"Did he take care of this Alistar?"
Cahira released a trembling sigh. I'm getting there. Alistar refused to take no for an answer. He said that Baroucha told him I liked it rough and he intended to give it to me."
Finn's expression darkened with anger. He raped you?"
"He ... tried. Todd caught him ... pulled him off me before Alistar could ... could consummate it. Todd not only beat Alistar senseless, he told Tarrant."
"Whooa!"
"To say that Tarrant was enraged would be understating it. They staked Alistar out over an anthill. Nude. Smeared with honey. Drove runed silver spikes through his wrists and ankles ... and one through his belly."
"That's nasty. But how does this"
Cahira leaned close and put her fingers over Finn's lips. Hush. If you keep interrupting, I'm not sure I can finish."
Finn swallowed and nodded.
She drank her whiskey and poured another.
Finn felt certain that if Cahira kept drinking at this rate she would be even sicker than she had been the previous time. So he gave another nod and waited for her to continue.
"Rumor claimed that Alistar had several minor mage gifts. There was only one I knew he had for certain. Alistar Weems had the Evil Eye."
Finn sucked a question back and left it unsaid.
"They took Alistar far from the camp to do it. I didn't know what they intended. Todd told me not to follow them. I did and I shouldn't have. I was like a moth circling a candle flame. Alistar kept screaming. On and on and on. Cahira shuddered. The more he screamed ... the more I felt driven ... to look."
Finn grasped Cahira's hand, patting it without speaking.
"I'm okay. I'm okay. I'm almost finished. Cahira freed her hand from Finn and wiped at the tears running from her eyes. By the time I got to Alistar, Todd and Tarrant had already left. The moon was full. I could see Alistar's face clearly. Oh gods. A sob escaped from Cahira. Eighty years later and I can still see his face."
Cahira went silent and Finn struggled not to speak. Eventually, when Finn had nearly given up hope, she started talking again.
"Alistar looked at me and that's when he laid the curse. His voice was so strange. He didn't really sound like Alistar ... and yet the words were coming from his mouth. The next day, Baroucha came to me. She called me a murderer. She said I had led Alistar on. She said he had cursed me and everyone I loved would die. Cahira poured herself another drink. And that she was pregnant ... by Alistar."
Cahira folded her arms across her stomach and doubled over sobbing. Finn, bear with me. This is where everything gets jumbled and patchy. Don't ask me to explain anything, because I can't.
"Tarrant was on his way home from Clan Silverpaw. We had learned that the divinators were destroyed and we no longer needed to fear them. There were rumors that the Guild had finally involved itself. The surviving divinators had gone into hiding. Everywhere, our people were celebrating it as a victory."
Finn nodded.
"Halfway between Running Horse and the Bonnie Draw River, they were ambushed. Tarrant and his brother were taken captive. Todd was the only survivor. They left him for dead. If a peddler named Dyna had not stumbled upon him, Todd would have died with the rest of them. When word of it reached us... Cahira sucked in a troubled breath. It came on the heels of ... sighting a large force of Sa'necari led troops, most of them demons and the like. I was more than halfway through my pregnancy with Branduff. We didn't even stand and fight. We broke and fled."
Cahira took another drink of whiskey. I thought both Tarrant and Todd were dead. I couldn't think straight. Baroucha and I fled together. I don't know why I left with her ... only that I did. She abandoned her cub at a monastery in the mountains. She knew I was terrified and she kept ... reminding me of Alistar's curse upon the Redhands ... telling me his curse had killed Logan, Tarrant, and Todd. And when she wasn't telling me that, she was telling me that the Redhands would take Branduff away from me and cast me out as a slut. She said many other things too. I don't remember half of it. I was so frightened and confused. By the time I reached Wolffgard, Claw and Aisha had been allowed to return to the manor with the bodies of their sons. Tarrant had been laid in the ground weeks before I got there. Baroucha went with me to see Aisha. Gods, I wish I could remember it right. I'm sorry, Finn. But I don't. I fled as soon as Aisha asked if Branduff belonged to Tarrant. I babbled that I had slept with half the army."
