Chance jerked his sword free and turned to the soldiers. “Set five guards around this cell tonight. Two inside and three out. Detail groups of two within hearing distance all the way to the exit and at every conjunction of the tunnel.”
“Yes, sir,” said the guard with the whip, and went out.
Laylan caught Chance’s arm. “You’re not going to leave him that way, are you?”
Chance looked irritated. “Why not? He’ll last until morning.”
“Maybe. It depends on whether you want him to walk to the scaffold.”
“He’ll walk if I say so. Leave him.” Chance pushed out the door and down the hall.
Laylan followed him out and waited. It wasn’t long before he heard the click of hooves and saw a pool of torchlight approaching. “Hello, Syrill.”
Shyshax was with him. This was no accident. Laylan had asked Shyshax to find Syrill earlier. The iteration, Corellian, was with them as well.
Syrill strode into the cell and made a brief inspection. “Gabalon’s teeth, what a mess!”
Syrill poked at the bloody straw. “A waste! It would take time, planning, perhaps trickery to break Sham. One night of brutality would never do it. Can Chance possibly not know that?”
“He does now,” said Laylan. I think on some level, he always did.
“The nobility of old Canisaria, perhaps the finest healer in Panamindorah,” muttered Syrill, “and in my dungeon. Well, cut him down. He’s at least not spending the night like that.”
“Actually,” began the guard at the door, “Prince Chance ordered—”
Syrill appeared to swell like a small and angry puffer fish. “Do you presume to give me orders, guest? I will see to the protection of my city with my own personnel. If Prince Chance has a problem with that, I will be happy to discuss it with him. You are dismissed. All of you. Get out!”
The cliff fauns looked as though they might argue, thought better of it, and departed.
In a quieter voice, Syrill said to Laylan, “Corellian wanted a word with Sham if that’s possible.”
At the moment, it was not. Sham hung limp in his bonds as Laylan drew a dagger and cut the thongs. Syrill sent Shyshax for new guards and a list of supplies. Corellian came forward and helped to catch Sham so that he didn’t hit the floor. His skin was slippery, the fur below his waist saturated with blood. Laylan took Sham from Corellian and carried him to the back wall, the blood soaking uncomfortably through his tunic.
Sham’s eyes fluttered, and Laylan was aware of Corellian crouching beside him. “Sham, my name is Corry. Do you remember me?”
For a moment, Laylan thought he didn’t. Then, suddenly, Sham’s eyes widened. A look that was unmistakably fear flicked across his face. Laylan was surprised and curious. He’d never seen that look on Sham, not even in the trap.
Corellian glanced sideways at Laylan. He seemed uncomfortable. Finally, he focused on Sham. “You saw me shift,” he said softly. “I need to know what I shifted to.”
Laylan’s ears pricked up. Everyone in Laven-lay thought that Corellian could not shift.
It took a moment for Sham to grasp what Corellian was asking. When he realized he was not being threatened, he relaxed a little.
“I need to know,” persisted Corellian, “please.”
A bitter smile twisted the corners of Sham’s lips. “We all need things we don’t get. Why should I help you, friend-of-my-enemies?”
Laylan watched Corellian. He could see the iteration considering a threat, but of what? Sham was afraid of his other form, but clearly Corellian could not shift at will. Besides, Laylan didn’t think the boy had the stomach for torture.
“You’ll find out,” said Sham ominously. “One day, they all will.”
At that moment Syrill reappeared with wood faun guards, carrying blankets, ointment, and water. Corellian withdrew as they began to dress Sham’s wounds. When they’d finished and wrapped him in blankets, Laylan produced a packet from under his cloak and laid it in Sham’s hands. “Meat,” he said and added a jug of water.
Sham stared at the food, then pushed it away. You’ll eat it when I’m gone, though, thought Laylan, because you’re a survivor, and you haven’t quite given up.
Syrill had already departed, and the wood faun guards were outside. As Laylan turned to leave, Sham called after him. “You could have made a good Raider, Laylan. Is there any particular reason you decided to become a traitor instead?”
Laylan turned slowly. “One cannot betray without first giving allegiance.”
