Talis, Lyli, Sevn, and Danzel all passed occasionally along the catwalk. Once Talis hurried over to Xerous and asked him for some medical herbs. Finally, Sham strolled by with Sevn. Sham paused beside the prisoners and glanced at Xerous. “Have these two had water?”
Xerous thought for a moment, then shook his head.
“Sevn?”
“I don’t think that they have, Sham.”
“Gabalon’s teeth, what terrible hospitality. And poor Syrill is a mess.”
Sevn pursed his lips. “I wouldn’t say that the other looks like a dandelion.”
“I’ll ask Talis to clean them up. Then Fenny wants to see them.”
Sometime later, Talis arrived. She wrapped them in blankets and cleaned the cuts on Syrill’s face and the back of his head—a mass of bloody hair where Sham had struck him. Syrill peppered the nursing with comments about spoiling Sham’s handiwork and why didn’t they scratch both sides of his face so things would be symmetrical?
The prisoners had their hands retied in front and received a much-appreciated drink to which even Syrill made no protest. Talis brought food, but when it came, Syrill cried out in indignation. “Is this your idea of a joke?”
Talis reddened. “I forgot that you don’t eat deer meat.”
Syrill continued to grumble, but when she returned with vegetable broth he ate two bowls of it. Both prisoners were reasonably comfortable when Xerous returned and unfastened their feet. Talis took Corry’s arm as before. Xerous got a good hold on Syrill, who kept eyeing the distance to the ground as they proceeded along the narrow boardwalk.
At last they came to the crotch of a very large tree, which formed a natural bowl. Moonlight washed through the leaves and threw shadows and shifting patches of light on the textured bark. Within the shadows of the bowl, Corry saw the silhouettes of two wolflings, crouching over a block of wood that had been set up as a table.
Corry heard Sham’s voice, apparently in the midst of a mild argument. “What else was I to do? They would have killed her.”
The response came too low to hear.
“Yes, I know, but Danzel wasn’t there! It’s not as if I wanted to take hostages!”
Corry heard an alto female voice. “I should never have sent that pup.”
Sham sounded sad. “He did it for me, Fenny. I think I made him understand.”
“I hope so.”
Xerous cleared his throat. “Chief?” She rose and came towards them into the moonlight.
Fenrah Ausla had black fur and black hair, pulled into a bundle at the nape of her neck. Her eyes were large and as black as charred wood. He could distinguish no difference between the pupil and the iris. She wore a sleeveless tunic made of soft black leather and a cape and boots of the same stuff. Fenrah wore a sword belt, weighted with the largest dagger Corry had ever seen. It had a narrow blade with a gold hilt set with jagged fragments of what looked like mother-of-pearl. A pale gold stone shone in the center of the pommel.
“General,” she said to Syrill, “you’ve lost your hat.”
Syrill scowled at her. “Among other things.”
“You were in the wrong place at the wrong time. I apologize for any rough treatment.”
“You can keep your apologies, Fenrah. They won’t help either of us. Sham did a foolish thing. If you don’t release me, Meuril will have every soldier in Laven-lay after you.”
Fenrah frowned. “Don’t judge my cousin too harshly. Many would have advised he kill you. Instead he brought you to me. It was the right decision, but still problematic. You know as well as I do that I cannot simply release you. You are too valuable. Besides, for reputation’s sake alone, we could not possibly release a faun once we’ve caught him.”
She looked at him frankly. “You have done well in the war, general. The cats have tasted a little defeat at your hands, and if ever I had reason to be grateful to a faun, well...” Fenrah’s manner became brisk. “Meuril has been sent a ransom note concerning you, as well as the other.” She peered curiously at Corry. “He has been given two days. If we don’t get an answer by then, I’m afraid that I’ll have to kill you, as much as I will regret it.” She shrugged. “That’s as good as I can do. I sincerely hope that I can return you to your troops.”
Syrill tossed his head. “How much? Come, Fenrah, let me pay it myself and be done. The cowries will be at whatever place you specify before Meuril would have time to call a meeting.”
Fenrah’s dark eyes dropped. “What makes you think I’m asking for cowries?”
“Oh? What’s your price, then? Filinian pelts? I have those, too.”
