Scarlet and the White Wolf [01] - Scarlet and the White Wolf by Kirby Crow Read Free Book Online

velvets, fine 42
    Scarlet and the White Wolf--Book One
    by Kirby Crow
    striped linens of blue and silver knotted with pearls. The men wore tasseled coats of satin and gold-cloth over mud-stained breeches and wide-topped, high-cut boots that were a Kasiri trademark. The women wore the boots, too, but under the long dresses of highborn ladies, dripping with rhinestones and ribbons. Their dresses were considerably more worn and patched than any noblewoman would be caught wearing, but Kasiri women took the fading and fraying in stride. When a dress finally fell apart, they simply tore it into rags for patching brilliant quilts or braiding into sleeping rugs. Kasiri girls wore their hair shorter than most, for it was a hard life and a long mane of hair would only complicate things. To compensate, they wove stunning headdresses out of long, brilliant threads of silk and decorated them with bits of semi-precious stones and flecks of gold and silver and copper. The headdresses were a few inches high, square with a long back that covered the neck, and from the hem hung long strings of faceted crystals and polished crimson beads. Women pinned their short locks under the headdress and swayed their strings of crystal as they walked, arching their necks and preening for the rough, handsome men of the krait.
    In temperament they were like beasts that had been only lately domesticated. Kasiri men were simple for the most part; content to take their share of spoils and women and food and wine and mostly never thinking to ask for more.
    Power and intrigue did not interest them, and they were happy that Liall, the strange and powerful Northman, had challenged for the right to lead some twenty years ago. Since then, he had never failed to protect them or lead them wisely.
    43
    Scarlet and the White Wolf--Book One
    by Kirby Crow
    Wisely , to a Kasiri, meant coin and meat and goods, and Liall knew that his authority was secure only as long as the Kasiri were well fed and warm. If they were not provided for, they would begin to roam and be dissatisfied, like dogs belonging to a careless master who thinks little of their welfare.
    There was no rancor or bitterness in Liall when he pondered these facts. Like many scholars of great intelligence, he believed he had learned that men are greedy, soulless beasts, intent only on what they can gain for themselves. There were few men in the camp he spoke to beyond the cursory words of command, and none he considered his true equal. Peysho was the closest thing he had to a friend.
    The camp was deceptively scattered-looking and unkempt, but in fact the Kasiri were very well-organized, with wagons on the outer rim, armed toll posts at each road leading in, and yurts in the center. The mountain pass was a perfect place for a toll road: a high, clear promontory of wind-swept dirt and packed snow. At its center was a wide space of eighty paces or more, surrounded by rough monoliths of porous, rust-colored rock thickly veined with white quartz.
    Chipped into smooth blocks, the stone was excellent for sharpening knives, which was how the pass had derived its name. The stones also kept the worst of the wind from assailing the encampment.
    The three roads leading down from the promontory—one to the Skein River that flowed into the Channel (the Sea Road, it was called), one to the road to Khurelen and the southern lands beyond, and one back to the village of Lysia, 44
    Scarlet and the White Wolf--Book One
    by Kirby Crow
    Skeld's Ferry and the Iron River—were clearly visible from every angle. It was just a high, flat space stuck like a shelf between two small mountains, but it was the shortest road through from north to south. The only other road was the old Salt Road, a lonely, meandering path through the sandy lowland valley between the riverbank and the Neriti hills that took three times longer to traverse than Whetstone Pass. It was also thick with slavers and cutthroats who were not above raping the occasional