“No.” I shook my head. “I don’t think so. I’m just cold, that’s all.”
“Double the watch,” Kel’Ratan ordered. “Two men, two wolves, each pair flanking us.”
Selected for the first watch, Rannon and Shadow stood ready, expectant. Kel’Ratan gestured toward Witraz and Joker. Witraz nodded and rose with his Joker, laughing, at his side. Left and Right would share the second watch, Dire and Lightfoot with them. Alun and Black Tongue, with Tor and Kip, received the third watch.
“Did you see anything out there?” I asked Bar.
Under his furs, highlighted by the fires, Bar swiveled his eagle’s head toward me. “Don’t be insulting,” he snapped, irritated. “Don’t you think that if I had, I’d have told you?”
That didn’t melt the ice in my bones. I glanced up at Raine. “Will you sleep in my tent with me? With us?” I nodded my head toward Arianne and Tuatha, drowsing, in her lap.
His big hand stroked my hair, my cheek. “There’s not enough room,” he replied softly. “But I’ll sleep just outside. Thunder and Digger will be there keeping you warm.”
I glanced toward my tent, the braziers softly glowing behind the crack in the flap and their fires warming the interior. While I quelled my disappointment, I knew he’d turn wolf and sleep, warm within his pelt, between me and the fire. His black bulk lay within an arms-length from my pallet. His huge wolf body separated me and any danger that lurked in the darkness of the winter night.
I slept fitfully, dropping into restful slumber only to wake in the night, chased by dark dreams. An hour before dawn, I gave up trying to sleep and sat up. Raking my fingers through my knotted hair, I glanced at Arianne’s form, huddled under her heavy furs. If my tossing and muttering in the night bothered her, I couldn’t tell. I doubted my restlessness disturbed her, for she was a sound sleeper.
The charcoal braziers gave off no light and little heat. Still, Thunder, lying between me and the tent flap, and Digger, sleeping between Arianne and me, kept the tent tolerably warm. They both woke when I sat up, blinking at me, their eyes half-shut. Pulling on my boots and my heavy fur jacket I murmured, “It’s early. Go back to sleep.”
Tuatha also woke. Grumbling at the disturbance, he rose long enough to stretch. Then he crawled under furs covering Arianne. Curling himself into a dark ball, he resumed his interrupted slumber. A morning wolf, he certainly wasn’t.
Snow slid off the tent to land with a soft flump as I stepped out. The chill air forced me to catch my breath and reconsider the wisdom of lying in my warm bed for a while longer. I’m already up. I closed the tent flap and its warmth inside. Snatching an elk hide, I shook snow from it and wrapped it over my shoulders and head, stepping around Raine’s massive body beside the fire.
I eyed him carefully, hoping I wouldn’t wake him as well. He lay silent, curled into a black, furry mound dusted with snow, his tail flipped over his muzzle. He didn’t stir, yet I sensed his thoughts. He woke the moment I did and feigned he hadn’t. He knew I’d fret over rousing him when he needed the rest, and he knew I knew he lay awake.
Adding wood to the fires the watch kept alive all night, I held my hands to the flames to warm them. Last night’s storm dropped fresh, new snow to cover the tents, the meadow and the horses’ backs. Raine’s warm body and the fires melted most of what had landed on him. Bar, in his center of the fires, slept on, his covering furs damp yet free of snow.
Too cold to sit, Tor paced about with Kip at his side at the northern most spot of our camp. With his sword belted at his hip and his bow and quiver on his back, he took his watch seriously. Over the distance, I heard his voice as he spoke to Kip, but in leaving his boyhood behind, he didn’t forget his duties and play with his wolf as a boy might once have done.
Alun and Black Tongue also paced about, occasionally walking amid the horse and mule herd, checking them over. Then he resumed his gaze out and away from the firelight that might inhibit his night’s vision.
“Go back to sleep,” I murmured. “I’m fine.”
I heard his brief sigh. Raine said nothing, his breathing remained deep and even, as though caught in a deep slumber. While he may pretend he slept, I felt his consciousness like the weight of tiny moths on my skin. Despite my assurance to the contrary, he worried. I hunkered over the fire, staying warm.
I watched the sun rise, majestic and powerful, filling the sky with first purple and pink; last night’s storm trailing away on wisps of grey cloud. Suddenly, liquid rays of white and gold shot over the horizon. While I knew they held little strength in them over the chill morning air, I felt warmer just looking at their bright glory.
