by J. C. Hendee
“And I’m telling you, this can’t be.”
That was definitely Master Boulg outside with at least one other person.
Marten grabbed Kyne’s arm, hauled her up, and shoved her toward the ladder as Grim looked wildly about. She twisted back and then froze.
The wolf cub’s jowls pulled back as his ears flattened. A slow, low growl rose out of him. His sky-blue eyes traced the left wall toward the stable’s front corner.
“Need look… look all place this street.”
Kyne’s breath stopped at the sound of the wolf-catcher’s voice.
Marten grabbed the back of her robe and jerked with a whisper. “Up in the loft, now!”
Kyne resisted again, looking to the cub. “No! If they enter, they will see him.”
Marten grabbed her around the waist and heaved her off the floor. She barely kicked once before he dropped her and pushed her against the ladder. Grim already scrabbled up above her, and Marten stepped around, blocking her sight of the cub.
Now, he mouthed.
Though Kyne climbed, when she had almost reached the loft floor, she paused to lean out.
The little wolf had paced past the wagon and all the way to the edge of the front bay. Why he had come that far instead of hiding, she didn’t know. His hackles stiffened and his tail looked twice as thick, bristling like a spooked cat.
A low keening rose out of the back of his throat.
That was nothing like any sound Kyne had ever heard from a dog.
“Quiet,” Marten whispered below her on the ladder. “Now get up there.”
And he shoved her by the behind.
Kyne reached the loft as the chain outside on the stable doors rattled lightly. She had to back away from the ladder’s opening to let Marten come up.
“See?” Master Boulg said. “Locked up, as always, when not in use for the guild’s schooling of the young ones.”
A moment of silence was followed by another, sharper rattle of the doors’ chain and lock, as if someone jerked harshly on them.
Once Marten passed into the loft, Kyne crawled back to the ladder’s top. Marten grabbed her ankle, trying to haul her back, but she clung the opening’s edge.
Down below, the wolf cub stood silently watching the stable doors.
Kyne was about to whisper… something… anything that might make him run and hide. And he raised his head.
She looked right into those sky-blue eyes.
His ears pricked up in staring at her, and then he looked away toward the stable doors.
Kyne opened her mouth… and a hand clamped over it.
“Not a word!” Marten hissed in her ear, but before he could jerk her back…
The wolf cub suddenly twisted toward the ladder, and even Marten froze at that sight.
The cub dropped his haunches, leaped upward, and his forepaws hooked the ladder’s third rung.
Kyne strained against Marten’s grip, thinking the cub might fall, but he lunged upward again. His forepaws hooked another rung. Though his hind legs were beyond sight, at a guess he used his rear paws to push off a lower rung… and upward again.
“Ah, Boulg, humor m’friend and let’s have a quick look.”
An unclear grumble was followed by yet another, lighter tug on the door’s chain.
At the wolf cub’s next upward lunge, Marten heaved Kyne back. They rolled together across the loft’s boards. She barely struggled free to look back when the top half of the cub popped up through the opening. His forepaws slipped in trying to grip the floorboards.
Without even thinking, Kyne tried to scramble to help him. Marten came down on her and pinned her. Then they heard a stable door open with a squeal of old hinges.
“Shh!”
They both looked behind.
In the loft’s half-darkness, Grim sat with his knees pulled up and his back flattened against the loft’s hatch. He put one finger over his lips in warning and then shuddered at a sudden scrabble of claws.
Kyne twisted around under Marten.
The wolf cub now crouched near the floor’s opening, staring downward. His head then swung toward her. His tall ears twitched upright, and he blinked once with a tilt of his head in eyeing her, but then his gaze shifted slightly above her.
The cub’s ears flattened with a curl of his jowls.
Kyne could only guess he was looking at Marten on top of her.
Exposing his teeth, the cub lifted a forepaw as if he might take a step.
Kyne rammed an elbow up into Marten’s side. With a grunt, he rolled off her, and she pushed up onto her hands and knees.
“As I told you, there’s nothing in here, couldn’t be.”
