Quench the Day (Red Wolf Trilogy Book 1)

by Shari Branning

  Laying on his belly several yards from where they’d shot at him, he waited for his eyes to adjust to the starlight, and wondered where Red had gotten off to. He switched gun hands long enough to wipe his palm on his shirt. Across camp, he caught a shadow of movement and raised the gun, drawing back the hammer and straining to see the shape he thought had been creeping toward him.

  He jumped and nearly dropped the gun when someone shrieked not ten yards away. Red gave a short bark, followed by another scream from someone else. Then, to his side, he saw a shadow rise out of the dead grass. He turned, bringing his gun to bear, when a flicker of movement turned from a shadow to a fiery flash of light. He had a half second to register the thin line of the fiery whip blurring toward him, when the end of it caught around his wrist and yanked back, pulling him forward while his gun few out of his hand. He drew and fired his left-hand gun with the whip still curled around his other wrist, burning through his coat and shirt sleeves and into his skin. The whip loosened as its wielder let go and dropped to his knees. Aaro shook the coil off and slapped his flaming sleeve, wincing.

  He turned his attention back to the commotion that he couldn’t quite make out across the campsite as another arrow impaled the grass a few feet away. The instant it struck the grass, it burst into dazzling white light without flames. Aaro blinked and half threw a hand up to guard his eyes, when another arrow landed and illuminated a few yards off to his other side, casting him in glaring light and static electricity that made his hair stand up. He dove backward out of the light a second before lightning arced between the two shining arrows, the instant crash of thunder throwing him off his feet.

  He rolled to a stop, stunned. A few seconds passed before he lifted his head off the ground, trying to shake the ringing out of his ears. He peered over the tall prairie grass and saw that the arrows were still glowing, though not as brightly. If he hadn’t been all but blinded a second ago, he probably would have been able to see the whole area surrounding his camp by their light.

  “What was that?” he muttered.

  One of the Shonno-mara, their attackers, stepped into the light. He struck Aaro instantly as being different than any other Shonnowan or Shonno-maran he’d ever seen. Not in appearance. But he moved like a tiger, and the air rippled around him. He pinned Aaro with his gaze, then he began to move, dancing in the eerie light of the magic arrows. A low hum filled the air, undulating and rippling like light shining through running water. It took Aaro a full second to realize the Shonno-maran was singing, because it didn’t sound like any noise that should come out of a human throat. The air felt like it was thickening, pulling toward the Shonno-maran. Aaro tried to get up, to run, even crawl backward, but moving felt like trying to swim through molasses. Or quicksand. Another figure stepped out of the shadows, his teeth flashing white as he grinned. His sword reflected the white light. Aaro couldn’t move.

  Then, out of the darkness, Red howled.

  * * * * *

  Rowan had been uneasy since they left the forest behind, which made no sense at all, because they were far less likely to be attacked in the open, and the closer they got to Skybreak, the less their chances that the Shonno-mara would catch up. Mask must have thought so too when he lit his campfire, but it still made her nervous for some reason. She hadn’t seen, heard, or smelled anything since they left Hendella, the Shonno-maran capital, but she felt watched.

  Then the night went silent. That was what warned her. No night should be without noise, but it all died away, and she felt the change in the air. The subtle movement of Nawassa.

  Almighty protect us! They have a sorcerer! Her mind shrieked at her.

  She jumped on the dying fire, scattering it, blotting out the soft light and temporarily scorching her paws. Then she ran. As unnaturally silent as the night, she shot out of the gloom and prairie grass and leaped at one of their attackers. The man had no idea what hit him as her jaws closed over his arm, and his bone gave out with a snap she could feel through the muscle. Blood poured over her tongue, hot and coppery. She let go as he screamed, gagging on his blood. One of them was pulling his bow back, aimed at Mask. She barked to get his attention, then hurtled into his chest. More bones snapped. Another scream. She leapt over him and kept moving.

