Wolves of the Calla

Jaffords has told us what we already suspected.'

There were murmurs of surprise. Heads turned. Jamie, standing beside his grandson, managed to straighten his curved back for a moment or two and actually puff up his sunken chest. Eddie only hoped the old buzzard would hold his peace over what came next. If he got muddled and contradicted the tale Roland was about to tell, their job would become much harder. At the very least it would mean grabbing Slightman and Andy early. And if Finli o' Tego—the voice Slightman reported to from the Dogan—didn't hear from these two again before the day of the Wolves, there would be suspicions. Eddie felt movement in the hand on his arm. Susannah had just crossed her fingers.

FOUR

'There aren't living creatures beneath the masks,' Roland said. 'The Wolves are the undead servants of the vampires who rule Thunderclap.'

An awed murmur greeted this carefully crafted bit of claptrap.

'They're what my friends Eddie, Susannah, and Jake call zombis . They can't be killed by bow, bah, or bullet unless struck in the brain or the heart.' Roland tapped the left side of his chest for emphasis. 'And of course when they come on their raids, they come wearing heavy armor under their clothes.'

Henchick was nodding. Several of the other older men and women—folken who well remembered the Wolves coming not just once before but twice—were doing the same. 'It explains a good deal,' he said. 'But how—'

'To strike them in the brain is beyond our abilities, because of the helmets they wear under their hoods,' Roland said. 'But we saw such creatures in Lud. Their weakness is here.' Again he tapped his chest. 'The undead don't breathe, but there's a kind of gill above their hearts. If they armor it over, they die. That's where we'll strike them.'

A low, considering hum of conversation greeted this. And then Gran-pere's voice, shrill and excited: ' Tis ever' word true, for dinna Molly Doolin strike one there hersel' wi' the dish, an' not even dead-on, neither, and yet the creetur' dropped down!'

Susannah's hand tightened on Eddie's arm enough for him to feel her short nails, but when he looked at her, she was grinning in spite of herself. He saw a similar expression on Jake's face. Trig enough when the chips were down, old man , Eddie thought. Sorry I ever doubted you. Let Andy and Slightman go back across the river and report that happy horseshit ! He'd asked Roland if they (the faceless they represented by someone who called himself Finli o' Tego) would believe such tripe. They've raided this side of the Why'e for over a hundred years and lost but a single fighter , Roland had replied. I think they'd believe anything. At this point their really vulnerable spot is their complacence .

'Bring your twins here by seven o' the clock on Wolfs Eve,' Roland said. 'There'll be ladies—Sisters of Oriza, ye ken— with lists on slateboards. They'll scratch off each pair as they come in. It's my hope to have a line drawn through every name before nine o' the clock.'

'Ye'll not drig no line through the names o' mine!' cried an angry voice from the back of the crowd. The voice's owner pushed several people aside and stepped forward next to Jake. He was a squat man with a smallhold rice-patch far to the south'ards. Roland scratched through the untidy storehouse of his recent memory (untidy, yes, but nothing was ever thrown away) and eventually came up with the name: Neil Faraday. One of the few who hadn't been home when Roland and his ka-tet had come calling… or not home to them, at least. A hard worker, according to Tian, but an even harder drinker. He certainly looked the part. There were dark circles under his eyes and a complication of burst purplish veins on each cheek. Scruffy, say big-big. Yet Telford and Took threw him a grateful, surprised look. Another sane man in bedlam , it said. Thank the gods .

' 'Ay'll take 'een babbies anyro' and burn 'een squabbot town flat,' he said, speaking in an accent that made his words almost incomprehensible. 'But 'ay'll have one each o' my see', an' 'at'U stee' lea' me three, and a' best 'ay ain't worth squabbot, but my howgan is!' Faraday looked around at the townsfolk with an expression of sardonic disdain. 'Burn'ee flat an' be damned to 'ee,' he said. 'Numb gits!' And back into the crowd he went, leaving a surprising number of people looking shaken and thoughtful. He had done more to turn the momentum of the crowd with his contemptuous and (to Eddie, at least) incomprehensible tirade than Telford and Took had been able to do together.

He may be shirttail poor, but I doubt if he'll have trouble getting credit from Took for the next year or so , Eddie thought. If the store still stands, that is .

'Sai Faraday's got a right to his opinion, but I hope he'll change it over the next few days,' Roland said. 'I hope you folks will help him change it. Because if he doesn't, he's apt to be left not with three kiddies but none at all.' He raised his voice and shaped it toward the place where Faraday stood, glowering. 'Then he can see how he likes working his tillage with no help but two mules and a wife.'

Telford stepped forward to the edge of the stage, his face red with fury. 'Is there nothing ye won't say to win your argument, you chary man? Is there no lie you won't tell?'

'I don't lie and I don't say for certain,' Roland replied. 'If I've given anyone the idea that I know all the answers when less than a season ago I didn't even know the Wolves existed, I cry your pardon. But let me tell you a story before I bid you goodnight. When I was a boy in Gilead, before the coming of the Good Man and the great burning that followed, there was a tree farm out to the east o' barony.'

'Whoever heard of farming trees ?' someone called derisively.

Roland smiled and nodded. 'Perhaps not ordinary trees, or even ironwoods, but these were blossies, a wonderful light wood, yet strong. The best wood for boats that ever was. A piece cut thin nearly floats in the air. They grew over a thousand acres of land, tens of thousands of blosswood trees in neat rows, all overseen by the barony forester. And the rule, never even bent, let alone broken, was this: take two, plant three.'

'Aye,' Eisenhart said. ' 'Tis much the same with stock, and with threaded stock the advice is to keep four for every one ye sell or kill. Not that many could afford to do so.'

Roland's eyes roamed the crowd. 'During the summer season I turned ten, a plague fell on the blosswood forest. Spiders spun white webs over the upper branches of some, and those trees died from their tops down, rotting as they went, falling of their own weight long before the plague could get to the roots. The forester saw what was happening, and ordered all the good trees cut down at once. To save the wood while it was still worth saving, do you see? There was no more take two and plant three, because the rule no longer made any sense. The following summer, the blossy woods east of Gilead was gone.'

Utter silence from the folken . The day had drained down to a premature dusk. The torches hissed. Not an eye stirred from the gunslinger's face.

'Here in the Calla, the Wolves harvest babies. And needn't even go to the work of planting em, because—hear me—that's the way it is with men and women. Even the children know. 'Daddy's no fool, when he plants the rice commala, Mommy knows just what to do.' '

A murmur from the folken .

'The Wolves take, then wait. Take… and wait. It's worked fine for them, because men and women always plant new babies, no matter what else befalls. But now comes a new thing. Now comes plague.'

Took began, 'Aye, say true, ye're a plague all r—' Then someone knocked the hat off his head. Eben Took whirled, looked for the culprit, and saw fifty unfriendly faces. He snatched up his hat, held it to his breast, and said no more.

'If they see the baby-farming is over for them here,' Roland said, 'this last time they won't just take twins; this time they'll take every child they can get their hands on while the taking's good. So bring your little ones at seven o' the clock. That's my best advice to you.'

'What choice have you left em?' Telford asked. He was white with fear and fury.

Roland had had enough of him. His voice rose to a shout, and Telford fell back from the force of his suddenly blazing blue eyes. 'None that you have to worry about, sai, for your children are grown, as everyone in town knows. You've had your say. Now why don't you shut up?'