by Dave Gross
Among the pack rumbled murmurs of assent.
Ronan stepped forth from the pack. "Bloodmaster, your return brings us great joy. It is an occasion deserving of great honor and sport. Listen to Gorland. Let the hunt be of worthier prey."
Rusk looked down at Ronan, then back toward Gorland who had first spoken. "Is this how you honor my return?"
Neither of the men replied, but the crowd stirred restlessly, watching for any sign of weakness. Darrow realized that they could easily turn on Rusk.
"If you prefer to hunt that man," he said to Gorland, "then bring him before me."
The big man smiled and nodded to the Huntmaster. He had the look of a man who knew he'd just won much respect among his fellows. The smile remained as he walked over toward Radu.
The swordsman removed his gloves as he watched Gorland approach. He wore the expression of a man tired of waiting for his driver to open the carriage door.
Gorland raised his arm to take Radu by the shoulder. To Darrow's eyes, Radu merely stepped backward while flicking one hand toward the big fellow. Everyone heard the rasp of steel, once as it left the scabbard, then again as it returned. The sounds were so close together as to seem like one prolonged sigh.
"Ah!" said Gorland.
He stopped and stood still, his arm still raised to grasp a shoulder that had suddenly moved six feet away. He shook his head as though perplexed or stunned, then clutched at his face. His hands came away slick with blood. Twin torrents descended from his ruined eye sockets, filling his gaping mouth.
The horses stood calmly by, unaware of the violence so close to them.
"Does anyone else question my selection?" From the advantage of the stone altar, Rusk looked over his followers. His gaze lingered on Ronan, who lowered his face and stepped back. When he was satisfied of no further challenges, Rusk called out to Radu. "Go, now."
He watched Radu Malveen ride slowly out of the firelight and into the dark forest. Then he leaped from the altar and strode over to Darrow.
"Give us a good hunt," Rusk said. "Elude us until dawn, and all honor is yours. You may ask any boon, and it shall be granted."
"But if you catch me?" asked Darrow. He tried to compose a brave face before the assemblage of hunters, but fear cracked his voice.
"Then we will honor you another way," said Rusk with a toothy smile.
Chapter 10
Riding The Moon
Kythorn, 1371 DR
Tal sat cross-legged in his cage. The cool basement air raised goosebumps on his flesh, for he wore only a kilt borrowed from the playhouse wardrobe. It was loose enough to fall away when his hips grew long and narrow, but for now it provided a slight modesty. His hands lay open upon his thighs, and his head drooped slightly as he held his eyes closed and listened.
"Now lean back and float. Let the water hold you up. You can still hear the surf as the waves gently carry you deeper."
Feena sat on a stool near the cage. He had asked her to stay farther back, but she had ignored his request. Whatever else she might be, the cleric was not afraid of him in any form.
Tal tried to let his mind drift with the imaginary currents. Feena had decided that water was the best focus for him after listening to his descriptions of his previous transformations.
"The sea is a reflection of the moon," she explained, "moving with Selune's own passage, just as you do, just as everyone does."
"Every nightwalker, you mean."
"No, every living creature responds to the moon in some way. Men are simply less sensitive to her passing. That makes it harder for you to learn to ride the moon."
Tal began to object, but then he realized the truth of what she was saving.
"Is that why most clerics of Selune are women?" he asked.
"Part of the reason," Feena answered, nodding. "It's easier for a woman to learn how to ride the moon. For you, who haven't felt the passage of the moon all your life, it helps to think of something like the tide. Imagine yourself as part of the sea, ebbing and flowing with the moon."
And so he tried exactly that as he and Feena sat in the basement of his tallhouse, but he found it far harder than he had expected. Troubling thoughts continued to intrude on his meditation. Some of them were the lingering suspicions he harbored about Feena's motives for helping him, and Dhauna Myritar's for sending her to Selgaunt when she and Maleva lived so far away. It made sense to send someone who had fought against nightwalkers for so long, but he suspected the greater appeal was the opportunity to study one closely.
