Wolf Who Rules

Chapter 10: Storm Warnings

Wolf had watched his domi retreat with concern. He expected her to be gnawing at the prince’s ankles instead of breaking down into tears. He felt guilty for chiding her as he had. The oni must have affected her more deeply than he originally thought. He felt badly too that he had been pleased that she hadn’t bedded Little Horse while they were prisoners together; he wanted her to himself as long as possible. Perhaps, if she had slept with Little Horse, she would have fared better.

At least she had turned to her beholden when she lost control of her emotions. As much as Wolf wished he could have taken her back to the enclave and comfort her, all of his people and the humans of Pittsburgh needed him to stay and deal with Prince True Flame.

Is this how the humans lived all their life? Having things that they desperately wanted to do — comfort their love ones, teach them what they needed to know — but with no time to do it? No wonder they seemed to rail at life so.

True Flame sat watching him, expression carefully neutral.

“Being the pivot—” Wolf sighed and shook his head. “It has subjected her to extraordinarily difficult choices. She’s only had hours to recover her center.”

“This is recovered?”

“No, and it worries me.”

True Flame glanced away, as if embarrassed by what he saw on Wolf’s face. “Forgiveness, Wolf. We get along because we both have no need for empty politeness — but I remember now that politeness can render much needed gentleness to the soul. I will keep my sword sheathed from now on.”

“Thank you.”

“There will be nothing that I can do when the Stone Clan arrives except to remind them that she is under my sister’s protection. She will have to interact with them, and they will take advantage of her.”

Wolf nodded unhappily. “It will be like trying to keep wargs from the lambs at this point. I wish there was some way I could keep her safe until she has had time to heal from whatever the oni has done to her.”

True Flame shook his head. “They’ll arrive tomorrow with my troops. I can delay the aumani a day, on the pretense of giving them time to settle in.”

“Thank you.” In their current situation, a day was most he could have hoped for. “Who have they sent?”

“Earth Son, Jewel Tear, and Forest Moss.”

Wolf breathed out; the threesome was tailored for hostile opposition to him. He knew nothing of Forest Moss and thus could not foresee what danger lay there. Judging by the others, there was a good possibility, however, that this was an ancient member of the Stone Clan, to offset Wolf’s youth. Earth Son’s father was one of the three children of King Ashfall used to ally the strongest of the clans to the crown via marriage. Obviously Earth Son’s inclusion was to eliminate Wolf’s advantage with True Flame — at least in theory.

The Stone Clan had always misunderstood the nature of the alliance, and considered it a failure. The alliance had only produced Earth Son. While he showed his father’s gene type in his height, his eyes, and his temper, his gene expression did not include attunement to the spell stones. Earth Son could not use the fire esva. When Earth Son came to court, he treated his Fire Clan cousins as strangers, and was regarded as such by them.

In comparison, Wolf’s parents produced ten children, half of which inherited their mother’s genome and pledged to the Fire Clan. Wolf grew up seeing the royal family an extension of his own and when he went to court, he fell under his older brothers and sister’s protection. Earth Son seemed to fail to understand the slight differences in their position. He only saw the younger elf being rewarded with favor he thought he was due, and held it against Wolf.

The Stone Clan could barely find a delegate more ill-suited to deal with Wolf — but they had managed. Wolf spent a decade at summer court, thinking he and Jewel Tear were soulmates, the other half of each other, and all the other lyrical nonsense you thought while blindly in love. A hundred years and meeting Tinker had taught him that he’d been wrong about the entire nature of love. He and Jewel Tear had drifted apart soon after he came of age and his ambitions took him to the wilderness of the Westernlands. That the Stone Clan included her in the delegation probably meant he misjudged their relationship.

So these three were coming to his holdings and dealing with his people?

True Flame looked out at the sod covered clearing and the dense forest of tower ironwoods beyond. “What the god’s name were you thinking of, leaving everything behind for this wilderness?”

“I was thinking of leaving everything behind for this wilderness.”

“I’ve never understood why you’re wasting yourself here.”

“What would I be doing at court? Nothing has changed there since we last interacted with humans. We had completely stagnated. We had the same base of technology as the humans, and yet we didn’t develop the car, or the computer, the telephone or the camera.”

“We have no need of them.”

