The Dragon of Despair (43 page)

The party had paused along the turnpike at a place that was too small to even be called a village, but was too large to be merely a coach stop. It boasted a large and elegant inn called the Mushroom Stanza, several stables and storage buildings, a station for a local branch of the New Kelvinese militia, and even a few shops.

Peace explained that the location was fortuitously placed, a good stopping-off point for those traveling to many destinations within the kingdom. All the structures were of fairly recent construction, but like everything in New Kelvin the place sought to seem old and freighted with history.

Had the weather been less foul, their party might have passed the inn by in favor of some other place or even camping in the open, but a summer thunderstorm had broken out that afternoon, turning even the well-tended New Kelvinese roads to shallow streams bottomed in slick mud.

Moreover, Elise was sniffling and sneezing, possibly in reaction to some rather pretty yellow-orange flowers that grew profusely on the neatly tended verges of the turnpike. She rode on gamely, but her misery was evident.

So was Doc’s, especially since his healing talent seemed unable to do anything for this particular affliction except relieve Elise’s misery a bit—and Firekeeper cynically thought this relief might have more to do with Doc himself than whatever magical gift he offered.

Peace bullied the innkeeper into giving two rooms to the group. Had they not been foreigners, latecomers as they were they probably would have been expected to settle for blanket rolls in the common room, but that would have sent the rest of the custom scattering. Indeed, there were a few grumbles when the Hawk Havenese came out to dine, but no one actually insisted that they leave.

Firekeeper didn’t join the rest. Wet weather and all, she preferred to stay outside with Blind Seer. They’d been given a stable—really more of a glorified shed—for their horses and in that hay and manure-scented refuge Blind Seer bolted down a large haunch of venison. He was cracking the bone so they could share the marrow when the bullies and their dogs came upon them.

Firekeeper didn’t much bother to count above ten, but she didn’t need to here. There were six men and more than that in dogs. The dogs were ugly creatures with short dung-colored coats, thick skins, and heavy, blunt muzzles. They wore collars adorned with long spikes. Their masters were even uglier.

Like all New Kelvinese these men wore some form of facial adornment. However, wet weather and general personal sloppiness had not been kind to their paint. Firekeeper thought that it had begun in strong colors: red, black, white, and yellow. Now it had all run together, the worst aspects of a puddled rainbow.

The bullies wore their hair in the usual New Kelvinese queue, but where Grateful Peace’s braid was as smooth as a coil of silk, these men’s were ratty, bits of scruffy hair sticking out around the edges. Their robes were more of the same. About half of the group wore them kilted up, as if they’d forgotten to let them down after a day in the fields. These were the neater ones. The others hadn’t even bothered to kilt their robes up at all and the hems were bordered inches deep in caked-on mud and manure.

Firekeeper recognized the men and their dogs. She’d seen them several days before at a low inn, one so slovenly that Peace had refused even to check if it would grant foreigners shelter, though they had stopped long enough to draw water from the well to refresh both humans and horses.

And wolves.

The bullies had seen Blind Seer when he’d leapt from the wagon to drink at the horse trough. Even worse, their dogs had seen him and the dogs had been wise. They had cowered back.

The men had not liked this at all. Firekeeper had met this type of human before. Whether it was title or weapon or some animal they owned, they thought themselves better than other people because they possessed something they could use to intimidate. They mistook cringing before that tool as a sign of quality in themselves. Lack of respect to the tool was seen as lack of respect to themselves.

To be honest, Blind Seer hadn’t improved the situation by pissing on the edge of the horse trough, marking the dogs’ territory for his own with his arrogant stream. The dogs hadn’t made it any better for themselves by cringing away from the wolf without even a token snarl or snap.

At the time, Firekeeper had been proud of her pack mate. They’d laughed over the incident, entertaining themselves by recalling every aspect of the event, shaping it so that it would make a good tale for the story circles when they next went home.

