Prince Wolf

by A. Katie Rose

  “If it pleases Your Highness.” Rygel’s head struck the dust again. “Your skin and hair color marks you as either Kel’Hallan or Zhou. It’s not uncommon for Zhous to be either slaves or soldiers. Your people can pass as Zhou warriors attached to an aristocrat’s private entourage. You, unfortunately, look to be what you truly are: a royal Kel’Hallan princess.”

  “Well, that certainly puts a new spin on it,” I said. “Since I appear to be a princess, I must play the part of a slave.”

  “Why a slave?” Kel’Ratan demanded. “Why not a maid servant instead?”

  “The same problem exists,” Rygel replied patiently. “She’s too beautiful. We must hide her beauty in lank hair, a collar and a beaten-down aspect.”

  Absently, I caressed Digger, the closest. Thunder didn’t much like my lack of attention. He pushed his muzzle, then his entire head, until it rested on my lap. Silverruff growled, and tried to get his head on my lap as well. I wasn’t big enough for all three, plus Tuatha. Thus, I began the task of petting one, then pushing his aside in favor of another, and then yet again for the third. I busied both my hands in loosening tense neck muscles, scratching itchy ears, and offering much-needed love. I’d soon grow tired if I kept it up for long, however. Big tough wolves they may be, but under that vicious façade lay a bunch of furry, touchy-feely softies.

  “And you think I’d be offended by that notion,” I said thoughtfully, my hands occupied.

  Rygel gulped and nodded, his wheaten hair plastered to the sides of his face and neck.

  “Your royalty shines forth as a beacon,” Rygel said. “Few would mistake you for nothing less than Brutal’s runaway bride. Arianne now.”

  Rygel paused to lift her hand to his lips and linger over it, bestowing light, butterfly kisses. Darkhan growled. “Arianne now,” he went on, “can be taught quickly on how a noblewoman behaves. We can turn her into a spoiled aristocrat. Her dark hair and pale complexion fits the profile of a noblewoman who spends little time outdoors. If you three appeared to be a Zhou slaves, and the others Zhou soldiers, we may pass unnoticed and unremarked.”

  Arianne glowed under the attention, tossing her hair back from her face and her skin flushing a faint pinkish tinge.

  How’d she manage that? When I blushed, ‘twas like the dawn rising on a hot summer day: bright, red and hot.

  “I beg pardon for any offense,” Kel’Ratan said, with a half bow toward Arianne. “Her Highness has been out of slavery for only a short time. Her mannerisms, too often, are that of a slave. I hate to be contradictory, but anyone she crosses will see that she wasn’t born to rulership.”

  I shrugged, with a half-smile toward the tiny Arianne. “He has a point. My apologies, sweet sister, but you really do act more like a cowed slave than a royal princess.”

  Rather than explode in fury as I half-expected, Arianne blushed a deeper pink. Her huge blue-grey eyes fell to her lap. “I know,” she whispered. “I’ll try to do better.”

  “Start with this,” I said, gathering her attention. “Sit up straight.”

  She obeyed, but her glorious eyes rested on the ground rather than me.

  “Remember how you told Ja’Teel he’d die under the fangs of a wolf?”

  Both Rygel and Darkhan sat up, eyes and ears switching between the pair of us. “What’s this?” Rygel asked at the same time Kel’Ratan asked the very same question. I ignored all of them and waited for my reply.

  Arianne lifted her face defiantly, her eyes now ablaze. “Yes,” she replied firmly. “I do.”

  “Then keep that attitude,” I said. “Always. Speak in that tone, with that confidence, and you’ll be fine.”

  She smiled, a slave’s timid, shy smile. ‘Twas nothing more than the smile of an innocent child, hardly the expression of a spoiled aristocrat. I sighed.

  Rygel took her hand. “I’ll work with her,” he promised. “We have a few days yet. The right hair style, the right clothing, a few jewels and a peer of the realm would never know she’d ever known slavery.”

  At the affectionate touch the pair shared, Darkhan, of course, flattened his ears and growled.

  “If she shows even half the sand she’s shown so far,” I said. “She’ll be fine.”

  I sighed again. “She won’t be the only one with things to learn,” I said slowly. “I have no idea on how to act like a beaten slave.”

