Wizard of the Grove

by Tanya Huff

  He looked up and met Crystal’s eyes; met not unearthly power, only concern and a question. So he smiled, a real smile this time, and answered it.

  “I’m okay.”

  She nodded and reached out her hand. Although the length of the sleigh separated her palm and his face, he felt her stroke his cheek, leaving a residue of warmth and comfort behind.

  “If you don’t watch that,” his smile quirked up into a grin and he waggled his brows suggestively, “I’ll start howling myself.”

  The geography of the valley limited the sleigh to two directions; forward the way they’d been going, following a river course now buried under half a winter’s accumulation of snow, or back the way they’d come. They went on. Crystal and Jago each kept one eye on their path and one eye on the trees and scrub that lined their path. Raulin followed blindly, trying to watch both sides of the trail at once.

  As though aware it had been spotted, the creature pacing them took less care to remain unnoticed. They heard it on occasion, the crack and crash of a heavy body forcing its way through the brush, and once or twice saw sumac sway and shake off its load of snow as something unseen pushed past.

  The sun sank lower in the sky, the trees began to thin as the forest they’d followed for so long began to end, and they reached a place where the slope to the valley’s edge ran clear.

  “Higher ground might not be a bad idea,” Jago suggested as they paused to consider their next move.

  “Maybe,” Raulin agreed, “but that slope’ll . . . Chaos!”

  A huge black wolf stood in the clearing. Teeth bared, it growled.

  It stepped forward and the growl grew louder.

  Raulin’s hand dropped down to the crossbow, rested a moment on the stock, and lifted back to the sleigh when the wolf moved no closer. Unless it attacked, he wouldn’t fire. He wasn’t sure he could. “Let’s move it,” he said quietly, throwing his weight against the crossbar and almost running the sleigh up the back of Jago’s legs. “Just keep it smooth and quiet and I think we’ll be all right.”

  As the wolf and the path from the valley fell behind, Raulin felt cold fingers brush against his spine. He knew those golden eyes continued to watch and he kept his own locked on the silver sway of Crystal’s hair, fighting the urge to turn and walk backward, keeping the enemy in sight. Enemy, he snorted to himself. Try to think of it as a big dog. You’ll be happier.

  A flash of black among the trees to the left and they knew they were accompanied still.

  “There!” Crystal called, and pointed.

  A smaller gray wolf sped across a clearing on the right and disappeared into cover.

  “Two,” Raulin grunted.

  From the left a howl, and from behind an answer. And then another. And then another. And then the valley filled with sound. As the last echo died away the sun slipped below the valley’s edge and suddenly, although true night was still hours away, shadows ruled.

  “Run!” Raulin barked, catching up the crossbow and ramming his shoulder against the sleigh. “We’re too out in the open to fight.”

  So they ran. With wolves to either side and wolves behind. Jago floundered on a patch of soft snow and almost fell, but Crystal grabbed his arm and yanked him back onto his feet. Forced off the river’s path, they scrambled up hills, heading due north into the rougher going of the mountains.

  Why don’t they attack? Crystal wondered. What are they waiting for? Sleek shapes, just on the edge of her vision, kept pace but came no closer. The power needed to protect Raulin and Jago would weaken the shields and free the goddesses. She could only hope that in leaving Zarsheiy would do more damage to her enemies than to her friends.

  Ahead of them waited a jumble of rock and a cliff-face that rose eight to ten feet out of the mountain.

  “The cliff,” Raulin panted. “Get our backs against it!”

  With the end in sight, they managed another burst of speed.

  The front curve of the right runner caught under a rock and the sleigh slewed to a stop. The leather straps dug into Crystal’s breasts as dead weight caught up to her and she plummeted to one knee, gasping, all the air forced out of her lungs. Jago’s runner kept moving, spinning sleigh and Jago to the right, whipping both feet out from under him. Raulin’s chin slammed into the crossbar and he bit his tongue. His eyes filled at the impact but he stumbled forward, half blind, grabbed Jago, and pulled him to his feet.

