by Robert Beers
“Gods!” Bilardi staggered backwards, tripped and half fell, scrambling for purchase.
“Into the tunnel, get everyone in, now!” Ethan tried to sweep the wolves on either side of him back towards the tunnel entrance with his arm and sword, only to receive a painful nip on the elbow as a thankyou for his trouble.
“The pack won't be sheltered, Ethan,” Adam shouted over the cacophony of growls, snarls, and snapping timbers, “Not by you, and not by me. Wolves fight their own battles. The best we can do is fight alongside them.”
“How?” Bilardi yelled, “How do we fight that thing? It's nearly as big as that Dragon your woman rode into the city.”
The object of their attention turned its head, if that was what it was, toward the grouping. Its coloring shifted in an unsettling way from a dead black into a muddy mixture of brownish greens swirled with blood red. Insect legs jutted out from below a body that seemed unsure of which shape to take. Protrusions formed, swelled and deflated as if smaller creatures milled around just beneath its skin. A variety of grasping arms and tentacles waved from the chest and neck areas. The smell of rotted flesh and vegetation exuded from beneath its abdomen and rolled across the crushed sward as the thing moved steadily towards them. The mouthparts twitched, dribbling a colorless drool that blackened the ground where it fell.
Ethan pulled one of the knives from his belt. “How do we fight it? By finding out first if it can be hurt.” He threw the knife, “That's how.”
The knife flew, end over end, towards the monstrosity, but was batted out of the air by one of the tentacles. Ethan reached for his other knife and then had to duck rapidly to the side as the thing moved forward in a sudden rush. One of the insect legs slammed into the ground where he had stood, throwing up huge gouts of rock and soil. A second came down forcing him to roll into the wolf that had nipped him earlier, but this time he escaped a second lesson in manners.
Bilardi swallowed the terror threatening to overcome him and rushed, yelling at the top of his lungs, toward the creature. Several of the wolves followed at his heels. Two of them were thrown aside as if they were no more than a child's stuffed toy, but the rest managed to latch onto a leg or a portion of the thing's body. Shrill shrieks and whistles erupted from the creature's mouth. The wolf pups whimpered under the impact of the sound.
Adam could see no other option but to use his magik, and thereby reveal to the world at large what he really was, if he didn't, it was a surety Ethan and Bilardi, along with the wolves, would be dead soon. As he ran, he built the power, letting it grow in intensity until it felt like heat lightning on his skin.
A sweeping tentacle caught his shoulder a glancing blow and he flew, tumbling into the bracken, picking up more than a few pricks from the brambles winding through it. Adam staggered to his feet. His shoulder felt like it had been slapped with the flat of an ax, the creature's strength must be incredible. Something within him told him the only reason he was still able to stand was the magik tingling through him.
“Adam! You ok?” Ethan's shout came to him as if from a distance.
He didn't answer, but concentrated on focusing where to put the power of his strike, and how to shape it. The thing's head seemed like a good choice, but he needed room to work.
“Away, every one get away! Packmates, move now!”
Both the wolves and the men jumped at Adam's shout. The strength of his magik pushed the sound of his voice to a volume that bordered on the edge of pain. Ethan and Bilardi scrabbled backwards along with the wolf pack.
Adam pointed his sword at the creature and released the shaping. He visualized the magik dissolving its target the way it did the Chivvin back during the trip he and Milward took into Dragonglade.
From the others’ viewpoint, their companion suddenly flared into an eye-watering brilliance and his sword pulsed out ever-expanding rings of vivid blue fire. The fire enveloped their enemy and it reared back onto its hind legs and screamed. Its edges blurred and began to break away. Snorts, screeches, and shrill whistles poured out of the thing in a continuous stream. A yellow cast began to blend into the blue of the fire and the blurring stopped.
Those bits that had broken away floated back into the creature and reattached. Adam could feel his shaping being shoved back at him. His skin burned like it was being peeled away in strips.
