Once again he checked his arrow, releasing it from the bowstring and twisting it around and around between his fingers. As he looked down at the bright steel barb he wondered whether he should exchange it for a silver one, and glanced back to see whether those damned dogs were too close on his heels.
Then in the same motion he swung around and drew the bow and loosed the arrow at Evthan’s head. The shaft slashed past as close as the stroke of a morning razor, enough that it scored a red line across the hunter’s jaw, but any curses that spilled from his mouth were drowned by a yowl of pain behind him.
That sound came from the Beast.
It was as grey as a winter sky, and for an instant it seemed as big as a pony before it shrank to the size of an ordinary wolf again, pelt bright with the first spatter of blood where Aldric’s arrow was driven deep into its muscled shoulder. Ivory fangs glistened in a wet pink maw, and its eyes were glowing green embers. Then it vanished back into the forest with the dogs hard after it.
“I’m sorry, Evthan, but, but I – I had to take the chance!” Aldric was stammering with shock. “It just… Appeared. Out of nowhere. Right at your back. And it had you cold. But—”
“But?” Evthan touched the oozing graze across his face and winced.
“But it hesitated! It waited. Why…?”
“Because it couldn’t decide. If you’d been alone, or just me—” It might not have attacked you at all, thought Aldric but kept it to himself. “The dogs probably kept it at a distance too. And then you shot it.” Evthan dabbed at the graze again. “With silver?”
“Steel. Come on and—”
Scared birds clattered skyward as the harsh squalling of a fight rang through the woods. The frenzied snarls reached a crescendo, changed abruptly to a frantic screech, shot up to a squeal which didn’t finish and left only echoes hanging on the air. Both men exchanged grim glances and started running, each eager to see the mangled carcass of the Beast. Outweighed and outnumbered, there would only be one outcome.
That was what they thought. The reality was different. There was a mangled carcass on the ground, but it was one of the Drusalan hounds, lying dreadfully torn amid the coils of its own entrails. There was no sign of the other dog, or of the wolf.
Aldric stooped to lift something from the spattered grass. It was his arrow, and though gore smeared it from the point to halfway along the shaft, there were no toothmarks anywhere on the wood to show how it had been withdrawn. Without comment he wiped it on the turf and returned it to his quiver, then carefully chose another.
One with a silver head.
The spoor was plain enough, wet red spots dappling the grass, and Evthan was able to read even more details. He recited them to Aldric as they followed the trail: how the grass was bent by a dragging leg, how the distance between each blood-drop showed speed while their size showed if the flow was light or heavy. He could even tell the nature of the wound from their colour. It was dark crimson from a vein, though both of them would have preferred to see the vividness of arterial scarlet. But there was no need for any lecture in woodcraft to recognise the most important fact.
The Beast was running straight for Valden, and if it got inside the palisade there would be slaughter like a fox loose in a hen-house.
As that picture grew in his mind, Aldric ran faster than he should. Ten long strides later, he flinched away from a barely glimpsed blur of grey behind a gaping pink and white maw. Huge white teeth clacked like a bear-trap on the empty air where his left leg had been. Though that evasion save his leg it lost his balance, and as the ground came up to meet him his bow with its silver-tipped arrow went flying. He rolled hard and slammed one knee against the turf to lever himself half-upright, looking around for Evthan and the bow. There was no trace of the Jouvaine hunter.
But straddling the weapon was the grey bulk of the Beast.
He could hear its rumbling growl from where he knelt, see the ragged gleam of those monstrous teeth, and taste the copper sourness of fear on the walls of his mouth. He stared at the wolf as if his unblinking gaze alone might force it to retreat, knowing how desperate it must be to break its own unwritten rule and attack full-grown armed men.
One of those armed men wanted his longsword as much as he wanted his next breath, and knew he couldn’t reach it. Widowmaker was still strapped high across Aldric’s back, where it wouldn’t tangle his legs during the hunt – and where it couldn’t be drawn. First it had to drop to his hip, and the Beast wouldn’t give him time to do that so the taiken was as far away as in Valden, or Alba, or the far side of the moon.
