by Inked (lit)
As short as the explanation had been, I’d had to raise my voice almost to a yell by the end of it. At the word Hunter, the stands had cascaded in one long ripple of fur and skin as hundreds of Weres rushed down the slope to the lower levels. None attempted to advance into the flat area, but they were as close as they could get. There was blood in the air, something no wolf could resist.
“She lies! The human lies!” Grayshadow was practically apoplectic. “I barely escaped alive from the clutches of the vargulf Cyrus, once of Arnou. He and this one conspired together to weaken the clans by killing our leading members! They care nothing for our ways, for our traditions! They think to use the war to destroy us, to dissipate our power and to allow the humans to enslave us!”
It wasn’t a bad story, playing to all the hot buttons for the clans: raging xenophobia, distaste for the human war, and fear of those who possessed a magic they didn’t understand. A rustling murmur came from the crowd, growing louder by the second, and I briefly wondered if I was about to be lynched. And then the Speaker’s spear struck the ground with three heavy knocks that I swear I could feel through the soles of my boots.
“Challenge has been issued.”
Grayshadow looked at him incredulously. “She is human! She has not accepted the Change! There is nothing in the tradition that defends it!”
“And nothing that prohibits. I say a second time, challenge has been issued against you, Grayshadow of Arnou. Do you accept?”
“This is outrageous! She and her human father killed four representatives of Lobizon! Her birth clan wants nothing to do with her! She is clearly—”
“For the third and last time. Challenge has been issued against you by a lawful member of the Clan. Do you accept?”
Grayshadow’s mouth compressed into a sharp line, a wince of anger and contempt. But I wasn’t worried. Clan law is remarkably simple in comparison to the human variety. If he wanted to clear his name, he had to fight me. To refuse would be an admission of guilt, and ringing us on all sides were members of the clans who had lost members to the Hunter. He’d never make it out of here alive.
Of course, if he accepted, I might not either.
He finally gave an abrupt nod, his eyes filled with not just pride but rage. It paled them out to silver, hardening a mouth shaped for smug, superior smiles and stiffening his walk to angry, snapping strides. I stood there, watching him move to the middle of the great space, unsure what happened now.
“Challenge has been issued,” the Speaker intoned. “Challenge is accepted.”
I started after Grayshadow, almost deafened by the renewed uproar of the crowd, only to be jerked back by an iron grip on my arm. I smelled the musky scent of woods and predation and looked up to see Sebastian. He was in human form, but his eyes were chartreuse and they didn’t look happy.
“I asked you to find my brother, not to issue challenge!” he hissed, so low I could barely hear him over the crowd.
“I did find him. He’s fine. Well, not fine,” I amended. “But he’ll live.”
“Then your job is done!”
“Not yet.” I tried to tug away, but got exactly nowhere. Sebastian might have been a column carved out of the surrounding rock.
“I’ll take the challenge for you,” he told me, his jaw tight.
“Like hell.”
“Lia! Don’t be a fool. I’ve seen Grayshadow fight! You can’t win!”
“I guess we’ll find out.” The death grip on my arm didn’t change. “Let me go, Sebastian.”
“I’ll repudiate you, dismiss you from the tribe! It will render your challenge meaningless.”
I blinked. He looked utterly serious. “And that would help how? Then they’d kill me for being here.”
“I will guarantee you safe passage.” He started pulling me away, toward the sidelines.
“Then Lobizon will kill me tomorrow!” I dug in my heels, which did nothing but carve furrows out of the dirt. “Sebastian! He came here to challenge you! As soon as I leave—”
He rounded on me, furious. “I can fight my own battles!”
“Not this time. You’re just going to have to trust me.”
“I am not going to tell my brother I let his mate die!”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
“You don’t understand. It would kill him! Our mother—” He stopped, a flash of pain cutting across those striking eyes. “She died in a contest much like this one.”
“She was the woman you told me about,” I realized. “The one who died defending her mate.”
