"Take another step and I'll show the Eternal Blue Sky the color of your liver. If Tegus thinks to use an assassin, he'll not fool me by sending a woman with a poisoned dagger."
I stopped walking, gripping my cloak tighter. The cold was slithering up my bare legs.
"Chinua, check her," said Khasar.
"Show me your hands," said a man to Khasar's right, a tall, thin man. I figured this was Khasar's war chief, the one who'd taken Saren to watch Khasar become a wolf.
I raised my hands and for some wild reason, I found myself remembering how Tegus had once called them beautiful. Spared from the scrubbing waters of late, they've softened, though if Khasar looked too closely, he'd see the scars and calluses.
"Now deliver your message before I gut—"
"My lord, it's me, Lady Saren." My voice went soft. I was ashamed to tell a lie right beneath the Eternal Blue Sky. Lies are for dark holes and rooms without candles.
"Speak up!"
"I'm Lady Saren," I said, louder.
"Lady Saren." He snarled a laugh. "I knew that khan wouldn't be able to resist breaking you out. Take off your hood, I want to see your scared cove eyes."
I pulled my hood back. My hair hung down, the sun was behind me, and I hoped he was still too far back to see. I thought I should say something quickly to prove I was Lady Saren, something true, before he could see in my face who I was not.
"The day you threw flames into the tower," I said, "the day you tried to smoke me like winter meat, I guess I've never been so scared in my life."
He laughed. I hate his laugh.
"All you are is fear," he said.
"I believe that was also the day you bathed in my waste," I couldn't help adding.
I was happy to see him flinch. I guess he didn't much like my mentioning that in front of his men.
"You told me you'd only take me if I came willingly," I said. "And here I am."
I started toward him, but three of his men moved to block my way.
Though he thought me the frail Lady Saren, he still wouldn't let me near. He was too clever to risk the chance I might have a hidden weapon. This morning before going out, that possibility had haunted me, so I'd disrobed completely under my cloak. I'd been praying since that I wouldn't have to take it off, but that ultimate submission seemed to be the only way he'd think me harmless, the only way to get near enough to sing.
I shut my eyes as I unhooked the neck clasp and let the warmth fall to the ground. Winter blasted my skin, and the cold shot up from my feet through my entire body.
Khasar stared, suddenly with nothing to say.
"You see I'm hiding no weapons, my lord." I tried to sound brave as gentry, but I was shivering so hard, my voice warbled like a birds, my words knocking against each other. I had to bite my tongue to bleeding to keep from picking my cloak back up, wrapping it around myself, curling up to hide. "You see I submit to you. I'm here of my own will, as you wanted. I'm sacrificing myself for this realm. If you are a man of honor, before the Ancestors, under the Eternal Blue Sky, you'll keep your word. Take me and leave this realm in peace."
He didn't say anything. He stared at me. His men looked away, at the ground, at the clouds. Though hard warriors, I think they couldn't help being embarrassed for the poor naked girl. There was some revenge in this, I realized, remembering how Lord Khasar had stood naked before my lady. But I couldn't glory in it. The shame hurt me like the cold, and I trembled inside and out and winced when tears burned my eyes.
"Please don't make me stand here like this," I said, my words shaking. I didn't mean to beg, but there it came. "Please say you accept my sacrifice and let me put my cloak back on. Please."
He started walking toward me now. Slowly. His men stepped aside.
"You surprise me, Lady Saren."
He kept coming nearer.
"I never expected you to do anything but tremble and cry. Though I see you're trembling, where are the tears? Ah, I think I see one. That's better."
And nearer. My stomach quivered, my blood was hot. This was the moment. I bowed my head, as if meekly. The sunlight was strong behind me, Evela was smiling on my hope, but I knew the moment he save my face, he'd kill me. He was near enough now that through my hair I could make out his own features. I can't say if he was handsome or ugly. He looked like pain to me. Then I noticed one detail — he had three thin white scars down his cheek, like the marks a cat might leave. It seems My Lord had drawn some blood that night he escaped the wolf's jaws. The thought gave me a gust of warm courage.
Before Khasar's hands reached me, I had to act.
