The Dragon Hammer (Wulf's Saga Book 1) (14 page)

Chapter Seventeen:
The Ridge

The ride up the Dragonback Ridge had been hard on the horses, even though they were small and tough ponies. The trail was steep and had lots of switchbacks. It rose for nearly a league in distance from the valley floor. Kalters, the name for this kind of pony, were thick-boned and very strong. They had a special ambling pace that other horses couldn’t match.

Wulf was riding his favorite kalter, Hemdi, a black and white stallion he had taken into the country on hunting trips since he was eight years old. He fed the pony carrots at every break along the way. Hemdi huffed and puffed, but never slacked.

Wulf was gripping the reins with one hand only. On his other arm, which he held outward to make a perch, sat a screech owl. The owl was more white than brown, and her color was close to what a snow-covered branch in the winter forest might look like. She had on a small leather hood that covered her eyes. She was tied, “jessed” was the right word to use, with leather thongs to a small iron ring in the thick glove Wulf wore on his left hand. The glove was long, and stretched up to his elbow.

Riding along behind Wulf were twenty or so nobles, along with their servants, who also carried birds. Most of the birds were redtail hawks or golden eagles. The men took their birds on their arms. The women carried theirs on iron perches built into the back of their horses’ saddles. The nobles were all part of the Raukenrose Castle court. They were the most powerful people in the mark.

And then there was Ravenelle. She was along because the von Kleists had invited her. There were three von Kleist siblings in the castle cohort. Ravenelle and Giesela von Kleist hated each other. Both were pretty, at least to Wulf’s way of thinking, but Ravenelle was passionate, smart, and determined, while Giesela was ruthless, clever, and practical.

Giesela’s older brothers Axel and Erik, the von Kleist twins, had a very different attitude toward Ravenelle. They were smitten with her, both of them. Baron Atli von Kleist, the richest of the Raukenrose aristocrats, must have seen some advantage in encouraging his sons’ crush on Ravenelle—maybe because she was going to be a queen some day, even if Vall l’Obac was the mark’s long-time enemy. He’d invited her to accompany his party on the hunt himself.

Ravenelle had instantly accepted. She loved hunting falcons and jumped at every chance she got. She’d once told Wulf that she was planning to add a black hawk feather splashed with blood to the Archambeault coat of arms.

There were even more servants than nobles, mostly Tier. Many of these were down on the valley floor whacking trees and branches with hickory beating sticks to flush out the game.

Meanwhile, the hunting party was climbing the Dragonback Mountains. They were heading for Ruckengrat Ridge, a line of cliffs that overlooked the Shenandoah Valley. The view was amazing. As they made their way along the ridge, they passed an abandoned signal tower that had been used during the Little War. Below in the valley was the village of Buffalo Camp. Across the Shenandoah to the west was the looming line of Massanutten Mountain and Shwartzwald County. To the east were the rolling hills of the Piedmont Duchy.

The duke and Wulf were at the head of this long train of horses, servants, and birds. Grim was with Wulf today as attendant and bird holder. Fauns could ride horses, but Grim would rather walk a few paces behind Wulf’s kalter. Beside the duke was Grim’s uncle Finn, a big faun with grizzled black and gray hair, who was the hunt master. Finn rode a horse using a faun saddle with special stirrup cups. It was said (by fauns) that fauns had invented stirrups so that they could ride horses, and then it had spread to the world of men.

Another thing he wished he could ask Master Tolas about. But Tolas was gone. He’d left two months ago for Glockendorf. He’d left with only himself on a pony and leading a larger packhorse loaded with his personal collection of books and scrolls. The poor horse looked tired before it had even started on its journey.

Two months had passed, and now there was a new castle tutor. Master Mohaut, a man, was adequate, but nothing like Tolas. Wulf had jumped at the chance to skip morning classes and go hunting with his father.

