Call of the Wolf (The Kohrinju Tai Saga) Page 9

  I hadn’t seen it at first, but from where I had ended up in my climb I looked below and saw the curtain flapping around a deep laver of water. If that boy had hit the ground below he would be dead, either by the fall or by drowning. The drop was an easy eighteen or nineteen feet and the laver must be four feet deep of itself and built down into the floor.

  Why, I don’t know, this human child meant nothing to me and he would probably ridicule me as he got older, but I took a chance and grabbed his greasy body and held on as best as I could. In his hand he held a bone with nasty, foul smelling meat dripping in fat. Instantly I began fighting nausea and didn’t know why, but somehow I hoisted him up just enough for him to hang on to my neck. Despite him choking me and that rancid meat all over my neck and face, I worked hard to get to the top and almost fell several times.

  That piece of meat kept rubbing my face and to my disgust I realized it was a foot, a pig’s foot. Why would anyone want to eat a pig, let alone its foot? Momma told me pigs were scavengers, and you shouldn’t eat scavengers. That’s like eating a raven or a sarckle, and I’d heard of jackals and vultures in the mountains; all were nature’s way of cleaning up. It was hard not to throw up, but I fought it through.

  As I scrambled over the ledge, this hysterical woman came running over and grabbed the boy saying, “Thannael, Thannael, you’re …” then she looked at me. She had long, medium brown hair, flat blue eyes, and from the gaudy way she was dressed you could tell she had a high opinion of herself. On her forehead was a tattoo of the religious symbol I had just seen down below. One glance at my ears, however, and her nose turned up and she backed away in disgust. The only words out of her mouth were, “Sinful, sinful creature …”

  Someone yelled at her, “Ahrnema, this way, hurry!” She turned and ran toward her friend still saying, “… sinful, sinful, sinful …”

  As I crouched on that ledge I looked for a place to run, but had no idea where to go. I saw some of the enemy enter the chamber and start slicing everyone they could catch. Even with my lack of knowledge and experience I could tell these humans hadn’t expected they would be attacked in their own big house. The army men, I thought, they are all out on the walls where they can’t see in the bad fog.

  For an instant I thought I smelled the snow; focusing on the ever so slight wisp of air, I looked up and saw some holes inside a metal frame in the wall next to the ceiling. There was a statue just under it, but it was on a pillar higher than I could reach. Then I saw two people fighting right next to it. The sword of the one man was knocked to the floor and they were now wrestling each other.

  I dashed across the floor just as one man went to his knees, and taking a big gamble I stepped on him, then onto the shoulders then the head of the surprised enemy and grabbed the top of the pillar and pulled myself up. The enemy man was trying to grab my legs but the other man was still fighting him, so I climbed up that statue and standing on the top, I grabbed that metal frame and it came right out of the wall.

  Almost falling, I got hold of the solid rock opening and looking down, saw that one man climbing up to get me, so I just slung that piece of metal onto his head. He fell down to the floor and I pulled myself up through that hole and was thankful I was so small.

  Finding myself inside another narrow corridor, I couldn’t tell if anyone had been in there and I could smell the snow more strongly. I could also faintly hear the bells ringing. I wished I knew where my momma was, and I tried to think about our plans. If I saw bad people inside the walls, she had told me of a special place deep, under the chicken quarter, but I was inside the main house.

  Our people came from the ice and snow and were masters of Arctic Magic. I didn’t know any of that stuff, but I decided to go where the snow was. I lost track of time, but kept following that smell. The sounds of the bells were gone, but the smell kept getting stronger. There were no lights, except sometimes little bits from under the wall or above, but I could just make out where I was. There were some old doors, and twice I came by crossings in the corridor, but I stayed with the scent and the increasing breeze.

  Suddenly I found the source of the air; it was another hole cut in the wall with a grate covering. The grate opened like a door and that hole was just big enough for me to fit in. I was so-o-o tired and just sat down to rest.

