For the Love of Feria
“You’re not so skinny anymore.”
I lay down with a sigh, content. Between the abounding game and the excellent teamwork between Feria and myself, I filled my belly with as much as I could hold every day. Despite Feria’s love of pork, I did manage to convince her to hunt the occasional deer or elk. Yet, whatever we hunted, all fell to our combined skills. More than two weeks had passed since I agreed to have her along for a few days. Each day that began, I vowed to send her home before nightfall. Each night fell with us snuggled together in some shelter or other, offering the other warmth and protection.
After Chovani’s attack and defeat, we depended upon each other more and more. Like twin halves of the whole, we each found in the other complete trust, a pact that went beyond simple survival. We completed each other.
We finally learned to communicate without actually needing our voices. The bitter mountain cold prevented me from changing into my human clothes, yet I found I needed to less and less. By utilizing using eyes, body language and Feria’s unique drawing skills, we understood one another tolerably well.
“A few more good days of travel and we’ll be tackling those high peaks,” I muttered to myself as much as to Darius.
Feria, though by now used to my conversations with what appeared to be myself, perked at the sound of my voice. When she observed I wasn’t speaking to her, she lay her head down once more on her front legs.
“You’re going to need every ounce of strength you possess.”
Night had fallen and so had the temperature. Our travels had now taken us quite high, and the night temperatures dropped into the killing range. We lay close to one another under the shelter of a fir tree, its lowest branches just brushing her head as she lay with her beak over her front legs. Her lion tail and its black-tufted tip, flicking back and forth, even in sleep, coiled about her haunches.
I scooted closer to her for warmth through the long high altitude night, her wing draping me, as always. Shutting my eyes, I sought to drowse, teetering on the edge of a fuller, deeper, restful sleep.
Until Darius’s voice intruded.
“You’ll be keeping her with you, then.”
Jolted, I woke. I scrambled to recall my scattered wits. “No,” I said. “You know how I feel about that.”
“You’re so attached, I thought you’d changed your mind.”
Before I could respond with an acid retort, his words hit home. I was attached to her. Not just attached, I was very attached to her. Deep down, I recognized all along what I’d been doing. Every day I swore to send her home, and every night still slept happily beside her. I not only enjoyed her company, her companionship, I didn’t want her to go.
I saved her life. She saved mine. We were now bound together by ties stronger than steel cables. Breaking them could very well shatter my soul.
Lifting my head, I gazed at her sleeping face, her black-tipped ears slack, and her eagle’s eyes closed. She curled her talons into fists under her beak, the same thing she did every night, just as she covered me protectively with her wing, every night. Her tail never rested and its black tip forever flicked softly back and forth, every night.
“She has to go,” I murmured, my heart already burning with grief.
“Perhaps it’s time.”
“Past time.”
“It’s what’s best for her.”
“I know. That doesn’t make it easier.”
“I know.”
Resting my head once more on my paws, I shut my eyes.
‘Twas a long time before I slept.
All things must come to an end.
Our good fortune with the weather came to a crashing halt.
After my late-night conversation with Darius, I woke after a cold night of thin sleep with a heavy heart and even heavier clouds overhead. The sun rose behind a thick bank of storm clouds creeping down from the higher peaks above. The night’s bone-chilling cold remained the same, the dawn not bringing its former warmth. My heavy pelt and new layer of fat kept me warm enough, but Feria shivered as she emerged from our nest under the fir tree. She chirped in dismay, seeing what had come to call in the night.
“I expect our hunting will be bad, too,” I said, earning myself a sharp glance from those raptor eyes.
Anything with any sense will be headed downhill or into shelter. My wolf instincts told me all game would be difficult to find in this weather, this time of year. The wild cattle, the elk, the deer will migrate to the lower valleys for shelter and food.
“And as I have no sense, I’ll be travelling uphill and into that mess.”
“There’s no help for it.”
“Don’t I know it.”
Feria, knowing I spoke to someone else, merely sighed and turned her face into the freshening, icy wind from above.
“I dare not wait this out,” I said, scenting the rain yet to fall. “I can’t spare the time.”
“You can’t. You must keep going.”
I trotted forward, expecting Feria to launch her body into the wind and fly as she usually did. She surprised me by trotting along behind, her wings furled over her back. I glanced back once or twice, asking the obvious question with my eyes. She didn’t see, or pretended not to, and refrained from replying. Females always liked keeping secrets.
Before midmorning passed, the rain arrived with bells on. Not light droplets of a summer or early autumn storm, but the slashing, icy, chilling sheets that froze the instant they hit the ground. My paws slipped and slid over ice-covered rocks, my heavy fur wet and cold. Only my warm undercoat, still dry, kept me from freezing.
I suffered only a little hardship, but Feria complained bitterly. Her feathers soaked through, she constantly shook icy water from her mane. Her wings clung damply to her back. Like any cat, she hated the wet. Belatedly, I realized that eagles didn’t fly in the rain. Nor did lions long tolerate the wet or the cold. One never saw a lion swim. Both species sought shelter in weather like this.
She shouldn’t be here, I thought. This weather will kill her.
“It may.”
“Did you send this storm so I might be rid of her?”
“I? I don’t have that power anymore.”
“But you have friends that do.”
“No comment.”