She shook her head. “I’ve only asked one thing of Laven-lay, ever: no more bounty laws.”
Syrill was silent a moment. “I see you want to kill me after all.”
Fenrah shook her head. “Meuril is fond of you—”
“Fenrah, he won’t do it.”
“He may if you ask. I have a pen there, and parchment. Write him. I’ve never made a faun die the sort of death you keep for us. But if this will produce better results, so be it.”
Syrill stood very still. Finally, he said, “Surely you realize that in my profession, one must have the respect of one’s fellows. How will it be if the common shelts say, ‘Syrill begged for his life, and so now we must live with bandits and murderers?’ No, Fenrah. Meuril can make his decision on the strength of your own arguments. I’ll not cloud his judgment with pleading.”
She sighed. “Canids are not all bandits and murderers. I understand you work well enough with Laylan.”
Syrill shrugged. “I was referring to the common shelts. What I think is another matter.”
Fenrah stepped suddenly close to him. Corry caught the scent of leather oil on her clothes and the lingering odor of wood smoke. “General,” she half whispered, “I am not your enemy, and you are not mine. Help me in this.”
Syrill shook his head. “I can’t. I would if I could.”
Fenrah sighed and stepped away. “It’s not cowries we want. We’ll take them if that gets Laven-lay’s attention, but we’re not highway bandits. To ask for your ransom in cowries would undermine the message I have been trying to send. I did not invite this hostage situation. This is the best I can think to deal with it.”
She turned away, and Corry thought that she had finished. Fenrah, however, had only gone to retrieve something from the block of wood. “Recognize this, General?”
Syrill leapt forward. Xerous seized him with both hands, lifting him a little in the air.
Fenrah was laughing. “I’ll take that as a ‘yes.’” She nodded to Xerous and Talis. “Take them away.” The object she held was a silver key.
Chapter 8. Trouble for a Key
The average Filinian has a personal investment in battle, which no faun leader can impart to his own soldiers. Deep in shelt territory, a thousand cats would be hard pressed to find enough game to feed even half their number. They must fight, for they must eat.
—Capricia Sor, Prelude to War
“You can sit here in natural silence or you can lie here unconscious,” said Xerous. “You choose.” He let Corry and Syrill drop to the ground. Their legs had been re-tied. Xerous sat down on the opposite side of the deck with his back against a tree trunk. He propped his hands behind his head and watched Runner’s yellow sickle winking across the trees. The wolflings take their monthly calendar from Runner, which has a cycle of about fifteen days—a “yellow month.” Corry shook his head. Why do I remember such a useless thing?
High in the sky, Dragon was as full as ever. Corry thought perhaps the fauns used it for their months, but he wasn’t sure. He remembered that a red month was about sixty days. He also remembered the color of the third moon. Blue moon, and its cycle is inconsistent. Shelts call it Wanderer.
“Wake up!” Corry’s eye snapped open. Dew lay moist on his skin. Runner had set, and Dragon was well down the sky. Something kicked him in the ribs. “Iteration! Wake up!”
“I’m awake,” gru
nted Corry, scooting away from Syrill’s sharp little hooves.
“They’re changing guards; Sevn had to be found. Hurry! We haven’t much time!”
“Time for what?”
“My hooves,” said Syrill impatiently. “There’s a horn shoe—very thin, and a small blade inside—Laylan’s idea, very practical.”
“Knife?” Corry blinked at him. “You had a knife all the time?”
“Couldn’t get to it,” growled Syrill, “Anyway, I had to know whether she had the key.”
Corry was already fumbling at Syrill’s hooves—awkwardly, because his hands were tied behind. He found the shoe, secured with tiny nails. It had two pieces for each side of the split hoof. On the inside outer edge of each shoe, Corry found the slender strip of sharp metal. He worked one loose and began to saw at the ropes on Syrill’s wrists. “Why is the key important?”
“It’s Laylan’s master trap key. It was the whole point of the raid. They wanted Meuril’s copy. They probably didn’t even know I had one. Hurry!”
“Laylan’s traps are keyed?”
“Yes. Only four copies exist. Chance and Meuril each have one, and Laylan has the original. Recently he entrusted one to me, because my soldiers have gotten caught in them, and I wanted to try the traps on Filinians.” Syrill’s hands were free. He wrenched the other shoe off and started working on his feet.
