Wolf Captured

by Jane Lindskold

  "Surely the yarimaimalom realize that this is the act of several renegades, not a change of your government's policies?"

  "Do they?" Harjeedian said. "Do even yarimaimalom think that way?" Firekeeper, the only one who might have answered that question, remained noticeably silent. Other than when she must repeat the seal's instructions, she said nothing. From the way Blind Seer hovered close, Derian guessed that the wolf-woman's seasickness had returned.

  The jaguar Truth was indifferent to the human's discomfort, but sat crouched in the widest part of the boat. Occasionally Truth shook off the spray that beaded on the plush black and gold of her coat, but otherwise she remained so still and watchful that Derian could have once again mistaken a living creature for a statue.

  With the seal to guide them, finding where the Islander had tied up was simplicity itself. Harjeedian stood the vessel off outside of crossbow range and hailed her. In this, as in navigation, they were better informed than they would have been without the cooperation of the yarimaimalom. A raven Firekeeper called Bitter had reported that except for Barnet Lobster, the Islander was empty.

  "Ho, the Islander'" called Harjeedian. "Barnet Lobster, are you there?" He repeated the question in Pellish, and by the time he had completed the last phrase, Barnet's fair head was visible coming up the companionway from below. "I am here," he replied in Liglimosh. "Will you surrender to us?" Harjeedian said.

  Barnet, now moving to the rail, made a gesture to show that he carried no weapons of any sort.

  "On the same terms that I came here with Waln," he said. "I don't set foot on any of the islands."

  Harjeedian had begun to bring their own sailboat closer, but he paused long enough to ask, "Why won't you go ashore?"

  "Because I don't agree with Shivadtmon's interpretation of events," Barnet replied easily. "He may say that Lady Blysse's visit to Misheemnekuru means the yarimaimalom no longer wish sanctuary here, but I'm not going to bet my life on it."

  The minstrel looked down into the water where now numerous seals could be glimpsed swirling just below the surface.

  "I think those fellows," he went on with a toss of his head, "might have had something to say about our venturing this way at all, but Waln threatened them and they backed off."

  "Threatened?" Firekeeper asked, her voice hoarser than usual.

  "Crossbow and harpoon," Barnet replied. "And men who are very good at using them. Guess the Wise Seals didn't want to lose a friend or family member."

  "Yes," Firekeeper said.

  Barnet addressed Harjeedian again. "He's got something worse than a crossbow bolt to hold you off, Aridisdu. He's got your sister."

  "We know," Harjeedian replied shortly. "Rahniseeta left a note after she overheard your discussion with Elwyn. When we couldn't find her, and discovered all of you gone… "

  "You guessed," Barnet said.

  "And the yarimaimalom have confirmed it," Derian added.

  Derian knew his voice was tight, but he couldn't help it. All night he'd been trying hard not to think about what Rahniseeta might be going through. Now to have Barnet talking so calmly about her. There'd even been a teasing note in his voice when he'd told Harjeedian that Waln had Rahniseeta.

  The small sailboat was near shore now and Barnet bent down from the Islander to help them secure her.

  "Waln and the rest have gone up the hill, to where those towers are," the minstrel volunteered. "I'll mind your boat for you, but I won't be forsworn, not even if the jaguar invites me to come along and speaks fine Pellish to do so."

  Firekeeper had leapt down and waded through the shallows to shore. Now she stood wringing the water out of her trouser legs and making sure her knife blade was dry. Her impulsiveness was typical and unnecessary—Derian and Harjeedian disembarked dry-shod, their gear dry with them.

  "If Truth invite you," Firekeeper said to Barnet, "you come, but she not asking. Is all of them there, and how armed?"

  Barnet blinked at the wolf-woman's blunt rudeness, but answered calmly enough.

  "There are nine of them—counting Rahniseeta. Everyone has crossbows, knives and such, but Shelby and Rarby are the only real killers among them."

  "And Waln," Derian said, "and Shivadtmon, too, I suspect."

