Sham sat down in the dirt. “Danzel wasn’t at his post. I had a run-in with Chance, and he’s got my hackles up.”
“Chance!” Sevn flung a handful of rope out of the tunnel. “What’s he doing here?”
“I don’t know. This whole raid has been a disaster.”
“Really?” asked Talis quietly.
Sham glanced at her and flashed a toothy grin. “We’ll see.”
Sevn was frowning. “Do you suppose someone told—?”
“No. Laylan probably found the diggings.” Sham grimaced. “He’s getting better.”
A leaf crunched, and Sham spun around. On the edge of the clearing stood a small wolfling who didn’t look older than ten. He wore a baggy, mud-stained gray tunic, weighted on one side with a sword that looked too big for him. Corry caught sight of a bulging satchel attached to his belt opposite the sword. The child held his hands behind his back, his ears angled sharply backwards. His outsized paws pushed against each other nervously.
“Danzel!” Sham barked. Then, more softly, “Pup, where have you been? Lyli didn’t find you, and Talis had no way of getting off the roof. She was chased and nearly killed. We had to drop through the ceiling! Danzel, where were you?”
“I’m sorry, Sham.” His voice came soft and squeaky. “I just... I saw... There was this...and he had...and it...”
Sham took the youngster by the shoulders. “What happened?”
“I saw a faun with a satchel on his belt, and it looked heavy. It clinked.”
Sham let out his breath and put his head down.
Danzel continued. “And I followed him. And he went into a big house. I stalked him. I was so quiet! You would have been proud of me. I was so quiet!”
“Danzel!” growled Sham, raising his head and shaking the youngster so hard the satchel tinkled. “We didn’t come here for cowries!”
“How about gold?” asked Danzel cheerfully. “How about ten gold pieces, and I didn’t even count how many cowries. There’s silver. Pearls too!”
Sham opened his mouth, but then Danzel brought his hands from behind his back. “And I found this.” Danzel was holding a violin. He thrust it into Sham’s hands. Sunlight falling through the trees lit on the polished, gracefully curving wood and made it glow golden.
“It’s what I was looking for,” continued Danzel softly. “I couldn’t get the bow.” He looked anxiously at Sham. “But you could make that, couldn’t you?”
Sham stood up suddenly and turned around so that Danzel couldn’t see his face. Corry saw him cover his mouth with one hand and shut his eyes. A single large tear rolled down over his fingers. Then he rubbed his hand hard over his face and turned around.
“What you did was wrong. You were not there for Talis when she needed you. We hold each other’s lives in our hands, and if you don’t do your part… Talis and I could both be dead.”
Danzel’s eyes clouded. “I’m sorry. I only wanted—”
“You must obey orders!” Sham took the violin in both hands and broke it over his knee.
Danzel flinched. His bushy tail dropped down limp behind him.
Sham dropped the broken instrument and pointed to it. “Our lives. That’s what almost happened to them.”
Danzel stared at the ground. “Yes, sir.”
By this time Sevn had already urged the three wolves down the tunnel. He cleared his throat and said softly. “We need to hurry. Lyli is keeping watch at the far end.”
Sham nodded. “Go and tell her we’re ready, Danzel.”
Danzel darted down the tunnel.
As soon as he was gone, Talis stepped over to the violin and picked it up. “This was a good one.” She inspected it minutely. “A very good one.” Sham turned away. “You didn’t have to break it,” said Talis.
“Yes, I did.” He would not look at the violin.
Syrill’s eyes were just beginning to flutter groggily when a sack went over his head. Sevn tied his legs to the line going into the hole. He gave a couple of jerks, and Syrill slithered into the darkness. Sevn followed him and Talis came behind. A moment later, Danzel appeared to say that Lyli had secured Syrill. She and Talis were on their way back to camp, and Sevn was keeping watch at the end of the tunnel.
Sham turned to Corry. “Make things difficult for us, and we’ll kill you—one shout, one snatch for a weapon, and you’re dead. You’re not that valuable. Do you understand?”
Corry nodded.
Sham cut loose his hands and pointed to the tunnel. “Crawl.”
Corry crawled. He could see almost nothing in the tunnel, and he went along hesitantly, feeling his way over protruding tree roots and clods of earth. Behind, he heard Danzel’s voice. “Something else happened this morning.”
