“Shocking, what some souls might do,” said Vega, nodding, as he held his hand out toward his friend on the pitching deck. “Here, let me help you up.”
Drew didn’t move, hand and wrist stump holding his waist, horrified eyes still trained on the body that hung from the wall by chain and blade. Vega reached down, taking the youth’s hand, attempting to haul him to his feet. His own face drained of color. There it was. Stuck in the lad’s stomach was one of Scorpio’s spines, its bloody base standing proud from Drew’s flesh, its poisonous tip buried deep in his guts.
3
FATHER AND SON
HIGH LORD OBA closed his clawed hand around his son’s throat, lifting the other’s jaw until their gazes met. Onyx’s own hand came up, seizing his father’s neck, feeling the Adam’s apple bobbing in his grasp. The two partially transformed Pantherlords held each other there for a moment, teeth bared, paws gripping, green eyes locked upon one another. Oba’s jaws yawned open, a roar emerging that sent spittle showering his son’s face. Onyx’s eyes narrowed before Oba’s show of strength. Then it was his turn. The younger Beast of Bast suddenly towered over the Lord of Braga, growing a further foot in height, leaving his father in his shadow. He bellowed back, his canines snapping as he shook Oba.
The snarls were suddenly replaced by smiles as the two Werepanthers embraced, hands moving from throats to backs as they patted one another. The hug was bone-crunching, each threatening to crush the other in his arms, Oba’s splinted left arm trapped between them where it rested in a sling. He pulled his son away from his chest and held him before him, right hand on shoulder.
“It’s been too long, my boy,” said the Lord of Braga.
He released Onyx, clapping his arms, before stepping past him. The son turned on his heel, following his father through the command tent. Oba paused by the two enormous black jaguars that lounged before the fire pit. The two rolled onto their backs like kittens as the old felinthrope crouched to scratch their bellies.
“It’s good to see you, too,” said Onyx, stepping over to the table and pouring a goblet of wine for his father. “I’m pleased you got here in one piece. I was beginning to worry.”
“You received my message, then?”
“Sending the Vulturelord Ithacus struck me as a decidedly serious thing to do. I thought he was dead, or at the least you’d put him out to pasture.”
“He was enjoying his retirement when I called upon him. Old as we are, he’s still my most faithful lieutenant. There’s nobody I’d trust more with important news. Nobody more than yourself, that is.”
Oba straightened from the big cats and turned to his son, accepting the golden cup. He took a hearty swig, watching the other all the while. Onyx noticed the cuts on his father’s face, awful furrows that had been carved through his cheek.
“We encountered Staglords on the road from Highcliff,” said Oba. “You know about them?”
“I know they’ve been striking our smaller camps. Brave of them to launch an ambush on your party, though, Father.”
“Brave indeed. There was one of their number whom I’d dearly love to meet again, on my own terms.” He lifted the broken arm in its sling. “I’ve the Wolf Knight to thank for this.”
“One of the Staglords did it?” asked Onyx. “They’re a thorn in my paw. Lord Reinhardt leads them, perhaps it was him.”
“This was no Staglord. He let me know his name as we fled. Tell me: does Drew Ferran have any siblings?”
“You know as well as I that they were slaughtered by Leopold when he took the throne, Father. He’s the sole surviving child of Wergar.”
Oba stroked his jaw. “He said his name was Trent Ferran.”
“Ah,” said Onyx. “This brother, Trent Ferran, isn’t related by blood. It was Trent’s father who raised Drew as his own. In fact, Trent was once a Redcloak, working closely with my cousin Lord Frost, until he betrayed us. His ferocity has Muller’s men running scared. And if he could do this to you . . .”
“He’s strong for a human,” muttered Oba, glancing at his slung arm. “Unnaturally so, I’d say. But he is, at the end of the day, a mere human, no?”
Onyx nodded. The Beast of Bast was quiet suddenly, stepping up to look at Oba’s face. He traced a thumb over his father’s ripped cheek.
“These injuries: from the Wolf Knight also?”
“Yes,” replied Oba with a snarl. “As I said, our business is unfinished.”