On through the miserable morning I loped, shutting my teeth when they wanted to speak, maintaining my uphill trek. Doggedly, Feria held on, scrambling over slippery rocks and logs, her breath frosting the air. The icy rain increased in fury, as thick as a fogbank, and as blinding. The temperature descended rapidly to killing levels, the ice thickening hour by hour. With every stride I waited for her to shriek her displeasure, explain in rapid fire clicks how she forgot an appointment and wing up and over the storm. Yet, every backward glance showed me her determination to follow my tail over every dead tree and into every thicket, her beak shut as tight as my jaws.
“You can’t win.”
“She’ll see sense soon,” I replied, my ears flat.
“She won’t leave you.”
“She will.”
She didn’t.
I hoped, prayed, she’d relieve me of the responsibility of separating ourselves, make the choice to fly away from the misery of the storm and my company. Despite the deadly weather, the treacherous footing, the killing ice, Feria never faltered. She trotted, loped, her wings half-furled, never more than a length behind me. Her dedication increased my guilt.
“You have to do it.”
“Gods, I can’t. I love her.”
“If you truly love her, you will send her away.”
“This really bites.”
“Suck it up.”
Setting my jaw, I loped uphill, jumping dead logs and rocks, dodging spindly trees, targeting a wide overhanging rock. It stuck out from the side of a steep hill, about fifteen rods across and thirty wide. Under it, we might shelter for a time. At least until I could talk to her.
I must convince her to leave me.
Under the doubtful shelter of the rock, the biting wind still reached us, yet only a little rain swept in. Feria shook wet from her mane once more, her lion flanks quivering as she shivered from the cold. Her beak dripped water, her usually bright eyes bleak and miserable. I licked the icy wet from her beak and eyes, hoping to warm her, offering what comfort I could give.
She sat down, coiling her long, black-tipped tail around her haunches, her wings out and dripping. I didn’t know much about griffins, but I knew they inhabited the mountains. They should be used to this kind of weather. Yet, Feria was miserable, cold, wet, unwilling to fly, and near death should she remain with me.
“They den in caves, in their home ranges,” Darius commented.
“Like wolves?”
“Indeed. Like wolves, or humans, they seek shelter in bad weather, wait it out. Later, they’ll emerge to hunt and return to their homes and their young.”
“She can die in this.”
“She can and most likely will, if she stays with you.”
“Can she even fly?” I wondered.
“Probably.”
“Must she leave me?”
“Don’t make me repeat myself.”
This was no good. I had to talk to her. I had to make her understand.
The cold bit deep, making me gasp, as I shifted my shape. My teeth chattered so hard I thought they’d break, and I clenched my arms around my shoulders in an effort to stay warm.
Feria’s eyes widened as I changed, saw how easily the chilling wind tore into me. She squawked in concern, her body leaning, stepping forward. She raised her taloned hand toward me; a razor-sharp tip brushed my shoulder.
“Listen, girl,” I said quickly. “It’s time for you to fulfill your promise.”
Her talon retracted, recoiling back into her feathered breast. She hissed, her green eyes flattening. No.
“Please,” I said, the icy wind cutting through to my bones. “Don’t make me remind you of your oath. This is no place for you.”
Feria screeched, her voice loud and strident in the enclosed space under the rock. I stood implacable, determined, as her swift denial sweeping over and past me. This I expected.
“Don’t make me the bad guy,” I all but snapped. “You know what you agreed to. I let you remain longer than I should have and that’s my fault.”
Her eyes begged, no, pleaded with me. Let me stay. Please.
“I’ll not see you die because of me,” I said, my heart in my throat. “If not now, then later, when I must face a beast beyond the ken of both of us. Go, while I still have the courage to send you away.”
Raine –
I turned my face away, my heart bleeding, broken once more. I don’t think I could handle more pain without going completely and utterly mad. “Go, Feria. Fly south. Find the sun. Return to your people.”
She chirped, her eyes agonized, as I half-way turned to face her. Please, don’t send me away.
“Forget me, girl,” I grated hoarsely, my heart trip-hammering in my throat. “If ever I saved your life, repay me in this. Forget I ever lived.”
I heard her withdraw from me, felt her emotions wilt like flowers under too strong sunlight and too little water. She didn’t speak, but watched me for a long moment, her eagle’s eyes soft and grieving. My wounded heart bled afresh, seeing that expression in her face, in her parted beak, in her wilting wings. Even her tail, active as she slept, lay withered and silent in the mud.
I half-turned from her, hunching my shoulder not from the cold, but from that bleak, accusing green eye.
Go, my girl. Please.
Oddly, her right foot rose. Hanging in mid-air, she paused. She didn’t breathe. That deadly talon, the razor sharp claw that could gut a dragon with one sweep, held firm, hung suspended, waiting.
Damn her.
I wanted to so much to ignore that upheld hand that waited patiently for mine. If I managed it, then she’d realize the futility in loving me. In that absent gesture, she’d see my rejection, and, at last, understand. She’d realize I didn’t return her love. Would she then fly away and be finally, truly free of me?
Would she go?
Could I do that to her?
She knew me better than I knew myself.
She may not have a Tarbane’s keen insight, yet she knew the battle within my heart. Her eagle’s eyesight saw not just me, but the heart I didn’t see for myself. Feria knew bloody well I sent her away for her own good, and sacrificed my own soul.
