Sajani Tails: The Wolf’s Pawn
By Chaaya Chandra
©2017 Rossi Publishing Games
The term “spark” ©2017 Phil and Kaja Foglio, used with their kind permission.
Cover art by Ben Wootten ©2017 Ben Wootten and Rossi Publishing Games
This novel is based in the Terah game world. See terahwiki.rossipublishinggames.com for more information.
The Pirate Queen
Sajani stepped near a rope that she had earlier placed for this exact purpose. Kicking the coil overboard, she watched it unfurl until it was only a couple of feet from the surface. She grabbed ahold of the top part with a single gloved hand and slid down quickly, coming to a stop just before her feet touched the ground. The glove was very hot, but no one needed to know that.
One final, almost dainty step, and she planted both feet on the ground. There were no cheers or applause. Every eye was on her as she walked within a few feet of where Benayle was standing, still smiling at her. She bowed with a flourish that was more show than humility and said in a loud voice, “You called me?”
Benayle bowed formally. “We, the wolves of Vharkylia, wanted to thank you…”
“Don’t get ahead of yourself, old wolf,” Sajani ribbed. “I’ve not finished the job yet.”
Preface
Chass hobbled across the library, his cane making a hollow knocking sound with each step. He hated the noise, but there wasn’t much he could do about it. When he was young… When he was young he prided himself on moving silently. A few library patrons turned with slightly annoyed looks on their faces, but they quickly looked back down when they saw the huge vykati moving down the rows of books. To most people outside of their own, the wolf-like vykati could be disquieting. A vykati of Chass’s height and stature was the basis of many people’s nightmares. He may be old, but he was still the intimidating figure he’d been long ago.
He’d never bothered to read the works of Fenther Black. He didn’t care for the man and was reasonably sure he wouldn’t care for the books. The captain said it was better to experience their contents in person, and he believed her. But when a fellow professor claimed that his version of what really happened was wrong and used the books as a basis for his belief, that changed things. His much younger colleague claimed that Chass was getting old and probably didn’t remember it correctly.
Oh, he remembered it correctly.
If the captain were here, she’d set it all straight. She knew the truth.
But the accusation rankled at him and he decided it was time to find out what everyone else on the world of Terah believed had happened. The books would be here and then he’d know just how much literary license had been taken. He’d never convince everyone of the truth, but at least he’d know for himself what everyone else was talking about.
Chapter One:
Cameos
The palace was made of sandstone, and being over a millennium since it was built, was missing most of its original fine details. The fresco that Jenks was pretending to study deeply had supposedly been the first interaction between the vykati, like himself, and humans—when the wolf-like vykati had emerged from what was at the time, the jungles of Rhidayar. Most of the figures lacked heads and most of the images of the vykati were devoid of tails as well. The only indication of which were human and which were wolves was in the shape of the legs. The human legs bent only at the knee while the vykati had a second bend halfway between the knee and their paw like feet. Jenks looked down at his hands briefly, hoping that no one noticed how intently he was listening to the altercation near him. The images in the fresco had been detailed enough to show the claws on the vykati fingers as opposed to the human fingernails but those details were also lost long ago. Sandstone didn’t make a very durable art medium, or very durable roofs for that matter. It did muffle sound a little better than harder stone, like marble, but not by much.
So the exchange between Mr. Benayle and Lady General Sajani could be easily heard from just about anywhere near the palace library. Benayle did not argue with anyone. His laid-back nature was what allowed him to work well with the other races. He was very passionate about the well-being and traditions of his people and that, more than his lack of concern for the trivial (and for him it was mostly trivial), made him the undisputed, if somewhat reluctant, leader of the vykati. Sajani was also passionate about the well-being and traditions of her people. She had never, outwardly or privately that Jenks was aware of, objected to anything her leader had requested of her. She knew that he only acted in the best interest of others.
And that was exactly why Jenks was going through all the trouble to make sure he didn’t miss a single word of the dispute. He would be one of the few to ever witness such an exchange and that would surely boost his position socially. People would want to hear of something like this as close to the source as they could get, and it was unlikely that Benayle or the Lady General would ever talk about it. There was a large dinner party to be held at Lady Foxworthy’s manor in two days. He’d been snubbed by not receiving an invitation. Perhaps that would change now.
Lady General Sajani had apparently slammed a fist down on one of the old wood tables. Jenks could hear the legs scrape a short distance across the floor, followed by a hollow thunk sound as the table righted itself. That would have to be the table nearest his desk, Jenks thought. He’d been meaning to have that one leg properly adjusted so that it no longer shook when he set books on it.
The Lady General’s smooth alto voice was raised slightly. That would be important to note as well, Jenks thought studiously. She was actually raising her voice at Benayle. Some wouldn’t believe him when he told them that. He wondered if the fur on her shoulders was also bristling, but couldn’t think of a way to check. Her copper red hair had been down and she had not been in uniform when she entered.
“So, you refuse my resignation?” she was saying.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Sajah.” Benayle responded.
Sajah? Jenks wondered, making another mental note. He’d never heard anyone call the Lady General that before.
