Cry of the Ghost Wolf

CHAPTER ONE

Howling. It filled Hweilan’s ears, and her first thought was that the Master was coming for her again. Hunting her. He would find her. And he would kill her teacher while she watched.

Hweilan had grown up listening to wolf songs, and they had never before frightened her. Scith had taught her all about the animals held in great respect by the Nar people. It was the wolves that had first taught men to hunt.

But since that night in the Feywild when Nendawen hunted her and she swore herself to him, the howling had haunted her dreams. It was a reminder that the Master was never far away.

She sat up.

The sheer weight of the evening sky almost pressed her back down again. No forest. No Feywild. She sat near the crest of a long highland, looking down upon a gold and green steppe that disappeared into forever. She could see from horizon to horizon in every direction. Not even a wisp of cloud marred the firmament. Off to her left, where heaven met earth, the sky still glowed a pale blue where the sun had just dipped beneath the rim of the world, but in the east darkness was swiftly gaining hold, and the first stars were already out.

Howls drifted over her again, as if borne on the breeze hissing through the grass. Looking down into the lowlands, she saw a stain marring the steppe, a vast dark blotch moving across the land. Looking closer, she saw it was not a solid mass but made up of many hundreds of shapes moving across the grassland. Swiftstags or something very like them.

Other shapes, some dark, some pale as snowflakes, nipped at the edge of the vast herd. Wolves.

Hunters. Like you.

The voice spoke directly into her mind, but she sensed something watching her and turned.

On the crest behind her, no more than a few paces away, stood a wolf, white as frost. More milled around behind him-a gray-and-white female, her tail held high, signifying her as the chief’s mate. A huge male, brown as a cave bear. And others, some wise and lean from years of hunting; others small and hale, barely more than pups. As Hweilan’s gaze took them in, stars blazed to life in the sky overhead, and their light glinted off the wolves’ coats in dozens of colors, like moonlight glinting off ice. The chief wolf’s eyes drew her in. The pupils were black and wide in the dying light, but around them was a blue that shone like a cloudless winter sky.

Well met, Hweilan.

“Where am I?” she said. She looked down and saw that she was still dressed in the clothes she had been wearing when … when … what? “How did I get here?”

The wolf tilted its head, and something about it hinted at a smile.

“Who are you?” she asked.

We are always with you. Watching.

Thin is the veil that separates us.

Where had she heard that before? And then she remembered. On that day in the Feywild when Gleed had first taught her to cleanse the demons from the sacred weapons of the Master. She had seen Scith and her parents in the midst of the Witness Cloud. And the ghost wolves.

“Hweilan!”

A new voice intruded on her thoughts with so much force that it brought a twinge of pain to her head. It seemed to come from both sky and earth, but she thought she recognized it. Almost.

Time is running out, said the wolf.

“Time for what?” she said. “Who are-?”

“Hweilan!”

The voice sounded familiar, but under it she could hear a deeper sound, like distant thunder. It grew stronger by the moment, and Hweilan felt the ground trembling. She looked back down the slope and saw that the herd of swiftstags had turned. The wolves were driving them uphill, straight for her. Their hooves tore the soil, leaving a cloud of dust in their wake. Their great antlers made them look like a leafless forest on the move.

“Hweilan, please w-!”

The roar of thousands of hooves drowned out the rest of the words. And then she saw it. Amid the herd, just behind the lead stags, ran another antlered shape, this one on two legs. A mask of bone hid his features, but green light, hot and alive, burned from the sockets. He held a massive black iron spear in one hand, and his other hand, tipped in sharp claws, dripped fresh blood.

“Hweilan, you have to wake up!”

This time the voice didn’t seem to come from all around but right in her ears. Even as the first of the beasts ran past her and the antlered hunter raised his spear, the sky and grasslands tore apart, like smoke scattered by the breeze. The stars winked out. She turned to run, and for a moment, the wolf before her filled all the world, its eyes shining like the sun through high clouds, and then he and his pack were gone, leaving darkness behind.

“Hweilan?”

She opened her eyes and saw the outline of a head and shoulders bending over her. But no antlers. The head turned, just slightly, looking beyond her, and dim light lit up his profile. Darric.

“She’s coming to,” he said.

Hweilan pushed herself up on her elbows. Darric, who had been shaking her shoulders, sat back. Behind him, the skinny Damaran who talked too much-Jaden, she remembered-was shivering on the ground with his back against a stone wall. Hweilan looked around and saw the older knight Valsun sitting not far behind her. Frost clotted his beard from his own frozen breath.

