“He’s lying,” Darius said.
“How can you be sure?”
“Read his eyes.”
Narrowing my own, I studied his posture, his body language, the slight shift of his eyes. Yes, indeed, the signs of a liar at work. He didn’t know I sent the boys to Arcadia, and wanted me to believe he killed them for failure. He might translocate me to the bottom of the hill, but no further. From there, he needed minions to drag me to the city and Brutal. That left far too many options for me to escape.
“He hasn’t the strength to take you there by his magic alone,” Darius said. “He’d have done so before now. But don’t let him capture you.”
“How do I not? I can’t risk Tashira’s life.”
“Maybe you don’t have to. Distract him.”
“What about the others?” I asked, lifting my ears and my body from the ground so he’d think I was close to giving in. “Brutal wants them as well. Right?”
Ja’Teel relaxed a fraction. A lightning swift glance over my shoulder showed me his friend hadn’t at all. His fire burned too close to Tashira for my comfort. Tashira had relaxed also, his rage-red eyes watching me. For his moment. I dared not send him any message, as the aika’ru’braud wizard observed me just as closely from within the depths of his hood.
“Yes, he does,” Ja’Teel answered, his grin widening. “But you’re the most important. Aren’t you flattered? With you in his clutches, he can mow down the Kel’Hallans like summer wheat. They won’t know what hit them.”
“I’ll never cooperate.”
“Dear boy, you don’t have to.” Ja’Teel dropped the collar and chains at his feet without twitching a muscle. “With my help, His Majesty will break your mind and murder your soul. You’ll piss your drawers like any six-day infant and never remember who you are much less what you might have been. A king.”
“And Rygel?”
Blood red suffused Ja’Teel’s face and neck for the first time. “I’ll kill him,” he snapped. “After I break him. That bastard will pay but dearly.”
“Was his stink bomb worth it?”
“Not that,” Ja’Teel all but screamed. “He stole the woman I loved.”
“Someone loved you? How extraordinary.”
Ja’Teel reined in his fury with an effort. His shoulders ceased bunching under his cloak and he licked his lips. The hand he raised to blast me into ashes lowered. “Yes. I loved her and she me. But Rygel’s charms woke in her a hunger that no one else could satisfy. Not even me.”
“So what happened?”
“She ignored my true-blood advances and spurned my marriage proposal. I know Rygel used his powers on her, to steal her out from under my love. He’s always hated me and would do anything to make me look bad. The stink bomb only proved it. I did nothing to him. Nothing. Yet, he connived to get me discredited by the council. The King himself forced me from court on his word.”
I needed to prompt him. I sensed something on the slight wind, my nose taking in the slightest odors. What was that cloying scent emanated from his very pores? Jealously? Yes. His angry vulnerability, maybe. His unslaked thirst for revenge. Oh, most definitely.
While all those emotions combined gave me no opening to seize, I perhaps saw a small advantage within his confessions. His guard dropped. He looked not at me, but the snow at his boots.
“Then Rygel was disinherited by his mother’s confession,” I said. “He ran away.”
His harelip smirk returned though his eyes didn’t. “Of course. He’s by nature a coward. Bastards usually are, you know. But the lady secretly called for him in the dark depths of the night. I tried, but I couldn’t win her heart.”
“She loves him still?”
Ja’Teel shrugged. “Don’t know. Don’t care. But he will die by my hand by the hardest route imaginable.”
“You sure it isn’t because he’s better than you and always has been?”
That brought forth his impotent rage again. His right hand raised, pointing at me. I braced myself for the deadly blast and raised my own power to my fist. But he contained himself, and lowered his hand.
“You’re trying to goad me into killing you quickly,” he said, his voice strained. “It won’t work. Come to me. Now. Before I lose patience with you and signal my friend into killing your friend.”
I relaxed outwardly but didn’t let go of the raw power I’d gathered. “Just how did you find us?”
Ja’Teel’s self-satisfied smirk returned just as I hoped it would. “The old fashioned way, dear boy. I tracked you.”
“Oh?”
