“I suppose I can’t argue with that. But it will be… inconvenient for us if you can’t fight.”
“We’ll see about that,” Maya said, accepting the bow Renne chose for her. A small one, recurve, with a light, orange color to it. Not a wood she recognized, but that didn’t matter. All it needed to do was shoot straight. Maya selected a simple arrow and notched it to the string. She drew it back, appreciating that it didn’t take much strength for her. The target itself was about thirty yards away, and she noted there were lines in the soil that marked five-yard distances.
I can hit this. She aimed, trying to ignore all the eyes boring into her, and released.
Her first shot missed completely. The arrow thudded into the tree behind. Embarrassment flushed her cheeks as she selected another arrow. What an awful shot that was. She could do better than that. The second shot hit the target, but on the white ring, when she’d want to hit yellow or red. Third shot was the same. But now she thought she understood the bow. How much recoil, how much strength she needed, and the angle required for a perfect shot. The last few shots were red.
“Okay, I think I’ve got it, now,” Maya said, breathing a sigh of relief. “Just needed to get used to how the bow worked.”
Renne regarded her with his arms folded, nodding. “You know, you’re better than some of the soldiers I’ve seen.”
“But not special,” Yvonne said, with a hint of frustration. “I’m not yet sensing the magic in this.” She held her hands together, the tips of her longest fingers touching her lips. “I think it might take us too long to figure out this Bond.”
“Patience,” Artur rasped, wearing a bull-dog scowl. “River’s End wasn’t built in a day.”
“Don’t worry about them,” Renne said softly, standing next to her. “Take your time. There’s no pressure.”
“You sure about that?” Maya asked, wondering if Renne now sensed her inner turmoil, or if he was just being nice. “Because I think these people really want me throwing magic out at them.”
“We got this far without ever needing a Bonded. I’m sure we can wait longer.”
Yvonne gaped at him. “But you were the one who said –”
“Never mind that now,” Renne snapped. “We’re stressing Maya out. She’s come from a non-warlike place and now we’re trying to push her in a battle that wasn’t hers in the first place.” He appeared pissed off with himself. “I… sense that.”
At the word sense, a strange wave of emotion bubbled over Maya. Fear, mixed with a deep essence of inadequacy and a loneliness so deep it cut into her like a knife.
These aren’t my emotions. The loneliness stifled, creeping over her cells as an infection. Tears formed unwillingly, out of her control. She squeezed her eyes shut, attempting to force the tears back. “Can we take a break?”
She didn’t wait for their agreement. She went off to Yvonne’s tent as it was nearest and faced it, taking great gulps of breath as she reined in the sadness.
The emotions were gone, but the memory remained. “Renne,” she said, knowing him to be close. “I don’t like this.”
“Like what?” She could almost feel him breathing into her neck, although logically, she knew he stood much further away than that.
“Is that what it really feels like to be you?” She continued facing the tent, not wanting to look into his eyes, in case she saw or sensed that sharp, blood-letting loneliness again.
A pause.
“Yes,” he whispered. “Not always, but… yes.”
“It’s too intimate,” Maya said, wrapping her arms around herself. “This isn’t just some magical power, is it? It’s not just sensing things. It’s… its…”
“Yes,” he said. “You’ll have no secrets from the person you Bond with. A true one does that, I believe. Every single ugly little facet of you will be on display. There’s no hiding. No safe place.”
An emotion pulsed to her, one she couldn’t quite make out because it was knotted in so many different ways.
The idea of every single one of her thoughts and feelings being ripped out of her like that, scrutinized by someone else… it turned her bowels to water. Every embarrassment. Every stab of jealously, hatred, fear – would that no longer be hers to keep?
Wait, she thought, fighting past her rising panic. It’s the same for him. “Do you want this?” Now she turned to face him, and she saw he was as white as a sheet. “Do you actually want to go through this… training if it’s going to end up like this?”
