The Wolf King (32 page)

One by one, they appeared, so like the patchy snow on the forest floor, gray white with glowing eyes, that he was not aware they were present until movement drew attention to them. He saluted them and watched them pass, the massive leader and his she the last. And he knew, without knowing how he knew, that they had been watching him, able to attack and kill him easily had he made any move against the rest, but they respected the coiled power they saw in him, as he in them. So they had a truce, one dangerous predator to another.

And when he was in the greatest danger of his life, they had come to offer protection and comfort, and they had sheltered him and set him free.

When she woke the sun was casting shafts of light between the pines. He was up; she smelled fresh bread. She rose, pushed the blankets aside. He averted his eyes and offered her his mantle. Matrona chuckled.

“What? You are not cured yet?”

“Looking at you makes me want to begin again.”

“Make sure your wife is a warm-natured woman, otherwise I pity her. There is nothing better or worse than being constantly pursued about the house by a panting husband.”

“Better or worse?” He got no reply and when he turned, she was gone.

The golden dragon lay among the folds of his mantle on the forest floor.

The virgin wolf is the fastest of all, the most dangerous. The wind and driving rain were in Regeane’s face, but the rain didn’t bother her. The wolf is a wonderful bad-weather animal and the wind told her in which direction the killers were fleeing among the narrow, twisting streets of the town. The Roman grid pattern had long been superseded by the medieval mileage of tangled footways leading to miniature plazas. The chase was complicated by the fact that in their terror, the fugitives ignored walls, fences, and even dwellings blocking their way to freedom. Led by the warrior with the scratched face, they kicked down the door of one house, exited into a walled garden, and jumped the wall—it was covered with spikes—when Regeane, hot on their heels, exited the house. She had two seconds to decide whether she would follow. Since she’d had no occasion to find out how high she could jump as a wolf, she was gratified to learn she could clear seven feet, but one of the spikes brushed her stomach, sending a chill of terror through her whole body. As soon as she landed in the stony street beyond, she understood why they had undertaken a maneuver hazardous even for a human. The dismay in their faces was almost comical. Almost. She could have been impaled on one of those spikes and killed.

The leader picked up a stone; thrown by a man’s arm it was almost as dangerous as a crossbow bolt. She jerked, twisting to the left with the sinuous grace of a snake. But it caught her in the left chest, paralyzing her foreleg at the shoulder. She let out a cry of anguish, half howl, half scream, as she plowed into the stony street. But her legs were already moving, her claws catching at cracks in the paving. The pain—and she realized that the only injury was intense pain—receded and she got her legs under her.

The scratch-faced one was almost on top of her. Throat: too close. Groin: he was a soldier, too much chance he was wearing protection. The sensitive inside of the upper thigh: beautiful—it was his turn to scream. But he had a bigger rock. It grazed the side of her face, almost amputating one ear. She was forced to jump back, and he was on his feet and away but now he was leaving a trail of blood.

To a wolf it might as well have been a trail of burning pitch. She let out a cry, wolf speech,
The quarry is just ahead
, and heard and smelled rather than saw Maeniel and the rest at the end of the street. The chain striking the stones made a fearsome clatter. Then she took out after them again.

The street rose sharply and turned into a climbing stair.

When she passed the bend, she saw the one she’d marked straggling in a welter of blood. She knew she must have nicked the big artery in his thigh. Almost she pitied him, but then she remembered Itta’s eyes looking up at her, open, empty in death, through the clear water, and she knew he must have been the one to push the woman into the water, drive his knife through her ribs, holding her to the muddy bottom in the shallows until she drowned.

Her pity evaporated. She jumped, clearing his struggling body, and continued after the rest. By the nose she knew Maeniel, Robert, and his friends were behind her. That damned chain, what an ungodly racket. What would they do about that damned chain?

The street was a ramp now and curved outward, looking down on the city. The spear seemed almost leisurely as it arched above her. For a second she slowed and all her muscles jerked. She was thinking it might be aimed at her, but it wasn’t, and she could see that clearly once it flashed overhead.

A beautiful throw. Beautiful. She and Maeniel hunted together after the human fashion and she knew how a spear should be handled. Of the four remaining criminals, the two older men were flagging now. The boys outpaced them.

