The more acceptable Lady Melina became by local standards, the more Grateful Peace sensed that she wore a mask—a mask he could not even guess how to lift so that he could see the true face she concealed behind its elaborate, empty form.
There had been other bodies down in the bottom of the cleft in the rock where they had thrown the bandits: old bodies whose bones had snapped and cracked under the burden tossed down onto them, bodies not so old whose rotting the cold might have slowed but had not stopped.
If, as Firekeeper had been taught, it was wrong to kill humans unless in self-defense—or defense of the homeland, which was like defense of the self, at least as Derian confusingly explained it—then the killing of the eleven bandits had been not only necessary but good.
Prepared to rejoice as after a successful hunt, Firekeeper had been unsettled by the predominantly somber mood of her companions. There was relief, but no joy. Only Edlin Norwood seemed to feel any satisfaction at all, but before they had finished the meal Elise and Wendee had prepared for them, he, too, had gotten caught up in the pervading mood of gloom.
Firekeeper, not liking this at all, had slipped from the fireside to run with Blind Seer. The Royal Wolf was feeling quite pleased with himself—his mood was at least more what she had expected.
Over and over again Blind Seer bragged about his prowess, relating how he had run across the rocks, never once slipping though pockets of snow and ice made the surface treacherous.
"And then I leapt," he howled, a baying bark in the notes, "I leapt, limbs stretching so that I could feel the strength and power in my mighty muscles. With a mere toss of my head, I sent one man—armed, mind you, armed with a bow whose deadly hail of arrows might have torn through my fur to paint the stone with the scarlet of my blood—I sent that man crashing to the hard rocks below.
"Then I leapt again and this time my fangs ripped into the bandit's flesh. I ripped, I tore, but my great might was not needed. The fragile human ripped in two, streaking my fur with the tribute of his lifeblood…"
Really, Firekeeper enjoyed the boastful recital, but after she'd heard it—or variations on it—three or four times, she made a leap of her own. She caught the blue-eyed wolf off guard and together they rolled about on the cold, hard ground. The violent exercise washed from her the last of the impotent fury she had felt when the bandits had forced her to return lest she be the cause of Derian's death.
"Even more than war," she said to Blind Seer as they were catching their breath after their romp, "I have decided that I don't like bandits. I don't like this taking of a person so another person cannot act freely. War is ugly, wasteful, and foolish, but banditry is hateful. I am glad the bandits are dead and I cannot understand why the others are not singing their triumph around the fire."
"Humans!" Blind Seer snorted.
"They were brave!" Firekeeper persisted. "Edlin gliding over the stone to deliver death with his arrows. Doc, Wendee, Derian, even unblooded Elise, they were all brave. Why do they sit hanging their heads and acting like yearlings who have tried an elk and been kicked in the head for their presumption?"
Blind Seer shook his great shaggy head, a gesture he was attempting to learn so he could communicate at least a little with the humans in whose company he so frequently found himself.
"Humans," he said, "are incomprehensible—all but you, dearest… and you," he added quickly when he saw Firekeeper raise her fist to thump him, "you are a wolf in all but form."
Disheveled and tired but inwardly happy, Firekeeper returned to the others. It was nice to come to a fire you didn't need to kindle yourself, nice to have a bit of warm food set aside for you. Being with humans wasn't all bad.
Derian broke what was evidently, judging from how the others started at the sound of his voice, a long silence.
"I am wondering," he said, his voice low and rough, "if I am responsible for what happened to us today."
Doc asked, his voice shaped by puzzlement, "What do you mean, Derian?"
"I mean, I'm wondering if by asking around Gateway about best routes and all the rest I tipped off someone who contacted the bandits. A fast rider could have beaten us here—especially one who knows local shortcuts—or a carrier pigeon could have carried word ahead."
