Catch a Wolf

by A. Katie Rose

  “If you couldn’t break his spell until now,” Kel’Ratan asked thoughtfully. “How’d you melt his shield?”

  Rygel coughed, his eyes dancing. “I didn’t.”

  “What?” I exclaimed. “But—we saw—”

  “Saw an illusion,” Rygel replied, chuckling. “As did my illustrious cousin. He believed I somehow broke it down, and immediately dropped the spell. The shield vanished.”

  “A good bluff can make a huge difference,” Kel’Ratan commented.

  “I just wish he’d experiment without our lives in the mix,” I muttered.

  * * *

  “Where are they?”

  Kel’Ratan leaned over in his saddle to murmur in my ear. Although Raine rode near enough to listen, to all intents and purposes, he appeared oblivious. I wasn’t fooled. I knew he heard our every word. He heard everything spoken among the warriors at any given time. His sense of hearing was, to me, uncanny and spooky.

  I didn’t try to modulate my voice. “Where are who?”

  “The wolves.”

  Neither the scouts nor Bar reported any wolves within any distance around us for the past two days. As though they heard Raine murmur they had the wrong guy, they melted into the underbrush to never be seen again. Yet, their nightly howling reminded us they weren’t far away.

  Despite the number of wolves Witraz reported followed us, only one or two howled at night. If I hadn’t known better, I’d accept noisy wolves hunted dinner and never gave it another moment’s consideration. As I lay awake in my bedroll, unable to sleep, I fancied the wolves weren’t just howling, but calling. I learned to recognize two distinct voices. Their regular and alternating tones led me to believe they indeed called for someone.

  “Why doesn’t he do something?”

  I scowled and drew back from Kel’Ratan’s whisper and his urgent, half-panicked expression. The same look I saw on every face that spoke behind their hands as they cast apprehensive glances toward the one man the wolves cried for.

  “Why do you ask me?”

  He eyed me sidelong, his thick mustache stiff and erect. “You should know. You’re the boss, aren’t you?”

  I huffed, sending my hair flying off my brow. “I am in all areas save his. Ask him why he doesn’t do something.”

  Kel’Ratan choked and wiped his fingers down his mouth. “He should do something,” he muttered, half under his breath.

  He ignored the wolves’ presence as easily as he ignored the rest of us. Raine rode silent in his saddle, speaking only when necessary, contributing to his share of the daily workload after a day of travel. He cared for the horses, chopped wood and hauled water, helped in the making and breaking of camp. If I tried to speak to him, he gave me the familiar icy stare and a shrug. He effectively and efficiently shut me out.

  “What’d you expect him to do?” I retorted icily, enjoying the sight of Kel’Ratan recoiling from my venom. “Cave in and say, ‘Here I am, come all ye wolves?’ Can’t you see this is tearing him apart?”

  “Well, I—”

  “Hel-lo,” I snapped. “How’d you feel to wake one day and find the lizard species chose you to be their…whatever?”

  “Lizards are, well, lizards.”

  “And you their head. How’d you feel?”

  Kel’Ratan cocked his head, considering. “Like pond scum.”

  “Thank you.”

  “But wolves aren’t lizards.”

  I cast a fast eye towards Raine’s back, knowing he heard every word. “Of course they aren’t. But they are different.”

  “And if one is—different—”

  “One feels alienated.”

  After that, Kel’Ratan regarded Raine with far more polite consideration then the rest of my boys. Unfortunately, all save Kel’Ratan and Arianne, and perhaps Corwyn, still eyed Raine sidelong as they might a beast of unknown quality. A friend, maybe, but perhaps we should put a leash on it just in case.

  Kel’Ratan cast a swift blue eye over his shoulder, still leaning toward me. As though no one watching knew we shared secrets. “What about her, then? She’ll starve to death inside a week.”

  I sighed. He didn’t have to say her name.

  Arianne.

  Arianne retreated behind her midnight hair, her face, when visible, looked as though she were about to cry. She seldom spoke, even when spoken to, and helped with meals and the never popular duty of cleaning up. The slave to the core, yet even she had her limits.

