The growl of the unseen one had filled Pietre’s head like a thousand screams and then the hut had been empty—each corner swept, each piece of furniture in perfect order, each door closed. Pietre had woken weeping. Perhaps Zinnegael was right. Maybe the dream was just a lost hope trying to make room in his mind. But he needed to know. “I have to go there,” he said. “I have to go home.”
She set down her mug, though Pietre could see that she was not surprised. “It is a dangerous road. I almost lost a cat several nights ago when they went in search of your mother. The village is heavily guarded and the humans are unnaturally on edge.” Pietre always thought it strange the way she referred to humans as though she was not one of them. “Besides,” she continued. “Your training has just begun. You are not yet ready to leave.”
Pietre actually laughed. “Well, I wasn’t quite ready to come either.”
Zinnegael smiled and stirred her tea. “That, I suppose, is true.” Zinnegael looked at Pietre for a long minute. “Go then. Find your mother. I will try not to be too jealous if you do.”
The ‘if’ hung in front of Pietre like a screen of smoke. Zinnegael seemed to realize this. “I did not mean ‘if,’” the witch said. “One way or another, you will find her. She is part of you and can never be wholly lost.”
That was even less comforting.
“Oh, and the cats did find something just before dawn when they went again to your hut, hoping for clues about your mother.” Zinnegael pulled a short, shiny object from her apron. “Though I doubt it was your mother’s.” The sharp dagger in her hand glimmered.
Pietre took it and looked at it carefully. “Not my mother’s,” he said, running his finger carefully near its edge. “But this blade was fashioned by my father. He has been there.”
The witch sighed.
“You doubt?” he asked.
She didn’t answer. Instead she said, “Are fathers really so worth finding?”
Pietre was taken aback. He realized he had heard much of Zinnegael’s mother, but nothing of her father. “Have you no wish to find yours?” he asked suddenly.
“Hard as I try,” she said, “I have never quite been able to lose him.”
Pietre started to speak, but she stopped him. “Perhaps your father was lovely. I just worry that you may be placing too much stock in the impossible.”
“Really,” he replied. “And this from the girl witch whose mutilated mother was saved by a band of extinct animals.”
“Touché,” she said, holding up her teacup in a mock salute. “And may your life and that of your parents be as unlikely as mine.”
Pietre smiled and handed the blade back to her. “Keep this safe for me,” he said. “Until I need it.”
Zinnegael nodded. “Will you go after this Humphrey then?”
Pietre looked at her. For a long time he didn’t speak. He’d done much for Zinnegael’s cause—much in a very short amount of time. He’d brought a knowledge of mines and miners, craftsman and weaponry. He’d trained his body and his mind—grown strong. In the safety of Zinnegael’s wood, he’d defied his king in dozens of ways, proving himself a rebel if ever there was one. And yet he was hidden and protected in Zinnegael’s wood just as he’d once stayed hidden and protected in his mother’s house—hidden and protected while others were not. You could call yourself a rebel all you wanted, but until the time came to step forward and you actually stepped forward, you were still just a boy in a hiding game. It didn’t matter if you were hiding behind the laws you’d kept all your life, or your mother’s skirts, or a box stacked high with sharp new weapons. Pietre looked at the witch and smiled. “When your mother leaves you a bloodied message on the inside of a trunk, it hardly seems right to ignore her.”
Chapter 39
It was late in the morning when the wolves of the Königsvaren found the hut. The front door was broken and askew, the flowers dead. But each room was darkened, tidy, and perfectly empty. The wolves flowed through it like a flood—overturning beds, chairs, and the small table, pulling out drawers and clothes.
“Enough,” Wolrijk barked. “They are not here. Let this town be devoured inch by inch until they are found.”
The wolves streaked through the streets like locusts, consuming all in their paths. Livestock were torn apart, their hearts gobbled out. Flowers, herbs, and crops were crushed. The few drunks or sickly beggars who had not fled were kicked aside.
