by Shae Ford
“I’m fine,” he said as he righted himself. “I even managed to keep the packs dry — well, mostly dry,” he amended, when he saw the dark stain on one of their bottoms.
A chorus of screams sounded off in the distance. Kael’s blood chilled the waters around him, but Graymange didn’t look at all worried. He closed his eyes as the howls continued.
“Further than before … their calls aren’t as sharp, the wails not as long. We’ve fooled them.” He opened his eyes and sloshed over to Kael. His sharp chin jutted over his shoulder. “Watch closely, mountain child.”
Kael could just make out the bank they’d left behind. His heart thudded worriedly as several hounds galloped up to the shallow cave. Their warped bodies disappeared beneath the shadow cast by the tree — but he could hear the snapping of wood as they tore at the root curtain.
From where Kael stood, it didn’t look as if they’d fooled the hounds at all. In fact, they were right on their trail. “We’ve got to move on.”
“Patience,” Graymange murmured.
“Patience? This is hardly the time for —”
“Sleep, Abominations!” a loud voice boomed.
Kael shut his eyes just in time to spare them from a burst of white light. Yelps cut through the air, fading to whines as the light raged on and then at last, to silence.
A tall man stood outside the shallow cave, a medallion hanging from his upraised hand. Kael only got a glimpse of him before the light went out. He couldn’t be sure, but it looked as if the man’s whole back was blanketed in a mat of hair.
“Come, Marked One.”
“Where are we going?”
“Why do humans waste so much breath on questions,” Graymange growled, “when their legs could easily carry them to their answers?”
Kael picked up his feet.
Chapter 8
Emberfang
It was near dawn when they finally stopped.
Baird had woken a mile or so beyond the river and began to loudly exclaim that something smelled like a wet dog. And because he’d seen absolutely no point in trying to reason with the beggar-bard, Kael had whispered him unconscious.
They’d trudged on silently for a mile more — or as silently as they could with Baird muttering in his sleep. Kael’s ears strained over the endless stream of his prattle and the noises of the woods, listening for the cries of the hounds. But he didn’t hear so much as a yelp.
At long last, Graymange led him through a line of trees grown so closely together that they’d nearly formed a wall. Their dark shadows draped over his head and their branches creaked grumpily as he squeezed between them. Kael was relieved when he finally made it to the other side.
But his relief didn’t last for long.
A large clearing stretched out in front of him. The moonlight kissed the rain-soaked ground and made it glitter; trees surrounded it in a blackened wall. He might’ve thought the clearing was a beautiful sight — had it not been for the bodies piled in its middle.
It must’ve been some sort of camp. There were tents set up near the edge of the clearing, and he could see the faint glow of fires. But now all of its armored residents lay in a bloody mound upon the grass.
Kael squinted and thought he could see a gold wolf’s head through the dark smears on one of their tunics. His stomach twisted into a worried knot. “What are the Earl’s men doing in the Grandforest?”
“I don’t know what an Earl is,” Graymange said as he passed by. “The world of men means little to me — my business is with the Abominations. These swordbearers stood in my path. Now, they have been dealt with.”
A hooded figure emerged from between the tents, hefting a soldier’s body across its shoulders. With a grunt and a mighty heave, it tossed the body onto the top of the pile. Then it turned to Graymange, crossed its arms and said:
“Well, it’s about blasted time.”
“Kyleigh!” Kael didn’t know whether to be furious or relieved. So he marched towards her at a half-stomp. “Where in Kingdom’s name have you been?”
She waved a hand at the mound of bodies. “Here, mostly. It takes a long while to stack them this neatly.”
He pulled her hood away so he could glare at her properly, and saw she was grinning. Something must’ve been horribly wrong with him — either that, or he’d been more relieved than he’d thought. For though he tried desperately to hold it down, his mouth seemed to have a mind of its own: it bent upwards before he had a chance to stop it.
Kyleigh’s grin broke into a laugh.