Just as she knew I’d reach for her offering.
Just as I knew I would.
Tears welled up in my eyes, but I dared not let them fall, dared not let her see them. My very human hand clasped hers with all my strength, all my pain, all my love.
“Be well,” I whispered. “Be free, my darling.”
Her beak parted in a low hiss.
“I know,” I murmured. “Me, too.”
Withdrawing her hand from mine, Feria retreated from me, out into the killing rain. I followed after, back in my wolf body, watching as she unfurled her great wings. Like an angel from the old legends, she launched herself into the dark grey sky above, her head angling downward to keep me in sight, for a little while longer.
She circled a while, not speaking, her eyes saying everything. Her downward wing beats hurled rain from my face as she rose higher and higher yet. Still she circled, gaining altitude, keeping me in sight. Upwards, ever higher, she rose until she was but a black dot against the stormy grey sky.
My Feria vanished into the sullen depths of the early winter storm. At last the dark clouds claimed her, consumed her regal body. The thick, roiling mists above enclosed her into their deadly embrace.
I lost sight of her.
Fare thee well, my friend, on thy journey.
I stared down at the stones at my feet, my heart shattered into a thousand, ten thousand, pieces within my chest. I found companionship, friendship, love, and I sent it away from me like yesterday’s meal. No matter that it was best for her. Just as it was best for Ly’Tana, Arianne, Rygel, Silverruff, Tuatha and Kel’Ratan to be sent as far from me as was possible. I shoved love from me as I might deadly poison.
I am a killer. This, my sole purpose in life: to kill. I killed for the sport of others. I killed to protect my own. Now I must kill to free Darius and prevent the annihilation of the wolf species.
I took death with me wherever I went.
Feria’s last words haunted me as I walked with lowered head and downcast tail into the slashing rain. They followed after me as I loped headlong toward the distant mountains, alone, my heart dead within my chest. How many breaks can one heart take before it withers and dies?
Mine took one too many. It despaired and collapsed in unto itself, a mere shell of what it once was. It beat strong, carried blood where it needed to be carried, but loved no more. For Feria had taken my heart with her, as she flew up, ever up, into the roiling clouds, her strident voice still ringing in my excellent wolf ears.
I love you.
“Shut up,” I snarled at Darius, the first time he tried to speak to me after Feria flew away. “Just shut up and don’t make me hate you more than I already do.”
He didn’t speak for another four days.
Northward I travelled, my once strong lope eventually slowed to a half-hearted trot against the stinging ice. As the day wore on, I couldn’t even keep that pace. Into the driving, frigid rain, I lowered my head and plodded on. What was the use in hurrying? Why should I rush into the jaws of death? For Darius’s sake? Had I the strength, I might have turned my tail to the north and galloped south as fast as my paws could carry me.
Toward her.
Which her? I loved Ly’Tana with every part and parcel of my being. Despite that, I also loved Feria.
Ly’Tana, fiercely independent, beautifully savage, yet she amazed me with her bubbling laughter and incredible gift of love. Feria, wild and free, willingly faced death to remain at my side. How could one such as I have earned the love of such beautiful creatures as they?
I loved them both, yet neither of them could be my mate, in truth.
How did I land myself into such a sublime mess? Was my heart fickle? Was I unfaithful, not in body but in heart? Did I betray Ly’Tana by loving Feria almost as much as I loved her? I didn’t know, told myself it didn’t matter. Why would it? After all, I’d never see either of them again in this life.
How could one fall in love within the span of one week? I hadn’t done it once, but twice. How did I fall in love so damned fast?
As I dreamed of Ly’Tana when I slept, I saw Feria while I walked. My eyes saw her everywhere. If I chanced to glance upward, the swirling clouds mimicked her great wings. I flinched at trees, half-thinking her huge lion body alighted beside me. In the late afternoon sunlight, the clouds retreated, rolled away. Her green raptor eyes lit with uncomplicated joy and laughter in the glimmering droplets of rain.
An eagle screamed from on high.
I halted in my tracks, one paw raised to step yet another stride into the clinging, wet snow. Hearing her voice on the light wind, I hesitated, staring wildly upward, my heart soaring on her very wings.
Feria, did you come back? Come back, please Feria, come back, I’m sorry, I need you.
The white-brown eagle vanished beyond the treetops. Its call echoed shrilly across the canyons, reverberated across the rocks. It lanced deep into my very essence. I allowed my heart the freedom to descend once more into the dark void.
Not her. It wasn’t her.
I plodded forward again, my muzzle down.
Never again. I’ll never see her again.
I broke into a mile-eating lope, blindly jumping deadwood and rocks, dodging trees and heavy thickets, descending one hill to gallop heedlessly up the next. I climbed steadily higher and higher into the mountains, hoping I left her voice far behind me. I swung down sharp ravines and narrow valleys only to run a twisted pathway up the next canted hillside. A tawny rock panther screamed a warning at me from a boulder high above, but I ignored her as I tried to ignore the pain that dogged my heels. I ran, but I failed to leave it behind.
