The Black Wolves

by Kate Elliott

  “Praise to the god, to the Shining One, save us,” whispered the man walking beside him. “Do you pray to the Shining One, brother?”

  “I am not your fucking brother,” muttered Gil, not liking the unctuous tone of the man, then caught a guard scanning the column to see who was speaking.

  On they walked without rest or food or anything to drink. They were kept on the verge of the main road as it ran through fields and orchards and past neat villages whose inhabitants pretended not to see them. A man in front of him pissed down his own leg, and no one laughed because as the afternoon wore on more and more men could not hold their bladders and soon the column stank of urine.

  As the sun touched the horizon the wagons came to rest in a pasture. The grass was pounded down almost to dirt as if many had camped here before. The big stump of an ancient felled tree offered a place for the chief to supervise the cook setting out a big pot of cold millet.

  “Now you men, if you can call yourselves that, listen up.” The chief scratched his balls as he climbed up on the stump the better to look disappointed in his charges. “You call me Chief Roni. My task is to get you pathetic lot to our final destination…”

  Here he paused and surveyed them as if daring anyone to speak. No one did.

  “Very good,” he agreed, as if to a heartfelt response. “Your task is to be no trouble to me and my men. Be peaceable, and you and I will get along. Because I’m a generous man who is paid for the number of men who make it to where we’re going, I want you to stay healthy. So starting tonight you’ll be taken out of the ropes and allowed a handful of millet as your supper and a dipper of wine to drink. In the morning those who have caused me no trouble will get the same. At midday those who have caused me no trouble will get the same. You see?”

  Everyone wanted out of the ropes so they said nothing.

  “Those who please me will get additional privileges, like a chance to wash and a ration of rice or even, if you’re very good, fish or mutton. But not tonight. Tonight I just want to see that you can be obedient.”

  Released from the ropes, Gil rubbed his rope-burned ankles and wrists as he nudged up next to Tyras in the line that quickly formed for food. It was a sullen group that took their cold millet and a draught of the wine, gone to foul-tasting vinegar. Afterward as night came the prisoners settled down to rest. Gil dragged Tyras close to the fire where the cook was boiling up tomorrow’s rations.

  “What are you doing?” Tyras whispered, clutching the sack his mother had brought him against his belly. “Better to stay at the edge where we won’t be noticed.”

  “I have a plan to make the cook friendly to us.” Gil sat cross-legged and settled his sack on his lap. “Doesn’t your face hurt?”

  “Of course it hurts. There are men here still bleeding from the ink. What if the scars get inflamed? We could die!”

  “Hsst! Quiet! What’s this?”

  Just out of sight in the shadows a man cursed, “That’s mine!”

  A whip snapped, the sound so resonant at night that every man visible in firelight flinched. The chief swaggered into view carrying a leather sack. He placed a lit lantern on the stump and dumped out the contents of the sack next to it.

  “Let me see here. That’s a nice silver bracelet but nothing you’ll need on the work gang.”

  “My sister gave that to me!” cried the man, still unseen at the edge of the group. “You can’t steal it—”

  The whip cracked, and his yelp of pain crafted a pool of stillness over the prisoners. No one looked at each other. Gil grabbed Ty’s hand.

  “Here’s a knife. Can’t have that.” The chief set it aside next to the bracelet. “And a nice loaf of bread. That you can keep, though I hope you don’t have to fight with your comrades over it now they know you have it. And this old vest you can keep, though you’re not allowed to wear it on the march. We need to be able to whip your bare back if you disobey, as you did just now.”

  He tossed the sack to a guard, who returned it to its now-mute owner. Then he turned, looked right at Gil and Tyras, and beckoned.

  “Fuck,” breathed Tyras.

  Gil grabbed both sacks, kicked Tyras to keep him seated, and walked out to place them on the stump. He clasped both hands behind his back the way his brother Yofar had taught him back when Yofar was alive and drilling Gil in the skills a soldier needed: before Yofar died in a skirmish in the north, before Shevad had cruelly informed him that he was too valuable for his testicles and would never be allowed to go off to war like his courageous brothers.