The spear, at the highest point of its arc, broke, then fell, catching the slowest of the fugitives at the point where the shoulders joined the neck and shearing through the spinal cord. He fell, bonelessly dead even before he hit the ground. Three remained. Wolf kill, cat kill, they kill different ways. The wolf runs its prey into the ground. The cat is agile, the bite a death blow dispatching its victim instantly. But to the beast of mutable flesh and tangible moonlight, both ways were open.

Wolf kill,
Regeane thought and loosed her last kick. Deadly, almost as fast as a cheetah, faster than most beasts of the hoof can run, she came, closing the gap between herself and the other straggler. He’d killed the boy and taken pleasure in the deed. The son had been, for all his weedy build, only a child and almost defenseless, an easy kill.

The broad, shallow-stepped street curved out over the town below with only a low safety wall between the street and a fall into the jumble of red-tiled roofs below. Behind, making the best pace he could, Maeniel felt his heart jump into his throat. He dropped back, ready to take out any man among Robert’s friends who loosed another spear, but none among them even looked like trying it. They, as much as the wolf, scented blood and were ready to go hand to hand with the survivors.

Ahead, Regeane paced her chosen prey. He caught sight of her from the corner of his eye. He was running at the outer edge of the street, the safety rail no higher than his knee. He swerved toward it and his knee slammed painfully into the stone curb, but he might have saved himself if her shoulder and snapping jaws hadn’t crowded his left side. He lost his balance and went over. The scream was terrible, chilling, but brief. His head contacted a terra-cotta roof tile. It snapped his neck and crushed his skull.

Regeane slowed for the final push. The street had reached the hilltop and the two ahead were counting on being faster than the wolves or Robert and his friends on the downslope. The rain had abated but the wolf warned Regeane that the storm had not ended, since it was growing darker by the moment. The light was failing and a greenish nightmare twilight hung over the city. Lightning flashed, striking close by, and the almost simultaneous explosion of thunder struck terror into the wolf. She almost escaped the woman’s control. She slowed drastically. Her hair stood on end as static electricity danced like fire on her pelt, but the woman commanded the wolf. Inexorably, she shook off her fear, and her vision, dazzled by the flash, cleared. But when she was able to see ahead, she found the remaining pair of fugitives had vanished.

In the square, Chiara watched in wide-eyed shock as the mob took up the chase.

“I warned you, dammit, I warned you,” Hugo’s guest roared.

For a moment Chiara didn’t reply, then she said, “At least thank God they’re gone.”

“Don’t bother to thank God. Thank the bishop. If he hadn’t spoken up when he did—”

“We might well be dangling from the rafters. The mob was hot to hang someone, and they might have accepted substitutions.”

The bishop was standing up. “No,” he said to Chiara. “They are not all gone.”

The weapons of Desiderius’s guard had taken some effect. There were five sodden, bloody bundles left lying on the cobbles. At least three of them were still moving. Even though the sky was growing darker, the rain was abating; the bishop shrugged away his golden cope and robe. He was dressed in a worn linen tunic and trousers. He jumped a bit awkwardly from the porch and began to make the rounds of the wounded. Absolving as well as he could the sins of the living as well as the dead, he began to call out orders.

“You men go fetch litters. There are some in the church. The wounded must be moved to some safer spot. And take up the dead—” The corpses still lay where they had been placed earlier for the king’s inspection. “Place them on the porch, sheltered from the rain until they can be given Christian burial.”

Gimp, directed by Hugo’s guest, and a couple of the other men helped in moving the bodies, while another party, some of them women, ran to the church.

Armine continued to hold a still-trembling Chiara. “Child,” he said. “You have seen this day enough to unsettle the souls of grown men. Indeed, I shall not forget it.”

The bishop returned to the palace porch. Armine gave him a hand up. His clothing was drenched, his sparse hair plastered to his scalp, but he looked oddly younger than he had when he had been weighed down with his ceremonial cope and golden robe.

“Two are beyond help. One, I don’t know. Badly wounded. The remaining two will likely live if they are taken to shelter and given prompt attention.”

