The Book of a Thousand Days (23 page)

Before Khasar's hands reached me, I had to act.

"Witness all!" I lifted my arms and knelt, the frosty grass snapped like glass under my knees. "See Lady Saren surrender to Khan Khasar. I sing the song of submission."

Here was the trick. I don't know a song of submission. Instead, I began to sing the song of the wolf.

"Yellow eyes, blink the night," I sang. "Two paws in, two paws gone," while praying that there were no muckers among his warriors, that they wouldn't know what it was I sang. I remembered the voices of my brothers chanting those words, yelling them at the night to save the sheep, felt that childhood tune hum inside me now as if in harmony. I reached forward, I touched Khasar's boots, hoping the contact would make the song stronger.

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Khasar stared down at me and did nothing, his face puzzled, his body rigid. I think I understood him then --I think he felt that something was wrong but he couldn't allow himself to be afraid, not of me, not of a naked girl singing. And because he did nothing to stop me, neither did his men. I kept singing, calling the wolf out of the man.

Too late Khasar asked, "What are you --"

He didn't finish his question, because his head was thrown back, and he stared up, in pain or thrill I don't know. I almost stopped singing then, my limbs shook so that the ache was nearly unbearable. I didn't know what would happen. Would the wolf in Khasar hear my song and flee its daylight form? Would it come out under the sun ?

With my voice I sang, and with my heart I prayed. Titor, god of animals, whose realm this man destroyed. Under, god of tricks, whose name this man cast off. Goda, goddess of sleep, I gave you a sleepless night in prayer. Evela, my lady, goddess of sunlight and songs, give me voice. Ancestors, let me sing this man into his animal form, his sleepless form of night, trick him into it under this sunlight.

I sang to him the song of the wolf.

He stumbled back a step, but it was the most he

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could manage. All his force seemed focused on trying to hold his shape. His men were still looking away, ashamed of my shame, unaware of their lord's danger. Then Khasar groaned.

"My lord? Khan Khasar?" Chinua asked, as if beginning to wonder if something was wrong. The rest didn't suspect me still, I think. I'd completely debased myself, I'd become a thing too low to contemplate. Still, I guessed I wouldn't have long. The moment they thought me dangerous, they'd let their arrows fly.

Louder I sang. I stood, trembling for cold and fear, and I put my hands on his chest. So close I was, he could've snapped my neck by accident. If he'd looked, he'd have seen the lie in my face. But his neck arched and his glance flung up toward the sky. My voice quavered so that on the low notes it was nothing but a rasp, two stones grating together.

Please

, I prayed.

Please change

.

Hurry

.

Become that wolf. Now, now.

"My lord? Are you all right?" asked Chinua. He stepped forward two paces and pulled his bow back tighter. "I think you'd better stand back now, girl."

But I couldn't stand back until Khasar was gone where he couldn't hurt Tegus or make my lady quake or sneak into my nightmares. I clung to Khasar, so the

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warriors couldn't shoot at me without risking their lord.

"The night, the night!" I sang, and my voice was getting more desperate. I knew I didn't sound very meek anymore, but the wolf in Khasar wasn't coming out. "The night drips from your teeth. The night melts from your eyes. Yellow eyes!"

"Stand back," said Chinua, "or your eyes will be strung together on my arrow!"

He aimed at my head, I screamed my song, and Khasar thrust back his head and howled. Not at the moon, not at the shifting stars, but howled right at the Eternal Blue Sky.

That

, I thought

should get the Ancestors' attention.

Khasar pulled out of my grip, and I dropped flat to the ground just as an arrow whisked over me. I kept singing. And Khasar kept thrashing. His men were advancing, but for the moment they forgot me in favor of their lord, who had begun to screech and howl, his hands clawing the air. I held no weapon; they must not have understood that I could harm him. So I sang on, though I don't know how I found any voice with all the shaking and barely a breath trickling into my lungs.

Then the change happened. It really did. I'd believed Saren when she'd told me what she'd seen, or I'd thought I had, but until I saw the change myself,

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I guess I hadn't truly understood. Just the sight of its wrongness made my stomach seize up, and I would've lost my breakfast if I'd had any.

I don't think I can describe the sound of flesh bulging and ripping, or the smell that clouded around Khasar, strange and rancid. I can say that his face thrust out, his back hunched with fur, his clothing tore, his armor bent and groaned before popping off. He dropped down on all fours and where Khasar had stood, a wolf now growled.

Khasar the wolf was enormous, as tall as an antelope, as fat as a mare, with jaws that could take down the largest yak. The size, the sheer menace of the thing made me quake, and the song choked in my throat. His men hollered and jumped back from the snarls, the teeth, the daggered paws.

"It's our lord!" shouted Chinua. "Do not harm him!"

Here's where my plan took the greatest risk. What would the wolf do? I was bargaining that the wolf who had snarled at me in the tower was more instinct than thought, that he loses his humanness when he's a wolf. Saren's story suggested such, when Chinua moved them behind a fire to protect them from his lord. Here was my hope--that Khasar the wolf would now attack his own men.

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"It is our lord," Chinua was shouting. "Do not harm him!"

Chinua ran about, bellowing, trying to get warriors to move so the wolf would have an escape, but the camp completely ringed the woods. With city wall before us and forty thousand warriors and their ghers and animals all around, there was nowhere for the beast to flee. He paced and growled and wiped his face against his legs as if the sunlight were painful.