  Looking him over, the chief grunted a soft laugh. “Don’t mock me, ver. You’re no soldier.”

  “No offense intended, Chief. I have soldiers in the family. It’s how we were taught.”

  “Eiya! You’ve a mouth on you, lad.” The chief flicked his gaze past him toward Tyras—nothing escaped his notice, evidently—then opened up the beautifully embossed leather bag Lady Palo had given her son. It was hard not to gasp aloud when the chief emptied a pouch of coin onto the stump. Silver leya and a few gold cheyt glittered under the lamp.

  “A nice bonus for my men,” remarked the chief. He spun a fine knife with an ivory handle through his fingers with the skill of a man who likes playing with weapons. “Sheh! This is a pretty thing but it won’t butcher a sheep, will it? No use to me. We’ll sell it for beer at the next town.”

  Gil wanted to look over his shoulder at Ty to warn him not to protest but he knew better than to look away from the chief, who was enjoying his rapt audience as he picked through the ridiculously luxurious contents and one by one set them aside for his own purposes until nothing was left, not even the gorgeous leather sack, which itself was worth good money in any market. Tyras made no peep but Gil could have sworn he heard his friend’s breathing grow loud and ragged. Finally Chief Roni picked through the worn leather sack Sarai had given Gil.

  “By my balls, this is a sorry treasure chest! Dried herbs, an old copper ladle, a spoon and bowl my respected mother wouldn’t deign to use, and a length of second-best cotton. Who gave you this rubbish?”

  “My wife, Chief.” My exceedingly clever wife.

  “Aui! Here, have it back.” He called forward another man, and Gil walked back to Tyras and sank down with a grunt of relief as the chief pawed through the next bag of provisions.

  “Everything my mother brought me! Taken!” Tyras buried his face in hand.

  “It was all useless to us, Ty. Your mother was thinking like a palace-born lady.”

  “We could have used that coin when we escape.”

  “Escape?”

  “There are twice as many of us as there are of them.”

  “Did you somehow manage not to see their weapons? Anyway, we have a job to do. Don’t you remember?”

  “I never agreed to be a cursed spy—”

  “Hush!”

  A commotion at the roadside brought the chief’s head around. A pair of guards dragged in a man Gil recognized as one of the sour-mouthed criminal-looking fellows he had noted earlier. The man struggled a little, more for show than anything, Gil thought, then went limp and said in a beseeching voice, “Just needed to take a shit, Chief.”

  The chief calmly picked up Ty’s ivory-handled knife and tested its sharpness with a cut right across the man’s throat.

  Blood spurted. The prisoners cried out in surprise and dismay as the doomed man thrashed, choking and gurgling.

  “Hold him tighter, you asswits,” said the chief. This time he grabbed the man by the hair and held his head back. As blood pumped from a half-opened vein, the chief sawed so hard as the man flopped and struggled that Gil had to close his eyes lest he vomit. Even so he heard the thuds of the man’s feet as he kicked and kicked against the ground, the liquid throttle, the sigh of his passing.

  “May the Shining One protect us,” prayed Tyras, and when Gil opened his eyes he saw that Ty was staring at the remains: the dead man cast onto the earth, the two guards shaking blood from their hands, the chief frown
ing at the pretty knife.

  “As I said, this knife is useless for butchering. Nothing but an ornament for a man with more coin than balls. What a waste of steel.” He handed it to one of the guards. “You can split the coin from selling it, you two. Drag this rubbish out of here.”

  Every gaze followed the path of the dead man, dumped out of sight in the brush.

  “Now, before I continue with my inspection, let that be a lesson to you all,” said the chief, his expression conveying dissatisfaction more than anger. “If you try to escape, you immediately become an outlaw and we have the right by law to kill you on the spot. Obedient men can live to see the end of their sentence. Who is next? I’ll need to inspect all your sacks.”

  Many of the guards laughed at the crude joke. Men crowded forward as if afraid anyone found too far away from the cook fire and wagons would be deemed an escapee. Gil used the commotion to sidle up to the fire where the cook went about washing the millet as if he hadn’t even noticed the execution.

