Lestari zipped into the air, flying back and forth in a hypnotic figure eight. If her leg hurt her, she didn’t give any indication of it.
“This is my territory. This is my home,” she said.
“Of course it is, but didn’t you—”
She spun, wings humming, expression intent. “You acknowledge my right to these lands?”
“Sure. But did you have to cut off her wing?”
“Only because she defended her neck too well.”
I flinched, stopping short of taking a step back. Yes, the tiny woman frightened me. How could anyone so violent not accrue atrum? I spent my days killing evil creatures, but if I were to duke it out with another enforcer, I was pretty sure we’d both end up blackened with more than bruises.
If I continued to work with Summer, I might get a chance to test my theory.
A high-pitched, male-timbered voice above me said, “The Sunan would be wise to rest, since her own wing has only just mended.”
Lestari crossed her arms and flew another figure eight before landing on a branch, her regal bearing daring anyone to suggest it wasn’t her decision. Her landing lacked its usual grace, though, when she tilted off her injured leg and had to use her wings for balance.
“Foolish child,” the male said, and I identified him as the medic.
Lestari shot him a look that should have knocked him off his perch, then sat and gingerly laid her bound leg out straight. Her fat, beelike abdomen protruded behind her, and the split lines of her body looked as if it should have been painful, but all the prajurit sat the same way.
“Daud, you’re on watch,” Lestari ordered. “Iskandar, patrol. I want reports every two hours.”
Two warriors flew off, one with his ribcage bound in strips of gauze. Now that Lestari wasn’t moving, I could see she had more than one bandage, including a gossamer stitch patching the thin membrane of her lower right wing. Tiny cuts and dirt smudged her face, and her clothing hung ragged at the seams. She might have made the forty-mile journey back to Roseville from Grass Valley in record time, but it hadn’t been a peaceful trip.
“Do you expect another attack?” I asked.
“Always. Everyone wants my land. They are fools who see weakness instead of honed resolve.”
The other prajurit were preying on Lestari, taking her territory after all her people had been killed? Talk about ruthless.
“What do you mean by ‘everyone’?”
“Everyone. All the prajurit know of Isabel Dulat’s heinous treachery.”
The prajurit struck their wings together, generating a shrill, discordant chorus. I winced but didn’t jump, expecting the reaction to the traitorous warden’s name.
“All believe my territory is undefended,” Lestari said.
“More than the queen you just—” I made a hacking motion with my hand.
“She was the tenth.”
Holy cow. Ten battles in less than seventy-two hours? No wonder Lestari looked battered and beaten.
“Do territorial disputes always have to be settled by battles? We’ve had enough prajurit deaths. Couldn’t you, I don’t know, negotiate?”
“Do you mean peace talks?”
“Exactly!”
“Brad Pitt agrees?”
“Of course.” I didn’t even hesitate. Sjel tyver were invading and our region was vulnerable; we needed prajurit help now more than ever. Letting them kill each other wouldn’t serve anyone any good.
The remaining warriors looked to Lestari with varying degrees of disbelief. Apparently not everyone shared my less-than-bloodthirsty sentiments.
“Good. The talks will be quick,” Lestari said. “I will inform Brad of your promise to our claim here and to all land within one thousand wing beats of this tree.”
“Was that your previous territory?” Her easy acquiescence made me suspicious. One thousand wing beats for such a tiny woman was what, a hundred feet? A thousand? How much territory did a prajurit clan need? What I knew about them wouldn’t fill a page of Val—nor had the information he’d shared about our diminutive allies.
“Much more than my former territory is fallow due to the traitor. Much more.”
The other prajurit smiled and nodded their heads. I squinted at Lestari, recognizing her smug expression; the last time I’d seen it, it had been on Brad’s face when he talked about a permanent expansion of our region. I was beginning to think I’d missed something.
“Isn’t your claim here plenty of territory?”
Lestari’s hands flew to her swords. “You insult me!”
“I’m sorry. I—”
“Tell Brad we accept his offer to host the peace talks.”
To host?
