by Megan Crane
Raiders had never subscribed to that kind of bullshit philosophy. It was why they’d taken off from the rest of the shithole world back when the Storms had first ended, making their own way to the wilds of the eastern islands. It was why they lived free, with no overlords or gods telling them how and when they should raid or live or fuck or die.
The raiders lived and died by their honor and their blades. They raided where and when they pleased. And they fucked how they liked. Often.
The western kings, meanwhile, profited from the darkness—and all the inbred terror that went with six long months of stormy, wet, freezing-ass winter every year—or even just the suggestion of it on the far side of the walls. Terror meant obedience. Terror meant whole populations who thought they were put on this earth to serve the men who claimed to be better than them.
Wulf knew all that. But it was something else to see it with his own eyes. To contrast it to what he’d seen in the eastern raider settlements and all up and down the eastern mainland. To remember what it had been like in the raider city when he was a kid, when his father, Amos, had been a hard-ass who thought his young sons needed toughening up and the king had been that giant asshole Donovan who’d thought about nothing, ever, but his own pleasures and petty jealousies.
Donovan was the first king Wulf had taken down. And that had been when he’d been young and feral and fueled as much by hope and fury as skill. He was much, much better at it now. He relied on skill, and hope came later.
Fury just made it fun.
By the time they reached the gleaming palace at the far side of the lake, lit up from what appeared to be every window like a giant fuck you to all the king’s many lesser subjects, who were even now crouched somewhere in the gloom and braced for a cold-ass night, Wulf’s little march had attracted a crowd. All these well-to-do aristocratic assholes who merited a house in their king’s own stronghold clustered together in the doors of their warm, tidy little cottages, fussing about in their fine clothes, all squeaky clean and wide-eyed.
The word raider floated around him on the stiff March wind, whispered to his face and behind his back as he moved. Howling through the gorge like another winter storm.
Because, of course, it was likely that none of these pampered idiots had ever seen a raider before. Wulf was their worst nightmare made imposing flesh. He was a story parents whispered to their children to keep them in line. Behave, or the raiders will come for you, sneaking into the city in the dark of night. . . .
Or maybe he was less of monster here, Wulf thought, where it was never really too dark and the mountain walls felt like a deserved blessing instead of a strategy.
Though by the looks he saw on all the faces pointed toward him, as much fascination as fear, maybe not.
Wulf wasn’t surprised to find a delegation waiting for him when they marched him up out of the streets and into their appropriately showy palace crouched there at the top of the valley. He was slightly surprised that they’d taken him directly to what was, presumably, the home of their king without any attempt at covering their tracks or attempting to confuse their captive. Not something he would have done, and no matter if he planned to kill the captive in question. You could never tell how shit might go down. Accordingly, the raider brothers took great pleasure in leading captives on long, torturous, circular hikes through the most inhospitable part of the eastern islands, the better to convince strangers and interlopers that the raider city was impossible to find on their own. Which ensured that it was.
It was as if these mainlanders wanted Wulf to draw down an army and attack them, now that they’d given him a tour of their whole compound and allowed him to start thinking of solutions to the bottleneck issue. But then he reminded himself that he was in the home of an arrogant, untested western king. Little men who had never been attacked assumed no one dared try.
His smirk deepened, then turned into a full smile when his ring of strutting guards fell back to the sides of the big square foyer, leaving him to stand there in the middle of the grand hall. It soared up several stories high toward a far-off sloped roof. And it was strange combination of polished woods, gleaming metals, and stones wherever he looked. Gold inlaid beams with iron scrollwork. Marble floors crossed with weathered wooden planks. Up on the higher levels, rich mainland assholes clustered in their strange, glittery clothes and acrobatic hair to gape down at him. They pressed together on the balconies that ringed the open space, murmuring behind their hands to each other like a bunch of chattering birds. Wulf felt about as threatened.
He took his time looking around, turning in a complete and lazy circle, noting that the building had been built for its views down the length of the gorge, not defense, as if the original builder had expected the gorge to do that work for him. An interesting choice. Then, when he was finished counting exits and guards, noting which embellishments on this wall or that bench could be fashioned into weapons and running through a few different strategies as to how he could take this whole gorge with no more than the handful of brothers he’d taken with him across the sea and dispatched to carry out specific tasks while he did this shit, he faced the little battalion waiting for him in what looked like a pansy-ass version of formation.
They were fucking adorable.
Very theatrically, Wulf removed his hands from his head, held them out to show that they were empty—and as large and battle-scarred as the rest of him—then dropped them to his sides.
The man standing at the head of the little uniformed squad of assholes before him wasn’t the king. Wulf could tell by the way he stood with an impassive expression on his dark brown face, legs spread wide in a fighter’s stance, and too much confidence in the thick arms crossed over his chest. Kings in this part of the world took their thrones in trickery and held them with fear. They couldn’t fight. They had armies for that, and this man was clearly the head of one. Wulf read it all over him.
“You don’t look like a raider king,” the man boomed out, to instant, raucous laughter from the gallery above him. “More like a caveman.”
More laughter. A bit too overblown and pointed, in Wulf’s opinion. But then, this was clearly all part of the performance.
