Barbara Hambly - Sun Wolf 1 - The Ladies Of Mandrigyn.pdf - Barbara Hambly - margozap

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CHAPTER

— 1 —

f YHAT

HAT IN THE NAME OF THE COLD HELLS IS THIS?" SUN

Wolf held the scrap of unfolded paper between stubby fingers that were still slightly stained with

blood.

Starhawk, his tall, rawboned second-in-command, glanced up from cleaning the grime of battle off

the hilt of her sword and raised dark, level brows inquiringly. Outside, torchlight reddened the

windy night. The camp was riotous with the noise of victory; the mercenaries of Wrynde and the

troops of the City of Kedwyr were uninhibitedly celebrating the final breaking of the siege of

Melplith.

"What's it look like?" she asked reasonably.

"It looks like a poxy proposition." He handed it to her, the amber light of the oil lamp overhead

falling over his body, naked to the waist and glittering with a light curly rug of gold hair.

Starhawk had been fighting under his command for long enough to know that, if he had actually

thought it nothing more than a proposition, he would have put it in the fire without a word.

Sun Wolf, Commander of the Mercenaries, Camp of Kedwyr below the walls of Melplith, from Sheera

Galernas of Man-drigyn, greetings. I will be coming to you in your tent tonight with a matter of

interest to you. For my sake and that of my cause, please be alone, and speak to no one of this.

Sheera.

"Woman's handwriting," Starhawk commented, and ran her thumb consideringly aiong the gilt edge of

the expensive paper.

Sun Wolf looked at her sharply from beneath his curiously

2 Barbara Hambly

tufted brows. "If she wasn't from Mandrigyn, I'd say it was the local madam trying to drum up

business."

Starhawk nodded in absent-minded agreement.

Outside the tent, the noise scaled up into a crescendo. Boozy catcalls mixed with cries of

encouragement and yells of "Kill him! Kill the bastard!" Between the regular troops of the City of

Kedwyr and the City's Outland Militia Levies, a lively hatred existed, perhaps stronger than the

feeling that either body of warriors had toward the hapless citizen-soldiers of the besieged town

of Melplith. It was a conflict that the Wolf and his mercenaries had stayed well clear of—the Wolf

because he made it his policy never to get involved in local politics, and his men because of a

blood-chilling directive from their captain on the subject. The noises of drunken murder did not

concern him— there wasn't a man in his troop who would have so much as stayed to watch.

"Mandrigyn," Starhawk said thoughtfully. "Altiokis conquered that city last spring, didn't he?"

Sun Wolf nodded and settled himself into a fantastic camp chair made of staghom bound with gold,

looted from some tribal king in the far northeast. Most of the big tent's furnishings had been

plundered from somewhere or other. The peacock hangings that separated it into two rooms had once

adorned the bedroom of a prince of the K'Chin Desert. The cups of translucent, jade-green lacquer

and gold had belonged to a merchant on the Bight Coast. The graceful ebony table, its delicate

inlays almost hidden under the bloody armor that had been dumped upon it, had once graced the wine

room of a gentlemanly noble of the Middle Kingdoms, before his precious vintages had been swilled

by the invading armies of his enemies and he himself had been dispatched beyond such concerns.

"The city went fast," Sun Wolf remarked, picking up a rag and setting to work cleaning his own

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weapons. "Basically, it was the same situation as we had here in Melplith—factional splits in the

parliament, scandal involving the royal family— they have a royal family there, or they did have,

anyway— the city weakened by internal fighting before Altiokis marched down the pass. I'm told

there were people there who welcomed him as a liberator."

Starhawk shrugged. "No weirder than some of the things the Trinitarian heretics believe," she

joked, deadpan, and he grinned. Like most northerners, the Hawk held to the Old Faith against the

more sophisticated theologies of the Triple God.

THf LADIES OF MANDRIGYN 3

"The Wizard King's Citadel has been on Mandrigyn's back doorstep for a hundred and fifty years,"

the, Wolf continued after a moment. "Last year they signed some kind of treaty with him. ! could

see it coming even then."