"Don't," Elise said in clipped tones that, despite their lighter note, held something of her father in them, "take onto yourself more than your due. Winter trade is common—though more comes through Plum Orchard than through Stilled. These bandits may regularly raid this pass—a strike or two that takes in goods, livestock, and resalable persons would set them up for quite a while."
Derian smiled what Firekeeper thought was a rather stiff and unnatural smile.
"Maybe that is so," he admitted, "but I've been worrying. They were so well prepared, took us so easily…"
"Don't," Elise repeated. "They might have had a spy at the last inn or along the road. Try not to beat up on yourself for something that you weren't to blame for, and that came out all right in the end."
Listening as she licked the bean gravy from her fingers, Firekeeper thought that the last sentence sounded as if it were addressed to someone else, but though she looked at every face, she couldn't figure out for whom the words were meant.
When they left the next morning, the mules were somewhat more heavily burdened than they had been on arrival, their panniers stretched out with fresh booty.
Wendee Jay had insisted that they must reward themselves for their victory. Though the trade goods and dry foods were a poor substitute for the liver-stealing, belly-swelling gorge and romp that usually followed a good hunt, Firekeeper had seconded her with enthusiasm. Surely there should be some celebration!
The bandits had not been wealthy, but the best from their hoard was worth carrying away. Firekeeper carried soft fox pelts and folded squares of silk over to where Derian packed them away. There had been jingling sacks with small bits of jewelry and coins, too. She'd tried a bangle on herself, liking how the metal flashed in the clear winter light, but it slowed her hand, so she put the trinket by until a special occasion arose.
They found the pass clear—suspiciously clear, as if the bandits might have shoveled and packed in anticipation of making a fast escape with their new possessions. Even so, they traveled for the best part of the day before reaching the place where this road intersected the north/south trade road that would take them into Dragon's Breath.
A town had grown up where the two roads met and Firekeeper was impressed and—though she would have died rather than show it—intimidated by the three-and four-story stone buildings.
Firekeeper remembered her first view of West Keep, where Derian had begun her education in human ways, how the towering stone building had seemed like a living creature made all of stone. She remembered how terrified she had been when she had first visited Eagle's Nest, the single event that had most solidly driven home to her how very many humans there were and how insignificant she was among them.
But now she considered herself sophisticated in such matters. She had seen three cities—if you included the twin towns of Hope and Good Crossing—and had dwelt in two different castles. She didn't want to be impressed any longer with the massive structures humans could make out of stone and wood.
She didn't want to, but she was.
It helped that Elise was open in expressing her own awe and wonder, that Wendee pointed to the sculptures with unfeigned glee, recognizing in their shapes familiar figures from the plays she had acted in years before.
The men affected to be less impressed—at least at first. The encounter with the bandits had made them grim, as if determined that no threat would escape their vigilance. Edlin was the first to break, forgetting to rein in his mount in his astonishment at seeing set into the side of some public building a cut-glass window so elaborate that it made the ones in his father's study seem prentice work by a very uncertain hand.
The vendor whose cart Edlin narrowly missed shook a fist at him, showering the young man wi
th invective that turned into smiles of pride when Edlin grimaced apologetically and pointed to the window by way of explanation.
And this was just in a town a day's ride from the capital!
The next day they reached the vicinity of Dragon's Breath too late to go inside the walls, but, as with Eagle's Nest, a city had grown up outside the official wall. They found rooms in a—for New Kelvin—friendly inn. The owner condescended to tell them that their first duty in the morning was to register with the city guard.
"It is to your own protection," he explained laboriously in Pellish. "Foreigners not have manners and do stupid thing. You register as foreigner, guard tell you how not to break law and custom. If you do then, they be more forgiving because you have try to be civilized."
"Well!" Wendee said, drawing in her breath with an indignant snort. "Really!"
Elise nodded. "It's as if they expect us to spit on the carpets."
"And let the dogs piss in the hallways," Edlin agreed. "If I'd brought any of the hounds with me, by the buzzing-winged Hummer, I'd be tempted to do just that. Imagine!"
