Wolf Justice

by Doranna Durgin

  Elstan snorted. “That imperative sounds like folly, my friend. What chance has a wrangler got against a wizard?”

  Reandn jerked his head to indicate the large lump of what had been a confident fighting man. “Same as I had against him, Elstan.” He tipped a finger at Elstan’s throat. “Wizards bleed — or don’t you remember?”

  Elstan batted at his hand. Reandn evaded the blow and recovered with his hand right where it had been; the wizard froze in consternation. “Think about it,” Reandn said, and went off to get his dinner.

  ~~~~~

  “I saw that,” Damen said, scrubbing a thick towel over his wet hair — thick and clean, and smelling of herbs. This inn would host their Resiore Highborn in style.

  Reandn immersed himself in the high-sided tub, scrubbing soap from his hair. When he emerged, snorting water out of his nose, Damen had planted one hand on the side of the tub, waiting. Reandn pushed water out of his eyes. “Saw what, in particular?”

  “What you did to Elstan.” Damen straightened and adjusted his slipping towel. His clothes, like Reandn’s, were draped over an elaborately carved mantle made from Resioran chokenut wood, drying by the fire. The rest of the room was just as lavish in its appointments, from the thick feather mattresses with their embroidered linens to the filigreed iron sconces holding lattice-windowed lanterns.

  A Wolfish wrangler could feel quite out of place.

  Reandn groped over the side of the hammered copper tub and found his own towel. “Nican’s going to have a nice cold bath if he doesn’t get himself back here.”

  Damen waved a hand. “Don’t you worry about Nicco. He’s building good cheer with the Locals somewhere, and enjoying himself doing it. We were talking about you.”

  “I thought we were talking about Elstan. I’ve plenty to say.”

  “I’m sure you do.” Damen’s tone was dry; he’d given upon the towel and was reaching for his clothes. Reandn stood and sluiced water off his body. “Hells,” Damen said. “That brute did get in a few good hits.”

  Reandn glanced at him; he’d said as much, after all. He simply hadn’t gone on about it. “I think we’re better off talking about the pass,” he said. “Before Elstan returns.” For the wizard had elected to pay for a separate bath out of his private purse, and waited in the dining area while the water heated. “He’s already enough of a problem; he’s only going to get worse if he has to listen to this.”

  Damen snorted, padding over to the plate of luxury fruit — unseasonable wizard-sent delicacies — as he fastened his belt. “You’ve already made it worse, threatening him like you did. Not,” he added, glancing over at Reandn, “that I blame you. No man should claim to strengths he doesn’t have, especially when the lives of others ride on it. We can only hope he’s as good with the rest of his magic as he seems to think he is.”

  Reandn waited where he was, with water from his hair dripping slowly down his back — knowing that wasn’t the end of it.

  Damen bit into a juicy apple. “Dan, I understand — but I can’t have it. You’re a good wrangler and I’m glad for it — but stay out of Elstan’s way. Come to me with it if he doesn’t shield you.”

  He should have acquiesced, acknowledging Damen’s command — acting like a wrangler and not like Wolf Remote. Wolf Remote who wants his patrol back. The best he could do was nod. “I hear you.”

  Damen looked at him for another long moment, the firelight licking at the edge of his crisp red hair so it looked red-hot. “Good. Your clothes are dry. Catch.”

  It could have been much worse; had he been in Damen’s position, it might well have been. He snatched his warm clothes out of the air and wasted no time donning them.

  “Now,” Damen said, and dropped a roll of supple leather to the low table that held the fruit. “About that pass.”

  Matter closed. For now. Reandn heard that, too.

  “There are two possible routes,” he said flattening the leather to display the rough map scribed there. “The short route is a rough climb; it can be done in a day but it’s better at one and a half. No one would be able to trail us without being seen, but the cart won’t make it up that way.” He drew a finger along the route in question — a squiggly line and a list of landmarks. “The longer route is easier, and if we leave now, we’ve got plenty of time to reach it before Kalena’s party. We’ve got to return the long way, regardless — Kalena probably won’t be able to handle the rough route. Going up that way would give you a chance to scout it.” He already knew the trouble spots, but that wouldn’t be enough for the Hounds.

  “I see,” Damen murmured, though none of it seemed to come as a surprise — and shouldn’t have. Testing his wrangler, he was. “Been thinking about this, have you?”

  “A wrangler,” Reandn told him, “is always thinking about the safest way to take his stock.” And grinned. Let Damen think of that what he might.

