“Yes,” Rygel replied, rubbing a hand through his yellow hair, despite its lengths blowing behind him. “A voice told me exactly where you were. The bond between us told me only what direction. The voice told me distance and specifics. Then it vanished.”
“Then that’s another one we owe them,” Raine said softly.
“They’re very put out with you,” Tashira said. “You won’t talk to them. You won’t let them in.”
If Raine had an answer to that, he didn’t voice it. I felt his tension, his stress, through my hands around his waist. His breathing had shortened into quick, sharp influxes of air.
“Maybe it’s time,” Rygel said softly, his amber eyes on Raine.
Tashira suddenly popped the question none of us dared utter. “What are you afraid of?”
He had more courage than the rest of us, I thought with wry amusement. That may be because he was one of the few people bigger than Raine.
Resting my cheek against his solid back, I tried to look at the trees and hills before they vanished, making myself dizzy in the process. The hellish pace hadn’t yet deterred Bar, who still beat steadily onward, only a winglength from me, still at my level above the speeding ground.
I thought back to Raine’s strange behavior. Haunted, confused, his feelings warring deep within him. I knew Rygel and Arianne spoke the truth about him, he was a man, but he was also a wolf. However, I disagreed with Tashira. He wasn’t afraid: he was terrified. Their useless pestering only made matters more difficult. I had to admit the guilt to myself. I hadn’t been much support to him, either.
Time to change that. I vowed to help him face his deepest fears with understanding, patience and love. I tightened my grip around his waist, hugging him from behind, hoping the contact made him feel easier.
Whether it did or not, Raine spoke after several awkward moments of silence. “Of the beast,” he said simply. “I fear the beast within.”
His blunt confession startled me. Only to the five of us would he speak of the deepest darkness of his soul. No torment could drag such an admission from him had he been amongst Kel’Ratan and my boys. Among us, those he felt he could trust, he confessed his ultimate terrors. He was both man and wolf, within one body. I couldn’t blame him for feeling terrified. If I had a weird spirit living inside my soul, it would probably send me screaming.
“Well, let’s talk about that,” Tashira said. “Two beasts inhabiting one body isn’t always a bad thing. For example, take my brother here. He’s Tarbane, snob and idiot all rolled into one.”
“I’m going to kick you for that.”
“You’ll try.”
“Please,” I exclaimed, observing how rapidly the ground swept by beneath us. A headlong tumble off Tashira’s back…a thought not to be borne. “Not now.”
“My point is,” Tashira went on, “men are beasts, also. Beasts who walk on two legs.”
“There are good beasts and bad beasts,” Shardon continued. “There are good and bad men, there are good and bad wolves—”
“Not very many bad wolves,” Arianne added primly.
“You’re just prejudiced,” Tashira said. “There are a few Tarbane who are bad—”
“Not many,” Shardon added hastily.
Rygel grinned. “Now who’s prejudiced?”
“Dragons are bad beasts,” Shardon said.
“No,” Rygel replied. “They aren’t. Most are decent, selfless, warm-hearted beasts.”
“We’ll argue that another time.”
“Your Brutal friend is certainly bad,” Tashira said. “But just because you are both man and wolf doesn’t make you a bad creature. The combination is actually quite interesting. I’ve heard such tales, of the gai’tan, a man and a wolf in one body. Wolves and men have a great deal in common, so the end product is, well, a good thing.”
“I don’t have my brother’s relationship with wolves,” Shardon added. “I know wolves are good beasts. Due to recent additions to my knowledge of men, some men are good beasts, too. A good beast, plus a good beast is, well—er—what?”
“Shut up before you hurt yourself.”
All through this exchange, Raine rode silent, his head down. I couldn’t see it. I quick glance at Rygel showed me his concern. He dropped his head in an effort to see Raine’s averted expression.
“It’s what you are,” I said softly, hoping that my acceptance of what he is might help him to accept it, too. I squeezed his waist with my arms. “I love you.”
He didn’t speak for a long time. When he did, he sighed deeply, as though preparing to pick up a heavy load. “Perhaps I will accept it. In time.”