  Soon, she refused to eat. Everyone tried to encourage her to eat, even quiet Alun. Anything anyone put into her hands she refused and her body trembled violently. I tried every trick I could think of to get her to eat even the smallest amounts. Since Raine ignored her along with everyone else, he was no help at all. Tor, her friend from before all this madness, tried to jolly her into eating some bread and fruit, only to have her flee into the small tent she shared with me.

  “She’ll eat eventually,” was all I could say.

  Rygel himself, the strain casting weird shadows across his aristocratic features, seemed the only one who owned the delicate art of persuasion. He artfully jollied Arianne into taking food again, holding her hand and whispering light jokes in her ear. His work paid off, for she managed a small smile as he popped bread into her mouth.

  Thus, he tried the same technique to lighten Raine’s dark mood. We all watched the result.

  “Bugger off,” Raine snapped, his tone low and dangerous.

  Rygel retreated rather quickly.

  Tor alone seemed unaffected by the strain. His constant nagging at Yuri and Yuras to teach him their skills brought us a welcome distraction. We Kel’Hallans, as warriors, sought to divert ourselves from the wolves’ howling, Raine’s strained expression and Arianne’s lack of appetite. The wooden sword Corwyn brought along was put to regular use. Tor learned quickly, yet his bruises easily showed he lacked the speed and agility of a swordsman. Instead, he showed much more promise as an archer.

  Stronger than he looked, Tor could draw Yuri’s bow to full. His arrows hit tree targets on a regular basis. His thin arms developed rapid muscle for drawing back a bowstring before he weaved the heavy strength of a swordsman.

  Quiet discussion decided Tor’s assets lay in his archer’s eye than his arm’s strength. Without comment or request, Alun cut a length from a yew tree while on watch and spent much of his free time in bow-making. Tor, accepted as a warrior-apprentice, was one of them. Raine, well—

  Although I suspected my boys wanted to admit him into their private warrior circles, his wolfish problem intervened. They admired his battle skills, revered his leadership potential, wholly applauded his attachment to me, yet feared his rather bizarre proclivity for wolves. That aspect of his being warred with the Kel’Hallan brotherhood ideal.

  In short, they had no idea what to do about him.

  Come to think of it, neither did I.

  Raine didn’t sleep much, either. Listening to the pair of wolves cry their need most of the night, I’d get out of my bedroll and sit at the entrance of my tent. While those warriors not on watch slept uneasily around the fire, Raine sat upright, the wolf pup in his lap, and stared into the flickering flames.

  Behind me, in the depths of her blankets, Arianne tossed and turned, muttering in her sleep. Did the wolves invade her dreams as she so often said they did? Beyond Raine and the firelight, lying under the shelter of the trees, Rygel too slept uncomfortably. He moved this way and that, his brow puckered, his handsome lips frowning. I heard his restless mutterings from where I sat. Did the blood he now shared with Raine and Arianne give the wolves’ entrance to his dreams? Did they talk to him as I now knew they spoke to Raine and Arianne?

  Was that why Raine slept not? The wolves could only enter while he slept. He was not going to give them that advantage. He remained awake, his new son in his lap, staring into the fire and resisting the temptation to rest, to give in, to—sleep.

  He may have godlike self-control, but my boys didn’t.

>   “This isn’t good,” Kel’Ratan muttered from the side of his mouth as we halted to make camp, the sun setting in glorious drifting clouds of orange, red and purple. It dropped low behind the dancing grass and rolling hills, sparkling silver on the chuckling stream bounding amid the rounded rocks. “The tension is killing them.”

  I hate it when he’s right.

  The strain amongst us proved too much for my warriors. During the evening of our third day, a fistfight broke out between Witraz and Rannon, the best of friends. One minute they curried horses, the next Rannon belted Witraz across the jaw. Witraz retaliated with a swift punch to Rannon’s gut. The pair instantly rolled together with fists flying, punching, cursing, cascading dirt and grass into the innocent air.

  Kel’Ratan shouted orders, but it took Kel’Ratan and Alun to yank Witraz off of Rannon. Yuri and Yuras pinned Rannon down, forcing his face into the dirt, his arms behind his back.

