Chapter 3

‘The Wolf & The Raiders’

The harbor tavern stood where the last dependable road surrendered to the Vulsan Straits, a broad, weather-darkened house whose foundations had endured so many storms that no one remembered whether the wind had bent its walls or the walls had learned to lean against the wind. Salt whitened every beam facing the docks, tar clung to the timbers near the entrance, and fishing nets hung beneath the eaves beside cracked shields, old harpoons, and anchors whose working years had ended long before their usefulness as decoration.

The place had survived raids, fires, failed harvests, and several owners who mistook generosity for accounting, yet it remained what travelers required at the end of an uncertain road: somewhere a warm meal, an honest drink, and a locked room could be purchased without explaining too much about the journey that made them necessary. Fisherfolk filled the front tables after dawn, smugglers preferred the rear benches nearest the service passage, caravan guards chose seats offering a view of both hearth and door, and sailors returning after months upon the straits generally occupied whatever space allowed them to drink before the floor developed opinions about balance.

Arguments occurred, knives occasionally entered furniture or flesh, and more than one patron had awakened outside without remembering who carried him there, but the tavern’s disputes usually ended in bruises rather than burials. Along a coast where many establishments offered neither guarantee, that distinction had earned a reputation.

Much of that reputation belonged to Zazari and Koth. The black she-wolf possessed a beauty too confident to appear delicate, and she had long since stopped pretending surprise at the attention that followed her through a room. During the early evening she sang the old northern ballads in a voice roughened pleasantly by smoke and salt air, giving the songs the warmth of weathered timber rather than the polished restraint admired in southern courts.

Afterward she received private clients in the rooms behind the common hall, earning during a prosperous night more silver than many fishing crews divided after a week upon dangerous water. Neither sibling disguised the arrangement, and neither regarded honesty as requiring apology. Respectable patrons sometimes frowned at Zazari’s profession before ordering another drink from Koth, while sailors who had spent half a year aboard crowded vessels discovered that their moral objections weakened considerably after landfall.

Behind the counter, Koth managed the house with the patience of a creature who knew the price of every bottle, chair, broken window, and avoidable quarrel beneath his roof. He poured without cheating, kept accounts without mercy, and treated merchant silks, patched mail, salt-stiffened work clothes, and stolen finery with the same professional courtesy so long as the creature wearing them paid.
Trouble was stopped before it reached the expensive furniture whenever possible, removed through the rear yard when it could still walk, and deposited beside the road when negotiation failed. The siblings had prospered because their rule admitted no confusion: drink, eat, sing, gamble, couple, boast, and lie about the size of whatever one had caught, killed, stolen, or survived, but do not make another patron’s peace impossible beneath their roof. Most travelers considered the condition reasonable.

The evening had settled comfortably into its familiar noise. Dice moved across scarred tabletops, fishermen enlarged the morning’s catches with every cup, and a pair of caravan guards debated whether northern beer qualified as drink or disciplinary measure. Near the hearth, an elderly ram attempted to accompany Zazari’s song despite possessing a voice more useful for frightening predators away from livestock. His enthusiasm exceeded both rhythm and melody, but the room had heard worse from creatures who believed payment entitled them to sing.

Zazari finished the final verse, accepted the applause with a small bow, and disappeared behind the heavy curtain separating the common room from the private chambers, leaving Koth to refill cups while the old ram continued alone until laughter persuaded him that his performance had reached its natural conclusion.

Ranji waited behind the curtain with the anxious enthusiasm of a regular patron who feared familiarity might someday lessen his good fortune. The lanky spotted cat possessed more eagerness than elegance, but he paid without argument, washed before arriving, and never mistook purchase of an evening for ownership of the female providing it. Zazari considered those virtues sufficient to excuse several lesser failings. They had scarcely begun when the front doors burst inward with enough violence to throw rain across the first row of tables. Cold wind rushed through the common room carrying salt, wet leather, and six armed raiders who had crossed too much country to be mistaken for sailors seeking shelter.