  Their attackers were spread out in a circle. She had no idea how many there were, but she had three of them on the ground clutching broken limbs when the first Nawassa-infused arrow struck the ground and lit up. The second one exploded with light, nearly blinding her night vision, and she could feel the zing of electricity gathering in the air. She crouched in the grass and watched as Mask threw himself backward, out from between the two arrows a bare second before lightning jumped between them. The explosion an instant later plastered her whiskers against her face and rocked her back onto her rump.

  It must not have done their enemies any favors either, because none of them moved for several seconds. Then the sorcerer stepped into the light. He started his fluid dance, summoning the Nawassa, and Rowan’s stomach bottomed-out. Even with his attention focused on Mask she could feel the tug of the Nawassa, pulling toward him, ready to obey his command. She sank even further into the grass, terrified. She had to stop him…

  The blade came out of nowhere and buried itself in her shoulder. Fierce, unnatural pain ripped through her, blotting out her sight, clawing at her heart, lighting her veins on fire. For one choking second she endured, waiting for her collar to heal her. Nothing happened. She howled. It started as a scream, and ended in an eerie wail.

  The Nawassa shattered.

  The night snapped back into place as though it had been warped, twisted with the sorcerers will, and then wrenched away from him. Her eyes popped opened and she saw that he had stopped his dance. His throaty song strangled out, and he rocked back on his feet. At the same time, her collar tingled, and its magic raced through her, wiping the pain away so fast her breath caught. The knife popped out of her healing shoulder like it had been pushed.

  Someone let out a surprised curse in Shonnowan, and another throwing knife zinged toward her. She flinched away, and it just nicked her ear, again bringing a flood of unnatural pain. But this time it receded almost instantly.

  The sorcerer turned toward her, his eyes glowing silvery. He stamped his foot and raised his arms, preparing to regather the Nawassa that had been ripped out of his control. The healing tingle went out of Rowan’s collar. As if they were in a macabre game of tug-of-war, with the gathered Nawassa pulled between the sorcerer’s command and her collar’s demand to recharge itself. The atmosphere warped.

  A sudden memory whispered to her, of Ormand’s magician, Rigall, explaining to her as he prepared her curse. “This next part involves drawing the Gift out of the air, and sound is one of the things I’ll be using. You may think it’s a good idea to make some noise of your own to disrupt things…”

  She lifted her nose and howled again.

  The sorcerer almost toppled backward, his shock staring at her out of his glowing eyes. Then his head exploded.

  * * * * *

  Aaro’s gunshot cracked across the prairie, leaving silence in its wake. Red stopped howling. The Shonno-maran sorcerer crumpled, and the swordsman who’d been about to run him through lunged.

  Aaro, still panting from the release of the spell, jumped back, pulling one of the daggers from his belt and using it to catch the next swipe of the sword. It held for a moment, then there was a sudden release of pressure. The sword continued its arc, narrowly missing Aaro’s neck as he stumbled forward, off balance. He still held the dagger hilt, but the blade was gone. Belatedly, he thought of Sorrell’s warning about enchanted weapons as he ducked another swipe. He backed up a few more steps, and tripped over the sorcerer’s body, sprawling on the ground. From there he finally got his gun up and shot the swordsman. The man stumbled and kept coming, so he shot him again. This time he fell.

  Aaro stood back up slowly, half expecting either the swordsman or the sorcerer to get back up and trap him
with another spell. He shuddered.

  A snarling yelp made him jump. He snapped his gaze from the fallen sorcerer to the shadowy form of Red struggling against another of their attackers. He jammed his gun back into the holster and drew his remaining dagger, grabbing the man from behind, twisting him away from Red before he stabbed him through the heart.

  “Was that all of them?” his voice sounded harsh.

  Red sniffed the air, turning in a circle to survey their destroyed campsite. Somewhere someone moaned. Aaro followed the sound and put the man out of his misery with a bullet through the head. He moved on and did the same thing with the rest, making sure none of them remained alive to stab him in the back.

  The red wolf, who was also a woman, watched him for a moment, then slunk away and retched.

