He, whom Sara Uriost, Junior Lieutenant of the Company of the Phoenix, hated most.
Fury fuelled her eyes to search the horizon for the outpost’s coned towers as she turned onto Drury Street. They were blue-black spikes against the starry night, tall and proud above all other buildings that surrounded them. Great green-black flags, emblazoned with a white silhouette of a horned stallion’s head, flapped with slow finesse in the distance.
The outpost on Drury Street stood behind the protection of a tall wrought-iron gate – recently erected around the perimeter since word among the ranks of the heretic’s escape from Doblah Province. There in the moonlit shadows of a gatehouse, the wheda within tasked with guarding the outpost was fast asleep.
Uriost dismounted Rebus and led him to the shelter of a nearby livery, where an army of fell ponies slept and fed.
“I won’t be long,” she promised him. Rebus pushed his nose against her paw when she went to stroke his mane. She kissed his eyes and fed him sugar cubes from inside her belt pouch. She then left the livery and passed through the outpost gate, undetected by the sleeping mammal whose own snores could deafen even the deafest of newborn kittens.
~
“I’ve heard no word from Sergeant Aruto directly,” Captain Sabina Hobbs said; the helmetless feline sat down at her desk, before Uriost. “Axel and Mullin reported in some time ago. I am awaiting their reports as we speak.”
Uriost stood before Captain Hobbs’ desk, helmet balanced on one hip. She found this report curious. “Only the archers? I was told four made it back.”
Captain Hobbs shrugged, motioned for her guest to sit.
Uriost obliged. “Have you sent additional units regardless?”
Captain Hobbs regarded her with an annoyed look, which Uriost interpreted as Who’s in charge, here? Hobbs cleared her throat and poured them both glasses of wine from a bottle from inside her desk drawer. “Is there a reason I should just yet, Lieutenant?”
“You haven’t?” Uriost felt herself rise from her seat, but actually didn’t.
“Nothing can be done until the paperwork goes through. My signature has to be on the request access sheet approved by Chancellor Domini, in Mecia,” said Captain Hobbs, tapping her desk with her index digit. “But I can’t go ahead until the okay to send one his way is ‘graphed through by Minister Longclaw.” She shrugged again. “That could take hours, as you know.”
What a stupid regulation, Uriost thought, cringing behind a face of otherwise flat, unreadable, militancy. The world is threatened. Assign soldiers accordingly. Face the consequences later. Actions.
“What of General Barnard? I spoke to Bastion and Charger directly, and they said he rode through as well.”
“General Barnard?” Captain Hobbs shrugged. “News to me.”
Uriost found this curious. “General Barnard made it back here and never checked in? That’s impossible.”
Captain Hobbs offered her a helpless shrug.
“And you didn’t think it suspicious?”
“Am I under investigation, Lieutenant?” Captain Hobbs chuckled from behind her wine glass. “Not even you, with all your sway, can get a request approved that fast, I’m afraid.” Hobbs eyed her up and down a moment. “At least, not with your rank. Procedure is procedure.”
Uriost narrowed her eyes at Captain Hobbs. “The heretic has escaped Doblah Province. He crossed paths with my division in the Keeton Woods. He murdered four of my assigned soldiers and stole the Wind Crystal,” she recounted firmly. “And now Sergeant Aruto has failed to report in.”
Don’t worry, despite your doubts, I do know how to do my job.” Captain Hobbs winked at her. “Minister Longclaw has already been alerted of the situation. I let Doblah know when Aruto failed to check in by oh-hundred. She’s sending Commander Blacktail to assess your situation.”
Uriost sat upright in her chair. “C-Commander Blacktail?!”
“He’s ‘graphed me your orders. If you hadn’t come my way this evening, I would have sent for you.” Captain Hobbs reached into her desk drawer again to withdraw a sealed envelope. She slid it across the desk to Uriost. “Here.”
Uriost tore into the letter immediately, feasted on the smudged runic ink left by Captain Hobbs’ personal telegraph machine, set up in the corner of her office.
“He wants you to stay here in Keeto Town to meet his arrival,” she said, as Uriost read over the exact same order. “It does you no good to go back to base under a failed mission, troops missing. He’ll be here by oh-eight-hundred. You both are to depart to the Stone Zephyr immediately after contact.”
