The Black Wolves Read online

  For a region plagued with smuggling and theft, the folk hereabouts were cursed casual about their security, not even building proper stockades or posting a guard at an inn that had a supply of liquor in the back room. He closed his eyes to listen.

  The locals at the table behind them were speaking in low voices. “… bad enough to have Wolves hunting in our woods. If they hear about Broken Ridge, they’ll never leave.”

  Broken Ridge. That was better. Now he just needed to figure out what and where Broken Ridge was.

  The rice wine had been heated to cure the cloying sweetness of a third-quality brew, and its drowsy flavor went to his head as the day and night he’d been awake caught up with him. He had the knack of dozing lightly, alert to any change in those around him. He could nod out, wake instantly to murmur a pointless comment—“Is that so, Ez? Did you really do that?”—and fade out again.

  The locals discussed an upcoming wedding. The door tapped shut once, twice, a third time. A man vomited. Water splashed over the porch outside, rinsing away the mess.

  Was that a horn’s cry, far in the distance?

  He stiffened to full wakefulness, but it had only been a sound chasing through his dream. Often a random sound or sight prompted a reminder of an earlier assignment. A year ago, after he had eliminated the hieros of a Devourer’s temple in the town of Seven for plotting sedition against the king, horn calls had chased him for days as he had been pursued by an angry band of locals.

  “So the wind came up, and mind you, when the wind comes up, it makes the water that much more dangerous.” Ezan was telling the story of a canoe chase across the Bay of Messalia, him in one canoe and a fugitive in another. Ez had a southern way of talking—his vowels twisted wrong and half of his b’s turned to soft v’s—and a braggart’s way of making more of the story than was likely there. But he sure as the hells was impressing the others, who were more drunk than they ought to be with black night to be traversed between here and the fort.

  “After ten mey out on the water they were getting tired, I’ll tell you.” Ezan mimed men panting and blowing as their arms and backs fatigued with the stroke of paddles. “Then we came around the cliffs of Sorry Island right into the swells of the open ocean. Cursed if their steersman didn’t lose his nerve and then his paddle. Their canoe flipped right over. Dumped them all into the ocean. Five were smashed onto the rocks before we could come up to the swamped boat. But the gods were with us, for the man we were chasing we fished right out of the water and hauled back to Sandy Port to stand at the assizes for his crimes.”

  “Hu! Ten mey out and ten mey back, and you never stopped for a rest or a drink? Paddling all that time?” asked Oyard with a snort of disbelief. Although the youngest Wolf in Third Company, he was always the quickest to question whatever everyone else assumed was true.

  “What? You don’t believe me?” demanded Ezan. He drained his cup of rice wine and thumped it down on the table, daring the others to match him.

  Kellas glanced around the tavern. It was very late, and the rest of the locals had gone home, but the two women who ran the inn had not yet worked up the courage to ask the soldiers to leave.

  “No one of you can match that feat, can you?” Ezan went on. “A sad day when they had to let your broken swords into the Black Wolves. Haven’t you done a single impressive thing beyond surviving training? Chief Jagi’s the kindest officer you’ll ever serve under, I promise you.”

  The other men considered this question so seriously that Ezan’s jutting chin relaxed as he contemplated his victory in the boasting stakes.

  “I grew up in the hills,” said Aikar.

  “What, like around here?” Kellas asked in the tone of a sloppy drunk.

  Aikar hunched up his shoulders. “Anyway, I never saw the ocean until I went to Nessumara for training.”

  Denni, Battas, and Oyard were plains-bred farm boys who had never done a cursed exciting thing before they’d joined the king’s army and then made the cut that elevated them out of the regular ranks into the king’s elite soldiers, the demon-hunting, bandit-killing, ruthlessly effective Black Wolves.

  “I’ll drink to such a hells impressive tale, Ez,” said Kellas. “I reckon you grew up there on the shore, neh? Got used to paddling such long distances.”

  “That I did. It’s what everyone does, go out to fishing spots, to the breaker islands to gather shellfish and birds’ nests.” Ezan was the kind who grew more pleasant the more he felt he had one up on you. “No reason any of you should have spent time on the water. How about you, Kel?”