Just then two men with a litter arrived. The bishop directed them in moving the wounded to the church. Chiara pulled free of Armine’s grip and ran to the other end of the porch where the corpses now lay. The two youngest were together at the end of the row; they had been placed close to the palace door. Chiara looked down at Mona and her cousin. The skull-crushing wound in the boy’s head had been washed by the rain and the mourners. It was a raw, red gash in his livid scalp and face. Mona’s slit throat had been sewn together, but her hand showed the stump of a finger where the ring had been cut off.

“They are not more than children,” Chiara whispered, reaching down to touch Mona’s face.

“She was fourteen, he twelve,” Hugo’s guest told her.

“How did you know?”

“I heard it being discussed. I hear a lot of things. Now come away. I warned you.”

Chiara ground her teeth. “You shut up, you… you… you…”

“What must I do next?” the spirit said, and laughed. “Teach you some mighty oaths?”

“I wish you had a face so I could slap it,” Chiara said. “And by the way, what did you mean by that charade in my bedroom last night?”

Before he could answer, Armine arrived. “Dearest daughter, to whom are you speaking?”

Chiara looked around wildly. “Gimp,” she more or less suggested.

“He is not here,” her father said sternly.

“Hugo?” she said hopefully.

“He is in an absolute spasm of terror, clinging to the bishop’s chair.”

Down at the other end of the portico the bishop was trying to pry Hugo away from his chair and having little success in his endeavors. Most of the rest were crossing the square on their way to the cathedral. The rain slowed but the sky was black as night.

“Come, the weather is worsening. Come,” Armine said in a tone that brooked no disobedience. He took her hand and began to pull her toward the edge of the porch.

“No,” the spirit said. “Don’t.”

Chiara pulled free and spoke to the empty air in a way that frightened Armine more than the storm or the mob had.

“No,” she repeated. “What’s going to happen?”

“Be quiet,” Hugo’s guest said. “I’m listening. One.”

Chiara glanced around, eyes dilated with terror.

“Two,” Hugo’s guest said. “Down, down, down,” he shrieked. “On… three.”

The lightning bolt hit. The whole forum was illuminated with an unearthly blue glow. The church tower, highest structure in the forum, crumbled, the heavy stones punching like nails through the leaded roof of the cathedral. The wooden framing crumbled and burst into flames.

Chiara saw the bishop flung away from Hugo as if by a push from a gigantic hand. Hugo was looking up at the sky, his mouth hanging open, and then a split second later, Chiara realized Hugo could see nothing. Only the whites of his eyes were showing, and then he collapsed like a rag doll.

Armine somehow stayed upright, clinging to his daughter tightly. The bishop spun ‘round and ’round until he, too, somehow ended up in Armine’s arms. The explosion of thunder was simply deafening, the worst sound Armine had ever heard since the time he had only just barely escaped an avalanche in the Alps some years before. In fact, this sound was even worse.

The rain struck right behind the lightning, sheets and sheets of wild, wind-driven, blinding rain. Rain so thick that it was now impossible to see across the square. Rain that extinguished the fire in the belfry. Armine was a big, powerful man. He circled Chiara and the bishop in his arms and sheltered them against the blast until both wind and rain died down enough for them to flee the palace porch into the half-ruined cathedral. It was of Roman construction, stone and concrete, and, except for a few holes in the roof on one side, it remained hospitable, warm and dry.

A second later, Regeane reached the hilltop herself. Both of the men she had been pursuing were gone. She had expected to see them on the downslope leading to the gate. The same blinding rain hit that had struck the square, slowing the wolf again.

Where? Where had they gone? One side of the street was a wall supporting a villa on a still-higher hill, but on the right side what had been a drop had become a tree-covered slope— steep to be sure, but climbable—that led down to a marshy swamp the river flooded every spring.

Regeane slowed, the wind and rain lashed her, soaking her fur and chilling her body. But her blood was up and she longed for the kill. The ancient dreams of females in wolf packs long ago commanded her, called out to her heart.
0 little one, new one, for this you were born. When there were no humans, when we ruled and roamed the earth’s hardest, most difficult places, glaciers, deserts of snow and ice, plains where grass dies in the scorching summer heat and fuels wildfires that darken the sky, forests, green forests where rain never stops, once in all of these we ruled and prospered. Strong and without fear. O most dangerous of mortals, drive your prey before you and strike it down
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