He drew deeper into the magik and exerted his will. The yellow glow suffusing the creature faded as the blurring returned. With the blurring came more of the shrieks and whistles. A brief pressure, like that of a wave fighting the outflow of a river, surged back against his shaping, and then the fading accelerated. Soon all that remained of the creature was an oily looking cloud bobbing and weaving above the brambles.
The Alpha wolf sniffed the air and growled, “It is not dead, bright-eye. Beware.”
Adam's knees wobbled, set into legs made of unbaked dough. Not dead? What was keeping it alive? He tried to gather power for another shaping, but the attempt brought nothing, his power was exhausted. The cloud bobbed in toward the wolves and danced back away from a twin-bladed slash from Ethan and Bilardi.
“It is gathering its strength, bright-eye.”
“What can I do? One cannot bite a cloud.” Adam allowed his knees to collapse as he tried to regain some of his strength.
“That is a true saying.”
“He's talking to that wolf again,” Bilardi kept his eyes on the cloud as he called out to Ethan.
“Good. Maybe it'll have an idea of what to do.” Ethan waved his sword and the cloud retreated once more.
Adam's mind raced. Whatever the thing they faced was, it had strong enough magik of its own to not only withstand the best he could do, but to come back, and this time, perhaps kill them all. He had to somehow dredge up enough of a shaping to at least send the thing away and give them time enough to make good an escape. Not for the first time he wished Milward was around.
“If something can be done, bright-eye, it must be now,” The Alpha wolf snarled and leapt at the darting cloud. Its speed of movement had picked up, and bits of it were showing signs of clumping together.
“So it comes to this,” Adam thought, to himself, “A heroic death to save my friends. So why does it feel so stupid?”
He gathered his will and forced the power to come, building his shaping layer upon layer until he could hold no more, and released it. The magik erupted out of his hands as an almost invisible pulse of power. It struck the cloud and tore though it, scattering the particles across the landscape. Each of them vanished in a brief explosion of light like fireworks. The danger was eliminated.
“It is gone, bright-eye. The pack is safe.”
“Good,” Adam answered, and collapsed into Ethan's arms.
Chapter Twenty
Milward left Garld-Jens and the other Ortians to their pipes after the caravan paused for a mid-morning break. They were within sight of the towers of Ort now. The pinnacles of the city stood like reeds on the line of the horizon. A gentle prodding of the Captain in charge had given him the location of the royal grounds. Two more days of travel would place him on the steps leading to the palace.
It had been a week since he last scried the twins. Charity was obviously moving toward Grisham with the companions she'd picked up. Milward chuckled to himself, who knew those two scruffy gadabouts would have turned out to be the best thing for her? As far as Adam was concerned, his last scry on the lad had to be cut short, there are some doings that needed privacy. Milward still blushed at what he'd come onto.
He had to walk a good distance to find a spring. The caravan had dwindled to mere specks in the distance by the time he found it. A clump of rushes surrounded the source, and, pleasantly enough, the small pool it fed.
Frogs protested the Wizard's approach by leaping into the pool. He had to wait for the ripples to subside before beginning his scry. When the pool had stilled, he sent a tendril of power into the water. Shapes and colors swirled through the reflection and slowly coalesced into a sce
ne of those he seeked.
For several long moments Milward stood, transfixed, over the small pool. When the scry was over, the Wizard's face dripped with sweat, and he drew in deep breaths as if he'd been running for distance rather than standing stock-still.
“By Bardoc's beard,” He whispered, “it's begun to tear already.”
* * * *
Adam fought to reach the surface of the well, he had to, or he'd drown. Thaylli ... her name floated before him and he redoubled his efforts. In spite of the water over his head, he called out to her. Strangely enough, she answered. He called out again. He could almost feel her hands caressing his face. He called out yet again. The surface seemed closer now...
“Thaylli.”
“I'm here, Adam. I'm here.” She turned her face toward Ethan, “He's fevered, what can I do?”
“Keep calling to him,” Ethan answered from his spot in the doorway to the couple's bedroom, “He'll use your voice as a guide to come back from wherever he's gone.”