“It hasn’t healed yet? When were you ambushed?”
“Five days or so ago,” grunted the Lord of Braga. “I’d like your magister to take a look at it, actually.”
Onyx peeled his lips back, his growl deep and rumbling. “It should be healed by now if a human did this. Which can mean only one thing.”
He stepped away, pouring his own goblet of wine and polishing it off in a swift swig. Oba stepped up to a polished mirror that hung from the tent wall, turning his face so he could better see the livid wounds.
“What’s that?” said Oba.
“That Ferran is no longer human.”
“Explain yourself, Onyx. Do not test me with riddles. I am weary after a long journey. That you didn’t bother to send anyone to meet me when I landed in Highcliff is something that I haven’t yet raised with you.”
“We’re preoccupied here, if you hadn’t noticed, Father. Sturmland has proved a tougher nut to crack than expected. A necromancer has taken up residence in Icegarden, just as it looked like the city was ours.”
“What necromancer?”
“Blackhand they call him. He’s a Boarlord from the Dalelands, an old friend of the Wolf’s before he immersed himself in dark magistry. My men are fearful of getting too close to the frozen walls of Icegarden: they say he can raise the dead.”
Oba laughed. “Men will say many things when they’re gripped by superstition. This Blackhand is an illusionist, a trickster, no more. Send your army to Icegarden at once. Tear down the walls and drag the Boar out into the open. Let’s see how his dark arts help him then.”
Onyx’s eyes narrowed. He knew better than to challenge the old man. Blackhand was no trickster; Onyx had seen firsthand the kind of power the magister wielded. Rather than argue with his father, he chose another tack.
“Blackhand isn’t the only danger we face in Sturmland. The White Bear of Icegarden’s forces remain in the foothills—we cannot turn our backs upon them. They’re led by Duke Bergan, the Lord of Brackenholme. If I could have spared an escort to meet you in Highcliff, don’t you think I would have?”
Oba sneered at his son. “You mentioned this Trent Ferran being ‘no longer human’ earlier. Explain what you mean.”
Onyx paced around the fire, crouching on his haunches to look into the flames.
“Lucas has been consorting with a Wylderman shaman named Darkheart.”
“What are Wyldermen?”
“Wild men of the woods. They’re bloodthirsty cannibals.”
“A shaman, you say? Their version of a magister?”
Onyx picked up a steel poker and stoked the fire, sending a shower of sparks up toward the hole in the command tent’s ceiling.
“The magicks that our magisters use are a world away from the Wyld Magicks of a Wylderman shaman. This Darkheart has taken the severed limb of Drew Ferran and brought about a new wolf creature, something neither human nor therian.”
“A new breed of Werewolf?” gasped Oba from across the burning pit.
Onyx shook his head. “It’s a mockery of a therian lord, Father—more beast than man. Around twenty wild men took part in Darkheart’s ceremony, with Lucas’s blessing, and each transformed into one of these ‘Wyld Wolves.’ I’ve seen what happens to those who survive their attacks. If they live and the disease doesn’t kill them, they also go through the change.”
“And you believe this Trent Ferran is one of these diseased Werewolves?�
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Onyx pointed the poker at the old man’s face through the flames. “If the Wolf Knight delivered those wounds to your face, then I believe that to be the case. Those are therian wounds, Father. They’ll scar.”
Oba angrily threw his goblet into the fire.
“All thanks to that foolish young Lion, Lucas? All the more reason why he, and his kind, have to go. You know why I’m here, Onyx?”
“Word travels fast across the Seven Realms.”
“The union of the Catlords is broken. Panthers, Lions, and Tigers have all gone their own ways, and their allies with them.”
“It seems impossible. How did this happen?”
Oba glowered. “Your sister.”
“You’re wrong,” growled Onyx. “I know Opal. She would never betray the union. She’s one of us.”
“She was once, but no more.”
The Beast of Bast’s eyes narrowed. “What did she do?”
“She sailed to our homeland, brought the Wolf to Leos, right to the heart of our most sacred meeting place, the Forum of Elders. And that’s where she chose to . . . clear her conscience.”
