“Clear a path,” Darkhan said. “Once I pick her up, I’m just going to jump.”
“He might need help,” Tashira muttered. “Be ready to grab him.”
Gently, I nudged the unicorn away from the crevice with my muzzle. “Stand back, little sister,” I said gently. “He’s bringing her up and may need room.”
Her horn nodded once, her cheeks no longer wet. Hope loomed in her ruby eyes, her tiny ears erect and proud. She stepped daintily away from the dark hole, her gold-washed hooves striking sparks even on rock covered in snow. Satisfied she had cleared the area, I stuck my head back into the cavern.
Darkhan picked up the foal in his strong jaws. Quiet, unalarmed, she hung from his white fangs with a trust and a quiescent love that speared my heart. Her head swung backward to rub his furry cheek, like a contented cat, her ruby eyes slack and satisfied.
His haunches coiled beneath him, his tail stiff. He lowered his body close to the floor, his muzzle up, his ears flat.
“’Et ‘ack,” Darkhan commanded, his yellow eyes blazing, peering up into mine. Drool dripped from between his lips.
I obeyed him the instant he leaped.
Lunging backward, I skidded on slippery, snow-covered rock as Darkhan’s head and shoulders emerged from the crevice. His front paws clawed for purchase on rock and snow, the unicorn foal dangling, bright-eyed and curious, from his jaws. Yellow eyes wide with panic, Darkhan heaved upward, his shoulders bulging with effort. His claws dug furrows into the rock itself as his body swung into empty space beneath him. The furrows grew in length as his own solid weight became his enemy.
His shoulders dropped beneath the cavern lip, his grip on the rocks loosening. Within an instant, both he and the foal would drop back, out of sight.
Seizing his ruff as I might have gripped Tuatha’s, I bit deep, his thick coat protecting him from any real harm. In my teeth, I caught his weight against mine. Hurling all I had into reverse, I threw every considerable pound I owned into skidding, clawing, scraping my way backward, dragging Darkhan with me. My paws scratched the rocks and slippery snow, digging in deep, rigid furrows. Back and back I urged all my strength, my hind paws skidding off slippery granite, my front legs braced against a helping rock lip.
Surging ever back, clawing and scraping for every inch, I dragged Darkhan’s great weight plus one tiny unicorn away from gravity’s evil grasp. Why he didn’t spit the foal from his mouth and use that extra edge, that vital and lessened weight, to grip the rock I’ll never know. She remained, clasped between his razor-sharp fangs, quiet and happy.
Like a she-wolf birthing an ultra-large whelp, the cavern finally released him. I dragged Darkhan from the grasping maw until he lay panting for breath on his belly, his hind legs and tail hanging out into empty space.
Only then did Darkhan open his jaws and allow the tiny unicorn baby to tumble out, damp with his saliva and roll onto the stony, snow-brushed ground. I released my grip on him and backed a step from his prone body.
Before the foal shook snow from her ears and toddled to her feet, her mother brushed under my neck. Fresh tears rolled. Two tiny, shining droplets struck my paws. Like something alive, I felt them burrow under my fur and into my flesh. Faintly alarmed, I glanced down at my feet. No drops of dew rested atop my toes. Where’d they go?
The tiny foal struggled to get her recalcitrant legs to work properly. She gained her footing, only to flop to the ground as her dam licked and fretted. Errant dust, snow and any other foreign substance in the foal’s eyes, ears or muzzle died under the onslaught of the unicorn’s tongued fury.
A mother’s love is an unrivaled force of nature. This pale creature fussed over her wayward offspring, scolding, worrying, no doubt threatening dire consequences should she ever wander again. More often than not, her efforts hindered the foal’s ability to rise up, but that tiny infant managed it in the end.
“Thanks for the assist,” Darkhan murmured, standing and shaking snow and rock dust from his fur.
“Anytime,” I replied absently, feeling a very odd tingling sensation sprout from my paws and rise upwards. I shifted from one foot to the other, trying not to be obvious, hoping the movement ended the weird feeling.
It didn’t. It spread instead. Up my legs and into my chest, then further to my neck and back across my shoulders. It felt as though a million times a million tiny bugs raced and scurried just under my skin.
