Prince Wolf

by A. Katie Rose

  “Was that one of ours?” I asked no one in particular.

  “They’re all ours,” Arianne replied quietly.

  I whirled to my right. She’d booted her big flashy stallion forward next to me, and I never noticed. The bay trotted quietly, his neck arched proudly, but such were the differences in their sizes, she could be easily be mistaken for the midget Shardon once called her. I had nothing to criticize about her riding, though. His gaits looked smooth enough, but she sat straight in her saddle, her hands light and soft on his reins, and her tiny feet in her stirrups loose and relaxed. Like a midnight banner, her hair streamed out behind her, blending in with Rufus’s flowing tail until I couldn’t tell where her hair ended and his tail began. Why wasn’t Raine here to see this?

  Arianne smiled when she recognized the pride I let show in my face. She’d come so far from her slavery. How far will she go?

  “They wish us well,” she went on, her magnificent grey-blue eyes leaving me and glancing about the hills around us. “They’ll guard our rear for a time before returning to their homes and families.”

  “Maybe they should stay,” Kel’Ratan said gruffly. “With Brutal’s uncanny knack for showing up where he’s not wanted, we’re going to need all the help we can get.”

  Arianne faced forward once more. “They’ve done as Elder wished. The rest is up to us.”

  Chapter Two

  Wolf Bait

  “Crikey, mate,” said a masculine voice from behind me. “Where’d you spring from?”

  I blinked. Floundering, disoriented, I discovered I stared at a small group of eight or so hobbled horses, saddled and bridled, grazing on sparse, grey-green grass. After my blind jump north, I stood beside what appeared to be a wide dirt road, large thickets of pine, fir, juniper, spruce, scrub oak and ash trees on the hillsides above. The air, while not exactly cold, held a faint tinge of cool that spoke of higher altitudes where autumn came early. Sunlight shone through a veil of thin grey clouds above, casting few shadows. Sharp rocks and boulders thrust through the thin soil, and I scented the strong tangy odor of the pine and wild flowers. My instincts informed me I had transported myself to the southern edge of the Great Northern Range.

  I turned, seeking the voice.

  A row of a dozen dirty men sat in the lee of three wagons, chained hand and foot. Still hitched in pairs, patient mules dozed in their harness, hip-shot, their long ears slack. The men wore ragged clothing, faintly reminiscent of uniforms, full beards. Obviously they hadn’t bathed recently – their shaggy hair appeared greasy and smelled rank. I recognized the marks of whips on faces, their clothing cut where red showed through. The chains on their wrists and ankles had worn open sores that had not yet festered.

  Slaves, then.

  Their sharp eyes had not yet dulled to the dispirited gaze of beaten captives. No collars adorned their necks, nor did they sport slave brands. Newly captured soldiers on their way to the slave markets, I surmised. They hadn’t been on the road long enough to have the spirit starved or beaten from them.

  The man, third on my left, nudged his neighbor. “Look, he’s a slave. See the brand?”

  “Gor,” said another. “If I can be that big by being a slave, I’m all for it.”

  I flushed. “Um, I escaped. A while back. Where are you boys from?”

  “Arcadia,” said the man who spoke first. He looked young, barely out of his teens. “The cursed Khalidians raided across the border. We repulsed them, but us – “

  He nodded down the line. “We were captured. Which was the intent of the raid to begin with, I reckon.”

  I eyed the faint trappings on his shoulder. “You’re awful young for a captain?”

  He shrugged, a faint grin tugging his mouth. “I come from an aristocratic family.”

  “I’m familiar with the story. These are your men?”

  “Yes. These are what remain of my company. The Khalidians caught us in a feint, killed most, and captured the rest of us. I heard the royal trumpets call an advance, for the Arcadian army to repel the enemy. The Khalidians didn’t wait to meet them, just took us and ran, bolted back across the border.”

  “Brutal needs more slaves,” I murmured.

  “High King Broughton, you mean?”

  I smiled faintly. “Brutal to his friends.”

  “How’d you escape?” asked another, further down the line.

  “Long story,” I answered, slowly, scenting the breeze. “Where are the slavers?”

