by Meg Caddy
A growl ripped from my throat. Lycaea did not turn, but her mind locked with mine. I edged closer, feeling each breath, each heartbeat. They were both skilled. Daeman’s best. But Cooper was not tired or injured. And he was wearing Lycaea down. Her exhaustion seeped through me. My blood was sluggish, my limbs heavy and sore. Even if Cooper was dead, there was still Daeman to best if the battle was to be won, and however many more soldiers besides. There was no end to the striking limbs, the blood in the dirt, the bodies.
I pulled myself from her mind as a man drove a spear into the ground by my stomach. I rolled and snarled at him, ready to jump. Flicker took him out with her whip, the metal star at the end of one tail lashing at his eye. Blood and fluid spurted to the ground. He screamed. I turned away. Lycaea was tiring too quickly.
‘Shift, Lycaea!’ I screamed above the sound of battle. My mind locked with hers, pressing the thought at her. ‘Shift!’
Her limbs contorted, her body adapting to the Shift. Energy split from her, blasting the ground. The dust rose and stones flew out, hitting my flank. I winced, but the mild pain was shunted aside with the rush her Shift gave me. The soul-bond charged us both.
Cooper had more to deal with than stones. He had been unprepared for the Shift, and stumbled backwards. His sword, mid-strike, flew from his hand and spun a few feet away. With new life, Lycaea sprang at him, carrying him to the ground. Cooper shouted, and the shout became a scream as Lycaea clawed at him, opened her jaws upon his neck and bit down. His shriek died into a gurgle. Lycaea stumbled back, her steely fur stained crimson. She had no time to dwell on the victory. People were already filling the space their combat had taken place in, stepping over or on Cooper’s body with no heed for it. I reached her side, taking her scruff between my teeth and pulling her into a clear space where she could breathe. She panted. Blood soaked her muzzle and her front, flecking her body down to the tail.
Luthan’s army was deteriorating. We were too few. The waer, ferocious in their initial attacks, were starting to wane. Deprivation and months of mistreatment weakened them. I saw a group of soldiers fall upon Hywe, and I knew he was dead before they came away. Donovan and Flicker fought back-to-back, surrounded by armed men. Donovan was bleeding, holding his side with one hand as the other vainly swung his sword. Mitri was on the ground, motionless, defended by Shard and Salvi.
I was at Lycaea’s side. She Shifted back, painfully. She had not had the time to remove her clothes before, and they had ripped and torn with the Shift. They hung from her in rags now. The wound in her shoulder, half-healed by her last Shift, had fully closed over. She was shaken and breathless, but her eyes were wild with a fierce joy. She grabbed her staff from where it had fallen on the ground.
The ground shook. A clap, then a roar, and walls about us fell in a smothering of dust. Snap-sticks and durlow oil. Blast-powder. The smells were acrid, poisonous, but they swelled my heart. Hemanlok.
I could not see Hemanlok himself, but I could see people slammed back as he walked by. Melana joined him. I saw her, briefly. Her arms reached skyward and shadows poured from her fingertips, whipped about her head. Her people fanned out behind her, slipping into dim corners of the courtyard and dragging soldiers into their embrace. I watched dark tendrils crawl about a man’s neck, then snap it. Another man vomited an inky-black substance, then twitched on the ground until he died. The Shadows descended on him. They consumed him.
A howl followed the sound of a heavy explosion. I jerked around. It was like no howl I had heard before. Deeper, throatier, born of sand and rock. I stared, motionless, as the souther-waer hit us like a hammer through glass.
Lycaea
Blood and fur. Howls. The souther-waer swept through the ranks and fell upon their prey. We had contacted only the Greypaws and the Rustfurs, but half the desert came to our aid. I knew now why they had taken so long. They had been recruiting. I found my voice lifting with theirs, inarticulate and triumphant. Leldh’s soldiers started to fall back.
We needed to find Leldh.
The rush of the Shift was still on me. I gripped Lowell’s fur, not needing to speak to communicate with him. We broke into a run. Headed for Hemanlok, because around him we would be out of danger while we searched for Leldh. There was no point trying to sniff the Kudhienn out. The battle was a rage of stench, and there was no picking one from another. My staff swung, knocking someone away as they lunged at Lowell. Lowell ducked between two combatants. Something whirred over my head and hit a man standing on the wall. People from within Caerwyn’s battlements fired their hackbuts and arrows, but they were no match for us. A wall exploded. Waer and Luthanese poured in.
