Prince Wolf

by A. Katie Rose

  I grew cold. “You mean, you can’t restore life to one who is dead?”

  “Correct.”

  “Nor can you heal one mortally wounded? Like Wind Spirit?”

  “You amaze me with your perception.”

  “Thus,” I began slowly. “If I caught this toxic – stuff – from the arrow, you can’t save me? Your own flesh and blood?”

  Silence met my question.

  “I see.”

  “I hope you do, because if you wait too long, Calphalon and I will have an eternity of conversations.”

  “We wouldn’t want that now, do we?”

  “If not for my sake, then for theirs.”

  “What do I do?”

  “First, get that damn arrow out.”

  I looked down at myself, pulling the skin of my belly away from the wound with my fingers. The broken shaft of the arrow stuck out from the left side of my body, just above my hip. Its razor tip was yet sunk deep into my gut, protruding just under, but not breaking, the skin of my back. It hadn’t struck any vital organs, just layers of muscle, but could still pose many problems.

  “Easier said than done,” I murmured.

  “What was it you said? ‘It’s just pain.’”

  I chuckled again. “Pain doesn’t hurt, right?”

  “It certainly won’t kill you.”

  “Here goes nothing.”

  Taking a deep breath, I covered the broken shaft with my strong thumb and pushed. The pain didn’t hurt.

  It was excruciating.

  I bit back a scream, refusing to give voice to the white-hot spear that cut through my gut. I shut my eyes, sweat pouring from my face in streams to mingle with pain-induced tears, and pushed harder. Shutting my teeth, I gathered together my gladiator’s training and discipline.

  I shoved my thumb. Hard.

  The arrow tip burst from my back. A torrent of fresh blood spilled over my fingers, down into the waistband of my breeches.

  I quit pushing. I relaxed a moment, breathing in and out, collecting my courage. In my mind, I remembered Wind Spirit’s pain, and knew my hurt was just a drop in a full bucket of what she’d felt before I killed her. I used my guilt as a spur, needing to feel the pain. Perhaps then I might be cleansed.

  “Aren’t you being a little hard on yourself?”

  “It’s my fault,” I gasped.

  “Didn’t we just have this discussion? It was their fault, their choice. They chose to hurt her. You chose to end her torment. Now drop it.”

  I gave myself no chance to think or reply.

  Dragging my left hand behind my back, I took hold of the razor-sharp tip between my thumb and forefinger. Once I had a secure hold on the iron, I yanked.

  The arrow shaft came out on a renewed gush of my hot blood.

  To keep from falling sideways into the dirt, I caught my weight on my left arm. My head swam, my hair hung, thick and oily, over my eyes. The sickeningly hot flash of unbearable pain shot through me. My belly roiled, threatening me with a backrush of what little remained in my stomach. My blood streamed from the both sides of the wound to spread over my hip and into my breeches.

  As I felt the flood diminish, I didn’t immediately try to staunch it. I doubted I’d bleed to death in the next few moments.

  “There is still poison in your blood.”

  I glanced down, vision swirling, at my torso sticky, tacky with both fresh and half-dried gore. “Y – you sure it didn’t come out w – with the arrow?”

  “You have to cleanse the wound.”

  “Just – just how do I do – t that?”

  “Again I quote you, ‘fire cleans as it burns.’”

  My jaw dropped. “Tell me you’re joking?”

  “Send fire through the wound. It will clean it and cauterize the bleeding.”

  I cast about, bewildered, searching for the means to make a fire. I had deadwood aplenty, but how could I induce fire into a wound on my body? “How?”

  “Use your magic.”

  Gods above and below. “Are you punishing me?”

  “How so?”

  “For something I did in a past life.”

  Oddly, I found a humorous lilt to Darius’s soft voice in my head.

  “As much as I’d like to say yes to that, the answer is no. Get busy now, the poison is spreading.”

  “Don’t be so bloody bossy,” I muttered.

  Taking in a deep breath, I called fire. Merrily, flames danced on the tips of my fingers, unburning, awaiting my will. Slowly, I brushed the entrance to my bloody wound with my fiery fingers, holding them steady. You’ve got to do this, I told myself, steeling myself. For them. And for her.

