Prince of Wolves

by Dave Gross

  “Not sure,” I said. “Stay in the carriage.”

  He pursed his lips but demonstrated the good sense to do as I said.

  Anton remained where he was as Costin rode back to us. I met him halfway, passing close enough to the horses to make them skittish.

  “Heard a sound,” said Costin. His boyish voice belied the ragged scar around his throat. “Tree falling.”

  “See anything?”

  “No,” he said. “But bandits sometime block road with tree.”

  I whistled loud enough to summon the other riders. When they arrived, I sent Grigor to join Costin and Anton.

  “Stay in sight of the carriage,” I said. “You see anything, come back to the carriage right away.”

  Anton snapped a salute. The others nodded, and all three rode ahead.

  Ignoring Nicola, who hung his head out of the carriage window as if I’d report to him, I climbed onto the footman’s post and opened the message door. The boss had already put his ear close to the opening so I could whisper to him. I told him what we knew and said, “We’ll move ahead careful like, yeah?”

  He nodded and murmured a comforting variant of my report to his guests. The woman was a doll. Before I could tip her a wink, the boss pulled the door shut. Probably for the best. Those noble ladies, they can’t get enough of me, and judging from what I’d seen of her cousin, that’d make nothing but trouble.

  We advanced at half our previous pace. Every ten minutes or so, Anton would turn back and wave the all clear. The fourth time, he held up his fist again. Rather than send Costin back, he beckoned me forward. This time I made a point of avoiding the carriage horses, but still they whinnied and stamped.

  “Crybabies,” I muttered.

  I joined Anton, Costin, and Grigor beneath a signpost beside the forking road. While my spoken vocabulary was growing each day, I wasn’t reading much Varisian. Anton pointed down the right path, translating for me.

  “The Senir Bridge,” he said. That was our destination. Once we crossed the river, it was all downhill away from Ulcazar and into Amaans. Anton pointed toward the western path, over which a massive fir tree had fallen. “Monastery of the Veil,” he read aloud.

  Unless the boss had planned to surprise us with a detour at this point, the barrier was not in our way. Still, the timing was suspicious. Someone might have wanted to make sure we had only one path to take.

  “Cover me,” I said. Anton repeated the command in Varisian for Costin’s benefit. I said, “Tell Costin if he hits me by mistake, I’ll beat his ass good.”

  Anton gave me a grim smile but did not relay the message.

  I left the road and circled around to the base of the felled tree. As I’d expected, it had been hewn down, not felled by rot. And it was just the right size of tree in just the right place to dissuade a vehicle from taking the path to the monastery.

  Back at the carriage, I told the boss what I’d seen. He knew he didn’t need to tell me that someone was trying to ensure we would continue toward the bridge. The woods to either side were far too dense to make driving the carriage around the tree a safe option.

  “How long to clear the road?” he asked. We had two axes in the carriage but no saws.

  “An hour or so,” I guessed. Less, I hoped, but it’s a bad idea to suggest more than you can deliver. “You want to take shelter there?”

  The boss turned to Casomir. “How far is the monastery?”

  “Perhaps six miles,” said the young noble. He shrugged and showed empty palms. “I have seen maps but have never visited.”

  Probably the boss was weighing whether it was better to remain here and clear the road or else try to make it to the monastery on foot. One look at the boss’s expression told me he didn’t like either option, not with Miss Tara in his custody.

  “We continue,” he said. “Highest vigilance.”

  He definitely didn’t need to tell me that, but maybe he thought it would impress Casomir and comfort Tara.

  I climbed back up top so all the men could hear, but looking around I counted only five outriders.

  “Where’s Emil?”

  We all looked into the woods. They were a lot darker than I had expected them to be at this hour. The black boughs drank up the light that made it over the mountains.

  “Look,” called Dimitru, pointing. Emil’s horse trotted out of the gloom toward the carriage, tossing its head and blowing hard. The beast’s eyes were wide, its saddle empty.

  Costin and Grigor called Emil’s name, but Anton and Dimitru looked to me. The veterans knew as well as I did that he wasn’t coming back.

