Wolf Captured (65 page)

Firekeeper watches the gaudy throng, searching for someone in particular, someone who is not there. Man after man emerges from the crowd, begging her for a dance. Some are rich, some are young and strong, some are handsome. Her dance card is growing full, but her heart remains restless, curiously dead to the admiration of those who surround her. She inspects face after face, not finding the one she seeks, despair flat and sour in her mouth.

Her temperament is not one that waits. She is a hunter. She goes looking, uncertain who is her prey.

She is pushing through tangled growth, raising curtains of vine, feeling the hem of her gown knotting around her feet. Satin slippers bind her toes. She kicks them off, feels the yielding dampness of the duff beneath her feet. This is better.

She pushes aside the vines, steps around heaps of stone that are the ruins of buildings that once made trees seem small. She hears new music, comes upon another ball. Here the dancers are cranes dancing two by two, their long legs curiously human in their stilted steps, their long feathers as elegant as any silk dress. Now they intermingle with the human dancers, the ballroom’s garlands are flowering vines, the candlelight the flickering glow of fireflies.

All at once, there is a pause in the music. Heads turn to see who is entering. He is tall and lean, his bearing graceful. His attire is that of Hawk Haven: knee-britches, waistcoat in patterned silk, white shirt closed at the throat with a flowing cravat. His feet, though, are bare, and the legs that extend below the gather of the trousers are grey-furred and wolf-pawed.

When he turns so that his gaze might sweep the crowd, she sees the bushy tail that balances his height. He turns further, and now it is clear that the face beneath the tricorn hat and the tidy formal wig has a long muzzle, a wolf’s face with wolf’s fangs, but the eyes that meet hers are blue.

He strides across the room to her. She tears her dance card in half. Tossing it to the polished boards of the floor, she steps with light eagerness to meet him. She lets him take her into his arms, feeling there the thrill she had not at the approach of any of the many human suitors. Together they are dancing, grace and motion wedding them into one. But those who have crowded the sidelines are not smiling; there is no approval on any face. Now she sees that there are beasts among the crowd, and they look no happier than the humans. Hackles are raised, claws extended, lips curled back from shining fangs.

“Impossible!” comes the cry from every throat. “Impossible!” And her partner is dropping onto all fours, his finery shredding about him. Hands are pulling her back, and her struggles mean nothing against that one word: Impossible.

Firekeeper sat bolt upright, finding her hand wrapped around her Fang. She had fallen asleep with her head upon Blind Seer’s flank. When the blue-eyed wolf turned his head and looked at her, his gaze that of the handsome swain in her dream, she felt her heart twist with pain.

Dark Death had just entered the clearing. Doubtless the sound of his return was what had wakened her. He was dragging behind him the carcass of a young wild boar, hardly more than a piglet and fat with its mother’s milk. The wolf wagged his tail in greeting, obviously hoping for her approval.

With dream-born insight, Firekeeper realized that Dark Death’s attitude toward her had changed, that she was no longer a human intruder or useless weakling. Dark Death now saw her strength and usefulness. Wolf-like, he strove to impress her—to win her?

A thrill of mingled excitement and fear washed through Firekeeper, leaving her weak. She gripped dirt in the curled fingers of her free hand, fighting not to let any of her companions know how confusion threatened to overwhelm her.

After several ragged breaths, Firekeeper rose from Blind Seer’s side and moved to help Dark Death carry the meat. When she easily lifted what he had been forced to drag, the wolf breathed his approval.

“You are very strong,” Dark Death said. “I had not known humans could be so strong.”

The wolf’s praise thrilled Firekeeper, a thrill she had never felt in response to praise from any human male, though there had been men who had admired her—even those who claimed to love her.

Firekeeper’s nightmare haunted her and she ripped her Fang through the young boar’s hide, gutting it and throwing the offal savagely away. The wolves swarmed after it, snapping at each other in not quite playful competition.

Impossible.

DERIAN CLUNG TO THE DIRT as a dog was killed, then a lamb, then a calf.