“Oh?” Sham sounded suspicious.
“Laylan chased me.”
“What?”
“I think he found my tracks near the castle wall where I was supposed to be waiting. He must have followed me, because when I came out of the faun’s house, he nearly shot me. I ran, and he chased me all the way to the royal grain sheds.”
“Was he on Shyshax?” asked Sham. “Danzel, are you making this up?”
“No! He wasn’t on Shyshax. I ran into a shed. It was one of the smaller ones, only half full. I ran out before he could get behind the grain, and I shut the door. It locked!”
Sham began to chuckle. “You locked Laylan in a grain shed?”
“Yes.” Corry could hear the grin in Danzel’s voice. “It only had one window in the top.”
Sham was laughing hard now. “No wonder they haven’t found us. They probably haven’t even found Laylan.”
Chapter 6. Raiders
The fact that the Raiders confused the plans of the greatest of planners should not come as a surprise. The Raiders were an anomaly from the beginning. They confused everyone.
—Archemais, Gabalon: The Many Facets of a Tyrant
Corry woke in darkened stillness. He remembered a long ride, the feel of wolf fur, wind in his face, splashing through a river. Then Talis had asked him to drink something—a drug probably, because he’d become very sleepy. They’d stopped somewhere. He’d lain down, and—
Corry opened his eyes. He was lying on the dirt floor of a cave. From somewhere nearby he heard the sound of rushing water. His wrists were tied behind his back, and one leg throbbed where a root had cut off the circulation. Dragon moon looked in at an opening above his head. By its light, he could see that the walls and floor were muddy, his clothes filthy. Corry braced himself against the slimy rock and got to his feet. He staggered to the wall and hopped up and down a couple of times below the cave entrance.
“You can’t reach it, not with your hands tied.”
Corry turned. In the shadows near the back, something moved. “Even if you could reach the hole, there’ll be a guard outside.”
“Syrill?” Corry moved towards him. Syrill sat with his back against the wall. His feet were tied as well as his hands. Blood had dried around a cut on his cheek. His clothes, like Corry’s, were very dirty.
Corry sat down beside him. “You fought well with that wolfling. I saw the rope twitch and tried to yell, but no one could hear me. It was just bad luck.”
Syrill laughed bitterly. “I heard you. I just didn’t pay attention.”
Corry was surprised at his honesty.
“I should have left off when I saw it was a Raider. To think it was you she found, and all this time I thought it had something to do with them.”
Corry was lost. “She?”
“Capricia. She met you on the king’s tour of the western provinces three years ago, yes? You probably don’t know that the king’s party was waylaid on the way back by the Raiders. Capricia and her doe were separated from the main group for almost a day. When she returned to the castle, she behaved strangely. I see now it was you she had grown curious over, but at the time, I thought she’d found some clue to the Raiders’ den. I don’t suppose you can shape-shift?”
Cor
ry shook his head. “Can most iterations do that?”
“Well, if you’ve got wizard blood, I suppose there’s always the possibility.”
“How do you mean ‘she behaved strangely’?”
“I wasn’t there for most of it, but I heard she’d developed an intense interest in the old language and the wizards. I seem to remember she worried her father by making unguarded forays into the forest. Of course, that all stopped when the war started.”
“What war?”
Syrill looked incredulous. “The war with Filinia—with the cats. Don’t you know anything about this part of the world?”
Corry had thought carefully about how to answer this question. “Capricia told me what happened to my village, but I can’t remember. I can’t remember anything beyond a few days ago. All I knew was that I had to get to Laven-lay and find her.”
Syrill grimaced. “Something happened to you on the way here. Fauns can be cruel to iterations they find alone in the wood.”
Corry half smiled. “Can they?”
“I was not cruel,” countered Syrill. “Besides, iterations don’t have the national ties of a shelt and some do spy for the cats. That’s why I picked you up, and when you couldn’t answer me coherently, I thought—”
“It’s alright,” said Corry. “I’d never have found Laven-lay without you. I was lost.” He sat back against the wall. “Do you call all wolflings Raiders or only this group?”
“You really don’t know anything, do you? And now I come to listen, your speech is strange. You don’t have any idea how far you came to get here?”
