Cry of the Ghost Wolf

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

In full sunlight, Hweilan got a good look at the place where the hobgoblins had brought her the night before, where she had found her mother’s corpse and robbed it of its covering. It was shaped like a bowl, with a rim that rose up toward the sky. And nearly every inch had been decorated with pictures and symbols drawn in blood or carved into the stone itself. Hundreds of old fires had scorched the bottom.

Hweilan reached the entrance, the wolf just behind her. Her mother’s corpse had been wrapped again in new cloth and bound in leather cords. A bed of dry brush, twigs, branches, and even a few logs lay in the very center of the bowl.

Just then, Uncle gave another growl. A large hobgoblin was kneeling next to her mother’s body.

It was Rhan. The Greatsword of Impiltur lay on the ground beside him. He stood and returned her gaze.

“What are you doing?” she said. “Why are you here?”

His gaze locked on the knives she held, but he made no move for his sword. “I honor the slain.”

“What?”

He held out his arms. “This place,” he said. “We call it the Cauldron of the Slain. This is where we bring our most honored heroes to rejoin their gods.”

Hweilan blinked. “You had my mother brought here?”

“Your mother’s spirit has moved on,” said Rhan. “But I intend to honor her.”

Hweilan looked down at the wolf, whose attention was fixed on the Razor Heart Champion. The hobgoblin had still not so much as glanced at his sword. Hweilan lowered her knives, but she did not sheathe them.

“Why?” she said.

“She was a warrior.”

“No,” said Hweilan. “I mean, why are you doing this? After what I did to you?”

Rhan held her gaze a long time. “I do not regret my challenge. You tricked me. Shamed me before the Razor Heart. You owed me that fight.”

“And now?”

“Now we stand even. Unless you wish otherwise.” He looked down at his sword, holding his gaze there to be sure she noticed, then back at her. There was no mistaking the challenge in his face. “Then, I stand ready.”

“We are even,” she said, and she sheathed her knives. “For now.”

He closed his eyes and gave her a small bow. When he opened them, there was the barest hint of a smile on his lips. “You are much like she was, then.”

Hweilan approached, Uncle following silently just behind. “Explain.”

“I met your mother once.”

She stopped, her mother’s corpse between them. Her heart was pounding in her chest, and her palms sweating. “You lie,” she said.

“No,” said Rhan. “When I was young. Only my third summer as a warrior. We left the mountains to raid into the grassland. Gureng, our chief, had a taste for horseflesh, and we wanted to impress him. We numbered seventeen, but the Nar who found us had more than twice that. It was a fierce, bloody fight. We were scattered, and five horsemen cornered me in a valley. No trees. Not even a bush to hide under. I managed to kill one, but the others captured me, beat me, and dragged me back to their fellows. They were Creel. They tied me up and were about to flay me when a shadow passed overhead. The horses screamed in panic. Great beasts came down from the sky. Three of them.”

“Scythe wings,” said Hweilan.

“Yes,” said Rhan. “Knights from your Highwatch. Led by one named Ardan.”

“My father.”

“And your mother was with him.”

It was so preposterously outlandish that Hweilan knew Rhan wasn’t making it up. No one would be stupid enough to lie about something like that. Not when she stood ready to gut him.

“Most of the Creel scattered, but the knights hemmed in a few. They demanded to know why Creel were so far out of their homeland. The Creel claimed they were ridding the land of hobgoblins. Seeing a beaten and bloody warrior, the knights were ready to believe them. But your mother saw true. She saw that a dozen warriors had been beating one. She told your father that the only thing she hated more than a brute was a cowardly brute. A dozen against one … that was a coward’s fight. She cut me loose, put one of the Creel’s spears in my hand, and announced that if four of them could beat me in a fair fight, it would prove their words true.”

“And you beat four of them, even after suffering a beating?”

“I beat six of them,” said Rhan. “Sent them to the Hells. Your mother spoke true. They were cowards and broke the honor of the fight. When I killed the first two, more joined in.”

“My father allowed this?”

Rhan chuckled. It was the first time Hweilan could remember anything like laughter coming out of him. “He and the other knights were none too happy about the whole thing. But they didn’t like craven brutes, either. I think they knew Creel for the treacherous liars they are. And your mother … she had a way about her. A strong spine, I think your people say. She had a rage on her that day. A real burning anger. Had the knights tried to stop her, I think she might have fought them herself. When it was over, she gave me food and water from her own pack and told me to get back to the mountains where I belonged.” He paused. “Your mother was a true warrior.”