  Kellas had once paddled and swum across half the Bay of Messalia in the dead of night to infiltrate a reeve hall, where he had stolen a pouch of dispatches while his compatriot had murdered the hall’s crippled marshal. Then they had swum and paddled back, no one the wiser. But he shook his head just as if he did not know that the distance from Sandy Port to Sorry Island was three mey, not ten.

  “I’m just a city boy from Toskala, Ez. You know me. Kicked around awhile, got arrested, was given the choice of joining the army or a work gang. Picked the army, got chosen to run with the Wolves, and they sent me here to serve as a tailman in Chief Jagi’s company.”

  “Aren’t you thirty?” asked Oyard, who was eighteen. “That’s old to be a tailman.”

  “He didn’t lie about his age to join up like you did, Oyard,” said Denni with a laugh.

  “I’m a slow learner,” allowed Kellas with a lazy smile that attracted the notice of the younger of the women. She came over, ignoring the other men in favor of offering a friendly look to Kellas.

  “Are you hoping for one more drink, lads?”

  “No cause to keep you up later than you’re accustomed to, verea,” he said as the others protested that they wanted another drink. “We’re the last ones here.”

  “If you’re willing to spend your chief’s coin on one more drink, I’ll bring it,” she said. “I’ll say this. Those Qin outlanders are so honest that a merchant could leave his entire chest of leya with any one of them and not have to count the coins when he got it back.”

  She gave another smile to Kellas and walked back to the counter.

  “What is it with you and women?” Denni muttered. “You’re not that good-looking.”

  “I show a little courtesy.” For once he was unable to keep a ribbon of contempt out of his tone. “Which you lads would think well on, rather than keeping these two women up all night for your own selfish pleasure.”

  “Tell me you aren’t eyeing the younger one and thinking of keeping her up all night for your own selfish pleasure,” Ezan said with a coarse laugh.

  “I can’t take what’s not offered.”

  Cursed if that didn’t start all but Oyard in on stories of women they had loved and lost, or temple hierodules who had taken their fancy and milked them dry. There were few things more tedious than arrogant young men bragging about sex, as he knew perfectly well. But there was an edge to their boasting that made him uneasy.

  The woman came back with a warmed vase as Ezan was speaking.

  “… and then she said, ‘No, ver, I don’t think I’ve a mind to,’ and I said, ‘We’ve come too far for me to hear no, don’t you think, lass?’ and so I…”

  The woman’s expression shaded from tired good humor to scarcely hidden disgust just as Ezan glanced up to see it. Kellas jarred the table with his legs.

  “Aui!” The table’s edge kicked into Ezan’s gut.

  “I’m going outside to piss,” Kellas said, too loudly, and he made a show of staggering to the door.

  As he’d hoped, the others followed, remembering their full bladders. Once they were outside, the stars and the rising half-moon made them consider the lateness of the night and the distance back to the fort, not to mention the rumors of a demon. They set off at a brisk march. He glanced back to see the younger woman standing on the porch of the inn watching them go. He knew that look. If he could slip away, he’d find a welcome.

  But the peop
le who served in the secret auxiliary of the Black Wolves—the silent wolves—lived by three rules, the third of which was: No dalliance when you’re working. Never. Self-control before all else. It was drilled into them: self-control and the ability to endure pain.

  She pinched out the lamp’s burning wick and slid the door shut behind her. The men soon left behind the inn and village, Kellas sticking to the back to keep one eye on the man he was by now almost certain was the traitor.

  Perhaps whipped into competition by Ezan’s story, Denni began telling the tale of how he had earned his subcadre command in a long-running campaign against outlaws in the Soha Hills. Afterward the well-to-do landowners who had suffered most under the outlaws’ depredations had set out a three days’ feast. The rice wine flowed freely, the lovers were eager, the music ran like a mountain stream, as it said in the tale. Best of all, their company had gotten a commendation from King Anjihosh himself, who had ridden out with his officers and his son to meet with the local council.