We reached Hemanlok. He was all brute force and darkness. Melana skipped and laughed behind him. Black vines shot from her hands. One pierced a man’s chest and I watched him die in a burst of blood and blackness. Lowell started back and growled. I kept my hand on his back. His fur was warm and sweat-damp. Hemanlok rounded to face us.
‘Leldh,’ I shouted to him. ‘Boss, help us find him!’
‘Melana!’ he snapped back. My mother turned and tossed her head back. Her eyes flooded, became black. Her hand shot to the east.
‘Derry,’ she slurred.
‘Derry’s safe,’ Hemanlok snapped. ‘She’s back at the camp with Dodge and the other healers.’
‘Derry.’ Melana’s eyes flickered back to blue and her voice rose into a scream. ‘The Healer!’
I broke into a run before Hemanlok could move. Lowell was with me. Melana lunged behind us, grabbed us. Shadows sucked us in. They filled my lungs. I screamed, and my voice cracked as we came out the other side, by the eastern wall. In the shadow of Caerwyn, on the edge of the battle. We hit the ground. I dragged myself to my feet. My bones felt waterlogged. Shadow-logged. Lowell whined, struggling to stand. A familiar scent rushed into my nose. My muscles tensed. I stared at Leldh.
And Moth.
The Healer stood stiff and quiet, her chin high. Leldh held her tight. One hand across her stomach, the other gripping a knife. She was already injured. Her lip was split. Bruises flowered on her neck and face. Her dress was spattered crimson. Dodge, I thought, but could not form words. The storyteller was prone in the dirt, a dark pool of blood gathering about his body. He twitched horribly.
‘Well, now,’ Leldh said. ‘Here we are.’
‘Let her go,’ Melana hissed.
‘Step back, Wytch,’ he replied. ‘Your time is done. I want Kaebha. Come here, Kaebha. You and your dog.’
I walked forwards. Moth met my gaze. Her grey eyes were dull. Lowell kept pace with me.
‘It has been amusing enough,’ Leldh said. ‘You did not disappoint. But I grow bored now, and I want my Kaebha back. It is over. Come to heel, and I will let the little Healer go.’
‘He lies.’ Lowell, tense and still, whispered into my mind.
‘I know.’
‘Come to heel, Kaebha.’
I could not breathe. At the end of all things, as I had dreaded, it came down to Kaebha and Leldh. It always had.
Leldh smiled. I could count every tooth. I cleared the distance between us and let the defences about my mind drop away. Leldh pushed Moth away from him. Melana stepped through a passing shadow. She stepped out with her arms around Moth, then hauled her back. Moth choked as black tendrils curled about her, and then they both disappeared.
I closed my eyes.
Just us now. Lowell. Daeman Leldh. And me.
Kaebha opened my eyes.
Kaebha kept her eyes fixed on Leldh. She saw everything differently from these eyes; the eyes she had shunned for so long. Leldh had always told her wolves were feral, that the more she rejected that side of her, the better she would be. But his words had been spider webs. Thin, and wrought of silver. For the first time, he had no sway over her.
The black wolf pressed close to her side, offering his wordless support. His mind settled against hers. He was a welcome passenger in the carriage of her thoughts, brown eyes guiding her through th
e confusion to a set, clear understanding. She had only ever been breathing for this moment.
They faced Daeman Leldh as woman and wolf. Her back was straight and her green eyes locked with his golden gaze. One hand rested on the black wolf’s back, loose and relaxed.
Daeman smiled. ‘You heed commands so well,’ he congratulated her. ‘Is it because you think your precious Watchers can save you? They have no power here. The Healer lacks the strength, the Dealer lacks the focus and the other…’ His lip curled in distaste, but she saw fear flicker in his eyes. ‘The other is busy trying to save his little Rogues.’ He stepped closer. ‘They cannot help you.’ He drew a blade from his scabbard, a coldness settling over his lips and turning the edges down. Kaebha spun the staff in her hand, her free palm still resting on the black wolf’s fur.
‘I will not be yours again. You’ve lost, Daeman. No matter what happens here, you’ve lost.’