“Ridiculous!” she spat. “You’re the one who just said…”
“That the timing is terrible.” Benayle finished. The leader had not raised his voice at all. He still spoke in the calm deep bass he always used: the same tone that disquieted enemies and those who didn’t realize that he had no other mode of speaking. “There wasn’t even time to respond to Zenache’s request for military aid before the elf forces took their capital.”
“All the more reason, Ben, to commission good privateers.”
Ben? Jenks thought.
“Yes, yes.” Benayle said quickly. “It was a brilliant idea on the part of my former Minister of War. Although officially, I might add, the vykati government neither condones nor condemns piracy against aggressive nations.”
“It’s our best line of defense.”
“Yes. It is. It’s just very inconvenient.”
“And so you’d stop me?” Sajani raised her voice yet again.
“Who said anything about stopping you?” Benayle asked. Jenks could picture the half smile that was most likely spread across the leader’s face.
“But you just said…” Sajani countered. Perhaps the half smile hadn’t been there, or she had failed to see it.
“Really, Sajah?”
“Yes, really! Why wouldn’t I?”
There was a noticeable pregnant pause.
Benayle let out a small chuckle. Jenks could almost hear the fur on Sajani’s shoulders rising.
“Well,” she said with pointed staccato. “Why wouldn’t I?”
Benayle chuckled again. “You came in here expecting a fight did
n’t you?”
The Lady General’s response was defiant, “Of course I did. There probably isn’t a worse time to lose a minister, let alone your Minister of War, but I…”
Benayle’s laugh cut her off.
“What?” she nearly screamed.
“We agree on that.”
“Of course we agree on that! But since we can’t fight the elves on a national level, I want to do the best I can to protect the vykati. I can’t just sit back and watch as a bunch of two-bit adventuresome wannabes do my job for me!”
Jenks thought he heard the sound of porcelain touching porcelain. Was Benayle actually having tea through all this? Benayle never had tea… Oh no, Jenks realized he’d left his tea set ready on his desk when the two had politely dismissed him from his library duties. Not my tea set… he thought. But then he realized Benayle was having tea… with his tea set… that should be worth a few more social points in some circles.
If anyone actually believed him.
“Exactly,” Benayle began, “but…”
“And you can’t stop me!”
“Stop you?”
“I know you said it’s a bad time…”
“I did.” Benayle said flatly.
Sajani took in a deep breath and was obviously about to say a lot, but she stopped suddenly as though she’d seen something unexpected. Jenks could hear the ping of silver against porcelain.
“Never much cared for black tea.” Benayle said. “But this seems to be a pretty good leaf. Jenks does use a bit too much sugar though. Care for a cup? I think the old noble gone librarian keeps a spare cup in his top right desk drawer… no? Hmmm.” There was the sound of several writing implements being poured onto the table and then the sound of someone rubbing the inside of a cheap ceramic container. Not the small vase he used to hold his pencils! “This might do in a pinch… Still no?”
“I won’t distract that easily.” Sajani said flatly.
“Distract you?”
“Yes. I know the timing is terrible…”
“Look,” said Benayle in the sternest voice Jenks had ever heard him use. “Sajah, can we stop with the bad timing thing?”
“No!” she shouted. “This is important Ben!”
There was another long pause. “Yes, it is.” Benayle said finally. “And that is why, my dear, I want you to listen very carefully to every word I’m about to say. Can you do that for me? Will you trust me as a friend rather than a tyrant?”
She must have simply nodded because after a short break the vykati leader continued, saying each word slowly and deliberately. “I agree with you, even if the timing is very bad. I will make do. I trust you. I am not trying to stop you. You are your mother’s daughter and I couldn’t stop you even if I wanted to. We both still hear the cannons.”
Another long pause. The reference to her mother must have brought her back to her senses, back to the moment.
Benayle continued, “I imagine you already have your replacement lined up?”
Sajani seemed a little out of sorts. She spoke hesitantly, or at least what would be hesitantly for someone like her. “Yes. General Crore has been briefed to take over my duties temporarily.”
“I imagine you told him that you were going on some sort of diplomatic mission to Zenache rather than telling him the truth?”
“I was going to tell him that I was taking a brief vacation…”
“But you didn’t.”
“No, I didn’t. I told him that I’d been sent to Rhidayar to oversee refugee evacuations from Zenache.”
“A much more believable lie than the vacation.”
“Not a lie.” Sajani quickly corrected. “Our first stop will be in Rhidayar. I need more information on exactly what happened over in Zenache. These elves: we don’t know where they came from, and the descriptions of their war machines border on the overly fantastic. I’ve no idea for sure what I’m dealing with.”
“Hmmm.” The vykati leader said thoughtfully.
“Our intelligence hardly gave detailed information.”
“It gave enough for you to decide.” Benayle said with conviction. “It gave me all that I needed to know. We can’t fight this. Zenache was much more of a military power than we are. We’re still recovering from…” his voice seemed to be coming from another place altogether as he said the next few words, “…from prior prejudices.”
“I will stop them Ben.” Her voice was bolstered by her self-confidence.
