The Black Wolves

  The sound of footsteps outside brought them to their feet. Marshal Dannarah walked in looking blown and flushed. She wiped her brow with a cloth. “Here you are.”

  Tarnit said, “I thought you were going to the House of the Dagger for some well-deserved—”

  “I forgot something.” One measure of how long the marshal and Tarnit had known each other was that, if you looked for it, you could see them communicate without words. Tarnit’s gaze flicked to Reyad and back to the marshal; the marshal lifted her chin slightly, then added a quick sidelong glance that took in Lifka.

  Apparently oblivious to this interplay, Reyad said, “Marshal, there’s a priest—”

  “So I have been informed by at least ten anxious people eager to be rid of his bleating. Where does he want messages sent?”

  “South to Olossi. To Shrine Hall.”

  “Shrine Hall? What in the hells is that?”

  “Chief Marshal Auri set up a special reeve hall near the new shrine they’re building near the Kandaran Pass and the mountains. I was assigned to patrol territory that never included the area so I never went there. Only certain reeves were assigned there. New reeves, mostly.”

  “Excellent!” The marshal walked along the hooks, inspecting the harness. “You’ll take this courier mission, Reyad. Tell them you’re a Shrine Hall reeve. They’ll see your Argent Hall green tabard and won’t know the difference. I want a full report of everything you see when you return.”

  “Oh.” He glanced into the night, and then they all did, looking to see if anyone could be out there listening, but no one was. “You think—”

  “I do, and the less said the better. You have your orders. Go on.”

  His shoulders snapped back and chin lifted. “Yes, Marshal!” He trotted off eagerly.

  The marshal’s intense gaze shifted to Lifka. The expectation that people would obey her was simply part of the marshal’s presence, like sun and rain to the sky. The palace had never meant much to Lifka. It dwelled as far outside her life as the gold coins called cheyt, which she knew existed but had never so much as glimpsed. For Marshal Dannarah, daughter of King Anjihosh the Glorious Unifier, to accept her clan’s humble meal of rice and stewed dandelions as if it were a perfectly respectable feast had impressed her deeply.

  “You’re harnessing exceptionally fast but you are still a fledgling, Lifka. Because of the way everything has been upended you’re going to have to be trained on the fly, as we used to say.”

  “Yes, Marshal.”

  “Are you sure you’re not tempted by Queen Dia’s talk of fortunes?”

  “It’s like the Tale of the Barge where the man dreamed that water was gold but it kept pouring through his fingers. Of course I am curious about what they said. But I’d rather be under your command, Marshal. Anyway, I can’t just desert my family.”

  “Five Roads Clan.”

  The marshal’s tone stirred an instinct in her gut. “Is there trouble?”

  Dannarah walked a circuit of the tack room, opened a shutter to look into the neighboring loft where four hooded eagles slumbered, and circled back around. “Tar, on your way back from your leave you went by the estate owned by Atani’s queen, as ordered.”

  “Yes, I found the estate being run in an orderly manner, as I reported.”

  “But her steward told you that Queen Yevah was away from the estate and not expected back anytime soon.”

  “That’s right. Do you want Lifka to hear this?”

  “Lifka already knows of the situation at Plum Blossom Clan.”

  “I’m sure King Atani’s widowed queen hadn’t lived there in years, if that’s what you mean,” said Tarnit. “The steward had such a cursed closed mouth that I was suspicious of his motives. Let this lie, Marshal…”

  “No, I don’t think so. My mother, Queen Zayrah, had an estate on the Beacon Coast south of Nessumara. On her death my mother willed the estate to Atani. It’s isolated. Maybe his widow lives there now. I want you to scout it out. Take Lifka with you. It’ll be good training. There’s one other thing before I go.”

  The Runt shifted an ear, hearing a change in tone, and rolled up to his feet, shaking himself. Lifka tensed, for it seemed to her an incoming storm felt like this: a whiff of changed air, and then the gale.

