Wolfblade

by Jennifer Fallon

  Elarnymire is right, Brak thought, shaking his head. These demons don’t get to meld with the older demons and learn from them nearly enough any more.

  “He calls that a bird?” Elebran scoffed. The unlikely sparrow twittered at him angrily in response. “He’ll never get off the ground.”

  Despite the little demon’s prediction, the sparrow flapped its wings furiously and finally, after a few false starts, lifted in the air and headed through the trees, ducking and weaving between the branches in a rather alarming manner.

  “Follow him,” Brak ordered Elebran. “And I promise, you can be the bird next time.”

  A little put out that he hadn’t won the argument, Elebran vanished without another word. Still shaking his head at the young demons’ foolishness, Brak picked up one of the throwing knives and tossed it to Wrayan, who was looking bemused. He caught the knife, however, with an impressive display of quick reflexes.

  “Ever used a throwing knife?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “See that knothole? Try hitting it.”

  With a shrug, Wrayan changed his grip on the blade and threw it at the tree trunk Brak indicated. It landed with a solid “thunk” about an inch from the knothole.

  “Beginner’s luck?” Wrayan asked, almost as surprised as Brak that he had come so close to the mark.

  “Try again,” Brak suggested, handing him another knife.

  This one landed even closer to the knothole than the first. Brak looked at the young man speculatively. “You may not remember much about your past, Wrayan Lightfinger. But I can tell you one thing about it. You’re more likely the son of a criminal than a nobleman.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Dacendaran’s unhealthy interest in you notwithstanding, you didn’t learn to throw a knife like that in between dancing lessons with your court’esa.”

  Elebran suddenly reappeared at Brak’s feet, jumping up and down excitedly. “We found one! We found one! Can I be the bird now?”

  “Where?”

  “This way,” the demon said, scampering off into the woods. Brak quickly gathered up the remainder of his gear and shoved it back in the pack while Wrayan retrieved the knives from the trees. He kept the Hythrun short bow out, however, and the quiver of arrows, before hurrying after the demon.

  They followed the demon for a few hundred yards before they heard the sound of movement in the trees ahead. Brak stopped and waited for Wrayan to catch up.

  There’s two of them, he told the young human, as he quickly and expertly strung the bow. Over there. Can you see them?

  Wrayan nodded. Where’s the priest?

  He’ll be coming up at the rear. Brak knew that from experience. Karien priests weren’t the type to lead their troops into battle. Or anywhere for that matter. Which one do you want?

  Does it matter?

  I’ll take the one on the left then, he told Wrayan, nocking an arrow as they squatted behind a low bush that was struggling for room to grow under the canopy of the forest. Reckon you can take the one on the right?

  Wrayan glanced down at the throwing knife he still held and nodded warily. If the boy had taken a human life before, Brak thought, it was certainly one of the memories he’d lost. It was clear the lad wasn’t sure about this at all.

  It’s them or the Harshini, Wrayan, he reminded him. Try to picture Shananara as a broken and bleeding corpse. That should help.

  The young man paled a little, but Brak could see his resolve firming. Telepathy was an inexact form of communication at the best of times, but it had been easy for Brak to force the lad to imagine the unthinkable.

  Take him in the throat, Brak added with cold practicality. We don’t want him calling out a warning to his friends.

  With a final hesitant nod of agreement, Wrayan changed the grip on the throwing knife and stood up. At the same time, Brak rose from the covering of the bush, drew back on the string and let fly in the direction of the Karien furthest away from them on his left. When he looked across at the other soldier, the man was toppling silently to the ground, Wrayan’s knife embedded to the hilt in his throat.

  Brak nodded his approval and looked around with a frown. Where have those damn demons got to?

  “Psst!” A loud hiss came from the bushes to his left. Back in demon form, Eyan was crouched beneath a flowering alpine bitterpea, waving his arms at them. In a low crouch Brak and Wrayan ran to the demon and peeked over the top of the bush. Barely three feet away, one of the Kariens was relieving himself against the bole of a tree with his back to them, while his companion stood guard about ten paces further on, both of them blithely unaware of any danger.

