“We must keep Bar back,” Rygel warned, flying past my beak and encouraging me to follow. “He must stay away, or his presence will warn them.”
Rygel was right. Bar’s huge size could not be mistaken for anything else than a griffin, and where Bar was, so would I be. Without him, two hawks might pass unnoticed.
I flew upward, Rygel at my side. Bar’s wing beats took him steadily toward me, his beak open, his eyes bright and happy. Unable to communicate my need for him to stay away, out of sight, I flew into his face, screeching. Rygel copied me, driving his talons into Bar’s startled face. Bar banked sharply, circling, his back to me. I screeched again and rushed him, driving him. When he sought to circle back, toward the clearing, Rygel flapped into his face, causing him to wheel once more.
Bar got the message. He flew slowly off to the north, looking back at me over his shoulder. I felt horrible at treating him thus, and flew over him, chirping. His unperturbed squawk told me he understood. As I circled and watched, he found a place within the folds of the forest to land. Within a moment, he dropped neatly out of sight.
“Follow me, Princess,” Rygel said, wheeling and banking back southward. “Let’s perch in the trees until we know where Raine is and what is going on.”
“What will you do?”
“Make them wish they had never heard of Raine. Or you.” Rygel’s voice sounded colder than Wolf’s eyes, and for a moment, I almost pitied the unsuspecting Tongu. Almost.
I followed Rygel’s lead and flew down, down amongst the trees and thickets, dodging branches and leaves, the Tongu’s presence filling the nearby forest with its evil. We had to be quiet, for their presence here silenced the forest’s creatures. They no doubt knew of this, and two birds, even hawks, unafraid of their alien occupation might alert them.
Rygel settled silently on a branch at the edge of the clearing. I seized hold of another just above and to the left of him. Frantically, I scanned the group below, looking for Wolf, not seeing him, my fear growing. I could smell the Tongu, the scent of blood and death and evil reeking in my sensitive nostrils. I watched them, squatting in a circle about the fire, chewing meat, apparently from the haunches roasting over the flames. Their rawboned ugly hounds lay nearby, the muzzles freed of the thongs that bound them, cracking bones in their strong jaws.
Too late, I saw the man hanging upside down from a tree across from me, naked, stripped of his skin and most of his flesh. Horrified, I stared, panicked that it was Wolf who hung there, dead after all, despite Rygel’s assurances that he still lived.
“I expect I forgot to tell you,” Rygel’s still cold but calm voice told me. “They eat their dead.”
My gorge rose as I recognized the dead man as a Tongu, seeing the pattern of scars and tattoos over the unskinned portions of his face and body. His lanky hair brushed the bloody ground where the gaping maw of his mangled throat bled out. I wondered wildly if a hawk could vomit. For I was close to retching as I saw not only the Tongu, hanging, half-eaten by his brothers, but also the corpses of the hounds we slew, also stripped of their hides and most of their meat. I closed my eyes, willing my gorge back down, calming myself, seeking the hawk within me. The hawk did not fear mankind who ate their own dead.
“There he is.”
I opened my eyes and looked where Rygel stared intently. I saw him then.
Wolf. Broken, bloody, tossed aside like a piece of rotten garbage. He lay where they threw him, half on his face, his shaggy hair a tangled mass of blood and twigs, his right arm bent at an impossible angle over his back. His sleeveless tunic, now more red-black than white, concealed what other damage the Tongu did to him. Dark blood pooled beneath his chest and belly. Black blood covered his face. I blanched, or would have had I been in human form. How could he still live? Was he still alive?
“Aye.”
Rygel’s terse reply reached me the instant he dropped from his branch. His hawk wings stretched back to slow his fall. Midway between the branch and the ground, he changed.
A man, wearing a red-gold tunic and black cloak, soft doeskin boots, girded with a sword and dagger, dropped silently from the tree, his arms arched back like wings. As lightly as a feather, Rygel landed on his feet, his arms slowly coming to rest at his sides.
The Tongu, having missed two hawks in the trees above them, could hardly miss a man with wheaten hair and yellow eyes suddenly dropping from a tree into their midst. Hissing and cursing, they rolled to their feet, reaching for their swords and clubs. The hounds also leaped up, lips skinning back from their fangs as they lunged at Rygel.
