Scarlet and the White Wolf [01] - Scarlet and the White Wolf

Scarlet and the White Wolf--Book One

by Kirby Crow

Torquere Press

www.torquerepress.com

Copyright ©2005 by Kirby Crow

First published in www.torquerepress.com, 2006

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2

Scarlet and the White Wolf--Book One

by Kirby Crow

1.

Scarlet

Autumn, the Month of Ashes.

The serpent banner of Om-Ret fluttered over the great
souk
of Ankar, crowning the jumbled din of camels, horses, men, slaves, tinkers, dogs, whores, hawkers, cutpurses, soldiers, and merchants with a constant flapping sound like the wings of gulls. Scarlet, son of Scaja, swiped at the gritty red dust on his face and surveyed the colorful row of furled ribbons the tradeswoman laid out for him.

"For your wife, little Byzan?" she asked him coyly, her golden eyes glittering above the hem of her embroidered veil.

Here, far north of Byzantur, all Morturii men and women who were not soldiers or whores hid their faces behind layers of filmy gauze or bright-colored cotton or jeweled silk. Scarlet was not Morturii and hid nothing.

"Sister," he answered shortly, and pointed to the red ribbons. "The blue and green, too, and a yard of the white silk and a yard of the green," he added, mentally wincing at the price. The woman bowed as he paid her with half of a silver
sellivar.
He collected his package and left, threading his way through the crowded, stinking alleys of the marketplace. Avid seagulls, fresh from feeding on entrails thrown from the many fishing vessels crowding the glittering bay, swooped low over the crowds. One black-winged gull darted past him, wings slashing, and stole a fragment of flesh from a meat-sellers stall.

3

Scarlet and the White Wolf--Book One

by Kirby Crow

"Greedy!" the man cried, shaking his fist after the departing bird.

Scarlet came to the Street of Doves and Flowers and pursed his mouth in distaste, for he disliked having to take this route. He navigated his way past a noisy
ghilan
, a two-story dwelling whose function was made known by the series of carved frescoes that depicted a young, shapely woman being chased through a lush forest by an armored Morturii soldier. The soldier pursued her through various stages of undress, with the last panel culminating in the soldier mounting her thighs amid a flowering field.

Next on the street was a
bhoros
house, constructed almost identically to the white-walled ghilan, with fine bronze screens at all the windows and the doorways tiled in blue. The main difference were the frescoes, and in the last marble panel before the street opened up into the wide main avenue of the souk, a laughing young man lay sprawled on his back in the grass with a lean soldier kneeling over him, both of them very bare.

Scarlet came upon a kneeling Fate with eyes like two raisins pinned on a shrunken apple; all he could see of her behind her veil. The crone extended her wizened hand to him.

"Read your fate, red-coat?"

He shook his head and went on, intent on making his way back to Masdren's stall. Morturii, the land of metal and magic, abounded in soothsayers, seers, fate dealers, and crones.

They were almost as prevalent as the blacksmiths, armorers, and master weapon-smiths, and in some parts, the land was under a permanent pall of black smoke from the smithies.

4

Scarlet and the White Wolf--Book One

by Kirby Crow

A pair of long-knives hanging in a corner smithy caught Scarlet's eye, and he stopped to admire them with frank longing. Like all Morturii weapons, the knives had smooth hafts made of spun wire and the blades themselves were black as jet. Inscribed on the blades were many curling designs of leaves, trees, human faces in torment, and stretched, eviscerated animal bodies, all swirling together in finely-etched silver lines to form a depiction of Deva's creation of the world. The weapons were ugly and terribly beautiful at the same time, and Scarlet lingered to stare as the foot-traffic flowed around him.

The burly Morturii smith stirred from his forge and pointed.

"Ye want try 'em out?" he asked in poor Bizye.

After a long moment, Scarlet shook his head. He did, but he could never afford the smith's price.

"He'll take them," said a familiar voice.

Scarlet turned and frowned at Masdren. "I will not," he said in Falx, the local language. His accent was flawless. "Sit down, blacksmith. I don't have that much silver."

"But I do." Masdren nodded at the smith. Masdren was a black-haired Byzan as well, one of perhaps a hundred in all of Ankar, and much older than Scarlet. "Wrap them up. Never mind the sheaths; I've got better in my shop."

Scarlet opened his mouth to protest and Masdren put a restraining hand on his arm. "How many summers have you worked for me in the souk, lad? Four at last count? And your dad is still one of my best friends. Take the knives. I know you know how to use them, and I want Scaja to see his son again."

5

Scarlet and the White Wolf--Book One

by Kirby Crow

"But I don't want—"

"Do as you're told, boy."

