Scarlet and the White Wolf [01] - Scarlet and the White Wolf (2 page)

"The Flower Prince has been Hilurin for the past two thousand years," Scarlet said, shaken. It was a requirement, for the sacred legends taught that if the deified prince was not pure-blooded First People, he would not have the ancient Gift and Deva would not speak to him. Few remembered this except the priests of Deva and the Hilurin themselves.

"What'll happen to us when they find out that the goddess only answers the Hilurin?"

Masdren only stared at him sadly, and did not reply.

Scarlet found himself mumbling a promise to send word of his decision and to see Masdren next spring, at the very least.

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Scarlet and the White Wolf--Book One

by Kirby Crow

The elder left him in the busy thoroughfare outside the walls, and Scarlet stood there for a little while after. The long road home would take him nearly ten days on foot, and he was not sure he was ready to begin. Passersby saw little to remark on: a slight Byzan youth of about seventeen with the beardless, flower-pale face of a Hilurin, black hair, and black eyes. If they were asked later to describe him, they would have remembered that he wore the long crimson coat of a pedlar with its characteristic broad hood, and that his face was very fair to look on, his features both delicate and masculine with a subtlety of secrets about the eyes. As Hilurin are a very handsome race and beauty is not uncommon among them, looks alone could not distinguish him, but the crimson coat would.

To see a Hilurin at all outside of Byzantur is a rarity, for they are, on the whole, a secretive, withdrawn folk, and a bold traveling pedlar with a Hilurin face would most certainly be noticed.

Scarlet frowned and sourly eyed the crowded southern path that would take him eventually to the Common Road and home. The winding road looped over the rocky hills as far as he could see, vanishing at last over a black knoll that hid the rising smoke from the city of Sondek. There were a few battered wagons outlined on the horizon, reminding him that there would be Kasiri bands thick as flies on the road. There would also be slavers, Bledlanders, bandits, and just plain rogues bent on whatever ill deeds kept their bellies fed and their hands to mischief. It would be a long and tiring trek.

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Scarlet and the White Wolf--Book One

by Kirby Crow

The sound of his father's voice, brittle with disapproval, echoed in his mind:
This is no life for a proper Hilurin.

"It's my life and I'll do as I please with it," he muttered resentfully, feeling once again like a scolded child. "No one pens me in." So saying, he gripped his walking stick firmly, adjusted his leather satchel higher on his shoulder, and started off.

Not being a true warrior, Scarlet had no defense against slavers, other than to be swift and on his guard. The trick with Kasiri is not to be too much of a temptation. A pedlar's long red coat is known everywhere, and it is a lure to some.

For the most part, the nomadic Kasiri tribes roam the southern roads between Lysia and Rusa, and are shunned by all and welcome nowhere. They are petty thieves and cheap charlatans, dirty and underhanded and sly, and there is not a town or city in the whole continent where they are not despised. Yet, even jackals have their good qualities and no one had ever heard of a Kasiri gypsy taking slaves, though they would take anything else not nailed down.

To Scarlet's mild surprise, it was not a Kasiri who menaced him eight days later on the lonely riverside road outside of Sondek, but a grizzled Bled. The fierce, bearded warrior eyed Scarlet as he walked by on the rocky path, and Scarlet's hand tightened on his leather pack and he fretted at the thought of the good pouch of silver coins hidden in his belt.

The Bledlander's excellent knives and the ragged scars covering his bare chest recommended him as a skilled fighter, and Scarlet got a good look at both before giving the man a cursory nod and hurrying past. The spot between his shoulder 11

Scarlet and the White Wolf--Book One

by Kirby Crow

blades tingled as he left the Bledlander behind, but he resisted the urge to look back. The Bled were like dogs: show them an ounce of fear and they'd be all over you.

For Scarlet, who was a skilled woodsman and had no fear of beasts, bad weather, or hunger, survival depended mostly on his wits and his ability to outrun those predators who went on two legs instead of four. The Bled might give him some trouble in that quarter.

