Rygel leaped backward, landing on all four paws, bloody to the eyeballs. Off balance, Ja’Teel stumbled and fell, staggering. Rygel charged at the same instant and knocked Ja’Teel off his feet. The dark wolf fell, sliding toward the fire and Ananaya. His body slammed into her shell, making it rock into the fire. A small crack ran up through the mottles with a sharp snap.
Dammit, Rygel, watch what you’re doing.
Rygel pounced, lips slicked back from white teeth and yellow eyes slitted. He lunged in for the kill, his enemy down. Up again in a flash, Ja’Teel met his charge. Chest against chest, fangs against fangs, hindquarters slung low, they slashed at bit at one another. Neither never quite reached past the others’ guard.
Reluctantly, I turned away from the battle. Brutal regained control of his last Synn’jhani during my brief absence. The wild-eyed Sin thought to take advantage of my distraction by attacking with his sword. “Oh, please,” I said, shaking my ears. “Really, is this the best you can do?”
I ducked under the swinging blade, reaching out my right paw. Catching the man behind the knee, I flipped him onto his back. He fell with a thud and the swoosh of his air rapidly departing his lungs. I killed him almost negligently, stepping over his prone form and taking out his throat with one slash of my fangs. I then left him to thrash on the floor, his life’s blood gushing onto the unrelenting stone.
I stepped casually over him. Brutal gaped in horror, spittle foaming white at the corners of his mouth. His dead eyes showed the whites and bulged in frantic panic. I wrinkled my nose in disgust as the strong odor of urine flooded my sensitive nostrils. Like many men who faced me in the past, Brutal pissed his drawers.
Yet, he was a King and I a simple prince. I extended my right front leg and bowed low over it. “Your Majesty,” I intoned gravely.
Of course he didn’t understand a word I said. “Ja’Teel,” he cried, his voice high and wavering. “Ja’Teel.”
I’d almost forgotten the Sin I wounded rather than killed. From his position on the ground, he threw his spear at me. From that angle, he, of course, missed. But he sent a weapon into the trembling hands of his lord and master.
Brutal picked up the spear and threatened me with it. “Get back, you,” he snarled, his dead eyes narrowed.
“Surely you’re joking?” I asked, laughing, avoiding the spear thrusts with simple moves of my head. “Um, I think you need to get closer. That’s it, follow up with a stronger thrust. Hey, you might make a spearman, yet. Come on, keep practicing.”
As though taking my advice, Brutal thrust harder, slashing at my throat in wild swings I could halt with my paw. I gave ground, tempting him in, granting him a small amount of confidence. “Come on, Big B,” I said, ducking another crazy slash. “I’m right here. Use your right hand to jab low and swift. Dammit, your other right. That’s it. Here, I’ll make is easy on you. I’ll stand still.”
Allowing him to back me a few paces, I stood quiet, waiting, non-threatening. As I expected, he took my bait and charged in with both hands on the haft of the spear. With a shrill scream, he aimed the deadly point at my face.
Once he engaged himself fully and crossed the point of no return, I shifted my weigh slightly. I jerked my head sideways. The spear missed me by a foot. Brutal, running too heavily to correct himself or his aim, staggered past my shoulder.
This is too much fun, I thought, reaching out with my paw and snagging his legs.
“Are you a cat or a wolf?” Darius demanded. “Quit playing with him and kill him.”
Brutal fell heavily onto his face and chest, yet his instincts warned him in time. I attacked, my fangs bared and my intent his vulnerable throat. In a move that surprised me, Brutal rolled his body across the cavern until he could stand well out of reach of me. He panted with exertion and terror as he staggered to his feet.
I sat down. “I am impressed.”
“Wolf,” he said, his left hand reaching toward me in supplication. “Er, Raine, that is. Please, I meant you no harm, really I didn’t. All those threats, well, that was for appearance sake. I had to make a lot of noise to impress my troops, you know? Hell, I like you, Wolf, er, Raine. Ly’Tana, too. Come on, you’d have done the same thing.”
“Obviously,” I remarked, pausing to scratch a persistent itch behind my ear. My shoulder almost quit bleeding. “You’ve no concept of honor, so I’ll refrain from an acid retort.”