“You were born a Canisarian.”
“Perhaps,” said Laylan, “and were you born a Raider?” He went out and shut the door.
Chapter 4. A Festive Occasion
Sham is in Laven-lay, to be hanged publicly on the 42nd day of this red month, noon. I will do what I can if you get me word.
—note found tied to the leg of a raven shot by a traveling swamp faun minstrel
Two days later, Corry sat in his front room, sipping a late morning tea and listening to Laven-lay gearing up for the execution. The sound of hammers and axes had fallen silent yesterday evening, but the tramp of guards had increased. Cliff fauns passed him almost as often as wood fauns in the hall, ruffled and squinting from overnight travel. He’d heard that at least a hundred cats had come. The inns were full of out-of-town wood fauns and even the occasional black-furred swamp faun with long, tufted tail.
Corry had already decided to watch the execution from the window of the scriptorium, along with half the other clerks. It gave a good view of the parade ground and would not be accessible to the press of common shelts. It would also be a safe place if something went wrong. Corry did not intend to become hostage a second time.
Flags flew around the perimeter of the parade ground—Laven-lay’s leaf and buck and Danda-lay’s white flower on a purple field. A breeze had come up, and the ensigns snapped and rippled. Most days, Laven-lay’s parade ground was an open-air market, and many of the vendors had come with whatever they thought appropriate for the occasion—food, mainly, and an assortment of wolf fur trinkets.
A trumpet sounded, and cliff faun soldiers poured in from the nearby streets. They wore shining metal breastplates and plumed helmets, their long tunics flashing white against purple capes. Music filled the air as they executed their drill maneuvers. They entertained the crowd for a quarter watch, and then a wood faun minstrel stood on the first tier of the gallows and recited part of a long epic poem about the bad old days when wolflings ate fauns, and valiant hunters risked everything to protect their tiny villages from the ravening dark. Afterward, he sang a well-loved wood faun anthem, and the whole crowd joined in.
When he left the platform, there was a long silence. Somewhere in the distance a gong sounded. All heads turned in the same direction, and Corry followed their gaze to the castle. A door opened, and a procession of guards filed out, carrying naked swords. The shelts and cats parted for them, and the armed fauns formed an aisle all the way to the foot of the scaffold.
Another guard emerged, leading the prisoner. Sham was naked except for a metal collar around his neck. Even from this distance, Corry could see that his skin was purple and green with bruises. He walked with an odd, shuffling limp. Another guard came behind, holding a chain attached to Sham’s bound wrists. Behind the last guard walked Chance, purple cape ruffling in the breeze.
* * * *
Sham pressed his lips together to keep back a moan as the guard ascended the steps. His metal collar had an inner lining of spikes, so that the slightest tug bored into the agonized flesh of his shoulders and neck. The guards had only to pull in opposite directions to bring the black spots before his eyes. Sham’s shattered paws were in their own private universe of pain. He’d lain in the trap half a day before Laylan found him, and the trapped foot was badly broken and swollen. But the other paw… He tried not to think about the layers of muscle and tendon that Chance’s sword had severed, but the healer in him kept returning methodically to
the finer points of a paw’s construction. Idiotic, Sham told himself, to worry about a paw, when they’re about to have you up by the neck.
Climbing the steps was a hellish business. When he finally reached the first tier, the guards turned him to face Chance. The crowd had gone very quiet. “Sham Ausla,” Chance intoned, “I charge you, a wolfling, with trespassing in wood and cliff faun territory, of robbery and murder. You are sentenced to death by hanging.”
The guards led their prisoner to the forward edge of the lower platform and brought him to his knees with one light tug on the spiked collar. Then the missiles started from the crowd. It was mostly light stuff—rancid food and dung, mud and small, sharp rocks. But after a short while, the crowd began to get out of hand. Someone heaved a brick. It struck Sham on the head and dashed the collar against his neck. His vision swam. Next thing he knew, someone had set him on his feet and was urging him towards the steps leading to the upper platform.
* * * *
“They’re really going to do it the old fashioned way,” said one of the clerks. “Haven’t seen it done that way in years.”