“Yes. And I can’t watch that again!”
“You won’t.”
“You don’t know Grayshadow like I do. He will kill you.”
I looked over my shoulder, to where Grayshadow silently waited. Unlike me, he’d taken time to change clothes before approaching the Council. I could have picked him out as Arnou anywhere. It was in the shape of his long, dark cloak, cut from a template hundreds of years old that had been copied from one worn by their first clan leader. More obviously, it was in the peculiar mix of arrogance and elegance that no other clan quite managed, that calm conceit that said we are first because we are best.
My stomach clenched. “No,” I told Sebastian. “He won’t.”
“You’re afraid; I can see it on your face. Relinquish your challenge and let me get you out of here.”
“Fear isn’t a bad thing, if you use it right,” I told him, and wrenched away.
The Council’s servants had been busy lighting more torches, probably for the benefit of my lousy human eyesight. I wasn’t sure if I was grateful or not. A circle of them now ringed Grayshadow in fire, shedding sepia light over the sand and gilding his face, deepening the crags, highlighting the lines and making him look like what he was—a warrior with a hell of a lot more experience than me. He seemed to think so, too, because he wasn’t looking too worried.
“Tell me, human,” he called before I’d even reached him. “Do you remember the story of Red Riding Hood?”
“Let me guess. You aren’t the benevolent woodsman.”
Grayshadow laughed. “He only exists in the modern version. Today, the foolish little girl is saved by the woodsman who kills the wicked wolf. But in the original French story, she was given false instructions by the wolf when she asked the way to her grandmother’s house. She took his advice and ended up being eaten. And that was it. There was no woodsman and no grandmother, merely a well-fed wolf and a dead Red Riding Hood.”
“Guess we’re lucky it was only a fairy tale,” I said, stepping inside the ring of torch light.
“But it reflected reality. The original story is from a harsher time, when my ancestors fought with yours for territory, for food—for survival. The writer understood: you were our enemy, and we were yours.”
“Once, maybe. But we’re allies now, in case you haven’t—”
A clawed hand shot out and ripped through my shirt. I had shields up, or I’d have probably been bisected. As it was, talons like blades rattled across my ribs like a stick along a wrought iron fence.
Grayshadow rolled up his sleeve, exposing blistered flesh, while I fought to remain standing. “Now we’re even.”
I thought of the wolves he’d butchered, of the ruin he’d made of Cyrus, and my lip curled. “Not even close,” I hissed, and pushed a section of my shields outward in a band that wrapped around his throat. Something hit me in the side, and I could hear the crunch of shattered bone. I bit my lip on a scream and held on, until a burst of raw power exploded against my ragged shields like a firestorm.
I staggered back and he tore away. My shields had to be almost gone, because this felt like a direct hit, with every cell in my body screaming that it was dying. The only thing keeping me vertical was the memory of countless training sessions, stretching on until I was so tired I could have wept, and my father’s voice telling my mother “You underestimate her strength. Again, Accalia.” He’d wanted to be sure that, if I joined the Corps, I was as
prepared as he could make me. And no matter how much it hurt, it had been less impossible to do what was asked than to prove him wrong.
It still was.
The fire abruptly cut out and I staggered, gulping for air that wouldn’t come. And when it finally did, it filled my lungs like ice water. I glanced around and realized that the last of my shields had dissipated along with the flames. Instead of protecting me, what remained of my magical ability was going haywire.
The desert floor, which hadn’t seen a drop of water, was suddenly wet with an icy sludge. Cold bit at my face and hands as the moisture in the air began to crystallize. The water around my feet solidified as ice crawled across the sand, tracing delicate patterns in the muck. My feet went numb, my skin started to ache and there was frost in my hair and on my eyelashes. And still the temperature dropped, until I was gasping, trying to draw enough oxygen out of the thinning air.
Grayshadow was backing up from the approaching frost, uncertainty in his eyes. It couldn’t hurt him—it was only ice. But he wasn’t experienced enough with magic to know that.
