by J. C. Hendee
A shriek echoed up the alley from behind them.
Kyne whirled around, as did Sirron and Alshenísh’ìn, in looking back.
Sirron spun back first and whispered, “Go!”
In a panic, Kyne glanced ahead.
The shadow at the next sidestreet was gone, and perhaps it was just a passerby. Alshenísh’ìn nudged her, and once again she sped up the alley. She almost reached the sidestreet when…
A bulky figure stepped out from the right side of the alley’s exit.
Kyne stumbled to a stop, and this time Alshenísh’ìn rammed into her. She lurched forward another three steps.
In the large figure’s right hand was a long narrow object—as long as his forearm above the thick hand that gripped it. Two more figures appeared from the left of the alley’s exit.
“Where my beast… girl?”
That deep voice wiped away the heat of Kyne’s run. Even more so the gravelly chuckle that followed, like pebbles poured on a large drum.
“You think I not find? You take it?”
Kyne stood frozen until Sirron snapped, “Light, and back up!”
She fumbled for the crystal as she heard the trunk drop. Strange, hushed whispers rose behind her as she finally pulled the crystal out.
Kyne didn’t have a chance to look back. The crystal’s light exposed the wolf-catcher’s smallish eyes and stubble-covered, thick jaw around a leering grin. She backed up one step, flattening against someone tall, likely Alshenísh’ìn.
In the wolf-catcher’s hand was that wooden club he had used to beat the pup’s cage—and likely pup.
“Not move!” he barked, inching into the alley. “You not get other end. More men there… my men.”
Kyne didn’t recognize the two others with the wolf-catcher. Both were darkly dressed with their lower faces inside hoods covered by rough cloth wraps. Each had a weapon in hand—one a short sword and the other a long crude club with a black cylindrical head. Perhaps the driver was one of those at the alley’s back end.
Someone grabbed Kyne’s shoulder from behind.
Alshenísh’ìn pulled her further back as he ordered, “Step aside.”
The wolf-catcher’s gaze rose, looking above Kyne.
“This district has a very active constabulary,” Alshenísh’ìn added. “Enough so that only one of us needs to call out.”
The wolf-catcher snorted. “They not hear. I make they go.”
In more fright, Kyne wondered about that cry from the alley’s far end.
The wolf-catcher took another step. “Where… my… wolf?”
“Gone,” she answered. “I… I let him go… out of the cage.”
His looked beyond her again as the two with him spread to either side of the alley’s opening.
Kyne knew the wolf-catcher now looked to the trunk. Before she could stop herself, she looked back and… stopped breathing.
She saw only the trunk. Sirron was gone, though she never heard him take a step or run off. Alshenísh’ìn exhaled sharply, and she knew he saw as well.
Certainly the wolf-catcher and the other two would have seen Sirron, or noticed him leave. But not one of the three had reacted, as if… as if they had never seen him at all.
“Back,” the wolf-catcher ordered, pointing to the alley’s right side.
Before Kyne obeyed, Alshenísh’ìn pulled her. As the wolf-catcher stepped by, she looked to the trunk again. Not a sound came from it, so was the pup still in there or had he… had Sirron…
When she blinked, a black silhouette was suddenly there beyond the trunk.
Curses erupted from the men at the alley’s mouth. Kyne sucked a breath as Alshenísh’ìn’s grip tightened on her shoulder. The wolf-catcher stalled at the trunk’s nearer end, and Kyne never had chance to exhale.
Strange whispers erupted again in the alley.
That shadow form instantly hopped atop the trunk as a hand shot out of it toward the wolf-catcher.
“Run… or burn!” the shadow whispered.
From behind the wolf-catcher, Kyne didn’t see where that hand struck. The suddenly filled with stench of burning hair or fir. Smoke suddenly billowed up around the wolf-catcher’s head from somewhere in the front of him.
The crystal’s light caught upon a face in the shadow’s near-black cowl.
Sirron’s hate-filled eyes were fixed upon his target.