Corry watched Chance unlimbering his sword in fascinated disgust. He’d read about this. The traditional way to hang a wolfling was to intentionally set the noose to strangle, then disembowel him before he stopped kicking. The stated purpose was to decrease the odor of the rotting corpse (which was generally left on display) by removing the intestines and accompanying fecal material. Mostly, though, it was for punishment.
* * * *
As the guards unfastened their leashes, Sham looked down on the sea of faces. The cheering roared in his ears. He caught sight of Laylan, still standing in front of the castle door. As Sham looked at him, their eyes met and held for a moment. Sham remembered their conversation in the cell. “And were you born a Raider?”
Perhaps I was, thought Sham.
A tug on his collar brought Sham back to reality as they positioned him over the trapdoor. They fitted the noose around his neck and finally removed the hateful collar. The cheering ended in an abrupt silence. Sham scanned the distant city wall. He had tried not to think about it before, but now his thoughts tumbled. Where are you, Fenrah? He heard Chance murmur, “Good-bye, Sham,” and the floor gave way.
Chapter 5. The Curious Construction of a Gallows
I had thought to be entertained today, but the actual event exceeded all expectations.
—Syrill of Undrun, 42nd day of red month, 1700
Sham’s body fell through the trapdoor and landed with an unpleasant thump on the lower platform. The crowd began to murmur. Chance stared through the opening at his feet. For a second nobody moved. Then several guards hurried up from below, carrying Sham back to the high platform. Chance was having a furious discussion with the executioner. “The rope’s frayed,” babbled the shelt. “Had nothing to do with me, sir. I only turn the lever.”
Chance paced like a caged animal while a guard shimmied up the beam to re-knot the rope. They made a new noose and repositioned Sham. The murmuring crowd watched as Sham hobbled onto the trapdoor again.
This time when Sham hit the boards, he let out a yelp. Chance’s eyes blazed, and he rounded on the unfortunate executioner. “Gabalon’s fang! Are you completely incompetent?”
The faun shrank away. After a quick consultation with his subordinates, he reported that the metal ring that held the rope had come loose from the beam.
“Then tie the rope around the beam!” snarled Chance.
“It’s tall; I’ll give you that,” commented Sham as he made his third arrival on the upper platform. “If you keep dropping me, it should eventually do the job.”
Chance glared at him. “If you have anything to do with this, I’ll—”
“You’ll what? Kill me?”
The crowd was becoming increasingly restless and noisy. Some whispered the name “Fenrah,” but a horde of murderous wolflings completely failed to materialize. The shelts on the scaffold re-knotted the rope. The crowd began to relax.
The executioner looked at Chance.
“Oh, just do it!” he snapped.
The lever turned.
Sham cringed.
And nothing happened.
Chance jerked Sham out of the way and bent to examine the trapdoor. The executioner continued to jiggle his lever, but without success. The guards slunk to and fro, trying to look busy. “Maybe it’s jammed,” offered Sham unhelpfully.
Chance turned slowly. “One more word out of you, and I will run you through myself.”
The guards began to tap the door with their hooves. “It’s not a baby faun,” grated Chance. “It’s a dead tree. Put some muscle into it.” He moved forward and stamped on the trapdoor, which opened with surprising ease. Chance let out a startled yell as his hooves slipped into empty space. He flailed and managed to catch himself before he followed Sham’s path to the lower level. Chance hoisted himself out, eyes murderous, face crimson.
A titter of laughter started in the crowd. Sham was grinning, but his face became serious as Chance’s eyes fell on him. The wolfling shrugged. “Seems to be working now.”
Thump.
“Sir,” stammered a soldier. “The door has...has fallen off, sir.”
Now the crowd was laughing loudly.
“We’ll fix it,” spoke up an officer desperately. “Someone’s already gone to get a ladder.” At that moment the gong and the city tower bells began clanging wildly. Suddenly the entire central pole of the scaffold creaked and gave way. Sham wriggled desperately to get out of the noose, but he needn’t have worried. The rope was already falling free. As the timber struck the ground, a noise like thunder rocked the earth, and white smoke fountained out of the scaffold.