Instead he grabbed for his taipan, but even as the blade left its scabbard the Beast sprang forward. It hit him square in the chest with a weight equal to his own and sent him crashing backwards with its jaws agape above his face even as Aldric ripped the shortsword through its neck…
*
Those jaws were still gaping as Evthan pulled the Beast of the Jevaiden aside and twisted his arrow from its skull. The wolf had died in mid-leap, and as that sank in, the hunter squatted by its corpse and ran disbelieving hands through the glossy fur. He didn’t even notice when Aldric scrambled shakily to his feet, but what he did notice made him beckon the Alban closer.
“Look here,” he said, one finger tracking pale hairs which marked the line of an old scar. “He couldn’t catch his proper prey when this was new, so he learned bad habits. Women and children were easier game, and he didn’t give them up when it healed. He’s our Beast.”
“Your Beast, Evthan. Not mine.” Aldric looked at the scar, such an insignificant little thing to cause such trouble. He lifted the wolf’s head by its thick-furred scruff and stared for a long time at the lolling tongue, the great fangs, the glazing eyes. Was this the unseen presence which was watching and stalking him in the Deepwood yesterday? Certainly it was as big a wolf as he had ever seen. Almost too big to be natural.
But only almost. When it remained a wolf and nothing more, he lowered the Beast’s head back to the grass with a small sigh of relief, tipped back his own head and drew a long breath of the evening air. High above him a star blinked through a tear in the fabric of the overcast, cold and clear and immeasurably distant in the dusk. There was no sign of the moon yet, and his mind returned to closer matters.
“Evthan?” The hunter glanced up from where he was flaying his kill. “We know one dog’s dead. Where’s the other?”
“I haven’t a notion.” Evthan’s voice was carefree. The Beast was dead, and he had killed it.
“Those brutes are dangerous,” said Aldric. “I’d rather have it leashed than running loose, but I’m not looking for it by myself.”
“How long will you stay here now?” Evthan’s question had nothing to do with Laine’s remaining dog, and there was an odd pitch to his voice, an edge Aldric thought he recognised. Go away so I can enjoy my fame alone.
“Tomorrow morning probably,” he said. “There’s no reason to stay longer.” The relief in the man’s eyes confirmed what Aldric thought. Evthan Wolfsbane was already growing jealous of his newfound status as Saviour of the Jevaiden and didn’t want to share it with anyone, least of all a hlensyarl. “I hadn’t much to do with this hunt anyway, except as tethered bait for your good shooting.”
He soon found his bow again, and as he checked it for damage he heard bracken rustling from lower down the slope where he had fallen. When he peered cautiously over the almost-sheer edge, he saw Gueynor forcing a way through the tangled undergrowth. Aldric frowned and backed out of sight. There were a mixture of emotions needing sorted before he spoke to her again, and now wasn’t the right time to do it.
“Who’s that?” asked Evthan, with the Beast’s rolled-up skin on his shoulder.
“Your niece,” said Aldric. “come to congratulate you.” Instead of pleasure at another witness to his triumph, the colour drained from Evthan’s face with shocking suddenness.
“Gueynor,” he whispered. “I told you not to follow me. I told you to stay inside. I
told you to avoid the woods tonight—”
“Why tonight?” Aldric’s voice went sharp and his left hand groped for an arrow, any arrow, but before the man could answer, a bulky shadow emerged from behind a tree behind him and sank to a crouch. This time it wasn’t a wolf, but it was dangerous enough. “Look out!”
Evthan jerked around as the second Drusalan hound leapt straight for him, possibly misled by the smells of blood and wolf which hung about him or just crazed by the events of the hunt. He teetered for an instant on the brink, then toppled backwards into the gloom-filled valley just as the hound came thudding down on to the spot where he had stood.
The dog seemed undecided whether to follow its prey into the bracken-noisy darkness, but when it turned to glare at Aldric, he knew it had made its choice. Black lips curled back from sharp white teeth and it began a monstrous snarl that would end with those teeth in his neck. The snarl stopped short as he loosed a heavy broadhead point-blank through its chest. At such close range the arrow punched nock-deep; fletching, shaft, crest and all staggered the dog with its impact. The wild eyes dulled like wax-choked candles and it was dead even before its legs gave way.