In that instant, Alshenísh’ìn’s hand left Kyne’s shoulder. “Have some coin,” he shouted, “if that is all you desire.”
She heard the tinkle of small pieces of metal on stone. A guttural curse followed, as if one of the two men was pelted with coins thrown by Alshenísh’ìn.
Then the wolf-catcher shrieked. Still swatting at smoke with one hand, he swung wildly with his wooden club. It caught Sirron between the shoulder and neck.
He toppled off the trunk and crumpled to the alley floor as snarls rose within the trunk and its lid began to buck.
The pup was still inside, and Kyne instinctively lunged for it.
“No!” Alshenísh’ìn shouted.
She knew one good thing about cold-lamp crystals.
In an upward swing, Kyne swiped the crystal hard across the side of her robe. Its light brightened under friction, turning heat into harsh light, as she thrust it up at the wolf-catcher’s smoke-haloed face. When his head twisted away from the sudden brightness, she made a dash for the trunk.
Something struck sharply across Kyne’s back.
Pain made the alley flash white before her eyes as she toppled out of control. She roughly hit the trunk’s top, tumbled off to the damp, gritty alley floor, and only a snarl and a bark cut through her daze.
Kyne grabbed for the trunk’s latch as her sight barely cleared. She had to get the pup out—get him to run—and then she heard running boots echoing off the alley’s walls.
Another dark figure now bolted toward her from the alley’s back end, quickly growing larger as it neared. Someone snatched the back of Kyne’s robe and pulled hard.
She was jerked up on the toes of her boots. Just the same, she clung to the trunk’s latch. Its metal tore painfully out of her little hand, but the trunk’s lid flipped up halfway.
Out lunged the snarling pup, spinning about in the alley.
“Get off of her!” Alshenísh’ìn shouted from somewhere behind Kyne.
Whoever gripped the back of her robe suddenly stumbled. The grip slackened for an instant, and her feet flattened to the alley floor.
Kyne tried to lunge against that hold. All she could think of was the pup, as he finally spotted her. In hoping he might know just one word, she screamed, “Run!”
The pup’s neck fur stiffened, and the same along his back, right down to his tail bristling twice as thick. In a vicious, hissing snarl, he charged at her.
Kyne went limp in shock—until he raced past her legs beyond her sight.
That grip on her robe slung her aside amid a deep-throated scream.
She went tumbling across the alley floor and slammed against a set of stone steps. The cold-lamp crystal skittered away, out her hand, making the alley walls dance with shifting light. Stunned and shaken, Kyne barely pushed up with her hands, in hearing more shouts and shrieks.
The first thing that met her dazed eyes was the pup’s pale fur and…
Kyne shrank back, for he had lunged up and sank his jaws into the softest part inside the wolf-catcher’s thick legs. Even in snarling and being swung about, he didn’t let go.
Alshenísh’ìn was on the wolf-catcher’s back with his legs wrapped around the big man’s waist. He clamped one hand over the man’s eyes as he tried to grab the waving club with his other. One of the wolf-catcher’s two men snatched him by his long hair and raised that iron-headed club.
Kyne tried to struggle, but…
“Stay down!”
She turned on her knees in time to see Sirron finally rising, but he was instantly knocked flat by a shove from the running figure that had been racing up the
alley. When that dark hooded one entered the crystal’s full light, Kyne knew she had seen him before.
The hooded cloak obscured everything but the sword on his right hip, and the sword was still wrapped in old cloth tied on with twine. He vaulted the trunk in one running step as his right, gloved hand clenched the sword’s hilt.
Kyne saw the cloth wrap over the bottom half of his face… just like the wolf-catcher’s other men.
The newcomer was the same man she had seen lurking around the guild when they had first snuck the pup into the keep. He must have been the one to spot them sneaking out again.
The one with metal-headed club stalled.
The wolf-catcher suddenly swung down with his club as he threw himself backward and slammed Alshenísh’ìn into the alley wall. The pup released his jaws and leaped away before the club hit him, but the man with the metal-headed club turned on him.
Everything was happening too quickly.
