Janrae Frank - [Lycan Blood 02] - Fireborn Law

by Fireborn Law [lit]

  A monstrous red lycan in hybrid form followed her with a broadsword in each hand. Dorjan's myn tried to rally, but Todd sliced his way through them as if they were children with sticks.

  Dorjan cupped his hand, drawing together the strongest death web he could and tossed it at the bitch charging him.

  Pure golden light flared around Pandeena and her divine glory shone forth. She turned his spell with a gesture and her sword shattered Dorjan' arcane shields. He staggered back from her.

  "Yuwenghau!" Malthus and Heironim might have been able to stand against her, but Dorjan knew instantly that he was overmatched. He retreated toward the wagon.

  Pandeena's gaze fell upon Kynyr and she unleashed a howl of grief and rage that sent a shiver of terror through Dorjan as he guessed they must have been lovers. Malthus had made a bad mistake targeting Kynyr.

  He threw every spell he knew at her and could not so much as slow her down. Dorjan stepped into the middle of the spilled goods scattered over the ground before he realized it. A bottle rolled under his foot, and he lost his balance.

  Her sword came at him hard and fast, he barely managed to get his own up to block her swing. Pain shot through his arm at the impact when their blades met. His arm went numb and the sword fell from his fingers. Dorjan shrieked, spun about, and tried to run. His foot caught on the edge of an overturned crate and he fell. His skin broke out in cold sweat as he scrabbled in the litter, anticipating her blade in his back.

  It was not long coming.

  She brought her foot down on his leg so that he could not escape. Dorjan twisted and whimpered.

  "Bloody sa'necari," Pandeena growled. She stomped his leg, shattering the bone and then stomped the other.

  Dorjan screamed.

  Pandeena kicked him over on his back and rested the point of her sword at his throat.

  "Just do it," Dorjan pleaded. "Fast. Make it fast."

  "Remember Cullen?"

  "Oh, gods, no. Please. Just kill me."

  Pandeena drove her foot into his belly, rupturing his organs.

  Dorjan screamed again. He was Steeped-in-Death: she could torture him a long time before he died. "Mercy"

  "So be it." Pandeena poked his left eye out and then his right.

  Todd appeared at her elbow. "Finish him. Kynyr's alive."

  Pandeena's expression brightened for an instant and she shoved her blade into Dorjan's heart, passing it through his chainmail as if it were paper.

  * * * *

  Cahira waited until the battle ended before she emerged from the concealment of the trees. Her mage gifts were too minor to have offered much in the way of defense. Todd and Pandeena had killed twenty-five myn in a handful of minutes. She had always known how dangerous her husband could be, yet he had never been anything but patient and gentle with her. Stepping over and around the corpses, her healer's nature could not resist the feelings of revulsion gathering in the pit of her stomach.

  She headed for the young wolves lying too still upon the ground. The first one she reached was Eideard. He stank; his body having released its wastes at the approach of death. There was a cyanotic cast to his flesh.

  She knelt down and touched his face, Reading him. Cahira recoiled from the psychic scent of Devil's Silver. The lycan healer mastered herself and Read further. Life still flickered within him, but he was too far gone to be helped. Arrows had gone through both lungs, his spleen, and his belly; and the poison had eaten the rest of him.

  Eideard's eyes fluttered open, glazed with pain. "Tell Kynyr I'm sorry." He coughed up blood. "All my worldly goods give Cooley all my worldly"

  Eideard's face went slack, his eyes staring.

  Cahira swallowed and closed Eideard's eyes. Tears slid down her cheeks. She had become fond of her grandson's friends during the brief months she had been in Wolffgard. She straightened wearily, and looked about her. A prayer formed in her heart and emerged on her lips, whispered softly. "Kalirion, Lord of Healing let me save one of them at least one of them."

  Pandeena sat cross-legged on the ground with Kynyr cradled in her arms. Todd carried Ramsey into the middle of the road and laid him down beside Finn. That old look Cahira remembered so well had returned to his eyes: the haunted calm of the battlefield. She picked her way through the debris and joined them near the wagon.

  "Eideard's dead."

  "He was a good mon." Todd broke off the ends of the shafts in Ramsey's body as he spoke. "He had no family. I'll see he gets a proper burial."

