White Wolf by David Gemmell Page A

your head.”
    “Understandable,” said Skilgannon. Then he returned his attention to Raseev. “I will not be here after today,” he told the councillor. “But I will hear of all that happens after I am gone. Should any harm befall my brothers I shall come back. I will kill you in the old way—the Naashanite way. One piece of you will die at a time.”
    Skilgannon turned his back on the two men and moved toward where Braygan knelt, cradling Abbot Cethelin. As he approached them Marja reared up from alongside the body of her husband. “You bastard!” she screamed and ran at Skilgannon. Spinning on his heel he swayed aside. Marja stumbled and fell face first to the earth.
    “By Heaven, I never did like that woman,” said Skilgannon.
    Dropping to one knee he examined the wound in Cethelin’s side. Antol’s knife had slashed the skin above the hip, but had not penetrated deeply. “I will stitch that wound for you,” he said.
    “No, my son. You will not touch me. I feel the hatred and the anger radiating from you. It burns my soul. Braygan and Naslyn will take me to my chambers and attend me. You will join me there in a while. I have something for you.” Braygan and Naslyn lifted him to his feet. The old priest looked at the bodies and shook his head.
    Skilgannon saw tears in his eyes.
    Skilgannon stood silently as the two priests helped Cethelin across the open courtyard and into the buildings opposite. His hands were sticky with blood. Wiping them on his robes he moved to a stone seat in the gateway arch and sat down. The woman, Marja, stirred and struggled to her knees. Skilgannon ignored her. She looked around, saw her dead husband, and began to sob. The sound was pitiful. Marja stumbled over to the corpse and knelt beside it. Her grief was real, but it did not touch Skilgannon. She was one of those people who never gave thought to consequences. Marja had screamed for guts to be spilled. And they were.
    Four more souls had been despatched on the long, dark journey.
    Two years of suppressed rage had been released in a few terrifying heartbeats. Brother Lantern was a role he had tried so hard to play. His father’s face appeared in his mind, as he always saw it, the broad features framed in a bronze helm, a transverse horsehair plume of white glinting in the sunlight.
    “We are what we are, my son.”
    Skilgannon had never forgotten those words. His father, Decado, had not been wearing the armor of a mercenary when he had spoken them. He had been on one of his rare visits home, recovering from a wound to his upper thigh and a broken wrist. Skilgannon had been sent home from school in disgrace after fighting two boys and knocking them both senseless. “Blood runs true in our family line, Olek. We are warriors.” He had chuckled. “People are like dogs, boy. There’s the little, tubby fat ones everyone likes to pet, and the tall, rangy ones we watch race and bet upon. There’s all kinds of house dogs with wagging tails. Then there’s the wolf. It is strong. It has powerful jaws, and it is ferocious when roused. We are what we are, my son. And wolves is what we are. And all them little waggy-tail beasts best walk wary around us.”
    Two months later his father was dead.
    Trapped on a ridge by two divisions of Panthian infantry Decado had led a last charge down the slope. The few survivors talked of his incredible courage, and how he had almost reached the Panthian king. When the main body of the army arrived at the battlefield they found all but one of the corpses impaled on stakes. Decado was still sitting on his horse, which had been tethered nearby. At first the relief force had thought him to be alive. When they reached him they saw he had been strapped to his saddle, his back held upright by three lengths of wood. His swords had been sheathed at his side, his rings still upon his fingers. In one closed fist they found a small gold coin, bearing the Panthian crest.
    A rider brought the coin to Skilgannon.