  “Crystal!” He yelled. “The harnesses!”

  A flash of green and the harnesses split.

  Raulin pushed his brother on ahead and turned back to help Crystal.

  “The cliff, it’s our only chance!”

  Plunging forward, they almost crashed into Jago who had stopped and stood staring at their intended refuge. “I think not,” he said quietly. Raulin and Crystal rocked to a halt beside him.

  The black wolf stood on the cliff top. Its teeth gleamed white even in the dusk and its open mouth made it look almost as if it laughed. Then it leaped.

  Raulin raised the crossbow and pulled the trigger.

  The wolf’s scream, when the quarrel drove into its haunch, sounded like nothing out of an animal’s throat and when the body hit the ground almost at Raulin’s feet, a young man snarled up at them—a young man with thick black hair that grew to a peak in the front and down to the center of his back like a mane, with fierce golden eyes, with very white teeth, and with a crossbow quarrel through one muscular thigh. As they watched, he warped and changed until the great black wolf crouched and worried at the arrow. A little blood matted the fur, but the shaft blocked most of the bleeding.

  Jago’s mouth worked, but no sound came out. Even Raulin seemed to have nothing to say. And Crystal finally remembered what had nagged at her all day.

  Morning council in the queen’s pavilion the day after Halda had fallen to Kraydak’s Horde; Kly, the Duke of Lorn’s daughter, had tried to reassure Mikhail that his sister, Halda’s queen, still lived. “The mountains have hundreds of caverns and passageways, milord,” she had said. “The wer have used them for generations.”

  “Wer,” she repeated aloud. “He’s wer.”

  “Good guess, wizard. Jason, come here.”

  Still snarling, the wolf rose and trotted past them on three legs, the uneven gait detracting not a bit from his strength. Their gazes never left him and they turned like puppets following his direction.

  Four wolves, two mountain cats, and a man stood between them and the sleigh. Jason, apparently ignoring the arrow, went to stand at the man’s side, his injured leg tucked up, paw resting inches above the snow.

  The man was naked and shivered slightly in the cold. In his hands he carried a rod almost two feet long crafted of amethyst wrapped in bronze wire. His hair grew like Jason’s, proclaiming him kin, and his smile was feral and most unpleasant.

  “We don’t like wizards on our land.”

  Kly’s voice came out of the past again. “The wer hate the wizards with an intensity hard to imagine. The names of the wizards are curses to them.”

  The rod came up, its bronze tip pointed at Crystal.

  Her thoughts ran out like water; the harder she tried to hold them the faster they moved. The void that remained wrapped her in warmth and comfort. Her vision fogged. She swayed, felt Raulin’s arms go around her, felt herself slide to the ground. She heard Raulin’s roar from a distance, heard an answering roar from one of the great cats, and saw a ginger colored blur go past. Her head refused to turn, so she watched the snow instead of the fight, deprived of the energy to care.

  The fight finished before Jago had a chance to help. The great cat returned to its position on one flank of the group and Jago looked down to where Raulin sprawled on the ground. He appeared winded more than hurt. The cat’s front paws had slammed into his chest but done no real damage.

  “We give only one warning, mortal. Move
toward us again and you die.”

  Jago forced his breathing to calm. Forced reason to win out over anger. “What do you want?” His voice sounded almost normal and only he knew what it took to keep it that way.

  “The wizard.” The wer spat the word into the air.

  Raulin struggled to his feet and tried to surge forward but Jago grabbed his arm and held him back. “Stop it, Raulin,” he commanded. “You can’t help her if you get killed.”

  The man’s upper lip lifted to reveal his teeth and his eyes narrowed.

  “You can’t help her. You are no match for Hela alone,” the ginger cat looked smug, “and we bind the wizard’s power.”

  So that’s what happened, Crystal thought muzzily. She wondered vaguely if he bound the goddesses as well, but it really didn’t matter much.