“It doesn’t bother you that we sat completely still for hundreds of years while they raced ahead?”

“Less than three hundred years, pup. It passed like a lazy summer afternoon in my life.”

Wolf clenched his jaw against this. He’d heard the like all his life from elves younger than True Flame’s two thousand years. “Every agricultural advance since the days of poking the holes in the ground with sharp sticks, we’ve stolen from the humans. The plow. Crop rotation. Fertilization. You’re old enough to remember the great famines.”

True Flame gave him a look that would have silenced him as a child.

Wolf refused to be rebuked. The events of the last three decades had proved him right. “It’s as if we get locked into one mindset — this is how the world is and can’t conceive or desire something more. I tracked back all our advances while I was at court—”

“I’ve heard this theory of yours, Wolf.”

“Have you? Have you really listened to my words and thought it through?”

“True there were times of famine, and yes, we went to Earth and saw how to increase crop production and put those techniques to use. But we have lived in peace for thousands of years with all that we could want — why should we clutter up our lives with gadgets?”

Wolf sighed. “You never listened. Not to anything I ever said, did you? I told you over a hundred years ago that sooner or later, the humans would come to us. And I’m telling you now, it’s only a matter of time before another race finds us.”

One instructional conversation with Stormsong, one stiff drink, one mystery meal of pan-fried wild game (what in gods’ name had drumsticks that size?), and one short nap, and Tinker was feeling much better.

According to Stormsong, her emotional swings were from exhaustion. It would be a year before Tinker would need to worry about a period. Nor, Stormsong said as she poured a generous round of ouzo, could Tinker be pregnant. “Drink, eat, sleep,” Stormsong repeated Pony’s advice, only more succinctly.

It was fairly clear that discussions had taken place while Tinker was asleep. There was an undercurrent running through the sekasha and they were metaphorically tiptoeing around her as if she would break. She wasn’t sure which was more annoying — that they felt that they needed to tiptoe — or that they were doing such a horribly obvious job at it. At least it kept Bladebite from hounding her, although he was clearly sulking.

Much to Tinker’s disgust, Stormsong coaxed her out to the enclave’s bathhouse. She went only because the enclave’s had no showers and the last time she done more than wallow in a sink was at the hospice. She was starting to stink even to herself. She thought she hated elfin bathing — the cold water pre-scrub gave new meaning to the word unpleasant — but when she discovered that the bathhouse was both communal and mixed sex, she decided to loathe elfin bathing. As far as she was concerned, if the gods wanted them naked, they wouldn’t have invented clothing.

The bath at least was stunning, done in jewel-toned mosaics with marble columns and a great skylight of beveled glass. The minerals had been added to the hot water, so it was hazy to the point that it gave a small level of privacy. And the sekasha seemed well-practiced with using the towels to keep themselves discreet until the water covered them. Thankfully Bladebite didn’t join them, though, surprisingly, Pony did. The eye-candy of Pony covered only by steaming water, however, didn’t outweigh the negative of being the shortest, darkest, smallest-breasted female present.

“Relax.” Stormsong had proved to be naturally a pale white blonde — a fact Tinker hadn’t really wanted to know. “We won’t eat you.”

“At least we won’t.” Rainlily smiled with a glance toward Pony.

Tinker stood up — realized that she was flashing them all — and sat back down to hide in the hazy water. “I am not amused.”

Stormsong splashed Rainlily, “Shush you.”

“If we don’t tease her,” Rainlily said, “she’ll think elves are just as prudish as humans. I’ve never understood how they can be so blatant with their sexual imagery, and yet in relationships with one another, they are so narrow minded. As if a heart can hold only one love at a time, and you have to empty out one before there’s room for another.”

“Let her cope with one thing at a time,” Pony watched Tinker with a worried gaze.

“I’m fine,” she told him and wondered why she had to say that so often lately.

“One lover gets boring after thirty or forty years,” Rainlily said. “It’s like peanut butter on a spoon, it’s really good, but with chocolate sometimes, it’s even better.”

Tinker knew that elves loved peanut butter as much as they loved Juicy Fruit gum and ice cream. Considering her experience with the gum, she really had to track down a jar of peanut butter.

Stormsong moaned at the suggested of peanut butter and chocolate. She added, “Or peanut butter and strawberry jam on fresh bread.”