  I’ll take the one having a leak, Brak told Wrayan. You take out his friend over there.

  This time, Wrayan didn’t hesitate. He threw the knife with the same unerring accuracy he had the first time. The Karien dropped silently as Brak expertly garrotted his companion, letting the body slide to the ground as soon as the Karien stopped struggling and Brak was certain he was dead.

  They didn’t need the demons to tell them where the next two were. Wrayan barely had time to pull the blade from the neck of the soldier he’d killed before they heard the other soldiers and the priest, who was making no attempt to sneak anywhere. Brak quickly rolled the body of the man he’d garrotted into the bushes and waited for the Kariens to arrive. Wrayan kicked some leaves over the man he’d taken down, hiding the throwing knife behind his back just as the last two soldiers and the priest emerged from the trees.

  “Good evening, sirs,” Brak said cheerfully to the startled Kariens. “Lovely evening for a walk in the forest miles from the nearest civilisation, don’t you think?”

  Wearing Harshini Dragon Rider’s leathers, there wasn’t much hope that the Karien priest wouldn’t quickly realise what Brak and Wrayan were, despite their human eyes.

  “It’s them!” the priest screeched, raising his staff as Wrayan threw his blade. He was aiming for the priest but the throw went wild. The soldier on the right charged at Wrayan, almost at exactly the same time as Brak pulled the long Hythrun blade from his boot and stepped into the path of the other soldier who rushed at him, driving the steel up under the man’s ribcage and into his heart. He pushed the dead man backwards off the blade in time to see Wrayan go down under the onslaught of the Karien soldier. The priest was still standing, chanting desperately under his breath as he scrambled backwards calling for his god, but Wrayan was in immediate danger of having his throat cut, holding back the blade of the man astride him by sheer desperate strength. Reluctant to save his human companion by drawing on his magic and risk alerting the Harshini of the conflict, Brak cursed under his breath and pulled the garrotte from his belt. Turning his back momentarily on the priest, he looped it over the head of the Karien and pulled hard. A dark spray of blood splashed over Wrayan’s face as the Karien went limp. With a grunt, Brak pushed the man aside and, ignoring the young human’s desperate scramble to get clear of the fountain of blood gushing from the dead soldier, he turned to face the priest.

  “Back, evil creatures of the night!” the Karien cried, brandishing his staff before him, desperately looking for a place to run to, but with two Harshini in front of him and the demons closing in behind, he had nowhere to go.

  “Evil creatures of the night?” Brak repeated, with a wounded look. “How can we be evil creatures of the night, for the gods’ sake? It’s the middle of the afternoon!”

  “Your sinister charms will not work on me!” The priest was sweating profusely and panting with fear. “I call on Xaphista to vanquish you!”

  “Xaphista actually can’t hear you right now, old son,” Brak told the babbling priest with a deliberately evil leer. “Got a few gods on our side, too, you know.”

  “There are no other gods!” the priest declared bravely. He lifted his staff even higher. “Wither and die, servants of evil. You cannot harm me!”

  “Did Xaphista tell you that?” Brak asked, noticing that Wrayan had com
e up beside him and was advancing in step with him on the terrified priest. The Halfbreed was as tall as any Harshini. Wrayan was not much shorter. Dressed in their dark leathers, looming over the priest and with Wrayan bathed in blood from Brak’s kill, he supposed they really did look quite terrifying.

  “No other gods, eh? Boy, are you in for a shock when you die.”

  The priest fell almost as soon as Brak had spoken, Wrayan’s knife protruding from his right eye. The Halfbreed turned and stared at the young man in shock. He hadn’t expected him to learn that quickly. Wrayan couldn’t meet his gaze, though. Brak suspected the young human would have quite a bit to deal with later, once his blood cooled down. He stepped forward and kicked the priest’s staff clear, staring down at the dead man unsympathetically.

  “How do we get rid of the bodies?” Wrayan asked in a surprisingly calm voice.