I shut my jaw hard when I wanted to pant in anxiety, not wanting my friends to worry or alarm the unicorn. Though somehow she had to know what was happening to me. They were her tears after all.
The tiny baby, outsized by her fierce protective mother, also shook herself, imitating Darkhan’s motion. While his settled fur into place and evicted the unpleasant additions, hers merely rattled her pale baby coat and sent a tiny cloud of dust to hang, midair. The swift winter breeze blew it away.
The bugs reached my face and spread into my ears. That really felt odd. I lowered my head and rubbed them against my leg, trying to ease the stinging itch. Down my back, over my ribs and my belly, the bugs crawled, racing, sprinting and spreading. Down my hindquarters, into my legs, tingling, itching, making me squirm. My paws twitched, convulsing, as the bugs along my spine wrangled on, into my tail. I think every hair on my tail stood out stiff, at attention.
As though reaching a high cliff and jumping off, the bugs seemed to float out the tip of my tail and vanish.
“Raine?”
“Huh?”
Tashira eyed me with concern. “Are you all right?”
I licked my lips. Darkhan hadn’t noticed a thing. Far too enchanted with the tiny unicorn he saved, he failed to see anything but her. After her pleasant shake, she butted against his grinning face, her ruby eyes glowing. Like a cat, she rubbed her body alongside his muzzle to his neck to turn and repeat on her other side. Her happy mother stood back, watching, her own eyes bright red and filled with a soft contentment.
“Raine?”
“Uh, yes,” I answered, finding a quick wag or two. “Just fine. You?”
Tashira shook his ears, not convinced. “I’m just glad things worked out. Who’d have thought a wolf would save a baby unicorn?”
“Yes,” the unicorn said, turning those sparkling jewels on me, her voice like sweet music. “These are strange days when in my most dire need I turn to enemies and find in them friends.”
“Wolves were never your enemies, little sister,” Tashira said. “Only those who carry evil with them count as your foes.”
“I’d never eat a unicorn,” Darkhan added, lying down with the foal between his front legs.
She proceeded to butt him onto his side. He obliged her, laughing, as she climbed his ribcage and stood atop her furry mountain in triumph. “I’d rather face starvation than harm such a delightful creature.”
“But we are hunted.”
I’d nothing to say to that. Even as a gladiator, I’d heard tales of men who sold everything they owned to buy the gear necessary to hunt the fabled unicorn. While I doubt many succeeded, there were those who died while trying. As well as the many who claimed to have brought home the wondrous horn of the unicorn they’d slain.
Tashira dropped his huge head on level with hers. “You are, indeed, hunted. You have also many means to stay alive. Very few of your kind are killed, madam, for you, as a species, are both wise and cunning.”
Those dark garnet orbs lit with amusement. “You are quite correct, young Tarbane. Someday, times will change and we will never be hunted again. Nor will your kind.”
“I will pray for such times.”
For a long moment, she stared deep into Tashira’s great, soft eyes, as though communing with him on some deep level. Nor did he move, never blinking, his mane brushing the snow-capped stones. The storm’s flurries had worsened, snowflakes falling thicker and heavier, hurried by a chilling wind. White crested Tashira’s neck and body, tufting his ears while the unicorn had all but vanished into the swirling mist. Only her eyes remained, floating r
ed rubies hanging in mid-air.
At length, Tashira slowly extended his right foreleg. As he had with Ly’Tana, he lowered his face to his knee, hiding his eyes, his long lengths of mane coiling up on the snow-covered ground. He bowed to the tiny unicorn facing him.
Her single horn dipped in acknowledgement.
As he rose, she called to her baby in what I surmised to be unicorn language. Not quite a whinny, yet a more guttural sound, it still sounded musical to my ears. I think I could have spent my entire life sitting silent, listening, mesmerized by that sweet sound.
The foal leaped from Darkhan’s ribs, stumbled, cascaded headfirst into the snow. Up again, her eyes wide and laughing, she galloped on spindly legs to her mother’s side.
Darkhan rolled onto his belly. “You mind your mama now,” he said. “No more adventuring for you, until you’re older.”
“I will,” she answered, her minuscule voice as easy on the ears as her mother’s.