I had no idea what Rygel intended. Perhaps even he did not know what he would do. Yet, without warning, his arms flew up from his sides, his long sensitive fingers pointing at the onrushing Tongu and their vicious hounds. I felt, rather than heard, a deep resonance, like thunder so distant, a dim vibration I felt rather than heard. I saw a faint shimmer in the very air before my eyes, like summer heat on the distant horizon. I cringed, my hawk instincts screaming for me to fly, to seek the safety of the wild air above me. I sat still, rapt, as Rygel’s magic hit the Tongu.
They halted in their mad rush, swords and clubs freezing mid-attack. The hounds continued on, snarling, but bolted past Rygel, leaving him untouched and unharmed. For a moment, I thought Rygel hit them with a freezing spell, much like how he halted my war band and I in the inn room, the day we tried to use Rygel as a hostage. Yet, the Tongu continued to move, one by one dropping their weapons to the stony soil of the clearing. I watched as their expressions turned from murderous to horrified. One Tongu, two away to Rygel’s left, put his hands to his face and screamed.
The sound, coming from a throat maimed and mangled, I could only describe as a hissing screech, more terrifying than a full-throated bellow of fear. Others voiced their panic, hissing screams issuing from throats stretched up to the unforgiving sky. They began to stagger in fits and starts, bumping into one another, falling to the ground, tripping, lurching, stumbling over rocks and logs…
Their hounds dashed to and fro, slamming into trees and thickets, their eerie chuffing intensified threefold, pitching headlong into Tongu and each other. They tried to howl, but their mutilated throats allowed them only a mad breathy hiss of absolute terror.
Unable to understand what Rygel had done, I flew boldly to his shoulder and perched there. I knew now how to dig my talons in enough to hold me in place while causing him no hurt. He ignored me, staring coldly toward the Tongu. His hands, relaxed, hung by his sides, his expression one of icy indifference.
“Rygel,” I asked urgently. “What did you do to them?”
“They are blind,” he answered aloud, his voice as chilling as the stare he gave the Tongu and their hounds. “Stone blind.”
At his words, the Tongu screeched as loud as their voices allowed them, hissing, a few of them clawing deep fissures in the skin over their faces. They stared, eyes wide and unfocused, sightless, into naught, their hands outstretched. One of the hounds lay on its side, its breath coming and going in deep pants. A few of the others, with more sense than their masters, recognized their handicap and stood still or sat on their haunches. They sniffed the air and panted, tongues lolling.
Lady have mercy, I thought, horrified.
“Your Lady may have mercy,” Rygel replied, his voice resonating with a deep, bone-chilling cold. “This is all the mercy I grant them. For what they did to him.”
He finally glanced at me perched, shivering, on his shoulder. “And what they would have done to you.”
Ignoring the hissing, cursing Tongu, Rygel stalked across the clearing toward Wolf’s prone form. Forced to spread my wings to maintain balance, I dug my talons deep into his shoulder. If I hurt him, he gave no sign.
I leaped from his shoulder and flew ahead to land near Wolf’s head. As I peered, worried, into Wolf’s bloody face, Rygel dropped to his knees beside me. From the mysterious satchel he carried, he dug vials and small leather pouches. He sniffed at one such vial, sneezed, t
hen began to apply the powder liberally to Wolf’s wounds. Other glass vials clanked together as he dropped them to the earth between his knees.
One eye, Wolf’s right, had swelled shut, blood drying in thick clots down his cheek and over his brow. His left, the eye closest to me, stood at half-mast, staring unseeing into the dirt. Staring the way the dead stared, glassy, seeing nothing. Try as I might, I could not see or sense his breathing.
“Are you sure he’s alive?”
At my words, as though hearing my mental voice, Wolf’s left eye blinked once, twice, then rolled in my direction. As I stood on level with his face and within a few inches of his nose, he could not fail to see me. A red-gold hawk, sharp beak and talons, wings half-furled over her back. His lips, swollen, bloody and bruised, quirked into a tiny smile.
“Ly’Tana.” His voice, faint and weak, held amusement. “You grew feathers.”
“How did he know it’s me?”
“Never mind.”
Rygel reached for Wolf’s brow, his eyes closing as he assessed the damage done to the gladiator’s body. Wolf’s good eye closed, as though too weak to stay open for long.