The thought made him feel paranoid and ungrateful at the same time, but it was hard to set aside his doubts.
Even worse were his concerns about Chancy, who had had become increasingly scarce since the journey to Moon-shadow Hall and Feena's subsequent return to Selgaunt. Feena joked that he was jealous that Tal had given her the guest room that Chaney had occupied so frequently before. Tal suspected the truth involved Chaney's criminal associates. He no longer deluded himself into thinking that his friend's problems were confined to a gentleman's wager or a social dispute. Somehow he had gotten himself into real trouble with Selgaunt's underworld, and Tal's interference had only made things worse. Finally, Tal's persistent questions had driven off his only close friend.
"You aren't focusing," said Feena. "You'll drown if you let yourself become distracted."
"Drowning" was the word Tal used to explain the helpless sensation he felt the first several times he underwent the change. It was an apt description, agreed Feena, but the trick was not to resist the sensation of an intruding force. It was the draw of the moon, and it was as much a lure as an invasion. Those who let it pull them only so far from their own minds could establish equilibrium. They could remain conscious during the transformation and afterward, and with training retain control of their animal selves.
"When the waves wash over you, don't struggle. The goal is not to swim but to float. Try not to listen to my words, just hear them and imagine floating on the sea. Think of the vast, dark water gently rocking you."
With an effort not to make an effort, Tal finally relaxed enough to hear her words without thinking about them. It was a state of mind he reached only while fencing, when for brief moments he could obey Master Ferrick's instructions without knowing he'd heard them. Soon Feena's words dissolved into the images he had practiced forming.
He felt himself floating in warm water, the tide gently tugging him first away from and toward a shore he could sense but not see. Each wave that pulled him farther from land was stronger than the one that pushed him back, and each time he felt slightly farther from his surroundings, even his own body.
Gradually he floated out to sea, the distant shush of the surf growing fainter as he went. The waves grew stronger, raising him high before dropping him back below the surface. He tried to remain calm as he rose back to the surface, but he felt smothered and restrained. A sharp pain twisted his back. He gasped for air but felt no relief.
Opening his eyes, he saw only a dim yellow light on the other side of the bars. A human voice spoke to him from beyond the lamp, but he could not understand its words. Standing, he felt the clothing fall away from his transformed body, rough straw and hard iron bars beneath his paws. A hundred strange smells competed for his attention. They were all familiar, but he could not think of their names. One in particular called to him, a musky odor similar to the smell of his own body but far more alluring.
"Tal," said the voice.
It was a sound he should recognize, he thought briefly, but he was more interested in the scent. He moved toward it and found the bars. He was too big to press between them, so he turned to find another path. He turned and turned again, finding nothing but the narrow spaces.
The other animal kept speaking, low and urgent. He felt the sounds should mean something, but they were unimportant. It was the borders that vexed him. He could not stay trapped. He would not stay trapped.
He called out for help, and a voice answered. It told him to stay, to
remain calm, but it was not trapped as he was, and it would not help him.
He forced his head between the bars and pushed. They would not yield. He leaped up upon them, shouting to frighten them away. They did not run. Instead, the blood roared in his ears, and a red cloud filled his eyes. Rather than blind him, it gave him the hunter's sight-he could sense every movement in the room, despite the bright spot of light.
The other animal was out there, and it was keeping him confined. He wanted to get at it, to tear and bite at it, to kill it for holding him here.
Again and again he threw himself against the barrier, raging and howling in the darkness.
*****
"Halt!"
Tal remained utterly still as Master Ferrick strolled among the four ranks of students. At just over five and a half feet, he was shorter than his reputation led most to believe, though his hawkish nose and imperial gaze gave him an air of authority. More than sixty years had left their trails across his tanned face, but his compact body was that of a man half as old. He moved with a quiet grace, never hurrying.
