Wolfblade

by Jennifer Fallon

  He didn’t rely entirely on his magical skills, however. There was always a risk, however small, that someone from his former life might recognise him, so he regularly bleached his dark hair to lighten it and had grown a moustache to disguise his features.

  Rather to his surprise, Wrayan discovered he enjoyed what he did. There wasn’t much risk involved, but there was a great deal of entertainment to be had watching those around him wonder how he managed to be so successful. He was living quite well, in rooms he shared with Brak in a boarding house on Lemon Street, a few minutes walk from the main markets in the merchants’ quarter. Their neighbours thought them cousins, staying in Green-harbour to squander the inheritance left to them by an elderly uncle.

  Wrayan had wanted to go straight to the Sorcerers’ Collective and see the High Arrion when he first reached the city, but Brak had persuaded him not to. Although the former apprentice now remembered most of the details of his previous life, they still had no idea how Alija had been able to amplify her power the way she had. Until they discovered that, Brak thought it better if everybody continued to believe that the High Arrion’s apprentice was dead.

  The deal Wrayan had with the Halfbreed was quite straightforward. Wrayan kept his bargain with Dacendaran—he remembered making it now—and kept them in relative style, while Brak, posing as a Fardohnyan scholar researching a book on the ancient Harshini kings, worked his way through the massive library of the Sorcerers’ Collective.

  Brak knew what he was looking for. Andreanan, Sanctuary’s voluptuous librarian, had told him about some of the ancient scrolls the Harshini had not been able to recover from the Sorcerers’ Collective library before retreating into hiding. There were ways, she assured him, of amplifying even an Innate’s power temporarily. One just needed a little bit of raw power, the right scroll and the ability to read it.

  Brak was worried about those scrolls, fearful they might fall into the wrong hands. Wrayan was pretty sure he didn’t give a fig about Alija, but the idea that a Karien priest might one day find a way to amplify his meagre power to a point where he might be able to hurt the Harshini was motive enough for the Halfbreed to keep looking for them as long as he had to. And he didn’t mind how long it took. Brak was almost immortal. He had the time to spare.

  It was for Brak that Wrayan was going out across the rooftops again tonight; not on a mission to steal anything, but to investigate the house of Alija Eaglespike. An exhaustive search of the Sorcerers’ Collective library had convinced Brak the scrolls he sought were simply not there. He was guessing the next best place to look was Alija’s house. It was unlikely, he surmised, that she had memorised the spell back in her home in Dregian Province and simply invoked it when she was in Greenharbour. Such a spell was long and complicated and absolutely useless if you got so much as a syllable wrong. She had to have the scroll nearby, Brak reasoned, and the most logical place to keep it would be in her house.

  “You know what to look for?” Brak asked, as Wrayan finished getting dressed. The Harshini leathers had never been cleaned the whole time he owned them, yet they looked as fresh as the day Brak had handed them to him in Sanctuary. They were dark, comfortable, silent in a way normal leather never was, and left him free to climb and run as if he was wearing nothing at all.

  “Scrolls?” Wrayan suggested as he bent down to tug on his boots, which were made of the same strange leather as the rest of his clothes.

  Brak glared at him.

  “Locked away in a cupboard somewhere,” Wrayan added with a grin.

  “Check for magical locks as well,” Brak advised. “If I were trying to keep something so valuable safe, I’d have them bound with every warding spell I could think of. Just don’t touch anything she’s warded magically.”

  “Are they dangerous?”

  “Are they dangerous?” Brak repeated with a baleful glare. “Have you learned nothing from me? If you trigger a warding spell accidentally, it might kill you, idiot! No wonder you were Kagan’s apprentice for ten years! It’s a miracle you’ve learned anything at all!”

  “Sorry. That sounded a lot more stupid than I meant it to be. I was just thinking . . . would she really risk anything so dangerous? She has children in the house.”

  “Then the best that can happen is Alija will know instantly if someone tries to tamper with her wards.”

