The Black Wolves Read online

  The king’s calm demeanor did not even ripple. “That your mother’s birthing pains have begun, and the midwife has been called to attend her? Yes, Dannarah, I have been informed.”

  “I should wait with Mama,” said Prince Atani as he paused beside his younger sister. At sixteen he already had the graceful, assured carriage of a young man, nothing gawky about him. “She asked me to sit with her. She said the vultures are circling.”

  With a heavy sigh Dannarah glanced upward at the wheel of red poles that held up the felt roof as if she expected the gods to agree with her impatient scorn. “Mama means Grandmother is the vulture. They’ve never gotten along. Grandmother bullies her, and Mama cowers.”

  “Dannarah!” said Atani, then glanced at his father and closed his mouth.

  The king tucked the whip between his belt and tunic. His voice was sharper than usual. “Is your grandmother in the birthing chamber now? Does the midwife say Zayrah is to deliver soon?”

  “I don’t know, I don’t concern myself with things like that when I have so many more important skills to learn.” Dannarah’s color crept high in her cheeks as she sneaked another glance at Kellas. He kept his expression stolid. He could easily recognize that admiring look from girls of her tumultuous age, and it always signified trouble. “I’m never going to marry because I’m going to become a reeve and guard the Hundred from the sky.”

  Her brother snorted. “Just because you say so doesn’t make it true, Dannarah. People don’t choose to become reeves. The eagles choose the men and women who become jessed to them. We don’t choose for the eagles.” He looked at Kellas and switched from the Sirni language commonly spoken in the palace to the Hundred-speech that Kellas had grown up with. “Greetings of the day, Wolf Kellas. It is good to see you again.”

  Atani’s smile truly deserved the appellation shining. The boy who had laughed in delight when his little sister beat him at a game had grown into a youth whose serious demeanor could not conceal a genuine concern for the people around him.

  “Greetings of the day, Your Highness,” replied Kellas, and hastily added, “and to you, Lady Dannarah.”

  “Greetings of the day, Wolf Kellas,” she answered.

  “He is now Captain Kellas,” said the king, shifting easily to the Hundred-speech so they all were speaking it. “He has just received a promotion for loyal service in the hunting of demons and other dangerous rebels, outlaws, and malcontents who threaten the peace and order of the Hundred.”

  “Did Captain Kellas fight a demon?” Dannarah asked with a breathless intensity that caused her father to give her a measuring look.

  “Only my officers are privy to the information my silent wolves gather, Dannarah.”

  “You tell Atani!”

  “Atani will become king after me.”

  She clasped her hands behind her back and lifted her chin defiantly. “Maybe it would serve Atani well to have a sister who supports him in everything because she knows as much about running the kingdom as he does.”

  “It’s true, Papa.” Atani did not have his sister’s forceful personality, but his quiet manner masked a tranquil steadiness that Kellas admired even if others mistook it for weakness. “I tell Dannarah everything I’m allowed to. Why not treat her as my second in command?”

  She elbowed her brother hard enough that he had to take a step sideways to balance. “You don’t have to ask for me!”

  “I’m not asking for you,” he replied without the least sign of anger. “I’m asking for myself. There’s no one I trust more than you, Dannarah.”

  “Hu!” exclaimed the king, more to himself than to either of them. “I may as well tell you that we have begun discussions about betrothing Dannarah to a Sirniakan prince and sending her south to the empire as a seal to a treaty between the Sirniakan Empire and us—”

  “I won’t go! Atani, tell Papa I won’t go!”

  She nudged him again but he said nothing, only frowned.

  “We will discuss the matter another time when we aren’t waiting to eat. Captain Kellas, you will join us.”

  The king beckoned to a file of stewards who had paused outside the pavilion. They swiftly unfolded trays, set them beside cushions, and arranged platters of food along a thick embroidered cloth. Others hung unlit lamps around the circumference in preparation for dusk. Only a few things would have made Kellas more uncomfortable than the prospect of dining with the king and his two eldest children, as Anjihosh’s Qin officers often did, but of course having been given the order he could not excuse himself.

