Under the Wolf's Shadow

by A. Katie Rose

  Before they had time to register in my eyes, Jhet flew up and over hillocks, buzzing across the tops of the trees. This far south, despite the early winter, green pines and thick oak grew thick and tall. Jhet, with Rygel at his side, skimmed mere feet over their tops, their leafless branches or piney needles tickling his belly.

  Rygel whooped, laughing wildly. “Now this is flying,” he screamed.

  Matching Jhet exactly, Rygel dipped his right wing and sheered sharply west, then banked swiftly around the base of a mountain, its cliffs barely seen under the thickly falling snow. The narrow valley ended, leaving another broad mountain in our path.

  “Oops,” Jhet said, diving again.

  “Oops?” I asked, alarmed. “What oops?”

  “I forgot.”

  “Forgot what?” I all but screamed.

  “We might be seen if we fly up and over,” Jhet said. “Thus, we must go down.”

  “Down?” I tried to see through the blizzard. “There is no down.”

  Jhet skimmed over grey-white, ice-covered rock and the ground fell away from beneath us. He followed it, his massive wings shortening. “Down,” he said simply.

  I shut my throat tight to prevent my belly from complete rebellion. That drop, his steepest yet, brought sweat to my chilled, wind-whipped face. At this incredible speed, the slightest mistake would send both of us crashing against the jagged rocks. Gods above and below–

  “Yee, haaa!” Rygel yelled, on Jhet’s mighty tail. “Woo hoo!”

  Where on earth did he find delight in such horror?

  A very narrow gorge, a small river at its bottom and very steep jagged, granite sides climbing to either side, closed in on us. So tight was its passage, it forced Jhet to shorten his wings in closer than ever. Rocky crags, heavy offshoots of the cliffs, threatened to snag us on their solid, deadly fingers.

  Jhet wove up and down, back and sideways, avoiding those dangerous outcroppings that sought our lives. He tilted his body a mere nanosecond before striking them, their danger passing us by before I blinked.

  Through the thick snowfall, my keen wolf’s vision watched the threat approach. You’re kidding, right? Jhet, fly up and over. Come on now, be a pal. Stop scaring your new friend. You’ve nothing to prove, you know, especially to me. Higher, damn your eyes. Fly higher.

  My gut clenched. Death sat on my shoulder and mocked me. Jhet ignored my internal voice and failed to alter his course of utter destruction. Doesn’t he see it?

  Apparently he didn’t see it, for he never swerved, never altered the course he’d set. Straight into doom he flew, death on wings, hell-bent on suicide.

  “Uh, Jhet,” I said, gulping, sweating, my hair blown back from my face. “There’s not enough room–”

  Up ahead, closing in faster than thought, the gorge narrowed to a mere twenty or thirty rods apart from cliff-face to jagged cliff-face. Jhet’s, and Rygel’s, wingspan could never shorten that much. Death stood squarely in our path.

  “There’s always enough room,” Jhet replied.

  I moaned.

  Like a fish swimming in water, Jhet swung his body sideways. His right wing went straight up, his left straight down. Below me, or what appeared below me, was the gorge wall, its jagged, hungry fingers reaching. Snakelike, Jhet squirmed his way between the horribly narrow gorge walls, his twins horns scraping rocks from it and cast the small shards into the river far below.

  “Ouch, dammit,” he snapped.

  Before I took another breath, the gorge opened up again and Jhet returned to level flying. My belly calmed slightly though sweat still poured from my face. Delayed reaction, perhaps.

  “I hate it when I do that,” he grumbled, his talon rubbing the sting from his horns. “I get clumsy, sometimes.”

  I’d no breath with which to reply.

  Rygel’s flying talents had exceeded Jhet’s, it appeared. He accomplished the same task without hitting solid rock.

  “Bloody showoff,” Jhet groused as Rygel winged past, grinning.

  I managed a few words. “He’s insufferable, I know. We all hate him.”

  The gorge ended abruptly. Jhet, Rygel beside him, banked sharply up and right, once more flying a rod above the stony, snow covered ground. Low-lying hillocks abounding with stiff pine trees, high-altitude tundra and frightened game buzzed past at a dizzying speed. Though I’d grown somewhat used to seeing the terrain fly by before my eyes registered it, I grew nauseous at the constant ups and downs and sudden swerves to either the left or right when Jhet avoided solid obstructions. Like boulders half the size of the mountains they lay upon.

