Varcola Arnfried's Journal: Giplean 2nd Problem with Dreadwolves

Another Vampire Chapter

Giplean 2^nd

            It was the following morn’ that saw us devour a hunk of mould-covered bread along with a small slice of cheese and a bit of what remained of the chicken slaughtered the previous day. In all it was a more than satisfactory meal, though I should have liked to remain a bit longer to ask after the villagers. They all seemed ever so pitiful that I should very much have liked to see if I could be of any assistance to them.

Often times as Brother Friedhelm has said, it is those who are the most desperate and in the most dire straits that have the greatest ability for compassion in this world. As I soon discovered, when the mayor’s wife a creased, and wrinkled woman aged before her time showed greater worry for my safety than for that of her own plight.

Saying to me, “Brother, do not go that way! Do not tread up the mountain-path, where that beastly man would take you!”
“But I must,” I protested as I drew a small map of the island I had seen thus far, on a spare sheet of paper, whilst chewing on the last bit of bread dipped in beer as Klove prepared our horses. “I swore to Brother Friedhelm, to deliver the duke’s message to the baroness.”

“But you know not what awaits you in the ‘Wyvern’s Tower’!” She said all a-tremble with fright to my consternation.

This was not to be the sole time when I was to bear witness to one of the villagers stricken by fear for my safety. Though, he was nowhere near as thin or small in stature as his wife, the mayor who was nonetheless thin, with a long moustache that ran past his chin was to at my departure plead with me.

“Please young man,” He at this time clasped my right hand, which held the bridle of the horse just as Klove climbed atop his own. “Do not go! You must not leave, for you know not what dangers and evils await, all who enter that dreadful place!”

His words were greatly reminiscent of those of his wife, who stood a short distance behind him, in the doorway to her home, with her sons clasped close to her. The two boys could not have been older than eight and six years of age respectively, yet they themselves looked no less daunted than she.

“Hurry Brother Arnfried, it is by this time later than I had wished it to be, when leaving this village.” The servant of the baroness urged impatiently.

I felt certain he had not heard the whispers of the mayor, as I had hardly heard him though I stood next to the older man. However, I could not help Sieghild, suspecting that he had an inkling of what was being whispered to me.

Doing as bidden, I discovered as I left that most of the villagers looked on us, with a mixture of relief and terror on my behalf. Confused, and more than a little unsettled as much by this behavior on their parts, as much as the cold, peculiar nature of the almost equally gaunt guide to the castle.

The journey to Castle-Teufelburg was one that took longer than expected, taking up a greater proportion of the day than I had expected (or desired!). Trotting thither through the forests of the islet, until such a time that my inexperienced calves began to ache with each step of the charger, I was to plead with Klove to allow me even the briefest of rests from the journey.

“Not yet, ‘tis not far,” Said the dark-cloaked man, his thin lips pressed together in disapproval.

Cheeks burning scarlet, at the implied insult towards my physical capabilities, I closed my mouth and thenceforth bit my tongue whenever the urge to plead rose up once more. This exchange took place shortly after the noontide of the day, with there being no further conversations until we had begun the ascent up the mountain.

It was as we crossed from darkened woods, where trees blew ominously as though whispering of dark misdeeds of days long past, and the shadows glowed with hundreds of hungry eyes that I began to have an inkling of why the villagers were so timid. To live in such a place seemed to me, the most dreadful fate one could wish upon another man.

So that by the time we had reached the foot of the mountain-spire, I had come to shake from the memory of the forests we had traversed throughout the day.

Mistaking my trembling, as a response to the cold (for it was bitingly icy), “Never fear brother, soon we shall have arrived and I will light for thee a warm-fire, and you shall enjoy a hot stew. One that will warm your belly, just as our strong brews will bring warmth to your heart.”

His reassurance was coldly stated so that it brought a certain comfort to me, so starved for the slightest demonstration of goodness was I, so that I thanked him earnestly.

My profuse words were however interrupted by a great howl that echoed throughout the woods, from the north shore to the southern one. The sound cut through the air more finely and decisively than the suns’ rays through winter frost, or that of Ziu’s sword through the coat of the demon-coyote, Ámrerja in defence of his mother, the laughter-loving goddess.

Such was the suddenness of their howl, and the violence of their sharp cry that Klove’s already snow-white pallor worsened. He grew so agitated that he himself began to shake and stutter, so that I was moved to try to assure him of our safety though I myself was overwhelmed by mortal terror.

“Surely they shall not venture hither, nearer to the home of the baroness; therefore there is naught to fear sir Klove!”
He cast but a swift sidelong glance in my direction, saying as he did so, “It would not be wise though, given the desperation of their howl to linger over-long, Arnfried.”

