Wolfblade

by Jennifer Fallon

  “Marla . . .” Nash began soothingly, “you’re distraught. Come. Sit down, darling. I’m sure—”

  “Of what, Nash? What are you sure of? That there’ll be another attack on my son? One that might succeed the next time? And you!” she accused, turning on the High Prince. “You spineless fool! How dare you sit there and wail about the danger you might be in! Someone tried to kill your heir, Lernen, not you! It’s your job to retaliate, not sit there worrying about them coming after you next. Gods! If it were up to me, I’d have sealed the city by now. I’d be turning Greenharbour upside down looking for the conspirators with the gall to threaten my child. But no . . . you’re just going to sit there and talk about it like old women. On second thought, I take that back. Even old women would have done something by now!”

  Without waiting for any of them to respond, Marla stalked from the room, shaking with fury.

  If her husband, her brother and the High Arrion weren’t going to do something about the attack on Damin, she would.

  “How do I get to the Assassins’ Guild?” she demanded of Elezaar as soon as she reached her room. The dwarf woke with a jerk and scrambled to his feet. He’d been waiting for her for hours, guessing that she would seek his counsel eventually

  “It’s just near the palace,” he said, looking a little puzzled. “It’s a tall building, with green marble—”

  “Not literally,” she snapped. “How do I threaten them? How do I make them tell me who hired them to attack Damin?”

  “You’re assuming it is the Assassins’ Guild who is responsible, then?”

  “Who else would have the balls to attack the High Prince’s heir in broad daylight?”

  “Someone who wants you to think the Guild is behind it?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “In my experience, the Assassins’ Guild tries to stay away from political assassinations, your highness. They tend to stir up a lot of trouble, upset the wrong people and draw unnecessary attention to themselves, none of which is particularly good for business.”

  That made sense. It also gave Marla an idea. “Then if the Guild believes the High Prince holds them responsible for the attack on his heir, they might cooperate simply to ensure their business activities are able to continue uninterrupted.”

  “Quite possibly,” the court’esa agreed. “But what’s the point? If they’re not involved, then how can they help? They can’t tell you who hired them if they weren’t hired in the first place.”

  “No. But they can find the people who are involved for me, Elezaar,” she explained, pacing the room impatiently. “The gods know, none of those fools downstairs are ever going to find out anything useful. They’re still arguing about the best place to cower in. Even Nash agrees with them! Can you believe he actually suggested moving the children to Byamor?”

  “Hire an assassin to find an assassin,” Elezaar said thoughtfully. “That may even work.” He frowned then, shaking his head. “And no, I can’t believe Lord Hawksword would suggest that. I always thought him smarter than that.”

  “Well, it doesn’t matter, anyway,” she declared. “Tomorrow I’m sending you to Krakandar. I want you to come back with Almodavar and three centuries of Raiders. I can bring that many troops into the city without asking anybody’s permission.”

  “If Mahkas will permit you to have three centuries of Krakandar Raiders, your highness,” he reminded her.

  “That’s why I’m sending you. I’ll write Mahkas a letter for you to pass on, but if he hesitates in the slightest, I want you to impress upon him the danger Damin is in. Point out that if his nephew dies, he’s out of a job. The province will fall under the protection of the Sorcerers’ Collective. That should convince him to release the troops I want. And then tomorrow, I will pay the Assassins’ Guild a visit. It’s time they demonstrated where their loyalties lie.”

  Elezaar studied her in the candlelight, his expression one of almost paternal pride. “It will be as you command, your highness. Although I am curious about one thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “What do you think your husband will have to say about all this?”

  “Right now, Elezaar,” she told him determinedly,”I’m too angry to care.”

  chapter 84

  Y

  ou were right,” Wrayan told Brak in a low voice as he took a seat opposite the Halfbreed in the almost empty tavern where Brak was waiting for him. “They’re in a cabinet in a study on the second floor.”

  “You found them?” Brak asked in surprise. He signalled the tavern-keeper for ale for his companion. Wrayan waited until it had been delivered and he’d taken an appreciative sip from the tankard before he answered. The Fuller’s Basket was a popular place and it was unusual for it to be so quiet, even at this late hour.

