Scarlet and the White Wolf [02] - Mariner's Luck

Mariner's Luck [Scarlet and the White Wolf Book 2]

by Kirby Crow

Torquere Press

www.torquerepress.com

Copyright ©2006 by Kirby Crow

First published in www.torquerepress.com, 2006

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Mariner's Luck [Scarlet and the White Wolf Book 2]

by Kirby Crow

PREFACE

This is the Second Book of SCARLET AND THE WHITE

WOLF.

Book One,
The Pedlar and the Bandit King
, told the story of Scarlet of Lysia, a young and honorable Hilurin pedlar, who by chance met a Kasiri bandit on a toll road through the mountains. The Kasiri was Liall the Wolf, a feared and famous giant of a man from the far northern lands of Rshan na Ostre, and a famous atya, or chieftain, among the tribal Kasiri kraits.

Their first meeting was less than polite. Liall demanded a kiss in toll for Scarlet's crossing of the bandit road. Scarlet angrily refused and insulted the atya, and Liall sent Scarlet packing back to his village.

In Lysia, a stranger named Cadan—an Aralyrin soldier in the Flower Prince's Army—began asking questions about the Kasiri blocking the mountain road. Cadan seemed to focus much of his attention on Scarlet, and questioned the young man repeatedly about Liall. The Aralyrin and Hilurin peoples, though sharing a common ancestry, had been waging a sporadic, unofficial war against each other for years, and did not trust each other. Also, the Hilurin have long guarded the secret of The Gift: an ancestral Hilurin ability to use magic. To suddenly have an Aralyrin taking up residence in a Hilurin village and watching the doings of bandits roused Scarlet's suspicions. Scarlet refused to speak to Cadan any further, and angrily ordered the soldier to leave him alone.

For the next several days, as Cadan watched closely, an inventive battle of wills ensued between Scarlet and Liall.

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Scarlet tried to sneak by the road in the dead of night, then hidden inside a cart of crockery, and finally dressed in his mother's clothing with his black hair powdered to crone-gray.

Liall was fooled by none of it, but highly amused, until Scarlet took the game further and accused Liall of being a brigand and probable murderer.

Enraged, Liall cut the dress from Scarlet and humiliated him in front of the Kasiri. Peysho—Liall's Morturii enforcer—

put a stop to it before it went too far, but the damage was done. Scarlet fled down the mountain road, and a regretful Liall followed him.

While escaping the Kasiri camp, Scarlet ran straight into Cadan, who was lying in wait for the pedlar. Cadan attacked Scarlet, meaning to leave his dead body for the village to find and lay the blame on the bandits, but Liall arrived in time to save Scarlet, wounding Cadan and driving him off.

Liall returned Scarlet to his people to recover, and explained to Scarlet that Cadan was a former Kasiri in Liall's krait. Cadan had proved to be more of a brutal outlaw than a Kasiri, and Liall had marked and banished Cadan from his krait three years earlier. Cadan's attack on Scarlet was motivated purely by revenge against Liall.

Deeply ashamed that his actions had put Scarlet in such danger, Liall refused to see Scarlet when he recovered his health and chanced up the mountain road, but granted the traveling pedlar full and free passage through any road that the Longspur krait controlled, forever.

Two months passed. A messenger arrived for Liall from his northern homeland of Rshan na Ostre, summoning the 4

Mariner's Luck [Scarlet and the White Wolf Book 2]

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northman on a mysterious quest to return to his family.

Scarlet traveled to Ankar, a Morturii city, to work in the souk.

There, he made plans to move away from Lysia and join a trade in Ankar, but decided to make one more trip to his village to see his parents and inform them of his decision.

Approaching Lysia, Scarlet could see tall columns of smoke on the horizon. He raced into the village, only to find everyone dead, the homes burning, and the village full of Kasiri. Scarlet assumed that the Kasiri had attacked the village, and drew a knife to attack Liall. Liall protested that that the attack was an Aralyrin raid, bent on murdering the Hilurin, and refused to fight Scarlet. Liall's men disarmed the grieving pedlar, and Liall gently informed Scarlet that his sister, Annaya, survived the raid. She was safe in the Kasiri camp.

Two days passed while Annaya recovered in the krait, tended by her brother, until another survivor straggled into camp: Shansi, the blacksmith's apprentice and Annaya's betrothed. Shansi confirmed that it was the Aralyrin who destroyed Lysia. Liall had his men sifted the ashes of Scarlet's home to find the bones of Scarlet's parents, and Liall helped Scarlet bury them in a peaceful field.

With the seasons turning and Lysia destroyed, the krait prepared to break camp and move back to their base in Chrj.

Liall tried to find a way to be alone with Scarlet so that he could investigate Scarlet's willingness to stay with the krait, but Scarlet resisted all of Liall's invitations and the offer was never made. Liall prepared to return to Rshan alone, turning over the leadership of the krait to Peysho, and said goodbye 5

Mariner's Luck [Scarlet and the White Wolf Book 2]

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to Scarlet on the mountain road where they first met. Scarlet gave Liall two copper coins—a fair toll for a pedlar crossing a bandit road—and departed with Shansi and Annaya.