Corry shook his head. “Sham and Danzel were talking about someone called Laylan. Who is he, and who was that faun in the purple cape, Chance? Why are you at war with the cats?” Corry glanced at the long scars running up Syrill’s arm and under his sleeve. “Did a cat do that to you?”
“Yes—flipped me off my deer. I was lucky; Blix came after me. He’s a brave mount. That was the day I won my command. We were cut off, the army routed, most of the senior officers dead. I rallied the survivors. Afterward, Meuril put me in charge.
“As for the cats, they conquered Canisaria—that was wolfling country—and pushed the wolves and wolflings into our territory, (the Endless Wood. We bounty wolflings because they kill deer and occasionally fauns, but they really don’t have any other place to go.” Syrill grimaced. “We should have helped the wolflings when they were fighting for their lives. Meuril thought the cats would stop in Canisaria, but they didn’t, and now we have to fight them. Most wolflings only hide and try to survive. Organized, troublesome packs crop up occasionally, but most of them are hunted down and destroyed within a year.”
“But not the Raiders?”
“No. Three years ago rumors crept into Laven-lay about a new outlaw pack. Their leader was a female named Fenrah Ausla. Fauns attached little importance to the name, even though Ausla is a royal Canid line. However, when the Raiders began exacting a heavy cowry count from our merchants, even threatening the king’s caravan, fauns took notice. Meuril tripled the bounty on Raiders. Fenrah, however, proved cunning. There were eight Raiders three years ago. There are eight today.”
“So who are Chance and Laylan?”
“I’m coming to that. You know, of course, that the cliff fauns think Danda-lay impregnable?”
“What’s Danda-lay?”
Syrill frowned. “It is amazing that you retain the ability to dress yourself.”
Before Corry could formulate a retort, Syrill continued, “Cliff faun capital. Political and financial seat of middle Panamindorah.”
“Is Chance from Danda-lay?”
“Yes, he’s a cliff faun prince, King Shadock’s youngest. Like all of them, he has a certain arrogance about that city. You can imagine their outcry when the Raiders dared attack it.”
“Ah. So then Laven-lay’s problem became Danda-lay’s, too?”
“You would have thought the queen had been ravished for all their clamor. The raid came during a celebration: the spring festival of Lupricasia. At that particular festival Shadock was honoring Chance for a feat of bravery in battle. Cliff fauns have helped us in the cat wars. Chance’s ceremony was interrupted and a statue in his honor insultingly defaced.” Syrill grinned wickedly.
Corry could tell that Syrill wanted him to ask a question, so he asked it. “Defaced how?”
“The royal artisans had him depicted upon a stag. The Raiders gelded the statue, took the antlers, made a doe of it. Chance was livid.”
Corry smiled. “You don’t sound very sorry.”
Syrill shrugged. “No one was killed. The Raiders were only making a show. Chance, however, took it as a personal insult. He’s spent the last two years hunting Fenrah’s pack.”
“Who is Sham?” asked Corry. “I thought he was the leader. I never even saw Fenrah.”
“Sham is Fenrah’s second, her cousin. He’s also their chief healer. Talis is his apprentice. Chance has posted handsome rewards in addition to Meuril’s bounty for the capture of any Raider. Consequently, numerous hunters pursue them.”
“And one of those hunters is Laylan?”
Syrill nodded. “Laylan is a bounty hunter who appeared in this area about five years ago. His mount is a cheetah named Shyshax.”
“But I thought you were at war with the cats.”
“Cheetahs are outcasts,” said Syrill dismissively. “They were evicted from the council of Filinia years ago for treachery. They survive as a breed, but all the king cheetahs were killed, and they have no say in government. Laylan himself is not a faun. Some say he is half wolfling.”
Corry’s eyebrows rose.
“Laylan looks by his fur to be a fox shelt,” continued Syrill, “but foxlings are small of stature. Laylan is tall—too tall, some say, to be pure fox shelt.
“Whatever his pedigree, Laylan is the best bounty hunter in the wood. In his vendetta against the Raiders, Chance offered Laylan a fixed salary—a high one—if he would abandon his wholesale trapping and concentrate on Fenrah’s pack. So far Laylan hasn’t caught any Raiders, but he’s come closer than any faun and has saved many merchants their cargos.”