  Unlike his usual, drill-sergeant self, Kel’Ratan didn’t have the heart to scold them. Rather than the sound cursing and deserving punishment he’d normally hand out, he merely set them to separate watches after commanding them to clean themselves up.

  They sullenly obeyed, never even glancing at each other as they dusted themselves off and wiped the blood from their chins.

  Raine eye-balled the entire scene from a safe distance, the pup sheltered in his arms. In his defiant expression I recognized his silent words: I know I created this mess. What are you going to do about it? Kill me?

  Of course not.

  He saw me watching him, and turned away. Maybe you should.

  I think I might have gone completely and utterly mad if it hadn’t been for Bar. He alone withstood the tension, the strain, the silence and the wolves with a complacency that was unlike him. Bar’s temper was legendary, his patience non-existent and his moods worse than any maid during her months’ time.

  Yet, he became my rock, my solace, my source of strength. When the wolves’ constant howling throughout the busy days and long, dark nights grew too much, I crept out of my tent and went to him. With my blanket around me, I lay down within the shelter of his front legs, my head pillowed on his lion shoulder. His downy lion fur and eagle feathers combined with his musky scent sent me into peaceful, and dreamless, slumber. With his huge savage beak resting against my back, I could look at Raine’s stiff form against the firelight and find there were still things right in the world after all.

  Again, Kel’Ratan bespoke the obvious. “Something’s not right here.”

  “You think?” I snapped, my eyes following his. “What’s your first clue?”

  He tossed his chin toward Raine, who rode many rods away from the main group. At first, I saw nothing more than a big man slumped in his saddle, his long hair riding the light breeze, left hand on his reins as his right fondled the dark pup. Suddenly, Raine swung his head, hard right, a snarl forming on his lips. He caught me watching him, and his lean, angry expression returned to his normal stony neutrality.

  “See?” Kel’Ratan muttered.

  After that, I watched Raine closely. Not with a lover’s eye as I would have wished, but with the eyes of a warrior and a future ruler. As we travelled, or made or broke camp, I observed several instances of flinching, ducking or jumping at no noise or threat. Raine often half-yelped and jerked his head as though someone just goosed him in his ticklish spot. His face would tighten in annoyance, his icy grey eyes flat as he glanced around.

  All right, now that’s just plain weird. No one, nothing, accosted him. Kel’Ratan flashed me his ‘I-told-you-so’ glance under lowered brows, Rygel scowled at his blood-brother as Arianne watched Raine from behind her curtain. Corwyn watched his liege far more than he did his charge. If the rest of my boys noticed this very strange behavior, they didn’t tell me.

  I like to think I know more than I do. I spent more time studying Raine than I did the ground we crossed. With my admitted untrained eye, I watched him react to something unseen and unheard, his huge shoulders hunched to conceal his movements. While he himself thought himself subtle, I recognized the signs of someone haunted. For I myself had done those very same things.

  Speak of the devil….

  Kael walked alongside the nearest outrider, walking while our horses trotted yet he kept pace. He eyed me with amusement, his handsome features as familiar to me as my own. I watched Raine wrestle with his ghosts while my own kept me company for much of those three difficult days. As before, I wanted to scream at Kael to go away and leave me alone. As though sensing my imminent voicing of my protest, Kael lifted his finger to his lips, smiled and effectively shushed me.

  Too late, I discovered Arianne watching me. She sat the grey mare from just the other side of Kel’Ratan, who rode just to my right. Raine rode stiffly on my left. Her eyes traveled slowly from me to Kael. She could not possibly have seen him. No one has seen Kael from the day he died except me.

  Even so, her grey-blue eyes tracked him for several moments before his own met hers and he smiled. He offered her a half salute, to which she gravely dropped her head once in a nod. His smile widened into a grin as he glanced back at me. Then he popped out of existence. I dared not look at Arianne for the next several hours.

  Distracting myself from the stress, wolves, Raine and Kael, I watched the countryside as I rode. Not for ghosts, but for traces of whatever and whomever called the Plains of Navak theirs. When my questions to Raine, Kel’Ratan and Rygel were received with a marked lack of interest and shrugged shoulders, I set to finding the answers on my own.