  “We just need to curve around that big hill there,” Jhet said, his muzzle jerking toward a smallish mountain ringed by several of its fellows in line. “And then I can drop you behind it.”

  “How far to the cave, then?” Rygel asked, as I still hadn’t enough breath for such silly questions.

  “Not too far,” he replied, slowing his speed as he swung wide of the mountain’s base. “Maybe three leagues, or less. I dare not take you closer as we have few tall hills to hide behind.”

  “No need,” I gasped, catching a lungful of cold air. My belly settled a fraction. “It’s perfect.”

  He eyed me doubtfully as he backwinged to land in a sheltered valley between the shallow hills. He dropped to three legs, still holding me gently in his fist before furling his massive wings. Rygel landed gracefully to all four dragon feet, his own wings ruffling as he settled them across his wide shoulders. His long spade tail swept from side to side.

  “Are you sure?” Jhet asked.

  The severe winter cold hit me hard, making my teeth chatter as Jhet set me on the ground, away from his warmth. I changed forms immediately, breathing easy once more within my thick fur. The rapidly falling snow enclosed me from head to tail before I shook it off.

  “This is great,” I said, panting, my jaws wide.

  “Um,” Jhet said, confused. “Damn, I don’t speak wolf.”

  “He said it’s all good,” Rygel translated. “Any further instructions for him, my prince?”

  “Ask if Bulvang would graciously feed everyone,” I said. “It’s been too long since they’d eaten and they’ll need every morsel.”

  Rygel translated and Jhet snorted flame in a brief laugh. “You don’t ask for much,” he said. “Can I do more?”

  “No,” I replied, trotted toward him, my tail waving. “Tell him thank you, and to go home. If he has any influence with his divine Mother, ask her for a wee bit of help. We may need it.”

  As Rygel translated, Jhet scratched behind his left horn and tilted his head sideways. “I will, my friend.”

  “I, too, will send you what aid I can,” Darius said, deep within my mind.

  “My thanks.”

  Jhet lowered his muzzle toward me, his green-gold eyes worried. “You are just two wolves against how many?” he asked. “I fear I may lose not just Ananaya, but my new friends as well.”

  Rygel already changed from dragon to wolf, his panting breath like smoke in the frozen air. With the newly fallen snow already coating his fur, he stepped away from us to sniff the air. His services as a translator rapidly faded as his light grey fur changed immediately to winter white.

  Letting the universal language of the body speak for me, I wagged my tail and danced on my paws, my tongue lolling in wolfish laughter. It’s all good, I told him as best I could. Go home.

  Jhet sighed, yet grinned, his forked tongue lashing from between his wicked teeth.

  “I get it,” he said, amused. “Never underestimate wolves with magic. Is that it?”

  I danced some more and reared back on my hind legs. Pawing his great muzzle, I tried to convey the affection I now had for him. I managed a few licks before he reared his head high above me, laughing, snorting flame.

  “Good luck, little wolf,” he said, turning about, readying himself for flight. His huge spade tail swung high over my head. “Kill that criminal and avenge our honor. Bring our Keeper ho
me to her people.”

  “I promise, brother mine,” I said.

  He didn’t turn, or answer.

  Spreading his colossal wings, Jhet leaped into the air. I suspected he wanted to flame as he rose into the snow-filled sky, but he knew that might be seen by our enemies. Instead, he circled over our heads twice, his head snaking down between his shoulders. He grinned, his forked tongue whipping out past his heavy jaws before he banked out and down. The swirling, deadly white of the blizzard swallowed him up.

  Fare thee well, brother.

  Rygel wagged his tail as I trotted toward him. “Two hours till nightfall,” he said. “Can we make it?”

  “Try not to lag too far behind,” I said, breaking into a mile-eating gallop. “I won’t wait for you.”