“Yes, your magical net worked, I’ll give you that. I couldn’t locate you with my powers. But a Tarbane track alongside the paw prints of the largest wolf on earth? Oh, please!”
“I see.”
“I can also change forms as you do,” Ja’Teel sneered. “I became a wolf, like you. Once I found your scents, ‘twas an easy thing to tag along behind you and plan my trap. My colleague joined me two days ago, and we translocated ourselves here. To wait.”
I glanced over my shoulder. The wizard still watched me, not his victim. His fires streamed unabated from his hands, but he showed no signs of weariness or strain of effort. Behind the flames, Tashira must have felt horribly hot. Yet, he made no sign of discomfort or pain, and watched me with a calm trust I didn’t deserve.
I jerked my muzzle. “You plan to share your reward from Brutal with him?” I asked.
“Of course,” Ja’Teel replied swiftly. Too swift for me to believe his words. The wizard ceased staring at me and his hood turned toward Ja’Teel. I reckoned the man scented the lie as easily as I.
“Enough,” Ja’Teel snapped. The collar and chains rose once more from the snow-capped tundra. “Time to go.”
I stiffened, my hackles rising as I gathered yet more power into my grip. Can I kill them both at once? If I didn’t slay the aika’ru’braud wizard with my first try, he may still burn Tashira. I doubted I could slay them both and save Tashira at the same time.
But I would have to. Somehow.
I faced Ja’Teel fully. “I don’t think so.”
Ja’Teel’s smirk vanished. His hand lifted toward his pal and my friend. “Do it,” he warned. “Come here.”
From behind me, a man screamed. His voice, high and wavering, sounded like the unearthly howl of the legendary banshee. I whipped around, half-expecting Tashira had freed himself from the fiery net and attacked his captor. The net had indeed dropped, but the wizard himself staggered under the weight and ferocity of a big dark wolf.
Bleeding from deep gouges in his hands, the man screamed again, his hood falling away from his face. A mystery no longer, the dark magician raised his gory fists to protect his already deeply scarred face and half-bald head. The wolf leaped again, snarling without sound, attacking not his throat but his now exposed belly and groin.
Blood burst in a shower as the wolf ripped open the cloak and blue-white intestine. Unable to think long enough to conjure magic and fight back, the man stumbled helplessly backward. His guts ripped open and spilled down his legs.
Tashira didn’t scream his rage. He lunged in for the kill with his ears flattened and his teeth bared. The wolf leaped aside, out of harm’s way, as my black daemon bore down on Ja’Teel’s comrade. Huge front hooves plunged into the aika’ru’braud’s face and chest. Gore spattered Tashira’s legs and chest in a red shower as he danced his vengeance in the helpless man’s body.
I swung back to Ja’Teel. As I’d expected, he stood in shock as his neatly planned trap fell apart with such sickening results. I loosed my power. A black bolt in the shape of a heavy arrow sped toward his chest. Die, blackheart.
He came to himself more quickly than I wanted. His magical riposte sent my arrow flying past him to slay a harmless oak tree to his left. Wood, branches, bark and snow exploded in a shower. The severed trunk creaked as though under a high wind, swaying from side to side. Like a ponderous old man lying down on his bed, the tree toppled sideways t
o crash on its side. Its leafy branches reached its hungry fingers toward Ja’Teel.
He jumped as though they struck him, and sent his own dark blast toward me. My gladiator days trained me for just such a fight. Though still in my wolf body, I created a sword of fire with a simple thought. Raising it before me, I slashed it and cut his magic in half. Like cutting a ribbon, both ends dropped to the ground. They fizzled in the snow, wriggling like worms, and died away.
My counterstrike sent a bolt of lightning from my sword’s tip toward him. He was ready for that, and sent it, like my arrow, into the hillside behind him. But he wasn’t ready for the speed and accuracy of the next ten bolts. In rapid succession, I kept him so busy defending himself he couldn’t concentrate on his offense.
Though he slashed and parried, my strikes grew closer and closer to their mark. His face a mask of both concentration and fear, sweat slid down his cheeks and matted his brown hair to his neck. His breath came in went in short gasps. His eyes wild, he beat off my furious attacks. Yet, he knew, as I did, his defense couldn’t last.
