"Have it as you will." The Fox knew he sounded weary, but couldn't help it. "You'll find out soon enough whether I'm telling the truth. When you learn I am, maybe you'll remember some of what I've said." He turned and walked back to the chariot where Van and Raffo waited. No one shot at him, so he just rode on.

Down at the southern border of Bevon's holding, Ricolf's men were no longer wary of the force Gerin used to hold the Elabon Way open. They'd seen the monsters for themselves—seen more of them than the Fox had, as a matter of fact. He spent the first couple of hours after he arrived asking questions.

"Some of the creatures are smarter than others, lord prince, seems like," one of Ricolf's troopers said. "I've seen a couple carrying sword or axe, and one even with a helm on its ugly head. But others'll either charge or run off, just like wild beasts."

"Interesting." Gerin plucked at his beard. "How many of them are there, would you say, and how much damage have they done?"

"How many? Too many, that's sure," the trooper said. "As for damage, think how much fun wolves would be if they had more in the way of wits, and hands to let them get into things doors and gates keep them out of."

Gerin thought about it. He didn't like the pictures that painted themselves in his mind. Elabonians were in the habit of calling Trokmoi wolves because of their fierce raids, but they had humanly understandable motives: they were out for loot and captives as well as slaughter for its own sake. Beasts that hunted and killed without grasping, let alone using, the concepts of mercy and restraint were daunting in an altogether different way.

The Fox thanked Ricolf's man and went back to pass the word to his own warriors. "One thing's certain," he said when he'd given them the grim news: "These creatures won't act like a regular army of men. They aren't an army at all, not really. Instead of trying to storm up the Elabon Way in a mass, I look for them to spread through the woods by ones and twos and maybe packs—no larger groups or bands or whatever you want to call them."

"If that's so, lord Gerin, we might as well not have brung these here chariots," Widin Simrin's son said.

"For fighting, you're right," the Fox answered, letting his young vassal down easy. "But we'd have been another two or three days on the road if we'd footed it down here."

Widin nodded, abashed. Drago the Bear said, "What'll you have us do with the cars, then? We can't go into the woods with 'em, that's certain, and you say the woods is where we'll find these things." He shook his head in somber anticipation. "You're going to make foot soldiers out of us, I know you are."

"Do you see that I have any choice?" Gerin asked. "Here's what I'm thinking: we'll split up by chariot crews, with teams of three crews sticking together in teams. That'll give each team nine men, which should be enough to hold off even a pack of the creatures. At the same time, we'll have eight or ten teams spreading out along the border between Bevon's and Ricolf's holdings, and that ought to give us a chance to keep a lot of the beasts from slipping farther north."

"What about the ones that are already over the border?" Van asked. "How are you going to deal with them?"

"Bevon's vassals, or rather Bevon's sons' vassals, will slay some of them," Gerin said. "That should convince them the things are real and dangerous. As for the others, we'll just have to hope there aren't too many."

"Fair enough," Van said, to Gerin's relief. The Fox's great fear—one he didn't want to speak aloud to his followers—was that, like the Trokmoi, the monsters would permanently establish themselves in the northlands. If men couldn't rid the woods of wolves, how were they to be free of creatures cleverer and more vicious than wolves?

He divided his men into teams of nine, and appointed a leader for each band. He had contrary misgivings about naming Drago and Rihwin: the one might miss things he ought to find, while the other got in trouble by being too inventive. But they were both better than anyone else in their bands, so he spoke their names firmly and hoped for the best.

He ordered half the teams to head east from the Elabon Way, the other half west. "We'll go out for three days, hunt for a day, and then come back," he said. "Anybody who's not back to the road in seven days' time and hasn't been eaten to give him an excuse will answer to me."

Eastbound and westbound forces headed out from the highway; the Fox and his chariot crew were in the latter. At first each half of the little army tramped along as a single body, the better to overawe any of the local nobles who might be tempted to fare forth against them. Men chattered and sang and, after a while, began to grumble about sore feet.

When morning had turned to afternoon and the sun sank toward the horizon, Gerin turned to the team headed by Widin Simrin's son. "You men go back and forth through the woods hereabouts," he said. "The rest of us will push on, then leave another team behind, then another, and another, so when we're through we'll have men all along the border. Do you see?"

"Aye, lord," Widin answered. "That means at the end of our reach, though, so to speak, we won't be able to search for as long as we will here closer to the Elabon Way."

"True enough," the Fox said, "but I don't know what we can do about it. Travel takes time, and there's no help for it." He nodded approvingly to Widin; that was a much better point than the one he'd raised before. Gerin hadn't worked the implications of his strategy through so logically himself. "When we get back to Fox Keep, would you be interested in learning to read and write?"

"No, lord prince," Widin replied at once. "Got better things to do with my time, I do—hunting and wenching and keeping my vassals and serfs in line." He sounded so sure of himself that Gerin subsided with a sigh and did not push the question.

With Widin's team left behind, the rest tramped on. They took a game track through a stand of oaks and emerged on the far side at the edge of cleared fields in which peasants labored. The peasants stared at them in horror, as if they were so many monsters themselves, then fled.

Their cries of terror made Gerin melancholy. "This holding has seen too much war," he said. "Let's push ahead without harming anything here: let them know not every warrior is out to steal what little they have."

"A wasted lesson if ever I heard one," Van said. "The next band through here, so long as it isn't one of ours, will treat them the way they expect us to." Gerin glared at him so fiercely that he hastened to add, "But we'll do it your way, Captain—why not?"

Evening came before the Fox reckoned the time ripe to detach another piece of his force. Along with the men he had with him, he tossed knucklebones to see who would stand watch through the night. He felt like cheering when he won the right to uninterrupted sleep. No sooner had he cocooned himself in his blanket and wriggled around a little to make sure no pebbles poked his ribs than he knew nothing of the world around him.

A hideous cry recalled him to himself: a wailing shriek part wolf, part longtooth, part madman. He sat up and looked around wildly, wondering for a moment where he was and what he was doing here. His gaze went to the heavens. Tiwaz, nearly full, stood high in the south; ruddy Elleb, a couple of days past fullness, was in the southeast. Crescent Math had set and Nothos not yet risen. That put the hour a little before midnight.

Then all such mundane, practical thoughts vanished from his head, for the dreadful call again rang through the woods and across the fields. Some men started up from their bedrolls, grabbing for bow or sword. Others shrank down, as if to smother the cry with the thick wool of their blankets. Gerin could not find it in himself to blame them; the scream made him want to hide, too.