  “I’d like to tamper with more than that bitch’s wards,” Wrayan declared, rising. He bounced on the balls of his feet a few times, feeling ready for anything. Odd how dressing in the Harshini Dragon Riders’ leathers made him feel invincible.

  “Not tonight, lad,” Brak warned. “I just want you to have a look around and tell me if there’s anything there that’s warded or otherwise magically protected. If those scrolls are in her house, let’s find a way to get a close look at them without getting ourselves killed, eh?”

  “If you insist,” Wrayan sighed, as if Brak was spoiling all his fun.

  “I do,” Brak replied. “Now go. I’ll meet you at Fuller’s Basket when you’re done and you can tell me what you’ve found over a well-deserved ale.”

  “I could tell you while I’m in the house, if you want.”

  “Too risky. You don’t know if Alija will be home. And if she is, you don’t know if she’ll detect someone drawing on the source in her vicinity. She might even be able to pick up on any telepathy. In and out, Wrayan. Nice and clean. And no magic.”

  Alija’s house was on the other side of the city, in the most exclusive part of Greenharbour. It took Wrayan more than an hour to get there, and then another hour watching the house, waiting to make sure everyone was asleep, before he judged it safe enough to go on. He was being unusually cautious tonight. He couldn’t draw on his magic to aid him for fear of alerting Alija to the presence of another magician, so he was going to have to do this the hard way.

  It was almost midnight before Wrayan was finally satisfied that the entire house was asleep. A little stiff from being crouched for so long on the roof of a neighbouring mansion, he nimbly jumped across the small gap between it and Alija’s house and ran silently along the flat roof to the other end of the main wing. He reached the edge and leaned over, pleased to find a balcony a small drop below him, from which he could then swing across to the balcony beside it. That would enable him to check most of the rooms on the second floor without having to go inside.

  He lowered himself over the edge of the roof and landed without a sound, then gently tested the diamond-paned glass doors that looked as if they led into a deserted sitting room. Not surprisingly, the doors were locked.

  He jumped across to the next balcony, which accessed the same room as the first. The next one led into a bedroom, and this time the door was partially open against the heat of the muggy Greenharbour nights. He gingerly cased it open a little wider and slipped inside, halting just inside the door behind the curtains, reaching out with every human sense he owned to determine if the room was empty. After a time, he realised the room was humming with the deep, sonorous snores of the occupant, but he could sense nothing that felt like magic in the room, so he slithered back through the door and jumped across to the next balcony.

  This room was also occupied, he discovered when he cautiously entered through the open door. Although wrapped in darkness, he could just make out low, intimate voices, talking in the dark. Holding his breath, Wrayan backed up cautiously. He was still behind the curtain, so the couple in the bedroom had no idea he was there, but it would take as little as a scrape of his boot to betray his presence.

  “I should be getting home,” a man’s voice remarked softly.

  Wrayan froze. He knew that voice.

  “Don’t leave on my account,” Alija replied, with the languid tiredness of a sated lover. “I gave Barnardo a draught. He’ll sleep like the dead until tomorrow’s lunch is served.”

  “I know. But . . . well, I was thinking . . . maybe . . . I shouldn’t visit for a while.” The tantalisingly familiar voice sounded a little concerned
.

  A bit late for that suggestion, Wrayan thought, for a man obviously cheating with another man’s wife.

  “Why?”

  “Things might get . . . a little awkward, that’s all.”

  “You’d raise suspicion if you changed your routine now,” Alija pointed out reasonably.

  Risking a glance, Wrayan opened the curtains a fraction. The man’s face was turned from him, so he couldn’t see who Alija’s lover was. But he knew that voice. It was driving him crazy that he couldn’t place it.

  “No, it wouldn’t,” the man replied with a hint of scorn, in between kissing Alija. Wrayan’s eyes had adjusted well enough to the dark to make out the two figures entwined on the bed, oblivious to anything but each other. Alija’s lover appeared to have started at her neck and was working his way down towards her navel. “She adores me . . . I can do no wrong.”

