Kel’Ratan’s mustache bristled in righteous indignation, as though the storm inconvenienced him on purpose. Corwyn nodded respectfully to me before rising from his place with a chunk of white cheese in one big hand and a hanap of spiced wine in the other to resume his guard over Arianne. I opened my mouth to call him back, then shut it again. While I doubted very much Arianne was in much danger here, among our Kel’Hallan friends, I might need him to protect her should the storm break the roof apart.
Alun, too, rose and without speaking walked out of my sight. Witraz and Rannon took out their blades and, like good warriors, sharpened them. The twins, black eyes gleaming in the firelit shadows, sat side by side, legs folded in precisely the same way, hands clasped in their laps, breathing in exact unison. I blinked. Even their hair had been blown by the wind to fall about their shoulders in the exact same fashion.
I sighed. Observing the object of my attention and perplexity, Ly’Tana buried her face in my chest. I felt the vibration from her giggles. “You’ll get used to them.”
I doubted it. Twin dark eyes glittered as they watched me from across the fire.
“I think Your Highnesses should come see this.”
Alun’s shouted voice carried easily over the raging storm overhead, drawing the attention of not only Ly’Tana and me, but also Rygel, Kel’Ratan, Rannon and Witraz. Corwyn straightened at his spot by the kitchen door. The twins merely ceased staring at me and stared at Alun instead.
Alun stood by a window only partially closed, his strong arm holding the shutter against the howling gale with an obvious effort. Icy rain drenched him thoroughly, wetting his strawberry hair, streaming down his face and through his clothes to puddle on the floor at his feet. Yet, he stood, eyes squinting into the wind, watching something outside the walls of the monastery.
Exchanging a quick worried look with Ly’Tana, I got up and hastened to another window. Rygel and Kel’Ratan also rose to stand, yet remained where they were, beside the fire.
Taking a window to Alun’s left, I unlatched the shutter and immediately had to grab the thing to avoid it smacking me forcefully in the head. The chilling wind and icy rain once more drenched me from head to toe, but I ignored the discomfort as I peered out into the swirling darkness.
“What is it?” Ly’Tana called. I paid her little heed, however, as I saw what had caught Alun’s sharp attention.
Debris, loose branches and leaves whipped past the window at a tremendous speed. The rain slashed past, driven sideways by the howling wind. At least six inches of greenish-white hail covered the cobbles outside the walls, glowing faintly jade in the near-darkness. A tree had fallen across the stone wall to my right, but the sturdy masonry had not collapsed under its weight. Broken branches stirred under the fierce breath of the wind.
Beyond the fallen tree, low-flying clouds swirled in a deadly arc.
Less than a hundred rods from the outer monastery wall, a thick bank of clouds wound and knotted itself into a round swirling shape, the wind whipping it into a frenzy of movement. From the heaving sky above, down to the forest floor, it bent and twisted its way towards the monastery. Like a slow dance, whirled at first to the west, then bent back to the east, dipping and sliding to and fro. A tree, possibly an oak, was torn from its roots, and sent rushing skywards, spinning helplessly in the torrent.
My gut gave a sickening lurch.
A twister.
The deadly offspring of the hellish storm squirmed its wicked way across the forest. The monastery lay directly in its path.
I slammed the shutter closed, latching it tightly. Alun leaned against his, aiming to shut it as well. I grabbed his arm.
“Leave it!” I barked, shoving him toward the hearth.
The shutter slammed back against the rock wall, pinned there by the howling gale. Wind-driven rain slashed inside, the fire leaping higher with the fresh wash of new air. In the dancing light, Witraz, Rannon, the twins, and Yuri and Yuras stood up, glancing at one another in alarm.
Ly’Tana jumped to her feet. “What’s wrong?” she cried.
“All of you, get back into the sleeping cells! Now!”
Arianne ran from the kitchen, Tor at her heels, crying out a question, but I didn’t hear her words. Corwyn seized her arm as Rygel bolted toward her. He cast me one grim glance, sending me a swift message I didn’t need words to understand clearly. Her two guardians hurried Arianne into the chambers beyond the hall. She had one instant to cast a single frantic, frightened glance over her shoulder before her hair obscured her face.
