Dragonshadow

by Elle Katharine White

  “Master Trennan did say he thought something followed him,” I said.

  “And if it is the same killer, khela, then it cannot be a land-bound creature,” Akarra said.

  A new shadow fell over Alastair’s features. It was fleeting, just a slight widening of his eyes, but I recognized it. Fear. I felt it too, like a trickle of ice water down the small of my back. If Akarra was right, this changed everything. The creature we came to hunt was now hunting us. I looked again at the will-o’-the-wisp. Taunting us, more like.

  I thought of the feathery voices and the creaking roof at Widdermere Marsh Hall. Quickly as I could I told Alastair and Akarra what I’d heard, leaving out nothing but the impossible. In my memory, the second voice no longer sounded like Wydrick.

  “You’re sure it was a valkyrie?” Alastair asked when I’d finished. Whether consciously or unconsciously his hand had moved to his sword hilt.

  “No, I’m not sure, but it called the valkyries of the harbinger that attacked you its children. And the nixies I trapped said something about”—I racked my mind—“a creature called Haark. It was something old and wise and had united the Tekari of the Marshes.”

  “United them against who?” Akarra asked.

  “Who else?” I stared down at the mutilated body at our feet. “Us.”

  “Not the Idar?”

  For that I had no answer.

  “Come,” said Alastair after a dark silence. “We need to keep moving. No matter where this monster is, it’s our duty to deliver its head to Lord Selwyn. But”—he touched my shoulder—“I won’t start the hunt until you’re safe in the castle—Aliza?”

  Dimly I heard him, but I could not bring myself to move, or to look away from the will-o’-the-wisp. “Akarra, can you burn him?” I whispered.

  “I’m sorry, Aliza. Will-o’-the-wisps are water-born. Dragonfire would only make things messy.”

  “Then I want to bury him.”

  “We don’t have time,” Alastair said, not unkindly. “It’s not safe here.”

  “It’s not safe anywhere anymore.” I raised my gaze to meet his. “Besides, you gave the troll and centaur a pyre. This creature . . . I can’t just leave him here.”

  “Aliza—”

  “Please. It won’t take long.”

  He looked at Akarra, but she was busy scanning the sky. He rubbed his forehead, leaving a streak of marsh mud along his temple. In different circumstances the sight would’ve made me smile, but now was no time for that. “Fine. But quickly.”

  He stowed the remains of our lunch while I set about giving the creature a decent burial. With nothing to dig with except my hands, I could only carve out a shallow hole on the bank of the marsh pool. Flies buzzed around my head as I worked. There were no stones for a cairn, only more mud. I smoothed a mound over its body and tried not to think of the pointlessness of it all. Giving the will-o’-the-wisp a grave hadn’t stopped whatever creature had killed it, but I felt a little better knowing that small body, still so like Tobble in my mind’s eye, wouldn’t be left to rot out under the sun.

  I stooped to wash my hands on the far side of the pool where the film of silver blood had not yet spread over the surface of the water. As I shook my hands dry, a reflection rippled out from the opposite bank. I looked up, and my heart skipped a beat.

  A centaur stood at the edge of the pool, a crossbow the size of a small sapling in his hand, an iron-tipped bolt on the string and aimed at my head.

  Alastair and Akarra saw it at the same moment. Akarra snarled and leapt into the water between us, teeth and talons bared. Alastair snatched my arm and dragged me away from the water. The centaur said something in Cymrog and Akarra replied in the same language. He lowered his crossbow.

  “What does he want?” Alastair asked.

  “He said Aliza buried the hwooghre,” Akarra said carefully. “The will-o’-the-wisp. He wants to know why.”

  “Tell him . . .” Tell him it looked like my friend? Tell him it was human pity, far too little and long too late? Tell him it was a nakla’s desperate attempt not to feel useless? “Tell him it was the right thing to do,” I said.

  There was a long silence after Akarra translated. Over her wing I watched the centaur’s long, gaunt face, wishing I better understood their physiognomy. His expression was impossible to read. At last he said a few words in Cymrog, punctuated with a stamp of his rear hoof.

  “He wants to speak with you, Aliza.”

  “What?” Alastair and I said together.

