“Maybe you know how to pretend to be proper,” she laughed.
“It’s your decision,” Dormael shrugged. “Regardless, I got here first. So if you’re not coming in, you’ll have to wait.”
Shawna took a deep breath and sighed. “I followed you here on purpose, Dormael.”
He paused.
“You did?”
“Remember how you warmed that rock for me the other night?” she asked, a smirk on her face.
Of course, he thought. Don’t get too excited.
“Ah, so you want to be my friend in exchange for the benefits of my magic?”
“Dormael, it’s cold out here, and I don’t want to smell like the underside of a horse,” Shawna said. “What other benefits are there to being your friend?”
“My charming demeanor, and illuminating conversation.” He favored her with a teeth-chattering smile.
“Your inflated sense of self-worth,” she corrected.
“My musical skills and impeccable taste.”
“You never play anything for me, and impeccable taste for what? The swill we always drink in this little hamlet, or the swill we always drink in that little mud-village? Such taste, indeed.”
“My dashing good looks, maybe,” he countered.
“I believe I already said it—your inflated sense of self-worth.”
“I’m starting to doubt our friendship.”
She smiled. “No, you’re not. And it’s not going to cost you anything to—”
Bethany’s voice rang out, high and terrified, from the direction of their camp.
Dormael and Shawna spent a bare moment looking at each other in confusion before reality set in. Shawna’s eyes grew wide at the same instant that Dormael realized what was happening, and she gestured at him to get out. He came sloshing out of the water, battling his way to shore, heedless of his nudity. He stumbled in the mud, but Shawna caught his arm, helping him to keep his feet. She shoved his breeches at him, gesturing for him to put them on.
“Your swords?” he asked.
“Back at camp,” she cursed. “I don’t usually take them bathing, you know.”
“Well that was a good decision, wasn’t it?”
“You’re an ass, Dormael. Hurry up!”
“I’m trying, dammit,” he cursed, almost falling over in his haste to get his pants on. He struggled into them, then reached to where the rest of his clothes were. He yanked his woolen shirt over his shoulders, then handed Shawna the only dagger he brought with him. She raised an eyebrow at first, but then gave him a nod of thanks. Together, they crept back toward the camp.
The trail snaked around the saddle of a large hill which separated the campsite from the pond, and Dormael chose to creep up the side of the hill. He held out hope that it had been a fluke. Perhaps D’Jenn had played a joke on the youngling, or something benign had startled her. Instincts honed after so much time in danger had sharpened his and Shawna’s reactions both, and it could be that they were overreacting.
There had been real fear in Bethany’s voice, though. It had cut into him like a knife. Dormael had a good idea of what he would see, even as he climbed to the crest of the hill and looked down upon the campsite.
Six men had attacked their camp, all wearing the strange, brass-inlaid armor which had Splintered Dormael’s magic. This time the Cult was in its full regalia. Black surcoats covered their armor, each with the symbol of Aeglar—a mask, half laughing, half crying—displayed in gold on their chests. Two of them were on foot, slowly advancing on D’Jenn and Bethany. The other four were sitting astride their horses, crossbows drawn and trained on D’Jenn.
Bethany was sprawled in the grass, rubbing at her temples as if she was disoriented. The girl must have attempted to use magic against the Cultists, and had her spell Splintered for the first time in her life. Dormael noted a small pool of vomit next to her.
D’Jenn stood over her, his morningstar gripped in his hand. Dormael could feel his cousin’s magic singing out in the ether, reaching out for stones and rocks scattered along the ground. The four crossbows pointed at D’Jenn made Dormael’s hackles rise. Were they similar to the armor—able to pierce through magical defenses, or Splinter magical energies?
Dormael had to do something. He turned and gave Shawna a grave look, and she returned it in kind. Shaking his head, he started signing in the Hunter’s Tongue.
I have to cause a distraction, he signed. Don’t get frightened.
Can’t you just use your magic?
What do you think I’m going to do, dance for them? Just stay behind me on the way down, he signed.