Cahira drank her whiskey down, poured another, and drank that. You want to know what the strangest thing is?"
Finn nodded.
"Everything I said to Aisha about myself ... described Baroucha, not me. Tears started down Cahira's face. Baroucha followed me as far as Three Stones, telling me I owed her a child and that she intended to take Branduff in payment. I suppose I would have been lost completely, except I encountered a friend of Todd's named Phelan and he got me back to my father's home in Longbranch. And that's where Todd found me."
"But why won't you tell them now? That's in the past."
"Because... Cahira fixed Finn with a stare. I believe there really is a curse. She drank her whiskey and poured another.
Finn covered her hands. I think you've had enough."
"Let go of my hands."
Finn reluctantly released her.
"Curses are odd things. You have to know how to break them or how to evade them. They're very literal. I know nothing of breaking curses, Finn. But I know a lifetime's worth of how to outrun them."
"What did the curse say, exactly?"
"I don't remember it all. Just pieces of it. All the Redhands shall perish, until only the exile remains. There were a couple of other lines in there. Then the exile's victory shall be his pardon and those he claims will rule."
Finn licked his lips thoughtfully. Maybe it isn't a curse."
Cahira looked startled. What else could it have been?"
"A prophecy?"
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
NIKKO
Nikko knew that Malthus rode frequently into the forest, allegedly to hunt; yet he rarely came back with anything these days. So Nikko began staying out all night in his wolf form, watching Malthus home. He always left his home, went into the forest and changed into a wolf there after hiding his clothing. Then he would swing wide and come around behind Malthus house, which required crossing a stream that ran through the village, to lie in wait for Malthus to leave. Eventually his patience was rewarded, and Malthus rode out just before sunrise one day with his packhorse in tow. Nikko slipped though the trees and underbrush after him, moving from shadow to shadow, trotting as fast as the terrain allowed. Malthus turned onto a hunter's trace, and Nikko followed. As Nikko moved deeper into the forest he knew so well, he began to hear creatures in the trees, chittering back and forth in a language he failed to recognize.
He gradually became aware of them being on all sides of him. Their numbers increased steadily and now he caught flashes of orange skin. He did not know what they were, for their scent was unfamiliar. Yet he could smell their hostility. It raised the hackles on his neck. One of them stood forth in the treetops, giving Nikko his first clear view of one. It was a nude male, wearing only a belt of pouches that also held a blowgun, a bandoleer of darts, and a necklace of bones.
Nikko recognized them from drawings in Tempest's books: imps. Their darts would be either poisoned or drugged. Nikko realized that he was in trouble, and knew that he needed to break free before they closed with him.
He reared up in his transitional form and broke for what he believed to be the weakest portion of them. Nikko found two facing him with their blowguns to their lips. They fired, striking Nikko in the shoulder and arm. He throttled one and broke the other's head open against a tree, dropping the bodies on the tarry black soil. Darts peppered him from all sides. Nikko shrugged them off, bursting into the open. For an instant, Nikko experienced a lightness that he interpreted as relief at getting free of them. He felt over his body, grabbing the darts from his flesh, and dropping
them on the ground.
Then suddenly, he felt as if he had struck a wall or run headlong into a large tree. Nikko blinked dully, feeling the poison hitting his system harder than he had expected. He had hoped that his hybrid form would be able to shake off most of it. But he had been wrong. Lethargy crept over him and a trembling weakness swept through his muscles. Confusion and disorientation caused Nikko to make a stumbling circle that brought him back onto the game trail. Gazing ahead of him, Nikko saw Malthus standing with his bow raised at full draw and an arrow to the string.
"What are you doing? Nikko asked, swaying like a drunkard.
For answer, Malthus released the shaft and drew another.
Nikko tried to dodge the missile, but the dart drugs had slowed his reflexes. The arrow struck Nikko in the chest and he staggered, feeling the burn of some incredible poison in his body, far worse than the other.
"Devil's Silver. I'm killing you, Malthus said calmly, releasing his second shaft.