Abandoning their posts at the spits, Yuri and Yuras slung a frightened Tor into their brawny arms and disappeared with him down the left-hand corridor. Witraz and Alun hustled Kel’Ratan into the corridor opposite. Pausing beside the fire, Alun looked me a question, his brow raised.
“Go!” I bellowed. “Take them with you.”
I gestured at the twins, who leaped toward Ly’Tana, to protect her. “I’ve got her. Go!”
“Wolf!”
Ly’Tana seized my arm, pulling me around to face her. “Tell me what’s happening!”
“Twister,” I growled, taking her by the hand. “Headed right for us.”
Alun bodily pushed the twins away from us and toward the sleeping chambers. They rounded the corner and disappeared.
Before Ly’Tana could respond, I rushed to follow Rygel and Arianne, dragging her with me. Before I could complete three strides, her hand in my hand hauled me to a stop, despite my superior weight and size. I spun about, too surprised to resist.
“Bar!” she screamed up into my astounded face. “I’ll not leave him!”
Ripping her hand from mine, she hurled herself across the hall, past the blazing hearth, to Bar’s head. He watched her come with fear and anguish in his yellow eyes, his beak opened in a protesting hiss.
Too late, I recognized our folly. In trying to protect Bar from the raging storm and killing hail, we trapped him instead. The twister may bring the monastery down about our ears. We humans may escape, but should the walls come down, Bar had no hope. The stones and slate roof would crush him. I groaned. We should have simply sent him away. He could have flown before the storm or above it, and escaped with no harm.
Our idiocy may have just cost the huge griffin his life.
Ly’Tana, sobbing, dropped to her knees and wrapped her arms around his feathered neck, ignoring his screech of objection.
She would not leave him. I would not leave her.
Kneeling behind her, I covered both of them with my body, shielding Bar’s head and Ly’Tana’s slender frame from the onslaught. I ducked my head into the small space between them, lying my cheek against the top of Bar’s head, my face close to Ly’Tana’s own. Unable to stop myself, I kissed her cold lips briefly, perhaps for the last time. Her eyes, shut against the approach of death, did not open, but her lips did, welcoming my kiss with one of her own.
Thus, we waited for hell to open up and swallow us all.
Outside, the sound of the wind both deepened and rose in pitch. With the howling of a thousand demented dragons, the twister hit the solid stone of the monastery. Beneath my knees, the slate floor thrummed. Something slammed into the west wall with terrific force, jarring an oak roof beam loose in its moorings. The monastery shook, trembling from its foundations like a mongrel shaking water from its wet fur.
The sound of the howling wind rose to a deafening shriek, louder than ever. Ten thousand banshees could not have hoped to compete with the screaming that now assaulted our ears. Deafened, blinded, I could do nothing save wait for the twister’s power to tear the monastery apart and sweep us into its lethal embrace. Time ceased its forward advance. Nothing in the universe existed save the insane, thunderous noise and the tremendous shaking about me. I felt nothing beneath my body: no Ly’Tana, no Bar. ’Twas as though they have vanished into the whirling maelstrom of the deadly twister’s arms.
Between one heartbeat and the next, the wind suddenly died. At the same instant, the
flames in the hearth collapsed to nothing but faintly glowing coals. In the eerie darkness, a strange silence fell. I knew it not for the welcoming silence of an escape from death, a reprieve from the brink. It was the silence of an evil will, an evil power watching us, patient, ruthless. It felt like the quiet of the night where cold murder lurks in wait.
I looked up, toward the open window. In the outer dimness, I saw through the large gap in the wall dark roiling clouds. Tree trunks, branches, hail stones spun past at a frightening speed. A huge funnel of debris whirled about in a sickening swirl. The twister spun some loose leaves and dead twigs in through the window’s gap, to swirl about in the wind on the floor. The spinning made my gut lurch in protest. I shut my eyes.
The uneasy calm lasted less than ten heartbeats. With a shattering roar, the wind slammed the monastery again, lashing it with a killing rage. Like a cat with its panicked prey, the twister toyed with the monastery, slapping it back and forth. I ducked my head again, trying to protect it from debris that flew in from the window and struck me in the back. Like a thwarted monster, the twister tried to lift the building from its roots. The thrumming beneath and above me increased until I thought it would surely collapse under the strain. The three of us, buried under tons of stone and rubble, dead. Our graves, marked only by the holy site of the monastery itself.
