“Gave up my fort of silence to a woman…
...my accomplished snare.”
-Samson Agonistes, Milton
‘Fallen Majesty,’ thought Peter of the trampled and gored wolf, of the mountain once so pure, of the man towering besides him, once a King Musilman, now a Back Tier chief’s slave.
Peter Grim boomed behind him, “Men, two men each to the culverns and the overseer of each crew. The rest with me, muskets at the ready, cutlass to belt: a line, all of us between the corner posts, even spread! We have foul foes commin’ thisaway!”
Only Father and six men, seven to count Breed, who carried a blunderbuss and stand, setting up closest to the glowering white steel of the Cherub in the form of a sword. The elk grazed among the wood yard, between south wall and the now spacious slope cleared by Thirteen, the cattle among them.
Thirteen and Peter stood off to the left of the south corner post, what had been raised 6 feet from the inner post where the Cherub sword was stuck, humming, having burned away the Wendigo hide, naught but a skull and jaw perched on the pummel.
The culvern, operated by Ben and Juan, commanded by Anton the Overseer, was temporarily mounted on the southwest post, a trunk six feet thick, the two big men crowded on the end of the south wall catwalk behind it. Juan, a slight youth, walked along the uprights three feet thick, dropping in powder, wad and shot and working the ram. Anton would sight and Ben light.
The housewife and maid were peeping through the firing ports of Grim Hall, Mother and his three sisters cheering him through the upper ports, where they were armed as well in case of an overrun.
Peter turned and looked at Breed through the refracted glow of the Cherub sword and prayed within, 'God, may Brave Breed be most blessed in battle, as he has been bereft of body.'
Breed, not looking at Peter, but charging, cocking and sighting his blunderbuss down range, shouted, in a clarity far beyond his previous slow-wit mumble, “For the Good Brothers Grim!”
Father and Peter’s eyes met on that stalwart runt form, looking like a soldier of old squashed by heretical notion of gravity as by some angel—though the men all cheered after their mascot, “For the Good Brothers Grim!”
A terrible clacking sounded down the pasture, followed by howling, hooting, snorting, goatish screaming and at last a roar. Down the even slope of the mountain foot, Peter could count nine shambling figures knuckle walking their way off center towards the elk and beeves that mooed and bugled. On the end of the line, facing Peter came the one he had winged, his white chest fur marked red. Facing Thirteen was the leader, twice the size of the other brutes. Despite the mixed animal nature of these things, Peter thought it best to categorize them by relative bear size. While the median fiend was the size of a black bear, though goat lean below and apish armed above, the leader was the size of a great brown bear of Kodiak.
Peter whispered up to Anton, “Fire on the one left and south of the leader.”
He called to Father, “Pah, forward in a northwest cat corner [diagonal] to fire down their line. They mean to run off our beef!”
Peter Senior’s voice boomed, and he could tell from a grin, “You heard Chief Grim, you savage freedmen—you, on me, culvern keep eyes on the north slope!”
Tory Ball came to Peter’s side with an old trade musket, his pistol, and one of Father’s south sea cutlasses from those seafaring days when he and Cod Gee used to hunt the seas.
“Tory, are you able?”
Tory snarled, “They rent them all, every man with a name of Ball. The Duke Ivan sent us for the Back Tier—Ivanstar is Lost, Peter. It seems yesterday you and I skipped hoops by the quay.”
Peter grinned and slapped his back, “Now to our bloody day!”
The line of fiends came on all fours to the encouragement of the Sasquatch hooting and tree drumming from the mountain tops.
The drums stopped as the wendigo crested the level 100 yards out.
Just out of musket range, where some rifles could hit, of the six they had, and the culverns might spew justice, the fiends stopped in a jagged line, ancy, on knuckles and hunches, their back hackles razed like razor hogs.
The drums took up a fury, echoing down the valley, and stopped with a mighty crack of a shattered timber.
The Wendigo Chief ambled forward, leery of the glowering sword, the skull on it cracking to dust.
Fifty yards out, just beyond pistol and blunder buss range, the thing halted, rose on is haunches, spread its arms and clacked its jaws, gnashing its fangs, speaking with the growling voice of a man, “Brown Knight—I smell your wool o’ fright! You to me, fair fight—no Christ light, no boil blood knife?”
Thirteen stood, empty hands flexing under those gauntlets, ready to grasp his sword and dirk hilts.
Peter stepped forward, his musket to shoulder, “King Fiend, you address my slave directly. You, offend me!”
With black flaring nostrils the wendigo smelled the downdraft from the mountain, licked the air that had caressed Peter’s long brown hair under his buckskin slouch hat a moment before, tasted it with its tongue of spotted black barbs, and called in a gurgling shout, “No fear!”
His fiends snorted angrily and raised hackles above their brows, making a Mohawk of their hackle heads.
It shouted to Peter, “You slave—slay my brothers four: Fair, Fight… honor! Feed!!!”
“Master, pray permit This One to duel that one, a knights heart calls.”
Peter stepped three paces further motioning for all to stay back and boomed, never knowing he could own such a voice, “Men have guns and honor! The wendigo cross the creek southwest and sit back. If they return, blast them men!”
Peter walked towards the Chief three more steps and it sat on its haunches, eyes wide. He slung his rifle and bellowed, “No gun harms the chief fiend! Thirteen! Victor retired in peace, vanquished body to be retrieved by two fellows!”
The Wendigo Chief snarled, loudly, “No boil blood knife—no to right!”
Thirteen un-belted his dirk and sword, draped them over Peter’s left shoulder, “Master, these are yours,” and advanced to face the great beast as tall as he but thrice as broad, sliding a felling ax from his belt like it were a tomahawk, and raising it high in silence.”
‘Peter, have you been tricked by a boar-headed, goat-haunched ape?’
But in that moment, none could question the single mind of Thirteen, his war hat visor down, the brazen crown of it flashing as the morning clouds broke for a glimpse of the sun.