A broken heart never truly healed. Oh, scar tissue grew and mended the fierce hurt, soothing the hot ends, breaking apart the terror of being alone. Yet, here I was, solitary once more, trying to find peace within me. What more did I need? I thought. Feria was safe, Ly’Tana was safe. If either of them were with me, they’d die as I will. That’s all that mattered to me now: they’ll live, though I’ll die.
I was born to be alone. As long as I had the courage to remain so, those I loved will survive.
Onward I plodded, feeling nothing at all. No love, no hate, no grief, no remorse, no life. Only one purpose kept me on my paws and moving forward: kill the Guardian before it killed me.
The sun slid behind the mountains, casting me in shadow. Life stirred in the underbrush, game abounding in the aftermath of the storm. After sheltering all day, the locals emerged to stretch cramped limbs, find food and converse with one another. Deer, elk, cattle, rabbits, wild hogs wandered in an out of my path. I had my pick of potential meals had I any appetite. Like Feria and my soul, it had departed on angel’s wings.
Toward midnight, the full moon shining down on me, I found myself at the edge of a high mountain. I stepped onto a wide boulder and gazed downward. Like a cliff, it fell steeply, scattered boulders and clumps of trees breaking up its sharp descent. Above me the nearly full moon cast down her bright rays, turning the blackest of night into a mixture of light and shadows. My keen night vision saw as clearly as though it did at high noon. I saw right down to the mouse nibbling at the thick-stemmed grass seeds and the stalking red fox that snapped it up on the go.
A wolf couldn’t weep.
However, a wolf could howl.
My grief spilled out of me in an anguished, lonely lament to the vast array of glittering stars. Feria, I cried, calling. Come back. I shut my eyes, howling, my loneliness and pain expelled on my breath frosting in the moonlight. Come back, Feria.
Of course, she didn’t. She returned to her people, her life before I meddled in it. If she did as I had asked, she’d already forgotten me. Like the life of a dusky moth dancing with the deadly flame that killed it, she entered my life. Like the flame that killed the moth, she exited just as quickly. My moth to her flame, I died.
Like Ly’Tana, like Rygel, like Tuatha, she was gone.
I howled.
As though apologizing for its bad weather that forced me to send Feria away, the sun shone for the next few days, its bright rays gentle on my fur. I walked on, uncaring, not hungry, sleeping only after exhaustion forced me to rest. Even then, she haunted my sleep. Not Ly’Tana, this time.
Feria.
After grief-racked dreams filled my thin slumber, I woke in the thin hours before the dawn. Struggling to my feet, I padded on into the darkness, my head down, my tail flipping, lifeless, against my hocks. Over hills, past the spiked ruins of dead trees, across boulders the size of a house in Soudan, I walked, seeing little. I drank listlessly from tumbling streams, bounding south, the way I wish I travelled. Ever northward I walked, climbing steadily, drawn to that lit beacon, the one fire inside my skull that was Darius.
I almost missed them.
A distant wail upon the cold northern wind. I heard it, and dismissed it immediately as not worth considering. Not Feria, not Ly’Tana, who the hell cares. Wait. I paused, my right front paw raised to take the next step. I cocked my head, listening hard. That was the sound of wolves howling.
There were no wolves here. As Darius’ beacon glowed within my brain, mine also shone within the minds of all wolves. Had any been near, no doubt they’d have made their presence known to me. If for nothing else than to offer their respects.
Wolves howled.
Gods above and below.
I didn’t hear them with my ears. They howled deep within my mind.
Their dire warning.
“It’s a trap –“ Darius began.
“Shush.”
The light icy wind died. At its swift departure, the soft sough of the pines whispering to themselves fell silent, quenched. As though a hand fell across them. A squirrel, outraged at my presence in its domain, scolded me from the branch of a nearby fir. It suddenly flicked its tail and vanished. In a wild burst of wings, a flock of birds shot out of the treetops and within seconds winged out of sight. At my paws, a hardy mountain beetle, not yet in winter hibernation, curled up its eight segmented legs and died.
Tongu.
Yet, it wasn’t Tongu that loped out from under the trees and spurred rangy horses toward me. I recognized four, no five Yuons by their scent of y’bex and their swinging ropes. Not many Yuons found themselves in the Arena dancing with me, but tales of their legendary courage spread to all points of Khalid. They roped and conquered the fearless and aggressive y’bex bulls, their horses as nimble as they were brave. Not a one flinched from my size, scent or bared fangs as they bore down on me at a strong lope.
A heavy loop settled about my neck. With a flick of my power, I made it vanish. A second sailed from the hands of an expert drover, but I wasn’t there. A simple thought transported me several rods away, behind them. As though guided by one mind, one intellect, they spun their horses. Spreading wide, swinging their ropes, they thought to catch me within their net. The terrain of heavy rocks, thick pockets of pine, spruce and fir, and a steep incline behind me gave them the slight advantage. Their horses found decent footing amid the smaller stones and brush of the highland tundra, their riders able to swing their ropes in wide loops without the danger of entangling them in tree branches.
Another rope slid around my neck. I changed into my human shape within a blink, and the rope dropped to the ground at my feet. Before its owner pulled it taut, I leaped up and down, snarling, back in my wolf body.
“You boys want to play?” I growled, facing them, my ears flat. “Let’s dance.”
“I don’t think you should –“
I ignored Darius as I dismissed the warning deep within my skull. Too many days of grieving, of loneliness, of the distant echo where my heart once loved, I was spoiling for a fight. I needed someone to blame for this atrocity my life became, and these fellows offered themselves at a ripe opportunity.