  “Words were overheard in the palace two days ago. Prince Tavahosh told Supreme Captain Ulyar to send men to take care of trouble in River’s Bend. A place with five roads that needs to be swept clean so no trace remains, because of an offense it caused to the prince. Just thought I would mention it as a curiosity. I’m going now, back to my interrupted pleasures in the city. I won’t return here until midday tomorrow.”

  “The hells!” Lifka cried, forgetting how softly the others were speaking. “If they sent a reeve, my family could be dead already!”

  Tarnit grabbed Lifka by the elbow as the marshal strode off. “Keep your mouth shut.”

  “I can’t abandon my clan!”

  “Hush. Of course the marshal doesn’t expect you to. Officially we are headed to the Beacon Coast on an errand for Marshal Dannarah but the route we take to get there can be any sort of roundabout way. Do you understand?”

  “May the gods protect them.” She who never cried burst into tears while the Runt pressed against her legs and growled at Tarnit.

  Soon after dawn Supreme Captain Ulyar stamped up onto the porch of the closed gatehouse and demanded to see the man in charge. Kellas liked to think of himself as a man above petty emotion but the shocked look on Ulyar’s face when Kellas himself met him at the door was so very gratifying.

  “Ah, Supreme Captain Ulyar. How convenient that you stopped by just now. I’m wondering if you can identify this bit of rubbish that came into our possession last night most unexpectedly.” He rolled the wrapped corpse out onto the porch.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Ulyar with unconvincing bluster.

  “Aui! So be it. It shall have to remain a mystery. I was just sitting down to my morning gruel and fish if you wish to join me.”

  “I’m only passing by on my way elsewhere.” The sniveling coward took a step back, without even the courage to admit the attempt!

  “What of this?” Kellas again indicated the corpse.

  “It’s not mine!” He as good as fled although he pretended to walk away in a huff.

  Oyard moved up beside him to watch the man go. “Will he try again?”

  “It’s an awkward move at an odd time. I am grateful it was directed at me but we can’t assume they won’t target the rest of the household now.”

  “Do you think Ulyar acted alone? Fearful that the king will promote you over him?”

  “It’s possible, but Ulyar doesn’t strike me as bold or independent. I think Queen Chorannah put him up to it. We have sorely underestimated her, Chief. Think about it. What if she is the one who conspired with Lord Seras to commit murder?”

  “I did not know King Atani as you did, Captain. Did Queen Chorannah have a reason to want her husband’s father dead?”

  Kellas shook his head. “I can’t imagine what it would be. He treated her as kindly as he did everyone, and more kindly than most who thought her meek and dull and of no account. And how he loved little Farihosh. The little boy looked like him, you know. He used to joke about it. I remember that particularly. Atani loved children. His first grandchild was a delight to him. Obviously he never lived to see Tavahosh, or Dia’s children.”

  “If he loved Chorannah’s eldest child then it is difficult to see how it would benefit the queen if he died. Unless the baby wasn’t Jehosh’s and she feared people would discover it. That could be a reason, Captain. If Lord Seras was the real father she would want to rid herself of both her father-in-law and her husband so she could act as regent for the baby.”

  “I hadn’t even considered such a scenario.” Kellas paced to the end of the porch, surveying the gate, then returned to where Oyard stood over the corpse. “How could Farihosh look like King Atani
if he was Lord Seras’s son instead of Jehosh’s? Still, we can’t rule out her involvement now we see how she has bribed Ulyar and almost certainly Auri to march under her banner. Maybe that was her plan all along: Kill everyone who stood between the kingship and her sons.”

  “Might Ulyar and Auri have been already in her pay at the time of Atani’s death?”

  “She was fifteen when she was sent here. She spoke only Sirni and knew nothing about the Hundred. How could she have made contact with two rank-and-file soldiers with no palace connections when she had nothing to do with the military and never saw any man except her husband, her eunuchs, and King Atani? Still, it’s a sobering thought that I might have overlooked her culpability because all I saw was a meek girl.”

  Oyard nudged the body with the toe of his boot, frowning. “What now, Captain?”

  “We sharpen our swords. As for this flesh, hire a carter to take it to the Beltak shrine.”