Rock walls riddled with holes and cracks hemmed them in on every side, the farthest of them no more than a few paces away. The walls rose over them a good fifteen feet or more where they ended in a ceiling of gray sky. With all the holes in the rock, Hweilan knew she could have easily climbed out, but not far above their heads was a cross section of black iron bars. They came right out of one wall and slid into the next. No sign of a door or lock.

Hweilan tensed her muscles to stand, then thought better of it. Her entire body ached. She felt as if she’d been stretched to the point of tearing, then rolled in hot gravel. Even the roots of her teeth hurt. She had no idea how she’d come here. The last thing she remembered was facing that abomination in front of the hobgoblin fortress. The thing had taken Menduarthis, possessing him like a warrior fitting into a new shirt of mail, and disappeared. The hobgoblin queen Maaqua had said, “Seize them,” and then-

“Where am I?” said Hweilan. Looking down, she saw that her equipment was gone-her knives and arrows, her pouches with all her supplies, the bone mask, and the bow that had cost her so much-all gone. “How did I get here?”

“When you went down,” said Darric, “I thought she’d killed you. It wasn’t until they threw us in here that Valsun said you were still breathing. But when we couldn’t wake you …”

Hweilan looked down at him, opened her mouth to retort, and realized she had no idea what he was talking about.

“You thought who had killed me?”

“Maaqua,” said Darric. “She ordered her folk to seize us. You and Mandan held out the longest, but Maaqua used her magic. Something shot out of her staff. Some kind of … lightning. You staggered, tried to get back up, and then she hit you again. And again. And then …” He looked around at his companions again.

“They threw us in here,” said Valsun.

It hit Hweilan then that not all of them were here. “Where is Mandan?”

The looks on their faces told her that the news wasn’t good.

“We don’t know,” said Darric. “The big brute broke Mandan’s club with that black sword of his. After that, the others swarmed him. He …” Darric swallowed hard and looked away.

“You don’t know he’s dead,” said Valsun. “Mandan took a great many of them down, though even he couldn’t stand against all their nets and clubs. But I don’t think he’s dead.”

Jaden snorted.

“Why would they bother using nets to kill him?” said Valsun. “Nets means capture. Had they wanted him dead, they could’ve filled him full of arrows and spears.”

“Had they wanted to wine and pamper him, they wouldn’t have used nets,” said Jaden. “Nets means they likely have something nastier in mind for him. And for us.”

Time is running out …

Words from her dream. If it had only been a dream. But dream or not, she knew the words to be true.

Despite her aching body, Hweilan forced herself to her feet, knocking Darric back on his rump. Spots of light filled her vision and the rock walls seemed to waver around her. A loud hum filled her ears, but she took a deep breath, and the world slowly solidified around her. The pain didn’t lessen, but now that she was on her feet, she realized she’d had worse. This was nothing compared to what Ashiin had put her through.

Hweilan slammed the flat of her hand on the bars over their head. The action made the lights flash before her eyes again. But the bars didn’t budge in the slightest.

“You think we didn’t try that already?” said Jaden.

She glared down at him, but he only shrugged and looked away.

“Please, Hweilan,” said Darric.

She shifted her glare to him. “Please what?”

Darric flinched and looked to Valsun, then back at her. “Are you hurt?”

“Do I look hurt?” She took two paces to the left where the bars met the stone wall and hit it with her palm. Nothing. The metal scarcely even rattled. Not pretty, but as solid and as well made as she’d ever seen.

Hweilan braced her feet, then reached up, grabbed the middle-most section of the bars with both hands, and pushed as hard as she could. The pain in her joints and muscles flared so that it felt like hot needles were working their way through her flesh, but she clenched her jaw and pushed more. The bars didn’t move in the slightest.

“Hweilan, it’s no use,” said Darric. “Please-”

“There has to be a door or a hinge. How in the Hells did they get us in here?”

“Dropped us,” said Jaden. “My arse can still feel it.”

“The bars,” said Darric, “slid into place-out of the rock-after we were down here.”

“Slid?” said Hweilan. “Slid how?”

“Like a portcullis, I’d guess. Only sideways.”

Hweilan grabbed the bars again and tried to force them to slide, first one way and then the other. Nothing.

“Please, Hweilan. We did try that already.”

She gave up and screamed a long chain of curses in every language she knew.

“Such language!” said a voice from above.

They all looked up.