"Witness all!" I lifted my arms and knelt, the frosty grass snapped like glass under my knees. "See Lady Saren surrender to Khan Khasar. I sing the song of submission."
Here was the trick. I don't know a song of submission. Instead, I began to sing the song of the wolf.
"Yellow eyes, blink the night," I sang. "Two paves in, two paves gone," while praying that there were no muckers among his warriors, that they wouldn't know what it was I sang. I remembered the voices of my brothers chanting those words, yelling them at the night to save the sheep, felt that childhood tune hum inside me now as if in harmony. I reached forward, I touched Khasar's boots, hoping the contact would make the song stronger.
Khasar stared down at me and did nothing, his face puzzled, his body rigid. I think I understood him then — I think he felt that something was wrong but he couldn't allow himself to be afraid, not of me, not of a naked girl singing. And because he did nothing to stop me, neither did his men. I kept singing, calling the wolf out of the man.
Too late Khasar asked, "What are you — "
He didn't finish his question, because his head was thrown back, and he stared up, in pain or thrill I don't know. I almost stopped singing then, my limbs shook so that the ache was nearly unbearable. I didn't know what would happen. Would the wolf in Khasar hear my song and flee its daylight form? Would it come out under the sun?
With my voice I sang, and with my heart I prayed. Titor, god of animals, whose realm this man destroyed. Under, god of tricks, whose name this man cast off. Goda, goddess of sleep, I gave you a sleepless night in prayer. Evela, my lady, goddess of sunlight and songs, give me voice. Ancestors, let me sing this man into his animal form, his sleepless form of night, trick him into it under this sunlight.
I sang to him the song of the wolf.
He stumbled back a step, but it was the most he could manage. All his force seemed focused on trying to hold his shape. His men were still looking away, ashamed of my shame, unaware of their lord's danger. Then Khasar groaned.
"My lord? Khan Khasar?" Chinua asked, as if beginning to wonder if something was wrong. The rest didn't suspect me still, I think. I'd completely debased myself, I'd become a thing too love to contemplate. Still, I guessed I wouldn't have long. The moment they thought me dangerous, they'd let their arrows fly.
Louder I sang. I stood, trembling for cold and fear, and I put my hands on his chest. So close I was, he could've snapped my neck by accident. If he'd looked, he'd have seen the lie in my face. But his neck arched and his glance flung up toward the sky. My voice quavered so that on the love notes it was nothing but a rasp, two stones grating together.
Please, I prayed. Please change. Hurry. Become that wolf. Now, now.
"My lord? Are you all right?" asked Chinua. He stepped forward two paces and pulled his bow back tighter. "I think you'd better stand back now, girl."
But I couldn't stand back until Khasar was gone where he couldn't hurt Tegus or make my lady quake or sneak into my nightmares. I clung to Khasar, so the warriors couldn't shoot at me without risking their lord.
"The night, the night!" I sang, and my voice was getting more desperate. I knew I didn't sound very meek anymore, but the wolf in Khasar wasn't coming out. "The night drips from your teeth. The night melts from your eyes. Yellow eyes!"
"Stand back," said Chinua, "or your eyes will be strung together on my arrow!"
He
aimed at my head, I screamed my song, and Khasar thrust back his head and howled. Not at the moon, not at the shifting stars, but hoveled right at the Eternal Blue Sky.
That, I thought should get the Ancestors' attention.
Khasar pulled out of my grip, and I dropped flat to the ground just as an arrow whisked over me. I kept singing. And Khasar kept thrashing. His men were advancing, but for the moment they forgot me in favor of their lord, who had begun to screech and howl, his hands clawing the air. I held no weapon; they must not have understood that I could harm him. So I sang on, though I don't know how I found any voice with all the shaking and barely a breath trickling into my lungs.
Then the change happened. It really did. I'd believed Saren when she'd told me what she'd seen, or I'd thought I had, but until I saw the change myself, I guess I hadn't truly understood. Just the sight of its wrongness made my stomach seize up, and I would've lost my breakfast if I'd had any.
I don't think I can describe the sound of flesh bulging and ripping, or the smell that clouded around Khasar, strange and rancid. I can say that his face thrust out, his back hunched with fur, his clothing tore, his armor bent and groaned before popping off. He dropped down on all fours and where Khasar had stood, a wolf now groveled.