  I exchanged a long glance with my faithful Left and Right. They stared right back at me, dark eyes as deep and mysterious as the deep sea. They’d do anything I asked them to. Was this perhaps too much?

  “Can you two forget being proud Kel’Hallan warriors?” I asked. “Forget your heritage? Can you lower yourselves alongside me?”

  Neither of them even glanced at the other. As though guided by one mind, Left and Right both bowed their dark heads in grave nods, small smiles playing about their lips. Twin dark eyes gleamed. For as long as I’ve known them, I’ve never understood how they each knew exactly what the other was thinking, feeling, dreaming, or how they matched each other exactly in expressions, movements, and coloring. They were, unto themselves, a new entity, a being not of an individual, but of the two combined. Perhaps such things were never meant to be revealed, or understood.

  “Well, Princess?” Rygel asked.

  I couldn’t help it. I grinned.

  “Where’s my collar?”

  “I’ll have to steal clothing,” Rygel went on, not concealing that he still held Arianne’s hand under Darkhan’s very nose. “If I buy them, suspicions will be roused.” He nodded around the camp. “I hope I get the sizes right. But you and the twins will need little more than frocks.”

  “That’s all right,” I replied. “Give us enough clothing we can conceal weapons under. We can’t, for obvious reasons, carry bows or swords. Daggers can be hidden nicely and I’ll not have us unarmed. They excel at knife play, and I can stab along with the best.”

  Left and Right nodded in unison.

  “No, you can’t,” Kel’Ratan bristled, glowering at me. “Your talents lie with a bow. Your knife skills are at best mediocre.”

  “In whose eyes?” I demanded, irritated.

  “Mine.”

  “Give me a knife and I’ll show you mediocre.”

  Kel’Ratan grinned. “I know you will.”

  Rygel put up his hand to stop my lunge at my cousin. “Peace,” he said. “Please? Cut each other up later, when we have time.”

  I drew up my hand and pointed my finger at a smugly grinning Kel’Ratan. “You are mine.”

  “Always and forever, my queen.” Kel’Ratan’s grin didn’t fade despite his low bow from a seated position.

  Rygel cleared his throat. “Listen. The Federate patrols down below aren’t very well informed. They may not even know we exist.”

  “All the better,” I said, still glowering.

  “Not necessarily,” Rygel added. “They’re also poorly paid. They rely on bribes to feed their families. We’ll have to bribe every patrol that stops us.”

  I frowned, ignoring Kel’Ratan for the moment. I cast about for my saddlebags, displacing an irritated and sleepy Tuatha. “I have Federate gold.” I said absently. “Somewhere.”

  “That may work,” Rygel said. “Jewels are much better, however. More valuable and less chance of it being traced.”

  “We’ve a few jewels,” I replied, growing worried. “Somewhere.”

  “Don’t sweat it, Princess,” Rygel said easily, relaxing under Darkhan’s furious yellow gaze. “Raine’s collar provided adequate precious gems. We’ll have plenty.”

  “Where are they?”

  Rygel jerked his head toward the baggage pile. “In his saddlebags. He left them behind.”

  “A hoity-toity female would spend jewels before gold anyway,” Kel’Ratan added.

  “You’re a hoity-toity yourself,” Arianne snapped and promptly blushed.

  She retreated behind her hair. Kel’Ratan gawked.

  “She’s learning fast,” I said, gig
gling.

  Kel’Ratan drew himself up like a barnyard rooster. “I will have you know,” he gritted behind his mustache. “I am not female.”

  “One would hardly guess,” I muttered, earning myself a red scowl.

  “That leaves one other minor problem,” Rygel continued, as though the heated exchange never took place.

  “What’s that?”

  Rather than answer, Rygel glanced at what was to him a minor problem, my own eyes tracking his. To me, however, he was a rather large, feathered and an angrily bristling problem.

  Bar’s tail lashed from side to side as he stalked around the edge of the seated and lying occupants of our camp. His neck feathers stood on end, his eagle’s eyes flattened into that stare that could unnerve a block of granite. I couldn’t see his tufted ears against the starlight, so tightly plastered to his skull as they were. His great wings, furled against his back as he stalked, rustled faintly in the suddenly silent camp. Only the fire still made noise. I think they, wolves and men, all forgot to breathe.

