Empress of Wolves (13 page)

The black dragon opened her jaws wide, reaching far into her mouth. With a sudden
tug
she withdrew her paw. In her claws Grael held a foot-long serrated tooth which she gently passed off to Kalla.

Careful now. It is sharp.

“Thank you, Lady Grael. We will make good use of your gift.”

That is my hope, Empress of Wolves. That is my hope. We would also like to ask if you would free us as you have freed the others of our 'family'.

“Family?” Kalla asked.

You think of the Patrons of the various lands as all one rather bizarre family, little Wolf. That we are- one big family.

“I would be honored to do so, Lady Grael,” the mage said. She looked down at the fang in her hands, then back up at the leviathan looming above her. “Lady Grael, is it true? Are you and yours as old as Araun?”

A snort came from further behind the black dragon. The air shimmered, then coalesced into first one, then another, then another towering dragon. In the end, seven dragons stood ranged about her, as different from one another as they could be.

A pearly-scaled dragon dipped its head to her. This dragon looked much like Grael in his body form, the only difference being that he had leathery wings instead of feathered ones. Bright blue eyes regarded her with loving patience. Kalla guessed that it was Ayahz, Grael's mate.

We are nearly as old as Father Araun. We were among the first created from the One.

“How did you survive the years when so many others did not?” Kalla asked.

Our children have longer memories and longer lives. They are not as fickle as the younger, short-lived races.
This from a stocky, blunt-muzzled dragon scaled in silver-grey. Thick horns jutted back from his heavy brow and he unfurled leathery wings, fanning the air gently. This would be Bahamut then, Kalla thought. Orius' brother.

That is not the point now is it?
A red dragon said testily, fixing a fierce orange gaze on the group. He looked like Bahamut, save for his scales shone like trapped firelight and jet black horns adorned his head.

Do not be silly, Freyeth. The new one come among us is welcome to learn. She is part of the family now.
An emerald green dragon chided Freyeth in gentle feminine tones and he withdrew with a slightly abashed look. The green dragon, Lady Gaia, was long and slinky, lacking wings. Stubby horns framed her head.

Please excuse my mate, Lady Amaraaq. He speaks truth though. Will you free us?

“Certainly, I will do as I may, if only you will tell me how,” Kalla said. “Only, I thought that I had freed the Patrons of Su Ramerides.”

You freed the Patrons of this land. We, however, hold sway over a land far from these shores. We are present here because here it is that the dragons dwell.

No fancy Song do we have for you, but a great artifact most certainly.
An odd serpentine dragon covered in blue-grey feathery scales came forward. This dragon, Rai, looked like the wyvern, with two wings and two feet, though his wings were feathery. A great feathered crest framed his crocodalian head and it was in those massive jaws that he held an object. Gently he lowered his head to Kalla's level and let her withdraw a large hunting horn. The Healer gasped at its beauty, for it was covered with scales of myriad colors. There were scales of pearly opalescence, those of iridescent obsidian, darkly shining silver, glittering carmine and shimmers of azure and emerald. The edging of the horn was decorated with wispy feather scales akin to Rai's.

You need merely blow the Horn called Dragon's Dirge to free us, as easy a task as the one Father Araun gave you.
The last of the clustered dragons was the blue-scaled wurm Tiama'at. Like her earthly children, the great dragon goddess had massive tripartite jaws. Limbless and wingless, she was coiled in a great shimmering sapphire heap.

Go now.
Grael rumbled.
Go now and use the Horn when you can. Take it with you, for its haunting call can immobilize and disorient the wretched Kin, the Crescent Reavers. You will have an advantage over them they will not be expecting. And seek you out they will, once they realize that you have crafted a new spear.

“I will do so, Great Ones,” Kalla said.

And best of luck to you, with our thanks, Lady Amaraaq.
Grael said as Kalla began to fade from the smoke-tinged realm of the dragons.