Khasar the wolf was enormous, as tall as an antelope, as fat as a mare, with jaws that could take down the largest yak. The size, the sheer menace of the thing made me quake, and the song choked in my throat. His men hollered and jumped back from the snarls, the teeth, the daggered paves.
"It's our lord!" shouted Chinua. "Do not harm him!"
Here's where my plan took the greatest risk. What would the wolf do? I was bargaining that the wolf who had snarled at me in the tower was more instinct than thought, that he loses his humanness when he's a wolf. Saren's story suggested such, when Chinua moved them behind a fire to protect them from his lord. Here was my hope — that Khasar the wolf would now attack his own men.
"It is our lord," Chinua was shouting. "Do not harm him!"
Chinua ran about, bellowing, trying to get warriors to move so the wolf would have an escape, but the camp completely ringed the woods. With city wall before us and forty thousand warriors and their ghers and animals all around, there was nowhere for the beast to flee. He paced and groveled and wiped his face against his legs as if the sunlight were painful.
My plan was failing. The warriors kept their swords and arrows pointed at the wolf but didn't strike, and the wolf just snarled and snapped at nothing.
"Change back, Lord Khasar," Chinua said. "It's day! Change, my lord, change."
He's going to turn back, I thought. And then he'll kill me or worse.
His men now knew that he was a wolf skinwalker, but the warriors weren't fleeing their posts. As Batu said, there was the possibility that they'd revere him even more. I'd lost, I'd lost.
The failure was painful and I was so cold, I moved to crawl back into my cloak. That was a stupid thing to do. Stupid. Because then the wolf noticed me.
His eyes were on me, and he crouched and snarled.
Sing, Dashti, I told myself. Push him back with your song. Sing!
But I was so cold, so terrified, my voice iced in my throat. I couldn't squeak even a word. So I tried to run. I didn't make it three steps.
He pounced, landing on my leg, and I heard a crunch before I felt pain. His foul breath filled my mouth as he snapped in my face, and my stomach tried to vomit. I turned my head as he lunged. The sides of our skulls collided. I could taste blood.
Then, the eerie whistle of an arrow scratched the air. The arrow nipped the beast in the rear and he yelped and turned. His warriors stared back, shaking. One warrior held a bow with no arrow. Maybe it had been a mistake and the bowstring had slipped in his fingers. Maybe he had a sister or daughter my age and thought of her when the wolf leaped on me. Or maybe it had been Under's doing. However it was, Ancestors, please bless that man.
The wolf made a new noise in his throat now, one of hunger and rage. He turned his jaws toward the warriors, and he lunged.
"Don't shoot him," Chinua yelled, but three men, their eyes wide with terror, began emptying their quivers. It didn't matter—the wolf leaped and rolled at incredible speed, and nothing could touch him. When one arrow grazed his leg, the wolf wailed in rage. He sprang, his jaws tearing out the throats of two men. More arrows cut the air, and the wolf's attack became so swift and deadly, several warriors lay bleeding before I could even comprehend what was happening.
The wolf was smearing his muzzle in the blood of another soldier when at last one of the arrows struck him hard, then another and another. He roared and clawed at the warriors, killing two more. The men were running back, letting arrows fly as they tried to get out of his reach. Chinua was yelling something, but so was everyone else. Another arrow struck the wolf, another, and another. He hoveled and snarled, running a circle in mad fury.
He was too wounded to make chase, and all the warriors had retreated beyond his reach. That's when his horrible eyes found me again. I'd managed to pull my cloak on and was trying to drag myself away, but I couldn't stand, I couldn't run. How I prayed to Carthen, goddess of strength! I wept so hard my throat ached, though I was too cold to make tears.
The wolf padded toward me, stuck with arrows, his head low to the ground. He was still tense, growling as if he would attack. I pressed my hands against the crackling grass and pushed myself back, back, as hard and fast as I could, my wounded leg dragging on the ground. But he was faster.
He pounced, and I screamed my song again, just one line, one rattled tune. His jaws snapped a hands-breadth from my face, his spittle flying against my lips. His breath stank of blood, and I couldn't seize enough breath to sing again. His jaw opened toward my throat, but before he could clamp down, his body slumped. At last the weight of those arrows in him was too great. The full force of his body collapsed on me. He didn't move again.