Shawna nodded, and backed away. Dormael took a deep breath, and turned his magic inward. He needed to do something that would change the situation, and all he could think of was to summon a form which he hadn’t used in years. If he couldn’t use fire, lightning, or force against the Cultists below, he had to find some way to get their attention.
He felt every agonizing second as his body changed. The base material that made up everything about his substance was shattered, and slid into something new. Dormael felt his teeth lengthening, his hands distending and rearranging themselves into paws the size of dinner plates. He struggled to hold his consciousness together as a new essence became part of him—one that was difficult to control.
He took the form of a lion.
Shawna stared, open-mouthed in what Dormael imagined was horror. He could smell her fear sweat, could almost taste the hot rush of blood that would herald her death under his jaws. Dormael dug his paws into the dirt and crouched, ready to end her life, when he wrenched control back from the essence of the beast.
Much more meat below, he thought.
Dormael turned his eyes to the hill, and crept over the hilltop with his spine perfectly straight over the ground. He made no noise, but it was hard to hide his bulk when he was outlined by the setting sun. Dormael jumped to a boulder that stood on the hill and roared, letting all the puny creatures below know the death that was rushing down upon them. He wanted them to run, to flee in terror before him. Dormael could pick off the slow, the fat, the injured, and tear into the soft bits right before their herd-mates.
The organs in the middle were always the tastiest.
The horses scattered, crying in terror as he rushed down the hill. The men atop them were either dragged along for the ride, or tumbled into the dirt. Some small, quiet part of him felt D’Jenn use his magic, sending some of the crossbows flying into the air as he crossed weapons with one of the Cultists. Dormael felt powerful as he pumped down the hill, mouth watering for the taste of blood. He leapt Bethany with a single bound of his legs, landing atop the back of a Cultist who had turned to flee. The man whimpered as Dormael’s claws found purchase along the backside of his legs, and he crumpled into the dirt. Dormael smelled the sharp tang of urine as the man pissed himself. He snapped the Cultist’s neck with a single jerk of his teeth.
Pitiful, weak little creature.
Dormael took a piece of his throat as his prize, and turned to regard the running horses. The animals bolted down the trail in the opposite direction, kicking up mud as they clawed at the ground in their haste to get away. One of the men, who had been thrown from his saddle, rose and reached for a crossbow that was lying nearby. Dormael tensed, but he didn’t think he could get to the man in time.
Shawna appeared behind the Cultist, and shoved one of her swords through his throat.
Dormael thought of running after the horses, but there was no point. He had no interest in long sprints. The true hunter struck without warning, and overpowered their prey in an instant. Dormael licked some of the blood from his chops and turned back to his kill. The horses would live another day—he had plenty to eat already.
Mouth watering, he pushed the corpse over on its side so the belly was facing the sky. The finest parts of the beast were always in the middle, and it was much easier to go through the belly than tear them out around the spine. Best to get the organs when they were
fresh, before the body started to go putrid.
Dormael tested his will against that of the lion’s essence, and wrenched control away from the beast. The urge to eat was so strong that he shook with the effort of fighting it, but he slowly asserted his control. He sat, and poured his magic back into his body.
The taste of blood assaulted his mouth as it once again became his own, making him retch into the grass. He rolled over and heaved, remembering with a shudder how much flesh had been in his mouth. He vomited so hard that he grew dizzy from the effort.
“Thank the gods for you two,” D’Jenn said. Dormael waved his hand without looking.
“We need to go after the rest of them,” Shawna growled. “They must have been following us for days. They won’t give up so easily.”
“They’re zealots,” D’Jenn agreed. “They’ll haunt our backtrail until they have another opportunity to strike. Mount up—we’ll take them while they’re still confused!”
Dormael felt Shawna’s hand squeeze his shoulder as she spoke.
“Protect Bethany! We’ll take care of this!”
Dormael nodded, then heaved again into the grass. He heard the jangling of harnesses, buckles, and stirrups as Shawna and D’Jenn made ready to leave. He retched over and over, until he was out of breath from the effort of his body rejecting what he’d eaten. The hooves of Mist and Charlotte pounded away into the hills as D’Jenn and Shawna took up the chase, and still Dormael continued to vomit.