Aldric rubbed a hand across his clammy forehead and listened to the hammer of his heart, already suspecting why the hound went for Evthan rather than himself, the stranger it had so clearly disliked during the day. He made sure the barb on his next arrow was a silver one, then worked his way past the dead dog and knelt to peer over the edge. There was no longer any movement among the brambles, and that puzzled him since it wasn’t overgrown enough to hold adults immobile. Perhaps Evthan’s clumsy fall had hurt Gueynor. Or hurt them both. Above his head the full moon slid free of its last rags of cloud to cast a pale, cold gleam across the forest, and he shivered without knowing why. There was a whimpering below him and an indrawn breath close to the sound of a sob.
*
Then a howl erupted from the ground almost at his feet. He flung himself backwards like a shocked cat, and only the way he kept a proper grip on his bow made the leap look like wariness rather than undiluted fear. The silver arrowhead glinted like a shard of sharpened ice in the same moonlight that illuminated a face rising above the valley rim. It had been human once, but now its jaw elongated to a tapered muzzle even as he watched. The skull flattened, the ears became triangular, tufted and twitching, dark fur spread like ink across the pallid skin and fangs glimmered as they sprouted from pink gums.
Why doesn’t it run? Why won’t it hide? Why is it letting me witness this?
He had never dreamed, even in his darkest nightmares, how intimate a skin-changing could be. The transformation was already almost done, but for just a moment the blue eyes remained unchanged, staring at him with a horrible and almost tearful pity. Aldric remembered the last time someone looked at him with pity, and his stomach turned over. Then the intelligence faded, overwhelmed by another, more feral impulse.
Hunger.
The eyes shone green now, phosphorescent jewels in the moonlight.
As the Jevaiden’s real Beast sprang on to level ground, Aldric could see that none of its humanity remained. There was just animal instinct. Pelt frosted by the moon, it was all lithe, swift wolf as it stalked clear of the hazard of the drop. Only a slight uncertainty of the forelegs betrayed any memory of walking upright. It raised its shaggy head to howl balefully at the glowing sky.
And Aldric shot his silver arrow deep into its throat.
The werewolf lurched but didn’t fall. Instead it stared at him, an impossible saw-fanged grin stretching the corners of its mouth as the arrow trembled, withdrew of its own accord and dropped to the grass. No blood stained the silver barb, there was no wound, and it gave a second howl made more eerie still by an undertone of laughter thrumming through it. Aldric forgot his peril enough to lower the useless bow, gaping in disbelief. What he had just seen was contrary to everything ever read or heard.
Then realisation chilled him with fear of his own death.
His silver arrowheads were useless, made from Drusalan florins he knew had lost their value, but he hadn’t thought of why until this instant. The Imperial economy was rotten, its coinage debased – and that meant silver coins without real silver in them.
With a snarl like rending metal the wolf sprang and slammed him to the ground, jaws snapping at his throat. An instant later it uttered an appalling shriek of anguish and leapt away, shaking its head like a dog singed at the fire.
Aldric guessed the cause at once. Like all high-clan Albans he wore a crest-collar, and his, unlike those damned coins, was pure silver. If it had been gold… He shoved that horrid thought aside as he rolled to his feet and drew his tsepan. The black dirk was no fighting weapon, its delicate blade was meant only for the single stab of mercy or suicide, but he didn’t want the blade. His clan colours were blue and white and his personal colour black, so the tsepan’s blade was blued steel, its sheath and grip were lacquered ebony…
And its pommel was solid silver.
The werewolf lunged again, low now for the belly. As Aldric dodged the rush, he slammed his mailed left arm between its jaws with a thud that jarred him to the spine and saw huge shearing-teeth crush down on the armour beneath his sleeve. Though its straps and laces creaked under the awesome pressure they held firm enough that when he twisted against the bite with his full weight behind it, at least one of the great teeth snapped off.