  "I won't argue with your judgment," Barnet said, "but I will add that all of them will fight if they believe their lives are in danger—and Waln will make sure they think that's the case."

  Truth and Blind Seer were casting about, doubtless collecting the scent. They started up a faint trail into the woods. Firekeeper made as if to follow them, then paused.

  "Come," she ordered sharply. "We know the way. Blind Seer and I corned here before."

  "Came," Derian corrected as he accepted the weapons Harjeedian handed him from the store they'd put on the boat.

  The local style of bow was shorter and more compact than the one he'd learned, but Derian thought he could manage to hit a man-sized target. The sword and knife were like enough to what he was accustomed, but as he belted them on, Derian repeated what he had said to Harjeedian the night before.

  "I'm trained. I've been blooded, but I'm no killer."

  Harjeedian nodded, checking the hang of his own gear as he began walking after their guides.

  "I know. I am much the same. Somehow I don't think we'll be fighting, but it's best to be prepared."

  "Good luck," Barnet called after them, sounding rather wistful now that he was being left.

  "Thanks," Derian called back, but he forgot the minstrel completely as soon as the boats were out of sight.

  They trudged up the trail behind Firekeeper, Blind Seer, and Truth. The yarimaimalom set a fair pace, but Derian had love and worry to keep him going. Whatever motivated Harjeedian made him grim and relentless as death.

  They walked steadily, the humans watching their footing on the uneven trail, while around them the morning grew warmer. They spoke little. What use was speculation when sooner or later some osprey or raven was likely to show up and give Firekeeper a briefing?

  "I wonder if they know we're coming?" Derian asked after a while.

  Firekeeper gave him a strange look.

  "Some know, I think, but not Waln."

  That was when Derian realized that neither Truth or Blind Seer walked alongside her. He'd been too busy watching his feet to notice when they had slipped away.

  "Where're the others?"

  "They go and make quiet howl," Firekeeper said. "Not wish Waln to know we have friends."

  Eventually, both wolf and jaguar returned. Soon after they did, Derian thought that from time to time he glimpsed motion in the surrounding greenery. It wasn't much: a flash of golden brown, a glitter of amber eyes, a branch or bit of shrubbery moving rather more vigorously than the breeze alone could explain.

  I guess the howl worked, Derian thought, and I guess that like the seals, these yarimaimalom have accepted our presence as a necessary evil.

  He wished he felt better about this.

  Then, just as he was adjusting to life as a rhythm consisting of steady motion that was almost, but not quite, demanding enough to keep him from worrying about Rahniseeta, Truth emitted a horrible choked roar and began to weave drunkenly.

  Firekeeper dropped to her knees at the jaguar's side, putting her arms around the great cat's neck and shaking her violently. When Derian saw the proximity of the young woman's face to the jaguar's fangs, his heart nearly stopped beating. He glanced over at Blind Seer, counting on the wolf's reaction to tell him at least whether the situation was as odd and potentially dangerous as it seemed.

  That Blind Seer had angled his ears flat against his skull didn't ease Derian one bit. He started forward, not certain what he would do, but certain he should do something. Then Firekeeper leapt to her feet.

  "We go," she said to Derian. "Truth seed. We go now—or better we not come at all."

  Derian wanted more explanation than this, but he knew he wasn't going to get it. The jaguar was already running up the trail,
her stocky body opening up into a run far faster than anything Derian had thought she could achieve. Firekeeper and Blind Seer bolted after, the young woman's long legs reminding Derian of a deer in full flight.

  But what he would remember ever after was what followed the pair.

  Out of the forest's edge came streaming all who had been following so silently. Most were wolves, but there were puma, red fox, another jaguar, and a bear. Intermingled with these were herbivores—elk and deer—demonstrating as they ran the speed with which they managed to outdistance the terrible hunters who, on a more usual day, would pursue them.

  Derian stopped in midstride, too overwhelmed to move. He saw the bear, loping with considerable speed on all fours, come alongside Firekeeper, saw the wolf-woman grab the thick fur at the bear's neck, then leap astride in one lithe motion. She clung there, riding far more easily than she had ever ridden a horse.