Sunlight streamed through the cave entrance, spilling over Kalla and warming the stones. Grumbling, the Healer grudgingly woke to find Aleister watching her with a slight grin. She groaned and shifted to find that she had been lying upon the jagged tooth. The Horn she found clutched protectively to her chest.

The Fox's smile broadened when he saw she was awake and he held out a waterskin to her. As she took it Kalla noticed that Vander and Manny still slept. Kasai and Lukas slept now as well. The wyvern were gone, most likely hunting. Aleister was busy tending a small fire over which the carcasses of two capybara sizzled tantalizingly. Kalla winced as her tummy growled.

“
The dragons brought them for us. I went ahead and started cooking them, though sadly we have no spices or such. Figured you'd be hungry when you woke.

“
We took it in turn to watch over you. Lucky or unlucky, I got the last watch,
” he said. “
The others haven't budged a bit. No matter what you might think of the role a magister plays, I can certainly see why the magi are required to have one.
”

Kalla gave him a sour look and handed the waterskin back. While Aleister finished cooking breakfast, Kalla's made her rounds to check on the recovering dragons. By the time she returned, the others had woken and the capybara were finished cooking. The Fox handed her a cooled piece as she settled down beside him. Kalla took it gratefully, murmuring a soft thanks.

“How were they doing, Dashkele?” Vander asked.

“They are all doing well. You both did good work,” she said.

“Did we heal all of them?” Manny looked to her hopefully.

“Aye, all of them that needed it.”

“I'm glad.”

Kalla nodded, then gently withdrew the long fang from within her robes. She'd dulled the edge with a shield so she wouldn't accidentally maim herself.

“The Lady Grael was gracious enough to give us a new tooth,” Kalla said. “She said you would be able to craft a new spear, Vander.”

Vander took the tooth from her and looked at it from all angles, sinking into the absent-minded mode that meant he was thinking of possibilities.

One of the dragons, an amethyst beauty, lumbered over to them and lowered her head to Kalla's level.

“Thank you, for healing us,” the purple leviathan murmured sadly. Kalla reached out and gently placed a hand on one of the dragon's talons. The Healer knew, from her work, that this young female dragon had lost not an egg, but a dragonet in the attack.

“I know what you lost, young one. I grieve with you. If it is in our power we will repay the Reavers for your losses.

“Nay, Great Lady, do not seek them out. To meet them is to meet death itself. Our young were slaughtered mercilessly, the eggs targeted specifically.

“They were everywhere that night. No place was safe. The dragonets and the eggs, those are the greatest loss for us. They were our future, the future of the dragons and of the
wyvere
.”

“I do not intend to seek them out, but I have every reason to think they will come hunting for me. If they do, we will be ready, and we will avenge you and your kin,” Kalla said.

“How can you hope to stand against them when even we could not, Great Lady?”

“With this.”

Kalla gathered up the Horn and went to stand at the cave's entrance. Below them spread a vast panorama encompassing the crater lake and its mist-shrouded island, as well as the canopy of jungle beyond. In the distance a volcano steamed gently. Wispy plume of smoke rose lazily into the morning sky.

Kalla raised the Horn, running her hands over the glittering scales, then put it to her lips and blew. A deep mournful sound rolled across the lake, echoing from the surrounding mountains. The echoes died away, followed by a hint of smoky laughter drifting with the breeze.

Xemenek and Ramac had come to the cave's entrance and now stood beside the Healer.

“Where did you get that?” the great gold-scaled dragon asked.

“I received it from the Seven. They said it would be useful against the Reavers,” Kalla replied. “However, it is a treasure of the dragons. When my task is over, I will have it and hopefully both spears returned to you. The Eye too, if it is in my power to do so.”

There was only one spear taken, Great Lady.

“Lady Grael gave me the means to have another created. My companion can do so.”

Sunset swirls of purple and rose shone through the wispy clouds. Thin streamers of smoke drifted up from the forest floor, catching Kalla's attention as the
Stymphalian
flew by.

“Aleister, turn back,” she said. The Fox patiently obliged as Kalla radioed the
Heracles.
They overflew the clearing from which the smoke rose. Aleister brought the ship to ground, the
Heracles
landing nearby.