Daeman’s sword lashed out and caught her arm. The skin tore and blood spat at the ground. Kaebha caught her breath. Her staff spun again, knocking the blade to push it away. The wolf at her side snarled and moved one paw closer to Daeman, growling. Kaebha was relaxed. She set her feet apart and bent at the knees to secure her balance. Daeman’s sword hissed through the air again only this time she was ready. She deflected it with her staff and they began to move in a silent dance, locked in steps each knew too well. She remembered her lessons from him. She knew how he worked. Years ago, when he took her for the first time, he had the element of surprise. Now there was nothing but the old steps they had waltzed together for three years.
He broke their routine first, jumping backwards and pulling something from where it hung at his belt. Silver. She could feel the hissing heat of it. She and the wolf snarled together, dropping away. It was difficult to see the object he held in the sword-free hand. The wolf recognised it first, and fed the information through to Kaebha. A clamp. A silver clamp. Kaebha stepped in front of the wolf, protecting him. If she was injured, she could fight on. If he was, she was not so sure.
Kaebha drove her staff at Daeman’s knees. His sword bit at her hand and she almost lost her grip on the staff. She caught it with her free hand and rammed the side into Daeman’s shoulder. With sharp, hard movements, he twisted so his weight pressed the staff down, his sword coming across to hit her side. Kaebha’s knees buckled. Daeman threw his hand out, and the clamp disappeared. The wolf snarled. Perhaps he felt it before even she did. All she registered at first was the sound. A hiss, like a snake. Then the faint smell that rose, like burnt meat. And then the pain, spitting through her leg.
Kaebha blinked. Suddenly she was on the ground. Daeman tossed out a nonchalant hand and flung Kaebha’s growling companion to the side. The Kudhienn man crouched beside Kaebha and dug his fingers into her shoulders. He wrenched her upwards until they were bare inches apart. He was whispering something, but Kaebha could not tell what he was saying. It was intended as a threat, but all she could hear was the pounding of her blood as it sped to her leg, the rasping of her own breath in her ears. The black wolf was somewhere nearby. He was stunned, too dazed to return to her. He could do nothing to shield her mind. And neither could she.
Daeman wrapped his thoughts about hers. She baulked. The black wolf’s mind stumbled against hers. There was a single moment, a breath of time in which all three minds were linked in a triangle of wills, conflicting and merging. Pain, loss and grief echoed within them all, and were indistinguishable.
Daeman was the first to break free, a mental breath before he dived back into Kaebha’s mind once more. He attacked savagely and quickly, thinking to crush her, to destroy her mind and leave her body as a shell. But Kaebha had anticipated the move. As his mind surged forth, she relaxed, letting Daeman’s consciousness seep into the corners of her own. She let him feel the warmth there. The soul-bond between herself and the wolf. Expecting resistance, he fell into her without a lifeline. He could not draw back. She embraced him like a tender lover, and he was too shocked to struggle. She felt him vulnerable and young for the briefest of moments, and it was all she needed. Keeping him locked with her, she wrapped Lowell’s thoughts around her own.
Lowell’s memories, almost completely empty of Daeman, suffused with her own, swirling in unison until Daeman’s mind was diminished. His mad, desperate hatred, displaced in Lowell and Lycaea’s bond, struggled to break free. But Lycaea’s mind still entwined about his, pulling it in, sucking it through the darkness of her own thoughts. Murder, torture, anger, bitterness. And deeper into the soul-bond. Into the depths of trust, redemption, understanding and vulnerability. His wholeness writhed and twitched beneath the onslaught of this unfamiliar power. Then he was gone, smothered by their embrace.
A hand pulled at Kaebha, and her fingers unlocked from the back of Daeman’s neck. A knife fell through the air. There was a short, sharp sound, then nothing.
Kaebha watched as people ran over and around her. A face appeared over hers and a hand pressed against her palm. If someone spoke, she did not understand the words. She rested in blood and dirt, and waited for shadows to carry her away. The man beside her took on the Form of a wolf once more, circling her to prevent anyone from crushing them, trampling them in the panic of flight.
The snap-sticks ringing the walls of the courtyard were set alight as the battle started to dwindle, a final burst of defiance to end the fighting. Hemanlok moved the Rogues out of danger, while the souther-waer scrambled to evade falling stones. The waer abandoned their various battles, escaping through any route possible. Only the black wolf stayed, his ears down and his tail low as he stood over Kaebha. He placed his paws on her chest and settled himself across her as stones rained around them.