“Can’t Laylan change his locks?” asked Corry.
“Yes, but it would probably take a yellow month. Wolflings could do a lot of damage in that time. Besides, I am responsible for the key.”
Corry saw the real issue then. “Syrill, surely Laylan doesn’t expect you to keep it at the expense of your life.”
Syrill kicked free of the last of his ropes. He knelt behind Corry and expertly sliced through the remaining strands. Then he spun him around and hacked through the knots at his feet. “You,” he panted, “can run as you please.” He glanced up, a glint of scorn in his eyes. “No one would expect anything else of an iteration.”
Corry sat up straight. For just a moment, the world blurred, and his color-sense flamed—the dead reek of the darkness, the intoxicating wine of Dragon moon, the velvety richness of the leaves—then everything slid back into focus. Syrill was looking at him oddly—contempt giving way to uncertainty, almost fear. “What did you just do?” he asked.
“I don’t know. What did it look like?”
“I—”
Creeeak!
Corry felt the wood tremble as Lyli trotted out of the darkness. She gave a cry of alarm that broke off as Syrill slammed into her. She struggled to bring her sword into play, but Syrill had closed too quickly, and the two staggered back onto the narrow catwalk.
Corry heard a yelp of pain. Syrill was around her and gone. Lyli was holding her shoulder, and Corry realized that Syrill must have sliced her with his hoof-knife. She turned with a snarl to slash at Corry with her sword. He lunged backward, felt the blade cleave the air near his belly, lost his balance, and toppled off the catwalk.
Leaves and branches slapped him as he fell. Something was constricting his arms and legs, choking him. Corry reached out blindly to stop the strangling. Ropes, a pulley?
He halted, dangling. He’d just managed to keep himself from being hung. This must be Sevn’s device—that chair I came up in. Corry risked a downward glance and was relieved to see the forest floor not three feet below, faintly visible in the predawn.
He landed with a soft thump and turned towards the sound of a growl. A wolf and a wolfling child were standing a few feet away. The wolf was black and enormous. This has to be Dance. Corry’s forehead came only as high as his shoulder. The child stood only about half as tall as Corry. The wolfling did not give an instant alarm as Corry expected, but stood staring at him. Wild black hair hung thick to the child’s shoulders. He had a thin, pointed nose and enormous black eyes.
Somewhere voices had begun to shout. There was a sound of running feet in the dry leaves. The small wolfling broke from Corry’s gaze and darted away.
The black wolf began to growl. Eyes of yellow gold stared from a face of such obvious intelligence that for a full half minute Corry expected the animal to speak. At last, the wolf leaned forward, sniffing. Corry felt that his heart would break through his ribs. Running is useless, he told himself over and over. Best to stay still.
Corry felt certain that Dance understood that he was an escaped prisoner. He expected the wolf to roar or howl at any moment. Dance, however, remained oddly calm. Slowly the snarl died in his throat. His lips lowered so that Corry could no longer see his teeth. His ears came up. Then, to Corry’s utter astonishment he whined, and his tail waved slowly behind him.
And the world sank away.
Shadows. Stairs. Dark, dripping tunnels. Fear. A dungeon vault, and a hulking shape. Yellow gold eyes.
“What are you doing here, cub? Come closer. Let me smell you. Creator bless you, you smell of earth and stars and wind. No, don’t speak. You smell of freedom. Be still and let me taste that air one last time. You can’t free me. Brave cub, but this was foolishly done.”
An argument in whispers. The feel of fur through bars. “There must be a way. We need you, Telsar.”
Corry bit back a cry. The vivid images in his head washed around and collided with the reality of the dawn wood. He stared into the yellow eyes of the black wolf. “Telsar?”
The wolf whined. Then he turned and bounded away, leaving a trembling Corry in the confusion of his half-remembered past. He knows me! How can that be?
Someone was shouting. Corry fled. He ran blindly, hardly caring where he went. He stopped when he saw Syrill. He’d caught the wolfling child. The others must have been just behind, for they appeared suddenly out of the trees, down the trunks, from swinging ropes.
