Brother Wolf threw them into the fight with a joyous abandon, wishing that this battle, this song, might last forever, an eternal dancing with the pack against an enemy that demanded every skill they had. Tag’s berserker spirit lay over them all, but spread out so that it only gave muscles more strength, speed, and endurance instead of the suicidal madness it could become.
A different sort of limb snuck out of the water and wrapped itself around Anna. It was darker colored and round, like the snakes children made with Play-Doh, maybe six inches in diameter—but at least as long as, if not longer than, the tentacles. It tried to haul Anna into the water, pulling her off her feet with a jerk.
Charles was on the far side of two of the big tentacles and couldn’t even see what had happened, but what the others knew, he knew.
It was Tag who got to her and bit down savagely on the rubbery flesh, which was devoid of slime. Had Tag known that, the hunting song understood, he would not have done a bite-and-release. But the bite did the trick, and the arm went momentarily limp, allowing Anna to scramble out of it. She freed herself and rolled to her feet as the Singer’s limb gave a sudden twitch, then withdrew to the safety of the dark waters.
They watched for those sneaky dark limbs after that.
Unable to use their mouths on the tentacles that were the Singer’s main physical means of attack because of the slime, and unable to stay for a concerted attack because of the danger of being flung or dragged into the water, the wolves were reduced to delivering minor wounds in the hope that they would eventually weaken the creature.
They were further hampered by the mental attacks. They all understood when Leah missed a strike because she thought she was still waiting for the first attack. The hunting song offered her what it knew of the past few minutes, and she made her second strike count. Anna took the next mental attack, but Charles would not have known it bothered her without their bonds because she never slowed down, his graceful, deadly warrior. Hit and run suited her style of fighting because she was fast.
Charles had been right about Tag’s resistance to the Singer’s magic. Though the hunting song told him that the Singer attacked Tag’s memories as frequently as it did Anna’s or Leah’s, the only effect on the old wolf was the deepening hold the berserker spirit took on him. Charles had to work to make sure that it didn’t spill onto the rest of the pack. Tag knew how to use the berserker in his soul; if it attached to one of the other three, it could be a disaster.
But the larger part of the Singer’s attempt to steal memories settled onto Charles, as if the Singer was well aware that Charles spearheaded the wolves. If it had not been for Brother Wolf, Charles suspected he would have fallen.
Trust me, Brother Wolf told the twelve-year-old Charles, who found himself in wolf form trying to keep upright on slick ground in the middle of dodging an unlikely giant tentacle when just a moment before he had been on two feet and talking to his grandfather.
The only possible answer when Brother Wolf asked for trust, no matter what the circumstances, was for Charles to give it. He allowed Brother Wolf ascendance, and the wolf got them away from the danger. It was Brother Wolf who coordinated the others in Charles’s place while Charles battled in a different arena.
For the next ten minutes, by Brother Wolf’s reckoning, Charles was tossed from one reality to another with only brief sojourns in the current time. Then something changed.
A very distinctive drumbeat pulsed through the ties of the hunting song as Anna brought her steel-trap memory for music to bear. There were no lyrics—only Brother Wolf could speak through the hunting song’s bonds, a quirk Charles had been unaware of until this battle. But “We Will Rock You” didn’t need words.
The Singer’s attacks on their memories lessened in effect—and then, as if it had become aware of their new inefficacy, ceased altogether. The fight continued as the rising dawn, muffled by the storm clouds and the rain, brought only faint shards of light onto the battleground.
As Charles had feared, Leah fell first. She saw it coming, but exhaustion slowed her more than she’d expected. Her right front foot slipped in a patch of mucus—the ground anywhere near the lake was becoming dangerously slick. She mistimed her dodge. One of the smaller dark arms whipped out and wrapped around her back leg, jerking her off her feet.
Charles got his jaws on the tentacle a second later and severed it in a spray of clearish fluid that seemed to be the Singer’s version of blood. But the damage was done. Leah’s leg was all but ripped off.