When they were pulled clear of the rubble, neither wolf nor woman was moving.
‘Hold her still. Hold her still, dear, I can’t work when she thrashes.’
‘He fades fast, Moth. We need you over here.’
‘You will not let my daughter die!’
We hovered between life and death, strangely aware of both. Dust and rock, blood and sweat, vomit and tears. Moth pressed on my wounds, stemming the flow of blood. Donovan forced something between my teeth. My limbs moved of their own accord, jerking and flailing as pain thrummed through my core. I heard Wolf retch.
Darkness.
‘Make sure it is clean. The last thing they need now is the rot.’
Water. My eyes opened to glaring light. My breath was so loud in my ears that it hurt. I tried to speak, and gentle hands smoothed my hair from my face.
‘Don’t talk. Rest. We’re going home, dear. We’re taking you home, it’s over now.’
A surge of pain pushed me upwards and I grasped someone’s arms. My body tried to Shift, clicked between human and wolf. The pain was unbearable.
‘Leldh…’ I choked on the name.
‘It’s over. He’s gone. Donovan, come here, I need your help.’ Pushed down again, the smell of herbs creeping into me. I turned my head to the side and found Wolf’s face in the haze rising across my vision. His face was grey with pain.
‘Lycaea.’
Darkness.
Leather. Salt. Oil. Spice. My mouth was ash. I could not feel my left leg.
I opened my eyes to a dim room. Sunlight struggled at the curtains, which were thick and drawn to keep the room cool. I set my teeth against the throbbing in my head. Luthan, but not the Debajo.
‘I love you.’ Barely more than a whisper. I am not sure whether I said it or Lowell did. A hand found mine and I felt a kiss upon my knuckles.
‘I can’t see your face.’ I wondered if he could piece together the words from the dry crackle of my voice.
‘Just as well.’ Lowell lifted my hand and traced it across the swellings on his jaw and temple. My eyes slowly adjusted to the gloom. He was propped up with pillows, on a chair. We were silent, finding our way slowly back to the world.
The door opened. A boy, at first silhouetted by the bright glare, shuffled in. When he d
rew near I saw that his face was twisted and curled by burns, but I knew he was a Sencha. I looked at Lowell.
‘Kemp,’ he told me. ‘My brother.’
Lowell touched Kemp’s head. The boy jerked away and came around to investigate me. He pushed his nose into my hand and sniffed eagerly. I turned my hand over and stroked his head. The left side of his skull was mostly bald, hairless where the burns were most severe. His mouth was pulled down on the same side, showing his teeth. He was missing some. Pity wrapped my lungs. I forced myself to look at Lowell, to ask the terrible, necessary questions.
‘Did the Own lose anyone?’
‘They lost Hywe and Salvi,’ Lowell replied. ‘Salvi took a blow intended for Mitri. Hywe was trampled. We almost lost Mitri too, but he’s recovering now.’
Grief. Guilt. I could not think of Hywe being crushed, or Salvi bleeding on the ground. The boy, Kemp, climbed onto the bed beside me and rested his chin on my shoulder.
‘Dodge?’ I asked. Dreaded the answer.
‘Alive. Alive, Lycaea. Moth healed him. It was close, but he made it. Leldh was in a hurry. Didn’t take the time to finish him off properly.’
I knew the answer to the next question, but I had to ask all the same. Had to be sure.
‘Leldh’s dead?’
‘Dead.’ Lowell leaned forwards and pressed his brow against mine. ‘It’s over, Lycaea. It’s done.’
‘Stay with me,’ I whispered, and he did.
Epilogue
Lycaea never expected there to be a life after Daeman Leldh. For a long time, their fates were so interlocked that she could not imagine an existence without him. But still, after his death she breathed, and her pulse beat strong. A few weeks onward she was able to sit up and talk.
For some time, Lycaea was a shadow of herself. Moth was stretched thin after the battle, healing her husband and as many of the injured as she could. She brought us from the brink of death, but even Watchers have their limits, and finally she could do no more to help us. Even as she could not restore Kemp’s sight or his lost fingers, Moth could not fully heal the silver-wound in Lycaea’s leg. Those marks of Leldh’s cruelty will always be with us.