  “And only you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you’re the first nakla he’s seen in years and he wants to ask you something.”

  “He can ask her now,” Alastair growled. “Through you. From over there.”

  I pushed his hand away from his sword. “If he’ll leave his crossbow there and come to us, I’ll talk to him.”

  “This is not the time,” Alastair argued.

  “Two minutes. I want to know what he has to say,” I said firmly. Akarra didn’t wait for him to agree before translating my request. In truth the idea terrified me, but my curiosity was stronger. The fact that he hadn’t killed us on sight meant he was curious too. “He might know something about what’s killing Idar, Alastair. And look, he’s leaving the bow.”

  Without taking his eyes from Akarra the centaur knelt on his foreknees and placed the crossbow on the ground. He rose slowly and waded into the pool, hands raised. The water came up to his hocks, staining his mottled legs with the greenish tinge of waterweed.

  “Khera, I won’t leave you alone with him,” Alastair whispered.

  “Good, because I’d rather not be left alone with him, but please at least pretend you’re not contemplating taking his head at the first opportunity.”

  “I make no promises,” he muttered.

  The centaur reached the bank, stepping carefully around the will-o’-the-wisp’s grave. Water streamed down his legs and filled his hoofprints as he came toward us. He lowered his hands and said in heavily accented Arlean, “Lady.”

  “You wanted to speak to me?”

  “I’ll say nothing in the hearing of the hwe-ha-drach or his drachgma.”

  I pointed to the nearest hill. “Will you talk there?”

  “If the hwe-ha-drach stays here.”

  “If I must,” Alastair said after a pause. “But you will not touch her, centaur,” he said as we passed. “Do you understand?”

  The centaur walked past him as if he hadn’t heard.

  I followed him toward the grassy knoll I’d chosen. It was within sight of Alastair and Akarra, if not quite within earshot. “What did you want to ask me?”

  “Your kindness to the little water-runner was too late. Late, but not in vain.” He turned suddenly and studied me with eyes the color of dead leaves. “The hwooghre are not friendly to your race.”

  “Will-o’-the-wisps don’t hunt humans. They’re not our enemies.”

  “Am I your enemy, Lady?”

  “That’s up to you.”

  Again his front hoof pawed the ground. “How do you find yourself in the company of a hwe-ha-drach?”

  “If you mean the man, he’s my husband.”

  “Then that belongs to him, yes?” He stretched one long-nailed finger to the heartstone brooch I wore.

  I looked down in surprise. “Aye. He gave it to me, but—”

  “And you gave yours to him?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you carve your ghuach-hwel from the heart of a friend or an enemy?”

  I frowned, sifting his words for every possible meaning and finding only dangerous answers. “Mine was a gift. And what do you mean, from the heart of a friend?”

  He peered at me. “Is this willful ignorance, Lady, or do you truly not know? Your people must have realized by now that the Tekari aren’t the only creatures that bear inside them your precious hearts of bloodstone.”

  I didn’t know what to say. No Arlean would ever dream of wearing the heartstone of
a Shani, even if that Shani had died a natural death, but how could I explain that to a centaur, particularly as most lithosmiths were happy to sell Idar heartstones, centaurs’ among them?

  “You humans wear proudly that which you know nothing about. I don’t understand it. I never have.” He shook his head. “Explain this to me. You, who are no bloodstained Rider, tell me why you hold to this custom. Why do you treasure the sign of slaughter? Why do you keep death so close to your hearts?”

  “It’s . . . tradition,” I said, realizing as I did that it was no answer.

  He snorted again. “Be cautious, mate of the hwe-ha-drach. Thoughtless traditions can breed subtle evils, and where death is honored more death will follow.” He turned and began walking down the far side of the hummock. “If you cannot answer my question, I have nothing more to say to you.”

  “Wait!” The other centaur’s words burned in my mind, now underlined in the silver blood of a will-o’-the-wisp. “This was something old, old, so old it has no name in your tongue or mine . . .” I scrambled after him, slipped on a patch of mud, and slid to a halt only a foot from his front hooves. “Centaur, wait,” I panted.

  He stopped and looked down with an expression of frank disdain. “I am called Qiryn.”

