Shaking his head, Cob started to speak, but broke off as he caught a faint sound from the swamp. A cry, or perhaps a wail.
“Hoi,” he said, and glanced over to see Haurah on her feet, ears perked.
It came again, in strength: a rising siren of a howl, followed by half a dozen other voices, some harsh, some ragged, some sweet as song.
In an instant, his armor was on, fur and scales crawling across his shoulders like living things. The stag-fear came with it, shrilling Wolves!, but he grimaced and planted his hooves. If it was right, he wouldn't run; he deserved their anger. And maybe he could bargain with them. Call down Raun right here so he wouldn't have to see the blood on Arik's face when he returned.
But suddenly Haurah was before him, pushing at him, her head turned toward the howls. 'Go. Flee,' she said, and the fur that covered her shoulders was stiff as needles, her eyes white-rimmed all the way around. He could feel the impression of her hands but they had no force behind them.
“Haurah, what—“ he began.
Then he saw them: low shapes in the murk, bounding closer with each heartbeat, grey and white and dun and mud-flecked, some leaping from tussock to tussock while others charged straight through the shallow water. Unevenly sized—from slim and graceful to ungainly, to huge—and in their lead a grizzled half-human figure.
Wolf-faced, white-eyed. Familiar.
It wailed again, a woman's voice gone mad, and Haurah screamed and stumbled toward him—into him. Her horror filled his mind as her manifestation winked out.
His arms wouldn't rise. His legs were stuck in brace position, and as the leader surged forward he had time for all the details: the unkempt mane of greying brown hair, the rag-like garments, the bony mass on her back, the white filaments that stiffened her fur and lengthened her claws to daggers. She was twenty years older, but still undeniably Haurah. Undeniably alive.
At her tail, the pack of stitched-up wolves and man-faced knuckle-running hounds and mad-eyed boars thundered forward, jaws wide.
She leapt at him and for an instant he saw her bone-white teeth. Then those teeth clamped to his face, crushing at the bark and ice of the helm, and he fought against Guardian-Haurah's terror in a desperate attempt to defend himself.
But she wouldn't let go.
Impact shuddered his armor as more of the pack hit his frozen form, then a great shadow rose above them all and came down on him like an avalanche. His roots snapped and he was driven down into the water, dragged, tossed, whiplashed by the jaws that clamped on his limbs—then yanked from them all by a grip on his neck, his vertebrae grating together as this captor tried to snap his spine.
Haurah, stop! he thought, but she was screaming in his head too loudly for his words to penetrate. Bark cracked beneath claws and fangs and he couldn't replace it, couldn't control it—
Terrified, he did the only thing he could: he thrust the Guardian down.
As its presence vanished, his limbs unlocked. For an instant he hung there in the grip of the wolfbeast, armor disintegrating, four different sets of teeth on his legs—and then she dropped him. His back hit the mire, skull rebounding off a gnarled root, and the half-lever he'd managed to hold onto throughout everything jolted right out of his hand.
Teeth punctured his calves, his heels, and—
“Halt,” she growled.
The jaws loosened slightly. Gasping, he fought down the urge to struggle; with their teeth still in him, he would only aggravate the damage, but he could feel the heat of their breath and the blood running up his legs in little rivers. Adrenaline quelled the pain for now; heart hammering, he fixed his gaze on her as she loomed above him.
“Little man,” she rasped. “You bear the Guardian. Bring it back out so that I might tear it from you.”
“I'd give it over, but it's not my choice. Like it wasn't yours,” he replied. His lips felt cold; he was surprised he could still talk, let alone think, but the shroud of dread he'd carried for weeks had been shaken off in her grip. “We're not friends.”
She sneered and straddled him, crouching low to inspect his face. Hers was stitched with white threads like parasitic worms, creating raised patterns under her skin and peeking out from the edges of her eyelids, her gums, her wolfish nose. A zigzag ran up one furred cheek, outlining an old scar as if sutured; within her eyeballs, fine filaments seemed to curl and flex. Her fetid breath burned his nostrils. “Are you not?”