Nikko clutched at the shaft protruding from his chest as the second one hit him in the ribs. He crashed through a stand of briars and stumbled into the trees trying to flee. The shaft snapped off in his hand and fell into the briars when he tried to jerk it out, leaving the long, barbed head lodged in his chest and lungs, spreading the poison into his blood stream. Devil's Silver ... oh, gods. It must be....
Two more arrows pierced his back, making him jerk and stagger. Another flight of darts punctured his body. The imps chittered excitedly, crying out their victory over him.
All of Nikko's muscles hurt from the swift acting toxins. He thought of Nevin, his first mentor, who had been an exemplar of courage, and steeled himself to fight it. He had to tell someone, but his sense of direction failed him.
"You're dying, Lawgiver. No need to run. Malthus put another arrow to the string.
Nikko did not stop. A fifth arrow pierced his thigh, nearly dropping him. Nikko's fingers dug into the wound around the shaft, forcing the leg to hold him up. Had it not been for the Devil's Silver, he might have won free. Lycans could take horrendous damage from normal weapons. He forced himself a few more steps and then a few more. A sixth arrow hit him low, close to his spine. The smallest movement had become torment. He could hear Malthus and the imps following him.
"I killed the priest. I killed Beth. Now I've killed you. No one interferes with me, Malthus shouted at him. I'm sa'necari."
Nikko staggered on, weaving from side to side. Sa'necari! How could we not have known it ? A fit of coughing nearly sent him to his knees. Blood, white froth, and yellow bile foamed around his muzzle. Some force inside him said, keep going, keep going, and he did, even though he knew Malthus was righthe was dying.
The young lycan clutched at his chest and stomach as he struggled onward . I'm a fool. I should have gone to Claw with my suspicions.
"Follow him. He won't get far. There's enough poison in him to kill twenty lycans, Malthus said. Retrieve my points from his body. And my shafts."
Imps scampered after Nikko.
You're right, you bastard ... I won't ... get far. But maybe ... far enough.
He heard Malthus riding off in another direction. Nikko's vision blurred. Fits of spasming rushed through his muscles, making his body twitch and cramp. Nikko felt weak and tired, with a pressure in his chest like a fist closing around his lungs and heart. The constriction left him struggling to breathe, unable to voice a warning howl into the dwindling lightassuming it could be heard by anyoneor scream at his pain and anguish.
He could barely keep his feet, could barely move. He focused on picking one foot up and then the other. Nikko's feet slid around under him. His knees kept threatening to drop him as if they belonged to a broken doll. Two huge willow trees grew close together ahead of the young lawgiver. He heard the river rushing a few feet beyond the trees. If he threw himself in the river, perhaps his body would wash up near one of the fishing villages. They could match the arrows in his body to those Malthus carried, identifying his murderer.
Nikko tottered into the trailing curtain of branches, clutching at a trunk to hold himself up. The fletching on five shafts protruding from his body looked like small, dark birds perched in the willow curtain. The shafts caught on the branches as he struggled for one last stepthe step that would carry him into the waterand twisted the heads in his wounds. The death scream he had been unable to voice earlier erupted from his throat in a long ululation of suffering.
* * * *
Malthus dismounted before the bleeding table at his brother's cavethat was how he had begun to think of ithis brother's cave. A dead body draped the table and seven more hung from sturdy poles with their heads tied back, their throats cut, and their blood draining into basins. He hoped that his companions had brought plenty of preserving bottles: the valley was rich in blood. Malthus had arrived at the meeting ready to be fed, but not expecting it. Food appeared plentiful and freshassuming they had held something back for him.
Egidius, Laetus, and five others sat on the ground and small boulders: two Rakshasas in their lovely female forms, sat sharing a dismembered arm, slicing chunks from it with their long knives; a huge, barrel-chested brukulaco kept licking his lips hungrily while gazing at the bodies on the poles; and a pair of lamiae waited for their share of lycan flesh, their female human torsos emerging from the coils of their serpentine legs. Malthus nodded at them. Lord Daemon had procured him some very powerful allies, which was necessary when dealing with the tough lycans.