He glanced over his shoulder at the Bled as he continued to walk at a brisk pace, his legs moving tirelessly beneath him. There had been trouble between the lawless Bledlands and Byzantur all season, and it was a lean year; the roads filled with hungry men. He took no chances and looked back a minute or so later, only to see the warrior had vanished. His heart gave a little jolt, and a quick glance to the stand of spare cedars to the west showed him a glimpse of tall shadow slinking behind a tree. It was all the warning he needed.

He took off like a rabbit and left the skulking Bledlander in the dust, silently thanking Deva for her gifts. If she had taken the littlest finger of his left hand before he was born, she had made up for it by giving him two good legs. He did not mind never having the finger, honestly, though it did make his left hand too slender for any normal glove to fit, since the long bone that ran from the wrist to the knuckle was gone, too.

With the Bledlander far behind him, Scarlet slowed to a trot until he neared the turnoff to the Patra Ferry. He halted in the middle of the road, his hands on his hips, and caught his breath while he thought. The air had cooled, hinting of the mild winter season that was almost upon them. He fished a 12

Scarlet and the White Wolf--Book One

by Kirby Crow

furled apple from his pack and bit into it with strong white teeth as he pondered his options. Walking all the way home presented problems: he was tiring from his run and would be less able to run again if more trouble presented itself. If he took a ship down the river all the way to Tradepoint, he would shorten his journey and avoid any further trouble on the road, but he was equally likely to run into slavers or bandit boats on the water.

Scarlet ate a little more of the apple, his clear brow furrowing as he chewed. This job was getting almost
too
dangerous, though once he would have insisted otherwise.

His love for the pedlar's life was as strong as ever, but even he had to admit that he had been extremely lucky thus far.

Numerous hazards had brushed past him, death and rape among them, but he had always managed to escape. He recalled Masdren's offer and toyed with the idea of settling in Ankar or Sondek, or perhaps even far south in Rusa, the colorful capital of Byzantur, where there were Hilurin who actually lived in walled cities instead of rustic, undefended villages.

Finishing the apple, Scarlet looked around at the dry, yellow country surrounding the road. He chose a likely spot: a little mound of earth out of the shade of a stand of wind-blasted oaks, and dug a shallow hole to drop the apple core into. That done, he glanced quickly around him to make certain no eyes would witness, scraped a little dirt over the gnawed core, and laid his palm over the earth. Warmth crawled up Scarlet's wrist as he closed his dark eyes and 13

Scarlet and the White Wolf--Book One

by Kirby Crow

chanted the short verse, and then he was up and walking down the road to the ferry, dusting off his hands.

Behind him, a thin, fragile, tendril of green curled out of the mound and tested the air.

* * * *

The boat was a skiff, the waters choppy, and the captain was roaring drunk. Not the best way to navigate the Iron River from Patra to Lysia, but it had to do. The deck heaved under Scarlet like a wild Bledlands' mare, the captain stank like a distillery, and he was vastly relieved to finally see the lowland dock of Skeld's Ferry with the usual loiterers hanging around. He waved at a figure seated on shore just as the skiff's bow slammed into the dock and landed him on his rump.

One of the old men smoking his pipe in the sun grinned and raised a hand to him as he was getting to his feet. "High time you returned, Scarlet-lad."

He squinted to make out his features and waved. It was Old Kev, the village Watch and Teff Ferryman's uncle, who knew his father's father when he was a boy and never let him forget it. Lysia was a small village and everybody knew him and knew he was too restless to stay long in one place. Yet, his feet always seemed to find their way back.

"What do you hear, Kev?" he asked, stretching stiff muscles and trying to rub the soreness out of his backside.

Teff and his son Keril were seated beside Kev in wide broomstick chairs, each with a smoldering pipe in their hands.

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Scarlet and the White Wolf--Book One

by Kirby Crow

Kev gave Scarlet a dour look and dragged a puff from his pipe. "News is what happens somewhere else," he drawled, disapproval coloring his tone. Kev had made no secret of his dislike of Scarlet since he had turned fourteen, and wondered loudly and often in Scarlet's presence how in Deva's name any proper Hilurin man could choose a wandering life over home and hearth. Though he was invariably civil to Scarlet for his father's sake, Scarlet was painfully aware that Kev himself represented every reason he had left Lysia in the first place.