  “Where are you, momma?” I whispered. Closing my eyes I imagined her beside me, and I did it hard. My lip began quivering, but I thought of her climbing Gadriel’s Peak to save the baby eagle. She had been about my age, then. And there was Kn’Yang. I wanted him to be proud of me, too, even if he was already long gone to sleep.

  I remembered my little pouch and the piece of dried meat in there, one of our emergency plans; momma made me promise to always carry some with me, just in case. So I took it and ate some. I felt better, so I climbed up into that hole and closed the grate back. I didn’t think whether the hole went straight up, but lucky for me it didn’t, instead it wound around and around. It was really dark, but I concentrated on being like a caterpillar and just kept squirming.

  Finally I saw light, and then I was at the end with another grate. Looking down, it was a longer drop that a human was tall, but I knew I could do it. The area was out in the open but with ice covered walls twice as high as our quarters and maybe four or five times as big. In the middle was a fire cauldron and four rock benches around it in parallel with the walls. The snow was all around the ground, but it was hard packed from walking, and even though there was no fire, I could smell the ash was still warm.

  Dropping to the floor, I looked around to figure what next to do and saw two closed doors opposite of each other, and one middle way up and opposite of the now open grate I had come from. There was a rock stair up to the higher door and the snow had been cleaned from it, but there was no stair up to the top. I did see a metal ladder, but it was well inside the ice, which was thick all the way around.

  I could try a door, or try to figure a way to climb up. Just then one of the ground level doors opened, started to close, but then opened wide as I heard someone yell in Gevardic, “We got some more in here!” And then one of those enemy men came into the space.

  He brandished his small sword, which must have been only two feet long and stained with blood, and said, “Common you noble whelp. You ain’t alone in here. Where are they? Where’s your daddy?” I was moving carefully and quick around the cauldron as he stalked me, then three more came through the door. The first kept talking, “Spread out, there have to be more in here.” Then to me again, “Eayah won’t help you now, pup …”

  The man charged me from one side as another charged from the other. A third yelled, “He’s alone …” but he didn’t finish his sentence. No time for fear, I moved from one side to another, remembering how momma and I played at troll fighting, and managed to duck and roll under the first sword swing as it hit a bench, spraying ice all around. As I rolled I got an image of something high above hurdling from over the rim of the top wall.

  The figure landed right in front of the third man, did a roll and jumped straight up with a spinning move I was too busy to see, and that man ran right into that jumping person’s foot with a thump. The new person grabbed his sword hand and with a twist, that man flew through the air and his sword went the other way.

  The two chasing me noticed the new person and I heard, “What the shit?!”

  That tingling sensation was all through me and I stopped for just a second to stare at the new person, who I noticed was now crouching low to the ground. Blood was dripping from the new person’s face and I could see bloodstains all over the front of their clothing, but they wore a hood and I couldn’t quite tell … but then I knew …

  The hands of my protector moved and I crouched down and ducked, so I didn’t see … but the bodies of both my chasers flew into the wall thirty feet behind us with a sickening thud. The forth came up behind her as the high up door opened and the men started to come out and more men came in the first door. To my horror I saw a swo
rd enter through my momma’s back and out the front … but wait … she didn’t flinch … and while the man stood there for a moment looking confused, I saw a second image of my momma appear behind him, grab his hair, yank back, and do something I couldn’t see while the first image of momma faded away.

  I heard something go crunch as that man jerked violently, and then another crunching sound as he dropped to the floor with a spin and didn’t move. Momma pulled her hood back and slung her hair, but the sight scared me. Her face was a smear of red and her eyes were so bloodshot I just knew she had been hurt. But there was anger there, too. I had never seen my momma angry before, ever.

  She smiled an almost evil smile and said in clear words that echoed like a powerful song, “You … are not Fel’Caden … and that’s … my … baby …”

  Can you imagine the snow everywhere, the thickest fog added to it, and then green lightning streaking through the sky? I saw it then, and it was something to see, and feel. A bolt of that lightning hit the cauldron and showered jagged bolts into most of the men there. The heat and energy made my hair stand on end and my momma’s hair looked like white fire.

