Something glinted in the sky, and he squinted but it was too bright, too distant to discern. Then came another, and another.
“My kin,” Ilshenrir answered. “Perhaps they have been monitoring the Empire's communications.”
“What the pike do we do now?” spat Dasira. “Portal? Shadow?”
“No time,” rasped Lark.
“Then—“
Blue light rippled over them, filling the air with sparks as it reacted with the haze. In its wake, Ilshenrir's filtering-ward shredded and the stinging vapors poured in. Cob clamped his mouth shut but felt the others take bad breaths and cough, stumble, shudder.
The next bolt slammed into the wraith, flinging him into a salt-coated pillar with a sound like breaking glass. At the same time, bright pinspots bloomed within the shining entities above.
Cob levered up a defensive arc of sand just in time to block the haelhenes' searing beams, but the action heaved vapor up as well and he saw Lark collapse, retching—saw Arik reel drunkenly and the goblin nearly slide off him. Fiora dropped to one knee, and behind them—
Behind them, a trio of white-armored abominations approached from bare yards away, the leader bearing a familiar black blade. A dozen more followed, with a troop of Sapphires hanging back in the distance.
Cob fixed his gaze on the black sword, and for the first time noticed the itch in his arm, strengthening with each pace the man took. As he raised the tectonic lever, the coughs and groans of his companions raked at his heart. I brought them here. It's my fault.
The black blade's wielder charged, and he brought the lever to bear, chisel-end forward. He could not turn back time, could not escape this situation, but he would not cringe from judgment. If that was Erevard, it was only fair that they fight.
Then all went grey.
*****
Enkhaelen slapped the scrying mirror off the slab in fury, then cursed himself and hurriedly retrieved it. The silver surface showed no damage, and in fact still held its view of the mist—dissipating now into nothing, to leave a squad of White Flame and Sapphire soldiers standing baffled in the toxic salt.
He placed it carefully back in position and slumped onto his stool, considering. It was against the rules for him to intervene, but events were getting out of hand. Certainly the Emperor wouldn't object to him steering them back on track...
Once they get out of the Grey.
Pikes, I knew I should have killed the wraith. This is your fault, Kuthra.
But that was the problem with playing by the seat of his britches. Split-second decisions snowballed into complete disasters, with no easy remedy.
“Could line up a new Guardian,” he mused, turning back to the half-dissected body he had been modifying. “Try another angle...”
No. Too much had already been set in motion. His mouth compressed grimly as he considered the sigil inscribed on the corpse's breastbone, partner to the one on its spine. So many preparations, so much on the cusp of readiness, and now...
Idiots.
*****
“No! No!” Cob shouted as the mist closed in, but his words went nowhere. Already his friends were gone, the salt turned to blankness under his feet. His Guardian armor disintegrated, the water elemental contracting on his skin like a shivery snake. He swung the tectonic lever slowly outward just in case someone was nearby, but struck nothing; the lever faded into the mist mere inches beyond his fingers.
“Pike it, Ilshenrir!” he hollered uselessly.
Something flashed to one side, and he whirled and glimpsed it streaking upward at an angle, but then it too was gone. He made a strangling sound and started to move toward its point of origin, but then stopped.
He could breathe. There was no toxic vapor in the air, no taste to it at all. He felt a little lightheaded and sluggish, but otherwise well.
He worried for his friends though. They were more vulnerable, and even if pulling them into the Grey had saved them, Ilshenrir had acted too quickly to keep them together. Distances here had little relation to those in reality, so gathering up the group might take some time.
That grated on him. He had never been good at waiting.
Another flicker of light appeared in the mist. Small, distant, turning slowly as if searching. Ilshenrir, he thought, and called, “Hoi!” and stepped forward, leading with slow sweeps of the lever in case something suddenly loomed before him.
Hearing or otherwise sensing him, the light turned his way, then grew larger as if approaching. His stomach tightened with sudden suspicion as he realized there was only one light—not the two eyes Ilshenrir usually showed. It was also pure white, not his pale yellow.
