The Black Wolves

by Kate Elliott

  In his years as a Black Wolf, Kellas has killed fewer men and women than people generally believe. He lets people think the worst because it makes them cautious around him. Usually he found other ways to accomplish his missions including exile, a bargain too good to refuse, or such less violent but often equally calamitous expedients as holding a family member hostage for good behavior or ruining a clan financially. Bandits are another matter; to them he never gives mercy.

  How might a man kill a prince?

  Poison in his food? A sword in battle, blamed on the enemy? A wire to the throat late at night?

  The men in front of him halt. Farther down the trail, soldiers are shouting.

  He reins in his thoughts and glances up. A reeve circles, flagging “Alert.” He pushes past the men in front of him. Jehosh’s bodyguards part to let him through. The prince has his head tilted back, not looking at Kellas at all.

  How easy it is to kill a man who trusts you.

  “The hells!” cries Jehosh. “It’s a cursed demon come to plague us!”

  The scent of pine sap and crushed spruce needles settles over Kellas so sharply he knows he will never forget the smell that marks a sight he has long dreaded. Vast wings beating, a white horse flies into view over the trees. On its back rides a demon garbed in a cloak the color of bone. His thoughts dissolve into a cacophony of wordless buzzing. Heat flushing his face is succeeded instantly by a wash of cold. The shouts and murmurs of the soldiers die as they stare in astonishment.

  Hesitation means death. He wrenches himself out of his paralysis and pushes out of the line of march so he stands, separate and away from the others. So she can see him.

  In answer, the demon draws her sword. Then she and her horse dip down out of sight, alighting on a distant patch of open ground half glimpsed through the trees.

  “All of you! You know the drill!” cries Prince Jehosh, his gaze as whitely wild as that of a spooked horse—and yet he is also bouncing on his toes in excitement. “No steel or arrow can kill the demon. You have to tear off its poisonous skin—”

  “No, Your Highness,” says Kellas. “It must be a trap. I have dealt with demons before. I will kill or drive it off.” He turns to Chief Denni, who commands the cohort of Wolves surrounding the prince. “Stay where you are!”

  Fear that something terrible has happened to the one he loves most fuels his scramble over the rocky ground and through tangled stands of juniper and scrub pine. At length the slope flattens into a clearing ringed with flowering late-cup bushes. At its center lies a grassy mire. On the mire waits the demon. A real horse would have sunk into the soft ground, but this creature does not. When the ground begins to squish beneath his boots, he halts lest he get stuck.

  “What in the hells are you doing here, Marit, showing yourself like this?” He prides himself on his even temper and his absolute command of any kind of violent impact or sudden blindside, so it is a shock to find himself on the brink of rage.

  “I had to find you.”

  A chill prickles his skin like icy water cast over him. “Is it Mai? Has something happened to her?”

  “She is fine, as always. It’s Atani. Tell me he’s with you, Captain.”

  “No, he’s not with us. You can see by our banners that he’s not with us. He turned back two days ago and is riding back to the town of Neve Vayal on the lake. He couldn’t have campaigned with the army anyway; you know that as well as I do. What’s happened?”

  “Arasit has uncovered a plot against his life.”

  “Arasit has uncovered a plot against Atani?”

  “Yes. By pure chance in a tavern on the Istri Walk, Arasit stumbled across a young wagon driver hastening to meet up with a group of his fellows. He’d missed their rendezvous in Nessumara. Lord Seras is plotting to kill Atani.”

  “Lord Seras? General Sengel’s son? Why would he want to kill Atani? He and Atani grew up together. Lord Seras is part of Atani’s trusted escort…” The earth seems to sway under him, or maybe that is just his boots shifting in the soft mire.

  “Exactly. From what Arasit saw of the young wagoner’s mind, Lord Seras has hired wagon drivers pretending to be traveling with their families to bring supplies to upcountry villages, but really they are bringing armed men to ambush the king on the road to Neve Vayal.”

  “The road down from the mountains to Neve Vayal runs through isolated country with only a few villages,” he murmurs. “There are plenty of empty stretches perfect for an ambush.”

