No doubt, Chovani also heard that roar in his voice, yet she merely tittered.
“Nine is a very powerful number, Darius. Remember how I made a stew of those precious babies of yours?”
My belly roiled at the same instant my lungs inflated. “You bitch,” I snarled, struggling against my bonds.
Chovani bend toward me. “He’s just like you were, Darius. He’s so delightfully headstrong, so full of his own masculinity, his own strength. Those nine infants gave me a power greater still. My new strength can match even yours, my love.”
“Why didn’t you kill her?”
“I didn’t think I had to. I punished her for her wickedness. It should have been lesson enough not to mess with me and mine.”
“Once the Lords took you prisoner,” Chovani said thoughtfully, “I knew my time had come. I heard the prophecy of the Chosen One and that only he can free you. I waited, biding my time, listening and learning.”
“Loose him now, witch, or by the Lords themselves I’ll hunt you down and send you home to your masters.”
“You’re as helpless as he is, Darius,” Chovani said. “Bound in hell, unable to either kill me or save him. Oh, I think I’m quite safe from your wrath, dear, dear Darius.”
“You’re seriously in over your head with this one.”
Chovani laughed in delight. “I always did adore your sense of humor. You were always cracking jokes, ready to spread the smiles around.”
“I hope you’re prepared for the endless suffering your soul will endure very soon.”
“Ah, but I have your Chosen One, Darius,” Chovani replied, smirking, her single brown eye gleaming as she bent closer. I snapped my fangs sharply together, but she merely laughed, straightening. “Once I kill him, your chance of ever leaving prison drops to nil. You’ll never get out of there. And you will watch as I destroy your children one by one.”
“The Lords will never allow that to happen.”
“The Lords,” Chovani sneered. “They don’t much like you, Darius, Wolf Lord. Should you languish in hell until the world’s end, they wouldn’t lift even one finger to aid your children.”
“They may not care for me much, but they do care very much for evil running rampant in the world.”
“Me?” she exclaimed. “Evil? Why, aren’t you a dear for noticing?”
“Evil has a way of catching up to one.”
“Not to me,” she said, bending low and holding her torch high. “I have protections not even you can challenge.” Her single eye caught mine.
“What is she talking about?”
“Long ago she allied herself with the evil ones.”
“Daemons?”
“More than just daemons. Beneath hell lies yet another world, another dimension, a place where evil spirits dwell. She sacrificed her soul for the immortal life, a life dedicated to pain, grief and horror. If she is killed, her soul belongs to those who paid for it.”
“They want me alive,” Chovani crowed. “I do their work, here, among the living. Under their protection, I’ll live forever.”
She nudged me in the belly again. “You’ve felt my fury before, pup,” she said. “I planted the seed of betrayal in Metavas’s mind. Through my influence, he called in his Ja Mata allies and murdered his own brother. I made certain your fellow slaves turned against you and made your life a living hell. Once you’re dead, I’ll make your precious sister feel the pain I felt when Darius savaged my face and left me bleeding in the dirt.”
Cold fury, like ice in my blood, swept through me. “You’ll die, bitch,” I grated between my clenched jaws. “You’ll die very hard indeed, I’ll see to it.”
She laughed. “You’ve no power over me, black wolf. Not even your stolen magic can help you. My power is greater than yours. I know you tried, I felt it.”
Gods above and below, she was right. I did try to break the solid cables with my magic from both Rygel’s bond and Darius’ blood, but it bounced off them like a rubber ball against a rocky face. I couldn’t even slide my paws out from under, for they bound me as solidly as an iron cage.
I tried transporting myself up, out of that cave. However, whatever magic she set into the cables repelled my every effort. A spell to freeze her blood only bounced back at me. My own pet daemon rose to defend me, his power adding strength to mine. I struggled, hurling every ounce of will against the bonds that held me captive, bound against the soil.
Chovani watched me, her expression detached, almost bored. “Are you done now?”
Panting, I snarled, hackles rising stiff along my spine despite the cables. “I have friends, allies who are looking for me.”
