I had not the will to call Bar off from tormenting my former captors. Like killing them, I could not stand seeing helpless men tortured, despite how well deserved their terror was. Yet, I found it easy to squash my conscience. I remembered well my own terror, my bladder letting go, the feel of their evil hands yanking my legs apart.
Tit for tat, I thought coldly.
I stonily watched as Bar frightened the Tongu into immobility, keeping a tight leash on my tongue when it wanted to called Bar to heel.
I knew Bar would not kill them unless I asked. I turned my back on his amusements to search for my own weapons among the Tongu camp. I found them not far from where the leader had been sitting before we arrived. Perhaps they were his to claim as trophies. I tested my bow, hung my quiver over my back, and took up both my sword and Wolf’s heavy blade.
I was very glad to get my sword back, for it had been a coming of age gift from my father. I glanced down at it, tracing my finger over the intricate hilt. It had been fashioned just for me, the hilt crafted into a griffin, the outstretched wings as the crosspiece, the top of the hilt the beast’s neck and face. Garnets created fierce eyes, its beak parted slightly as though screeching defiance. The blue-tinged steel of the blade, folded ten thousand times, held ancient runes of power and strength. All knew it for a sword worthy to pass down to my heirs in due time.
I happened to glance up at the half-eaten Tongu whose throat Wolf had torn out. This time, I controlled my outraged stomach and gazed, uninterested, at the side of meat that had once been a man.
Turning, I idly watched Rygel in his trance. He still knelt in the dirt and dead leaves next to Wolf, both hands on Wolf’s bloody head. Sweat dripped down his face, I saw with concern. When he healed Wolf at the inn, and Bar at the arena, he did not sweat. The past twenty-four hours have taken a toll on all of us, I thought, feeling more tired than I had ever felt in my life. The aftermath of running leagues, the panic, Rygel’s healing, and being changed into a hawk all took the last reserves of strength in me. We still had yet to get Wolf to safety.
Kael caught my attention as he leaned indolently against an elm tree, his arms crossed over his chest as he gazed sorrowfully at me. Go away, I screamed inwardly at him. Leave me the bloody hell alone. If he heard me, he did not obey. Rather, stood and continued to stare, unperturbed.
I turned my back on him to once more watch Bar. The Tongu leader crawled facedown away from my huge griffin, dirt and small twigs crusting into the blood from his ripped cheeks. A hound snarled as Bar stalked regally past, snapping near his lion hind foot. Bar wheeled, punching the hound in the ribs with talons curled into a fist. The hound yelped, as shrilly as its mutilated throat would allow, and hurtled itself away to safety.
As though he felt he had done enough tormenting, Bar screeched menacingly once more and came to me. Leaning against his massive shoulder, I scratched behind his ears as he sat down, trimly coiling his lion tail about his feet. The black tip flitted back and forth, informing me of his quiescent mood. His previous fury vented on the terrified Tongu, he now mellowed to a calm contentment. Comfortable against his bulk, I tiredly watched Rygel perform a miracle.
His trance lasted for more than an hour. An hour that passed with agonizing slowness, and in which I grew increasingly uneasy. Despite Bar’s presence and Rygel’s formidable magic, I wanted out of that bloody clearing. Wanted out like last week. I glanced over my shoulder at the now quiescent Tongu. Not desiring Bar’s attention on them any further, they sat silent, their hands scrabbling uselessly in the dirt. Tears still streamed down many cheeks. While I had naught to fear from them, my nerves jangled and jittered. I felt eyes on my skin, watched by something malevolent, an evil presence just beyond the trees. Holy Lady, get us out of here.
When Rygel finally stirred, I nearly jumped. Bar looked down at me, his predatory eyes curious. Don’t you feel that? I wanted to ask. I kept my teeth shut instead. Rygel sighed deeply, taking his bloody hands from Wolf and sitting back, crossing his legs tiredly. He wiped sweat from his face, leaving traces of Wolf’s blood on his brow and cheeks. I went to him, grasping his shoulder as he looked up.
“I’ve done all I can do,” he said.
His voice, usually so sure and strong, alarmed me. Querulous and shaky, it now sounded like the voice of an old, old man. His body trembled beneath my hand, and his eyes drooped as though he could hardly keep them open. I squatted beside him.