  “I scent four,” Rygel said, crouching beside me behind a thick screen of tough thorny bushes covered in a blanket of newly fallen snow. The blizzard had intensified during our heavy gallop over the hills to the cave. As we lay still, we, too, found ourselves covered in an interesting camouflage of white, black and grey. I doubted that if one of the guards walked within a foot of us, he’d ever know we lay close enough to snap his hamstrings.

  “You should be ashamed of yourself,” I replied. “There’re six of them.”

  “Don’t be insulting. I’m not used to using my nose.”

  The wide cave entrance stood upon a short cliff wall with a handy ledge where one might pace out to glance around before retreating into its shelter. A red-orange glow from deep within spoke of at least one fire blazing inside. As the small mountain it delved into lay at the top of the line in the range, it commanded a wide view of the mountains to the north.

  This fact, I’m certain, was the reason Ja’Teel chose it.

  “How–”

  “Quietly,” I growled in an undertone.

  Rygel glanced at me sidelong without turning his head or disturbing our snowy concealment.

  “How’re we going to take them out?” he asked.

  “We must be absolutely silent,” I answered. “No screams, no sounds of bodies falling. We make no noise which could alarm them.”

  “I think we should be human, then.”

  “Uh, we’re magic. Can’t we kill them that way?”

  “You, yes. Me, not so much. But that’s not the problem. Ja’Teel will hear us if we use magic.”

  I grimaced. Gods above and below.

  “Cut their throats–”

  Rygel twitched his ears in a faint gesture of negation. “Not quite,” he said. “Take your knife and stab him through the back of his neck, at the base of his skull. He can’t speak, fight, nor sound an alarm. Paralyze him first, he’s dead an instant later. With his throat cut he can still move and thrash. Soldiers hate those noises and irritatingly tend to investigate them.”

  “Those anatomy lessons are coming in handy.”

  “It’s why you hired me.”

  The watchers, scattered in a loose line that circled the cave, were in fact out of sight of its mouth. Darkness had fallen an hour earlier, and the blizzard prevented them from seeing anything beyond the reach of their arms. Thus, they couldn’t see each other. That also meant Ja’Teel, and those in there with him, couldn’t see them, either.

  “Didn’t I tell you it was a god-send?”

  “Shut up.”

  I didn’t even have to glance Rygel’s way to know he smirked. Sometimes I really hated that guy.

  “You take the two on the right,” I said. “I’ll take the four on the left.”

  “Hold on, that’s not quite fair.”

  “Who said anything was fair?”

  “You take three and I take three.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Three and three, then. And establish a mind link. We’ll need to communicate without voices.”

  Rygel’s eyes glazed over for an instant. “Done.”

  “And they say my eyes glaze over when I listen to Darius.”

  “They do,” they both said at the same time.

  I bit off a low curse.

  Changing myself back into my human self, I pulled my dagger from my belt. The bitter, grinding cold bit deep into my body. Rygel winced, shivering as the blizzard’s teeth cut into his inadequate clothing.

  Like pain, I shunted the discomfort off into the back of my mind where it belonged. I’d fared worse than mere cold under Lionel’s heinous reign. My blood might be sluggish, but my brain worked quite well, thank you. I focused on the task at hand, my chilly annoyances forgotten. Heavy snow still mantled me like a cloak as I dropped into a low crouch.

  Likewise, Rygel crept off to the left as I made my way to the right, toward the unsuspecting watchers. With the grace of a born hunter, Rygel slithered through the bushes, catlike, soundless and without moving a branch. My bulk didn’t allow for quite that much finesse, but between the storm and the darkness I stepped up behind my first victim undetected.

  Something in his stance triggered a dim memory. Dressed in heavy woolen cloaks and breeches, hooded and booted against the mountain winter night, he’d pulled a heavy scarf across his face to protect it against the harsh, cold wind. The spear he carried in his right, gloved fist clanged the memory home.

  “Rygel,” I called, urgent, silent.

  “What?”

  “These men are Synn’jhani.”

  “What are Sins doing–”

  I know I gaped the instant he growled. “Brutal,” we said at the same time.

  High King Brutal was in that cave.

  Before the Sin’s instincts warned him of his peril, I reached my left hand around to his face. The same instant I covered his mouth with my hand, I jabbed my dirk deep. Smooth and silent, my blade sliced cleanly into his brain, severing his spine. Like hot pudding, he spilled, loose and lifeless, into my arms. Gently, I lowered him noiselessly to the ground and glanced about with my wolf’s keen night vision.