He lifted his head and let his gaze move over the gathered crowd above him.
“Fair enough,” he murmured, though he knew his voice carried to the highest level. “You don’t look much like a kingdom. More like a cloud of flies buzzing around a pile of shit.”
The man before him didn’t react. But he didn’t have to. The crowd did that for him, in a scandalized wave of sound from above.
“Raiders move around on the sea, taking things that don’t belong to them,” the man said when the noise died down. His dark gaze held fast to Wulf’s. “They don’t show up at the gates to a kingdom in the middle of winter. Alone.”
Wulf didn’t quite smile. “I never said I was alone.”
More murmurs from above, but Wulf watched the man in front of him. He only studied Wulf for a moment, then raised his hand to rub at his dark brown jaw, as clean shaven as if he was still a child. Maybe he was looking for evidence of Wulf’s brothers and their whereabouts stamped into his face. If so, he wasn’t going to find anything.
“Indeed you did not. Perhaps you travel with your own ghosts, who surround you even now.”
Wulf let his smile deepen. “What man of any consequence does not?”
He didn’t wait for an answer. He shrugged out of his furs and skins as he spoke, letting them fall to the floor behind him. He could have worn the thermal he’d packed in one of the pouches on his harness to make the trek today, but that would have ruined the effect. Because shirtless, wearing nothing but the leather harness that held his blades and the trousers that fit him like his own skin, there was no pretending he was something other than what he was.
He had raider written all over him. Literally.
The clan’s sigil was stamped over his heart with a second ring around it to indicate that he was more than just one of the elite
warrior brotherhood who protected the clan, he was the king. His right arm was a sleeve of tattoos that told the story of his rise to power in bright, unmistakable ink. He wore his kills and his dead in the brands and tattoos over his chest and back. Rather than wear the many warrior braids the brothers did to show their prowess in battle, Wulf wore only one, intricate and unequivocal.
He settled his hands on his hips and cast his gaze around at all the gaping guards, watching them grab onto their guns a little harder and a little tighter at the sight of him, the pussies. He took his time looking back at the quiet man standing there in front of him, still staring as if Wulf was putting on the sort of winter play the raiders used to entertain themselves in the blackest part of the dark season.
“Your king’s hospitality leaves much to be desired,” Wulf said quietly. Distinctly. “So much it borders on insult. Or perhaps you mainlanders do things differently, here where a man is not measured by his honor.” He saw a muscle in the other man’s jaw twitch at that, and offered an amendment. “Apparently.”
“King Athenian regrets that he cannot welcome a self-proclaimed raider king to his hall personally,” the man replied smoothly a moment later, no sign of any reaction in his deep voice. “I am N’kosi, his paltry substitute and head of his royal guard.” He stepped forward and bent his head in what no one in this kingdom or any other would mistake for a gesture of respect. “Allow me to make a weary traveler comfortable. It’s still winter out there, after all. Cold and harsh this side of the March equinox.” He raised his head and met Wulf’s gaze. “And you without your shirt.”
Wulf smiled. “Your guards kept me standing in a bitter wind for longer than it takes the warrior brothers of my clan to sack a compound or two. In all this cold and harsh weather.”
“You must excuse them.” N’kosi’s smile was as smooth as his voice, and as treacherous. “They thought you were a myth.” His dark eyes gleamed. “We teach our children to stop believing in raiders long before their tenth winter.”
“Better teach them to stop believing in wolves, too,” Wulf suggested. “When they’re set upon in the woods one day, who knows? They can pretend the fangs tearing their flesh apart are stories, too.”
That sat there for a moment between them, though the crowd made their noises all around. N’kosi held Wulf’s gaze as he snapped his fingers, an obvious directive to his troops. The guards at the walls began to move, filing out of the great hall and heading back into the chilly afternoon. Up above, the soft, pretty people booed.
They wanted blood, Wulf imagined. He’d never encountered a mob who didn’t.
“I will take you to the palace’s finest guest quarters, where I’m sure you’ll wish to rest and recover from your journey,” N’kosi was saying in that same bullshit, fake respectful voice that had Wulf’s painful death laced through it. Liberally.
Wulf had heard that particular tone before. He recognized it.
“A warm drink, hot food, and some decent comfort pussy, and I’ll recover just fine,” Wulf replied, grinning broadly when the gasps floated down from above as the words comfort pussy rose to the steepled roof.
He moved then, closing the distance between him and the head of the mainland king’s guard in a few swift steps. He pretended he didn’t see the way the other man tensed, or how those behind him leapt to attention and trained those guns on him with renewed vigor. He kept going until he could slap the other man on his shoulder like they were friends.
“Lead on,” he invited N’kosi. It was really more of an order, especially when delivered from so close. He kept his grin steady. “Have my furs brought to me.”
Then he waited for the other man to take him to what he had no doubt would be a cell, of one sort or another. As if he wasn’t a captive. As if this man was his servant, not his enemy. As if he was a treasured guest.