  ~~~~~

  Teya looked down the road to Pasdon; it had been easier than she’d ever expected to get this far. Easy to mislead Saxe, easy to use her field skills to find Reandn, easier than she’d ever expected to leave the school and strike out on her own.

  She’d started with the short coil of Reandn’s dark blond hair from her field kit — that same kit had once held hair from each of her pack members, packed in silk bags; now it held only the survivors’. As long she had the hair samples, she could locate those Wolves — and thanks to the finding spell she’d performed in her dormer room, she’d been able to start with a rough position.

  From there, she’d gone to Saxe — requesting to join his pending translocation to the Keep, where she could say goodbye to her remaining patrol mates now that she knew she wouldn’t be rejoining them. She’d give them Reandn’s message while she was at it, but Reandn didn’t need to know that.

  And he didn’t need to know that when she’d asked to borrow a sturdy Wolf remount pony for a ride, she’d meant a ride of quite some distance... to the pass and back, if she was right.

  But taking action — doing what should have been done in the first place — was one way of standing up to the Keep, to Saxe and Ethne and whoever else made the kinds of decisions that had so wracked their patrol this spring. It was her way of honoring the loyalty the Remote Wolves had for one another — and of honoring what Reandn — as frustrating as he was — could inspire in them.

  You were wrong, she told them firmly in her head — Saxe and Ethne and even the king. But she didn’t know that she’d ever have the nerve — or chance — to say it for real.

  ~~~~~

  Nican returned to the inn with chagrin on his face and bad news on his lips. “The Local wants us to stay until he gets an identity for the dead man,” he informed them, picking through the food that Elstan had brought back up to the room, his stomach growling more loudly than ever. “He wants to figure out the connection.”

  “I doubt he’s from around here,” Damen said, voicing Reandn’s thoughts. “Look, Nicco, did you tell him we’re on a schedule?”

  “Sure.” Nican shrugged. “But short of telling him what we’re doing here, he won’t be convinced of its importance. Besides, it’s just an excuse. He really wants to keep us until he confirms who we are. He’s pretty edgy — we’re lucky he didn’t come right out and detain us.”

  “Not many Hounds outside of the Keep,” Reandn said, his fingers busy at a lead rope splice. “If you were Wolves, now, you might have a chance.”

  Damen flicked his fingers at his own shoulder — where his worn Hound emblem proclaimed his status — and below it, where patterns of leather lace identified his rank. “How’s he think we came by these patches?”

  “Stole ’em,” Nican said, cheerfully enough, depositing cleaned rabbit bones back on the plate. “Not to worry. Don’t forget that the Keep just assigned this place a messenger mage. They’ll sort it out.”

  Reandn raised an eyebrow. “The Keep’s that worried about things near the pass?”

  “Not that you know about,” Damen
said, and left it at that. To Nican, he said, “Well, then, we ought to have this problem cleared up by tomorrow morning. We won’t lose that much time.”

  “‘Fraid it’s not that easy,” Nican wiped his greasy fingers on the inn’s finely woven linen napkin and left it crumpled by the food. “Messenger’s sick right now — running a fever, mumbling a lot. Not casting spells of any sort, that’s for sure. Local wants to know what’s our rush, anyway. I didn’t push — had the feeling it would only make things worse.”

  Damen grumbled something unintelligible, echoing Reandn’s own inner curse. “Nicco, you’re supposed to be able to charm your way out of anything. This is a fine time to lose your touch.”

  “Speaking of charm,” Elstan said, “I could try to —”

  “No!” the Hounds said in emphatic unison.

  Nican looked at his partner and shrugged. “If we run out of time, we leave.”

  “One more day,” Reandn said, “and the long way isn’t an option anymore. Three days, and we’ll have to push hard to make it the rough way. Even then, someone’ll have to take the cart around the long road.”

  “I’ll do it, if it comes to that,” Damen said. “Dan, you’ll take the short route; we want that palomino waiting for Kalena along with Nicco. Elstan will go with you.”

  “Makes more sense for me to take the remounts the long way,” Reandn said, more because he thought he ought to than because he wanted to. Given the choice, he wanted to be with Kalena’s party as soon as possible.

  “I suppose it does, to a wrangler,” Damen said, a note of apology in his voice. He scrubbed a hand down his short wiry beard. “But it’ll be bad enough not that we won’t have the extra supplies waiting for them, and only one of the Hound honor escorts.”

  Reandn shrugged, staying in wrangler-role. “It’s your call.”

  “Exactly.” Damen nodded. “All right then. We give the Local a few days if necessary, but then we leave. If we have to straighten things out on the way back through, so be it. Say, Nicco, now that I’m nice and clean, I can tell just how bad you stink.”

  Nican made a dramatically shocked face, and within moments the leftover food was flying while the wizard protested loudly and hastened to put himself out of the way. Reandn ducked a bone as it sailed by to land in the bath; before long Damen had Nican in the tub, clothes and all.

  Reandn grinned at them, but only until he realized how long it had been — how long since he and Saxe and Caleb had tackled one another in the ready room, wrestling across the benches until someone was laughing too hard to continue. Not just since he’d lost the remote, no — for the two years before, since he’d lost Adela and his position as Wolf First.

  His hands stilled on the complex weave of the splice. Things change.

  And then his thoughts crept back to the hot day he’d sneaked into Teayo’s sickroom with a bota full of cool well water and taken clear aim at the back of unsuspecting Kacey’s neck.

  The patients had cheered them from Kacey’s first outraged shriek — and of course she’d retaliated with nothing less than her usual spirit. Still... not the same as being with a bunch of rowdy Wolves. No. Not the same at all.

  Reandn went back to splicing his rope, but the images persisted.