“Stop!” growled Syrill, pressing the knife against the throat of the struggling wolfling.
Fenrah slid to a halt. Behind her Corry saw Sham, Sevn, Danzel, and Xerous. “If you come any closer, I’ll kill him,” said Syrill. “I’m sure you can understand hostage situations.”
Sham’s lips tightened. “If you make any scratches on that pup, I’ll patch them with your pelt!”
Fenrah raised her hand for silence. “What do you want, Syrill?”
“The key.”
“Alright.” Her tail rose behind her back and twitched to the left. Out of the corner of his eye, Corry saw Talis and Lyli moving through the trees to get behind Syrill. “But tell me, General, what will you do when you get it? We can easily recapture you on foot in the forest. We may kill you. If you stop right now, I’ll forget this ever happened. If not, Meuril may lose a valiant officer, and I will feel much regret at having helped Lexis—”
“Give me the key,” snapped Syrill.
Fenrah reached into a pouch at her belt, then extended both hands, one with the key, the other reaching for the young wolfling. “Let him go,” she murmured. “Come, Huali.”
The youngster waited with an almost feline, emotionless attention. Corry realized that during the whole episode he hadn’t made a sound, though he had bitten Syrill on the arm.
Syrill’s grip on the wolfling loosened, and he held out his hand. Corry flinched as he watched Lyli draw her sword behind him. They’ll kill him before he takes five steps. I’ve got to do something.
Without giving himself time to think, Corry leapt from behind the tree, yelled wildly, and ran. Xerous caught him in a matter of seconds, spinning Corry to the ground and pinning him with his sword. He could tell that Xerous would have dearly loved to kill him, but he deferred to Sham several yards away, who shook his head.
Meanwhile Syrill and Fenrah were throwing up a shower of leaves. Corry realized that his diversion must have given Syrill a chance to try for a better hostage. Lyli, Danzel, and Sevn circled them with drawn swords, awaiting an opportunity. Suddenly a huge black shape shot from the trees. Dance caught Syrill and tossed him in the air to land with a grunt on his back. The dazed faun tried to rise, b
ut the wolf was already standing over him, looking to his mistress for permission to kill.
Chapter 9. Shift
It is on this day of all days that I feel in need of counsel, and I have none. My father has never been interested in the old books, and he would count all my work in that direction as folly. I need an ally. I am utterly alone.
—diary of Capricia Sor, Summer, 1700
Fenrah got to her feet behind Dance. “Sevn, do you have rope?”
“Yes.”
“Hang him. Do it quickly.”
“Fenrah!” came Xerous’s deep growl, and Lyli cleared her throat behind him. Corry thought at first that they were going to argue in Syrill’s defense, but the way Lyli gripped the handle of her skinning knife made him think otherwise. “You said—!”
Fenrah glanced at them wearily. “Why torture him? Do you really think it will make any difference? I did not plan for this. It has gone far enough.”
Behind her, Sevn was knotting a hangman’s noose, while Sham advanced on Syrill with drawn sword. Syrill could not rise with Dance bristling over him. He still gripped the little hoof knife in one hand, knuckles white around the key in the other.
Do something!
Just then, distant, but distinct in the crisp morning air came the sound of horns. “Xerous, get back up there and break camp!” barked Fenrah. “Danzel, Huali, help him. Dance, go assemble the pack. Sham, Sevn, I want that key in my hand and that faun on a rope. Lyli, finish that one.” She jerked her head towards Corry.
He felt a rush of air beside him as Xerous sprinted away. He saw Sevn toss the noose around Syrill’s neck without bothering to get the knife away from him. Dimly Corry was aware of Lyli uncoiling beside him, drawing back with her sword to kill him in one stroke.
Corry drew in breath, but something seemed to have happened to his lungs. Long after they should have reached capacity, he kept drawing air, filling and filling. The world blurred. He could see each of the shelts around him only as a red silhouette, more orange in the limbs and brightest red in the torso and head. Corry gulped, and a dizzying array of taste-smells flooded his brain. He seemed to have gained height. Lyli was standing below him, but he had difficulty distinguishing her sword until she moved it. Everyone had gone very still, and he wondered whether he had just died. Then someone screamed. There were shouts. The noises came to him like sounds underwater.