“What happened here?” the Fox asked as they surveyed the damage at a more personal range. Blackened grass and the charred remains of trees covered a near perfect circle.

“The area was warded,” Vander said. “A weak ward, but enough to stop the flames.” The War Mage shuddered. “And the fire was elemental fire. This was a summoner's work.”

“A summoner? You don't think this is Grosso's work do you?” she asked.

“I don't know any other summoners, do you?”

Kalla called out to Jahnsen, hoping the flame elemental could shed some light on what happened. Smoke coalesced and coiled about her as the elemental responded to her call and she put her question to him.

Indeed, Great Lady. There were elementalssss here, not sssso long ago.
Jahnsen uncoiled from Kalla and darted around the ruined clearing, his smoky form flashing from place to place. When he was done, Jahnsen returned to the Healer's side.

Two flame elementalsss and an earth elemental, Great Lady. Sssomething elsse here, too. Sssomething dangerous. This was a ssslaver'sss camp.
Jahnsen hissed.
The slaves made it out before the camp was desstroyed, but the ssslaverss did not. They died here.

Kalla walked through the area, concentrating. Now that she knew what to look for, it was easy to sense the deaths that had taken place here. Sifting through the ashes, Kalla shivered as she touched fragments of bone. Each shard, each tiny touch, passed fading memories to her.

The slavers' deaths had been as unpleasant as the men themselves, brutal, harsh, and unforgiving. Images of their final moments flashed through her mind. Screams, panic, half-seen glimpses of
something
that looked to be covered in a thin black fur or feathers and moved like the wind itself. The smoky voice of Tama and a rumbling growl like that of rocks in a landslide.

“Tama was here, and that means Grosso was too. Why would he have let the slaves go? Why would he care in the first place?” Kalla murmured.

“I cannot say, Dashkele,” the War Mage said. “This is a cursed place. We should leave.”

Though Rinsook was close, Kalla wanted to contact the Patrons of Rang'moori out away from a village or town. Dinner was done and the sun had long since sunk beyond the horizon, going to its nightly slumber. The moon had risen, full and bright.

Kalla was resting against Amaterasu's side, reading. Vander lay next to her, in his wolf form. Closer to the campfire Manny and the magisters sat huddled around a pair of
chigali
boards.

A panicked cry of a distressed child split the night. Vander jumped up, ears pricked forward and mane fluffed. A deep bass growling filled the wolf's chest and he suddenly darted from the clearing, passing through the wards. Both Arkaddians followed him into the darkness beyond as the child cried out again. A man's scream came next, cut off rather abruptly.

“
Aleister? Are you okay? What's going on?
” Kalla asked, sharing a look with Manny. By the fire, the younger Healer's eyes were wide with fear and uncertainty.

“
A slaver, milady. Chasing a young boy. Vander has… taken care of the man. We are returning now,
” the Fox said.

It wasn't long before the three returned, Aleister carrying a young boy. The child, barely five years old, had a dull listless look in his eyes as if resigned to whatever fate they had in store for him.

Kalla frowned and took the child from her Aleister, murmuring soft words of comfort. It took the boy a moment to focus on her, but when he did tears filled his blue eyes and he buried his head against her, sobbing.

The Healer gently rocked him, making soft shushing noises. She allowed her gift to flow through him, easing his evident fear and distress and in doing so found the cause. Kalla grew sick at heart with what had been done to the child. Without looking up she spoke to the three that had brought him in.

“There are more out there, if you follow the boy's trail back. Find them and when you do, show them no mercy,” she said in a flat voice. Vander turned without a word and trotted back into the darkness with the two Arkaddians shadowing him in silence.

* * *

The wolf bent his head to his task, following the child's scent trail. Behind him, Aleister and Kasai moved silently through the forest. By this time all three knew what Kalla had learned and each was just as angry as the Healer.

The clearing they came to was small. This wasn't a full slaver's camp like the other had been. These men had been out hunting and were now making their way back home.

