Puppy Love: Sagecraft I

by J. C. Hendee

  “No, no!” she quickly assured. “I know I thought… at first… but I can see he is not…”

  Even now, she didn’t dare say… that word.

  “Ah, Kyne, not again,” Grim moaned, finally catching up and shaking his head.

  Maybe she had been through too much by now and real shame was no longer possible. She hung her head at having tricked her closest friends and looked once at the… wolf.

  He no longer lapped the water and now lay down with his muzzle hanging over the plate. Those blue eyes shifted between the three of them.

  “Give me the biscuit,” Kyne whispered, and as Grim took a step, “No, toss it.”

  He did, though it fell short, and she reached out for it.

  “Finish this,” Marten snapped. “And then we’re leaving.”

  “No… you two go.”

  “What?”

  “I am staying,” she answered quietly, not daring to look at them. “But someone has to be there in the morning when Grim’s parents awaken. If they ask about me, tell them I… left early to… to do something at the guild.”

  When Kyne hesitantly looked back, Marten was visibly furious at what she had done—or what he thought this was about.

  “But… but what if he… tries to eat you?” Grim whispered.

  Kyne rolled her eyes. “Look at him. If I am lucky, he might eat the biscuit… not me!”

  Marten hissed something under his breath and swatted Grim's shoulder. “Come on!”

  Grim looked warily at the wolf cub and then at Kyne before he followed.

  “We’ll see you in the morning,” he whispered.

  The boys were halfway up the stable and rounding the wagon for the ladder when Kyne called out.

  “And bring more food… and water.”

  Neither of them answered, and when she turned back, the wolf cub had retreated into the shadows of the last stall on the left. He lay there with head on forepaws watching her.

  Kyne was exhausted—physically, mentally, and every other which way—but she knew better than to risk closing her eyes as yet. She left the open lantern where it sat and crawled slowly toward the stable’s back wall with the jug in hand. Leaning there, she carefully reached out to pull the tin plate closer. When she finished pouring more water and pushed the plate out as far as she dared, the wolf cub didn’t move.

  At last, she looked down at the biscuit. It was a bit crumbly from being in Grim’s pocket, perhaps since dinner in the commonhall. She broke off a bit and tossed that toward the pup.

  When it landed to the right of him, he flinched away, looked at it once, and then glared at her in flattening his tall ears.

  Kyne sighed, broke off another piece, stuffed that in her mouth and chewed.

  He finally sniffed the piece she had tossed and looked at her again. Stranger still, or maybe not, the cub—just a wolf—waited until Kyne swallowed before he snapped up that bit of biscuit.

  · · · · ·

  “Kyne, wake up!”

  She did with a flinch and quickly pushed up from the stable’s dirt floor. Sometime in the night, she must have dozed off and slid down the stable’s back wall.

  There was Marten crouched over her with Grim standing right behind him. Grim glanced back along the stable. When he looked to her again, worry spread over his round face.

  Kyne quickly peered into the last stall on the left.

  The wolf cub was gone.

  She twisted around toward Marten, but before she said anything…

  “It’s still here,” he grumbled.

  “Yeah… still,” Grim whispered.

  Kyne leaned to look around them but saw no sign of the cub. The lantern was still lit where she had left it, but beyond its light the stable was almost dark. Even so, the wagon blocked her view of the front bay.

  “Back by the doors,” Marten added.

  Kyne took a slow breath of relief. “What time is it?”

  “Not yet the dawn bell,” Marten answered. “Not that we got much sleep… except maybe you. I don’t see how… with that little gnasher nearby.”

  “Do not call him that,” Kyne warned, and then took a long tired breath.

  She remembered the third bell for the mid of night, night’s third quarter, and even then she was still watching the wolf cub. If it was not yet dawn, she had had maybe a quarter night’s sleep or a little more.

  “Come on,” Marten urged, rising to his feet. “We better go, so we can get our robes out of the barracks before too many at the guild see us like this. Showing up without robes might bring questions.”