  Her hands were waving like the time I saw her clean house and she began to sing some kind of music scale that resonated into the soul. They weren’t words, but sounds like I can’t describe, and it grew in sound until it was like a choir of elves had joined her song. Somewhere in the background I could have sworn I heard tribal drums beating a savage rhythm.

  Those enemy warriors were trying to get to her, but she started moving like in a dance and the wind started to blow. At least two or three men threw daggers at her, but they missed and hit their comrades. Someone else threw what looked like three balls tied together with a cord, but she knew it was coming and bent backward at an impossible angle and I could see she was literally on her toes. That weapon went right over her and hit another man, wrapped around him, and following a sickening crunch, he collapsed.

  Two of those men dove at her with their blades ready, but from her backward bent position she put a hand down to the floor, did combination spin and a cartwheel, then she jumped into the air spinning and doing back-flips, up and over everyone between her and me, and landed between me and another man who was chasing me in a pose that made me think of a Shastien Eagle in full glory. That man came to a sliding stop and just stared in awe … her back was to me and I couldn’t see her face, but I could feel the force of her momma’s rage, a wild-elf momma protecting her young with the fury of a savage beast.

  My momma brushed her hands in front of her face as if she was swatting at gnats, and from five feet away my chaser’s sword went flying in the air. Another wave of her hand and an unseen force hit him hard in the shoulder, knocking him sideways and a couple of feet farther away. Then she stepped into a right-wise circle, spun all the way around and pushed her left palm at the stumbling man who was still several feet away. I saw a blurred, but almost silver colored effect as if it were solid, frigid air between her hand and his chest as he flew over the cauldron, onto three more men, and impaled himself on two of their swords as all four were knocked down and slid across the floor and into the wall.

  All the while she was still singing this song of sounds.

  The wind had grown in force and it was picking up the snow from all around and I saw the enemy now was having a hard time keeping their balance. I didn’t know where to go but the wind picked me up and put me way over to the side.

  I was now caught up in utter fascination as I watched my hero, my momma, a Dsh’Tharr Tell Singer working the power of her, our ancestors, and I was in total awe.

  More enemy came through the doors, why, I didn’t know, but they got caught in the growing maelstrom as well. Suddenly all around the open sky room enemy were flying around, smashing into the walls and benches, and she was dancing … dancing in the air and right above that caldron and the wind wasn’t just blowing wild with ferocity, she was controlling the wind.

  Slivers of ice were now in the mix and above the roar I could hear the men wail as their clothing was ripped, their swords loose and cutting, skin being rubbed from their bodies from the abrading snow. The green lightning flashed again and I felt the hot energy rush through me, quickening my own blood with excitement.

  I saw the doors slam shut, one as a man tried to enter and catching him tight; I heard the ribs shatter. Blowing ice layered over the doors and solidified, freezing them in place. The song reached a crescendo with notes so high it was making my own ears hurt, but the power, the power radiated through me and I found myself trying to sing my own notes in harmony. All around her the men were carried close to the core of this Elvin Storm, and then violently hurled outward into the walls. The wind whirled around my momma in a surreal fashion, and it looked as if she were glowing as the Emerald Lightning flashed once more … sending those slivers of ice toward those men, impaling each and every one of those warriors into the icy walls, the snow following and burying them with a polished white wall.

  The next thing I knew, my momma was holding me close and whispering, “I heard you, Komain. I heard you in the darkness and I came …” I wanted to ask if she was hurt, because of all the blood on her face and clothes; but before I could, it seemed we were spinning in that whirlwind and into the foggy sky, where I somehow fell into a deep and peaceful slumber.