  “The demons will take care of it.”

  “Those two?” he asked sceptically, indicating Eyan and Elebran who had run past the fallen priest and were now standing on top of the body Wrayan had brought down earlier, squabbling over a shiny buckle they’d found on his belt.

  Brak shook his head, smiling at the very idea. “Gods, no. I’ll get Elarnymire and the older demons to deal with them.”

  “What about the staff? Can the demons take care of that, too?”

  “No more than we can,” Brak replied, squatting down to examine it more closely. The staff was made of a black metal and, in the fading afternoon light, seemed to suck in all the illumination around it. The head of the staff was made of gold; shaped like a five-pointed star intersected by a lightning bolt crafted of silver. Each point of the star was set with a crystal and in the centre was a larger stone of the same crystal.

  Brak studied it for a moment longer then looked up. “Zegarnald!”

  The War God appeared almost immediately—noticeably larger than he had been the last time they’d spoken to him. The blood of seven Kariens had given him a much-needed boost after Kalianah’s Feast, which had drained him considerably.

  “What can I do for you, evil creatures of the night?” the god asked, sounding rather amused, which Brak thought strange because Zegarnald had no sense of humour at all.

  “You thought that was funny, I suppose.”

  “As much as I care about anything being funny, I suppose it was.”

  Brak stood up and pointed to the staff lying on the forest floor. “Can you get rid of that?”

  The War God nodded and the staff vanished—gone to the gods alone knew where . . . quite literally.

  “Thank you, Divine One.”

  “Thank you, Brakandaran,” Zegarnald replied gravely. “As usual, despite how much you profess to dislike it, you are there when the Harshini need you most.”

  “Which was more good luck this time than anything else,” Brak warned.

  “The Primal Gods need to do something about Xaphista, Divine One. And soon.”

  “We are considering it,” Zegarnald conceded.

  “Well, consider faster. The Harshini may not survive you lot taking your time on this.”

  Zegarnald didn’t answer the warning; he merely vanished, leaving the humans alone in the clearing with the squabbling demons. Brak turned to the young man, who was looking pale and rather ill under all that blood now he’d had a few moments to consider what he’d done.

  “You all right?”

  Wrayan nodded uncertainly. “I think so.”

  Brak looked around the woods at the bodies lying there, dead because he had taken it upon himself to protect his people, no matter what.

  Some things never seem to change, he mused sadly. And then he clapped his hand on Wrayan’s shoulder and smiled wearily.

  “Come on, Wrayan,” he said. “Don’t start whipping yourself. You did what you had to and the Harshini are safe.”

  “I killed three men, Brak.”

  “I know.”

  “It was easy.”

  “Sometimes it is.”

  “Too easy.”

  “Well, it seems you are an ‘evil creature of the night’, after all,” Brak reminded him with a faint smile, trying to divert the young man from where he knew he was going with this.

  “Come on, there’s a stream up ahead. You can wash the blood off there.”

  “Are you sure I was an apprentice magician, Brak? I might have been an assassin. A cold-blooded killer . . . you said yourself I couldn’t have learned to throw a knife like that if—”

  “Stop it!” Brak commanded. “There’s no point in this. And if you don’t get it under control, every Harshini in Sanctuary is going to know what we’ve done here today. You need to worry about that more than the lives of seven men who were planning to bring about the total destruction of the Harshini.”

  Wrayan nodded, accepting the wisdom of Brak’s advice. He kneeled down and pulled the knife from the priest’s eye and wiped it on the grass before handing it back to Brak. “Was it difficult for you? The first time?”

  “The first men I ever killed were the bandits who murdered my father, Wrayan,” Brak told him, accepting the knife. “It wasn’t difficult at all.”

  chapter 76

  I

  t was unthinkable that Laran would be laid to rest before Jeryma returned home, so the funeral was delayed long past the normal time for burial. Fortunately, the hot weather hadn’t set in yet, so it wasn’t really a problem, but Marla had ordered the embalmers to do what they could to preserve the body, in the hope that when they finally got around to interring Laran in the family vault the cadaver still bore some resemblance to him.

