Under the Wolf's Shadow

by A. Katie Rose

  Shutting out the rest of his rampage, I crept closer to the cavern mouth.

  “What are you doing?” Rygel asked, at my shoulder.

  “Before we do anything,” I answered, “we must know where the egg is. We can’t risk her getting hurt or killed.”

  Gesturing for him to hang back, I crawled out of the darkness, keeping low, staying to the shadows the blazing fire cast. Men on watch tended to look up, not down, for their enemies. Imitating a ghost, I slunk inside the cave, hugging the dark wall, lying flat in the curve where it bowed toward its large, curved doorway.

  Outside of Brutal and Ja’Teel, I rapidly counted eight Synn’jhani wrapped warm in heavy wool rather than white and gold silks. They held spears in their fists, with daggers and swords hanging from belts. One knelt beside the fire, proffering the warm wine Brutal had demanded and not yet taken from him.

  Ja’Teel stood beside the conflagration, his back to the cave mouth. And he called the dragons stupid . . . .

  “Where’s the bloody egg?”

  Ananaya, where are you?

  There she was, lying next to the fire, a pale grey egg mottled with darker splotches of bronze and brown, about the size of large dog. In her shell, she might overflow a man’s arms.

  She needed the warmth, I knew, as her nest had been heated by the divine fire of the dragon city. This blaze might not be enough, but if she was so close to hatching, she may not need further heat. Dammit. I should have asked about what she needed to stay alive away from home.

  “She’s far from all right, my prince,” Rygel said, his voice in my mind. “Dragon fire’s heat is twenty times that of this blaze. She’ll freeze to death if we don’t get her out soon.”

  “How soon?”

  “Within the hour.”

  I cursed inwardly, rapidly thinking of and discarding ideas. Any and all were too risky for Ananaya.

  “Now what?” both he and Darius asked at the same time.

  I glanced around the cavern again, seizing up opportunities, calculating risks, weighing options.

  Brutal and Ja’Teel hovered near the fire, well away from the egg. Brutal still ranted, waving his arms, ignoring any potential danger that might arise. The Sins stood at parade rest at regular intervals around the cave, spears in fists, outside of the man who yet knelt, still ignored, at Brutal’s feet.

  “Change into your wolf form,” I ordered.

  Rygel obeyed me, his wolfish scent filling my nostrils.

  “The shadows opposite me are dark and deep,” I said quickly. “Go in there and lay silent, undetected, just as I am now.”

  “And?”

  I glanced up at the cave mouth, calculating. “I’ll just about fill that opening,” I said. “With luck, they’ll think me alone.”

  “But I’ll already be inside, hiding.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Then what?”

  “Brother, do what you do best.”

  “Kill,” he said swiftly. “Protect Ananaya. Guard your back.”

  “You got it.”

  Rygel slunk, noiseless, unseen, into the dark shadows cast by the fire and lay down. Even my eyes, knowing he was there, couldn’t see him. I scented him, heard his lowered, quiet breathing, but the humans in the cave could never detect him through their five senses.

  Ja’Teel still had his back turned to me, and Brutal currently paced angrily away, toward the back of the cave and its pile of stored wood. Six of the Sins faced each other across the fire. Their eyes glittered over their scarves, their spines at the stiff attention of well-disciplined soldiers. The seventh still knelt with the hanap of hot, spiced wine, his face lowered. The eighth stood near the cave mouth, occasionally glancing outside. I suspected he’d been the one who’d walked out a short while ago.

  I timed my move the instant he faced into the cave and not out of it. Altering my form, I paced on silent paws to put the cavern mouth at my back. Just as I’d thought, I filled it entirely.

  “You’re late, Your Highness,” Ja’Teel said.

  Brutal shrieked and spun about. Leaping into swift action, his Sins pushed him back and planted themselves between my threat and his body, spears bristling. The Sin closest to me also leveled his spear, but didn’t attack. Only Ja’Teel foolishly, or daringly, kept his back to me. That courage, or foreknowledge, informed me that Ja’Teel held an ace up his sleeve.

  Keeping a wary eye on him, I took two steps forward.