“Are you all right?”
“Aye.” His face lit with an exhausted smile.
Bar loomed over me as Wolf stirred, using with his newly healed right arm to push himself off the ground. His hair, oily with sweat and caked with drying blood, hung in his face. I brushed it back, thrusting my shoulder under his to help him sit up. He smiled tiredly at me, his right eye still swollen shut while his left, dull with pain, lit with amusement from within. He leaned against a tree trunk with a deep sigh.
I could not keep my hands off him. I squeezed his weak right hand with my strong left one, stroking my right fingers down his swollen cheek. At a loss for words, I could only stare into his battered face, drinking in the sight of him; while not hale and hearty, he was very much alive. Stupid, I asked the eternal words the healthy always asked the sick.
“How do you feel?”
“Oh. Like I’ve been rode hard, put up wet.”
His good eye glinted, and I could not help but laugh with relief. The sheer joy of seeing him up and much improved over the state of near-death we found him in made me laugh again. Damn, it was good to see him.
Rygel chuckled as he staggered to his feet, his eyes on me. I knew immediately he knew exactly what I was thinking.
“Get out of my head,” I snapped at him, scowling.
He raised his hands in mock surrender, still chuckling, and stretched his stiff muscles. I looked back at Wolf to find him watching me in puzzlement.
“Never mind,” I said. “Maybe one day I’ll explain. Right now, we have to get you out of here.”
“How?” Rygel asked. “I healed him the best I could under the circumstances, but even so he cannot walk. We can’t carry him; the hulk’s too bloody big.”
“I can walk,” Wolf rumbled, grabbing a tree limb to haul himself up.
I craned my head backward and looked up and up at Bar. He peered down at me from his great height, his yellow eyes calm and knowing. As what happened on occasion, Bar and I had no need for voices. We understood each other perfectly.
“Bar will carry him.”
“Bar will do no such thing.”
Struggling upright, Wolf collapsed twice onto his butt before finally borrowing my shoulder as a crutch. With my help, he limped to his feet, his lips twisting to hold in a groan of great pain. “I can walk.”
“Don’t be an ass,” Rygel said, too tired to venture any other protest.
“My ass and your face.”
I could not help it. I giggled.
With his arm around my shoulders, he leaned against me, breathing hard. His tremendous weight was almost more than I could handle, but I braced myself and stood fast. Rygel came close to help, if his help was needed, and Bar backed away to give us room.
Wolf managed three short strides before pitching forward onto his face. He went down so fast, neither Rygel nor I could halt his swift descent into the twigs, leaves and dirt.
“Flaming idiot,” Rygel growled, turning him over.
“Sorry,” Wolf mumbled.
He needed both of us to get back on his feet. This time he made no objection as Bar ducked his shoulder, and Rygel and I bodily forced him onto Bar’s broad back. Not an easy task, as Wolf’s sheer weight made me gasp and Rygel had less than a quarter of his normal strength.
At last, Wolf sat slumped between Bar’s wings, his hands gripping the long mane in front of him. Rygel and I panted with exertion. I flung my oily hair over my shoulder, feeling sweat drip down my face and back. The afternoon’s heat, unnoticed till now, beat into me, despite the shady clearing
. I was also famished, another fact I managed to forget until now. I had not eaten since breakfast at the inn the day before.
“We’ll hunt something soon,” Rygel said, making sure Wolf would not fall off Bar’s back, even if he lapsed into unconsciousness. I scowled blackly. He had not actually turned off the mind link as I had ordered.
The Tongu, half-forgotten since Wolf woke up, still sat in a frightened huddle. I blinked when I saw them. The Tongu leader moaned and twitched, the savage cuts from Bar’s talons no doubt brought him great agony. The lips of the wounds yawned open, showing his teeth and tongue. Sickened, I looked away.
“What of them?”
Rygel also blinked, as though just remembering the Tongu’s existence. “What of them?
“What will happen to them?”
Rygel shrugged, indifferent. “They have a choice.”