  “Is it against the rules to ask for a dip of water, ver?” he said to the cook. “To brew a bit of soldier’s friend for our scars? I have a few herbs I’d be willing to share for the privilege. Make your food more tasty.”

  “Ask tomorrow,” said the cook without looking up.

  36

  A rap on the door of his sleeping room woke Kellas. He roused by rolling to his knees and grabbing his short sword.

  “It’s Oyard, Captain.”

  “Come in.” The way the shadows blotted the chamber told him it was not quite yet dawn.

  The door slid aside to reveal Oyard kneeling, still wearing his sleeping robe. “A token from Queen Dia was just delivered to the sentry.” He pushed it across the mats.

  The ivory held a chill that tingled against Kellas’s skin, and it smelled faintly of pepper. “Will you go at once?” Oyard looked as bleary-eyed as Kellas felt.

  “No. I’ll let her wait. I need to make clear to her that I am Jehosh’s official, not hers.”

  After Oyard left Kellas dressed and went out to the back to wash. Then, as always, he oversaw the dawn practice with his usual attention to detail. It was important to push new recruits and see who began flagging first, who gave up, who pressed on, who kept their attention focused. So far he had forty potential Wolves, each one the sort of person palace officials would overlook: a roofer’s son, a banner maker’s daughter, siblings who spoke with almost incomprehensible accents because they hailed from an obscure northern port. All were restless, eager young people looking for adventure. He had been the same, at their age. He knew what qualities to look for.

  As practice finished, Yero let in a vendor selling roasted eggs. When the old woman came around to Kellas and dropped a warm egg into his palm she whispered, “The new work gang took the road south.”

  Yero paid her, and she departed, her basket empty.

  Kellas added the egg to his breakfast of rice gruel and fish steamed in a wrap of nai leaves, wondering if his newest, rawest recruits would survive the work gang.

  After everyone had eaten, Kellas took recruits into his office in groups of eight for basic memory drills. He placed twelve objects on the floor and covered them with a cloth. After lifting the cloth, he gave them a span to look, then covered the objects. “Write down what you saw, arranged as you saw it.”

  Four of the eight set brushes to ink while the other four folded hands in laps, heads bowed as in shame.

  “Why do you not write?” Kellas asked.

  The roofer’s son looked up. “My clan can’t afford the school fees, Captain. I don’t know how.”

  The banner maker’s daughter nodded. “I don’t, either. The Beltak shrine schools all charge a fee, Captain. And they don’t take girls at all.”

  “All the temple schools, the ones that used to be run by the clerks serving Sapanasu the Lantern … are they all closed?” he demanded. A spurt of anger welled up so strongly it made him light-headed. He’d thought his Toskala clan hired a tutor to educate their children as a mark of status, but now he wondered. “All of them?”

  “My parents attended Lantern schools, but that was a long time ago,” said the banner maker’s daughter. The way she hunched her shoulders as his burst of temper frightened her made him reel himself in.

  “What about you?” he said more evenly to the four who could write.

  It turned out they were all from country villages and isolated towns where the seven gods still held sway and Sapanasu the Lantern lit the flame of knowledge in the hearts of the young.

  “In my day,” he muttered, aware of how old the peevish words made him sound, “every child was educated at the Lantern’s temples without a fee except the tithe all clans pay to the gods.”

  “The Beltak priests say the seven gods are an evil superstition that the Shining One drove out,” said the roofer’s son, glancing toward the alcove where a painting depicted a beautiful woman with a compassionate face sitting in a shower of plum blossoms. “But you wear Hasibal’s Tears, Captain, and you don’t hide this altar to the Merciful One in your office even though the priests closed all the temples in Toskala years ago.”

  “I am an old man, and no one is surprised when an old man stubbornly clings to the beliefs common in his youth.” Hands clasped behind his back, he considered the eight young people as they bowed their heads and grew still. He considered the forces arrayed against them all. He could not fight the Beltak priests. Not yet. “Those who do not know their letters will take extra training until they can read and write. Now, we’ll begin again, and this time—”

  The door slid open and Oyard beckoned. “Lord Vanas is here, Captain.”

