Wolfblade

by Jennifer Fallon

  “If you were, he’d be much more organised, I’m sure,” Brak replied with a smile.

  The demon grinned and turned to the squabbling pair who still hadn’t figured out how they were going to lift Brak’s pack off the ground. “Oh, for the gods’ sake, you two!” she snapped impatiently. “One of you must change into a sleigh and the other can drag it!” She shook her wrinkled grey head in frustration. “This happens every year. The young demons spend too much time cooped up in Sanctuary, and then when they do get a chance to escape they’re too ignorant to do anything. We don’t meld often enough any more,” she lamented. “Not into the really big melds. We can do the small things while Sanctuary is out of time, but some of these younger demons are only a hundred years old. They’ve never even seen a dragon meld, let alone taken part in one. There’s just no way for them to learn what they need to know.”

  “Maybe we can meld a dragon while I’m here?” he suggested.

  The little demon sighed wistfully and began walking back up the path. Brak fell into step beside her. Behind them, Elebran had managed to change into a rather lopsided-looking sleigh onto which Eyan was pushing Brak’s pack with a great deal of grunting and groaning and quite a few protests coming from the sleigh.

  “Do you remember what it was like in the old days, Brakandaran? When we melded into dragons and flew the length and breadth of the continent? We ruled the skies, once. Do you remember what it was like to be a Dragon Rider?”

  “I remember.”

  “Do you think those days will ever come again?”

  “Not while the Sisterhood rules Medalon,” he warned. “And Xaphista’s getting a bit full of himself lately. I suspect we’ll have more trouble from that quarter some day, rather than the Sisters of the Blade.”

  “Bah! Xaphista!” Elarnymire scoffed. “What would that self-important, overrated demon know?”

  “He knew enough to transform himself from a demon into an Incidental god,” Brak reminded her.

  “I know how to do that, Brakandaran. Having a few thousand followers believing you’re a god is all it takes.”

  “Yes, but you can count Xaphista’s followers in the millions these days, my lady, not the thousands. That makes him very, dangerous.”

  “Perhaps,” the demon conceded reluctantly. Xaphista’s defection from the demon brethren still rankled with some of the older demons who remembered him from when he was just a pup. Fifteen hundred years since the rogue demon and some of his halfbreed kin had left the Harshini to establish their own cult in Karien had done little to dampen Elarnymire’s fury over the matter. “But that’s a matter for the Primal Gods, not us. Do you have news?”

  “Plenty of it,” he promised. “But I think I should wait until we get back. I hate repeating myself.”

  His words were prophetic; they rounded a small bend in the path to find Lorandranek and Wrayan Lightfinger, the young human Dace had insisted Brak save from the Temple of the Gods in Greenharbour, heading down the path towards them.

  “Brak!”

  As soon the Harshini and the human spotted Brak and the demon they scrambled down the path. Lorandranek arrived first, his dark red hair in disarray, his black eyes glistening, his golden skin flushed with the exertion. Wrayan was only a few steps behind him. Both were dressed in quite ordinary human clothes. Although Lorandranek was the older of the two by almost a millennium, oddly, it was Wrayan who looked the elder.

  “Brak! You’re back already!” Lorandranek cried. “This is excellent!”

  “Your majesty,” he said, bowing respectfully to his king.

  “Yes, yes, enough of the formalities. You remember Wrayan, don’t you?”

  “I’m hardly likely to forget him,” Brak pointed out, offering the human his hand. “Hello, Wrayan.”

  Wrayan shook it warmly. “My lord.”

  “You heard the king,” Brak said with a grin. “Enough of the formalities. You’ve not wasted any time escaping, have you? I only felt Sanctuary reappear a little while ago. Who was it who couldn’t get out of there fast enough? You, Wrayan, or our great and glorious king?”

  “Princess Shananara sent me out to keep an eye on him,” Wrayan admitted.

  “The cheek of her!” Lorandranek cried, but he was amused rather than offended. When you weren’t physically capable of feeling anger, there weren’t many other emotions left to you. “Do you have news, Brak? Or have you spent the past months sitting in a cave somewhere, contemplating your navel?”

  “I have news,” he assured the king.