  “Does she suspect nothing?” Alija asked, obviously amused, but whether by the ignorance of her lover’s spouse or what her lover was doing to her with his tongue, Wrayan couldn’t tell. “Even after all this time?”

  “Not a thing,” her lover confirmed.

  Wrayan let the curtains fall closed and the voices fell quiet for a long time. The silence was torment. That voice was so familiar; he felt he ought to know who owned it instantly. But a name eluded him.

  This is crazy, he told himself sternly. It doesn’t matter who Alija’s lover is. I’m supposed to be looking for those damned scrolls.

  Alija moaned with pleasure and then laughed softly into the darkness. “I thought you were going home?”

  “Just one more time,” the man replied and there were no more words, just the sound of their lovemaking.

  Putting aside the very real temptation to draw on his power to find out who the man was, Wrayan backed carefully away from the window, silent as a cat, and swung across to the next balcony to continue searching the house.

  He was between one balcony and the next when it came to him. Wrayan’s foot slipped and he almost fell as the realisation hit him. He scrambled over the railing and sank down onto the balcony, not sure which had frightened him most—his near fall or the identity of Alija’s lover.

  Because the voice that had seemed so tauntingly familiar belonged to a man Wrayan had once counted among his best friends.

  chapter 83

  I

  t was after midnight before Nash got home. The children were long abed, surrounded by a small army of nervously alert troops from the Sorcerers’ Collective and another contingent sent by the High Prince for the protection of his heir. Marla was frantic by the time she heard Nash in the hall, afraid that the assassins who had tried to kill her son had her husband in their sights as well.

  He walked into the main sitting room, pulling off his riding gloves, a puzzled look on his face. “Did you declare war on someone while I was out this evening, darling? There’s Sorcerers’ Collective troops all over the—” He stopped abruptly when he noticed they had guests. “Lord Palenovar. And your highness,” he said with a short bow to Kagan and Lernen who were sitting opposite Marla on the cushions around the low table in the centre of the room. “To what do we owe this unexpected honour?”

  Marla ran to her husband and threw her arms around him, finally able to shed some of the fear she’d been keeping to herself since the attack this afternoon. “Oh, Nash! They tried to kill Damin!”

  “What?” he demanded, hugging her close. “What are you talking about?” He looked across at the High Arrion over Marla’s head. “What’s she talking about?”

  “Someone took a shot at young Damin with a crossbow on the way back from the palace this afternoon,” Kagan explained. He made no attempt to rise. He’d not been well of late and every movement seemed an effort these days.

  “Someone tried to kill my heir,” Lernen added unnecessarily.

  “Who would do such a thing?” Nash said, obviously shocked, as he led Marla back to the cushions with his arm around her tightly.

  “Anybody who thinks they might benefit from the death of the High Prince’s heir,” Kagan shrugged. “Let’s start with the King of Fardohnya and work our way down.”

  “Are the children all right?” Nash asked anxiously. “They weren’t hurt, were they? What about Kagan? And Narvell?”

  “All the children are fine,” Marla assured him. She smiled wanly, wiping away her tears. “Damin thought it was fun.”

  “He would.”

  “I’ve loaned my sister a platoon of palace guards and Kagan has chipped in with some Sorcerers’ Collective troops to protect them,” Lernen told him. “We were waiting until you got home before we decided what we should do about this.”

  “You should have sent a message,” he scolded, kissing Marla’s forehead. “You shouldn’t have to go through this alone.”

  “We tried to,” she said. “But you weren’t at the cock fight. They said you’d been and gone. We had no idea where you were.”

  “I’m so sorry, Marla,” he told her, helping her to sit down. “I never even gave it a thought. A few of us went back to Barnardo’s house for a game of dice. I just completely lost track of the time.”

  Lernen wasn’t pleased to hear where his brother-in-law had been. Or with whom. “You actually associate with that bloated pretender? Willingly?”

