Prince Wolf

by A. Katie Rose

  I caught my breath as Ja’Teel hurled a fireball at my beloved. Gods -!

  It broke apart and splashed harmlessly against Raine’s invisible shields. Unfortunately, the fire sparked a panic among the common room’s occupants. They fled to the back of the inn where they dammed up, turning on one another in their panicked bid to escape the now burning building. Many people went down, trampled by others, or stepped on with as much notice as one might trip over a rock. As Raine and Ja’Teel hurled flames and dark magics at one another, several people fell, killed by Ja’Teel’s flames. I almost cried aloud when that evil son of a bitch slew a young man with a lightning bolt in front of his hysterical, screaming young wife.

  Raine answered with smoke.

  Dark, roiling smoke rose from nothing to conceal him, to hide everyone in that place of death from Ja’Teel’s eyes and his wickedness. The entire hall filled with thick, black clouds and mist, only the firelight on the hearth and the lightning from Ja’Teel’s fists flickering through. All vanished before my dreaming eyes save the sight of billowing, covering smoke.

  Raine –

  I woke, panting, hot against the skins I lay upon and the warmth of my two wolves. I flung off my blanket, feeling the chilly mountain breeze against my sweaty skin. I drew in a ragged breath, then another, calming my trembling, my racing heart.

  Beside me, Tuatha cried out in his sleep. Thunder lifted his head from his paws to gaze down at me, my head still pillowed on his shoulder. He whined, a short question: are you all right?

  I shook my head at him, unable to answer.

  I sat up, blinking sleep from my eyes. As I napped, my boys set the camp in order. The fire, ringed with stones, burned bright and hot. The tent I shared with Arianne sat behind us, ready with our pallets of furs and blankets. All that was required was ourselves.

  Tor, busy cooking and ordering Yuri and Yuras to fetch that and stir this, hadn’t noticed I woke. Nor had Alun, Witraz and Rannon, who were engaged in skinning and cutting up two young does, joked and insulted one another as Tor, cutting up vegetables into a bubbling pot, yelled for the meat.

  Shadow, White Fang, Digger, Warrior Dog, Scatters Them and Kip crunched deer bones in their strong jaws. Silverruff, Lightfoot, Dire, Black Tongue, Little Bull and Nahar shared another two deer among them. The hunters returned successful, I surmised. Sunset, in full swing, set the sky over the northwestern mountains aflame with clouds streaking red, orange, yellow and purple. Evening’s chill also returned with the growing dark, pimpling my sweaty skin in gooseflesh. I didn’t want my blanket, not yet.

  Rygel flirted with Arianne as she helped Tor with the cooking, Darkhan bouncing around her like a puppy, wagging his tail. Corwyn fed sticks to the fire, his blue eyes somber as he stared into the flickering flames.

  None of them, humans or wolves, paid me the slightest heed, as busy as they were in their respective work, their jokes, their laughter or feeding their hunger.

  Three did notice, however.

  I discovered myself under the scrutiny of Kel’Ratan, Shardon and Bar.

  Kel’Ratan eyed me from under his red brows as he sat, crossed-legged before the fire, sharpening his sword. He watched me closely, sweeping his blade with the whetstone in smooth strokes. He made sure I noticed he watched me. Once he received my full attention, he dropped his eyes to his task, the scrape of the stone over steel jangling my already ragged nerves.

  Shardon raised his head from his grazing, his eyes gleaming a dull red in the light of the fire. I half-expected him to speak, yet he simply stared until I felt naked, exposed and vulnerable and reached for my blanket to cover myself while still hot and sweating.

  Bar, sitting on his haunches just to Thunder’s other side, stared down at me, his raptor’s eyes unblinking. Had I missed the glint of love and worry in them, I might have thought myself his next meal. Grateful he refrained from his usual acerbic comments, I swallowed down my fears to feign nonchalance.

  Covering Tuatha with a nearby rabbit fur, I rolled to my knees and smoothly to my feet, raking my fingers through my hair. As though I woke from a nap every afternoon, I projected a casualness I didn’t feel, finding a smile that didn’t fit.

  “Supper already?”

  Raine!

  I woke gasping, sweating, tears on my cheeks from a dream I couldn’t remember. Maybe I screamed. Arianne’s silent, still form beside me told me I hadn’t. Tuatha, crying in his sleep, sought my warmth that wasn’t there.