Everyone, even the cub, froze at the Master Boulg’s grumble from below inside the stable’s front bay. The cub’s head swiveled, ears still flattened, as he stared down through ladder’s opening.
“What are you doing?” Master Boulg demanded. “I told you, there’s no way your dog got in here.”
“I look,” the wolf-catcher growled.
At that, the cub’s jowls pulled back—a hissing rumble issued between his teeth and fangs.
Kyne heard Grim peep in panic. She panicked as well, trying to think of something to keep the cub quiet.
“Shh,” she whispered at him, waving one hand.
The cub stiffened but still growled lowly.
Reacting in growing fright, Kyne clamped a hand over her mouth and shook her head.
The wolf cub went silent.
Everything was suddenly too silent in the loft as Kyne stared at the cub.
Would a wolf do that? First the climb up the ladder and now this?
“Tarp!” the wolf-catcher barked below. “Where come? And lantern.”
Kyne looked to friends.
Grim’s eyes were round and unblinking. Marten’s face scrunched in frustration. In their rush to get out of sight, none of them had remembered to hide those two telltale items. Kyne remembered the tin plate and ale bottle as well.
“A lantern? Hmmm,” Master Boulg hummed. “Maybe a child forgot it. Some school days last into early evening. As for the tarp, I don’t know. There’s a few around here, so likely it was pulled out to sit on.”
Kyne heard the tarp rustle sharply, perhaps being slung aside. There came a few shuffling and heavy footfalls, and then quiet.
The wolf cub suddenly retreated two steps from the loft floor’s opening. He dropped low in a crouch, and his jaws widened in silently baring his teeth as he eyed the top of the ladder.
Kyne heard a creak of wood under a heavy footfall, and that sent a slight vibration through the loft floor beneath her.
Someone had stepped on a ladder rung.
She scooted back toward Marten and Grim, waiting for another step on another rung.
“That’s enough!” Master Boulg snapped. “Shoun, take your friend and get!”
Kyne didn’t know that name until…
“Ah, he’s just wantin’ back a prized beast,” the driver replied. “It’s already cost—”
“Don’t care, and I’ve plenty else to do with my day,” Master Boulg shouted. “So get, and don’t bother me with anymore of your nonsense!”
“Fine, fine.”
The loft floor vibrated, as if something shook the ladder, but not another step up on another rung.
Kyne, Martin, and Grim sat still and silent, as did the cub, listening to Master Boulg grouch his unwanted visitors out of his stable. None of them made a sound, even when the chain rattled and the lock clacked shut on the doors. Then all they heard was muffled grumbling and a pair of heavy footfalls walking off.
Kyne looked to the wolf cub.
With so little light, now that he crouched farther back from the floor’s opening, it was hard to see much of him except those sky-blue eyes watching her. Even then, she hesitated to believe—again—and it was even longer before anyone spoke.
“This is too much,” Marten whispered.
Kyne spun on her knees.
&n
bsp; Grim was panting quietly in panic, still flattened against the loft hatch, but Marten appeared exhausted where he sat nearer to her.
“Too much,” he repeated, shaking his head. “Even for me. We’re going to get caught if we don’t get rid of that… that little gnasher and—”
“Stop calling him that!” Kyne warned. “And look at him… truly look!”
Marten barely glanced beyond her. He scowled just before turning his eyes back to her. His gaze shifted again… to the wolf cub.
“Would a wolf do what he did?” Kyne whispered. “Would an animal climb a ladder—even think of that, let alone so quickly know how—after watching us?”
“Oh, Kyne, please,” Grim whimpered.
A sudden clatter beyond the loft’s wall made them all look.
“Ya’ makin’ too much noise,” someone whispered loudly outside.
At another thump and clatter, someone else—someone closer outside the hatch—let out a grating exhale.
Kyne heard heavy steps coming up the lean-to’s roof toward the hatch.
Marten grabbed for Grim, but Grim was quicker in scrambling away from the hatch.