Starhawk shoved her sword back into its sheath and wiped her fingers on a rag. Sun Wolf's talent

for collecting and sorting information was uncanny, but it was a skill that served him well. He

had a knack for gathering rumors, extrapolating political probabilities from crop prices and

currency fluctuations and the most trivial bits of information that made their way north to his

broken-down stronghold at the old administrative town of Wrynde. Thus he and his men had been on

the spot in the Gwarl Peninsula when the fighting had broken out between the trading rivals of

Kedwyr and Melplith. Kedwyr had hired the Wolf and his troop at an astronomical sum.

It didn't always work that way—in her eight years as a mercenary in Sun Wolf's troop, Starhawk had

seen one or two spectacular pieces of mistiming—but on the whole it had enabled the Wolf to

maintain his troops in better-than-average style, fighting in the summer and sitting out the

violence of the winter storms in the relative comfort of the half-ruined town of Wymde.

Like all mercenary troops. Sun Wolf's shifted from year to year in size and composition, though

they centered around a hard core that had been with him for years. As far as Starhawk knew, Sun

Wolf was the only mercenary captain who operated a regular school of combat in the winter months.

The school itself was renowned throughout the West and the North for the excellence of its

fighters. Every winter, when the rains made war impossible, young men and occasional young women

made the perilous journey through the northern wastelands that had once been the agricultural

heart of the old Empire of Gwenth to the ruined and isolated little town of Wyrnde, there to ask

to be taught the hard arts of war.

There were always wars to fight somewhere. Since the moribund Empire of Gwenth had finally been

riven apart by the conflict between the Three Gods and the One, there had always been wars—over

the small bits of good land among the immense tracts of bad, over the trade with the East in silk

and amber and spices, over religion, or over nothing. Starhawk, whose early training had given her

a taste for such things, had once explained the theology behind the Schism to the Wolf. Being a

barbarian from the far north, he worshipped the spirits

4 Barbara Hambly

of his ancestors and would cheerfully take money from proponents of either faith. An understanding

of the situation had only amused him, as she knew it would. Lately the wars had been over the

rising of the Wizard King Altiokis, who was expanding his own empire from the dark Citadel of

Grimscarp, engulfing the Thanes who ruled the countryside and such cities as Mandrigyn.

"Will you see this woman from Mandrigyn?" she asked.

"Probably." The noise of the fight outside peaked in a crazy climax of yelling, punctuated by the

heavy crack of the whips of the Kedwyr military police. It was the fourth fight they'd heard since

returning to the camp after the sacking of the town was done; victory was headier than any booze

ever brewed.

Starhawk collected her gear—sword, dagger, mail shirt— preparatory to returning to her own tent.

Melplith stood on high ground, above its sheltered bay—one of those arid regions whose chief crops

of citrus and olives had naturally turned its inhabitants to trade for their living. Chill winds

now blew up from the choppy waters of the bay, making the lampflame flicker in its topaz glass and

chilling her flesh through the damp cotton of her dark, embroidered shirt.

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"You think it's a job?"

"I think she'll offer me one."

"Will you take it?"

The Wolf glanced over at her briefly. His eyes, in this light, were pale gold, tike the wines of

the Middle Kingdoms, He was close to forty, and his tawny hair was thinning, but there was no gray

either in it or in the ragged mustache that drooped like a clump of yellow-brown winter weeds from

the underside of a craggy and much-bent nose. The power and thickness of his chest and shoulders

made him seem taller than his six feet when he was standing up; seated and at rest, he reminded

her of a big, dusty lion. "Would you go against Altiokis?" he asked her.

She hesitated, not speaking her true answer to that. She had heard stories of the Wizard King

since she was a tiny girl— bizarre, distorted tales of his conquests, his sins, and his greed.

Horrible tales were told of what happened to those who had opposed him, over the timeless years of

his uncanny existence.

Her true answer, the one she did not say aloud, was: Yes. if you wanted me to.

What she said was, "Would you?"

He shook his head. "I'm a soldier," he said briefly. "I'm

THE LADIES OF MANDRIGYH 5

no wizard. I couldn't go against a wizard, and I wouldn't take my people against one. There are

two things that my father always told me, if I wanted to live to grow old—don't fall in love and

don't mess with magic."

"Three things," Starhawk corrected, with one of her rare, fleeting grins. "Don't argue with

fanatics."

"That comes under magic. Or arguing with drunks, I'm not sure which. I don't understand how there

could be one God or three Gods or five or more, but I do know that I had ancestors, drunken,

lecherous clowns that they were... Hello, sweetpea."