  I sweated, hot, panting, yet chilled to the bone. What did I dream of? Of death? Of Raine? What?

  I couldn’t remember.

  Only the coppery taste of panic filled my mouth as the nightmare faded away, leaving me thirsty. Fear-sweat died on my body as the night’s chill settled in. But I couldn’t lie down again. If I did, I might actually remember what frightened me so.

  Arianne snorted and rolled over, taking our shared blanket with her. Gently, I shoved Tuatha under it, next to her warmth. He sighed, breathing deep, his sleep settling him into its welcoming folds. On my knees, I crawled under the tent’s flap, drawing it shut behind me.

  Running my hand through my hair and casting it back over my shoulder, I sat down and glanced around. My night sweat finally chilled me enough that I flung an elk hide around my shoulders. The camp lay asleep under the dim moon, the fire burned down to embers. Dark humps showed me wolves and men sleeping the sleep of the innocent. Vaguely, I wondered who was on watch, then remembered: Rannon and Shadow. They were but one of the many human-wolf pairs that struck up very strange friendships in the last week.

  Water. I needed water. Licking my dry lips, I cast about for a full skin. Damn, but I’d kill for a drink of clear, cold mountain nectar. I found one, just beyond the tent where one of my boys dropped it after taking a drink, within the glow of the fire. I reached for it.

  Movement caught my eye and I froze, tense. The hide slid, unnoticed, down my back. My hand fell to the hilt of my sword, just behind me where I’d set it before lying down to sleep. The shadow moved into the firelight. A man. A black eye-patch. Long hair. Recognizing the intruder, I relaxed. I sighed, still thirsty, and I watched.

  Witraz raised a finger to his lips in a shushing gesture. His white-toothed grin outshone the moon as he crept toward a soundly sleeping Joker. The black patch over his missing eye drank in what light there was, his remaining good eye gleaming with high good humor.

  Joker slept, not on his back this time, but as one additional furry mound in the midst of many. His muzzle rested on his curled front legs, his tail swept around to cover his paws and his black nose. His ears lay slack against his head. He even snored, light rumbles of breath emerging from his loosened lips.

  As I watched, confused, Witraz dusted Joker with something pinched from his belt pouch. Wincing, shaking his hand, he upended the pouch over the fun loving wolf. Whatever the contents were, I’d no idea. With another finger over his lips, Witraz retreated to his own pallet beyond the ring of red-orange glowing coals.

  Bemused, I once more gathered the hide close to my body, sat outside my tent and waited. Within moments, Joker rose, and with his muzzle extended upward, his hind leg thumped the stony soil as he scratched his neck. Lying back down, he chewed frantically at his flank. Rolling onto his other side, he once more dug his hind foot into his neck, whining in agony. His eyes slitted against the torment, his breath rasped through his gritted teeth. Wheeling, he chewed his rump, all but yanking out the fur over his tail.

  I glanced away from the itchy wolf. Witraz looked to the world a sound sleeper, but I caught the tiny glimmer of his eye in the light of the coals.

  Joker rose, now frantic in his need to scratch all his itches at once. First one hind leg clawed at his neck, only to lose importance to yet another on the other side, his shoulder. He bent into an almost impossible angle to chew savagely at his back. He flapped his ears, his front paw scraping his face. He turned over, seeking some small measure of relief scratching with his hard, hind toenails.
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  His whimpers and thumps eventually roused the camp. Grumbles, snarls and curses abounded as his desperate scratching, chewing and whining woke the sleepers. Joker couldn’t get enough of the desperate measures to ease the itch and pain of whatever insinuated itself under his skin.

  With a final howl, he broke and ran. Toward the thin stream that gave us water, he bolted. Startled, Shardon stepped aside to let him pass. Bar woke with an irritated hiss, then dropped his beak to his forelegs, eagle eyes closing in an attempt to regain his slumber. The rest of the camp yawned, scratched sleepily before returning to dreamland as peace once more reigned over the camp.

  “Ants.”

  I heard the faint word quivering from Witraz’s direction as the weary camp sought its rest in the remaining hours till dawn. I didn’t need to hear more. Witraz proved more clever, and resourceful, than anyone, including Joker, realized.