  “I found a cabinet warded so heavily it damned near glowed in the dark,” he told him. “Not big on subtlety, is Alija.”

  “Can you get me into the house?”

  “With or without using . . . our special talent?” he asked, deciding it might be a little unwise to use the word magic in such a public place.

  “Without, preferably. I’d like to get a look at those scrolls before I do anything rash.”

  “It’ll be difficult,” Wrayan said. “Particularly tonight. I don’t know what’s going on, but the streets near the palace were crawling with Sorcerers’ Collective guards on the way back.”

  “But it’s not impossible?”

  “Almost impossible.”

  “Well, that’s all right then,” Brak said with a smile.

  “I nearly walked in on her, you know,” Wrayan told him, after taking another good swallow of the ale. “Alija and her latest lover.”

  “You told me she had a court’esa she was particularly fond of.”

  “This wasn’t Tarkyn Lye. This was a sleazy bastard cheating on his wife while Alija’s husband slept in the next room.”

  “It’s not our place to judge others, my son,” Brak replied, with a solemn air of entirely false wisdom.

  “I wasn’t judging her,” Wrayan shrugged. “I don’t care who she beds. It’s just . . . damn it! I recognised him, Brak! Or his voice at least.”

  “Forget about it,” Brak advised. “It’s got nothing to do with our little problem, so let’s leave well enough alone.”

  Wrayan nodded, knowing Brak was right. He glanced around the tavern with a slight frown. “It’s quiet in here tonight. What happened? Did someone find a dead rat floating in the beer barrel again?”

  “No. Apparently there was an assassination attempt on the High Prince earlier today. Or something like that, anyway.” He smiled. “The rumours are getting pretty wild, the longer the night goes on, and you know how hard it is to sort fact from fiction at a time like this. At one stage there, I believe we were being invaded by Fardohnya.”

  Wrayan smiled, thinking Brak had probably had a very enjoyable evening listening to the panicked rumours flying around the city in the wake of an assassination attempt. “That would explain the guards near the palace then. I wonder who’s behind it this time.”

  Brak shrugged uninterestedly. “I care even less about who wants to remove that disgusting little pervert you call a High Prince right now, Wrayan, than I do about who our Innate is sleeping with. Reckon it’s worth going back there tonight? I’d really like to get a look at those scrolls as soon as I can.”

  Wrayan shook his head. “It’s not a good night to be out on the streets, Brak. You can’t move in some quarters at the moment without bumping into a soldier. Let’s wait until the fuss dies down over the assassination attempt. Then we’ll have a clear run at the place.”

  “In that case,” Brak announced, swallowing the dregs of his ale, “I think I’ll have another drink.”

  While Wrayan was tossing and turning in bed later that evening, he finally accepted that he couldn’t simply ignore what he’d seen in Alija’s house. Even if he wasn’t seething over the idea that a man he’d once called a
friend was cheating on his wife with the woman who tried to kill him, the political ramifications were too important for him to simply shrug off the identity of Alija’s lover. There was too much at stake.

  Wrayan had deliberately kept out of the way of his old companions since returning to Greenharbour, in order to maintain the fiction he was dead. But his desire to remain anonymous hadn’t stopped him keeping up with what had become of them. Laran Krakenshield had been killed, Wrayan knew, in a border raid in Medalon not long after his only son was born and Marla Wolfblade had remarried with almost indecent haste. To Nash Hawksword.

  Nash and Marla lived in Greenharbour now, in a house not far from Alija’s mansion, and had two children—twins if he remembered correctly, a boy and a girl—in addition to Damin, Marla’s son by Laran, who was the High Prince’s long-awaited (and much-anticipated) heir. Wrayan still remembered the girl he’d accidentally frozen on the wharf outside the palace as she begged Nash to save her from a fate worse than death. He also remembered that saving Marla from the magic he’d accidentally wrought had cost him a life dedicated to Dacendaran. She’d been such a pretty, delicate little thing, Marla Wolfblade. He’d felt quite sorry for her. And it seemed Nash had come to her rescue, after all.

