Scarlet and the White Wolf--Book One

by Kirby Crow

  Scarlet shivered in bed and pulled the covers higher, cursing himself. Stupid boy, he thought morosely. Are you that pained for company that you'll take the first flea-bitten rag-tag who smiles at you?

  Yes, Liall was a handsome man, but a detestable one, and as compelling as he was, Scarlet would not be pressured or pushed. He would not be treated as he had seen the male slaves treated on the block in Morturii, preening and debasing themselves for a bit of attention and the hope of a better future. In part, it was those memories that made him reject Liall so fiercely. Had his sneering refusal set the present in motion? Had he scratched Liall's pride as much as Liall had wounded his own? If he had only laughed and said no, would Liall have treated it all as a joke and let him pass?

  Scarlet rolled on his side and sighed. He had no wish to be Liall's friend, but there was no telling how long the krait would hold the southern pass, and he needed to be on good terms with their leader to be able to get through.

  * * * *

  Two hours before dawn, Scarlet rolled out of bed in the darkness and set about gathering what he needed. First he dressed in his own clothes: his gray wool sweater and his leather breeches and boots and his red pedlar's coat. The gown and cloak would hide it all anyway and would give him a matron's girth. He would not walk out of the village in a gown, but he could stop in the woods and dress there, comb the flour into his hair and put on the matron's cap. He had to fumble around his house in the dark to keep Linhona from catching him rifling through her clothes press with the intention of borrowing her gown and bodice and her good green cloak, but he hoped to have it back to her within a month. He lingered over his long-knives, wanting to take them but fearing they would give him away or that he would trip over them if he hid them under the gown. At length, he decided the roads to Khurelen were safer than the roads north and to leave his weapons at home. It would be a decision he would regret.

  Khurelen, the first village over the pass, was several days away, but if he left quickly and made a good start down the Snakepath, he could manage it. He could not take his own pack—Liall would recognize it by now—so he took Scaja's, intending to tie some of the goods into his shirt and fasten some under the wide skirt as well. He would just keep his four-fingered hand hidden in his sleeve as best he could. Last, he tugged on an old pair of brown gloves and filched two apples from the bin before sneaking quietly out of the house. The moon was full and riding high, outlining long swaths of clean snow interspersed with patches of dark earth as he walked out of Lysia. An owl hooted in the treetops and Scarlet looked up to see the wide shadow of her wings ghosting across the white face of the moon.

  He climbed the long trail in the moonlight and reached the woods below the pass only a half-hour before dawn. There, in a wide, cleared circle near a deep ravine, he hung a small brass mirror on the low branch of a young juniper. Almost too much time was spent carefully combing the white flour through his hair before putting on the linen cap, but at last he was done. He peered at himself in the mirror he intended to sell to a steading family on the road to Khurelen, and frowned in disappointment. The disguise did not look half as well as he had thought it might. If anyone got a look at him in broad daylight, the ruse would be over. He tugged the starched cap down tighter and began to put on the gown and the overlapping bodice. It was harder to do than he imagined. Scarlet cursed when an apple fell out of his half-laced bodice and he had to chase it before it rolled into the ravine, wondering how in the world Linhona and Annaya managed this every day. Finally, he threw the green cloak over all and started up the final stretch of road.

  Even if he was not confident in his appearance, he was sure he could mimic an old woman's gait and posture. He remembered to slow his pace and hobble as if his knees pained him as he drew nearer to the wooden fence the Kasiri had set up as a roadblock. It was not difficult to limp up to the loitering men, but walking with everything tied under his skirt was.

  "'Tis early for a grandmother to be out traveling,” called one of the Kasiri from his watchpost.

  Remembering Linhona's oft-told story and her imitation of an old crone, Scarlet tuned up the pitch of his voice and added a quaver. “What can't be helped must be endured."

  The man nodded genially, turned, and whistled a piercing note. Scarlet continued to toil up the hill as Peysho came, followed by Liall, both of them looking mildly surprised. Neither of the men were conspicuously armed, and Scarlet realized they must just have risen from bed. His heart began to beat faster.

  "Well, gran'ther,” Peysho sang out, “it's a cold day fer a woman yer age.” He looked at Liall. “Shall the ache in her bones be toll enough for ‘er?"