  Focusing my will, I sent the flames streaking through the long hole in my belly.

  Flames burst out from both sides of my flank, lighting the area for a brief moment. I caught the quick flash before I passed out cold.

  I woke with the sun shining on my face, birds singing in the spruce trees above me, and a rock digging into my cheekbone. I coughed and groaned my way upright, sending an inquisitive fox bolting for cover. A trio of vultures soared lazily overhead, perhaps hoping I would give up the ghost and supply them with breakfast.

  I squinted against the harsh light, covering my eyes with my arm as I staggered to my feet. Still woozy, the vertigo threatened to spill me headlong into the soil, rocks and dead pine needles and twigs. I cupped my head in my hands, fighting off the sickening dizziness until it finally released me. Reluctantly.

  The previous white-hot pain had cooled while I was unconscious to a tolerable burning ache in my side. I rubbed the wound on my neck from the Tongu hound, and winced. Taking my tunic, I tossed it over my shoulder. Thirsty, filthy and in dire need of both a cooling and a dunking, I tried to scent water on the light morning breeze and failed.

  “Is there water closer than that river?”

  “There’s a spring just down the hill.”

  Forcing my feet to move, I stumbled my way down the gentle slope, tripping over logs and rocks, catching myself before I fell headlong into thickets of balsam, pine or scrub oak. My balance had apparently deserted me in the short hours I had been unconscious, the bastard. Therefore, I would go on without him.

  I scented the water before I found it, my dry mouth craving its tantalizing, icy refreshment, luring me ever onward. I discovered it before I fell onto my face, burbling up from under a growth of rocks and bushes, forming a clear pool about two rods across and three deep. A natural well, it spilled into a gurgling stream, bounding its way downhill over and around tumbled rocks to the small river below. Trails from the local wildlife bore evidence this was a popular watering hole.

  Balance be damned.

  I dropped to my knees, barking my shin on a very hard stone. I didn’t much care. After last night, that pain could be called negligible after all I’d already endured.

  All but toppling face-first into the pool and perhaps drowning, I caught my weight on my hands. I drank deep of the icy, clean water, flushing my throat of the nasty aftertaste of death and grief. It tasted better than any water, or ale, or wine I had ever tossed down my gullet. Like nectar, its sweetness stung sharply at first, then soothed the rawness, cooled the fires of my pain, offered me new strength.

  When I could drink no more, I slid my entire body into its chilling depths, gasping for breath. My lungs seizing, unable to draw air, I forced myself to remain under water. I even set my head back, my bloody hair pooling, drifting like seaweed, about my face and head.

  The water’s cold sank deep into the fiery wound in my gut, cooling and cleansing. My neck wound yelled out in protest for long moments before the shocking cold numbed its irritating tirade.

  Numb at last, I took off my sword belt, my breeches, and my boots. I scrubbed myself with some fine sand I found between the rounded rocks at the pool’s bottom. Old blood and nasty traces of the battle floated away like ghosts on the wind, my skin stinging as it grew cleaner. I washed my hair thoroughly, even waking my neck wou
nd to screaming, but knowing it would heal better if devoid of infection.

  Sitting up to my chest in the pool, I scoured the blood and hair and gore from my sword, hilt and scabbard, leaving them on shore to dry in the sun. My clothes were next, getting as good a wash as I could between the sand and the water.

  “What for? You don’t need clothes when you’re a wolf. Just throw them away.”

  “I might need to appear in public again,” I replied. “A naked man tends to upset the populace.”

  “There aren’t many towns or villages north of here. But you may be right.”

  “I’m always right.”

  “What will you do for your injuries?”

  “Nothing I can do. They’ll heal, eventually.”

  “You can heal them with your magic. Save time.”

  I paused, midwash. “Rygel said he couldn’t heal himself,” I said slowly.

  “Why ever not?”

  “No clue.”

  Finished with my laundry, I spread my clothes on nearby rocks to dry in the sun. It shone down quite bright, warming the air pleasantly at even this altitude. Yet, a faint reddish hue to its light informed me a storm was on the way. The air smelled of rain to come.

