Wolf's Head, Wolf's Heart

by Jane Lindskold

  There was fresh water near the copse, courtesy of an old well. Most of the well's stone lining had fallen in, but the water remained pure, without the slightest taint of salt.

  Upon their arrival, Derian and Edlin both found ample evidence that years before there had been a farmstead here: the foundation of a house, a section of vine-covered wall, partially burnt timbers overgrown with weeds where they were not given to rot, a dented tin mug. No one, however, had lived here for a long time—probably the ruins dated to before the smugglers had set up housekeeping in the swamp.

  During the journey east, Derian had purchased fodder for both horses and mules. With this stored in what might well have once been a root cellar, there was no need to let the beasts out to graze. Firekeeper and Blind Seer supplied the humans with venison; Edlin snared rabbits in the fields.

  All in all, especially after the terrible journey along the Sword of Kelvin Mountains, they were quite comfortable. Here they would wait, doing their best to keep out of sight until Princess Sapphire arrived. Bold had brought the news that Sapphire was indeed coming and on his own initiative had gone to watch the post-road for signs.

  Elation arrived a day after the others, bearing the news that she had delivered her message to King Allister and that he had been receptive. Messages had gone out to three ships, and, Elation believed, the king himself meant to follow.

  "But how," Firekeeper asked, "will this place be broken? It is a fortress that makes Thendulla Lypella in New Kelvin seem as open as a meadow after the deer have cropped it short. Those within have food. They must have good water, and here there is no tunnel to let us inside."

  She reported this last rather glumly, for much of her energy for the last few days had been spent searching for just such a tunnel. However, though foxes, mice, and rabbits all dug escape holes from their burrows, the smugglers were like turtles or porcupines, trusting instead to their armor.

  At least Edlin, busy again with his drawing materials and paper, was kept busy mapping the results of her explorations.

  "How we get in," Derian replied, "is not for us to decide. Sapphire and Shad will act—and King Tedric probably told them what to do."

  He tried to sound confident, but Firekeeper could see that he was quite worried. It showed in the manner in which he moved: quick and agitated. She knew why Derian felt as he did. Sapphire really was brave, but she could be impulsive, too.

  What if her impulsiveness led to Citrine's death?

  That night Firekeeper prowled the swamp again. Despite the cold, she stripped to her skin and swam the moat. On the other side, the edgy sensation of fear kept her warm.

  She wished Blind Seer were with her so that she might steal some of his heat, but the wolf had remained on the other side lest his closeness panic the domestic animals into raising an alarm.

  Restlessly, the wolf-woman paced close to the stone walls. Even if someone watched from the glass-walled room at the top, this close to the walls she was invisible. She walked around the circle, checking for any door or window that might admit her.

  She slipped into the chicken coop, but the door that permitted the humans to come and tend the birds was locked and barred.

  In the goat pens she took a blanket and wrapped it around her. At least her shaved head meant that her hair was not dripping down her back. Here, too, the door to the interior was locked—and this despite a fence built to keep predators away from the goats. A fence like that would keep most humans out as well.

  Firekeeper wondered at a level of caution that combined locked doors and tight fences. Humans, to her knowledge, were not usually so careful of routine security. They made doors and did not shut them, installed locks and did not turn the keys—not unless they were afraid of something.

  Pressed against the stone of Smuggler's Light, Firekeeper wondered.

  Were the pirates afraid?

  If so, what had made them so? Had something or someone given them warning?

  Frowning, she left the blanket to the goats, slipped back through darkness, and swam the moat again, leaving no more of a ripple than might an otter.

  Blind Seer had stood guard over her clothing and whimpered his concern until she donned them once more.

  "Stupid, pup," he said. "What good will you do Citrine if you die of cold?"

  "I won't," she replied.

  The wolf ignored her.

  "And have you forgotten the promise you made the Royal Beasts? When will you reclaim the other treasures?"

