Blood Red (9781101637890)

by Lackey, Mercedes

  The cousins exchanged a look. “I can do that,” Dominik said. “I’ve had a bit to do with the Roma.”

  “That leaves me free to shift and see what my nose can pick up,” Markos said with satisfaction. “It’s harder by day, but I can manage, and given what just happened, I am not sure I want to run around alone at night, even shifted. The boy was carried off in broad daylight, after all. Heavens only knows what could happen at night.”

  “And I can find another lonely old woman to get stories out of,” said Rosa. “Or maybe I can get some out of the innkeeper’s wife. If I can find a single moment when she isn’t busy, that is.”

  So the three of them parted company. Rosa got the book of blank pages she was taking notes in, Dominik went to go find someone willing to sell him something for the gypsy funeral feast, and Markos just . . . vanished. Rosa suspected he was using magic to do it; there was a spell that even simple magicians could work that tended to make people look right past you even when they were looking at you, that she and others used to good effect. If you didn’t guard against it, it worked even on Masters.

  So, assuming that this village was like most villages, and that eventually all the old men and women and gossips would end up here in the yard of the inn, drinking beer or a kind of tea made of elderberry flowers, she set up at one of the sturdy little tables, writing out some of the folktales she had heard in the first village. There had been a variation on one of the Grimm tales she knew, which in German was The Goat and Her Seven Kids, but in this version had only three kids. In the German version, the kids were a little smarter than the Romanian version, and were only fooled by the wolf at the door after he had whitened his paws with flour and softened his voice with honey.

  As she wrote, slowly, a few old men began to appear, doing their best to look entirely incurious. Just like my home village, the old men turn up first, then the old ladies. An old man has “nothing to do,” when he is too old to work. An old woman is still expected to keep the house . . . Two of them set up a chess board, deliberately not looking at her. This, as Rosa knew, was not snubbing her. She looked busy, they were leaving her alone. They all ordered beer.

  Time passed; Rosa used her ruse of writing to extend her magical senses through the village. She might be able to coax one of the haus-alvar equivalents to appear in her room tonight, if she made it clear she was friendly and prepared to “pay” in bread.

  She was so intent on this that she scarcely noticed how much time had passed until one of the two daughters put a warm flatbread crowned with melting cheese and sour cream on the table next to her, along with a glass of beer. She looked up, realized she was hungry, and thanked the girl, who craned her neck to look at the notebook curiously, giggled at Rosa’s sketch of the kid and his mother roasting the wolf, and went to serve the men.

  Rosa continued writing—or in this case, sketching—in her notebook with one hand, while breaking off bits of the bread and eating them with the other.

  That was when she felt a tugging at her skirt.

  She looked surreptitiously down.

  There was a haus-alvar—a German one!—tugging at her hem.

  . . . oh, of course. These people are of Saxon German blood. They speak German. Their haus-alvar probably followed them here, packed up in their belongings, sort of . . .

  Then she got a second shock, as someone at the chess table bit off an exclamation.

  She glanced over at the old men, all of whom were staring in shock at the haus-alvar.

  They can see it?

  Obviously they could, as they looked from the alvar, to her, and back again.

  Making up her mind quickly, she leaned down to speak to the Elemental. “Yes, what is it, my friend?” she asked quietly.

  “You must come to Markos, quickly!” the little fellow said, and ran off. She didn’t even bother to keep up the ruse that she couldn’t see him, she just grabbed her notebook, picked up her skirts, and ran after him.

  He led her to a stable on the south side of the village; when she got there, Dominik was just running into the stable, and as she joined them both, Markos had only pulled on his trousers.

  “I found the boy’s trail,” he said, without preamble. “I found the scent of what took him—a shifter, as we had expected. I tracked the thing to its den, or at least a temporary den.” He held up a hand. “Before you ask, he had the boy, and the boy was dead. But he’s sleeping now, and we have a good chance of trapping and killing him if we move fast.”

  Dominik nodded. “Our horses are trained to ride as well as haul. Rosa, let’s move. Can you ride b—”

  “I can ride any way,” she said, already heading out the stable door. She was running so fast he never even caught up to her until they reached the inn.

  “Get the horses,” she said shortly. “I’ll take care of the weapons. I think I’m the only one that brought any, anyway.”

  She climbed into the back of the wagon and felt in the half-dark for her keys that she kept in a pouch under her skirt that she could reach through a slit-seam. The chests all had the same lock, and she knew where everything was; in a moment she had two of them open and started pulling out weapons. Her coach gun, of course, and the silver buckshot loads. Two silver daggers. And a weapon that she, personally, had never had occasion to use . . . but that Dominik just might be able to wield.

  A folding, silver-headed boar spear. The three segments locked in place, and the cross-guards behind the head folded down and locked. This would be ridiculous to use against a boar, since the locking segments would probably fail. But against a werewolf in wolf form, or half-form, it could prove very potent. And if Markos and the unknown shifter got into a fight, the spear would be safer to use than her coach gun, at least until you could get the two separated.

  Just in case, she also got out a flask of holy water and a bag of blessed salt. You never knew when those would come in handy.