  A gray-brown wolf, almost matching Jason in size, flowed into his manshape. “I will take her, Eli, as Jason is injured.”

  Eli nodded, handing over the rod. “Hela, Gel, watch the mortals.” Then he returned to fur.

  As the man and both great cats approached, Jago kept his hand on Raulin’s arm, not for restraint, but for knowledge; Raulin was the fighter. When Raulin’s arm tensed, he flung himself forward, hand grabbing for his dagger, seeing Raulin do the same only much less quietly.

  Gel met aim in mid-leap. A forepaw hit Jago’s head with the force of a club, driving him to the ground. His head rang. His vision exploded into orange and yellow lights. He couldn’t see or hear, so he slashed out blindly at the musky smell. Claws ripped through his mitten and into his hand. He lost his grip on the dagger and barely felt the pain when another blow to his head plunged him into darkness.

  Raulin rolled as he dove forward, coming up under the cat’s attack, driving both feet into Hela’s chest and throwing her to the ground. Then he had his arms full of claws and teeth. His dagger went flying. Bringing her back legs up, Hela kicked, shredding his clothes. Raulin screamed as the claws tore into skin. He lost his grip on her jaw. Her teeth closed on his throat.

  * * *

  “Not good, not good.” The giant shook her head at the news the breeze had brought. She would have to hurry.

  EIGHT

  “You’re lucky the inner pack wanted you alive, wizard.”

  Alive. Crystal caught hold of the word and used it to drag herself a little way out of the pain. She tried to open her eyes, but even so delicate an action was beyond her. Her arms dangled in air, her face bounced against bare skin, something hard dug into her stomach. She forced the information together. Carried over a shoulder.

  The shoulder dipped and she dropped onto rock.

  New pain and old pain reinforced almost washed her away once more, but she hung grimly onto awareness.

  “Cap her,” husked a distant voice.

  Again she tried to open her eyes. The lids trembled but wouldn’t rise.

  Rough hands yanked her into a sitting position. Ribs ground together. She whimpered and power flowed sluggishly, responding to the hurt. A smooth band, cold but too heavy to be metal, settled down around her head. Another of the same stuff curved under her chin and snicked into the first band just in front of each ear. She jerked at the sound; very loud, very sharp, and somehow very final.

  The hands released her and she collapsed, the band chiming musically as it slammed against the stone. Her throat spasmed as she fought for air, sucking it through her half open mouth. No air got through the ruin of her nose. She tasted blood.

  Slowly, very slowly, power began to smooth the jagged edges. Her breathing eased and her body relaxed enough to allow healing. She lay on her side, knees up, arms pressed tight against her chest, and tried to remember.

  What had happened to Raulin and Jago? The wer, she remembered, and the rod, and the binding, but there her memories ended. Once over the gap, her thoughts seemed clear enough. Had the binding worn off? To test it she would have to reach for her power . . .

  No. Best let the power continue repairing the damage her body had taken. It would do that without her interference and she didn’t know what would happen if she attempted control. She was a little afraid to try.

  The wer, the rod, the binding . . . and what then?

  Beginning softly, an eerie harmonic discord rose in volume to bone shaking intensity. Not the wolves, this was a scream not a song. Shoulders hunched against the sound, Crystal brought her hands up and rubbed at her eyes. She had to see. Something sealed her lids shut. The upper layer crumbled under her touch. Most of the lower, gummy and warm, scrubbed away. Her lashes matted and stuck, but she managed to force her eyes open.

  Blood. Smeared across her palms. She touched one eye again and the fingers came away red. Her blood then. Better than the alternative.

  The undulating cry went on. And on. And on.

  What had happened to Raulin and Jago?

  Gathering her returning strength, she placed both bloody palms against the rock and pushed. Ignoring the protest of her body, she managed to almost sit up.

  She lay against the wall of a large, roughly circular cavern. Flickering torches, jammed into random niches in the stone, barely lit the space. In the center of the cavern, a number of the great cats surrounded a flat topped boulder. Muzzles lifted, the cats wailed. On the boulder were two black . . . things.