  The captain nodded, a short jerk of his chin. “Eating their midday meal under those trees, there. How’d you get here, anyway?”

  I smiled faintly. “Magic.”

  “You’re a wizard?”

  With little surprise to me, the captain’s tone held no small amount of skepticism. I grinned.

  “Not quite,” I answered, and ducked down low, out of the slavers’ sight. Easily a hundred rods away, only the milling horses between the slaves and their captors prevented them from seeing me and raising a fight. That they hadn’t seen me was surely a blessing from above.

  “I had nothing to do with it.”

  “Shut up,” I murmured to Darius. “You’re not even above, you’re below.”

  “Now that was uncalled for.”

  “What?” the captain asked, perplexed.

  I shook my head. “Never mind.” I waggled my hand in a vague gesture westward. “I reckon you boys should run along on home, now. Your mamas are worried sick.”

  He exchanged a sharp glance with his neighbor. “Just how do we do that?”

  I turned slightly, seeking and finding the slavers still devouring their midday meal, oblivious to the intruder among them. Like their horses, I counted eight of them: All spoken and accounted for. “I’ll open your chains. Then, you just get on those horses and ride home. Oh, and I wouldn’t advise looking back, either.”

  “Just like that?”

  “Just like that.”

  “And you’re not a wizard?”

  “Not even close.”

  “What are you then?”

  I hesitated. While these men might have heard the legend of the gai-tan, this was no place to instruct them on just what a werewolf was. The slavers might check on their valuable charges anytime now. If I hoped to avoid a fight, I’d need to move quickly. It never occurred to me to leave these men to their fate. I knew firsthand what their fate would be: They’d wind up either gladiators or the victims of gladiators. They’d die in the Grand Arena.

  Either way they were dead men, unless I could free them and send them on their way home.

  “I’m just an escaped slave with a few, er, talents,” I said quickly, my voice low.

  My hackles rose on my neck, tickling, warning me. Someone was coming, I could scent his odor of sweat and piss, hear him rise up and hitch his breeches about his waist.

  “When I get your chains off, you ride,” I said, low-voiced. “Ride and don’t look back. Promise me.”

  The captain raised his head, his blue eyes sharp on mine. “What would we see?”

  “Your worst nightmare. Have I your promise?”

  “My word.”

  I sent my will into the chains and twisted. Like the chains that held Shardon and Tashira, these cuffs obediently slid down off the limbs of the Arcadian soldiers to slither into silvery pools. The captain’s jaw dropped, as did many down the line, stunned in finding their chains lying on the dirt between their legs.

  “What the hell is this?”

  The harsh voice of the slaver I heard a few moments earlier sounded right behind me. I stood up, my back still daringly turned to him. I found the captain’s wide concerned eyes.

  “Go,” I whispered. “Get to the horses. Ride like hell.”

  His head jerked down once, in a sharp nod.

  Whipping my sword from my sheath and spinning in the same motion, I slashed the slaver down his front. Blood spurted in red jets from his cut throat, his opened chest. His belly burst, his purple-white entrails spilling out
from my gash, his dirty tunic flapping in the light breeze. His face waxed dead white under the dirt and sparse beard, yet he still tried to attack. His hand found his sword hilt as he stumbled toward me, weakly attempting to draw it.

  “Where’d you learn to fight like that?” the captain asked, awed. “You’ve incredible speed.”

  Ignoring the dead-on-his-feet slaver, I helped the captain to rise. “I was a gladiator in the arena you’re headed for,” I answered.

  “Uh –“

  The young captain’s eyes fastened on something behind me. With a sigh, I stabbed my sword backward, deep into the slaver’s chest, then twisted. With a grunt, he fell, dragging my sword down with him. I yanked it free and slung purple heart’s blood from the steel with a sharp flick.

  The soldiers rose to their feet, astonished eyes watching me closely. “He’s good,” said one, assisting his neighbor up with a hand under his shoulder.

  “Wish we had him three days ago,” muttered another.

  I glanced over my shoulder, past the horses. The living, breathing slavers had heard the disturbance and rose to their feet, their voices raised in questions to one another.