  My boys, cowards all, slid on their rumps, out of his way. My brave protectors, those huge savage wolves, capable of breaking an elk’s back with one bite of their deadly jaws, slunk like whipped curs to the side. Rygel, the most powerful magician on earth, turned his head away. Kel’Ratan studied his fingernails as though having never seen them before. Corwyn discovered the fire needed sudden tending and devoted his entire life to the task. Arianne, of course, hid behind her hair.

  I looked around while those who claimed to love me crept like frightened kittens out of danger.

  With Bar’s furious intent and predatory eyes on me, they, at least, were safe enough. His anger lay with me and me alone. Had I never before seen his stalk his prey before, I might have pissed myself in panic at being the prey Bar currently hunted.

  Damn and blast, I thought. Bar would give us away as surely as though I marched with trumpets blaring and heralds crying my name at every step. Nor would he be content, like the wolves, to pace us and watch from afar.

  But – he would have to.

  “Bar,” I said, brushing my hair out of my eyes impatiently. “Cease and desist with the self-induced drama and sit down.”

  My words brought him up short with a hiss. His yellow eyes glared.

  “You aren’t fooling anyone,” I replied primly, patting the ground recently vacated by Thunder. “Least of all me. Sit down, I say.”

  Reluctantly, he obeyed me, his ears still flat against his feathered head. His body took up more than half the ring about the fire, the wolves and humans crowding together in the other half. He peered down at me with another hiss, this one speaking of his anxiety and concern.

  “I know you are,” I said firmly. “Lie down, dammit, I’m not going to break my neck to look up at you.”

  Grumbling, he folded his legs and curled his still lashing tail about his coiled lion hindquarters. At least his ears rose and his predatory eyes now held his true feelings: fear I may be harmed. Now on a much improved level with me, I could speak to him without looking up, and stroke his face and ears without an impossible strain.

  “Listen to me,” I said firmly. He opened his beak. “No, listen. And hear me.”

  He closed it again, his misery quaking his entire body. He knew his presence placed me in mortal danger. He also knew we had no choice but to continue our present course, that we must find some answers as to who or what has such a demonic grudge against me. How well he knew that not even he could protect me from the wrath of an angry god. Beneath it all lay yet another fear that I, among all present or who ever knew us both, alone knew.

  Bar feared to be away from my side.

  “I will be safe enough,” I said.

  I put my hands over his beak when it parted again. “Shut up and listen. You’ll be up there.”

  I pointed straight into the dark, star strewn sky. Hope lit his anxiety ridden eyes as he understood my intent.

  “Your eyes can see everything, Bar, my dearest love, my sweet protector,” I said, rubbing my hands over his closing beak, his soft ears, his feathered cheeks. “You’ll see danger before we will. You can drop from the sky in less time than it would take for a soldier to aim his bow. Up there, you’ll still be protecting me.”

  I kissed his beak, smiling into his huge eagle’s eyes, sharing a moment that I could share with no one else. Not even Raine. Bar and I, we were one.

  “With you, I can never be harmed.”

  “Nor will he be seen,” Kel’Ratan said gruffly. “Who in the bloody hell ever looks up?”

  Lowering his huge head, Bar bumped affectionately against me, toppling a snoozing Tuatha from my lap. Absently, my fingers shut his muzzle on his irritated snarl at having been, in his opinion, rudely woken.

  “I know,” I replied to Bar’s unspoken love. “Me too.”

  “So he’s not going to, you know, disembowel anyone?” Rannon asked, scooting back into his spot. Shadow slunk in to lie beside him, Rannon’s arm around his heavy neck. Both eyed us sidelong, as though we only feigned peaceful intentions and plotted to kill the first creatures that moved into talon-range.

  “No,” I sighed, leaning against Bar’s lion-furred shoulder. “Not tonight.”

  Tuatha had other ideas. With Shadow venturing too close for his own good, he lunged up and out of my lap, snarling. Though I grabbed for him, my hands clasped empty air, not wolf pup. Shadow backed up, his jaws wide in panic, knowing he couldn’t defend himself from Tuatha’s attack. To do so might harm his Chosen One’s adopted son and dishonor himself in not only his own eyes, but everyone else’s. What could stop Tuatha from chewing his paws to shreds?