  “Arasit got word to me and I’ve been looking for you. Why aren’t you with him? You promised to guard him! All our plans center on him!”

  Kellas staggers as the ground tilts beneath him. A push from behind propels him to his knees. An arrow whistles past his ear. Marit grunts, jolted back as the arrow buries itself into the meat of her shoulder. A javelin catches in sunlight as it arcs overhead. Jehosh dashes past, sword in hand, and Kellas barely manages to grab the prince before they both flounder into the worst of the mire.

  The horse’s wings fan out. Soldiers duck as it gallops into the air and right over them, hooves almost clipping Jehosh’s head. The horse’s passage falls as a staccato series of blows. Wolves take aim but she sweeps them with a gaze that causes every man whose eyes she touches to flinch as from a slap. By the time they recover, the pale horse and Marit in her cloak of bone have vanished into the heavens.

  “Captain!” Jehosh helps him to his feet as if he is an elderly uncle too drunk to stand. “The demon had you in thrall! It could have killed you.”

  Kellas wipes sweat from his brow as his mind races ahead with stark clarity. “King Atani is in danger. Call down an eagle to transport me. I have to find him now.”

  “My father? What are you talking about? What lies has the creature fed you? The demons must guess that the auspicious day for war against Eldim has come. They fear we will gain strength when we win a victory over the enemy and fill our treasury with Eldim trade and taxes.” Then Jehosh’s expression breaks apart as Kellas’s words sink in. “Is my father truly in danger? Has the demon come to taunt us that we can do nothing to stop his murder? What must I do, Captain? Turn back, or go on?”

  The irony of advising the man he has been ordered to kill flits across his thoughts like the sweep of a dark wing. But he has to push everything aside except action. Already one of the soldiers has flags out, signaling to the reeves overhead.

  “You and the army are at least four days away from the king by now. It’s too late for you to reach him.”

  “I could come with you, transported by eagle.”

  “Then you’ll be vulnerable. That might be their plan, to make you act rashly and put you in danger, too. Any attack on King Atani is an attack on his sons as well. No, you must stay with the army. Everything is in place for the attack on Ithik Eldim, as you say. Furthermore there are forward troops depending on the timely arrival of this army. Don’t forget King Atani has loyal Wolves with him, men he and I handpicked to serve as his personal guard. You know no man can lie to him.”

  “Men can lie if they are never forced to tell the truth,” says the prince with a flash of anger. “How can you demand I continue the campaign when my father is in danger?”

  “We never know what has become of those who are out of our sight, Your Highness. We only pretend we do. We are all hostage to chance. The king is my responsibility. I’ve sworn my life to protect his. I’ll send word of what I find.”

  Jehosh cups a hand over his face while his shoulders heave and he struggles to contain his breathing. When he straightens he has not bothered to wipe the tears off his cheeks because tears are a man’s pride, the sign of honest grief and affection. “I will hold you to it. Go!”

  “Captain? Are you ill?”

  Kellas’s heart was still pounding, but he found a random thought drifting within reach of his tongue. “Just reflecting on how a man of thirty sees fifty as old, while a man of my age sees it as young. You realize Queen Chorannah must already be suspicious of the
king’s motives for bringing me in.”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll need more men.”

  Vanas patted the back of his sweating neck with a linen kerchief. “How many?”

  “At least a hundred but I would prefer two hundred.”

  “Two hundred!”

  “That’s to start. With the trouble in the city I should be doubling the patrols and increasing the sentry presence for the lower palace.” That he would eventually take his own people off these duties he did not mention. “Any upkeep for men you send to me will come out of my expenses.”

  “Where is the coin coming from to manage all this?” Vanas looked around the sparsely furnished chamber as if seeking Kellas’s hidden riches.

  “By arrangement with the king.” No one but the king would ever know that the coin came directly from Plum Blossom Clan’s ample coffers, coin stocked up over the years for exactly this chance. “Indeed, your comment makes me wonder if Ulyar’s loyalty was coaxed away by something as crude as greed. A man who can be bribed merely with coin is best cut loose, don’t you agree?”