Finn led along six ponies roped together, each with one or two perches mounted on the saddles. These horses carried no riders at all, only birds of prey. These were all of the raptors from the castle mews, the area where the birds were kept. There were hawks and falcons, eagles, owls, and even a vulture. Like an archer with different kinds of arrows in his quiver, Duke Otto liked to bring different kinds of birds on a hunt to handle any kind of animal, whether it was quail, rabbits, foxes, small deer—or the hardest prey of all to capture and kill, wolves.

The birds came in many sizes, from Wulf’s screech owl, which might take a mouse or maybe a fat squirrel on a good day, to the huge eagles that were favorites of the duke. Wulf also loved the eagles but was a little afraid of them.

Most of all, he loved to watch them fly. Birds of prey weren’t like dogs or cats. You couldn’t tame them. You could spend years with a raptor, and if you did something careless, it still might reach over and tear off a piece of your cheek.

Redtail hawks could be particularly ornery that way. And an owl’s beak was nothing to laugh at. That was why he was careful to hold his arm out, keeping the owl away from his face, despite the jolts and bounces of the climb to the cliffs.

The saddle perches were wound with rope so the birds could keep a grip. In the very rear of the train was a huge white horse, the biggest kalter Wulf had ever seen. On his back rode the largest of the birds of prey: a set of three bald eagles. There was one young male and two older females. They were all grown-up birds, with white heads and fierce yellow eyes.

Wulf thought they were beautiful. That didn’t make them particularly good hunters, though. They were originally sea eagles, and hard to train. But when you got the right bald eagle with the right training, the bird could be devastating to prey.

In the wild, bald eagles were fishers. They lived close to water at all times. But these eagles had been captured young and specially trained to do other kinds of hunting. Once they made their kills, whatever animal it might be, they were given fish for a reward. Giving them fish was also a way to get them off a kill so the hunter could get to it.

The hunting party finally got to the top of the ridge they had been climbing and rode along the cliffs. The Shenandoah Valley stretched below them. It was a beautiful, chilly day in Samen, the third month after Yule. Nearby was a rushing mountain stream that plunged over the cliffs to create a pretty waterfall. Wulf found a pool formed by an eddy of the stream and let Hemdi drink. He set the little owl on the front of his saddle. On the rear of the saddle was a redtail hawk on a perch.

While the horse was slurping, Wulf went upstream and filled a small bottle with water. He took this to the birds. The hawk clinging to the perch on the back of Wulf’s saddle was a male named Tak. Though he was hooded, Tak felt the water trickle on his beak and opened up to drink. Wulf poured and Tak caught the water and swallowed so quickly that barely a drop spilled on the saddle leather below the perch. Then Wulf gave the little owl on his arm a drink. Her name was Nagel. She also drank with hardly a spill.

Duke Otto stopped close by and watered his large stallion.

“We’ll stay here today,” he said to Finn. Finn motioned to his assistant hunt masters—there were ten of them who worked for the faun—to have the other hunters spread out down Ruckengrat Ridge to the south.

“As far as you can go, as far as you can go,” Duke Otto shouted to the nobles. “Wulfgang and I claim this spot for our slip.”

There was some good-natured grumbling, but the others kept riding on a trail that led along the ridge. They and their horses and birds soon disappeared into the trees. Wulf waved at Ravenelle as she passed. She had her right arm extended, holding a hawk, and she looked excited.

Grim and the duke’s manservant, Harihandel, took the horses to stake them out after they had drunk.

Finn meanwhile unloaded a handful of stakes as long as spears from one of the horses. Near the cliff’s edge he pounded the stakes into the ground with a wooden mallet and fitted a crosspiece to them through a dovetail notch. Perches. He put the birds on them.

All of the birds still had hoods over their heads. The hoods covered their eyes. Finn gave each a mouthful of dried rabbit to chew on, except for the eagles. He gave them fish bits.

The patch of rock ran up to the edge of the cliffs. This part of the Ruckengrat was not just a straight cliff, but a slab of rock jutting out over a deep drop, a hanging overlook. Duke Otto motioned for Wulf to join him a few steps from the edge. They gazed west.

In the south of the valley, tobacco and cotton grew. Here in the upper valley were the wheat and corn that fed the people.