“Where is the pooka?” Lestari demanded. “I wish to thank him for his kindness and receive a prophecy.”
“He’s—” In the excitement, I’d forgotten about my falling out with Jamie, but the weight of it resettled on my shoulders, dragging them down. “He’s around here somewhere.”
A shrill, three-tone whistle sliced the upper range of my hearing. The prajurit sprang from their perches, swords leaping to their hands. Seconds later, the two scouts plunged through the branches, dropping on either side of their queen. After a rapid exchange, Lestari charged me, stopping so close to my nose that my eyes crossed to keep her in focus. I edged back a step. She buzzed closer.
“You brought a hostile pooka into my territory? Explain yourself.”
“He’s not hostile.” At least not to prajurit. “Where did they—”
“Then why do my men tell me he runs with the black flies of atrum coating him? Where he goes, dark shadows follow. Where is his balance of sunlight?”
He had flies on him? What did his shadow have anything to do with anything? Or was she speaking in metaphors? I considered asking, but getting back to Jamie was more important than deciphering her questions.
“He’s upset,” I said. “Can you point me in—”
“Why is he upset? What did you do?”
Her tone snapped my spine rigid. “I didn’t—”
This time, the bark of a dog cut me off. I whirled, scanning the vegetation beyond the oak’s branches, searching for Jamie. Something black moved at the base of the ravine, deep in unburned undergrowth. Jamie. I couldn’t let him out of my sight again.
“Excuse me, I must—”
“Eagle formation,” Lestari snapped, cutting me off yet again. “Daud, take point. Iskandar, go afield. I want reports every two thousand beats.” One warrior shot through the oak’s twisted limbs, disappearing into the sky. The rest swooped into a loose arrow formation around Lestari, the tip of their V pointing straight up. A heavy drone filled the air as they hovered in place.
“The hounds approach,” she informed me. “We must depart.”
I jerked back toward Lestari, a cold ping of adrenaline tingling across my scalp. “The hounds?”
“Fix the pooka, Madison Fox,” the tiny queen ordered, using the same imperious tone with me as she had with her warriors. “Fix him, or don’t return to my territory again.”
16
Don't Run; You'll Only Die Tired
The prajurit shot straight up, weaving through the branches with dizzying speed. When they cleared the scraggly canopy, they zoomed north, away from the frost moths and the glimpse of moving atrum I’d spotted in the ravine.
“Wait!” I raced after them, slipping on loose acorns and catching my hair in sharp branches. By the time I reached the paved trail, the prajurit had flown out of sight.
I planted my hands on my hips and shouted after the haughty queen. “This is my territory, too!”
Announcing it to the empty air made me feel even more impotent than being ordered around by a pint-size woman.
“You know what I really need?” I asked the oak. “Another person telling me to get a grip on my pooka. I wasn’t going to bother, but now that Brad, Pamela, Niko, and Lestari have ordered it, I guess I have to do it.”
Channeling my irr
itation into my feet, I pounded back to the frost moth–filled ravine. I paused at the top of the slope, straining to catch sight of Jamie amid the dense white plants. The heavy crash of a clumsy creature running through the bushes drew my attention to the base of the slope.
Lestari had said hounds, right? One atrum-soaked pooka in dog form she might have mistaken for a hound, but she’d used the plural . . .
Twin corgis surged through the underbrush in near-perfect synchronization, fangs bared and snarling, their bodies so dark they should have sucked in all the light of Primordium like canine-shaped black holes. Not Jamie. Hounds. Dread chased ice through my veins, freezing out all thoughts but one: Hide.
Despite the hounds’ stubby bodies and the fact that neither stood taller than my knees—and that I’d never live down the embarrassment if anyone found out I’d cowered from corgis—I dove behind the nearest thick oak at the top of the hill. I couldn’t take on two hounds at once with my bare hands. I shouldn’t even attempt one without a net, especially not hounds as healthy as this well-fed pair. The last time—the only time—I’d taken on a hound, it’d been an emaciated weakling, and even then it’d been a tough fight. Hounds were real dogs with real teeth. If they took a bite out of my soul, they would also rip out a chunk of flesh and tendon and bone. It wouldn’t take much to provoke an atrum-crazed hound’s attack, either. The mere sight of me would be enough to set them off.