  Pandeena glanced up at her. "Kynyr's alive."

  "Oh, thank the gods." Cahira knelt beside her. All the wounds appeared to be in his legs. The kendaryl mail had held against the arrows. She grasped his pants leg and ripped it open to his knee. One look at the necrosis around his wounds and the hope fled from her face. "Devil's Silver."

  Todd finished his work with Ramsey and started on Finn. "Ramsey's pulse is thready. I don't think he'll last much longer."

  Pandeena brushed her fingers across Finn and then Ramsey. "There's Devil's Silver in all of them."

  "Finn?"

  "He's not as bad as Ramsey. I need to get us back." Pandeena's power swirled and swept out around them. She carried them all, including Eideard's body, the corpses of the myn they had killed, the wagon and its scattered contents, even the dead horses to Wolffgard Village, materializing in front of Cahira's shop. The transported carnage spread along half a block.

  Passers-by stopped in their tracks, stared for an instant, and then rushed to help them. Others ran off to tell of what had happened. Word swept through the village like wildfire and help arrived in many forms. The difference between human villages and lycan ones showed immediately. Without being asked, people began piling the spilled goods in front of Cahira's shop. The bodies of the enemy dead were tossed together on the far side of the overturned wagon. Knackers arrived and removed the dead horses. Pandeena carried Kynyr into the shop while Todd followed with Ramsey. Grizzled old Hereward and one of his patrons lifted Finn up between them and bore him inside, while Hereward's daughter Kady rushed around them to Cahira.

  "Can I help? Please Kynyr's been good to me."

  Cahira turned to Kady with a dazed expression. "I'll need all I can get." She swallowed and said the dreaded words. "Devil's Silver."

  Kady showed surprising presence of mind, entering ahead of Cahira and going to the kitchen where she filled basins with water.

  Cahira turned to fetch her medical case and satchel, only to find Rory and Cooley standing behind her holding them. The cubs had learned fast and reacted well in situations that would have paralyzed an adult. "Take them to the guest room for me."

  The two cubs rushed to the stairs and climbed swiftly. Cahira followed as well as her aged knees would allow. Soft furry hands closed on her arm, steadying her and she looked down to see Hamish in hybrid form.

  "Let me help you."

  Even in hybrid form, Hamish was too small to be much assistance, but Cahira's could sense the love in his offer. "I can manage. Go down and see about moving all the spilled merchandise into the shop?"

  "Sure." Hamish darted back down the stairs.

  She reached the guestroom and saw that Rory had already opened her case and satchel, arranging everything in the order she liked. Todd and Pandeena had undressed Finn and Ramsey, laying them side by side on the large bed.

  "Rory, fetch Claw. Cooley, find the lawgiver. Todd, where's Kynyr?"

  The two boys shot out of the room.

  Todd looked up with one of Cahira's scalpels in his hand, and tossed a bloody arrowhead into a dish. "His room. Triage, Cahira. Finn and Ramsey are worse off than he is."

  Pandeena, working on Finn, nodded. "I've heard you're a Mender."

  "Yes but Devil's Silver there's no antidote."

  Pandeena held up a silencing hand. "There is and there isn't. You mend the internal injuries and let me worry about the Devil's Silver."

  Cahira hesitated.

  "Trust me."

  Kady arrived
with a basin of water and a stack of wash cloths. She shooed Todd away from Ramsey and began cleaning the blood off him. Todd set a chair by the bed so that Cahira could comfortably see to Ramsey.

  "I'll start on Kynyr." Todd picked up a bottle of astringent and pocketed the scalpel before walking out of the room.

  Cahira took a deep breath to steady herself. She stuck her finger into the wound in Ramsey's side and Read him as she worked. The tear in his spleen needed only a nudge to close: the lycan clotting factor had already been hard at work on that. She closed the first of the lung wounds and started on the second when she felt his heart stop.

  "Nooo!" Cahira pounded him in the chest.

  Pandeena left off on Finn and came around the bed. She placed her hands on Ramsey's chest and sent a surge of raw power into his heart.

  Ramsey's chest heaved and his eyes opened. "CaCa hira?"

  Cahira snapped her fingers at Kady. "Pollendine. Three fingers. The bottle's labeled."

  A fit of coughing seized Ramsey, bringing up blood and froth. Cahira wiped his mouth and chin off.

