by CJ Perry
“Tell me here. What did you find?”
Ayla wound one finger in a vertical circle at the men, a signal to keep moving. The men with the sledges slid down the pile to help move rocks. The chain started back up again in relative silence as Victor made his way down the hall. His painted, rune-inscribed staff clacked on the floor with each step. His tattoo-etched brow lowered as he squinted in the dust.
“I found him, and the Guardian.”
Ayla almost jumped into the air. “Where? Is he alright?
“He’s fine. He’s with the Guardian by the river, just south of the city. But he knows I found him. He’ll be on the move.”
Rage burned through the pall that had kept her in a daze. “How do you know he’ll run?”
“He threw a stone at the raven that found him. And I checked his room. The door is destroyed and his spell books are gone.”
Ayla marched down the hall and made her way back down through the crowded tower. If she had just let Deetra cut that Guardian’s throat the night she arrived, none of this would have happened. James would still be alive and Justin would hate her, but at least he would be safe at home.
At the bottom of the steps, a man hustled out of the open door with his wheelbarrow. The Red Knights had cleared the crowd from the courtyard but they still filled the street. The commotion outside settled to hushed whispers as she stepped through the door.
Her black mare, Eve, stood just to the side of the door without a tether. She nickered hello at Ayla and tossed the reins.
Victor smiled with his mouthful of filed teeth. “I thought you would want to join me for the hunt,” he said.
Ayla stuck one foot in the stirrup and threw her leg over Eve. “This is not a ‘hunt’. I’m coming with you to make sure you don’t kill him before I hear his side of the story.”
Victor’s brown eyes narrowed. “Justin has always despised me, and he loves this girl. What do you think he will do when they are confronted by me and my pack? And what could he possibly say to-”
“Unharmed.”
“You gave him a choice and he’s made it. You are the Empress and I will do my best to honor your wish. But I’m heir to the Orc Hills High-Chief, and if Justin or his murdering whore attack me, I can make you no promises of what will happen to him.”
Ayla nodded, though a cold hand had gripped her heart. “Fair enough,” she said, and clucked her tongue at Eve.
Chapter Nineteen
Bloomers
Justin picked up his satchel and tucked his spell book back into it. The river flowed on its lazy path north. Thirty more minutes and they would have been on their Ghostly Steeds, heading south and out of the reach of his mother and Victor. The birds chirped a cheerful song as the afternoon sun glinted off the water. He fished a bit of wool from his robe sash.
“I can throw them off our trail for a little while.”
Celia gripped her sword, her back to Justin as she stared north up the river toward Hornstall. “There’s no way we can outrun an Abyssal Wolf.” She turned to face him. “We will have to stand and fight at some point.”
Justin shook his head. “He won't be alone. He can summon more Abyssal Wolves, and he’s been cross-breeding the coyotes here with them.”
“So how many?”
“Four Abyssal wolves, maybe more. And at least a dozen coywolves.”
Celia blanched and the sword lowered. “What about the horses you were going to summon?”
“I only have one memorized.”
“Two people can ride one horse.”
Justin shook his head. “Not these.”
A Ghostly Steed would only accommodate a single rider. With a second Steed they fcould cover as much as a hundred miles in a few hours. It would not get them to Aflua, but far enough from Hornstall to rest. He only had one other spell memorized, the second Illusion he had planned to use to get back out of the Sanctum during their botched escape.
His mother had faced a similar situation when fleeing her plantation, the morning she killed Justin’s minotaur father. The masters of Hillside tracked her using hounds as she fled through the forest in her blood-soaked dress and bare feet.
Celia checked up the river again, and picked out a pebble from between her toes. “So now what?”
“Give me your bloomers.”
She put one hand on her hip, her flaming hair blowing in the light breeze coming off the water. “Absolutely not. Why?”
“I need to smell them.”
“You are disgusting.”
Justin held out his hand and cocked an eyebrow. “We’re running out of time. I can do it while you are still wearing them, or, you can hand them to me.”
