The fact that the Raiders confused the plans of the greatest of planners should not come as a surprise. The Raiders were an anomaly from the beginning. They confused everyone.
—Archemais, Gabalon: The Many Facets of a Tyrant
Corry woke in darkened stillness. He remembered a long ride, the feel of wolf fur, wind in his face, splashing through a river. Then Talis had asked him to drink something—a drug probably, because he’d become very sleepy. They’d stopped somewhere. He’d lain down, and—
Corry opened his eyes. He was lying on the dirt floor of a cave. From somewhere nearby he heard the sound of rushing water. His wrists were tied behind his back, and one leg throbbed where a root had cut off the circulation. Dragon moon looked in at an opening above his head. By its light, he could see that the walls and floor were muddy, his clothes filthy. Corry braced himself against the slimy rock and got to his feet. He staggered to the wall and hopped up and down a couple of times below the cave entrance.
“You can’t reach it, not with your hands tied.”
Corry turned. In the shadows near the back something moved. “Even if you could reach the hole, there’ll be a guard outside.”
“Syrill?” Corry moved towards him. Syrill sat with his back against the wall. His feet were tied as well as his hands. Blood had dried around a cut on his cheek. His clothes, like Corry’s, were very dirty.
Corry sat down beside him. “You fought well with that wolfling. I saw the rope twitch and tried to yell, but no one could hear me. It was just bad luck.”
Syrill laughed bitterly. “I heard you. I just didn’t pay attention.”
Corry was surprised at his honesty.
“I should have left off when I saw it was a Raider. To think it was you she found, and all this time I thought it had something to do with them.”
Corry was lost. “She?”
“Capricia. She met you on the king’s tour of the western provinces two years ago, yes? You probably don’t know that the king’s party was waylaid on the way back by the Raiders. Capricia and her doe were separated from the main group for almost a day. When she returned to the castle, she behaved strangely. I see now it was you she had grown curious over, but at the time, I thought she’d found some clue to the Raiders’ den. I don’t suppose you can shape-shift?”
Corry shook his head. “Can most iterations do that?”
“Well, if you’ve got wizard blood, I suppose there’s always the possibility.”
“How do you mean ‘she behaved strangely’?”
“I wasn’t there for most of it, but I heard she’d developed an intense interest in the old language and the wizards. I seem to remember she worried her father by making unguarded forays into the forest. Of course, that all stopped when the war started.”
“What war?”
Syrill looked incredulous. “The war with Filinia—with the cats. Don’t you know anything about this part of the world?”
Corry had thought carefully about how to answer this question. “Capricia told me what happened to my village, but I can’t remember. I can’t remember anything beyond a few days ago. All I knew was that I had to get to Laven-lay and find her.”
Syrill grimaced. “Something happened to you on the way here. Fauns can be cruel to iterations they find alone in the wood.”
Corry half smiled. “Can they?”
“I was not cruel,” countered Syrill. “Besides, iterations don’t have the national ties of a shelt and some do spy for the cats. That’s why I picked you up, and when you couldn’t answer me coherently, I thought—”
“It’s alright,” said Corry. “I’d never have found Laven-lay without you. I was lost.” He sat back against the wall. “Do you call all wolflings Raiders or only this group?”
“You really don’t know anything, do you? And now I come to listen, your speech is strange. You don’t have any idea how far you came to get here?”
Corry shook his head. “Sham and Danzel were talking about someone called Laylan. Who is he, and who was that faun in the purple cape, Chance? Why are you at war with the cats?” Corry glanced at the long scars running up Syrill’s arm and under his sleeve. “Did a cat do that to you?”
“Yes—flipped me off my deer. I was lucky; Blix came after me. He’s a brave mount. That was the day I won my command. We were cut off, the army routed, most of the senior officers dead. I rallied the survivors. Afterward, Meuril put me in charge.
“As for the cats, they conquered Canisaria—that was wolfling country—and pushed the wolves and wolflings into our territory—the Endless Wood. We bounty wolflings because they kill deer and occasionally fauns, but they really don’t have any other place to go.” Syrill grimaced. “We should have helped the wolflings when they were fighting for their lives. Meuril thought the cats would stop in Canisaria, but they didn’t, and now we have to fight them. Most wolflings only hide and try to survive. Organized, troublesome packs crop up occasionally, but most of them are hunted down and destroyed within a year.”
“But not the Raiders?”
“No. Three years ago rumors crept into Laven-lay about a new outlaw pack. Their leader was a female named Fenrah Ausla. Fauns attached little importance to the name, even though Ausla is a royal Canid line. However, when the Raiders began exacting a heavy cowry count from our merchants, fauns took notice. Meuril tripled the bounty on Raiders. Fenrah, however, proved cunning. There were eight Raiders three years ago. There are eight today.”
“So who are Chance and Laylan?”
“I’m coming to that. You know, of course, that the cliff fauns think Danda-lay impregnable?”
“What’s Danda-lay?”
Syrill frowned. “It is amazing that you retain the ability to dress yourself.”
Before Corry could formulate a retort, Syrill continued, “Cliff faun capitol. Political and financial seat of middle Panamindorah.”
