Wolf Justice

by Doranna Durgin

  One crawling lurch forward brought her foot within reach — he almost grabbed it before he remembered her injury. She shouted something; he couldn’t decipher it, hearing only the fear in her voice. Beyond the cries of the Knife and screaming wail of magic came a roar of defiance that could have been Vaklar. Fading...

  Damn the Knife wizard, anyway! He wouldn’t go down like this — he wouldn’t fail Kacey! Not after two years of failing her in other ways. Reandn grabbed at his building anger, the inevitable fury spawned by magic, and honed it into something more of determination.

  The magic backed off.

  He was almost too stunned to take advantage of the break — but not quite. He threw himself full length at the tree, sliding in and stretching full length to slip his knife under the stout rope and jerk the sharp blade through in one swift cut.

  “My hands, my hands!” Kacey thrust them at him and he cut those, too, even as he rose to his knees. Freed, she grabbed him. “We have to get out of here!”

  “We will,” he told her, holding her close with one arm while he sorted out the chaos, hunting their best retreat. Teya — looking just like herself — stood with Vaklar at the upper edge of camp, with two men down in front Vaklar already. The rest of the Knife hesitated between camp and Vaklar — and then the tenor of the shouting changed and they all looked to the center of camp, where an astonished woman slowly lost her hold on her slumping companion; a feathered shaft jutted from his breast. Beside her, the leader jerked his gaze around the camp, searching for...

  Who? Who the lonely hells... ?

  Reandn gritted his teeth against angry magic and fought to find the focus that had gotten him this far. He had to get Kacey away —

  The Knife wizard’s rough spell-making died completely; even Teya and Vaklar appeared startled. Kacey said, “Dan!” in astonishment, and Reandn finally dared a quick glance away from the Knife, up to the cliff at which they all stared.

  There stood Madehy, half-concealed behind a tenaciously growing tree on the edge of the cliff, bow in hand and dismay on her face. In the gap of silence that followed, she looked behind herself and quite clearly if inexplicably said, “Better start looking for rocks.”

  “Rethia,” Kacey said faintly, getting the same brief glimpse of a pale blonde head that Reandn did.

  Can’t help her from here. Couldn’t do anything from here but get caught.

  Reandn stood, shoving his body through the leftover tremble from the magic. He tugged Kacey up, curling his arm around her waist. His gaze lingered on the astonished Knife, watching as someone scrambled for a bow, as someone else sprinted for the place where the diminishing edge of the cliff faded into the rim of the shallow hollow before it — and as the leader of the Knife finally spotted him and Kacey. His head lifted and his jaw setting, as if Reandn’s presence was the final insult in this unforeseen tumult.

  Quietly, almost casually, Reandn asked Kacey, “Can you walk at all?”

  “No,” Kacey said, and her voice held unexpected and dark irony. “But I can crawl.”

  “Then be ready to do it.” Reandn shifted his grip on his knife and eased away from her reluctant grasp, leaving her only a steadying arm.

  “Dan...” she said. “Dan, no. Please don’t —”

  He turned on her, fierce in his eyes, harsh in his voice. “And if not, what?”

  For that she didn’t have an answer. Though her chin gave a quiver and her eyes filled, she slowly released his arm, wobbling on one leg for an instant before reaching for the ground.

  “Stop this!”

  Kalena. Not some wizardly imitation, not Teya grasping at straws, but Kalena. She stood in clear view at the top of the cliff, and shaking visibly, just as her voice quavered around the command she tried to put in her words. “Stop this!” she repeated, but the two Knife on the cliff kept coming, and Madehy was at no angle to aim at them.

  Don’t fight, Reandn thought fiercely at them. Don’t fight.

  Madehy glanced at him, pale and stiff and frozen in place, but the man who closed in on her looked very much like he was simply going to jerk her right over the edge of the cliff regardless.

  An arrow sprouted from his side. He stumbled, took a mis-step — and it was he who tumbled from the cliff, hitting the ground with a thud that again silenced the entire camp. No one moved; no one dared. A small trickle of shale filled the silence.

