'Please say you accept my sacrifice and let me put my cloak back on. Please.'
He started walking toward me now. Slowly. His men stepped aside.
'You surprise me, Lady Saren.'
He kept coming nearer.
'I never expected you to do anything but tremble and cry. Though I see you're trembling, where are the tears?
Ah, I think I see one. That's better.'
And nearer. My stomach quivered, my blood was hot. This was the moment. I bowed my head, as if meekly.
The sunlight was strong behind me, Evela was smiling on my hope, but I knew the moment he saw my face, he'd kill me. He was near enough now that through my hair I could make out his own features. I can't say if he was handsome or ugly. He looked like pain to me. Then I noticed one detail--he had three thin white scars down his cheek, like the marks a cat might leave. It seems My Lord had drawn some blood that night he escaped the wolf's jaws. The thought gave me a gust of warm courage.
Before Khasar's hands reached me, I had to act.
'Witness all!' I lifted my arms and knelt, the frosty grass snapped like glass under my knees. 'See Lady Saren surrender to Khan Khasar. I sing the song of submission.'
Here was the trick. I don't know a song of submission. Instead, I began to sing the song of the wolf.
'Yellow eyes, blink the night,' I sang. 'Two paws in, two paws gone,' while praying that there were no muckers among his warriors, that they wouldn't know what it was I sang. I remembered the voices of my brothers chanting those words, yelling them at the night to save the sheep, felt that childhood tune hum inside me now as if in harmony. I reached forward, I touched Khasar's boots, hoping the contact would make the song stronger.
Khasar stared down at me and did nothing, his face puzzled, his body rigid. I think I understood him then --I think he felt that something was wrong but he couldn't allow himself to be afraid, not of me, not of a naked girl singing. And because he did nothing to stop me, neither did his men. I kept singing, calling the wolf out of the man.
Too late Khasar asked, 'What are you --'
He didn't finish his question, because his head was thrown back, and he stared up, in pain or thrill I don't know.
I almost stopped singing then, my limbs shook so that the ache was nearly unbearable. I didn't know what would happen. Would the wolf in Khasar hear my song and flee its daylight form? Would it come out under the sun ?
With my voice I sang, and with my heart I prayed. Titor, god of animals, whose realm this man destroyed.
Under, god of tricks, whose name this man cast off. Goda, goddess of sleep, I gave you a sleepless night in prayer.
Evela, my lady, goddess of sunlight and songs, give me voice. Ancestors, let me sing this man into his animal form, his sleepless form of night, trick him into it under this sunlight.
I sang to him the song of the wolf.
He stumbled back a step, but it was the most he could manage. All his force seemed focused on trying to hold his shape. His men were still looking away, ashamed of my shame, unaware of their lord's danger. Then Khasar groaned.
'My lord? Khan Khasar?' Chinua asked, as if beginning to wonder if something was wrong. The rest didn't suspect me still, I think. I'd completely debased myself, I'd become a thing too low to contemplate. Still, I guessed I wouldn't have long. The moment they thought me dangerous, they'd let their arrows fly.
Louder I sang. I stood, trembling for cold and fear, and I put my hands on his chest. So close I was, he could've snapped my neck by accident. If he'd looked, he'd have seen the lie in my face. But his neck arched and his glance flung up toward the sky. My voice quavered so that on the low notes it was nothing but a rasp, two stones grating together.
Please, I prayed.
Please change.
Hurry.
Become that wolf. Now, now.
'My lord? Are you all right?' asked Chinua. He stepped forward two paces and pulled his bow back tighter. 'I think you'd better stand back now, girl.'
But I couldn't stand back until Khasar was gone where he couldn't hurt Tegus or make my lady quake or sneak into my nightmares. I clung to Khasar, so the warriors couldn't shoot at me without risking their lord.
'The night, the night!' I sang, and my voice was getting more desperate. I knew I didn't sound very meek anymore, but the wolf in Khasar wasn't coming out. 'The night drips from your teeth. The night melts from your eyes.
Yellow eyes!'
'Stand back,' said Chinua, 'or your eyes will be strung together on my arrow!'
He aimed at my head, I screamed my song, and Khasar thrust back his head and howled. Not at the moon, not at the shifting stars, but howled right at the Eternal Blue Sky.
That, I thought should get the Ancestors' attention.