“So an investigation is under way,” Uriost said in a hushed whisper.
Captain Hobbs nodded. “It’s highly irregular, what’s taken place. Aruto is a buffoon – everybody knows it. But to simply miss a scheduled report…”
Uriost didn’t reply. She read over Commander Blacktail’s orders again, completely focused. With the heretic on the loose … our ties are not secret. Will this mean – Am I under investigation, too? No … if Master Tetra is on his way…
Captain Hobbs cleared her throat and moved on. “I’ll send word to Minister Longclaw that you’ve arrived alone, without the Crystal of the Wind in your possession.”
Uriost furrowed her brow, looked up at Captain Hobbs from the edge of the letter. “That’s not your jurisdiction, Captain. You can’t make that call. Only I or Aruto—”
“Of course I can.” Captain Hobbs chuckled. “The Stone Zephyr is in Galheist. Four of my soldiers are dead. The heretic has met you of all canines, and now the Wind Crystal is missing. Soldier, I’ve made this my jurisdiction.
Uriost narrowed her eyes. So I am under investigation. The bastards…!
Captain Hobbs drained what remained of her wine glass. She noted the fact that Uriost’s went untouched, and drew it towards her. “If that is all, Lieutenant, you are dismissed.”
Uriost shook her head. “No. I’m not finished. You can’t possibly suggest—”
Hobbs raised a silencing paw at her, shook her head. “Lieutenant Uriost. You are Dismissed.”
“But—”
“Dismissed,” Captain Hobbs stated, firm, final.
Uriost rose to a slow stand, seething rage behind pursed her canine lips. Anger and confusion rippled through her blood. Staying in control of herself was a most difficult thing when her ego as an Alliance soldier was threatened by the fact that her canine lineage was more important than what she brought to the table as a peace officer. Despite her rage, Uriost pushed everything, all of her anger, all of her contempt for Captain Hobbs down into her belly, to be dealt with at a later time of solitude.
She folded the letter and bowed before Captain Hobbs, who now drank from Uriost’s cup. “Thank you for meeting with me tonight. Zuut be Praised.” Without another word, Uriost marched out of Captain Hobbs’ office.
Captain Hobbs waved her off in mid-wine gulp.
Uriost entered the embassy’s second storey hall. As she closed the door to Captain Hobbs’ quarters behind her, Uriost’s ears twitched to silent murmurings from the good Captain, herself – “…conspiring dogs … never should have shown your faces here … go back to the damn icelands, where you belong. This whole heretic business … never woulda happened, weren’t’ for the Zuut ... stinking canines, all working together – just know it … can’t trust any of ‘em…”
39. The Loyalty of Wolves
Morning rays spilled into the stagnant interlock lobby, a triangular illumination that widened across a floor of horrors the more Lieutenant Uriost ventured into the sacred shrine. She lowered her paw from the entrance door and took slow, unbelieving, steps into the Temple of the Wind.
She swallowed back revulsion. None of them were to be harmed.
Young. Old. Male. Female.
Nobody, it seemed, had been spared. Not even the kits.
Decay had long already set in; the stench was overpowering. Uriost planted a gauntlet over her wet nose and studied the Retainer corpse
s, one by one, through narrow visor slits. She sniffed around for evidence of suspects, found familiar feathered crossbow bolts erect out the back of a slain badger.
Uriost broke the shafts loose. The green-black feathers indicated they were Alliance-issue. She brought them to her nostrils and sniffed confirmation – a snarl rumbled behind bared teeth.
They were Twigleaf bolts.
She rose, looked around. Another battle had taken place here – the scent of fear and combat was faint on the air – many hours’ old by now and matched the similar scent out in the valley, where two graves had been made. Uriost followed her nose to the front of the temple. There, she found Sergeant Aruto sprawled face-down over the altar steps. The flowing red cape that announced his rank was torn, entangled around one leg. Uriost tilted up her visor, eyes narrowed.