“I set an illusion over this very handy cave-in,” Chovani said, glancing around the dirt and root-bound walls. “Those pigs sent your bird into a frenzy. Even now she flies around and around, frantic, trying to find you. But she can’t. In her eyes, you vanished as though you’d never been. She can’t see past the spell above. She flies over what she thinks is solid earth, blind to what’s below. Not even she can save you. You’re quite alone, my friend.”
Running her pale, slender hand through her knotted tresses, she cocked her head slightly, observing me through her single eye. “Darius will hear every scream you make, boy. Your agony will cause him no end of suffering. I’ll make a necklace of your teeth, as you watch. I’ll take off your hide inch by inch, send you to the brink of death, then I’ll haul you back for my own amusements. You’ll pray for death, beg me to slay you, before the end.
“Unless –“
Chovani crept closer, grinning as much as she could through her maimed facial muscles. She kicked off her thin boots. Extending a slender, pale foot toward my muzzle, her eye glistened with humor and triumph.
“Lick my feet, gai-tan,” she said. “Acknowledge me as your mistress. Lick my feet and I’ll kill you quickly.”
Instead, I snapped hard and fast, missing her ankle by a hair.
Chovani leaped back, her twisted features frozen in a snarl of rage. “You’ll die, whelp,” she screeched. “You’ll die by inches, minutes. Every hour shall feel like a lifetime of agony and horror.”
She pointed her single index finger.
Agony exploded across my face. It felt as though a red-hot poker traced from my whiskers to just under my eye, burning the tender sensitive skin, crisping, scorching. I locked the impending scream deep within my throat, squeezing my eyes shut against the horrible pain. I will never permit her the satisfaction, I thought, my belly drawing tight, my paws twitching, trying to rise and slay. I clenched my jaws, not even permitting a snarl of defiance to emerge.
“Stay with it. Hang tough, my son.”
“Do as the old wolf says, boy,” Chovani crooned. “Oh, you’ll scream, you know, long and very loud. It’s just a matter of time.”
Another flaming poker drew a long line from my ribs, across my vulnerable flank, seeking the soft skin beneath my coat. I spasmed, jerking, unable to even flinch away as the odor of my own burnt flesh rose on the heels of the incredible wave of pain. Can one pass out from pain? I wished fervently that I could.
Darius didn’t speak, but my instincts suddenly did. You have a magic she cannot touch.
I may not be able to break her cables with magic. However, I could still change from wolf into man. That power no witch on this earth could control.
Shifting shape quickly, my man’s form was still bound to the cavern floor. However, the cables, once taut, now drooped, lax and loose. One swift motion freed my right hand. I reached for and found my human weapons. I could, and did, whip my dagger from its sheath. In a move faster than she dodged, I slashed the tendons behind her right knee. Hamstrung like a sheep, Chovani screamed and almost fell. She kept her balance and her upright stance with an effort.
Tossing the knife, I switched from holding the hilt to gripping the blade with my fingers. A single flick of my very strong wrist sent it hurtling through the near darkness. I aimed for her throat, but she flinched a millisecond be
fore impact.
The blade buried itself into the soft flesh beneath her right collarbone.
Chovani screamed again, her jaws yawning wide, her head thrown back. I caught a quick flash of her tonsils, a vast gasp of her fetid breath. Her pale fingers clutched the hilt, fell away, crawled back and splayed across the growing bloodstain on her ragged, filthy gown. Grievously injured in two places, she staggered, bleeding, no doubt in as much pain as I was.
As my wolf body was so much larger than my human form, the cables all but lay limp across my body. Still bound to the cavern floor, but with enough time and plenty of wriggling, I knew I could escape out from under their clinging grasp.
Chovani screamed with a rage, a hate and a fury I’d never before found directed toward me. Discovering me on the verge of casting off her carefully designed trap, she advanced toward me, blood in her eye. She yanked my dagger from her thin chest and cast it, quivering, into the dirt at her feet. Pale, blood-stained fingers stretched toward me, reaching, grasping. My heart jolted in my chest, and a niggle of fear caressed my spine. If she regained control of me, I’d pay very dearly indeed for the injury I caused her. Far more than I already had.
