Frank-KWar

by Kynyr's War [lit]

  Pandeena went to the manor with reluctance dragging at her heels. She did not want to upset Claw, but felt that she had no choice. More and more, the priest felt convinced that the Butchering Serpent and his allies must have taken them, but why?

  Kissie let her in and showed her up to the Blue Room. Claw looked worse than ever sitting by the fireplace playing checkers with Belgair. He had a blanket wrapped around him as if he had trouble staying warm despite the nearness to the fire. The lines in his face had become deeper, and his color paler. Since early summer, she had watched him aging before her eyes, and Pandeena almost turned around and left.

  Claw pinned her with his gaze, which was as sharp as ever. I can tell this isn't a social call."

  Pandeena dragged a chair close and sat down. I'm afraid it isn't. She sucked in a breath through her nostrils and noted that even Claw's scent was off somehow. There are fifteen women and twenty children missing from the camp. Ten humans and all five of the sa'necari. The missing children were an almost even mix of human and lycan."

  "Tell me about it. Did anyone see them leave?"

  "Claw, interposed Belgair, Sheradyn says that you're not to be stressed. Let me handle this."

  "Shut up, Belgair, Claw snapped. Stop interfering with me."

  Belgair subsided immediately. Claw had become increasingly short tempered with him, and he knew better than to push it.

  Claw poured himself another glass of Ildyrsetti rum and listened to Pandeena's tale.

  "I came to you because I didn't know what else to do, Pandeena said when she had finished with the story.

  "Belgair get a search going and try to pick up their trail."

  "What? And make them return? I say good riddance if they want that badly to leave."

  "It's an order, Belgair, Claw snarled at him. Get out and do it."

  The villagers, the guard, the Lycamornots, and Malthus, all joined in the search. Yet no sign of the women and children was found. Clodagh, claiming that she now felt unsafe, moved Shalto, Oswyl, Preece, and Rheu into the abandoned longhouses on the compound over Pandeena's objections. Sheradyn kept her away from Claw during that period and eventually Pandeena gave up for the time being.

  * * * *

  Ever since the rest of the pregnant women disappeared, Caimbeul had feared for Clodagh. He had checked on a few of the other females each night, and discovered that they had all been sterilized with all the earmarks of Sidera Tyrins craft. Matters were coming to a head with the Lycamornots: they had tried twice to ambush him and not succeeded. Shalto had tried various ploys to keep him out of Clodagh's bed. Caimbeul knew that he had to make a decision about it all and he had to make it now. He had been wearing Patton's form for days at a time, and it was slowly exhausting him.

  Caimbeul lay in bed with Clodagh, stroking her body. Caimbeul extended his auric presence, wrapping it protectively around her, shielding her to the best of his ability. To work his power to this extent meant allowing her to recognize what he was doing. Gambling, he said, I know someone who might be able to help you. Your womb carries the psychic echoes of rape."

  She felt his power and her shoulders slumped. Some of the coercions in her mind loosened. Then you know it's his."

  Caimbeul frowned, feeling a prickling along his arms. Whose?"

  "If I say his name I'll die. He set a death command in my mind. That's why I'm the only pregnant one still here. He still needs me."

  "Who is he?"

  "I can't tell you. Tears began to come down her cheeks. The child is sa'necari."

  "Let me help you."

  "You can't. Oh by the Nine Elder Gods, be merciful. When I was seven I was given a vision, and it was interpreted and sealed in my mind. I was prevented from remembering it until the wolf from the vision appeared."

  The prickling along Caimbeul's arms increased until it was almost as intense as the day he had been struck by lightning when he ran under a tree during a storm as a cub. Are you saying it's me?"

  "Yes. Clodagh straightened. The vision was this: if you rescue me, you'll die, but I'll live."

  "Fate can be changed, if one's will is strong enough."

  Clodagh pushed at Caimbeul's chest. Please go away, and don't ever come back."

  "No. You're coming away with me tonight."