Kyne was about to throw herself over the pup, but the dark, cloaked one lunged in first. His off-hand grip on the sword’s hilt thrust out, and the sword came with it.
The hilt’s end smashed into the wolf-catcher’s jaws.
Kyne flinched at the sharp crack.
The wolf-catcher slumped down the wall, dragging Alshenísh’ìn with him.
She was so stunned that she barely heard more running feet somewhere beyond the alley’s nearer end.
The pup was about to close on the one with the metal-headed club when the man swung. The hooded man caught the club by its haft, and the sword in his off-hand appeared to spin. The heavy blade came down flat-sided against the other man’s head. That one stumbled back as the dark one wrenched the club away.
The pup wheeled away from both men, snapping and snarling as Kyne ran for him.
“Yield!” barked the hooded stranger. “Or I cut you down, here and now.”
Kyne flinched, thinking that was for her, but that stranger faced the wolf-catcher’s last man. The other of that first pair was gone, and then two more figures in long cloaks rushed into the alley.
The crystal’s light caught on their polished steel helmets. One with a sword in hand went straight at the wolf-catcher’s remaining man and never looked at the hooded stranger.
If Kyne were not so confused, she might have been shocked even more. The pup shifted right in front of her, still snarling and clacking his jaws, as he stood his ground between her and everyone else.
The dark, hooded stranger swung the iron-headed club back without looking, pointing it down the alley.
“Sit down!” he ordered. “I will have no more foolishness from… foolish young sages.”
There was Sirron before the trunk’s nearer end. Clutching the side of his neck, he slowly settled on the trunk. Aside from his typical, frightening stares, he looked as confused as Kyne felt.
The stranger brushed back his hood and pulled the wrap off of his face.
With the pup still snarling, Kyne was even more overwhelmed in looking into the too-young face—framed by the too-gray hair—of Corporal Lúcan. He let out an exasperated sigh in eyeing the pup.
“Young female sages… and their wolves,” the corporal said. “Apparently a plague unique to the king’s city.”
Kyne was too relieved to be baffled by those words—or to worry about being caught by the Shyldfälches—at least, there and then.
· · · · ·
As the dawn bell rang out over the city, and bell-ringers inside the guild’s keep echoed it, Kyne sat alone in Domin Ginjeriè’s office in waiting to be summoned. Not entirely alone, for at least one guild apprentice stood guard outside the door.
Even now, in the premin council’s chamber, everyone else involved likely faced High Premin Sykion’s cold anger.
Just how many lives had Kyne ruined?
It had been Corporal Lúcan who had been lurking in disguise outside the guild grounds last night. Young sages with a trunk were not what he had spotted first or used as bait. He had grown suspicious at the wolf-catcher’s sudden disappearance, and in watching in disguise, had spotted the same with more men rushing off suddenly away from the guild.
The corporal had followed them after alerting his own men.
It had been a long sleepless night for everyone involved. But as Kyne sat alone in waiting, she fretted over something that hurt her more than anything else.
When the wolf-catcher and some of his men had been taken away, only Corporal Lúcan and another late arriving city guard remained behind. With Kyne, a downfallen Alshenísh’ìn, and a silently livid Sirron all waiting for their fates to catch up, there had been another matter to settle.
The pup would not let anyone near him—or Kyne.
The corporal had twice tried to grab and heft pup into the trunk to be taken away. The pup savagely turned on him both times. When the corporal backed off, the pup circled back before Kyne. On the corporal’s third try, Kyne lunged in against his order and grabbed the pup from behind.
In fright, the pup twisted about and bit her as well.
Kyne never even flinched, and he froze up. When he quickly released his jaws, cringing away at what he had done, she heaved him over the trunk’s edge. He was too shocked to struggle, too late in snarling and clawing to get out, before she slammed the lid shut.
How long had she sat there sobbing over betraying him? Or at least that was what he would think of her. She could say nothing about who rather than what he was to the corporal.
A heavy hand had then settled her shoulder.
“I will see he is safe, little miss,” Corporal Lúcan whispered, “until it’s known what’s to be done with him. Now come along.”
