Scarlet and the White Wolf, #1

by Kirby Crow

  “Thank you for saving my life,” Liall murmured. He considered carefully what to say next, knowing Scarlet had many boundaries. “You would really come with me?”

  “I would.” There was sincerity in Scarlet’s voice. “I want to come with you.”

  Liall’s arms tightened around him. How many times must he say farewell to this impossible boy? “I regret, but no. It’s too dangerous.”

  Scarlet tensed and pulled away from his embrace. He stepped away and turned his back, his posture stiff and wounded.

  “What, more dangerous than being a pedlar and traveling on robber roads?” he asked resentfully. “Slavers sieve the north roads from Khurelen, and we’ve had brigands patrolling the river right next to Lysia since before I was born. And if that’s not enough, my own countrymen are raiding every Hilurin village in Byzantur and burning it to the ground. The world is a dangerous place, Liall. Every breath I take is a risk.”

  Liall knew more about the evil of the world than most, because he had traveled more than most men alive. Thinking about how often Scarlet was in danger angered him. Damn this filthy place! he thought fiercely. And damn your bitch-goddess, too. Your Deva claims to prize purity, yet the world she hands you is full of evil and no fit place for innocents.

  “I told you no. You’re going to Ankar, like you planned.” Which was exactly the wrong thing to say.

  “I’m not a child,” Scarlet flared. “And you’re not my lord. I’ll go where I will.”

  “Scarlet!” Liall gripped his shoulders and tugged him around. “I know you’ve lost much, but are you deliberately trying to get yourself killed?”

  That got his attention. “No.”

  “Then heed me. Go to Ankar, or even to your sister’s house in Nantua, but go.”

  There was some fire Scarlet him yet. Then, his eyes lit on the bright coin necklace around Liall’s neck, and the heat of his anger seemed to gutter and die. He reached out and turned the copper coins thoughtfully in his fingers.

  “I remember these,” he said, his dark eyes very large. “Why have you done this?”

  “To remind me.”

  Scarlet’s voice was softer. “I can’t go back to Byzantur, or even Ankar for that matter.”

  “What has happened?” Liall resisted an urge to shake him when he did not answer. “Tell me!”

  “It’s my business,” Scarlet evaded, dropping the coins. “But I’m glad I found you. I wanted to see you one more time.”

  The admission dissolved Liall’s anger in sudden warmth and robbed him of his resolution to get to the truth. He let Scarlet go and paced heavily to the window, wiping the beaded moisture away and peering into the night. Below the window, the squalid walkways ran with water and the green lamps made goblin shadows on all the walls.

  “Here is the way of it,” Liall said at last. “I’ve been summoned back to my homeland. This much you know. The journey by sea is long and perilous and I can take no one with me. I dare not take you, especially, for you would probably die on such a journey, and there will be... other dangers. I have many enemies.” He turned to look at Scarlet. “Many powerful men who wish me dead, and who would not hesitate to kill you as well.”

  Scarlet was looking at him with new interest, and Liall was dismayed. He had already told Scarlet far more than he meant to, yet he was compelled by some unknown instinct to continue: “My family is also very powerful, and there has been, or will be, a change of kings in Norl Udur. I do not know if I will ever be permitted to return to Byzantur.”

  “Why you?” Scarlet asked. He was unsettled now. “Of all the men in the world this great family could have sent for, why’d they send for you?”

  “That, I cannot tell you.”

  Scarlet laughed shortly. “For a moment, I thought we were starting to trust each other.”

  Liall would not be distracted. “This is not about trust. You cannot come with me. You must find your own way.” It hurt to be so blunt, but he had to do it.

  Scarlet tried to brazen it out. “Maybe I’m just going in your direction.”

  “I doubt that, and even if you were, you would find no ship willing to carry you. My people do not tolerate foreigners.”

  Scarlet looked stricken. Liall sighed and rubbed his face, wincing when his palm brushed a lump on his cheek. “Let us sleep on it. Matters will seem clearer in the light of day. Perhaps we will know what to do then. I will help as I can, but there is little time.” He gestured. “Take the bed; I will be quite comfortable here.”