I thought I was dead too. A hot pain pierced my ankle, a dull pain throbbed in my head. I was pinned to the ground by the wolf's corpse and surrounded by an angry anthill of soldiers. Chinua, his face full of rage and grief, ran forward and prodded his wolf lord to see if he was dead. I pushed against the hairy body with all my strength. The corpse rolled a little to the right, but it was so heavy, I couldn't budge it from my leg.
Then for whole moments, I heard no sound but my own heartbeat.
I let my head fall back, and I gazed into the Eternal Blue Sky. It was morning. Some of the sky was yellow, some the softest blue. One small cloud scuttled along. Strange how everything belove can be such death and chaos and pain while above the sky is peace, sweet blue gentleness. I heard a shaman say once, the Ancestors want our souls to be like the blue sky.
I prayed to the sky—Here I am. I took what the Ancestors gave me and I avenged their names. You saw it. You're above all, even the sun, even the Sacred Mountain, even the Ancestors. I submit to you, and if you're sending me on to see my mama again, I'm ready to go. Just take care of my lady, please, and Tegus, too.
And I closed my eyes to die. But you see that I'm not dead, as I'm still writing. Under heeded my pleas today, though he still tricked me in my turn.
The drums rapped and the horns called. I turned my head and save five hundred warriors coming from the west gate of the city, Batu at their lead. They halted a safe distance from Khasar's men.
"My lady, are you all right?" Batu shouted to me.
"Yes," I said, because it seemed what he expected to hear. And I was alive still, which I guess was all right.
He gestured with his chin to the dead creature pinning me. "Is that Khasar?"
"It was."
"In wolf form, just as you said. Beware a lady's faith, you warriors of Under's Scorn."
Chinua looked made of wrath. A company of warriors had come forward, standing behind him with weapons in hand. "You should beware us, Evela's peasants! Carthen's Glory is not defeated by the slaying of one wolf."
Batu shrugged. "I have
nearly thirty thousand warriors ready at the gates, men fighting for their homes. Your numbers are larger, true, but with your wolf lord dead, how many will fight? He was your real strength. If you leave now, you'll make it home before true winter falls. Don't waste the time. Throw down your weapons, let us take Lady Saren safely away, and we won't pursue."
There was more talk, I think, but I didn't catch it. It took so much effort to try and listen. My ears were so frozen I wouldn't have been surprised to see them break right off my head. My feet seemed to have never existed at all, and my throat screamed with every inhale. Pressed against the ground like that, I was so cold, the only parts of me I could feel were throbbing something vicious, and I wanted to hovel and cry with the pain, but I couldn't move enough to do that much.
Suddenly the ache in my ankle pierced me like a new wound, and I screamed before I realized what had happened. Chinua and two other warriors had rolled the wolf off me. They began to tow the carcass toward their camp, and behind them, Khasar's warriors retreated. I guess Batu had been pretty convincing.
I sat up and almost fainted from pain. I paused, waiting for the blackness in my vision to go away so I could stand, and I found myself looking into the eyes of the wolf. They were dragging him by his hind legs, and his dead eyes stared back at me. In death, his eyes lost their wildness. They calmed and saddened some, and I realized that his wolf eyes were as blue as the Eternal Sky. I wonder if right at the moment of his death, Khasar remembered the price his wolf strength cost. He offered his soul to the desert shamans. Now it can never climb the Sacred Mountain, never enter the Realm of the Ancestors. I suppose it's the path he chose. I suppose it's what he deserves.
"My lady," said Batu, "can you come to me?"
Chinua and his warriors had withdrawn, but I understood that Batu didn't dare turn his back on them, nor could he risk riding to me and putting any more distance between him and the path of retreat.
I nodded and stood on my left leg, making sure my cloak was tight around me. I couldn't feel its warmth.
I didn't know how I would walk. I hopped a few steps and felt ridiculous, a just-hatched bird, hobbling and unsure, while thousands of warriors watched me. So I thought I'd risk one step on my right foot. That was a mistake, I thought, as I yelped in pain and fell forward.