  Pandeena returned to Finn, dug the last arrow out, and shoved a roll of bandages into the wound to slow to the bleeding. "I'll be right back."

  She raised her arms and vanished in a shimmer of golden light.

  Kady brought the glass around to Cahira. "She Jumped."

  "What you see here, stays here."

  "Right."

  "Now lift him up a bit. Support his head."

  Ramsey swallowed the violet liquid and they eased him back down. "The others?"

  "Finn's next to you. Kynyr's in his room."

  "Eideard?"

  "I'm sorry."

  Ramsey's mouth tightened. He closed his eyes and slipped back into the darkness.

  Cahira got to her feet and Kady moved her chair to the other side so that she could start on Finn.

  Kady set to bandaging Ramsey's wounds, glancing frequently at Cahira, as if mustering the courage to ask something. Cahira caught the looks each time she finished Mending one of Finn's wounds. Although Cahira could not do a true healing, such as the lifemages did, her gifts closed the damage to his lungs and other internal injuries with the precision of a highly-skilled surgeon. The best Assassins' Guild surgeons could not have done it better. Cahira was bone-weary by the time she finished with the belly wounds, and weariness added to her growing impatience with the looks that Kady kept giving her.

  "I see those questions in your eyes. I don't bite, Kady."

  "Do you need an apprentice? I'm a good nurse."

  "I hadn't thought about it. I'm already teaching Rory, Hamish, and Cooley."

  "There's a lot they can't do, 'cause they're littles. Nursing's the one thing I'm good at besides waiting tables."

  "I hadn't really thought about it," Cahira repeated.

  "Please, Cahira. I'm desperate." Kady gave her a beseeching look. "I need to move out."

  "Why?"

  "Ever since my father caught me with Cullen, he's been impossible."

  "What do you mean?"

  "He says I'm a slut."

  "Are you?"

  Kady shook her head. "Just Cullen. We only did it a few times before Da' caught us."

  "Pregnant?"

  "No."

  "Then you're lucky. I've dispensed a lot of tansy lately. Mostly to unweds."

  "But we only did it a few times"

  "It only takes once, Kady. With three patients under my roof, I can use the help." Cahira raised her hand to forestall interruptions. "However, if you're going to be living under my roof, you'll keep your legs crossed."

  "I promise."

  "I'll hold you to it. You'll have to sleep on a cot in the storeroom until we can rearrange the living quarters."

  "I can do that."

  "You'll have to help with the shop. Rory can show you how to do it. Now, I must tend to Kynyr. Fetch your things while I'm up there."

  * * * *

  A grim calm settled over Todd as he worked on Kynyr, turning his efforts into a meditation. His eyes flicked to the long cuts crossing his grandson's stomach each time he finished getting an arrow head out of Kynyr's leg and packed the wound.

  "You're not dying on me, boy. We got there in time. You're not dying on me."

  Todd finished with the arrows, broke open a package of surgical catgut and a sterile needle. He threaded the needle and set it aside. Then he shaved and swabbed the wound with alcohol, pulled the pieces together and carefully stitched Kynyr's belly closed.

  He brushed a strand of golden hair back from Kynyr's face, grasped Kynyr's hand in both of his, and held it tight. "You're not dying on me."

  "My turn." Pandeena laid her case next to Todd's box of catgut. "You love him."

  "He's mine. Blood doesn't matter. He's still mine." Todd sucked in a deep breath. "Most cubs their first word is da or ma Kynyr's was Todd. He came crawling across the floor with his nappies sagging, put his hand on my foot, looked up at me, and said 'Taahdd.' Just like that."

  "I'll do everything in my power to keep him alive, Todd. I promise." Pandeena squeezed Todd's shoulder. "Now why don't you go see if you can find Cooley? He ran off crying. Rory and Hamish are looking for him, but they could use some help."

  CHAPTER TEN

  AFTERMATH

  Claw dismounted across the street from Cahira's shop, tied his horse in front of the dry goods, and stood for a moment with his hands on his hips surveying his ruined wagon. There were arrows in the side boards and he noted the two different types of fletching, recognizing it as a code. He half-dreaded what he would find once he got inside. Claw hated losing young wolves in his service. Despite the tough exterior he presented to the world, restraining himself from the flamboyant displays of grief common to his people, he still mourned deeply when they died.

