Ancient Allies (The Malvers War Book 2)

by Tora Moon

  “Why you be wearing Strunland colors?” she demanded.

  “I was born in the Sanctuary.” Blazel lowered his eyes to the ground and clenched his teeth. The alpha’s hostility was more like what he expected than Maheli’s friendliness had been. This fighting-pack wouldn’t accept him. He looked the woman in the eye and sneered. “There isn’t a clan-pack at the Sanctuary. The Strunlair fighting-pack guarding the crater gave me the barding.”

  “I saw him enter the plains from the Barrens,” the warrior he had fought with said. In his human form, the man’s hair was a golden yellow and he had silver-gray eyes. “Although he has avoided the Keeps and tried to stay unseen, he hasn’t caused any trouble.”

  “You’re the gold and silver stallion I’ve seen watching me,” Blazel said.

  The man nodded and held out his hand in greeting. “I be Kaelhaas. This be Lorstal.”

  At some signal Blazel couldn’t see—or hear—the others surrounding him dispersed until only the three of them were left. He guessed Lorstal had communicated in mind-speech, but since he’d never been part of a pack, he’d never heard it.

  Lorstal continued glaring at Blazel and asked, “Where you be going that you need to push your horse so hard?”

  “Back to the Sanctuary. The Supreme needs to know about what’s happening in the crater.” Blazel paused, considering how much to tell Lorstal. He decided she didn’t need to know about the other reason he was racing back home. “There’s a new janack showing up and the nests are bigger and forming more frequently.”

  “We be experiencing the same,” Lorstal said with a nod. She relaxed a little. “The monsters we just fought escaped from a huge nest. It be luck we had extra fighters and could save the horses. You fought well.” She looked back at the ravine. “The girls be done. We can go now. You’ll come with us to the Keep. The Keep Alpha will want to hear your report.” She strode off down the ravine.

  Blazel glowered at her retreating back. He wasn’t used to being ordered around.

  “I can’t wait to hear your story,” Kaelhaas said. “The only people who go to the Barrens be the guard-packs.”

  “Someday, perhaps.”

  “Blazel! Kaelhaas! Get your arses moving,” Lorstal yelled. “We be leaving now.”

  Blazel and Kaelhaas shared a guilty look before Blazel ran down the ravine to retrieve his horse. Lighzel was the only one still waiting for her rider. As he mounted, he glanced back up the hill in time to see a shimmer. The golden stallion stood where Kaelhaas had been. “I guess he doesn’t need a horse,” he murmured to Lighzel. Without any urging from him, she moved out in a trot, following the other horses. Her gait seemed lighter.

  A wide road seemed to appear in the plains ahead of them. Blazel didn’t remember seeing one during the headlong flight to the ravine. When he got close to it he realized the monster’s slime had killed the grass.

  “Don’t worry, it’ll grow back quickly.”

  Blazel turned his head to find the inquisitive centaur riding beside him. He had rich chestnut-brown hair and slate-blue eyes in a strong face. Blazel couldn’t help staring. The centaur’s horse portion was the same chestnut-brown and had dark blue-gray stripes. He had thick feathering from his knees down and a long tail the same color as his stripes. He wore a brown shirt with yellow trim around the neck and sleeves.

  “Greetings,” the centaur said, smiling at him and holding out a hand. “I be Jaehaas. I haven’t ever met a rogue before.”

  “I’m Blazel and I haven’t met a centaur before,” Blazel said with an answering grin as he gripped the other man’s wrist in a warrior’s greeting. “And I’m a lone wolf, not a rogue. I’ve never been in a pack, so I’ve never been kicked out of one.”

  Jaehaas threw back his head and laughed. “Good one, man.”

  “So, what Keep are we going to? I’ve lost track of where I am in my mad dash north.”

  “We be from the Haasneh Keep. You be making good progress. You be about half-way through the plains.”

  Blazel noticed they weren’t riding toward the river but deeper into the plains. “We’re not going back to the river?”

  “No, our Keep be in the plains. We won’t reach it for another couple of days.”

  Blazel’s eye’s widened as he looked around the undulating grass that spread as far as he could see. No stone structures intruded.