I charged forward. I didn’t attack the nearest horse. Instead, I chose to leap atop a huge boulder to my left, taking the high ground. Every battle instinct screamed at me to make them come to me. Battles were won on home-field advantage, of taking and holding that piece of crucial terrain. I heeded not the instinct and its knowledge. I used the boulder as a springboard, and leaped high and fast.
The grey horse tried to dodge. It spun hard on nimble hooves, but not before my full weight took it, and its rider, down. I had no real use for my fangs, bared as they were. My full weight crushed the rope-happy Yuon between me and his trusty mount. The horse died, screaming, as I broke its spine. Both thrashed under me, in their death throes, as I transported myself back to the boulder.
“Score one for the Wolf of Connacht,” I intoned, my voice deep. “Yuons, zero.”
Those boys didn’t take the loss very well, no, not well at all. Yelling like banshees, they twirled their ropes and charged me, four on one. Despite my height several rods over their horses’ heads, they tried to reclaim my neck with their lassos. Like party streamers, the braided twine loops sought my vulnerable neck.
In a colossal leap, I dove down, over their heads and the rumps of their horses. I struck the hard stony ground with a jolt, snapping my teeth together, and sent upward a shower of dirt and small stones from beneath my paws. I recovered more quickly than they. Spinning, I slashed the hamstrings of two horses before their Yuons could turn them.
Whinnying shrilly, the horses scrambled to keep their footing, staggering on three legs. Though consummate horsemen, neither Yuon kept his mount upright. The first went down, flat upon his side, his human’s leg snapped under him. The second dove neck-first into the stony tundra, and tossed his master onto his head. With two Yuons out of commission, one yelling for help as I stalked forward, the other out cold, I now evened the odds considerably. The one I might ignore as no fun at all, but the lively fellow? He needed my personal attention.
The remaining Yuon pair reined their horses around and sank spurs into coarse flanks. Swinging their ropes, they charged, intending to both distract and capture me. I had plenty of time. With the vocal drover fast under his thrashing horse, I dug my hind legs into a tight bunch. One heavy thrust into the loamy tundra and that bad boy died under my wrath.
Something bit me.
An involuntary yelp broke through my teeth. Dismissing, for the moment my intended victim, I ceased my rush. Something sharp and highly painful, burning like a white-hot poker, delved into my sensitive right flank. What the hell was it? A late wasp? A poisonous thorn? Whatever it was, I needed it out like right now. It bloody hurt.
I didn’t exactly ignore the threat of the Yuon pair, still swinging their ropes. Nor did I fail to see the Tongu hounds crashing through the underbrush with their slavering jaws wide. Their masters followed hard on their paws, their oily, roped hair hanging from bald skulls and serpent tattoos bouncing on their shoulders.
The enemy closed in. I knew it, witnessed it, yet couldn’t stop it. Only pulling that horrid object from my fur occupied my frantic attention. I can’t fight properly with that bloody thing in there. I swiveled around to bite and gnaw that nasty, burning pain, my teeth chewing into my thick fur. Growling, whining, thinking a late wasp burrowed in there and set its barb deep, I nibbled and yanked at what I thought was the wasp’s stinger.
I found instead a tiny steel needle.
Pulling it from my flesh, I flexed my tongue and mouth, trying to spit it out.
Its metal tip pierced my tongue, spreading its evil numbness. I shook my head sharply, sending it flying into the brush. Suddenly my tongue refused to work. Slobber dangled from my jaws. In my sight, trees suddenly grew sideways from the tilted boulders and undergrowth. I flapped my ears, trying to set things right and regain my balance. I staggered sideways, instead.
“What’s wrong?”
Darius’ tone held a sharpness I hadn’t heard before.
“I don’t know –“
The numbness spread like a wildfire in a dry wood through my face and my body. Reeling, almost falling, I remained upright only by sheer willpower alone. I hardly noticed nor cared when the Yuon ropes settled about my neck. I took a feeble step, and tripped over the legs of the horse I mangled. I fell across its heaving body, the captive drover now screaming in agony and fear. I snapped my jaws perilously close to his vulnerable throat. His bladder let go. Under the terrible weight of a horse and me, the Yuon might die a horrid death, and he knew it.
Unable to feel my paws, I didn’t know upside from down, sideways or up. My head spun sickeningly, my guts threatening to repel the contents of my stomach, which was…nothing. The trees, sky and grey boulders whirled about me as though they’d grown wings. The nooses tightened about my neck, but their presence had the same effect on me as an annoying fly. I paid them no heed as I tried again to rise.
“Gods ab –“
My legs refused to obey me. As I struggled and thrashed on the wildly kicking, terrified horse, its rider’s screams magnified ten-fold within my sensitive ears. In a gallant effort to rise, the horse pitched me off and sent me rolling like a limp sack into the scrub oak and bramble. While I sent my will into my confused feet, commanding them to obey me, they stubbornly resisted. I flopped about in dead leaves, pine needles and twigs, trying to get up. My limited brain capacity sent messages my limbs failed to receive.