  Leaving the icy water at last, I dripped my way into the warm, almost hot, sunlight. Finding a comfortable spot on a large rock that fit my bare backside, I examined the wound on my flank. Numb from the cold water, I could prod it gently without much hurt. The blackened wound had closed, but it was far from healed. I suspected I’d carry a black scar there for the rest of my days. Though I couldn’t see the bite on my neck, I felt the jagged edge of my torn skin with my fingers. Both wounds could slow me down drastically unless I managed to do something about them. I had already lost too much time as it was. I had a schedule to keep.

  “I reckon there’s something to be said for an education like Rygel’s,” I said conversationally.

  “Want some advice?”

  “Not really.”

  “Find the calm center within yourself. Relax and just breathe for a time. Match your breathing and your heartbeat exactly.”

  “Then what?”

  “When you are fully relaxed, balanced within your calm center, send healing power into your wounds.”

  “Just like that?”

  “Try it.”

  I shrugged. “Until my clothes are dry, I reckon I don’t have much better to do.”

  Closing my eyes, I slowed my breathing and relaxed. While I didn’t know what my calm center was, I suspected Darius might help me find it.

  “You’ll find it.”

  “I think you’ll have to shut up for this to work.”

  “Breathe.”

  I drew in a long slow breath, exhaled it, and drew in another. I shut out from my head all other distractive thoughts, tuned out the external sounds. I listened only to the slow beat of my heart and the soft filling of my lungs. I no longer felt the hard stone beneath my butt, my feet in the water ceased to exist. My hands sat limp on my thighs.

  Only my lungs and my heart mattered.

  I directed my heartbeat inward and downward. I could feel myself floating in a world of sensory deprivation: I heard, saw, tasted, felt, scented nothing save the slow thudding of my heart. Its measured cadence lulled me even further down, deep inside my own mind.

  Gently, lest I disturb the peace and tranquility, I sent my magic into the wound in my neck. Willing warmth and blood into it, I knitted the raw flesh together, reunited torn muscle, urged skin to meld into a flawless seam. I willed the broken nerve endings to patch, sent my magic to heal the layers of injury, and wash it with warmth and new life.

  Without breaking my trance, I concentrated on the hole in my belly. Once more, I sent my healing power into my flesh, knitting the wound together, repairing the broken blood vessels, reattaching the nerves, flushing out the old black scars. Fresh warmth flowed over and around the arrow wound, killing the last of the poison that escaped my fire. Lastly, I sent my will to cleansing my body of the scars that would remain to mark the event.

  I sat still, still enthralled with the silence of my own body. I liked it. I craved to stay here, perhaps for forever. Here, I felt no pain, no guilt, no anguish, no grief. Only the quiet sounds of a body alive to itself.

  “Um, I hate to interrupt, but someone approaches.”

  With a jolt, I awakened from my trance.

  My backside sore, half-numb, from sitting on the rock for gods alone knew how long, I, half-blind, reached for my sword. I stumbled up, stubbed my toe on a rock, nearly fell headlong into the pool before I found my balance and steadied myself. Armed, I blinked owlishly in the light, finding the sun high overhead. Midday then.

  I listened with all the hearing of a wolf, but heard nothing. My eyes, now accustomed to the bright day, saw little to alarm me. The fox had returned to inspect me, watching with bright eyes from the shelter of a scrub oak. Perhaps he hoped I might offer him a tidbit. A pair of jackdaws quarreled just over my head, making me want to stoop for a rock to throw. Lifting my head, I searched the breeze for any hint of an enemy. I found none.

  “So where –“ I began.

  “Uh, I sort of – lied.”

  My breath caught. “You lied?”

  “I didn’t like the idea of your liking to stay within your trance. I wanted to get you up.”

  I raised my sword high. I bared my teeth in a snarl. “When I find you, I’m gonna stab you –“

  “Don’t be so bloody sensitive.”

  The weight of my sword all but toppled me headfirst into the pool. I dug its tip into the sand and leaned on it to remain upright at all. No wonder Rygel had to sleep for hours after a healing. Weaker than a newborn puppy, I had no strength to stand with, much less threaten a god with my blade. I staggered back, dropping my sword and fell hard on my ass and back. My chin dropped to my chest, my hair hanging in my face.