As though summoned by a bell, sleepers tumbled out of tents, yawning, stretching, inhaling the icy mountain air and huddling beside the warm fires. Alun, Black Tongue, Kip and Tor wandered back into camp, rubbing hands over the fires while tails wagged. Awake before Arianne, Tuatha emerged from our tent, his jaws wide and his pink tongue dangling to his knees. After a colossal arched-back stretch, he ducked under Raine’s muzzle, forcing it up and Raine’s eyes to open. Bar dropped his protective furs to the ground as he, too, rose under the light of the new sun and yawned.
Facing the east, at the bluff that protected us from the storm, I shut my eyes, and basked in the warm rays of the winter sun. I lifted my face, feeling the dark dreams of the past night drop from me and new strength return to my cold bones. With a new day came a new hope.
Opening my eyes, I fastened my gaze on the clifftop above.
Revealed in the dancing rays of the newly risen sun, the figure of a man on the hilltop showed up clearly. I stood slowly, the spit in my mouth drying to dust.
With the sun behind him, he was difficult to identify. Until the dark panther slid, long tail swinging idly side to side, to stand at his side and gaze below. The sun winked from the silver chain about her neck.
“To arms,” I said.
The sleepy movement of the wakening camp halted at my soft command. Raine rose behind me, huge, imperious, his breath warm on my neck as he, too, gazed upward at the intruder. His low growl vibrated not just my ears but the very earth beneath my feet. Eyes sleep-encrusted yet alarmed, Arianne crawled from under the tent behind me, Thunder and Digger at her heels. As I had, she didn’t sleep in the heavy fur jacket, but held it in her hand. Stepping on her own hair, she rose from her knees to her feet, draped in black. Digger peered upward from beneath their jet lengths, his lips curled back to reveal very white, very sharp fangs.
Rygel bolted toward us, pulling on his own coat and buckling his swordbelt, Little Bull at his hip. His wheaten mane, snarled and matted from the long hours of sleep, bounced off his shoulders and neck as he ran. Kel’Ratan cursed once before biting it off. He seized his sword and bow from his tent, swiftly buckling one about his hips before nocking the other.
“Saddle the horses,” he ordered tersely as my boys seized weapons, waking from their sleep-induced torpor instantly.
“It’s much too late for that,” I said.
“You are so very right, Princess,” Tenzin said, his voice rolling down the hill like a minor avalanche. “You’re surrounded by my hunters and their hounds.”
His voice rose an octave in genial good humor. “Oh, and good morrow to you, Your Highness. I trust you slept well?”
“Well enough, thank you,” I replied. “And you?”
“Very well indeed, thank you for asking.”
“What do you want?” I asked, not really expecting a reply but hoping for a few more precious moments.
“Please, Your Highness,” he replied, pained. “Have a care for my intelligence. You know what I want.”
“You can’t have him.”
“Are you so certain?”
I sensed Rygel behind me, furious, ready to expel all the magic at his disposal up the hillside to turn the man at the top into cinders. I flicked my hand, stilling him, silencing them all who craved the blood of the man above us. Raine’s immense form behind my shoulder couldn’t war
m the chill I felt at the sight of the lone Tongu commander. I knew he planned this moment all along. He’d never show himself unless he had the edge. His plan included all our deaths, not just Rygel’s.
“Give him to me,” Tenzin said, his tone warm. “Surrender him and the rest of you shall live. You can continue your quest to free the wolf god from his prison. After that, you can return to Kel’Halla and marry your love and raise all the wolflings you desire.”
I quirked a brow. “Should I refuse?”
Tenzin tsked. “You know the answer to that, Princess. You embarrass me by forcing me to answer such a ridiculous question.”
“My apologies, Lord Tenzin,” I said, feigning a humbleness I didn’t feel. “I merely wish to clarify things.”
“If you must be clarified,” Tenzin sighed, irritated. “I’ll kill all and still have the murderer Rygel in my hands. Surrender him, and we’ll go our separate ways.”
“Hmmm,” I murmured, my voice low, my eyes downcast. “You appear to be acting against His Majesty’s wishes. I know he wants me, Prince Raine and Princess Arianne alive and unharmed. You swore to deliver us to him.”