  “You’re the one hurt.”

  “Don’t argue.”

  Liall doused the lamp and reclined in the large velvet chair, a blanket over his shoulders and the two Morturii long-knives across his lap. After a long moment, Scarlet crossed the room. The bed creaked as he sat. There was a thump as his boots hit the floor and he sighed, reclining with his arm folded under his head for a pillow. The faint green glow of lamplight limned his form.

  Liall watched from his chair. The multiple aches from his many bruises had settled into a dull roar. Minutes passed.

  “Liall?” Scarlet whispered into the gloom.

  Liall inhaled shakily. “No,” he answered softly. He saw Scarlet rise up on his elbow to face him in the dim light.

  “Why?”

  Indeed, why? After all the effort he had put into seducing this young man, to refuse him now, when he was freely offering himself, seemed foolish. But why had Scarlet changed? What had happened to him since they parted on the Sea Road? He seemed more open than Liall had ever seen him, and he was finally at ease in his company. It was as if some mask or heavy burden had fallen away from him, allowing him to be at peace in his own skin. Scarlet had found himself, but now it was too late.

  Liall’s throat grew painfully tight. “I will not take something so precious from you only to abandon you afterwards. You have never had a lover before.”

  Scarlet’s eyes glittered in the dark. “You don’t know that.”

  Liall was silent, knowing he was right.

  Scarlet sighed. “It doesn’t matter. I want to.”

  “So do I, but then I would still have to leave you.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “But I do.”

  Scarlet rolled over, facing the window. He looked very small on the bed, impossibly vulnerable, and Liall was again amazed at the resilience and strength of Byzans.

  Rain slashed against the window with a hiss. Later, when Liall dreamed, he saw a horse-drawn sleigh racing over the snow, and the polished iron runners under the carriage hissed with a sound like steam.

  Into the North

  THE RSHANI SHIP ARRIVED sometime in the night. It was the calls from shipboard to shore that woke him: deep, boisterous voices shouting back and forth in Sinha, the language of Rshan. For a moment, Liall thought he was still dreaming of home, and then he recalled the last few days. He opened his eyes to search for Scarlet. The pedlar was asleep on the bed, one hand curled against his chest and breathing softly. Liall got up carefully, mindful of his many aches, and began to take down the dried clothing from the pegs. Scarlet slept like a cat, quiet and still, but lightly enough so that Liall’s small movements woke him.

  Scarlet blinked and looked around the musty room. “Liall? How do you feel?”

  “I will live,” he said, his back turned. “Don’t concern yourself. Northmen heal very quickly.”

  “Well, I don’t,” Scarlet said as he stretched his arms over his head and yawned. “I think they must stuff the mattress with rocks hereabouts. That must be the single worst bed I’ve ever slept on.”

  “You must have not have slept in many beds during your travels.”

  Scarlet smiled ruefully and combed his black hair off his forehead with his fingers, clawing it into place. “I didn’t. The ground was good enough for me, barring snow or wet. Beds cost money, even this one.”

  Liall knelt to push his rumpled cloak into one of the packs and tied it closed, dusting his hands off as he stood. He bit back a
groan as his muscles screamed protest, resigning himself to a slow but steady healing. At least the bruises would not stand out on his amber skin and he was not maimed or disfigured in any way.

  “Hard to believe they can get away with charging for such as that,” Liall said, “but it was worth it to be out of sight for the evening.” He reached with both hands to rub a very sore spot on the small of his back. “Word has probably spread among the bravos that there’s a fat bounty to be had.”

  Scarlet paused in the middle of slipping his boots on. “You’d better leave soon, then. When does your ship arrive?”

  Liall noticed that Scarlet’s socks were darned and worn paper thin at the toes, and he was glad he had stowed several gold doges—thick coins stamped with the vine of the Flower Prince—in Scarlet’s pack as he slept. He pointed. “You mean that ship through yon window?”

  Scarlet turned his head to see the brigantine. He made a little sound of awe at the size of it. It was a large ship. It had to be, to weather such a long and hazardous crossing.