  Jaehaas must have seen his distress. “We will stop for the night at a safe house. Narhili aren’t the only beasts to plague the plains at night. You did well to stay near the river while traveling alone.”

  “I was more than all right,” Blazel snapped.

  “No need to get huffy. I be complimenting you.” Jaehaas held up a placating hand. “People don’t usually travel alone. It not be safe.”

  Blazel snorted. “I spent the last three years alone in the swamps. I can protect myself.”

  Jaehaas whistled, reared up slightly, and then hopped a few steps to catch back up with Blazel. “Why in the Crone’s fires would you go into a swamp, let alone spend three years there?”

  “I had my reasons.” Blazel’s mouth was in a tight line.

  “That must be some story! I agree with Kaelhaas, I can’t wait to hear it.”

  Blazel shrugged. “Someday, maybe.”

  Lorstal increased the pace and Blazel kicked his horse into a canter. Jaehaas sped up, easily keeping pace, but it wasn’t conducive to talking, which suited Blazel. He was unused to having someone to talk with while he traveled.

  * * *

  Blazel and the fighting group he had reluctantly joined rode for the rest of the afternoon and into the evening. Blazel and Jaehaas rode in the rear. Blazel kept scanning the ocean of grass, trying to catch sight of the safe house. But nothing disturbed the waves.

  “Are we close yet?” he asked Jaehaas when the setting sun streaked the sky with purples and golds.

  “Yes, very close,” Jaehaas laughed.

  They topped a slight rise, and suddenly, like the ravine where they had fought the monsters, below them appeared a safe house tucked into an unseen valley. The gates were thrown open and the courtyard was filling with the fighting-pack. Their noisy commotion reverberated on the stone walls.

  Blazel gulped when he saw how much smaller it was than the crater fortress. He considered turning Lighzel back toward the river, but instead he slowed her to a walk. There were a lot of strangers in that small space. A wave of fear swept through him and black closed in his vision. Too many people! a part of his mind screamed. They hate you; they’ll kill you, it continued to gibber in terror.

  Lorstal hadn’t truly accepted him. Would he be allowed to leave the confined space in the morning? He glanced at Jaehaas walking beside him, a pleasant smile curved his lips. He seemed to be offering Blazel friendship—or guarding him. Blazel wasn’t sure which.

  If he didn’t have Lighzel, Blazel would just shift into his wolf form and spend the night in a hollow. The night predators, including the narhili beasts, would leave him alone. He reached down and patted Lighzel’s neck. She’d proven to be a good companion, and he couldn’t leave her now. Grabbing his courage, he smothered his fear. He could do this. He could face the crowd and trust they wouldn’t hurt him. Jaehaas gave Blazel an encouraging nod as if he knew the struggle Blazel was going through.

  The courtyard was empty when Blazel and Jaehaas rode through the gates. Blazel blew out a breath in relief. He looked at the safe house and curiously noted the doors were both taller and wider than normal. The other centaur he hadn’t met yet clopped through the door and with his greater height and breadth, they now made sense. He wondered what other differences the Haaslair clan had made to accommodate those who had chosen to become both man and horse.

  Blazel climbed out of the saddle and sighed in relief when the stable was empty of people. He took her to an empty stall which already had fresh, sweet hay in the bin and a bucket of grain. She happily dipped her head in the bucket and munched contentedly while he stripped off her tack. H
e then found a curry brush and worked out the sweat and dirt from her hide. He found the motions soothing.

  “If you brush her much more, you will take the hide off her,” Jaehaas said, leaning against the stall door.

  Blazel jumped. He hadn’t paid attention to the sound of horse’s hooves clip-clopping through the stable. He took a step back and looked at Lighzel critically. In the flickering lamplight, she gleamed. He put the brush away and caressed her muzzle.

  “Dinner be ready,” Jaehaas said. “We have some good cooks so you don’t want to let it get cold. And Lorstal be looking for you.”

  Blazel sighed. He knew he was stalling the inevitable. He would have to go in eventually and face the crowd. He filled Lighzel’s water bucket and dished out another generous helping of grain for her. She deserved it; she’d worked hard the last few days. With nothing else to do, he eased out of her stall.

  “Is Lorstal more than a platoon alpha?”

