by G. H. Duval
It is necessary.
Savantha replied, curt, knowing words were not what he sought from her. It was her certainty he sought, and she sent it to him through their Aspect bond. He would trust her assessment no matter how strong his desire to stay and guard this small boy.
Savantha nodded to Davia and turned to leave without another word, Breal falling into step beside her. As they left the small building that had been hastily turned into a sick ward to treat Mykal and the handful of other survivors who’d managed to escape the attack, she took a moment to gather herself. As she often did when distracted or unsettled, her hand rested in the thick cinnamon-colored fur of Breal’s ruff. The fact that the mastiff’s head came nearly to her waist only encouraged the habit.
She drew a deep breath of cold morning air, allowing it to cleanse her senses of the sadness and fear spreading in waves from those around her. She braced and opened her Aspect tether. The Earth’s essence moved through her and Breal’s mind joined hers more fully—as did his canine senses. The world dimmed to blues and greens, shadows became crisper and more defined, and her nostrils flared with the torrent of information pouring in from her now greatly attuned sense of smell.
A familiar scent caught her attention and she turned in its direction. After a minute or so, Hest came into view atop Astar—the ivory mare that was his bondmate and his Kindred herd’s Alpha. As usual, he wore only the tight white leather uniform for which he was known, arms bare and no cloak in sight.
Hest was a serious man who wasted no energy on appearances or social graces. His Earth Aspect kept him warm in the winter and cool in the summer, and he would not pretend otherwise no matter how disconcerting it may prove to the laity. He was a large man, easily two heads taller than she, with bugling muscles and long brown hair kept always in a severe braid down his back. He had dark eyes and a strong jaw and was handsome in a conventional way save for his near perpetual scowl. Unable to help herself, she smiled at the sight of him, warming to his presence. His quirks only made him more endearing to her.
When he reached her, he wordlessly leaned down and held out a hand. She also said nothing as she took his hand and swung herself up and into the saddle behind him.
“Ready?” he asked.
Breal grunted and shook himself vigorously, preparing for the trek back to the wreckage that was Shepherd’s Seek, where their fellow Wardens Valk and Veta awaited their return. They’d borne the distasteful task of seeing to the dead. Once reunited, the four Wardens could finally begin the task for which Hirute had truly made them. They would hunt.
Already fully connected to Breal, Savantha drew from her Aspect and fed stamina and strength into her bondmate to aid him in keeping pace with Astar.
“Aye, Brother,” she replied and slid her arms around his waist. Hest clicked to Astar and they left Callor behind.
*
The smell was unbearable. Even breathing shallowly through her mouth, Savantha could not escape the unholy odors emanating from the wreckage of Shepherd’s Seek. She moved through the ruins, thankful that while she and Hest had seen to the boy, Valk and Veta had given proper treatment to the bodies of the poor souls who had not been spared. But the horror could not so easily be cleared away; this was doubly true for her Aspect.
The Earth thrashed at her barrier, angered and grieved by what it had been forced to accept into itself from the attack. The tears, and blood, and pain. Even now, the Earth relived the tragedy moment by moment. Seeking release, it urged Savantha to share its horror, and she relented. Was this not precisely why Hirute had given to the Aspects their human Shepherds? To help them understand what their limited sentience could not? How could she deny her Aspect that guidance now, no matter how horrid she knew it would be for her?
She opened her tether completely and trembled with the effort of bearing what her Aspect thrust upon her. The violence was bad enough. But worse was the anger and hate Palin, their now-lost au Terre brother, had felt when he’d wielded the Earth in such shocking violation of his oaths. Savantha gagged, clutching at her stomach and trying not to wretch at the onslaught. Her Aspect had moved from rage to agony, begging to be released from its memories of how it had been used.
Before she could beckon him, Breal was pressed to her side. She clung to him, propping herself up against him, and drew on his awareness. The canine’s ability to live in and for the present gave her some much-needed distance from the events playing in her mind’s eye. He drew a deep breath, threw his head back, and howled. The sound was more than his own emotional release at what he was sharing with Savantha.