  “Then tell me everything you know!”

  “Wouldn’t you rather we got back to Sanctuary first?”

  “Gods, no!” the king declared. “We only just got out of there! Here is good enough.” He waved his arm and three overstuffed, human-sized armchairs appeared in the clearing, accompanied by a small padded stool for Lady Elarnymire. “There, that should be comfortable enough.” The king hesitated and looked past Brak with a puzzled frown. “What are those demons doing?”

  Brak glanced over his shoulder and laughed. Eyan was dragging Elebran up the slope, but the pack kept sliding off, so Elebran’s sleigh had grown two sets of arms which were wrapped around the pack in an attempt to keep it secure.

  “Just ignore them, your majesty,” Lady Elarnymire advised.

  “As you wish,” Lorandranek replied with a shrug as the demons grunted and groaned their way painstakingly forward. “What news, Brak?”

  “Hablet of Fardohnya has taken another wife,” he announced, taking a seat in the chair Lorandranek had provided for them. The air felt warmer too, as if the king had heated this small area for their comfort.

  “Didn’t he get married last year?” the king asked.

  “That was to Lady Share’ Hellene. The year before that it was Princess Shanita of Lanipoor. His new wife is Lady Sybil of Mrkenc.”

  “What happened to his other wives?” Wrayan asked.

  “They’re still in the harem, I suppose,” Brak replied. “But nobody has given him a son yet and Hablet’s not a patient man. Mind you, according to the gossip in the Talabar marketplace, the reason he never gets his legal wives with child has more to do with the time he spends with his court’esa than any fault on their part.”

  “And Hythria?”

  “Well, there at least, the succession is quite clear.”

  “The High Prince has a son?” Wrayan sputtered in surprise. He might not remember much about his past, but he knew he was Hythrun and his High Prince’s reputation for pederasty was something that had survived even his partial amnesia.

  “A nephew,” Brak corrected. “Lernen’s sister, Marla, is married to Laran Krakenshield, the Warlord of Krakandar and Sunrise Provinces. They had a son just over a year ago. Lernen adopted the boy as his heir on his first birthday. His name is Damin, I think.”

  “Then let us hope the child lives up to his namesake,” Lorandranek said. “The first Damin Wolfblade was known as Damin the Wise.”

  “I wouldn’t hold out too much hope,” Brak warned. “Not if he grows up in Lernen’s court.”

  “I remember something about that,” Wrayan said, as the names seemed to resonate in his mind.

  “About Damin the Wise?” the king asked.

  “No. About Princess Marla marrying Laran Krakenshield.”

  “I’m not surprised,” Brak shrugged. “It was about the same time Princess Marla got married that Dace asked me to bring you to Sanctuary.”

  Wrayan shook his head. “It was more than that. This doesn’t feel like something 1 just happen to know. It feels like it was something I was involved in.”

  “Then perhaps the mystery of how you came to be injured will soon be answered,” Lorandranek suggested hopefully.

  “Actually, I may finally have an answer for you about that. Or part of an answer, at least,” Brak suggested, wondering how the young man would take the news he’d picked up in Greenharbour. He’d promised Wrayan he would

  try to find out what he could
during his travels but had not really expected to come up with anything so substantial. “Does the name Kagan Palenovar mean anything to you?”

  The lad nodded. “It sounds vaguely familiar.”

  “It should,” Brak agreed. “He’s the High Arrion of the Sorcerers’ Collective.”

  “And that’s where you found me, isn’t it? In the Temple of the Gods at the Sorcerers’ Collective?”

  Brak nodded. “It seems the High Arrion had an apprentice once, who went missing about two years ago. Everyone thinks he’s dead.”

  “I was the High Arrion’s apprentice?” Wrayan gasped in shock.

  “Unless there are a few more magic-wielding Wrayan Lightfingers out there,” Brak told him with a smile.

  “Well, that makes perfect sense!” Lorandranek declared, clapping his hands together. “You have a limited ability to wield magic, which I suppose would have seemed quite remarkable to your human friends. And, as you say, Brak found you in the temple of the Sorcerers’ Collective. Who else would you be?”

  “And everyone thinks I’m dead?”

