With the horrid deaths of both soldiers and Tongu, no one else dared come forward into the cleared space about me. Both my weapons dripped gore, and I panted with exertion. Like frightened sheep, the survivors of the clash clung to one another, whispering, eyes revealing their whites. Their fingers failed to hide the sign against great evil.
Of the small pack of men who had yet to brave my rage, only two more tried to take me down. Between them, they found intelligence enough to seize the dropped net and rush forward. With one to each side, they lifted the netting, and their expressions gleamed bright with triumph. For weren’t they heroes to have captured me at last? There I stood, dumb and happy, and all they had to do was drop the damn thing over my head.
They staggered, screaming, as the metal mesh burned their hands. The net glowed a dull red, smoking hot as though just recently pulled from the furnace that created it. The soldiers dropped it, unfortunately onto the bodies of both the dead and the not so lucky. Those men who hadn’t yet found their way to their gods screamed anew as the smoking metal burned its way into their flesh.
The poor soldiers cupped their burned hands and gaped at me, in no less than shocked surprise. I almost laughed.
“Fire is my specialty, boys,” I said.
As they stared at me, eyes bugged out with pain and panic, I sent twin bolts of fire into their chests. They burned from the inside, their choked shrieks rapidly cut off as the fire found its way into their lungs and throats. Their purple and gold uniforms melted into their blackening skin, their smoked legs unable to hold them up any longer. Fortunately for their still-living brethren, they fell onto their faces, twitching in tiny spasms, before finally expiring.
This was almost too easy.
“What?” I called. “No one else wants to play?”
Brutal’s finest declined my invitation.
A bow whispered across the moaning and screaming of the dying and the wounded. I whipped my head up, searching for and finding the Tongu with the bow the same instant his arrow hit me.
As at the Jefe Monastery, the Tongu’s aim was poor. His arrow struck me low in my belly, on my left side, and hung there quivering. My daemon felt no pain.
I did, however.
Snarling, I swung my sword down and out, slicing off the shaft.
The assassin was too far away to kill with either my sword or my cudgel. Consumed by rage, screaming incoherently, I forgot my bolts of fire. Instead, I bent low and picked up a large stone. With all my weight and fury behind it, I flung it, hard and fast. Perhaps even some of my magic went into the throw. Its impact sent the assassin flying backward several feet, the stone lodged between his eyes. His body twitched spasmodically for a moment or two before decently lying still.
Yet, my enemies backed off, leaving behind their dead, wounded, and screaming comrades in arms. I stood amid the carnage, waiting, ready, my boots treading on the reddened soil, my sword and club dripping. As ever, I shunted the new pain to the back of my head and grinned. I invited them with my raised blade and my left fingers beckoning. Come on, boys. Our dance isn’t over.
Khalidian soldiers and Tongu assassins glanced at one another, uneasy. None stepped up to the plate. I spat my loathing into the blood mix at my boots. If one man can hold off an entire Khalidian platoon, plus noxious assassins and their mutts, Brutal hadn’t lost anything worthwhile.
A dozen, two dozen bodies, more, lay on the stony soil, their blood soaking the thirsty ground. Another fifteen or more screamed, moaned, cried for the help that never came. No few tried to staunch their own wounds, floundering helplessly in the dirt. I heard curses and prayers abound.
Spinning my sword, I shed its blade of excess blood and gore. Bending slowly, keeping a wary eye on my enemies, I carefully cleaned it on the clothing of a soldier at my feet and sheathed it. The Khalidians and the few Tongu remaining backed off from me, pointing their weapons uselessly and their mouths working without sound. With deliberation, I cocked my head first to the left then the right and rolled my shoulders. Tight muscles relaxed at the same moment stiff bones popped in my neck. Ahh, much better. Easing cramped muscles, I stuck my thumbs in my swordbelt and waited for their next move.
Politely, they chose to not make me wait long.
“Loose the hounds!” a voice screamed above the din.
“Oh, sure,” I said, my booted toe nudging a corpse’s pale hand closer to its former owner. “Make your mutts do your dirty work for you.”
Tongu hands unleashed their hounds from hell.