The Tongu stilled at the sound of his voice, as though hanging on his every word. Even the hounds quieted their weird chuffing, as though they understood human speech. Eyes stared sightlessly toward Rygel, perhaps hoping he would end their misery with his blade if not his magic.
“They can starve here,” he went on, eyeing them coldly. “Or they can use their weapons to end their pain.”
Appalled, I looked at the assorted daggers and swords the Tongu still wore belted to their hips.
The Tongu blanched at his words. “Nay,” said one. “Please do not leave usss here. Please ssslay us cleanly.”
“Please,” begged another. “Sssuicide iss forbidden.”
“So is trying to rape one of my friends,” Rygel snapped. “You should have thought of that before you beat my brother nearly to death.”
If Wolf had an opinion, he kept it to himself. He eyed the Tongu from underneath the thick oily fall of his hair, his expression neutral.
“You made your choices.” Rygel turned his back on the Tongu and walked to Bar’s side, his hand resting on Wolf’s knee. Then he glanced back, his eyes as menacing as Bar’s at his worst. “You can die by them.”
“Our cursesss will follow you to hell.”
The Tongu leader controlled his agony enough to form those words, his expression bleak with hatred. What I saw chilled me, but Rygel’s shrug of casual indifference went unseen by the blind Tongu.
“Let’s be gone from this cursed place.”
Rygel and I walked to either side of Bar, our hands keeping Wolf in place. Before the trees shut away the Shekinah Tongu forever, I paused and glanced back. They remained where they sat, still huddled, many weeping openly, their heads bowed. One hound sat apart, dejected, but raised its muzzle to attempt a howl. I could not hear what issued from its mangled throat, but its pain, suffering and grief lanced through my soul. I turned away and followed Bar.
* * *
None of us said much on that long afternoon hike. We trusted Bar to find the safest paths eastward, and he plodded steadily on, ducking pine tree branches, and pushing through thickets of scrub oak. I kept a hand on Wolf’s knee so that if he started to fall I could shove him back aboard Bar’s shoulders. On Bar’s other side, Rygel did the same.
An hour or so after we started off, Wolf made it easier on us. He passed out cold, lying full out on Bar’s shoulders and neck. Now Bar did not have to find easier ways through the thick tangle of forest, for now low hanging tree limbs and branches could not so easily brush Wolf off. We made slightly better time, although I was so tired I could hardly put one foot in front of the other. Rygel continually stumbled, and several times nearly fell. Bar seemed inexhaustible. However, I knew he was no exception. Carrying Wolf’s enormous dead weight would soon tell on him.
No food, panic, exhaustion, all took its toll on my body and my mind. It began playing strange tricks on me. I saw a Tongu, sitting on a tree limb as we passed under it. I started in alarm, grabbing for my sword, only to have the Tongu blink out of sight. A two-headed horse walked across our path. A Tongu hound sniffed under a tree, then popped out of existence. More shadows played about the edge of my vision, creating strange menacing shapes like bears or lions or half-eaten men hanging from tree limbs. Again and again, I flinched in fear, only to find a balsam thicket or a scrub oak or the shade of a pine tree the reason for my fright.
“Must rest,” Rygel muttered. “Must rest.”
I ducked under Bar’s neck. Rygel stumbled, head low, his thick wheaten hair tumbling over his eyes. Glancing up, I found the sun had already begun to set. We had been walking for nearly six hours. The escarpment lay within an hour’s hike from where we now were, I guessed. We dared not attempt the descent in the dark.
“Bar, hold a moment.”
He stopped, turning his feathered head quizzically. I saw in the fading light that he, too, had tired at last and needed some rest. While he often walked beside my horse, rather than fly, when we travelled, Wolf’s unaccustomed weight had begun to exhaust him. I looked about me, seeing the potential for a small camp. I found plenty of dead wood lying nearby for a fire, and a tiny creek trickled close to hand for water.
“Rygel,” I said, watching his head jerk up in surprise at my voice. “Help me get Wolf down.”
He made no objection, and pulled Wolf’s limp arm over his shoulder. I helped him ease Wolf from Bar’s back, but Wolf’s weight proved too much for us. Rygel stumbled backward, Wolf’s dead weight taking him down, and both landed in a heap in the dirt. Bar half-spread his wings and tilted his head back, a deep sigh of relief resonating down his throat.
