by Greg Curtis
The Wolves Of War
Greg Curtis
The Wolves Of War
Greg Curtis
Digital Edition.
Copyright 2016 by Greg Curtis.
Dedication
This book is dedicated to my mother Ruth and my sister Lucille, my biggest supporters, harshest critics and all round cheer team, and without whom this book would not have been written. It's also dedicated to my father, gone too soon but not forgotten.
Cover Art
The wonderful cover art was obtained from SelfPubBookCovers
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Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty One
Chapter Twenty Two
Chapter Twenty Three
Chapter Twenty Four
Chapter Twenty Five
Chapter Twenty Six
Chapter Twenty Seven
Chapter Twenty Eight
Chapter Twenty Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty One
Chapter Thirty Two
Chapter Thirty Three
Chapter Thirty Four
Chapter Thirty Five
Chapter Thirty Six
Chapter Thirty Seven
Chapter Thirty Eight
Chapter Thirty Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty One
Chapter Forty Two
Chapter Forty Three
Chapter Forty Four
Chapter Forty Five
Chapter Forty Six
Chapter Forty Seven
Chapter Forty Eight
Chapter Forty Nine
Chapter Fifty
Epilogue
Chapter One
People said that Abysynth was the city that never slept. They were wrong. Most of the city slept. It was just a few of its residents who didn't. Sailors and dock hands who worked according to the tides; not the sun god Celes. Alchemists who cast their magic by the light of Celes' eternal lover, the moon. Gamblers and drunkards who would not stop until they had run out of either coin or ale. A few women of the night. And a few like Briagh, who carried out their business in the middle of the night. Some would say illicit business. And to be fair, sometimes it was.
This night however, he had no such business to attend to, which was why he was presently in the Arcanium, stretched out on a large bear rug in front of one of the many fires warming himself through. It was cold outside, even for those with fur coats.
Outside the snow was falling on and off and it was bitterly cold. But at least the wind had stopped blowing. And because of the lateness of the hour no one was on the streets. No horses tapped their hooves on the cobbled streets as they wandered past. There was no chugging from the endless parade of steam wagons that often filled the city as they carried their cargo to the ships for loading. No hum of conversation either.
Inside the Arcanium it was peaceful. But then you would expect that in a place of learning. Particularly given of the lateness of the hour. The high backed leather arm chairs scattered around the great room were empty. No one sat at the dozen or so oak tables. And even the piles of books and scrolls that normally covered them had been tidied away. Briagh knew he could nap in safety here. As long as no one guessed who or what he was.
And no one ever had.
It was odd really. These were some of the most respected and learned wizards and scientists in the land. They knew about magic. Many of them had gifts of their own. And yet they never suspected that the huge red and ginger wolfhound that camped out in front of their fires night after night was actually a morph – and a morph who stole for that matter. But then morphs weren't that common. And it wasn’t as if he was going to tell them.
People didn't like his kind. In fact, they feared and hunted them. The townsfolk would kill him on sight simply for being what he was if they knew and the authorities would look the other way. It might not be lawful to lynch a morph, but no one really minded. As far as the law was concerned there was a lesser standard for his kind. If he was ever caught as a thief and the authorities realised he was a morph they would immediately hang him. And this despite the fact that most thieves were simply thrown in the dungeons for a time for a first offence.
There was a good reason that Briagh often chose to wander the city as a royal wolfhound. Though many people didn't have a lot of respect for dogs – even royal wolfhounds wearing the king's collars – at least it was safe. Sure, some townsfolk yelled at him. A few threw things. He'd had one or two actually kick him. And once or twice Unger the head arcanist at the arcanium had actually tried to throw him out. He had stopped quickly though as soon as Briagh had started yelping. Killing a morph was one thing. Harming a royal wolfhound was something else entirely. The first might gain a man a few disapproving stares. The second could get him thrown in the royal dungeons.
There was a reason that he had chosen this form – not that a morph ever really got to choose which forms they would be cursed with. You discovered your forms when the goddess Morphia determined you were ready for them. His first shape, that of a dappled panther, had come to him when he was three or four and had never even seen a jungle cat. His second, the wolfhound, had simply come upon him when he entered the city three years ago. He would have liked to have learned the shape of a griffin or a roc. A flying form would have been magnificent. But he liked to think that when he had come to the city and coincidentally discovered his second shape, that it had at least been for a logical reason. That reason being that the king was barking mad.
Other kings had stables full of thoroughbred horses. Some had zoos. King Harold the Good had kennels. And not even kennels filled with racing dogs or hunting dogs. He raised wolfhounds, and they served no purpose that anyone knew. Still, they were given the free run of the city. In fact, the first animal he had seen when he had arrived in Abysynth had been a wolfhound. Maybe that had been why the form had come to him when he'd first arrived in the city? It was useful.