  Liall took another step forward and looked keenly at Scarlet as he hunched in his cloak and kept his eyes cast down. His heart thudded too hard, too fast, and he was afraid Liall could hear it. When he risked a peek from under the cap's brim and saw Liall's mouth twitch, he knew he had lost.

  7.

  The Wolf's Clothing

  "My, my,” Liall drawled. “What big eyes you have, granny.” Though Liall marveled at Scarlet's bravery and again admired his stubbornness, it was a serious effort not to bray laughter like a donkey.

  "The better to see the road, gypsy-king,” Scarlet croaked out in an excellent imitation of an old woman's bleat. He had obviously decided to play this to the hilt.

  Liall struggled to keep a straight expression. Peysho was not faring much better, but had stifled his giggles by gnawing on his lower lip and glaring, which gave him a truly frightening aspect.

  "And such a lovely dark color, too."

  Scarlet cast his gaze down quickly, but there was no hiding those liquid-dark eyes without a trace of age about them. The rosy alpenglow that suffused the mountain at dawn had aided his disguise from a distance, but this near there could be no mistake.

  "What strong, white teeth you have, granny!” Liall grabbed Scarlet's hand, the left one with the missing fifth finger, and stripped off its glove, holding it to his breast as if he were a smitten lover. He was enjoying himself immensely. “And what fine hands, so smooth and young."

  "The better to bash your smirking face in!"

  Peysho gave up the fight and guffawed. Liall laughed lightly and struggled to hold on, for “granny” had turned surprisingly strong. Scarlet aimed a punch at his nose. Liall dodged it and grabbed Scarlet's wrist to drag him closer, trying to pin his arms in a bear-hug.

  "You're a violent old woman,” he chided casually.

  "Don't pretend you were fooled!” Scarlet shouted up into his face, aiming a kick at his shins. “Let me go!"

  Peysho howled with laughter and fell down into the snow, holding his sides, convulsed with helpless glee. On the other side of the camp, heads were turning to see what the commotion was about. Kio saw Liall struggling with “granny” and he nudged old Dira and they and a few others ran over to see what was amiss, though they could tell even from a distance that there was no danger. Soon, a knot of grinning Kasiri surrounded them. Scarlet's fair face colored with shame now that they had an audience. He struggled wildly and aimed another kick at Liall's knee, but the older man was a head taller and outweighed him by a hundred pounds. Liall laughed and hugged Scarlet closer, and perhaps he grew too confident, for the hard toe of Scarlet's boot connected with his kneecap and he yelped and hopped. Still, he was not angry. Not yet.

  "Ow! You've maimed me. Now I shall have to claim damages from you, granny-boy!” Liall seized Scarlet's shoulders, jerked him forward, and smothered his lips under a kiss.

  The elation he felt at finally settling that fetching mouth under his was short-lived. Scarlet's teeth sank hard into his lower lip.

  "Ah!" Liall jerked his head back and tasted the salty warmth of fresh blood flowing over his tongue. “You bit me!"

  "Let go or I'll stab you!"

  Scarlet's forehead butted his nose. Liall felt his anger rising and he grew rougher with the pedlar as the Kasiri watched and laughed. “Calm down, it's only a game, lad!"

/>   Scarlet threw Liall off, wiping his mouth on his sleeve, and stood several paces away, his chest heaving and his eyes spitting hate. The silly cap had fallen off and revealed his midnight hair underneath, though his bangs and the fringe of disheveled hair around his face were grimed with the flour he had combed into it. With his legs tangling in the wide skirt and his padded bosom jiggling, he looked ludicrous, which only made the men laugh harder.

  "No!” Scarlet shouted over them. “It's only a game to you! I've lost work on your account. It may mean nothing to you if I go back to my family empty-handed, but I'm only a pedlar. If I don't work, I don't eat, and my parents are getting old. They depend on me. Unlike you and your kind, I can't just steal whenever I need something!"

  Liall wiped the blood from his chin and shrugged. Well, perhaps the pedlar was right. He had taken matters a bit far, and he had not cared that it made trouble for Scarlet at home. Hell's Teeth, he had not even known the brat had a family until he said so. How was he to blame for the boy's scrawny kin?