He felt a tiny hand on his shoulder, and reached up blindly to hold it.
“I was doing the same thing earlier,” Bethany groaned.
Dormael started to laugh, until he tasted the blood in his mouth again.
***
D’Jenn rose in the stirrups, leaning into the turn as Mist churned the trail to muck beneath her hooves. His right hand was tight around the hilt of his morningstar, the weapon held ready to strike. Shawna rode just to his right, a half-step behind, teeth clenched into the wind. The woman rode with easy grace, showing a casual skill which D’Jenn had only seen echoed by the horse tribes of the Dannon steppe. It was easy to forget that her father had been a horse trader, but not during a tense ride such as this. Shawna barely needed to grip the saddle.
The trails that meandered through these craggy, wet hills were nothing more than the low points between them, corridors carved by eons of water and wind. The fleeing Cultists left a wide swath of ruined earth in their wake, which was easy enough to follow. The line of sight kept shifting as they tore through the trails, the folds of the land hiding things around each bend.
The twilight was fading. If they didn’t run these men down before darkness fell, they would lose them. D’Jenn gritted his teeth, and dug his heels into Mist’s flanks. The mare replied with a quiet burst of speed, dipping her head into the effort.
A pair of riderless horses came into view, running headlong around the bend in the trail. D’Jenn waved his mace in the air and gestured toward them, indicating to Shawna that they were ahead. She lifted her own blade back at him, the surface of her sword bending the twilight into slippery patterns. D’Jenn leaned forward and stroked Mist’s neck, then urged more speed from the beast.
When he rounded the bend, he spotted two of the fleeing Cultists.
They led a troop of riderless horses on a dash through the darkening hills, gesturing back and forth as they argued in heated tones. The Cultists caught sight of the pair of them, and snapped the reins to their mounts. D’Jenn smiled, and summoned his Kai.
Maybe these bastards could resist his magic, but their horses couldn’t.
D’Jenn whipped out with his Kai and yanked the lead horse’s leg out from under it. The beast jerked to the ground, going down so quickly that it had no time to scream. The Cultist, though, did scream as he was thrown from the saddle. The man tumbled a short distance into the bushes, rolling to a stop at the side of the trail.
The second rider avoided the first, much to D’Jenn’s frustration. His mount veered hard to the right, and barely kept its feet as it thundered past the crippled, screaming horse on the ground. D’Jenn was forced to the left side of the path, which put the fallen Cultist on the opposite side from his weapon arm. D’Jenn cursed as he was forced to slow down.
“I’ll go after the other one!” Shawna yelled as she pounded past, taking Charlotte wide of the downed horse.
D’Jenn reined in. “Just watch out—there’s a third one out there somewhere!” He didn’t know if Shawna had heard him, but there wasn’t much he could do if she hadn’t. The girl could count well enough on her own. He wished her good hunting as she disappeared into the gloomy maze of hills.
Mist whinnied and danced in a circle, sensing the distress of the struggling horse nearby. D’Jenn dismounted and went to the beast, taking in the thing’s broken ankle. He always felt worse about killing animals than he did about his enemies—after all, the beasts were only demonstrating their loyalty. Grimacing, he reached out with his Kai and snapped its neck. It was well beyond help, and there was no reason to let it suffer.
He heard rocks crunching underfoot, and turned to see the Cultist struggling from the ground, grunting with the effort of standing. The man’s breathing was shallow, and his face drawn with pain. He caught sight of D’Jenn, and pulled his sword from its sheath. His armor reflected the twilight in intricate patterns of brass inlay, the shadows illuminating the scowl that was carved on his face. A shield had been thrown from his back, but it was lying too far away, and the man made no attempt at it.