  His nearest neighbor, a Sin about six rods away, hadn’t noticed a thing. The impressive Synn’jhani discipline kept them out in a winter gale, watching for something they couldn’t see until it landed, wings wide and breathing flame, in their faces. I shook my head in vague wonder that these men wasted such loyalty and dedication on one such as Brutal.

  Satisfied my large presence among them hadn’t been detected, I jerked my blade from the dead Sin. My next victim paced about, restless, cold, keeping himself warm by moving. Yet, he kept his eyes on the sky, his breath blowing steam like smoke from his open mouth. His smoke, and breath, ended with my dagger plunging through his woolen cloak, parting nerves, tissue and bone with ridiculous ease.

  “How you doing?” I called to Rygel.

  He paused before answering. “Two for two. Number three is a short distance away. You?”

  “The same.”

  As I lowered my third victim to the ground to lie, buried under the accumulating snow, I caught the sound of voices. This last Sin had taken up his post to watch the eastern sky a few rods beyond the cavern mouth. Ducking low, I crept into the sheltering shadows, a mixture of darkness and white snow, and crouched close to the cave mouth. A silhouette paced slowly toward the cave mouth as the fire behind him shaded him to black.

  I heard Rygel approaching. “Stop and get down.”

  He obeyed me, vanishing into the night and blizzard. The storm dumped more snow atop our shoulders to further conceal us.

  The silhouette, whether it was Ja’Teel or another, stepped out onto the ledge, glanced around briefly before retreating back inside. Yet, I knew it wasn’t Brutal, as this man was larger than he. Nor was it the slender Ja’Teel. Brutal’s voice rose in sharp complaint from deep within the cavern.

  “Those bloody dragons are late,” Brutal snapped as Rygel joined me, crouching in the thorny bushes. “It’s long past the hour you specified. I don’t think this plan of your will work, dammit.”

  “If they want their egg back, they’ll come,” Ja’Teel’s voice replied smoothly. “Sire.”

  “Where are they, then?”<
br />
  “Perhaps the storm confused them,” Ja’Teel suggested. “They certainly aren’t very smart.”

  I caught Rygel’s laughing eye and rolled my own. Ja’Teel apparently learned what he wanted and ignored any other information that didn’t suit his needs. Had the dragons not feared so much for Ananaya’s safety, they’d flame the entire cave and cooked those within it like roasted chickens.

  “I’m cold,” Brutal carped. “You, build up that fire and bring me hot wine. Why did you have to pick a bleeding cave, Ja’Teel? In bleeding winter?”

  “Sire, if we didn’t find shelter the dragons couldn’t get into, they’d kill us and take their egg back.”

  “A cave? Really?”

  “Sorry, Sire, it was the best I could do.”

  “I curse this delay,” Brutal grated. “I told you, didn’t I?”

  “Indeed you did, Sire.”

  “I received word from the palace,” Brutal raged on as though Ja’Teel hadn’t spoken.

  I listened to him pace the cave, his boots scraping against the stone. “My brothers have risen in rebellion. Zhou has already fallen under their influence and is massing an army. Yuon has declared war on me, and Jinn will be next.”

  “With your brides to be and that idiot Wolf in your hands, you can smash them under your boots, Majesty.”

  I knew Brutal wheeled by hearing his heels grate on stone and his cloak hiss through the air.

  “Except that dastardly King of Arcadia has stolen half my soldiers,” Brutal almost screamed. “He’s calling for any able-bodied man to his banner with offers of gold. My troops are bleeding away faster than I can crucify them.”

  Ja’Teel obviously learned when to shut his mouth. He wisely said nothing as Brutal stormed about, cursing, railing against his brothers and his disloyal army, calling down a plague onto the Arcadian King’s royal head.

  “I’ll teach him a thing or three,” Brutal ranted, no doubt spraying spittle onto his loyal Sins. “I’ll kidnap his heir and have his crown, that I vow. And my loving brothers, well they’ll find themselves hanging upside down by their ankles, slowly roasting in a cowhide. They’ll curse the day they were ever born.”