  Then the furred horde vanished around a twisting in the trail, and but for the swath they had torn through the greenery, Derian might have been able to convince himself that the entire incredible thing had never happened.

  Had it not been for the door she herself had barred and bolted, Rahniseeta would have fled from that terrible gathering. However, the bar stuck in the brackets, and she was not about to turn her back on the horrors in the room in order to pry it loose. Now that she was forced to pause, she realized that her initial impression had not been completely accurate. The room was not full of monsters. There were only three, but that these were monsters could not be doubted.

  Two were bipedal, but that was where any likeness between them ended. One might have passed for human, if any human had ever been covered head to foot in blue-grey feathers, and possessed a nose that somehow evoked a beak. The other could never have passed as human, not with his white eagle's head, snake's torso, and human—though scaled—limbs.

  The quadruped was all the more horrid in that his head was human, though no human had ever had wolf's ears. For that matter, no human had ever had a body covered in a jaguar's fur in shades of black and grey, nor a wolf's tail, nor those disturbing front paws with what were clearly fingers.

  Rahniseeta fumbled behind her for the bar, hoping to pull it loose, but all her efforts brought were crumbling bits of iron and an increased sense of desperation.

  Then the quadrupedal monster said, "Have we done you any harm, Rahniseeta, sister of Harjeedian? Think on that before you race back into the arms of those who have done you harm."

  Rahniseeta froze in place, pushing back against the door so hard that both bar and bolt dug into her flesh.

  "You talk?"

  "We do," the quadruped said, "though you will not be able to understand Sky's speech. Human talk does not come easily from an eagle's beak."

  "Sky?" Rahinseeta tried desperately to answer politeness with politeness, though head and heart were both pounding so hard she could barely think. "And you? You are?"

  "Questioner is as good a name as any," came the reply. "Firekeeper, whom I believe you know, called me that. This one beside me is called Hope."

  "Hope," Rahinseeta repeated.

  From below she could hear smatterings of what sounded like argument. Shelby's voice was loudest. It seemed he was demanding the right to go to her rescue. The others seemed less certain this was a good idea.

  "Firekeeper," Rahniseeta said, what Questioner had said coming clear now. "You know Firekeeper."

  "Indirectly, you are the one who sent her to us," Hope replied. Her voice was very rich, the words coming from deep in her chest, not pinched by that thin little nose. "Are you not the one who told Derian Carter of the maimalodalum?"

  "I did," Rahniseeta began. "I thought he might be one, come to… "

  She stopped, drew in a few deep breaths. Below the arguing had resolved to three voices: Rarby's, Shelby's, and Waln's.

  "Sent her to you? Then you are maimalodalum?"

  "Such as remain," Hope said. "Rather we are descended from those upon whom the enchantment failed to work as those who cast it intended. It is a long story, one we do not have time for now."

  "I suppose not," Rahniseeta agreed. "Though I think it must be fascinating. What happens next?"

  "That depends largely on the men below." Questioner moved his wolf ears to better catch the sounds. "They cannot decide whether coming after you is a good idea. The one called Shelby is determined, but someone called Rarby is trying to dissuade them."

  "They are brothers," Rahniseeta said, aware this was rather inconsequential.

  "And Shelby thinks you are a great enough prize to risk his neck," Questioner said.

  He grinned, and Rahinseeta saw that not all his teeth were human. His eyes were blue, a darker shade than Barnet's. She realized with mild shock that they were only the third pair of blue eyes she had ever noticed.

  "Why are you here?" she asked.

  "This is where we live," said Hope. "Not in this tower specifically. It is less sound than many of the others. We consider ourselves custodians of what remains here. When the yarimaimalom brought word that the northerners were coming here, we sorted ourselves into groups and took up station within the towers. Our plan was not to interfere unless necessary."

  "And have I made it necessary?" Rahniseeta asked, feeling shy and awkward.

  "That depends," Questioner said, "rather on you. We do not want that door opened, you see, not now that any who come through it will expect trouble."

