Chapter 2

"You little shit...!" roared one of the soldiers, making a move towards her. She evaded him and his long spear, trying to find space to shoot the next arrow.

With her eyes fixed on the incoming blades, she failed to notice the corpse of the fallen blacksmith near her feet. As she jumped away from the thrust of one of the spearmen, she stepped on the soft flesh of the dead man's arm and lost her balance. Her mouth finally moved, and she let out a panicked shout as she fell over.

The soldiers laughed and taunted her cruelly. She had been cornered. Searching for anything that could help her, she let her gaze quickly roam around the scene. Where she had expected to find hope she had found only death: next to her, she could see the blacksmith's last expression of pain and fear, and it served almost like an augur of her own fate. She searched for her mother, and her breath caught in her throat as she realized there would be no more encouraging from her, as the woman's body lay limp on top of her husband's.

Alix's bow lay useless at her side, its arrows scattered beyond reach. She closed her eyes and grit her teeth. A spear grazed her face. Was this all there would be to it...? Would her death be this pathetic...?

Multiple screams fluttered into the grey skies, all of them low and raspy and so unlike her own voice. In the darkness behind her closed eyes, confusion reigned. There was no pain, no tearing of flesh or warm blood trickling down her skin. She was expecting to draw a last breath surrounded by mocking laughter... it took her a moment to grasp back her sanity, and realize it wasn't her who was screaming. Her body was intact, whole.

The soldiers were being torn apart.

She didn't know when exactly she had opened her eyes again, but when she did, it wasn't to fix them on the unmoving figures of his parents, or the crying woman with her only surviving child. The spear that had come for her life lay in front of her, broken in two, and the man who had been wielding it was staring dead-eyed at her, his body convulsing as a large wolf savagely tore into him.

The creature had not come alone: it had arrived with its pack with what seemed to be a fierce hunger for soldier meat. Large, menacing black wolves jumped around the clearing avoiding the desperate thrusts of the spears, deadly fangs snapping and biting and slowly tearing away at the soldiers' cockiness. Alix couldn't really understand the quick, accented curses they were throwing around, but it was enough for her to feel their fear.

There was a loud neigh from the horse that the leader of the group of men had been riding; the beast was understandably deeply unsettled by the attacking wolves, and in a panic, rose its front legs into the air. This made it lose its balance and it fell backwards, crushing its rider in the process. The man tried to roll from underneath the horse, but the closest wolf to him wouldn't have it, and with a horrible scream, his face was torn off in one bite by the angry creature.

Alix froze. For a moment she had entertained the silly notion that those animals, by virtue of some fancy of nature, had been on her side. But nature never played by man's rules, and there was no reason for them to be defending her. The soldiers were a convenient hunt for them, and she would be their next meal.

She looked to her side.

"Uh, Mrs. Blacksmith...?" she whispered, slowly moving towards her, trying her hardest not to bring any attention to them. The crying woman looked up at her with eyes that seemed to be a million miles away. Alix steeled herself. "Please run. Get away from here, you need to protect your baby. I'll make a distraction so that they won't come for you."

The woman looked down, searching her husband and sons with her eyes. She had run out of tears to cry, and her swollen red face could only continue to distort as she failed to cope with their murder. Alix softly repeated Hadwisa, the little baby's name, to bring her attention back to the present. This seemed to shake the grief out of the woman, as she was granted a new resolve. She slowly rose, and started to walk back in the direction of the village.

"Wait-!" Alix screamed after her, "Wait until it's safe!"

The woman stopped for an instant, and turned around to reply, bitterly:

"It's never been safe."

Alix watched amazed as the woman and their exchange went completely unnoticed by both wolves and soldiers. It gave her enough courage to stand up too, retrieving her bow to slowly make a retreat. It was at that moment that she heard the clashing of swords, and startled, she turned around to see the contenders. Had another soldier arrived?

The newcomer had his back to her, and was trading blows with the man who had been carrying a sword. Unlike the other soldiers, his armour wasn't merely made of thick cloth: it was a bit more impressive, with a black leather brigandine protecting his chest and back and a metal helmet underneath which fell a cascade of chain mail to cover his neck. He also moved little like the other soldier: whereas the other seemed to thrust and slash with little thought put into the movements, the newcomer would parry with a small movement, and manoeuvrer his opponent around. He was skilful, precise, and devious enough to play with his foe before going for the kill.

Alix forced herself to move. The strangeness of her situation had struck her dumb: a pack of wolves and a knight were not what one would consider to be bosom buddies, or even care much about rescuing villagers. She noticed the wolves were content with their dead soldiers: after biting off the flimsy armour they worse, they searched for the tender flesh they so craved. It was a gory spectacle, one that she didn't want to witness, so she turned around to search for her parents. As she reached them, she fell to their side, hands tenderly feeling for any sign of life.

There was none. A deep gash had torn open her mother's shirt from the back, bathing her entire body in blood. She had been stabbed, most likely by the swordsman that was soon to meet his death, just like his father who lay with his eyes open and unseeing. Alix let out a choked sob, and fought not to break down then and there. She had to go back to her brothers.

