He’d be coming for her, and for Cynna. He wouldn’t be alone. They’d do their best to be ready.
THE sky was dark, overcast, the moon and stars hidden behind clouds that refused to drop their burden of water. Beneath that heavy sky, Clanhome’s meeting field was as full as it had been two nights ago. But this time, there were no children running madly around the field. No women laughed and danced. Only lupi were on the field tonight.
Nokolai was going to war.
At one end of the field, Rule hugged his son. “I’ll see you again soon.”
Toby squirmed away. “Maybe you will. You can’t promise, or Grandpa wouldn’t have shifted the heir’s portion.”
“The Rho did that,” Rule corrected firmly. It had been necessary, the removal of his heir’s portion. But the ache of loss was keen.
Toby repeated Rule’s correction, but his face was pure stubbornness. “The Rho did it because you could both get killed.”
Rule nodded. “You’re right. We can’t know what will happen in battle, and we can’t risk losing the mantle entirely. But I am a very good fighter—and your grandfather is undefeated.”
Toby frowned hard. “That’s ’cause he doesn’t fight Uncle Benedict.”
“True.” Rule’s throat closed.
Toby looked at Benedict, standing tall and grim on Rule’s left. “It’s temporary, though. Giving Uncle Benedict the heir’s portion of the mantle is temporary.”
Benedict spoke gravely. “That, as always, is the Rho’s decision. But I do not want it. And the mantle does not want me. It wants my brother.”
That startled Rule. “You can tell—”
“Hush,” Isen said. “Toby, you must go to the Center with the other children now.”
Toby nodded, but spoke, low and fierce, to his father. “I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to be safe when everybody else isn’t!”
“No more than I would want to be safe if you weren’t. But it eases me to know you’re safe, and it’s for me to go and you to stay. You’ve the harder duty tonight. As does Benedict, and the others who don’t go to battle with us. It is very hard to wait.”
“I—I want you to go. I want you to get Lily back, and Cynna. You have to.” Toby’s voice didn’t quiver, but it was a near thing. “But I don’t see why you and Grandpa both have to go.”
Rule glanced at his father, standing to his right. Isen spoke. “You understand what happens tonight? You understand why this is not just a rescue of two clan members?”
Toby nodded. “It’s not just about them. It’s about the clan, too, because of the memories, and the Lady.”
“Yes. You must also know that a Rho doesn’t call war and sit back from battle. In this battle I must be close, for without the mantle, the charms the Rhej made won’t work. And without your father, of course, we could not find Lily and Cynna.” He clapped Rule on the back. “Not that I’d be able to hold him back, anyway, with Lily in danger. But we need him.”
Toby sniffed, nodded, and stood as straight as a nine-year-old body could. “Okay. I’ll see you later, too, Grandpa.” That was said defiantly.
Isen laid his hand on Toby’s head. “You will. And whether you believe such promises or not, I promise it. Go with Sybil now.”
The child tender led Toby away. He would wait with her at the Center, with other children whose fathers went to battle tonight.
That was a small number. Only those with charms to guard them from mind-magic would fight, and even going without sleep, the Rhej had been able to make only ten of those in the twenty-six hours since Lily and Cynna were taken. She’d used a spell from the memories to make those charms . . . a spell lost to the rest of the world since before the founding of Rome. A spell that been used in the Great War, and not since.
Those charms should protect against the Chimei—but they didn’t know how much. Lupi had never fought against Chimei. They wouldn’t know how well the charms worked against this particular enemy until they faced her.
But though only a dozen would fight tonight, in a few moments, all of Nokolai would be at war. If neither Rule nor his father came back from tonight’s battle, Benedict would be Nokolai’s Rho—and he would continue the war.
This, for lupi, was the meaning of war: it didn’t end until the enemy was defeated. There might be lulls, but there were no truces.
All lupi had been at war with one enemy—their Lady’s enemy—for more than three thousand years. That she had been far from their realm and untouchable for most of that time changed nothing. They remained at war with the Great Bitch, and would until she was dead or forever defeated.
Isen gathered his two living sons with a glance. The three of them strode into the waiting throng.
The crowd of lupi fell silent. Waiting.
When the three men reached the center of the field, they halted. Rule and Benedict stationed themselves to either side of their Rho and a couple paces back.
Isen raised his arms and his voice. “Nokolai! You have heard of our enemies. You know what they have done. Twice they attacked one of ours—at a baby party, and at the hospital. Twice they failed. And now they have stolen our Chosen, touched by the Lady—”
Growls erupted from more than three hundred throats not designed for growling.
“They have stolen her, and our Rhej’s apprentice. You know Cynna. You know she is with child, carrying a clan babe, a lupus babe. They threaten her. They threaten the baby.”
The growls were louder this time. A few of the younger men lost control and Changed.
“But Cynna is more than a mother, precious as that is. They have stolen she who will carry the clan’s memories! She who will bring the Lady among us! Lady-touched, both of them—Chosen and Rhej-to-be, both taken!”
Now they howled—human and lupine throats alike.
“Our enemies are powerful. Make no doubt of that. One—the Chimei—is ancient and canny, and cannot be killed. She can control the perceptions of hundreds at a time. She feeds on fear. I am told that if she is allowed to fully manifest herself, she will be more powerful than any who have walked this earth since the Great War. Her sorcerer has power, too, and spells we can’t guess at, and he shares some of her immunity to damage, so he will be hard to kill. And together they have allies, human gangs. This is no small thing we do, going against such foes.”
The answering growls were low, and to Rule’s ears said clearly, “Who cares?”
“But we have a sorcerer, too. And allies of our own—some here, some elsewhere.” Isen waved—and a huge black shape descended from the sky to land at the far end of the field. He had riders, two human shapes who bestrode his shoulders near the base of the neck. One was female, and old. One was male and recovering from a heart wound—and very good with fire.
“Nokolai.” Now Isen’s voice dropped to a normal level. Every man and wolf on the field fell silent, straining to hear. “Our Rhej has spoken to me—because the Lady has spoken to her.”
Utter silence. There was no shifted foot, no slightest rustle of clothing, no quickly indrawn breath.
“The Lady gave our Rhej one word.” His voice was quiet now, conversational. Only lupus hearing enabled those at the edges of the crowd to hear. “One word.” He waited, then boomed, “Nokolai—I cry war!”
THIRTY-SEVEN
THE glowing lightbulbs didn’t turn off. It was hard to tell time in a windowless room where the light didn’t change. Had they been there two days? It was more than one day, Lily thought, but she didn’t know how much more.
“Gin,” Cynna said, spreading her cards.