Janrae Frank - [Lycan Blood 02] - Fireborn Law

by Fireborn Law [lit]

Pandeena wondered why the way Clodagh sized up Caimbeul sent a shiver over her. "This is Padruig Caimbeul, previously of Running Horse."

  Clodagh's eyes widened at the name. "Oh, my, you did bring us a good one. Please, come in." She stepped back from the door. "Let me get you something to drink. I have tea, mead, whiskey."

  Caimbeul started to step in and Pandeena's hand on his arm stopped him. "No, thanks. I still need to finish showing Caimbeul around. Perhaps later."

  "Come any time, Lawgiver. Day or night," Clodagh said.

  As Pandeena led Caimbeul back toward the corner of the compound where the shrine lay, he asked her, "Is Clodagh a slut?"

  "She certainly is not," Pandeena snarled, and then went silent, thinking furiously. "What made you ask that?"

  Caimbeul pulled at his whiskery chin. "She's not my type. But I think she was flashing her tail at me."

  Pandeena's brow furrowed. "The previous bitch who ran this place was a known slut of enormous proportions. She was killed a few months ago. I simply cannot imagine how Claw could have placed another one like that in charge."

  "I may be wrong sometimes about dogs, but I'm rarely wrong about bitches."

  The Shrine to Willodarus proved to be a simple building, a square box with two wings, located in a shady yard with grass and flowering hedges. "My apartment is on the right wing. The left is the schoolroom," Pandeena explained as they walked around the building.

  She took Caimbeul to the back and pointed out an area directly behind the shrine, marked off as a graveyard by a dotting of white stones. A wooden arch framed the entrance with the likeness of the Willodarian bear atop it. She walked through and indicated one of the headstones of the two graves. Caimbeul's glance, however, went to the one beside it because someone had left grave offerings on it: a tiny wooden horse and a wealth of flowers. He knelt and lifted a pine wreath covering the name.

  CULLEN DIOMEDES BLACKWOOD. 1017-1077 AQ.

  Caimbeul rubbed his hand over his eyes. "Gods, he was still young."

  "Look at the other one. You knew Tempest Anstey, didn't you?"

  Caimbeul frowned slightly, again pulling at his chin. "What of it?"

  "That's his grave."

  Caimbeul's eyes looked as if he were searching for something inside himself, as he asked. "What did he die of?"

  "A heart attack they say."

  "That's the one thing he couldn't die of," Caimbeul growled under his breath.

  "So you know about Teakamon linking his heart to a tree."

  Caimbeul's eyes slewed around and he snapped low, "Shut up. To your left. We're being followed."

  Pandeena dropped to her knees and began cleaning off Tempest's headstone. From the corner of her eyes, she saw Shalto and Oswyl watching them. She knew that the two sixteen-year-olds spent an uncommon amount of time with Malthus. "Let's go inside. I imagine you're thirsty."

  "I definitely am," Caimbeul said in a loud voice. "You wouldn't happen to have some Dragonsbreath with you? Best whiskey there is."

  "I hate it. But I may have something you'll like just as much." She led Caimbeul in through the back door, made a left turn in the corridor that wrapped around the back of the shrine and opened a door to her left. She nodded at the one on her right and further down. "That one opens into the shrine itself."

  Pandeena's apartment contained three cozy rooms, a sitting room, kitchen, and bedroom. Caimbeul poked his nose into the bedroom and whistled at the huge bed that dwarfed the rest of the furniture. "There's room for more than two in that one."

  "Don't get any ideas," Pandeena admonished.

  Caimbeul popped back out and trailed her into the sitting room. "You have any idea why they were following us?"

  "Suspicions only. I battered them severely some weeks back for trying to climb my back in a very insistent fashion."

  "Same old Pandeena." He grinned. "Dogs their age are always trying to climb every bitch in sight. They'll get over it."

  "Yes, well. I have a lot more to be concerned about besides two youngsters with nutsacks for brains. So, has any of this put questions in your mind?" She picked a chair that sat against the wall furthest from the door, and next to a sofa.

  "Lots. To start with, what's this about a proper heir?" Caimbeul asked, as he settled on her sofa.

  "I told you about that." Pandeena brought him a beer and sat in a chair across from him.