Brutal smiled as though I had just agreed with him. “Just let me go, all right? I swear I’ll never hunt you, or Ly’Tana, again.” He waved his arms, expansive, hopeful, when I merely sat and watched him. “I’ll leave your countries strictly alone. Peace, brother? Can we make peace together?”
“Of course,” I said, my tongue dropping in a wolf grin.
That much he understood. Brutal smiled, relieved, and straightened his spine.
I glanced over my wounded shoulder to see Rygel and Ja’Teel locked in mortal combat. They lay on the stony floor, jaws gripping one another’s throats; their paws scraped the stone as they tried to get up. My humor dimmed. I didn’t much like that. Once I dispatched Brutal to his maker, I’d have to break that up. Rygel wasn’t looking too good.
I swung my head back toward the High King of Khalid. I grinned, my jaws wide, my tongue lolling. “Have you made your peace with Usa’a’mah?” I asked genially. “It’s high time you two met.”
Brutal recognized my intent the instant I rose from my haunches. “Wolf, Raine, please, don’t, I swear–”
He crouched low, his hands empty of any weapon, his panic freezing his expression and his spittle-slicked lips. “Ja’Teel,” he said, his eyes flicking from me to something beyond my massive frame. “Ja’Teel, help me out here. There’s a duchy in it for you, I promise.”
Brutal backed away another step, his brown eyes still flicking back and forth. My hackles rose as I sensed something very wrong. I snarled, my instincts for trouble taking control. I gathered my hindquarters beneath me, preparing to take Brutal down, once and for all, and snap his wretched spine.
Brutal screamed. “Ja’Teel!”
I leaped. From the stony floor I lunged, up and out, my fangs bared to rip the life out of my enemy. He cringed from me, his eyes wide with panic. He recognized his death in my snarling jaws and flattened eyes.
In a blink, Brutal vanished.
My heavy body smashed into nothing but the pile of firewood stacked against the far wall of the cavern.
Gods above and below, I cursed, floundering in wood.
Flinging chunks and kindling everywhere, I spun about.
Still in his wolf form, Rygel lay on his side near the cave wall where I’d hidden less than an hour ago. Silent and still, his jaws gaped wide and blood oozed from his jagged and torn face. His amber eyes stared upward into nothing. With his grey fur snagged with blood, I couldn’t see whether his chest rose or fell.
My breath caught in my throat, I attempted a step toward him and staggered.
Rygel.
“He’s dead, Prince,” Ja’Teel half-screamed in triumph and panic.
In his bloody and dripping human form, he held the dragon shaman’s egg in his left arm. In his right, he poised his dagger. It’s deadly pointed rested against Ananaya’s fragile shell, ready to plunge deep inside and kill the dragons’ child. The egg shifted in his grip as though trying to escape his blade and his threat.
Ja’Teel glanced down, a rapid flicker of his eyes at the movement, then he faced me again.
“I’ll kill her,” he warned, shifting his stance and holding tight to the egg. “Don’t come any closer.”
“You idiot,” I growled, lowering my head. “Do you think I’m just going to let you walk out of here?”
“You’ve no choice.”
His brown hair, bloody, oily and lank, danced around his shoulders. “I sent the King away from here. He’s safe. Your brother is dead. It’s over. Let me go, and I swear I’ll leave her alive.”
His rapid glance downward indicated Ananaya�
��s egg before returning to mine. Ja’Teel watched me warily, near panic, grasping for hope, any hope that I might see reason and permit him to live.
“I’ll leave her not far from here,” he promised. “You can find her and return her to the dragons.”
“You think to escape their vengeance, scorpion boy?” I asked, stalking him, one slow paw at a time. My ears flat, my head low, my voice rumbled from deep within my chest. “You think they won’t hunt you down? You dared invade their home and kidnap that child. You earned yourself a lifetime of running and hiding. Neither they, nor I, will ever stop hunting you.”
“Stop,” he begged, tears dripping down his cheeks. “I’ll kill her. I swear I will.”
By the sudden shifting of his eyes, I knew what he planned. He sought a safe haven within the depths of his memory, a place he where could transport himself and Ananaya. He searched for, and found, a place of safety where he’d escape both my wrath and that of the dragons. The precious egg, that unborn shaman, he’d drop immediately and discard like so much garbage.
