Wolf's Pawn (Sajani Tails Book 1)

by Chaaya Chandra

  Two musket shots went off in quick succession from behind him and he assumed that Grath was still active. His axe sliced through the strange rifle and cut deeply into the front of the elf’s hands. With the blunt end of the weapon that was between the two blades, Benayle thrust into his opponents face and knocked him overboard.

  Two more darts struck him, one from each direction and the vykati leader found himself staggering under the effects of their poison. He again willed his anger to flow and found the strength to turn and swing at an elf who had been standing before Grath. The captain had apparently been hit by a dart as well and was falling to his knees.

  They’d not take him. There couldn’t be that many more. A swing of his axe with one hand, mortally wounded the elf in front of him as he grabbed an elf who had come at him from the side with his free hand and knocked him to the ground.

  Benayle was never sure where the last three darts had come from, but they were, finally, more than he could handle.

  As soon as the vykati leader had fallen to the deck, the elves tossed the injured dwarf roughly down to a waiting transport. It took three to pick up the old wolf while four others kept returning fire at the occasional volleys from the remaining crew. Ranse managed to take out two more as they were fleeing.

  The elves left their wounded and dead and then the strange vehicles closed their hatches and headed back in the direction they had come. The first mate wanted to set the cannons on them again, but knew that it was pointless, even if those below had survived the beginning onslaught with the big guns, the round shot didn’t dent those vehicles.

  Ranse rushed down to his captain and ordered rum be brought to him. As the cork came off the bottle, the captain started awake. “Where’s Mr. Benayle?” he said immediately. The first mate told him.

  Captain Grath looked like he might start crying as he said, “The Drtithen Council doesn’t have my hat for this, the Riteyai Lords will.”

  While the Vharkylia government was in hiding, it was up to the wolf pack to take care of many of the bureaucratic details of running the nation. Their last official acts were to grant Lord General Crore his title and position and to confirm his declaration of martial law. Both were unanimous. They still met and discussed the current issues and he brought some of the reports he received to their attention, provided that didn’t compromise security or cause general panic, but now, with Benayle still gone, the duties of council, lords, and national alpha were on the shoulders of the Minister of War.

  And Crore had no idea how the old wolf had managed just the one job so easily.

  While he was waiting, the general was going over the daily report he’d just received. It was standard stuff. The elf forces were still trying to move into the jungle, but their vehicles kept falling into traps and their soldiers kept being attacked by small groups of feral vykati and wolf pack soldiers. Despite that, they were pressing forward, but it was at a very slow rate. The rest of the enemy forces had moved down to the border of Jzianrhun.

  The report said that Sajani’s last raid had failed badly and she had taken what Crore considered to be acceptable losses, but that she had received new supplies from the western continent and would be spending some time regrouping and adapting to the new equipment. She was sending as much of the commandeered equipment as she could spare and it would arrive shortly.

  The VAS Nightwatch was late to dock, but it did mention that the kat had received its intended cargo.

  It was the report from yesterday that had brought him to this clearing in the jungle today. The troops present with him had set up a tarp to give cover from the summer sun and give them some shelter from the evening monsoon, if they were still there when it came. Just a couple of months ago, the lord general would have insisted that he be wearing his best dress uniform with the ceremonial longsword he’d been given on his promotion to Colonel.

  For this meeting though, he used what he called his “field uniform.” It wasn’t pressed and it was much more comfortable and worn. The sword at his side, while still a longsword, was the standard combat issue. It was the same weapon his father had given him when he was granted his commission as a lieutenant. The wolf was every bit as proud of it as he was of the ceremonial sword, but somewhere along the line he’d gotten caught up on appearances.

  Never again.

  The elf delegation was guarded by a full company of wolf pack soldiers. Twenty-five soldiers for every one of them. It was excessive, but it made it seem that he had the people to spare, even if he didn’t.

  The elf in front had a white flag in one hand and a scroll in the other. She was not dressed in a military uniform, but still in clothes that were practical for the jungle—boots and long pants, with a sleeveless shirt, as were the others behind her. All were dressed in green. Was that the elven national color?

  He motioned for the translator to come stand by him as they approached and he took a seat. His people had already been told what they were to do and he had confidence they would do it exactly as ordered.

  The front delegate came to within ten feet of him and wanted to come closer, but the general’s adjunct stopped her forcefully by putting his hand out and growling. The elf guessed what that meant and none of them moved any further.

  She spoke in the common tongue that the humans favored for diplomacy and trade. Crore understood every word of it, but kept his expression carefully blank until she had finished and allowed the translator to do her job.

  “We have come to demand the unconditional surrender of Vharkylia. Where is your representing council or lords?”

  The general answered in his own tongue, “I am all you need to speak to. I have the power to speak on their behalf.” The words were guttural and aggressive and he said them in an imperious tone. The translator dutifully relayed his words. She even kept the tone right.

  “Your Copper Wolf is dead and we have your top leader in custody. Surrender or he will be put to death.”

