In a Wolf's Eyes

by A. Katie Rose

  “Tor, which way?” Rygel asked.

  Tor pointed down the street, back in the direction from which we had come. “That way a few blocks, then a left.”

  Leading the way, Rygel urged his black up beside Kel’Ratan, leaving me to ride beside Ly’Tana. Dropping her reins carelessly on the big stallion’s neck, she twisted around to untie the knots on the bundle at her cantle. The well-trained buckskin merely walked on, following obediently behind Kel’Ratan’s bay, unconcerned.

  Ly’Tana freed her sword and bow from their confines, settling both against her back within easy reach, despite the white dress. Her quiver hung from the pommel. I caught a faint glimmer of her kitten teeth in the faint light as she grinned and took up her reins once more.

  “Just in case.”

  Tor quietly pointed the left and right turns to Rygel, all of us speaking only when necessary. The neighborhoods Tor directed us through grew more and more unwholesome, many of the buildings not much more than tumbledown shacks or huts. Few walked or rode the street in this part of Soudan, and the City Watch failed to put in an appearance. The lamps here remained unlit and the darkness near absolute. A few curs bold enough barked at our intrusion, but no one ventured forth from the shacks and hovels to investigate. I rode with my sword loose in its sheath, watching, listening, trying to sense trouble before it landed on us with both feet. While Ly’Tana rode quiet and relaxed, her buckskin stallion told me of her tension. His neck arched slightly, his eyes and ears flicked nervously here and there, never still.

  I knew the river ran close, for I could smell it, the salt tang on the air and faint odor of fish and algae and rot. Within a few blocks, the shanties gave way to brick and stone warehouses, the huge, deep river Soare running swift, black and silent in the night behind them. Nets hung to dry on huge racks, oars lay stacked in huge piles, and barrels abounded near every building. I noticed many ships, boats, carracks, coracles, rafts lay either at anchor at docks and wharves, or had been pulled up onto the shingle and tied.

  “Adhas lives above her warehouse,” Tor said in a voice just above a whisper. “It’s that one, third one down on the right.”

  Adhas’s place of business stood squat and ugly amid a short row of others just like it on the right side of the cobbled street. At its back flowed the dark smoothness of the river. Lamplight at the upstairs windows glowed faintly behind loose shutters, showing that someone at least was home. The door into the building looked stout and heavy. Given the neighborhood, no doubt safely barred from within, as well.

  On the opposite side of the street stood a short row of shanty huts, their windows dark and shuttered. Owners had pulled up small boats into the gravel yards for the night and chained them against thieves. Just down from those shabby buildings stood a small warehouse, the only one of its kind in the vicinity. Piles of broken barrels, the remains of a coracle and old netting lay strewn about the untended and weedy yard. Old plaster and daub peeled off its face, giving it a shaggy appearance, like old moss on the bark of a tree. Its dilapidated condition suggested it was currently uninhabited, but something about it made the hairs on the back of my neck rise.

  I lifted my leg over Rufus’s neck and jumped down, hearing the others dismount from their saddles. No one spoke. I never took my eyes off the deep shadows around the warehouse. We would have to pass it to reach Adhas’s building. My alert stance and caution must have warned the others that something was afoot, for I heard them gearing up for trouble. Rygel’s sword hissed faintly as he drew it from its sheath; Ly’Tana slid her bow from her back. I heard an arrow whisper cautiously from her quiver. No one spoke, but followed my lead as I slowly walked toward the building, Rufus following at my shoulder.

  Naught moved but the light breeze, yet I felt we walked under the watchful gaze of someone or something. I did not draw my sword, not yet, but approached the darkest side of the building one cautious step at a time.

  When the man-shaped shadow emerged from behind the dead coracle, moonlight glinting off a bared blade, I paused. I drew my sword, and at the same moment, I heard Rygel’s faint words in a mutter from just behind my right shoulder.

  “This can’t be good.”