  Recalling her own frozen shock, Rahniseeta could understand.

  "What were you going to do before I messed things up?" she asked bitterly.

  "Wait for those who are coming to take away the invaders," Hope replied, "but though the yarimaimalom argued otherwise, we would not abandon our trust."

  "Well," Rahniseeta said, "if you'll forgive my screams from a few moments ago, I'd like to stay with you. I've seen real monsters now—you three are only maimalodalum."

  Never again, Waln thought, will I hire a romantic—if I have the chance to learn of that failing in advance, that is, or, he added with wry self-awareness of how little control he'd had of much of this situation, if I even get to pick my crew.

  Rarby and Shelby had resumed their posts on guard, but that hadn't stopped them from arguing over whether or not Shelby should go after Rahniseeta.

  The others had returned to searching the back room, but Elwyn's find had not been duplicated, nor had they found any sign of a door that might lead into a cellar.

  "The bitch must have thrown it over there," Nolan said sourly. "Threw the bauble and made a run for it."

  "Lots of good it did her then," said Wiatt. "That scream!"

  "Probably just twisted her ankle," Tedgewinn said. "She'll be glad enough to have Shelby fetch her down when the time comes—be properly grateful, too, I'll bet."

  Waln saw he had to stop this line of thought before he had the whole lot of them vying to go after Rahniseeta.

  "I was thinking," he said, "the entrance to the underground might be concealed somehow—a good idea if they kept treasure. Why don't a couple of you start checking the walls? Shivadtmon, you can read the old writing. Why don't you see if there's anything written somewhere that'll help us out?"

  In reality, Waln was losing any hope that there was treasure here to find, but the next stage in his plan was taking the ship and that would have to be done well after dark. Best to keep the men busy a while more—and a hidden entrance to a treasure vault wasn't a bad idea.

  The men dispersed to their new tasks and there was even a joke or two as hope rose anew. Waln made himself busy checking the side of the front room directly opposite the staircase up on the theory that architects liked order and balance.

  Rarby volunteered to see if there was anything odd about the building that could be seen from the outside. He stepped out and in again almost at once.

  "Captain," he said, his voice low, "I think you need to see this."

  Waln frowned. There was something in Rarby's tone that didn't seem to indica
te that he'd found a cellar door. Shelby was already crossing to where Rarby stood by the open double doors.

  "What you… "

  Shelby's words trailed off, but his crossbow came up into a firing position. As soon as Waln reached the doorway—instinctively careful to keep his bulk behind the other two men—he saw why.

  Lady Blysse stood at the far end of the flagstone yard that filled the area between the five towers. She stood near one point of the star-shaped Tower of Air, her enormous wolf beside her. She carried a long bow after the local design, strung and ready, but was, Waln noted, neatly outside the range of the crossbows they carried. Whether Waln and his men were outside her range was a matter of question.

  Two large black ravens perched nearby. One stood cheekily on the wolf's back, the other amid the vines growing up the stonework of the tower. They looked as watchful as did the woman and wolf, and Waln guessed them to be yarimaimalom.

  "Waln Endbrook," Lady Blysse called, her odd, husky voice carrying easily. "Surrender, you and your men. Come quiet and no one will be harmed."

  Waln knew he could not surrender. Whether the Liglimom would treat what he and his fellows had done as sacrilege or merely theft hardly mattered. For over a year he had been little better than a prisoner. He was not going back to that.

  He was framing his reply when Rarby gave an arrogant laugh.

  "We're to surrender? To you and your dog? I fancy you're good with that bow, but we're good with ours—and we're eight to your one."

  "I no one," Lady Blysse—no, Waln could not think of her as other than Firekeeper—replied. "Look."

  She waved her hand and it was like a conjuring trick. From around the corners of every tower, even from the one in which they sheltered, from against stone and behind low walls that Waln would have sworn would not have hidden anything, emerged a horde of beasts. Black, grey, tawny brown, russet red, and gaudy golden adorned with spots, they showed themselves to the three at the doorway of the tower and then as silently vanished.