  “Forward,” I called. I picked up my crossbow and cocked it. “Stay close. Watch the woods.”

  Petru slapped the reins. I set a bolt against the bow string and hunkered down a couple of feet behind him, ready to jump up beside him if we needed to give the horses extra incentive. Up ahead the trees parted to reveal the Senir Bridge, an arcing stone span barely wider than the carriage. Once across, I reckoned we could turn and present a focused defense.

  It was about then that the howling began.

  The sound came from both sides and behind us. A life spent navigating the alleys of west Egorian told me what that meant. They were flushing us forward. I lifted my crossbow and kept my eyes on the road ahead, looking for the first glimmer of eyes.

  Grigor shouted. I looked back to see his horse shying away from Luca’s, which screamed and rolled on its back. Beyond it lay a dark red smear in the road, obscured by the gloom. From the corner of my eye I saw a blur vanishing into the forest. Grigor controlled his horse and urged it toward the carriage, unwilling to remain alone in the rear guard position.

  Another man and horse screamed. Ahead of us, Anton fired his crossbow at a gray wolf that had torn Costin from the saddle. It looked like a hit, but the wolf only shied away from the road, its jaws red with gore, ready for another assault. The carriage hopped as it ran over Costin’s ruined body. In as little time as it took to say so, they had taken out half our guards. They were not common wolves, and I had a guilty feeling I was the reason they attacked.

  “Look!” cried the driver, pointing with his whip. I glanced left to see a pair of wolves pacing the carriage. One ran on its hind legs, like a sprinting man. Instead of paws, it had human hands gripping a crossbow taken from one of the fallen guards. That unsettling detail distracted me from the other queer thing I’d just seen: the driver’s pointing arm was bare. Looking back at him, I saw he was completely naked except for the tall hat. He released the reins and whip and turned to face me. I saw not Petru but the leering countenance of the Sczarni singer, Vili.

  He struck the crossbow just as I squeezed the tickler. The bolt shot off into the woods. I pushed forward to shove him off the carriage and under the wheels, but he shifted form while twisting around. Rising up, he had the leverage, his body pressing down on me as his grimace stretched into slavering jaws. I fed him the crossbow, but he tore it from my grip and flung it away.

  Half-wolf, his naked skin bristling with new fur, Vili crouched low—not to strike, but to take cover. Too late I realized he’d gulled me. I heard a string snap just as I turned to see the wolf with human hands aiming at me.

  I swept the air with my left arm. Desna smiled, for I caught the bolt. But then the goddess laughed, too, because the missile pierced my palm to the fletching. My hand was good as dead, but at least the silvered tip stopped short of my breast.

  Someone called my name, but I couldn’t tell whether it was one of the guards or someone in the cab. We hit the lip of the Senir Bridge with a jolt. I would have tumbled off the roof, but Vili caught my good arm in his jaws. He bit down, hard.

  The pain covered the world in blood. All I saw was red and black. I roared back into Vili’s half-canine face, but he was no longer cowed by the sight of my teeth. His claws slashed in from either side, but I blocked them with my elbows. I caught his arm with one of my spurs, and he yelped. I pulled, but my arm was caught tight. His jaws
may as well have been an iron vice.

  “Radovan,” shouted the boss. The cab door opened, but as the carriage tilted in that direction, Vili wrenched me back in the other. The carriage wheels cracked down hard, steel sparking on the stone of the bridge.

  There was no time to answer the boss. I could barely protect my vitals from Vili’s claws. I couldn’t reach the knife at my back, not even those in my boots or sleeves. Two or three more shakes of the werewolf’s head, and I’d have nothing but tattered sinews left of my right arm. My left hand was still transfixed by the crossbow bolt, and it was all I could do not to stab myself with it.

  Which gave me an idea.

  I could barely feel my left hand, but I squeezed it into a loose fist and punched up from my waist. We screamed together as the silvered bolt shot into Vili’s lower jaw, passed through my arm between his teeth, and finally pierced the werewolf’s brain.