  When the night was finally quiet, Aaro examined his destroyed dagger by the light of the still-glowing enchanted arrows, and saw that the blade had been melted clean off it. He found his bedroll and saddlebags and the gun he’d dropped, and sat down, his fingers going through the automatic motions of reloading his pistol and cleaning his dagger.

  “Red?” he called. She hadn’t wandered back yet. “Red, you hurt?”

  Still no answer. He got up and wandered through the remains of the Shonno-mara, careful not to trip over their bodies. “Red?”

  Finally, he caught the gleam of her eyes, watching him from a crouch. He paused and approached her slowly, with his hand held out, as he would with a frightened animal. When his fingers finally brushed her head, he felt her tremors. They only became stronger as he ran his hand down across her flank, feeling for blood.

  “Shh, it’s alright. They’re dead,” he tried to sooth. But was it fear, or revulsion that shook her? When she shrank away from his touch he felt his guts twist, first in sorrow, then in anger. He sat back on his heels. “Well, maybe now you’ll believe me when I say I’m a monster.”

  * * * * *

  Rowan gave him a whimpering whine. She was still trying to process everything; the night’s attack, Mask’s slaughter of the wounded Shonno-mara, and the blood that was congealing on her muzzle and down her chest. She’d already thrown up once, but her stomach was still rolling with the leftover taste of blood that she couldn’t spit out.

  Mask sighed. “I heard you cry before. You’re hurt. At least let me take care of it.” He rose and walked back to the campsite. Rowan followed him slowly. Her collar had healed all her wounds faster than ever, thanks to the extra Nawassa the sorcerer had gathered. It was still flooding her with energy, in fact. Mask lit a stump of candle, even though the enchanted arrows still shone. He turned and faced her, taking in her blood-saturated fur, and his eyes softened behind his mask. He reached a hand out to her.

  “You saved my life again.” His voice had gone soft, and sounded natural, for once. Not the rough, bitter tone that he always used, and he smiled a little. “Thanks, Red.”

  It was the way he said her name at that moment. His smile. The scent of strength and fear that invaded her quivering nose. The way he watched her as though he could see through her. All that on top of months of wondering.

  Rowan turned and fled into the night, leaving him to swear in surprise.

  Aaro! No, no, no! Almighty, don’t let that be my Aaro!

  Her sides heaved, cracking the drying blood caked in her fur, and she let out a wail to reach the heavens.

  Aaro is dead. That is not him. But which would be worse? To have him back and know that he was a monster, or to have him dead?

  She shuddered.

  When she came upon Mask’s (or was it Aaro’s?) horse, grazing under the stars, she stopped.

  The other animal picked up his head and perked his ears at her. She flopped into the wet grass beside him, and wiggled around, trying to wipe away some of the blood that clung to her. The stallion shied at the blood, and wandered off a few yards to find grass that wasn’t ruined.

  Aaro, what have you done?

  But not Aaro. Because Aaro was dead.

  But what if he wasn’t?

  She stayed with the horse that night, and when the sky began to brighten, took its dangling reins in her teeth and led it back toward Mask’s camp. Mask, she said his assumed name again in her mind to convince herself.

  The man sat hunched beside the scattered remains of the fire, head bowed, with a blanket wrapped around his shoulders. But he turned when he heard the horse’s hooves. He looked Rowan over, studying the dried blood smeared through her fur, no doubt trying to decipher where she’d been hurt.

  “Thanks,” he mumbled when she placed the reins in his hand. His voice sounded shadowed, and for once the constant stubble on the visible portion of his face made him look haggard rather than roguishly handsome.

  When he’d packed his gear, including the enchanted weapons of the dead Shonno-mara, and mounted up, he sat still for a moment, staring at the horizon, then sighed. “You should have stayed away, Red. I owe you my life, twice over, but Ormand owes me more.”

  He flicked the reins, sending the horse into an easy trot, and Rowan followed. What else could she do? She had little to no doubt that Mask would carry through with his threat of betraying her. But she needed him—in more ways than one. And she also knew, without a lick of doubt, that at some point he had been an honorable man. It was some twisted version of that honor that drove him now. She just hoped he would come to himself before it was too late for both of them. And there wasn’t much more time. They would reach Skybreak that day.