Safe in the shadowed forest, Vander shielded the magisters, then melted back into the shadows. Like a wraith the wolf circled the small camp, laying wardings of containment as he went. From within the camp he heard the sound of soft sobbing and once a pleading female voice that quickened his pace in anger. It was hard to see into the camp, as far back in the woods as he was, but the War Mage counted three tents. A fire blazed in the middle with a lone man attending it.

Rejoining the magisters, Vander shifted and wordlessly gestured for them to circle the camp in opposite directions. He waited until he heard Kasai's whistling nightbird cry float through the trees, followed by Aleister's response, then plunged into the clearing, igniting the wards behind him. The man at the fire jumped up in alarm and fell back again just as suddenly, a dagger buried in his throat.

Using his magick, Vander uprooted the first tent, and flung it aside, only to find the source of the pleading voice. The War Mage roared in wordless fury, ripping the slaver off of his victim, his anger doubled by the fact that the slaver was Dashmari. The man was dead before he hit the ground.

Vandet snarled, ears flat, as two more men fled from the tent, while the terrified young woman tried desperately to gather the blankets about herself. Another Dashmari, a brother by scent, stayed to fight, but he fared no better than the first.

Vander turned and sent something spinning after the two runners. The objects sparked with lightning as they spun through the air, growing larger as they went. The spinning disks struck the men, decapitating one and severing the arm of the other.

A dagger buried itself in the fallen man's chest, silencing his agonized cries as the disks came back to the War Mage. He caught them easily and spun them on his fingertips as more men poured from one of the larger remaining tents.

Vander launched them again, cutting down two more men, taking out a third with a bolt of brilliant purple lightning. Dismayed cries rang through the camp as the slavers realized that they were trapped with the enraged War Mage and the magisters.

Vander stood amidst the wreakage of the camp, panting heavily. He shrank the artifice disks and tucked them away before turning his attention back to the young woman. Honey-blond hair spilled down around her tear-streaked face as she stared up at him. The Rang'moori woman whimpered as she tried to pull the blankets tighter around herself.

“Please don't hurt me,” she whispered.

Vander knelt before her. Beneath the young woman's fear laced scent of sun-ripened blackberries, the War Mage caught the scent of honeysuckle.

“Don't worry. We're here to help you,” he said softly. She flinched and cringed back from him.

“Emmeline! Leave her alone!”

Vander spun just in time to see a Sveltlander woman swinging a heavy sword at him. He caught her easily in coils of air and gently took the sword away as Kasai came running up.

“I have no intention of hurting her,” the War Mage said. He released the Sveltlander warily and she darted to Emmeline's side, giving Vander and Kasai an angry look. Aleister shepherded the remaining slaves over to them. They were a motley group of children and women, each wearing a braided slave collar. The collection scent of resignation caught in Vander's throat, and he struggled not to gag. Ranni chased the War Mage and magisters away, and helped Emmeline to dress.

Before they left, Vander razed the camp with his own brand of fire, eradicating all evidence that it had ever existed. Both Kasai and Aleister carried one of the young children. Behind them, Emmeline struggled to keep pace. Despite Ranni's urging, the Rang'moori woman's strength was failing, depleted by fear and sheer exhaustion. Vander finally turned back, offering to carry her. She cringed away from him at first, but Ranni managed to coax her into accepting the offer. He gently scooped her up. The young woman stayed tense in his arms for a moment, then finally relaxed. She was fast asleep before they reached camp.

* * *

Kalla was waiting for them, blankets and warm food ready. The magi gave what healing they could offer. By the time they were finished, the Healer were thoroughly sick at heart. Not for the first time, Kalla cursed the fact that a Healer picked up a patient's memories. Their bodies may have been healed, but their minds were a different story. Nothing would make the things they had been subjected to any better.

“Thank you for rescuing us and feeding us. It's been a long time since we had any decent food,” said one women said. There was a long moment of silence.

“What is going to happen to us now?” another asked.