“Her conscience?”
“I think you know what I speak of, my boy. Cast your mind back.”
Onyx stared at his father, unblinking. “Taboo?”
Oba smiled grimly at the mention of the young Weretiger who had been framed for the murder of her Cheetah lover. The murder committed by Onyx.
“There are no more ghosts in Bast, son. It all came tumbling out in the forum: the death of Chang, the banishment of Taboo, and the complicity of the Lions in the whole sorry affair.”
“How has this resulted in the Lions now being our enemy?” said Onyx. “High Lord Leon has been our staunchest ally since you, he, and Tigara first carved up Bast. That we stand against the Tigers, I can stomach—they were always a breed apart, disapproving of our methods in cowing other therians. But the Lions?”
“It seems once your dear sister started speaking, she couldn’t stop herself. She told Leon that Lucas killed his own father, Leon’s son—because of you.”
During his reign, Wergar the Wolf had been feared but respected by the people of the Seven Realms; Leopold the Lion, who stole his throne, was feared, hated, and ridiculed. When the young Wolf, Drew Ferran, rose to prominence as a claimant of the throne, Onyx, Opal, and a Bastian war-force had sailed north to Lyssia to seize back the lands in the name of the Catlords. After that disgrace, Leopold couldn’t remain in power; he was insane, unstable, and utterly unreliable. Onyx felt sure he and Opal had done what anyone would’ve in their shoes: pointed out Leopold’s shortcomings to his proud—and equally unhinged—son. Lucas had done the rest, slaughtering his father and seizing the crown in his place.
Oba continued. “So now the old Lion has sailed to Lyssia in his son’s name, as I sail in yours.”
“Mine?”
“Of course. You’re no longer just fighting the Wolf and his allies, among whom the Tigers now count themselves—you also have Leon and Lucas to contend with. Let’s smite this whelp of a Lion and smear his carcass across the Seven Realms.”
“I need to find him first. Lucas has run off with his Wolfmen, searching for Lady Gretchen, the Fox of Hedgemoor to whom he was betrothed. I’ve sent Count Costa to look for him. Hopefully the Vulturelord can track him down and bring word back to me before Lucas gets wind of what’s happened back home.”
“You trust Costa?” asked his father.
Onyx arched an eyebrow. He rose to his full height before the fire, striding back to the table where his map was laid out, marking the shifting whereabouts of the Bearlord’s forces. They grew fewer every day. Could he really be so close to victory only for his own felinthropes of Bast to arrive and spoil everything?
“This army of Leon’s skirts the Dyrewood presently, marching north via the Talstaff Road,” he said, jabbing the map with a thick forefinger. “How many do they number?”
“I couldn’t say for sure,” said Oba, stroking his damaged cheek. “His is a hastily prepared army, as is my own.”
“So he’s ill prepared?”
“I wouldn’t go so far as that,” said Oba. “He brings his greatest Redcloaks from Leos. These aren’t Lyssian Lionguard, the fools who served Leopold. These are Bastian warriors.”
“Please tell me the army you’ve brought is a match for him.”
“The small force of Goldhelms who accompanied me today is the first wave. More come—they were in the process of securing Highcliff for us, dispatching or imprisoning what Redcloaks remained there.”
Onyx’s eyes widened as High Lord Oba continued.
“You need to weed out those who are loyal to us and those who stand against us, be they human or therian. Who’s the one they call the sheriff?”
“That’s Muller. He’s the Lord of the Badlands.”
“They make a human a lord in Lyssia?” sneered Oba, nose curling in disgust.
“It’s a self-proclaimed title, Father. The sheriff is an ambitious man.”
“The sheriff doesn’t know his place,” replied the High Lord, “like so many other pathetic humans in the Seven Realms. They’re only fit for slavery. That he should rise to such lofty position makes a mockery of the natural order. He’s the first one you should make an example of when this war is won: hang him from the highest rooftop for all humanity to see. Remind them of their place.”
