He risked a glance. Not three feet in front of him stood a large, cinnamon colored dog. The creature stood about two-thirds the height of a wolf. Its dark nose sniffed delicately. Char stood paralyzed, unable to take his eyes off the animal. He knew what it was: an anduin hound, bred on the estate of his Lordship, Daren of Anroth. The breed, said to be a cross between wolves and the wild desert dogs, had been created by the house of Anroth hundreds of years ago and honed for generations. It was the source of Char’s tattoo—Daren’s chosen sigil.
A shadow fell across the dog’s back. “Come Doega. You must allow the slaves to work. Are you hungry, my friend?”
Char trembled as the hound drew closer. He dropped his gaze, felt its hot breath on his cheek. A black-gloved hand moved into his line of sight, holding a morsel of red meat. The hound took it with its tongue and moved away. Char let out his breath slowly. His hands felt moist as he clutched the handles of the cart.
Suddenly a fierce baying erupted. This time Char was startled enough to turn around. The hound had left its master’s side and was circling the cart. In one bound it leapt atop the pile of loose rock and began to dig. Char felt suddenly cold.
“Doega!” snapped the voice. For the first time that day Char turned to look at Daren. The royal consort stood in the center of the path, a trim figure immaculate in his pale blue tunic and black cape. His black hair swept back from his high forehead, close-cut in the habit of swamp fauns. He came over to the cart and put his black-gloved hands on the edge, watching his dog.
“You,” called Daren to one of the overseers. “What’s this?”
The overseer glanced at the pass card in Char’s hand. “Suspected gem stones, sir.”
“Mmm...” Daren ran a finger through the debris. “Empty it.”
“Yes, your lordship.” He turned to Char. “You heard him! Dump it!”
With trembling hands, Char struggled out of his harness and went to the back of the cart. He tried to think what to do, but his mind was a blank of terror. He slid the bolt, and the cart bed opened, loose rock spewing onto the planks. A flash of color caught Daren’s attention. His dog saw it too, darted forward, and came up with a struggling mass of fur and skin.
Daren spoke, “Drop it.”
His dog growled, its yellow eyes wild. Daren whipped his sword from its sheath and struck the hound across the top of the head with the flat of his blade. “DROP IT!” The dog yelped and released his catch. Daren raised the sword again. The blade was peculiar—a scimitar with a lobe-shaped piece cut out, giving it a fang-like appearance. The dog went down on its belly at his feet. Daren stared at it for a moment, then sheathed his weapon.
Char shut his eyes. At Daren’s feet lay a girl shelt, tears of fright mingling with the grime on her face. She wore a ragged shirt, colorless with dirt. Her fur and hair might have been white.
Daren looked at the overseer. “What is this?”
The overseer fidgeted. “It appears to be a girl, sir.”
Daren sneered. “’It appears to be a girl, sir.’ I can see why you’re still working traffic. Cart-puller, come here.” Char could not move. Two guards stepped forward, took him by both arms, and dragged him before Daren. “Why was this creature hiding in your cart?”
Char gulped. He opened his mouth, but no sound came.
Daren turned and prodded the female with his hoof. “On your feet.” She obeyed shakily. “Now clean up this mess. You over there, give her a shovel.”
The girl tried, but at the first step her lips parted in a gasp of pain. She hobbled forward, favoring one leg. Daren knelt and felt the leg. “It’s broken. She’s useless.”
Char found his voice at last. “She broke it in the mine! She was following orders, and a section of the roof gave way. It won’t take long to heal. She’s a very good worker. Just let her rest a few days, and she’ll work harder than anyone!”
“Yes!” interjected the girl. “I work hard. Please give me a few days. You won’t be sorry.”
“That leg won’t heal before mid-winter,” murmured Daren as he crouched next to the trembling girl. He ran a hand over her dirty fur, then snapped his fingers. “Water!” Someone jumped forward with a bucket, and Daren doused her with it. He stood back, examining the dripping results. The girl’s fur and hair were now a pale cream. She had a pattern of leopard-like spots, broken only on one flank by a mark that looked like a bull’s eye. Like Char, she had a dog-shaped tattoo. “Beautiful! Really lovely,” said Daren. “Take her to block seventeen.”