  "Remind me."

  "Merissa has a bastard child by a sa'necari lover."

  "Right. That's why Claw built the camp. I remember now. It's a shame his sons were executed. I told old Romney Silverpaw that nothing good would come from rebelling."

  "Don't bring Tarrant and Logan up to Claw again. You saw how it still hurts him to think about them. Claw loved his sons. I think that's why he's so drawn to Kynyr. It's startling how much he looks like Tarrant."

  "So that's why you're so eager to get into bed with him!" Caimbeul took a swig from his glass. "Tarrant turned you down. That must have stung."

  "Tarrant was genuinely in love with Bridget Silverpaw. That's why he turned me down. I can't fault that." Pandeena lowered her head. "I saw them rite him. There was nothing I could do. They had consecrated the ground. I couldn't get close."

  "I know. I saw you there."

  Pandeena's head snapped up. "I didn't see you."

  "I didn't want you to." A tiny smug twist touched the left corner of his mouth.

  "But"

  Caimbeul leaned forward in his chair, propped his feet up on the edge of another chair, and pulled his boots off to rub at his toes. "Just because I never demonstrated any talents, does not mean I don't have them."

  "Shut up, Caimbeul. I suspect that the boy, Darmyk, might be the last descendant of Dawnhand. Claw and his household are very close-mouthed about the boy's father, so I can't be certain. And his mother's just married a mon I believe is connected to the Butchering Serpent."

  "It's possible he has some small mage gift, perhaps? Nothing that you've said, none of the evidence you've offered really proves that he's not the Serpent." Caimbeul sat back with a heavy settling of his weight, his arms draping the chair arms and his hands closing on the ends. The chair creaked. Caimbeul's huge size translated into a three hundred pound wolf whenever he changed.

  Pandeena could not remain in her chair long, stood and walked to her window. She opened the shutters and stared into the garden. Two shapes moved in the trees at the edge. "Keep your voice, down, Caimbeul. They're still out there."

  "This is not good," he growled. Hair sprouted and lengthened along his arms, spreading over his face in black and gray.

  She faced him again, speaking quietly. "Malthus felt perfectly human to my touch, and if he had not tried to Read me, I would have assumed there was nothing out of the ordinary about him."

  "I will want to speak with the young lawgiver I am replacing here."

  "They think he's dead, Caimbeul." Pandeena paced back and forth with her glass of wine in hand. "I want to leave it that way. If the Serpent learned that he had failed to kill Nikko, he'd find a way to strike at him."

  "They'll hear nothing about him from me."

  "Caimbeul, we've been over this before. Sometimes I think you only remember the parts you want to remember, and forget the rest. Nikko can't even remember his own name. Although." Pandeena paused for a moment, thinking. "He did remember the dog's name when I took little Moss to my mother's. That was the first thing he said. Moss. And then he looked at me for confirmation that the dog's name was Moss."

  "Trauma. I won't do anything to upset him." Caimbeul scratched his hairy arm. "Pandeena, will you please stop pacing, you're beginning to get on my poor old nerves. I'm not a young wolf anymore."

  Pandeena frowned, and sat down. "His heart is damaged. Upsetting him could kill him."

  Caimbeul ran a hand through his shaggy hair, and made a despairing sound. "I understand that. I said I wouldn't upset him. I simply want to see him, to smell him."

  Pandeena pursed her lips and blew throu
gh them. "We'll do that once you're settled in."

  Caimbeul's tongue slid from the side of his half extended muzzle and hung there like a hungry dog. "I'd rather settle in here."

  "None of that, you old lecher," Pandeena said. "We're not married any longer."

  Caimbeul heaved a great sigh, his muzzle shrinking back into his face. "You do know how to hurt an old mon. I'll make you a trade. I find the proof that this Malthus is the Serpent, or link him to the Serpent so that you can find the whoreson, and you give me a night in your bed like old times." He gave her a wicked grin full of little boy naughtiness.

  "Caimbeul."

  "One night. Just one." His voice turned mournful.

  Pandeena's lips parted and she raked her teeth over her lower lip. "One night."

  Caimbeul's face brightened with eagerness. "The night of my choice."

  "Caimbeul! You're going to try and catch me in season, aren't you?"