  Ly’Tana’s bowstring creaked, and Kel’Ratan walked forward to stand at my left, his own sword out and ready. If our late-night visitor wanted trouble, perhaps the sight of four well-armed warriors might make him pause, and withdraw. I hoped so anyway. Perhaps he was an out-of-work mercenary soldier who thought that robbing a small group of careless travelers might prove profitable. If so, then the sight of our weapons might send him scurrying for cover.

  I waited, making no movement that our visitor might interpret as a threat. This I learned: that if I waited patiently enough, the enemy usually came to me. That always gave me the slightest of edges, and an edge, no matter how small, kept me alive.

  Rather than melt away and disappear, as I had hoped, the shadow took two steps forward. When it spoke, I nearly jumped. “I knew you would come.”

  I muttered choice oaths under my breath for not anticipating this. I knew that gravelly voice. I knew it as surely as I knew my own. That voice had cursed me, shouted at me and taught me for more than a dozen years.

  “Cephas.”

  I watched Cephas emerge from the deeper darkness, moonlight mantling his broad shoulders, glinting off his bared steel. If he was surprised at my lack of deference, he concealed it. Perhaps he was not even expecting it.

  “I have been here for days, waiting for you, watching. I knew that in the end you would come.” His gravelly voice gave no hint of his intention. “I knew you would come for her.”

  I cocked my head, sensing something in the air around my former Slave Master, but not sure of what it was. “Why? Do you think to take me back?”

  Cephas approached, a few more steps toward me, not with caution, as one would approach an enemy. He walked with the casual manner of two old friends meeting in the street. The tip of his sword remained down, his grip on the hilt relaxed. My confusion deepened, and once more, I heard Rygel’s voice mutter something, a curse maybe, in another tongue.

  Out of the shadows, I could clearly see him under the full light of the moon. His thick frosted mustache drooped to his chin, his blue eyes calm and peaceful. Cephas shook his shaggy red and gray head. “Nay. Never that. I would join you, if you will have me.”

  Ly’Tana hissed with indrawn breath, and, from the tail of my eye, I saw Kel’Ratan cock his head, as though trying to puzzle out Cephas’s motives. Rygel cursed again, this time in surprise. Amid all this, Cephas continued to approach as if certain I would not attack him, ignoring the reactions of my companions. I studied him, suspicious, yet my instincts sensed his benign intention for they remained quiet.

  Now close enough to look into my eyes, he suddenly dropped to his knee before me, presenting his sword across his hands. He lifted it high, palms up, bowing his head.

  “All hail His Royal Highness, Prince Raine of Connacht,” he intoned somberly. “By right of blood, he is lawful King of all Connacht, Lord of the Western Marches, heir to the thrones of Glynnedd and Powys. I would swear undying fealty and pledge my life and my blade to my future King and liege lord. May the Holy Seven grace him with victory and peace.”

  Gasps of shock rose clear in the near silence of the night. I rocked back on my heels, my own surprise at Cephas’s submission and pronouncement as strong as my companion’s. Gods above and below, how in the bloody hell had he known?

  Ly’Tana, her bow now lowered, arrow still nocked, walked forward to stand in front of me, next to Cephas. Unmindful of the potential enemy in him, should he prove to be a threat after all, she stared, openmouthed, up into my face. Rygel, too, slid his sword back into its sheath, and ran his fingers through his thick wheaten hair. His bright cat’s eyes riveted on me, a stare so hard and accusatory, it brought a flush of embarrassment to my cheeks. Even Tor gawped in astonishment, gazing from me to the still-kneeling Cephas, to me again. Kel’Ratan stepped sli
ghtly behind me, at my left, now unseen, and thus far unheard. What his reaction might have been remained a mystery. I gathered my scattered wits with an effort.

  “Cephas, get up,” I growled, cross. “Stop that.”

  He obeyed, sheathing his own blade as he rose to his feet.

  “You—” Ly’Tana began. “You—” Her voice stuttered to a halt. Her eyes, wide with shock, still gazed uncomprehending into my face. Rygel, too, still stared, his aristocratic lips thinned into a tight, pale line. I glared at him.

  “What?” I demanded crossly. “I told you who I was.”

  “Glory,” he muttered, running his hands through his hair again and down his neck. The hard stare crumbled. “I didn’t—” His voice faltered, and he glanced away, his own face crimson in shame. “I didn’t believe you.”