His dagger lifted, ever so slightly. His eyes took on a vague expression as he gathered his will, his magic, to translocate himself away. Frantic, I tried to gather my own power to seize it and him before he vanished. More practiced at his craft than me, his power stood ready in his fist. I knew I needed more time to create the spell to stop him, and I’d be seconds behind.
I growled, ready to impel my body across the cavern. But I knew I’d be too late. I was too far away, the cavern too large. I could never hope to kill him, or seize Ananaya, before he translocated himself out of that cave.
Rygel struck him from the side, his snarls silent, lethal.
Ja’Teel went down under Rygel’s heavy weight, his pale mouth open with astonishment and panic. He screamed like a woman, his voice pitched high and piercing. His dagger flew from his hand to strike the far wall and drop, useless, with a steely clang.
I propelled myself across the cavern, leaping the fire, as the precious dragon’s egg hit the stone floor and cracked.
Rygel took his kinsman down in a tangled flurry of grey fur, brown hair, black cloak and white fangs. True to his word, Rygel ripped deep into Ja’Teel’s neck and shredded his carotid. The dark wizard struggled under Rygel’s heavy wolf weight, feebly trying to push Rygel’s menace off his chest.
His struggles weakened as he strangled on his own blood. He gasped for breath and found none. His hazel eyes opened wide, panicked; his frantic hands struck and pummeled ineffectually on Rygel’s shoulders. Trying desperately to gasp in air, Ja’Teel’s eyes bulged from his head. His open carotid bled him out as efficiently as a butchered sheep. Gilded spurs struck again and again into the stone floor of the cavern.
He died, gasping his last, his eyes staring into Rygel’s for one last time.
Ananaya’s egg, cracked wide open, rolled slowly into the broad pool of Ja’Teel’s blood.
Gods no–
The open, ragged pieces of shell sucked up Ja’Teel’s life’s blood as though through a straw. The black pool spread not away from his corpse, but toward it, uphill, to vanish under the cracked egg. Though his entire body’s worth of blood spilled onto the stone, the egg diminished it by almost half. The sucking sound ended, and permitted the red pool to continue its course down into a rocky hollow. As though satisfied, the mottled egg lay quiet and still beside the blazing fire.
I’d no time to think of the implications as I raced to Rygel’s side. “Rygel?”
“I did it,” Rygel gasped.
He reverted to his human shape and slumped, swaying and ready to collapse. His knees trembled violently. “I killed him. Dammit, I killed him.”
I changed clothes and grabbed him before he struck the stone with his face. I held him tight in my arms. “You did, braud,” I said, my voice hushed. “You did good.”
“His mother will be so pissed,” he choked, breathing hard.
I forced back a laugh, snorting. “She should be grateful.”
Rygel tried to laugh, coughed, gasped, and laughed some more. “Brutal?”
I shook my head. “No.”
“Dammit.” He raised his hand long enough to rake his bloody, wheaten mane from his face. “You’re bloody useless, you know it?”
“Bite me,” I replied, grinning, holding him slightly away from me. “Ja’Teel saved him at the last.”
His fist thumped my shoulder. “Next time I say let’s kill an unconscious man, let’s kill an unconscious man.”
“Next time.”
“Crap,” he said, struggling to sit up, free himself from my arms. “Ananaya?”
I glanced toward the silent egg beside the fire. “I don’t know. I think she’s all right.”
“Not good enough,” he gritted through his teeth, struggling to rise. Blood oozed from numerous cuts and bites all over his neck, chest and face. He needed my help to stand up at all. “I have to know.”
Rising, I helped him to his feet. With his arm over my shoulders, he limped toward the silent egg.
“Down,” Rygel groaned.
Catching his weight, I lowered him slowly to his knees beside the precious egg.
Trembling as though with ague, he touched the shell, caressed it, his eyes closing slowly.
“She’s alive,” he whispered, his lips tinged a weird shade of blue. “She’s alive.”
“We have to get her back,” I said. “She’ll die without the dragons’ help.”
“How?” Rygel asked, his weight sagging against mine as I stood him on his feet. “We’ve no time, she’s too close to dying.”
“We transport ourselves,” I said quickly. “Instantly, back into the dragons’ city.”