  “Go,” I snarled at the captain.

  In a wild frenzy, the Arcadians scrambled to their feet and dashed toward the hobbled horses. I dared not change forms before they had mounted up and rode like hell. My immense wolf self would drive the horses into instant panic. Even the best riders had trouble mounting a bucking, careening horse.

  The young captain hesitated. “You can’t fight them alone.”

  I bared my teeth in a quick grin. “You truly don’t want to wager that. Get going.”

  He obeyed me, albeit reluctantly.

  The dead man’s seven mates, now discovering a rather large, murdering stranger among them, drew weapons and ran toward me. They had rods to cover and obstacles to leap or dash around. More than enough time for me to witness the Arcadians shove the hobbles down off the horses’ pasterns and swing into saddles.

  Twelve men and eight horses didn’t make for a great mix. The youthful captain, a born leader, turned away, shouting to the men yet afoot. He vaulted into the high seat of the last wagon. The startled mules woke instantly, the captain whipping up their reins to wheel them about, following his men on horseback.

  “Come with us,” he called to me, steering the big mules past me. “Get in.”

  “I can’t,” I replied, cleaning my blade on the cloak of the dead slaver. I sheathed it, setting my hands on my hips. “Got plans, you see.”

  The remaining three soldiers ran alongside the wagon as the young aristocrat lashed the mules with the whip. Catching hold of the high wooden sides, they hauled themselves aboard, landing inside in a tangle of arms, legs and vitriolic curses.

  His expression anguished, his face turned over his shoulder, the Arcadian captain reined the mules in, sharp and hard. His men, finding their balance in the bed of the bucking wagon, toppled as the mules and wagon slewed to a sudden halt.

  His wide eyes found mine, begging.

  “Please, I can’t leave you like this.”

  “Don’t worry about me,” I said, readying myself to change the instant his mules galloped a safe distance away.

  If he didn’t go soon, though, they’d bolt when the oncoming slavers forced me to change. They’d be on me within three seconds.

  I shouted a command. “Go, dammit.”

  With a savage yell, he whipped the mules into an instant headlong gallop. The light wagon bounced high on the stony road, careening from side to side with a loud banging clatter. Go on, I thought, keep going. Don’t look back.

  The soldiers on horseback disappeared along the road to the west. However, the captain, reneging on his promise, slowed the mules to look back, to stare as the slavers rushed down on me. The three soldiers in the wagon bed also slewed about, hands on the wagon’s tall sides, watching the drama enfold.

  Damn him. He promised.

  Out of time. I changed forms, returning instantly to my black wolf body.

  The remaining seven slavers, at a full run toward me with blades drawn, had no time to check their rush. When I lunged at them, snarling, roaring, they fell over themselves in their attempts to halt. They cursed in panic, in terror, in the horrible discovery that a wolf almost as big as their horses now attacked them. The shock of seeing the man they sought to slay suddenly transformed into a black slavering monster drove them mad, bug-eyed, with fear.

  Stumbling over one another, cascading into each other, cutting each other on their own swords, they fell back. I followed them up, my huge fangs bared, dripping saliva, my hackles stiff along my spine. I roared in fury, leaping toward them, my eyes flattened with evil intent.

  These were slavers, men accustomed to cowing men unable to fight back. They hadn’t an ounce of courage between them. Scrambling to their feet, hauling themselves in the dirt on their butts, they screamed, holding hands in front of their faces in a weak attempt to fend me off. One or two managed to keep a sword between my body and theirs, but as their hands shook and the blades wobbled, I was in little danger of being either cut or stabbed.

  I swiped a sword with my right paw, sending it flying from the man’s light grip. Pouncing again, my front legs to either side of his body, I snarled in his face. He cowered, screaming. The piss wetting his drawers made my sensitive nose wrinkle in objection and my eyes water in protest.

  Damn it. I stopped myself from wiping my muzzle with my foreleg in disgust. Didn’t anyone in Khalid have the balls to face me?

  Backing off the panicked slavers for a moment, I glanced back over my shoulder.