“NO!” Char leapt against the fauns. His sudden courage took them by surprise, and he slipped loose. Char ripped the sword from the sheath of one guard and stabbed the other. Suddenly everything was noise and blood. Fauns tried to pin him, but Char was not finished. With strength forged in a lifetime of hard labor, he charged through the guards, knocking them aside like toys, and lunged at Daren. The royal consort watched the scene calmly and drew his sword as the slave charged. For a few seconds Daren parried the onslaught. Then he turned his sword at an angle, allowing Char’s weapon to enter the hole in the steel. He wrenched his sword to the side, jerking Char’s blade from his hands and sending it soaring into the undergrowth.
Char stood blinking, weaponless. Then the soldiers swarmed forward and bound him. Char did not struggle. As suddenly as it had come, the rage went out of him, leaving him cold and frightened. He watched as they tossed the girl into a cart headed in the right direction.
“Who was she?”
Char dragged his eyes back to Daren. He had nothing left to lose. “My sister. Her name is Gleam.” His own voice sounded tiny in his ears.
Daren nodded to an overseer, who raised his short lash and began whipping Char in the manner of a mildly bored professional. Daren continued speaking softly. “How long do you think you could have hidden her? Ninety days until that leg healed? Impossible. In the end all of your risks are for nothing, and you share in her fate. You would have done better to obey our rules and turn her over to the guards. Do you think slaves can outwit their masters?”
Char did not answer. He felt the whip, but his mind was on the sword. Where will he strike? How long will he play with me?
Daren took a couple of steps back and forth. Blood trickled down Char’s back and dribbled onto the wood. “So you will cut me to pieces? You do not have intelligence, yet you have courage—a rare thing in a race of groveling cowards. Tell me...did you really think that you could kill me?”
Char met his gaze, and for a moment his fear left him. “I didn’t think. I knew.”
Char expected Daren to kill him then, but the swamp faun only smiled. When the earth was beginning to swim before Char’s eyes, Daren held up his hand. “Enough.” The whipping stopped, and the slave swayed on his feet. Daren reached out to steady him with the tip of his sword. “Take him to block eleven,” he said to one of the guards.
“But, sir, he’s killed a guard!”
Daren raised an eyebrow. “Do you think yourself more expensive than a mine slave?”
Char did not hear what the guard replied. He could hardly believe what Daren had said. He’ll not kill me immediately? What is he planning? Char raised his eyes again as the fauns fitted a noose around his neck and fastened a restraint on his feet.
“What do they call you?” asked Daren.
“Char.”
“Well, Char.” Daren’s sword flicked out like a snake’s tongue and left a line of blood on Char’s cheek. “We’ll meet again. Try not to be so stupid next time.”
Chapter 2. Laylan’s Success
My nemesis seems to hold a peculiar power over everything that he touches. First Meuril, now Capricia!
—journal of Syrill of Undrun, 43rd day of summer, 1700
“Poor Syrill.” Corry glanced at Capricia, who stood frowning at the floor. “Did you hear what I said about the centaur?”
She nodded.
“Do you believe me?”
“I don’t know. Why didn’t you tell me you could shift?”
“Because I didn’t know! I shifted in front of the Raiders because I was frightened. Syrill should never have told you; he promised he wouldn’t.” Before she could respond, Corry said, “What did Syrill mean: ‘This is about Natalia’?”
Capricia’s eyes flickered away. “My mother.”
“And why would the treaty with the cats have anything to do with your mother?”
Capricia sighed. “She was killed by wolflings, Corry...shortly before Sardor-de-lor fell to Demitri. That’s part of the reason father would never do anything to help them.”
“I’m sorry.”
To his surprise, Capricia laughed. “You’re sorry for me?” Before he could answer, she turned and left the archer’s box. “I believe you. I have to go now.”
