Wolf Hunt

CHAPTER 19

THE little troop made its way north. They skirted Vienna before plunging into the forest. Margont lost all sense of direction and had no idea where they were. He had deployed some of his men as vanguard and some on the flanks. He scanned the area, his gaze seeming to slide through the foliage. The green and scarlet troopers were redolent of drops of bloody sap scattered over the vast vegetation. The trees, giants weighed down with leaves, seemed to crush them in their vertiginous grasp. They formed a sort of palace of alarming proportions. Had it not been for the war Margont would have liked to lose himself here.

The three duellists followed Relmyer. The two élite troopers never spoke to the hussar of the 5th Regiment. They only knew each other because of the magnetic draw of Relmyer’s blade to theirs. Yet Margont told himself that he was hardly less idiotic than they were. Had he not become involved in this business for complex motives, which he couldn’t share with anyone else? Twenty men

found themselves united here but for very differing reasons. None of them belonged to the same world.

‘Is it much further, Lieutenant?’ asked Lefine.

Relmyer asked the guide in German. The guide’s back sagged as if the officer’s questions were blows.

‘No, a little more than two leagues, Monsieur,’ he replied fearfully. Margont spoke quietly. ‘Is it really impossible to avoid those duels?’

‘Clearly I won’t be able to escape them. As soon as we’ve finished questioning this Grich, I will have to fight them.’

‘What?’

Relmyer spread his hands slightly. ‘They will never leave me alone unless I agree to fight them. We will fight at Mazenau, which will suit everyone. We won’t lose any time and they will get what they want in a quiet spot. On the Isle of Lobau, we risk being disturbed by a superior officer opposed to duels, or by the imperial police with their excessive zeal. I remember the promise I made you but this is not a situation of my making.’

In spite of the shade, Margont was sweating as if he was under a midday sun.

Three duels ... The first will perhaps be one. But if you’re wounded the second will be a murder, an execution!’

‘Not at all. If I’m hurt we’ll examine the wound together. If it’s decided that the wound is superficial, my adversary will be declared winner and I will go on with the next duel.’

Margont interrupted with a gesture. He could no longer bear these rules and the logic that conferred an illusion of rationality on the madness.

However, Relmyer, caught up in his explanation, continued: ‘Of course, a serious injury would mean the end of fighting, but there would be a problem if the wound was disputed. If a unanimous view cannot be amicably reached, we will have to ask the opinion of a doctor whose word will be final. Exhaustion postpones the duel by one day, a serious injury postpones it to the day following complete recovery.’

‘But why? Why take still more risks?’

‘You’re asking that question because you don’t understand the life of a renowned duellist. Of course he attracts other duellists avid to fight him. He’s famous and everywhere he is feared in the same measure as he is admired and envied. He makes money giving lessons and winning duels that are wagers he gambles on. He progresses rapidly up the ranks. Without my sabre I would not be a lieutenant. Lieutenant at twenty years old! Certain women - superb ones, I can tell you - are ready to do anything to have a well-known swashbuckler hold them in his arms.’

‘And all that’s worth risking death for?’

‘It’s worth risking death ten times over. If any one of these sabre-fighters succeeds in piercing my chest, that life will be his. Take Pagin, for example. A few months ago he was afraid of everything and everyone. His apprenticeship with the sabre has transformed him. Look at his assurance today, his joie de vivre ... that’s why he’s always dashing about the place: he is catching up the years that he lost in inertia, held back by his fears.’

Margont chased away the flies buzzing round his horse’s head, endlessly irritating it.

‘You are just like him. Pagin is “fortifying himself with iron” to confront a nameless danger that torments him. You’re acting the same way. Except that you have a clearer idea of the threat you’re confronting.’

‘Yes and no. Only in part. I was damaged by what happened to me. My sword is my crutch: take it away from me and I’ll collapse. I am grateful to it for helping me to walk again but at the same time it reminds me of the past and it attracts duellists.’

Margont looked at him with a mixture of compassion and fear: in his eyes, Relmyer was suffering from a malady that was little by little increasing its stranglehold on him.

‘You started to train with the sabre to learn to defend yourself. But arms are like wine - in the end they take you over. Lukas, you have become the scabbard of your blade.’

‘As long as this investigation remains unresolved, I will not be able to give it up. Afterwards, I will try ...’

Warrant Officer Cauchoit rode closer.

‘You’re making it too complicated. Better to have ten days of glory than ten thousand of mediocrity.’

‘What a magnificent epitaph,’ replied Margont. Then, turning to Relmyer, he added: ‘Let’s suppose that you win these three duels: how many duellists will be attracted by that triple ... success?’