“That’s just it,” Tashira said. “I don’t think you have that luxury.”
“What do you mean?”
If Tashira were human, I might have said he frowned, thinking. “I’m not sure,” he finally said, slowly. “The wolves were frantic that you speak to them. They seemed to think time is something there isn’t much of.”
Chapter 8
Child of Darius
I groaned. “My bloody head hurts,” I complained.
I felt like I’d gone ten rounds with a five hundred pound gorilla.
Sitting in front of the campfire, an hour or so after sunset, I held my aching head in my hands. My hands themselves burned and twitched, as though still feeling the fire that burned from them earlier that day. The pounding I took from the soldiers didn’t help much, but the pain from my swollen eye felt less than nothing compared to the burning in my hands and the massive headache.
“You overdid it,” Rygel said from across the fire from me.
I eyed him bleakly as he smiled, his humorous, unsympathetic smarmy smile. I growled low in my throat.
“That’s why apprentice magicians aren’t allowed to practice their craft that hard, so early,” Rygel continued, his mercy nonexistent.
Arianne stood behind him, her hands filled with food, her eyes on me. Did I see pity in her huge grey-blue eyes? Or was it sorrow? Crankily, I almost snapped at her, telling her to look somewhere else. That’d be rather childish, I thought, and manfully refrained.
“I’ll mix something together that’ll help the headache,” Rygel said.
Aboard the inexhaustible Tarbane, we reached Kel’Ratan, Witraz and the others less than an hour after the battle of fire, dragon, wolves and Tarbane ended. They, as Rygel said, sheltered safely under an outcropping of rock, and waited anxiously for us to return. Seeing Ly’Tana safe and unharmed brought out the visible signs of relief, the gusts of breath, the pent-up release of worry with shaky laughter.
Kel’Ratan seized her in a tight embrace the instant she slid down from Tashira’s sleek round back.
“I thought we’d lost you for certain,” he murmured into her hair.
She laughed through her tears. “You should know better than that,” she sniffed.
Corwyn saluted me, his own craggy face smiling his relief as I too, slid down from Tashira for a respite. “Welcome back, my liege,” he said. “I was beginning to think I’d have to go fetch you myself.”
I clapped him on the shoulder, unable to think of a thing to say. His unswerving loyalty and dedication to both Arianne and I deserved more than simple thanks. How does one reward such? Somehow, someway, Corwyn deserved, and would get, ample reward.
Yuri and Yuras, in their worry over their princess, had apparently refused to tutor Tor in the arts of war. Tor still sulked. After an absent-minded yet decent salute to me, he deftly mounted his grey mare and reined her around to ride close to the rear. He’s caught between boy and man, I thought, shaking my head. Still very much a young boy, Tor lacked the first fuzz on his cheeks. Yet, he also grew fast and learned quicker.
The sun westered behind the tall granite peaks, etching long shadows across our path. Ly’Tana vaulted into her saddle and reined her buckskin in next to Tashira. As we settled into our line for travel, Left and Right found places behind Ly’Tana and refused to budge.
Brutal’s troops
obviously returned to their commanders and their King, for we saw no sign of them.
No wolves, either.
Witraz, with no comment, offered me a bow and the wolf pup. Arianne climbed aboard Rufus, with the assistance of tall Alun, her head pointedly turned away. With a sigh, I took him, finding him a great deal heavier than the last time I held him. Either he grew as fast as Tor or someone fed him too much. His blue eyes gazed deep into mine. What did I see in those sapphire depths? Trust, love, acceptance? Or just the need of a hungry baby to fill his belly?
Despite everything, I felt glad to have him back. What was it he called me? ‘Father’. Guilt nudged my ribs. When I shut out the wolves, I also shut him out. No doubt, his baby talk might chatter away at me, had I not cut off all wolf communication, silent as well as spoken. While my guilt bothered me, I dared not open up the link. Should I even think of it, the panic closed my throat, cut off my breath. Blackness of death teased the edges of my mind. I’ll die happily, I thought, as long as I die a man.
I held my son close as I vaulted back aboard Tashira.
After Ly’Tana and Kel’Ratan organized vanguard and rearguard, both staying within sight of the main group, we galloped on.