  “I will say this,” said Denni, “Prince Atani has a shine to his face. The king is an impressive man, truly, but the gods themselves have touched the boy, for he has that look about him. A thoughtful gaze more like that of a full-grown man than a lad just sixteen.”

  “Never saw the king’s son myself,” Kellas lied. “Looks like his sire, does he?”

  Not much, the others agreed, except maybe about the eyes and hair. Maybe he resembled his mother, but since no one had ever seen her face in public, her being a Sirni outlander with her bizarre outlander custom of remaining behind the palace walls, it was impossible to say. But they all agreed the king’s son possessed an essence of special strength and brightness.

  “What is it the Sirniakans say of their god?” Denni said. “The Shining One? Like that.”

  Ezan waved a hand dismissively. “Those southerners can keep their Beltak god on the other side of the mountains. No call for an outlander god to come traveling here.”

  “I wouldn’t say so, not where Chief Jagi can hear you,” said Denni.

  “Aui! He’s not Sirni. He’s Qin. None of the Qin worship that shining god, do they? It’s those hidden palace women with their peculiar ways who brought Beltak to the Hundred. I’ve never heard Chief Jagi say one thing about gods, except setting flowers on a rock dedicated to the Merciful One one time, and then because he was with his wife. She is a proper Hundred woman and cursed pretty even for being a few years older than our elderly Kel here, if I may say so.”

  “I wouldn’t, and especially not where the chief can hear you,” said Denni.

  Having to pretend to be something so his own comrades would not suspect he was spying on them was getting cursed tangled. He changed the subject. “When I was a lad we never called Hasibal the Merciful One. Hasibal is the Formless One. I don’t know where this Merciful name came from. Do any of you?”

  Naturally Ezan had an opinion. “It comes from the south of the Hundred, from Olo’osson and Mar—”

  A horn’s cry split the quiet. Three blats, a long blast, three blats, a long blast, three blats. As one, they shifted to a run. Soon after they heard hooves and saw a gleam of lamplight off to their right. Riders were moving through the countryside.

  “The hells!” cried Aikar, stopping dead in his tracks.

  “A demon!” shouted Ezan. “Eihi! When I’m off duty! My chance for glory, spoiled!”

  Abruptly Ezan cut off the road to tear madly across a recently harvested field. Kellas hesitated for only one breath, then raced after him. Crop stubble scraped his calves and crunched under his boots. His eyes had adjusted. He measured the shadows that marked the irregularities of ground and thus kept to his feet when Ezan stumbled and crashed to his knees in a shallow ditch.

  A flutter of movement crossed before them like the pale wings of a bird trying desperately to get off the ground with an injured wing. A face flashed into view: a woman, running.

  A cloak flowed and rippled around her. The fabric bore a disturbingly bone-white sheen.

  With a grunt of effort, Ezan lunged up from his knees and grabbed for her ankle. His fingers grasped the hem of the long cloak. Blue sparks sizzled along the fabric as it wrapped over Ezan’s face. He screamed in agony and pitched forward.

  She staggered, dropped to a knee to steady herself, and looked up directly at Kellas.

  The hells!

  Her gaze devoured him, for that was the particular sorcery of cloaked demons. It was the same as being clouted over the head with a hammer and then having knives driven in through your eyes to leak your thoughts into the air.

  Her voice was cool and clear. “You are one of the king’s silent wolves. Let me see what you know.”

  So easily she tore through his mind to discover his secrets: the modest wine seller’s shop in Toskala where silent wolves like him went to get their orders; the face of the nameless man who had given him his orders for this assignment; Esisha, who had been his partner in several missions and died two years ago; a safe house on the Gold Rose Canal in Nessumara where he had slept for three days in hiding after sinking a ship laden with a cargo bound for Salya…

  As if Salya were a beacon and he a moth drawn to the light, his thoughts eddied and trawled him down into a memory from eight years ago. His pride recalled the admiring glance of a beautiful woman on the crowded streets of Salya’s busy port. His skin remembered the salty embrace of the warm waters of the Bay of Messalia as he swam to Bronze Hall on his first serious mission. He would never forget the hot pleasurable rush of triumph he’d felt when he pulled himself over the gunnel and into the waiting canoe with the dispatch pouch wrapped in oilcloth tied to his back, although he doubted he would recognize the beautiful woman now if he passed her on the road.