When he first joined the school eight years earlier, Tal found these slow, deliberate inspections excruciating. His twelve-year-old arms could not hold even a foil steady for so long, and he dreaded attracting Ferrick's attention. Fortunately, he had earned Ferrick's correction only rarely in recent months. The man's keen eyes spied every imperfection, and he noted them in terse syllables as he passed each offender.
"Overextended," he told one student. "Grip," he said to another.
Silence as he passed was all the approval he was likely to give. Tal accepted his gratefully, keeping his eyes on his imaginary opponent as Ferrick passed. The instructor completed his inspection and stood beside Radu Malveen. Even in his peripheral vision, Tal detected Ferrick's faint nod. The instructor's foremost student was the only one worthy of acknowledgement. Despite frequent absences, Radu retained the mantle of first student. He had never lost a challenge.
It was no longer a secret that Tal wanted to change that standing.
Ferrick snapped out another string of commands.
"Return. Cross left. Advance. Retreat. Half advance! Cut four! Parry eight! Recover!"
The words never formed completely in Tal's brain. Instead, his body moved before he could think, but always in the right direction. Action without thought was one of the best things about fencing drills, and he had become much better at it since Feena's arrival. Learning to ride the moon was a difficult and often disturbing process, for each morning after he remembered more and more what it was like to have been a wolf. The rage he felt at confinement was frightening, but he knew it meant he was gradually asserting his own will over the wolfs mind.
Sword drills had become Tal's greatest pleasure. He was beginning to spend as much time at Ferrick's studio in the Warehouse District as he did at the Wide Realms, though it was in the playhouse that he choreographed endless fight scenes in anticipation that Quickly would put them in one of her plays. His creations were equal parts fighting and fancy, and his fellow students would surely sneer to see them.
While he did not share the scrupulous ideals of his fellows, Tal tried to ensure that the stage fencing was as plausible as possible. Sometimes he went too far, and Quickly chided him for making it so realistic that it was boring to watch. What was exciting to do, he realized, was not always exciting to show.
The students who had seen his performances at the Wide Realms used to scoff at Tal's showy technique, but fewer were scoffing lately. Since the month of Ches Tal had challenged his way out of the middle ranks and into fourth place among Ferrick's students. His three-month rise won him both admirers and rivals, and he reveled in the praise and scorn alike. In truth, he had never much liked most of his peers. Like his brother, Tamlin, most young nobles were more concerned with fashion and gossip than skill at arms.
One of the few exceptions was Radu Malveen. He rarely spoke to the other students, a reticence usually attributed to his family's questionable past. Tal thought of him as self-sufficient rather than haughty, though he sympathized with the family history.
The Malveens were still on the recovery after their involvement with pirates cost them the head of the household, Velanna Malveen, as well as her eldest son. A similar catastrophe would have obliterated House Uskevren but for Thamalon's tireless efforts to restore both the wealth and the reputation of his family. Even so, all of the Uskevren had been subjected to subtle reminders from their peers that theirs was a lineage on which the shadow of villainy still fell. How much worse would it have been for Radu, had he dared to engage his peers socially. Far better to remain apart from them, thought Tal, who had his own reasons for avoiding his peers.
Tal imagined that he and Radu were similar in other ways. Radu's younger brother was a notorious wastrel, not entirely unlike Tamlin except for his reputation as an eccentric artist. His bizarre paintings were notorious for their unsettling abstractions, which naturally put them in high demand among the art-conscious nobles of Selgaunt. Laskar, the eldest of the Malveen brothers, had a reputation for integrity and fair dealing that rivaled that of Tal's father. Tal imagined that he must be equally insufferable to Radu.
"Armor and masks," commanded Master Ferrick. As his students complied, he clasped his bronzed hands behind his back and gazed out the window toward the bay.
Tal grabbed a pair of towels and tossed one to Radu, who caught it neatly and without acknowledgement.
"Did you have a good journey?" said Tal.
Radu raised an eyebrow.
"You were away on business, I heard," said Tal, hoping to strike up a conversation. "I hope it went well."