“I’d be safer offending Brutal than I would Oanh’ata.”
“Who’s Oanh’ata?”
“He whom we worship,” Tenzin answered, his right hand gracefully gesturing. “He’s our god.”
His motion brought our attention to the hill behind us. Without turning from him fully, I glanced up, Raine’s head also turning to look past his own heavy shoulder. On the hilltop stood the serpent-daemon we’d defeated in the desert. Its dark, sinuous shape shimmered and shifted like an inky cloud while its evil cat’s eyes bore into my own, freezing my blood. Its wings unfolded from its back, sweeping wide and shading the entire hilltop in dense black.
Bright sunlight died upon that hill. An early falcon, its shrill cry, chirk-chirk-chirk, breaking the silence, winged up and past it. Yet, it’s wings carried it across the edge of the monster’s jet shadow. Clearing the monster’s darkness, the falcon soared upward, several hundred feet above the daemon. It dipped its right wing. Oddly silent, the small falcon folded its wings and dropped straight down as though stooping upon prey. A mere foot above the snow, its veered sharp left and slammed into a boulder. Feathers burst up and out in a brief shower of bone and blood.
I caught my breath, horrified.
“That bird just killed itself,” Kel’Ratan said, his tone low and cold.
“Witness Oanh’ata’s power,” Tenzin intoned grandly.
Behind the evil serpent, dark clouds built and gathered, piling like dense thunderheads atop each other. Thunder rumbled, dim with distance, as lightning flickered deep within their depths.
“You worship a daemon, Tenzin?” Rygel snapped. “I always knew your people were stupid, but really.”
“That’s Lord Tenzin to you, bastard,” Tenzin hissed.
“Spare me.”
“Oanh’ata is the source of all our power,” Tenzin said, his tone lofty. “Through him we can hunt anyone anywhere. We found you–”
His arms widened to encompass the high mountains around us. “–in all this wilderness. Oanh’ata has known exactly where you are, every step of the way.”
“So that’s how they keep finding us,” Kel’Ratan muttered. “Their daemon pal.”
“And why we sense their evil,” I said, remembering only too well the sensation of being watched in the woods as Rygel healed the critically injured Raine. We’d been watched, all right, that day. By the eyes of the Tongu daemon king.
“Pity we didn’t kill it in the desert,” Kel’Ratan muttered.
“You’ve not the power to slay Oanh’ata,” Tenzin snorted.
“We did defeat it,” I said slowly. “What we accomplished once, we can again.”
“Don’t be so foolish to rely on luck, Princess,” the Tongu Captain-General replied. “You got lucky. It won’t happen again.”
“Luck had nothing to do with it,” Rygel snarled.
“Don’t bother trying your magic, either, bastard,” Tenzin said coldly. “Or you, Wolf. Through Oanh’ata, we’re impervious to your powers.”
“We’ll just see about that,” Rygel replied with a nasty grin.
“Surrender peacefully, and the others shall live, Rygel. Do you wish them to die because of you?”
“The only ones to die here today will be you and the offal you call hunters.”
“We also know how ineffectual you Kel’Hallans are without your horses,” Tenzin said, genial. “On foot, you’re as helpless as kittens. My hunters will be upon you before you can saddle them.”
As he spoke, the Tongu assassins emerged from hiding. At least fifty, at my swift count, with huge brindled hounds at heel. Surrounding us, they broke from over the hilltops and from behind boulders, stepping out from beneath the massive wings of their daemon-god. All armed with swords, cudgels, bows. I strongly suspected he had more hidden in reserve.
Tenzin’s observation, while true in many respects, wasn’t exactly spot on. While Tenzin and I exchanged pleasantries, my boys seized weapons, buckled on swords, hung quivers of arrows over their backs. I didn’t allow myself to consider why he permitted us to arm ourselves. In those precious moments we stole, his assassins could have easily launched their arrows and mown down no few of us. Many others were close enough to charge inside our camp and begin swinging either swords or cudgels.
Tenzin watched my people buckle sword-belts and nock arrows to bows, yet sounded no command to attack. He merely grinned, his arrogance and confidence not shifting one bit. That meant he had something up his sleeve, an ace he refused to show. I narrowed my eyes.