‘Twas as though I had drunk far too deeply of the tasty ale in the Royal Crown Inn. I lay on my left side, my tongue pooling in the dead leaves and dirt beneath my muzzle. My parted jaws panted, yet my lungs breathed in a discordant harmony. I tried to get up, yet only succeeded in twitching my paws. My brain puddled into mush, my limbs dull and unresponsive, I opened my eyes. I saw, however, in a limited fashion. I reckoned my eyes were the only organs I possessed that still worked as they should.
My sight fastened on the scorpion tattoo on Ja’Teel’s cheek as he emerged from the thin cover of the trees.
Ja’Teel.
The sneer on his harelip hadn’t changed. He wore not his riding clothes this time, but a thick black woolen mantle that draped him from shoulders to heels, the hood cast over his head against the fresh mountain wind.
“Ah, here we are again, my lord Wolf,” he said genially, stepping close.
As my tongue lay lax on the ground, gathering dirt, I couldn’t answer him.
“Oh, don’t get up,” he said, chuckling and squatting near my face. His cloak pooled around his ankles. “Let’s not stand on ceremony. We’re old friends, you and I.”
Behind him, Khalidian cavalry soldiers brushed through the tree branches, their crossbows cocked, loaded and aimed toward my prone form. The White Lion snarled on their thick woolen mantles, the fear in their eyes unable to offer me hope. My hearing worked, after a fashion. Leaving their horses to mind me and keep their ropes taut, I heard the Yuons aid their fellows at my back. The sound of steel striking flesh and the sudden silence of the two crippled horses told me much. In mercy, the Yuons put them down and ended their pain.
The three Tongu hunters, having hissed their wire-haired hounds to their heels, fell into rank behind him. Like Ja’Teel, they wore thick cloaks around their shoulders to protect them from the late autumn, mountain air, cudgels in their hands. Hounds, shivering under their less than adequate, brindle coats, chuffed low in their severed throats. I felt their feral eyes on me as though rats scurried across my fur.
“That trick you pulled back there,” Ja’Teel said, his tone admiring and his hazel eyes stone hard, “took me by surprise. I thought I had you, so I did.”
As I couldn’t answer, I didn’t even think one up. It didn’t matter anymore. His comments floated somewhere in the mush my brain had become, misty and indistinct.
I lay at their feet, helpless, aware of the trap I stumbled into. I felt/sensed Ja’Teel’s drug hurrying through my blood. It withdrew whatever willpower I had left to me, in my heart, quashed all rebellion, all stamina. Like chilling ice, it numbed both grief and body alike. It left in its wake…nothing at all important.
“Is he dangerous?” a soldier asked, renewing his grip on his crossbow. Fear-sweat dampened the hair at his brow and trickled to his nape.
Ja’Teel stood up, his shadow over my face, his thick lips smiling with satisfaction. “Not at all. He’s as helpless as a newborn. He can’t think, he can’t act, he can’t even decide if he’s hungry or not.”
Not true, I thought vaguely. I know I’m not hungry.
“We’ve lost one of our own,” a gruff voice spoke from just behind my ears. “And three horses. You owe us a weregild.”
Ja’Teel’s voice hardened. “I don’t owe you a damn thing,” he snarled. “If you have a complaint, then you take it up with His Majesty.”
“You hired us. You owe.”
“His Majesty hired you. I merely paid. Now begone with you, or be gone.”
Muttering, the Yuon snaked his ropes from my neck. Though their low-voices curses might bypass Ja’Teel’s hearing, my ears picked them up clearly. He’d just made himself some bad enemies, I surmised. Hooves clopped over the stones and vanished beyond the hill. That left me with Ja’Teel, three Tongu and their hounds and four cavalry soldiers. Not good odds.
Rygel’s dark kinsman toed my muzzle with his boot. “You have spirit, Prince,” he said gravely. “I almost wish I wasn’t ordained to bring you down. You’ve proved your mettle and are a most challenging opponent. If our circumstances had been different –”
He half shrugged, smiling.
Nothing much would change, I thought. You’re still a coward at heart and always will be.
Ja’Teel’s hazel eyes met mine as though reading my mind. “Once you left Rygel, the princesses and the others,” he said, his harelip rising in his habitual sneer, “you were ridiculously easy to track. You should’ve taken a few lessons from my dear kinsman and covered yourself better. You may be exceedingly powerful for one with so little magical blood, but your skill level –”
He shook his head as though in sorrow, his eyes dancing. “That silly wolfling almost had you. How’d you think of that little trick, by the way? Stopping her heart? You threw me a curve on that one, I’ll admit. If the soldiers had been more dedicated, this would have ended that night. The survivors, well….”
Ja’Teel tittered, his slender fingers tapping his lips. “Let’s just admit they survived longer than they cared to. And but damn that Tenzin can get creative. I myself had to admire the nasty tricks he used on his own hunters. I think they’re still screaming, but perhaps that’s only wishful thinking.”
Tired beyond belief, I shut my eyes. I wished fervently he’d shut up. Go on, I thought. Kill me and have done with it. Just be quiet about it.
Unfortunately for me, Ja’Teel loved the sound of his own voice.
“Had I not seen it for myself, I might not believe it. That bugger, he even tortured the surviving dogs to death. Can you imagine? Their creepy half-screams kept me awake most of the night. Gods.”