  Jaehaas nodded. “She be groomed to become the next Keep Alpha.”

  Blazel snorted. It meant he had to answer her questions. He hoped she’d wait until after he ate. As they walked toward the building, he caught a delicious smell. The last time he’d eaten more than trail food was at the crater with the Strunland guard-pack. He felt his lips quirk up as he remembered the friendly banter, and his inclusion in it. He glanced sideways at his companion, who seemed to be a good man. Perhaps here is another friend.

  Jaehaas pushed open the door, gestured for Blazel to go in, and then followed him through the door. His hooves echoed on the stone floor, turning everyone’s attention toward them. When the crowd saw Blazel, the noise of many people eating and talking stilled and quieted.

  Blazel’s first instinct was to leave, but Jaehaas standing behind him blocked the door and kept him from bolting outside. Blazel breathed deeply and took another step into the room. Jaehaas put a hand on his shoulder.

  “Hey, everyone, this be Blazel,” Jaehaas said into the quiet. “He assures me he be no rogue, just a lone wolf.”

  “He fought with me and together we killed the janack,” Kaelhaas added, standing up. He walked around the tables until he stood on Blazel’s other side. “A rogue wouldn’t help us. They would run the other way.”

  “I may have been raised in the Sanctuary and not in a pack,” Blazel said, more to Kaelhaas and Jaehaas than to the crowd. “But I know my duty when it comes to the Malvers monsters. They can’t be allowed to run rampant and destroy our world. They must be killed.”

  “Well said,” Jaehaas murmured to him.

  The fighters nodded and went back to their interrupted dinner and conversations. A few gave Blazel a quick smile. Kaelhaas patted him on the arm and ambled back to his place, stopping now and then to talk to someone.

  Jaehaas led Blazel to the stove and handed him a bowl filled with thick, savory stew. A piece of pan bread was balanced on the bowl’s rim. Jaehaas filled another bowl for himself and then headed to a high table. The other centaur was standing at it, while several fighters sat on tall stools. Blazel took an empty one, keeping his attention on his bowl, and was surprised when someone passed him a mug of steaming taevo. Jaehaas put his bowl on the table and stood next to it. The people were quiet until both of them had eaten most of their food.

  “Be it true you traveled through the Barrens?” the other centaur asked. He had pale red-gold hair and green eyes. His horse hide was the same color as his hair but with darker red socks above his hooves. “I be Oldhaas, by the way.”

  The others quickly introduced themselves.

  “Yes,” Blazel answered. “I spent the last year in the peninsula south of Shandir’s Crater.”

  “Be that just swamps now?” Dolhaas interrupted.

  Blazel nodded. “It’s why I was there.”

  Lorstal and Kaelhaas came to their table. Stools were quickly vacated to allow them to sit. Blazel was beginning to wonder if Kaelhaas was Lorstal’s alpha partner. Most Posairs were able to sense who were alphas, or even potential alphas, but Blazel hadn’t been around enough people to tell the difference.

  “Why were you in the swamps?” Lorstal pinned him with her gaze. He could feel power wafting off her. “Only those who be crazy and suicidal go there. Be you crazy?”

  Blazel laughed. “I guess in some ways I am, to spend so much time in the swamps. I’m not even sure why, except my friend said it was necessary. That’s not important to you. What is important, is the weird janack and unusual monster activity. I’m not sure the guard-packs at the crater are going to be enough.”

  Lorstal pulled back and blinked hard. “Not enough? Why do you say that?”

  “They are fighting every day, and sometimes three or four battles in a day. The nests are huge and the strange janack seems to be controlling the rest. Unless they get help, the monsters are going to escape the Barrens.”

  Blazel saw a wave of fear that was quickly followed by determination flow across the nearby fighter’s faces. The plains would be the first place attacked by marauding monsters. Lorstal and Kaelhaas exchanged an agonizing look.

  “The keep alphas need to know this,” Lorstal said. “It be worse than we suspected.”

  “I’ll send out couriers to the others in the morning.” Kaelhaas rubbed his forehead. He turned to Blazel. “The nests here also be bigger and more active. We had hoped it be isolated in our territory. Now we know it not be so.”