  His two guardsmyn, Gorgarty Burr and Erskine Faraday, dismounted beside him and walked at his back as Claw made his way across the street, picking a path through the remaining debris.

  Gorgarty sneered at the wreckage. "Looks like Maguire finally got his comeuppance."

  "Shut up, Gorgarty," Erskine growled. No one liked the big stupid oaf, while Kynyr had always been well-liked by most of the older guardsmyn. "It looks like a war."

  Erskine's eyes scanned the wagon. "See there? From the location of the arrows that struck it" He pointed at various spots that fairly bristled with feathered shafts. "I'd say he got enfiladed."

  "So pretty boy got his ass shot off." Gorgarty released a loud guffaw.

  "Shut up, Gorgarty. Someday one of us is going to shove your words down your throat."

  Claw paused with his hand on the doorknob of the shop. "You heard him, Gorgarty. Shut your ugly mouth."

  Kady came out of the backroom as the bell rang telling her that someone had entered the shop. She had gotten her stuff packed in minutes and cajoled two of her father's customers into carrying it down for her. The shop and the living area upstairs were filled with people coming and going. Several of the neighbor bitches had brought food and were fixing tea and sandwiches for those working with the wounded.

  She knew that Rory had gone after Claw, so she answered his questions before he asked them. "Pandeena and Cahira are upstairs working on them. We put Eideard's body in the storeroom for the moment."

  Claw grimaced. "He was a good wolf. How are the others? Kynyr?"

  "It's still touch and go. Devil's Silver."

  "Rory told me." Claw headed for the little hallway that led to the stairs. Erskine followed him, but Gorgarty lingered behind leering at Kady.

  When Claw reached the second floor, two middle-aged bitches whose names he could not remember came out of the kitchen. The chieftain realized, with a lurch, just how seldom he came to the village. He never went among his people for pleasure any longer.

  "If you're looking for Pandeena, she's in with Finn and Ramsey." The brassy-haired blonde pointed at a door far down the hallway. "If you're looking for Cahira, she's in with Kynyr." She pointed at a door n
ear the kitchen.

  "Thanks, uhmn"

  "Annie."

  "Annie. Right. How're my myn doing?"

  Annie's face darkened with distress. "They almost lost Ramsey twice. Cahira doesn't think he'll make it till morning. Finn's not much better."

  "Kynyr?"

  "His wounds aren't serious but the poison"

  "Does anyone know how this happened?" Claw's voice filled with ire.

  Annie winced at his tone. "All I know is what I've overheard. Pandeena and Cahira"

  Erskine glanced sidewise at Claw, watching for a reaction.

  Claw gave a nod and headed for Pandeena without another word. Erskine trailed after him.

  Pandeena heard them come in. "Just a minute," she said without raising her head.

  They stood and watched her work. Pandeena sat by the bed, carefully removing Ramsey's bandages. Claw winced at the blackened skin around the edges of the wounds. She used a scalpel to remove the necrotic skin, smeared a golden salve into the wound, and covered it again with light gauze.

  "Will that help?" Claw walked over and stood at her shoulder.

  "It should." Pandeena laid a narrow board on the bed and bound Ramsey's arm to it. Then she opened a small casket, took out some long needles stained with a goldish substance, stuck four of them into his arm, and left them there.

  "What's that?"

  "A variation on the Creeyan art of inoculation. Something better's been developed in Rowanhart, but I haven't been able to get my hands on it." She straightened and rubbed the back of her neck.

  Erskine took that as an invitation and put his big hands on her neck, massaging the muscles. "You're tired."

  "I know it. But I can't stop yet. There's still Finn and Kynyr to do." She glanced over her shoulder at him, noting the chocolate and claret livery of a guardsmon. "Do I know you?"

  "We've met a few times."

  "I don't remember your name."

  "Erskine."

  Claw growled and Erskine moved away. "What are their chances?"

  Pandeena noticed him for the first time. "Chances? I'd say it depends on how much strength they have left to fight it."

  "Odds, bitch. Give me the odds."

  She blinked at his tone. "Ramsey is terribly weak. I'll be surprised if he makes it until morning. If he does, he has a fighting chance. Same for Finn."