We rode hard through what remained of the daylight, putting as much distance between us and the royal troops as possible. We saw no more, Bar’s frequent scouting flights reported nothing amiss. The terrain continued to climb, the hills growing steeper and more rocky. Not quite mountains, but they rose higher than hills. The trees grew closer together, more pine and fir than elm and oak. Many thickets of scrub oak lay in our path, forcing the horses to slow their headlong pace. Yet, despite the terrain, we still managed to put several leagues between ourselves and Brutal’s forces.
Not many of us spoke through the late afternoon ride into the deep twilight of the long summer day. Even Tashira and Shardon ceased their brotherly banter and light-hearted quarreling to gallop side by side without speaking. Ly’Tana rode to my left, Rygel my right, Arianne and her ever present guard of Corwyn just behind. Kel’Ratan and Rannon led the way, often consulting with us or anyone else about the terrain ahead, the paths to take, or any hazards we might find. With my headache slowly growing and consuming everything in my life at that moment, I contributed little. If Tashira found my behavior strange, he offered no comment.
However, he and Shardon both investigated the pup thoroughly once I slid off Tashira’s back and Rygel removed Shardon’s saddle and bridle. Neither left me alone until the wolf pup was sniffed, eyed and commented upon. I grinned, despite my aching head and my twitching, burning hands. The well-trained Kel’Hallans, and Tor and Arianne set up camp as the last light faded from the sky. Rygel’s magic this time, not mine, lit the fire.
“Cute, isn’t he,” said Shardon, as his exhale after a sharp sniff blew the pup’s fur back.
“Looks just like his daddy,” Tashira said.
Despite my pain, that comment roused me. “How do you know what his father looked like?” I asked.
Under their withering brown stares, I wilted. “Oh.”
Somewhere off to my right and behind me, Ly’Tana giggled.
“What’s his name?” Tashira asked.
“Damned if I know.” I sighed.
“That’s not a very good name,” Tashira chided, eyeing me crosswise under his heavy fall of forelock.
Once more, feminine giggles crossed the blazing fire and the growing camp to burst my aching ears. Dammit, why couldn’t they mind their own bloody affairs?
The pup, whatever his name was or should be, sniffed the Tarbane with interest, finding Shardon’s nose and licking it. Shardon snorted and shook his head.
“That tickles.”
“Maybe he finds you tasty,” I said. “Here, you two are elected babysitters.”
I set the dark pup down on the ground between them and lurched over to the fire. I felt hot, shaky and my head felt like it was going to burst and send my brains exploding everywhere. Sitting down, I crossed my legs, my hair hanging in my face and, sidelong, watched the pup waddle around hooves large enough to squash him flat.
“What if he gets hungry?” Tashira asked plaintively, his head down low enough to nuzzle the pup’s dark fur. Like Shardon, his gusting snort all but blew the pup’s ears off. His blue eyes squinted against the hurricane.
The pup had absolutely zero fear of the enormous black face before his eyes, the mouth that might swallow him whole. He offered his Tarbane babysitters as much trust and confidence as he gave me. Perhaps he understood the Tarbane and their ancestral friendship toward his kind. That line of thought created yet more pain inside my head and I bit back a groan.
In wolfish delight, sitting back on his chubby butt, the pup licked Tashira’s huge, soft nose.
“You’re right,” Tashira said, jerking his head from the pup’s busy tongue. His mane all but buried the whelp in coils of black hair. “That tickles.”
“One day you just might shock me by listening to something I said.”
I waited to see the pup settled into the softness of Tashira’s mane for a nap, just to see the big black’s consternation about raising his head and waking him. The plump, dark pup refused to entertain me with that scenario and waddled about, his small black nose to the ground. Tashira put his muzzle close behind his tiny waving tail and followed carefully, serious about his duties as a babysitter. Feminine laughter once more crossed the camp. I shut my eyes.
“Hey, you,” Tashira complained. “Come back here. Don’t go there, you little—”
“Don’t move,” Shardon warned. “You’ll step on him.”
“I’m not moving. Get him out from my tail.”