  Fleetingly, Firekeeper thought of the ring. If she could awaken its powers she wouldn't be fighting cold now. Even if she had swum the moat, as a wolf she would have shaken herself dry, then run a little to warm her blood. Her underfur would have protected her even while the outer dried.

  She had no underfur and her underclothing had only taken the damp into themselves and now lay soggy against her skin.

  Ah, well, at least she could run. There was a fire back at the camp. Food, too. She wouldn't die of cold.

  Blind Seer loped easily beside her, alert lest she miss the trail, but even in his alertness he kept after her about the artifacts.

  "What will you do when Sapphire and Shad arrive, and one of them claims the artifacts for King Allister? What will you do when King Allister himself arrives?"

  "How will they know we have them?"

  "Elise will tell them. She smells of fear if she so much as looks toward the bundle in which she keeps the mirror. You are fortunate that she took it from Doc's pack. If he had it, you might never get it back."

  "Even if Sapphire and Shad learn that we have the artifacts, they won't dare claim them," Firekeeper replied with more confidence than she felt. "Their people fear magical things. They daren't make a public fuss."

  The wolf persisted, "You must take them from Wendee and Elise. Then you can claim to have lost them or hidden them or thrown them in the swamp. Otherwise, the only one you can give to the Beasts is the ring—and they will not be pleased."

  Firekeeper felt herself warming, though some of the heat was temper.

  "In good time!"

  "Before Sapphire arrives," the wolf insisted. "Or I will know what I have begun to believe—you fear those things of metal and gems."

  Firekeeper did not reply. She knew he was at least partially right—she did fear them, but not as Elise and Wendee did. They feared them for their potential; she feared them for their promise.

  She was able to put Blind Seer's words from her for a bit, for when they returned to the camp, Bold was waiting.

  "He's been back an hour or so," said Edlin, who had drawn the late watch. "I say! This is our crow? Bold, I mean."

  "It is Bold," Firekeeper agreed, hanging over the glowing coals of the fire as if she could transfer the heat directly into her veins.

  Bold squawked at her, a trace indignant that she had gone to the fire before speaking to him.

  Firekeeper apologized and then listened. She turned to Edlin, who had been watching, curiosity animating his every feature.

  "Princess Sapphire and her troops are coming," she said. "They should arrive some hours after the sun."

  Edlin rubbed his hands together briskly.

  "I say! Now we'll see some action, what?"

  Firekeeper nodded.

  "You must rest," she said, "if you wish to be strong for action. I'll watch now."

  Edlin shook his head.

  "This is my watch. You get some rest. You look like a drowned kitten."

  Indignant, Firekeeper crawled into her pup tent and stripped. Blind Seer wriggled in beside her.

  She slept restlessly. When she did slip into dreams, they were peopled with the Royal Beasts.

  At first the Beasts said nothing, only stared. Eyes that should have been green or gold or deep brown were all as blue as Blind Seer's, the left split in two by the red line of a healing scar. Then an angry whisper arose:

  "We have done so much for you and now you betray us!" accused a rippling chorus of voices. "Wolf-child. Hah! We
see. Human blood rises in the end."

  The dream went on and on, reclaiming Firekeeper with uncontestable strength each time she struggled toward waking.

  The camp stirring shortly before dawn brought her to full wakefulness at last. Feigning sleep, she heard Edlin sharing Bold's news with each as he or she awoke.

  Through the door slit, she watched, biding her time. At last it came. The camp was mostly empty. Derian was tending the horses and mules. Wendee and Elise were fetching water. Edlin was checking his snares.

  Doc was in the camp, but in his tent, dressing. She would need to risk him seeing her, but if he did he should think nothing of it. She was often in and out of the tent the other two women shared, for Wendee kept her clothes—Firekeeper could not be bothered with such trifles.

  Glancing around, she padded across to the other tent. Once inside, she found the mirror easily enough, wrapped in a bundle of Elise's clothing. The comb was harder to find.