Hweilan looked up at him, and only when she saw him through a shining blur did she realize she was crying. “Yet you didn’t hesitate to kill her.”

“What I killed … that wasn’t your mother, and you know it. I killed the thing defiling her.”

Hweilan turned away. She wiped her face on her remaining sleeve.

“No, you didn’t,” she said. “You just freed it so that it could take another.”

“Menduarthis?” Rhan snorted. “No loss there.”

Hweilan chuckled, then said, “He grows on you after a while.”

“Yes,” said Rhan. “Like a rash.”

Hweilan looked down at the covered corpse, and all mirth left her.

Rhan gave her a long silence, then said, “We must burn the body. Soon.”

He didn’t elaborate, but Hweilan knew what he meant. The body had been outside for too long. Much longer, and it would begin to rot. The nights were still cold enough to freeze a thick skin of ice on the surface cisterns, which might have slowed the putrefaction. But Hweilan could sense something amiss anyway. So could Uncle. The wolf had come near the body more than once, sniffed, then whined and backed away. Hweilan’s own sense of smell was far more sensitive than most people’s-the final rites she had endured with Nendawen had made it sharper still-and she picked up a foulness around the body. Perhaps being a home for one of Jagun Ghen’s minions had left some sort of stain inside the flesh itself. It didn’t matter. This had been her mother once, and Hweilan needed to honor that. She owed it to her mother.

Hweilan looked over the bed of brush and sticks Rhan had gathered. Nothing looked suitable.

“May I ask a favor of you, Rhan?”

“For you or your mother?”

She looked up at him, uncertain if he was trying to provoke her. She could see nothing but genuine curiosity in his gaze, but then, she wasn’t exactly an expert on hobgoblin wit.

“Both,” she said.

“Ask.”

“I need a spear.”

Rhan frowned.

“Or just the haft,” she said. “It needs to be about as long as my forearm. But straight and smooth.” She motioned to the pyre. “None of these will do.”

“As you wish.” He shrugged, picked up his sword, and walked away. Uncle watched him until he was out of sight, then looked up at Hweilan.

She returned the wolf’s gaze, and neither of them blinked. “Why won’t you talk? Why won’t you-” she struggled for the right word, then gave up-“change? Or can you not change?”

She’d asked Gleed, and the old goblin had confessed he didn’t know. Living, Lendri had been able to change from wolf to elf whenever he wished. But he wasn’t living any more. Not dead either, but some state in between. Not even undead, though Gleed had explained to her it was something like it. Ken kucheh, he had calling it. “Living dead.” Even though the wolf’s heart did not beat and he only breathed to make a sound or find a scent, the spirit in him moved the body. Gleed did not know if this new state of being kept Lendri in his present form, if his mind and spirit had somehow been damaged, or if he was keeping this form out of pure spite. And if Gleed didn’t know, Hweilan could only guess. She had named him Uncle out of spite, that was certain. If he would not speak to her, she would not grace him with his given name.

She kneeled so she could look him in the eye. “Tell me of my mother’s father.”

Uncle blinked. Nothing more.

“A name,” said Hweilan. “That’s all I want.”

Nothing.

Hweilan ground her jaw, thinking, then said, “I’ll tell you a name, then. Someone I met on the dream path. Haerul.”

Uncle growled. That low rumble from deep in his chest. Close as he was now, Hweilan could feel the ground trembling with the force of it.

“Tell me my grandfather’s name,” said Hweilan.

Uncle snapped at her, his teeth closing less than an inch from her nose. But she didn’t flinch. The wolf turned and walked a few paces away.

Hweilan stood and called after him. “If you won’t speak, at least keep watch while I prepare.”

The wolf padded off to guard the path.

Hweilan sat down next to her mother’s body, facing it. Even though she knew it was a corpse and the demon that had used it was long gone, she could not bring herself to turn her back on it.

Rhan had done a masterful job of wrapping the body in the cloth, then binding it. The hobgoblin champion had taken great care, and Hweilan had to admit she was touched. It almost made her feel guilty for severing the tendons in his leg the night before.

Hweilan closed her eyes and prayed.