At least they’re domestic animals, right?
he thought frantically.
The rules don’t forbid butchering, do they? No. Just animal sacrifice. How is this different?

He knew he had arrived at the justification the disdum below were using. As such, he could recognize the portents when the white mare was led forth.

She was a beautiful animal. Without looking at her teeth Derian couldn’t be sure, but he was willing to bet she was no more than three years old. Her coat was as pale as sea foam, her mane and tail combed out so they shone, giving back the firelight with hints of silver.

She wasn’t led to the top of the pyramid, so at first Derian hoped they didn’t intend to kill her. Then he realized that the clean sand being spread around the base would serve the same purpose as the cloths placed on the altar above. He started to pull himself upright. A huge paw placed directly between his shoulder blades forced him down.

Although the air below must reek of blood from the animals that had been slaughtered before, the white mare was almost impossibly docile. When they led her between two flaming brazers she only glanced at the fire with mild interest. Derian recognized the symptoms.

Drugged. They’ve doped her with something. It wouldn’t do to have your sacrifice bucking and pulling and trying to save her life, not when the whole thing is supposed to be a way for the deities to tell you their will. I wonder how many of those people realize what’s going on? How many of them realize that if that horse is killed they’re moving into new territory?

During his time in u-Bishinti, Derian had learned that the Liglimom did not typically eat horse meat. An old horse might be killed and its meat then used for animal feed, but horses were not raised to be eaten.

Any more than dogs are,
Derian thought.
I should have seen it before. These sacrifices aren’t some new thing, triggered by our coming. This has been going on for a while. Probably at first they killed a chicken or a rabbit—hardly anything more than any farmer does for the pot. Then they needed something more dramatic, more enticing, more worthy. I wonder how long before they move on to wild animals? I wonder how long before someone thinks to try again with the yarimaimalom?

His thoughts thundered in his head, beating back against the horror he felt as incantations were spoken. As before, the culmination was when the knife wielder slit the animal’s throat, but here there was a new horror.

Before the animal had been killed quickly and cleanly, but the mare’s throat was only cut open. She shook her head as if feeling the sting, but otherwise remained docile. Blood splattered from the wound, splashing onto the clean sand. Dantarahma looked at the patterns it made in the sand and therein read portents.

Maybe they won’t kill her
, Derian thought, trying to raise himself up and feeling the paw push him back down. This time there was a prickling of claws and he lay. very still.
She’s a fine animal, a valuable horse. Certainly someone would miss her.

But the drumming grew louder, its heartbeat rhythm increasing in intensity, and Derian knew the mare was doomed. At the crescendo, when the drumbeats had become so rapid that one blended into the other in a horrible pulsing of sound, Dantarahma took the knife from his colleague and tore it through the red-splattered whiteness of the shining throat.

Blood fountained everywhere, and to Derian’s horror the worshippers, even the musicians, rushed forward, seeking to be showered beneath the life fountain. They never stopped singing. When the mare’s body thudded to the earth and the knives came out, Derian felt the paw lifted from his back.

They left before the feast really began.

DERIAN FELT SICK TO HIS STOMACH, but the cool appraising gazes of the jaguar and the puma helped him regain control. After taking Derian far enough that he, at least, could no longer hear the sounds from the hidden temple, they guided him to a stream.

Derian not only drank, he washed himself, splashing the cool water over his face and upper body as if he could somehow rinse away the horrible scene he had witnessed. When he ceased his frenzied bathing, he looked around. The two great cats had vanished, but Eshinarvash had returned.

The young man’s eyes had once again adjusted to moonlight, but now they played a curious trick on him. Eshinarvash no longer looked like a black-and-white horse, but rather like fragments of a white horse floating independent of any body against the darkness. For a moment it seemed as if the uneaten portions of the white mare stood before him in mute reproach. Then Eshinarvash shook and the illusion vanished.

Staggering slightly, Derian walked over to the Wise Horse.

“Did you know what they were taking me to see?”

Eshinarvash nodded.

“Have you shown this to any other people?”

The horse shook his head.

