, who had draped a white surplus over his armour and swung a smoking thurible in his claws, his eyes shut in fervent devotion. Cole read the blessings with a hand raised against the wind and the wolves looked on with indulgent half smiles, enjoying the spectacle of the curious southern godkin and their bloodless rites.

The waves started to shift as the sea crept higher against the piers of piled rock and the boatswain shouted orders to some wiring young wolves, barely out of cubhood, who unfastened the moorings and strained at the anchor. Dacius had been doing his own pre-voyage rituals but hearing the creak of canvas and the rolling in of chain he raised his eyes and saw the great sheet of the square rigged sail fall from the mast above and fill with the south easterly wind. He stretched out his tired limbs and found a spot by the gunwale to observe the expertise of these strange mariners.

The hull shifted starboard and came away from its moorings. The whole vessel skimmed gracefully southwards, riding high in the waves on its wide flat bottomed hull. A bone-white horn bellowed from up in the crowsnest and they were away in earnest.