He backstepped, bringing the lever up like a spear.
Then a second light kindled, a few paces off to the side. And a third one behind it, and a fourth, swelling larger and larger until he guessed them to be fist-sized or even face-sized. Cyclopean, fixated. They spread out as if to flank him, and a glance over his shoulder showed more. Under his skin, the Guardian quailed.
“Pikes,” he hissed and, picking the blankest direction, turned and ran.
*****
Lark's insides abruptly ceased turning themselves inside out. She gasped a sour breath, hiccuped, then spat at the unseen ground. Under her palms, it was flat, smooth, tepid.
She looked up into the face of the wolf.
He stood half a pace away, panting raggedly. Foam flecked his toothy maw, and his blue eyes were bloodshot. She doubted she looked any better. When she raised a hand to swipe at her mouth, she realized her fingers were crusted with salt and vomit, and tried to wipe them on the ground.
“Rian?” she rasped.
Through the mist that cloaked the great wolf's back, a spidery, swaddled figure moved. She lurched up to catch him as he began to slide, and the wolf pressed his shoulder to her hip—to help or for support, she couldn't tell, for she felt him shivering beneath his quill-thick fur.
Rian wrapped his spindly arms around her and she hugged him tight, the burn in her throat and the fear in her heart momentarily eclipsed by relief. “Are you all right?” she said, pulling back just enough to take in his wan features and the cloudiness of his watering eyes. “Oh Shadow, baby, are you hurt? Can you see?”
In answer, the goblin just mewled and clutched tighter to her robe. A thread of rage ran through her: those Imperials, those monsters, had chased them all in here, and now her baby was hurt and they were lost and she would kill them.
Her hands curled tight. Yes. For all they'd done—for Bah-kai, for Cayer and her comrades, for the shambles they'd made of all the city-states of Illane—the Empire would be punished. She understood Fiora now. Killing the necromancer wasn't enough.
“What next? Stay and wait?” she murmured half to herself. She wore the piece of crystal that Ilshenrir had broken off his wrist; presumably he could find them via that. And they could all use the rest.
If it took too long, though, they were piked. They had no water except what was in her canteen, and no supplies—her rucksack gone in one of her tumbles along with the trade garnets, the bolt-pouch, her short-bow and arrows. Nothing left but her robe, her boot-dagger, the travel-papers folded inside its sheath, and the crystal on its cord.
And who's to say Ilshenrir didn't betray us...
She shook her head sharply. She wasn't Dasira, watching for conspiracies in the idiosyncrasies of their friends. The wraith had proven himself; more than that, she liked him, as much as one could like a distant inscrutable not-quite-man.
It was absolutely not a crush.
But she also remembered the first time they met, the haelhene approaching on their flyers—glowing eyes visible even through the mist. They'd had to run with all their strength then, the wraiths dogging them for what felt like ages. How long would it take Ilshenrir to evade them?
What if he couldn't?
What if the haelhene found them first?
That thought raised the hairs on the back of her neck, and she looked around slowly. Wrai
ths had better perceptions here than humans, and if the others could sense the crystal the way Ilshenrir could...
A light in the mist. Off to one side, dim and distant...
No, two.
Her throat went tight. She crouched down at Arik's side, ignoring the complaints of bruised muscle and strained joints, and hissed, “Wraiths. Can you fight here? Can you shift?”
Arik's ears flattened, his big body hunching up with tension. The quills started to rise beneath his fur, and she leaned away, hoping he was about to rise into his war-form. Instead, he shook his head.
“Seriously?” she said. “I could swear you did it before, at the river. If you can't shift—“
“No. Can't fight,” he rumbled.
She grimaced and nodded; she had no desire to scuffle with the wraiths either. But then the chunk of crystal sparked against her skin and began to glow, and she saw one of the lights move as if turning.