“Why not? Wouldn’t Varjuna or someone like that be better?”

Eshinarvash shook his head again, but, of course, he could say nothing more. Instead he nuzzled Derian, than looked back over his own shoulder, toward his back.

“You want me to ride now?”

Nod.

“I think I can. I want to get as far away from this place as possible.”

Once Derian was astride and the horse had begun walking—no galloping now in the darkness—he tried to work out why the yarimaimalom would have shown him the ritual. He knew Varjuna would have been as horrified as he had been. He was sure that most of the other disdum would have been as well.

“But that’s the problem, isn’t it?” he said aloud. When Eshinarvash gave no signal that he should be quiet, Derian continued. “You think you know who you can trust, but you can’t be sure. If Dantarahma himself is leading the sacrifices, who might he have converted to his cause? With all the fires burning there, it would be impossible to identify most of those people by scent, and even if you did, what could you do?”

Eshinarvash gave what Derian was certain was an encouraging nicker.

“You can’t accuse someone—not without some elaborate ritual, and then you’d have to hope that someone understood. Even if you spelled it out letter by letter, it’s a long tale. How could you be certain that the person to whom it was told wasn’t in on it or wouldn’t tell it to someone who was or wouldn’t have an accident before anything could be done?

“What Dantarahma and his cronies were doing was worse than killing a few domestic animals. They were sacrificing them and reading the omens—and finding them good. I wonder what they decided their deities told them to do tonight ? I bet you really wished Firekeeper had been here.”

To his surprise, Derian felt Eshinarvash shake his head.

“You don’t?” Then, again, understanding came. “She’s considered a threat, isn’t she? An accusation from her would look like a rival trying to upset the established order, but coming from me, especially with her out of touch there across the water, it’s something else. The disdum at the outpost can witness how limitedly she can write. There is no way Firekeeper could send such an elaborate plot—even if she thought that way, which she doesn’t. If she wanted to take over, she’d probably challenge each of u-Liall to a fight—or maybe take them on all at once.”

He laughed and heard the nervous note in it.

“So not only don’t you want her to tell about this, I’ve got to do something before she decides to come back. Given what I told her about the maimalodalum, that’s probably not going to be for a while, but still …”

Derian fell silent, trying to decide in whom he could confide. He liked Rahniseeta and she certainly seemed to understand the inner workings of the interlocking temples without really being part of them, but in the end she’d probably just advise him to tell Harjeedian.

Right now Derian was feeling even less friendly than usual toward the aridisdu. He kept thinking of how Harjeedian had ordered Roanne and the pack horse killed, and then coolly had their meat set aside as feed for Blind Seer. Was this simply efficiency, as Derian had thought, or was this the callous calculation of one who approved of animal sacrifice and who might have read a few omens in the spilled blood before having his comparatively ignorant sailors mop it up?

No, Derian would definitely not trust Harjeedian, at least not until he had proof the man had not been among those gathered below. Derian hadn’t seen Harjeedian, but he and the great cats had watched from above, and from a distance. Only the fact that Dantarahma had been at the top of the step pyramid, in the center of the light, had made that identification certain. Derian hadn’t even recognized the other two he’d seen clearly: the assistant in the rites and the woman who had carried the various smaller animals to the top.

He might know them if he saw them again, but then again he might not. The Liglimom all had dark hair, skin, and eyes. He was learning to recognize the many differences in facial structure and build, but he hadn’t exactly been studying to remember. He’d been too busy realizing what all of this meant.

Eshinarvash carried him for some time, then stopped and shivered his skin.

“Rest break?” Derian asked, sliding to the ground. “It must be getting on for dawn.”

Eshinarvash nickered, nosing at something at about nose height. Derian made his way over—certain now that it was getting lighter. He found a pair of recently killed rabbits cached in a crotch of a tree.

“Out of reach of the bugs,” he said, fighting down nausea at the sight of the dead animals. Their limp forms reminded him of the sacrificed animals. Then he remembered how Firekeeper would think. “Someone brought me breakfast, and I shouldn’t let it go to waste. Thank you.”