I clutched the oak when the hounds bayed with excitement. The nearest branch stretched well above my reach. I’d never be able to climb the wide trunk, either.
Without meaning to, without wanting to, I drew my knife. Three inches of blade wasn’t much, but it was better than my bare hands.
I don’t want to kill a dog. Please don’t make me.
I peeked around the trunk. A pitch-black Great Dane flashed between me and the hounds. I clamped my mouth shut on my knee-jerk need to call out Jamie’s name. The pooka galloped down the slope toward the corgis, then past them, and the squat hounds charged after him.
Had he intentionally saved me, or had that been a coincidence?
With shaking fingers, I sheathed the knife. Two hounds didn’t simply materialize out of thin air. Either his pookaness had attracted them or he’d encountered two perfectly normal dogs and changed them into hounds.
Like all animals, dogs were creatures of lux lucis. They didn’t turn evil on their own; for that, they needed human interference—or a pooka’s. It took time for a human to sully a dog’s soul but scant seconds for a pooka to turn a dog into a hound. All he had to do was net a dog within his potent atrum, overwhelming and replacing the dog’s lux lucis, and the transformation would be complete.
As much as I hated the thought of Jamie stealing the free will of other creatures and altering their souls, not to mention him willfully spreading atrum in my region, I hoped he had turned these dogs. It beat the alternative, that the corgis had been tortured or had such an evil owner that they’d both been turned. Plus, if Jamie had changed the corgis in the last half hour, the atrum wouldn’t have had time to sink into their consciences and change their basic natures, making them relatively easy to clean back into dogs.
Or so I hoped.
Keeping an ear trained on the receding sounds of the pooka and hounds, I forced my wobbly legs to move. I had a hound net in the trunk of my car. A car that I’d parked five miles away. Okay, a half mile away, but come on! Couldn’t I catch a break? Why did everything involve running these days?
I dug deep into my reserves of energy and shoved into a sprint, my steps hobbled by the pain lingering in yesterday’s overworked leg muscles. Freezing air sliced down my windpipe with each gasp, and when I reached my car, I had to pause my frantic search for my keys to focus on not throwing up. Popping the trunk, I overturned a cloth bag tucked in the corner. A single hound net fell out. If I’d had the lung power, I would have cursed. I’d been meaning to buy another net, but they were crazy expensive, and with a pooka in need of clothing and extraordinary amounts of food, I’d put it off. Plus, I’d had Jamie. He could easily protect me from a hound and he would never leave my side.
I was such an idiot.
I slung the net over my shoulder and slammed the trunk. The loud crash of the abused metal startled a flock of pigeons into flight but wasn’t half as satisfying as I’d thought it would be. Stripping off my gloves, I untangled the net while I ran, rolling it into a manageable bundle of hemp rope and leather bindings. Then, keeping an eye out for wayward frost moths, I pounded down the slick slope back into the burn zone. This time, I managed to keep my feet. Bully for me.
Stalking along the muddy creek bank, I located the last place I’d seen the hounds, then followed their tracks. Where the squat hounds had run easily through fire-singed bushes and squeezed under the denser, sharp branches of living brambles, I had to fight my way, stopping frequently to untangle the net or Val’s strap. After the third time yanking Val free of a limb at the cost of a shallow gash down the back of my hand, I unzipped my coat and stuffed him inside, strap and all.
“It’s darkness or being scratched to bits,” I said, knowing he hated being cut off from the world. Several gouges lined with grit and coated with ash marred his beautiful leather cover. “I should have done this sooner. I’m sorry, Val.”
The cold leather spread a chill through my sweater to my stomach. Shivering, I zipped my coat. When I lifted my head, I looked straight into the eyes of a hound.
The corgi stood atop the bank on the far side of the creek, tail up, teeth bared. Its twin trotted up beside it, whining and licking its lips when it spotted me. With a harmonious bark, they charged.