The white wolf Zinder came up from the rear of the pack, weaving through the throng of wolves until he ran shoulder to shoulder with Wolrijk. “Brother,” he said. “Will you destroy these innocents when the guilty have obviously fled?”
“I am your general, not your brother,” Wolrijk responded. “And someone must pay when the guilty are not here to do so themselves. Such is our law.”
“Someone must pay when the guilty are dead—that is our law,” Zinder growled.
“Someone will pay,” Wolrijk repeated.
Their argument stopped at the main street of the village. A group of men had gathered at the head of the road. They were armed with crude weapons, farm tools, and stones.
“Look,” Wolrijk said as sweetly as possible in Zinder’s ear. “Volunteers.”
Seven elders stood in front. The fight was already lost. Even if they could conquer the throng of wolves in front of them, they would be hanged for their murders—one man for every wolf fallen. And there were many many wolves.
The chief elder stepped forward. “Is there a problem, General?”
“You house a fugitive in your midst. Offer him up and all this is over.”
“We harbor no one, good wolf. We welcome you to search our lands and houses, but beg you to do it without violence.”
Wolrijk snarled. “You will beg for more than that if you do not produce the human Jager.”
Another elder stepped forward. “He has not been seen in this sector for months. Your own leader prince made the arrest. Besides we received news that he had been executed.”
Wolrijk swore to himself, realizing his mistake. “He has been sentenced to execution,” the wolf explained. “And will be most shortly. Now bring him forth.”
“He is not here,” the chief elder said.
Wolrijk merely growled and stamped his foot. A group of wolves advanced.
Another elder spoke, desperate. “His wife has gone missing as well. Perhaps he came for her and fled.”
“His wife is missing?” Zinder asked, interrupting.
“And the boy too,” the elder said. “Though we suspect he may have remained in the woods too long one night.”
Wolrijk stomped again to silence them, glaring at Zinder.
“The slave went missing two nights ago,” Wolrijk said. “You will have to theorize about your delinquent womenfolk later.”
“The human did not say when the wife went missing,” Zinder said quietly to Wolrijk, trying to look him in the eye. “It could have been two nights ago as well.”
Wolrijk looked away from him. “Search them,” he shouted.
The wolves flew toward the band of men in a mass of hair and snarls. The men lifted their weapons as though stunned, unsure of how to protect themselves without killing a wolf.
The chief elder fell first, bringing his shovel down on the head of a wolf while two other wolves leapt at the elder’s throat. Other men attacked, but as the battle progressed, the group of men thinned and weakened, pushed back toward the line of houses behind them.
Only two of the elders remained—the youngest with a sharp kitchen knife and an old elder as gray as dusk with a spade in one hand and a hammer in the other. “Please,” the older man begged. “He is not here.”
Wolrijk howled a halt. “Then offer one who is,” he said to the old man.
Immediately the elder laid his spade at the general’s feet. Wolrijk was surprised. He had expected the battle to resume quickly, had expected the humans to value their lives enough to fight to life’s end as any of his kind would have.
“
Weakling,” Wolrijk said, disgusted. “I will also need one other man for every wolf fallen.”
“Your math is amiss, good leader,” Zinder broke in. “More of them have fallen than us. The debt is paid—our law satisfied.”
“Our law,” Wolrijk shouted, “is filled at my command. Now fall back.”
Zinder paused a moment, then stepped back into the pack.
“A man for every wolf,” Wolrijk repeated. “And then we will leave your houses and families alone.”
For a moment the mass of sweaty, bloodied men froze. Then, quietly, one by one, they began to come forward laying their weapons at the general’s feet.
The youngest elder stepped forward just as a voice spoke from the back of the pack of wolves. “No,” the voice said.
Wolrijk whirled around, expecting to see the obnoxious peacemonger Zinder in the distance. Instead he saw an enormous animal moving forward with a boy on its back. “No,” the boy called again, entering the rear ranks of the wolves. The boy swung an ugly brown goatskin sack over his head, then struck the first wolf in his path. The wolf fell, then another. Quickly the boy carved a path through the mass of confused animals, striking more quickly than they could rebound, as the large dog bit at their faces and necks.
