Kirby Crow - Scarlet & The White Wolf 1- The Pedlar and the Bandit, New folder 1
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Scarlet and the White Wolf--Book One
by Kirby Crow
Torquere Press
Copyright ©2005 by Kirby Crow
First published in www.torquerepress.com, 2006
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2
Scarlet and the White Wolf--Book One
by Kirby Crow
1.
Scarlet
Autumn, the Month of Ashes.
The serpent banner of Om-Ret fluttered over the great
souk
of Ankar, crowning the jumbled din of camels, horses,
men, slaves, tinkers, dogs, whores, hawkers, cutpurses,
soldiers, and merchants with a constant flapping sound like
the wings of gulls. Scarlet, son of Scaja, swiped at the gritty
red dust on his face and surveyed the colorful row of furled
ribbons the tradeswoman laid out for him.
"For your wife, little Byzan?" she asked him coyly, her
golden eyes glittering above the hem of her embroidered veil.
Here, far north of Byzantur, all Morturii men and women who
were not soldiers or whores hid their faces behind layers of
filmy gauze or bright-colored cotton or jeweled silk. Scarlet
was not Morturii and hid nothing.
"Sister," he answered shortly, and pointed to the red
ribbons. "The blue and green, too, and a yard of the white silk
and a yard of the green," he added, mentally wincing at the
price. The woman bowed as he paid her with half of a silver
sellivar.
He collected his package and left, threading his way
through the crowded, stinking alleys of the marketplace. Avid
seagulls, fresh from feeding on entrails thrown from the many
fishing vessels crowding the glittering bay, swooped low over
the crowds. One black-winged gull darted past him, wings
slashing, and stole a fragment of flesh from a meat-sellers
stall.
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Scarlet and the White Wolf--Book One
by Kirby Crow
"Greedy!" the man cried, shaking his fist after the
departing bird.
Scarlet came to the Street of Doves and Flowers and
pursed his mouth in distaste, for he disliked having to take
this route. He navigated his way past a noisy
ghilan
, a two-
story dwelling whose function was made known by the series
of carved frescoes that depicted a young, shapely woman
being chased through a lush forest by an armored Morturii
soldier. The soldier pursued her through various stages of
undress, with the last panel culminating in the soldier
mounting her thighs amid a flowering field.
Next on the street was a
bhoros
house, constructed almost
identically to the white-walled ghilan, with fine bronze screens
at all the windows and the doorways tiled in blue. The main
difference were the frescoes, and in the last marble panel
before the street opened up into the wide main avenue of the
souk, a laughing young man lay sprawled on his back in the
grass with a lean soldier kneeling over him, both of them very
bare.
Scarlet came upon a kneeling Fate with eyes like two
raisins pinned on a shrunken apple; all he could see of her
behind her veil. The crone extended her wizened hand to him.
"Read your fate, red-coat?"
He shook his head and went on, intent on making his way
back to Masdren's stall. Morturii, the land of metal and magic,
abounded in soothsayers, seers, fate dealers, and crones.
They were almost as prevalent as the blacksmiths, armorers,
and master weapon-smiths, and in some parts, the land was
under a permanent pall of black smoke from the smithies.
4
Scarlet and the White Wolf--Book One
by Kirby Crow
A pair of long-knives hanging in a corner smithy caught
Scarlet's eye, and he stopped to admire them with frank
longing. Like all Morturii weapons, the knives had smooth
hafts made of spun wire and the blades themselves were
black as jet. Inscribed on the blades were many curling
designs of leaves, trees, human faces in torment, and
stretched, eviscerated animal bodies, all swirling together in
finely-etched silver lines to form a depiction of Deva's
creation of the world. The weapons were ugly and terribly
beautiful at the same time, and Scarlet lingered to stare as
the foot-traffic flowed around him.
The burly Morturii smith stirred from his forge and pointed.
"Ye want try 'em out?" he asked in poor Bizye.
After a long moment, Scarlet shook his head. He did, but
he could never afford the smith's price.
"He'll take them," said a familiar voice.
Scarlet turned and frowned at Masdren. "I will not," he
said in Falx, the local language. His accent was flawless. "Sit
down, blacksmith. I don't have that much silver."
"But I do." Masdren nodded at the smith. Masdren was a
black-haired Byzan as well, one of perhaps a hundred in all of
Ankar, and much older than Scarlet. "Wrap them up. Never
mind the sheaths; I've got better in my shop."
Scarlet opened his mouth to protest and Masdren put a
restraining hand on his arm. "How many summers have you
worked for me in the souk, lad? Four at last count? And your
dad is still one of my best friends. Take the knives. I know
you know how to use them, and I want Scaja to see his son
again."
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