  She locked the chest that she had taken the weapons from up, pulled off her skirt and petticoat right there in the wagon, and pulled on her divided riding skirt over her drawers. Then she locked her clothing chest, gathered up the weapons and jumped down out of the wagon.

  Dominik was just bringing up the horses with their bridles on, and short reins clipped to the bits instead of the driving reins. Rosa strapped the sheath for the coach gun onto her back and the belt with the silver dagger and the ammunition pouch over her jacket. She handed a second belt and dagger to Dominik and unfolded the boar spear for him. He watched attentively and nodded. She folded it and stowed it in a sheath not unlike her coach gun’s and handed it to him. He armed himself, then offered her his cupped hands to assist her onto the horse’s back. She really didn’t need them, but smiled and put her foot in his hands anyway, vaulting easily into place on the horse’s bare back. He used a bit of fence to help him mount, and the two of them cantered toward the stable where they had left Markos. They didn’t meet anyone; at this time of day, almost everyone was in the fields, working. Just as well; explaining where they were going and why they were armed to the teeth would be a complication she didn’t want right now.

  Markos was waiting in wolf form, lying outside of the stable in the shadow, where he could see anyone approaching and slink into hiding before they could spot him. The horses snorted at the scent of him, but didn’t act up. As soon as he spotted them coming, he ran off; they urged their horses into a gallop to follow. He quickly outdistanced them, but that didn’t matter; his track was as clear as if he had left prints on the ground in red paint, thanks to her ability to see magic. Even if Dominik couldn’t see the track himself, which she doubted, he could follow her.

  They were tearing across hilly fields lately mown for their hay, which at least meant they weren’t destroying any crops as they galloped—and meant they could cut straight across, too, avoiding the conical haystacks. There was no one working out here now that the hay was mown, dried, a
nd stacked. There were people out in distant fields, but they were too far away to be more than little dots, and it wasn’t likely they’d notice the two of them tearing across the countryside.

  This was easy country for a gallop; the hills weren’t so steep as to strain the horses going either up or down. The fences were more of a suggestion than anything, being as they were made mostly of sticks and old boards nailed to a support. They weren’t even waist-high, most of them, and the horses didn’t hesitate to jump them.

  Rosa didn’t often ride bareback, but it was in the nature of an Earth Master to be able to work well instinctively with almost any animal. She settled her shields about her and her horse and settled loosely into the gelding’s mind, until she was moving with him as closely as if she was his other half. He accepted her in his mind stoically; he noticed her there, but it didn’t trouble him. She could even see through his eyes if she cared to, but that would be far too disorienting for both of them; being able to move with him, encourage him over jumps, and calm him at need was quite enough.

  Markos’ trail led straight over these hay meadows, past weathered old storage barns gray with age, toward meadows where sheep, goats, and cattle grazed, and beyond that to steeper, thickly forested hills, with some sheer rock faces showing above the trees.

  The sheep scattered before them, but quickly formed back into a flock under the wise eyes of the goats when no one chased them. The cattle just looked up, then went back to grazing.

  He did say . . . the shifter was holed up in a den. There would be caves there, and dens dug by badgers, wild wolves, and bears. The shifter could have taken any of those. She hoped it was a cave, or a bear den. If he was holed up in a badger- or wolf-dug den, getting him out . . . that could be tricky. And hazardous. There wouldn’t be any room for a human to move in there, and Markos in wolf form was the only one who would be able to get in. I have to get there when Markos does. We can’t try and dig him out of a wolf den. We’ll have to smoke him out, or use some other ploy, and I am not sure Markos is thinking clearly enough to realize that.

  She urged more speed out of the horse. She didn’t think Markos would attack before they arrived, but his blood was probably up, and she knew he was angry. Both his human and wolf sides were angry, and of the two, the wolf was going to be the most reckless. If the wolf took over—

  Wasn’t that what that little alvar said? He would be in danger if the wolf won? It was impossible to tell when the alvar were talking in general, or making actual predictions about the future. She had the feeling that time wasn’t quite the same for them. She bent down over the horse’s thick neck and dug her heels into his sides. He was barely damp; after pulling a wagon all day, a gallop with a single human on his back probably wasn’t a lot of work for him.

  The tree line loomed, and it was clear, even at a distance, that these were “wild” hills, hills the local villagers and farmers never went to except to hunt. And this was very foreign territory for a horse who traveled open roads all the time. The horse didn’t want to go in there; instinctively he knew he would be at a disadvantage in there, that predators like wolves and bears could ambush him and his one advantage, speed, would be gone. She sensed his resistance, and overrode it. He wasn’t like her faithful hunter back in the Schwarzwald; he was a creature of open meadows and open skies—and the occasional comfortable barn and stable. He didn’t at all like this thing they were riding toward, which was not like a stand of two or three trees in a meadow that provided shade in summer. This was . . . a green wall. He didn’t like it, and he didn’t want any part of it.

  He didn’t have to like it. He just had to go in, following Markos’ trail, and ruthlessly, she guided him in.