“Not in the slightest,” he said, fixing his gaze past her shoulder. What was proper with a freesoldier might keep him alive with a wolfmonster. “It's tricked me. It's lied to me. It has your younger self inside it, and she almost jus' got me killed.”
A long, splintered claw brushed across his cheek, then trailed down to his throat. He couldn't contain his shudder. “Almost?” said living-Haurah with dark amusement.
“I can't tell you what t'do,” he hissed, “and I hurt Raun. I admit it. But we can fix it. I know you of all people wouldn't want the Guardian's touch, but...”
The wolf-woman leaned back slightly, tilting her head. Her lank hair slumped over her shoulder like a veil of moss. “Raun? What do I care about Raun? I am an outcast. This is my only pack.” She gestured back, indicating the beasts that held his legs: two grey-skinned hounds with childlike faces, a skeletal spider-thing, and a thread-covered creature with a boar's tusked snout. More lurked behind them, horrid amalgamations of flesh and fur and tendril, and the hot rank stench of filth and decay threatened to choke him.
“You're...are you a convert?” he chanced, and immediately regretted it as her claws clenched around his throat.
“I am the resistance,” she growled into his face, teeth so close he could swear he felt them. “I am the Hunter of the Swamp, and I will not be taken. Not by you, not by the Ravager, not by the wretched Outsider.”
“I didn't come for you. I didn't know—“
“No, Guardian, I tracked you.” She withdrew just enough to let him see her sneer, horrific on her half-wolf face. “I smelled your musk the moment you raised your pretty antlers. Has she lost her stomach for claws and fangs, then? Gone back to horns and hooves? No matter. You are a trespasser, and we will eat you like we eat all those who leave the road.”
“You don't wanna do that.”
“Oh, but I do.” Her yellow eyes hooded, tongue playing along her teeth. “It has been a while since we've had fresh, healthy meat. We cull the villages—kill the corruptors, their breeders and their monstrous cubs—but they are inedible, and even the pilgrims are sickly. You will make a good meal.”
“I'm here for the Ravager.”
She recoiled, her grip loosening marginally. “What do you want with him?”
“You hunted him once. I'm doin' the same—“
“Do not,” she growled. “He visits us sometimes—the vessel. He warned me not to stay here, told me that the Palace would catch me no matter where I ran, would eat me no matter how hard I fought. And he was right. He is always right.” A grin split her lips, barely distinguishable from her sneer. “He said you would come, and that I should not kill you, no matter my desires.”
Cob blinked. “What?”
“He told me to tell you to give up the sword. To leave it in the swamp, and turn around, and go home. There is no victory for you here, Guardian. Only death.”
“So you're his messenger? His ally?”
“Neither. I would see him dead.” For a moment her eyes went distant, then she shook her head. “But there are...favors between us. He brings me packmates. I bring him news. I eat his enemies, he hampers mine. And in exchange for sparing the Guardian's throat, he waives the greatest of the favors he is owed.”
With that, she half-turned to show the thing on her back. He had only glimpsed it before, but in the dying light he saw that it was a huge wolf's skull, its bleached jaw wired shut, its eye-sockets filled with white orbs like cocoons. From those orbs stretched parasitic threads that corded across her shoulders and waist and disappeared into the mangy fur of h
er back. As he watched, the bound jaws twitched as if the skull was trying to speak, and he saw her ears flick.
“My mate,” she said. “Stolen from me. Stripped bare by the Palace. Almost gone. The Ravager captured his essence, bound it to his bones, and gifted him to me. I now return the gift.”
She snapped a wordless order to her pack, and they released Cob's legs. He grunted as his heels struck turf, all the teeth-marks suddenly stinging, burning; he dared not imagine what he'd contracted from their maws. The Guardian would mend him.
He reached for the tectonic lever, only to have her clawed foot come down on his arm. Leaning low, she said, “Do not think that this is over. I will have your heart another time. For now, your fear has been enough.” Her tongue slid out, long and grey, to slither down his cheek.
Then she rose and stepped away, her monsters falling to heel, and as he propped himself up with the broken lever, he thought he recognized one. The great bear that had bashed him to the ground, its skin distorted by white knobs, its fur half-gone.