  Caimbeul put his fingers to her temples and sent her to sleep. He caught Clodagh as she fell backwards on the bed. Then he wrapped her in a stasis, but he felt the Serpent's power fighting him. Sealing the stasis would take too much power for him to retain this form. Padruig gave way to Caimbeul's shape. He sealed the stasis, and lifted Clodagh in his arms.

  He carried her out of the longhouse, and a shape formed in the darkness.

  "Where are you going with her? Shalto demanded.

  "I'm taking her home with me."

  "You can't do that, old mon."

  "I can do anything I damn well please. I'm your lawgiver and you'll show respect or you'll end up in the dungeons."

  Shalto backed off. You're making bad enemies."

  "So are you."

  Caimbeul carried Clodagh to his home and laid her in his bed. Then he slipped his hand inside his robe, placed his fingers on the Godmark, and called out with his mind and heart.

  Pandeena, I need you. Please, come now.

  A shimmer of light shone in the corner of his bedroom. Pandeena appeared.

  "What is it you need? Her nose crinkled. You both smell of sex. What did you do to her? Get too rough in bed?"

  "Oh, please, Pandeena! Caimbeul said irritably. Don't start this now. She's pregnant."

  Pandeena's face screwed up in a frown of distaste that Caimbeul remembered well from their marriage. Old lecher, did you get her apron high?"

  "Shut up and listen! It's the Serpent's."

  Pandeena looked stunned as she walked to the bed, touched Clodagh, and Read her. You've got a stasis on her. I didn't know you could do that."

  "There's a lot you don't know about me, Pandeena. She has a death command in her mind. It was the only way to save her. Take her to your place for the night."

  Pandeena sucked in a tight breath. All right."

  Caimbeul walked to the desk and opened the drawer. He pulled out all of his journals, shoving them into a satchel. And these. All my evidence is in them. Take them someplace safe."

  "You must think they're coming after you."

  "I do. Shalto tried to stop me from taking her."

  He added in the seed crystals, that he had used to prevent any of the females from getting pregnant by him when he was first sampling the illicit brothel in his efforts to discover how many of the women were involved. The crystals absorbed the fertile parts of a male's ejaculate and stored it for later release. Pandeena recognized what they were and lifted an eyebrow at him.

  "Don't ask. It's in the journals."

  "You're making them come after you. What can you possibly hope to gain?"

  "A glimpse of the Serpent's face. They know I'm fireborn. He'll have to be with them when they come. I can tell you his identity through the Godmark."

  Pandeena's eyes softened and she hugged him impulsively. You're taking a terrible chance."

  "It will be worth it ... if we catch him. Now get out of here."

  Pandeena took the satchel, lifted Clodagh in her strong arms, and Jumped.

  * * * *

  "Where's Clodagh? Malthus demanded of Shalto.

  "The lawgiver came and took her away."

  "Damnit! We have to get her back. The lawgiver will use the slut against us all. He'll get every single member of your band outlawed or worse."

  "Why?"

  "Remember when the priest busted you and Oswyl up? She said she'd punish any wolf caught using the women. Well she'll go after all of you. Claw will send his guards to help her do it. Considering what became of Tempest, Nikko, and Beth, we'll probably all be chained in his dungeons and put to the question."

  Shalto looked stricken at the suggestion of being tortured. What do we do?"
r />   "Gather your friends at my cottage immediately. I didn't spend years as a kandoyarin without knowing how to handle this kind of thing. Tell them to bring their masks."

  "What are we going to do? Shalto repeated.

  "We're going to kill the lawgiver, Malthus snarled. And the priest too. No one messes with us."

  "Yeah, Shalto grinned savagely. No one messes with us. I'll get them."

  "I'll need to prepare a few things at the cottage. Didn't you tell me the lawgiver has fireborn blood?"

  "Caimbeul is famous for it. That's why he's so long lived."

  "I can take care of that. Malthus sneered.

  Malthus headed for the cottage, carrying a satchel. Once inside, he opened the satchel, and took out a string of crystal globes. He Read them and picked out the ones he wanted. A tap and a word of command brought forth the contents of three of them. Several blades, all wrapped in various shades of silk came first. He set those aside. A wealth of vials, bottles, and jars came next, accompanied by bowls, mortars, and pestles, measuring spoons, and stained brushes.