  "It was just a game,” he repeated sullenly. One that was now over, he supposed.

  "Then it follows that my life is a game to you. Should I be flattered? You've been trying to force yourself on me since the moment we met. That's not a game, that's rape, and you're a pig of a common thief and a raping villain."

  Peysho had arisen and was wiping tears from his eyes. “Atya,” he called, but Liall ignored him.

  Smarting under Scarlet's insults, Liall scowled blackly. “Watch your tongue, boy, no one calls me that."

  "Villain!” Scarlet accused. “Despoiler and brigand and robber!"

  "That's enough,” he said tightly. The Kasiri men stopped laughing. From the corner of his vision, Liall saw Peysho take a step toward Scarlet, all mirth gone, his hand outstretched.

  "Lad,” he tried to caution.

  Scarlet seemed to be beyond listening. “Murderer!” he threw as a last shot.

  Liall had never been able to fully tame the violence in his blood, the rage that was known to overtake Rshani males in battle and conflict and sometimes even in love, but he could often make peace with it for years at a time. Berserker rage, their enemies called it, and the elders trained youths to control the blind, unreasoning ferocity they inherited from an ancestral race so distant and implausible that they had become myth to their descendants.

  As atya, Liall wielded brutality like a sensible whip. He never resorted to it unless a lesson was needed or there was no other way, and yet, with one word, Scarlet swept aside his control.

  It was more than just the accusation. Perhaps it was also his bruised pride: being refused by a beggaring pedlar when he had once been accustomed to pampered princes and great ladies plying for his attention. Or perhaps it was because he had misjudged how much he wanted this plainspoken youth to think better of him, and finally realized that he had gone about it so wrong that it could never be amended. Whatever the reason, Scarlet's taunt shattered Liall's restraint and roused his temper to the boiling point. Liall went after him.

  "Liall!" Peysho shouted, but stayed where he was.

  Liall was beyond listening. His dark face was suffused with blood, skin gone nearly black with fury. His lips drew up in a snarl.

  Scarlet saw Liall coming and backed up a few steps, as if he were too surprised to do anything else. Liall shoved hard, both palms planted in the center of Scarlet's chest, and Scarlet went down with a surprised oof, landing on his back in the snow. Liall knelt and put his knee in the pedlar's chest while his fingers delved in his boot for the short dagger he always kept hidden there. Scarlet's eyes went wide when he saw the dagger, and he twisted, trying to push Liall's leg off him. Liall moved to straddle Scarlet's sides, his knees on either side of Scarlet's hips, and grabbed the neckline of the dress.

  He slashed at it, cutting through the laces of the bodice and the underlying gown until he had the garment open to reveal Scarlet's familiar red coat beneath, and the Kasiri found their mirth again and roared with laughter when Scarlet's “bosom"—a pair of cloth-wrapped apples—rolled over the snow. A few more slashes had the dress off him and Liall threw the pieces aside. Scarlet had stopped fighting, perhaps because he realized that flailing about when Liall's dagger was busy was more dangerous than lying still.

  "A miracle!” Liall called to the watchers. His mouth twisted in a cruel smile. “We've cut open grandmother and found she's swallowed a boy, and here he is!"

  Liall looked down at his prisoner as the howls and taunts washed over them, and then turned the dagger in front of Scarlet's eyes so the dawning red glow of the sunrise caught it, bathing the blade with crimson. He leaned over Scarlet, keeping the boy pinned, and with the tip of his blade he gently traced the outline of Scarlet's lower lip.

  "Now,” he said lowly, for Scarlet's ears alone, “if I cut your clothes off, boy, will I find a girl under there?"

  Liall saw then that Scarlet was trembling and that there was real fear in his gaze. Fear of him, of what he would do.

  "Don't,” Scarlet got out, his voice shaking. “Please."

  Liall's blood turned cold in his veins. How it must cost him to beg, he thought suddenly, appalled at his own actions. It is not often that a man can see himself through another's gaze. Too much stands in the way of it. He saw himself in Scarlet's eyes all too clearly, and saw what he was: a bloody-minded thief on top of him in the snow, armed men all around, a blade pointed at his throat. He was a brigand, a thug, a felon bent on rape and murder.