  “Not an unreasonable assumption considering the condition you were in when I found you.”

  “Do I have a family?”

  “I’m sorry, Wrayan. I didn’t learn much more than the name of the High Arrion’s missing apprentice,” Brak apologised.

  “But that’s a start,” the boy said, leaning forward excitedly. “I have to go back!”

  “You can’t.”

  They all turned as the God of Thieves suddenly appeared in their midst, dressed in his normal motley array of mismatched clothes. Dacendaran’s preferred mode of dress had always bothered Brak, until he finally came to the conclusion that divinity didn’t come with any sort of predisposition for good taste.

  “Divine One!” Lorandranek cried, jumping to his feet. “How nice of you to join us!”

  Brak was immediately suspicious. It was never a good sign when a god just popped up like that. He scowled at Dacendaran. “Why can’t he go back, Dace?”

  “You know, you really should call me Divine One, Brak. Everybody else does.”

  “They don’t know you like I do. Why can’t Wrayan go back to Hythria?”

  “Because he’s mine,” the god informed them.

  “What do you mean, he’s yours?” he asked.

  Dace crossed his arms and glared at Brak, rather put out that he was being asked to explain himself. “The Sorcerers’ Collective can’t have him, Brak. He swore an oath to honour me.”

  “I remember. That’s the reason you wanted me to save him.”

  “Well, he didn’t keep his oath. He promised me seven trinkets from the seven Warlords of Hythria and he had a whole year in which to do it. He didn’t, so he owes me.”

  “The lad was unconscious for nigh on half that year,” Lorandranek pointed out. “That doesn’t leave much opportunity to fulfil an oath, Divine One.”

  “I don’t care,” the God of Thieves announced petulantly. “I don’t care who he is, where he’s from, or where he wants to go. He swore an oath. Wrayan Lightfinger is mine. He’s all better now and I want him.”

  “For what?” Brak asked, a little alarmed about what some oath Wrayan couldn’t recall might demand of him. Seven trinkets from the seven Warlords of Hythria? What was the boy thinking?

  “What do you suppose I want, Brak,” the God of Thieves replied, rolling his eyes impatiently. “I want him to be a thief. The greatest thief in all of Hythria. That’s what he promised me.”

  chapter 62

  T

  he banquet hall of the Krakandar Palace could seat three hundred people—or so the steward of the Krakandar palace insisted. Marla stood behind Laran’s chair at the high table, chewing on her bottom lip thoughtfully as the slaves moved the tables around, wondering where she was supposed to fit them all. Perhaps the last time they’d had three hundred guests for dinner in Krakandar, they’d all been midgets. Or maybe the old man was remembering a birthday party from when Laran was a child and the guests had all been small children.

  She really had no idea how she was going to accommodate three hundred adults.

  “Are you sure we’re going to be able to fit all of them in, Orleon?” she asked doubtfully, as the slaves brought in another trestle table and stacked it next to the others.

  “It will be cosy, my lady,” the old steward agreed. “But not unduly uncomfortable. We have catered for three hundred guests before.”

  “When?”

  “I believe the last time was at Captain Damaran’s wedding, the year before last,” he reminded her. “You were here for that event, as I recall.”

  “And there were really three hundred people in here?”

  “Give or take,” Orleon agreed.

  “It didn’t seem like that many.”

  “Lady Jeryma has a knack for making these affairs seem effortless,” Orleon replied, leaving Marla with the uncomfortable feeling that the old man was censuring her efforts as a hostess.

  “Well, the Lady Jeryma has returned to Cabradell for the spring,” Marla reminded him with a frown. “You’ll just have to put up with me running the show.”

  Sensing that he had offended the princess, the steward bowed his white head apologetically. “I did not mean to imply that you were not as competent a hostess as the Lady Jeryma, your highness. Simply that she has more experience in these sorts of things.”

  “You helped Jeryma when she first came to Krakandar, didn’t you?”

  “Most assuredly.”

  “Don’t I deserve the same sort of help?”

  “You need only to ask, your highness.”

