What was this about?
What happened to these creatures? What had changed them, twisting them so that they attacked him in the way that they had?
He tried to stand but pain coursed through him, starting along his back and racing down his leg. He was injured, but he didn’t know how badly.
He needed to work quickly to tie up the merahl before they awoke and attacked again. Endric reached the campsite and tore strips of cloth from his cloak. He quickly bound the merahl, tying their legs together and then wrapping a strip around their jaws as well. He didn’t know how well it would hold, but it would have to do for now.
He scooted toward the tree line, putting the bark of one of the trees up to his back, and leaned against it. He intended to rest a moment. After the attack, and after the pain he now felt, he needed a moment of rest. He fought sleep as it tried to claim him, but the last few days caught up to him and he was no longer able to keep his eyes open.
30
If Endric dreamt, he didn’t remember it.
He awoke to pain still surging through him. His leg throbbed with a pulsing sort of pain, one that mixed with a throbbing that filled his head as well. Had he hit his head? He didn’t remember. He’d been tossed around while trying to hold onto the merahl so much that he couldn’t keep track of what he’d injured.
Light filtered through his lids and he opened them to see an overcast day.
How long had he been out?
As he came back around, his mind starting to jump back into focus, other questions raced back into the forefront of his mind.
Where was Tresten?
The Mage had ridden off with Urik. Wouldn’t he have returned when he realized that Endric wasn’t with him? Wouldn’t he have wondered what happened to Endric rather than continuing into the night?
Unless the merahl had managed to get to them and overwhelm them.
Urik would have been useful at fending them off, but would he have been too violent? Gods, but Endric hoped that hadn’t been the case. What other answer was there?
What of the merahl he’d stopped?
He looked around and found them still lying where he’d bound them. They were still tied, and still breathing. They were breathing.
More than that, both had their eyes open.
One of the merahl whined softly, but the other made no sound.
Endric tried to stand and found he couldn’t bear weight on one of his legs. He’d thought it not broken, but maybe that had been a mistake. Had he only been able to stand on it out of fear for his life?
He crawled forward. Pain coursed through him as he did. Each movement sent a fresh wave of pain streaming through, shooting along his back and up into his head, mixing with the steady throbbing of his leg.
“Shh,” he said as he approached the merahl. In the daylight, he could better make out the stripes along their fur. Both were a deep auburn, striped with either silver or black. They turned their attention to him, eyeing him with intelligent eyes that seemed to take in much more than they should. “I didn’t want to hurt you. There’s something wrong and I want to try and help.”
The nearest merahl started whining, his voice—and now that it was daylight, Endric could tell there was a male and a female—rising painfully loud in the early morning. He had the silver stripes and was slightly larger than the female, though in the darkness, they had both appeared enormous.
Endric reclaimed his sword from its resting place between them, slipping it into its sheath. His leg screamed with pain as he did, but he steeled himself, forcing himself to ignore the agony.
What was he to do with them?
He couldn’t leave them here. If he did, they would eventually starve. He’d risked himself enough to keep from killing them that he wasn’t willing to do that. He didn’t dare release them, not without knowing what had happened to them to lead to their change in behavior.
What then?
Was there any way he could reverse the effects of what happened to them?
If Tresten were here, he would ask the Mage, but without him, Endric would have to determine the answer on his own. He didn’t know what the answer would be, and didn’t know how he could reverse the effects of a change to the merahl without knowing what it was that had happened to them.
He would have to examine them to see if he could figure out what had happened.
It was dangerous and would force him to get close enough that they could harm him if they managed to get free… but what choice did he have? Leaving them like this wasn’t an option.
He approached the merahl slowly, keeping his hands raised as he did, holding them out to placate the merahl. If they lunged, he would be ready. If they somehow managed to get free, he would also need to be ready.
The pain in his leg made it difficult for him to move and he approached carefully.
The merahl whined.
The more he heard it, the more it seemed a mournful sound. There was something else to it, a message that Endric could almost make out, but wasn’t sure whether he really heard it or if it was his imagination.
“Shh,” he said again, trying to soothe them.
It probably didn’t matter. The creatures would ignore him either way. Endric wanted only to get close enough that he could try to calm them.
As he reached for the merahl, it tried to kick at him and caught him on his injured leg, knocking him over. Endric glared at it. The merahl had managed to hit the one part of him that was most susceptible to injury.
He sprawled out next to the merahl. It attempted to claw at him, raking toward his arm. Endric grabbed the forelegs and twisted them, pushing them out of the way. The merahl whined again, but he ignored it.
The other merahl watched him silently. There was a violent patience in the way she eyed him that nearly forced him to look away, but that was what she wanted. If he pulled his attention off them, they would be more likely to harm him.