“Shit. Shit,” she said, grabbing Arik's quill-covered shoulder by instinct. His pale eyes flicked to her, pupils like pinspots. “What do we do? If we run, we'll just get lost—“
The wolf pulled from her grip, and she cursed and lurched after him, still on her knees. One step sideways then he rounded on her, mouth wide. Surprised, she flung her arm up in defense and felt teeth pierce the cloth—
*****
As the blood hit his tongue, Arik half-stepped half-wrenched upward and felt the world change around them. Immediately he loosed her arm and stood up into wolf-man form, relieved yet unsettled by the ease of his shift. It was much more difficult in the physical world.
The girl gave a pained squawk, but he did not look at her. He could not afford it, not with the eyes on him.
They stared out from among the withered trees and bushes and clumps of weeds that surmounted the low parched hills. Salt crusted the landscape but not as thickly as it did in reality; here there was still green, if only the memory of it, and thick sluggish water moving in finger-thin streams through what would one day become dunes. A picture of the past, before the death of the sea—before the wolves fled to the hills.
Only shades dwelt here. Dark shaggy hulks with gleaming eyes, crouching among salt-etched roots or lurking on the periphery, watching, waiting. Not curious, not hungry, not threatening—just there, a shifting pack of lupine ghosts.
And, straight ahead, the great black maw of the den.
Salt rimed its lower lip; perhaps it had once been the mouth of a river. Pale curves of skulls showed faintly in the shadows, bone-splinters plaiting the path like debris from a flood.
This was not the true spirit realm, he knew. This was the Great Wolf's shard, which existed wherever wolves did—which overlaid the territories that wolves claimed. That it had come to his call made Arik's heart light and his stomach heavy.
He inhaled and caught a faint whiff of carrion, which eased his fear somewhat. There were times when he woke with the taste of blood and terror so thick in the back of his throat that it was all he could do to stay humanoid, to resist the frenzy, but it did not seem that Raun was in a rage now.
“What in Morgwi's name—“ Lark rasped beside him, and he made a sharp quelling gesture. It had been necessary to draw blood to call out her spirit-ancestry and thus gain entry, but now it was dangerous to both of them. To her because she smelled of Cat; to him because he hungered, and he dared not spit lest he give offense.
From the darkness of the den came the sound of heavy paws on old bone. Two amber eyes opened in the depths, each the size of Arik's head, and he automatically hunched his shoulders and tucked his tail between his legs. He could not look away—the gaze like a nail through his brow—and his bladder insisted that he pee himself into submission. Only indoctrination kept it in; even after so many years, he still felt the sting of the switch on his back whenever he did something 'inhuman' while in this form.
Then the eyes blinked, and the great head emerged slowly, like a ship's prow: black nose, red muzzle brindled with grey, dark-shadowed eyes, high attentive ears. The red markings continued down the spirit's jaw and throat, marking where the blood of the first murder had run, to leave spatters across the pale grey chest and flecks and droplets on its paws. The foreclaws were red as if painted, the fur matted dark at each base. Beyond those shaggy shoulders, the rest of Ninke Raunagi—the First Hunter—remained in shadow, a greyish-brown blur.
“Little lost cub, you come at last,” said the spirit in a voice like thunder, its maw a forest of white fangs. “And you bring offerings.”
Arik tried to straighten but his cringing legs refused. The Wolf's hot breath reeked of meat, and though it did not look toward Lark and Rian, Arik felt its lazy hunger. He stood no higher than its elbow—a single bite for such a beast—and had never wanted to run from something more in his life.
Instead, he hunched low and said, “No, Great Hunter, I can not offer them. They are of the Guardian.”
The huge wolf's nostrils flared in the direction of girl and goblin. Arik glanced sidelong to see that neither had moved; the only motion Lark made now was to lock her arms tighter around Rian. She'd ducked her head—also wise, to not meet that dread gaze.
The great wolf rumbled its displeasure and swung its head to regard Arik. It was all he could do not to flop back in surrender. “I am not pleased,” it said. “The Guardian overreaches.”