Seven huge brindled, grizzled, slavering hounds leaped across the hardpan of the plain. Lips skinned back, fangs gleamed under the faint light. Paws flung dirt up in clouds behind them in a huge wake. Like a furry tidal wave, they bore down on me, believing me helpless against their combined weight and fangs.
“Say goodbye to your friends,” I called.
In my black wolf body, I didn’t wait to meet the onrushing hounds. Snarling, my own fangs bared, I lunged in.
I took the lead hound down in a flurry of legs and hair; my jaws broke its neck with both ease and speed. I leaped over its sinking corpse, to catch a second under the throat. With a sharp snap, I wrung his heavy neck as easily as a peasant wife slays a chicken. In disdain, I flung its heavy body over my shoulder. Oh, that leaves five more fools begging for trouble.
Braver than their masters, the hounds closed in. From all sides they attacked, two to the front and the remaining seeking my vitals from both sides and the rear. In their minds, I hadn’t a hope of surviving this assault.
Oh, please.
I couldn’t fight them all at once, they reasoned. As much as hounds might reason, of course. I spun about, slashing, snarling. I cut one across his shoulder, then twisted in mid-air to sink my teeth into a sensitive Tongu ear. Under the shrill ki-yi-yi-yi of an injured pup, it jerked from my grip. Jolly good. Whirling, my teeth met that of a huge hound. He sought to rip me up, but instead I mashed his jaws together and crunched. He screamed through a mangled mouth, unable to fight any longer. I ignored him, permitting him to stagger out of the battle.
Thus distracted, the rest hoped to find me vulnerable. One sank its fangs into my thick ruff, biting hard, seeking my vulnerable throat. At the same moment, the others closed in.
I leaped sideways, carrying the mutt with me. They snapped and snarled at one another, crashing into a furry, brindled heap. They missed me. Using my obvious weakness as an open invitation, I left my right flank exposed to their attack.
They rushed in, joyous, tongues lolling and tails high. They had me now. I transported myself, and my new friend, several rods away, clear of the fighting and corpses. The Tongu hounds hit, and went down. In a tangle of fur and rage, they broke free from one another to regroup, snarling. Their teeth gleamed white under the newly risen moon.
You’re a rotten bugger, I thought, trying to shake the mutt loose. He clung, like a well-trained ivy on the wall, desperately chewing my fur.
“Dammit.”
I was far larger and heavier than the hound. I reared high, exposing my belly, the hound still clinging by his teeth, lifted off his paws. Slashing my fangs around, I caught the hound by its meaty shoulder and yanked it from my ruff. It snapped and snarled as I drove it downward, under me, my weight pinning it solidly to the stony soil. My fangs shattered its spine. I left it to live on for a few more moments, wriggling helplessly in the dirt, unable to voice its agony. Yet, it still screamed without sound. Didn’t a certain young she-wolf cry out in such a fashion?
The remaining four hounds, either smarter or more cautious than their fellows, circled about me, hoping to catch me between them. Each stayed well away from the other. In order to face one, I left my rear exposed to another. They sought to hamstring me, cripple me, and leave me fighting on three legs. I spun about, keeping them all at bay. My bared fangs, tremendous size and sheer ferocity kept them cautious, careful. They learned well the lesson of the teeth Shardon had so admired.
Another arrow whizzed
past my face to sink, quivering, into the rocks at my feet. A second and a third whistled past my head. Their aim…I almost shook my head in mock despair.
A hound sought to take advantage of my momentary distraction the arrows caused. He lunged in while I ducked instinctively as yet another arrow buzzed past my muzzle. I leaped and whirled in the same movement, catching him by his throat. Lifting his body high, three more arrows struck him as I held him in midair. I let his body drop, his death throes leaving strange tracks in the dust.
A fifth hound foolishly rushed in, perhaps thinking I was distracted. Between his bared teeth and his weird chuffing noise, no doubt he hoped to confuse me further. I wasn’t much confused. Or impressed. He closed the distance, well within the range I needed. I half-reared, my body curving outward and downward. He sought my vulnerable belly while my jaws closed over his head.