Onyx nodded, knowing all too well his father’s opinion of men. The old Panther continued.
“Decide which Werelords on your war council are with us. It doesn’t matter where their allegiance used to lie. Bastian or not, there can be no gray areas: they’re either with us, or against us. If they say they’re loyal to Lucas and Leon, then consider that their death warrant.”
Onyx turned and looked into the flames. His war council numbered folk whom he had trusted, regardless of their origin: Count Costa the Vulturelord, the Werehippo General Gorgo, General Skean the Cranelord. And what about Vanmorten, the tricksy Wererat who had considered himself Lucas’s right-hand man until the arrival of Darkheart and his Wyldermen? Onyx had never trusted the Rat, but Vanmorten always knew which side his bread was buttered on, and they certainly agreed about the foolhardiness of Lucas’s involvement with the Wyldermen. Where might his loyalties lie now?
“Well, boy?” said Oba, taking Onyx’s empty goblet from the table and filling it with wine for himself. “What are you standing there gawping at? You’ve work to do. Show me why they call you the Beast of Bast.”
Onyx set off toward the tent flap, his mind raging with ideas, many of them grim. Gorgo first, he reasoned. The old Hippo can surely be trusted. But then who?
“And don’t forget, my boy,” called Oba as Onyx paused at the threshold, “if you see your dear sister again . . .”
“Yes?”
“You kill her, of course.”
4
BAD DEBTS
OPAL STOOD IN the shadows of the balcony, watching the Jackal king at play with his children. She wore a sheer black dress of the finest Omiri silk, its shimmering surface clinging to every line of her graceful body. Her green eyes blazed with envy, each burst of laughter from Faisal grating her nerves. She yearned to be in the Jackal’s position, loved ones in her arms, but knew that day was distant, should it ever come. The Panther’s own children were far from their home, in the safekeeping of High Lord Tigara of Felos, since she had turned upon her fellow Catlords. The Tiger would protect them while Opal fought overseas. She prayed they would remain safe from those who wished to harm her. That list grew daily.
She would stand by the young Wolf and see this grisly war through to its end, on her word. She and the Wolf were allies for now against the twin might of Lions and Panthers—her own kind—and she trusted the young lycanthrope as she hoped her trusted her. But the Sharklord who stood at his s
ide? Opal owed him no such courtesy. It was Vega who had threatened the lives of her children, and for that he would one day pay.
Faisal’s courtiers burst into a chorus of laughter as he lifted his eldest daughter, Kara, into the air, roaring at the ten-year-old and gnashing his teeth as if he might transform and eat her before their very eyes. His younger children surged over him like army ants. They clambered up his torso and, tugging at his toga, threatened to topple him. He let out a yelp as he tumbled onto a pile of cushions, lost beneath the giggling mass of tiny limbs. More guffaws came from the surrounding onlookers at the royal horseplay. Opal turned up her nose and looked away, out into the night over Azra.
“The king’s antics offend you, my lady?”
Opal recognized the man’s voice as he joined her on the balcony. It was Djogo, the human warrior who had earned a place by Faisal’s side.
“I don’t begrudge a man’s play with his offspring,” replied the Werepanther with a scowl. “It’s the simpering sycophants that make my blood run cold, all desperate to please His Highness.”
“Is that not the way of lesser men when in the company of the powerful?”
“It’s the way of lickspittles,” sneered Opal. “The actions of greater men speak volumes. They are the ones who rise into their master’s sights.”
“It’s hard for any man to reach his master’s attention, if society keeps him firmly beneath booted foot.”
She turned to look at Djogo now, the tall human remaining a respectful distance from her. She knew from his coloring that he wasn’t a man of the Desert Realm, his build and features reminding her of her homeland.
“You’re Bastian, Djogo?”
“Of a sort, my lady,” he said. “I was born on Talon.”
“That would make you Bastian, then,” she said. “Last time I checked that lump of rock was still under the control of the Lions of Leos.”
“The nationality of an occupying force doesn’t necessarily dictate the nationality of the people.”
“Spoken like a politician,” she said. “Or perhaps a separatist.”
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