  At last he managed to blink, the effort a stab of pain in his head. The king’s Wolves were honed for exactly such an encounter, trained to fight demons. With the blink he ripped his gaze away from hers. To keep free of the power of her magic, he forced his gaze to follow the swells and eddies made by the demon’s skin, which looked like a cloak. Beneath she was wearing leather trousers and a vest, both garments splashed with mud. She had a body made strong through honest work. She might have been any ordinary woman who had just finished a hard day’s labor in a rice paddy somewhere in the Hundred where there was still water in the rice fields at this time of year. That was the glamor with which demons dazzled their prey before they ate out their hearts and stole all their secrets: They made you believe they were just like you.

  He drew his sword. The others were calling out, having lost sight of him and Ezan. The troop trotted past some distance away, lanterns swinging.

  Sweat broke freely on his brow as the breeze carried away the memories that had seemed so vivid moments before. “Begging your pardon, verea, but I have to kill you.”

  He thrust the short blade into her gut. It sank hard and swiftly right into the core of her flesh. She grabbed his arms and tugged him closer until they were face-to-face. The cloak whipped across his hair, lighting sparks of pain along his head that made him reel. For all that she had a sword in her belly, she was the one holding him up.

  Her eyes were dark with the grip of pain. Yet she mocked him. “Very polite, I am sure, ver. You were well brought up by your mother and aunties. But you will not kill me this night. You have already told me what I need to know. And you’ll find nothing at Broken Ridge because we’ve already cleared out the rice that was being stored there.”

  She shoved him back with more strength than any human could possibly muster. His sword was dragged out of her flesh. She slammed him across the chest with the palm of her hand. The blow lifted him off his feet, and he hit full on his back and lay there, stunned, as a vast cloud of wings filled his vision. Ez was still whimpering on the ground beside him, face and hands blistered with a fierce burn, but even so the young soldier was trying to roll over to stand.

  Kellas climbed laboriously to his feet, dizzy and stumbling, but it was already too late. The de
mon mounted a winged horse and flew off into the night.

  Hooves pounded. Men shouted. The lights swayed drunkenly. Soldiers approached.

  With a curse Ezan threw up on Kellas’s boots.

  The noise of his retching brought Denni, Battas, and Oyard racing up. After them came the mounted troops with lanterns bobbing and swaying. They converged as Ezan, doubled over, heaved out more bile. Kel took a step out of its way. As Chief Jagi himself arrived, Ezan straightened up with a grimace of pain that hurt to see.

  “This cursed hells-ridden limp noodle had the demon within his grasp after I took these cursed burns stopping her in her tracks. But she got away from him. Ass!”

  Chief Jagi glanced at Ezan, then at Kellas. Like all the outlander Qin soldiers who had ridden into the Hundred in the company of King Anjihosh, he rarely showed emotion. A narrowed gaze was brutal enough. Disappoint your Qin chief, and he’d simply deem you useless to him and cast you out of the Black Wolves.

  “Which way did she run?” Jagi asked.

  “She flew off on a horse,” said Kel, his head aching. Lantern light glittered on the blood and spew that streaked his sword. “I got my blade in her gut. It didn’t make a cursed bit of difference.”

  “Stupid fuckwit,” said Ezan, and then he fainted from the pain, thank the gods.

  Chief Jagi signaled. The troop broke into four groups and spread out to cover the ground all around, but they all knew they would find no trace of the creature.

  “You kept your wits about you,” said the chief to Kellas when they two were standing alone.

  “I still failed.”

  “Next time you’ll kill one. But you know the rules. Any man who speaks to a demon must return to Toskala to give full particulars to the king. Anything else you want to tell me?”

  “Yes. The traitor is Aikar.”

  2

  “And was the traitor Aikar?” asked King Anjihosh.