His skull broke asunder within my fangs, the crunching sound loud in the near silence.
I flung his corpse from me with a contemptuous snarl.
The surviving two hounds backed away, their stiff tails tucked between their legs. Both Tongu assassins and Khalidian soldiers stood back, close to their leaping fires, their bows drawn and arrows nocked. None of them appeared ready to fight. I scented their fear, their terror. I recognized an army faced with a superior force and unwilling to commit to a battle. Should I lunge to the attack, I might yet send them fleeing.
“Time to go, don’t you think?”
My blood rage had long since spent itself. I panted, my fur dripping gore, my flank a white-hot point of agony. My neck, where the hound had bitten me, sang its own song of pain. The stench of blood, of shit and piss and vomit and of death assaulted my nostrils. The dead, the dying, the wounded lay everywhere, their spilled blood black under the dim light of the moon and the dying flames. Moans and dim screams still rose upward, but as though from a far distant place.
My inner daemon had long-since drank of enough blood to satisfy him, returned to his sleep deep within me.
My enemies feared to come within a hundred rods of me, and watched me with white-ringed eyes.
The silver-grey wolf’s warm eyes gazed once more into mine. “I love you, Chosen One,” she had said. “I forgive you.”
I killed her. I killed her innocence. Through me, she found nothing but agony and hate and death.
I threw back my head and howled.
I cast up and out a long, grief, heart-wrenching howl of an agony, not of the body, but of the soul.
My enemies backed even further from me, fearing my rage, my fangs. They feared my wrath more than Brutal’s promise of crucifixion as the price of their failure. Perhaps they, too, would desert, and find a safer and a more healthy way of earning a living. The assassins recalled the surviving mutts with sharp whistles, and kept the remaining hounds on their tethers. Perhaps they were unwilling to sacrifice any more of their dogs in yet another futile effort to bring me down.
Hiding my emotional and physical agonies, I lunged forward a short distance. My forelegs stiff, my fangs bared in a silent evil snarl, I foretold their very short futures. ‘Twas my dire warning should they find the guts to track and hunt me. Without words, I informed them of their fate if they suddenly sprouted either spines or brains.
They understood, clearly, what I meant. The tiny crowd of Khalidians and Tongu surged backward, some crying aloud in fear while others cursed. Behind their fires they hid, hoping the conflagrations might keep me at bay. Brave hounds chuffed, skittering sideways, and trembled against Tongu thighs with their tails tucked.
Message sent and understood.
I spun about and dug my claws into the dirt, galloping north at top speed.
A large crowd of spectators stood a safe distance away, watching our battle. Seeing me rush toward them, the gathered merchants, guards, peddlers, herders, and a few royal troopers not involved in the fight scattered like pigeons. I blasted through and past them, ignoring their shouts and cries, galloping headlong through the rings of cook fires. Not through fear did I run, my paws flinging loose rock, dirt and plant-life up in huge spurts behind me. I ran from the guilt, the horror of killing one of my own. I fled from the torment of an innocent soul who suffered needlessly because of me. I bolted, hoping, praying, I might run fast enough to leave that guilt behind.
It chased me with bitter fangs, nipping my heels, biting my flanks. The pair combined, grief and guilt, acted as a goad sharper than spurs. I ran harder, faster, the wind of my passing whipping tears I couldn’t shed into my eyes. I screamed my anguish as I flew on swift paws past fire-strewn camps, past whinnying horses and braying mules. I scattered flocks and herds in all directions: sheep, goats, camels, horses; oxen careening in blind panic as I crashed through and past them. I sent guard dogs and mercenaries alike into defending their positions, armed and ready, only to find my threat had long passed them by, vanished into the darkness.
Far to the north, leaving the chaos, the noise, the death behind me, I galloped headlong into the northern hills beyond the Great Caravan Route. Up, ever up, under the covering shelter of the fir, the spruce, the pine trees, I ran on, dragging every breath down a throat already raw from effort and despair. My eyes, blind, failed to warn me of the sharp rocks my legs tripped over.