  “Qiryn, then. The will-o’-the-wisp. Do you know what killed it?”

  “I don’t know who would kill a hwooghre and I don’t care. It was cruel and thoughtless, but the water-runners are not of my blood. Its life was not mine to guard.” He turned to go.

  “The same creature killed a centaur on the other side of the marsh.”

  “What?”

  “At the troll bridge. It killed the troll and cut out its heart, then shot a centaur and left her for dead.” I didn’t add that Alastair was the one to deliver the actual deathblow. “We think the same thing that killed—”

  He spun to face me. “Her name! Did she tell you her name?”

  “No.”

  “What did she look like?”

  “She was chestnut, and she had a white patch on her chest.” I touched my lower stomach. “Here. Shaped like a bell.”

  Qiryn threw back his head and reared, uttering a wordless cry. He came down hard, clutching his horns in his hands. “Ah, Cyrsha! Nymmer-hwi mhel ghoorha!” he moaned in Cymrog. “You saw her die, Lady? Without a doubt, Cyrsha is dead?”

  I nodded.

  “Ach!”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “We gave her a pyre.”

  Qiryn’s sides heaved. “Then you did her honor, human though you are. We’ll not forget it, but now you must go. Leave the marshes, you and your mate and your drachgma. The Cymroi are going hunting, and when we hunt, even a drachgma will not wish to be in our way. We will find this thing that killed Cyrsha and the hwooghre and the stone-son and its broken body will feed the carrion birds for weeks to come.” He looked up. “Leave this place, Lady. Go. Now!”

  With that he galloped down the opposite side of the hill, bellowing a summons in Cymrog that made my blood tingle and the hair stand up on the back of my neck. I hurried down the slope.

  “What happened? Where is he going?” Alastair asked. One of Akarra’s wingtips rested on his shoulder. I wondered how long she’d been holding him back.

  “I told him about what we found at the troll bridge. He’s marshaling the rest of the centaurs to hunt down whatever killed her.” The fear I hadn’t realized I’d been suppressing gave me the strength to vault onto Akarra’s back faster than I ever had before, dragging Alastair up after me. “We need to get out of here.”

  That fear condensed as we flew, hardening into a knot in the pit of my stomach. Every few minutes I found myself searching the sky for some sign of the monster following us: dark wings with blood-encrusted feathers, or shadows like a shell hiding something long dead, or some other terrible monster I as yet had no notion of. But the sky stayed clear and bright. Hours passed and we didn’t see anything larger than a sparrow. Gradually my fear settled, Alastair’s arms around me an anchor to everything safe and sane and good amid the madness of the marshes.

  As the sun started lengthening behind us we caught our first glimpse of the eastern mountains. Not long after their gray peaks came into view Akarra turned north, flying parallel to the mountains for several hours before nosing east again. Foothills rose beneath us. Dark firs covered the craggy slopes, casting long shadows onto the cliffs to our right.

  “There’s a town up ahead,” Akarra shouted a few minutes later. The tip of her tail skimmed the tops of the trees, sending needles flying in our wake. “Looks big enough to spend the night.” No sooner had she said it than we passed through a clearing and saw for ourselves. It was a large town, well situated at the top of a hill and encircled by a massive stone wall. Thatched and gabled roofs peeped over the edge of the wall. Lykaina.

  Movement from the ground caught my eye and I gasped. “Alastair, look.”

  His grip tightened around my waist. “I know.”

  A pack of wolves ran below us, leaping over fallen tree trunks and hurtling over boulders like a silent gray wave. The smallest was the size of Lord Merybourne’s prize sighthound. The largest was the size of a mule.

  “Akarra,” he said, “we’re being tracked.”

  She banked west. I doubled over the saddlebow as she caught an updraft and climbed, following the curve of the hill toward the town. The pack bounded after us with preternatural speed, their howls growing frantic as we drew closer to the wall. And then they weren’t wolves anymore. I nearly lost my seat from surprise as the first creature in the pack leapt into the air, its body writhing, and fell back to the ground on two human legs. With a loping gait it closed the distance between us as Akarra’s claws touched the top of the wall.

  “Hoooo there!” he howled up. Fine gray hair covered him from foot to forehead, and though he looked human enough from a distance, he had a little too much jaw and a few too many fangs to be mistaken for one up close.