  Indeed, Firekeeper was about to give up, thinking that Wendee had kept the comb with her to assure its safety. However, the Hawk Haven aversion to things magical proved the wolf-woman's ally. Wendee had not wanted to carry the comb with her—far from it, she had wanted to insulate herself from whatever baleful influences it might contain.

  Firekeeper found the comb wrapped in silk, held between two small flat pieces of wood, as if it might somehow cut its way free if not restrained. Grabbing the comb, wrappings and all, Firekeeper stuffed it into the back of her trousers. The mirror was tucked into her vest.

  She was out of the tent before Blind Seer's low howl told her that the women were returning, nor did she pause. Not pausing to answer cheerful cries of good morning, she waved and loped in the direction of the swamp.

  Once there, she and Blind Seer didn't need to go far to find a tangled place where the humans would never go. She cached the three artifacts in the crotch of a vine-shrouded tree. Somehow, leaving the ring was hardest. She wanted more time to study it, hoping that it would answer her need as it had not answered the mere curiosity of the New Kelvinese. Nonetheless, she left it.

  When Firekeeper returned to camp, Elise and Wendee intercepted her before she had reached the fire.

  "Firekeeper," Elise said, her tone mingling accusation and fear, "the mirror and the comb… did you take them?"

  Firekeeper nodded. She'd already decided that the best way to handle this was to brazen it out.

  "Yes." She smiled warmly. "Thank you for holding them for me. I mean to take them sooner from your care, but I have been so worried about Citrine."

  Elise didn't look happy.

  "Firekeeper, those things belong to King Allister. You do realize that?" she said.

  Wendee spoke at the same moment, so that her words overran Elise's like water over rocks.

  "What are you going to do with them?" she asked. "Do you have any idea?"

  Firekeeper chose to answer Wendee rather than Elise. Even then, the wolf-woman wasn't completely honest, for her mind was filled with the soft blue glow of the moonstone ring.

  "I don't know," she answered.

  Bitterness lay on her tongue as she spoke. For some reason she was reminded of the Story of the Songbirds.

  Chapter XXXVI

  Although the prism and mirrors that had once caused firelight to gleam with the intensity of a captured sun were long gone, still the glass-windowed room at the top of Smuggler's Light remained a spectacular place from which to view the sunrise.

  It began with a wash of pinks and pale yellows against the grey of the predawn sky. As the sun itself was invisible—hidden behind the curtaining wall of trees that grew between the lighthouse and the ocean—one might imagine the transformation was taking place without any physical agent.

  By the time the sun's orb had topped the tree line, the aura of mystery had vanished, replaced by light in a thousand shades of gold.

  Today was cloudless, the light as clear and bright as a newly minted coin, but this brilliance did nothing to cut through the darkness crowding Waln Endbrook's soul. He would have preferred rain or sleet or even hail—though this last would have necessitated drawing shutters over the glass. Instead, be was given a shining light without warmth, clarity without promise.

  Pacing, he scowled, and his chance-met reflection in a windowpane scowled back at him. A sense of approaching doom gnawed at him, unalleviated by his awareness that he might have brought that doom onto himself.

  Some days past, alarmed by his sudden insight that the reason Lady Melina had not replied to his threat was that she intended to offer threat of her own, Waln had ordered that every door into Smuggler's Light be kept locked, that every window within reach of the ground be shuttered.

  The pirates were still permitted to come and go as they wished, but few had business to take them out-of-doors in this winter weather. They remained inside, crowding into the darkened rooms on the lower floors, going about their tasks and muttering as the dimness and the chill entered their hearts.

  Those who did go out were not permitted to carry keys with them and were ordered to have the moat bridges drawn up behind them if they did depart. That this was—as Waln knew from the cringing Longsight—a standard precaution didn't seem to matter. The pirates sensed that what had been a routine measure had become an active defense.