  The captain and his three soldiers sat, stunned, in the wagon at the top of the drop in the road. They witnessed everything. Shame tried to wriggle its way into my heart, but I refused it entrance. I’d nothing to be ashamed of.

  I will hide from no one, I vowed inwardly, suddenly finding pride in, not just my human form, but my wolf self as well. I am both – wolf and man. I am the last scion of Darius. At last, in that lawful union, the two sides to my dual being joined in perfect harmony with one another. I can be whole, if I want to be.

  I found peace within my soul at last.

  I am the son of a god, I thought, bemused. I am the Chosen One. I am the werewolf.

  I am gai-tan.

  As I stood, head high, Brutal’s worms wriggling in the dust behind me, the young Arcadian captain saluted me. In the fashion of his people, he held his stiff, flat hand to his brow before slashing, downward, toward me in deepest respect. His even teeth amid his dirty mustache and beard grinned white under the muted sunlight.

  “I’m yours, my lord,” he called, settling his hand once more on the heavy harness reins. “Somehow, I’ll find you. Someday, we’ll fight together.”

  Lifting my head, I howled. My muzzle pointed skyward, I cried to the distant mountains, to Ly’Tana, to the frozen north where Darius and his monster awaited me. All my heartbreak, pain, and loneliness erupted from my heart into my unexpected lament. As though released from prison, those inner agonies flowed up from deep within me and erupted outward in my song.

  My soul lighter, I felt a trifle happier. I’d sent my emotional agonies into the realm of the insignificant, and discovered for myself I can be joined from two into one. For the moment, anyway, though I suspected those nasty bastards might return to plague me. For now, though, I felt nothing but a deep joy and contentment.

  Gods and below, the young captain still grinned, his men gaping like landed fish. Why hadn’t they gone as I’d ordered? No matter. Let them witness firsthand the werewolf unchained. Lifting my muzzle to howl again, I wagged my tail, my jaws widening in lupine laughter.

  Be well, I thought toward the young Arcadian soldier. Go home and fare thee well on thy journey.

  He received my message. His answering laugh resounded throughout the small valley and the roadway. Laughing like a madman, he whipped the mules into a gallop and thundered down the hill on the heels of
his men.

  I watched him go, peace and happiness filling the void those boys left in my wretched soul. I knew it wouldn’t last, but at least I enjoyed its temporary absence.

  “You amaze me.”

  “How so?” I asked, eyeing the slavers who had, during my lapse in attention, scrambled to their feet. Yelling, they bolted down the road, eastward, the opposite direction from the Arcadians.

  “You command the loyalty of many with the least amount of effort.”

  “Help!” the slavers screamed. “Help us!”

  The wide stony road I stood upon was but one of the many highways that made up Great Caravan Route. Khalid, built on the backs of slaves, was kept alive by the arteries of highways crisscrossing the kingdoms. Patrolled by regular army soldiers, Brutal, and Lionel before him, ensured that commerce never died. Merchant caravans hauling goods across the lands often hired mercenary guards to protect them. Yet, they also counted on Brutal’s troops to prevent thieves, murderers, and highwaymen from preying upon them and their valuable cargoes. The High King’s royal highways remained, as ever, safe for those who sent royal taxes into the royal treasury. What the merchants paid in gold crowns, the High King paid in farthings. Go figure.

  Hence came trouble. A patrol of a dozen or so mounted troops in their purple and gold uniforms rounded the bend, halting in their tracks as the slavers bolted toward them. They still screamed like young girls who witnessed a fat black spider speaking in tongues. I winced. Did they have to scream so loud?

  Reaching the soldiers, the slavers pointed their arms back, toward me, gabbling incomprehensively and quite hysterically.

  “Time to go, I reckon,” I said, trotting across the imperial highway. “As much as I like company, royal troopers aren’t much fun to hang around with.”

  Ducking under the cover of the trees, I broke into a ground-eating lope. In the distance, I heard horses’ hooves striking rock, the creak of saddle leather and the constant babble of questions and mad explanations of how a monster wolf killed one of their own and set free their valuable cargo of slaves. Oh, please. Spare me the drama. The sounds receded into the unimportant distance.