  “What about our parents?” she asked.

  “So far so good… so long as they don’t have a reason to talk to each other. We’ll deal with faking the exams later.”

  Grim was staring up the stable again.

  “What?” Kyne asked.

  He glanced at her, worry plain on his face. “What are we going do with it… him?”

  That was a problem.

  Kyne had foolishly thought all of this would be easier, that she would be dealing with a majay-hì and simply help it escape or somehow guide it back to where it came from. That part she had not told Marten and Grim. Now, things were no better… only worse.

  Even if they somehow snuck a little wolf out of the city, they could not let him loose in the surrounding farmlands—not for the way he was or his current abused and vicious state. They would have to take him farther off than that, should they somehow ever get him out of the city at all.

  “We will arrange something,” she answered, climbing to her feet.

  “And by the next public school day,” Marten added. “Before anyone else comes here.”

  Yes, and that gave them five days at best. On the sixth day, it would be too late.

  Kyne picked up the lantern. “Did you bring food… water?”

  “Yes,” Marten answered shortly, and he stalked off up the stable.

  Kyne followed with Grim at her side. When they reached the front bay, Marten snatched up a satchel left by the ladder and began digging in it. Kyne only fixed on the wolf cub, with head on forepaws, lying silently before the stable doors. And she raised her eyes to those doors.

  Dawn would come soon, for the split between doors was no longer black. From what she could see, the pup had not clawed at the doors while she slept. He looked too lean, even compared to what she had seen of him last night. His sky-blue eyes were open as he silently watched all three of them.

  Those eyes flicked once toward Grim, then to Marten with a twitch of jowls, and finally back to Kyne.

  “Here, give him this,” Marten said. “Something left over after the eatery closed for the night.”

  He held out half of a pasty, its crust gone a bit flaky and soggy at the same time. Probably something left on a patron’s plate at Harrow’s Shambles. There would be meat in it; even if cooked, it was probably what a young wolf needed.

  Kyne took it, and then Marten pulled out a corked brown ale bottle, and she frowned at him.

  “There’s just water in it,” he grouched.

  Kyne ignored that and stepped carefully toward the wolf cub.

  She knelt down out of reach, broke off a piece of the pasty, and tossed it out. Again, the cub only looked from it to her, so again she had to eat some of it first. It was a bit greasy for her taste, but she could not sit here longer doing this.

  After hesitating, she threw the rest of the pasty out to land before his paws. Hopefully, he understood enough from last night that she was not like the man who had caught him.

  The cub snapped up the pasty, scooted back until his rump hit the door, and began chomping.

  Kyne took another a slow, relieved breath. “Grim, get the tin plate and the jug. Do not come closer than arm’s reach behind me.”

  It was not long before she heard his hurried steps coming back and “Here!” She kept her eyes on the wolf as she reached back twice. She poured what was left in the jug into the tin plate and slid that forward… until her hand
was no farther from the wolf than the plate’s span. Her heart started pounding.

  He stayed perfectly still, though he waited until she withdrew her hand before he lowered his muzzle to the water.

  “That’s enough,” Marten said. “We sneak out and check on him at lunch.”

  “No,” Kyne argued, still watching the cub lap the water. “Someone… one of you two… has to stay with him.

  “What?”

  “Not me, forget that!”

  The wolf froze as his tongue sucked back in and his ears flattened.

  “Keep your voices down!” Kyne whispered.

  Even as she looked back at Marten and Grim, she knew this part was going to be trouble.

  “Someone has to stay, just to be here,” she said. “Maybe that will keep him quiet. If left alone, he might try to get out. People will be up soon, going about their day, and we cannot have him calling attention.”

  “You do it,” Grim said.

  Kyne shook her head. “You have to… Marten.”