Conversation died before anyone ordered it to stop. Dice remained where they had fallen, cups paused halfway to muzzles, and the elderly ram lowered his head with the chastened expression of a performer suddenly aware that the evening’s audience had changed. Experienced travelers did not reach immediately for weapons. They measured the six newcomers, counted visible blades, noted the creature standing nearest each exit, and shifted only far enough to prevent someone else’s quarrel from becoming their funeral. The raiders understood those movements and approved of them. Their leader closed the damaged doors behind him, looked across the room until every patron had accepted the new arrangement, and walked directly to the bar.

He was a heavy-jawed wolf with one torn ear, a dark leather coat reinforced beneath the shoulders, and the patient expression of a creature accustomed to receiving answers before politeness became inconvenient. Two larger enforcers followed him, each carrying enough iron to announce that subtlety belonged to other professions, while the remaining three spread through the room without drawing their weapons. One stopped near the entrance, another leaned against a support post commanding the passage to the rear yard, and the last wandered toward the hearth as if attracted by warmth. No one blocked an exit completely. They merely arranged themselves so that departure would require a decision.

The leader planted both paws upon the counter hard enough to rattle the bottles behind it. Zazari’s brother continued drying the mug in his hands, giving the newcomer the courtesy owed to any patron until conduct removed the privilege. The raider asked no price for drink and offered no greeting.

“I’m looking for a snow leopard female. Young. Name of Aura. She’s travelling north with a mercenary company—green little thing, frightened of her own shadow, with two brothers strutting around her as though either one of them could stop a blade. They come through here?”

Koth set the dry mug among the others. “Recruits, traders, pilgrims, hunters, caravan guards, wandering swords, failed husbands, successful thieves, and creatures who prefer not to explain themselves pass through here every week. You expect one honest publican to remember every frightened traveler who buys a bowl of stew?”

His tone remained courteous, but the patrons nearest the bar quietly moved their drinks out of reach of spilling.

The raider leader smiled. “Young snow leopard female. Northbound mercenary company. Patched supply wagons. Brown bear near the head of the column. Lynx officer holding the contract. Two snow leopard brothers who’ve managed to get themselves injured often enough to be remembered from one settlement to the next.”

He leaned a little closer.

“She was ill when we last saw her. Favoured one shoulder beneath her pack. Stayed near the wagons whenever the ground turned difficult.”

The smile remained.

“Aura. Has she passed through here?”

Koth folded the drying cloth once and placed it beside the mugs. “Sounds unfortunate,” he said. “But misfortune is common enough on the northern roads. Hardly much of a description. If she came through my house, she did nothing memorable enough to stand apart from the hundreds of faces I’ve seen since.”
He looked back at the raider.

“I know nothing more.”

The leader’s smile remained upon his muzzle after it had departed from his eyes. One of the enforcers shifted closer to the counter, while the raider beside the rear passage turned just far enough to examine the heavy curtain concealing the private rooms. Around the common hall, chairs moved softly against floorboards. No patron stood, but several created a little more distance between themselves and whatever was about to occur. Koth saw every movement and kept his hands visible.

Honest officers searching for a criminal carried a warrant or enough soldiers to imitate one. Merchants pursuing stolen property described the property before the thief. Raiders who followed one young female through several settlements rarely intended a purpose improved by explanation. The creatures in the tavern understood this, and the leader understood that they understood, but common knowledge had never prevented violence when violence believed itself sufficiently armed.

Snow leopards were rare enough along the Vulsan Straits to be remembered whether they wished it or not. Their pale coats, mountain blood, and foreign features marked them immediately among the darker northern peoples, and a young female travelling without the protection of her own kind could attract precisely the sort of attention Koth had learned never to mistake for curiosity. Perhaps the raiders meant to sell this “Aura” somewhere farther south. Perhaps they meant to keep her for themselves. Perhaps they intended both, in whichever order pleased them.