  This is what you have become, he thought in despair and revulsion. This is how far you have fallen. You are Liall, a degenerate Kasiri bastard brutalizing a boy half your size because he insulted your pride and refused to give you his body. Are you proud?

  Liall got to his feet and backed away. He stood sweating and chilled as the pass filled with the red light of dawn, so sick he thought he would vomit. Peysho was watching Liall with a sad, knowing look on his face. Liall would not meet Peysho's eyes.

  "Get up,” he ordered Scarlet in a ragged voice. “Get out."

  Scarlet fled.

  8.

  Shadow of the Past

  Scarlet abandoned what little pride he had left and ran. A mourning dove trilled from the trees as he loped down the mountain path, and it sounded like mockery to him: fooooooool fool fool!

  A game, Liall said. If waving his knife around was a game, what was he like when he played for true? It seemed incredible that he had ever found anything attractive about such a brute. He was angry at himself for ever thinking it.

  At the bottom of the path was the little circle he had hidden in to dress, ringed in by a row of tall junipers laced with snow. He stopped there, his breath like fire in his lungs, and stripped off the slashed remains of the bodice. It was ruined. He would have that to explain at home and bruises besides. His heart thudded as he leaned his shoulder against a scraggly evergreen and strove for calm. The wind sighed through the thick branches.

  You've got only yourself to blame, he thought reproachfully. You insisted on having your way and challenging him instead of doing as Scaja advised and taking the Salt Road for a while. Well, you called him out. How do you like his answer?

  His chest ached where Liall had pressed down with his knee. He rubbed the bruised flesh there and tried to think what to do next. All of his goods had been left on the mountain. He could not even continue on by the Salt Road, and would have to go home empty-handed and shamed after being pawed at and stripped by a Kasiri. The thought of Scaja's eyes staring him down in silent disapproval made him feel faintly ill. He shivered in humiliation and covered his face with his hands.

  "No better luck?"

  Scarlet whirled around to see Cadan step out from behind the broad trunk of a tree, his fighting axe casually slung over his shoulder. The birds were suddenly silent.

  "What are you doing here?” he demanded, shaken. He had not heard anyone creep up.

  The soldier was staring at him with an odd intensity. He took a step closer. “If
I'd known you liked to dress as a woman, I would have said fairer words to you when we met. Yes, and paid for your beer besides."

  Cadan gave him a bone-thin smile, and Scarlet was abruptly very aware that they were alone here, that he had left his long-knives at home, and that no one would hear him in the village if he should call for help. He suddenly wished he had never met Cadan or Liall at all.

  Kev would say this is what I get for talking to strangers, he thought. “Go away,” he commanded weakly, and Cadan laughed.

  "Your mouth is bruised,” Cadan said, taking yet another step. “Did the Wolf steal a kiss? Ah, I see he did. He always fancied his boys pretty and stupid."

  Scarlet stepped forward, meaning to step around the soldier, but Cadan moved to block his path. “Where do you think you're going?"

  "Home."

  "In a little while. Maybe."

  Scarlet's eyes flashed to the crimson vine on Cadan's sleeve uncertainly. Surely an officer had more honor than this, or at least better wits? The sense of danger in the air was palpable, and he suddenly knew beyond all doubt that Cadan meant him harm.

  "Let me pass."

  Cadan's arm shot out and shoved Scarlet back. Scarlet stumbled but recovered quickly and curled his hands into his fists. “What do you want?"

  The scars on Cadan's cheeks writhed as he smiled, and his eyes glittered with a strange, hungry light. “I've seen the look on your face when you talk about the Wolf.” His gaze raked Scarlet's body. “You could look at me that way. I wouldn't mind."

  "You're mad. I despise that bandit."

  "But you don't. You want him."

  Scarlet's throat had gone dry. “You're wrong.” He wanted to say more, to declare that he had never been attracted to any man, ever, but his instincts told him his denial would be met with more of the same derisive amusement.

  Cadan's smile turned knowing. “Stay a while,” he invited. “I will treat you better than he did.” He made a grab for Scarlet's wrist.