The kin-wolf threw back her head and howled, eyes wild, and launched herself at him anew. She caught his boot in her mouth and wrenched his leg, knocking him over with enough force to drive the wind from him, but even as she climbed over the top of him, he slid the knife into her soft underside and twisted, forcing her snout away from him with a forearm against her matted throat.
Neb withdrew the knife and stabbed again, the sharp teeth closer and closer to his face as the sheer weight of the beast crushed him. He felt the claws moving over him, tearing his clothing and skin, as the kin-wolf scrambled to regain advantage. Eyes wide, Neb felt his bladder threatening to cut loose and felt the sticky wetness of blood. Still, he stabbed again and willed the sap to do its work.
Finally, the kin-wolf slowed and then became still, her wheezing and whimpers all the fight that remained in her. Neb crawled from beneath her, recovered his rifle, and climbed down to what had once been a street. Quickly, he checked himself, and when he saw that most of the blood was from the wolf, he released a sigh that felt more like a sob. Then, he tipped back his head and voiced the howl that Renard had taught him. The sound of it raised the hair on the back of his own neck.
When he reached the other mound, the remaining kin-wolf snarled at him, sniffed at the blood upon the wind, and turned suddenly to flee with her cub following after.
“They’re gone now,” he told the mound. “You can come out.”
He heard words, quiet and mumbled, but could not understand them. Drawing closer, he lowered his rifle again, pointing it loosely toward the mound. The Wastes were not a place for trust.
“You’re a long way from home, whoever you are,” he said again. This time, there was silence.
Moving in, he saw a still form wedged tightly into a crack in the mound. A long, slender arm hung loose, a bloody knife dangling from limp fingers. Crouching, he approached until he could see the rest of the woman. She wore tattered silk clothes and was barefoot. Her left arm was bloody and mangled from the shoulder to the wrist where the wolves’ teeth had ravaged her in an effort to drag her free. And her high cheekbones and close-cropped red hair carried a familiarity that he could not place immediately in context. Her small breasts rose and fell with her ragged breathing, and her eyelids twitched.
Neb noticed all of this, but he also noticed more, and it both surprised and frightened him with its sudden intensity after so long away from home.
She was beautiful beyond measure.
Kicking her knife aside, he set himself to pulling her out of the shadows and into the light of the afternoon sun, where he could better see her wounds.
There, the light did its work and Neb gasped at the fine lattice of scars that spiderwebbed her alabaster skin.
Old scars forming old symbols more terrifying to him than an ocean of kin-wolves.
Rudolfo
The invitations went out quietly, and one by one, Rudolfo’s guests slipped into the private dining room of his Seventh Forest Manor. It was a comfortable room, paneled in dark oak offset with silk tapestries from the Emerald Coasts and carpeted with the finest Pylosian rugs. The fireplace lay unlit but ready. The long table filled as Jin Li Tam, Aedric and the others took their places at it. Most, including Isaak, were frequent guests here-nights spent with laughter and wine-but tonight was a night for quiet conversation.
The moon was up, and if the windows had been open, they’d have heard the frogs of second summer. But they were closed, as were the doors, and Gypsy Scouts had been posted to assure that no ears could hear this private dinner.
Rudolfo waited until the house servants replaced the cheese platters with bowls of steaming roast duck, wild rice, forest mushrooms and fresh carrots. Then, after the wineglasses were refilled, the servants left and pulled the doors closed behind them. He looked to Winters and then to Isaak. “We have guests coming from the west and from the east?”
Isaak’s eye shutters flapped. “Not guests as such, Lord Rudolfo-”
Before he could finish, Rudolfo raised his hand, cutting him off. “I’m being facetious, Isaak.” He looked to the metal man and let the frustration show in his voice. “And you released this so-called moon sparrow without first consulting me?” He’d never felt disappointment toward the metal man before now. Still, alongside that disappointment, a suspicion nudged him. Something about the code in the message had brought about this reaction in Isaak. It had to be so. Isaak would not do such a thing of his own volition.
A machine with volition. After two years of. what? He struggled to find the word. Friendship. After two years of friendship with the mechoservitor, Rudolfo was surprised. Regardless, once he’d turned the bird loose with his reply, the metal man had immediately sought audience with his Gypsy King.
“I did. I do not know what came over me. I felt compelled.” Isaak hung his head. “I’m sorry, Lord Rudolfo.”
Rudolfo felt a stab of guilt at the sight of the metal man’s remorse and looked to Charles. “Could the code have compromised his scripting somehow?”
The old man nodded. “A code within the code, I suspect. Something to compel response if the message was received.”
Rudolfo stroked his beard. A message, given by a metal bird to a metal man, that could compel behavior? This was alarming. And equally alarming: Some or all of the mechoservitors who had fled Sanctorum Lux were even now approaching from the east, requesting his aid. He imagined them moving across the Churning Wastes, steam billowing from their exhaust grates as they ran at top speed, amber eyes bobbing like fireflies in the night. “What do they seek?”
He’d asked the question more to himself, though he knew their stated purpose. But Isaak still answered. “They seek sanctuary and safe escort to the northwestern edge of the Ninefold Forest,” he said. But he rattled and hissed when he said it, and Rudolfo glanced quickly toward Charles. The arch-engineer stared, tight-lipped, at his creation, and Rudolfo noted that he would need to ask about that look when he and Charles were next alone.
“And from our western neighbors?” Rudolfo looked to Winters. He’d seen enough of her these last few months that the mud and ash she once wore upon her face was a faded memory. Now, she was a young woman of coltlike awkwardness and uncomfortable silences, pretty but unaware of her prettiness at this intersection between childhood and womanhood. “Your kin-raven prophesies danger against Jakob and claims Machtvolk ambassadors are en route to warn us and offer aid?”
She glanced to Jin Li Tam and Jakob in the corner of the room. “It’s what the bird said. Yes.” She dropped her eyes. “I do not trust it.”
Rudolfo chuckled, but there was no humor it. “I suspect none of us do. Trust is not a commodity we can afford in our present economy.”
Machtvolk ambassadors, renegade mechoservitors and Y’Zirite evangelists in the Ninefold Forest. Rudolfo felt the stabbing ache of a days-old headache revisiting his temples. “What are we doing to prepare?” As he asked, he took up a piece of warm bread and broke it open, finding no satisfaction in the smell of it, and turned to the first captain of his Gypsy Scouts.
Aedric cleared his voice, putting down his wineglass. “I’ve tripled the watch on the manor and stepped up scout recruitment. We’ve been thinned by war, by maintaining the gate, and now this work in the Wastes. Have you considered calling up the local regiments?”
Rudolfo nodded. “I have. and will if necessary.” But he did not wish to if he could avoid it. Twice in as many years, his Wandering Army had surged forth from their forest homes. Fathers, sons, brothers all leaving their families behind to serve their king.
And their queen, he thought. While he’d scoured the sea to find her family, Jin Li Tam had become the second queen in Forester history to raise the Wandering Army and lead them into war. “I would prefer not to call them if it can be avoided. They’ve spent too many months away from home and hearth these two years.”