* * * *
True to their former agreement, Capricia found employment for Corry as a royal clerk, an occupation he discovered he enjoyed, because it gave him access to the royal library. Unfortunately, the publicly available texts only went back about five hundred years, and Corry wanted to look into the more distant past. Capricia, however, said that most of her books in the old picture language had been burned the day he disappeared, and she would not let him view the salvage from the fire. Capricia herself spent little time in her study these days. Her efforts seemed all consumed in the tasks of the new Filinian alliance, in the political maneuvering between her father and Lexis as they worked out the practical details of splitting the former wolfling kingdom between them. Capricia spoke to Corry more and more rarely as he settled into his life at court, and there were times when he even fancied she was still angry with him.
However, Capricia’s coolness towards Corry was nothing compared with Syrill’s attitude towards the new Filinian alliance. He fumed. He raged. He argued. Corry concluded that Meuril must be either very fond of Syrill indeed, or else he felt at least a little guilty about the circumstances of the Filinian treaty, for his patience seemed out of all proportion to Syrill’s worth to the kingdom. Laven-lay was not a big or formal place, and in time of peace, the city had no standing army. Syrill was nominally the captain of the castle guard, but he was so unfailingly rude to feline emissaries that Meuril did not encourage him to fill his role at political functions, and Syrill often did not volunteer.
For better or for worse, cats were becoming more and more common in Laven-lay. Corry saw them drifting in and out of the castle, and the feel of their eyes on him made his skin prickle. Lexis himself visited Laven-lay several times and stayed once for an entire red month.
He seemed to take a special interest in Capricia. One evening Corry was crossing a courtyard, when he saw the graceful bulk of the tiger approaching along the parapet above and to his right. A shelt was standing there, watching the sunset. Not until she turned her head, did Corry recognize Capricia. Curious, he backed into the shadow of the walkway and placed both hands on the wall. Their voices should have been inaudible at that distance, but contact with the stone brought them into sharp focus for Corry.
“Something troubles you, Highness.”
“Trouble is in the air, Lexis.”
“Do you discuss your troubles?”
“No.”
“Monsters grow largest when hidden.”
“Not my monsters.”
A soft laugh. “Do you keep them on leashes, then? Personal pets? I hope that tigers are not among them.”
Capricia’s rare laugh broke the evening’s quiet. “No tigers, Lexis.”
“Would you walk with one then? I am excellent protection against monsters.”
“Yes. I will walk with you.”
“Perhaps even talk?”
“Perhaps.”
Their voices grew fainter as they moved away, and Corry did not try to follow them. He had an idea that Capricia’s “monsters” had something to do with him, and he was vaguely affronted that she would choose a recent enemy as a confidant.
Capricia’s new confidence in Lexis was not lost on Syrill. He began disappearing for long periods into the forest. It was after one of Syrill’s prolonged absences in early winter that Corry woke to a bustle of excitement in the castle. The servant who usually brought his breakfast was late, and Corry could hear shelts whispering as they passed in the hall. He left his rooms early and went to the scriptorium, but he found only a half dozen of the usual thirty plus clerks.
“What’s happened?” asked Corry, approaching the conspiratory knot by the fire.
Several excited voices answered him at once. Corry caught the word “hanging.” “Whose hanging?”
“Sham Ausla.”
Corry was surprised. “The Raider? Fenrah’s cousin?”
“The same,” said the eldest scribe. “Laylan caught him in a trap and brought him here last night. Chance came thundering in this morning.”
“Does Fenrah know?” asked Corry.
Several fauns shrugged. “They say Sham was alone when Laylan took him, and the trap was drugged, so there was no struggle. Laven-lay was closer than Danda-lay.”
“Chance wanted to take the villain to Danda-lay and make the execution a big affair,” said another, “but Laylan says trying to take Sham through the forest would be as good as releasing him, so Chance agreed to have the execution here. Cliff fauns have been working on the scaffold since before dawn! There’s to be a great spectacle.”
Another faun harrumphed. “This will be bad for us if Fenrah retaliates.”