  In the office the burned mat had been replaced and the blood scrubbed away. With the doors open to the inner courtyard he ate his gruel and fish while he watched the recruits drilling with renewed purpose and grim expressions. Yero and Oyard’s son took a stick and joined the drill at the very back. The boy was so cursed young, just sixteen like Treya, and so cursed eager. Once Kellas had been the young person loosed into the wind to fly or fall, not knowing whether he would survive each mission. Then, he had believed that he would be both archer and arrow, but age had brought him around to be the archer instead of the arrow. So often the young are nothing more than tools to be wielded by those who have power.

  Such thoughts always brought him back to Fohiono, the child in whom he believed he had found a worthy heir, if heirship meant anything when you were a disgraced soldier. Was he going to turn into one of those cowards who allowed other people’s children to die while protecting his own?

  A skirling and harsh melody broke into his thoughts. Pipes sang out a tune so alien and strange that the drillmaster faltered and all the novices at their training looked up as if the sky had commenced singing an outlandish tune.

  He whistled. “Everyone outside. Now!”

  The speed at which they moved pleased him. Thus, when Queen Dia rode through the gate with her precious son on a fine horse beside her, Kellas’s people had already formed up as an honor guard on either side of the roadway. He noted the discipline of Dia’s troops and the bladed pole weapons her women carried. A good choice, since reach offered certain advantages over close combat for lighter opponents. Dia had archers, too, and pack mules instead of wagons: They were traveling cursed light, like they thought they would be pursued. The music whirled through the air, high, shrill, and frantic, nothing like the resonant songs of the Hundred. No one looking at Queen Dia and her entourage would see her as anything but an outlander, except for her frowning son who had his father’s looks and wore the curious blend of clothing popular among men at court: long jackets cut for riding, Qin trousers, and silk sashes and sleeves.

  Was Dia admitting defeat and retreating from the battleground? Or was this just the beginning of a new phase of what he now understood as a war between the queens?

  Seeing Kellas, Dia offered a proud nod to acknowledge their earlier conversation, a reminder that he must watch over her daughter. He answered with a fist set against his chest, the salute of a dutiful soldier. Just then Yero hurried out on the porch and shook out the banner she had been making for the troops under Kellas’s command. It unfurled in the morning breeze to ornament their ranks: a length of iron-gray silk painted with the stylized head of a black wolf.

  38

  Knowing that in one morning the eagles could cover ground that took carters days did not comfort Lifka when Tarnit insisted they depart in the opposite direction, pretending to head south for Horn Hall. Indeed an unknown reeve and eagle paced them half the morning before finally swinging away. Only then could they turn back and fly north toward River’s Bend.

  Normally the view dazzled her, slung as she was beneath the eagle with the world laid out below her feet, every tree and roof and goat visible. Yet all that endless afternoon as they backtracked across the fields of Istria and then followed the River Ili upstream, she could not draw a decent draught of air. She was out of breath and aching with fear by the time the curve of River’s Bend, the scarred forest, and massive building site finally came into view. By now it was late afternoon, folk trudging home from fields and labor, the work camps packed with men standing in lines for their meager ration of food.

  Her family lived two mey west of the city just off the road commonly called the Thread, because it threaded the province of Haldia from top to bottom. So when she spotted soldiers on the road at the one-mey stone, marching west, her breath seized in her throat and terror muddied the world.

  The soldiers waved at the eagles. A flag waved, calling them down, and she was at first surprised when Tarnit flagged a response and began to circle as if she meant to land. The soldiers halted to wait for her, and Lifka was grateful for any pause that gave her more time.

  She flew on, leaving Tarnit circling behind. The ground slid away beneath the gliding eagle so quickly that she overshot her clan’s compound and in a frantic haste tugged Slip three different wrong ways before coming down with a thump in a neighbor’s rice field. She fumbled with the hooks of her harness and was shaking with frustration before she unclipped and got her staff unbuckled. Trapped in his little harness at her chest, the Runt began to wriggle and whine, seeing home.

  Goblin and Yap started barking from the gate. The Runt began yipping so loud it hurt her ears and she saw Mum and the lads and Uncle appear, all staring in surprise and none too eager to approach. Slip cocked his head, trying to figure out what she wanted.