  The old wolf shrugged, with a guilty smile.

  Pandeena's eyes widened into an affronted stare. "Our son is dead. Making another isn't going to change how I feel about you. We're just friends. If I did decide on another child I'd get him from Kynyr."

  Kynyr. The old wolf dropped his eyes. "You want my help, those are my terms."

  "You should do it for the good of our people. Or vengeance for Cullen."

  "I'm feeling selfish in my old age." Caimbeul crossed his arms and sat back. "Besides, you can't blame an old mon for trying, can you?"

  "One night. Of your choosing. Don't ask again and keep your hands to yourself until then. And, you're sleeping on the sofa until they get the house ready."

  "Another thing, Pandeena. The Butchering Serpent is one of the most dangerous sa'necari in existence. Therefore, I want you to mark me."

  "Are you sure? You refused when we were married."

  "One of our lives might depend on our being psychically linked through your Godmark."

  She considered that. "Open your robe."

  Caimbeul opened his robe completely, which caused Pandeena to look at his crotch.

  "Well, you needn't have showed me that, I have no intention of climbing onto it." She placed her palm on his chest, and accepted his allegiance. Her touch seared his flesh, but he did not wince from it. When she drew back her hand, the wolf's head brand of the Second Mother was burned over his heart.

  * * * *

  Kandaishee hurried back inside her house when she saw Pandeena and the newcomer arrive. That grizzled old wolf had to be the new lawgiver. Caution had become a watchword now that she could no longer conceal her pregnancy. She dared not let either of them see her, because they would demand to know who had gotten the child on her. Clodagh could still go about freely because she was not showing yet.

  The house had a dirt floor and two half walls at either end with curtains over the windows and doors leading into the central chamber, like all the traditional lycan longhouses. Kandaishee's bedroom lay on the left hand side, and her little son Gilzean's on the other. She went into her bedroom and curled up on her bed, crying. She felt the little jerks as Malthus' child moved in her belly. Her pregnancy was the furthest along of all of them. The spellcords on her wrists itched, but she feared to touch them lest she set off the deadly seals. Malthus had some method of concealing his nature beyond anything Kandaishee had ever heard of, or else he would be corded like her four sa'necari companions. Since the rebellion began, the lycans would not allow uncorded adult sa'necari in their valley.

  Even had she not been corded, Kandaishee doubted that she could have fought him off the day he raped her and shoved his child into her womb: the Butchering Serpent was simply too powerful.

  The child inside her moved again. Kandaishee put her hand on her belly, running her fingers across herself. She had surrendered to Malthus' arcane intrusions, rather than risk having her mind ripped open and forcibly altered, because of her small son who would have suffered had her mind been too damaged to care for him.

  Those memories made her rise from her bed. Kandaishee left her room and went to his. Gilzean lay curled on his side, a little stuffed wolf clutched in his hands. She had made the toy for him herself when they first came to the valley. The five-year-old already looked so much like his dead father that it brought tears to her eyes.

  She straightened the blanket around him. The nights lately had turned cool with the first hint of autumn. Feeling the shivering hands of memories tightening through her, Kandaishee returned to the main room of the longhouse.

  "Why couldn't they have left us alone?" Kandaishee muttered angrily. "Why? They stick their damned bones into lycan bitches often enough. What was wrong with my marrying Domhnall?"

  She knew the answer. Sa'necari condemned interracial marriages involving their women. It was all about the bloody gene, their males wanting to hold onto every female who could produce a sa'necari child. The sa'necari gene was recessive. When a sa'necari female married a lycan, the children usually were all lycan as Gilzean was. When sa'necari bred with sa'necari, the result was always sa'necari. Oh, there were rare exceptions of a human child resulting and Kandaishee had heard of a few. She had known a couple in the priesthood who were rearing their freakishly human offspring as a sacrifice to Bellocar.

  A vision flashed through her mind of the farmhouse on fire, and Domhnall shouting for her to flee. She saw him outlined against the burning house in his hybrid form, struggling to fight off the six sa'necari males who had attacked their home. Kandaishee felt Gilzean's fingers clutching her tightly as she fled into the forest. Domhnall's death scream echoed through her mind as clearly as it had that night, ululating through the darkness.