“Hurry up!” the driver, Shoun, whispered even louder. “Someone’s goin’a see us.”
A low rumble startled Kyne, and she almost squealed as she turned on her knees. Behind her, the pup stalked forward.
All of his pale fur was on end, and his teeth were exposed, but his eyes fixed on the hatch and not her. She again clamped a hand over her mouth, waving the other one for his attention. This time he was not as quick to go silent.
The hatch’s wood creaked.
Kyne twisted back in time to see the hatch’s bottom left corner flex outward… under the pull of thick fingers. The board blocking the hatch creaked again but didn’t give. Those thick fingers jerked back out of sight, and the hatch clapped sharply against the loft’s wall.
“’Nough already,” the driver warned outside.
“Quiet!” the wolf-catcher almost shouted.
With a sudden clack, a long blade shot through the gap below the hatch.
Kyne lurched away, as did Marten and Grim.
The blade wiggled along toward the board that held the hatch closed. Before she could lunge in, Marten stuck out one foot. He planted his boot on the board’s downward end and pinned it against the loft wall. When the blade stopped against the board, Kyne heard a low snicker beyond the hatch.
The blade wrenched suddenly, and the board twisted, dragging Marten’s foot.
Grim rushed in and pinned the board’s upper end with his hands. All Kyne could do was hold her breath as the boys kept the board from turning.
After a low grumble outside, the long knife blade ripped out of sight.
Heavy boots clomped away along the lean-to’s roof outside.
“Come back night… late… with best tool,” the wolf-catcher said.
They heard him drop off the lean-to, but none of them said a word until the two sets of footfalls faded away.
“That’s it!” Marten declared. “They’re coming back, and we’re not going to be here.”
Grim nodded furiously in agreement. Kyne barely opened her mouth.
“Don’t you start again,” Marten warned. “I don’t want to hear any more majay-nonsense.”
Kyne could barely believe what she heard. Then again, before seeing what the pup had done, she had doubted. Much as she had promised Domin Ginjeriè to never speak of… well, she already had, sort of. And if Marten or Grim refused to listen, now that she had changed her mind again…
Kyne glanced back at the pup.
When Marten tried to crawl toward the ladder, she scooted into his way.
“If you refuse to believe me, then maybe you two will believe someone else.”
“Oh, give it up, already!” Marten almost shouted.
The problem was, who else might Marten and Grim believe, if not her? To make matters worse, it was the last person Kyne wanted to ask for help.
· · · · ·
Kyne knelt fretting in the loft, now that Marten had left to do as she demanded. She watched the pup, who watched her, and hoped what she had in mind would work. If the first part to come didn’t make Marten and Grim believe, the rest would be worthless.
Even then, none of this was a real solution.
Grim sat leaning against the wall near the hatch. There was no need to look again to know he was glaring at her—almost as meanly as Marten had. She had barely bullied Grim into going down into the stable to bring up the lantern, and after that, he had not said a word to her since.
Lunchtime at the guild was long past. They were all missing appointed afternoon studies. That was not good, either. And someone tapped lightly, three times, on the hatch.
Kyne instantly turned and Grim sat up. Neither of them moved.
“It’s me,” Marten grumbled outside.
Kyne didn’t wonder how he and the one he brought got up on the lean-to without being heard. She hurried over on her knees to spin the board and open the hatch, and she came face-to-face with a seething Marten.
“Move,” he growled at her, and she scooted back.
Marten climbed in, not looking at her anymore, as someone else gripped the hatch to hold it up and open. The person Kyne needed then appeared.
Alshenísh’ìn peered once at Marten and Grim, then he smiled at Kyne.
“A strange place to meet again,” he whispered—with another typical slow blink of his eyes.
That didn’t affect Kyne this time, not for all that she needed instead. She had ordered Marten to say nothing about the pup and only to tell “Allen” that she needed his help. It was going to cost her, sooner or later, in what Alshenísh’ìn had always wanted from her, but that was how she knew he would come.