“Promise me?”
“I promise.”
With her daughter at her side, the unicorn stared hard at Darkhan. “Young wolf,” she said. “Come here.”
He obeyed, rising to his feet, covered in snow and dirt. With his tail low and his eyes glowing bright, he paced slowly toward her. Then he lowered his head in submission as though he approached his pack leader.
In a move delicate yet firm, she brought her single horn down. Its point, possibly as sharp as a steel-tipped arrow, tapped him lightly between the ears. Darkhan shivered as though chilled, his shoulders hunched. I suspected something passed between them. Just as something passed between her and Tashira.
Her daughter looked on, her own budding horn nothing but a tiny bump over her eyes. With a nudge, the unicorn urged her daughter to follow as she turned, both all but invisible in the approaching darkness and swirling snowfall.
Darkhan raised his head to watch as mother and daughter walked away. “Goodbye,” he murmured. “Look after yourself, child.”
The smaller unicorn paused. “Goodbye,” her tiny voice emerged in a sweet melody amid the whispering wind. “I’ll never forget you.”
The adult also stopped. Yet, she didn’t turn her head to look at Darkhan. Those garnet eyes looked at me. They looked through me.
“Fare thee well on thy quest, gai-tan,” she said.
“But,” I began, uncertain why she blessed me. “I didn’t do anything.”
“You have,” she answered. “More importantly, you will. I have marked you.”
“Um,” I began, my paws skidding on snow as I sat down hard and hurt my tail.
“Where ever you are,” she said. “I can find you.”
Had any other voice spoken those words, I might find them threatening. Yet, in her musical voice, the voice that struck me dumb with wonder and delight, I could, would, never find worry or alarm.
She dipped her horn once, twice, thrice. “We shall meet again.”
Taking her daughter with her, the unicorn paced away, her thickly white tail concealing her tracks. The youngster gazed up, rapt, as the elder spoke down, her soft words lost amid the rapidly howling winter wind. Of what did they speak?
In the last, I saw them, side by side, walking away. Within the next instant, only the wind-whipped snow, waving thickets and grey-white boulders marked where they’d been. No scent of them remained, nor any tracks. As though utilizing Rygel’s magic, they disappeared.
The snow swallowed them up.
Rygel’s Payback
Chapter 8
Four of us peered down into the busy valley below, hidden behind sheltering rocks.
Kel’Ratan, Rygel, Silverruff and me watched the hectic camp in our direct path; a bee-hive, industrious and active with working men. Hovels and tents lined the muddy lanes, people leading laden donkeys or mules, or driving beasts in harness. Many ducked into or emerged from the wood-framed caverns delved into the hillside.
“A mining camp,” Rygel explained. “Miners seeking gold, probably working outside the Khalidian laws.”
“Do you think they’d know about us?” Kel’Ratan asked. He jerked his chin toward me. “About her?”
Silverruff growled. I’d long given up asking for a translation. By now, Rygel and Arianne automatically offered an interpretation before I asked. Occasionally, one forgot and forced me to, with a long-suffering sigh, to ask what the wolf said. This time, anyway, Rygel paid attention.
“He said there’s no way around them.”
I, forced to agree, eyed the steep mountainsides rising to either side of the valley. Should we try to avoid the camp below, we must first climb the steep slopes above, a treacherous endeavor for even the bravest heart.
“He’s right,” Kel’Ratan admitted. “We could go back the way we came a few leagues and go around this valley, but–”
“We’d lose days,” I said tersely. “Days we don’t have.”
“Exactly,” Rygel said. “We have to go down there.”
I bit my thumbnail. The wolves could do it. Their paws might cling where our horses’ hooves would slide. If they travelled above and out of sight, we humans and our pack animals might pass through. If we offered the miners enough bribes, anyway. They may not know Brutal wanted us, or that I was his runaway bride.
Rygel only shrugged, and bit his thumb as I did. “If they operate outside the law, they’d only bring trouble upon themselves should they report seeing us.”
“And if they’re legit?” Kel’Ratan demanded.
Rygel shrugged. “Then someone would ride through the mountains to inform Brutal we were there. By the time that rider reached him, and his hunters rode here, we’d be long gone and our trail cold.”