“Peanut butter on toast,” Sun Lance held up her hand as if she held a piece of toasted bread by its crust. “Where the bread is crunchy and the peanut butter is all hot and runny.”

“Raisin bread toast.” Tinker modified Sun Lance’s suggestion to her favorite way to eat peanut butter before she became an elf.

“Peanut butter, pretzels, chocolate,” Rainlily listed out, “and that marshmallow fluff all mixed together.”

“Oh that explains Cloudwalker and Moonshadow at the same time,” Stormsong murmured.

“Nyowr,” Rainlily growled with a smile, which was the Elvish version of a cat’s meow.

“Peanut butter on apple slices,” Sun Lance said.

“On a banana,” Tinker said.

“On Skybolt,” Rainlily said knowingly.

“Oh yes, that’s nice,” Stormsong agreed.

Tinker was going to need a scorecard to track the sekasha’s relationships.

“Peanut butter ice cream,” Pony said.

“Peanut butter ice cream!” The females all sighed.

“Unless domi takes another sekasha, though, then her options are limited.” Rainlily pointed out. “There’s Pony, and then there’s Pony.”

“That’s still peanut butter and,” Stormsong thought a moment, before finishing. “Virgin honey.”

Rainlily eyed Pony and smiled. “Definitely virgin honey.”

Pony blushed and looked down.

“And Wolf Who Rules is peanut butter ice cream,” Sun Lance said.

That triggered a chorus of agreement from the females. Tinker had one moment of feeling pleased that she married the prize male and then realization hit her like a two by four to the head. She gasped out in shock.

“Domi?” All four sekasha instantly reacted, moving toward her as they scanned the building for enemies.

“Windwolf! You’ve all slept with him?”

The female warriors exchanged glances.

“Well?” she pressed.

“Yes, domi,” Stormsong said quietly. “But not since he’s met you.”

Was that really supposed to make her feel better? Well, giving it a moment to sink in, yes it did. She knew that Windwolf had to have had lovers before her — she just didn’t expect to be naked in a tub with them at any point. There were two other female sekasha. Tinker supposed they were ex-lovers too. Windwolf’s household number seventy-five — she didn’t even know how many were female, but most of the sizeable kitchen staff was. The possible number staggered her. “Any females from the rest of the household?”

The sekasha blinked at her in surprise.

“No, domi, that wouldn’t be proper.” Was it a good thing or a bad that Stormsong was keeping to Elvish?

“Only the sekasha are naekuna,” Pony explained.

“You’re what?”

“Naekuna.” Pony sat up slightly in the water to point at a tattoo on his hipbone. She blushed and looked away. “We can turn on and off our fertility.”

“It is considered best if a domi and domou chooses among their beholden sekasha for their lovers.” Stormsong had a similar tattoo on her hip. “The security of the household is not compromised and we’re naekuna.”

Tinker had one moment of relief until she realized that she had to interact with the five female sekasha on a daily basis. She stared at Stormsong, Sun Lance, and Rainlily, unsure how to cope with the sudden knowledge that these females had slept with Windwolf. They knew what a good lover he was — probably helped him perfect his technique. What if — as the whole peanut butter conversation had suggested — Windwolf wanted variety? How did one deal with that? The crushing weight of inevitability that you would have to share? With such drop-dead beautiful females no less?

Elves always were so focused on today. You couldn’t get them to talk about the past. Nae hae, too many years to count, it happened long ago, why bother? The future was the future, why stress over it bearing down on you?

Given long enough time, the smallest probability came reality. Sooner or later, you would live through all the possible futures. Nor would the past really be a true indicator of the future as you worked through one unlikely chance to the next.

Did the elves wear blinders just to keep sane?

“Are you all right?” Pony asked.

“Um, let me get back to you about that.”

“Ze domou,” Wraith Arrow was operating at maximum respect now that the Fire Clan had arrived. Or more specifically, since the Wyverns arrived. Wolf found himself wondering if perhaps the sekasha had chosen their king based on his Hands than his clan. “Forest Moss is one of those who traveled to Onihida when the pathway was found. He and the sekasha, Silver Vein in Stone, were the only two that managed to survive their capture by the oni.”