  Again, he waited patiently for the translation. Crore laughed. If they did have Mr. Benayle in custody, which he didn’t believe, he had no doubt that they had taken heavy losses doing it. “And you march in here, even after what we told you last time? No proof? Only pretty words?” The message was passed on.

  The lead delegate motioned to one of the people behind her. He brought a large object forward that was wrapped in what looked like a black and rust cloth. The cloth was opened and he removed a heavy battle axe that he attempted to hand to the general, but the aide stopped him and again growled. Crore did not look directly at the axe, refusing to rise and take it, but turned his gaze to the cloth. It was one of Sajani’s flags.

  The flag didn’t trouble him at all, but the axe did. That weapon was the only thing that the general had ever seen Benayle care about. The leader, like most vykati, was not materialistic and owned very little personally, but that axe…

  It was important that he show no remorse. He had done all he could to convince the old wolf that he should not go. Sajani herself could not have stopped him. Remorse was not an option, but he’d make sure that every one of this delegation returned to Therfass with a deep and abiding knowledge of what makes a vykati.

  He might be older, but he was still a wolf. Crore leaped from his chair and flew past the elf who had proffered the axe. His sword was out long before he reached the lead delegate and he pointed it at her throat. She threw her hands up in defense, but the blade’s tip still made contact with her and drew a little blood.

  Lord General Crore had their answer from them and he’d need no translator to deliver it.

  Ginger hunched over the screen and kept trying to make adjustments, but to no avail. There was still no way to get it back to where he could see the elf military’s movements and he was afraid that perhaps the elves had found a way to prevent him from seeing that information anymore.

  The random bits of light that had been flecking around stopped suddenly and he found himself eagerly leaning a little closer to see what had changed. The num
bers 00473.126 flashed up on the screen, with an up arrow next to them and stayed there fading in and out. The spark was used to seeing elven numbers. These were in the standard Terahn script. So was the arrow.

  “Odd,” he said out loud. Turning to Fillo, Ginger said, “Go get Sajani.”

  The gnome hurried off and the metallic cat followed.

  Nagging at the back of the spark’s mind was something that he’d taken note of months before—when he’d first had a look at the communications system. He stood up in the small cabin that he’d been given as a workshop and nearly tripped over the miscellaneous parts that were scattered throughout. Looking down, he noticed that his misstep had uncovered a book that he’d been looking for just yesterday.

  Focus, he thought to himself, moving along further until he got to the chest where he kept his notebooks. He knew it’d been in the one he’d kept while still in Xahusha and that one would be near the bottom. It was, and he pulled it out and began to thumb through it. There were detailed notes on the elven rifles and just a couple of pages after that were his notes on the transports.

  There it was. He’d found a way to change the frequency that the system used. He would have thought that such a thing would have been much more easily done with something that reacted at a constant rate, like crystals, than the fancy way they did things. He’d even written that down in his notebook. There was a special set of internal switches that had to be thrown and the number he was looking at, matched the range that the frequency had been able to change. It was the only place on the system he’d seen any kind of number set like that. He’d planned some experiments to see how the elven method of tracking frequency differed from how it was done on Terah, but hadn’t seen a reason as of yet.

  But the number wasn’t in Elvish, it was in Terahn.

  The spark jumped back over the junk on the floor, stopping only a moment to pick up the book he’d seen earlier, so he could put it on his desk, and leaned over the machine. Something at the back of his mind said he should remove it from the power supply he’d created for it, but he was in too big of a hurry for that and he wouldn’t be able to fine tune the changes if it was turned off.

  This would be faster.

  The change was made by a series of switches and a dial. Depending on how the switches were thrown (he thought of it as 0 or 1 as the options, because to him at least, that was easier) determined how fast the dial would change things. He did some calculations in his head and then moved three switches and turned the incremented dial. That left throwing the three switches back into place, which he did. As he finished that, he must have touched something wrong, because the machine let out a few mostly harmless sparks.

  “What was that?” Fillo asked. The spark’s cat meowed.

  “Just making some changes,” Ginger said innocently. The number on the screen had gone away. “Is Sajani coming?”

  “She was just moving the Wisp for Simon’s arrival and said that she’d be right down.

  Two loud and high pitched beeps came from the machine.

  “What?” Ginger said to no one.

  “Not sure what that means,” the gnome replied.

  The machine repeated its beeping—two beeps every five seconds. They were all the same pitch.

  The screen came back to life and showed a set of rectangles in what seemed to be a mostly random placement. Ginger did notice that the coordinate marks that the machine usually used to denote location ran through them, although those numbers were still in the elven script. The spark was about to pan the view out so that he’d have a better idea of where the map was referring to, when a square appeared inside one of the rectangles and began flashing. A set of syllables came from the machine’s speaker.

  “Ben nail,” it said. The words were spoken in a stinted voice, with the syllables clearly separated. There was little doubt what it meant though.