Thaylli looked back down at Adam and caressed his cheek once more. “You say that like you've been there,” she said quietly.
Ethan nodded slowly, “I have.”
She leaned closer and parted her lips, “Adam, come back, Adam. I'm here. I hear you.”
“Thaylli.” The surface of the water was just there. He could hear her voice clearer now, and the pressure in his lungs diminished. “Thaylli...” He broke through to the surface, and then he was looking up at her.
“Welcome back,” Rather than cynical, this time Ethan sounded sincere.
Adam turned his head at the older man's voice, “Ethan?”
“In answer to your question, you've been out for the past two and a half days. Captain Bilardi has sent teams into each of the tunnels to map them. The southern army is still stymied by the results of the earthquake, at least it looks that way, and there's a wolf napping in your sitting room.” Ethan finished the last with a brief grimace creasing the left side of his mouth.
Thaylli lifted her chin, “I think it's one of the wolves that came with the Dragon, Drinaugh, I mean.”
“Drinaugh, he's here?” Adam tried to lever himself out of bed with little success.
“Shhh, sweet,” Thaylli pushed him back down with ease. “I'm talking about when I came to find you, not about now.”
“Oh,” Adam murmured, “I'm sorry, my head's a bit sore, and I'm really quite tired. What happened? It's all pretty fuzzy after that thing dissolved into a cloud.”
Ethan stepped into the room. “You don't remember? No, I suppose not, you were weaving around like a man on his last legs. Probably because you were,” He said, half to himself. “You and that big wolf were growling back and forth to one another, and then something flew out of your hands. Whatever that thing was becoming vanished into little sparks. I got to you just in time, or you'd have fallen right into the brambles.
“Bilardi was full of questions, and barely shut up long enough to catch his breath. I think this little episode spooked him a bit. He did promise to keep quiet about what exactly happened back there. Who's to believe him, anyway?”
“The wolves?” Adam's voice came as if out of a dream.
Ethan jerked his head in the direction of the room behind him, “Other than the one behind me, they all took off, but not before you got a thorough sniffing over. The big one looked me in the eyes and growled something. I'm pretty sure it was a promise of what I'd get if you weren't kept safe and warm. Two of their number didn't make it, I sorry to say. They're good beasts.”
“He's asleep,” Thaylli looked prepared to stay right where she was until Adam woke.
“Then I'll be going.” Ethan looked back at the girl sitting on the bed with her man's head nestled beside her, “Will you be alright? With that wolf out here, I mean?”
Thaylli nodded, and smiled, “Of course, she's a friend, and a protector.”
Adam slept for two more days, but this time he did so peacefully. Ethan stopped in briefly midway through the second day, both to see how Adam's convalescence fared and to bring some meat for the she wolf, who had, at that point, taken up residence at the foot of his bed. Thaylli, not wanting to disturb Adam, slept in the overstuffed chair the Culpertis insisted she take when she and Adam moved into their home.
Early on the morning of the third day Adam woke to find Thaylli retching, bent over the cleaning bucket. She confessed to having done so each morning since he went off to explore the tunnels under the city.
Adam, though still a bit weak, sat upright and swung his legs out from under the covers. “We've got to get you to the Doctor. You should have told someone. Does Sirena Culperti know about this?”
Thaylli wiped her mouth and looked up at Adam, “She does, and she couldn't be happier about it.”
Adam's head jerked back with his surprise, “...Couldn't be happier? What are you saying? She wants you to be sick?”
“No, silly,” Thaylli answered, with a smile. “She wants to hold the baby.”
Adam gaped at her, dumbfounded. He stood like that until she rose upright and kissed him on the nose. “You did it, first time, my love. Now get washed and dressed, that is, unless...” She looked at him through half-lidded eyes.
There was a mountain-sized lump in Adam's throat preventing his answer. A baby, How...? Well, he knew how, but ... a baby? “Uh, I think it would be best if I dressed, I mean, you just finished...” He pointed at the bucket.
Her eyes followed his point. “No, the funny part of that is, I actually feel better afterwards. Like getting rid of a bad meal.”