Yet, the stout Jefe Monastery, built with love and knowledge, held strong against the twister’s rage. Perhaps the gods of old in whose honor it had been sanctified protected it yet. The shaking of the monastery gradually subsided into mere tremors. The thrumming subsided, the howling wind died, the building once more sat at peaceful rest.
Defeated at last, the twister moved on, roaring its rage, hurrying away into the forest. The hearth flames burst back into life. The twister, failing to kill us, moved on toward less hardy game. The wind and rain and hail resumed their noisy, however less dangerous, howling and drumming.
Stunned, I shook hailstones and tree branches from my bruised back and slowly stood up. My hand under her arm brought Ly’Tana up with me. Dazed, her face white and strained in the firelight, she looked around as though disbelieving she was still alive. Bar, too, looked around in awe before shaking his feathered mane back into some semblance of order, sending up blue shale dust in a cloud. He chirped in a mild way, as though commenting on the vagaries of life.
While the monastery lay once more at peace, Ly’Tana’s body still wrapped within my arms still trembled. I glanced down at her, concerned, seeing only the top of her bowed head.
The emergence of the others from their chambers brought my head and attention away from Ly’Tana’s trembles.
Kel’Ratan, followed by Witraz and Alun, emerged from the corridor, cautious. Seeing the monastery whole and sound, they returned to the fire with new confidence. Behind them, the rest of the warriors followed on their heels. The passing of the twister and the renewed onslaught of the less dangerous wind and rain brought them from their shelter.
Rygel and Corwyn, with Arianne protected between them, also emerged, with Tor and his new friends, Yuri and Yuras, behind them.
Like two blind mice, Ly’Tana’s arms crept about my waist. I wrapped mine about her body, feeling her body quiver nearly as hard as the monastery shuddered not so very long ago, pressing her pale face into my chest. Bending slightly, I kissed the top of her head, smelling the sharp, pungent scent of her fear, and beneath that the faint, feminine, musky scent that was entirely Ly’Tana’s own.
“Ly’Tana?” I brushed her red-gold hair from her brow, my right hand cupping her cheek. “Princess?”
She began to chuckle, her face uptilted to mine. “Are we alive?” she asked.
I grinned. “If we’re not, then we’re in heaven, for I am with you.”
“What’s wrong?” Kel’Ratan asked, glancing over his shoulder as the warriors dispersed and picked up their activities from before the twister’s arrival.
“I’m not sure,” I answered.
“I’m—I’m just a little freaked out here,” Ly’Tana gasped through her trembling. Tears leaked from the corners of her eyes. At my silent suggestion, Kel’Ratan shrugged and sat down next to the fire, wrapping himself in his blanket.
Bar rumbled a sour comment, then began to munch on his deer.
“Shut up, you ass,” she replied, sniffing.
Tor clicked his tongue in irritation over the debris and dirt that now covered our roasting dinners. With the aid of the brothers, he brushed away the offending dust, and Yuri and Yuras began once more to turn the slightly overcooked roasts. Within moments, the hall had resumed its former activity before the twister entered its life.
Tor, between brisk orders to Yuri and Yuras, alternated between running back to the kitchen to check on the dishes he had on the fire there, and ushering Arianne to her duties. Corwyn once more held the kitchen door jamb up with his shoulder.
“Are you all right?” I asked, rubbing my thumb over Ly’Tana’s angular, exotic, cheek-bone.
She nodded. “You know what’s funny?”
“No. What’s funny?”
“I can face and take down any man, any fight, anywhere. Yet, I can’t face a simple storm without shaking like a newborn colt. Look at me, I can’t stop. A true coward, that.”
Bar grumbled a sour retort. Perhaps Ly’Tana could translate, but its meaning was lost on me.
“Hmmm.” I pushed her gently away from the protection my huge body offered, forcing her to stare up at me. “I’m confused.”
She sniffed. “Don’t be absurd.”