‘All of them of course! My duel with Piquebois is not the only reason for this situation. My reputation carries weight. It’s not very easy to—'

To chase away the flies Relmyer’s horse had just lifted its head when part of it burst open under the impact of a shot. Margont, his face splattered with blood, saw the horse collapse on its side as Relmyer was thrown to the ground, a leg and a stirrup in the air, his hands pulling on the now useless reins. This first bullet was immediately followed by a concert of detonations. A hussar in the vanguard, mown down, fell backwards, while the mount of his companion collapsed along with his trooper. Clouds of white smoke appeared everywhere: in the thickets, behind the trees ... A grey silhouette took aim at Margont but Lefine immediately fired his pistol, catching the figure in the thigh.

‘It’s the militia! Death to the Landwehr!’ cried Cauchoit.

Sabre in hand, and dragging his trumpeter friend and some hussars in his wake, he charged straight at a mass of infantrymen that had formed in front of them. These Austrians were not professional soldiers. They had thought that the surprise and success of their first volley would send the French into disarray. The thirty amongst them who had just made themselves defenceless in order to adjust their sights were struck head on by the troopers. The warrant officer moved as if in a trance. His sabre attacked furiously, wounding, killing, killing, wounding ... The trumpeter aimed his blows exclusively at faces and throats, leaving nothing behind him but dead and disfigured bodies, dehumanised corpses. The troop of militia disappeared beyond a clearing; the carnage had sewn confusion amongst the Austrians. Although they were still more numerous, and for the most part sheltered behind trees, many of them fled, vanishing through the vegetation. Others continued to riddle the French with gunfire. The poor guide they had

pressed into service was taken for a traitor and received two balls in the back. The hussars plunged at a trot into the wood, laughing in the face of their fear. They passed no one without mowing him down with their pistols or laying him out with their sabres. Relmy-er, already on his feet, having freed himself, but covered in his horse’s blood, feverishly scanned the thickets. He paid no attention to his men or to the battle that raged around him. He pointed in the direction of the shot that had killed his horse.

‘It’s him! He killed Franz! Him!’

Such a coincidence was impossible. Had Relmyer been driven mad? Or had they been betrayed? In the woods, the officer Relmyer was pointing to detached himself from the combatants to take flight. The Austrian wore a grey coat with red cuffs and lapels. The elegance of his uniform contrasted with the coarse coats of certain of the militia. Light brown hair could be seen under his black bicorn, braided with gold. Margont briefly caught a glimpse of the man’s face. He seemed to be in his forties. Relmyer had launched into the woods in pursuit, his pistol in one hand, his trusty sabre in the other. All about him there was carnage. The hussars, although very much inferior in number, definitely had the upper hand over their adversaries. They attacked and charged at anything that moved. Their horses plunged into groups of militia, knocking into bodies, and the troopers wielded their sabres as though they were mowing the grass. Margont found himself facing a wave of Austrians in disarray. How many were there? Dozens? He thought he was going to be slashed to pieces but his very presence exacerbated the panic of the fleeing Austrians. But the tide of humanity ricocheted around him and the militia scattered in other directions. Margont wanted to pursue them, but hands were raised all around him. He had just taken fifteen prisoners. A hussar burst out of a thicket brandishing his sabre. It was the trumpeter from the élite company. He whirled like the wind into the midst of what he took to be a pocket of resistance and launched an attack towards the face of the horseman he took to be the leader of the rabble. Margont scarcely had time to duck down by his horse’s neck. The point of the sabre pierced his shako. He wanted to cry out to

set the trumpeter straight, but he was long gone, chasing other moving figures. Had he really been mistaken in all the confusion? Margont seized one of his two horse pistols and had to fight against the urge to shoot at the horse of the madman. Pagin arrived in the meantime, his sword bloody, his face scratched by branches. He looked in astonishment at Margont and the captives.

‘Victory!’ he bellowed, standing up in his stirrups, his sabre pointing towards the sky.

His shout made the fifteen Austrians flinch.

Relmyer returned at the run. ‘He’s escaping! Pagin, your horse!’

The hussar did not dare protest and got down from his mount. Margont tried to say something, but Relmyer bounced into the saddle and set off, spurring the horse until it bled. Margont followed, abandoning Pagin, who, disdainful of the prisoners, looked for someone to fight. The two horsemen overtook Warrant Officer Cauchoit, who was a terrifying sight. He was covered in blood and had eviscerated everyone who opposed him. He was a veritable angel of death.

Margont found himself in an artificial clearing. Some Austrian horses were stamping and restless, tied to branches. At the other end of the expanse of felled trees, figures were fleeing on horseback.

‘He’s not far ahead of us!’ cried Relmyer.

