Free Wolfweir by A. G. Hardy Page B

understand it well. He knew only that Lucia was telling her story. She pointed to him, Alphonse, and the wolfman's eyes went even wider. And wilder.
     
    All the warriors were looking at Alphonse Didier-Stein. He felt horribly small and shameful. He was a puppet. If only they could see him as he was, not as he looked in this gaudy circus-boy body clad in ragpicker clothes.
     
    The wolfish man bowed so low to Alphonse his helmet almost touched the dust. Then he stepped back, spoke quickly in that growling Italian dialect and raised his hand and made a few quick signs, and two of the black-clad horsemen wheeled and broke into a gallop up the steep curving road to the castle.
     
    My sweet Alphonse," Lucia said solemnly. "These are some of the 47 Knights of Wolfweir Castle. They are aware that you saved my life many times and wish to welcome you with proper ceremony. This man is my uncle, Malvic . You will ride his horse back to the castle, as he walks ahead. I will ride his shoulders. These other knights will follow as a solemn and silent honor guard holding their naked sabers aloft. Bonfires will be lit on the ramparts. As we enter there will be volley of cannons. And once inside the Black Iron Gate you will meet my father, the great High King Gar Fith . Are you ready?"
     
    Alphonse gave a quick bow, clicking his heels together, and snapped to rigid attention as he always had at the fencing school. He heard surprised, and quickly stifled, mirth from some of the mailed warriors.
     
    It didn't matter. Puppets can't blush.
     
    **
     
     
    So our A.D.S. rides a great stomping black stallion, high in the saddle like a conquering hero, the bared swords of the Knights glistening behind him, Malvic holding the reins with Lucia di Fermonti perched laughing and clapping on his massive shoulders, up the dusty moonbright road and through a massive black iron gate into Wolfweir Castle.
     
    Bonfires flare up on the ramparts as they approach, jangling and creaking and stamping. The upraised sabers suddenly glow blood red.
     
    As they enter the Castle there is a shocking mingled blast of at least twenty cannons from all sides of the ramparts. The night seems to turn upside down and dissolve into a lion's roar of pure sound.
     
    Alphonse reflexively covers his face with his arms. His stallion's ears twitch rapidly, that's all. Lucia only laughs louder into the stained and ringing silence, as gunpowder-stench fills the night air.
     
     
    The High King
    They are at last now in the castle's great courtyard. Gar Fith , the High King, emerges with a blast of trumpets from the Inner Keep, wearing red velvet robes and an age-blackened silver crown and around his neck a chain of heavy ornately worked silver with a thick glass phial dangling from it.
     
    His bearing is wolfish. He has the same jutting, angular jaw as Malvic , the same gleaming green-yellow eyes. He moves in a sinewy, loose-limbed way, his knees bent, and he is slightly bowlegged. He even smells like a wolf.
     
    Alphonse slides quickly down from the saddle, drops to one knee on the flagstones, plucks off his cap and bows with an elegant sweep of his sword arm.
     
    Lucia is clapping and laughing. Alphonse glances up under his wooden brows to see her in the arms of Gar Fith . The wolf king is in tears. Lucia pets and kisses his face.
     
    "My golden darling," cries the High King.
     
    "My dear father," cries Lucia.
     
    They are both laughing and sobbing like the newly insane.
     
    And now Lucia says in clear Italian:
     
    "Voila. Here is my sweet friend, Alphonse Didier-Stein, of Paris. He is a virtuoso with a rapier, and is very kind and brave, but he cannot speak. His boy's soul was locked into this puppet body by the Gypsy necromancer Vesuvio , the same vile swine who kidnapped me and took me to France for a black magic ritual by full moon on an ancient stone altar. Alphonse rescued me from Vesuvio's camp when he and his slave-puppets and a lurid pair of Vampyres were just