  “Do you know how they killed the strange janack? It be difficult to kill; it be much bigger and the hide tougher than the others.” Lorstal looked at Blazel, worry clear on her face. “We’ve had too many killed or injured while attempting to kill it.”

  Blazel thought about all the fights he had seen while hiding and the battle when he met Maheli and Rolstrun. “Explode it …” he said slowly. “Keep the others away from it, although they will fight to protect it.”

  “So we’ve noticed,” Lorstal said with a grimace. “I’d hoped you’d say something different. Exploding the monsters causes other problems, like injury from falling debris. We’ll just have to deal with it until we can figure out something else.”

  Sometime during the conversation, Lorstal had quit glaring at Blazel. It had made him uncomfortable. Now she gave him a puzzled look. “Now tell me, why in the Crone’s Fires, you be wearing a Red’s leathers?”

  Blazel laughed. “I talked Maheli de Strunlair into giving them to me. I have a long way to travel and the leathers wear much better than anything else. I am a Red, after all.” Grinning, he twirled a lock of red, matted hair. He hoped he didn’t have to give her a demonstration. Besides being different enough without adding his magical abilities, he didn’t trust her as he had Maheli.

  She and the others chuckled. Talk turned to other things and Blazel was able to sit back and just listen. It wasn’t long before people started drifting away from the tables to curl up in the cots lining one end of the room. Dawn would come early. Jaehaas and Oldhaas opened a cupboard and dragged out a large pad for each of them, which they laid near the fire since they couldn’t sleep on a cot. Kaelhaas pointed to a cot where Blazel could sleep not too far from the centaurs.

  He tossed and turned trying to get to sleep. He clapped his hands over his ears to stop the noise of so many people breathing deeply in sleep—or snoring. He had never slept with so many people around him. The fortress at the crater had rooms where only six to eight people slept. That had been bad enough, but to have forty people around him was more than he could stand. The fire had died down to low coals when he jerked the blanket off the cot, wrapped it around his shoulders, slipped outside, and went into the stable. He made a bed in the hayloft and, with the much quieter sounds of the sleeping horses, was finally able to find sleep himself.

  * * *

  The dim gray light preceding dawn was enough for Blazel to see to saddle his horse. Smoke from the newly stoked fire rose lazily from the safe house’s chimney. The smell of cooking grains almost made him change his mind about leaving before the Haasneh fighters
. He dug out a trail bar from his pack and grimaced at it before taking a bite, wishing it was the hot porridge. He filled his water bags from the well situated near the stables.

  The prod of Chariel’s “hurry, hurry, hurry,” in his mind pushed him to leave the others behind, but if he was being honest, he didn’t want the company anyway. Blazel was leading his horse to the gate when Jaehaas came out of the house, stretching.

  “Blazel?” Jaehaas squinted. “What you be doing? Breakfast be ready.”

  “Leaving.” Blazel pushed the bar locking the gate up and fastened it. The clopping of horse’s hooves approached him until Jaehaas was standing close by, frowning, his arms crossed. His front right hoof tapped the ground.

  “I can see that, but why? We’ll be ready to leave in less than an octar.”

  “I don’t have time to waste going to your keep. I need to get to the Sanctuary, fast.”

  “Surely you have time to eat before you go?”

  Blazel held up the partially eaten trail bar.

  Jaehaas shook his head. “That not be food. Well, not good food. Come on, come eat.” When Blazel didn’t budge, Jaehaas added, “There’s mookti—”

  “Mookti! Where did you find those?” Blazel’s mouth watered at the thought of the sweet, purple berries. They were the first berries to ripen in the spring, lasting only through early summer, and were a treat. He hadn’t seen any mookti plants on their ride. It had been a long time since he’d tasted them. They didn’t grow in the swamps.

  “Here.” Jaehaas laughed at Blazel’s confusion. “A long time ago, one of our alphas loved mookti so much and was always away from the keep during it’s growing season, so she planted them at all of our safe houses. Mmmm, fresh mookti. It’s almost the end of their season. Another couple of chedans and they’ll be gone.” Jaehaas turned away from Blazel and took a couple of steps. He twisted around to look at Blazel, his tail swishing. “I guess I’ll get to eat your share.”