  Giggling uncontrollably, I wanted least to know how Witraz managed to gather enough biting ants to making Joker’s life, and fur, a living hell.

  Smothering my laughter, I crawled back into my warm bed, my nightmare forgotten under the faint but firm words I heard across the fire.

  Paybacks are a bitch, Witraz murmured in the dark.

  “I’m sooo not ready for winter.”

  More than a week after Raine’s departure and my mystery enemy’s latest attack, we climbed the highest peak yet. In the distance, snow covered the mountaintops to our right, the east. Their jagged tops stood higher than we did, immense cliff tops and sheer drops made riding across them impossible. Sharp winds gusted through the pass we rode through, making me shiver inside the deer hide I wrapped myself with to keep warm. My feet felt like blocks of ice inside my thin kidskin boots. Snow blew in thin flurries about us, whirling like a mist.

  “I’m with you,” Kel’Ratan said, sitting his stallion beside me, huddled under his own thick hide. “I’m not ready for winter, either.”

  Bar grumbled as he dropped in to land just ahead of me, complaining of the cold.

  “Fair weather flyer,” I remarked, earning myself a sharp stare from his raptor eyes and a haughty rebuke.

  Yuri’s horse galloped up the steep hill, Yuri guiding him in serpentine loops to avoid a difficult climb straight up. Reaching us, he saluted smartly.

  “Alun is reporting a good camping spot, Your Highness,” he said.

  “Isn’t it a bit early to camp?” I asked, glancing at Kel’Ratan.

  He shrugged. “Neither we nor the wolves have killed much lately. Our stores are low.”

  “I want out of these mountains like yesterday.”

  Kel’Ratan huffed. “It’s not like we can simply sprout wings and fly down.”

  “Will there be game down there?” I asked Silverruff at my stirrup, ignoring my cousin.

  He woofed, jerking his muzzle to the northeast.

  “He says yes,” Rygel said from behind Kel’Ratan. “Black Tongue already scented a good sized herd of elk.”

  I twisted in my saddle, my hand on the cantle. “How long is the ride to the desert?”

  Rygel ran his thumb up the side of his sharp nose as he pondered, his narrowed amber gaze on the hills below. “Three, maybe four days, Princess.”

  I bit my lip. “It’s been a week already and we’re no closer to answers or Raine.”

  Rygel lifted his shoulder in a shrug as Kel’Ratan put his hand over mine.

  “I know,” he said, his tone mild. “These mountains proved more difficult than we thought. But these horses need the rest and we need to eat.”

  I scowled. “I’m female. I’m allowed to fume if I want to.”

  Kel’Ratan actually chuckled. He nodded to Yuri. “Lead us to Alun, boyo.”

  Looking back along the line of riders from Arianne to Corwyn on his ugly roan behind her, the twins and Tor, I raised a smile. The great wolves, many reaching the stirrups of the horses, sat or stood close by. “Ready, kids? It’s all downhill from here.”

  At dawn, four very cold days later, with the sun’s rays weak and not very warming, I stared down into the next valley. Our descent from the peaks above put the worst of the icy wind and weather behind us. Bar actually flew again, and circled high overhead. The mountains ended abruptly at Mikk’s hooves. Only a few leagues of rolling, grassy hills separated us from the flatlands. Below lay gleaming gold sand, the sun’s rays there strong and hot. The great Tanai desert.

  Look at all that warm sun, I thought, gazing down into an oven. Personally, I hated deserts, with all that dry sand and little fodder for horses. But it beat freezing to death up in the mountains.

  “The Great Caravan Route,” Rygel said as he sat astride Shardon’s broad back beside me. “After we cross that, we’re in the Mesaani territory. They don’t much like outsiders.”

  “I told you that,” Witraz said.

  Rannon cuffed him.

  “M’lord.”

  Nothing much ever changed, I thought.

  I sighed and led my band downhill.

  After riding hard until late midafternoon, I called a halt in a grassy meadow with a tumbling stream cascading down from a sheer cliff behind it. The high peaks we had just spent the last four days traversing lay above, their tops shrouded in snow. The sun actually felt hot enough to make me comfortable again in my leathers. Rygel’s black gelding once more groaned under the weight of the skins and furs.