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but don’t cowards run away from what’s dangerous?”
Ly’Tana dropped her eyes, twisting to walk away from me. “Hush—”
I seized her arm, halting her. “Again, you know, I may be wrong about this entire thing,” I began, rolling my eyes up to gather my thoughts. “It seemed to me, again, I could be totally incorrect here, but I do distinctly recall you running toward danger.”
“That’s enough,” she grumbled, folding her arms over her bosom. Her emerald eyed glinted.
“You can’t deny it,” I said, biting my thumbnail. “I do remember this part, since I sort of had to chase you.”
“Must you?”
“As you know, I’m just a boor and an oaf and obviously not very smart,” I said, shrugging my shoulders. “But your first thought wasn’t of saving your own—”
I brushed my right finger down her bare arm, making her shiver. “—incredibly lovely skin.”
With my left hand, I gestured expansively toward Bar, who ceased his dining and watched me through narrowed raptor’s eyes. “Rather you thought first of keeping safe this useless lummox here.”
Bar hissed. Ly’Tana tapped her boot against the floor in a strong feminine threat.
“Again, I may be wrong, and I’ll certainly admit when I am,” I said. “But I suspect cowardice is a title no one but yourself would bestow. Of course, what would I know, being a simple rustic idiot with no manners whatsoever.”
Ly’Tana’s emerald eyes gleamed but with humor now, her kitten teeth white in the dusky shadows of her face. “I think you made your point, you bloody bastard.”
“That’s Rygel.”
“Rygel what?” asked Rygel, lifting his head from his task of inspecting the roasts.
“Well, my lady?”
“You made your point, I said.”
“Have I, Your High Handedness?”
“I’m so going to bitch slap you.”
My finger that traced down her arm now cradled her defiant chin, forcing her to gaze up into my eyes.
“That twister could easily have been the death of us all. It’s hardly cowardice to be afraid of such a monster. Only one truly stupid would fail to feel fear.”
I grinned, and pressed a light kiss against her soft lips. “You are too hard on yourself, sweet princess,” I murmured. “You’re allowed to be human once in a while.”
She chuckled, taking my fingers from h
er chin into her own. “Am I?” she asked. “You give me permission?”
I rolled my eyes heavenward. “As lord of the universe, yes, I grant you permission. Just this once, however, so never let it happen again.”
She giggled. I took a moment to kiss her again, to linger over the softness of her lips. Her devilish tongue teased mine for a heartbeat before she withdrew to watch me with shining eyes. Yet, her fingers remained entangled with mine.
Bar grumbled to himself, left out of the conversation and resenting it. I glowered.
“Bite it, Bar.”
Ly’Tana giggled. Bar hissed. Kel’Ratan roared.
“Lord of the universe, eh? Got some rather big britches on, do we?”
Of course, he had to have overheard that part.
“You can bite it, too, Red,” I snapped. “Mind your own affairs.”
His mustache bristled in righteous indignation. “Now see here—”
I flashed him a universal gesture more commonly seen in the slave’s barracks than palaces, and sighed. Under his outraged blue-eyed glare, I ran my fingers down Ly’Tana’s cheek, bending down to rub my nose intimately with hers. She glowed under my attention, a faint pink blush climbing high to ride her cheekbones. How is it women can blush and it’s endearing, but should a man like me blush he’d look like a fool? That wasn’t very fair. Not fair at all.
Both Bar and Kel’Ratan grumbled under their collective breath. Then as one mind, Bar resumed his venison dinner and Kel’Ratan scowled at the fire. For no doubt it was the fire’s fault alone I got the better of him.
Her confidence restored, Ly’Tana pulled me down to sit beside her, never freeing my hand from her grip. The others seemed to not have noticed their heir’s moment of panic, and had resumed their activities of sharpening weapons, laughing over lewd jokes and staring at me.
“Let’s hope we don’t have too many more of those,” Kel’Ratan remarked. “Another one might bring this place down about our ears.”
Corwyn, who had gone to shut the shutter on the still open window and keep out the cold wind and rain, peered out. “It’s letting up, I think. The sky isn’t green anymore and the hail seems to have stopped. It’s just raining now.”
Catch a Wolf Page 10