D’Jenn opened his mouth to tell the man to lower his weapon, but in the space of time it took him to breathe, the Cultist was moving forward in a fighting crouch. He thrust at D’Jenn, testing his reactions. Once, twice, three times the blade licked toward his face, a flash of steel in the gloom. D’Jenn slipped away from the thrusts, using his Kai to augment his sense of where the blade would come next.
The man was injured. He hissed through his teeth every time he made an attack, and favored his left leg. D’Jenn could see, now that the bastard was facing him, that the grimace on his face had more to do with pain than anger. His attacks were clumsy, and coming from weak positions.
Perhaps D’Jenn’s time sparring with Shawna had sharpened his perceptions of such things.
Tiring of the game, D’Jenn stepped into the man’s next attack, catching the edge of his blade with the haft of his morningstar. He kicked down at the man’s injured leg, buckling it at the knee. The Cultist screamed in pain.
The noise cut off as D’Jenn’s morningstar cracked his skull like a melon.
He stood over the man’s body for a moment, breathing with the exertion of the fight. He turned and went for his horse, meaning to follow Shawna into the hills. Before he made it to Mist, however, something punched deep into his left arm. D’Jenn growled in pain, turning instinctively away.
A crossbow bolt stuck from his shoulder.
D’Jenn rushed to put his back to a nearby boulder, trying to get something between himself and the unseen crossbowman. He closed his eyes and reached out with his magical senses, trying to discern the direction from which the bolt had come. There was nothing in his magic, no sign of anything living—probably an effect of the strange armor the Cultists were wearing.
He heard something, then—a scrape of boots across stone, and the noise of scree sliding downhill. The sound came from his right, high up the side of the knoll. D’Jenn scooted around the boulder, trying to keep the stone between himself and the bowman. When he was situated, he reached up and yanked the bolt from his arm with a short grunt of pain.
“You might as well come out, sorcerer!” a voice called. “I’ve got you sighted in. My friend is taking care of your little bitch right now. If you come quietly, you won’t be hurt.”
“Won’t be hurt?” D’Jenn scoffed. “That’s odd. I thought you Cultists killed wizards for sport!”
“We put them on trial before the gods, in the name of the Clever One,” the man snarled from somew
here uphill. If D’Jenn could keep him talking, maybe he could figure out his position.
“On trial for what?” D’Jenn yelled over his shoulder. “Having the gall to have been born?”
“Your kind was never meant to exist,” the man snarled. “You were meant as a test for mankind—a thing to be conquered. Once you are all eradicated, the gods will return to us!”
“So much for ‘you won’t be harmed’,” D’Jenn muttered. Then, louder, “Who told you that?”
“Who…what?” the man asked.
“Who told you that?” D’Jenn said, closing his eyes to listen. “Who told you that killing off all the wizards in the world would bring back the gods?”
“It is written,” the man replied.
“Where?” D’Jenn asked, putting as much scorn into his tone as he could.
“In the Aeglari Codex,” he growled in return. “Now come out! Blaspheming will only reflect badly on you during your trial!”
“No trial,” D’Jenn shot back, listening hard for the man’s reply.
“You will be judged, and offered as a sacrifice if your sins prove—”
D’Jenn didn’t give the man time to go on. Though he couldn’t sense the man’s presence in his Kai, he could hear his voice, and knew from which direction he was shouting. He had to take the Cultist down. Shawna might be coming back through the draw at any moment. He didn’t want her to be surprised by a crossbow bolt to the face.
He gathered his power, and sent the boulder behind him hurtling toward the Cultist. He drew up an instinctive magical shield as the protection of the stone was tossed away, but there was no need for it. He heard the man scream something nonsensical, the scrape of stone hitting steel, and then a body tumbled down the hill. D’Jenn scrambled to his feet, favoring his injured arm.
The Cultist, though, was no threat to anyone. He lay in a tumbled heap, legs twisted, arms hanging limp. His eyes were unfocused, and he made a low, unbroken groan in the back of his throat. Blood flowed freely from the man’s head.
“Told you there would be no bloody trial,” he growled, fingering the hole in his shoulder.
The Seven Signs: Three Book Collection Page 50