  With Bar rounding up the outriders, I dismounted Mikk and loosened his girth. Slipping the bridle from his head, I hung it over the pommel and caressed his face. He rubbed against me affectionately for a moment, then ambled away to graze. Around me, my boys did the same with their own mounts. Tor assisted Arianne from her Rufus, and took the bridle from his head. I was pleasantly surprised that the stallion, who once tolerated only Raine, allowed Tor so close to him without offering to bite. His close association with Arianne had improved his nasty disposition considerably, I thought. Only then did Tor attend to his own sweet-natured mare.

  Discovering a rock outcropping that fit my backside nicely, I sat down, tugging on Arianne’s right hand. With no choice but to obey me, she seated herself beside me. When she tried to rise to assist Tor and the twins with doling out food, I pressed my hand to the top of her head.

  “Sit,” I commanded. “Stay.”

  She recoiled, fending off my hand with irritation. “I’m not a dog,” she snapped.

  “A dog is a slave,” I said smoothly. “Are you one of those or are you a princess?”

  She huffed, indignant. Arranging her skirt about her, she glared at me for a moment. Yet, she sat quietly beside my rock as our human and wolf guards loped into our makeshift camp. As though attaching himself to my side, Silverruff sat on my right. Darkhan took his place to Arianne’s left, arriving first, leaving Rygel to glare and find a spot on the ground at her feet.

  “One of these days,” I commented conversationally. “You two will have to find common ground.”

  “Not if I turn him into a worm first,” Rygel retorted.

  Darkhan growled. Arianne smacked Rygel on the ear, making him yelp. When Darkhan smirked, Arianne seized his furry ear and twisted. Darkhan’s pain-filled cry sounded suspiciously like Rygel’s. I turned my face into my shoulder, concealing my shocked grin.

  Arianne slashed her hand across her brow. “I’m up to here with your crap.”

  “Only now?” Kel’Ratan muttered sourly. “I had my fill after day one.”

  “Hear, hear,” Corwyn commented, his voice low, from where he groomed his tired roan.

  Arianne’s voice, with enough of Raine’s steel to make my heart ache, ground out through gritted teeth. “You’ll both learn to get along. Or I’ll kick you to the curb.”

  “What?” Rygel exclaimed in the midst of Darkhan’s sudden whine.

  “You heard me.” Arianne’s glare could have split their skulls had it been made of steel.

  This time, I was forced to smother a laugh in my shoulder, not just a grin. Sitting cross-legged across fr
om me, Kel’Ratan laughed aloud. He had no reason for subtlety. Corwyn’s expression lightened in what passed for a smile on his craggy face.

  “I’ve had quite enough of your bickering,” Arianne went on. “Behave.”

  Glowering at each other, both Darkhan and Rygel subsided. Darkhan lay down and put his muzzle on his paws. Rygel scooted away to find a nice rock he could lean against while still keeping Arianne close by. I noticed with interest neither of them glanced at one another.

  I sat and waited, my mouth buried in my shoulder, my eyes sliding sideways to watch. I winked at Kel’Ratan, warning him to also remain silent. He obeyed, and pretended to watch the camp organize, but his fierce blue eyes also watched from the corners with amusement.

  When Tor arrived with meat, bread, white cheese and hanaps of fresh water, he sensed the tension in the air. With downcast eyes, he offered me the first choice, as the ranking princess. He then offered Arianne the platter, and waited until she accepted her fare. From then on, Tor offered food down the ranks.

  He faltered a bit, undecided if Kel’Ratan ranked higher than Silverruff, hovering betwixt the two. Impatient and hungry, Kel’Ratan gestured for the platter and took what he wanted. Silverruff declined, as he had hunted earlier and wasn’t hungry. What he said per Arianne’s quiet translation, anyway.

  Darkhan refused anything, while Rygel accepted only a small portion of meat, bread, a small piece of cheese and some nuts. I couldn’t help but observe the rivals still refused to look at one another. Arianne ignored them both equally, and only nibbled on the small heel of bread she took. I sighed. That damn girl needed to eat more or she’d die of starvation in front of me.

  Alun arrived with cold venison and with what I called Tuatha’s feed bag. With Tuatha needing his lunch, Rygel found his excuse to leave, and stalked away, muttering in another tongue to himself.