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

wife or carrying off a daughter or son to the Morturii slave markets.
    Travelers would pay for safe passage through the busier pass rather than risk the Salt Road, and old Dira the whoremaster, bless his black, lecherous heart, had remembered that the Kasiri had an ancient claim to a remote mountain road in Byzantur near Lysia. Dira had a yurt full of pretty male doves and winsome flowers to feed, slaves all, and the old man was anxious about the state of his purse. It had been a thin year for almost everyone in Byzantur, and the Longspur krait had no fodder stored up for their beasts or any amount of coin or goods they could trade to get through the cold season. They came to the pass in late summer, when all other Kasiri were heading back into Chrj and winter pastures. Whetstone pass was their last option before they must admit defeat and disband the Longspur krait to larger, more prosperous tribes. Disbandment meant not only the death of a krait, but of family ties as well, and all Kasiri feared such an end.
    Today's travelers were quiet enough. Most had been warned of a well-armed Kasiri krait astride the road and had 45
    Scarlet and the White Wolf--Book One
    by Kirby Crow
    come prepared to sigh and pay as little as they could get away with. Others, it seemed, were less informed.
    The screaming woman was a fat matron with a shock of iron-gray hair stuffed under a billowing yellow bonnet. She had locked hands with one of the Kasiri and was jerking and tugging at him and yowling so loud that several of the men had stepped back to jeer at the poor fellow. The other travelers were growing skittish at the noise and a few were longingly eyeing the western road they had recently ascended from the Channel.
    Liall jerked his chin up at Peysho, and the man came to see what he wanted. "Aye, Wolf?"
    "What's amiss? That shrieking will have them all fleeing off the side of the mountain like a horde of verrit."
    "Oh, her?" Peysho jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "Her weddin' ring, I gather."
    "Is it worth much?"
    The enforcer shook his head and spat into the snow. His uncouth accent was Falx and grew heavier when he drank, so that at times Liall, himself not a native to this continent, could barely understand him. "Nowt but pewter with a shine o' gold painted on. I've got teeth in me head worth more."
    Liall laughed and called out to the unfortunate Kasiri, who turned out to be cat-eyed Kio. Kio was actively trying to retreat from the shouting, scolding matron, but she had him in a limpet's grasp and would not let him go.
    "Ho! You there! Let her keep her rusty ring."
    46
    Scarlet and the White Wolf--Book One
    by Kirby Crow
    Kio ducked a slap aimed at his head and tried to dance further away from her. She was on him like tick. "I'm trying, Atya, but she won't leave off!"
    There was a scatter of laughter, old Torva and Eraph and a few others, and Peysho grinned and went to settle the fracas.
    Liall did not stay to watch. There was a smaller line of travelers coming up the southern road from Lysia, and that was his post for the day. Among Kasiri, even a chieftain was expected to do his share of work.
    Lysia was the nearest village to the mountain, being nestled right up under the shadow of the Nerit's belly like a chick to a mother hen. It was not an opulent village by any means, but compared to the bedraggled traffic that drifted in on corked and tar-painted ships from Patra and trundled up the mountain in a steady trickle from the long Sea Road, they were at least prosperous. The travelers had been many of late, for there was much civil unrest in Byzantur and rumors of war on the horizon. Whether it was war with the Bled or civil war amongst themselves, no one seemed to know, but the traffic was heavier day by day as people deserted the virtually undefended northern reaches of Byzantur and headed south to the capital cities.
    Liall settled himself in a wooden chair behind a stone bench that served for a bargaining board and began the