  Reandn saw him first, on the rim of camp opposite where he had sent Kacey: Madehy’s hunter, bow in one hand, another arrow in the other, coolly waiting to see if anyone else needed stopping — though the bowman who had been heading for Madehy had an arrow nocked and ready, and an easy mark on the hunter.

  The Knife’s man Arik held a hand high over his head, and called, “Hold!”

  And everyone did. Even Vaklar and Teya, who looked more than equal to handling the two Knife left to engage them. Two more had been headed for Reandn; they hesitated where they were at Arik’s cry, halfway between Reandn and the center of camp.

  Arik pointed at the hunter, his voice raised only enough so the man could hear. “Take yourself out of this, hunter. Or else die.”

  The hunter lowered his bow, his eyes more on Madehy than Arik — and the arrow still neatly in his other hand, ready to nock.

  “Watch him,” Arik said shortly, and turned his attention back to Kalena. “Well, well,” he said. “Now this is our Kalennie.”

  Kalena pinked. “Not yours.”

  He shrugged. “Soon enough, I think.”

  “I didn’t come here for you.” Kalena’s voice still wavered; she crossed her arms to hide her shaking hands, and lifted the chin that so sharply defined her lower lip. “I came to put a stop to this. What do you think you’ll gain by taking me? More of your Knife dead, I think, and there seem to be plenty of those already.”

  “What we hoped to gain in the first place,” Arik said, with a slow grin and plenty of confidence. “You don’t matter to us at all, Kalennie. Getting the attention of those idiots at home who’re bound on ruining the Resiores, now — that matters.”

  “This isn’t the way to do it!” Kalena took a stumbling step backwards, as if pushed by the glint in his eye.

  “They haven’t listened to anything else, now, have they then?” called another man, one of the more ragged of the lot.

  “Perhaps,” Kalena shot back at him, “they didn’t think you had anything to say beyond a demonstration of your facility in setting fires! Or could it be that they mistook those actions as heartless disdain for our mountains?”

  “By the Bright Lady.” Arik cocked his head and squinted up at her. “You already talk like a bloody-damned ambassador.”

  Reandn glanced down at Kacey, whose baffled expression reminded him that she knew little of the details surrounding her own unexpected adventure. Just go! he thought at her — but caught sight of the two men closest to them, and the unspoken threat in their eyes.

  It sparked against his lurking anger, the helplessness he’d felt the evening before while unable to do anything but watch the scrying. He drew himself up then, his eyes narrowing and the challenge spreading to the crooked grin that never meant anything but trouble. They had hurt her, they had terrorized her, and now he wasn’t about to let them keep her from safety.

  Quiet step, Wolf.

  A wrong move now, and he’d end the tenuous hold on the restless violence simmering between them all. Kacey whispered his name; he discovered that she had gone frozen, that she was as afraid of his reaction now as she had been of the Knife before. He hesitated, holding her gaze — holding on to it. Leaning on it. The gaze that was practical, and always thinking of consequences — and that now so feared the consequences she saw before her.

  To ignore that fear now would be as much a betrayal as never having come for her in the first place.

  Reandn lowered his hands and rested the knife against his leg, stepping back; he shook his head at the two men. Not now. Maybe soon, maybe within the next few moments, but not just now.r />
  Kalena’s flush had changed, showing a touch of the temper Reandn had so often seen. “I am an ambassador,” she said. “Whether you like it or not, and despite what the Allegients expect when it comes to that. Do you think they won’t send someone else to replace me? You’ll get attention, yes, but who’s going to take you seriously? The Shining Knife, dedicating to cutting us off from the evil influences of magic, and here you are with a wizard in your midst!”

  Another man stepped forward — slighter, older, hair going grey and face worn. He moved in beside Arik — but somehow didn’t quite align himself with the man. “Naya, we’ll have only the truth about that, then. The woman’s only with us for defense against your kind’s magic. And you — once we have you, then both Keland and the home hills will be forced to listen to us. You’ll naya listen otherwise, you’ve already proven that.”

  Arik gave him an annoyed glare, and pointedly stepped forward.