Duke Otto stretched out his arms and took a deep breath “What a good day for hunting,” he said. “It’s days like this that make all your problems go away.”

“But they don’t really go away,” Wulf said. It had been four months since he’d killed Prince Gunnar. After a long wait for snow to clear, the prince’s body had been taken back to Sandhaven. But not by Wulf, as he’d expected. As he’d
wanted
. By his brother Adelbert. Adelbert with fifty men and Marshal Koterbaum along for good measure.

“It should have been me that went to Krehennest. You know that, Father.”

“Wulf, you’re twelve. Adelbert wanted to go. He’ll get to see his precious Chesapeake again,” Duke Otto said.

“I’m sixteen, Father,” Wulf replied.

The duke looked puzzled for a moment, then nodded. “Ah, right, right.” Wulf knew his father would soon forget his age again. For Duke Otto, his third son would always be a certain age in his mind. The morosis had seen to that.

Before he’d killed Gunnar, Wulf would never have talked to his father this way. Since then he was beginning to feel like it was not just his right to speak his mind, but his duty. But instead of getting mad at Wulf, the duke seemed to like it when Wulf spoke plainly.

So few people these days speak to Father like he’s an adult, Wulf thought. But I can see there’s still my dad under there, even if he is fading away.

“You’re a strange boy, but you have a good heart.” Duke Otto laughed at some private recollection. He motioned to the hunt master to bring the bird forward. The hunt master moved toward a large hawk that stood, hooded, on a staked perch. “Not that one, Finn,” he called to the faun. He pointed toward another. “That one.”

Wulf felt angry. He had felt angry a lot lately. “Adelbert wouldn’t need to have gone to pay a blood price if you had told Gunnar he couldn’t marry Ulla,” Wulf said.

I wasn’t going to yell at Father, Wulf thought. I promised myself not to get mad.

But his attempt to keep the anger out of his voice had made him sound cranky instead.

“Prince Gunnar is dead?” Duke Otto blinked, then shook his head, smiling sadly. “Ah, yes. Well, no one told me,” said his father. “I didn’t know if she liked Gunnar or not.”

“
Not
,” Wulf said. “Definitely not.”

The relationship of Ulla and Grer was public in the castle now.

In the town, too, Wulf thought. Even though they could see one another without sneaking around, they were being very careful to keep it as proper as possible. Ulla was ready to marry the smith, but Grer had insisted they take it slow.

“That you and I should be together at all is as outrageous to my kind of folks as it is to your’n,” Grer had told her. “So we have to make this strong and build it to last.”

Wulf gazed down at his hand. The burn had healed over the past months and was now a chunk of reddish tissue on his palm. It didn’t hurt anymore. The scar had a hollow place in its center, like a little valley cut into his hand. This formed the perfect outline of a dagger tang in his right palm. Because of it, he could hold weapons much better. His right palm dovetailed perfectly with the handle of a dagger or a sword.

But I would trade that ability in a moment for the chance to get feeling back in the palm of my hand. Wulf figured he never would.

Behind them, Finn was taking the hood off the largest of the birds.

It was a bald eagle.

“Wulfgang, Sandhaven controls our access to the sea,” Duke Otto said. “They’ve raised their tariffs to crazy heights. It’s hurting us. We have to get them lower or we’ll…what was I going to say?”

“I don’t know, Father. Maybe it was that, if the Sandhaven tariffs aren’t lowered, we’ll be ruined?”

“Alliance. We need one.”

“I understand, Father,” Wulf said. “And with a marriage alliance, we’d have a united front from the Greensmokes to the ocean. The empire would think twice before trying to move north.”

“Empire?”

“The Holy Roman Empire.”

Duke Otto gazed at his son thoughtfully. “How old did you say you were?”

“Sixteen,” Wulf said glumly.

A big smile broke out on Duke Otto’s face. “Really? My Wulf is sixteen. Did you hear that, Finn?”

The hunt master nodded. “Yes, Your Excellency.”