I pushed up on the cables, scooting out from under their tight tension. Only my legs hung up. I kicked and scrambled, rolling over onto my hands and knees to make a quick dash for it. I glanced back.
Screeching with the fury of a thousand demented daemons, Feria blasted into her face.
“No!” Chovani screamed, holding up her arms to shield her one remaining, vulnerable eye.
Her wings wide behind her like an avenging angel, Feria reared back, balancing on her lion hind legs and her tail. Eagle arms spread wide for balance and attack, she shrieked her challenge. She didn’t wait for a response, but cut her left hand sideways from left to right in front of her.
Chovani ducked and rolled, all in the same motion.
As quickly as Chovani protected herself, Feria proved the faster.
Feria’s talon, so adroit in drawing designs in the soil, slashed across Chovani’s scarred features. Her single useful brown eye died under Feria’s razor-blade talon.
Blinded, screaming in an inarticulate voice, Chovani stumbled back, away from me, trying in vain to mend her ripped eyeball with her fingers. Blood poured down her face in a red river, coated her hands, and wet her gown’s neck.
Blind, in fury, Chovani blasted her magic toward Feria. A black mass exited her fingers, rushing toward my friend, enveloping the small cave. Though I tried to counter it with a blast of my own, it didn’t even hiccup as it sped toward Feria.
Almost leisurely, Feria stepped aside.
Her stroke struck the far wall a rod from Feria’s tail. Its impact sent a deluge of dark dirt, broken rock and splintered tree roots exploding outward with a low coughing roar. Loose soil cascaded over me in a wide shower, bits of rock hammering the ground around my body.
Unharmed, not even alarmed, Feria screeched again, swept her right talon crossways and slashed a deep cut across Chovani’s mouth.
Her cheeks gaping wide in a bloody, horrid clown’s grin, Chovani stumbled back, falling away. She clumsily stepped on her own gown and ripped it from her shoulders. The tatters fell away to reveal a nauseatingly pale, fish-belly white skin, bulging belly and sagging breasts.
Ripping a rag to stem the rapid flow of blood, Chovani stood all but naked, staunching her wounds. Blind, yet still a threat, she reached out a hand, a pointing finger, to mark my Feria.
“I’ll kill you! You bitch, I’ll kill you.”
Without enough room to fly in, Feria answered Chovani’s challenge with a screech of defiance: kill me before I kill you.
“So help me, I will,” Chovani whispered.
Catch me first.
As I kicked in the dirt, casting off the binding cables, Feria spread her wings enough to leap into the air, her feathers brushing the far walls of the cave. Deftly avoiding yet another deadly blast of dark power, she used not her talons this time, but her clenched fist. She knocked Chovani into the rock and root wall. Chovani staggered under the impact, dazed and most definitely confused.
A jagged hole in the earthen cavern broke open on the heels of the resulting explosion. Unable to support the heavy soil and rocks above, the wall collapsed. Tumbling down in an avalanche, the terrain above fell into Chovani’s hole, filling it rapidly.
The ground began to shake.
“Get out, boy. Get her out.”
“Feria,” I screamed, at last scuttling out from beneath the last of the clinging cables. “Up. Fly, you idiot, fly out of here.”
Feria screeched as dirt slid down the walls to pile on the floor. Like the earthquake that sent Ly’Tana headlong into a raging river, the earth shook itself like an otter shakes water from its fur. Loose soil cascaded down in a dark avalanche, loose stones rolled downhill to plunge into the cavern.
I stood on two feet, feeling the floor undulate beneath me. “Get out,” I yelled.
Feria screamed back: What about you?
“I’m right behind you! Just go.”
Taking me at my word, Feria rose straight into the air, her wings slow and ponderous, working harder than ever to lift her heavy body higher. Unable to circle, no warm updrafts to grant her much needed lift, she struggled for every foot of height. Those valiant wings stroked up and down, sweeping loose dust and dirt into my eyes and ears, but I hardly cared. Her neck stretched to its limit, her eagle’s green eyes slitted with effort, she climbed up and up, claiming the air as her own. Into the winter sunshine she flew, free and safe.