“You’ll never defeat me with wild magic,” I taunted, as he hit a torch and jumped in a very undignified way. “You have power but no precision. Any war mage worth his salt could tear you apart.”
“Feel free to try,” he growled, whirling back at me.
So I threw a lasso around his feet and jerked. He hit the ground on his back and went sliding on the ice, an expression of almost comic surprise on his face. His feet were held immobile by the spell, and his arms were thrashing about in a vain attempt to stop himself. It didn’t work, and he crashed into the torches on the other side of the ring, obliterating them.
The abrupt movement tore something in my wounded shoulder, and the pain was blinding. I gasped and had to fight not to let it turn into a cough, abruptly aware of a liquid, unpleasant sensation in my lungs. Wetness was spreading across my lacerated stomach, warm at first but chilling fast against my skin. I was running out of time.
“You know,” I rasped, as Grayshadow threw off the spell and stumbled back to his feet. “I’ve often wondered how that story would have turned out, had Red been a mage.”
“You’re not the only one with tricks, human!” he snarled, and four flashes of gold spilled into his palm.
I barely had time to recognize them as the missing wolf wards before they sank into his skin and changed, showing their true colors. They were beautiful; easily the best wards I’d ever seen, crystal clear and glowing with power. One was a rich dark brown with white streaks, another a beautiful russet and a third a blinding white, like the sun at midday.
The last was smaller and dimmer than the others, a slightly bedraggled gray with a white streak on his nose. The vargulf, I realized, and a new rage burned in my stomach. It wasn’t bad enough that Grayshadow had stolen his life just because he needed a doppelganger; he was now planning to use what remained of him to kill me.
Only it looked like the tats had other ideas.
As soon as they touched him, Grayshadow started trembling like a fever had gripped him. He tried to brush them off, but they’d already taken hold, becoming part of him. They sprang up his body, and wherever they went, great gashes opened up in his flesh. He clawed more furrows out of his skin, trying to tear them off, but they stayed one step ahead. He screamed beneath their careful savagery, because it couldn’t be borne and had to be; because there was no bracing to meet it and no escape.
He crouched a few yards away from me, hissing. I knew what was coming before he snarled and sprang, but there was no time to get out of the way. The air around him flared and his body came apart, more violently than any change I’d ever seen. I braced myself, even knowing it was useless. My shields were gone, and no way could I stand against an assault like that. But instead of being struck by a four-hundred-pound wolf, a wave of blood and raw, red flesh hit me like a fist.
I swiped my arm across my face, smearing the gore but not caring, staring around wildly. I didn’t see anyone and went into a crouch, expecting another attack. But it didn’t come, and slowly the truth dawned. The wards made from the wolves Grayshadow butchered had been thorough in their revenge. The only thing they’d left of him was a spreading pattern of blood on the ice.
Okay, I thought dizzily. Now we’re even.
13
“GET it off!”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that,” Caleb told me, trying to look sympathetic. He failed miserably.
“Then get me someone who damn well can!”
“I don’t know why you’re upset,” he said, flicking a finger at the tiny beast currently roasting my elbow. “That’s an expensive ward you’ve acquired.”
“I haven’t acquired it! I don’t even know why it’s working again! It cut out on me last night, just when I needed the damn thing, and now—”
“It’s a talisman, Lia. It expended most of its store of magic energy and needed to recharge.”
“That doesn’t explain why it won’t leave!”
“It appears that stunning it caused it to reset. It now believes you to be its owner. That’s probably why it fought for you as long as its power lasted.”
“If it thinks I’m its master, why won’t it turn loose when I tell it to?”
He shrugged. “How would I know? It’s your ward.”
The door flew open and Hargrove bustled in with his usual air of having ten other places he needed to be. I really wished he’d find one of them. I so didn’t feel up to this today.
