Chapter 4: Wolves

The wolves came out of the pines at noon, thin and fast and not afraid of men.

There were seven of them, grey as the snow, and the first one went for the legs of Sigrun's mare.

Elior heard the horse scream before he saw anything.

Sigrun's mare reared and came down sideways.

Sigrun went off her back into a drift, and the lead wolf turned from the mare to the woman on the ground.

Teodric was forty yards away, at the head of the party.

Elior was nearer.

He did not decide anything.

He threw himself off his borrowed horse with the borrowed sword already in his hand and landed between Sigrun and the wolf.

The animal sprang.

Elior got the blade up, and the wolf hit it chest first and drove him back a full step.

Then its weight was all over him and its jaws were at his left arm.

Teeth went through his sleeve.

Pain went up his arm.

He shouted a word he had learned in the cavalry and shoved the sword hilt up under the wolf's ribs with his right hand.

It dropped.

Another was already coming, grey and silent.

"Behind you!" Sigrun screamed.

He turned, and the sword was stuck in the first wolf, and he used his fist instead.

Then Teodric was there.

The duke came down through the snow.

He struck once with a broad hunting spear, and then again, and the second wolf was gone.

The rest scattered into the trees.

The forest went quiet.

Elior stood panting, his arm hot and wet, and his knees began to tremble.

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