  ~~~~~

  The following day, Reandn — with patience that Saxe would have applauded — sat in the Local post and recounted what he remembered from the attack. Once, twice, three times, he went over the moments of the fight, shifting to ease the throb of his bruises — until finally that patience frayed just a tad and he asked his own questions.

  The Local, an older man with a larger force under his command than the size of the town seemed to merit, readily admitted that he couldn’t fault Reandn for defending himself — and he’d found no discrepancies in the facts he’d gathered. “Doesn’t mean there’s not something going on here that I maybe ought to know about,” he told Reandn. “I’ve been at this job too long to ignore my gut when it tells me that’s so. And if it is, you’d best come right out and tell me, because if I find out about it on my own, I won’t be happy. Believe me, you’ll know it.”

  Reandn liked him. But all he could do was shake his head, and eventually the man made a noise of disgust and turned him loose.

  He knew the Local’s frustration. His own gut feelings — the hunches that had saved his life more than once and usually meant trouble for everyone — were unhappily bumping into each other. Even if the wizard and his muscle had somehow known Kalena was on her way — and Reandn figured that information was easier to get on the Resiore end of things — how had they found her intended escort so quickly after their arrival in Pasdon? Two Hound uniforms meant they were hardly incognito, but to have been accosted so quickly meant that someone was spending far too much time and energy looking for an escort in the first place.

  The Hounds, he suspected, had already discussed this question between them, and had rightly not considered that their wrangler would have any need to participate. In fact, he didn’t even know what Damen and Nican were up to. He’d see if they were at the inn, he decided, and then take one of the remounts out for a quick ride through the area — a one-Wolf patrol.