  He considered his options carefully, and it came down to using a Devil's Silver base as he always did. His mother's family had discovered and refined Devil's Silver. It was an irradiated variety of silver liquefied in an arcane solution compatible with snake venom and other specialized toxins. Malthus had developed his own special recipe for death, comprised primarily of blended plant toxins, snake feces and venomsvenoms he had spent years painfully immunizing himself against as his rite-enhanced resistances grewand as a tribute to the toughness of lycans, Devil's Silver.

  Normally he only coated his arrowheads and a single matched pair of long knives with itknives he didn't usually carry. One arrow was all it took to kill a lycan. The more arrows he put into one, the faster they died. As far as he knew, no antidote for Devil's Silver existed.

  He chose the most concentrated and deadly blend he had ever formulated using Devil's Silver, unstoppered the bottle, poured some into a bowl, and added from various other bottles. Malthus dipped his brush in. With careful, precise strokes, he poisoned each and every blade with it, leaving a dirty copper stain. When he finished, Malthus put that aside.

  Then he turned to another set of bottles and vials. They would need to poison both Caimbeul's lycan and the fireborn aspects in order to be certain that Caimbeul would not rise if his body were burned. Fireborn tended to have at least two complete forms.

  Everything clicked in Malthus head and he realized that Caimbeul and Patton were probably one and the same person. Yren had said that he smelled odd. Malthus would have preferred blades runed for slaying fireborn, but had none with him, and he did not have time for subtlety. Instead, he blended another new poison with an arcane acid and spelled it for death. This one would need to be poured into a body cavity through a large wound.

  Yren arrived first, looking eager. We're going to stick the old bastard?"

  "Yes, indeed, Yren, said Malthus. But since you're here first, I have a special task for you."

  "Sure. He grinned at Malthus

  "Once he's down, slit him open, and pour this inside him to kill the fireborn half so he doesn't rise. Malthus stoppered the vial tightly and handed it to Yren who put it in his pouch.

  "Like undead?"

  "Very much so. You don't want him coming back to life and eating us, now do you?"

  Yren's eyes widened and he sobered. Shiiiitt, no."

  "But you can do this?"

  "Absolutely, I'm your mon."

  "And I have blades for everyone, but don't cut yourself on the edges. They're coated with Devil's Silver."

  "How the hell did you get that?"

  "I told you, my mother is a bio-alchemist. I can get anything I want."

  Yren grinned, snapped his stilettos from his armsheaths, and extended them to Malthus. Poison all my blades?"

  "Go have a sit outside and have a tankard while I work."

  Yren left.

  Malthus mixed up two more blends designed to kill fireborn and filled stoppered bottles with them. He put those in his pouches.

  Preece slipped into Malthus study. He watched him a moment. Malthus handed him a blade with a coppery shine down the middle. Preece leaned against the door facing as he accepted the blade. Is this the same stuff you gave me to stick Kynyr with?"

  "Devil's Silver and some other things. A specialty of my mother's."

  "You must have an interesting mother, Preece said softly.

  "I do."

  Preece turned the blade back and forth, studying the edge without touching it. This ought to slide into the cockwhore nicely."

  Malthus smiled thinly. Was this revelation supposed to shock me?"

  "Not at all. I think we're kindred spirits. Any time there's killing to be done, count me in. I'll follow you to hell and back."

  Shalto stepped past Preece, casting a glance up and down him. What's the plan?"

  "We're not going after him tonight. We're just arming up. Tomorrow, we ride out of town on a group hunt like we've done so many times in the past. Only we double back at dusk."

  Malthus tapped another globe, and several more objects appeared on his large desk: glass rods, two wands, talismans on chains, rings, and a box of darts.

  "Hsaahh, Shalto breathed. Globe of holding. Never thought I'd ever see one. Expensive."

  Malthus chuckled. And reasonably rare in most places."

  "Where you get them?"

  "Charas, but that's a long story and we don't have time for it. He placed three of the glass rods into a leather case with a flap lid and a belt loop. I'll need these to deal with Caimbeul."