  The heaviness of the flashback brought Kandaishee sobbing to her knees. Beth had sheltered her in this camp. She and Gilzean had been the first of the refugees. The Chieftain Claw had insisted that she be corded and sealed from her powers. So long as Gilzean was safe, what did that matter?

  "Domhnall, if your spirit can hear me, I didn't want this child." Kandaishee pressed her hands to her belly. "I swore I would never bear another man's child. Forgive me."

  Then she thought of Beth, her only real friend among the lycans. The lycans had found pieces of her near Iudris Meadows, but not enough for the Readers to say how she died. Kandaishee believed that Malthus or one of his allies had rited her.

  His coercions, sways, and triggers were now too deeply and well set in her psyche and body for her to ever be free again. Malthus owned her, as he did all of the other females in camp, including Clodagh, the camp supervisor.

  With his spells lodged in all their brains, he had turned it into a discreet brothel for his favorites among the lycan youth who flocked to emulate him. At last count there were nine pregnancies in the camp. They had no access to contraception, nor to Baroucha Malthus did not want them going to a healer and the lycans seemed not to care what happened to them. Except Clodagh, but Malthus' seed was growing in that belly also. Four of them were pregnant by Malthus, herself, Clodagh, and two other sa'necari, Laleyna and Oliffyia. Of them, only Clodagh was not conspicuously swollen yet.

  Malthus was as freakishly fertile as he was powerful.

  Kandaishee wept for all of them.

  * * * *

  Malthus sat his desk smacking the two letters Preece had brought him against his palm. The missive from Heironim had had only two lines written in it:

  "The bastard prince goes home in a sack. Count on it."

  The second letter had come from Flavio and was a list of Preece's expenses. The only item that Malthus had raised as eyebrow at was the pound of White Fire. He wondered whether Preece intended to use it or sell it or both. It was worth at least fifty Double Gryphons more money than Preece could earn in ten years doing manual labor. If Preece had an appetite for street drugs, Malthus had plenty to offer him and that would put Preece more firmly under his thumb.

  He slipped from the manor at midnight while the household slept and walked in the garden as he did each night. Living at the manor m
ade him privy to more information, but it had its drawbacks. There were too many people to observe him there, and he needed to be accessible at some point each day in case messages came from Lord Brandrahoon.

  He shivered at Brandrahoon's name. Malthus had not known that Lord Daemon, who had hired him to infiltrate the Red Wolf community and command the conquest of it, had actually been the ancient vampire brother to Waejonan, founder of the kingdom and the sa'necari cult from which their race had risen. Brandrahoon had regained his lands and estates that had been seized four thousand years ago by Waejonan, who had exiled him. Queen Tomyrilen, who led the Waejontori rebellion against the Sharani occupying their land, rode with him at her right hand as her first advisor above all others.

  Brandrahoon Merissa is mine. I'll not yield her up to you.

  Malthus paced into the trees, letting the deepest shadows envelop him. He should never have written that letter to Lord Daemon, telling him about Merissa and Darmyk. Hoon wanted them because they belonged to the last descendant of his brother Isranon Dawnhand. Malthus could almost consider giving Hoon the boy, but not Merissa. He loved Merissa; she had borne a sa'necari child. Usually the lycan gene was dominant over the sa'necari gene, and a child of such couplings was born lycan. But Merissa No, Merissa was his. If she could bear one sa'necari child, then she would likely conceive mostly sa'necari children. He would keep her belly filled continuously, deliciously. They would have a huge family, one that boasted of his unusual virility.

  He ought to write his mother, and tell her how well the potions and arcanes she had treated him with since adolescence had slowed the progressive infertility of his kind if anything her efforts had enhanced his fertility beyond anything his kind ever possessed. His mother Sidera Tyrins, currently employed as a toxicologist and bio-alchemist by Lord Hoon, had been quietly and systematically setting up laboratories in the dungeons of Carrion Crevasse, Malthus' hidden manor, in preparation for his return there. The Tyrins, a branch clan of the Romilay family, had specialized in poisons and venoms for generations, including the discovery and refining of Devil's Silver and experiments with genetically altered and enhanced breeds of vipers using a mutagenic arcane they had developed.