  The device repeated it every five seconds, right in between the set of beeps that hadn’t stopped.

  “Why is it saying that?” Sajani asked from behind them.

  “No idea, captain.” Ginger answered.

  Simon’s voice then piped up from behind them all. “I’m afraid I know. It’s why I came to find you right away, my lady.”

  They all turned to face him. It was obvious that he’d rushed down to them. His tie was crooked and there was even a little grease on his top hat from using the winch to get up to the ship.

  “The elves claim to have captured Benayle and are holding him ransom, unless Vharkylia surrenders.”

  Ginger had never seen the Copper Wolf look like she did at the moment. There’d been times when she’d been angry or times when she was filled with a fair amount of righteous fury, but this surpassed it. The cat seemed to sense the tension in the room and sat with its eyes squinted.

  “That can’t be true,” she said slowly and carefully.

  “Lord General Crore has already responded. I don’t think he would have if he didn’t believe it. One rumor says that they brought him the old wolf’s ax.”

  The Copper Wolf seemed convinced. “What was his response?”

  “There were a few different versions of what exactly he said…”

  “Simon…” Sajani growled.

  “Yes, yes. So sorry. He said, ‘Vharkylia is not Benayleland. We stand united as he would have us stand and while we’ll regret his loss, we’ll live by the principles he would have wanted. We will not surrender.’”

  The captain nodded. “I’m glad he learned that in time,” she said.

  The communications system continued to repeat its message. Simon added, “The elves have given the vykati a month to change their mind.”

  “They won’t,” Sajani said resolutely.

  Ginger nodded in agreement. He knew some would disagree, but most would never give in to such a thing.

  Sajani looked Ginger right in the eye. “So, Ginger, what is this trying to tell us?”

  Ginger sat down in front of the machine and started moving the image around. Pulling out a notebook, he jotted down some notes and made some calculations. He spoke as he did so, “It’s giving a location. With what Simon just said, I’d guess it’s trying to tell us where Mr. Benayle is being held.”

  “And where is that?” Sajani asked.

  Ginger kept making his calculations and pulled a map up from off the lab floor. “I’m working on it.” The spark couldn’t see the Copper Wolf’s face, but was glad of it. There was no way she was in a patient mood at the moment. He was going as fast as he could.

  “I don’t need an exact location.” She said with surprising patience.

  He knew enough to answer that. “Well past the Therfass border. At least 300 kilometers in.”

  Simon whistled.

  “And how do I know this isn’t a trap?”

  That answer Ginger also already had. “You don’t.”

  “This isn’t all it’s said,” Sajani replied. “What was the number that Fillo told me about?”

  “It told me how to adjust the machine to be able to see this message.” The spark was proud of himself for remembering to simplify the answer.

  “You didn’t have to change anything that would let them see us?”

  That thought hadn’t occurred to him, but the answer was very obvious.

  “They had to already know something about us, or we wouldn’t have received it. Whoever did that was either a fellow spark, and I don’t think they have those, or a very smart person when it came to this stuff.”

  “They could have a spark working for them, but that’s beside the point. I understand enough of what you’re saying to feel at least somewhat safe. We’re moving and that will throw them off at least a little.” Sajani was thinking very carefully, Ginger could tell. Her words were coming slowly and quietly. He knew that she could think very fast when it came to fighting, but this wasn’t fighting in the way she usually did.

  Then something dawned on him. He moved the screen around a little to make sure. “But at the new sett
ing I can still see all of their movements. I would think they would have taken that away if they were trying to trick us.”

  Sajani nodded and then asked, “Could they give fake information?”

  The captain thought more deviously than he did. He nodded. “I know I could, so yes, they probably could.” Still looking at the screen, he noticed something that he hadn’t before. It was probably recent. There were words in Terahn common scrolling across the bottom of the screen. It ended with the word, “wolf.” He hoped it would come back around and waited.

  “Even if it is a trap, I’d almost face it for a chance to save the old wolf’s pelt.” Sajani said with determination. “It wouldn’t take much to convince me.”

  As the message came back across the screen, Ginger realized that it might just be the “not much” it would take. “My lady,” he said. “Look.” He pointed down at the screen. It hadn’t disappeared by the time she looked at it.

  The message read, “Bean says hi. Tell Ghenis she misses him. She still wants to join the Copper Wolf.”

  “It could still be a nasty set up,” the captain said, “but that’s all the push I need.” She turned to the gnome who had been surprisingly silent through the whole thing, “Get Chass, Tess, and ‘fang down here. Then we’ll talk to the crew and see what they think. If we’re walking into an ambush, they have a right to decide for themselves.”

  “Ben nail,” the machine said. Ginger’s cat meowed in reply.

  Chapter Fourteen:

  To the Rescue

  The trip into Therfass was simple enough, although long. With no way for the elves to detect the airship, they floated right over the outer defenses. The elves obviously didn’t expect much to pass that front—once they were over the border, there was little left guarding things.