“Is Chance from Danda-lay?”
“Yes, he’s a cliff faun prince, King Shadock’s youngest. Like all of them, he has a certain arrogance about that city. You can imagine their outcry when the Raiders dared attack it.”
“Ah. So then Laven-lay’s problem became Danda-lay’s, too?”
“You would have thought the queen had been ravished for all their clamor. The raid came during a celebration: the spring festival of Lupricasia. At that particular festival Shadock was honoring Chance for a feat of bravery in battle. (Cliff fauns have helped us in the cat wars.) Chance’s ceremony was interrupted and a statue in his honor insultingly defaced.” Syrill grinned wickedly.
Corry could tell that Syrill wanted him to ask a question, so he asked it. “Defaced how?”
“The royal artisans had him depicted upon a stag. The Raiders gelded the statue, took the antlers, made a doe of it. Chance was livid.”
Corry smiled. “You don’t sound very sorry.”
Syrill shrugged. “No one was killed. The Raiders were only making a show. Chance, however, took it as a personal insult. He’s spent the last two years hunting Fenrah’s pack.”
“Who is Sham?” asked Corry. “I thought he was the leader. I never even saw Fenrah.”
“Sham is Fenrah’s second, her cousin. He’s also their chief healer. Talis is his apprentice. Chance has posted handsome rewards in addition to Meuril’s bounty for the capture of any Raider. Consequently, numerous hunters pursue them.”
“And one of those hunters is Laylan?”
Syrill nodded. “Laylan is a bounty hunter who appeared in this area about five years ago. His mount is a cheetah named Shyshax.”
“But I thought you were at war with the cats.”
“Cheetahs are outcasts,” said Syrill dismissively. “They were evicted from the council of Filinia years ago for treachery. They survive as a breed, but all the king cheetahs were killed, and they have no say in government. Laylan himself is not a faun. Some say he is half wolfling.”
Corry’s eyebrows rose.
“Laylan looks by his fur to be a fox shelt,” continued Syrill, “but foxlings are small of stature. Laylan is tall—too tall, some say, to be pure fox shelt.
“Whatever his pedigree, Laylan is the best bounty hunter in the wood. In his vendetta against the Raiders, Chance offered Laylan a fixed salary—a high one—if he would abandon his wholesale trapping and concentrate on Fenrah’s pack. So far Laylan hasn’t caught any Raiders, but he’s come closer than any faun and has saved many merchants their cargos.”
“What will the Raiders do with us?” asked Corry.
“Hold us for ransom. If they intended to kill us, they would have done so by now.”
Corry smiled. “You’re not angry that there was a raid on Laven-lay, are you, Syrill? You’re only angry that you were the one taken hostage.”
Syrill glanced sideways at him. “The Raiders hate cats as much as I do. They are the real enemy. If they hadn’t pushed the wolflings out of their own country and into ours, we wouldn’t be having this trouble. Fenrah is right: wolflings have nowhere to go.”
“And you really don’t think she’ll harm us?”
Syrill pursed his lips. “Fenrah is unpredictable. It is to her advantage to be so. But I can say for certain that she will do nothing that would hurt her struggling nation, and Filinian conquest might do that. I am one thing that stands in the way of that conquest.”
“What is she like?” asked Corry.
“Fenrah?” Syrill closed his eyes. “They say she dresses in black. Her weapon of choice is not a sword, but a huge dagger. She rides an enormous black wolf named Dance. Some even claim that he is a durian wolf.”
“What is a durian wolf?”
“A talking wolf. The wolves that most wolflings ride are called lupin wolves. They are like our deer—understanding some speech, but themselves incapable.”
“So Dance can talk?”
“I said that rumors claim he can talk. As far as I know, no faun has heard him. Cats can talk too, you know. It’s a skill that once existed widely among four-legged creatures, although many of them lost it under the rule of the wizard, Gabalon.”
For some reason Corry was not surprised to learn that the cats could talk. The idea made him think of something else. “Who was that snow leopard following you the day we met?”
Syrill turned to look at him. “How did you know about that?”
“I saw you in the wood. You jumped right over me.”
“I never saw you. The leopard was one of Demitri’s generals—Ounce. I led a scouting party to examine a village they had destroyed. We were discovered and pursued.” He frowned at Corry. “You are truly a fortunate iteration. You could easily have been killed by cats yesterday.”
Corry thought a moment. “So who is the cat king, and what kind of a cat is he?”
“The tigers rule Filinia these days. The lions were better, if you ask me, though the only good cat is a dead one. Technically, the king now is Demitri, but Lexis is his alpha cub. Demitri is rumored to be ill, and Lexis leads the army now.”
Before Syrill could say anything else a shelt dropped into the cave and moved toward them. “Wake up, you two,” came a deep male voice. “Chief is ready to see you.”
“They’re not asleep, Xerous.” Corry recognized Talis’s voice from the entrance. “They’ve been prattling like geese the whole time.”
Xerous was larger than either Sham or Sevn. The wolfling came close and peered at Corry. “Iteration… How interesting.” He turned to Syrill. “On your feet, faun.”