Alshenísh’ìn stepped through, crouching down more than the rest of them beneath the slant of the stable’s roof. He knelt before her and bowed his head, though his beautiful amber eyes remained fixed on her.
“And how may I help you?” he asked.
Somewhere behind her, Marten grumbled under his breath.
Kyne knew better than to say anything that might let Grim, or especially Marten, accuse her of coaxing Alshenísh’ìn in her favor. So she pointed toward that spot beyond opening in loft floor, keeping her eyes on Alshenísh’ìn’s face in hoping.
That he was a lhoin’na did not make anything certain.
Though many of his people believed, what Domin Ginjeriè had said hinted that even among the Lhoin’na few had seen such a sight with their own eyes. And certainly not from this close. Alshenísh’ìn was the quickest, the safest… the only way that Kyne had to force Marten and Grim to believe.
Alshenísh’ìn’s eyes widened again, this time in fright, and he flinched back toward the hatch.
“What is… why is there a wolf in…”
Kyne sagged in hopelessness, closing her eyes.
“Na-… na-… na-bithâ!” he whispered with even more fright.
At that, Kyne opened her eyes to the shock on Alshenísh’ìn’s face. He shuddered violently, slowly shook his head, and his bright amber eyes never blinked as his breathy voice turned harsh.
“Bârtâg-a tú?!”
Oh, Kyne was so tired of people asking her that. “I did nothing… except save him!”
Alshenísh’ìn still stared at the pup, stuttering in a whisper, “a’Súl? a’Lhos? aj’Äiche… majay-hì?”
“Talk so we understand!” Marten ordered.
Kyne glanced at him and Grim; both were watching Alshenísh’ìn and not her.
“You heard what he said,” she told Marten. “If not me, do you believe him?”
Marten glowered at her, though he turned his gaze back on Alshenísh’ìn… and then to the pup. Grim blinked too many times, swallowed twice, and when he glanced toward the pup, he said nothing.
Kyne turned back to find Alshenísh’ìn staring at her. His eyes were so wide that she could nearly see all of his large amber ir
ises. Certainly, he no longer thought about how to get her to get him what he wanted. Well, at least for now.
Everyone was startled as the bells for the day’s third quarter rang out somewhere in the city.
“What now?” Grim whispered.
Only a quarter day was left before nightfall. If Marten and Grim still had doubts, Kyne had no time left for that where it concerned a… a young majay-hì. Worse, she could think of nowhere else in the city to hide him or rather no place that she could access.
By the time she finished telling Alshenísh’ìn all that had happened, and what they needed now, what he made clear in turn was exactly as she feared.
He had no place to hide the pup either.
They could not let his parents learn about any of this. He didn’t clarify, but it had something to do with his mother’s purpose in Malourné… as a dignitary, just like the rumors said. Having her find out would certainly be worse than Kyne’s superiors catching her or being caught by the Shyldfälches.
Marten, perhaps still not fully convinced, made a disturbing suggestion.
It was so bad, so ridiculous… so risky, that Kyne grew sick to her stomach.
Grim’s mouth gaped as well.
“It’s the only place,” Marten grumbled, “where those two coming back tonight wouldn’t look for him.” And he jutted his chin toward the pup.
Kyne knew things were going to get ugly again. It would take more of Marten’s scheming and bartered favors, and worse, part of it depended on Grim getting a grip on himself.
Marten sighed tiredly, looking away, and she followed his gaze to the pup.
Though Kyne had thought the pup might take an interest Alshenísh’ìn, who was a lhoin’na, the little majay-hì only watched her.
· · · · ·
Past dusk, Kyne scurried up a sidestreet in leading the others on a wandering way. She paused in peeking around every corner and waited until all was clear. Too many times, she looked back to wave on Marten… and Alshenísh’ìn, who at least had stopped blinking at her. He looked as scared as the rest of them, and how he looked didn’t help either.
Early, Marten and Grim had gone back to the guild to make necessary arrangements, including who would be on watch tonight in the initiates’ barracks. When Marten came back alone, he brought a spare initiate’s robe.