  “‘Delusions of grandeur,’ I think you said?”

  Rygel gulped and nodded, his eyes on the ground.

  “You—” Ly’Tana tried again, still unable to make her mouth work properly.

  I eyed her with some humor, and glanced back to Cephas. “How did you know?”

  “After you saved me from the lion,” he replied, “I asked myself a question: why would this one slave save the life of his Slave Master? No one else would have risked his very life to save mine. Why? Why you? You had no reason to love me. I began checking into your background. I traced your ownership from the High King on back to when you first came to the Federation…enslaved by the hands of your own uncle.”

  “Your uncle?” Rygel asked, his head cocked, puzzled.

  I nodded, but gestured for Cephas to continue. I found it strange, yet not so strange, to be bidding others. Almost like my hand fitting into a glove not worn in years, and fitting perfectly. It felt natural, and right, to command. As though my true self, the person I was born to be, only now emerged from hiding. I slid my blade back into its sheath at last.

  “I had to keep my silence, my liege,” he said gruffly, apologetically. “Should the other gladiators have found out…they would have made your life a living hell. Had you even survived.”

  “Did he know?”

  Cephas met my eyes squarely, with courage. “Aye, my liege. Brutal knew.”

  I heard Rygel curse, and my own oaths I choked back, unspoken. Brutal knew I was royalty, and yet he would have—

  “You outrank me!”

  Ly’Tana’s voice pierced the darkness like an arrow shot from a bow, causing both Cephas and me to turn to her in astonishment. Even Rygel ceased studying his boots to eye her in confusion. Her brow furrowed, her green eyes narrowed, she stared hard at me. Like’s Rygel’s, her lips had thinned into a tight slash in the darkness. I heard her breath heave, as though she had run a long distance, or had trouble in her lungs. I could not read her mood. Was it anger? Why, for the love of all the gods would she be angry? I knew next to nothing about women, and the little I did know confused me. I floundered a moment, several responses to her accusation flying through my head, unsure of the safest path around her words and voice.

  “Uh, well, I reckon that technically,” I muttered, unsure why that should be so important, “I guess I do.”

  I eyed her sidelong, waiting for her fury to descend. Instead, her face smoothed out and she smiled. A calculating, deceptively sweet smile, yet a dangerous smile for all that. Like a green-eyed cat that had just stolen a morsel from her master’s plate. My unease returned, but Rygel coughed into his hand, breaking my dread fascination of that strange feline smile.

  “I am so sorry, Raine—er, my prince.”

  Rygel bowed fluidly, yet sincerely, a grin breaking over his aristocratic features. “I should have believed you.”

  “Of course you should have.” Kel’Ratan broke silence for the first time. “I did.”

  “You did?” Ly’Tana ceased that predatory smile to look askance at her cousin, arms akimbo. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

  He crossed his arms over his wide chest, gazing down at her with a scowl. “I didn’t think I had to. You should have known Wolf would never lie. All his actions spoke not of a lowly slave, but one of noble birth. Blood always tells, girl. Remember that. He is one bred to honor and valor. In another time or place, I might be second in swearing allegiance to him.”

  Kel’Ratan bowed low, a surprisingly gentle smile on his lips as he did so. Awkward, embarrassed, I inclined my head in response.

  “He is a leader whom men will gladly follow into hell itself,” Kel’Ratan went on. “You,” he glared at Ly’Tana, who visibly wilted, “should have seen that.”

  “I know I should have,” Rygel said, his amber eyes shining in the darkness. Tears? “I will spend my life making up for my doubt in you, my prince.”

  My throat suddenly thick, I grasped Rygel’s shoulder. He grinned, grasping my own in return. “Even a bastard prince should recognize a true king.”

  “Sire, I must be allowed to speak frankly.”

  Cephas took a step toward me, his expression grim in the tight line of his mouth and the deep scowl creasing his thick red brows. His words quieted the others, and they, too, drew closer, waiting on his words. Tor clung to Rygel’s side, his eyes wide with trepidation. The same trepidation I saw on the faces of Ly’Tana, Rygel and Kel’Ratan. Again, I gestured for him to continue, my gut tightening with premonition.

