Scarlet and the White Wolf [01] - Scarlet and the White Wolf Read Online Free PDF

burning us out, too.
    How much longer are we going to wait?"
    "It's not all their doing," Scaja protested. "It's the Bled and the regular army that's—"
    "That's full of Aralyrin soldiers!" Scarlet finished. "Wake up, Scaja. The Flower Prince isn't going to stop them. No one is." He watched the lines on Scaja's face rise up into ranks of worry before settling into their old, familiar pattern of stoicism. Hilurin denial, solid as rock. Scarlet knew he was defeated.
    "It can't go on forever like this," Scaja said gruffly. "Mark my words, son: there will be an end to it."
    Scaja would speak no more of leaving and forbade Scarlet to mention it to his mother or sister, and he had no choice but to swallow the angry words that arose and submit.

    * * * *
    The hour was late and Linhona had cooked a meal to feed nine men his size. He was still trying to recover from it when Annaya came in from the small sitting area set aside from the kitchen.
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    Scarlet and the White Wolf--Book One
    by Kirby Crow
    "Tell us the story, Linhona."
    "Sister," he warned.
    The look she cast his way was scorching. "I like to hear it,"
    she scowled.
    "It's late." He shifted a quick glance to Scaja. "And it upsets your mother."
    "Why's she keep telling it, then?"
    That was an answer he did not have, except to say that storytelling was in Linhona's blood and perhaps telling such a terrible tale lessened the pain of it for her. She told a story better than anyone he ever knew, even the skilled bards in Morturii and the lads from the Hyacinth Court in Rusa, where the Flower Prince lives. Yet, no one ever benefited from Linhona's gift except her family, because she would not do it for anyone else, and her oldest story, her best story, was the reason why.
    He sighed as Linhona got up and moved her chair until her back was to the fireplace. Annaya found a place at her feet. It was no use trying to talk Linhona out of it. Whether it upset her or not, her daughter had asked for a story. The story.
    She always began the same way: "I was told by my father, who was a man much like your dad," and she smiled at Scaja as he sat in his overstuffed chair, teeth clamped around the stem of the pipe that filled the room with fragrant smoke,
    "that one must have a few words before a book to frame the story for the reader, much like a painting is framed. Consider this story as the words before my life began, for this is the thing that happened that shaped all the things yet to come."
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    Scarlet and the White Wolf--Book One
    by Kirby Crow
    Linhona clasped her hands loosely in her lap, and he marveled how beautiful her hair was, how pretty she remained for a woman thrice his age and then some. Her voice was steady and warm and familiar as she began to tell the story.
    Linhona's words turned very formal as she shifted into the High Speech, the one used for prayers and prophecy and eulogies to the dead, and spoke softly of how there was still ice on all the roofs and spring was not yet in the frozen ground when the raiders of the Minh came out of the east, blown in like the last vengeful wind of winter. She told them of her infant daughter killed that day, and how they had taken Gedda, her strong, gray-eyed son, as a slave. Her voice became muted as she spoke of the rape of the village women and the murders of the Elder and the levyman and their families, and how her best friend, old Maba the baker, had been knifed in the breast because she cursed them fearlessly, and how one pretty Aralyrin woman had been set free because she had the mark of Om-Ret branded on her thigh.
    Last of all she spoke of Jorlen, her half-Hilurin husband who had tried and failed to defend them, and how she herself and only a handful of others had escaped with their lives.
    The fire crackled and Linhona's hand stroked Annaya's hair steadily. Annaya leaned against her leg and was still, her eyes closed. Scarlet thought she might have fallen asleep, were it not for the wince she gave when Linhona mentioned