She folded her arms.
Justin took a step toward her. “Have it your way.”
Celia looked down at her blood splattered bloomers, then back downriver. “Fine.”
She pulled them down and stepped out of them, long muscular legs flexing. Justin averted his eyes and the bloomers hit him in the face. He caught them, his face flushing.
“Sorry,” he said, his ears burning as he bunched the bloomers in his hands and lifted them to his nose.
Celia scoffed, disgusted, but Justin took another deep breath of her undergarment. For his plan to work he had to replicate Celia’s scent. Her bloomers had her blood and sweat. Of course, his nose was not as sensitive as that of a wolf but it did not have to be exact.
Justin pressed the bit of wool between his eyes with one finger, bloomers still covering his nose. He pushed the image of her out of his mind along with the sounds of the forest around him., focusing on the smell of the garment, the smell of Celia. The memorized Illusion was far more powerful than what he needed it for, but that meant it would last longer and the range increased. The only forms of Illusion that did not require constant eye contact were pure sounds and smells. The spell came forth and he whispered the words into the fabric. The pinch of wool between his eyes disintegrated.
He opened his eyes and lowered the bloomers from his face. Celia wore a disgusted look and held out her hand. The tunic she wore covered only the bare essentials. He cleared his throat and studied the pebbles along the shore as he walked the few steps to hand her clothes back. She snatched it from his hand.
“We are never to talk about this,” she said.
“No disagreements there,” Justin replied, his eyes on the pebble-lined riverbank.
Her naked feet stepped into her bloomers with a muttered curse, then she snapped her fingers to get his attention. Justin met her green eyes, his cheeks and ears still on fire. One hand still rested on her hip. He wiped away the smile that crept up to his lips. She stepped to within striking distance, the flush in her cheeks accompanied by a scowl.
“I’m glad you think it’s funny. What exactly did that accomplish?”
A wolf howled a long melancholy note. It’s air of darkness silenced the birds in the clearing. Only one kind of wolf made that sound - an Abyssal. Victor was calling the pack.
Celia’s eyes went wide. She opened her mouth to say something but Justin raised a finger to her lips. She grabbed his hand, her lowered brow suggesting an intent to pry it away, but the angry lines smoothed when their eyes met. Her touch raised gooseflesh on his arm and a shock, a trembling wave, rose up his limb and settled in his heart. Justin swallowed and found his voice.
“I don’t have time to explain,” he said, and lowered his hand. She let go of it but her fingertips brushed the back of his hand, as if unwilling to part with it. He held them so she would not have to and a flush rose to his cheeks again. They stood facing one another, hand in hand, his blue eyes reflected in her green.
Victor howled again, and was joined by the haunting cry of a second Abyssal canine: his spirit animal, Eggs. The lines in her brow returned and she turned upriver, toward the sound. Justin squeezed her hand.
“We’re going to make it out of here.”
Celia replied with a stiff nod and a tight-lipped half-smile. She checked down river, the
n into the woods.
“Which way do we run?”
“Do you trust me?”
She squeezed his hand and nodded.
Justin pulled her toward the river. He stopped at the edge and wove a Protection Cantrip over his satchel with his free hand. He waded into the cool shallows but Celia did not follow. She pulled him back.
“Why are we not running?”
Justin raised a finger to his lips and tipped his head toward the river - a silent request for her to join him. She did, and they waded farther out until the water came up to his chest, and her neck. Another wolf bayed in reply to the first two, this one only a few hundred yards to the west, deeper in the woods. A third and fourth joined in, all from different sides. Celia grabbed onto his robe to stay above the surface and he wrapped an arm around her.
He leaned in and whispered, “It’s too late to run.”
Chapter Twenty
Calling the Pack
Ayla crossed into the shadow of one of the twin sixty-foot towers of Hornstall’s front gate. The portcullis ratcheted open at her approach. Eve carried her through main gatehouse, the steps of her hooves amplified by the stone walls.