The corporal then handed over the trunk to the one remaining guard.
Kyne tried to rush after that other city guard, but Corporal Lucan pulled her back. He turned her away as he ushered on Sirron and Alshenísh’ìn as well. All of them were silent on the way back to the guild.
The only other detail of the night that had become clear was when they re-entered the guild grounds. The fire had been put out, leaving only the slightly bent iron remains of a huge brazier lying in the inner courtyard.
Kyne never had to ask about that.
Marten had somehow gotten Grim some tools. The two of them must have snuck into one of the gatehouse’s littler inner towers, unbolted a brazier from inside, and let it crash down in the courtyard.
Rules had been broken, and laws as well. Guild property had been damaged. A scandal might erupt, linked between the Numan guild branch and that of the Lhoin’na, if not the nation of that elven people as a whole.
It was all because of Kyne and one little “wolf.”
The door to Domin Ginjeriè’s study opened, and there stood the domin herself instead of the apprentice sage left on guard. And again, the domin didn’t smile in still gripping the door’s latch handle.
“It is time,” was all that she said.
Kyne dropped off the old rocker’s edge and shuffled out the door, not even waiting as the domin closed the study and followed. She knew exactly where she was being taken, though it was hard not to falter and slow on the way to the main building’s second floor and the premin council’s chamber.
Halfway down that upper passage, she saw those heavy double doors of old oak were open. Then she did stall, until Domin Ginjeriè gently pushed her onward, but she froze again once she stepped into the opening.
Farther back in the chamber was a long table with five tall-backed chairs, three behind it and one on each end, for the branch’s premins of the five orders. No one sat there, for any of the premins present stood about the room crowded with everyone else.
Alshenísh’ìn wore no expression at all, and certainly not that disarmingly coy smile, as he stared at the floor stones. Beside him, and watching him with open disapproval, was someone taller than nearly anyone else present. That mature, narrow-limbed woman of the Lhoin’na was dressed in a long, pleated wool skirt of earthen green, a fully sleeved vestmen
t of shimmering yellow cloth embroidered in bands of ivy vines, and a deep charcoal cloak pushed back over her shoulders.
It was one thing to look up into Alshenísh’ìn’s beautiful eyes and stumble over words. It was something else for Kyne to face the amber-eyed, cold, and silent stare of his regal-looking mother.
Around a cowering Grim and an unusually cowed and sullen Marten stood their own parents. Master Alvôrd paced shortly in restrained fury, still wearing his leather apron and having likely been called straight from his workshop.
Sirron and Floraile’s parents were not present, considering those two came from other nations. Instead, Domin High-Tower stood before the pair with his back to the doors. Kyne didn’t hear what the domin said, but he was obviously growling at them. Neither looked up at him, though Sirron’s eyes shifted—and narrowed—upon spotting Kyne in the doorway.
Now was certainly not the time to ask Sirron how he had suddenly reappeared in the alley. And right next to Domin High-Tower stood tall, gray, and willowy High Premin Sykion faced half away and speaking to…
Kyne’s father had come alone; there was no sign of her mother in the chamber. At the high premin’s glance toward the chamber doors, her father finally saw her. Kyne expected to see the same angry disapproval as on the faces of all other parents present.
Father’s tense expression broke with a sudden pained sadness.
That was worse.
His face suddenly blurred in Kyne’s sight.
She quickly shut her eyes against the tears and dropped her head before opening them again. She didn’t note any of the others in the room, except for Corporal Lúcan standing erect inside the left door. His expression was unaffected.
“Young miss,” he said with a brief nod to her.
“The rest must be handled privately.”
Kyne barely looked up at hearing High Premin Sykion.
“I will inform anyone of what is needed, once I have made my decision,” she added in studying only Kyne. “Beyond that, no one speaks of this to anyone.”
The high premin glanced once at the corporal, who nodded.
“Would everyone please go with Domin High-Tower,” she continued, “except for Domin Ginjeriè, Premin Adlam, and Premin Jacque… and Miss Erhtenwal.”