“You hope.”
Rygel bared his teeth in a wolfish snarl. “Hope is all we have.”
That decided me. I cupped Silverruff’s lower jaw to stare deep into his brown eyes. “You lead them,” I said softly. “Take them over the mountains. Meet us on the far side of that high peak there, just to our north.”
Silverruff glanced over his shoulder, his muzzle still held by my hand, and back again. He whined, low.
“He said he’d rather be here, to protect you.”
I rubbed my nose against his cold black one. “We might pass, calling ourselves miners or merchants,” I replied, my face against his, my eyes delving deep into those amber-brown depths. “If you boys were with us, well, the hunt, they say, is on.”
Silverruff grumbled. I chuckled, not needing a translation. “I’ll be safe enough. Bar will fly high, unseen. Between him and my boys, I’m protected. Those silly miners wouldn’t stand a chance.”
Silverruff sighed. Kissing my cold cheek, he turned and galloped back downhill where the rest of my gang waited. I glanced back down at the muddy camp. “Let’s just ride on down there,” I said slowly. “Without any guise or explanation. If we’re recognized, so be it. If not, then we simply pass on by and leave them to their toil.”
“Might they be armed, Rygel?” Kel’Ratan asked.
“Poorly, if at all,” Rygel said. “From here, I don’t see any horses, just donkeys, mules and oxen. If they heard rumors of Brutal’s hunt for us, they may not even care. Gold is all they crave.”
“Federate coin is still gold,” Kel’Ratan muttered as he followed me back down the hill.
Reaching the rest of my boys, I arrived in time to see the wolves melt into the undergrowth. I reckoned Arianne had translated the reason for the disappearance, for no one tried to call them back. Off her flashy Rufus and seated on a granite boulder, Arianne held Tuatha in her lap while she fed him pieces of dried beef. He’d grown much in the last few weeks, and his jaws were now strong enough to chew his meat. The mush bag had long been discarded. He certainly could eat on his own without being babied. But ‘twas hard to tell Arianne that. She didn’t want him to grow up, I suspected.
Saddle girths loosened, Witraz, Alun and Rannon fed the horses grain as Tor unpacked our midday meal. Yuri and Yuras helped by building a small
fire and hanging a small pot of water to boil for hot broth. The twins stood to either side of the camp, on watch, guarding against potential enemies. Although how Brutal might find us in this high altitude wilderness, I couldn’t begin to guess.
Without the wolves, the camp seemed empty. I’d grown used to their separating into smaller packs to hunt. Often some stayed behind to lie around and nap, or play games with their human friends. When one pack returned, full and satisfied, another departed to find their meals. That way, their voracious appetites didn’t diminish our precious stores of food. Often, we set up camp in the late afternoon to allow my boys to accompany their wolves on the hunt. While the wolves fed, they brought back game to roast for our evening supper. The deer, elk or feral cow hides we rolled up and packed away in case we needed them later.
The warm fur and hide garments Li’s people made for us proved a blessing. No amount of icy wind penetrated the thick skins, no frigid snow or damp rain soaked into the well-oiled surfaces. More comfortable than I’d have thought, I never missed the freedom of my simple Kel’Hallan leathers.
The tents Li gave us also proved invaluable. Snug and warm against the cruelest mountain storm, the charcoal braziers we lit inside each one kept humans and wolves quite comfortable through each chilly night. The horses, having grown thick coats in a remarkably short time, never seemed to mind the icy wind.
Only Bar suffered.
Cave-dwellers, griffins didn’t ordinarily hang about in frigid winds. Too big to enter a tent, Bar’s short lion coat didn’t grow or thicken as the horses’ did. The bitter cold bit deep into his body. With extra hides, I helped sew a large heavy fur blanket together to cover him, keeping the chill out and his body warmth in. Several fires, fed by every watch, also defeated the winter wind as they encircled his body. Between them and the heavy blanket, Bar withstood the savage drop in temperatures at night in relative comfort.
“What’s the plan?” Kel’Ratan asked as I sat down beside the fire. Well-covered, my butt didn’t feel the chill of the snow I sat upon beside the licking flames.
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