Charles did not see a mouth in the frothing water of the lake, but something must have surfaced, because the Singer shrieked, an ululating, ear-piercing noise that rose to the point of pain on sensitive ears. The searing agony of the sound dropped on the pack, and for a moment they were still.
Then Brother Wolf took advantage of the temporary motionlessness of the three tentacles currently onshore and opened a four-foot-long wound that was as deep as he could manage given the length of his claws and the toughness of the Singer’s rubbery skin. In apparent response, the Singer jerked all of its parts beneath the water.
Directed by the needs of the hunt, Anna grabbed Leah by the scruff of the neck with her teeth and pulled the wounded wolf well out of reach. Leah did not object to either the pain of Anna’s teeth breaking through hide and into flesh or the bump of her damaged leg on the ground. The hunting song knew that to heal such a wound would weaken the pack too much to continue the battle. So the song withdrew from Leah, leaving only three wolves in the fight.
ALONE AND SHIVERING from pain and exhaustion, Leah tried to start her change. The shift should heal most of the damage to her leg on its own. The sooner she got this done, the sooner she could get back into the fray. Nothing happened. She simply didn’t have the resources to change again without rest or food.
She cast an anxious glance at the ongoing battle. They weren’t going to win. The Singer was simply amusing himself with them. Leah couldn’t bear being the only survivor a second time.
Desperately, she reached out to her distant pack for a boost of energy to help her change. They should have been too far away for her to reach. And they were.
But Bran wasn’t.
Rich energy pulsed through her mate bond, making the change almost easy, certainly quicker than she was used to. As her body burned and stretched, she felt Bran begin to open their bond.
Buried with pain and the confusion of the shift, she reacted with utter and instinctive honesty. She shut it tight, cutting off the feed of energy, which she might not have done if she’d been more cognizant. It didn’t matter; she had enough to finish the change on her own.
When she lay faceup in the mud, the falling rain keeping her eyes closed, she heard the faint sound of an approaching helicopter. Proof that Bran was near—had she needed further confirmation.
He brought hope with him. She knew of no other being who might accomplish what Sherwood had failed to do. Charles said he was bringing Jonesy’s sword, and that was certainly a weapon that might kill a god—it had killed Jonesy, who was a son of Lugh, after all. If Bran joined them, they stood a chance.
With the wracking physical pain that was only just beginning to die down replaced by the accumulated mental wounds that could not be healed by magic, Bran Cornick was the last person in the world that Leah wanted to see. The pain of his presence might be the straw that broke her.
There was a sudden brilliant flash and a crack as lightning struck a tree on the far edge of the pit. And a second crack as one of the Singer’s small limbs, the ones that hid in the shadows, smacked out and hit Tag, knocking him on his side—and one of the huge tentacles followed, staving in the berserker’s side.
THE FIRST BLOW had not done much; Tag was a tough old wolf. But the second strike was another matter entirely.
The hunting song meant that Charles felt the sharp edge slicing Tag from nose to flank, laying him open to the bone. But it was the crushing blow of the rest of the tentacle that did the real damage, sp
lintering bone and flattening organs.
What Charles did next wasn’t an impulse. He and Brother Wolf had been engaged in a back-channel discussion from the beginning.
Remind it what death is, Asil had said. Jonesy had told him so, and Jonesy had been the son of a Celtic god, so he should have known. Charles had been hoping for his da to arrive with Jonesy’s sword, but there was only a faint chance that he would get here before they lost this fight—a chance that had become significantly smaller now that Tag lay dying.
If he could pull magic from Leah through the pack bonds—and he wasn’t sure that wouldn’t kill her—Charles thought that they could probably save Tag. As long as they did it soon, before he or Anna sustained further damage. Between the time it would take and the drain of energy, such a decision would mean conceding the battle to the Singer.
Which meant they would lose what might be their only opportunity to kill something approaching godlike powers that would bear a grudge against his family and owe allegiance to the Hardesty witches—who also bore a grudge against his family.