“What happened to you?” he asked. “The merahl I’ve hunted with wouldn’t do this. They wouldn’t attempt to attack anything other than groeliin.” Endric didn’t know whether that was true or not. The merahl were intelligent creatures, but they were still animals. It was possible that they would attempt to harm him, though it didn’t seem quite right.
The female watched him as he moved the legs of the male. Endric had thought the male merahl the one leading the two of them, but that didn’t seem to be the case. The female seemed in charge.
Endric dragged himself forward. There was nothing off about them. He hadn’t expected there to have been, though a part of him hoped that he would find some sort of teralin that would explain what had happened. He ran his hands along the thick fur, looking for other signs of injury or anything that would explain what had happened to them, but there was nothing.
He sat back, staring at the merahl.
There had to be something that would explain what had happened here. The merahl would not have attacked. He believed that more than he believed anything else. But why had they?
Was there another explanation?
He got to his knees and started running his hands through the merahl’s fur once more, not looking for a new injury and not looking for teralin. If they were there, he hadn’t discovered them. There might be something else he could find.
The merahl whined as he worked his hands through the fur, parting it as he went, searching for signs of scarring—or of markings. That was what he expected to find. Would there be anything like what he’d discovered on the groeliin? That seemed to tie those creatures to the teralin, much like what he suspected the Deshmahne used to tie themselves to the metal. If that were the case, there might not be anything that he could do.
He found nothing.
Endric leaned back, studying the merahl. Would the female have anything?
He crawled over to her and restrained her legs before she attempted to catch him the same way the male had. After searching through her fur, he found nothing. There was no sign of injury to her e
ither.
Maybe there was nothing wrong with either of them.
If that were the case, what choice would he have but to destroy them both?
The idea sickened him. What would Nahrsin think of him needing to kill two of the merahl? Endric would have to tell him, but the Antrilii would need to know what happened, and would need to be able to try and prevent future merahl from turning like this, if they could.
What had happened to these merahl?
If it wasn’t an injury, and he found no sign of teralin, what had twisted them? It seemed impossible that there had been nothing, but without any evidence otherwise, Endric was left believing that the attack came from an innate desire of the merahl to harm him.
He breathed out a sigh and tried to stand, but his leg didn’t bear his weight.
As he looked around the campsite, he noted that his horse had run off, likely long ago. He had his sword and the two merahl that he’d somehow managed to capture, but there was nothing else here.
How was he to catch Tresten and Urik?
He would not. He would be stuck here, remaining where he was until his injuries either healed enough to allow him to continue onward or he perished.
Perhaps his fate was no different than the merahl.
As he sat there, the female worked at the binding that held her muzzle. She managed to get her tongue free and worked at the length of fabric wrapped around her jaw.
Endric scooted back, staying away from her jaw, not wanting to give her any chance to snap at him again. Now that the excitement of battle no longer surged through him, he wasn’t certain he would be able to defend himself well enough to keep her from hurting him.
She managed to get the wrapping off her snout and snarled at him.
Endric watched her but couldn’t muster the energy he needed to feel fear. He should. Considering how dangerous the merahl could be—especially if she managed to chew through the strip of cloth that was the only barrier between her attacking him and keeping her legs confined—he should feel fear. As tired as he was, it was difficult for him to generate the necessary energy.
The merahl snarled at him again and Endric shook his head. “Make all the sound that you want. None of us are going anywhere.”
She showed a flash of teeth. Rather than being concerned by the fact that she attempted to intimidate him, Endric frowned.
There had been a marking along her gums.
Endric started forward, moving carefully.
The merahl snarled at him again, showing him a flash of sharp fangs. Endric was ready for it and held his sword out, preventing the merahl from snapping at him. She watched the sword, more concerned about that than anything else that Endric could do. What was it that worried her about the sword? There had to be something, though wasn’t it only the sharpness of the blade, or was it the fact that it was made of teralin?
The female merahl attempted to snap at him but Endric lunged, wrapping his arms around her neck and pinning her head to the ground. She thrashed, but without the use of her legs, there was little that she could do.
“Quiet,” Endric said.
She huffed, breathing heavily through her nostrils. He held her down with one arm and used the hand still holding the hilt of his sword to peel back her lip, doing so carefully so that she could not bite him.
He leaned in, smelling a faintly bitter odor to her breath as he studied the marking he found on her gum line.
It reminded him of markings that he’d seen on the groeliin.
Why should that be? Who would have placed those markings on the merahl?
It was branded into her skin and he traced a finger across it, ignoring the way she trembled beneath him, trying to get her head free. She shook, but though she was strong, Endric outweighed her and was able to keep her pinned down.
“Who did this to you?”
The merahl started growling. It was a deep sound, one that seemed to come from her chest as much as from the back of her throat, and her body practically shook with it.
“Whoever did this to you intended to claim you. This is not who you are.”