  Vanas had the grace to look ashamed as he hastily took his leave.

  Oyard came in to report that Queen Dia had sent another token. “What do you suppose she wants so urgently, Captain?”

  “I will go and find out.” Kellas fought back a yawn. “The scourge of age is that I cannot rise before my usual hour and make it through an entire day as I once easily could. Waiting in comfort in the queen’s antechambers for an audience will give me an opportunity to nap.”

  He took four young guards as an entourage. Their clothing was mismatched, not yet a uniform: Yero was scouting Flag Quarter for a good source of matching cloth in bulk, always hard to come by.

  The token admitted him to the queen’s antechambers while the guards waited outside. He found a cushion, grateful that Dia’s notorious paranoia made him feel safe enough to let his mind drift. Flashes of memory swam, always breaching when he relaxed: The way Mai pressed two fingers to his lips to caution him not to make a sound. When he had first become her secret lover, half the thrill had been knowing his life was forfeit if their trysts were discovered.

  “Captain Kellas? You have such a smile on your face.”

  His eyes snapped open. For a dizzying moment he had no idea where he was, only that his back was up against a wall, the chamber was drenched in a golden haze of late-afternoon sunlight, and an old woman was looking down on him with an expression of amused puzzlement.

  “You seem a little befuddled, Captain. Did I wake you from a pleasant dream? Did you come here with Jehosh?”

  The hells! Banishing the cobwebs, he got to his feet. “Lady Dannarah! No, I am not with the king. I am here at the queen’s summons.”

  “I just arrived.”

  “Were you also summoned?”

  “No, I came on my own business. I have just been brusquely informed that the queen is entertaining the king and thus I must wait my turn.”

  “Entertaining the king?” he asked.

  “I believe it a euphemism for afternoon sex, often the most gratifying, in my experience. I find it astounding that after all these years and all the lovers he has taken, his fascination for her has not dimmed.”

  “Do you?”

  “I hope I am not embarrassing you, Captain. I meant no hidden reference to our own past.”

  Kellas had never encouraged the young Dannarah, and she had been wrong to use her rank to command him to sleep with her, but in the end he had used her naive infatuation to cover the tracks of his forbidden affair with Mai. Sleeping with Anjihosh’s daughter had seemed a clever way of throwing the king off the scent. For that reason Kellas had put up no resistance to Dannarah’s youthful offer. Even at the time it had made him feel a villain.

  He inclined his head. “No, indeed, Lady Dannarah. One of the great pleasures of your company is that you never do feel obliged to hide your meaning. Had you meant to refer to our long association in all its varied stages, I am sure you would have said so quite bluntly.”

  She laughed so delightedly that all the guards looked at them.

  Voices rose from farther in, Jehosh’s distinctive laugh in reply to a teasing comment. Doors slid open and the king walked out with face and hands still moist from washing. He wore the smug look of a man who has just managed a satisfactory sexual performance. “Aunt Dannarah, greetings of the day. It’s a surprise to see you here! Captain Kellas? Are you looking for me?”

  “I have summoned the captain for my own purposes.” Queen Dia paused at the threshold, and Jehosh turned back to kiss her right in front of everyone. It wasn’t even possessive or flaunting. It seemed impulsive and genuine.

  “I will return tonight with your permission, beloved. You can tell me the whole then. Captain, come to my audience hall in the lower palace tomorrow at the midday bell, if you will.”

  “I am at your command, Your Highness.”

  “Aunt Dannarah, has Tavahosh been causing you trouble?”

  “He’s not yet had time. The compound on Law Rock is insufficient for the number of eagles he has imprudently decided must now be housed there. I have some ideas I will present to him and his advisers.”

  “I am sure you will cut them down with your hard-won experience and your brutal tongue.” He went out whistling.

  “You may as well both come in,” said Queen Dia. Her cheeks had a lot of color in them, by which Kellas presumed she had enjoyed herself as well. The king’s daughter kidnapped by the handsome prince: What a tale! He wondered what the truth of it was.