Victor ran to the end of the drawbridge. He stopped and turned his chin to the sky and let loose a long mournful bay that carried over the rolling southern hills. High scattered clouds moved across the sky in the steady breeze.
Eve’s hooves clomped over the drawbridge. A wolf - black and tall as a man at the shoulder - raced down the western hillside toward Victor. Eve neighed and shimmied as it drew closer. Ayla tugged the reins to keep her from bolting. The horse loved Victor but his spirit-guide animal terrified her. Ayla whispered a prayer for courage. Eve relaxed and ventured closer to the massive beast.
A natural armor of interlocked bone plates covered his snout, head, and spine down to the tail. The nine-foot long beast fell to its back and Victor rubbed his soft belly. Ayla pulled up next to the pair and the faint odor hit her nose. Eggs looked up at her from his back, lips pulled away from his teeth, each one as long as one of Aylas fingers. He opened his blood-colored, whiteless eyes and recovered to his feet. He shook out his coal black coat and splayed his front legs in a bow.
“Hello, Eggs,” Ayla said, then dismounted and rubbed Eve’s nose. She kissed Eve’s cheek. “I just need your tack, then you can go run in the fields till I get back.”
Eve nickered her approval.
Ayla took off the bitless bridle first, then moved to the saddle. She lifted the pad, unbuckled the girth strap, and stood on her tiptoes to lift off the saddle and blanket. Ayla clucked her tongue and the horse ran off into the west fields with a joyful whinny.
Victor lowered his head to his staff. Ayla winced at the bone-crunching, tendon-popping sounds of Victor’s shapeshift. She couldn’t suppress a shudder as she watched his body contort and twist into its new form - shedding every vestige of humanity. She was all too aware of the thin line between man and beast, so she never really cared for such a visual reminder.
Within a few moments, he dropped to all fours with a growl and shook out his black coat, the plates on his back clacking together. He sat and scratched behind his ear with a hind leg. Ayla waited until he finished then stood on her tiptoes to drop the heavy saddle on his armored back with a grunt of effort. She crawled under him to reach the girth and buckled it, retrieved two more leather straps from the saddlebag, and then crisscrossed them over Victor’s chest. She put the bridle on him, and climbed into the saddle.
Eggs walked over and licked her elbow. The smell of sulfur never left him, no matter how long he spent in the mortal world. The Aybss did not wash off. Ayla petted his furry cheek just below the bony ridges of his skull.
“Let’s find Justin.”
Victor and Eggs howled together and the hair on Ayla’s neck stood on end. The howl of an Abyssal Wolf possessed a sadness and dark pain that pierced straight into the soul. After hearing its haunting tone, no one ever forgot it.
With a puff of black, ethereal smoke and an overwhelming stink of sulfur, another bone-plated Abyssal Wolf appeared next to Eggs. Its fur bristled and the sharp, bony plates along its back raised like hackles. Another rush of smoke and sulfur and a second one appeared next to Ayla.
Victor, Eggs, and their two new brothers howled again, in a higher octave this time. The forest answered with one, then two bays. More answered as the howl continued on, rising together in a distant chorus to the west.
The howl ended. Victor’s muscles flexed as his hind quarters prepared for a sprint. Ayla held onto the reins, leaned forward, and tucked her chin. Victor took off and her black braid trailed out behind her, the wind rushing in her ears. They headed straight up and over the first hill, then turned west for the river.
With so many wolves, she and Victor would find and make short work of the Guardian. The Guardian might kill one or two with her sword but her armor still lay on the floor of the dungeon. It would not take long for her to succumb to the bites from a dozen sets of teeth. Then, Ayla would drag Justin back home to the Sanctum - no - to the Children’s Garden. He would watch the children play while she told him what happened to children growing up on plantations. Then she would bring him before the altar.