“What will the Raiders do with us?” asked Corry.
“Hold us for ransom. If they intended to kill us, they would have done so by now.”
Corry smiled. “You’re not angry that there was a raid on Laven-lay, are you, Syrill? You’re only angry that you were the one taken hostage.”
Syrill glanced sideways at him. “The Raiders hate cats as much as I do. They are the real enemy. If they hadn’t pushed the wolflings out of their own country and into ours, we wouldn’t be having this trouble. Fenrah is right: wolflings have nowhere to go.”
“And you really don’t think she’ll harm us?”
Syrill pursed his lips. “Fenrah is unpredictable. It is to her advantage to be so. But I can say for certain that she will do nothing that would hurt her struggling nation, and Filinian conquest might do that. I am one thing that stands in the way of that conquest.”
“What is she like?” asked Corry.
“Fenrah?” Syrill closed his eyes. “They say she dresses in black. Her weapon of choice is not a sword, but a huge dagger. She rides an enormous black wolf named Dance. Some even claim that he is a durian wolf.”
“What is a durian wolf?”
“A talking wolf. The wolves that most wolflings ride are called lupin wolves. They are like our deer—understanding some speech, but themselves incapable.”
“So Dance can talk?”
“I said that rumors claim he can talk. As far as I know, no faun has heard him. Cats can talk too, you know. It’s a skill that once existed widely among four-legged creatures, although many of them lost it under the rule of the wizard, Gabalon.”
For some reason Corry was not surprised to learn that the cats could talk. The idea made him think of something else. “Who was that snow leopard following you the day we met?”
Syrill turned to look at
him. “How did you know about that?”
“I saw you in the wood. You jumped right over me.”
“I never saw you. The leopard was one of Demitri’s generals—Ounce. I led a scouting party to examine a village they had destroyed. We were discovered and pursued.” He frowned at Corry. “You are truly a fortunate iteration. You could easily have been killed by cats yesterday.”
Corry thought a moment. “So who is the cat king, and what kind of a cat is he?”
“The tigers rule Filinia these days. The lions were better, if you ask me, though the only good cat is a dead one. Technically, the king now is Demitri, but Lexis is his alpha cub. Demitri is rumored to be ill, and Lexis leads the army now.”
Before Syrill could say anything else a shelt dropped into the cave and moved toward them. “Wake up, you two,” came a deep male voice. “Chief is ready to see you.”
“They’re not asleep, Xerous.” Corry recognized Talis’s voice from the entrance. “They’ve been prattling like geese the whole time.”
Xerous was larger than either Sham or Sevn. The wolfling came close and peered at Corry. “Iteration… How interesting.” He turned to Syrill. “On your feet, faun.”
Chapter 7. Fenrah
Fauns say I wear black to blend with the shadows. Wolflings know better. They say I wear black because I am in mourning.
—Fenrah Ausla
Corry staggered out of the hole just in time to see Xerous flip Syrill into the shallow river. Syrill came up with a yelp. Xerous fished him out at once, blindfolded him, then cut the ropes on his feet. Syrill had quite a lot to say about all this, but he was having trouble getting his curses out between his chattering teeth. “You were dirty,” explained Xerous.
Meanwhile Talis ordered Corry into the cold river for a less abrupt bath. She blindfolded him as well, and they followed Xerous and Syrill. Soon Corry was forced to his knees and into a tunnel. After crawling for a short distance, he felt a cool breeze on his face. Then he was on his feet and told to remain still.
Next moment, he felt something strapped around his waist. Talis commanded him to sit, and Corry let out an exclamation of surprise as he sprang away from the ground. The movement soon ceased. Hands disentangled him from the harness and removed the blindfold. “Greetings!” came a cheery voice. Corry blinked at Sevn. “Welcome to the camp of the Raiders.”
* * * *
The prisoners sat on a platform in the boughs of a massive tree, patch-worked with moonlight. Both were bound, although they were allowed the luxury of sight. Wooden catwalks led away in either direction, although Corry could see few details through the leaves and shadows. Xerous stood guard over them, fletching arrows on the far side of the platform. In spite of the warm summer air, Corry felt cold in his wet clothes. He and Syrill had been in the camp an hour, and no one had paid them much notice.