The curtain that divided the tent parted, and Fawn came in, brushing the last dampness from the

heavy curls of her mink-brown hair. The pale green gauze of her gown made her eyes seem greener,

almost emerald. She.was Sun Wolf's latest concubine, eighteen, and heartbreakingly beautiful.

"Your bath's ready," she said, coming behind the camp chair where he sat to kiss the thin spot in

his hair at the top of his head.

He took her hand where it lay on his shoulder and, with a curiously tender gesture for so large

and rough-looking a man, he pressed his lips to the white skin of her wrist. "Thanks," he said.

"Hawk, will you wait for a few minutes? If this skirt wants to see me alone, would you take Fawn

over to your tent for a while?"

Starhawk nodded. She had seen a series of his girls come and go, all of them beautiful, soft-

spoken, pliant, and a little helpless. The camp tonight, after the sacking of the town, was no

place for a girl not raised to killing, even if she was the mistress of a man like Sun Wolf.

"So you're receiving ladies alone in your tent now, are you?" Fawn chided teasingly.

With a movement too swift to be either fought or fled, he was out of his chair, catching her up,

squeaking, in his arms as he rose. She wailed, "Stop it! No! I'm sorry!" as he bore her off

through the curtain into the other room, her squeals scaling up into a desperate crescendo that

ended in a monumental and steamy splash.

Without a flicker of an eyelid, Starhawk shouldered her war gear, called out, "I'll be back for

you in an hour, Fawn," and departed; only when she was outside did she allow herself a small,

amused grin.

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She returned in company with An, a young man who was Sun Wolf's other lieutenant and who rather

resembled an ad-otescent black bear. They bade the Wolf a grave good evening.

6 Barbara Humbly

collected the damp, subdued, and rather pink-cheeked Fawn, and made their way across the camp. The

wind had risen again, cold off the sea with the promise of the winter's deadly storms; drifts of

woodsmoke from the camp's fires blew into their eyes. Above them, the fires in the city flared,

fanned by the renewed breezes, and a sulfurous glow outlined the black crenelations of the walls.

The night tasted raw, wild, and strange, still rank with blood and broken by the wailing of women

taken in the sacking of the town.

"Things settling down?" the Hawk asked.

Ari shrugged. "Some. The militia units are already drunk. Gradduck—that tin-pot general who

commanded the City Troops—is taking all the credit for breaking the siege."

Starhawk feigned deep thought. "Oh, yes," she remembered at length. "The one the Chief said

couldn't lay seige to a pothouse."

"No, no," Ari protested, "it wasn't a pothouse—an outhouse ..."

Voices yelled Ari's name, calling him to judge an athletic competition that was as indecent as it

was ridiculous, and he laughed, waved to the women, and vanished into the darkness. Starhawk and

Fawn continued to walk, the wind-torn torchlight banding their faces in lurid colors—the Hawk long-

legged and panther-graceful in her man's breeches and doublet, Fawn shy as her namesake amid the

brawling noise of the camp, keeping close to Starhawk's side. As they left the noisier precincts

around the wine issue, the girl asked, "Is it true he's being asked to go against Altiokis?"

"He won1! do it," Starhawk said. "Any more than he'd work for him. He was approached for that,

too, years ago. He won't meddle with magic one way or the other, and I can't say that I blame him.

Altiokis is news of the worst possible kind."

Fawn shivered in the smoky wind and drew the spiderweb silk of her shawl tighter about her

shoulders. "Were they all like that? Wizards, 1 mean? Is that why they all—died out?"

In the feeble reflection of lamplight from the tents, her green eyes looked huge and transparent.

Damp tendrils of hair clung to her cheeks; she brushed them aside, watching Starhawk worriedly.

Like most people in the troop, she was a little in awe of that steely and enigmatic woman.

Starhawk ducked under the door flap of her tent, and held it aside for Fawn to pass. "1 don't know

if that's why the wizards finally died out," she said. "But I do know they weren't

THE LADIES OF MANDR/CVN 7

all evil like Altiokis. I knew a wizard once when I was a little girl. She was—very good."