Sogan Damiel.
The crushing grip of his mistakes clenched around him again, but he gritted his teeth and pushed it away. He wasn't the only one the Guardian had used and broken, nor the only one who had foxed up. As long as he was the vessel, he had an obligation to those who'd suffered for the mission.
Closing his eyes, he pulled the armor on and felt the itch of his injuries fade. But he didn't call to the Guardian, just rose and touched the lever's broken end to the sodden earth, drawing up water, reeds and soil. He had enough experience to shape a new lever on his own, with a core made from the old: good enough to fight with but incapable of its former destruction.
He'd destroyed too much already.
The red cord would lead him back to the others. He feared to face them again, but feared more what would happen if he didn't return.
As for Haurah's message... They would have to talk.
*****
At the first hint of dusk, pale shapes flitted out from the White Road and the city beyond, their membranous wings limned silver by the setting Mother Moon and gold by her bright child. Soundless, they alit at the crests of trees then leapt again, catching on any convenient updraft in their expanding search. Glide and perch, glide and perch, a thousand insectile eyes scrutinizing the moon-stained swamp like vultures seeking a kill.
*****
It was past midnight when Cob found them. He forced himself to step into view quickly, not trusting his heart to keep from running away, and when Fiora rose with sword in hand, he almost let her hit him.
Instead he called out, “Hoi, it's me,” and she lowered the blade with a sound of relief.
“How's Arik?” he said cautiously. He could feel the skinchanger's pulse but also the miasma of pain around him, and its sickening spiritual echo.
“Not good, but not terminal,” Fiora responded. She didn't move to him, just sank into a crouch by the tree; averted, her eyes looked heavy, but swept the swamp with vigilance.
He accepted that. Perhaps their relationship would rekindle in time, but for now it was done. Instead he knelt by the wolf, who slept heavily, muzzle crusted with dried blood and a further matting of it on the dead fronds beneath his mouth. His injured side hitched with each breath, the improvised padding speckled red. “Hasn't stopped bleeding?” Cob whispered to Fiora, who shook her head.
“He's got a fractured arm too,” she said. “Hard to splint, since the rest of it's still growing back.”
Cob nodded, swallowed his knot of emotions, and set his hands on the wolf's flank. Immediately he felt the torn muscle, shattered ribs and gashed, fluid-filled lung like they were his own. The foreleg throbbed more dully in his perception, cracked in several places but preliminarily fused. He grimaced, remembering the meaty feel of that first blow; perhaps Raun had managed a moment to mend it before the rib-strike had driven them apart.
Concentrating, he reached out with his energy in the same way he'd set the cadence and blessed the hog-women. As it cycled from him into Arik, he felt broken blood-vessels pinch shut, bone-splinters disintegrate or fuse, shredded flesh restitch. The land breathed strength into him to replace what he projected, and for a moment he felt a unity with the world like never before.
Arik's paws twitched. One pale blue eye slitted open to fix on Cob. The body beneath his hands seemed to swell and shiver—not an individual creature but a patch of flesh on the hide of a titanic wolf, with teeth like trees and shoulders like thorny hillsides.
The vision vanished, and the wound in Arik's side split open again, blood spattering from his muzzle as he coughed.
“Shit,” said Cob. It didn't take the Guardian's senses to tell him his work had been undone. “Why would you— Pikin' spiteful thing. I'm sorry, Raun. Ninke Raunagi. I apologize for hurtin' you, for bein' a fool, for tryin' to touch you as the Guardian when you belong to the Ravager. Please don't hold him hostage against me. He's my friend.”
But when he touched Arik's side again, the wolf's eye stayed closed, the spirit absent.
In a panic, Cob clutched the matted fur and shook—realizing a moment late that what he'd felt was Raun leaving, not Arik. The wolf gave a ragged cough and whine, limbs twitching feebly. “I'm sorry, I'm sorry,” said Cob. “I'm so sorry...”
The wolf turned his head just enough to lick Cob's hand, then slumped into the ferns again, exhausted.