"Nothing much changes here," Kev went on.

"Steady as the Nerit," he agreed, nodding his head to the south, where the shadow of Nerit Mountain sketched a black and white hump across the sky behind Kev.

"True, true," Kev nodded lazily, smoke flowing from his mouth. "But as it happens, there
is
something new these days."

He pretended disinterest. "Oh?"

"There's a snot-nosed Kasiri king.
Liall,
he calls himself. A Northman, I gather. Some even say he's from frozen Norl Udur itself, and he's squatting on the mountain athwart Whetstone Pass. He was here a day or three ago, the Wolf himself: tall as a frost giant, hair like snow and pale blue eyes like a cat. Never seen the like. If you're going to sell your wares in Khurelen or the Bledlands, you'll have to pay his toll."

Scarlet smirked, unconvinced that a Kasiri could be from Norl Udur. Kasiri were generally from Chrj, the vast, arid desert east of the Iron River. Saying one was from Norl Udur 15

Scarlet and the White Wolf--Book One

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was like saying he was from the moon. Still, he was glad of the chance to take Kev down a peg for once.

"You call that news? Since when is a gypsy rare, even one as strange as that? There's a thousand other Kasiri on the roads between here and Morturii."

"
This
Kasiri has got a well-armed krait at his back, and they've held the Snakepath to Khurelen for three months."

Scarlet blinked. Kasiri chieftains, or
atya
, generally did not allow their people to make camp in one place for any amount of time. To do so was to invite disaster, for no civilized place tolerated Kasiri for long. A sly Kasiri atya had more sense and kept his krait on the move.

"Why hasn't the army garrison in Patra ridden out to remove him?"

Kev tilted his head to blow out a thick stream of fragrant smoke. "As it happens, the Wolf does his squatting too near the Bledlands side of the pass, and the Flower Prince—bless his name—does not look to brew trouble with the proud Bled lords."

Once every thirty years or so, the priests of Deva chose a Hilurin youth who would be known as
yeva bilan
, the Flower Prince, until he reached middle age. He was destined to be the Consort of the goddess Deva, she who threw down the cruel Shining Ones and freed the Hilurin people. The Flower Prince would be a living embodiment of her love for as long as he ruled, and would be treated almost as a god himself. In good time, he would step down and a new prince would be chosen. After that, no one knew what happened to him.

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Scarlet and the White Wolf--Book One

by Kirby Crow

The news about Kasiri holding the pass was irksome.

Scarlet had planned to spend a few days in Lysia before he ascended the path to Nerit Mountain. From there, he would take the Snakepath down the other side to skirt the eastern borders of the Bledlands, passing many homes and farms on the way, where the folk living there would buy his wares. The other road, the dangerous and deserted Salt Road, went around the mountain and the Bledlands entirely and took six or seven days longer in good weather. That fact was not only trying, it was costly.

He scowled. "Wolf or no, I won't be penned up in my own land. Perhaps I'll just take a walk up to the pass and meet this Wolf."

Kev gave a sharp bark of laughter. "Now that would be unwise. Didn't your mum and dad ever tell you to not to talk to strangers?"

Scarlet hefted his wide leather satchel meaningfully, shaking it at Kev a little to remind the old man that his entire livelihood depended on talking to strangers. He bid Keril and Teff a grumpy farewell before heading toward the Owl's Road, which would take him straight into Lysia.

He passed Tradepoint an hour later, a large and efficient supply outpost for river traffic and the army, but only Deni and his father were there, mending a fence to keep their goats from getting into the grain stock. He waved at Deni as he walked past and Zsu, Deni's younger sister, came out onto the porch. Her apron was dusted with flour and she was holding a wooden bowl.

"Hullo, Scarlet."

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Scarlet and the White Wolf--Book One

by Kirby Crow

He waved at her, suddenly sorry that he had only brought back a present for his own sister. Zsu's black hair, always in a tangle from climbing trees or chasing goats, would have looked pretty with new ribbons. She had been Annaya's best friend since they were in diapers, and had now grown into a petite young lady with a pert nose and large, inquisitive eyes.

"Hello, pretty Zsu." He winked at her and she giggled and hid her smile behind her hand.