  Just outside the inn, the ongoing background currents of magic made way for the louder tone of a spell in progress, one flavored with the discordant feel of Elstan’s magic. Reandn paused there, grasping for reason. Elstan could hardly be expected to shield him from magic when the wizard didn’t even know he was within reach of it, but goddess damn, he was already weary of dealing with this man and his magic.

  After a moment he realized his thoughts must be showing on his face, as yet another inn patron hesitated at the open door and then quickly ducked inside. Consciously, he shook the Wolf out of his posture. He was here to find the Hounds, and that was all; no true wrangler would head out for several hours without checking in.

  All the same, he had to stop outside the shared room, swallowing hard against the magic before he entered. Elstan sat cross-legged on one of the several beds, his eyes closed; he muttered words in a conversational pattern. As Reandn closed the door behind him, the wizard’s voice grew louder. “Of course the Local is suspicious! After the way that wrangler killed —”

  Reandn thought it was time to clear his throat.

  Elstan stiffened in response, his eyes flying open. His fingers clenched in a quick, spastic gesture, and the flow of magic abruptly vanished. “How dare you sneak in on me!” he said, sputtering the words.

  “You should lock the door if you don’t want people coming in while you’re not paying attention,” Reandn said. “What was that all about?”

  “I don’t report to you, wrangler.”

  Reandn said nothing.

  Elstan shook his head, and his clearly defined lips thinned. “I was checking in with the Keep, as is my job, and I imagine that if you bother the Hounds about it, you’ll learn that they asked me to attend to it promptly because of last night’s encounter.”

  Reandn leaned back against the closed door, considering the wizard for a moment. Elstan’s flushed face, pale around his mouth and eyes, becried more than simple anger. All the same, he didn’t imagine that the wizard was particularly adept at a cunning lie. So he merely said, “As long as my neck is in danger along with yours, Keep business is my business.”

  Elstan jabbed his finger toward the door. “I’ve got work to do — get out!”

  Out, Reandn had been told, and out was where he intended to go. He gave Elstan a dryly executed salute — the more common Dragon salute, which was a touch to his right shoulder to indicate his weapons and his ability to wield them were at Elstan’s disposal — and left the room.

  He had, he decided, thinking of Elstan’s harried expression, a lot to think about.

  ~~~~~

  They waited as long as they could, and then prepared to go. The livery owner had been instructed by Locals to hold their stock, but Nican cheerfully bribed him to take in a leisurely morning meal, during which they w
ere left alone with the horses, cart, and mule.

  Reandn unknotted the rawhide lacing that wound through the thin braid in the bell mare’s tail, taking a dozen chiming bells with it. The other horses would be hobbled at night now, instead foraging freely with the mare’s familiar bells keeping them close. Just her presence, tied at camp, would be enough to keep the little herd from testing the limits of hobbled travel.

  “Ah,” Nican said, joining him at the town corral beyond which sat their cart, loaded and ready to go, the mule looking bored in its harness. “Just on my way to ask you to do that. Last thing we need when trying to be inconspicuous in the pass, ey?”

  With traces of snow left on the muddy roads and the pass just barely open, the road hadn’t been hard to read during Reandn’s excursions. A few hardy souls had been through, but not many, and no one had tracked into the sparse woods around the base of the roads.

  The rocky incline of the short road, with its abrupt and steep twists, would be almost impossible to read for sign as they traveled, not wihtout taking time they didn’t have. The trees at its base quickly gave way to sparse, hardy foliage, bushes that could grow from a crack in vertical rock. Leafless at this time of year, they would offer no cover.

  The long road wound lazy zig-zags amid the widely spaced conifers, and Reandn had examined it as far as he could, finding nothing of alarm. If the wizard had men lurking, there wasn’t any sign of it.

  Or else they were damn good, and in that case, Kalena and the escort could find themselves in real trouble.

  Reandn hefted the string of bells and said, “I’d almost feel better if we’d found some sign.”

  “You figure if you didn’t find anything, then neither did we?” Nican didn’t seem to take any offense at it, just a certain amount of amusement. The Hounds, too, had checked the roads, riding out the day after Reandn, both impatient as their travel time shrank.