“A baby?”
The she wolf interrupted what else Adam might have said by padding into the bedroom and sniffing him up and down thoroughly, “I smell you, packmate. It is good to see you ready for the hunt once again.”
Adam held out both of his hands, palms first, to allow the inspection. “I smell you, packmate. The path of blood is clear. Why have you stayed in my den?”
That earned him a wolf laugh. “The pack survives because of you. It is meet that one of the pack watches while you heal. You hunt well, bright-eye.” The she wolf sniffed Thaylli, “And you have sired a pup, your she will need a guide on her journey.”
“Journey?” Adam looked at Thaylli, “What does she mean, journey?”
Thaylli cross her arms under her breasts. “I don't know what you're talking about. Remember, I don't speak Wolf. What journey?”
Adam turned back to the wolf, “What journey?”
“Your she will need to den in safety to give birth. This place is not safe.”
“Where will she go?” Adam had known Grisham wasn't safe, but he'd put off addressing the issue, feeling if it came down to it he'd be able to see to Thaylli's security by the strength of his magik. His recent experience had shaken that resolve, and now, with a baby on the way...
The wolf looked toward the west, “The scent of her birthplace is still with her. It is good to give birth where one was born. I will take her there.”
Thaylli reiterated her question, “What journey?”
“She says she's going to take you back to Access, to have the baby there, where it's safe.”
“Safe?” Thaylli's voice climbed into the upper registers, “Safe? And just who is going to make sure it's safe on the way there? You? You're going to be here, being the gallant Guard Captain. Will Ethan go along to keep whatever's out there at a distance? Will the Culperti's?” Her eyes began to fill as her voice caught, “You're the father of my child. I want you to be with me.” She placed both hands over her belly. “With us,” She finished in a whisper.
Adam gathered her into his arms. “I'll be there, Thaylli. Do you think any power on this world will be able to keep me away? The wolf is right, Grisham is no place to have a baby, and if there's any way to get you home, I'll find it, get you there, and be right behind you. Captain Bilardi knows what I am now, and I think that will change things a bit.”
Thaylli sniffed, and then laughed into Adam's should
er, her voice muffled against his skin, “A bit? Ethan told me all about it. I imagine he needed a complete change by the time it was all over.”
Adam finally got dressed in time for the noon meal.
* * * *
While Adam and Thaylli were discussing their mutual differences, Wuest, aide to Lord Duke Bilardi, was busily sweating out the last of the water in his body. At least, that is how it felt to him. He was being marched, not walked, marched to the Royal suite, and flanked by two hulking guards wearing the ebon black livery of the Duke's personal guard. The populace called their members the Plague for good reason. No one paid a visit by their number ever returned, no one.
“I ... I've done nothing wrong,” He continued the babble that had begun back in his quarters. “Please, you've got to tell his Lordship that. I'm loyal to the Duke, always have been, ask anyone, they'll tell you. Please ... you must believe me.”
The procession passed a young scribe who, unable to sleep, was working late on a manuscript. His bowl cut hair fell across his ears as he bent over the vellum sheets. Wuest's pleas for mercy and understanding dopplered down into the distance as the trio passed. The scribe, wisely, did not look up.
Wuest did not quiet his protestations of innocence until the twin doors leading into Duke Bilardi's suite came into view, and then they cut off abruptly. The guards did not stop to announce their presence but pushed straight through the doors. They eventually ground to a stop at a point precisely ten feet from the Duke's chair. The old man was sitting in it, both hands gripping the carved lions at the end of each armrest.
“What have you to say for yourself?” The Duke's voice came out of his chest in a feral growl.
Wuest was too terrified at that point to do anything but babble, “I ... I ... I...”
“I ... I ... I,” Bilardi mimicked his aide with a childish sneer. “You are a traitor, Wuest! Did you think your plans for my death would not eventually come into the light of day? This seat of power has ears everywhere, Wuest. Your fellow conspirators are already wending their way to the headsman, but that fate is not for you.”