  Pay attention, Kalena. Dissention within the ranks. Use it.

  Goddess Bless, she did. She ignored Arik and said quite sweetly, “For a wizard whose purpose is to defend, she certainly throws a lot of magic around in response to a simple glamour, doesn’t she?”

  Teya picked right up on the cue. “I worked no magic against the Knife. I disguised myself, that’s all.”

  “She mistook it, then,” the man said.

  “That would be like mistaking your mother for your father.” Teya put just the right note of disdain in her voice; it rang of truth.

  “On the road, then!” A woman spoke up, moving in beside the second man. “That other wizard, the man —”

  “Was forbidden magic, to keep me from knowing he had it,” Vaklar rumbled. “And I’d have squashed him like a bug had he revealed himself then. I’ve no use for magic that causes more trouble than it solves.”

  “He used it only after he was attacked by your wizard,” Kalena said, and looked suddenly, wickedly triumphant. “Do you want the proof?”

  “And what proof could you possibly have?” Arik’s scorn filled the camp, echoed by half a dozen voices.

  Reandn got the uneasy feeling that he wasn’t going to like what came next... and he didn’t.

  “We’ve a man among us who falls ill at the use of magic.” Kalena didn’t have to point at him; all she did was glance, and suddenly everyone foundhim. Reandn glared back, but reserved the heat of it for Kalena. “Do you really think the Keep would have sent him to fight alongside magic? That wizard was with us for communication purposes only. He knows nothing of fighting.”

  “Prove it,” Arik said, planting his feet in a defiant stance.

  “Naya, they don’t have to,” the other man said with sudden understanding. “That’s the wrangler, the bloody-damned fellow who killed so many of us. Aya, he fought like a man with too much drink, and at the same time like a man with none at all. When he fell there at the end, I thought someone else had got through to him. But none of us claimed it. You, then —” he looked straight at Reandn. “Was it the magic, then, that took you down?”

  Reandn met his eyes for a hard minute and then growled, “Yes, dammit.”

  Unnerved by his belligerencee, Kalena lost some of the certainty she’d gained, but the Knife man seemed to gain strength of purpose. He nodded at Reandn. “We’ve a problem, then, Arik.”

  “You certainly do.” Kalena was too eager to be subtle; the slight tremor was back in her voice. If she lost them now, there’d be no second chance. “No one’s going to take your concerns seriously if they know you’ll throw magic around when it suits you. When it’s convenient.”

  Arik turned away from her in a show of boredom. “Who’s got a bow? A sling? What we want is standing right there in front of us.”

  “You’re right,” Kalena said, too quickly. “Without me, you’ll never get a speaker into the Keep.”

  “A bow,” Arik snapped, putting out his hand. A woman stepped up behind him, wearing the same look of inflexible tenacity; he snatched the weapon out of her hands and nocked an arrow, swiftly raising it to draw aim. Kalena shrieked and jumped back, scrambling away from her exposed position.

  The camp erupted in a crowded scuffle; even the man who was halfway up the cliffside with an arrow nocked on the hunter leapt back down to throw himself in the fray. Madehy disappeared; Reandn thought he caught a glimpse of Rethia’s hair as they ducked away from the cliff, but he was busy enough grabbing Kacey up, setting his jaw at her cry of pain and hustling her away from the camp.

  He didn’t take her far. In a mad rush of ducking and stumbling, they climbed back up to the rim of the hollow and halted. They turned to put their face to the enemy and stood panting as Reandn grabbed a tree to steady them both. Below, the scuffling was all but over; the Knife man held Arik’s bow up high in his victory. Reandn frowned and tried to figure out just what had happened to divide them — and to do it so suddenly and decisively.

  “I think... I want... to sit,” Kacey panted.

  He discovered with some surprise that he’d never let go of her, that his arm still wrapped firmly around her soft waist and that indeed he’d been drawing some reassurance from the fact.

  But when he released her she yet held his shoulders for balance, and he looked down at her — no, frowned down at her — holding her gaze as if he might find some answer there. She returned the frown in kind. “What?”