“The law is met,” the boy said, reaching Wolrijk and facing him. To his countrymen he shouted, “Resume your arms,” though no one moved forward to do so.
Wolrijk growled and stepped toward the boy.
“He was my father,” Pietre said. “I am here. The debt is paid.” Pietre dismounted from Humphrey and stood to face Wolrijk, his sling at his side.
“So it appears you did not linger over long in the wood,” Wolrijk said.
Pietre did not answer, but stared the wolf in the eyes.
Wolrijk bared his teeth. “Do you then know the whereabouts of your renegade father?”
Humphrey growled and Pietre put a soft hand to the dog’s neck.
“No,” he said pausing. “I do not.”
“Pity,” Wolrijk said, breathing heavily into the boy’s face and then smiling. “If you wish to give yourself up in your father’s stead you may place your weapon at my feet, and the rest of these”—he motioned with his head toward the humans—“can go.”
“You wish my weapon,” Pietre asked pointedly, “to be placed at your feet?” Pietre held the stone near Wolrijk’s face.
The wolf hesitated for half a moment and again the boy met his eyes.
“Zinder,” Wolrijk commanded, taking a step back. “Relieve this babe of his slingshot.”
Zinder came forward from the pack. “At my feet, child,” the white wolf commanded.
“As you wish,” Pietre said, slamming the stone into Zinder’s front paw. The second-in-command crumpled under its force, and the goatskin pulled the stone back into Pietre’s hand.
Wolrijk breathed heavily, feeling weak. Zinder moaned.
“I am not entirely sure his weapon wishes to depart from him,” Humphrey said, stepping aside so Pietre could move a pace closer to Wolrijk. “Your lieutenant has had some issues in retrieving it.”
Wolrijk scanned the pack of wolves for the largest among them. “Gog,” he barked and the black animal ran forward. “Take it from the boy.”
Quickly, Gog leapt at Pietre, but just as quickly a hammer struck the wolf’s skull with a loud crack and the animal fell to the earth, twitching for a moment until all movement stopped.
“No,” the gray-haired elder said. “It begins to appear that there are others whose weapons do not wish to depart their hands.”
Wolrijk took another step back and Zinder got unsteadily to his feet.
“The Mal begins in just a few days,” Pietre said. “The king will be busy, his nerves short. You can notify the king that the prisoner Jager is reported dead”—Pietre’s voice caught for a moment on the word before he continued—“and that the debt for the other wolves’ lives has been paid.” He looked over the bloodied street of his childhood. “As it has been many times over.” Pietre swallowed, catching sight of the body of the chief elder.
Humphrey continued for him. “Or you can return and tell him you have failed to conquer even one young boy and that you will need more from his army to return and complete your task. Such news would please him I believe.”
Wolrijk growled. Already some of the wolves at the back had fallen out of rank and run toward the woods.
Pietre began to swing his weapon in slow circles at his side. It whirred through the air, gaining momentum with each turn.
Wolrijk’s face twitched. “We will be back,” he snarled. “When I deem it appropriate to receive the full payment for the debt.” He looked the boy in the eye and then walked carefully to the woods, the wolves following.
Zinder limped at the rear, pausing beside Gog’s body, head bowed for a long moment before he turned to follow his pack.
The remaining two elders of Pietre’s village sat in an old inn while women cried in the other room preparing the bodies of the dead.
Pietre stood between the two elders, not wishing to sit.
“Your father—he has destroyed us,” the younger elder began. “This animal,” he said, gesturing to Humphrey.
“No,” the oldest elder interjected before Pietre could speak. “He has only sped up the clock. This land would have destroyed us either way. It is time to decide if we will let it.”
The younger man crossed his arms and did not reply.
“A rebel army gathers,” Pietre said. “If you wish it, Elder, I will send an ambassador with instructions.”
The old man held his head in his hands and sighed, looking to his younger council member for consent.