  “Just look at it,” Scarlet whispered. “I’ve never seen a vessel so large, not ever. Look at all the sails! How many crewmen does she carry? What about—”

  Liall held up his hand to stem the flow of words. “Those are the least of my concerns. The bravos will have staked out the dock by now.”

  Scarlet chewed his lip as he stared at the square-rigged ship and the great white sails. “What do we do?”

  “We?”

  “It’s obvious you no longer have the time to help me find another path, as you put it, so I might as well help you.”

  “But what will you do? How will you live?” Liall fought off a surge of anxiety. By his own words, he was preparing to leave Scarlet to fate. What right did he have to begin questioning him now?

  Scarlet waved that off. “Don’t fret. I’ve been making my own way since I was fourteen.”

  “Scarlet.”

  “I’ll be fine. Honest.”

  Liall saw the shine in his liquid eyes and the determined set of his mouth, and he realized that a final parting was upon him. “You’re a curse on me, you fool of a pedlar. You must be.”

  “Funny. I thought the same thing about you, once.”

  Against all sense and reason, Liall crossed the room to kneel at Scarlet’s feet, startling him.

  “I’ve dreamed about you many times since we met,” he confessed. Scarlet’s black eyebrows rose. Liall smiled. “And yes, some of those dreams do not bear repeating in polite company, which you most certainly are.” He reached and cupped the pedlar’s face, and Scarlet dipped his chin and brushed his cheek against Liall’s palm, his eyes closing.

  “I know thee,” Liall whispered urgently. It felt like all of his heart was pouring out into these few short words, yearning hungrily toward Scarlet like a flower does toward the sun; a primal, natural hunger that would now never be consummated. “I’ve known you forever. You have not been absent from my thoughts for one hour since we met. Something in you calls out to me, demanding an answer, but I do not know how to respond.”

  Scarlet exhaled, his warm breath rushing against Liall’s palm. He pressed Liall’s hand to his mouth. “And I’ve dreamed of you. I think I’ve been looking for you all of my life, and now you’re leaving again.”

  Liall could not speak. From the quay, the sound of a ship’s bell rang out, and Scarlet opened his eyes. Liall forced himself to pull away.

  “We must go.”

  CAPTAIN QIXA WAS A Rshani commoner who had a passing acquaintance with a few nobles in Rshan, enough to recognize that the man who sat before him was no merchant down on his luck or a traveling dandy with affected manners. Liall bought Qixa a drink in a dank, wood-paneled taberna that was lit by swinging yellow lamps made from ships’ wheels. The crown of Qixa’s head, bald as an eagle’s egg, gleamed dully in the light. He was less tall than most Rshani, but had a broader chest and a longer reach. These traits bruited of his northern blood, the people of the Ged Fanorl.

  Qixa downed the liquor—red imbuo and raw enough to peel skin from a man’s throat—in one gulp and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. He nodded at Liall and ignored Scarlet, who sat close to Liall’s elbow.

  “You have heard a rumor,” Liall judged, watching for Qixa’s reaction. Yes. “A passenger waiting to take ship from this port. A very certain passenger.” He leaned forward over the sticky, grimed table and watched how the captain’s eyes drifted up to note the pure white color of his hair and his stone-hard features. If Qixa had any knowledge at all of certain families in Rshan, he would recognize the resemblance.

  Liall raised his hand to show him the sapphire and platinum ring on his finger. “You see what I am,” he said, deftly switching his Sinha dialect to match the hard northern burr in Qixa’s, and the captain’s chin lifted.

  “I wish to take passage on your good ship. I will pay well,” Liall concluded.

  Qixa waved that aside as if it were nothing, though Liall knew he would accept the silver. “You are welcome to a good cabin on the Ostre Sul, noble ser. Food, too, we have, but, ap kyning, forgive me, if I defy the harbormaster or tangle with his bullies, I’ll never be allowed to dock at Volkovoi again, and it’s the last supply port in Khet before the sea.”

  Qixa was speaking of the bravos who had positioned themselves at the quay where the brigantine had made anchorage. He was risking much to help Liall.

  “I will get past the bravos. You need only agree to carry me. I will remember your loyalty,” Liall added.