His lips thinned. “If I’m perfectly honest with you, I don’t know what I want. To win the war? Of course. To Bond with someone? Definitely. With you?” He left it hanging, and she knew the answer.
Not with me. That was fine. They weren’t friends. She’d hate being forced to pair up with some stranger. Yet… somehow, that stung. “I understand.”
The emotions pinging between them settled down, so it no longer felt like a double assault. This… was going to take some getting used to. Maya barely even shared her secrets to her friends, mostly out of a sense she was inconveniencing them somehow. because she liked seeing them happy and hearing them joke and listening to them talk about their problems. She liked sharing funny stories and some of the embarrassing moments because they provided great entertainment.
But… personal feelings? Not so much.
He gave her a small smile, and there was so much understanding in it that she forgot how to breathe for a second.
“Let’s get back to those weapons,” she said, mustering a smile in turn. “See if I can’t shoot some apples off people’s heads.”
She walked past him, and his hand lightly brushed her shoulder.
That bit of contact, she didn’t mind, and it calmed her enough to focus.
“Great!” Yvonne called, scampering off where food supplies were. “I’ll get everything ready!”
Artur stood there, shaking his head in apparent despair.
Renne
The Bond scared Renne. But at least he did a good job not displaying that emotion in public. People wanted a strong figure, so that was what he projected. As for Maya – if they were going to get anywhere with her, he needed to bite back his tongue on all the things he did want to say.
Although he’d said not to worry about practicing for the war, a part of him wanted to push her so hard that she’d be in danger of breaking. They needed the magic and they needed it yesterday.
That was why it felt awful, being able to tap into someone else’s emotions. He couldn’t help but understand her thinking. A part of him wondered if this was what the Bond was all about. Less focused on the fire and blood, more on the intimacy.
He probably needed to work on the intimacy thing some more. He couldn’t quite squeeze it out of his throat that people expected them to be married. Probably because the Bond gave too much of each other into it.
Now he waited in a near empty warcamp. All the soldiers and their commanders had gone. Most of the witches, too, providing their own magical assistance and countering any magic the enemy side might have. He was to sit in camp, same as his siblings, as they were too valuable to waste. They were not even allowed to watch from a distance, in case the enemy broke through to where the generals and commanders directed the battle. They might be breaking into Bastion now, or throwing bodies against the walls in a forlorn hope of making it through. Meanwhile, the guards left to watch over the civilians and royals watched them cautiously, and a sky witch remained among them as well, ready to chase any of the royals if they decided to shift and watch the battle from the air.
“We simply can’t risk our figureheads,” Witslaw had said in his gruff, no-nonsense voice. “All of you are the main motivators for the war effort to power ahead in the first place. Until you’ve all formed your Bonds and learned to fight with them, sit your asses back in camp.”
Sincerely, General Killjoy.
Renne kept a careful distance from Maya who practiced more with the bow and arrow, testing out weapons and doi
ng a horrific job of dueling with her current attendant. Tara and Janus had decided their time to be better spent giving the otherworlder advice and showing off their unicirim forms. Tara had been prancing about in her milk-white unicirim form earlier, giving Maya a chance to try and ride a horse without falling off and humiliating herself. She didn’t seem to know basic riding techniques. Or basic anything.
In short, the worst possible choice of Bonded for someone who needed a fighter.
She’s trying, though, Renne thought. She’s taking everything we’re throwing at her and learning. Even if she’s failing.
Some of the friendly werewolves lingered in the camp as well, not quite willing to attack their own brethren. They helped protect supply wagons. They’d attempted to negotiate with other werewolves and convert them, with varying degrees of failure. They wore their feral forms, conversing with one another around a crackling fire, taking bowls of soup from a cauldron straddled above it.