  * * * * *

  By midmorning they could make out Skybreak as a blot on the prairie. They approached it from the north and a little west, and could see the towers of Ormand’s palace, the polished slate roof tiles gleaming blackish in the sun. Rowan rumbled out a growl as they drew nearer.

  “Couldn’t have said it better,” Mask said.

  Rowan remembered Ormand’s home in flashes. The manicured grounds, the sculpted gardens. Now it looked like a military compound. Rows of barracks blocked any view of the gardens, if they still remained, interspersed with muddy training grounds. A stockade surrounded the whole thing, blocking the view entirely as they trotted down a knoll, skirting the perimeter and giving it a wide berth. Mask made no move to go in through the gate, instead heading toward town and leaving Ormand’s compound behind.

  Rowan’s stomach rolled as they reached the outlying estates. She guessed Mask must be intending to get supplies and be ready to flee, if it happened that he was actually able to kill Ormand and live through it. But she couldn’t calm the conflict that raged through her, making her heart pound as waves of nausea hit her. If she were a human she’d be sweating. As a wolf, she panted like she’d just run a three-mile race in the desert.

  Mask didn’t notice her discomfort, fortunately, as they rode through Old Town. Its elegant stone mansions, gardens, and fountains felt both familiar and strange to her, with a mix of fondness and fear and bitter separation. They passed the chapel where she and Aaro had been married, and soon after that her uncle’s house, though it looked more run-down than she remembered. Her heart leaped at the prospect of seeing Uncle Lance, Dustan, or some face she might recognize. But no one stirred outside, and they passed across the little creek into New Town, leaving it behind, which was both a relief and a sorrow to her.

  Every place her gaze landed brought back memories. Especially of her last day, when she and Aaro had had lunch in the hotel dining room, and afterward walked the market. How the ladies had stared at them, whispering behind their fans. They gathered even more stares this day, she and her stranger. A masked man on a horse and a huge red wolf walking the street at high noon. More than one man they passed dropped his hand to his belt, whether he wore a gun or a sword or no weapon at all. Rowan could feel her hackles rising, which surely wouldn’t help their reception, but she couldn’t stop it. Mask tugged the horse to a stop in front of the general store and left the reins dangling when he went in, apparently trusting Rowan to keep an eye on him.

  She
sat by the stallion’s reins and watched the street, her apprehension rising as the stares continued, from both women and men. People who passed went a long way around to avoid walking near her, some even crossing the street.

  Her gaze snagged on a young couple, obviously in the throes of courtship, walking so close together that their hips brushed. The young lady clung to her beau’s arm with two hands and had her adoring eyes fixed on his face. The young man… Rowan’s breath snagged in her throat, and her jaws closed with a snap loud enough to make several passerby cringe. Dustan. Unwittingly her hind end left the ground, and her tail, rebellious organ that it always was, twitched a wag.

  The four years had been good to her cousin. He looked taller and broader, glowing with health and affection for his young lady. His glance strayed to her, as everyone’s was, and he paused, making his lady break her concentrated adoration to see what he was staring at. She gave a delicate little yip of surprise. A frown creased Dustan’s forehead between his eyebrows.

  “What is that thing?” the girl said, tugging backward on his arm.

  “A wolf, I think,” he replied. “I’ve never seen one like that before.

  See me, cousin. Please. See me.

  “How fearful! Is it safe?”

  Dustan shrugged, peering closer, taking a step nearer. Then he drew back, muttering under his breath, and Rowan remembered last night’s dried blood matted in her fur.

  “Not sure we want to meet whoever that belongs to,” her cousin said, drawing his sweetheart across the street and continuing their walk, just like the others.

  Rowan sat back down, a tide of bitter heat rising in her chest. So that was it. The one person in the whole world who stood a chance of looking closer and maybe, just maybe, seeing the woman behind the wolf, was walking up the street making wedding plans without looking back.