Breal’s call was a summons. Though leagues away, the tethers to his many Kindred packmates flared to life, thrumming with power as the Alpha called to his own. Willingly, they responded and gave of themselves to bolster their leader. He drew the power to himself and immediately used it shield Savantha, siphoning pain and horror from her by dispersing it among her Kindred.
Her stomach settled and her mind cleared. The images were no less horrid, but with her pack protecting her, she could no longer feel the choking, suffocating horror. She focused on her Aspect instead, soothing it, taking its pain and asking her pack to diffuse it. At the edges of her mind, she saw the thrumming emerald tethers of her fellow Wardens working to do the same with their respective Kindred. Together, the four Wardens spread the pain of the incident until it was completely dispersed between hundreds of Kindred. Her Aspect settled, still agitated, but coherent once more. One by one, each Warden drew their tethers closed, satisfied the Earth would not lash out and cause any further disruption to the area.
She felt Breal settle as well as he released the pack. She expected a full-body shake from him—his preferred way to dispel stress and to refocus. Instead, he dropped his head and growled. She recognized the sound as his warning growl, alerting her to danger and conveying to whatever he sensed that he would not tolerate its presence.
She began to enter Breal’s mind but the scent to which he was reacting reached her first.
He wouldn’t dare…
She lingered on the scent, considering if she should draw on her Aspect to confirm her suspicions before deciding against it. The Earth here needed a reprieve. She’d have to work with what she had.
She moved closer to Valk—the su Avem Warden—and spoke softly.
“I suspect Verrider is nearby,” she informed him, but she kept her gaze firmly on the dense forest bordering the clearing that had so recently housed the small village.
Valk’s gaze followed hers. As his eyes pulsed softly the deep green of his affinity, she knew he’d joined with his bondmate—a falcon named Evon who sat perched on Valk’s shoulder. If Verrider was where she suspected, he’d not be able to evade Evon’s keen eyesight.
Valk nodded, jaw clenching and unclenching. “You’re right,” he grumbled. “Shall I fetch him?”
“No,” Savantha replied, surprising even herself with her restraint. “If he’s close enough for me to smell him, he wants to be found.”
She moved closer to the center of the clearing and called out, “We know you’re there, Verrider.”
It took an even greater effort to call him by his name and not by the slur he deserved. “If you’ve any honor left, why don’t you join us and spare us the embarrassment of dragging you out?”
She kept her eyes trained on the stand of trees directly opposite the clearing from her, where her senses told her Verrider was most likely to be hidden. Unsurprisingly, after a delay of just a few moments, the man she’d known for more than three decades moved into the light. He had been an instructor to her, then a friend, then—ever so briefly and in a time of heartache at that, he’d been her lover. However, like her own, his heart belonged to another, and theirs was a brief comingling of physical need and emotional salve. It had ended as swiftly as it had begun, with none the worse for it.
To see him now, hovering defensively near the trees, troubled her more than she liked. She’d thought she had come to terms with Verri
der’s dissention. She’d even understood it on some small level—his need to question and push for surety in the face of the inexplicable. They all shared his disquiet, and many had chosen to follow him, hoping to force a change that would lead to clear guidance from their God.
But she’d been wrong. Even from this distance, she saw that the towering au Terre she’d known was gone. In his place stood a man wracked by shock and grief. And if a man like Verrider could so easily be brought low, what hope was there for any of them?
Breal whined, pressing against her thigh in an attempt to soothe the grief flaring in her once more.
“It’s alright,” she murmured to him. “Steady now. Stay focused.”
Verrider lurched forward, stumbling several steps into the clearing. He righted himself, blanching as he stared down at the scorched earth. Behind him, the source of his sudden impetus came into view, and Savantha’s stomach clenched and warmed simultaneously. As it always did at the sight of Veta.