  King Anjihosh seated himself on a cushion with Atani on one side and Dannarah on the other. Each had a tray placed to one side arranged with particular delicacies. “Very well, Dannarah, let us see how well you have paid attention to your lessons. What is a demon?”

  Atani began to eat from a tray of freshly slip-fried noodles and vegetables with the air of a person who is both hungry and fairly certain he won’t be disturbed for a while.

  “There are two kinds of demons, ordinary demons and cloaked demons.” Dannarah had her father’s intensity of manner, although where his charisma was a contained and smooth vessel, hers always seemed on the verge of bursting out all over. “Demons look like people but they aren’t really human, not like we are. In the tales told in the Hundred, ordinary demons are also called demon-hearts to distinguish them from blind-hearts. Blind-hearts is what humans are called in the old songs that describe the Eight Children of the Four Mothers—these are the eight children of the Hundred, the dragonlings, the firelings, the delvings, the wildings, the lendings, the merlings, the demon-hearts, and the blind-hearts—which I will not relate to you at this moment even though I have learned all eight of their songs by heart.”

  “My thanks,” muttered Atani between mouthfuls. “You sound like a cat wailing when you sing.”

  “I do not, you pig!”

  Anjihosh coughed, and both children immediately fell silent. He looked at Kellas. “Is the food not agreeable, Captain? Are you not hungry?”

  “My apologies, Your Highness. I am honored to be asked to dine with you and to be honest rather overwhelmed.”

  “The chicken cooked in a sauce of ginger and pear is particularly flavorful today.” The king nodded as if giving an order, then turned back to his daughter. “Go on, Dannarah. But confine your recitation to information about demons.”

  She absorbed this mild criticism with a fierce nod, a soldier eager to gain mastery as she drills. “Ordinary demons are called demon-hearts because they have strange abilities. Some can see or hear the wandering ghosts of the newly dead before their spirits pass to the other side. Some can hear the whisper of the earth’s secret passageways or sense the changing patterns of the weather before the wind shifts. Some can understand the language of birds, and so on.”

  The pear-ginger sauce melted on Kellas’s tongue, and he finally began to relax.

  “Here in the Hundred these demon-hearts are called gods-touched and are granted wary respect. Usually they are dedicated to one of the temples of the seven gods. Some hide themselves, preferring to live an ordinary life. However, in the Sirniakan Empire, boys of twelve are tested for such sensitivities. Those who exhibit them are taken into the priesthood of Beltak the Shining One.”

  With a wry smile, the king considered the dumpling sitting plump on his spoon. “Although not every family wishes its sons to serve in that way. But that is neither here nor there, is it? Have you tried the custard buns, Captain? Go on, Dannarah.”

  The king signaled a steward to carry a platter heaped with warm buns over to Kellas.

  “There are only nine cloaked demons. They were once known as Guardians. In the Tale of the Guardians they are said to have been born in the distant past out of Indiyabu, a mysterious lake, during a time of endemic war. They ride winged horses, can walk on the magical labyrinths called demon’s coils, and can speak to other demons through the coils. The coils also give them nourishment, a liquid that is poisonous to humankind. The d
emon’s skin they wear appears to our eyes as a silk cloak. It makes them impossible to kill unless you can cut the cloak off their body, which is very perilous because the cloak burns human flesh. But that’s not what really makes them dangerous. People fear them because they can peer into the mind of any person and see their thoughts and dreams and memories. With their lies and lures they can coax people into any sort of terrible criminal act and rebellion. They hate your rule, Papa, because you have brought peace and prosperity and order to a land they once crushed under their evil gaze. But with patience and vigilance, and through harnessing the skill and loyalty of your Black Wolves, you have killed five, and driven the last four and their deluded followers into hiding.”

  When Kellas bit into the bun, custard gushed into his mouth and he had to close his eyes to savor the sensation.

  “They are excellent, are they not?” remarked the king.