  But if he was married to Marla, what was he doing in Alija Eaglespike’s bed?

  “It’s pretty bloody obvious what he was doing in her bed, Wrayan,” Brak pointed out grumpily, when Wrayan bashed on his door to discuss the issue.

  The Halfbreed didn’t think the identity of Alija’s lover nearly as problematic as Wrayan did and was rather peeved that Wrayan had woken him out of a sound sleep to tell him about it. Considering the man only slept about every third day, Wrayan thought it a bit rude of him to complain. Any other night, Brak would sit up reading until dawn, or he stayed down at the Fuller’s Basket winning at dice. And he blatantly cheated at that, too.

  “But what am I going to do?” Wrayan asked, desperate for some guidance, even if it was from a dice-cheating, halfbreed Harshini. He was torn by divided loyalties. Nash had been his friend. But Marla was the High Prince’s sister. The mother of Hythria’s heir. She was the innocent victim here, not Nash, who patently knew better. The princess deserved more than this.

  “How about going back to sleep?” Brak suggested pointedly.

  “Should I tell her?”

  “Who? Marla? Don’t be absurd! What are you going to do? Turn up at the princess’s door and announce her husband is sleeping with Alija Eaglespike? She doesn’t know you from a hitching post. She’d never believe you.”

  “She’d remember me, though, I’m certain,” Wrayan insisted. “I met her when I was Kagan’s apprentice.”

  “And you’re dead, remember? Unless you’re planning to make a very loud comeback, old son, I suggest you stay that way.”

  “I can’t just do nothing!”

  “Oh, yes, you can,” Brak countered. “Anyway, for all you know, Marla knows all about the affair and is quite happy to send the bull over to another pasture for a couple of nights a week. She might enjoy the rest.”

  “She doesn’t know,” Wrayan told him confidently. He remembered watching Nash working his way down towards his mistress’s navel while he bragged about Marla’s ignorance. She adores me . . . Nash had boasted between kisses. I ran do no wrong.

  Does she suspect nothing? Alija had asked. Even after all this time?

  Not a thing.

  “Trust me, Brak, she hasn’t got a clue.”

  “Then more fool her, Wrayan.”

  “I have to do something.”

  “Go back to bed.”

  “But suppose . . .”

  “What?”

  “Well, suppose . . . suppose it has something to do with this latest attack on the High Prince?”

  “How do you figure that one?” Brak asked sceptically.

  “Well, Alija’s already made one attempt to put her husband on the throne. If Lernen were to die now, then Damin would become the next High Prince, and because he’s only four or five, the chances are good that, as his stepfather, Nash Hawksword would be a likely contender for regent . . . Maybe a lover as regent is almost as good as a husband as High Prince.”

  Much to Wrayan’s relief, Brak didn’t dismiss the idea out of hand. “It’s possible.”

  “It’s more than possible, Brak. I mean, everyone knows it’s Kagan, not Lernen, who’s running the show. Perhaps Alija thinks she can do the same thing for Nash Hawksword?”

  “That could well be the case,” Brak conceded.

  “Then I should go to Princess Marla, shouldn’t I? And warn her?”

  “No.”

  “But Brak—”

  “Stay out of it, Wrayan,” Brak warned. “You’ll do nothing but hurt the people you’re trying to help if you interfere. You’re in Greenharbour to honour the God of Thieves, remember? Not the God of Interfering Fools.”

  “I didn’t realise there was a God of Interfering Fools,” Wrayan said with a puzzled look.

  “There’s not. But there’ll be one for certain if you keep this up.”

  “But—”

  “Goodnight, Wrayan.”

  Brak closed the door firmly in his face, leaving the young thief standing in the darkened hall wondering only one thing.

  When did he start listening to Brak’s advice, anyway?

  chapter 85

  K

  agan’s mysterious illness had crept up on him unawares. It had begun several months ago, with the odd ache here, the odd pain there, followed by an unexplained drowsiness that had never really left him since. After a time he lost his appetite, and then the nausea set in, the bone-wearying fatigue . . .