  “The hells! I’m popular today.” He chased the recruits out and remained standing as Lord Vanas entered. The man had a penchant for costly silk, that was certain. Years of living with a wife who loved silk had taught Kellas to distinguish the costliest weaves, and this yellow-orange fabric with embroidered leaves was definitely expensive.

  “Had I known you wished to see me I would have waited upon you, my lord.”

  “Strange to think that when I was a young soldier, you and Chief Oyard commanded me, and yet now I can command you.” Vanas settled on a cushion and gestured for Kellas to sit. “But I have my own reasons for coming to you.”

  “That is your prerogative as the legendary General Sengel’s son and the current king’s brother-in-law, my lord.” Vanity was a sign of weakness, and it was odd of Vanas to display his so crudely, as if years feeding from the trough of wealth and preference had left him hungrier than before. “Shall I send for tea?”

  “No. My question is blunt. How quickly can you undermine Ulyar and take over the Spears and in particular the spies and assassins who are currently under Ulyar’s purview?”

  “That depends on how Ulyar’s loyalty was coaxed away from King Jehosh, how important he is to Queen Chorannah’s plans, and what her plans may be.”

  “Have I not surprised you with my request, Captain?”

  “Not really. Once Jehosh recalled me it was just a matter of time, was it not? To rule, Jehosh must control not only the generals and the army but especially those who work in the shadows to root out treason and plots against him. Such networks can be turned against him, either to harm him or to hide from him things people don’t want him to know. That’s what puzzles me about Ulyar. I recall when he, Auri, and you were young Black Wolves in the same cohort.”

  Vanas’s smile twitched as if he had tasted something sour. “Yes, I’m disappointed in Ulyar. I thought he was our ally, but he was always one to suckle at the warmest teat.”

  “He wasn’t from the palace, was he? He was recruited into the Wolves out of the army, in the usual way.”

  “I wasn’t shown preference, I earned my way into the Wolves just like any other soldier,” snapped Vanas.

  Kellas nodded, because with the comment he had been scouting out the boundaries of Vanas’s vanity. “So you did, Lord Vanas. I did not mean to suggest otherwis
e, because you can be sure that no man, or woman, could bribe their way into the Wolves. Not in my day.”

  “Auri also didn’t grow up with Jehosh as I did,” Vanas added, “but Jehosh came to trust him when he needed reliable officials after his father’s death.”

  “Yet it seems clear that Auri defected to Chorannah’s camp as well.”

  “I am fairly certain he must have. I can’t otherwise explain why he moved his center of operations so far to the south five years ago.”

  “To keep a close eye on the Sirni Empire on behalf of Queen Chorannah and her sister.”

  Vanas leaned forward, one hand in a fist on his knee. “We must always expect trouble from the empire, Captain. Jehosh destroyed the Eldim kingdom twenty years ago when their kings tried to raid us. Even when this trouble with Queen Chorannah is sorted out, we still have two enemies who truly threaten us: the Sirniakan Empire, and the demons who continue to seek to destroy our peace and prosperity. That is why Jehosh brought you back. Despite the suspicious way you left his service on the day his father was foully murdered.”

  Even after twenty-two years Kellas could not think of that day without his pulse racing so hard as to deluge his hearing.

  It always starts with the memory of walking downhill on a rugged trail as the newly launched army marches north through the mountains, on its way to make a surprise attack on the Eldim kingdoms. The worst thing about the descent is the way his knees and hips ache from the constant jarring impact. That day he feels every step like a hammer in his bones as he strides alongside men half his age: The hells if he will let them take him for an old man! He is only fifty-two!

  Because of the difficult terrain the soldiers move at a deliberate pace, forced into a column of four men abreast. Young Prince Jehosh walks at the center of a company of the Hundred’s most experienced Wolves. Kellas has attached himself to the rear guard. It gives him time to consider the order he has been given by Lady Dannarah.