Maya didn’t look bad, he supposed, if he decided to focus only on her physical appearance. She had lighter hair than him, more of a chestnut color. Eyes that in the right light, became murky green rather than light brown. A nose that made him think of a button, a curving jawline which gave her a face well suited to short hair, though her hair currently tumbled past shoulder length. She had big hands for a woman which helped with her bowmanship. Not really typical princess material, if he judged by the blond hair blue eye features all his siblings had.
She didn’t really fit into his dream woman material either. Not that he knew what his dream woman was.
Is that what it feels like to be you, Renne? Her voice whispered through his mind. So lonely?
Damn that woman. He gazed at the white spiral in his palm before resuming his pacing of the camp. Callum lingered in one of the other near empty warcamps, no doubt trying to shake hands with everyone there in case he could form an unexpected Bond with someone. No luck for him so far. Renne prowled like a caged predator, wanting to go into battle, to prove his worth somehow. He wasn’t just some ornate decoration for people to look at. He entertained thoughts of launching himself into the air, out-flying the sky witch and attacking Bastion from the air. He’d swoop down on the defenders, dodging their arrows, and knock them all off the battlements.
Most likely the arrows would shoot him down, but still. Better than what he’d been doing his whole life, moving from place to place, hearing people mutter about his Zorin bloodline, how the Zorin people were strange savages who lived in swamps and mud huts and constantly squabbled with each other.
The only other Zorin person he truly knew was Yvonne, and she did like her tents and her skulls, and he did meet her in a swamp, so maybe there was some truth in that.
He noted how the sky witch followed him with her eye, clearly wondering if he planned to take off.
Let her worry.
One of the werewolves patrolling the edges of the camp paused, his nose high in the air. He remained still for a moment before suddenly sprinting towards the group of werewolves slurping on their soups. Next moment, those werewolves scattered, dashing to other people in the camp – and one hurtled straight to Renne.
“We’re in danger!” he barked to Renne once he skidded to a halt nearby. His silvery gray snout puffed with exertion. “Enemy werewolves approaching! They’ve taken out some of the sentries in the woods!”
A chill ran through Renne. An ambush party, taking advantage of the lax defenses.
Of course. The werewolf lumbered behind him as he headed to his siblings, heart pounding fast. Under attack and undermanned. Alert guards scrambled to the royals, determined to protect, while others formed a frontal line against the perceived direction the enemy might come from.
No sooner had twenty or so guards put themselves by the treeline before gray-furred werewolves lunged out of the green, taking down the defense hard and fast. Some archers managed to launch a few arrows, but most fell short – and they didn’t want to risk maiming their own troops.
“Royals, you need to flee,” one of the guards said, his sword already out, attention on the werewolves decimating the front lines. “You’ll be safer in the air.”
“You think we’ll leave you?” Renne spat, to the agreement of Tara and Janus. Maya stood behind them, clutching her little Osage bow, face white with fear.
“No offense, sir, but it’s my duty to keep you alive. My life doesn’t come into this. Our lives,” he added, as three other guards joined him, all bristling with silver armor and spears. More sprinted in as well, swelling their numbers to a dozen.
Men fight and die for me at Bastion, Renne thought with fury. And now they’d fight and die for me again, not expecting me to lift a finger. “I can fight too, soldier,” he said, reaching for his sheathed sword.
The guard let out a groan but didn’t protest further. The enemy werewolves now fought a new wave of people, including friendly wolves. Renne heard growling screams of “Traitors!” in the air and saw a shocking spread of red over the grass and soils. The ambush party seemed to be made up of several hundred werewolves – more than enough to decimate the sparsely defended camps.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Maya said behind, and her terror slammed into him like a log.
“Calm yourself!” he snapped, whirling on her. “Keep your emotions under control!”
“I…” Her eyes clouded over in hurt and anger, but her jaw clenched shut. Good. He didn’t have time to deal with additional terror on top of his own.
“That was rude, brother,” Tara commented, drawing out her preferred weapons, twin dirks. In her training leathers, she suited the image of a warrior-woman. Janus in contrast preferred wielding a spear, using his height and arm length to his advantage.