“You're welcome. I regret we didn't find you sooner. We will do our utmost to return you to your families tomorrow.”

“I don't have anywhere to return to,” Emmeline said in a small voice. The young Rang'moori was huddled by Ranni and the Sveltlander leaned over to comfort her. Kalla caught Vander's eye and he shook his head once. A few seconds later came the soft whistling of Kasai, who was at present somewhere beyond the
Heracles
with the wyvern. The great wyrms had graciously vacated the area immediately around the ships in deference to the fearful ex-slaves. A moment after that and Aleister spoke to her.

“
Both lost their homes when taken. Emmeline lived alone, as an herbalist to a small village. Vander says she knows her stuff. Unfortunately, her home was burnt to the ground. She is scared to return. Ranni, on the other hand, lost a family. Her
liya
and her child
were killed in the raid that took her.
”

Kalla nodded a slight acknowledgment. She had healed the two children. Their fragmented, childish memories had given her enough to know where to take them and if she understood correctly they had families still living who would be desperately searching for them. She had also healed two of the women, Alyssin and Willow. It had been Willow who had spoken earlier.

“If you have no place to return to, you may go to the Kanlon. They will provide a place for you, if you do not mind working for the magi. You would have a warm place to stay, never have to worry about food, and you would be paid decent wages. The offer is open to any of you who wish it,” Kalla said.

“They wouldn't want us… we are tainted now…,” Emmeline sobbed.

“Emmeline, look at me please,” Kalla said. Emmeline glanced up briefly, then lowered her gaze back to the ground.

“No one at the Kanlon is going to think you tainted because of what you've been through. No one is going to shun you for it. It would be only the Chief Healer and the Sin' who need know exactly what had brought you there to begin with and I can promise you they will not tell anyone.”

“Listen to the Lady Mage, Emmy. I'll go with you. Nothing left for me in the Sveltlands after all,” Ranni said.

“Really?” Emmeline sniffled, struggling to hold back more sobs.

“Really,” Vander said softly. “Lady Kalla speaks the truth. The magi will not turn you away. But you should sleep now. Tomorrow is time enough for those decisions.”

“How could anyone do such a thing to another?” Vander murmured. The six sat off from the group of sleeping women and children.

“I thought what I'd been through was bad. If the work back at the clearing
was
Grosso's, I would have to thank him for that at least.”

“I won't pretend to understand the workings of such depraved minds,” Kalla said.

* * *

The scent of wintergrass and Kalla woke to find herself in a rolling golden field that spread as far as the eye could see.

“Now this looks familiar,” Aleister said from beside her. “Please tell me the Patrons of Rang'moori don't have a penchant for windstorms…”

There was musical laughter from behind them.
No windstorms today, Prince.

Turning, they found themselves facing three women more beautiful than Kalla had ever seen. Though each looked young, all looked wise beyond their years.

All is One.
This from a lady dressed in a flowing gown of pearly white. Long brown hair threaded with hints of red framed a pair of doe-like brown eyes.

“One is All,” Kalla replied.

As above.
A lady with the fiery red hair of the Crannogmarchogi spoke next. She wore a dress of dark emerald and green eyes glimmered with mirth as she greeted them.

“So below.”

“
Thus are all Connected.
”

Welcome, Lady Amaraaq. Welcome, Prince Kaze.
The third lady wore a dress of palest blue that matched her eyes. Her red-gold hair was plaited in many thin, long braids.

“Thank you, Great Lady,” Kalla said. “You are Lady Dana?”

Indeed I am,
Lady Dana replied.
I am glad you have chosen to aid us, Lady Amaraaq. These are my sisters, the Lady Dôn, of Kymru and the Lady Birgit, of the Crannongmarch.

This is for you.
The flame-haired woman stepped forward, reaching over her shoulder. She slipped a
basacaila
from her back and handed it to Kalla. As the Healer took the stringed instrument Dôn stepped forward and tapped her on the forehead. Beautiful music filled Kalla's mind- the Song that would free their lands.