  Bar stretched out his huge, tent-like right wing.

  Tuatha, small, furious, found himself blocked from his target. Unable to see past Bar’s white and brown feathers, he ducked and dodged, trying to find his way around them. Bar’s talons, as delicate as soft fingers, picked the snarling pup up by his ruff and gently dropped him in my lap.

  As I soothed Tuatha’s rage, Bar refolded his wing across his shoulders and grumbled under his breath.

  Tuatha snapped and snarled before admitting defeat. He snuggled back under my arm, resuming his interrupted slumber. I really must do something about his temper, I thought lazily, petting his downy fur.

  Rygel glanced at him, his alarm subsiding. “As the noble lady’s body slave,” he said quietly. “You’d be in charge of her pet. This will keep Tuatha happier, I’m thinking, as he wants to be with only you these days.”

  I stoked his thin dark body. “I hope so,” I murmured. “He’s so miserable.”

  “This scenario might also work in other ways,” Kel’Ratan said, also resuming his spot and Nahar beside him.

  The rest of my boys and their wolf friends once more crowded around the fire, Bar’s bulk taking up more space than several of them, wolf and human, combined. My three friends sat apart, eyeing me longingly. But I hadn’t the heart to ask Bar to move.

  “We have yet another problem,” I said.

  “What?” Kel’Ratan asked, his tone as stiff as his lip hair.

  Half-smiling, I pointed to a quiet Shardon, standing behind Rygel. His eye peeped at me behind the thick fall of his forelock, glowing faintly in the firelight. I half-wondered if he missed his black brother as much as I missed Raine. In the last few days he had spoken little, yet his great eyes saw everything.

  At my silent summons, he trotted forward obediently and willingly enough took his place at Rygel’s shoulder. During this council, he hadn’t spoken at all, though I’d expected him to offer opinions. By his liquid gaze on me most of the last half hour, I think he knew what I was about to say.

  “You, dear one,” I said, “if I stand out like a beacon, you’re like a brilliant star falling to earth. You can’t possibly hide what you are.”

  I glanced out, beyond the fire to the herd of horses, grazing on the sparse, tough grass. “And them? Arianne may well ride an animal as fine as Rufus. Perhaps my boys
might, also. But the twins and me? Slaves would hardly ride horses of their obvious quality. If we rode horses at all.”

  My gaze returned and rested on Rygel, our brains, our guiding light. “What say you, our renowned wizard?”

  Rygel’s smile as I spoke told me enough. He’d planned for them as well. In typical Rygel fashion, he merely waited for me to bring the subject up. Sometimes I hated that aspect of the egotistical bastard.

  “I can work a little magic,” Rygel answered. “It’s quiet and subtle enough that even if Ja’Teel were a mile away he’d fail to hear it.”

  Of course, Rygel paused dramatically and wait for the obvious question. I almost refused to ask it, but if I didn’t someone else would. Damn him and his need for drama. “And that is?”

  “An illusion,” he continued smoothly. “Whoever we meet will see Shardon as nothing more than a grey horse. I’ll not need to change his appearance, nor that of your horses. People will see that which I want them to see: thin, poor beasts of burden on which the mourning dowager mounted her slaves so they’d not slow her pace.”

  I offered a half-nod and no congratulations on his cleverness. I knew he expected a pat on the back and a compliment or two, but I turned away and shut my eyes. I was in no mood to play his games. Not then, anyhow. I’d no need to look to see his crestfallen expression. I felt his disappointment on my skin.

  “What do you mean?” I asked of the air in general, but knew Kel’Ratan would speak as though the previous discussion and the setting of the watches hadn’t occurred.

  “A high-born lady on a religious pilgrimage,” he said smoothly, “would give us a chance to seek out certain monks.”

  Rygel half-shrugged, his mouth working.

  “Don’t say it,” I warned without opening my eyes. “We know: that’s why you planned it this way.”

  Rygel again sought speech, and again I interrupted.

  Without opening my eyes, I said. “I know everything, Rygel. You should know this by now.”

  Defeated, he sighed.

  “You said you needed to go tonight and steal clothing?” I asked, stirring finally and gazing into the fire.

  “Yes, Princess,” he replied soberly. “I should go soon. Er, now, if I’m to return by dawn.”