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Wolf Soldier

By James R. Hannibal

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CHAPTER ONE

“Seventeen, eighteen.” Connor Enarian sat on the low stone wall of a hillside pasture, letting his tehpa’s sheep brush against his crook as they passed through the gate, out into the road for the drive home. The hunters of the southern forests and the farmers of the central plains counted sheep as a cure for wakefulness, or so he’d heard. Yet the Enarians and the other hill folk had managed to make a living of it. Connor counted forty-eight sheep four times a day, give or take.

“Twenty-five, twenty-six.” He didn’t bother watching. He merely felt the bump of each ewe waddling by. They knew the routine. Nor did he watch the flock waiting in the road, baaing and bleating in a mindless chorus he’d long since learned to ignore. Connor kept his gaze fixed north. The winds were picking up high in the Celestial Peaks, and he didn’t want to miss the spectacle.

Evening. The best part of Connor’s day, and not only because the scent of a dozen dinners wafted up from the village. More than the scent of bread and pork, he loved the view.
Icy swirls blew among the countless summits of the Celestial Peaks, colored red by a sun about to fade. Before the next tick of Stonyvale’s fountain clock, the perpetual storm hanging to the Western Sea would hide its fire. Together, the peaks and the Storm Mists formed the Rescuer’s barrier, a giant wall defining the edges of Connor’s world. There were points beyond. But the Keledan no longer ventured there. The Assembly had forbidden it.

Connor’s tehpa—his father in the high-mannered diction of the coastal cities—agreed with them. Often, Tehpa had warned Connor about the horrors north of the barrier, evils no Keledan need ever face. His stories were enough to wither all but the lightest fantasies of daring adventure a shepherd boy might harbor in his heart.

“Forty-seven, forty . . . eight.” Connor’s crook clacked against the stone wall. He poked around with the butt of it, still mesmerized by the mountain swirls. “Forty . . . eight,” he said again, as if repeating the number would make a ewe magically appear. The crook stabbed empty air. He blinked and glanced down. No ewe.

Connor looked to the flock waiting in the road. They stared at him, bleating out a collective I told you so. He counted them again. Forty-seven.

Not once in the eight years since his tehpa first bestowed on him the dubious honor of grazing the flock had he lost a sheep. How could this happen? The sheep weren’t clever enough to breach the trees at the top of the pasture. More than one wolf pack lived in Dayspring Forest, and autumn was their season, but they rarely ventured into the light to disturb the flocks. Connor swallowed. Rarely.
“Stay.” He pointed his crook at the flock as he hopped down and closed the gate. “All of you.” He raced up the hill and blew a shrill note on the reed whistle hanging from his neck. No ewe came running. Down below, the rams bucked at the gate, trying to obey the call. Using the whistle again risked putting them into a frenzy, but Connor couldn’t go home to Tehpa shorthanded. He drew another breath.

A wilting cry from the boulders at the forest’s edge stopped him. Connor knew the boulders well. He often passed the long ticks of the day running up their sides to reach the tops or leaping from one to the other. There were no drops or sharp edges between them to hurt a ewe—no narrow gaps where she might get stuck. He slipped a stone into his sling and shielded his eyes against the setting sun. “Ho!” he shouted, as Tehpa had taught him, lest he catch a feeding wolf unaware. “Ho!”

He felt ridiculous.

A second cry led him to a shadowed hollow in the largest boulder. Before his eyes adjusted, his head smacked against a low-hanging shelf.

The ewe bleated at him.

“You think this is funny?”

He said it to calm his own nerves. Far from laughing, the ewe cowered in the hollow, trembling. Connor rubbed his aching head and frowned. Sheep had no imagination. They didn’t conjure up predators where none existed. Something real—wolf or otherwise—had terrified this ewe. With a troubled sigh, he gathered her into his arms and carried her out into the failing light.

“Oi! Connor Enarian!” A booming voice rolled up the hill. Barnabas Botloff waved to him from the thickly padded seat of a wagon filled with bundles and burlap bags, a half-eaten loaf in his hand, his reins in the other. “Are you plannin’ to move this flock along, or shall I return to Pleasanton to spend the night?” The parcelman showed no real sign of impatience. His horse, however, gave Connor and the ewe a look that could peel the paint off a barn door.

“Something spooked her.” Connor set the ewe down and nudged her through the gate.

“Wolf?”

“Don’t think so. No tracks.”

“Hawk, then. Owl?” Barnabas squeezed each question out around a mouthful of bread. “Owls’re mean. Ask our ravens. They’ll tell you.”

The ewe took her place among the flock, and Connor worked his crook to press his rearguard into a loose formation. He wanted no stragglers during the drive home. “That’d have to be one big owl to go after a full-grown ewe.”

“’Tis possible.” Barnabas patted his round belly. “I m’self have tackled a good many giant birds in my day.”

“Those were geese, Barnabas.”

“And a few turkeys.”

The horse turned its great head and gave them both a wet, pointed snort.

“What?” Barnabas leaned out and patted the horse’s rump. “You in a hurry, Clarence?”

A pair of big brown horse eyes shifted dolefully to the loaf of bread.
Barnabas winked at Connor. “We’d better get his majesty to the inn for some oats, or I’ll never hear the end of it. He’s haulin’ quite a load—wood and apples from Dayspring Forest and smelted iron from the mines at Huckleheim.” He set the reins in his lap and struck a flame to his lantern. The warm yellow light grew between them. “Thank the High One I only bring the iron downhill and not up, or Clarence’d quit me for sure. He’d plop down in his stall at Ravencrest and ne’er get up again.”

With a short blast from Connor’s whistle, the rams started forward. Clarence ambled behind the flock, wagon wheels creaking under the weight of his load. Connor fell in step beside the cart. “Speaking of Ravencrest . . .”
He let the name hang in the air. The mountain outpost might have dwindled in recent years, but messenger birds from the south still flew to its towers, to Glimwick the ravenmaster. At times, those messages found their way to the parcelman’s ear. Connor pressed him. “I haven’t seen you in weeks. You must have a story to tell.”

“Oh, but I do. You are the story, my young friend.”

A lagging sheep bumped into Connor’s knees. He stumbled and caught himself with his crook. “Me?”

“Sure.” Barnabas twisted over his big belly to reach into the cart. “Every wool waver and egg pusher in the five vales wants to know what it’s all about. But the old man’s not sayin’ a word.” He drew a rolled parchment from within his vest, sealed with blue wax. A scrawl of black ink—Connor’s own name—caught the lantern light and gleamed in burnt orange.

The star seal pressed into the wax told him little. Many in Keledev used the Rescuer’s birthmark for seals and signatures—either that or a blacksmith’s hammer. The letter could be from anyone. He took it with an unsteady hand. “But who would send a letter to me?”

“Who would—” Bread flew from the parcelman’s mouth in an explosive guffaw. Clarence shook the half-chewed pieces from his mane and glowered at Connor as if the indignity were his fault. “The proper question,” Barnabas said once he’d recovered, “is why haven’t you answered any of the other letters?”

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