When I slipped and slid over several medium sized boulders, some semblance of sanity returned. I slowed to a heavy trot, my heart thudding in my chest. I blinked the vision of her from my sight, and struggled on, leaping dead trees, white and barkless, dodging boulders and thickets of scrub oak and trees. Upward I climbed, the pain from my wounds at last dragging me backwards, my tongue hanging low as I panted and gasped for each breath. Yet, ever higher I climbed, seeking shelter and safety. Trees and shrubs thickened, offering me a shield from prying eyes.
“You’re safe for the moment.”
The newly risen moon waxed full and bright over the distant eastern hills as I finally halted at the crest of a tall hill. Far below, the long valley appeared furry with thick forests and heavy brush. A wide stream scrambled through its heart, and I lusted to lay deep within its icy embrace and drink until I drowned the surging tide of pain and grief. Instead, I sat down, struggling for every breath I took, my heart and my body on fire.
Wolves wept not.
I howled.
“Her name was Wind Spirit,” I cried.
“So it was.”
“I did this. My fault.”
“Men did this. Your enemies. Her enemies.”
I lowered my muzzle, pointed at the stony ground, my eyes shut. My ribs ached with hot fire from my run, yet I ignored that agony as I did all the others. All save the torture in my soul. Throughout the ages, pure creatures only killed to survive. They consumed what they killed, sparing those they did not need. Predators, like wolves, sought only the weak, those that should not or could not carry on the gene of strength. They left behind more to breed, to live, to repopulate the species. Only humankind killed wantonly, for pleasure, for the thrill of the hunt. Only they left behind rotting bodies, skinned hides, useless meat.
“You did not capture her, nor torture her. They made the choice, not you.”
Oddly, against my will, Darius’ words brought me comfort. He was right. Though they worked through me, in the end, the fault was theirs. They also paid the price. Yet, for all that, it was my people who did the most harm. By default, I was as guilty as they.
“I am a man. My people caused all this, all this hate and destruction and grief. This is our fault, my fault.”
“Laying it on a bit thick, aren’t we?”
“Bite me.”
“You are a wolf.”
“Don’t be absurd.”
“You are a wolf, a creature without the need to destroy all in his path.”
“You’re so full of shit you squeak.”
“Am I?”
“Going into a turn.”
“Someday soon, you’ll have to do something about that arrow in your gut.”
“Don’t
change the subject.”
“Grow a brain, will you? Listen to me for once.”
“Gods, do I have to?”
“It’s already spreading poison.”
“How’d you know that?”
“Will you, this time at least, trust me?”
Drawing in a deep, cleansing breath, I forced calm into my mind and heart. Very well. Changing myself into my human form, I found a rock to sit upon and finally looked down at myself. At my movement, my wounds woke from somnolence and shrieked with strident voices. I winced, stifling a groan, gingerly pulling my tunic away from my torso. In gradual hitches and curses, I pulled it off. Luckily, without passing out.
Taking a short break to catch my breath, I studied my clothes. Like me, they were caked and crusted with half-dried blood and gore from those I’d slain. The stench of death had followed me here, on my clothes, in my hair. My tunic, my breeches, my boots, appeared black from the blood of dead men and dogs. When I turned back into my wolf, my fur would also reek of carnage and death.
“I should head down to yonder stream. I could use a good dunking.”
“That isn’t enough.”
“What do you mean?”
“If you don’t pull out that arrow and stop the poison, you’ll die.”
“I didn’t think Tongu poisoned their arrows.”
“It’s not that kind of venom. Hunters often reuse an arrow if it’s in good shape after a kill. They might clean it on some grass or leaves, but the old blood on the tip and the shaft turn septic over time.”
I chuckled. “Waste not, want not?”
“It’s not funny. The contamination from that old slaying will turn your blood into a lethal poison that’ll kill you slowly. And painfully.”
“You speak from experience.”
“Over the centuries, my wolves have died from flesh wounds in this manner. Their blood turned septic and black within their bodies. They died in agony.”
“Couldn’t you stop it?”
For the first time, his voice turned bleak. “Gods are forbidden to interfere with the normal course of life. And death.”
Prince Wolf Page 9