  He still resented Barnardo’s push for the throne before Damin was born, even though the Patriots had been very quiet of late, and neither the Warlord of Dregian Province, nor his wife, had displayed even the slightest hint of defiance since accepting the inevitability of Marla’s marriage to Laran Krakenshield. They lived not far from the Hawksword townhouse here in Green-harbour and Alija was a frequent visitor when she was in town. Despite everything the men claimed she had done, Alija had never been anything other than kind to Marla. She often brought her own children, Cyrus and Serrin, to visit, insisting that the cousins should get to know one another, even though the blood relationship was quite distant and her sons were closer in age to Travin and Xanda than Damin and the twins.

  Lernen turned to Kagan, adding, “If you’re looking for assassins, the House of Eaglespike would be as good a place as any to start.”

  “It’d be a waste of time,” Nash declared. “Barnardo’s long ago accepted he doesn’t have a claim on the High Prince’s throne, your highness, and as a loyal subject and a member of your family, I would never associate with him if I thought he did. No. We need to look further afield for our culprit, I think.”

  “And quickly,” Kagan agreed. “They’ve made one attack. Whoever is behind this won’t want to lose momentum. There will be more. And they’ll be sooner, rather than later.”

  “Then I’ll move the children to my father’s fortress in Elasapine,” Nash announced. “Let them see how far they get throwing themselves at the walls of Byamor.”

  “But getting them there would be far too dangerous,” Marla objected. “Byamor is four hundred miles from here.”

  “That’s four hundred miles of open road where they’d be vulnerable to attack,” Kagan agreed. He really didn’t look very well at all, Marla thought with concern. “We’re better off leaving them here where they can be protected. Although I do think you should move them to the Sorcerers’ Collective.”

  “You think the sanctity of your Collective will stay an assassin’s hand?” Lernen asked sceptically. “I would far rather you just found the assassins, Kagan, and removed the threat completely. For all you know, once they’ve taken the child out, they’ll be coming after me!”

  Marla could have slapped Lernen for being so selfish at such a time. “They won’t be killing anyone, brother. I won’t permit it.”

  “Admirable sentiments, my dear,” Kagan said. “But unless we can discover who’s behind this attack, not much more than that, I’m afraid.” He was sweating profusely, despite the late hour. Although Greenharbour was notorious for its humidity, at this time of the year it was not hot enough to evoke such a response.

  “Why don’t w
e ask the Assassins’ Guild who’s paying them?”

  The men looked at her as if she was insane.

  “Well, why not?” she asked defensively. “If someone has hired an assassin to kill my son, I want to know who it is.”

  “You can’t just march into the Assassins’ Guild and demand to know who hired them, my love,” Nash tried to explain.

  “Why not?”

  “Because it would be commercial and political suicide on their part,” Kagan told her bluntly. “They make their money killing people, Marla, not betraying their employers.”

  “Their employers just tried to kill the heir to the High Prince’s throne, Lord Palenovar! Since when do the concerns of a commercial guild outweigh the security of the nation?”

  “Marla, be reasonable,” Nash urged soothingly. “Attacking the Assassins’ Guild’s right to protect the identity of their clients is attacking the very fabric of our society. It would destabilise the whole nation.”

  Marla pulled away from Nash, hurt beyond words that he would take such a stance. He should be calling out his guards and preparing to march on the Guild himself, not patting her on the head and telling her there was nothing to be done.

  “I wasn’t aware the whole nation was in the habit of employing the Assassins’ Guild,” she retorted coldly. “I thought that was something only disgruntled noblemen did in order to settle scores they’re not man enough to deal with any other way.”

  “Nash has a point, Marla,” Kagan said.

  She turned to her brother to see if he agreed with the others.

  “They probably wouldn’t tell us anything useful, anyway,” Lernen added, avoiding her accusing glare. As usual, Lernen went along with anything Kagan said.

  She climbed to her feet, her anger a warm, living thing. “And this is your idea of a council of war? You’re going to sit here and do nothing but debate the best place to hide?”