  “You’d lie to me?”

  “Only when I have to.”

  “What else have you lied to me about?”

  “Shut up and go to sleep.”

  Leaning back on my elbows, I crawled into the shade of a nearby fir tree and curled up on my side. With my sword hilt in my hands, I rested my head on a mound of dirt, my body molded into fine fir needles. The points bit deep into my skin, but that irritation I could ignore. Thus protected from the sun, I shut my eyes.

  “I hate you,” I mumbled before sleep claimed me.

  I dreamed of Ly’Tana.

  She rode her big buckskin at the head of the column of Kel’Hallans, the wolves flanking them. Silverruff trotted at her right stirrup, Thunder on her left, with the slightly smaller Digger loping out in front. Kel’Ratan often spoke to her, leaning out of his saddle, his hand reaching for her, offering love and worry. My dreaming eyes swept over her.

  She rode limp in her saddle, her red-gold hair covering most of her face. In her lap at her saddlebow, my son lay, her hand on him protective. Tears leaked from her eyes to drip onto his head and ears. He didn’t look about himself as they travelled. Not for him, no, he didn’t absorb his surroundings with the fierce curiosity of youth. He cared little for the sights or sounds or scents that otherwise might hold him captivated. His half-shut sapphire blue eyes no longer gleamed. Grief etched his tiny face, his ears that rose only to half mast.

  When Kel’Ratan’s hand came too close, Tuatha uncoiled like a striking cobra. His small jaws snapped sharply, his needle fangs bared. Ly’Tana made no rebuke and Kel’Ratan withdrew his hand, scowling.

  I’m so sorry, I wanted to say. I can’t watch you die. Be well, my love. Be well and safe and live a long life.

  Without me.

  Chapter Three

  Into the Desert

  I missed Raine more than I could ever have imagined.

  As I rode on that first day after he left, his face appeared before my eyes. I scarcely saw the terrain we rode over, paid little heed to where Mikk put his feet, and spoke only when spoken to. I saw only his weirdly co
ld eyes with that wicked black ring, his handsome lips twist into a sweet smile, his shaggy black hair that fell, unmanageable, to his shoulders. I craved his voice, wanted to feel the touch of his hand with a physical ache, and yearned for his massive presence. Yet, I allowed my tears to trickle down my cheeks only in the dark when I was alone.

  If my days without him were bad enough, the nights were worse. Tossing and turning, I woke frequently, trying to find comfort in sleep. Though when I accomplished it, I slept uneasily. Tossing about in my blanket, I dreamt of my huge black wolf.

  I witnessed his attempt to cross a vast expanse of a desert valley filled with men, beasts and activity. For the first time, I saw the Great Caravan Route, the highway upon which Brutal and his Khalidians made their fortunes. Horses, mules, and disgusting camels travelled both east and west, camping at night in protective clusters. Raine, in his tremendous wolf body, tried in vain to sneak past the fortified camps under the cover of darkness. Time and again he retreated from panicked horses, cursing mercenaries, barking dogs, and loped back into the covering, concealing night.

  Yet, I caught flashes of his cold strange eyes as they swept southward, seeking. He paused on a hilltop, his long pink tongue caught between his sharp fangs, his huge head swiveling backward, over his massive shoulder. He gazed long, as though seeing past the leagues, the mountains, all the distance that stood between us. He gazed ever south.

  Toward me.

  I heard his voice, the mellow, quirky voice that combined so oddly with his huge size, say ‘I love you, oh how I love you.’

  I tried to speak to him, tell him I’m sorry, I love you, yet the words never left my tongue. Yet, as though I had, his eyes danced with love as he stared southward, his jaws wide in a lupine grin.

  I woke the next morning grouchy, tired, feeling as though I hadn’t slept at all.

  “Sleep well?” Kel’Ratan asked cheerfully, shaking dust from his blanket and rolling it up.

  Shardon eyed me sidelong, sympathy gleaming from beneath the silver fall of his forelock. If he knew I lied, at least he’d keep his mouth shut.