Veta was more than just her sister in arms. More than just a fellow au Terre. More than one of only four Wardens. To Savantha, Veta was all that was right in the world. Like Savantha, Veta was of Senechali descent. But unlike Savantha, she held no Coerdan heritage at all. She’d come to Coerdom and converted on pure faith alone, claiming to have been called by Hirute directly. To their credit, the Firsts had accepted an audience with this seeming interloper, and the First Seer, herself, had deemed Veta true. She’d predicted that Veta would express an Aspect, improbable as that was, and rise to one day take her place among the rarified Beast Wardens. It was Veta’s very existence that had given Savantha’s own mother the courage to travel to Coerdom, believing that even in her differences, she could be accepted. So it was that when her daughter began to speak with the family dog, it was not so hard to believe that she could be chosen of Hirute.
When Savantha had found herself sharing the Steading with the legendary Veta, she’d fallen instantly and madly for the older woman. In her mind’s eye, Veta had been ten feet tall and mightier than any man could hope to be. The reality was a woman a bit shorter of stature than Savantha was, darker of skin, with twinkling marble-black eyes and a wealth of thick black hair kept braided tightly against her scalp. Exposed as a mere mortal, she’d been no less glorious to Savantha’s eyes. Like all Beast Wardens, Veta wore arm-bearing, tight leathers—hers dyed a deep, matte black—and her muscles rippled with lean definition.
Veta had welcomed Savantha instantly, as if reunited with a long-separated sister. She’d guided Savantha in both her Aspect and her cultural assimilation into the world that was the Steading. And she’d loved Savantha enough to be blunt, strict, and unyielding in her expectations. Savantha had exulted in pleasing Veta, and she’d cringed at her failures. In the end, Savantha knew that she had Veta to thank for the Warden she’d become, even more so than her actual su Canis master.
Once Savantha had assumed the su Canis mantle and become, ostensibly, Veta’s equal, she had worked up the courage to confess her feelings to Veta. As gently as one could manage, Veta had rebuffed her. Veta had pledged herself to Hest by then, and once she had said the words aloud, Savantha realized that a part of her had known it all along. She’d fled to Verrider then, to drown herself in the last thing she really wanted, and it had worked. She’d numbed herself as much as possible, but when she allowed herself to look upon Veta for any length of the time, the dull throb of all that she’d once dreamed would threaten to break her.
She tore her eyes from Veta and rested them instead on the huge brown bear that was the Warden’s su Ursa bondmate. Ayik was the largest animal Savantha had ever seen, save for those rarest of the rare Dire Eagles Valk could summon. She’d often secretly wondered if Ayik was of a Dire descendant, himself, but Veta proved evasive on the matter. Either way, the massive male hovered behind Verrider, grumbling almost gently, but brooking no argument. Verrider continued to trudge forward, face pale and wan, until he stood mere feet from Savantha.
His eyes pulsed with the barest shimmer of green, enough to be dangerous for a master au Terre like Verrider, but they all knew he had no hope of marshalling their shared Aspect to any real effect…not with all four Wardens present. Almost idly, Savantha wondered if they could permanently damage his tether if they set their minds to it, then shuddered, repulsed that she’d even let herself think such a thing.
Though Verrider had deliberately placed himself before Savantha, she was not able to address him first. Hest spoke up from atop Astar as he positioned himself at Savantha’s back.
“Who else?” He demanded of Verrider, without preamble or explanation. Thankfully, Verrider took his meaning and was all to happy to dispense with any recriminations as they all immediately turned their focus to the distasteful work ahead.
“Besides Palin, there were three others,” Verrider confessed, his voice steady but empty.
Savantha nodded as this information married with what Mykal reported seeing and had been further confirmed by the Headmistress—one Shepherd of each Aspect had been corrupted somehow.
“Names, Verrider,” Veta prompted, her patience threatening to snap. She came to stand beside Savantha, but Ayik remained where he was behind Verrider.
Verrider ignored Veta’s tone as he supplied, “Cenia, Tesk, and Nika.”
Savantha nodded and nudged Breal, who gifted Verrider with one final growl before dropping his head and scanning the clearing for the scents of those mentioned. A moment later, Evon launched from Valk’s shoulder to circle high above Breal, providing an aerial view of the ground they would track together.