He straightened, his head cocked slightly to the left as he considered his minions. “Every Tongu, and their brainless mutts, discovered the price for failure. These fine soldiers won’t make the same mistake. Will you, boys?”
“No, my lord,” the soldiers muttered, one by one, shifting their feet.
My keen hearing picked up the frantic thudding of their hearts in their chests, the ragged breathing they hid from Ja’Teel. My nose scented their fear-sweat, stirring only the hackles along my spine. The only reaction I offered. My body betrayed me, succumbing to the poison Ja’Teel jabbed me with, leaving my senses semi-alert, but my will-power so much useless porridge.
Raising my anger, I managed only a faint lifting of my lip in the semblance of a snarl. I focused my will on clasping his heart in my fist, clamping down and feeling it burst inside his chest. I did it once before to escape an evil trap. Perhaps I can again.
Ja’Teel didn’t even notice. My fury deflated, collapsed, useless. My magic required determination to fuel it, to keep it burning hot and vivid. I found no resolve to call upon. I felt zero emotion, no self-control to focus with, no fire that inspired either anger, or his brother, rage: the daemon. I saw, heard, smelled and even possibly tasted. I knew all that occurred about me. I just didn’t care enough to do anything about it. That knowledge did me precious little good when I needed my fury if I was to save my own life.
“Your escape cost me, too,” Ja’Teel went on, his tone low, menacing. “King Brutal publicly flogged me, for failing him. I’m alive only because he needs me. I’d show you my scars, but they aren’t pretty.”
His teeth gleamed in a flashing smile. “I do sooo owe you for that. Once that Brutal fool has you in hand, I’ll help him break you myself.”
If he expected defiance from me, his disappointment didn’t appear in his expression. His nasty smile remained, steadily, in place.
“It’s good you sent that idiot griffin away,” Ja’Teel resumed, his brow lifted in good humor. From his leather satchel he pulled another tiny steel needle. “This was intended for her. The dose you took paralyzed your will. I intended for hers to paralyze her heart and lungs. She’d be dead now, so I hope she appreciates the priceless gift you gave her. You saved her life, not once but twice.”
She saved mine, I thought. I think we’re quits.
Ja’Teel chuckled, rising to his feet. “I’ve been watching you for some time, as I expect you now know. I saw your grief when she left. It hurt, didn’t it, to send her away for her own good? I almost shed a tear at your sacrifice, but, sorry, my ability to weep over such noble stupidity departed some time ago.”
Ja’Teel sniggered at his own humor. “Had you not sent her away, you might have someone to die with. I always thought dying alone was the pits, really. Whoever truly wants to die alone?”
I do, if it means those I love live.
Ja’Teel bent in half, bowing low, to gaze mocking, into my own eyes. “Love bites, don’t it?”
It most certainly does.
His forefinger shook in mock remonstrance. “You should have learned to cover your tracks, silly wolf.”
I know now, I thought.
“Since you’ve been out of touch so to speak,” he said. “I feel I should inform you as to the most current information available. I’d like to get you up to speed here, so listen close. I do so hate to repeat myself.”
I breathed in his noxious breath as he bent over my face, his hazel eyes alight with anticipation and greed.
“You’re the last one captured.”
My eyes rolled up toward him. Ja’Teel nodded soberly, his thick harelip quirking in a faint smile. “His Majesty has in his possession that errant trio: your useless mate, your dimwit sister and my illustrious cousin. You know, I just can’t wait to see him again. I’m so excited I just had to share. As I’m solely responsible for bringing you in, he’ll justly award me. Rygel is mine, for His Majesty promised me. Poor Tenzin can have my sloppy seconds.”
Whatever life, strength, my heart still held withered and died. Without Ly’Tana, Arianne – Rygel. What hope for life?
“I’m going to have such fun –“
“My lord, what now?” the soldier asked, twitching slightly, as though bugs crept under his skin. Sweat trickled down his bristly cheeks to pool in his purple and gold uniform. Unfortunately, his crossbow aim remained true, hovering somewhere between my eyes and slackened not one little bit.
Ja’Teel straightened, his pale features brightening. “His Majesty and Lord Tenzin remain below. They anxiously await news of our success.”
“I meant ‘what now’ for us. What in the name of all the gods do we do with him?”
Had I the willpower, I might laugh. It’s not like they could toss me on a horse and carry me down. Even if they found a horse willing and strong enough, not a one of them could lift my tremendous weight and put me on it.
“Don’t you idiots listen?” Ja’Teel snapped. “Put him on that contraption I made you build and drag his heavy ass down.”
“Of course, my lord.”
That contraption proved to be a network of strong branches interwoven, laced and lashed together. Fire-hardened leather thongs bound it all together. Heavy chains attached to the works lead to the traces of a pair of huge black and white draft horses. Despite their blinkers, they snorted in fear, wanting to bolt after their first scent of me. They weren’t dumb, those two. They knew very well indeed should I waken from this spell, I’d have them for a light snack. Only the pair of uneasy Tongu at their heads prevented a wild bolt.
Gasping and gasping, the four Khalidians, including the one who spoke, dragged and cursed my heavy, dead weight onto the thing. They didn’t bother to tie me down, as they trusted Ja’Teel’s word that, should I wake, I’d never in a million years collect enough willpower to fight or free myself. Despite my imposing size, they feared Ja’Teel, and his influence with the King, more than they feared me.