N’kosi wavered. Wulf saw it in his face, that urge to strike out and try to put Wulf down by force. He’d been raised with a similar expression forever on his asshole father’s face. He knew it well. But Wulf only gazed back at King Athenian’s foremost minion, well aware that it would take a stronger man than any he’d encountered yet in these western highlands to stare down the raider king and win.
N’kosi broke a moment later. He jerked his shoulder away from Wulf and jerked his chin in what Wulf could only assume was an order to follow him. Likely the man’s way of feeling better about the fact that they both knew he wasn’t really issuing orders here. That Wulf would do as he liked, armed battalion or no.
But Wulf fell in behind him anyway, acting as if he didn’t notice when the angry-eyed little scrum of guards did the same. He did not ordinarily allow anyone to walk at his back, much less a whole matching set of armed dickheads, but he figured he was as safe here as he would ever be. Whatever game they were playing, it involved the power their king thought he’d wrested from Wulf today by refusing to meet him when he arrived. He didn’t have to know what that game was to know how unlikely it was these men would kill him before he had an audience with their king—whenever the royal douche was finished playing hide-and-seek.
So he slowed his walk to a saunter, as if he was a tourist. He made no attempt whatsoever to keep up with N’kosi’s long, ferocious strides. He made even less secret of the fact that he was looking around as he went through one large, enclosed courtyard after another. Taking in this palace of the mightiest of all the western kings.
Wealth was on ostentatious display everywhere, from the blazing lights to the fountains placed at regular intervals, splashing and gurgling. There were green plants and huge windows, and the rooms were more of that dizzying combination of wood, metals, and fine stones. At first he assumed it was because the king who’d built this place couldn’t make up his mind. Then he realized it was more than that. It was all part of the same performance. The wide halls, the balconies looking down into the courtyards the palace was arranged around. All meant to remind everyone who walked here of the king’s might and reach. All meant to show exactly how wealthy he was. That he could throw marble here and there on a whim. That the railing on this side of the balcony could be gold while the one across from it was jade. It wasn’t a mad patchwork. It was a statement of intent.
He cautioned himself to remember that. It was too easy, perhaps, to get caught up in what he could do with his own hands, his own blades. Just because these mainlanders didn’t respect bladecraft the way they should, it didn’t mean they didn’t possess their own weapons.
The king’s guard led him down a long stone hallway that was less bright than the rest, his back so stiff it could have been one of the marble floors. Wulf noticed that there weren’t any other doors along the hall, only the one N’kosi headed for, down at the end. Very much as if this was a room deliberately kept apart from the rest of the palace. A cell masquerading as a private suite. The other man threw open the door and waved Wulf in.
“No need to trouble yourself with the goings on of the court,” he said as Wulf stepped inside, taking in the room in a single glance—it was the living area of a large suite and had huge windows he suspected would not open, with a door on the far left that he imagined led to the sleeping area—and then looked back at him blandly. “I’ll be sure your other requests are tended to as soon as possible. Just relax. Unwind. Enjoy King Athenian’s famous hospitality.”
Wulf’s mouth curved. “Is that what he’s famous for?”
And then he had the great pleasure of watching N’kosi jerk with aggression he clearly wasn’t authorized to show, before wheeling around, marching back out into the hall, and taking his feelings out on the door he slammed shut behind him.
Wulf wasted no time. He checked for a lock on the door and wasn’t shocked to find there wasn’t one. There were large buckets of water heating in the vast fireplace and a large copper tub behind a privacy screen, which he took to mean there was no running water in this cell, despite evidence of it elsewhere in the palace. He tested the windows and found they opened, but that the ro
om was situated on the far end of the building and hung out over nothing but sheer cliff some four stories up. There were no balconies to break a fall or aid an escape—or allow any unwanted visitors. It was a straight fall to a certain death.
He checked the walls for peepholes and found none. He moved into the large, rambling bedroom and did the same, and then found himself in what he assumed was an archaic sort of toilet room as he continued searching for any kind of surveillance. But there was nothing. Only two guards when he opened his door, both clearly unaware he could have killed them without breaking a sweat, standing with their arms crossed down at the far end of the stone hall.
“Can you have them hurry with the food?” he asked lazily, as if they’d been put there for his comfort and use, not to keep him from leaving. “I’m hungry.”
Both guards looked somewhere between outraged and disgusted, which had him smiling all over again. He heard them muttering obscenities as he closed the door. Then he took the time to secrete a few of his blades here and there throughout his rooms, in the unlikely event someone got in and took him by surprise. He filled the metal tub and allowed himself to admit for the first time all day that he was cold. That the hot water felt good. That he was made of flesh, like any other man.
If only for a moment.
He wrapped a length of wool around his hips when he was done, and not long after, welcomed two servants with a cart filled with exactly the sort of food he’d expected a western king to have. Roasted meats. Vegetables that tasted as if they came from a garden, if boiled to near mush. A skin of drink and a larger one of water.
When the servants were gone he sank down on the slouchy sofa that took up the whole of one wall and contemplated his next move as he ate. It was some twenty days to the March equinox. Twenty days until his brothers, spread out between the shipyards in Kansas City, Great Lake Cathedral City, and the dam above this stronghold, finished their particular tasks and were ready to get this party started.