“I’m still angry with you,” he insisted. “It isn’t fair for you to go running off on secret errands all the time —”
“Secret errands?”
“Well, you might at least tell me where you’re going,” he grouched when she laughed again. “One of these days I’m going to get entirely fed up with your nonsense, then you’ll be sorry.”
He was rather surprised when she grabbed him by the collar. Her fingers burned the skin beneath his throat and made his blood run hot. Her eyes blazed with something that wasn’t quite anger — but still every bit as dangerous.
His ears trembled against her voice as she growled: “Is that so?”
“Yes,” he managed to choke.
She smirked. “I’ll take my chances.”
Her hand twisted tighter in his shirt. The fires nearly overwhelmed him. She shoved him away and for a moment, the heat faded. But then the smile she gave him brought the flames roaring back.
It happened in a blink, a breath — one spark that fluttered down his shirt and seared his flesh. She tucked it away quickly, but that smile left a mark. He felt a raw patch in his mind as it burned itself into his memory.
He just wasn’t sure why.
“You had nothing to worry about. You know very well that I can take care of myself. And I left you in excellent hands,” she said.
Kael snorted. “If you’re talking about Silas, then I —”
“Silas?” Her brows arched high. “When did you see Silas?”
Kael was confused. “He turned up at the shelter a while after you left. Granted, he ran off just when things started to get thick. But had he not called us out when he did, those hounds would’ve found us.”
“Hounds?” Kyleigh growled.
“I’d been watching them closely, just as you asked,” Graymange said when she glared at him. “The Abominations came too near, so I led them away. But then Blackbeak spotted the light of a fire. He called them back. I returned as swiftly as I could, Emberfang.”
Now it was Kael’s turn to be shocked. “You’re Emberfang?” When he saw how pink she’d gotten, he suddenly understood. “That’s your shapechanger name, isn’t it?”
“She belonged to the Fang pack, and so she was named as one,” Graymange said in answer. “Long ago, three pups were born to the Mother Wolf: Fang, Mange, and Howl. We are their descendents.”
“This is no time for stories,” Kyleigh snapped when she saw the question forming on Kael’s lips. “Graymange — take that human back to the den.”
He scooped Baird up and jogged off in the direction she’d pointed, leaving them on their own.
“Did you manage to find me a collar?”
The sharpness hadn’t quite left her voice. Kael dug through the rucksack until he came across a twisted strip of gold. He held it out to her, but she didn’t take it.
She stumbled backwards and a curse hissed between her lips. The way she stared at the collar made him wonder if one of the spirits of the dead had just floated down from the trees. “What is it?”
“Dragonsbane,” she whispered, her eyes still wide.
“What —?”
“Don’t,” she said sharply, when he took a step forward. “Don’t bring it any closer.”
He stood still while she paced. She swiped the loose strands of hair from across her eyes and her face was far paler than usual. He couldn’t hear the things she muttered, but he could see how worried she was.
If
Kyleigh was worried over something, it meant he ought to have been terrified. But he wasn’t. For some reason, her fear forced him to be calm. He supposed one of them had to be. “What’s dragonsbane?” he said quietly.
“Gold forged with mage blood — an ancient metal with impossible power.”
“What power?”
“An everlasting spell: the essence of magic bound in gold. It’s especially useful against dragonscales — which is why it’s called dragonsbane.” She scratched absently at her armor, as if she could feel the metal’s bite. “I’ve only ever seen it forged into weapons and armor … but Titus seems to have found a new use for it.”
Kael felt as if the whole earth had just fallen out from under him. “These collars — those monsters — they belong to Titus? How can you be sure?”
“The only place I’ve ever seen dragonsbane is in the Unforgivable Mountains.”
And Titus rules the mountains, Kael thought.
He remembered what Graymange had said about the hounds — how they hunted human blood. They’d had armor melded into their skin; they took the shape of dogs. Then all at once, it struck him:
“Bloodtraitors,” he moaned. His stomach dropped when Kyleigh nodded. “Mercy’s sake … Titus is turning his army into shapechangers.”