“The Guardian did not send us, Great Hunter,” Arik dared. “She would not disturb you. She—“
“No?” the spirit interrupted, taking another step from its den. Wan light fell along its flanks, picking out quills among the darker fur. “The Guardian stole one of my daughters and then abandoned her in the swamp. She prods me through you, little cub, trying to work her collar around my neck. She sharpens her blunt herbivore teeth with the intention of killing the Ravager's vessel, and you believe she would not disturb me?”
“Great Hunter, I—“
The massive wolf exhaled, stirring wisps of dust from the earth at its paws. “I do not blame you, lost cub,” it growled. “I smell the stink of man and dog upon you, so much that I can barely detect the wolf. Poor packless pup.”
Tears pricked Arik's eyes, but he blinked them away. “I sought packs,” he said. “For years and years, I followed the trails of other wolves—through the forests, through the mountains, into the tundra—but none would take me. I was stolen as a cub, raised by men and dogs, yes, but I am not a dog, I am a wolf—“
The great beast's growl silenced him. Its ears were still up, still interested, but he knew how quickly such things could turn. A moment of confusion or a small miscommunication were all it had ever taken to set a pack on him—to leave him limping, torn, lost and alone again, a starving adolescent begging for shelter at a cabin door.
It shamed him how often he had turned to humans for help, but his swift attachment to the Guardian vessel was worse. Ninke Raunagi was right; any rational wolf would have recognized the wrongness in the prey-spirit hunting the predator. He should have been warier, more distant, and not let Cob treat him like a dog. Not have behaved like one.
But it was fun!
He knew he couldn't make that argument. The Wolf would kill him—or worse, cast him out to truly become a dog. All of them had been wolves once. Yet he had to say something if he ever wanted to rejoin the Guardian...
And I do. I do.
He mustered his will and opened his mouth, only to cringe as Lark spoke first.
“Great Hunter, if I may?” she started, and his hackles eased marginally; he had thought she'd launch into a tirade like she did with Cob, but instead her voice was respectful and her stance cautious. The goblin clung to her back as if hiding.
The Great Wolf swung its gaze to her and emerged almost fully, looming over them like a cliff. Arik heard her throat click as she swallowed, then into the silence she said, “I simply wish to support my comrade. My pack-mate. I know I can't understand what a pack means to a wolf, but we who follow the Guardian are trying to...to emulate one. The Guardi
an takes advice from the wolf inside him, and has his alpha-female, and the rest of us follow and support them in their hunt for the enemy vessel. Like a real wolf-pack, right? Cooperating to bring down dangerous prey? Arik is integral to our pack, and even though the rest of us aren't wolves, we—“
Ninke Raunagi snorted heavily, and the girl shut her mouth. “Yes, none of you are wolves,” it said, the hot meaty gust of its breath blowing their hair back and making Arik's eyes water. “You may weave your robes of wolf-fur, you may bear wolf-blood, but you are not my children. And thus you are dinner.”
Lark took a step back, stricken, and Arik tensed. If she ran, he did not know if he could keep himself from chasing. The nightmare from the manor house replayed itself behind his eyes: his friends and comrades strewn about the yard where he had torn apart his former masters, their flesh in his gullet, their blood on his claws.
Do it, whispered his hunger. Prove yourself to the Wolf. Slay this impertinent cat, crack her bones, suck the marrow. Turn away from the weakness and corruption of the prey-spirit.
His teeth ached with the urge. The scent of her fear hung heavy, enticing, and some part of him acknowledged that he'd never much liked her. Brassy, strident, always fighting with Cob.
But she knew how to laugh, unlike some of the others. She was generous; she was bold. And she was alone too, like all of them. Cob's pack of solitaires.
He knew his choice. Fearful, bristling with quills, he skittered between her and the Great Wolf and lifted his chin defiantly. “You may swallow me, but I will be a painful morsel.”
The huge eyes blinked. “You think to challenge me, little dog-wolf?”
He hadn't, but now he realized it was the only answer. “Yes, Great One. And win or lose, you will release my friends. My foolishness brought them here; they should not suffer for it.”
The Living Throne (The War of Memory Cycle Book 3) Page 37