I half-rolled Wolf off Rygel and helped Rygel to sit up. He offered a faint lopsided grin. It was an infectious grin, for all that. I grinned back.
“I reckon it’s a good idea you suggested to rest a few days before started back to Kel’Halla,” I said, sitting beside him. At my feet, Wolf lay quiet, perhaps still unconscious. “We all will need the rest.”
“You know how much I hate being right all the time?”
I could not help the bubble of laughter that erupted from my throat. “Perhaps Bar could be persuaded to hunt for us,” I said. “If you have enough magic to create a fire.”
Bar agreed easily with a mellow squawk, and thrust his way into the forest to find a clearing where he could ascend into the sky without his wings snarling in tree branches. I gathered an armload of dead wood and arranged half of it into a small pile. Rygel stuck his hands out before him, as though ready to create fire, then paused, staring at them. I frowned, staring as well, wondering what could be wrong. His hands, while filthy and still crusted with old blood, looked ordinary enough.
“Rygel?” I prompted.
With a start, he grinned impishly again. I gathered a few twigs and dead leaves for kindling and thrust them under my dry woodpile. Then I sat back, waiting for a fire.
Naught happened. I sighed.
“Rygel.”
“Oh, right.”
A small flame erupted, eagerly gobbling the treat of wood and leaves. I fed it larger wood, until I had a merry fire dancing, and stood up to find more before the forest darkened.
“Perhaps you should sleep awhile,” I murmured, brushing a thick tendril of yellow hair from Rygel’s brow. “I’ll wake you when Bar returns.”
He nodded owlishly, and pillowed his head in the small of Wolf’s back. He slept the instant his eyes fell shut.
I gathered enough dead wood to see us through the night, but feared remaining that long. Rygel told Kel’Ratan we would be back by dawn. My cousin would begin looking for us if we had not returned by then. In addition, the longer we stayed in the deep forest, the greater the risk. I was not sure of what exactly I feared. The Tongu were blind, helpless, and it would be days before their brothers learned their fate. Yet, my gut told me the sooner we left that particular stretch of forest and Khalid the better.
As much as I needed sleep, I dared not. I forced myself to remain awake and alert, pacing in the growing darkness, peering into the deeper shadows, not allowing the fire behind me to interrupt my night’s vision. I heard a hunting owl hoot off
to my right, and another answer it from further away. The light evening breeze whispered soothingly through the treetops. The thickets rustled quickly, and soon stilled as a rabbit, or possibly a rat, scuttled through. Reassuring, calming, night sounds. As darkness fell completely, I saw the moon glowing faintly past the distant treetops.
Bar could not approach in stealth. I heard him crashing through the underbrush long before he emerged from the trees with a haunch of meat in his beak. Blessed Bar! I took the meat from him, seeing the blood on his mane feathers and around his beak, knowing he had fed himself before bringing the haunch. I approved wholeheartedly, for without Bar’s strength, we could not get Wolf out.
I spitted the meat and set it to roasting. I noticed that it was beef, rather than venison, he brought. His amused glance told me all I needed to know.
“Bar.” I snorted laughter. “You naughty, naughty griffin. You stole another bull from Lord Colvin again, didn’t you?”
He squawked in indignation, making me chuckle once more. I grabbed his bloody, ferocious beak, snapped it shut and kissed it.
The smell of the roasting meat made my mouth water uncontrollably, my stomach aching. When the outer edges cooked enough, I hacked a small piece off with my dagger and chewed happily, uncaring that it burned my tongue. I sighed, glancing up and noticing Bar’s amused stare.
“I don’t want to hear it,” I muttered. “Just keep your damn mouth shut.”
He opened his beak, then snapped it closed an instant later when he caught my black glare. He set to preening his wing feathers, to all appearances his attention focused on grooming his wings. Save the one eye cocked warily on me.
I made a gesture not commonly seen in palaces, and went to wake Rygel.
It took me several long moments of shaking him and calling his name before Rygel sat up groggily, amber eyes unfocused in the firelight. He ran his hands through his hair, then looked down at the half-cooked meat I offered on my dagger.
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