  "Aren't we just going to stick him? Rheu said, pushing between Preece and Shalto.

  Preece gave Rheu's head an affectionate ruffling. Rheu was an orphan who had lived with Preece for a year now. Malthus suspected it was not a case of comfort nesting, for he had caught a glimpse of Preece fondling Rheu in the sweet pepper bushes near the stream. Yet, they both spent a lot of time with their sticks in the females.

  Malthus explained it all again and by then Nesswen and Oswyl had arrived. He could taste the blood lust rising from the auras of the young wolves, just as it did when they hunted deer in the winter in wolf form. It would be a pleasure to watch them tomorrow.

  "What if Caimbeul kills one of us? Oswyl asked. They say he was a fighter in his day."

  Malthus regarded all of them. Oswyl was a liability that he needed to eliminate. He was too weak willed and worrisome. If any of them were seriously wounded in the fight ... Well, he would take along several vials each containing a fatal overdose of concentrated Pollendine, a powerful narcotic, in case one of the others might be foolish enough to ask a healer to look at the wounded, and draw dangerous attention to the rest of them.

  "You've all seen someone felled when an elk turned at bay, yet the pack continued to attack.... Torquil said.

  "No quarter asked, no quarter given, Malthus said quietly, his steepled fingers tapping his lips. We're all taking an equal chance. Shall I get us all some mead?"

  Malthus spelled the tankards before bringing them in to ensure that all the gang was even more susceptible to his plans, and handed them around.

  "The more you stick him the faster he dies, Preece said.

  * * * *

  Claw walked to his study, and dropped into his chair breathing hard. Just that much walking and he was exhausted. It grated on his nerves. Sheradyn had ordered him to take it easy, and Aisha was enforcing that by not allowing him out of the house. Malthus, they had informed him, would handle his duties for the nonce. That made him edgy and got on his nerves. Malthus was not lycan.

  Merissa should have married a lycan.

  What would happen to Darmyk without him to protect his grandson? The fact that Darmyk was godmarked would not be counted as much as the fact that he was sa'necari. The hatred of sa'necari went too deep.

  He could only hope that when the time came, Pandeena could find Brock and get him here fast enough.r />
  Claw opened a drawer in his desk, pulled out the last bottle of Faery wine, a glass, and poured himself a drink. He drank two glasses before he felt the chest pain start. A tremor of panic ran through him, and he drew a flask from his pocket. Claw poured the medicine into the glass on top of the wine, and drank all of it. Sheradyn had told him to keep the medicine with him at all times, and at the first symptoms to drink it. He probably should not have added it to the wine, but he didn't have another glass and didn't want to waste something as expensive and rare as that vintage.

  The chieftain tried to hold his eyes open as he felt the heavy cottony sensation of pressure in his head. Claw fainted at his desk, his head folding forward over his arms.

  * * * *

  Kynyr's units from Red Wolf had had the fewest casualties of the three groups that attacked the brothel: three wounded and none killed. He counted himself lucky. He had postponed going home because of Fergus MacFie. He had just started to like the spiky wolf, and now Kynyr had watched him grow weaker with the passing hours despite everything that Cahira and the Sharani surgeons did.

  He sat at the table in the upstairs meeting room with a glass of whiskey in his hand, staring at the rows of sa'necari heads that Cahira had placed a preservation spell on. Twenty-two heads, counting Jondries and Heironim.

  "I suppose that's a catch worth dying for. Kynyr saluted the heads with his whiskey and drank it.

  Todd stepped through the door. You'd better come. Fergus is going."

  Kynyr pushed away from the table and rose, following his grandfather to Fergus room.

  Father Gileaus shooed everyone out except for Kynyr, Darcy, and Finn. His spiritbrother held Darcy sobbing against his shoulder, stroking her head in a vain gesture of comfort.

  Fergus eyes opened as Kynyr dragged a chair close and sat down beside him. Fergus gasped and coughed weakly as he spoke, breaking up his words. My wife ... Siusan ... tell her ... I ... loved her."

  "We will. You're a fine wolf, Fergus. You did well, fought well."