  With a smirk, Ja’Teel slowly faced me. His harelip lifted in a polite sneer, his hazel eyes danced with humor. Still playing the role of the dark lord, he wore a heavy black jacket and his shadowy wool cloak hung to his spurs. The scorpion tattoo stood out clearly against his pale cheek. Long brown hair clung in loose tendrils to his hood, thrown back against his shoulders.

  “Oh, but if a prince is late,” he said, “they call it fashionable.”

  He offered me a low, sardonic bow, his slender hands clasped before him. “I’ve been expecting you.”

  “You have?” Brutal screeched from behind his guards.

  “Indeed,” Ja’Teel went on smoothly. “When the dragons didn’t show with our prizes, I knew you’d convinced them to allow you to rescue their precious egg. There she is, Prince, though she might be dead in there by now.”

  I growled low in my throat.

  “Where’s my dearly beloved cousin?” he asked brightly. “I thought you two were attached at the hip.”

  “He and the others are hostages,” I said. “The dragons weren’t that trusting.”

  “Ah, pity,” Ja’Teel sighed. “Once they leave the dragons’ lair, they’ll be mine. Er, ours,” he amended with a swift glance to the side. “Without you, we can pick them up with a butterfly net.”

  “But you still have me to contend with,” I said.

  Ja’Teel snickered. “You seriously overestimate your abilities, my lord Prince. We outnumber you ten to one and I can counter your magic.”

  “We’ll see–” I began, lowering my head and pacing forward.

  Instantly, a razor-sharp dagger appeared from nowhere–right between my eyes.

  I halted, recoiling, only to find two more at my throat. There they hung, suspended in midair, poised to strike with no hand to guide them. A faint hiss and a lightning glance behind told me two more hung precariously close to either flank, ready to plunge into my vitals. Two more hovered on either side of my ribcage, their blades hanging in the vicinity of my heart.

  “You see?” Ja’Teel said, still smirking. “I arranged this trap. You stepped right into it. One wrong move, one whisper of magic, and you’re one very dead wolf.”

  “I want him alive!” Brutal screamed.

  “We don’t always get what we want,” Ja’Teel muttered under his breath, his eyes holding mine.

  “However,” he said, his voice loud, expansive. “I think you’ll hold still long enough for this.”

  His slender hands held a vial and a long needle.

  Trepidation shivered down my spine. I knew well enough what that meant. He drugged me once before, had commanded the dragons force it down our throats. Right now, he forced me to sit still long enough while he jabbed me with that vile thing. With that drug in my blood, I’d be as helpless as Ananaya.

  Grinning, Ja’Teel wet the slender wand with the vial, stepping toward me. “I think you want to live, Prince,” he said, his voice pitched low. “You’ll permit this needle rather than die under my knives, I’m thinking.”

  He paused a moment, lowering his voice. “One day, you may even escape. You’ve done it before.”

  The needle loomed large in my sight. I bristled, growling, my tail stiff behind me. If he hit me with that thing–

  The knives dissolved before my eyes.

  Where once they hung, ready to take my life on their razor edges, they broke into so much ash and melted like butter over an open fire. Every one of them struck the stone floor of the cavern in a mass of billowing, steely dust.

  “What the hell?” Ja
’Teel screeched.

  I lunged forward, seizing the moment. Ja’Teel fell back, stumbling toward the fire. I have him now, I thought. He’s mi–

  As Ja’Teel fell, the Synn’jhani guard intercepted me, his spear jabbing at my throat.

  I recoiled, snarling, my ears flat. The Sin refused to give ground, his dark eyes over his woolen scarf fearless and determined. Stabbing at my eyes, my throat, swinging his blade across my face, he forced me to back first one, then two steps.

  Bloody hell, this idiot will not stop me–

  Ducking low, I dropped under the razor-sharp tip of the spear’s steel blade, forcing it over and past my head. I lunged forward, feeling it cut a deep groove over my back and ribs before I pounced on the Sin holding the wood shaft. He died, a brave man, my fangs biting deep into his skull. He died for his King, instantly.

  Like the absolute cold, I ignored the ripping pain of the wound and its forthcoming streamlet of blood. As I had in the arena, like the bitter northern winter, I shunted the pain to one side. I’d no time for it.

  As Ja’Teel staggered up, all but tripping over the fire, Rygel stalked from the shadows.