“So, he’s been here, then.” Canine dialect tickled Uriost’s ears. The shadow of High Commander Tetra Blacktail spilled into the triangular illumination at Uriost’s boots, stretched across the floor until he passed her shoulder. He was a towering fox of golden armour that glistened in the father sunlight. A dark plum cape fluttered around his heels at each step towards Sergeant Aruto’s corpse.
Uriost found her reflection in the face of a silver discus strapped to Commander Blacktail’s back, a weapon so large it spanned his vulpine shoulders. “It – it seems that way, sir.”
Commander Blacktail clucked his tongue, nudged Aruto’s exposed flank with his boot heel. “I hope his wretched soul finds peace in the carrot fields of the afterworld. Serves him right, going against a direct order. Sara, you said his officers came through Keeto Town last night?”
“Yes, milord. At – at least, that’s what the Keeton gateshounds told me. I went to see Captain Hobbs about Aruto’s failure to report in on time – Apparently all four of his soldiers made it back, but only Officers Willem Axel and Eleanor Mullin reported in. When I went to inquire of their account, both their quarters had been vacated, empty to the last dust mite. Apparently General Barnard came through with another, probably Officer Gaelin Farnham, but he never reported in.”
Commander Blacktail stepped over Aruto’s body and climbed the altar steps to find the Wind Crystal pedestal bare. Two paw digits pressed against relaxed lips.
“How inconvenient,” he murmured.
“Milord, I must inform you that my blade had no paw in this massacre,” said Uriost. “My division of Twigleaf Company awaited orders outside in the valley, while Sergeant Aruto was meant to negotiate the Crystal of the Wind’s acquisition.”
“And negotiate, he did. Offered them a deal they couldn’t refuse, it seems.” Commander Blacktail jogged back down the steps, kicked aside Aruto’s corpse and let him flop away unceremoniously to the floor with arms and legs splayed like limp bat limbs.
Uriost kept a firm gaze upon her Commander. She did her best to swallow the fear of what might turn up during Shemp and Yarmouth’s autopsies. The weight of Kortho at her hip felt almost unbearable.
Commander Blacktail noticed Uriost’s apprehension. He sighed and spoke to her gently, “You needn’t justify yourself to me, Sara. Unlike wheda, I’m not paranoid over the loyalty of wolves.”
Uriost appreciated his words. But still, uncertainty hung in the back of her mind. And then there’s our connection to him, too… Despite these thoughts, she nodded graciously. “Thank you, Milord.”
When Commander Blacktail reached the landing, Uriost presented him the bolt feathers. After brief inspection, Commander Blacktail pocketed them and gave a sharp whistle to four canine soldiers who chatted idly just outside the temple doors. “Comrades, leave us a moment.”
The soldiers broke their discussion with immediacy. They saluted their Commander and departed down into the valley of the Stone Zephyr to meet with burdened corpse spotters from Keeto Town, busy uprooting the two recent gravesites.
Commander Blacktail’s entire platoon, the Company of the Phoenix, consisted of hounds, coyotes, foxes, and wolves – those whom the rest of the world shunned for deeds committed before any of them were even born. It was a fact Commander Blacktail prided himself on. Uriost served under this platoon. It felt good, secure, to be back in its presence, but she pined for a similar pride that her Commander donned.
We were made to be humiliated today.
Fresh anger swept into her heart for the heretic. She would make things right. Nothing would stop her. Like those of Rudolph Aruto’s command, who threatened Uriost’s leadership, anyone who dared get in her way would taste the wrath of the wolves – a fear so long forgotten.
She vowed this unto the unspoken blessing of the Zuut.
The sound of creaking wood called Uriost’s attention back to the present frame of Alliance treason. She found Commander Blacktail sitting in a front pew. His shoulders sagged with heavy weight, like the silver discus upon his back bore too much to carry.
He sighed. “Damn it.”
Uriost stayed silent, watching him from where she stood before the altar steps.
“The slaughter of these Retainers won’t bode well in Doblah,” Commander Blacktail said. “You know the heretic as well as I do – if he is to fight, it will be for what he believes is self defence.”
Uriost nodded, a solemn expression upon her face.
He continued: “Convincing the Minister Longclaw to not pin this on him in a ditch effort to save face won’t be an easy task.”