Firekeeper frowned.
"I think is good," she said. "They tell us how to be."
Five sets of eyes turned to stare at her quizzically—six, when Elation, who had gone to sleep on the back of Derian's chair, opened her own golden-rimmed eyes to study the wolf-woman.
Firekeeper struggled to explain.
"Is this," she said. "When I do as wolf do, Derian tell me is bad manners. So though I think wearing shirt in hot and sticky summer is as stupid as a late-summer-born pup in winter, I do to be polite."
She looked sternly at them, asking them to accept the magnitude of her sacrifices in the cause of good taste.
Derian grinned at her.
"And these days," he said, "you even let someone else finish their meat before stealing the bone—what amazing tact!"
Firekeeper grinned back at him.
"Who know what thing is to New Kelvinese people what is shirt to wolf? You not know either."
Edlin blinked. Despite his evident admiration of the wolf-woman, he was the one who still had the most trouble understanding her manner of speech. Wendee, perhaps owing to her practice in making sense of the chattering of small children, had far less trouble.
"You do have a point," she admitted. "And the law is the law."
"I wonder," Elise mused in the tone she reserved for purely philosophical points, "what they would do if we didn't report and then later broke some local ordinance. Could we plead ignorance and thus avoid punishment?"
"Let's" said Doc dryly, "not try that."
He looked away quickly then. Firekeeper was getting tired of the prolonged mating dance between him and Elise. She'd be glad when spring arrived and they got down to business.
She wondered if there would be anyone for Doc to fight. Elise's father, maybe? He seemed to take the place of the One Male in her pack. Did humans even do such things? Hadn't Sapphire and Shad mated out of season?
Firekeeper frowned and bit her lower lip. Impulsively, she started to ask, then remembered how carefully everyone was avoiding discussing an attraction that was obvious—at least where either Doc or Elise might overhear. She resolved to wait and ask Wendee or Derian when the others weren't near.
The next morning as the sun was rising the wolf-woman strolled out of the small stable in which she and Blind Seer had been sleeping. As their own horses and mules were the only animals present, this had been reasonable—even wise, for no one would trouble their gear when the big "dog" was known to be on guard.
She bent over, tousling the bits of straw and hay from her hair, wondering if she could possibly get Derian or Wendee to draw her a hot bath. The idea was attractive, so she straightened up, eager to make her request before Wendee had a chance to get involved with something else.
Her movement was interrupted in midstretch as she saw the skyline ahead of her. Dragon's Breath rose two or three times larger than Eagle's Nest, a multilevel sprawl that ascended up the mountain slopes. Glass caught the light from the rising sun as it slid through gaps in the Sword of Kelvin Mountains.
The awe Firekeeper had felt the day before when they had arrived in the outlying town was nothing to the wondering fear that filled her as she looked at this city that was her destination.
Colors the rainbow never dreamed of adorned walls and doorways. Domes of beaten copper or faceted glass caught the sun's light, granting it polish and refinement. Brick and stonework shaped intricate patterns that teased the eye as if leading it through a maze.
For a moment, Firekeeper had a hint of what the world must have been like in the days before the Old Country rulers vanished back into their own lands. She understood the terrible power the Royal Beasts had combated—and had retreated before. Then that revelation mercifully retreated, and she was left instead with a sense of vastness and desolation.
So many buildings! So many people! How in all of this was she to find Lady Melina Shield?
And how—even if she found her—was she to steal anything at all from out of this massive human stronghold?
Chapter XXVI
Ts eager as Firekeeper was to find lady Melina, steal the three items, and hurry back west, her first glimpse of Dragon's Breath transformed her impatience into care—rather as a wolf who has scented what she thought was a solitary deer might pause to reconsider her tactics when she realizes that what she has surprised is a rutting buck with a twelve-point rack. While Derian, with Elise as translator, undertook the tedious and confusing task of registering their party as foreign traders, Wendee and Doc were put in charge of finding them a place to stay.