  “Greetings, cuz,” he growled, his hackles up, amber eyes flat, and his white teeth bared in an evil, wolfish grin. “You’re my bitch now.”

  “Rygel, no, I’m sorry, let’s talk this over–”

  “Talk is cheap, father’s sister’s son,” Rygel grinned, white fangs gleaming in the red-yellow light. “Keep talking, boy. It’s all you’ve got.”

  “You can’t save him,” Ja’Teel snapped, pointing a shaky finger at me, the skin over his face deathly pale. “I’ll freeze him to death.”

  With his words, icy, bone-numbing cold swept over me. The oozing blood on my back froze solid. I halted in my tracks, ice forming on my whiskers, my muzzle, deathly cold leeching into my body and straining toward my heart. I felt it skip a beat, then two, my lungs unable to draw breath. My blood in my veins stopped as ice crystals formed, slogging their life giving energy into rivers of clogged ice.

  Suddenly, the chill vanished.

  I shook my ears, then my entire body. I felt my fur and renewed vigor fall into place. Liquid once more, blood from my wound spattered against the nearest wall and the stone floor.

  Ja’Teel didn’t know who to stare at in horror. His panicked hazel eyes flicked between Rygel and me.

  “Oh, gee,” Rygel said, his ears slackening as though in surprise. “Look what I found, cuz. The thread that unravels your paltry spells.”

  “That’s impossible,” Ja’Teel gasped.

  “Your mistake,” Rygel replied, pacing slowly toward his kinsman, one slow paw after the other, “is underestimating me. It’s very possible, once I found your signature, of course. After that, well, there’s no stopping me from dispelling any magic you can create.”

  I sidled out from between the pair, finding Brutal still hiding and gaping behind his Sins.

  I pondered; seven Sins and one coward, hmmm. How hard can this be?

  I risked a lightning glance behind me and to my left. The egg still lay where they put her, next to the fire and, so far, out of the way of the irritated wizards.

  “I’ll kill you!”

  I spun about at the ripping snarl of rage, and blinked in mild surprise at the third wolf crouching where Ja’Teel had been.

  He lunged toward Rygel, his eyes sparking living fire, his jaws wide and gaping. Fire burst from between his teeth, not unlike the dragons’ fire, and enveloped Rygel’s answering attack. Yet, Rygel closed in upon his kinsman, unharmed, his own fangs bared to kill. They struck one another like charging bulls, rearing high on their hind legs, fangs slashing, unable to get beyond on another’s magical defenses. Two equal and determined wolves fought for the upper hand and their lives.

  Swinging back to the enemies threatening my rear, I let loose my own battle challenge and charged forward to meet Brutal’s soldiers head-on. Two Sins, acting in accord–one swinging his blade, the other his spear–sought to catch me between them. The sword-bearer swung high and hard, his blow aiming to slash my face. I ducked and lunged in the same instant. The sword swooshed, harmless over my head as I sank my fangs deep into the man’s bowels. Ripping, dragging them like ripe sausages, I leaped back, holding the unfortunate man’s entrails in my jaws.

  The other flung his spear.

  Purple-white guts in my teeth, I leaped sideways, both avoiding the thrown spear and yanking more yards of intestine with me. The Sin dropped his sword with a ringing clang and screamed to the cave roof as his innards followed me across the stone floor.

  He collapsed when I let go, trying to fill his empty gut with both frantic hands. He dragged them, filthy, covered in dirt, piling them into his bleeding wound. He screamed on.

  The spear throwing Sin tried in vain to draw his sword. I stalked him, snarling, watching him frantically yank his blade from its sheath. Throwing the fight my way, he bolted in terror. I took him down as I once took down a wild bull with my weight on his back and my fangs biting deep into his neck. As limp as a wet cloth, he dropped to the stone under me. He died before he struck solid rock.

  I risked a rapid glance over my shoulder. Rygel looked fine, his bloody jaws ripping holes in Ja’Teel’s furry body and magical shields. However, his wounds on his shoulders face and ruff informed me he got as much as he gave. Were I any judge of abilities, I’d say the pair were evenly matched.

  Ananaya still lay by the fire, its inadequate warmth providing her shell precious little heat. I dared not go to her, for I still faced five Sins and wild-eyed Brutal to contend with.