“As if there is any other option now,” the younger said.
“Jager did not have many options either,” the older said gently. “Would you rather he had meekly wandered to the gallows? Is that what you want for our race?”
For a moment the young man looked very tired. The two elders paused, staring at each other. Finally, the younger sighed and shook his head.
“Send him,” the old man said. “Send the ambassador.”
“The ambassador,” Pietre said, mounting Humphrey and preparing to leave, “is a she. And she is a cat.”
Chapter 40
The cave from the voiceless meadow had called Wittendon back.
Maybe it was because he could not face Sarak and with him another practice for the Motteral. Maybe it was an intense curiosity about his mother’s stories and the cave’s connection to them. Maybe it was that the freeing of Jager had ignited a bit of madness in him. He could still feel the human’s palm against his own—the connection they had shared. It hadn’t been an alliance between slave and master. It had been a gesture between friends.
But there was something more. The cave called him, like the darkness of his dreams, promising to reveal pieces of his past that had been clipped from his memory, promising to fill holes he’d felt ever since his mother’s death. They were promises too tempting to ignore.
Wittendon stood at the entrance of the cave, looking into the darkness, waiting for the blinking of the tiny light. He reached into his cloak and felt the long sharp pick that he’d helped himself to at the smithy. It was the final tool Jager had made to break the lock. The pick had been dropped on the floor of the smithy when Jager fled and Wittendon had picked it up before following him. He’d meant to give it back to the Greysmith, but in the hurry of escape he’d forgotten. The metal—a strange alloy concocted from bits of stray metals—had been made into a long, needle-thin blade attached to a clumsy hump of metal at the end. It was nothing more than a crude, metallic ice pick, though perhaps crude wasn’t really the right word. It was quickly made and the handle was rough and uneven, but the blade, seemingly delicate as a woman’s arm, narrowed to a piercing tip that could not be bent or broken. It reminded Wittendon of his mother.
Wittendon lit the torch he had brought and stepped inside. Unlike the mouth of the cave, the inside was humid
, stifling, and strangely ancient. The ceilings were low, the walls narrow. Above him, long, sharp rocks jutted down and he had to navigate his head through them like he was walking through a maze. The floor was hard rock at first, but it sloped down a steep incline and the further into the earth he went, the more slippery it became. He felt he was walking on a bed of slugs, though the color was unnatural, auroral. And yet, for all mystery of this place, the disorientation, he felt something familiar here. With each sludgy step, his foreboding grew.
The small light became more intense as he approached—like a single star on the darkest night. A tremor rumbled through the tunnel, almost imperceptibly moving the walls and floor. Wittendon shifted into his wolken form. He let out a low growl, which curled and echoed through the cavern. As the sound of his own voice came back to him, a memory of his childhood screams came too.
He and Kaxon had gone into the tunnel while the human gardener had stayed back, terrified and shouting—calling into the tunnel and pleading with them that they return to the meadow, insisting that if they didn’t come back she would leave and go for help. Wittendon didn’t think she would dare—the king would have had her impaled with hot iron for letting them go into a cave. And yet she had gone—run through the wood as Kaxon had cried in the mouth of the tunnel and Wittendon had howled in its bowels.
Wittendon shook off the memory and walked on, a hundred feet down. The slime beneath him grew more solid, crunching beneath his feet like pebbles, only different somehow—disturbing, nagging. Wittendon bent down to duck a large stalactite and there to the right, lay the skeleton of a Verander—long dead. The bones of a near-immortal. He took another step, heard the unholy crunch again, and then the memories washed over him like a tsunami. They were not pebbles; they were bones. Bones of his dead ancestors mixed with the rotten remains of others. He took a breath to steady himself—the acrid smell, the stifling heat of the tunnel—they were the result of all these bodies—hundreds of them—breaking down and returning to the dust. He stood within a giant compost box. Right on cue, he noticed the worms, creeping through the remains, climbing over the thick skin and fur of his feet. Expert with the dead or not, his stomach wrenched.
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