  Her spacious apartments were decorated in Eldim style: a plank floor instead of woven reed mats, and four couches on legs instead of cushions on the floor. Doors stood open to a neighboring room where several women were tidying up a mattress and taking away wash-water. Armed women guarded the other two doors. That women marked with slave inks and those without worked together like equals fascinated him; he had no idea what to make of Dia’s household being populated by so many women who had once been captives of war.

  “Please sit, Lady Dannarah,” the queen was saying. “My kitchen is bringing a tray of delicacies that I hope may tempt you, for you look a little thin.”

  “Alas, reeves must always suffer in this way. We cannot overburden the eagles.”

  “Then I would think women best suited to be reeves, since on the whole they tend to be smaller and lighter than men.”

  “You will hear no argument from me, Dia. May I call you Dia? For I think of you like a niece and hope we may come to share a kinswomen’s informality.”

  With some effort Kellas kept a straight face. Watching Dannarah assert her rank always amused him.

  The queen raised a hand with an ambivalent wave, unable to refuse and apparently unwilling to acquiesce. She turned to Kellas. “You may remain standing, Captain. I am displeased with you although Jehosh assures me you are fit for the duty he has placed in your hands.”

  This ambush impressed him. He had to stand at parade rest and watch, mouth watering, while the women ate little cakes made from wheat instead of rice, stewed mango slices showered in fried coconut shavings, and small egg pancakes stuffed with a spicy vegetable mash.

  “Do you think this business of reorganizing the reeve halls a good idea, Lady Dannarah?” Dia asked politely.

  “It is a disastrous idea that cannot possibly work. I hope you are not wondering why I am here, Queen Dia.” Ah. Dannarah was irritated. He recognized the bite in her amity.

  Dia cut one of the tiny rectangular cakes into two. “Why are you here?”

  “You sent another token to my reeve, Lifka.”

  “It was not a direct summons, just a reminder that she may come to see me at any time if she wishes.”

  “There lies the heart of the matter, Dia. You must go through me, not contact her without my knowledge. The girl properly brought your token to me. I am afraid she felt bullied by her initial encounter with you. You and your people lectured her on things she cou
ld not understand.”

  “Her ignorance surprises me. What manner of people have harmed her in this way?”

  “Jehosh harmed her! She was brought to the Hundred as a captive after his third war in the north, after the burning of Gyre Port.”

  An expression of anger flashed across Dia’s face before she controlled it by eating the cake.

  What had set that off? The reference to captives? Or the three wars that had devastated the country of her birth?

  Dannarah kept going like a sparring partner pressing the advantage. “In fact Lifka has been fortunate. Instead of being branded with a slave’s mark, she was taken into a clan of carters who raised her as their own.”

  “Carters!” breathed Dia with a wince.

  “The day Lifka was jessed I went by the clan’s compound to explain her new situation to them. They had scarcely a string of vey to rub together, they’re that poor, but they insisted on feeding me what I expect was the last of their rice. She’s as fine a Hundred girl as I’ve ever met.”

  “She’s not a Hundred girl.”

  “She is also a reeve under my command. Have I made myself clear?”

  Dia folded her hands prettily in her lap. She wore no rings, an odd affectation. “Some matters are in the hands of the gods, Aunt Dannarah.”

  “It is my experience that the more people talk of the will of the gods, the more they mean their own wants and desires. My mother prayed to the Shining One all the years I knew her. Do you know what she asked for? Peace in the heart. Health for her children. Respect from those she dealt with, which I am sorry to say she rarely received and which I did not understand she deserved until too late. That is piety to me, not shrines built with taxes raked from the fields of struggling farmers and the shops of hardworking artisans, nor the service of a young person threatened with the will of the gods as if that means more than whatever it is she may want.”

  “Yet when an eagle is jessed, the reeve has no choice. Am I not right, Lady Dannarah?”

  “Yes, yes, and when a pregnant woman goes into labor she has no choice but to go forward. There is necessity, and then there is the creation of what is afterward called necessity.”