Wolf Captured (7 page)

She called down,
“Can you come to me, sweet hunter? Has Derian secured the men?”

“I come,”
the wolf replied.
“Give me room.
”

Had the ladder not been at an angle, Blind Seer might have had some difficulty, but they had used such things before and he had practiced until all but the most acute angles were within his ability.

When his enormous grey head emerged above the deck, the three sailors took an involuntary step back. Firekeeper realized that they might not have seen the wolf conscious—if at all. Only Harjeedian, Rarby, and Shelby had been evident when they were captured.

“Check, sweet hunter,
” Firekeeper said, allowing her hand to trail through the wolf’s thick fur.
“See if there are others still hiding and that these have put away all their weapons.
”

The wolf reported back shortly.

“No others to sight or scent,
” he said.
“Those men still carry knives, but they are sheathed.”

Firekeeper looked at the three huddled sailors.

“You have knives. Drop them, too.”

They did, and Blind Seer brought her one.

“It is not your Fang,”
he said,
“but it will bite nearly as deep.”

Firekeeper stuck the knife into her belt alongside Shelby’s, then called down to Derian.

“Bring Harjeedian. His turn to be hostage.”

Derian called back. “I’ve tied Rarby to the bars of your cage. No need for him to get frisky.”

Firekeeper agreed. Her real reason for wanting Harjeedian above decks was to see if he could do anything for her nausea, but she didn’t want to admit that until Derian was there to manage the other men.

Harjeedian came up, his expression angry, his eyes narrowed. Derian was right behind him, holding a long knife, doubtless taken from Rarby, to the other man’s back.

Harjeedian gave a thin-lipped smile when he saw the other sailors subdued.

“I am impressed. I thought the cages would hold you. I admit to underestimating your capacities.”

Firekeeper bared her teeth at him. The expression was not a smile, but closer to a snarl. Harjeedian remained calm.

“You have escaped,” Harjeedian went on. He made a wide gesture with his arm. “But where will you go?”

Firekeeper followed the gesture, registering for the first time that the only land in sight was a distant shape of green. They were as trapped as they had ever been in the compartment belowdecks. Her head swam with renewed seasickness.

“I see sails,” Derian said defiantly. “We will get that ship’s attention and be taken to shore.”

Harjeedian laughed.

“That ship is coming to meet us,” he said. “We could not make a long voyage in this tub, nor could you—even if you had the skill. This boat is leaking in a dozen places already, for it was never intended for rougher waters. You have done well—and I promise not to underestimate you again. Will you surrender, or must the crew of
Child of Water
subdue you?”

“If I promise to kill you,” Firekeeper said, trying to keep her voice steady, “then maybe they think and take us home.”

“That only works,” Harjeedian said, sounding amused, “if the other party cares if I live or die. Frankly, I do not think the ship’s captain would weigh any of our lives very highly if the prize to be won was taking you. I must also warn you that my teachers, who are not on that vessel, but whom you will meet someday, will care very deeply if I am killed.”

This flood of words was too much for Firekeeper. She looked blankly at Derian.

Derian hissed out his breath between his teeth.

“Firekeeper, we may have no choice but to surrender.”

DERIAN KNEW FIREKEEPER felt betrayed, but he believed Harjeedian. The man was not merely blustering. He spoke with the confidence of one who knew he had the upper hand.

“Can you explain more clearly?” Derian said. “Firekeeper confused is not a safe person. What puzzles me is why you want us. You’ve gone to a great deal of trouble to keep us alive. Who are you working for? Queen Valora? The pirates?”

“Neither,” Harjeedian said. “Though you might say that your actions against both those parties played their role in bringing you here. Nor is this the time for you to know my teachers’ wishes.”

Firekeeper growled, the sound echoed by Blind Seer’s deeper rumble.

Derian felt a bit frantic. He knew the pair could easily take out their captors, but he didn’t see how that would do them any good—and it could do a great deal of harm.

“Harjeedian, you can’t care so little for your life. I beg you, explain.”

Harjeedian seemed to reassess the situation.