The elder scribe nodded. “I heard that Laylan advised against the show, but Chance is determined to make it public, since he feels the Raiders humiliated him publicly.”
Someone drew a delicate breath. “I heard Jubal came, and Shadock didn’t.”
Corry looked from one face to another. “Who’s Jubal?”
“You don’t know?” asked someone, but another held up a hand.
“He hasn’t been here long enough.”
“It’s an old scandal,” began the eldest scribe. He hadn’t laughed with the others. “And an unproven one. No need to keep blackening the prince’s name after all these years.”
“Prince?” mocked one fauness. “You mean, might-be-prince?”
The older faun shot the others a reproving glare, but they continued anyway. “The cliff faun queen, Istra, didn’t approve of her lord’s treatment of the wolflings, said it was immoral how no one came to their rescue when the cats took Sardor-de-lor. Some of the royal advisors sided with the king, some with the queen. The court in Danda-lay was almost split over it. Rumor has it that she took refuge in the arms of a sympathetic young officer of the guard, Jubal.”
“Pure conjecture,” interrupted the old clerk.
“Barely!” exclaimed someone else. “Rumor is, they’re still lovers. Everyone knows the king and queen haven’t shared the same bed in years.”
“Court gossip,” muttered the elder scribe, but all the others were nodding.
“I don’t see what this has to do with Chance,” said Corry.
“Doesn’t his name say it all? That’s what Shadock called him, anyway. Good chance he’s not even of royal blood. Many say he’s Jubal’s get.”
“Apparently there’s also a chance that he isn’t,” said someone else. “If Shadock knew the child could not be his, surely he would have had the queen banished and Jubal hung. But apparently, there was some doubt. Shadock really can’t do anything without making the situation look worse than it already does. Cliff fauns put considerable stock in appearances.”
“And Jubal has come to the hanging?” asked Corry.
“Yes, leading a mob of cliff fauns. Meuril wants armed support. He’s afraid of what Fenrah might do to Laven-lay in revenge.”
Corry had a sudden thought. “Do you know where they’re keeping Sham?”
Chapter 3. Interrogation
If you wish to discover the what of a creature, find out what he lives for. To know the who, you must discover what he would die for.
—Archemais, Treason and Truth
As he left t
he scriptorium, Corry almost ran into Syrill. “I haven’t seen you in a yellow month, Syrill.”
Syrill offered no greeting and didn’t slow down. “I don’t know what Meuril is thinking to let Chance execute Sham here.”
Corry fell into step beside him. “Do you think I could talk to Sham? I want to ask him what I looked like when I shifted.”
Syrill snorted. “I doubt Chance’s interrogation will leave him in a chatty mood, Corellian.” He continued to mutter as they passed to ever lower levels of the castle. A torch was always kept burning at the entrance to the dungeons. Syrill took a cold brand from a bracket, lit it, and they started down the steps. A rat scurried at the edge of their pool of light, its claws hissing over the stone. At last they came to a metal-banded door with a sentry, who took one look at Syrill and opened to them.
Corry surveyed the low-ceiling room. The air held a trace of sewer smells. Meuril and Chance were conversing at the far end before a huge, cold fireplace. They turned as the door opened. “Syrill.” Meuril looked him up and down. “Home for a visit?”
“Where is he?” demanded Syrill.
“In a cell, still unconscious.”
“Fenrah will want revenge.” Syrill glanced at Chance. “No offense, but this isn’t Laven-lay’s quarrel.”
Meuril shook his head. “Not Laven-lay’s quarrel? Syrill, they took you hostage just last summer!”
Syrill opened his mouth to argue, but Meuril held up a hand. “Chance and I have been discussing cliff faun additions to our defenses.”
As Corry moved closer, he saw Chance’s face in the torchlight, exultant. He clasped his hands behind his back. “I am already having the city watched, and more soldiers are arriving every minute. Laven-lay is safe, Syrill.”
At that moment, the door opened to admit Laylan. “You asked me to get you when the drug wore off,” he said to Chance. “He’s awake.”
The Prophet of Panamindorah - Complete Trilogy Page 10