  Kellas opened his eyes, embarrassed for feeling so out of place, and yet how could he not? Son of common artisans, he was eating with a man who was the exiled son of the previous Sirniakan emperor, now deceased, and also the nephew of the current ruler of the united Qin tribes and armies out in their grassland kingdom.

  “Please understand that it is Qin custom for a commander to consider his loyal officers as kin,” added the king, leaving Kellas with a sudden rarefied sense that his entire life had changed in a moment. If the king noticed his stunned expression he made no show of it, merely returned his attention to his daughter. “Now, Dannarah, is there anything else you wish to add? No? Atani?”

  “Oh,” said Atani, putting down his spoon, for he never disobeyed his father in the slightest particular. Over the years Kellas had come to consider the boy too determined to do everything without flaw in the hope of pleasing a daunting father whom everyone but the child could see doted on his son. “Let’s see. The cloaked demons were once called Guardians—”

  “I said that already,” remarked Dannarah.

  “But you didn’t state why they used to be called Guardians. It’s because they once claimed to be judges who flew a circuit of the Hundred on their winged horses, judging difficult criminal cases by means of looking into the hearts of the accused. That’s how they gained so much power. By digging secrets out of the minds of unwilling people they could control them, and by this means they ruled the Hundred. That is why Papa had to overthrow them, because they used their cruel insight to foster disorder and injustice rather than to impose order and justice. That is why the Black Wolves are always on alert, trying to hunt down and kill all of them so they can never rise again.”

  Atani glanced at his father, clearly hoping for an approving word, but the king was frowning at a sight outside of the pavilion. He rose as a boy of about the same age as Atani and Dannarah, half Qin by his features, ran up and handed a slip of paper to one of the guards. The man examined it, sniffed it, and brought it to the king.

  The king read its words. “It seems your mother’s childbirth is proceeding more quickly than anyone expected. Captain Kellas, guard my two eldest children.”

  He descended the steps and strode off with all eight of his guards. Two Qin soldiers lingered, the personal bodyguards of Prince Atani. Dannarah had managed to shed the Sirniakan eunuch from the women’s wing who was meant to attend her at all times. Yet the king had not left his children unguarded. It seemed that the disgraced young malcontent of eight years ago had, without intending to, climbed Law Rock into the very heart of the palace.

  3

  Atani covered the platters of uneaten food and got up. “I’m going, too.”

  Dannarah edged a glance toward Kellas, then shoved a dumpling around her tray with intense concentration.

  “We shall all go,” said Kellas, hoping he hadn’t smeared any custard on his chin. He turned away for long enough to eat the rest of the bun because it was so soft and so delicious.

  Shepherding the two young people out of the pavilion and across the spacious garden with its trimmed trees and blooming flowers put him in mind of being a cursed teacher at a temple filled with novices. This was a far cry from his recent mission in the western hills, but the king had elevated him to a position of trust Kellas could never betray.

  Guard my two eldest children.

  The palace was a sprawling compound remodeled from a council hall, emergency grain storehouses, and militia barracks built atop Law Rock, the promontory that overlooked the prosperous city of Toskala. When Queen Zayrah had arrived as a young bride for King Anjihosh sixteen years ago, she had brought her Sirniakan customs with her, which meant the palace women lived in a separate wing. Men like Kellas could never advance into the women’s wing farther than the queen’s formal audience chamber. Here, palace women like Zayrah who followed the Sirniakan custom seated themselves behind a lattice screen to receive visitors and to pray with the Beltak priests.

  This chamber had been overrun by the children being raised in the palace, including the four younger daughters of King Anjihosh and Queen Zayrah. As soon as they entered, the three older of the girls swarmed Atani, calling his name, plucking at his sleeves, and talking all at once in Sirni. They were so close in age they seemed like triplets. Kellas found it difficult to tell their voices apart.

  “Mama is sick and crying and they won’t let us go in to see her. Is she going to die? Is the baby going to die like the other three did?”

  The littlest girl—the fifth of the king’s surviving daughters—wasn’t yet old enough to speak. She attached herself to Atani’s legs so tightly he couldn’t walk.

  “No, no, Mama is healthy. All will be well,” he said, touching each one on the head, but his gaze met Dannarah’s.

