by Sandra Elsa
Without even turning around, the expression on Trace’s face told her more clearly than words that the wolf was standing behind her.
“That’s your weapons instructor?” Trace squeaked, barely able to find his voice at all.
“He’s also the reason I was able to get the drop on you. He told me you're family, you will not be harmed,” she saw no reason to let anybody know that Conall could not kill.
“There is a big difference between being able to kill, and being able to cause harm,” she heard in her head.
“In that case,” Trace said with a faint smile, “Welcome to the family, Sis.”
“Perhaps we should go back in,” she said.
“My food,” Conall thought at her.
She jumped guiltily. “I’m so sorry, I forgot for the moment.”
She emptied the pack of the venison and beef scraps from the inn they were staying at. Things that came back on people’s plates and the large bones cooked out of the roasts.
The innkeeper gave her a strange look when she asked for these things. At his inquiring glance, she told him she was feeding a stray dog, and he gave her what she asked for without a second thought. He kept a pail in the back where the serving girls scraped everything. She picked it up just before she came out to the forest, dumped it into an oiled canvas bag and shoved it in her pack.
Withdrawing the bag from her pack, she emptied its contents onto a large flat rock. “Take him back to Graybeard,” Conall told her.
“Can you speak to him?” she asked.
“No, I only get the most basic surface thoughts, he seems nice enough, and from what I can tell, intelligent.”
Turning to Trace, she said, “Let’s go then. Your grandfather has been anxious to see you.” She started walking and Angel fell into step beside her. Trace got up slowly from the ground, tested his leg and when he felt no pain, fell into step on her left side. An occasional hitch in his stride and his torn and bloody pants leg, the only evidence the wound had ever existed.
He appeared to be deep in thought. When he looked up, he asked a question which had never occurred to her.
“Was he originally a wolf or a man?”
The question startled her. She thought back on all the times Conall had glibly attributed his very humanlike characteristics and knowledge to being able to read human minds. He had never specifically told her the curse that had been placed on him had not also created the outward aspect of the wolf. It had simply never occurred to her to ask. After the agony she received when they were discussing crossbreeds, she had decided at most he was one of the mysterious creatures he’d said there were many of.
Since first seeing him searching for food, then seeing him with his muzzle buried in the decaying remains of the Telgarn scout, she had never thought he could possibly be anything other than a wolf. Trace’s question was a good one. Conall certainly had more human characteristics than wolf. She had assumed he had adapted to the company he was keeping.
In the depths of her mind she felt a hopeful stirring, and she knew it was Conall. In some way, Trace’s question was related to the curse. She remembered a statement he had made once that the wizard had not counted on him being able to regain his intelligence. There was that word, regain, in order to regain something; he had to have had it in the first place.
The puzzle went round in her head and she could not come up with an answer. “I’m not at all sure.” she answered Trace. A glance over her shoulder showed her Conall, rooted in place, staring after them, food forgotten. “I hadn’t really thought about it until you asked.”
As they walked back to the city, Pink related more of her tale to Trace, she was relaxed with him, she had met very few people that she had taken such an instant liking to (If you discount that small incident with the arrow). She found she enjoyed talking to him.
The soldier on duty at the first gate gave Trace a peculiar glance, his sharp eyes taking in the whole picture, without stopping them. Initially she thought it was simply that these people knew him. As more peculiar stares were aimed their way, many by people she knew, she realized something was wrong. This was more than the attention she and Angel normally drew.
Searching the three of them as they walked, she realized several things were not quite right with the picture they presented. She had been so involved, talking to Trace that she had not remembered to put the rope back on Angel’s neck. Trace’s pants were torn and bloodied but the flesh of his thigh displayed no wound, and he showed no pain. And most important to her, she realized that the hair blowing around her face was the color of burnished copper instead of the walnut bronze she’d carefully kept it since arriving in town.
By themselves, none of these was worthy of note. The three together made them stand out. Only those who knew Pink would notice her hair color, but she had gotten to know quite a few of them on a casual basis since arriving here. Trace’s leg was not that great a deal, wounds could bleed severely and not be serious, there was enough of the tattered pants still covering that it was not certain there was no wound. Angel could just be a very well trained horse.
Nothing major by themselves, put together they drew attention, especially from those people that knew both of them. The change in hair caught their attention and the rest was noticed under scrutiny.
One Corporal who seemed to know Trace, approached them and pointed at his leg, “You all right, Sergeant?” he asked.
Trace covered well, with a sheepish grin he said, “I’m fine. And I learned my lesson. Never, never, surprise my sister when she’s armed. Fortunately she recognized me in time to shift the aim a bit. It’s just a flesh wound. Old game we used to play when we were growing up, stalking each other. We just never used to carry weapons.”
The corporal walked with them to the inn. By the time he left they were quite sure the story would be spread and their relationship as sister and brother cemented. Hopefully that would be enough gossip to erase the thoughts of the other oddities. Walking Angel into the stable she groomed him while Trace went to find his grandfather.