  “Leaf? What in the hells are you doing back?” Alon’s shout carried across the gap.

  By now everyone in the compound crowded at the gate: Mum, Papa, Uncle, Grandfather leaning on his cane, the three young men, her two female cousins and the husband they were both sleeping with, her cousin Nanni’s pregnant wife Saloa, six children, and to her shock her cousin Ailia who was supposed to be working as a caravan guard. By the evidence of her thickening middle, Ailia was pregnant. When had that happened? A young man stepped up beside Ailia escorting old Eda, a crippled woman Papa had taken in rather than see her beg on the streets of River’s Bend.

  At last the Runt stopped barking for long enough that she remembered the correct reeve signal. She pulled her reeve’s whistle from around her neck and blew the pattern that meant her eagle should fly and wait. He thrust upward, the downdraft from his wings rustling the rice stubble. The moment she unhooked the Runt and set him down he dashed for the gate. Goblin and Yap raced to greet her with a frenzy of whimpering and waggling, but she barely patted their heads.

  Probably it was the look on her face that quieted them as she ran up. “Soldiers are coming from River’s Bend to arrest or kill everyone and burn down our compound, courtesy of Prince Tavahosh who was at the assizes, just because his pride was bruised. Grab only what you must. We’ve got to flee.”

  Denas climbed up the wall and, shading his eyes, stared westward.

  “I mean it. Move!”

  “I see dust,” called Denas. “And another eagle up high.”

  Tarnit had never landed, just pretended to. If the soldiers never got close enough to see her face then they could never definitively identify her.

  Papa said, “Aui! So be it. Ailia, gather everyone who can’t fight. You’ll drive the wagon.”

  “No, you drive it, Geron,” said Mum. “The mules listen to you best. They’ll balk for anyone else. Children, attention!” She gave the older children specific directions: collect rice, kitchen and wood-chopping gear, and cloth. Then she turned to the young man standing with Ailia. “You’ll go with the wagon, Jonon. Don’t argue with me. You’ll just get in the way.”

  “I see them!” shouted Denas from the wall as the other young adults grabbed all the clan’s staffs and knives, t
heir legacy from Mum’s people. “Eighteen … no, twenty.”

  Mum shouted, “Do you see crossbows?”

  “Can’t tell yet. Hope not. Shrine guards don’t usually carry them.”

  Lifka ran to the stalls to help harness the mules, just returned from a day’s work and at their feed and none too happy at being rousted out again. Courageous tried to kick but Papa knew all the mule’s tricks and together he and Lifka got the pair hitched up. The children shoved rice and belongings into the bed of the wagon.

  Mum trotted up carrying her staff. “They’re too close. If we try to run, they’ll catch us strung out in the fields.”

  “If you don’t run, you’ll end up dead or in the work gangs,” cried Lifka.

  “We all know what we can expect, Lifka. So we fight.” Mum gave a look to each person in turn, and each one nodded, even the littlest sensing the gravity of the situation. “Here’s what we do. We let them enter the compound. We make them squeeze in through the gate. I’ll go outside to weed the garden so they think they’ve taken us unawares.”

  Uncle stepped forward. “No, let me do that part. If they kill me it doesn’t matter.”

  “That isn’t true!” His daughter Nonit grabbed at Uncle’s hand.

  “Hush, that’s not what I mean. I’m not the best fighter and my leg is half crippled anyway. This gives the rest of you a chance.” He stared down Mum until she let out a harsh exhalation and nodded.

  “Very well. You’re the lure. Geron, be ready to go when the gate is clear. Big kids, under the cart. When the wagon rolls, you run alongside.” The two elders and the littlest children lay down in the bed of the cart amid the sacks. Saloa stuck by the tenuous safety offered by the wagon; she was too gentle a soul to hurt anyone. Ailia grabbed a staff and took up a position beside Papa, the final line of defense to protect the wagon and mules. Lifka felt a moment of pity for Ailia’s bewildered young man who had not been raised by a mother who had grown up in a clan of guards-for-hire. The dogs stood on either side of Papa, the Runt bristling from behind him.