It would be loosing evil on the world, Brother Wolf said.
But if they chose not to save Tag, they had a different opportunity.
Charles released that knowledge to the hunting song, which was already reeling under Tag’s wounds. It was a pragmatic choice. If the pack rebelled, if Tag refused, Charles would listen.
Yes.
Tag’s wolf spirit gave eager consent. Taking one’s enemy down with one’s own death was more than acceptable to the berserker spirit, but the single word had a bit of Tag’s laughing amusement in it, too.
Anna waited. When a tentacle struck from the depths of the pit, she began a swift and brutal attack in the faint hope of keeping the Singer’s attention on her. She didn’t have to do it for long. This would not take much time.
With the Singer occupied with Anna, Charles ran to where Tag lay in the slime-covered mud. It was still Tag, not his corpse yet, though they could all feel the separation beginning.
Charles put his human hand on the horrendous wound, coating it in blood. He could not have said when he had changed back to human, only that he needed a hand for this, so that is what he had. Then he ran to the tentacle that was trying to kill his mate. This one had a long wound and Charles plunged his bloody hand into it, pressing Tag’s lifeblood into the Singer. And then he tied them together—like the first step in bringing a new member into the pack.
He felt what he had done in the pack bonds, but Tag lay between the Singer and the pack, keeping them safe. Tag had always been a protective wolf. Dying, he was no less a guardian, dragging the Singer through that final veil with him.
THE HUNTING SONG waited for Tag’s death.
Leah wasn’t a part of that anymore, but she was a pack mate, and she knew how to read the signs. It had been a ruthless decision—and something inside her told her it wasn’t going to work anyway. The Singer was too alien.
Not in body; it did not matter what body it wore. But pack magic was specific, and there had to be some affinity for Charles to find if he was going to bind the Singer to Tag.
She forced herself to her feet. Her hip hadn’t healed completely in the change, but she was satisfied that it was only outraged tissue she had to deal with. She ignored the pain.
Even through the lesser window the pack bonds gave her, she could feel Tag’s joy in achieving a glorious death. The idiot. It made her want to bite him.
THE TENTACLE WRITHED and Anna ran for safety, knowing Charles was doing the same thing on the other side. It didn’t matter; they both knew their last chance had failed. Tag was still dying, but the bond Charles had fought to forge had not taken.
Only then did she realize that the noise she was hearing was a helicopter, flying in close. The hunting song had failed to notice it sooner because Tag was dying and Anna and Charles were both numbed with exhausted failure. Three wolves were not usually enough to keep a song going, and the magic was fading.
Bran’s helicopter didn’t land in the meadow in the center of Wild Sign, the only place with a big enough clearing to put the machine on the ground. Instead, it flew over—and Anna could almost hear the sigh of relief as the hunting song renewed itself and reached out for its king.
Bran dropped out of the hovering helicopter into the forest, because it was necessary to keep the helicopter out of reach. Tied to Bran with intimate closeness, Anna felt—they all felt—the momentary pain of his impact on the ground. But Bran healed himself as soon as the damage took place—filled with the power of not only the hunting song but also his pack, his wildlings, and a huge distant well of strength that was all of the wolves who owed him allegiance.
CHARLES LET THE reins of the hunting song go with relief and a renewal of hope. Da was here; all would be well.
He is not a god, said Brother Wolf dryly, but Charles knew his wolf shared Charles’s faith.
Bran had assessed the situation before his feet hit the forest floor, and Charles knew what he needed to do as soon as his da did.
Anna waited for Bran beside Tag. Da wanted her human because he might need her hands to help save Tag, so she began her change. Charles felt the power that poured to her from the bonds of the hunt, felt her surprise at the speed of her transformation.
For his part, Charles ran toward the lake. About halfway there, he jumped into the air and raised his hand. Jonesy’s sword, tossed by his da, landed in his clasp as if it wanted to be there.