  He didn’t have an answer for her. He didn’t even have an answer for himself; he found his thoughts not in words or concepts but in feelings, long buried and denied.

  He did the only thing left to him, and took her face between his hands and kissed her deeply.

  When he released her he found her eyes wide open, staring at him with a vague kind of comprehension, a little frown still drawing her eyebrows together.

  I — he almost started and then You — and even We — , until he finally gave up and just shook his head, still unable to look away from her.

  “Reandn!” Teya’s call filtered through the woods like an intrusive, foreign thing. Suddenly, although neither of them moved, they didn’t seem to be standing so close together anymore.

  “We’re here,” Reandn said, raising his voice but not quite shouting, and not quite yet able to look away from Kacey’s eyes. But in the next moment he managed it, and discovered Teya and Vaklar running to join them from one side, and Rethia and Madehy sliding down the cliff where it sank to join the rim of the hollow.

  Rethia ran to her sister, catching her in a fierce hold — a study in contrast, with her pale hair up against Kacey’s brown, her slenderness distinct against Kacey’s full form. Reandn tore his eyes from them. “Where’s Kalena?”

  Teya pointed, and Reandn discovered Kalena venturing back out to the edge of the cliff. Exposed to sling and arrow, still pale, still shaking. Below her, the Knife man had moved closer to the cliff, making conversation more convenient — and correspondingly less available for anyone else’s ears.

  “Bloody damn!” Vaklar cursed with great feeling, and set his hand on his belted dagger, his skin once more stained with drying blood. “Down we go, then, into it again.”

  Reandn stepped away from Kacey, his hand trailing down her back in an absent and wistful gesture.

  Together he and Vaklar returned to the camp, making no attempt to conceal themselves; the Knife were down by two more and had three on Arik and the woman who seemed to be their wizard. Almost right up to the gathered Knife they went before stopping under the gaze of the ragged man.

  Vaklar crossed his arms across his broad chest. “She’s under my protection, aya?”

  “And mine,” Reandn added, more quietly, just as assertively.

  “And mine,” said Madehy from the side of the hill, her bow propped on her knee, an arrow hanging casually from her hand. She looked at the hunter, who merely nodded.

  Teya the wizard wisely kept silent.

  The ragged man shook his head. “You’re wrong if you think the Knife will walk away from this fight.”

&nb
sp; “No one’s asking you to,” Kalena said. “So let’s do this another way. What’s your name?”

  “Fiers.” He proffered the name in a flat tone, with no hope and clearly no expectation. “And naya start up with this going to the Keep. You know we’d never live to see the day.”

  “Under my protection, you would. And under my protection, you would have a voice at the Keep. That’s been your problem, hasn’t it? Most of the Knife are lowborn, and the ones that aren’t hide themselves behind anonymous donations of supplies or coin... none of the Highborn from either region feel much obliged to listen to you. It’d be different if you arrived with me.”

  “Naya, you must take me for a fool.” The man’s rough anger stirred his followers; Vaklar took a step forward, and Reandn, standing hip-cocked and casual, put a hand on his knife. “You’d not give away such an advantage, were it a true one.”

  Kalena put her shaking hands behind her back and said, “I see great advantage to getting out of these woods with my life intact. And frankly, I scarcely consider the Knife a threat in anything other than the random mayhem and suffering you provoke. Politically, my position — and that of my countrymen — is quite secure, whether you come to the Keep as an official representative of your group or not.”

  Fiers’ eyebrows all but climbed up his forehead. “Snotty little Highborn bitch, you are.”

  “Yes,” Kalena said, without a whit of humility. “That’s why I’m here, isn’t it?”

  Fiers glanced at the men and women around him. No one said anything; no one offered anything but expressions of grave and skeptical doubt.

  Kalena stepped back from the cliff edge a pace and glanced behind herself, assessing retreat.

  Into their silence, Reandn sent his own matter-of-fact words. “If you’d liked the way things were being handled before, we’d still be talking to Arik and his wizard.”

  “That wizard was none of our doing!” Fiers said; echoes of naya muttered out from his depleted Knife. “We wanted none to do with her!”