“Rygel,” I said urgently. “Change me back.”
Irritation crossed his face and thinned his aristocratic lips. An indifferent flick of his amber eyes toward me started the change. Now knowing what to expect, the cold, and the strange alterations my body undertook, did not frighten me. A moment later, I dropped to my human knees beside Rygel. I brushed a bloody lock of Wolf’s hair away from his eyes, seeing the deep gash over his eye his hair had hidden.
“Wolf?” I whispered his name, not wanting to wake him if his unconsciousness spared him great pain, but feeling the need to say something, anything, to bring him some comfort. I may have left him to the evil devices of the Tongu, but by Holy Nephrotiti, I had returned. I hoped that, despite his unconscious state, he would know I was there, and would draw comfort from my presence.
Rygel spent long, agonizing moments locked in a trance with his hand on Wolf’s brow. I waited, fretting, impatient, needing to know if Wolf would be all right. Did we arrive too late?
“Rygel?” I prompted.
He did not answer me. Silent, he sat, his eyes closed, a small frown furrowing his brow, hand still resting lightly on Wolf’s head. Nervous, I glanced around, pausing to watch the Tongu suffer.
They finally learned the sense of sitting on the ground, rather than stumbling about and falling over rocks, dead trees and each other. They continued to hiss and curse, three or four of them weeping. I looked long at them, recognizing one who wept as the Tongu who would have raped me first. A big, husky man, his serpent tattoos and scars trailed up and around his face, down past his maimed throat, toward his chest before disappearing into his tunic. One huge serpent coiled itself around his throat, climbing higher to circle his head amid the nest of serpent and other reptilian tattoos. This bugger certainly adores his snakes, I thought. The others held nearly as many scars as he, but had fewer intricate tattoos and only a few the obviously favored serpent tattoo.
The Tongu wore, much as many people did, somewhat ordinary tunics and breeches, mostly browns and tans in color, with soft leather shoes rather than boots. Their lank hair, oily and trailing in thick ropes past their shoulders, began just above their ears. Atop their heads, they had shaved themselves bald, with several more tattoos and scars adorning their bare skulls. I wondered if they scarred and tattooed themselves as a sign of their prowess as hunters.
Their hissing and muted cursing settled into my nerves as I waited for Rygel to move or speak, my fears growing with every moment. I wished fervently Rygel had killed them cleanly, struck them down with a magic spell. Dead bodies I could deal with. Hissing and cursing living corpses unnerved me. I fretted, unable to cease staring at the Tongu.
“Rygel,” I whispered. “Why didn’t you kill them?”
He stirred and looked up, blinking, breathing deep as though swimming up from the depths of a deep, cold lake.
“I cannot kill with magic,” he said. “It is forbidden.”
“Forbidden? By whom?”
I recoiled from the exasperated look he shot me from under his brows. What did I say?
“Never mind,” he snapped. “Don’t ask me to kill them.”
I glanced again at the terrified, cursing, weeping Tongu. “They must die.”
Rygel sat back on his heels and gestured toward the huddled Tongu with a wide sweep of his arm. “There you are, Princess,” he growled, irritated. “Take your sword and stab them in each of their throats. I doubt they will resist. Go. Knock yourself out. You will probably be doing them a favor.”
I looked wildly at the helpless Tongu, knowing full what he meant. These men were as helpless as newborn kittens. ’Twould only be merciful, for how long would they take to die a slow agonized death of starvation out here in the deep forest? They certainly deserved death for what they did to Wolf, what they would have done to me. Could I kill them, in cold blood, to take my blade to their throats, as they lay helpless before me? Lady Starlight, protect me, I prayed. I cannot.
“Yessss,” hissed the leader who would have raped me first. He rose from his butt in the dirt and rocks, to kneel. “Ssslay usss.”
The others joined in, pleading for me to end their lives. “Kill ussss. Have mercy. Ssslay us. Cut out our throatsss.”
“There you have it, Your Highness,” Rygel snapped. “They want you to kill them. No doubt cold-blooded murder is sanctified by your goddess.”