Tonight the dogs were not cringing. Firekeeper scented something in the air, a sharpness like liquor or like blood. She wondered if the men had given something to their dogs so that the dogs wouldn’t feel fear or if the dogs had been beaten.

There were many dogs, more than there were men. Their eyes were muddy brown in the shifting lantern light and their teeth were the color of old ivory, not white like Blind Seer’s. But there were many mouths filled with many teeth and all of them were bared.

At the first sound of the approaching group, the wolf-woman had risen to her feet in a single lithe motion so natural that it didn’t seem motion at all. Blind Seer had also eased to his feet and stood beside her, enormous in the confined space. His silver-grey fur caught the lamplight and gave it back. There was a sound like distant thunder.

The Royal Wolf was growling.

A dog shrank back and tried to run, but a man booted him in the ribs. The dog froze, caught between pain he knew and a fear so visceral that he could not deny it.

A man said something to Firekeeper. He spoke New Kelvinese. Firekeeper, who had not been present for Grateful Peace’s language lessons and probably wouldn’t have paid attention even if she had been, didn’t understand.

“I not know that talk,” she said, haughty as Earl Kestrel.

Another man spoke in Pellish as broken as her own, though the fractures ran along different lines.

“You have a big dog there, girl,” he said, and she understood his mocking tone better than any of his words. “We have dogs, too. We don’t like your dog. We think he make a good rug or maybe a cloak. What you think?”

Firekeeper’s answer was to lunge. Her logic was simple wolf logic that answered threat with either an answering threat—if one felt the opponent could be so intimidated—or with surrender or with attack. She did not think she could threaten these men. They would not see their danger until too late. Nor did it occur to her to surrender. That left only attack.

Besides, the difference between thieves and bandits was the level of threat they offered. These had said they would kill Blind Seer and make him into a cloak or rug. That meant they were bandits, not thieves. Edlin had said that it was permissible to kill bandits.

The bullies’ spokesman was dead before he hit the dirt. There was a distinct chance that his severed head watched the action a bit after his body had stopped breathing, for his eyes were wide in shock.

Blind Seer acted as if linked in thought with his pack mate. At his slightest movement, some of the dogs ran. Others leapt at him, maddened by the smell of blood and by the conflicting fears that coursed through their veins. The wolf snapped at these as he might have at flies. Two dropped dead, one with a broken back, the other with a broken neck.

Then did the other dogs turn, tails between their legs, their yelping cries warning the night.

Blind Seer paid them no heed. He lunged at a man who was slashing at Firekeeper. The man’s arm was crushed just below the elbow. His knife fell to the muddy ground. The man’s screams blended with those of the dogs. He backed off a few steps, then crumpled in a faint.

Four men armed with knives or swords or, in one case, a long spear now faced a solitary young woman armed only with a hunting knife, a wolf poised at her side. The men had strapped on leather wrist braces and donned heavy boots of the type favored by people who enjoy kicking other people in the ribs. The girl wore a fine leather vest and trousers cut off beneath the knee. Her feet were bare.

It wasn’t anything like a fair match and the men knew it. Turning, they ran. There’s a problem about running from wolves. Wolves like to give chase—and Firekeeper and Blind Seer were wolves.

By the time people had streamed out of the inn, responding to the commotion as humans do, first with confused discussion, then with action, the hunt was over.

Firekeeper and Blind Seer weren’t hungry, though, only upset, which is why the four men lived. They lay unconscious in the muddy fields just beyond the shed and if they bled a bit, well, one does after falling…or being knocked down rather hard.

It took Firekeeper several minutes to realize that she and Blind Seer were in big trouble.

First the horses had to be calmed. Spattered with blood as she was, Firekeeper knew she wouldn’t be much help with that, but it did mean that Derian wasn’t there to explain things to her. Edlin was helping him. Doc and Elise were checking the man whose arm had been crushed. Nothing could be done, of course, for the one she had decapitated.