Though he knew Masdren was right, Scarlet felt his tenuous hold on his volatile temper slipping. The roads in Morturii were safe enough, but he was headed home for Byzantur on foot. Many a young man or woman who traveled a Byzantur road alone often wound up as chained work-slaves for sale in Minh. More infrequently—depending on their beauty—they woke up from a drugged stupor as painted and perfumed bhoros boys or ghilan girls, sold into whoredom by any of a dozen slave brokers who eked a steady living from the southern roads.

Rannon, the lean and soft-spoken
karwaneer
who had led Scarlet's first caravan, had taught him the art of knives.

Although Scarlet was no warrior, he could run swift as a deer and possessed an almost uncanny sense of direction. A foot-traveling pedlar's life is best paced slow and steady, but sometimes the only hope he had was to run like Deva's imps were after him. He was marked for luck: born with only four fingers on his left hand, a sign of Deva's favor. Running had saved his life more than once.

The smith was holding the cloth-wrapped pair of knives out to Scarlet and Masdren was reaching for his pouch to pay. He watched as Masdren counted out forty sellivar, almost half a year's pay for a pedlar, and he found himself ducking his head sullenly to thank him. He would have preferred to buy his own weapons, but Masdren was his elder, so he bit his lip and thought of how disgraced Scaja would be if he lost his temper in public again. His black moods and immodest 6

Scarlet and the White Wolf--Book One

by Kirby Crow

speech had caused his father enough embarrassment over the years. The fact that Masdren was one of Scaja's oldest friends helped to restrain him, but he sometimes resented this man's ability to make him feel like an unruly boy in need of a good dressing-down.

The aged leathersmith waved Scarlet's thanks away. "None of that. Come on, I'll walk you to the walls." He was a big man compared to most Hilurin, black-haired and very pale-skinned like all those who belong to the First People, and with large, ink-dark eyes, shiny as obsidian.

They stopped at Masdren's shop and the leathersmith sent one of his many boisterous children for Scarlet's walking stick and a pair of tool-worked leather sheaths, black to match the knives. They were indeed far better than the ones at the blacksmith's stall. Masdren was a master.

"These are too fine," Scarlet said as a last protest, and Masdren smiled ruefully and pushed them into his hands.

Masdren shooed his children back to their work and took Scarlet's arm to steer him to the gates as if he were five years old himself.

They were challenged briefly at the city's high, stone walls, but it was perfunctory. The bored, leather-armored bravos scratched and swatted at flies as they let the pair of foreigners through the gaping iron teeth of the massive gate into the flat, brown lands surrounding the port city. To the east was the wide Channel, its white-capped blue waters sparkling in the sun. A thin breeze of cooling air carried the taste of salt.

7

Scarlet and the White Wolf--Book One

by Kirby Crow

Masdren made him a final gift of a pair of storm-gray leather gloves, custom-fitted to accommodate his left hand with its missing fifth finger. Again, Scarlet's thanks were deflected gently. "What will you do when you get home?"

Masdren asked.

Scarlet sighed and shot Masdren a tired, affectionate look.

"You know I won't stay there for long."

"When did you ever? No, I'm only asking because I want you to think about working for me permanent next year, not just the summer."

He hesitated, surprised by the proposal. "You want me to move to Ankar, make it my home?"

Masdren's mood suddenly changed. He fidgeted. "It would be best," he said, averting his eyes. "I didn't want to worry you, but the news from Byzantur is bad: more Hilurin families killed, farms razed to the ground, cattle stolen, wells poisoned. There's been talk of public burnings, too, and worse." Masdren looked at him with large eyes. "Much worse.

If you can, convince Scaja to bring your mother and sister out before it's too late."

Scarlet shook his head. "Scaja will never leave Lysia. I know he won't." Scaja was a stubborn man and Scarlet's second mother, Linhona, had already lost one family to Minh raiders. She had lived in an eastern settlement of Byzantur above the marshy lands known as the Fens, far closer to Minh than Lysia was. She would not want to leave her beloved adopted home, no matter how great the danger.

"He has to," Masdren said urgently. "Oh Deva, does he
want
to die? Do you? For the god's sake, leave Byzantur while 8

Scarlet and the White Wolf--Book One

by Kirby Crow

you can. You'll never be able to hide what you are with that face, nor will Annaya or Scaja or Linhona. You're all Hilurin to the bone and they'll kill you for it."

Scarlet was alarmed, but some part of him still refused to believe that his own countrymen had turned so completely against them. Surely something would happen, someone in power would intervene, and the fighting would stop soon?

"The Flower Prince..." he began.

"The
yeva bilan
can't stop what's happening," Masdren finished. "He's offered to step down."

Scarlet was dismayed. The Hilurin were a dying race outnumbered fifty to one by the Aralyrin in Byzantur, yet the only men of any power in the governing palace at Rusa were pure Hilurin, a thing that had garnered enormous resentment among the Aralyrin population. There had been a failed military coup last year, brought on by dissension in the army ranks, and it was then that talk began of electing a non-Hilurin for
yeva bilan
next term.