There were once more a great store of questions, I might have otherwise have wished to ask of him. At that moment though, Klove motivated by his terror of the wolves with the great stone-paved path up and about the mountain snapped the reins of his steed.

As mine was attached to his own, and had grown by this time jittery, from the knowledge of the nearby wolves (whose howls had only grown nearer!) dove forward with the same suddenness as that of Klove. Startled and not paying proper attention, distracted as I was by the growing loudness of the wolves, I was thrown from the horse.

This being the sort of thing that might have drawn a derisive snigger from the likes of Thorben, who being a squire of some skill especially with horse-breaking, I should beg you Sieghild not to inform him of this. You know how much I revere him, and how his esteem is of great import to my spirit.

In that moment though, humiliated at this thought and stricken by pain, as I lay in the muddy path before the mountain, I groaned, as my ears and head rang.

The renewed howl and the even more worrisome sound of a wolf growling a short distance away drew me up from the ground, with greater haste than previously believed possible.

Ignoring the throbbing head-ache that haunted every movement of my skull, and seeing that Klove had disappeared up the path with his steeds, I could only call out after him. Such was the dread that the realization that he had abandoned me, inspired in me that I was so ill to my stomach that I felt it down to my toes.

Haste, make haste you fool, I whispered to myself, after hearing what sounded akin to the voice of abbot Friedhelm, murmuring those very words it seemed in my ears.

Dressed in the robes of the clergy, ones muddied that clung so very tightly to me that I was slowed in my attempts to escape the wolves.

Racing up yon mountain, at first with my gaze focused entirely upon the path before me it was only after several minutes that a backwards glance was risked. My heart came very near to grinding to a halt, at the sight of the wolves that had trod hither from the forest, their tongues lolling past their jaws and eyes following me hungrily.

The fear that invaded my spirit in that moment, to see the wolves sizing me up tearing into me and determining how much each of my limbs weighed, how much meat they were filled was horrid. It was Sieghild the very most dreadful moment of my twenty years or so of life.

‘O goddess, o Saga, Marianne and Ziu aid me!’ I implored at that moment.

There was, no lightning strike, no great flaming stones from the heavens, nor did any of the wolves fall dead at this prayer. This in direct contradiction to many a events from the Canticle of the gods.

The canines bared their monstrous white fangs ere they gave chase, heart ready to burst from my chest I dove, and flew up the marble-stones that marked the great road up the mountain.

The wolves came so very near that their fiery-red gaze, which had been but briefly discerned in the forest, and which shone in the darkening evening air glimmered from a bare meter away.

Once again prayers escaped from my lips, even as one of them with a great bound threw me to the ground.

The great shout of agony that was torn from frozen lips, was as naught to the searing pain that was inflicted upon the very leg the wolf bit into.

Tearing at flesh and muscle, just a little above the back of the knee, with such force as to remind a man of the great might of Heracles himself, so that it was with little hope left in my heart I pulled back my other leg.

“Back you demon!” The gauntlet had been thrown, and still being a man I refused not to meet the challenge thinking that if death was to visit me, it would find me a worthy combatant rather than a pitiful, prone weakling. I was to kick as fiercely as possible at the wolf, which to my great satisfaction let loose a loud whine in response.

My joy was short-lived as a second more monstrous wolf dove at my leg.

Twisting about though, so that it tore but part of my robe, even as it’s eight other pack-mates moved to encircle me, so that the dread from earlier vanished.

In its place was left a certainty, a resignation that ceased all the trembling and chased away all the fear left within my still rapidly-galloping heart. Death had come.

That great and inevitable thing that was said to be the gift of the gods to all men, though did not visit itself down upon my person in that hour though.

“Brother Arnfried!” Klove cried out, racing along from nowhere his cloak gone from him, one hand on the reins and in the other a long-sword held upright.

Rescue at last! I shan’t tell you how good it felt, to see him. In that moment, my fondness for the man knew no bounds so that I hardly took notice as the wolves scampered away from him. Fearful of his blade, or so I assumed it was not until much later that I was to ponder about why it did not take a single sword-stroke for them to take flight from Klove.

Reaching down to help me climb onto the horse, he hurried the horse back up the path whereupon he had descended, yelling shrilly. “It is not wise to remain here over-long, brother!”

Unable to do aught more than nod my head, with my right-leg aching and throbbing even more than my aching skull, I clung to him.

It was in this dire condition that we reached the summit of the mountain, where the castle was to be found and was presented to the great doors of the baroness.

Hurrying, to find bandages to bind my bleeding leg, Klove I was to withdraw from the inner-folds of my robe this journal. Hardly able to still my heart, and wishing to take my mind away from the bleeding leg that lay to the side of the horse, I put down the events of the day in this journal. It is my hope that the rest of this quest of mine, given by his eminence the Archdouvain will be all the easier.