  Each day seemed to be longer than the next, each chore a little harder, each action requiring a little more effort than it had the day before. He was often confused, plagued by headaches and stomach pains, and lately he’d started having fainting spells.

  The healers could find nothing wrong with him. He figured he’d drunk every herbal concoction known to man in the past few months, but nothing seemed to make an impression. His decline was slow but implacable and he knew it was taking him down, ever so relentlessly, towards death.

  And there was simply nothing he could do about it.

  He’d accepted that there wasn’t much he could do about dying, but there was still time to put his house in order, Kagan decided. He’d been to visit Jeryma in Cabradell and said his goodbyes to his sister, although not in as many words. She was living in the palace there, an uneasy houseguest in the new Warlord’s domain. Chaine Lionsclaw was always unfailingly polite to her, and would never dream of turning out his late father’s widow, but it was obvious he would prefer it if she chose to retire some place other than under his roof.

  Kagan had suggested to Jeryma that she should think of moving to Greenharbour to be closer to her grandson, Damin. He wasn’t very hopeful that she would take his advice. Jeryma seemed far less worried about how Marla and Nash might be raising her grandson than she was about how Chaine was looking after her other grandchild—Sunrise Province. Maybe she didn’t want to be too far away from Riika. Whatever the reason, Kagan was impressed by the noble and patient way Chaine was dealing with the dowager Lady of Sunrise and hoped Chaine’s young son, Terin, turned out half as well as his father.

  He’d come home via Krakandar and said goodbye to his last remaining nephew, too. Mahkas was doing a good job in Krakandar. He’d started work on the addition of another ring to the city’s defences, which would enable the population to spread out without a shantytown springing up outside the city walls. The Krakandar Raiders continued to raid into Medalon with the same frequency and enthusiasm they had done in the past, despite the treaty. Marla’s insistence on changing the wording to restrict the prohibition on raiding to the High Prince’s troops meant the Krakandar Raiders were free to plunder at will. On the frequent occasions when the First Sister complained about the raids, Mahkas sent reply after reply assuring the First Sister tha
t the High Prince’s troops had not left Greenharbour and that while he appreciated her frustration at the ongoing raids, they were, under the treaty signed by both parties, perfectly legal.

  Mahkas’s wife, Bylinda, had fallen pregnant twice more, but had miscarried both times, so he still lacked the son he craved. Leila was growing into a pretty little thing, with her mother’s eyes and a wild streak that Kagan thought her parents might have some difficulty taming in later years. Travin and Xanda doted on their little cousin, and the three of them kept poor old Veruca run off her feet, but it was, generally, a happy household in Krakandar. Mahkas had arranged for Travin to be fostered with Charel Hawksword when he turned thirteen and the lad couldn’t wait for his chance to get out into the big wide world.

  Kagan saw his other great-nephew, Damin Wolfblade, much more frequently, so he hadn’t felt the need to say goodbye to him, just yet. Although not quite five years old, Damin seemed to possess all the qualities Kagan had hoped for in a prince, and he hoped Marla was able to foster them without breaking the boy’s spirit. Their gamble seemed to have paid off. Marla had proved to be so much more than any of them had expected, and Damin was a bright child, personable and charismatic, intelligent and charming—everything Hythria needed in a prince.

  Kagan smiled at his own foolishness. The child is not even five yet, he told himself sternly. For all you know, he’s going to grow into a tyrant.

  Assuming he lived long enough to turn into a tyrant. The attack on Damin had taken Kagan completely by surprise. There were no plots afoot that he knew of. The Warlords had been quiet ever since Marla delivered a son and Lernen adopted him. The country was running smoothly. Several good seasons had ensured bumper crops. Famine had never been further away. Hablet was quiet, dealing with his own woes in Fardohnya, mostly the inability of any of his wives to give him a live child. Several children had been born to Hablet, Kagan heard, both legitimate and bastard, but none had survived more than a few hours. There was no reason to suspect that any plot against the High Prince or his heir came from further afield, either. The Medalonians were interested only in keeping Medalon free of religion and magic. The Kariens to the north of them were even more self-absorbed, caring only for the wishes of their damned Overlord.