The illusion above must have vanished, for she circled over the rim, chirping anxiously, calling to me.
I hesitated, turning back.
“What? Get out of here, damn you.”
Chovani struggled to regain her breath. Fresh blood covered her face, her small bosom. Blinded, in agony, she fought to rise, to wield her powers. At her weakest, her magic stilled, she failed to realize the bitter fangs of her vengeance were long drawn. I snatched up my dagger and shoved it into my belt. I could kill her with one swift sweep of my sword. I drew it.
“She’s not for you. Go now.”
“What do you mean? If I don’t kill her now, everything we’ve worked for will be at risk.”
“I know. But her death won’t be at your hands.”
“Don’t be a fool, I can do this.”
“My son, go. Go now.”
I slammed my sword into its sheath with an oath. “This is a mistake, Darius.”
“I’ll not have you slay a helpless woman.”
“She’s not –“
“She’s as helpless now as those whelps she murdered. Should you slay her now, evil shall walk forever at your side, boy. Trust me in this. Her stain shall not touch you. Not while I yet live and breathe, it won’t.”
“But –“
“Do as I say.”
The earth tilted at a serious angle, all but knocking me to the floor. Feria screamed from on high, begging me to come out of this hellhole. Chovani’s body rolled helplessly to one side as the ground rose up. I staggered, catching my balance, my arms pin wheeling.
“Go. The quake created a pathway.”
I saw instantly what he meant. The dirt slid from above at a sharp angle, piling high with every undulation of the earthquake. Like a steep ramp, the soil and loose rocks lead upward into the blue sky and freedom. Human legs would work hard and yet still not manage the steep climb. Not before the entire cavern imploded, anyway.
Wolf legs might.
Changing forms, I raced up the ramp, the loose dirt clinging to my legs. Fighting for every inch, every foot, every lunging step, I rose upward, high and higher. Below me, the cavern walls fell inward, huge boulders and sharp tree roots cascaded down, filling the cave as water fills a deep well. If Chovani lived, surely she was buried under all that mess.
The loose soil dragged at me, pulling me backward into its clinging grip. Death lay within its clutches. I fo
ught on, Feria’s encouraging shrieks in my ears. My tongue lolled, panting, in effort.
Feria’s sharp beak and feathered head and neck appeared against the deep winter blue sky, her wings half-furled behind her shoulders. Sliding backward, I dug my paws in, bunching my hindquarters. Just another – few – feet –
My paws seized hold of the cavern’s rim the moment the cave below me fell away. My heavy wolf body swung out over empty space. Only my claws digging into solid mother earth kept me from my death’s drop.
I risked a swift glance over my shoulder. There was no more cavern. The avalanche of dirt fell into the deepest black, an endless pit where not even the sound of stones striking bottom emerged. Should I lose my grip, I’d die before I hit whatever lay down there. No doubt my heart would give out completely before then.
My claws, dug deep into the cavern’s rim, slid backward. My heart jolted within my chest. That slim grip I owned couldn’t possibly hold my massive weight. In desperation, I let go with my right paw, hanging on dangerously, precariously with my left. In a huge reach, I found a new hold in solid earth with my right claws.
Not enough –
I changed forms in a blink. Human hands grabbed better than wolf toenails. I seized hold of a rock, grunting with effort, sweat stinging my eyes. Throwing out my left hand, I sought for a root, a rock, anything that I could use to inch my way forward, handhold by handhold, out of the gaping maw. My fingers dug down into soil, my fingernails peeling back. I bit my tongue against a cry at the exquisite pain. My body, lighter than it was, was yet too heavy for my feeble grip.
The rock loosened. My left hand, digging furrows in the stony dirt, slid backward as gravity’s clutches dragged at me.
Too late –
An eagle’s talon swept down, grasping my right wrist in a savage grip.
Feria’s golden beak and slitted green eyes bent down, a mere rod from my gasping face.
Angel’s wings spread wide, Feria gasped with effort, her lion’s muscular half taking on my incredible, impossible, weight. On three legs, Feria clawed and fought her way backward, dragging my arm with her.
Prince Wolf Page 38