  Qixa slapped his hand on the table and stood. “Done. We leave in one hour. I will set a watch on the foredeck to keep an eye for you, but do not keep us waiting.”

  “One hour,” Liall confirmed.

  Qixa left them. He had not glanced at Scarlet once.

  The hour passed too quickly. Liall had no time to come up with a workable plan and did not think it safe to hire thugs to take on the leather-armored men who lounged by the quay, waiting for a specific bruised, white-haired Rshani to show. Most of the thugs would be in tight with the bravos, or even related to them. He would find no help there.

  There were eight bravos on the wharf: two by a wrecked loading platform that teetered precariously high over the water, and six more nearest the gangway to the ship. They sharply eyed each dockworker and pedestrian who came near their post, their heavy faces grim with determination.

  “What are we going to do?” Scarlet hissed.

  The rain had stopped and they were concealed between the wall of a crumbling factory and a stack of tar-soaked lumber twice as high as a man. From their vantage point, Liall could see the lookout on the forecastle, a blond mariner, tall and young and clearly of pure Rshani blood. The lookout’s sharp eyes swept the docks, not too blatantly, and careful not to appear conspicuous.

  “Peace, let me think,” Liall growled.

  Qixa appeared on the deck. He sent the docks a misgiving look and pointedly turned the hourglass near the wheel. As if signaled, the crew began to ready the sails to break harbor.

  “Liall,” Scarlet plucked his sleeve urgently, “they’re going to leave without you.”

  “I’m thinking!” he snapped. Yes, Liall, think.

  Scarlet waited another minute. The crew scurried faster, and then he blew his breath out in a huff and slung his pack at Liall.

  “What—”

  “Don’t lose any of my things,” Scarlet ordered. He took some heavier items out of his pockets: a flint and steel, a compass, and the two long-knives from his belt. When he would have ducked into the open street, Liall grabbed his arm and swung him around.

  “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “You do intend to get on that ship don’t you? Well, don’t you?”

  “Yes!”

  “Then let me go.”

  He had no choice. In another minute the mariners would pull the gangway up and he would have to swim for it. He released Scarlet, who tossed him an easy grin.

  “Don’t worry. Just get abo
ard as soon as the way is clear.”

  “You’re going to clear the dock of bravos on your own?”

  “Looks like it.”

  Liall sighed, admiring in spite of his exasperation. “Scarlet, one back-alley brawl against men armed with clubs does not make you a warrior.”

  “No, but I’m not going to fight them, or not if I do this right.”

  “Gods grant me patience; you’re going to give me a seizure!”

  “You don’t have time for that. Wait ‘til after you’re on the ship, eh?”

  He gaped as Scarlet smoothly stepped into the foot traffic and made his way down the docks, to the quay where the Ostre Sul was anchored, stopping in open sight of the bravos, one of whom bore a plastered bandage on his flattened nose. They noticed him at once. How not, in that red coat? Scarlet stood with his hands on his hips and waved sunnily, then called out to them, his voice carrying over the hubbub of the wharf.

  “Aye, it’s me, ugly one. How’s the nose?”

  And that was it. The bravo with the plastered nose roared and tore after Scarlet, swinging his club. The remaining five bravos by the gangway dropped everything and followed and the two by the teetering platform tried to duck around and flank Scarlet, who stood almost lazily in the middle of the street. Scarlet waited until the six men moved fully away from the Ostre Sul’s gangway and the other two bravos began closing in on him, and like a shot from a cannon, he was off.

  Never had Liall seen anyone run so fast or so well, but then he had never seen a pedlar who walked for a living decide to stop walking and fly.

  Scarlet was a deer fleeing the archer, a rabbit let loose in a market with the butcher on his heels. He turned and raced back up the docks, away from the brigantine, dodging pedestrians, leaping over anything that was in his way, seeming to flow through the press of people like water down a drainpipe. A ninth bravo, coming down the street purely by accident, almost ran headlong into him. He saw his fellows hard on Scarlet’s trail and made a grab for him. Scarlet easily danced out of his range and took a turn down a long alley that led into another street running away from the docks, and as neat as that, Liall had a clear path.