Margont and Relmyer’s horses dashed along, devouring the distance. They were far superior to the old nags the Austrian army furnished the militia with. Little by little the fleeing man became easier to make out. The officer with the bicorn pointed his weapon in their direction.

‘That’s him!’ shrieked Relmyer.

‘Duck!’ warned Margont.

A detonation sounded but the ball missed its target. The fugitive changed tactics, tugged on his reins and disappeared into the forest. Relmyer was quivering.

‘He’s heading north-east. He wants to get over to the Austrian side but the Danube is blocking his way.’

The two pursuers were engulfed in their turn in the woods. The figure of the Austrian appeared and disappeared intermittently. Margont used shot after shot from his horse pistol, trying to hit the Austrian’s mount, but in vain.

‘We’re miles away from our army!’

‘Where did he go?’ agonised Relmyer.

The man seemed to have been swallowed by the vegetation. Margont slowed his horse and saw him cut off down a path.

‘That way.’

The fugitive had taken a badly maintained path. Margont had just made out his grey uniform through the jumble of thicket. Relmyer, who had almost got lost, had been overtaken by his friend and was hitting the flank of his mare with the flat of his sabre. His horse took off like a whirlwind at twice the speed of Margont’s mount, forcing him off the path. Margont steadied himself and settled back into his galloping rhythm. He felt fear swelling in him. He was now convinced that nothing about the fugitive had anything to do with chance. He and Relmyer saw only a random labyrinth of vegetation whilst their adversary moved as easily as if he were strolling about the streets of his hometown. Margont no longer felt like a hunter tracking a wolf; he felt like a pike throwing itself onto a fish-hook.

He shouted to Relmyer: ‘He knows this forest: it’s he who’s masterminding this chase, not us!’

Relmyer was not listening to him. He was noticing something else. The militiaman’s horse was not up to the tactics of its rider, and was starting to show signs of fatigue. His own, on the other hand, neck stretched out and nostrils quivering, was eroding the distance that separated them. Margont was struggling not to be left behind; he was not experienced in chasing people on horseback. The branches whipped his face, confusing him, while the bushes murdered his legs and the flanks of his horse. Relmyer, paying no heed to these inconveniences, brandished his sabre, promise of devastating retribution.

The terrain was now gently sloping, which meant the horses speeded up. The fugitive manoeuvred his horse between

obstacles. He suddenly cut off to the right, abandoning the path to head into an entanglement of little bushes. The vegetation swallowed him up. It was an astonishing choice of route: on the path beyond there were fewer obstructions and so it was much faster. Relmyer continued on straight. Margont chose to follow the tracks of the runaway to close the trap. In spite of his advantages, the man was slowing down. Relmyer left the path in his turn and gained on him. He came level with him fifteen paces to his left. He was going to overtake him and cut off his route when the militiaman and his horse seemed to subside, as though the ground had given way beneath them. The slope he had been descending had suddenly become much steeper. Relmyer was now looking down on the fugitive, who descended still further. Relmyer’s horse reared. His frightened whinnying terrified the young hussar. Relmyer, clutching his reins, guessed rather than saw the danger. His mind could not interpret the chaos of images it was receiving: sky, trees, a rocky outcrop ... Relmyer lost his balance and crashed into the stony ground. That was what saved his life. When the legs of his horse landed, one of them encountered the void. The beast toppled head first and crashed to the ground fifteen feet below. It rolled over, kicking up dead pine needles, and finished up against a tree trunk, its broken neck forming a right angle.

Margont’s attention had been deflected. When he looked again at the man he was pursuing, he barely had time to duck. The man had stopped and, turned towards Margont, was aiming his pistol at him. He had chosen his moment to perfection, proof that everything had gone as he had planned. Margont tugged frantically on his reins. The ball struck his horse in the neck and it went sprawling on its side. Shaken by his fall, Margont was drowning in pain. He freed his sword and tried to get up, but collapsed, caught by one of his stirrups. His mount, in agony, vainly tried to get to its feet, trapping Margont on the ground, his right foot crushed by the struggling animal. He tried to free himself while brandishing his sword. He was not going to be taken like this! He thrashed about like a wild thing. The militiaman looked at him, hesitating. Had he had another pistol he could have finished off the wriggling worm. He had taken hold of his sabre, but worried that the captain might wound him with his sword.

The Austrian decided not to linger. There might be others following him as well. The man spurred on his horse. A stone ricocheted off a tree trunk nearby. Standing on top of the rocky outcrop, Relmyer was throwing stones at him, hoping to knock him out. Stones! Pathetic ... Margont finally freed himself but a red-hot pain invaded his side. His wound had opened up.