Only the vocal soldier, standing near my muzzle, still worried. “My lord, what if he wakes up?”
Ja’Teel snorted. “Idiot,” he muttered, under his breath. Aloud he said, “Give him a dose of this at both dusk and dawn.”
I heard the soft leather rattle of a saddlebag opened, fumbled through and buckled shut again. Ja’Teel stepped forward, into my line of sight. His arm stretched outward, over my bulky shoulder. The soldier glanced at the vial in his hand, down at me, then back again. “Uh –“
“He won’t know his own mother if she called him from the beyond,” Ja’Teel snapped. “Trust me for it.”
Not true, I thought. My mother – What was her name?
Crap. That bastard might indeed prove truthful.
Focusing on thought and memory required willpower, and that Ja’Teel stole from me.
Ja’Teel’s voice sounded as though he spoke from a mile away. Certainly Rygel’s kin in blood, he launched into a teaching lecture. “This drug I invented keeps him drunk, helpless. He can hear and see, but he has no will. He can’t focus enough willpower to light a match with his magic. I doubt he can even change himself into a man, now.”
I truly despised him for how right he turned out to be.
Ja’Teel’s obnoxious drug offered me nothing to spring from, to escape, to change into my other body. My willpower, my magic, closed upon nothing. I clasped empty air only to forget the reason I tried in the first place.
Where was my fist?
It’s around here somewhere. I think.
Dammit, I know I can do this.
I needed to be a man to fight a man.
I willed myself to change from my wolf clothes into my natural man-shape.
Instead, I slid deeper into darkness. I floundered, angry, grabbing, seizing my elusive powers only to have them trickle, like fine, dry soil, through my cupped hands. Not fair, I thought. Not fair at all.
Fingers lifted my upper lip.
“Gods,” a voice breathed, queerly loud in my ears after the distance Ja’Teel’s voice drifted across, “take a look at them fangs.”
“After he’s dead, I’ll put one on a chain. Bring me luck, so it will.”
“His Majesty wants him alive,” Ja’Teel reminded them. “And undamaged. Should you get tempted to disobey him or me, you’ll die, horribly. By crucifixion, as I know you know. I presided over many of your brothers inelegantly nailed to a tree for the simple reason: they didn’t believe.”
Ja’Teel’s voice dropped to a single menacing note. “King Broughton seldom tolerates less than one hundred percent. Fail in your duty and you’ll wish your mother hadn’t uncrossed her legs that night. Remember this.”
“Remember what?” another demanded, his voice so soft I almost couldn’t hear him. “Remember we serve a madman?”
“Remember this,” muttered the soldier closest to my ear.
Damn, did he just make that sign? Did he create that convergence of two fingers specifically inviting Ja’Teel to commit the anatomically impossible? He surely did. I know it. Had I any emotion left to me, I’d laugh. And I’d salute that soldier.
“Here are his cordials.”
“His what?”
Ja’Teel sighed, clearly put out with those soldiers beneath his notice. “Dawn and dusk, pour a few drops onto his tongue. It’ll keep him incapacitated. I’ll ride ahead to inform His Majesty of our success.”
“What success?” the intelligent voice demanded. “We’ve a huge black wolf lying here. What if he wakes up?”
“He won’t,” Ja’Teel snapped. “Listen, moron. Keep feeding this down his throat twice a day and he’ll never fight again.”
“Bloody hell,” the soldier muttered. “I’m not liking this, not one bit.”
“You don’t have to like it,” Ja’Teel grated. “You’ve only to do as you’re told.”
The soldiers swung into their saddles, their mounts dancing and snorting with fear. Their sergeant barked orders, organizing his men. “You, check those trace chains. Can’t have them pop at the worst moment. Corporal, hand me his, er, cordials. You two, yes, you, ride alongside the drafts. Keep ‘em steady.”
The Tongu, fascinated, stared at me as their hounds sat at their feet and wuffed softly. Cruelly curbing his black horse with a sharp jab to its mouth, Ja’Teel swung into his saddle. He settled his cloak about his shoulders, adjusting it until it fell in black folds to his spurs. Walking his nervous mount closer to me, Ja’Teel gazed down, his harelip sneering. “I look forward to our next meeting, Prince Wolf.”
Good riddance, I thought.
Straightening, he shrugged. “I plan to hone my talents on you first, before using them on Rygel. Must have perfection, you know.”
You go, dog, I tried to say, drifting.
He straightened in his saddle, offering me a mock salute. “Pity you won’t have enough of a mind left to appreciate true artistry.”
Chuckling at his juvenile show of wit, Ja’Teel yanked his beast’s head around and set sharp spurs to the horse’s silky black hide. Blood sprayed, dotting my muzzle with red droplets. The horse galloped hard, away from the torment, ducking under trees and almost brushed Ja’Teel out of the saddle. Within moments, even the sound of his hooves vanished into the unimportant distance.
“Come on, lads,” the sergeant sighed. “Let’s deliver this poor bugger to his fate.”
I heard the swift flap of reins and sharp chirrups to the draft team. I drifted on a dark tide as the horses started out, their traces jangling, pulling me behind them. Sleep hovered close. I let it drag me down where pain, regret and sorrow failed to follow.