Royal wolfhounds could go anywhere they wanted. Warehouses, money lenders, stores and markets. All the places a thief liked to go to study what was available to steal. And to harm one of the king's wolfhounds was a crime. Which was why he was safe in the Arcanium. After all, the last thing the head arcanist needed was to have to answer to the Justice about why he'd been seen hurting a royal hound. Or the weeks in the royal dungeon that would likely follow. It was safer for him to just give in to the hound and let him do as he wanted. And he'd been good lately. Briagh had rewarded him for that by only pissing on the floor under his desk a couple of times!
Sometimes the king's madness could be useful. Though perhaps it was sad too. The bards said that the madness had come upon him when the queen had died. They said she had fallen from a balcony ten years before, and that as a result the king had gone mad. He had started raising wolfhounds, and been seen far less often in public from that day on. Oh, he still carried out many of his duties. At least the ceremonial ones. But every so often he gave into his psychoses and manias and had to retire. His sons too were notable by their absences, something that gave the people pause. They would have welcomed a new king, and Prince Myrim was o
f age. It was time that the next in line of the Feldmight family took his place on the throne. But it was said that the Prince had asked for the day to be put off. He did not yet have the experience he needed to become a good king and his father was coping – mostly. So the realm limped along and would do so for another year at least while the Prince studied.
There was supposedly a daughter too, Elan, but Briagh had never heard much about her. She was being schooled elsewhere. The entire royal family it sometimes seemed to him, was absent. But in their place the Court kept things running smoothly, and apart from the odd royal decree when the king's psychoses took control, things went well. At least they did for him as he went about his business.
And business for Briagh was good, in part because he had discovered the Arcanium.
While it a was comfortable place to lie around in, even more than that it was a useful place for a thief to be. For the people who spent their days here were the most learned and often wealthiest in the city. They chatted freely among themselves here, never paying any attention to the dog sheltering from the cold. They were certainly the most respected. Even those who had little wealth were connected to others who had more than enough to spare a little. He could learn a lot from them.
That was how he knew that Master Incanus was crafting a new set of eyeglasses. These ones apparently could allow a person to see things that were both close up and far away. Briagh had no thought as to how they worked, but he knew that they would be worth good coin to some of the Master's rivals. Briagh was thinking about relieving him of them in a few days. The man wasn't particularly wealthy which would normally give Briagh pause – he didn't like taking from those who had little – but Master Incanus was a cruel man. He had an assistant who he made do all his chores, and when they weren't done quickly enough or to his satisfaction, he beat him. The Master deserved to suffer a little.
Briagh also knew that Master Perrin had completed his latest recipe for a restorative that was said to actually reverse the ageing process. It represented the first technological solution that could rival the magical potions of the enchanters in the field. Unfortunately, Briagh couldn't relieve him of that. Master Perrin wrote his recipes in a huge book that weighed almost too much to carry, and it was always in his own personal script that no one else could read. There wasn't much call for unreadable books. Maybe that was why he wrote his script so? Besides, he quite liked Master Perrin. The man occasionally defended him from the head arcanist's wrath.
The best news of the night though had been that Lord Iria had received another consignment of dwarven silverware. A large one that had come from the Copperhearth Ranges and been safely escorted through the barbarian wastes of Grole by a small army of guards. And no one in the city knew he had it – save of course for the wizard who'd enchanted the locks on his warehouse doors and then started telling his friends about what he'd seen inside. His friends and the wolfhound warming himself in front of the fire a few hours before.
That was valuable information. The stuff was expensive, and Lord Iria always bought as much of it as he could get for sale in his stores. Because no matter how many caravans were robbed, those that got through would make enough gold to pay for the rest. And unlike his caravans, his warehouse had poor security. Everyone did really when it came to burglars who walked on four legs. Lord Iria wouldn't miss a knife or a hand mirror or whatever Briagh could hold in his mouth. And if he did – well the lord was an insufferable, pompous windbag. Always pretending he was one of the peers of the realm instead of just a trader with enough gold to buy a title. And he was horrible to his staff. A niggard too. He deserved to lose a little bit of his wealth every now and then. And he would never know how Briagh had found out.
For the moment though, no one was around, save for a junior arcanist shuffling around in the huge dusty shelves somewhere out back – hopefully cleaning away some of the dust that covered everything – and so there was nothing to hear. And so Briagh lay there on his side, feeling warm and comfortable, and let the night pass peacefully. It was another cold night outside, the snow continued to fall, and though he had his own home to go to, he hadn't thought to light the fire before he'd left. Two bells had rung and in only another four hours the sun would be up and he could go home and have breakfast. And maybe plan his next theft? A man had to eat after all.