The crowd went mad. Another explosion sounded from somewhere in the castle grounds and then another. The smoke made the area around the scaffold impenetrable. Over all the noise rose a high, thin wail—a wolf howl.
Sham had not moved from his place on the top tier. His hands were still tied, and he could barely walk. His guards were running into each other in panic and confusion, and he could no longer see Chance. The smoke streaming from the scaffold had turned blood red. Through the ruined hole where the beam had broken, a figure emerged. She was black as night, and she went through the terrified soldiers like a scythe through wheat. She stopped beside Sham. “How many times have I told you to wear your boots?”
Sham grinned at her. “I like the smoke and thunder, but did you have to keep dropping me?”
Fenrah turned to block a blow aimed at her head. “Had to wait for the signal from the others. We stalled as well as we could. You can thank Sevn for the thunder. He’s desperate to explain the process, and everyone else is bored of listening. It took two other packs and some irregulars to get you out of here.”
“Oh?” Irregulars where Fenrah’s term for sympathetic fauns. “I can’t walk very well, Fenny.”
“You won’t have to.”
Sham saw that another wolfling had crawled out of the broken beam. By the size, it must be Xerous. In seconds, he’d cleansed the platform of all remaining fauns. Another howl sounded quite close, and Fenrah answered. A moment later, two wolves bounded up out of the smoke. “Enden!” Sham threw his arms around the shaggy neck.
Fenrah and Xerous both got on Dance, Sham on Enden, and they reached the ground in two bone-jarring leaps. Then they were running through the clearing smoke, past hysterical shelts and cats, towards the wall and freedom.
* * * *
Laylan and Shyshax found Chance at the foot of the scaffold bellowing for archers. A dead faun hit the ground beside them. If Fenrah comes off that platform and finds Chance, she’ll cut him to pieces, thought Laylan. He grabbed the faun and half dragged him out of the smoke, back towards the castle, shouting something about finding more organized troops. At the entrance, they did indeed meet a small group of soldiers, still in some semblance of order.
“Wolflings!” gasped one. “Near the east gat
e. I think we put them to flight.”
“Idiot!” snapped Chance. “They were a decoy. The prisoner has escaped with Fenrah and perhaps another Raider. They’ll be on wolves by now. FIND THEM!”
“Yes, sir.” The faun scurried away before Chance could hit him.
Chance paced for a moment, then slumped against a pillar. “They’re gone.” He ran a blood-stained hand through his hair. “We can chase them all the way to Danda-lay, but we won’t catch them today.”
In the silence Shyshax made a little cough that sounded like “told you so.”
Chance raised his head slowly.
The cheetah grinned. “Hairball.”
Chapter 6. The Road to Danda-lay
Fifty years ago, the wolflings competed with the centaurs for quality of weapons. What with their iron and tin and copper, some of it mined in cat-country. Wolflings sold some of the best swords in Panamindorah, plenty of them still around. But did their weapons do them any good when Demitri came calling? No, and the worst part of it is that the wood fauns stood around with wolfling steel in their hands and did nothing.
—Syrill in a letter to Jubal
The wolflings had escaped through a breach in the old western gate—a crater wide enough to drive a cart through. No one was sure how they had caused the explosions or rigged the scaffold. Laylan prowled the broken areas, collecting samples and sniffing. Chance set off for Danda-lay that evening, unwilling to face the jeers and accusations of the wood faun community. Four cliff faun guards had died fighting on the scaffold. A handful of wood faun soldiers had been wounded, and eight civilians had been trampled in their flight from the parade ground.
In the taverns, however, the event was hailed a success for entertainment value and well worth attending further installments, though perhaps at a greater distance. Syrill certainly thought so. His mood had improved considerably, and he chattered and joked more than Corry could remember since the feline ambassadors arrived in court.
The snows came two days later, and traffic through the city dwindled to a trickle. The drifts were chest-high in the forest. Bandits, both wolfling and faun, were reported on the roads and in the wood. The Raiders, however, were not seen again that winter.