“It was bad enough before,” Kyleigh said quietly. She stared down at the collar. “But this is worse. This changes everything.”
Kael didn’t understand why things should’ve been any worse. These collars might’ve had magic in them, but they’d broken easily enough. He tested a bit of the golden skin with an edge of his dagger and a thick strip peeled off. They weren’t even as strong as the iron collars.
When he said as much, Kyleigh sighed. “Dragonsbane wouldn’t be any good against stronger metals — the gold weakens it. No, it works best against flesh … and scales.” She scratched uncomfortably at her elbow. “You don’t have to be a mage in order to wield dragonsbane, which means Titus won’t have to rely on anybody else. His army will be bound directly to him. Blazes … blazes …” Her eyes darted wildly as she paced, as if she stood before a ravine she had no way to cross.
Kael thought furiously. “What if we destroyed it? I know it would take a while, but if we could break it piece by piece —”
“Dragonsbane is immortal magic. It can be melted down, but never destroyed.”
Kael wasn’t so sure. There wasn’t a thing in the Kingdom that was truly unbreakable — even the winds chewed at the mountains. Dragonsbane must have a weakness … and he had to find it.
He held the collar in his hands for a moment, trying to ignore the itch long enough to get a good feel of it. The red, glowing ripples seemed to slosh around when he tilted the collar. It was as if the ripples were still liquid — as if the gold had soaked them up …
That was it. That was exactly what had happened: the gold had soaked up the mage blood like water into a rag.
Kael held this thought firmly in his head as he grasped either end of the collar. He squeezed the dragonsbane between his fingers and had to hold his breath as the blood began trickling out. He twisted it, wringed it until every last ripple had been drained from the gold. Then he tossed it away.
“Gah!” He flung an arm over his mouth and concentrated on breathing in the sweat-stiffened cloth of his shirt. “Did that do it?”
Kyleigh picked up the now-misshapen lump of gold and turned it over in her hands, her mouth agape. “What a strange creature you are, Kael the Wright, to solve great problems with such simple answers.”
His face burned hot under her look. He wanted to say that it wasn’t all that — he just hadn’t wanted her to have to worry anymore. He didn’t want her to be afraid. But his tongue was too swollen to form the words.
Kyleigh hurled the gold into the pile of bodies and said: “Let’s finish this.”
“Finish what, exactly?”
She waved, and he followed her back to the soldiers’ camp. Stacked inside one of the tents was a large number of clay jars. They were small and squat, but surprisingly heavy.
He lifted one of their lids and his nose was immediately flooded by a horrible stench. It was a bitter, far-too-flowery smell — like the milky sap of an enormous weed. He coughed violently as the scent itched his throat. “Ugh! What is this?”
“Sap from swamp trees,” Kyleigh said.
The liquid inside the jar moved slowly as he tilted it. “It looks like honey.”
She smiled in amusement when he coughed again. “Yes, and it’ll stick like honey, too — which allows it to melt flesh rather nicely.”
He choked on his coughs. “Come again?”
“You said you’re tired of me leaving you out of things. So come on, then.” She bent and hoisted a jar in either hand. “Let’s make some mischief.”
They emptied the small tent in a matter of minutes, hauling the jars out and hurling them onto the pile of bodies. Amber liquid oozed from among the shattered clay, slowly drenching every crevice. When they’d thrown the last of the jars Kyleigh grabbed a branch from one of the smoldering fires and led him into the trees.
Kael peered through the shadows. “Where’s Baird and Graymange?”
Kyleigh pulled an arrow from his quiver. “We’ll meet up with them in a bit. Hold this for me, will you?”
He took the branch warily, careful not to touch its glowing end. “What are you —? Hey!”
She ripped a good amount of material from the bottom of his tunic and began knotting it onto the arrow’s head. “Sorry, I needed kindling.”
“Well, I happened to like this shirt,” he muttered, tugging on its ragged hem. “I’d just finally got it broken in.”