Cob sat back, trying not to see the streak of red Arik's tongue had left. If Raun meant to hurt him through the wolf, then this was certainly a success. He didn't know what to do. Keep trying and hope that Raun would eventually relent? Cut Arik away from his patron spirit? It could be done; Haurah was proof.
But he couldn't make that choice. He didn't have the right.
Instead, he extended his energy to the wolf again—but subtly, like he'd done on the trail to keep everyone pacing him. Not quite the herd-cadence, just a feeling of togetherness. No touch, just presence.
The strain in Arik's breathing eased slightly. After some time, he seemed to sleep.
Cob closed his eyes too, but to focus, not to rest. He had a duty.
Chapter 27 – Dominion
At this point in his life, Weshker felt like lurking in back-alleys should be second nature to him, but the nervous flutter in his stomach refused to abate. Maybe it was because he had snuck away from his scout troop, knowing that if they followed him, he probably wouldn't realize it.
More likely, though, it was because of her.
He'd been cooped up in his little room for days, initially incapable of leaving his bed and then just morose—feeling hateful toward the world, toward himself, and useless in all capacities. Nerice had dragged him out for daily prayers, not that he even bothered to mouth them; they scared him now, as did the temple and all the white-clad people that swarmed the camp.
This morning, he'd reluctantly pulled on his scout gear and joined his group for patrol. It was all meaningless, but Nerice had threatened to tell the Field Marshal on him, and he couldn't bear that. He never wanted to see that man or go into that cabin again.
He'd slogged through the patrol, cursing every step and each continuing heartbeat, until his troop passed the western women's section. Only then had he remembered her.
Sanava.
Now he was here, hiding in the shadows, hoping no one cared that he had gone. He didn't know why they would; even Nerice only came around twice a day now, as if his 'purification' had freed her up to deal with more important things. The rest of his troop would be off-shift, doing whatever they did in their free time.
Not ten paces ahead was the laundry-sheet that hid the women's section. He'd asked one of the matrons to send Sanava out here; he wouldn't intrude on their little haven again.
He wondered if she'd let him hug her. He dearly needed a hug. But with what he had to say, it seemed doubtful.
Hoi, Sanava. I know it's been a bit, but I done something bad...
Hoi, Sanava, you look nice, I'm sorry about last time, that
was dumb...
Hoi, Sanava, how are you? Can we still run away together? Maybe right now?
Hoi—
Something cold, narrow and sharp tucked up under his chin from behind. He stiffened, the words scattering like moths.
“What yeh want?” Sanava hissed in his ear.
He put his hands up slowly. In retrospect, it was no surprise that she would come around the barracks and approach him from the back. “I en't here for trouble,” he whispered. “I jes'... I needed t'see yeh. Yeh my only friend here.”
“Lost yeh pair of bitches, eh?” Her sneer was audible.
“They en't— I was...” He swallowed and felt the blade move with the knob of his throat. “Look, I know that was real weird. And it wasn't what I thought it was. They was jes' usin' me...”
She snorted.
“I'm serious. It was about the crows. They wanted somethin' from 'em but I jes', I couldn't do it. So they locked 'em up and—Sanava, there was this little girl, and they— I—“
The tears welled up, and he squeezed his eyes shut as if that could hold them back. For three days he'd relived that horrible moment: the Light, the altar, the little girl's fear and his own drugged compliance. Nerice had taken away all his knives, and he wasn't sure whether to be thankful or resentful that he hadn't had the chance to mutilate himself.
Maybe that was why he'd come here.
“Sanava,” he whispered, “Sanava, I hurt her. I didn't wanna, but I was scared, and I couldn't control myself. She's still there—she's still in there with him, the Field Marshal. I'm surrounded all the time, but maybe yeh could do somethin', maybe yeh could—“
The steel left his throat. Heart leaping, he started to turn—
Her fist slammed into the side of his face, the hilt gouging hard into his cheekbone.
He stumbled against the wall with a gasp. She was still behind him, and a heel took him in the back of the knee, then a knee in the kidney as he crumpled down. Then there was a hand hooked under his chin, the knee against his spine as the knife rose to stroke his throat again.
The Living Throne (The War of Memory Cycle Book 3) Page 81