A sword seemed more heroic to Renne.
The first of the attackers broke through the increasingly fragmenting front line, where men and werewolves tussled and died screaming. Six of them loped towards their group, hesitating as they waited for reinforcements. Ten of them. Twenty.
Blasts of wind upset the front line as the sky witch joined the fray, floating in the air, using her control of wind to knock the enemy down, to turn the fight in the defender’s favor. The first of the twenty werewolves hit the training area, and Janus brought it down with a well-aimed thrust from his spear. Tara stuck near her brother, ready to defend him if anyone passed his spear range. Maya, still pale and ghost like, drew her bow back, an arrow pointing towards the werewolves.
She released the arrow at one, catching it in the shoulder. Its momentary stumble allowed Renne’s talkative guard to bring it down. Maya took deep breaths before notching another arrow.
Renne smiled.
Maybe we’ll make a fighter of you yet, woman. He let out a roar and flung himself to the front line, sword slashing at an attacker. The beast’s ugly, contorted face snapped jaws inches from his own, its foul, hot breath hitting him before his overarm swing brought it down. He instantly sprung the sword into a guard position as another werewolf struck. Dimly, he was aware of some werewolf groups breaking away from the front line to target the more vulnerable members of camp – the merchants and supply bases – but he couldn’t reach them now. Blood thundered in Renne’s ears and adrenaline coursed through, heightening his senses.
Don’t use your unicirim form unless absolutely necessary. Witslaw’s words. We don’t want them to know who to kill.
Someone collapsed yards from him, screaming before it cut off in a horrific gurgle. A casualty. Another arrow zipped past them, burrowing into the head of an attacker – Tara shrieked as her brother’s spear broke, and Janus went down with a werewolf on top. She stabbed it in a frenzy, and Renne moved in to cover her back, feeling sick and scared more than heroic and determined.
Janus shrugged off the dead werewolf and began morphing, before he fully transformed into a white unicirim, rearing upwards, joining the fray with hooves, horn, and strong wings, along with over 1300 pounds of bulk. Unfortunately, now it became obvious who he was, and
the werewolves concentrated on bringing him down.
Tara joined her brother, and Renne, deciding enough was enough, shifted as well. Perhaps three rampaging horses might hold back the tide. Snorting with fury, he plunged forward, his horn skewering one of the werewolves. Claws raked his right flank as he reared, tossing the dead werewolf off, and spread out his wings, knocking attackers aside. He turned to back kick one mauling the talkative guard, thrashing and flapping his heavy wings to create breathing space for their fighters. His side stung, and his nostrils inhaled blood, sweat, urine and fear.
They were still outnumbered. Everywhere around him, it seemed like a losing battle. His front hoofs stomped on a fallen werewolf, and out of the corner of his eye, he saw Maya reaching for an arrow from her quiver, only to discover there were none left. Panic tainted her eyes, her soul, and she appeared at a complete loss in the chaos. Like being caught with her pants down. Renne was torn between fighting towards her, or protecting his siblings, but a werewolf lunging onto his back scattered all half-formed plans in his mind. Pain lanced through his hide, and he thrashed, trying to shake the beast off but to no avail. It clung to him tight, claws tearing, and he bellowed in pain and rage, forced to collapse onto his back to squash the opponent.
As he scrambled upright again, he heard a primal scream, and something shimmered past him, leaving a red blur dancing in front of his eyelids and the imprint of heat.
The direction of that heat… out of his left eye, he saw a strange, phantasmal sight. Maya gripped a burning bow in her hands, and she drew back a shimmering string. A molten arrow formed in the gap, gently billowing smoke. Her eyes were red from the flames, or perhaps they were flame. A blood-chilling scream left her lips as she fired again, the magical arrow buzzing spitefully past his snout, searing right through the werewolf, and four of the werewolf’s companions behind. A flaming knife cutting through fleshy butter.
The Last Unicirim’s Bride Page 6