  I shouldn’t have to ask, she thought in annoyance, but knew better than to voice her opinion aloud. Laran’s servants could be quite intransigent when the mood took them—which seemed to be almost any time she tried to take charge of anything to do with running the palace. Elezaar said she needed to be firmer with them, but Orleon in particular had a way of looking down his nose at her that made her want to run and hide in the cellar.

  Marla was not unbearably miserable as the mistress of Krakandar. But neither would she have claimed to be happy, had anyone bothered to ask. Everyone treated her with the respect and courtesy due a princess of the blood and the wife of their Warlord, but nobody in Krakandar had really tried to befriend the princess. Mahkas’s wife, Bylinda, was probably the only one who still bothered to make the effort. She was a nice enough girl, about three years older than Marla, but she was a merchant’s daughter who was so overawed by Marla’s exalted rank that she would probably never be comfortable enough around her sister-in-law to ever really call her a friend. There were other ladies at court, too, who might have been friends, but most of them suffered from the same problem as Bylinda. Not one of them could see past the fact that Laran’s wife was the sister of the High Prince and the mother of his heir.

  After a while, Marla had given up trying to make friends. She had Elezaar and Lirena for company. Her old nurse insisted on looking after Damin, and Veruca was here in the palace, too, having come out of retirement in Winternest to look after Darilyn’s orphaned sons. Travin and Xanda also lived with them, ostensibly in the custody of Mahkas and Bylinda, but in reality everyone seemed to take a hand in their care.

  Marla was lonely rather than unhappy. Laran was away a lot, either off fighting cattle raiders on the border with Medalon or launching his own cattle raids in retaliation. When he was home, he was usually so busy Marla didn’t see much of him. It wasn’t easy. She knew everyone was expecting her to bear another son. Just because she had provided Hythria with an heir didn’t mean her duty was discharged. Now Krakandar needed an heir to inherit the Province.

  Marla wondered if Bylinda was hoping she would deliver a boy and that Laran might make Mahkas’s son his heir. Her brother-in-law’s wife was due to give birth any day now and was firmly convinced she was carrying a son. For that matter, every woman in the palace had an opinion about it. Some claimed she was carrying the
child high, so that was sure to mean a boy. Others claimed they could tell by the colour of her cheeks, the size of the half-moons on her fingernails and—Marla’s all-time favourite—by the amount of meat she had consumed during her pregnancy. It was no secret that Mahkas was desperate for a son. For all their sakes, she hoped Bylinda was able to give him what he wanted. Then he could petition Laran to make his son the heir to Krakandar and Marla would be relieved of the need to provide an heir herself.

  As it was, only Marla’s child made everything bearable.

  The sheltered young princess had been unprepared for the feelings of love and protectiveness that swamped her the first time she held her son. She had expected to feel little more than relief when the midwife announced she had delivered a healthy boy. But she would never forget the moment they laid him in her arms. And she would never let any harm come to him. She had promised him that as she held him, still slick and bloody from the womb. “I will never let anyone hurt you, my darling,” she had whispered softly. “I swear it.”

  Not that her son seemed to need much protecting. Surrounded by guards who would give their lives to protect him, he was a strapping boy who had suffered none of the risky childhood fevers that stole so many babes from their mother’s breast before they made it through their first year. Damin had thrived. He was a sturdy toddler, with a laugh that cheered everyone in the palace and an eye for mischief that Marla suspected was going to be the cause of a great deal of trouble when he grew older. She didn’t care, though. There was nothing about her son that Marla could find fault with. He was fair-haired, blue-eyed and blessed by the gods, as far as she was concerned, and she didn’t care that everyone thought her a silly, pathetic girl, blind to her son’s failings. As far as Marla was concerned, Damin had no failings.

  As promised, Lernen had made Damin his heir when the boy turned one year old. Her son was officially named Damin Wolfblade now, having taken his uncle’s family name to continue the Wolfblade line. It was an adoption in name only, however. Following the ceremony, Marla had returned to Krakandar with Laran and their son. Damin was to be raised away from Greenharbour, at least until he was much older. It was an arrangement that suited everyone. Marla didn’t want to leave her child; Laran wanted to keep his son close and safe; and Lernen had no desire for a toddler running loose in the Greenharbour Palace, getting in the way of his other amusements.