I slewed around, furious, glaring at Rygel. Before I could stop myself, I slapped him hard across the face. His head rocked back from the force of my blow, his hand rising involuntarily to his stinging and rapidly reddening cheek. I half-expected him to retaliate, to fight, or at least vent his fury at me. Instead, he bowed his head, turning his face away.
“No matter what the cost,” I said, low and intense. “I cannot murder helpless men.”
“Neither can he,” Rygel said, jerking his head toward Wolf’s prone form, his face still tight with anger. “If he killed Brutal when he had the chance, none of this would have happened.”
“Shut up, Rygel.”
Wolf’s affable yet weak voice sounded both amused and stern. “You couldn’t either.”
Rygel snarled without words, then cursed in a foreign dialect. I may not have understood the words, I still knew he cursed, however. Curses sounded like cursing, no matter what the language.
“Wolf?” I asked, leaning toward him, brushing my fingers down his swollen cheek.
If he heard me, he gave no sign.
“Heal him, Rygel.” I tried to sound commanding, formal, but what emerged from my mouth sounded close to a plea. I knew it for a plea not from a warrior and heir to a powerful throne, but from a woman who worried over an injured friend.
Rygel vented a long sigh. “I can only heal his worst injuries right now. Those that are either life-threatening, or would prevent us from moving him.”
“Nay,” I insisted, getting restlessly to my feet. “Heal him, cure him. Now.”
His yellow eyes narrowed up at me, his aristocratic lips curling slightly. “Of course, Your Highness. You will remain here to guard us both while we recovered, say in about two days? Watching over us…and them? You want to listen to those gibbering lunatics until we can both walk out of here?”
He ran his hand restlessly through his hair, the diamond in his lobe dazzled in the afternoon sun. “Or do you propose to carry both of us out?”
My hand itched to slap him again. “That’s enough,” I snapped. “Just do what is necessary.”
I stalked away from him, pausing to kick a kneeling Tongu out of my way. At least I had no qualms about venting my fury on them. If all they received from me were a few kicks, they got off lucky. A hound growled low in its throat at my approach and I kicked it, also. It snapped and snarled, missing my foot by several inches. Blindness tamed their savagery quite effectively, I thought.
Som
ething crashed through the woods just ahead of me, something large, something powerful, and moving fast. The leaves of tall trees shook as though an axe struck their trunks, lower thickets crunching with impact. I whipped Sele’s sword from its sheath before realizing there could only be one thing that big in these woods this day.
Bar emerged through a tangle of balsam and scrub oak, pine needles scattered amongst his feathers and fur. His raptor eyes lit when he saw me, and he greeted me with a relieved chirp. I sheathed my sword and hugged him tight around his neck, burying my face in his thick mane of feathers and lion hair. I felt my shattered nerves calm instantly. His immense presence did wonders for relieving the remnants of fear and anxiety over Wolf and the unsettling assassins.
He looked past me to the seated or kneeling Tongu. A menacing hiss escaped his beak and he jerked away from me to advance on the hapless Tongu. His yellow eyes flattened with hate and rage, his ears lay tight against his skull.
“They are blind, Bar,” I said tiredly, following him to rest my arm over his neck. “They can’t hurt anyone else again.”
He moved out from under my arm, stalking the nasty assassins. The Tongu scrambled to escape him, crying out in fear, crawling on their butts or knees as he moved among them, hissing dangerously into their faces, stepping on them if they failed to get out of his way.
Unerringly, Bar stalked up the big Tongu leader, the only one who stood his ground. His black eyes gazed unseeingly forward, perhaps awaiting his much-desired death from the princess’s famed bodyguard. Rearing back, wings half-furled, Bar slashed the Tongu across the face with a razor-sharp talon. The Tongu choked on a scream, blood cascading down his lacerated cheek. He stumbled away, but not before Bar ripped open his other cheek. Sickeningly, I could see his teeth through the wounds as he tried to shriek, his mutilated throat allowing him only a faint hissing screech.
The other Tongu had no idea what Bar had done to their leader, but huddled together in fright as Bar stalked around them, screeching furiously into their ears, cuffing them with his talons. He recognized the Tongu who escaped his wrath earlier. That one he backhanded across the side of the head. I knew Bar checked the blow, for had he not, the man’s skull would have crushed like thin parchment. As it was, Bar knocked him out cold.
In a Wolf's Eyes Page 37