  From the saddle, I determined the tall grass had been bitten off in places. Where most of the grass grew tall, I saw much that had been grazed down. The prints of some creature lay ill-defined in the still trampled grass. In some ways they resembled horse’s hoof prints, but they were huge compared to a normal horse. No ghost left those tracks.

  I mentioned this to Arianne with a bright smile, only hoping to distract her from her misery. She glanced around the endless hills with disinterested eyes.

  “They’re watching us,” she said dully.

  My interest sharpened. “What do you mean? Who watches us? The wolves?”

  She shook her head, her massive wealth of midnight hair shivering to the mare’s flanks. “Not wolves. Them.”

  “Who is ‘them’?”

  “They mean us no harm.”

  Raine’s voice, as dull as his sister’s, held no concern, no curiosity, no alarm. My skin still prickled as though feeling eyes upon it, watching, seeing, observing.

  “Who are they?” I asked.

  I scanned the hills around us, but saw nothing. No eyes peering down at us from behind trees, no leering faces, no friends nor enemies. I saw just the ever present clusters of trees and sweeping grasslands, nodding flowers and bumblebees.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Raine said, looking away. “They only observe. No harm in that.”

  I found plenty of harm in that. Brutal’s men hunted us with the help of the damned Tongu, wolves followed us, unseen eyes watched us. Suddenly furious, I rounded on him. “You knew we were being watched and still you said nothing?”

  A glimmer of the old Raine emerged from behind the shadow in his eyes, a familiar trace of humor and fire. “Had I thought it important, I’d have spoken up.”

  “How do you know they aren’t dangerous?”

  I’d about had my fill of shrugs.

  “I can sense their intent,” he said, his icy eyes scanning the hills. “As long as we don’t stay too long, they won’t harm us.”

  “Do you know who they are?” I asked.

  Both brother and sister shook identical dark hair. “No,” Raine said. “I,” he paused and jerked his head toward Arianne, “we, can feel their eyes, their presence.”

  “That’s something anyway,” I muttered.

  “It’s the seer blood that runs in their family, Your Highness,” Corwyn explained, from his place behind Arianne.

  “Can you see into the future?”
I asked, curious and grateful that for the first time in going on three days I was holding an actual conversation with someone. And if he shrugged again, I intended to slap him into next week.

  Raine didn’t shrug. Instead, he stared off into the distance, his brow furrowed in thought, his weird eyes calm and slightly puzzled.

  “Sometimes,” he answered slowly. “Sometimes I dream of things to come. I have odd flashes now and again, like a quick vision. There then gone.”

  “As when you knew the troops planned to enter the inn and arrest you?” I prompted.

  Imagine that. I received not a shrug but an actual smile. I almost fell off my horse.

  “Yes,” he said. “That was one.”

  “Little cat?” I asked Arianne, hoping the conversation might cheer her a bit, perhaps draw her out of herself and her misery. In that regard, however, I hoped in vain. She hid behind her hair and refused to answer. Well, one out of two wasn’t bad.

  Bar announced his intention to fly a scouting mission with a sharp screech. Without waiting for my approval or disapproval, he launched himself into the air. This time I wasn’t alone in admiring his graceful flight, the broad sweep of his wings as he rose higher and higher, his effortless bank over the treetops. Raine shaded his hand, his smile still in place, as he watched Bar out of sight. He sighed, and took my hand.

  “Perhaps one day you might teach me to love flying,” he said quietly, his icy eyes no longer icy. Grey eyes ringed in black but filled with warmth and love and humor stared down into mine. That was it. My heart dissolved and pooled into my lap once more. The Raine I liked, no, loved, had returned.

  “Anytime,” I answered, heat gushing into my face.

  He chuckled. “What’d I say to make you blush?”

  “It’s not—it’s just—well—”

  My idiotic tongue stumbled over itself, my heart flip-flopping in my chest like a landed fish. Damn it, I had control before when he looked at me like that. Why not now? Even Arianne emerged from behind her hair to watch me curiously. All right, so if making a fool of myself brought people to their senses, that’s all right and good. Not even close to noon and the day’s heat seared through me. Hell’s teeth, I thought, but it’s hot.