Edlin was assigned to grooming their assorted beasts, a job he did with something like good grace. His role in saving them from the bandits had helped make him one of their number, but he was aware that he was an interlope, and was eager to prove his continued worth.
Edlin hinted to Firekeeper that he'd enjoy "Little Sister's" company down in the stable, but Firekeeper wasn't about to encourage his puppyish affection. With Blind Seer ghosting behind her, she joined Doc and Wendee.
The innkeeper had loaned them one of his sons, a youth with enough of both languages to act as a translator in case Wendee's New Kelvinese wasn't sufficient. In turn, Wendee's New Kelvinese was sufficient to assure that the boy didn't distort their needs for his own gain.
The innkeeper's boy led them immediately from the quieter fringes of town to a secondary market area outside the ancient walls. Inside the main walls—as in Eagle's Nest—stabling for the horses and mules would be prohibitively expensive. Moreover, the boy explained, that part of the city had become the purview of the sodalities. Very rarely did any building come up for rent, and the market there welcomed only the products of the sodalities themselves.
Firekeeper followed a few steps behind the rest, trying not to show her terror at being surrounded by this sprawling city. She took some comfort from knowing that Blind Seer was trailing them, seeing how well he could conceal his presence from the daylight world.
"Given the pong of trash and night soil," the wolf said, "even though cold has deadened some of the reek, I should not alert the duller noses. We will be helped in that the New Kelvinese limit the numbers of herbivores on the streets during the day—fewer to catch my scent and be properly terrified."
"And the dogs?" Firekeeper had asked. "These people do keep dogs."
"I'll growl 'em to silence," the wolf replied confidently.
Firekeeper knew that in reality Blind Seer was no happier than she about their surroundings, but like her he had changed since their first venture into what humans persisted in calling "civilization." Moreover, he had promised to help her in the undertaking the Royal Beasts had laid upon her, and he could not do that from outside Dragon's Breath.
Elation, as usual, was gone on some business of her own. She might be following Derian; then again, she might be hunting out some of the wingéd folk—perhaps the very crow who had followed Lady Me
lina north.
Actually, as they twisted through the streets, Firekeeper began to have a sneaking suspicion that Blind Seer could have walked openly at her side with Elation perched on his back and no one would have noticed. Even to her, limited as her exposure to human customs had been, the people of Dragon's Breath seemed weird.
The stories Wendee had told along the road had prepared her somewhat for the wide use of face paint, but she decided that no mere tales could have prepared her for the reality of the wildly colored faces—or for the smell of the preparations used to achieve the effect.
There didn't seem to be one single preparation in use, but many involved oils and dyes that had quite strong odors. Spices, nutmeats, flower petals, pulverized minerals all mixed together into an olfactory storm that made Firekeeper struggle not to pinch her nostrils shut.
And then there was the clothing. Much of it resembled the long straight robes Wendee had purchased in Gateway—although more brightly colored. Sometimes two or three such robes had been layered over each other to provide protection from the cold. Other passersby wore long coats trimmed in fur or brilliant tapestry brocades.
These, however, were the comparatively normal New Kelvinese.
Firekeeper nearly lost sight of her companions the first time a truly exotic figure paraded past. It was a man—at least it seemed to be male—clad all in bronze-colored tights. These tights were not merely formfitting. They were padded so that the man's limbs had more form, so they were exaggeratedly defined. Stylized muscle groups along the man's arms, legs, and chest had been worked out with careful anatomical detail; his penis protruded before him like a spear, balls swaying below with every stride.
The man's face had been stained reddish-bronze, his eyes rimmed in black, his nose tip painted so that it appeared to spread across his face in an oddly bovine fashion. The enormous headgear he wore continued the illusion. Flaring ears and long bronze horns created the impression—even for Firekeeper, who usually saw reality and had difficulty seeing mere art—of a bipedal bull.
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