I tripled my bolts, sending one after the other in such rapid sequence, I myself couldn’t see one from the other. Ja’Teel couldn’t focus long enough to create a shield. Thus he spun and danced, killing my lightning one strike after the other. But how long could he keep that up?
With a shrill shriek, he changed forms. Where once a young wizard stood in his black cloak and gold spurs, a dark grey falcon swooped. His wings spread wide, Ja’Teel screamed again, avoiding my lightning as he plunged skyward. Climbing high into the winter sunlight, he ducked behind the tall trees. My magic followed, kissing his tail feathers as he fled my wrath. I heard his wail of pain dissipating upon the whisper of the wind through the pine branches.
I wheeled. “Tashira,” I gasped. “Are you all–”
“I think so,” he answered, eyeing the corpse at his feet. “I’m a bit crisped, but I’ll heal.”
“Who–”
I staggered and half-sagged to the snow as the wolf who saved us romped across the tundra toward me with wagging tail and grinning jaws. Golden eyes glowed from within dark grey fur. I know that face. I know that scent. Those eyes.
“Take a guess.”
“Darkhan?”
“Big Dog!” he yelled, dropping me to my side with a furious, happy tackle that left me breathless. “Are we having fun or what?”
I heaved his weight off me as I rose to my feet. “Darkhan! You rascal, what are you doing here?”
“Saving your sorry ass,” he laughed. “Blackie’s, too.”
Tashira trotted toward us, his eyes bright. “His timely intervention grants him a hero status,” he said. “Loth though I am to admit it.”
“In one’s dire need,” Darius said, “comes a hero.”
“Did you bring him?” I demanded.
“Of course not. You know I haven’t the power.”
As much as I wanted to quiz Darius and Darkhan on how he came to arrive in such a timely fashion, I dared not. I didn’t know if Ja’Teel might return with reinforcements, but my instinct screamed leave now with a loud and strident voice. I fully intended to obey it. “Lads, let’s say we enjoy our reunion party elsewhere. Darkhan, I know you must be hungry, but if you can hold out a while longer, I promise you’ll eat soon.”
Darkhan eyed the old sow with stark lust in his eyes, but his laughing jaws never hesitated. “Couldn’t agree more, mate,” he said, leaping into a swift gallop.
Tashira trotted alongside me as I followed on his heels. Darkhan raced across the hill Ja’Teel occupied and vanished down the far side. “He needs food and soon,” Tashira said. “Did you notice how thin he is?”
“I did,” I replied, breaking into a strong gallop. “And see his tracks?”
“Blood. He’s worn his paws to the quick.”
“Running to find me. But why?”
No doubt he’d run day and night, over hard terrain without food or rest. Driven. But by what?
“What in the name of all the gods happened down there?” I growled. I increased my pace to catch up to Darkhan, Tashira matching me stride for stride.
“Love does strange things,” Tashira said.
“Such as?” I asked. “Make a fellow run hard enough to all but kill himself?”
“Think about it,” Tashira said, turning his head as he galloped so his eye peered down at me. “What would you do if Ly’Tana flirted and teased and loved another right under your nose?”
“I’d kill him.”
“And if you couldn’t?”
The thought choked me. Ly’Tana, my heart’s blood, loving another? Kissing, snuggling, crooning over another man before my eyes? If I could do nothing but watch her in her joy?
“I’d want to die,” I replied so softly I wondered if Tashira even heard.
“Then you do understand.”
“Gods,” I said silently to Darius. “What a mess.”
“Love does tend to make a mess.”
“Like you and my mother?”
For a moment I thought he’d refuse to answer. In a tone I’d never before heard from him, he finally replied. “Yes. Just like me and your mother.”
We caught up to Darkhan within half a mile. As we had four hours till sunset, I kept us moving fast and hard. Though Darkhan’s tongue dropped halfway to his chest, and Tashira’s burn-streaked hide pained him, I dared not slow our pace. My gut still insisted that Ja’Teel may try a new attack and soon. I cast my magical net over all three of us, and sent my powers into washing our tracks away the instant we made them. Snow fell in increasingly large flakes the higher we climbed, and by the time the sun began its descent into the west, I finally felt safe.