  Crystal remembered.

  The wer had hoisted her up and bent to sling her over one shoulder, moving her line of sight to include, for the first time since she’d fallen under the rod, Raulin and Jago. She saw the cats attack. She saw the brothers go down. She heard Raulin scream. That had penetrated the mists sifting through her mind. Still outwardly blank, still bound by the rod, deep within her head she’d raged and torn at the walls of her prison.

  Something gave.

  The cats had burned.

  And not with an external flame that could be doused but from inside, with goddess fire. The cats had screamed and thrashed as they died, torment flicking them through change after change. The wolves had circled and snarled but found nothing to do until Jason had flowed into his manshape, hobbled forward to where Crystal lay limp and exulting and had beaten the wizard senseless.

  In the cavern, the cats fell silent and began to move away. Two changed and lifted the bodies from the boulder. One followed his kin, the other approached Crystal, the charred remains held tenderly against his chest. A body-length away he stopped and stared down at her with topaz eyes.

  “You killed my mate,” he said.

  Crystal refused to let his grief throw her into guilt. Straightening as much as she could, she stared back at him. “She was killing mine.”

  He hissed and spat, then turned his back on her and walked from the cavern.

  Carefully, Crystal leaned back, easing her weight off her arms and letting the wall support her. She stretched out her legs, the movement hurting less than she’d anticipated. The worst of the pain seemed over, but the healing went on and would for some time. She saw that her feet were bare, and rubbed her cheek against the sweater’s shoulder. The brothers lived, for their places within her were still filled, but they were also injured and she had no idea how badly.

  If they die because of you, she vowed silently to the wer, you shall see what wizardry is capable of.

  * * *

  “Mortal, wake! You cannot die if I refuse to take you!”

  Jago stirred and regretted it. He opened his eyes and shut them instantly. The moonlight seemed to burn holes in his brain.

  “You try my patience, mortal!”

  Squinting, although the action hurt his head, Jago managed to focus on an auburn-haired man, whose amber eyes flashed with anger.

  “Lord . . .” He swallowed and tried again. “Lord Death?”

  “Jago?” Raulin’s face pushed into his line of vision. He didn’t look right somehow. “Jago, wake up!”

  “S’what he sai
d.”

  “Who?”

  “Lord Death.”

  “You’re not dead!”

  Jago pulled in a shuddering breath. “I know. Hurts too much.” He figured out what bothered him about Raulin; the skin of his face seemed almost gray. “You don’t look too good.”

  Raulin’s mouth twisted. “You should see the other guy.”

  Jago rolled himself up on one elbow. The world spun, the insides of his head with it, and he spewed all over the snow. He felt Raulin’s arm around his shoulders and when his guts stopped heaving, his brother lowered him gently back down.

  “You think you can lie quietly for a few minutes?”

  The stars began to whirl. “I don’t think I’ve got a choice.” He refused to close his eyes, and concentrated on making the stars behave. Somewhere over to the left, he heard Raulin banging things together loudly. Very loudly. Much too loudly. The sound bounced about the inside of his skull setting the stars, which had just begun to calm down, jigging once more. He wondered where Lord Death had gotten to and . . .

  “Crystal!”

  “Take it easy. Let’s try sitting again, I brought a pack for you to lean on.” As he spoke, Raulin eased his brother up, very slowly, until he reclined against the pack.

  Jago clenched his teeth against the nausea and sucked in lungful after lungful of cold air. His head stopped spinning and settled into a steady, tormenting throb. Answered by a sharper throbbing . . . He raised his right hand and looked at a mangled ruin.

  The throbbing turned to the brindle’s roar, teeth dug into his legs and . . . No! He got control of himself, although his legs continued to ache in memory. He met Raulin’s worried eyes, Raulin who no doubt suspected what he was thinking, and searched for something to say that would ease that look of strain.

  “I guess,” he said at last, “I won’t be playing the harp anymore.”