  She gritted her teeth, and when he kept that steady stare fixed on her she made a face and, with a final, cutting glare as if to say she would despise her brother for the rest of existence, scooped up the toddler and carried her toward a private courtyard reserved for women. “Come with me, girls. We will go outside and practice our recitation. That will make the time pass.”

  Kellas watched them go. She certainly took after her father in her ability to command. When he looked back around Atani was dodging around the other overexcited children to get to the closed doors that let into the inner rooms. Kellas followed in time to see the prince halted by two Sirniakan eunuchs on guard duty.

  “But I’m her son!” Atani was saying.

  “Your Highness, we obey King Anjihosh and his gracious mother, Lady Irlin, who rules the women’s quarters. The king himself gave us the order to allow no one in until the matter is resolved.”

  Atani opened his mouth to protest, noticed Kellas waiting at his elbow, and abruptly acquiesced. It was so typical of Atani. Dannarah would have pushed, but the young prince gave way.

  “Wait here for me,” he said to his two bodyguards. “Captain Kellas will walk me to the privy and I will return directly.”

  He walked back into the garden but instead of going to the privy he strolled along the perimeter with Kellas, walking a slow circuit as shadows crept over the ground. On their second round the prince halted where a stretch of hedge abutted a modest gate set into the garden wall.

  “I need your help,” he said in a low voice. “There’s a way to climb in that Dannarah figured out. I need you to lift me up.”

  Who would have ever expected such defiance from Atani? But Kellas knew his duty.

  “Your Highness, according to the custom of the palace you are a male who is now too old to walk in and out of the women’s wing without permission from your grandmother. Furthermore the king has closed access, so you must obey him and stay out.”

  With flushed cheeks Atani lifted his chin, his dark gaze stormy and determined. “Mama is the queen and it should be her permission I need, not Grandmother’s. Yet Grandmother rules the women’s quarters. Besides that she is rude and dismissive toward Mama. It isn’t right I’m not allowed in to give Mama support when neither Grandmother nor Papa love or respect her as they should. I am sorry to say such a
thing, Captain Kellas. It is unfair to inflict on you my poor opinion of their affection. You know I love my father and admire and respect him above all other men. But it would be a lie to pretend my mother is not scorned by the very people who should care for and appreciate her the most. They believe her to be dull-witted because she is retiring and quiet, but anyone who studies the intricacy of her embroidery ought to be able to see the keen mind that lies beneath its patterns.”

  As this was the longest and most passionate speech Kellas had ever heard Atani give, he was too astounded to reply.

  Nor did the prince wait. “I command you to help me. No fault will fall on you.”

  “Unless the king discovers all.”

  “What you say afterward I leave to your discretion, but you cannot refuse a direct order from me. Dannarah and I know a hidden way to creep through the women’s wing. We do it all the time. You of all people should be able to sneak around where you aren’t allowed without being caught.”

  What hidden mischief lurked in the boy! Kellas’s resolve wavered. The hells! He could never resist a challenge, the more foolhardy the better.

  “Very well, Your Highness.”

  “Don’t worry, I will protect you,” said the boy with all the certitude of a youth who has never suffered more than a skinned knee. He glanced around the garden. With all the anticipation fluttering around the entry to the women’s wing, no one was looking their way. Besides that, he had cleverly delayed until twilight shadowed the garden.

  A puzzle lock bound the gate’s latch. Atani made quick work of it. They slipped into a large deserted square whose only building was a round four-story tower with windows shuttered and front doors chained shut: the old Assizes Tower. Next to it a long granary once used to store emergency rice had been converted into the women’s wing. Kellas gave Atani a boost up onto its lower roof, then easily pulled himself up after. It was almost dark but Kellas had infiltrated buildings so often by roof that he had no trouble edging after Atani’s dark form. Bars blocked the ventilation gaps between the eaves of the upper and lower roofs, but Atani shifted aside a set of bars and squirmed in. Feeling his way, Kellas followed him into a crawl space just high enough for a body to fit through.