Savantha braced and reopened her Aspect tether, warming as the Earth flowed more fully into her mind and body. She was happy to find her Aspect remained mollified. Her eyes tingled pleasantly at the joining and she relished the feeling as she reached for Valk, who was in turn reaching for her. She peeled a tendril from her Aspect tether and braided it to the one Valk offered before connecting it to Breal. They repeated the process and Valk placed the second braid upon Evon. Once she was certain the braid was secure with Breal, she withdrew and closed her tether once more. Breal and Evon would now share one another’s strengths, combining the mastiff’s keen sense of smell with Evon’s exceptional eyesight. The four errant Shepherds would not evade the Wardens much longer.
“Are you ready, Verrider?” Valk asked. His tone absent of the anger she’d sensed before, and she knew that the part of his mind devoted to Evon was keeping him distracted. She was thankful for it, as Verrider’s undressing would not come at their hands. The Firsts would deal with him, themselves.
Verrider said nothing, only nodding.
“Come on then,” Hest commanded, and Savantha moved back to allow Verrider to pass her as he took Hest’s proffered hand and settled behind the Warden on Astar’s back.
“Do not wait on me,” Hest urged them as he turned the mare. “I’ll catch up as soon as I’ve delivered him to Davia.”
And with that, both he and the man who’d brought such tragedy upon Coerdom left for Callor. Wordlessly, the remaining Wardens turned to follow the path Breal and Evon set before them.
Twenty
“Trust in My promise! Join with My spirit and know that you are a new creature: old things are passed away and all things are become new!”
–Helig Ra’d, Teachings of the Great Shepherd
Mori re-entered his room, humming softly. He’d left the baths eager for the day ahead as all lessons were suspended in honor of the Naming Ceremony taking place later that morning. So important was this ceremony that all Shepherds not on active missions were to be in attendance. When he’d inquired as to the etiquette required or how he should prepare, Instructor Shavare proved unusually evasive. He’d relented enough to say he did not want to ruin the surprise and that Mori need only follow the lead of his peers and enjoy the day.
Mori had taken his master’s instructions in earnest and he’d been happily contemplating what’d he have for breakfast, and, even more importantly,
the delightful company he expected would join him. As he entered the room, he spotted a bundle wrapped neatly on his bed. He carefully untied the bow and let paper fall open.
Inside was a garment of such beauty, Mori pulled his hands away for fear of damaging it, glancing about as if the room could provide him some explanation. Chuckling at himself, he lifted the garment from the box, and a small sheaf of parchment fell onto the bed.
Mori,
Please accept this small token of appreciation for your dedication to your studies. You’ve my permission to leave the grounds, and I expect you to wear this gift for today’s ceremony. You will soon understand all.
~Shavare.
Mori dropped the note back onto the bed and held the garment at arm’s length, turning it in the light peeking through his small window.
“Small token of appreciation,” he murmured, incredulous. The robe was long but cut to suit Mori such that it would not extend beyond his ankles. Made of silk, it was died black and banded at the cuffs and hem in silver thread. On the right breast was the interlocking-ring symbol of the Firsts, though the ring representing Air had been set apart to shine in yet more silver thread. Black and silver…the Formynder’s colors.
Honored beyond measure, he shed his robe with haste, slipped into his smalls, and pulled the new robe over his head. With a soft whoosh, the fabric fell smoothly into place, settling across his shoulders as if it had been made specifically to his dimensions. Which, he realized with another chagrined chuckle, of course it had. He turned to leave for breakfast, and from force of habit, reached for the canvas pack stuffed with his slate and study materials. Smiling, he left it where it was and sped toward the exit.
He joined the throng of students moving toward the dining hall, realization dawning just as Instructor Shavare had promised. Most of those about him had replaced their customary tunic-and-leggings uniform for a robe similar to his, though his was of much finer quality. Most of his peers wore robes in the colors of their respective affinities, with only a few sporting a garment of cream with their affinity set out at cuffs and hem in silk or satin. Not a one wore a robe of black.