  The delay meant that many people who would not normally have been able to make it this far north for a funeral were able to attend. That included the High Prince, the Warlords of Pentamor and Izcomdar and the Warlord of Dregian, Barnardo Eaglespike, along with his sorcerer wife, Alija. Jeryma arrived last of all, escorted by Chaine Tollin, his wife and his eight-year-old son, Terin. By then Marla’s grief was all but done. Her guilt, however, seemed to have a much longer shelf life. Laran was finally laid in the family vault almost six weeks after he was killed on the border.

  Six weeks, Marla had discovered, was a lifetime in politics.

  Some of her problems were easily fixed, and the first thing she did after the official mourning period was over—which was almost as soon as Laran was buried, as the customary duration was only a month—was to settle the issue of Sunrise Province, once and for all.

  Laran had hung on to Sunrise by a thread, she knew, aided only by Chaine Tollin’s willingness to bide his time and the fact that Laran hadn’t instigated any new taxes or changes radical enough to cause the population to revolt. Elezaar was right. She couldn’t hold the province without a fight. Their province in the hands of a foreign Warlord was hard enough for the people of Sunrise to stomach. Their fate in the hands of a foreign Regent, however, when their true Warlord’s only remaining heir (unacknowledged bastard or not) was relegated to the role of Governor, would be intolerable.

  Marla was aware that as Laran’s widow she had little real power, but she wielded considerably more as the mother of Hythria’s future High Prince.

  Despite what others thought of Lernen’s lifestyle, he and Marla had always gotten along well. Lernen wanted as little trouble in his life as possible and Marla had been hardly a problem at all. She had grown up quietly at Highcastle, not made too big a fuss over that awkward business with Hablet, married Laran Krakenshield (a deal Lernen had profited from considerably) without complaint and then thoughtfully provided him with the heir he needed and had no inclination to produce himself. She was confident she could extract a few favours from her brother that would allow her to secure Damin’s inheritance as much as was possible in the volatile world of Hythrun politics.

  Marla asked Chaine to take a turn around the gardens with her one morning several days after the funeral, deliberately steering him away from Kalianah’s grotto, where the memories of her tryst with Nash were still too raw
to deal with. They wandered, instead, along the path near the outer wall, their footfalls silent on the rain-washed gravel. An overnight shower had rinsed from the trees the dust laid down during a long dry winter and the garden sparkled with the onset of summer.

  “It was good of you and your family to come all this way for the funeral,” Marla told him as they strolled along.

  “Laran was my friend as well as my Warlord, your highness. And I could not, in good conscience, allow Lady Jeryma to return to Krakandar without an escort.”

  “Even though she despises you?”

  “She despises what I represent, your highness. I think, given enough wine, she finds me tolerable enough personally.”

  Marla smiled. She liked the fact that Chaine made no secret of his status as a bastard. And that, as yet, he hadn’t played on it. For his forbearance, Marla intended to see he was rewarded.

  “Have you heard that Mahkas is to become Regent of Krakandar until Damin comes of age?”

  “It was my understanding that he was to become Regent of Sunrise, too. Or are we soon to be absorbed into your province so comprehensively that we’ll be known as little more than Southern Krakandar?”

  “Southern Krakandar,” she repeated thoughtfully. “That has a nice ring to it, Chaine. Now why didn’t I think of that?”

  He smiled when he realised she was teasing him. “That’s not the fate you have in mind for Sunrise?”

  “I was going to petition my brother to let you have it,” she told him. “But I really like the sound of Southern Krakandar.”

  He stopped and stared at her in shock. “You’re going to just give me Sunrise Province?”

  “Well, I was. But now you’ve given me this wonderful idea about Southern Krakandar . . .” She smiled at the expression on his face. “I think we need to clear something up at the outset, Chaine Tollin. I don’t intend to give you anything. You’ll pay for the privilege, believe me.”

  “And the price?”