His plans for a pleasant night though were unexpectedly undone when he heard the distant sound of a sash window lifting. The sound sent warning bells ringing in his head. It was the wee hours of the morning and even the city guards were probably asleep if they had any sense. And it was cold out. No one would be opening windows to let the chill of the night air in. Certainly not the arcanist who he could still hear bumbling about in another part of the building. Which meant they had an intruder.
That could be bad. Some thieves were like him. Sneaking around, never causing anyone any harm save for the few items they stole. But others were dangerous. They used violence. And then there were assassins as well. Briagh couldn't think why one of the dark brothers might be here, but it was always a worry. And really, there wasn't much to steal here. Books and scrolls. Ancient artefacts. Valuable but not the sort of thing you could sell in the market. So why would a thief be breaking in?
Briagh decided to investigate, something he wouldn't normally do. He didn't like the idea of getting involved in most things. And he really didn't like the thought of heading into danger. But this was the Arcanium. His second home almost, and one of the haunts where he picked up the most useful information. He couldn't let it be threatened. Besides, he liked some of the people that gathered in it. He liked listening to them. They didn't know he was a man or that he was listening, but still their conversations were interesting as well as useful and sometimes just lying there he almost felt like a part of the group. There were very few places he felt like that.
Briagh got up and stretched a little, before padding his way silently toward the sound. It had come from the back shelves in the east wing, and that in itself he thought was suspicious. There wasn't much of a system in place to sort out where everything was. But the east wing was the reliquary where the artefacts were shelved. And artefacts were probably worth a lot more coin than books and scrolls. In fact, some of them were made of precious metals.
Not all of them had any discernible function. They probably had had one once, maybe five or ten thousand years before when they'd been crafted. But time had changed things and those uses had long been forgotten. So as he padded past the huge free standing shelves, he passed a lot of items that he didn't recognise.
But many others he did. The mechanical devices like the spyglasses and electric lightning generators he knew. They were much like others he had seen. The only reason they were there was because of their connection to ancient times. The Arcanium was as much a museum as anything else. But others were twisted up and looked nothing like anything he had ever seen. In fact, he couldn't even tell if they had once been normal machines that had subsequently been damaged, or if they were meant to be the way they now appeared.
The magic was strange too. He was no wizard, but he could still sense the magic. And mostly when he did, be it a spell or an enchanted object, he could generally understand a little of what it was and what it did. Here though the magic was often as twisted as the machines. He didn't understand it at all. No one really did. But as always he made sure not to brush past anything – just in case.
At the end of the aisle he stopped, spotting the open window in front of him, and the wet footprints leading from it. There were a number of them, not all human. In fact, only one set was. They were animal tracks. Dogs – or as he suddenly realised – wolves.
The wolf mother was here!
Briagh shuddered. He had not expected that. He had expected a thief or an assassin. Not the wolf mother. Not the moon crazed murderess who prowled the city streets at night with her pack. He would never have expected her. And he definitely wasn't prepared.
What was she even doing here?
This was the Arcanium! It was housed in the Imperial Quarter, one of the few parts of the city she was never seen. Probably because it was heavily patrolled by imperial guards. But it didn't matter. Even as he was dealing with the shock of what he'd found he heard a growl behind him and realised that he wasn't the only one who could pad around silently in the darkness. He hadn't been paying attention. That was the problem with being a morph. As a dog he might have a dog's sharp hearing. But he was still a man and he sometimes forgot to listen. A dog never would.
He turned to see a wolf standing there, teeth barred and growling at him, and knew he was in terrible danger. More danger than he could handle as a dog. Instinctively he shifted form. Suddenly he was a cat, a panther with sharper teeth and claws, sharper eyes and much faster reflexes. That was the thing about morphs. They didn't just learn the shapes of the different creatures they became; they learned their instincts. Briagh pounced.
The wolf tried to dodge, but it was too slow. It hadn't expected the attack. And Briagh's claws left a bloody trail along his back. It wasn't a lethal strike, as was proven a moment later by the wolf howling in pain and fury, but it had crippled it. Unfortunately, Briagh could already hear the other wolves responding, their cries raised in a howl, their feet scrabbling on the hard floor as they ran for their pack mate. And when they found him they would also find Briagh.
Fortunately, cats could leap. And so Briagh leapt straight up twelve feet to the top of the nearest free standing shelf. And as the wolves ran for their injured pack mate from one side of the wing he headed the other way, leaping silently from one shelf to the other above their heads. They didn't hear him, mostly because they were too busy howling at one another, and in the darkness of the ceiling space they didn't see him either. The dark dapples of his coat were meant to keep a panther concealed in the thick of the forest, but they did nearly as well in a darkened chamber. That was fortunate as he spotted at least a dozen of the wolves. The wolf mother had not come unescorted. But then she never did. It was why she was feared. A mad woman prowling the streets at night would have been mocked. A mad woman with a pack of ravenous wolves at her side was a different story.