“Just how am I supposed to do that? I don’t have hands.”
“I don’t care, just get him out.”
“I am sooo not putting my head under there to pick him up.”
Pretending not to, I looked. My dark pup wandered into the massive lengths of Tashira’s heavy tail, entangling himself in the process. Like a net, Tashira’s thick ropes snared him like a trap. As he struggled to free himself, he only tangled himself further. Setting up sharp cries, he fought to get free of the clinging mass.
“He’s putting a knot in my tail,” Tashira said, his head bent around his own massive shoulder to eye the wolf pup between his hind legs, trapped, helplessly snagged in his tail.
“You’ll live,” Shardon said, swinging his huge body about to eye the pup entangled in Tashira’s long thick lengths.
“Get him out, dammit.”
“Whyever should I?”
Unable to speak for laughing, Ly’Tana strode to the rescue. Disentangling the pup from the depths of Tashira’s tail, she dumped him in my lap before resuming her chores. Those chores, of course, were directing her warriors in the setting up and guarding of our camp. The pup, much happier now, ceased his high-pitched whines and settled between my crossed legs. Finding my thumb, he discovered the single-minded occupation of chewing it, his blue eyes half-closed in puppy bliss.
“You two seriously suck at babysitting,” Rygel said, holding in his own laughter.
“It’s not my fault,” Tashira explained hastily, bending his head so he might look down at the busy pup in my lap. “Shardon let him get into my tail.”
“Because your tail is uncharted territory isn’t just cause to blame me for your inadequacies,” Shardon declared, stomping to my other side to peer over my shoulder. His heavy mane cascaded down over my head and body like liquid silver. “He looks hungry.”
“What makes you say that?” Tashira asked, his dark eyes bright in the firelight on level with mine.
“He’s trying to eat Raine’s hand. Must mean he’s famished.”
Now buried in two suffocating manes, I fought with my free hand to push the mass from my face so I could breathe without inhaling hair. I spat mane from my mouth, pushed Tarbane lengths from my eyes so I might see.
“He’s a man eater,” Tashira commented with utter seriousness. “
Got to be.”
“Why don’t you feed him then?” I asked, removing my thumb from the pup’s jaws and holding him up over my head toward Shardon.
“Do I look like a mare?” he asked, offended. “Do I have milk? Of course not. Ask one of them.”
He tossed his silver forelock in the direction of Ly’Tana and Arianne.
“They don’t have milk either,” I said glumly, stroking the now crying pup’s ears.
“Then what good are they?”
Instantly, both Ly’Tana and Arianne, deep in their respective chores, straightened. Twin female glares struck Shardon and bore holes deep into his silver hide. He gulped, his huge brown eyes behind his thick forelock wide, alarmed.
“Oops,” he said.
“Now you’ve gone and done it,” Tashira said. “I don’t know you.”
Tashira trotted away from camp and, amidst the group of peacefully grazing horses, dropped his head to munch.
Ly’Tana glared, her emerald eyes bright in the firelight, her hand fingering her dagger. Arianne tossed her midnight hair from her face, her grey-blue eyes flickering in the flames, creating weird shining spheres. She’d no weapon to toy in a silent but effective threat, but, despite her small stature, managed to look imperious. Her hands found her hips and she used them to full advantage.
“Uh,” Shardon said hastily, drawing away from me and the pup, one slow hoof at a time. “Listen, try me again later on the babysitting thing, but my right now my schedule is full. Always glad to help, you know. But it’s, like, time to bolt.”
And bolt he did. To the farthest edge of the camp, he fled, safely away from the outraged females and the laughing warriors. My own chuckles made my head ache even worse. I ceased them and set my head in my hands. I wished Rygel’s promised relief would come but soon. He still rolled on the ground laughing, holding his ribs, worried only about their aching, not my head’s agony.
“Where’s that legendary Tarbane courage?” Kel’Ratan called after them, his voice caustic.
Tashira raised his head, his shape dim in the deepening twilight. “I live by a few simple rules,” he said. “The first being, of course, never aggravate a female, no matter what the species.”
Catch a Wolf Page 48
