That afternoon, at the conclusion of their dinner, Bili discussed the matter with Rahksahnah and his officers at the high table, asking, in preface, “Sir Yoo, I saw one or two wolves when we marched through the southern range, last spring, but there were none on the plain, as I recall. How common are they hereabouts?”
The Kuhmbuhluhn nobleman shrugged and gave over cracking nuts in his powerful hands to answer, “They’re seldom seen in even the foothills. Each time I’ve hunted them, or bears, either, we had to ride up into the true mountains to find them. Now,. true, my old pappy used to tell often of certain severe winters when packs come down onto the plain, even howled under and round about the walls of this very city, but Mama alius told us younguns that he’d heard them same stories from his pappy and just tailored them to fit, sort of, to make him some good tales to tell us of nights.
“No, Duke Bili, wild critters is smart. Us Kuhmbuhluhners has been killing off wolves and bears and treecats since first we come to this here New Kuhmbuhluhnburk. They knows it and they sure ain’t going to come close enough to get a arrow or a dart or spear run into them unless they is flat starving to death ... like that pikeman said this great big wolf looked to be.”
“Precisely.” Bili nodded. “But why is this one huge wolf a rack of skin and bones? Think you on that, Sir Yoo, and you other gentlemen and officers. The mountains are aswarm with deer and small game; this is not a bad winter, hereabouts, it’s a fine summer—a little dry, but no real drought. And even if there is little game on the plain, the Skohshuns are grazing a goodly-sized herd of beef cattle outside their camp, and, lacking any herd dogs, there’s simply no way that they could keep a smart wolf from taking a steer or a heifer or two almost at his leisure. For that matter, there are ill-guarded or utterly unguarded pens and stables of animals within these very walls, so why does a starving wolf take the time to seek out humans for his meals, eh? Riddle me that, please.”
“Duke Bili?” It was Freefighter Captain Fil Tyluh who now spoke. At Bili’s nod, he went on, asking, “Does my lord recall the tales of those long-ago wars that wrenched the old Middle Kingdom into the present three? How it was said that wolves fed so well and so often on battlefields and in slighted towns that they took to following armies on the march, even cutting out and pulling down stragglers or wounded soldiers? I’ve heard that they would completely ignore a side of fresh, bloody beef and the mule that carried it to attack and kill and eat the peasant who led that mule.
“Now there’ve been a spate of battles hereabouts, last year, as well as this latest one where the old king died. Mayhap some corpse-fed wolf followed us back here?”
“It’s possible, Fil,” Bili nodded slowly, adding, “but if such were the case, why did he wait so long to strike us?”
“Perhaps,” put in Rahksahnah, “this wolf followed not our army but the enemy army, these Skohshuns, my Bili.”
He shook his shaven head. “No, love, that makes no sense, either. If he followed their march, fed off them the length of it, then why does he not now do so still? After all, it were far easier for a cunning animal, such as him or Whitetip, to enter their camp of nights than this city, to reach which he must negotiate cliffs and walls.
“And, speaking of Whitetip, he knows well the proper scents of wild creatures, men and Kleesahks, and he avers that this thing that has twice now killed and eaten New Kuhmbuhluhnburk townsfolk smells unlike any beast he ever before has encountered. We called it a wolf, at the first, from the very wolflike paw prints; now a sighting has assured us that the creature does indeed resemble a wolf, albeit a very monster of a wolf.”
“But who ever before saw a roan wolf, Duke Bili?” asked Sir Yoo Folsom. “Every one I ever saw or hunted or killed was mouse-brown or some shade of gray.”
“That may be true of the local race of wolves, Sir Yoo,” replied Bili, “but off-color sports seem to abound among most wolf packs I’ve encountered in the Middle Kingdoms and the western marches of the Confederation. I’ve been in at the kills of at least two reddish wolves in Harzburk’s royal wilds, and I saw the pelt of a fine black wolf killed in the Duchy of Vawn, whilst we were besieging Vawnpolis. No, I find it far easier to credit a wolf of a roan color than I do a wolf of a size of two hundred to three hundred pounds weight and near on to ten hands height at the shoulders.
“Nor can I really persuade myself to credit even the biggest wolf’s being able to jump high enough to get onto our walls, even at their lowest points. Much less can I persuade myself to credit that this huge creature has been able to transverse those heavily guarded, torchlit walls four times in two nights unseen by any officer or sentry of the wall watches.”
Sir Yoo Folsom’s face had suddenly become as white as curds. “You mean ... Duke Bili, you don’t think that critter is denning up right here among us, do you?”
“Yes, that is just what I do mean, Sir Yoo,” said Bili solemnly. “It makes more sense in my mind than does the thought of a four-legged predator—be it wolf, bear, cat or whatever—that can scale sheer rock cliffs and jump up onto thirty-foot walls without being seen by multitudes of alert, keen-eyed men.”
“But, dammit, Duke Bili,” Fil Tyluh burst out, “where, pray tell? With the influx of fighters and dependents, every single habitation in all the lower town is occupied. As. for this palace and the citadel, there’s at least one noble officer in every room, suite, nook or cranny and ... Oho, your grace is thinking of the magazines, back in the core of the mountain, I take it?”
“Just so,” Bili agreed. “We two think much alike, Fil. It’s late in this day to do much, and this night I want large, well-armed patrols walking every street and alleyway of the lower town from dusk to dawn. Reinforce the usual wall watch—I want every running foot of those battlements within sight of someone throughout every hour of every watch.
“Whitetip will have to forgo his customary nightly meal of Skohshun beef. I want him to stay in the palace and sleep well, this night, for tomorrow morning, he and any available Kleesahks will accompany me and several strong search parties back into the unused parts of the tunnels and chambers within the mountain. I mean to not only find and slay that strange man-eating beast, I mean to find just how it got into King’s Rest Mountain, lest it be followed and succeeded by another of its unsavory ilk.
“And strengthen the guards within the palace and the keep, too, Fil, except for the Kleesahks’ section, for I doubt one of them would have any trouble barehandedly dispatching even a beast of this size. Which means that we need not waste men guarding the king, for those Kleesahks would never allow him to be harmed by anything or anyone.”
The young commander turned to Sir Szidnee Gawn, the royal castellan. “Sir Szidnee, have your folk see to it that every single door that lets into the mountain passages from palace, keep or stables is closed and solidly secured before nightfall. Also, every door connecting the various wings and those letting onto the walls or the outer courtyards. Understood?”
Before Bili could issue further orders to those present, however, he was recipient of a far-beaming from one of the younger Kleesahks, Lehnduhn. “Lord Champion, I am just above the area that cannot easily be seen from the walls or the keep, just below the first stretch of the ascending roadway, and I think I know why the man with that strange, long-distance killing thing was sent to where he is.”