  Chapter 7

  ________________________

  DAHNTÉ HAD BEEN trained to obey commands spoken in our elvin dialect, taught to Roveir by my momma. “I’ve seen wild-born mountain horses track like a hound-dog,” Roveir later told me. “I meant for you to go back to the barn,” he added with a chuckle. It was a couple of days after the attack on the main house and we were sitting on crates in the chicken quarter. Momma was standing in the doorway and it was a kind of three-way communion, as she later put it. She called it a tri-munion, which I thought sounded way neat.

  It seemed I had accidentally found myself in hidden passageways most of the house members didn’t even know were there, let alone know how to get to. But I wasn’t to ever let anyone know, not that I ever talked to anyone. But Roveir knew; he knew lots. It was one reason the elders didn’t like him; he knew things and wasn’t telling.

  With seeming hesitancy and warmth of a smile, he suggested, “I’ll tell you, skipper … if you’ll let me.”

  I looked up at my momma and I saw her eyes get big and wide with excitement. Her face was so white and she has acted so sick since that fight. I was worried. She could always heal me, but how come she wasn’t healing herself? I had asked and she just shook her head weakly and diverted my attention.

  Looking back at Roveir I thought about it and shrugged my shoulders and sort of nodded.

  He nodded back and seemed happy and said, “Well, we’ll talk about it later.” He chuckled and looked to momma and back to me, then added, “By Winds of Torsham, you remind me of me.” Roveir lingered his gaze upon me, “You don’t mind that, do you?”

  I just looked at him and thought about it, then tossed some seed to some chickens.

  He chuckled again and said, “That’s good-to-go; you think about it.” Then he got a little more serious, “Now, I want you to understand somethin’ … don’t let that bit-, that woman Ahrnema scuttle your thinkin’. Her momma and papa aren’t slaves, but they’re dry farm folk with a dirt floor, five hungry youngun’s and one acre for their own vegetables.

  “She’s the oldest and thought certain she should’a been born here in the main house as next heir to be Duchess.

  “She had a cousin who was a free-servant who lived in the house, and she finagled a deal to come live with his family. They had her to scrub their own floors to pay her way, but she would have you think she was nobility. She had some looks and several gents wanted to court her, but she made it clear she only wanted a count, so they all left her be.

  “Ahrnema got past twenty and was seen as an old maid, so she up and trapped a weak-minded soldier by gettin’ in a family way, thinkin’ she migh
t get somewhere by marryin’ him. But he got caught … well … he got caught doin’ somethin’ bad and was taken out back and shot full of crossbow bolts.”

  He looked sideways toward momma, because she was standing more behind him, and asked conversationally, “Did you know a lay-priest named Phalquas, called himself Doctor Phee, it was his wife who …” he turned completely toward momma to tell his story, only she was shaking her head, “… oh … you know who … you know the story don’t you?” She nodded her head.

  I looked from one to the other; I wanted to know the story, I liked stories. I said, “I want to hear the story.”

  Roveir looked at me and must not have heard what I said, because he went on, “What I’m sayin’, is she’s no good. None of the men want her because she thinks she deserves a noble, and the nobles don’t want her because … just because.

  “She insists that brat of hers, Thannael, is the child of her god and he’s divine. Anyways, she …” he looked at my momma, “… well … she does whatever the priests want and tries to make the nobles happy, hopin’ one of them will take her to wife.” He looked to momma again, and she nodded an approval, I didn’t know why.

  “She had an older boy named Panjé, about ten years old, who was different in his thinkin’ somehow, and had started to have the twitch in his muscles. She could be heard beatin’ that boy and yellin’ and askin’ Eayah to strike him dead. Well, he’s disappeared and no one can find him and she’s singin’ glory to Eayah.”

  He looked at momma and asked, “Did you know her folks came up to the gate up here one time, starvin’ mind you, just to see their pride and joy daughter, and she wouldn’t come down sayin’ she had no idea who they were. The old man looked sick and he died before he got into the next county.” Roveir shrugged his shoulders, “I learned all this in ten minutes. The servants all hate her, say all she does is lay around and complain and feed that kid greasy food … and hang around whatever priest is there.”