  “Oh, do I?” he shot back. “I’m too tired for any more of your—”

  “Yes, you will,” Kyne interrupted. “I left the guild two nights in a row. If I am missing this morning, certainly a superior will send someone to my parents. After another sleep-around last night, what do think my mother would do? Go straight for one of your parents, yes?”

  Marten’s mouth clenched shut in a mean glare.

  “And Grim has to come with me,” she added. “After another make-up exam, if he missed even one session this morning, his parents would hear of it… and then talk to yours and mine about another night of tutoring. Same result.”

  “People think I’m the scheming one,” Marten growled through his teeth. “Well, maybe our parents finding out is worth it… after all of your majay-nonsense. And now we’re stuck with a stolen wolf.”

  Kyne didn’t acknowledge her mistake again as she got up. “Keep the plate filled with water, if he finishes it, but move slowly. He is too worn out to bother you… unless you bother him.”

  She ignored Marten and went straight to ladder.

  “One or both of us will come back at lunch,” she added, climbing up without waiting for Grim to follow.

  If she could have told the truth—something she was having trouble with lately—she felt awful about what she was doing to her friends as well as leaving the wolf cub. This was the only way to keep their parents or anyone from finding out what they—she—had done.

  At least for a little longer.

  Kyne climbed out of the loft hatch onto the lean-to roof. By then, Grim caught up.

  In hurrying, they took the shortest route back to the guild. They gave little notice to people they passed along the way, even those who stopped or slowed in watching a young boy and girl running through the streets before dawn. As they reached the Old Bailey Road, and the guild’s keep was in sight, they heard the day’s first bell ring out.

  Grim looked back for the fifth time along the way.

  “Stop that,” Kyne scolded. “And stop thinking that.”

  “Thinking what?”

  “The wolf cub is not going to eat Marten. Now hurry up.”

  Considering she was two years younger than either of them, they were so immature at times. Well, that was also typical of boys, but still…

  If she had never come upon and tried to help a struggling Grim in the library, during her first moon at the guild, she might not have met Marten until much later, if at all. After that, Marten never put up with other initiates picking on her for being the only one to circumvent the entrance age limit.

  No matter who did what or how different they were—or all of the arguing—they looked out for each other, always.

  As Kyne pulled the latch on the inner bailey gate, she and Grim heard the chains and gears of the gatehouse start up. Someone was up in one of the littler towers to open the portcullis. As it began to rise, they ran up to the gatehouse tunnel, ducking under before it was even halfway open.

  They might be the first into the guild grounds, but there were still quite a few initiates rousing inside right now.

  Rushing through the courtyard, Grim pulled the door to the apprentice barracks. Kyne dashed in first, and down the passage they went through the keep’s wall, slowing only as they reached the entrance alcove of the initiates’ barracks. As usual, an apprentice sage was on duty, this time in a teal robe for the order of Conamology. Locks of overly curly chocolate hair stuck out the top of his cowl.

  Kyne knew Pâten Yanoth, for they were both very studious and often in the library.

  “You two are early,” Pâten teased, “though perhaps not looking so bright. A late night of studying?”

  Grim faltered and swallowed, and Kyne shoved him toward the boys’ wing.

  “No, some… family needs,” she answered. “We are here for our robes… which we left behind last night.”

  “Well, still plenty of time, but where’s Marten?”

  Grim stiffened stock still in the archway to the boys’ wing. Kyne shoved him again before turning the other way.

  “He is feeling a little poorly,” she answered in rushing off. “He may not come today.”

  Pâten nodded with a “tsk-tsk” as he made a note in his log.

  Hopefully nothing important happened today, or that log entry would mean sending notice of missed events to Marten’s parents. There was nothing to be done about it now, and she hurried for her alcove to grab her tan robe left on her bunk last night.

  Kyne also grabbed her journal and two paper-wrapped charcoal writing sticks. About to rush off for breakfast, she noticed someone still bundled under a dull-gray wool blanket on the bunk above hers.

  “Maggie, get up, or you will miss breakfast.”