  He immediately dropped from a gallop to a reluctant walk, even though Markos had found a relatively clear game trail for them to follow. There were things too close on either side of him. He hated it, and if there had been room to shy sideways, he would have! She had to fight him until he finally understood he had no choice but to do as she demanded, and he finally moved into a stiff, jouncing trot, determined to make things as uncomfortable for her as they were for him. But shortly he realized that since there was no saddle to cushion his back, he was being punished as much as she was, and gave over.

  She couldn’t get him to gallop on this trail, no matter what she did, but then again, that would be a very dangerous thing to do. There was a lot of leaf litter, and no telling what was under it. She would do Markos no good by driving the horse until he fell and broke both their necks. So they moved along at what was not quite a trot, and not quite a canter, with her staying low on his neck to avoid the branches that lashed at them, his hooves thudding dully on the ground. She kept her arm up to shield the side of her face from all the other branches they pushed past, and was very glad of her thick wool jacket and moleskin skirt, both of which could shrug off such punishment. Unlike her skin.

  She sensed Dominik close behind, so at least he was having as much luck with his horse as she was with hers.

  The trail led into a steep, rocky defile, and she tensed, for she could feel Markos up ahead, not very far at all. It was cool and damp in here, cool enough she was glad of that jacket, and the defile was entirely in shadow, with the gray walls standing stark and unforgiving, and the undergrowth limited to spindly trees and stringy grass. This was both a good and a bad place to meet the shifter. Good, because they could easily pen him here and he couldn’t get away, not with sheer rock walls on either side of them. Bad, because there wasn’t a lot of room to fight—

  And the moment she thought that, she felt the magic around Markos flare.

  “He’s attacking!” she cried out, and dug her heels into her horse’s sides. Startled, he leapt forward, with Dominik’s horse’s nose in his tail, giving him further encouragement to move.

  They broke into a tiny, open area, sloping downward, with a rocky scree in front of them, slippery and treacherous, and a rough cave entrance at the back of it. The entrance was at least as tall as two men and wide enough to admit the horse. Two wolves were fighting in the middle of the open space, and if it had not been for Markos’ clear, golden aura of Earth power, she would not have been able to tell them apart. Their snarls echoed off the rock walls, and the loose stones rattled and cascaded under their feet.

  They charged and broke apart, charged and broke apart, each of them trying to get a lethal hold on the other, leg or throat. Their snarls echoed off the rock walls as Rosa launched herself off her horse’s back and pulled her coach gun. But they were too close; she couldn’t hit the shifter without hitting Markos too—

  Her horse screamed in fear at the raw wolf-scent and the shifter’s head moved in their direction. The horse bolted toward the cave’s entrance; it didn’t matter. She could either find him later and persuade him to come back or—it wouldn’t matter, and the villagers would find him wandering back alone, like the gypsy pony.

  Markos took immediate advantage of the momentary distraction, dashing in and getting his jaws on the shifter’s foreleg. A shake of his head, a wet-sounding snap, and he leapt away, leaving the shifter with a broken leg. His legs fought for purchase on the treacherous scree, and stones rattled down the hill.

  The shifter snarled, made a three-legged leap backward—

  And his whole body writhed, obscenely, nauseatingly, as he reared up on his hind legs. He howled in pain, and the injured leg twisted and straightened, then hind and forelegs both flexed in an unnatural way and become distorted parodies of human arms and legs. The head bulged, the muzzle shortened—

  And Dominik charged before he could close in on Markos again, in this more powerful form. In the interval between when he’d jumped off his horse and now, Dominik had snapped the boar spear together, and now he ran straight at the shifter, shouting hysterically at the top of his lungs.

  The shifter recognized the silver spearhead for what it was, instinctively perhaps, for he leapt b
ackward, and Dominik skidded to a halt on the stone, barely managing to keep from plunging down the slope and into the cave.

  But that gave Rosa all the opening—and range—she needed. The coach gun was in her hands without even thinking about it, and as Dominik scrambled backward, she emptied the gun into the shifter, broke the breech as he staggered back, reloaded, and emptied it into him again. She was so keyed up she didn’t even register the kick of the gun against her shoulder.

  The first took him in the chest, the second in the stomach. He uttered a strangled gurgle and fell, sliding down the slope, leaving a trail of blood on the rocks as he slid. He stopped sliding a few feet short of the entrance.

  Markos dropped to the ground, panting, and licking his front paws. Dominik approached the body, warily, boar spear at the ready.

  “Make sure of him!” Rosa called, reloading again, and making her way carefully down the scree. Nothing loath, as soon as he got within reach of the body, Dominik stabbed the spear down into the remains of the chest. She presumed that, as a healer and a doctor, he would know where the heart was. . . .

  And she didn’t want to waste another of her precious shells. Making them wasn’t easy or cheap.

  “It’s dead,” Dominik said flatly. “I’m going to see what’s in the cave.”

  He left the spear sticking out of the carcass, and edged his way down the loose rock. She holstered her gun on her back, making sure it was safe first, then scrambled up the loose rock and went to check on Markos.