  Waln had ordered watch to be kept all around the tower, night and day. Again this was a standard procedure; again the pirates sensed that his reiteration of the need indicated that he suspected some specific threat. They grumbled as they watched, seeing things that were not there—especially those who must watch by night. Their tales fed rumors, and rumors fed the general uneasiness.

  But the pirates feared Baron Endbrook, and so they obeyed. Their code was such that a single man or woman might have challenged him, but a mutiny was not likely—at least not on such slim provocation. They were moderately comfortable, well fed, and rested. Sailors one and all, they were accustomed to a captain's autocratic reign.

  The seeds for a mutiny were there, however, and Waln saw them watered by the half-mad grin of little Citrine. What he had done to her was the club that had beaten them; somehow she might yet be a weapon turned against him.

  Restless, impatient for he knew not what, Derian curried Roanne's coat until the chestnut gleamed like polished copper. He was taking out a dandy brush for some fine work when Elation's shriek alerted him to the falcon's arrival. The peregrine glided down to rest on one of the rails of the makeshift corral Derian and Edlin had constructed. The young lord had proved apt with an axe, less so with knots, but grinningly eager to learn. The end result was a lashed rectangle that used trees as posts, secure enough to hold the horses and mules from wandering, though not strong enough to resist if they made a concerted effort to get free.

  Having heard from Firekeeper that the swamps contained their share of pumas, Derian thought it best not to so secure the herbivores so that they would become a tavern for the satisfaction of wandering wildcats.

  Elation squawked when he came over and sleeked her feathers with one hand. He still felt a glow of joy—tinged with pride—that the peregrine permitted him the privilege. She could have as easily taken off one of his fingers.

  A distant rumble of horse hooves told Derian that Elation had not joined him only for company.

  "Thanks," he said. "I'll go tell the others."

  He found all but Edlin in camp. Wendee, Elise, and Firekeeper were in a tight knot off to one side, apparently in the midst of some heated discussion. He wondered if Firekeeper was resisting changing her clothes again.

  Doc stood by the fireside, pouring himself tea.

  "Heads up," Derian called. "Company—probably the princess or some of her people."

  That broke up the colloquy at the camp's edge. The three women returned in step. Elise looked worried, Wendee apprehensive, and Firekeeper as impassive as a stone—only the way she tangled her fingers in Blind Seer's ruff gave indication that she was less than tranquil.

 
About a dozen riders swept to the edge of their camp. Sapphire and Shad rode at the core.

  With his horseman's eye, Derian noted that their mounts all showed signs of strain, but that none had been pressed beyond endurance.

  Sapphire rode the Blue—an indication that she, at least, had kept the same mount since Eagle's Nest. The warhorse snapped square yellow teeth when one of the other horses accidently ventured too close, then stamped with uneasy malice when it caught sight of Blind Seer. Sapphire calmed her steed easily, almost idly, but then she had always been a fine horsewoman.

  The crown princess glanced around their little camp and a smile touched one corner of her mouth. Only after she had surveyed it and approved its neatness did she look at the group gathered to welcome her. Elise and Wendee wore kerchiefs that concealed the worst of the mutilation to their hair, but, despite the cold, Firekeeper went bareheaded, her shaven head visible for all to see.

  Derian saw the crown princess's eyes narrow, but when she spoke her words were routinely conversational.

  "Nice place here," she said. "I thought to have my troops set up camp in the field beyond."

  She gestured west and slightly south.

  "Good choice," Derian replied. "There's fresh water in the area. I don't know where there might be more."

  "Captain," Sapphire said, nodding to one of her riders, "bring on the rest of the troop. Tell them to set up an orderly camp. No one—and I mean no one—is to venture into the swamp without our direct orders."

  Derian bit back a smile as Sapphire included Prince Shad in her last comment. The Bright Bay sailor sat his horse well, but his training had been to command at sea. Clearly he was content to let his wife handle matters on land. Derian admired Shad's composure. Most young men—and Shad was only slightly older than Derian himself—would have needed to prove themselves, if to no one other than themselves.