Uriost dipped her chin. “What I don’t understand is … he took the Crystal from us on the way to Keeto Town. Why would he dare return to the Stone Zephyr to begin with?”
“You know him better than to question that. He returned here because this is where the Crystal belongs.” Commander Blacktail shook his head. “…But here we are, Retainers dead alongside Alliance soldiers, and the Wind Crystal nowhere to be found. Gossip in the ranks will spread from the outposts to the streets, like sparks on the wind, Sara. Threat of another revolt is not in our best interest, as you know. Wheda distrust us enough as it is. The Alliance can barely handle the internal tension, never mind the street-wide discrimination.”
Uriost agreed. “The Retainer War ended only five years ago…”
“And it went on for ten gruelling years, need I remind you. Who knows what sort of mess we’ll have on our paws, now.” Commander Blacktail straightened, looked up at her. “You honestly didn’t think he’d return here?”
“Sergeant Aruto split the platoon and told us to leave for Keeto Town. As far as I was concerned, the two factions were headed back to base, just by different routes. Sergeant Aruto clearly came to the conclusion that the heretic would come back, and aimed for an arrest.”
Commander Blacktail snorted. “His plans went swimmingly.”
Uriost plopped down beside him and sighed. “I shouldn’t have let Aruto’s men hand over the Crystal of the Wind to the heretic.”
“There wasn’t anything you could have done, Sara. The scrutiny of the wheda weighs on us all. A shame Yarmouth and Shemp succumbed to their wounds. Any sort of testimony from them would have done us a great deal of good.”
Uriost nodded, but said nothing.
Commander Blacktail caressed her steel shoulder. “You’re a valiant heart for the Zuut. None could know the heretic was on your trail. Don’t let this pothole jostle your convoy.”
“Thank you, Master Tetra.”
Commander Blacktail dropped his chin and sadly murmured, “There’s got to be a way to convince him to come back to Doblah. That’s our mission now, Sara. He won’t listen to anyone else.”
Something dark broiled in the pit of Uriost’s stomach. She placed a paw upon the pew’s armrest to find assurance in her gut feeling. “If I may speak freely, Master … would not doing so put Phoenix Company in great danger?”
Commander Blacktail let his gaze find its way to Sergeant Aruto’s corpse again. He wrinkled his vulpine nose. “Yes. That’s true, Lieutenant. But in danger of who, do you think? The heretic, or those we’re sworn to protect?”
“Come, let’s fetch a ship from Warminister. The Minister of Peace will need to know of this tragedy.”
Uriost’s ears perked to the sudden sounds of someone coming up the temple steps. They were frantic. The smell of fear and confusion intermingled with that of steel and canine. Commander Blacktail heard them, too. He turned meet whoever it was coming towards them as Uriost rose to a stand beside him.
It was Officer Olivier – one of Captain Hobbs’ soldiers, who’d been overseeing the expedition of the corpse spotters. He appeared at the open temple doors, a silhouette against the gleaming father sun. The smell of fear wafted off his armour like nothing else.
“What is it, officer? Commander Blacktail asked. “What’s the matter?”
Olivier motioned for them both to follow him. “Commander … you’re going to want to see this…”
“What …? What is it?”
Uriost followed Commander Blacktail at a swift pace towards Olivier. As they crossed the temple and all of its horrors, she started to suspect what they would find down in the valley of the Stone Zephyr. There hadn’t been grave markers there yesterday, when Twigleaf made to sequester the Wind Crystal. And no Retainers would have survived in order to bury their dead.
It would explain why only half of Aruto’s division reported to Captain Hobbs the night before, despite all four of them allegedly riding through.
“It’s … it’s General Barnard,” said Olivier. “Naked right down to the fur. There’s another, too. Neither has any I.D., but I know Barnard to cheat him in a game of Rummy.”
Pain gripped Uriost’s heart. She was right. But of course she was right; Master Tetra’s deduction wasn’t false – she knew the heretic better than to doubt his motives, his actions. And if the heretic was trying to escape with the Wind Crystal, what better way to do so undetected than to steal another mammal’s identity?
…But…
…If four rode through, and two never reported in to Captain Hobbs...
…Then who…?
The Book of Wind: (The Quest for the Crystals #1) Page 29