As she was getting back to her feet, she heard the swordsman's gurgled wail as he breathed his last. She turned to witness the strange knight pushing the impaled body off his sword, corpse hitting the earth below with a heavy thud. It was silent for the first time since everything had started: even the wolves had stopped to listen. The knight turned to her, and Alix felt her blood run cold. Just like the blacksmith's wife, she could never feel safe again, much less in the presence of wild beasts and strange warriors.

So, Alix ran.

She turned tail, heading into the forest like a soul chased by the devil. Her own panicked breath whirled into her ears, as branches and bushes crackled under her feet. Her feet carried her forward, mind disconnected from any concern other than a fervent need to escape it all: the wolves, the soldiers, her parents' deaths. A feeling of uncleanliness burned in the pit of her stomach, caused by the acute awareness of the bloodstains on her dress, on her hands. She was carrying around death itself, blood and the very same grime that had trapped the blacksmith's and her parents' last breaths.

And that, that just triggered a strange curse: her mind began to rebel. The image of the wolves' teeth tearing into flesh flashed into her mind with a peculiar virulence. It linked itself with the sound of his father's dying scream, and then with her mother's pleas, forming almost a chained loop that would repeat itself like a children's rhyme, slowly changing its colours until it became something else. Blood turned redder, the whites of the canine teeth whiter, the steel of the sword brighter. It was deafening in its intensity.

Exhausted, she sluggishly tried to hop over the roots of a big yew tree, only to find herself falling head first to the floor. She realized then that her breathing had, at some point, evolved into yelling, and that her cheeks were wet with tears. She slowly sat up, and brought her hands up, trying to clear her blurry vision.

Then she finally noticed that she'd been followed. Small, measured footsteps burst forth from all around her. The wolves emerged from behind the surrounding trees; some of them climbing uphill to her, some of them jumping down from their vantage points. Their muzzles were dark, stained with the soldiers' blood... and, perhaps, the same blood that covered her fingers.

She dragged herself backwards, until her back touched the trunk of the yew tree. One of the wolves, perhaps the oldest in the pack, slowly approached her. The creature fixed her with chilling yellow eyes, and for a moment she lost her breath, mesmerized by the sheer intensity of their colour. Perhaps it was her own perception, huddled into herself as she was, that the animal seemed to be larger than normal. She morbidly indulged in the panicked thought of herself being torn to pieces, and felt like screaming again.

The yew tree danced to the rhythm of the wind, but to her it seemed like it was answering to her distress. As the branches shook gently over her head, she wondered briefly if a single taste of its leaves would make her fate sweeter. Almost absent-mindedly, her hand tried to reach for the nearest clump of deadly poison... and stopped, abruptly, as the old wolf let out a rumbling growl of warning that shook her to her very core.

Alix felt angry. She had been condemned to die by a soldiers' spear first, and then by a wolves' bite; yet now she was denied death by her own hand? If her fate was to join her parents, then let her go willingly – at least over that much she had control. In a swift and defiant motion she jumped up and grabbed her yew leaves.

"Drop it."

The strange knight was back, swift steps moving with the same grace and quiet Alix had witnessed from the wolves. His sword was unsheathed and still dripping with blood, and hung limp from his hand as if anticipating its next use. He came to a stop beside the old wolf, facing her. His helmet was unlike any she'd seen; it was simple, ill-fitting for the man's head, which was actually smaller than what at first glance had appeared to her. A thick bar of metal lay over the knight's nose, obscuring the upper side of his face. In spite of that, his eyes shone brightly: they had a strange luminescence to them, appearing almost like liquid silver to Alix.

The young girl held on to the leaves despite of the knight's whispered command. Her stubbornness was rewarded with the swift action of the stranger: he closed the distance between them, and callously grabbed the hand that protected its precious poison. Alix felt agony as the firm grip dug into her flesh, and surprised, she let the leaves fall to the ground. Panicking, her eyes dropped to the sword that was held so close to her legs. She didn't dare raise her head when the knight spoke again:

"Why were those soldiers attacking you?"

Alix took a moment to register the question, and another to gather her voice into a coherent string of sounds: "The village was attacked by Lord Plantagenet's soldiers... they were looking for money."

"Lord Plantagenet..." repeated the knight, so softly that Alix could've missed it had they not been so close. "Is he fighting Count Angevin again, I wonder?"

"Y-yes... the whole country is up in arms... there's no heir to the throne."

Alix sighed. "And we all have to pay for it."

The knight released her hand, and stepped back. Alix cradled it against her chest, trying to nurse the pain from the bruising hold by rubbing gently with her other hand. The stranger gave no signs of noticing the discomfort he'd caused, and thus did not apologize for it. Instead, he took a slip of sheepskin from his belt and carefully wiped the blood off the sword before sheathing it.

The gesture did not go unnoticed by Alix, who was unsure of what was more appropriate: to celebrate, or to worry that further misery was in order?

"Will you let me go?" the girl asked softly.

"Your village is no more. Your parents are lying in a pool of their own blood down the hill. Is there anywhere for you to go?"

Alix trembled at the knight's words, mistaking them for her sentence. "It doesn't matter; I'll find a place."

The stranger looked impassively at her for a moment, before his lips turned up, amused. He reached up to his chin to undo the leather straps that held his helmet in place, and slid it off his head. As if an enchantment had worn off, slipping over his shoulders like a silk cloak, Alix realized her mistake. The knight was no man.

"Would you like to come with me?" asked the mysterious grey-haired woman in front of her.