Radu pressed the towel to the back of his neck, where his long black hair descended in a simple braid. Tal noticed that Radu perspired very little.
"It is concluded," said Radu.
"Say," ventured Tal, "I've been meaning to thank you for your advice."
Radu raised one eyebrow and awaited an explanation.
"About my fencing," said Tal. "You remember, last winter. I was clowning around with Chaney, and you reminded me of the difference between stage fencing and real fighting."
Radu said nothing while he donned a thin white tunic and his padded armor, but Tal could see that he remembered the conversation. At the time, Radu refused even to practice with him until Tal demonstrated more respect for the dueling circle.
"Well," said Tal, his easy manner faltering in the face of Radu's indifference, "I took it to heart, and it's helped- both here and at the playhouse." He shrugged on his own armor.
"Good," said Radu.
Without invitation, Tal secured the straps on the back of Radu's armor, then turned to receive the same help.
"Who knows?" said Tal. "If I win today, maybe I'll be ready to challenge you in a month or two?"
"Who knows?" said Radu. He made a brief smile, but it never reached his eyes.
Master Ferrick called the students to the circle for the challenges. There were sixteen in this, the most advanced class. While they sometimes drilled with the less experienced fencers, challenges were the exclusive province of those who had proven themselves.
"First challenge," called Ferrick. "Talbot Uskevren and Perron Karn."
Tal stood on the outer ring, while the defender took the center. Perron was Tal's second cousin on his mother's side, a stout man of thirty-four years. His reddish beard curled up on all sides, giving him the appearance of a man caught in a sudden gust of wind.
The swordsmen bowed to Master Ferrick, then saluted each other before donning their masks.
"Begin!"
Both advanced at once, Tal shifting left while Perron cut at his legs. Tal parried and feigned a high thrusting riposte. Perron ignored the bogus attack and cut at Tal's wrist, forcing Tal to open his upper right guard. Perron's blade darted toward Tal's shoulder, but Tal let his knees sag and rapped Perron on the elbow.
"Challenger's point," announced Ferrick.
Perron rubbed his
elbow. It had been a smart blow, harder than necessary. Beneath his mask, Tal smiled.
"Mind your control, Talbot," warned Ferrick.
Tal's grin vanished, and his face flushed hot. He already knew he could defeat Perron. What he wanted now was to make the man concede or to win a perfect round, but all he had managed was to earn a rebuke in front of the entire class. Worst of all, he'd done it in front of Radu Malveen, whom he'd wanted to impress.
"Begin!"
Tal's mind had drifted, and he was not prepared for the second pass. Perron's vertical cut forced Tal's blade down against his mask and pressed hard. As Tal pushed back with all his strength, Perron stepped back and executed a perfect horizontal stroke across Tal's padded chest.
"Two points defender," declared Ferrick, holding one finger toward Tal and two toward Perron. A growl rose from Tal's chest, causing Ferrick to give him a questioning glance. Tal set his jaw and took his place, focusing on his opponent.
"Begin!"
Tal rushed forward and beat Perron's weapon aside, then smashed it again as Perron brought it back in line. He made no attempt to move beyond Perron's guard, only to batter it from all directions. At last, Perron saw the flaw in Tal's attack-there was no attempt to guard low. He faded back and slashed at Tal's knees.
Which was exactly what Tal had been expecting.
Tal leaped over the sweeping blade and struck the top of Perron's mask. The blow made a resounding crack.
The other students stifled their laughter, but Tal saw hands fly up to cover smiles. Only Radu and Master Ferrick seemed unimpressed.
Perron was already in position on the middle ring. Tal took his place. Ferrick pointed his fingers, three and two. "Begin!"
Tal expected Perron to be more cautious this time, but the older man surprised him with a quick, feinting advance. Tal parried and retreated, concentrating on defense. Perron persisted with a steady stream of careful thrusts at Tal's wrist and arm. As long as Perron's attacks remained so modest, Tal had to maintain his own defense.