Koth neither knew nor cared. Whatever value they had placed upon the girl had carried six armed males through rain, bad roads, and several settlements after her, and that alone was enough. They would receive no name, no direction, no confirmation, and not one damned word from him that might shorten the distance between their hands and her throat.

“If memory is the problem,” the raider said, glancing toward the curtain, “perhaps your sister might help you recover it.”

Koth’s expression did not change. “My sister has better uses for her time than remembering strangers on your behalf.”

“She sings here.”

“She does.”

“She receives company afterward.”

“When she chooses.”

The raider looked beyond him toward the private rooms.

“Then perhaps she has seen faces you missed.”

Behind the curtain, Ranji had heard enough of the exchange to lose interest in every pleasure for which he had paid. Zazari sat upright beside him, one ear turned toward the common room while Koth’s replies became quieter rather than louder. She knew that voice. It was the same measured calm he used when removing a drunk’s hand from a knife, calculating whether a broken table could be repaired, or informing a customer that the house would accept no further promises in place of coin. It meant the danger had already passed beyond argument even if no weapon had yet been drawn.

Koth reached beneath the counter. Several patrons tensed until his hand emerged holding nothing more threatening than another cloth. He turned toward the shelves, placing his body between the raiders and the curtain, and began wiping rainwater from bottles untouched by the storm. The movement allowed him one brief glance through the narrow gap beside the hanging fabric. Zazari saw his eyes and required no further warning.

She pushed Ranji away, gathered his clothes from the floor, and pressed them against his chest. Confusion delayed him until she pointed toward the service passage leading behind the kitchens. The spotted cat began dressing while moving, discovering that fear accomplished certain tasks more efficiently than modesty. Zazari fastened her own clothing with practiced speed, took a small purse from beneath the bed, and followed him into the narrow corridor.

In the common room, the raider leader drew a long dagger and laid it upon the counter rather than pointing it at anyone. The blade was clean, recently sharpened, and placed with enough care to make its purpose more offensive than an open threat. “We have travelled a long way,” he said. “We have spent money in villages where no one remembers anything. We have crossed bad roads, slept beneath rain, and followed a company that keeps moving north when every creature with sense is coming south. I would dislike discovering that your memory improves only after inconvenience.”

Koth looked at the dagger. “Travel is hard.”

“It has been.”

“Roads are poor.”

“They are.”
“Then you should order a drink.”

The enforcer nearest the counter laughed once, but his leader did not. “Bring your sister out.”

Koth took up another mug. “No.”

The refusal crossed the room without emphasis, and its quietness settled more heavily than a shout. Near the rear passage, the waiting raider turned toward the curtain. Zazari and Ranji had not yet reached the outer door; the service corridor was narrow, the floor uneven, and Ranji continued struggling into one boot while hopping after her. Koth saw the curtain move and understood how little time remained.

He stepped backward as though reaching for a bottle from the lowest shelf, slipped through the curtain before the raiders decided whether to stop him, and found Ranji half-dressed beside the kitchen passage. Koth seized the spotted cat by one shoulder, pushed him after Zazari, and kept his voice low.

“Out the back. Take the yard, then the alley toward the docks. Do not stop until she tells you.”

Ranji opened his mouth.

“Do not argue.”

The cat closed it and ran. Zazari caught Koth’s hand once as she passed, pressing her claws against his fingers in the closest thing the moment allowed to farewell, then vanished through the kitchens after her client. The rear door opened, admitted a blade of cold rain, and closed behind them without a slam.

Koth returned to the common room before the raiders could decide that his absence had lasted too long. Their leader remained at the counter, but the dagger now stood buried point-first in the polished timber between them. The enforcer beside him watched the curtain. The three others had moved far enough from their original places to tighten the room without appearing to do so. Every patron had fallen silent.

Only the hearth continued speaking, accompanied by the distant thunder of the Vulsan Straits against the black coast below. The leader wrapped one hand around the dagger’s hilt and leaned across the bar.

“We will ask once more.”

Outside, somewhere beyond the rain-dark windows, heavy boots crossed the road toward the tavern.