The Jaguar Knights Read Free Page B

against a pack of animals.”
    The Yeomen at the gatehouse noticed Wolf’s cat’s-eye hilt and saluted them through. The Great West Road was only a faint trail in the snow. Flakes swirled in the air.
    “Animals?”
    Hogwood quirked very pretty eyebrows. “The intruders used teeth, claws, and clubs. No swords, no axes. You were not told this?”
    Athelgar had been certain the attackers had not been Baels. What sort of injuries had Lynx received? “Animals do not use clubs.” Wolfpulled his hood forward. “I hope you can keep up, boy. I won’t wait for you.”
    “You won’t have to, Sir Wolf.”
    “No?” He kicked in his heels and gave the bay its head.
3
    I n summer Wolf could ride to Ironhall in a single day, but he knew he would be lucky to do it in less than two in that snowy winter. Old Flint and Huntley had done very well to do it at all.
    Where there was a visible track, it was rarely wide enough for two horses abreast, so he was spared the need to make conversation. He had time to worry as he rode—worry about Lynx and his injuries, both physical and mental, and worry about the King’s motives. Blades notoriously went mad when their ward died by violence, but Wolf could recall no precedent for a ward being kidnapped while his Blade still lived. And why had Athelgar assigned this extraordinary commission to him, of all people? Lynx and he knew things about Celeste that might still embarrass the King if they came out. Now Celeste had vanished, Lynx was at death’s door, and the King had sent him to investigate the bizarre affair? It made no sense.
    The brief winter day was ending in a blood-red smear when the travelers crossed the Gran at Abshurst. With no one else crazy enough to be on the roads, the post house offered a wide choice of well-rested mounts. By law, a Blade could take his pick of the King’s horses and Hogwood knew enough to select the second-best. The only reason Wolf had not taken that one was the mean look in its eye.
    He would not dare go farther until the moon rose, so he led the way to the dining room, whose stench of bad beer and tallow candles would make a goat gasp. A few locals were drinking in front of the fire, but quickly relinquished that favored space to sword-bearing gentry. Waiters tossed down the usual dirty platters and piled them with winter fare:salted fish, beans, and pickled pigs’ feet. They added fresh loaves, hard cheese, and mugs of small ale.
    Hogwood was now revealed as a skinny youth of about Wolf’s height, looking no more than fourteen. The mystery thickened—why had the Dark Chamber sent a boy to investigate an act of war or rebellion? Did the assignment seem so hopeless or dangerous that no senior snoop would touch it? The King had been very sparing with information. Was this a suicide mission?
    “Well, Inquisitor,” Wolf said. “Tell me about yourself. You look very young to be…you… you’re a girl !”
    “So my friends tell me.” She smirked.
    So much for bragging about the sharp eyes of a Blade! She was tall, but that did not excuse Wolf’s folly. He would not knowingly have spoken to a woman so aggressively, and could not mend his manners now without seeming ridiculous.
    Male or female, she was absurdly young to be assigned a case of such importance. Nubile, though. Wolf fancied his women well bolstered, with a soft double chin to make them seem more feminine, but Hogwood as a girl was even more of a beanpole than Hogwood the boy. Her hair was as black as her robes, worn in a pageboy cut popular then among youths around court, somehow making her face seem small and boyishly bony, despite full lips and lashes like cortege plumes. In firelight, with winter roses blooming on her cheeks, she was childlike. She would be in grave peril if she ever came within groping range of Athelgar the Randy, who notoriously favored nymphets.
    Wolf pulled his wits together. “Tell me about yourself.”
    “We are forbidden to talk about