  It had to have killed him instantly, but Vili’s legs pumped once more, throwing us off the carriage roof. We flew past a gargoyle mounted on one of the bridge posts, so close I could have reached out to grab him if both arms weren’t pinned to my enemy. Face-down, I had a good look at the black ribbon of river below us. My leg clipped the rails as we went over. We tumbled, and time slowed as we fell away. A couple of red stars blinked beneath the bridge, and a great orange blossom opened up where the carriage had been.

  The last thing I saw were the doors of the red carriage floating down after me, each ringed in a fiery halo. Then I felt the cold hand of Pharasma, slapping me like a newborn about to cry for the first time.

  Chapter Five

  Willowmourn

  I have always remembered my dreams.

  As a child I entertained my mother and the servants at breakfast by recounting my slumbering fancies, which came to me twice or thrice each week. For my seventh birthday, she gave me a journal bound in blue lizard skin that crackled with static when I drew my finger along its surface. In it she bade me chronicle my sleeping visions, which she told me were gifts from the goddess Desna. By my next birthday I had filled its three hundred pages, and she gave me another. And so we continued until her death, when I laid aside my dream journals along with the last of my childhood. Although I no longer recorded them, throughout my adult life, my dreams have always been fresh and vivid in my mind each time I woke.

  As such, it was strange to find myself in a lavish bed, certain that I had awoken from a powerful but unknown dream. Mystified by the unprecedented experience, I lay staring at the silken canopy. An eternal hunt chased along its embroidered edges as men followed hounds that pursued stags whose flight attracted wolves, which, in their turn, pursued the men. I realized then that I rested within the home of Count Lucinean Galdana.

  I pulled aside the covers to discover I wore my own bedclothes. Standing, I examined my body for wounds but found not so much as a scratch. Some ambiguous gap confounded my memories of arriving in this haven. We had been on the Senir Bridge, fleeing wolves. The beasts had pulled some of the guards from their horses. Radovan was on the roof, and I wanted to climb up to help him, yet I had hesitated, weighing my desire to aid him against my duty to protect Tara and Casomir. I remembered putting my hand on the door, and there was a sound, but then ...there was nothing else in my memory.

  How much time had passed, I did not know. Was it only the next morning? Improbable, considering the distance we had yet to travel when we were attacked. The morning sun shone through windows to the east and south. A banked fire hissed in the hearth.

  There had been fire at the bridge. I was certain of that. There had been a great deal of fire.

  I went to a mirror beside the basin stand. Except for a bruise on the side of my chin, there were no visible injuries. The injury appeared recent and was still tender to the touch. Once its anger subsided, I became aware of a gnawing void in my stomach. I felt as though I had not eaten in days.

  The pitcher was full of clear water, so I filled the basin and washed the sand from my eyes. Mother had always called the residue “Desna’s footprints.” Why could I not stop thinking about my late mother this morning? I had lost her so long ago, and never since had I endured such a loss.

  Where was Radovan? Where were the others of our company?

  A search of the unfamiliar room uncovered my necessities. I noted that the cedar wardrobe contained all of my clothes, not only those in which I had traveled. At the bottom of the cabinet were the bags containing my personal items and books, including my lap desk and this journal. The good omen cheered me, if only briefly.

  A timid knock upon the door interrupted my dressing.

  “Come,” I said.

  In crept a tiny young woman dressed in Galdana’s colors, cornflower blue and white. She was about fifteen years of age, with enough experience in the household to attempt concealing her fear but not enough to succeed. She performed a nervous curtsy, attempting to mimic the southern fashion, and stared at the floor near my feet.

  “What is it, girl?”

  “My lord, I am sent to see to your needs.”

  “Indeed,” I said, looking her over. I remembered enough of Ustalavic hospitality to know it did not differ substantially from the Chelish in terms of gender roles. If Nicola were unavailable, it was expected that one’s host would send a male servant to assist my toilet. To send a young chambermaid with such an ambiguous task was to invite indiscretion. Even were the count a man of liberal morals, it was no small slight to assume I shared his indiscretion.