At one time, certain caves and rock formations created Pathways that let a person walk from one world to the next. Anyone without the ability to detect a ley line could search closely for the Pathway, even to the point of stepping in and out of worlds, and never find it. The dangers of traveling to Earth were great. The Pathways themselves came and went like the tides of the ocean, apparently affected by the orbit of the moon. Earth had no magic, leaving the domana powerless and the sekasha without their shields. Still, all the clans sent out domana and their sekasha to barter silk and spices for steel and technology. To circumvent the dangers, the pathways were mapped out carefully, and traders crossed back to the safety of Elfhome as often as possible. In one remote area on Earth, a new pathway was discovered, and eagerly explored.

Unfortunately it was a pathway that led to Onihida. Of the twenty that went on the expedition, only two returned to Elfhome.

Wolf considered what he knew of that doomed expedition, which was very little since it happened before he was born. Unlike humans who seemed to be driven to chronicle out their life and make it public, elves kept such things private. Everything he knew about the oni and Onihida came from questioning his First Hand. He had selected Wraith Arrow and the others for their knowledge of the humans and Earth, not thinking he’d ever need their familiarity with the oni.

“So you’ve met him?” Wolf asked.

Wraith nodded. “They had tortured him, healed him, and then tortured him again. It broke his mind.”

That was two hundred and fifty years ago. Had Forest Moss recovered?

It made Wolf wonder about Tinker and her time with the oni. What had they done to her to change her so much? Wolf felt a wave of sadness and anger. His domi had been so brave, trusting and strong.

Wraith continued his report. “Silver Vein did not look to Forest Moss. The Stone domou had a vanity Hand, which he lost. Last that I had heard, he had not gained another Hand.”

“He’s coming here without sekasha?”

Wraith nodded.

What game was this? Why include someone that lacked the most basic abilities of building a household? Did this mean that the Stone Clan didn’t intent to create holdings in Pittsburgh?

“I’m not sure you should be trying to call the spell stones.” Stormsong was the only one that actually voiced the doubt all of them were clearly thinking as they followed her through the enclave’s enclosed gardens.

“I’m fine.” She said for what seemed the millionth time in the last three days.

“You spent a month working around the clock,” Stormsong started. “And you haven’t—”

“Shhh!” Tinker silenced and worked to find her center. Getting her fingers into the full suit position took a moment of concentration. Bringing her hand to her mouth, she vocalized the trigger word. The magic spilled around her, pulsing with potential. Carefully, she shifted her fingers to the shield position and spoke the trigger. The magic wrapped around her, distorting the air.

“Yes!” Without thinking, she threw up her hands in jubilation and the shield vanished. “Oops!”

The sekasha were too polite to comment. Finding her center was harder while burning with embarrassment. Her heart still leapt up when she called up her shield but she managed not to move this time. She held it for several minutes and then practiced at looking around, and then moving, without forgetting to maintain her hand positions.

“Okay,” Tinker said. “Can I talk? Can you hear me?”

Pony grinned at her. “We can hear you. As long as you don’t have your hands near your mouth, you can talk — but it’s not always wise.”

She dismissed the magic. Only after the power drained completely away did she celebrate. Laughing, she hugged Pony. “I did it!”

He surprised her by hugging her tightly back. “Yes, you did.”

The walkie-talkie chirped and Stormsong answered with a “Yes? It is nothing — she is only practicing.”

Tinker grimaced. She forgot Windwolf would notice her tapping the spell stones. “That’s Wolf Who Rules?”

“Yes, ze domi,” Stormsong said.

“Sorry, Windwolf!” Tinker called. “But I did it! I called the shields!”

Stormsong listened for a moment and then said. “He says ‘very good’ and wants to know if you plan to continue practicing?”

“For a while.” It occurred to her that the stones might only support one user. “That isn’t a problem for him — is it?”

“No, domi.” Pony answered the question. “Both of you can use the stones at the same time.”

Stormsong listened and then said goodbye. “Wolf Who Rules merely wanted to be sure you were fine. Practice away, he said.”

So she did until she momentarily forgot how to dispel the magic. When at last the magic washed away, Pony came and took her hands in his.

“Please, domi, go to bed. You can do more tomorrow.”