A banshee like cry, half-wail, half howl shattered the air.
Egidius head came up sharply. What was that?"
Malthus shrugged. Lycan death scream. You've heard them often enough."
"Yes, but so close to here..."
Malthus smirked. That was the lawgiver. I shot him. Nikko turned out to be a more impressive specimen than I expected. He moved around the table, examining the dead lycan there. She had been almost pretty. I hope you saved some for me. I haven't had a rite in months."
"We did. Our scouts stumbled on an isolated group of steadings. The last of the males have been drained, as you can see. Laetus pointed at the bodies on the poles. We have a dozen women and children chained up in another cave."
"Excellent. I've been craving a rite. Malthus stroked the corpse, sticking his fingers in the wounds, pulling them out, and licking them. You haven't been done with this one long."
Laetus laughed, his eyes dancing merrily. You're good, Malthus. I'd barely gotten my pants pulled up when we heard your horse."
"Lycans don't call me the Butchering Serpent for naught. He slapped Laetus on the shoulder. I'll pick out some to be sent to my estate in Carrion Crevasse. I want to start my experiments again when this job is done."
"What did you mean by impressive? Egidius asked.
Malthus chuckled. My imps had him looking like a porcupine. I put three arrows into him before it even slowed him down. I put two more into him to be certain he didn't get far. And then another. Judging from that scream, it still took him a while to die."
The imps would eat Nikko and then bring a few trophies back to Malthus, as they always did. The toxins in Nikko's corpse would not so much as give them indigestion. With luck, the imps would bring him Nikko's runes. He wanted to analyze the way they had been consecrated. The lycans were primarily ancestor worshippers, only recently turning to the Nine Elder Gods of Light.
"What news? Malthus asked them.
"Our eastern units saw fighting with the remnants of that battle-clan. We exterminated them. Word should be reaching the villages eventually. We butchered the bodies to feed our allies, drained the captives and wounded. But you know lycans; they don't need bodies to know what went down there. That's why they have wet noses."
"We need to take a few hamlets soon, Malthus said, pulling at his mustaches. Eliminate the little stuff and then move on to bigger game. I want to frighten the lycans."
"Our units are in place around three of them. And what are you going to be doing in the meantim
e?"
"I'm getting married to the most beautiful lycan in creation."
"You said that about Dyllys. You rited her the day before the wedding. You have no idea how that affected me. I was looking forward to the parties afterwards."
"I had my reasons, Malthus snarled. But Merissa is far more beautiful than Dyllys ever was. Furthermore, she's already had one sa'necari child. That means she should be able to give me several heirs."
"Thinking of settling down? Egidius smirked.
"I am. Mother would approve of her."
Laetus guffawed. Your mother would approve of anything that got you back into the family business."
Malthus shrugged and turned his back on Laetus, the fool was young and too easily amused. I forgot to ask, Egidius ... did you enjoy Beth?"
Egidius joined Malthus beside the table. Yes, indeed. I made a proper rite of it. The full Fifteen Piercings. Dedicated her death to Bellocar in your brother's name."
"Thank you. Malthus hugged Egidius. You're a fine friend."
* * * *
Nikko fell to his knees, hunched over. Some of the shafts struck the ground, moving the barbs in his body. He groaned, wheezed, and coughed up more blood. Nikko broke off the shaft whose point lay buried in his lower ribs. He desperately wanted to lie down. Weak and exhausted, he bent forward, resting on his hands among the roots of the willow trees, unable to go any farther. He thought of trying to crawl to the water, but his arms trembled violently and gave out. With no strength or will remaining, Nikko instinctively curled up on his right side to die, which slowed the amount of blood seeping into his good left lung.
He smelled reeds and the sweetness of the water lilies.
He wished he could have heard birds one last time, but the imps had scared them away.
He thought of his mother, and wondered who would take care of her when he failed to come home.
Another round of small convulsions shook him and the world went hazy. Each moment of anguish seemed to stretch forever.
How long does it take to die? Let it end. Please, gods, let it be over. I can't take anymore ... I can't take the pain.
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