Caleb, the coward, slipped out behind the boss’s back as he picked up my chart. He let the silence drag out while he stared at it. “The good news is that the docs say the battle used up my excess magic,” I told him, not able to take the suspense. “So, uh, no more flying staffs. Or anything.”
“Sanjay is running a pool in the pharmacy,” Hargrove said after a moment. “They’re taking bets on which bones you’ll break in a given week.”
“Really? What’s the pot?” He looked up, eyes narrowing. I should have remembered; the guy had no sense of humor. “Look, I know I disobeyed your orders,” I began, fully prepared to grovel. But I didn’t get the chance.
“Which orders would those be?”
“The ones about not leaving the base?”
“That was between you and the doctor. The only command I gave was for you to report if any of this had to do with the Corps. Did it?”
“Uh, no.”
“That is what Sebastian Arnou said, when he called on me this morning. As I informed him, Were politics are of little concern to me. I have enough trouble keeping up with our own.”
I blinked. “Um. Sir? It almost sounds like maybe I’m not being fired?”
Hargrove rubbed his eyes. “I knew your father when he was in the service,” he said abruptly. “He was impetuous, headstrong and occasionally reckless. He was also the best commanding officer I ever had. It would be well for the Corps if you managed to survive long enough to emulate him.”
“Yes, sir.” I tried really hard to keep the silly grin trying to break out over my face under control. I couldn’t believe I was getting off this easy.
“Oh, and by the way,” Hargrove paused halfway out the door. “Mage Beckett has requested to be reassigned to combat duty.”
I frowned. “Why would he do that? He was one of our best instructors.”
“He said he needed the rest.” Hargrove smiled, and it was vicious. “You’ll be taking over his trainees as soon as you recover.”
Cyrus limped in a few moments later, while I was still reeling from the shock. He’d brought flowers, which I took as a good sign. He usually forgets stuff like that, although oil changes on my Harley are done like clockwork.
“So I guess I’m forgiven?” I asked, as he leaned over for a kiss.
“It will be at least a week until that happens. This is merely an injury-related time-out in my being pissed off at you.” He settled himself gingerly in a chair, his own injured leg stretched out in front of h
im.
“Come to think of it,” I told him, “I don’t know what I have to apologize for.”
“How about knocking me unconscious? Again?”
“I didn’t have a lot of time for a discussion.”
“And to think I used to dislike arguing with my girlfriends. Of course, that was before I encountered your method of ending a conversation.”
I sighed. “Fine. No more numb sticks.” Caleb had taken mine anyway.
“And as long as we’re on the subject, what about taking on Grayshadow on your own and almost giving me a stroke?” Cyrus’s words were light, but his expression was anything but.
“To be fair, you didn’t know about that until later.”
“I had a front-row seat courtesy of our bond. And without knowing you planned to sic his own wards on him!”
“About that bond thing—”
Cyrus shook his head. “That’s not going to work. For once, we’re going to finish one argument before we start the next.”
“Fine,” I said, giving him a look. “Although it should be pretty obvious that I couldn’t tell anyone my plans. Not even Sebastian. You know what wolf ears are, and Grayshadow was right there! He might have overheard.”
“And if he hadn’t used the wards?” Cyrus demanded. “If he’d assumed he could beat you on his own? What then?”
“He didn’t know my tat had run out of juice,” I pointed out. “And it had already hurt him once. He had no way of knowing that wouldn’t happen again.”
“And you had no way of knowing if that would be enough to convince him! Or that you’d guessed right about what his wards would do. They could have fought with him!”
“I took a calculated risk.”
“Based on what?”
“Jamie’s knowledge of the maker, for one thing. Some of the surviving gang members were rounded up and questioned last night. They’d been trading Wilkinson Fey wine now and again in return for protection wards, so they thought nothing of taking him the wolf pelts. He initially refused to have anything to do with them, but after they knocked him around a little, he agreed to give them what they wanted: weapons. What they didn’t know was that he’d ensured that those weapons would only work against them.”