“No, my dear, I’m afraid you won’t. You will delay them. And that is the best I can hope for right now.”
A soldier walking behind Jenks broke the awkward silence. It was Sajani’s aide, Lieutenant Bamalis. Jenks could hear the soldier’s salute, an open right palm snapping crisply over the left shoulder. “Sir Simon to see you, General.”
“Sir Simon?” Benayle asked.
“I leave him to his delusions.” Sajani answered. “He was the fastest way to arrange non-military transport.”
There was a long pause where Jenks could hear the scribbling of a pen and then Benayle said lightly, “Well, don’t let me keep you from your duties. We should probably all be going now.”
As they were leaving the palace library, Benayle broke away briefly and spoke to Jenks, who was still pretending that he hadn’t heard anything that had transpired. “Thank you, Baron, for giving us our privacy.” There was no smile on his face at all, but there was a noticeable sparkle to his eyes.
When Jenks arrived at his desk, he learned why. There were two notes scribbled quickly there, both written by Benayle.
The first said, “Baron Jenks. Thank you kindly for the tea. I enjoyed it immensely.”
The second read, “Now people will believe you, but there are two more important things you need to know. 1) You will be acting as my representative at Lady Foxworth’s dinner party in two days’ time.”
Ah! So he would be there and would be able to regale people with this wonderful gossip, made so much more believable by the kind note Benayle had left for him. His eyes then fell on the second part of the second note. “2) Thank you for sensibly keeping out of earshot for all this, meaning: I’d hate to think that you not only heard what transpired, but that you’d also be so inconsiderate as to actually talk about it. No word on any of this, if you value your current post in the library.”
And the truth was, he did like his post very much.
Humans who aren’t obese look rather gangly when next to vykati. Simon, though human, tended to look rather gangly next to skinny humans, and so, he looked unnaturally sapling-ish in the vykati capital. He was tall and well dressed in a maroon colored suit that included lace cuffs and a top hat that accentuated his least positive feature. While he was tall for a human, he’d be called average as a wolf. Sajani stood a good 30 centimeters taller than he did.
As he was indoors, the hat now sat idly in his left hand. His Vandyke was immaculately trimmed as always and he greeted Sajani with his characteristic charm. Others trying to mimic him would have sounded very insincere, but there was no noticeable insincerity to the man now.
“Ah, my Lady General!” he gushed as he saw her. “I didn’t know that you could look as beautiful out of uniform as you look intimidating and powerful in uniform. It is wonderful to see you again after so long.” He took her left hand in his right and bowed deeply, sweeping his left hand and hat out to his side as he did so. The action thrust his cape open and gave a splash of crimson color.
As the saying goes, wolves don’t blush, and neither do vykati. “Sir Simon,” Sajani returned almost regally. “It is good to see you. But Lady Sajani will do nicely from now on in public.”
“Ah, then Lord Benayle graciously accepted your resignation? I’m so glad to hear it!”
She did laugh inwardly over the ‘Lord Benayle’ comment. She’d never heard anyone other than Simon call him that. “Of course,” Sajani returned, the irony in her voice especially clear to one who specialized in irony. “He wouldn’t dare challenge my reasons.”<
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“Marvelous,” the showman preened. “We will need to take my shadowy chargers for the first couple of hours of travel, but then…” He stopped when he noticed Sajani’s slightly raised eyebrow. “I’m so very sorry my Lady. I tried…”
“I’d rather not…” she began.
“I know,” the man said in his most pitiable voice. “And I’d rather not make use of them so near the vykati capital, but Benayle has closed the borders to all foreign craft and I could not bring the Will o’ Wisp any closer to the city. I was lucky enough…”
“Closed the borders?” Sajani asked. “I didn’t close the borders.”
“No, my Lady.” Simon said. “Benayle did, yesterday.”
The old vykati leader would have never done something so drastic on his own. He always acted through her in matters of defense.
Unless he knew that she was leaving. Unless he knew that she was so tied up in her own plans that she wouldn’t have time to see to it herself. She had been much more distracted the last few days than usual.
The latest he knew that she was leaving was yesterday? More likely he’d known at least a couple of days sooner so as to have time to put everything in order. She’d only made up her mind a few days ago. The memory of everything that had just happened came back to her. Benayle knew she was leaving. He’d never even opposed her. How could she miss that?
A trumpet sounded from the top of the steps of the palace and uniformed troops formed two rows, quickly flanking each side of the stairs. They were armed, after a fashion, but Sajani knew the rifles and sabers were of the ceremonial variety, not the standard issue for combat. The bugler played a fanfare announcing the arrival of a dignitary. Just as she started down the steps, Benayle appeared at the main palace entrance already dressed in a set of simple, but somewhat regal robes of state. Sajani wondered how the old dog managed to change so quickly, but banished her own question as she realized that his complete hatred of such things often enabled him to make changes back and forth on a whim. He was probably still wearing the leather harness with a local sport team’s insignia on it that she’d seen him wearing earlier. The robes would have completely hidden it.
Wolf's Pawn (Sajani Tails Book 1) Page 1