They galloped down the hill. The first group of coywolves waited for them in the shadow of the wood line of long, slender beech trees. Victor did not slow as he ran through the underbrush of briars but the thorns did not scratch either of them. Victor’s connection with nature allowed him to pass through even the densest brush unimpeded. He left no tracks and made no sounds other than his heavy breath.
They coywolves ran out ahead of him, dodging trees and leaping over stones. Victor led Eggs and the other two Abyssal Wolves. They crashed through the forest behind them, snapping branches and snarling. The air grew humid and the sounds of the river came from just ahead. Victor raced toward it. The trees cleared and Victor leapt off a small embankment and into the water. Ayla sank briefly but Victor popped back up and dog-paddled them across.
On the other side, Victor stopped to sniff the riverbank, then followed the pack of coywolves ahead of him. The scent led them to a small pebble-lined alcove a few dozen feet from the riverbank in the shade of a pair of black willows. The coywolves - at least a dozen - waited along the river and in the woods full of dense underbrush that surrounded the alcove.
All the dogs sniffed and searched. Some followed the river south while others trekked deeper into the woods. Victor laid down, his signal for Ayla to dismount. She did, and the tack slipped to the ground as Victor shifted back, bones and sinew popping. The fur receded and his jerkin, pouches, and staff took shape.
He stretched his back with a hand on his hip. “They were in this alcove about fifteen minutes ago. But we have a problem.”
Ayla raised an eyebrow. “And it is?”
Victor pointed down the river to the south. Black willows hung over their reflections in the slow-moving water. Many of the boughs had broken in yesterday’s storm and fallen onto the shore or hung down into the water.
“There are two trails. One headed south and the other west.” He pointed into the woods.
“They split up?”
She ducked under a low branch to enter the alcove. It was cozy, the kind of place her son might hide to study. Without rest or study, both prayers and spells could run dry. The heart and the mind had only so much to give before either exhausted itself. If she kept Justin on the run and casting, at some point he would run out of Illusions and she would find him.
“No,” Victor said, and Egg’s massive black form passed between them, his armored ridge raised. The tip of his nose - as big as Ayla’s fist- sniffed at the ground. “Both trails smell of both male and female and both get stronger the farther you follow them. That means they left this location going in two directions at the same time. One has to be fake.”
Ayla smiled and left the alcove. Justin had heard the story of her escape from Hillside Plantation so often that he rolled his eyes
whenever she brought it up. He knew that the Goddess had saved Ayla from the pursuing hounds by having her blood-soaked dress carried off by a coyote. Then she had traveled in the opposite direction from where her scent would lead the masters of the plantation. They had assumed Ayla would run south, toward freedom, but instead she had gone north, to Hornstall.
Ayla ran her hand down the rough bark of one of the black willows. The only sensation Justin said his magic could not duplicate was touch; that left sight, hearing, and smell. With that kind of power, Justin would not bet his life on a fifty-fifty chance. Ayla closed her eyes and cupped her hands under her chin to pray.
“Goddess of Night, your daughter is in need and begs humbly, to see the magic my son has used to mislead us.” Ayla removed the dagger from its sheath and cut the tip of her index finger. With it, she painted her eyelids.
Ayla opened her eyes, lids already tacky. A trail hung in the air, a fog of blue mist leading into the woods. Another led from the clearing along the river to the south. Her son had learned his lessons from her stories well. Too bad for him that they were her stories.
“Neither is real. They headed back north, to Hornstall,” she said and picked up the saddle from the riverbank. “It’s what I did the night I ran from the Hillside Masters’ hounds. He’s probably going to try and sneak aboard a riverboat at the docks.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Last Words
Justin stood on his tiptoes on the soft riverbed, keeping his face above the water. He held Celia’s arms and she gripped his shoulder to keep her nose and mouth above the surface. A downed limb of moss-covered black willow hid them from the riverbank. A cloud moved from in front of the sun and Justin closed his eyes, its warmth on his forehead. He forced his breathing to stay even.
“Neither is real. they headed back north, to Hornstall,” his mother’s voice said, farther downriver.