  “Brutal found out about your birth only recently,” he went on. “Exactly how, I’m not certain. But he blackmailed the High King into giving you to him, under the guise of a birthday present.”

  “Lionel said as much,” I replied. “Before, he, er,” I coughed, glancing surreptitiously at Rygel, who grimaced, “died. He did not say what the blackmail was. I suppose we’ll never know.”

  “I know what it was.”

  His voice dropping, as though fearing to be overheard in the silent street and in the middle of the night, he said, “Brutal threatened to tell the royal council how he witnessed his grandsire’s murder firsthand, watched his father put poison in the wine of the old High King. To gain the throne.”

  “What!” Ly’Tana exploded, her face a mask of outrage.

  I guessed such things were unheard of in the Kel’Hallan family line. Here, in the Khalidian cesspool of intrigue and murder, such was common.

  “I heard his sire died of mysterious circumstances,” I said, my tone inviting more.

  Cephas nodded, agreeing. “That was the tale put about then. Brutal kept silent, waiting, I suppose, for the right moment. Now Brutal has a spy network the envy of any court in the world. He spies primarily on his father and his brothers, but also has spies in the households of most of the nobility.”

  “So that’s how he knew things,” Rygel muttered, frowning. “I often wondered where he got the information he did.”

  Cephas nodded, again. “That’s how he found out about you, my liege,” he went on. “Lionel kept your birthplace, and rank, a secret, for reasons of his own. While the Council might not have dethroned him, they would have made his life miserable. Not even the High King is above the law. Brutal kept silent all this time, waiting, waiting for the right time to use the information.”

  “Why,” Kel’Ratan asked, his voice oddly slow. “Why would Brutal use his best blackmailing opportunity to obtain Wolf, a simple slave, a gladiator? That kind of information, I would think, is of such value he’d save it for something more grand, more—”

  “Connacht.”

  My voice silenced him. Silenced all of them before they even thought to think the thoughts they might have voiced. I had not realized my voice held a growl in it until Tor slid behind Rygel, hiding in his shadow. Ly’Tana recoiled slightly, her eyes widening, her former anger gone. Kel’Ratan glanced at me sharply, and Rygel’s expression grew the anger that fled Ly’Tana’s face as if by magic.

  I tried to soften my voice without much success. The growl remained where it was, low, guttural, threatening. “He wants Connacht.”

  “Indeed, sire. He had all but Kel’Halla in his pocket
by marrying Her Highness.” Cephas bowed briefly, if respectfully, to Ly’Tana. “But here in his hand was the heir to the most powerful land outside Khalid, Connacht. Quite a jewel in the High King’s crown. He needs Connacht’s heir to lead his armies. You, my liege.”

  “But,” Ly’Tana began, confused, glancing from me to Cephas and back to me again, “you would never consent to—to—”

  “He badly needed to break you, sire,” Cephas went on quietly. “Break your mind, your spirit. He devised torments unimaginable, first chained in his bed, then later—”

  “He would have used me.”

  Rygel’s voice cut in, his voice hoarse, his tawny eyes flat. I almost stepped back from the hatred I saw in them, the sheer menace, the awesome power at his disposal. One might pity his enemies, I thought, as Rygel reined in his anger, clamping it down tight. He finally relaxed a fraction, blowing out a gust of sharp breath.

  Tor, not much liking Rygel’s fury, slid from Rygel’s shadow and into Ly’Tana’s. The lad had the uncanny ability to read faces and moods, and remain with the one he thought might protect him the best. Being a child of the streets, that instinct probably kept him alive, I suspected.

  “My lord Rygel is correct,” Cephas continued. “With his power, you stood no chance. With your mind and spirit broken, your will is not your own, sire. He would set you at the head of his army, and invaded in your name. Connacht would rise in flames for you. Your uncle is hated, hated and despised. The nobles, the people, would rebel against the invaders the instant your presence becomes known. His armies can and would crush the barbarian hordes that control Connacht—”