Bar launched himself into the air, strangely enough without his usual defiant scream. His great wings beating strongly, he gained altitude, banking up and over our heads. The icy wind from his passage bit deep into my face and hands. Swiping my hair from my face, I noticed Tenzin’s face tilted back slightly, still smiling, as though he admired Bar’s graceful body winging high overhead.
Lightning shot from the evil eyes of the Tongu daemon-god.
Twin forks struck Bar, engulfing him in green flames.
His scream of agony drowned mine.
The green fire withered and disappeared. I caught my breath, my heart still crying aloud in grief and horror at the sight of Bar high above. The lightning hadn’t killed him straight off, yet he could still plummet into a fatal fall from the sky. Bar’s powerful wings kept him airborne as his flight pattern grew erratic. He dropped earthward several rods before catching himself, his wings beating in frantic discord with one another. Eagle’s beak wide, his fierce raptor’s eyes blank, he clawed the air not just with his wings but his front talons as well. His long, black-tipped tail swung from side to side, tipping him from side to side like a rudderless ship on the high seas.
Around me, my warriors cursed and shouted encouragement to my griffin. Had Tenzin commanded his men to charge, I couldn’t have taken my eyes from the sight of my friend trying vainly to fly and survive. Raine’s massive black body brushed against me, offering support, yet I dared not reach for him. If I did, Bar would drop like a stone, I just knew it.
“Stay with it!” Kel’Ratan yelled. “Stay up there.”
“You can do it,” Arianne cried from beside me. “You can do it.”
Bar’s altitude lessened with each erratic circle, yet if he could control his wings for a few more precious moments, he might land well within camp and safety. Straining, his head back, his back arched like an angry cat, he cupped his wings. One, two, then three semi-strong back-wings dropped him to all four legs amid the horse herd. He toppled sideways and lay still.
“You might consider surrendering now,” Tenzin boomed cheerfully from on high.
His laughing voice caught me before I ran to my fallen friend. I wheeled about, snarling. “Never.”
He gestured toward Bar with a negligent hand. “There’re no stout stone walls to protect you here, Princess,” he said. �
�Your wolf army is disbanded. You’ve been caught flat-footed without your horses. And now I neutralized your griffin. Save yourselves and hand the bastard over to me.”
I glanced swiftly about my boys, ready for battle with or without their mounts. Witraz glared up at Tenzin, his one eye burning with hate and rage. Joker, beside him, laughed no more but growled deep in his throat at the brindled hounds. He waited for the word that would launch him straight at them. Alun’s bow creaked audibly over the muted sounds of wolfish growls and muttered curses. His nocked arrow pointed straight at Tenzin’s chest. At this range, he’d never miss.
Rygel watched me. I read his amber eyes, the anguish he felt. Any one of my boys might die to protect him and I knew he knew the sacrifice wasn’t worth it. I or Raine or even his beloved Arianne might be killed in this battle, a battle where the odds stood against us. Let me go, his eyes said. Save yourselves.
Turning, I smiled up at Tenzin.
“Your griffin will live,” Tenzin said to me. “Oanh’ata spared his life as a gesture of goodwill. We’ve no wish to kill you. All we want is the bastard.”
Silence dropped like a stone as the wolves and hounds ceased their ripping growls. My boys stopped their mutters and curses, as though they waited for my decision. Raine, at my back, went as still and silent as a stalking shadow. I felt nothing from his aura save a fierce hunger and a savage pride. He’d already read my mind.
As had Arianne.
The only one who moved, Arianne handed me my weapons she no doubt fetched from our tent. Not daring to take my eyes from Tenzin, I buckled on my sword, hung my quiver over my shoulder and seized my bow in my left hand.
Tenzin’s face froze as he finally realized what my smile meant.
“Kiss my ass.”
“Stupid bitch.”
Shardon and Tashira in the lead, our horses suddenly swung into action. Like a pine knot exploding in a fire, our war horses galloped toward us. Rufus and Mikk, ears forward and eyes bright, zeroed in on Arianne and I. As though reading the intent before the action, Arianne seized Tuatha in her arms the instant Rygel grabbed her. He threw her aboard Rufus’s bare back, where she snatched a handful of thick black mane. Her other arm, tight around Tuatha’s middle, kept him clasped to her. I knew Rufus would protect her, yet I bit my lip, worrying that her new horsemanship skills didn’t include bareback riding.
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