My plan was failing. The warriors kept their swords and arrows pointed at the wolf but didn't strike, and the wolf just snarled and snapped at nothing.

"Change back, Lord Khasar," Chinua said. "It's day! Change, my lord, change."

He's going to turn back, I thought. And then he'll kill me or worse.

His men now knew that he was a wolf skin-walker, but the warriors weren't fleeing their posts. As Batu said, there was the possibility that they'd revere him even more. I'd lost, I'd lost.

The failure was painful and I was so cold, I moved to crawl back into my cloak. That was a stupid thing to do. Stupid. Because then the wolf noticed me.

His eyes were on me, and he crouched and snarled.

Sing, Dashti,

I told myself.

Push him back with your song. Sing!

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But I was so cold, so terrified, my voice iced in my throat. I couldn't squeak even a word. So I tried to run. I didn't make it three steps.

He pounced, landing on my leg, and I heard a crunch before I felt pain. His foul breath filled my mouth as he snapped in my face, and my stomach tried to vomit. I turned my head as he lunged. The sides of our skulls collided. I could taste blood.

Then, the eerie whistle of an arrow scratched the air. The arrow nipped the beast in the rear and he yelped and turned. His warriors stared back, shaking. One warrior held a bow with no arrow. Maybe it had been a mistake and the bowstring had slipped in his fingers. Maybe he had a sister or daughter my age and thought of her when the wolf leaped on me. Or maybe it had been Under s doing. However it was, Ancestors, please bless that man.

The wolf made a new noise in his throat now, one of hunger and rage. He turned his jaws toward the warriors, and he lunged.

"Don't shoot him," Chinua yelled, but three men, their eyes wide with terror, began emptying their quivers. It didn't matter--the wolf leaped and rolled at incredible speed, and nothing could touch him. When one arrow grazed his leg, the wolf wailed in rage. He sprang, his jaws tearing out the throats of two men.

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More arrows cut the air, and the wolf's attack became so swift and deadly, several warriors lay bleeding before I could even comprehend what was happening.

The wolf was smearing his muzzle in the blood of another soldier when at last one of the arrows struck him hard, then another and another. He roared and clawed at the warriors, killing two more. The men were running back, letting arrows fly as they tried to get out of his reach. Chinua was yelling something, but so was everyone else. Another arrow struck the wolf, another, and another. He howled and snarled, running a circle in mad fury.

He was too wounded to make chase, and all the warriors had retreated beyond his reach. That's when his horrible eyes found me again. I'd managed to pull my cloak on and was trying to drag myself away, but I couldn't stand, I couldn't run. How I prayed to Carthen, goddess of strength! I wept so hard my throat ached, though I was too cold to make tears.

The wolf padded toward me, stuck with arrows, his head low to the ground. He was still tense, growling as if he would attack. I pressed my hands against the crackling grass and pushed myself back, back, as hard and fast as I could, my wounded leg dragging on the ground. But he was faster.

He pounced, and I screamed my song again, just

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one line, one rattled tune. His jaws snapped a hands-breadth from my face, his spittle flying against my lips. His breath stank of blood, and I couldn't seize enough breath to sing again. His maw opened toward my throat, but before he could clamp down, his body slumped. At last the weight of those arrows in him was too great. The full force of his body collapsed on me. He didn't move again.

I thought I was dead too. A hot pain pierced my ankle, a dull pain throbbed in my head. I was pinned to the ground by the wolf s corpse and surrounded by an angry anthill of soldiers. Chinua, his face full of rage and grief, ran forward and prodded his wolf lord to see if he was dead. I pushed against the hairy body with all my strength. The corpse rolled a little to the right, but it was so heavy, I couldn't budge it from my leg.

Then for whole moments, I heard no sound but my own heartbeat.

I let my head fall back, and I gazed into the Eternal Blue Sky. It was morning. Some of the sky was yellow, some the softest blue. One small cloud scuttled along. Strange how everything below can be such death and chaos and pain while above the sky is peace, sweet blue gentleness. I heard a shaman say once, the Ancestors want our souls to be like the blue sky.

I prayed to the sky--

Here I am. I took what the

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Ancestors gave me and I avenged their names. You. saw it. You're above all, even the sun, even the Sacred Mountain, even the Ancestors. I submit to you, and if you're sending me on to see my mama again, I'm ready to go. Just take care of my lady, please, and Tegus, too.

And I closed my eyes to die. But you see that I'm not dead, as I'm still writing. Under heeded my pleas today, though he still tricked me in my turn.

The drums rapped and the horns called. I turned my head and saw five hundred warriors coming from the west gate of the city, Batu at their lead. They halted a safe distance from Khasar's men.

"My lady, are you all right?" Batu shouted to me.

"Yes," I said, because it seemed what he expected to hear. And I was alive still, which I guess was all right.

He gestured with his chin to the dead creature pinning me. "Is that Khasar?"

"It was."

"In wolf form, just as you said. Beware a lady's faith, you warriors of Under's Scorn."

Chinua looked made of wrath. A company of warriors had come forward, standing behind him with weapons in hand. "You should beware us, Evela's peasants! Carthen's Glory' is not defeated by the slaying of one wolf."

Batu shrugged. "I have nearly thirty thousand

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warriors ready at the gates, men fighting for their homes. Your numbers are larger, true, but with your wolf lord dead, how many will fight? He was your real strength. If you leave now, you'll make it home before true winter falls. Don't waste the time. Throw down your weapons, let us take Lady Saren safely away, and we won't pursue."