“I can tell you this much,” he said. “One of whom you made an enemy brought word of Firekeeper and Blind Seer to my teachers.”

Derian could tell that, short of torture, he would learn nothing more.

“Firekeeper really was seasick,” he said. “If you don’t want her wasting away, you’re going to need to help her.”

Harjeedian considered. “After the transfer. I see no advantage to having her strong and clearheaded now.”

Derian could see his point.

“What next?” he said.

“You surrender and the transfer takes place as planned,” Harjeedian replied, “or you kill us and deal with this ship sinking and the oncoming vessel. That is all.”

Derian looked at Firekeeper.

“Your call,” he said.

Firekeeper looked at Harjeedian.

“First to hurt us dies. I have enough hostages.”

Harjeedian met her gaze.

“I can see how you might. Very well. I understand. Men, I warn you, no getting back a bit of your own. I won’t answer for the consequences.”

Derian shivered, trying to believe it was caused by the sudden wind that had whipped up, but knowing that the real source was the chilly glint in Firekeeper’s dark eyes.

EVEN FIREKEEPER COULD TELL that considerable preparation had been done with the specific intent of moving Blind Seer from the riverboat to the larger ocean vessel. There was a cage, big enough to hold the wolf, small enough to keep him from sliding around and possibly doing himself injury. It was strongly built, but light enough that it could be hauled up through a complicated web of ropes.

What she hadn’t expected was that the same cage would be used to move her. Harjeedian and Derian had been taken aboard via a strange chair-like contraption, but when it came time for her to go aboard it was the cage, not the chair, that was lowered.

“Get inside,” Rarby ordered. Obviously, the ease with which he and Shelby had been overcome still stung, but equally obviously, he had been told not to lay a hand on her unless she refused to cooperate.

“Why this?” Firekeeper asked, gesturing toward the cage with a toss of her head. “Why not chair?”

Rarby shook his head.

“Don’t know. Don’t care. What I do know is that’s what they’ve sent. Now, are you going to get in it, or am I going to have to beat the crap out of you first?”

He looked as if he’d welcome the opportunity, and it pleased Firekeeper to deny him. She crept into the cage, musing over what they had won in their effort to escape. There had been three victories as she saw them.

The first was confirmation that all three of them were wanted, alive and in at least fair condition. She had suspected this, but hadn’t known for certain. However, the fact that Harjeedian had not harmed Derian to punish Firekeeper made her fairly sure that Derian had not been kidnapped merely as a hostage against her good behavior.

The second victory was that she thought she had convinced Harjeedian that merely threatening either Blind Seer or Derian would not be enough to keep her in line. Deep inside, she wasn’t sure if this was true, but she thought that Harjeedian would be more careful. Whether this care would take the form of courtesy or more intensive imprisonment she couldn’t be certain. However, she felt she had regained some status, and wolf-like, she felt this was important.

The third victory was both the smallest and the largest. Only one of the two knives she had acquired in the scuffle had been taken from her. Shelby had demanded the return of his knife, but the blade Blind Seer had given her had not been noticed. At first opportunity, Firekeeper had slipped it inside the loose folds of the shirt she now wore. When Harjeedian had insisted she don trousers and a heavier shirt over the first as protection against the sharp spring winds, she had readily agreed.

Now the knife nestled between the baggy folds of the outer and inner shirts, hopefully undetectable. Firekeeper thought that Derian might also be armed. He had returned Rarby’s knife, but the butter knife, jagged-edged from working the chain, and the solid link of chain he had hidden in his fist had not been taken from him.

Of course, these victories would be lost if they were stripped and searched, but for now Firekeeper felt more secure. Her fangs were not drawn, only hidden.

Privately, she mourned the loss of her own Fang, the garnet-hilted knife that had been given to her by the first One Male of her memory, a knife that had belonged to Prince Barden, leader of the settlers who had crossed the Iron Mountains in the hope of building a life for themselves. Her human parents had been among those settlers—some said her father had been Prince Barden himself—and Firekeeper treasured the knife both as a valuable tool, and as a tie to that forgotten time in her life.