Unable to bite, unable to breath and panicked by this turning of the tables, the Beast whined and tried to break away. Aldric clamped his knees around its narrow ribcage with his trapped arm trapping its head in place, and slammed the tsepan’s chestnut-sized pommel down between the pointed ears. An ordinary steel pommel wouldn’t have done it, maybe not even a mace or a war-hammer. But the silver pommel shattered that thick skull like an eggshell.
The Beast kicked once, then died without a sound.
*
Aldric crouched above it, trembling all over, convinced there would be more. There must be more. It couldn’t be this easy. But it was. The tsepan’s pommel had done in a single stroke what every arrow in his quiver couldn’t have achieved. He still didn’t move, remaining as still as the dead thing beneath him, and only eased his arm out past the fangs when his limbs were steady again. He was well aware of what a werewolf’s bite could do, and only one knew better. That one lay at his feet with a caved-in head.
The outstretched corpse began a gradual change as the processes of life ran down. That was when Aldric backed away and looked away. Right now he wasn’t ready to learn who he had killed. It was almost certainly Evthan. Yet there were too many memories jumbled in his mind; words and images that took on a terrible significance when viewed with hindsight, strange, half-glimpsed expressions, odd behaviour, even a peculiar choice of phrase…
Did it know, when it was human, what it would become? If he suffered the curse of changing, would he know? And if he knew – his gaze flicked briefly to the tsepan still clutched in one hand – would he have the courage or even the speed to do what had to be done?
Aldric didn’t know the answer. He had stared into the eyes of the werewolf and seen a reflection of himself. They were kindred spirits. The thought frightened him. He hadn’t killed every killer in the Jevaiden woods, but had come to terms with one, the one asleep within himself that used a sword instead of fangs. He hoped understanding it would be enough. And in the knowledge of that understanding he turned, uncertainties cast aside, already sure who he would see.
Evthan of Valden lay on the moonlit grass, face-downwards in a puddle of his own blood. When Aldric gently rolled him over there was no trace of the gash along from that first steel-tipped arrow. It had healed and faded just before the hound attacked, when Evthan’s change came upon him within reach of the only person able to counter it. He might have been sure of that, or only hoped, but his hope was justified and he might have realised it at the end, for his face was peaceful and his mouth still held the merest shadow of a grateful smile.
“So this was your intention all along. Just as you told me. To find another hunter, yes, and one who could do what you couldn’t. When did you learn that two Beasts were haunting the same forest? You poor man. How much did it hurt, wondering which one took your wife and daughter?” A shadow fell across him and his head jerked up. Gueynor’s face was lost in darkness, but he felt her gaze bore through him as he got back to his feet. “I… I’m sorry.” How insincere that sounded. “Your uncle was—”
“I know what he was. I saw what he was. But he is still my mother’s elder brother.” There was no emotion in her voice as she held out a kerchief. “Clean your hands, then help me bring him home.”
“No.” The blunt refusal made Gueynor stare at him, caught between grief at her loss and anger at his refusal, but Aldric was already thinking fast and none of those thoughts involved anyone else learning what had really happened. “Will you wait until the rest of the village gets here? If not, then heed me and don’t argue.”
They shifted the corpse to lie in a way that matched the story he prepared. Evthan had tracked the Beast and shot it from close range, but its final throes flung him against a tree-root which dashed out his brains. Aldric had taken its skin as a last trophy and a memorial. That was all. That was enough. It was a hasty tale, full of holes, but better than the truth, even though he spoke that once and quickly before the villagers arrived.
“Your uncle saved my life,” he said. One of Evthan’s arrows still lay beside the flayed body of the Beast, with the hole it made plain to see in the back of the skull.
“And mine.” Tear-tracks down Gueynor’s cheeks turned silver in the moonlight, and whether it was pure silver or debased didn’t matter now. “When the change began I – I was right beside him. But he ignored me, and attacked you instead. And he was slow about it. You saw how fast he could move, yet he let you watch exactly what he was. But you don’t realise the truth of it even yet. Look at him, Alban! Look at him, and think of all the lore you know. Look at him.”
The Demon Lord Page 11