He slowly shook his head as I spoke on, eager. “We’ve been there, we can picture ourselves back and her with us–”
“It won’t work,” he said, his amber eyes shutting out his pain, his injuries, his exhaustion. “We’re too late.”
“It’s not too late,” I almost screamed. “We can do it.”
“We can’t, braud,” he said, his voice rising. “We dare not. We might transport ourselves, and her, into another dragon. We cannot clear the area, not from this distance. We’d all die.”
“Ja’Teel did it,” I said, frantic, my mind racing. “If he did, we can, too.”
Rygel raised a half-grin, his blood-shot tawny eyes meeting mine. “Ever so hopeful,” he murmured before his face sagged into my shoulder. “He didn’t have a young life at stake. He popped in alone. We, with Ananaya, we make three. Not great odds, that.”
I caught his limp body in my strong arms as his legs collapsed. My left shoulder screamed in protest and the clotted blood along my back woke and flowed, but I refused to allow my wounds to interfere. I helped him to sit, and knelt beside him. I captured his weary, pain-filled eyes with my own.
“Change yourself into a dragon,” I said. “You can carry us both out.”
Rygel raised a half-grin. “I can’t. In this blizzard, I’d fly us straight into a mountain.”
I cupped the back of his neck. I bowed my head until my brow rested against his. “Braud,” I said softly. “Brother mine. I know you’re hurt, I know you’re tired. I promise you I’ll heal you when you get us back, you can rest for as long as you like. Do this–for me.”
“Gods, Raine,” he half-sobbed. “I can’t navigate as they do. I don’t know the terrain, the mountains. I’ll kill us all.”
“Worth the chance,” I said, smiling into his anguished eyes. “Grow a spine for a change.”
“Raine, I can’t–”
I surged my will, my energy, my magic into him. As I had my own body, as I had Feria’s, I poured my own life-giving, magical essence into my brother. I cared not for what I may have left to myself. All I had, or ever will have, cascaded into Rygel’s weak and pain-wracked body.
As though he’d been struck by a bolt of lightning, Rygel spasmed in my arms. His spine stiffened as though a steel rod plunge down its length, his hands cle
nched into fists. His teeth ground together, mashing, his jaws clenched. Into him I poured my strength, my hand on his brow holding him still, as I sacrificed everything.
My muscles weakened, my head spinning, I fell onto my back, exhausted. I gave all, in one throw of the cards. If it didn’t work–well, that was up to the gods. I had nothing else. Perhaps they might lend a hand, if they liked me enough.
“You did good, boy.”
Darius’ tone, filled with pride and humor, filled my head. I shook my own in negation, half-wondering about that spell Rygel always used. The one that gave himself strength when he had none of his own. I should ask him to teach me that one.
At long last, Rygel relaxed, and straightened. He breathed deeply, as though feeling regenerated, reborn. His cat-like eyes opened, red-rimmed and filled with new energy and power. He gathered his legs under him and crouched beside me.
“Gods,” he gasped. “How’d you do that?”
With sweat trickling into my eyes, I cuffed his shoulder. “I’ll teach you sometime,” I said, my voice slurred.
“You did too much.”
“No worries,” I replied, pushing him away.
He stood up, swiping his hair from his eyes. He held his hand down to me, and helped me to stand.
“Can you fly us out of here?”
“Perhaps, if I can get us above the clouds,” he replied, his tone worried, yet tinged with hope.
“You will,” I said, fighting to maintain my upright position when I wanted to collapse. “Go outside and change clothes. There’s a lady present, if you hadn’t noticed.”
“Happens I did.”
Rygel saluted me, then ducked out of the cave and into the blizzard.
The Synn’jhani guard I injured in the leg was dead. With the blade of a spear, he’d opened his veins with identical slashes from wrist to elbow. When his heart stopped, so did his bleeding, but his blood still dripped from his arms into the dark red pool around him.
I shook my head at his corpse, his blue-tinged eyes open and staring into nothing. “You died with honor, soldier,” I murmured. “May you find rest and peace.”
The only Sin still alive was the man I disemboweled. He lay on his back, panting in ragged breaths, agony-induced sweat drenching his head and face. His hands and feet twitched spasmodically. Though his dark eyes were open, he didn’t see me or anything else. I knelt beside him.
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