  “Look after her,” I called to Darius.

  “I’ll do my best.”

  “Kill him!” Brutal shrieked.

  Four of his guards obeyed him instantly. If two couldn’t bring me down, they’ll double the offer.

  “Let’s dance,” I growled.

  The Sins accepted my invitation. They split up, two to each side, charging me with all the steel and courage and loyalty for the man who deserved none of them.

  Dodging a heavy spear thrust, I slung my hindquarters to the side. Its heavy blade passed my shoulder by a wide margin. Snakelike, I wheeled, catching its haft in my jaws. Broken, I let the ends fall, its steel head tumbling, harmless, to the rock. Spinning again, I ducked under the next spear, my jaws capturing the first Sin’s knee when he clawed his sword from its scabbard. Without its support and in agony, the Sin fell, howling, clutching his crushed leg.

  The second Sin tried again, aiming his spear-point at my chest. I dodged sideways in a blink, his blade passing harmlessly by me. Spinning on a forepaw, I dragged the Sin down and crushed his throat. His life’s blood soaked my face, stinging my eyes and made me blink.

  “Damn you, kill that bastard,” Brutal shrieked.

  Without thought, I spun again, deftly avoiding a stabbing thrust. The Sin who held it had overextended himself, leaving his body hopelessly off balance. Leaping sideways to avoid the fourth spear, I jumped toward the third Sin, striking him hard with my shoulder. His weight couldn’t contend with my sheer mass. With a cry, he fell under me, clawing for his blade, any blade.

  Facing the fourth Sin as he followed up with a suicidal charge, I tripped over the fallen man. I fell, catching the soldier between my heavy weight and the unyielding rock. Under the impact, his chest buckled with the sound of breaking twigs. Under my hip, his pelvis and torso collapsed with the sickening ease of a broken wine skin.

  The brave Sin thought he had me trapped. Stumbling up and off the convulsing body of his mate, I staggered, feigning an injury. With slack ears and my tongue lolling, I offered him all the evidence of a wounded, helpless animal. I limped away, inviting him in toward my vulnerable flank.

  Accepting with enthusiasm, he charged in close, his teeth gleaming in a spittle-slicked grin of triumph. With his spear held high over his head, I read his intent: he’d earn Brutal’s rich reward when he, single-handed, slew me.

  The instant h
e threw his weapon, I leaped to the side. The spear flew harmlessly past my tail to clang into the cavern wall and spring back before falling to the ground. Bunching my rear quarters under me, I lunged forward, my hind claws digging deep furrows into the loose dirt and grit of the cave floor. The poor bugger’s grin of triumph and hate turned into a gaping grimace of panic. Like his brothers, he died for his King and country as I dragged him down and ripped his throat open.

  Hot agony sliced into my left shoulder. Roaring, snarling, I wheeled.

  The last Sin, frightened by the gruesome deaths of the others, had thrown his spear with hands that shook. Without strong impetus behind it, the weapon had very little impact. The razor-sharp head hadn’t gone in very deep and fell from the wound to drop to the ground. My shoulder bled profusely, yet my left leg held me up firmly enough. The injury, while painful and annoying, wasn’t bad enough to threaten my life.

  No doubt as I killed my prey, Brutal commanded him to attack me with my back turned.

  “That wasn’t very nice,” I said, stalking toward the pair. “I reckon I’ll have to teach someone some manners.”

  Brutal the Coward hid behind his last guard, frantically pushing the terrorized man toward me. At long last, the famed Synn’jhani courage and discipline fell to pieces. Dark eyes panicked, the Sin shook his head back and forth in negation, unable and unwilling to attack. Safe from either of them, for the moment, I took a rapid instant to think about Rygel and the egg.

  Bleeding from numerous cuts and bites, Rygel fought on his hind legs, snapping at Ja’Teel’s open jaws, ever seeking his vulnerable throat. Ja’Teel, similar in weight and ability, snarled and slashed with his fangs, still missed Rygel’s jugular. By now I knew a magician needed a few seconds to concentrate long enough to cast a spell. Neither of them gave the other that opportunity. Unable to work their magic, they settled for out-fighting the other. The wolf who lasted the longest won the fight.