  That lump squirmed around. A head with mussed-up carrot-red hair pushed out from under the blanket. Bleary eyes opened in confusion—and then opened more upon seeing Kyne.

  Maggie’s mouth pinched up like she had bitten a lemon.

  “Oh… you,” she mumbled and ducked back under the covers. “Little-miss-perfect-scores… is she having books for breakfast?”

  Kyne was too exhausted for this. “Then do not come to me again for notes on what you missed. I am tired of that!”

  She rushed out with barely a wave to Apprentice Yanoth and kept to the courtyard’s back corner while waiting for Grim. When he finally arrived in his wrinkled and smudged robe, they were off to breakfast in the commonhall. Any food they had thought to later take to Marten and the wolf became an even bigger problem.

  Breakfast’s main serving was porridge with raisins.

  Kyne and Grim stared at their bowls and then each other. There was no way to hide that in their robes, let alone for half a day. Grim craned his head in looking around the long table crowded with a few apprentices and loads of initiates. He fixed on one.

  “Psst, hey Shinat,” he whispered loudly over the chatter and click of spoons. “Trade you my bowl for your roll.”

  The boy barely lipped his spoon when he looked over and his brow furrowed.

  “Blech! Forget it!”

  Shinat grimaced as he shoved the spoon in his mouth. After a hard swallow, he dropped the spoon in his bowl and turned on his roll, half-hiding it in eyeing Grim.

  Porridge was not a popular trade at breakfast.

  “Never mind,” Kyne said lowly to Grim. “We will find something else later.”

  About halfway through shoveling up her porridge, she suddenly rose and grabbed her journal and writing sticks off the table.

  Grim froze with his spoon halfway to his mouth. “Where are you going?”

  Most of his bowl was empty, and he had tucked away his roll. Hopefully it would still be in his robe when they snuck out at lunchtime to head for the stable.

  Kyne handed him her own roll as well. “I have to look into something. I will meet you here before lunch.”

  Before he asked anything more, she ran out of the commonhall and down the main passage.
This morning, she had only a language seminar to attend, so she needed to get out of sight before…

  “Initiate Erhtenwal, running in the passages? There is plenty of time before class.”

  At that gruff voice like a cracked boulder, Kyne skidded to a stop just past the main entrance. If she had only skipped breakfast entirely. She turned about to face Domin High-Tower of Cathology coming in the main doors, likely to set up for the day’s seminar on the language of his people.

  “Sorry, domin, I was… I just… I need to see Domin Ginjeriè before she starts her day.”

  Domin Hightower was barely above a yard and a half tall and almost too stocky and wide for a standard doorway. That was average for his people, and he was the only rughìr—or dwarf—among all three branches of the guild.

  His faintly speckled and stony complexion, typical for his people, was partially hidden by deeply grayed hair and a long beard. Some said both had once been fiery red. Considering how long rughìr lived, even longer than lhoin’na, that said little about how old he might be.

  “And?” he rumbled at her. “Dzyshu arragheì shuvéh… rìsht?”

  Kyne had never liked or disliked this domin, at least at first. Later, as Wynn’s immediate superior, Kyne had come to like him a lot less. As to him asking in his own tongue will this keep you from class… again, this was one of his tests specifically for her.

  “Ghialag é tútnag cheú, domin,” she answered, for his language was one of four she spoke well enough.

  So long as she promised to not fall behind and did not miss too many of his classes, he protested little if she was engaged in other real studies. That part was believable about her, though not exactly why she needed to find Domin Ginjeriè.

  Domin Hightower’s thick eyebrows made his black rughìr irises look like they were always watching her too intently… even worse when he was watching her intently.

  “On your way… in walking,” he rumbled.

  Kyne nodded as she went off, not daring to run until she rounded the far corner toward the southeast tower. She was panting a little when she reached the door in the tower’s second level and knocked.

  At a “come in,” she quickly pushed the door open.