Tinker woke from her nightmare to a dark bedroom. For a moment, she couldn’t figure out where she was. She’d fallen asleep in so many places lately. She eyed the poster bed, wood paneling, and open window — oh yes — her bedroom at Poppymeadow. Even awake, her dreams crowded in on her. She put out a hand and found Windwolf’s comforting warmth. It was all she needed to push away the darkest memories.

Sighing, she snuggled up to her husband. This is one of the unexpected joys of being married, her secret treasure. She had never realized how lonely she was at night. Back in her loft, any light noise had her out of bed, and once awake, she often found herself getting dressed and wandering out into the sleeping city, in search of something she’d couldn’t name or identify. Before Windwolf, if asked, she would have said she was perfectly happy — but if she had been, how could she be so much happier now?

She was just noticing something hard digging into her side, when she realized it was Pony beside her, not Windwolf. While Pony wore his loose pajamas, he slept on top of the blankets beside her, instead of under them with her. It was his sheathed ejae beneath her — she’d rolled on top of it when she cuddled up to him.

“Pony?” She tugged the sword out from under her, dropped it behind him. His presence confused her.

“What is it, domi?” he asked sleepily.

It took her another minute to sort through memories and dreams to know what reality should be. They weren’t still prisoners of the oni and her husband really should be in bed with her. “Where’s Windwolf?”

Pony rubbed at his face. “Hmmm? He’s probably still with Prince True Flame. There was much to do before the troops arrived tomorrow.”

“I had a bad dream about Windwolf. He couldn’t see Lord Tomtom. I could but the black willows were holding me — I couldn’t move — couldn’t warn him.”

“Hush.” Pony hugged her loosely. “Tomtom is dead. Wolf Who Rules is safe. It was only a dream — nothing more. Go back to sleep.”

“What if the oni attacked?” She started to get up but he tightened his hold.

“No, no, Wolf would want you to sleep. You’re exhausted, domi. You’re going to make yourself sick if you do not sleep.”

She groaned because she was so very tired but the nightmare pressed in on her. “I can’t go back to sleep. Windwolf could be in trouble.”

“He’s fine.”

“How do you know? We were asleep. He could be fighting for his life right now.” Oh gods, she was turning into such a drama queen. Go to bed, go to bed, go to bed, she told herself, but she couldn’t banish the memories.

“Oh, domi,” Pony crooned. “When I was little and my mother was out with Longwind — Windwolf’s father — I’d be worried just like you are now. And my father would say, ‘look at the clear sky, see the stars? If the Wind Clan fought tonight, the wind would throw clouds around, and lightning would be everywhere.’”

She relaxed onto his bare shoulder, gazing out the bedroom’s wind at the peach trees beyond, standing still against a crystalline sky. “What did you do when it stormed?”

Pony chuckled, a good warm sound that did much to banish away her fears. “Ah, you’ve spotted the weakness in my father’s ploy.”

It puzzled her that his mother was out with Longwind when he was fighting until she realized that both of Pony’s parents would have been sekasha. Pony’s mother must be beholden to Windwolf’s father.

“What is your mother like?” she asked.

“Otter Dance? She is sekasha,” Pony said as if that explained everything. Perhaps it did. “We of the Wind Clan sekasha are known to be playful and lucky where the Fire Clan sekasha are considered hot tempered and rude. When we come together in large cities, we of the Wind Clan like to gamble and win, and the Fire Clan tends to lose and start fights. Almost every night ends in a brawl, everyone black and blue.”

He smelt wonderful. His braid was undone and his hair was a cascade of black in the moonlight. As if it had a mind of its own, her hand drifted down over his chest, feeling the hard muscles under the silk shift.

“Hmmm,” was all she managed as exhaustion — thankfully — was beating out desire.

“I do not know which my mother loves more — to gamble or brawl.” Pony went on to expand his mother’s adventures in both, but she slipped back to sleep.

Tinker woke twice more that night. The second time was another nightmare, this of being chased by Fu Lions through the ironwoods. Pony was there again to soothe away her fear. The third time was Windwolf finally returning home, but by then she could barely stir.

“How is she?” Windwolf whispered in the darkness.

“She woke twice with nightmares of oni.” Pony’s voice came from near the door.

The bed shifted with the changing of the guard.

“Thank you, Little Horse, for keeping her well.”

“I wish I could do more,” Pony whispered. “But I could not keep the dreams from her. May you have more luck than I. Good night, Brother Wolf.”