Why was he talking to the merahl in this way? There might not be anything he could do. With the branding, if it truly changed her, if it was responsible for tainting her, there might not be anything that he could have done to have helped her.
Possibilities worked through him. Could he cut the marking off her lip? If he did, would that even matter?
Was there another possibility? Could he somehow alter the marking, changing it so that the pattern no longer tainted her?
There was something very familiar about the marking, though Endric wasn’t quite certain what it was. Was it only that it reminded him of the groeliin marks, or was there more to it?
It wasn’t the one that Urik was so intent to know more about. If it were, Endric would need to find out who placed it, and what intent it had. It was similar enough that he wondered if the same person had placed the marking on the groeliin and had been the owner of the marking Urik seemed so intent to learn about.
Somehow, he had to find a way to help these merahl.
He wrapped the strip of cloth back around her snout, keeping her bound once more.
He crawled toward the other merahl. The male watched him with a dark intensity to his eyes. Endric pinned his head much the same way he had done with the female, holding him down, and then peeled back the strip of cloth wrapping around his snout until he was able to lift the merahl’s lips and study the merahl’s gums.
As he suspected, there was another marking here.
Was there anything he could even do that would help them?
When he had faced them the first time, he had felt the way the sword had influenced them. Could it do that now?
He didn’t want to harm the merahl, but… if he could use his sword, and the teralin influence, maybe he would be able to help them.
It was the only thing he could think of.
Endric kept his weight on the merahl’s neck and brought the tip of his sword around and pressed it against the marking. The merahl growled and the female snarled, scratching at the ground.
Endric ignored her.
He made the slightest cut into the merahl’s gumline, slicing through the marking. He pressed, using the same energy as he had when attempting to change the polarity of teralin.
It felt right, though he couldn’t explain why.
There was a steady buildup of pressure that came from him and surged through his sword. Light flared along the length of the blade and flashed onto the merahl’s gum line.
Endric withdrew. The marking had been blurred and appeared charred, as if he had burned it free. The merahl whined but Endric didn’t release his weight. He shifted the creature’s jaw, looking at the other side, and noted a second marking there. With a sigh, he did the same thing as he had on the first side.
When he was finished, he rewrapped the merahl’s snout and scooted back.
He turned his attention to the female and crawled over to her. She thrashed, attempting to scratch at him as she had before, but he threw himself on top of her, pinning her down. With his weight on top of her, there was no way for her to move. He pulled back her lips and set his sword against the branding, slicing through it and pushing as if he were changing teralin’s polarity. He did the same thing on the other side, much as he had with the male.
The female attempted to bite at him and Endric started back, releasing pressure on her neck as he realized that there was another marking on the top of her mouth.
Gods. Who had done this to the merahl?
This one would be more difficult to reach.
He shifted, throwing himself back on top of her once more, and used both hands to spread her jaws apart. He forced her mouth toward the tip of his sword. It was difficult. The merahl was strong and resisted, but slowly—almost too slowly—he managed to bring her mouth around to the end of the sword and so he could slice through the marking, pushing against it as he did. As with the othe
rs, there came a flash of light and a surge, and the marking disappeared.
Endric rewrapped her muzzle and crawled over to the male, needing to check if he were similarly marked. As he pried open the male’s mouth, he realized that he was not. It had only been the female marked in such a way.
Endric crawled away, leaving the merahl lying on the ground. He made his way back toward the tree, putting his back against the bark and keeping the two creatures in sight. It might not even matter, but he would see whether they would respond to what he had done.
His sword rested across his legs and he watched them.
31
Endric must have slept.
That hadn’t been his intent, but he awoke to darkness. The sound of the ocean crashed beneath him, slamming on the rocks along the shore. The air was heavy and damp, the humidity of a coming rain. Thunder rumbled more urgently than it had in days. It sounded close. If he didn’t find cover, he would be drenched.
His body ached, but less than it had before. His leg still throbbed and his head pulsed as it had, but there was less of it than he expected. The pain that had been in his arms and back had eased.
How long had he been asleep?
He sat up with a start and looked over at the merahl. He noted with relief that they were still lying bound as they had been before. Both seemed to be resting, neither snarling as they had been before, and neither of them whining.
A cool wind gusted off the ledge, swirling around him in tight eddies. Endric reached for his cloak and found it tattered, but wrapped what he could around himself, clinging to the warmth that it brought.
Where were Tresten and Urik?
He had expected Tresten to have turned back, searching for him, but it had now been at least a day—possibly longer—and neither man had returned. Had something happened to them? Had Urik betrayed Tresten and attacked him? Urik had seemed compliant and had made no effort to harm Tresten in the time that they had traveled together, but he wondered whether something had changed. Had Urik decided to use Endric’s absence as an opportunity? Did he think to take advantage of that and harm the elderly Mage? Or had Endric been right—had Tresten’s mind been slipping?
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