“Is that what you call it when you never wash something? Breaking it in?”
She grinned when he glared.
Once she’d finished her knot, she grabbed the smoldering branch from his hand and brought it to the arrow’s head. She worked gently — coaxing the embers with soft, steady breaths. Kael watched as the ragged material caught with flame and the fire’s light spread across her skin …
“Kael?”
His face burned when he realized she was staring at him. “What?”
“I asked if you would do the honors,” she said, holding out the flaming arrow. “Aim right for the middle of the pile.”
He did. And the sap caught so furiously with orange-blue light that it made the trees rattle. Kael’s hair blew back from his forehead and he watched in shock as the fires roared. “I thought you didn’t want to be noticed! What was the point of doing all that?”
“Payback,” Kyleigh growled.
Her eyes shone so fiercely in the angry light that he was afraid to ask her what she’d meant.
*******
From what Kael could gather, the shapechangers were in the middle of some sort of war: the shamans hunted the Abominations, and the Abominations hunted the shamans.
Apparently, they’d been warring all spring — though Oakloft had seemed peaceful enough. He found it hard to believe that an entire village could carry on without knowing there was war raging all around it.
“Shapechanger battles are quiet affairs,” Kyleigh said when he mentioned it. “They kill precisely who they mean to, and they kill them quickly. There’s hardly ever any burning or pillaging. You wouldn’t have even known there was a battle going on, had you not wandered into the middle of it.”
“I was chased into the middle of it,” he reminded her. “And since we’re already here, we might as well do something about it.” He turned to Graymange — who was busily stripping the feathers off the carcass of a large goose. “What can we do to help?”
“This is the shamans’ task,” Kyleigh said firmly before Graymange could reply. “It’s none of our business.”
The halfwolf inclined his head.
They were hunched inside Graymange’s den: a shallow bowl dug into the earth beneath a bramble patch, forming something like a makeshift cage. It was the very early hours of the morn
ing. Pale, grayish light leaked through the gaps in the thorns. Baird’s muttering drifted in an endless stream from where he lay curled up against one of the thorny walls, still soundly asleep.
Kael watched as Graymange stripped the last of the goose’s feathers away with a quick, practiced swipe. He cracked off one of the legs and offered it to Kyleigh. He offered the second to Kael.
“You don’t have to eat that,” Kyleigh said when he took it.
He’d always dreamed of being able to sit among the shapechangers. If Roland were here, he wouldn’t hesitate to join them. So Kael didn’t hesitate, either. He took a bite of the goose and the raw flesh squished inside his mouth. It was wet and chewy. He’d been half-expecting it to taste like death, but it didn’t. If anything, it was slightly bland.
“I like this human,” Graymange said approvingly. Then he sunk his teeth into the goose’s chest.
When the meat was gone, Graymange went to work on the marrow. Kael tried not to stare as the halfwolf cracked the bones between his teeth and sucked their juices dry. He decided to give it a shot — and very nearly cracked a tooth in half.
Kyleigh didn’t even bother. Once she’d picked her bones clean, she tossed them back into the pile.
“Why do you never eat the marrow?” Graymange said.
She shrugged. “I’ve never much cared for the taste.”
Kyleigh sprawled out on the ground, hands tucked beneath her head, and Graymange’s eyes roved over her. “Does it feel odd to you?”
She shrugged again. “A little, I suppose.”
“Does what feel odd?” Kael wondered.
“Not long ago, the Fangs and the Manges fought over the same hunting grounds,” Graymange said.
“You were enemies?” Kael guessed.
“Friends and enemies are human things. Wolves are loyal only to their packs — and what isn’t food is merely competition.”
Kael was still confused. “But I thought you were the wolf shaman.”
“I am. And when the sun sets upon my life, a new shaman will be born among the wolves. He will stay with his own pack, whether it be Fang, Mange, or Howl. And in the spring, when the wolves come together and live peacefully for a time, he will perform the ritual on all of their young — so that they may be reborn into their second shapes.