Firekeeper drifted back to the edge of the circle of light created by the emergence of numerous lantern-bearing people from the inn. She was watchful, for Firekeeper was always watchful, but she wasn’t particularly apprehensive. Well, maybe a little about the human she had killed, for humans were odd about the killing of humans.

But why should she be nervous? She had been attacked. She had defended herself. Blind Seer, who she was learning to protect from human fear, hadn’t even killed a human, just a couple of dogs.

Ugly dogs, too, belonging to low-status humans. Bandits. Did that make the dogs bandits, too? Could dogs be bandits or did the human tendency to assume that all animals were stupid absolve the dogs from guilt? Perhaps there would be trouble over the dogs after all.

Firekeeper was chewing over this when she heard Wendee calling for her. There was an odd note in Wendee’s voice, so Firekeeper paused rather than heading directly over.

Wendee was not alone. She had come about halfway across the inn’s courtyard. Behind her paced six or seven armed guards.

“Wait here,”
Firekeeper said to Blind Seer.
“I don’t like this.”

The wolf’s reply was to fade further into the darkness. Then Firekeeper came forward, moving easily as if she had seen nothing to cause concern.

“Firekeeper!” Wendee said, and there were emotions in her voice Firekeeper couldn’t quite place, but the wolf-woman was willing to bet that they had something to do with those armed guards. “These men want to talk with you.”

“So,” Firekeeper said, stopping in midstride. “Talk.”

Instantly, she knew that she had done something—she wasn’t sure what—wrong. Several of the guards shifted their grips on their weapons as if readying them. Their leader, a big, thickset man who reminded Firekeeper of a tree trunk, stepped alongside Wendee.

“Not here,” he said in Pellish, his accent heavy. “Inside.”

“Why?” Firekeeper asked, thinking her query completely reasonable.

The guard captain apparently didn’t share her opinion. He started to say something in Pellish, then shifted to New Kelvinese, directing his remarks at Wendee.

Wendee translated, evidently quite unhappy.

“He says that he doesn’t see why he should stand out in the mud to interrogate a murderer.”

Firekeeper frowned. She knew the word, but didn’t think it applied to her. Perhaps Wendee had mistranslated.

“Me?”

“You,” Wendee replied, “at least as he sees it. From what I can gather, they see you as a killer in possession of a dangerous animal. They thought it was Blind Seer who had killed the man, but Doc assured them that even a wolf as big as Blind Seer couldn’t have taken off a man’s head—at least not while leaving it intact.”

“Good,” Firekeeper said. She wouldn’t want Blind Seer to get either blame or credit for her actions.

Wendee nodded, but it was clear she misunderstood the wolf-woman.

“Yes, at least you’ll have a chance to argue for Blind Seer’s life—and for your own. Won’t you come inside? Making them come after you or remain standing in the mud and wet isn’t going to help.”

Firekeeper had numerous questions. Why should she need argue at all? The bandits had needed killing. Maybe these guards wondered why she hadn’t killed all six. She doubted it, though. The use of the word “murderer” was not a good sign.

She also saw the wisdom in Wendee’s suggestion.

“I go inside,” she agreed, “but tell them no to touch me.”

Wendee took a deep breath.

“They want you to hand over your knife.”

Firekeeper shook her head.

“No.”

The manner in which she said the word gave it the force of a blunt weapon. The guard captain needed no translation. He said something to his men. Two unslung bows and began to string them. Firekeeper considered for barely a breath, weighing the options. As she saw things, there was only one wise course of action.

These men were not bandits, only guards doing their duty. She had known many such and would not harm them for so slight a reason. Equally, she would not surrender her Fang. She had always refused, at first out of prudence, but the concessions she had gained now made it a matter of pride as well.

The bows were hardly bent, the stings not even tight before Firekeeper made her decision. She dove for the shelter of a nearby wagon parked in the courtyard. From there she had her choice of many shadows. Once within their embrace, she was gone into the friendly darkness.

XVII