I dropped from a gallop to a walk near the top of a tall mountain with a wide panoramic view of the surrounding area. A grove of screening trees hid us from prying eyes, and a gurgling stream tripped its musical way from higher above to wend past us before dropping out of sight far below.
Both Tashira and Darkhan hit the stream at the same time, drinking the icy splash as fast as they could.
“Slow down, lads,” I said, “I don’t need either of you foundering on me.”
Though I myself craved a long drink, I stood at the highest point and sniffed the light winter breeze. I listened intently, and heard nothing I wouldn’t have expected. An owl floated past overhead, the wind rustling through her soft feathers soothing on my nerves. I cast out my magic, searching for any trace of Ja’Teel or his black brothers. Only the sounds and senses of a mountain wilderness answered my silent call. If he was out there, he concealed himself well.
“This is a good spot to stay the night,” Tashira observed. “Don’t you think?”
I looked around with speculation. We stood on a high ridge, not many trees about, but plenty of thick, spiny bushes to cut the night breeze. Though the temperature remained mild, at this altitude it would drop at a steep rate until dawn. With little wind and the snowfall ending, Tashira and I would pass the night with no hardship. Of course Darkhan, with food in his belly, would remain warm and should sleep well. But he needed the food and there wasn’t any at hand.
“No enemies about either,” Tashira commented, his own nostrils flared to test the late afternoon breeze.
“He does need the rest,” I agreed, as Darkhan ambled toward me, his thirst quenched. With a tired sigh, he slumped to the ground, exhausted.
“Sleep, hero,” I said, licking his face and eyes. “I’ll go hunt, and bring you something fat and tasty.”
He tried to rise, to go with me. “Big Dog?”
I growled low in my throat, forcing him back with my paw. “Stay there. Tashira, step on him if he tries to move.”
“Will do,” he replied agreeably. “I make a grand baby sitter.”
I groaned. “We’ll argue that another time. What about your burns? I can heal them.”
Tashira dropped his head to munch on the thin mountain tundra. “No worries. I don’t feel a thing.”
> I wanted to growl at his obvious lie, but his eyes flicked from me to Darkhan and back. Him first, those eyes said.
“Back soon,” I said, aiming for a lightness I didn’t really feel.
As Darkhan had already dropped into a light sleep and Tashira was busy foraging, I turned away and loped back downhill. I speculated that I might find a pack of those feral pigs Feria loved a mile or so away. On our passage up, I noticed several oak patches and under them lay tasty acorns. Though no doubt the pigs fled from us before we saw them, their fright had time to die away. If I imitated a shadow and crept on silent paws, I might just get lucky.
I did. As I crept under a scrub oak thicket and lay on my belly, a half-grown piglet wandered away from the family. The light wind pushed the savory scent toward me, and I drooled. I was hungry, but this catch was for Darkhan. I lunged from the brush and seized the panicked pig before it fled my fangs. One bite ended its life, though its blood on my tongue almost had me tearing it to pieces then and there.
More than fifty pounds of pork in my jaws slowed me down, but I dropped the dead pig under Darkhan’s nose within an hour of setting out. He roused slowly from slumber, but once the whiff of raw bloody meat struck his nostrils he sat up straight.
“Uh,” he began, unwilling to take precedence. I was his pack leader, and thus the right to eat first was mine. I shrugged off his worry and wagged my tail.
“Eat, brother,” I said, turning away. “Where there’s one foolish pig in the world there are others.”
As Darkhan devoured his first good meal in days, I loped away into the darkness.
“Just don’t make him talk all night,” Tashira advised, munching on high mountain grass. “Got it?”
“Whatever you say, nanny.”
After dining on a less than satisfactory meal of a hare and a slumbering mountain grouse, I returned to find Tashira still nibbling and Darkhan drowsing, nearly asleep. He’d eaten everything of the pig save its feet and tail. I swear his belly bulged, but that could have been a trick of the shadows.
Waking, Darkhan glanced from Tashira to me and back again. “Big Dog?”
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