A week later, Shansi, Annaya, and Scarlet were settled in Nantua with Shansi's parents. Shansi planned to be a blacksmith there and marry Annaya, and Scarlet was torn between his desire to stay with what was left of his family or to take to the road again as a pedlar. Annaya chided her brother for being a coward and not going after what he really wanted—which was Liall—but Scarlet decided to go with his original plan and return to Ankar.

On the road to Ankar, Scarlet was attacked by a band of Aralyrin soldiers under the command of Cadan. Cadan escaped from Liall with only a broken leg, and was searching the roads for him. A bounty had been placed on Liall's head in every port and garrison in Byzantur by a mysterious Northman, and Cadan believed Scarlet knew where Liall was.

Cadan and his men prepared to torture the information out of Scarlet, but Scarlet called on his Gift to escape them, killing Cadan. Scarlet immediately set out for Volkovoi to warn Liall, and also to thwart the vengeance of Cadan's soldiers. In escaping with his life, Scarlet had made also himself a wanted man in Byzantur.

In the meantime, Liall had crossed the Channel and reached the rough harbor port of Volkovoi. There he awaited the arrival of a Rshani ship which would make the long and hazardous crossing through frozen seas, back to Rshan. While walking the docks one rainy night, Liall was attacked and beaten by a pair of club-wielding bravos (hired guards), but 6

Mariner's Luck [Scarlet and the White Wolf Book 2]

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saved by the arrival of Scarlet. Two long-knives against two wooden clubs, and the bravos were defeated.

Scarlet helped Liall back to his inn. There, he told Liall about the attack by Cadan and that there was a bounty on Liall's head, withholding the facts of Cadan's death and his own fugitive state. Scarlet asked to accompany Liall to Rshan, but Liall sadly refused, fearing the pedlar would not survive such a long, harsh journey. Too, the Rshani do not tolerate foreigners, and Liall knew that his countrymen would be hostile to Scarlet.

A Rshani brigantine, the Ostre Sul, arrived with the dawn, and Liall met with the ship's captain, Qixa, to book passage.

When it came time for the ship to depart, the harbor was guarded by many more bravos on the lookout for Liall. Scarlet distracted the bravos while Liall boarded the ship, and the ship began to leave. At the last moment, Scarlet made a daring leap from the docks with the bravos in close pursuit, dropping to the deck of the Ostre Sul.

The Rshani mariners did not want Scarlet on the ship and were prepared to throw him overboard, but Liall forestalled any violence by promising to put Scarlet ashore to the north, in Ankar. Being no less stubborn than any Hilurin, Scarlet had his own plans about the voyage.

Thus, two very unlikely companions found themselves on the deck of a Rshani ship, enemies behind them, a dangerous voyage ahead, and surely bound for danger. Whatever is to come, Scarlet is determined that he and Liall will face it together.

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Mariner's Luck [Scarlet and the White Wolf Book 2]

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1.

An Ill Fate

The heavy sky was the color of ash, and a light mist seeped from the clouds, covering the flat, soaked landscape in another layer of moisture to add to its endless tides, mildew, sewage, and the constant, pelting rain that deviled the decaying port city of Volkovoi from the month of Trees until the beginning of Wilding. The city was made of many haphazard rows of uneven, ramshackle buildings the color of rotting straw, all jutting up at odd angles, frames sagging against each other for reluctant support. Their crumbling facades bravely faced the waterline, patiently waiting for the inevitable wind or storm that would erase their mark from the scenery. On the pier, a tight knot of leather-armored bravos shook their fists and cursed the departing ship. The crew of the Rshani brigantine ignored the disturbance on land to return to their duties, guiding the great ship northward and home.

Scarlet's skin still tingled with triumph from his near escape from the port of Volkovoi, and he could taste the salt of the air on his tongue. He brushed the grime from his long red pedlar's coat and tried not to appear too smug. He'd gotten away! He was going with Liall! The youth—a slight Hilurin of about eighteen with the characteristic black hair, black eyes, and very fair skin of the Old Tribes—looked up at Liall and affected a casual air.

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Mariner's Luck [Scarlet and the White Wolf Book 2]

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"I can see this is going to be a long journey. Now, how far is it?" he asked his companion, a towering Northman with hair like snow and icy blue eyes.

Liall frowned. His dark, angular face was the color of amber and he had sharp cheekbones that gave him a forbidding aspect. "You will be put ashore to the north above Morturii, where you should be safe from the Byzan army. You know enough of the language and customs to get by."

Scarlet shrugged. Liall did not sound very convincing, and in any case, it was useless to argue right now. The mariners were watching them with hostility and he had no wish to create a scene that might draw more of their attention. He gave Liall a smile. "You didn't answer me."