  “Wulvers are Shani, aren’t they?” I asked Alastair in a whisper.

  “So they say.”

  The wulver below stared up at us with unblinking silver-gray eyes, his hands and the claws that came with them resting on the wall. The rest of the pack gathered around their leader in their wolf-forms, tongues lolling from their mouths, watching us with heads cocked to one side.

  Akarra spread her wings to keep her balance. “What do you want, wulver?”

  “The gate is that w-w-way,” he said, pointing south. A doggish growl accented his w’s. “W-what are you doing up there?”

  “I don’t like being followed,” she snarled.

  “But w-we come to w-welcome you! W-welcome, w-w-w-welcome!” he cried, and the rest of the howling joined in, leaping and yipping their greeting in Lyka.

  Akarra looked over her shoulder. “I’d rather land at the gate than try to find an empty street.”

  “Fine,” Alastair said. “Just—don’t turn your back on them, all right?”

  She sailed off the top of the wall. The howling followed us around the edge of town to the place where the gate stood shut and barred, but the first wulver bounded forward before we could fly away, holding out a hairy hand. “W-wait!” He lifted a silver chain from around his neck and fitted the key it held to the lock on the sally port. “W-wulvers always guard the gates of w-wolf towns.”

  We slid from Akarra’s back and collected our panniers as the wulver unlocked the smaller door left of the main gate. Alastair watched him with narrowed eyes, one hand near his sword.

  “Good lodging at the W-Wolf’s Bane,” the wulver said. “Best not be outside the w-walls after dark.” He glanced at Akarra, who was studying the crags east of the town. “The direwolf packs w-will find you.”

  “Akarra?” Alastair said when she didn’t turn.

  “Hm?”

  “I think he means you.”

  She grunted. “I’ll see if the cantor has room in the abbey garden. Sleep well, khela, Aliza. Look for me in the morning.”

&nb
sp; The wulver watched, his wolfish jaw slack with admiration as she leapt into the air and soared over the wall. We bid him and the rest of the howling an awkward goodnight and entered Lykaina. The sally port thudded shut behind us.

  A wooden direwolf sat on proud haunches next to the door of the inn called the Wolf’s Bane, snarling its welcome to travelers. Inside was clean and spacious, or would have been, if it hadn’t doubled as the local tavern. Half the town crowded into its front parlor. Several took note of our clothes and Alastair’s weapons and hurried to introduce themselves, bowing and claiming a blood relation to one famous family of Riders or another. Most seemed under the impression that Alastair knew every Rider in the kingdom, and several were disappointed when he told them, with little attempt at courtesy, that he had no idea who the Brothers Browbeard were, that no, he’d never heard of a Rider from Lesser Eastwich called Corryn Trenowyth, and could someone please direct us to the innkeeper?

  When we at last tracked the innkeeper down, it took almost ten minutes to draw him out of his game of ninechess, and another fifteen minutes as the servants prepared the room and we were able to shut ourselves away from the noise and crowd. Tucked away at the end of a narrow hall on the third floor of the inn, the room made up for a sloping ceiling and stuffy furnishings with a goose-down bed, a fire crackling in the grate, and—thank the gods—a freshly filled bath.

  It was glorious to wash away the mud and stink and fear of the marshes, the warmth of the water loosening the knot in my stomach even as it loosened the knots in my muscles. Alastair took his turn in the tub as I dressed. Steam wreathed his face and the water lapped the welts on his chest. When I said I would go find some food, he mumbled something I interpreted as agreement and sank up to his chin in the water with a groan, rubbing his right shoulder.

  The common room was even busier than before. I couldn’t find the innkeeper at all, but on hearing my interest in dinner a serving girl directed me to the back of the inn. “Kitchen’s back that way, miss. Cook’ll set you up with a tray if you can pay.”

  The cook was happy to part with two bowls of jackrabbit stew and a loaf of raisin bread for a few copper half-trills, but there her hospitality ended. Wine or beer wasn’t to be had unless we were the magistrate or town cantor, she said, and saving my reverence, I didn’t look like either. She heaved a put-upon sigh as I dawdled by the door.