The Chronicles of 'Team B' - Chapter 32 - The Great Hunt Begins

General Summary

The Archbishop's coterie travels back to Ladeisk for the winter. Among his coterie is Augusta de Urbino, who hopes that her new acquaintance with the local prelate will help set her relationship with Prince Trofim aright. After riding for nearly half a day westward, the men set up camp for the night, and Augusta lies down next to the fire. She is awakened by the sound of howling and whinnying - the camp is under attack by a huge number of wolves. The horses begin to scatter, and the men do their best to defend their lord, who calls down divine fire to drive the predators off. But the travelers are greatly outnumbered, and soon, Augusta finds herself face-to-face with two grey predators. She thinks about summoning her tabernacle for safety, but there is no time. She defends herself with her crozier as best she can, and calls upon the heavenly host to protect her from the devil's messengers. Together, they are able to strike the wolves down, and drive off another, but all around her, mayhem spreads. Some of the horses flee, carrying riders - perhaps the archbishop, but for the less fortunate who cannot run, death comes quickly, and the wolves begin to feed. Having a moment after finishing off her attackers, Augusta flees into the woods, and finds the time to put up her tabernacle. The sounds of the wolves' feasting rings through her ears, but it soon ends, and the grey army moves off, in search of more victims. There is little left of the camp after the nun wakes the following morning, though the stench of human flesh pervades the air. Gathering herself, Augusta continues her westward journey, hoping against hope to find survivors. Though she finds none, she does come across a loaf of communion bread that someone, presumably in the fleeing party, has dropped. After taking it, she stumbles along until sunset, when she again calls up a tabernacle to keep her safe. Why has she survived, when so many have fallen? Whatever the reason, it is as God has intended.

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After she feels herself to be safe from the soldiers, Zorina hitches her horse up to a tree, turns back to a fox, and digs herself a burrow for the night. Despite disturbed dreams, she is able to sleep through the night. On the morrow, she rides off to the east, wisely avoiding the tree where the confrontation took place the night before. Spurring the horse on, she picks up a trail that leads her to a large walled compound. There she finds a stable and for a fee, gives them her horse for safe-keeping, before going off to find a place to stay for the night. Nearby, she hears Yuri's voice. Despite his gamy leg, the cossack is sparring at a nearby training ground, and having a little refreshment courtesy of Misha the Brewer. Zorina and Yuri catch up. The cossack, along with Zalyn, Zinovii and Svetlana, arrived yesterday. Svetlana is not speaking to him, and has sought shelter with a grandmother whose son has ridden off with the archbishop. Zalyn, for her part, has gone on a walk to a nearby lake with Zinovii. They have something to discuss having to do with Zhadan - Prince Trofim's majordomo. Yuri prevails on Zorina to speak to Svetlana on his behalf. After buttering up the grandmother, she gains admission into the hut, and is invited to stay the night. Svetlana, however, is not interested in hearing Yuri's entreaties - she thinks he is much too focused on an irresponsible life of adventure, and is obsessed with Agapia. Her plans involve traveling to Vladykino as soon as possible, to seek out any relatives that might have converged on her native village. The conversation is broken up by a chorus of howling. Zorina runs to the gates of Malinka, and climbs up to a tower. Looking out onto a field before the estate, she sees a huge number of wolves, of various sizes. They begin to run and crash the gate. Wolves are not built for sieges, but there are more than 50 of them, and some of them are quite large - similar to the ones the Serpent Slayers met near Grey Wolf's den. There are only about a dozen or so defenders, most of the rest having ridden off with the archbishop. The soldiers begin to fire their bows and crossbows, but some of them are obviously too scared to offer serious resistance for long. Yuri, in the meantime, had ridden off on Zorina's horse to search for Zalyn and Zinovii, but when he hears the howling, he turns back. On a hilltop overlooking the open field before the gates, he sees an enormous grey wolf, who seems to be issuing orders. He fires several arrows at the wolf, but the enormous beast is not the least concerned. Yuri charges toward the wolf, but at the last second, he sees it disgorge someone who is dressed an awful lot like Agapia from his mouth. While the head wolf begins to run off toward the gate, Yuri rides at top speed toward Agapia. The girl is not certain how she got here. She remembers being in a tree-lined chamber which she couldn't leave. As it was difficult to keep a light on in there, she tried to sleep, but ended up waking up next to a hooded Kivi. Kivi talked to her at length, and caused her to realize that the cause of everything that had happened was her eating of the stolen egg. When Agapia agreed to figure out a way to make things right, Kivi took her hands, and she felt a warm emptiness pervade her. Some time later, she felt violent shaking and found herself being retched out of a huge wolf maw. Scratched by the huge teeth, and damaged by the long fall, she became bewildered, so she started to frantically roll her die, and to bite herself. Surprisingly, the wolf left her just where she came out. Confused and bewildered, she turned back toward the woods, and did not see or hear Yuri ride up behind her, scoop her up, and put her on the horse. Wheeling around, he saw the mass of wolfdom crashing against the gates. A thought struck him - he could not win this. So he wheeled about, and galloped toward Vladykino. In the meantime, the plight of the defenders became dire. Zorina fired several rounds from her tower, but soon, a huge while wolf ran up, put its paws onto the walls, stretched itself out, and breathed out a cloud of frost. Most of the archers atop the tower fell. In desperation, Zorina ran down the stairs, and back toward the hut where Svetlana was staying, which happened to be nearby. There, she tried to convince both the young woman and the grandmother to flee with her, because Malinka was surely lost. The grandmother waved them off, saying she could barely walk, but Svetlana did run out with her. On the opposite side of the compound, she spied a sizable foxhole near the fence. Quickly transforming, she dug frantically to make it bigger, and then encouraged Svetlana to climb through, and flee.

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Alone, [Lokan wanders toward Malinka. He hopes to reach the apple tree before nightfall, but the journey takes longer than he figured, so he lies down to sleep. Soon, he hears a group of other people nearby, also making camp. Lokan approaches, and engages them in conversation. The travelers are looking for food - the frost has come early this year, before the harvest was all gathered. Though they invite him along, Lokan demurs - he is a lone wolf now, and traveling with strange humans is not for him - they might even be bandits. So he goes off and finds another place to sleep. The following morning, he continues on his way toward Malinka. By afternoon, he realizes that he must have been going the wrong way, because he should have reached the place by now. He changes direction, but still is not able to find the settlement before nightfall.