I fumbled with the net. Too many plants obscured the area, clutching at the woven rope as I tried to spread it. The hounds bore down on me with growls that flipped a primal switch in my brain, igniting an age-old instinct to flee. Snatching the clumsy net to my chest, I darted toward the nearest slender oak and clambered up the trunk to the lowest branch six feet off the ground. The branch creaked and popped alarmingly but held.
The hounds cleared a fallen log in a tandem leap, bodies so close together they looked connected. Five more yards, and they’d be beneath me. I unfurled the net and powered lux lucis into it. The white energy caught in the fibers and spread, illuminating all scant four feet of the tight tapestry. The circular net was designed to capture a single, standard-size hound. I prayed it would work for two corgis that ran as if they were linked to a single brain.
Movement flashed in my periphery, and Jamie dashed by in his familiar role as Pied Piper–slash-pony for imps. A mound of dark bodies piled on his back and a trail of stragglers bounced in his wake.
“Seriously?!” I shouted. “Jamie, enough is enough. Come help me.”
The pooka skidded to a halt, sending imps tumbling. Swirling black-and-white irises took in the stampeding hounds, then pinned me with a look of raw contempt. Spinning on a back foot, he galloped away before the hounds noticed him.
My breath caught in my throat, and the lump in my chest shattered, spearing straight through my heart.
The hounds reached the oak tree and leapt for me, their tiny legs inadequate for the task. I slumped over the net where it draped the limb in front of me. Breathing hurt. Jamie had abandoned me. He’d seen me in danger and he’d turned away.
One of the hounds scrambled up the slope of the trunk, its teeth snapping inches from my dangling foot before it fell back to the ground. I jerked my leg up, lost my balance, and tipped off the branch toward the open jaw of the second hound. My arms and legs spasmed around the limb, and I swung upside down. A hound’s teeth snapped closed on my dangling hair, yanking out an eye-watering chunk. I cinched my limbs tighter around the branch, the soul breaker jabbing my chest through my coat. The pet wood in my front pocket felt like it’d drawn blood.
Heart beating in my throat, I righted myself. I’d deal with Jamie in a minute. First, I had to survive the hounds.
Gripping the branch with both thighs,
I rolled the net into a tight spiral, positioning my hands to make it easy to throw. I’d only get one shot at this. If I failed and netted only one hound, or worse, missed them both completely, I’d be sitting in this tree until I could call Summer to rescue me. And I’d die before making that call.
Inching out along the branch, I lured the hounds away from the trunk. They spun in circles beneath me, springing on truncated hind legs to snap at the air below me. Carefully, I raised the net, swinging my arms to get a feel for the weight of it.
The limb cracked, dropping several inches before catching. I screamed. The hounds went wild, piling on top of each other to reach me. Before I lost my nerve—and the branch broke completely—I flared the net and flung it over them.
It landed askew, wrapping their heads, and the hounds tumbled together, loosing piercing, pained cries. In their flailing, one hooked a paw in the mesh, pinning it to the ground and freeing the other to back out and escape.
I leapt from the tree, landing flat on cold feet. Sharp pain exploded in both ankles, but I kept moving, motivated by visions of being mauled. Rushing behind the corgis, I grabbed the flopping edge of the net, kicking the nearest hound when it lunged for me. It fell on its side with a whimper.
“I’m sorry!”
I yanked the net snug across both hounds and pressed the ends into the muddy ground, then jumped back. The hounds growled and stilled, turning to press their noses to each other.
The net weighed no more than ten pounds and should have been easy for the corgis to escape from, but its powers were more psychological than physical, or maybe a combination of both. Every time the hounds moved, they flinched and whined as if the lux lucis zapped them. So long as the edges of the net remained in contact with the ground, the hounds wouldn’t be able to escape.
Breathing deep, I ran my hands down my pants, wincing when splinters bit into my palms. My ankles ached from the bad landing, but since they flexed, I decided nothing was broken or sprained.
A Fistful of Frost Page 22