Fawn stared at her in surprise that came partly from astonishment that Starhawk had ever been a

little girl. In a way, it seemed inconceivable that she had ever been anything but what she was

now: a tail, leggy cheetah of a woman, colorless as fine ivory—pale hair, pewter-gray eyes—save

where the sun had darkened the fine-grained, flawless skin of her face and throat to burnt gold.

Her light, cool voice was remarkably soft for a warrior's, though she was said to have a store of

invective that could raise blisters on tanned oxhide. It was more believable of her that she had

known a wizard than that she had been a little girl.

"I—I thought they were all gone, long before we were born."

"No," the Hawk said. The lamplight sparkled off the brass buckles that studded her sheepskin

doublet as she fetched a skin of wine and two cups. Her tent was small and, like her, neat and

spare. She had packed away her gear earlier. The only things remaining on the polished wood

folding table were the gold-and-shell winecups and a pack of greasy cards. Starhawk was generally

admitted to be a shark of poker—with her face, Fawn reflected, she could hardly be anything else.

"I thought that, too," Starhawk continued, coming back as Fawn seated herself on the edge of the

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narrow bed. "I didn't know Sister Wellwa was a wizard for—oh, years."

"She was a nun?" Fawn asked, startled.

Starhawk weighed her answer for a moment, as if picking her words carefully. Then she nodded. "The

village where I grew up was built around the Convent of St. Cherybi in the West. Sister Wellwa was

the oldest nun there—I used to see her every day, sweeping the paths outside with her broom made

of sticks. As I said, I didn't know then that she was a wizard."

"How did you find out?" Fawn asked. "Did she tell you?"

"No." Starhawk folded herself into her chair. Like everything else in the tent, it was plain,

bare, and easy to pack in a hurry. 'The countryside around the village was very wild— I don't know

if you're familiar with the West, but it's a land of rock and thin forest, rising toward the sea

cliffs. A hard land. Dangerous, too. I'd gone into the woods to gather berries or something silly

like that—something I wasn't supposed to do. I was probably escaping from my brothers. And—and

there was a nuuwa."

Fawn shivered. She had seen nuxiwa, dead, or at a distance.

8 Barbara Hambly

It was possible, Starhawk thought, watching her, that she had also seen their victims.

"I ran," the Hawk continued unemotionally. "I was very young, I'd never seen one before, and I

thought that, since it didn't have any eyes, it couldn't follow me. I must have thought at first

that it was just an eyeless man. But it came after me, groaning and slobbering, crashing through

the woods. I never looked back, but I could hear it behind me, getting closer as I came out of the

woods. I ran through the rocks up the hill toward the Convent, and Sister Wellwa was outside,

sweeping the path as she always was. And she—she raised her hand— and it was as if fire exploded

from her fingers, a ball of red and blue fire that she flung at the nuuwa's head. Then she caught

me up in her arms, and we ran together through the door and shut and bolted it. Later we found

places where the nuuwa had tried to chew through the doorframe."

She was silent; if any of the horror of that memory stirred in her heart, it did not show on her

fine-boned, enigmatic face. It was Fawn who shuddered and made a small, sickened noise in her

throat.

"It was the only time 1 saw her do magic," Siarhawk continued after a moment. "When I asked her

about it later, she told me she had only grabbed me and carried me inside."

Across the rim of the untasted cup. Fawn studied the older woman for a moment more. Rumor in the

camp had it that the Hawk had once been a nun herself, before she had elected to leave the Convent

and follow the Wolf. Though Fawn had never believed it before, something in this story made her

wonder if it might be true. There were elements of asceticism and mysticism in Starhawk; Fawn knew

that she meditated daily, and the tent was certainly as barren as a nun's cell. Though a cold-

blooded and ruthless warrior, the Hawk was never senselessly brutal—but then, few of the handful

of women in Wolfs troop were.

It was on the tip of Fawn's tongue to ask her, but Starhawk was not a woman of whom one asked

questions without permission. Besides, Fawn could think of no reason why anyone would have left

the comforts of the Convent to follow the brutal trail of war.

Instead she asked, "Why did she lie?"

"The Mother only knows. She was a very old lady then— she died a year or so after, and I don't

think anyone else in the Convent ever knew what she was."

THE LADIES OF MANDR1GYN 9

Fawn's tapering fingers toyed with the cup, the diamonds of her rings winking like teardrops in

the dim, golden light. Somewhere quite close, a drunken chorus in another tent began to sing.

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