  “What is your name?” I said.

  “Anneke,” she replied with another curtsy.

  “Anneke, I desire to speak with your master,” I said, knowing she would be incapable of answering my questions. My stomach added an embarrassing interjection. “Also, I wish to break my fast.”

  She performed another curtsy, quite unnecessarily. “My lord, Master Casomir is in Kavapesta,” she said. “And Mistress Tara remains in her rooms.”

  “What of Count Galdana?”

  “He has been away these past five weeks, my lord,” she said. After a moment’s hesitation she added, “And two days.”

  “When is he expected to return?”

  “I am told he should return before the snow, as is his custom.”

  “His custom?”

  “His Excellency hunts the western vales each autumn.”

  I recalled having heard some rumor of this eccentricity in Caliphas. Among Galdana’s peers, there was some debate whether his venturing into the least populated reaches of his county was a sign of unusual devotion to his subjects, mere eccentricity, or madness. Of course, to certain nobles of Ustalav, there was little difference among those three possibilities.

  “In that case,” I said, “bring the butler to the dining room.”

  “Yes, Excellency.” She bobbed her head and ducked out the door.

  “A moment,” I said, pulling on my boots. “You must show me the way.”

  An instant of surprise blanked her features as her eyes met mine. “Of course, my lord.”

  She led me through the unfamiliar house. As we descended the stairs to the ground floor, I observed a man outside. He wore heavy gloves and had wound a long, damp kerchief around his face. He knelt beside a fallen whippoorwill and placed it within a burlap bag. Before he rose, the tip of his thumb sketched the spiral of Pharasma over his heart.

  I paused beside the open window to watch him as he continued his circuit of the house. Twenty paces farther, he knelt to retrieve another dead bird. The sack hung heavily at his side.

  Beside me, Anneke surreptitiously traced the spiral of Pharasma over her belly.

  Nodding at the young man in the yard, I said, “Your husband?”

  “My husband!” she said. “Oh, no, my lord. I am not married.”

  “Of course,” I said, masking my surprise. Now my unspoken question was whether the child she carried was Count Galdana’s bastard.

  Tara awaited me in a sunlit dining room. Behind her, windowed doors reveal
ed the eastern panorama. Vast white clouds drifted across the sky, their shapes mirrored in the river. Across the water, barely visible in the distance, stood the city of Kavapesta. I had not seen it from this vantage, but I recognized the onion-shaped spires of its temples from my previous visit.

  “In the name of my cousin, Count Galdana, I welcome you to Willowmourn,” said Tara. She curtsied in the fashion of my country, lower than I had seen since my last visit to the ballet. Knowing that her peers in Caliphas must have striven to break her of the customs she learned in Vudra, the gesture touched me. “We owe you our lives, Your Excellency.”

  I returned her courtesy with a formal bow. “While nothing could please me more than to know I have aided your safe arrival, I am at a loss as to the particulars.”

  Tara made a pretty little grimace and glanced at the top of my head, though I felt no wound there. “We feared as much, Your Excellency.”

  I lifted a hand. “Please,” I said. “Honor me with my given name, Varian.”

  She made another curtsy but declined to repeat my name. Much as I admired her good breeding, my own has worn thin over the years, and I had received enough courtesies for one morning.

  “Where are my servants?” I asked.

  She averted her gaze, and I knew the answer before she said it. “I regret to tell you they lie now in Pharasma’s acre.”

  “All of them?” The question caught in my throat.

  “The count’s men did not recover all of your hired guards,” she said, blanching. “Their bodies, that is. But Casomir tells me that your servants were buried beside the village nearest the Senir Bridge.”

  The news brought with it a cold weight, and I regretted the impatience that compelled me to question the young woman about such an unpleasant subject. “Forgive me,” I said. “I should discuss the matter with Casomir. I am told he is in the city.”

  “That is so, Your ...Varian,” she said. “Upon our return, we had word that Kavapesta is beset with plague. In the absence of his uncle, Casomir has crossed the river to confer with the city masters. He will return before nightfall.”