* * *
DRIVEN BY THE wishes of the Marrok, the hunting song tried to engulf Leah again. Her initial rejection was instinctive. She could not bear being that close to Bran right now, raw as she was with the pain of the memories that the Singer had returned to her—only to snatch them away again, leaving her with just the remnants of the emotional upheaval. She did not have the strength to deal with the careful distance Bran maintained between them.
From her vantage point maybe fifty feet from where Tag lay, Leah watched her mate prepare to save them all. He threw the sword he’d brought into the hands of his son, then dropped to his knees beside Tag. Because, she understood, either he or Charles could have wielded the sword—but only one of them had a chance to save Tag.
Leah was not necessary.
She gave up the fight and let exhaustion, emotional and physical, overtake her, watching Charles with a gray numbness that approached disinterest. The silvery sword, which was not a long sword, looked more like a knife in his hand from this distance. It had been forged by the Dark Smith of Drontheim, and it had killed a son of the god Lugh.
The exhaustion-born numbness was swept away by the sudden certainty that she still had a role to play.
In her dream, Buffalo Singer had told her that this was her battle. Watching the great fae sword in Charles’s hands, she finally understood what those words meant. Bitterness engulfed her and gave her the power to get to her feet.
If Buffalo Singer ever came to her in a dream again, she would make sure he regretted it.
* * *
AS IF IT understood the weapon Charles bore, the Singer had withdrawn under the water. Left without a target, Charles came to a wary stop three or four body lengths from the lake.
He could feel his da pouring power into the dying wolf behind him, using the hunting song and the pack bonds to keep Tag with them. Other than his da’s cursing of stubborn werewolves, the dawn held a waiting quiet.
There was a bright silvery edge to the sky, but where they stood the rain still poured. Charles was glad the pilot had gotten the helicopter down safely, because the storm was once again filling with the electric quality that told him the lightning was preparing for another round.
Charles felt a great calm sink into him. It wasn’t the kind of calm that Anna gave him. It was the calm of battle, when all was at the ready and he would either live or die. It was Brother Wolf’s favorite place to be.
Without warning, the tentacle whipped out of the water directly in front of him, snaking forward to sla
p down on him.
Charles moved aside. He was very tired, and he moved more quickly on four feet than on two. But he was fast enough. He buried the sword, driving it through the tough skin until it was haft deep.
The Singer screamed once more, the tentacle knocked into Charles, and he lost his grip on the sword.
He landed in a crouch. With no forethought at all, he raised up a hand and shouted … something. It didn’t feel like he needed a word—just the cry, the sound of his voice.
And a bolt of lightning struck the sword in the center of the old blue stone at the top of the pommel. And the balls of lightning that spun off improbably in all directions knocked Charles off his feet again.
The tentacle, the entire visible upper skin crisped black and smelling like burnt fish, lay limp on the slime-covered mud.
After a while, Charles staggered to his feet. He looked at the tentacle and the twice-blackened sword. Leaving it, he headed back to where his da and Anna still fought to save Tag.
“Change,” growled Da, both of his hands buried in Tag’s bloody fur.
Charles put one hand on his da’s shoulder, releasing all the power at his disposal to Bran’s use. Anna wrapped a hand around Charles’s wrist and did the same. He couldn’t remember if she’d known how to do that, or if the hunting song showed her how.
Tag fought to live now, and that had taken a good deal of effort. Da had a grip on Tag that would, Charles was worried, bind Tag’s soul to his bones if his body gave out before he was able to change and heal.
But Tag wasn’t changing. Da gathered himself for another effort, and Anna put her free hand on Tag’s forehead.
She bent down and whispered in his ear, “We have had enough death this night, you stubborn bastard. Change.”
Charles felt her draw on the power of the hunt, on Charles, and on the Marrok. She did something tricky with her own Omega power, too. “Change.”
Tag changed. It took a very long time. Long enough for the storm-drenched skies to lighten to full morning. Long enough that the rain gentled and the thunderstorm moved off.
Wild Sign Page 29