However, as she allowed herself to be secured in the transport cage, she was glad for any knife at all.

Once Rarby had closed the door and snapped home the lock, he gave a shrill whistle, waving his arm broadly over his head. Almost immediately, Firekeeper felt the cage jerk and rise swaying over the deck. It rose regularly after that, the stops—presumably so those hauling the rope could adjust their grips—coming smoothly. Nonetheless, her traitor stomach wanted to rebel and she fought hard to keep from vomiting. She had no desire to arrive at the next stage in this unplanned-for journey bent over and spewing.

She managed, though only just barely, and from the look Derian gave her when the cage was lowered onto the deck she suspected she didn’t look very healthy. Blind Seer licked her face through the bars.

“Be ill if you must, dear heart,”
he said.
“There’s been talk enough of your ailment. That’s the reason they brought you up in this fashion. They feared otherwise you might fall.”

Derian opened the door of the transport cage for her; Firekeeper saw that all three of them were within a larger cage. It was not so solid that she didn’t think she couldn’t break out of it, given time, but even as she crawled out of the littler cage she saw a roof being lowered and lashed into place.

No, the cage would not stop her or Blind Seer, but it would slow them. If they were guarded, that would be enough.

Derian helped her stand, putting a supportive arm around her—a gesture she was grateful for, even as she found the need galling.

“How do you feel?” he asked.

“Maybe better now,” she replied cautiously testing her footing. “This boat not move so much, I think.”

Firekeeper glanced around, taking in the tall tree trunks that, shorn of their bark, held webs of rope and wide canvas sails. There were three such trees, as far as she could tell, and she thought that this made for a very big boat indeed. It had stood as high over the riverboat as the castle at Eagle’s Nest stood over the city below. As so often when confronted with human achievements, the wolf-woman was reluctantly impressed.

The last of the sailors who had crewed the riverboat came over the side now, climbing like squirrels rather than resorting to the clumsy lifts. Rarby snapped a salute to a woman who stood to one side, her skin the same tone as Harjeedian’s, her aura one of calm authority.

“The riverboat is going down now, ma’am,” Rarby said. “We took an axe to the hold and the ocean was rushing in.”

“Very good,” the woman said. As with Harjeedian, her voice contained an unfamiliar music. “Report to my first mate. He will show you where to sling your hammocks.”

Rarby seemed pleased with the arrangement—indeed, to expect it. Gesturing to Shelby and the other sailors, he led them hurriedly away. Firekeeper wanted to think that Rarby moved quickly from fear of her, but knew this was only puppy dreams. Beside her, Blind Seer was sniffing the wind.

“What?”
she asked.

“For a moment, a scent teased my whiskers,”
the wolf said,
“but the wind carried it away.”

“Do you see any Royal-kind among the seagulls?”
Firekeeper asked, trying not to seem too hopeful.

“None,
” the wolf replied,
“and I would tell you if I did.”

This last was an important reassurance, for once there had been a time when Blind Seer would have hidden such knowledge from her.

DERIAN OFFERED FIREKEEPER a leather water bottle, wondering how much of her unease was from lingering seasickness and how much from their new situation.

“Have you noticed,” he said quietly, “that most of the crew of this ship is like Harjeedian—the same color skin and tilting eyes, the same dark hair. They aren’t Stoneholders, either. I’ve heard a bit of their language, and I’d swear it isn’t the same.”

“These are browner,” Firekeeper agreed, struggling a bit for comparison. “The Alkyab of Stonehold have skin like winter grass, golden as much as brown. These have skin like clean mud.”

Derian forced a laugh. “There’s many a housekeeper who would say that ‘clean’ and ‘mud’ don’t go together, but I know what you mean. I thought of toasted bread, or—even better—the crust on a smooth loaf. It looks tanned, but you can tell they started that way.”

“Not too bad to look at,” Firekeeper commented, “and better for sun than your pink skin.”

Firekeeper rarely sunburned, possibly because her skin had given up protesting the abuses she put it through, but Derian always suffered as the summer sun grew stronger.

“You must ask them for hat,” she added, “if we is outside all day and night.”