BOOK I IN THE MOOREHAWKE TRILOGY 27 страница
Wynter kicked and thrashed and scrabbled at her neck. She was horrified to feel her hands grow numb. Her arms grew weak. She was being strangled to death with her own cloak! Then the Wolf ’s weight lifted. The fabric loosened. Her lungs filled with cold air and she was jerked violently onto the rough path as Ozkar heaved her up.
Wynter’s foot fell free of the stirrup. She rolled to her side and lay gasping at the edge of the path. There was a storm of angry snarling on the slope below her; then a flurry of stinging shale blasted her in the face as the Loup-Garou flung himself back over the edge. Wynter groped blindly for her knife. The Wolf ’s weight squashed the air from her as he rolled across her body. Lashing out, she sliced him on his thigh. His weight left her. Then another Wolf scrabbled its way up the slope and lunged after the first.
Wynter swung at this second Loup-Garou, aiming for its eyes. But it dodged her, and to her amazement, it threw itself at its companion, locking its jaws against the other Wolf ’s throat. The creatures twisted away from her, rolled beneath Ozkar’s plunging feet and slammed against the base of the bluff wall. Confused, Wynter jerked to her knees as the new Wolf – small, sleek and jet black – took on the grizzled might of the one who had tried to strangle her.
On the path behind her, Sólmundr staggered to his feet. He had won his fight against the fifth Wolf, but had been dragged to the ground in the process. Boro was still battling the Loup-Garou that had first attacked his master, and the two animals now collided over the headless body of Sól’s opponent, their feet skittering and slipping about in its pooled blood. The wind whipped ribbons of gore from Sól’s arms as he lifted his sword high above his head. He yelled a command to his dog. Boro leapt back, and the warrior brought his sword slicing down, cleaving the Wolf ’s head from its body. The corpse fell at Sólmundr’s feet with two separate thuds.
‘Stay still, Iseult!’ cried Sólmundr. ‘We with you now!’
He attempted to slap Ozkar aside, while Boro, his hackles raised, crowded impatiently at his heels. Wynter rose to her feet, her dagger in her hand, her eyes on the smaller, black Wolf who still had his teeth locked around the throat of the one remaining Loup-Garou.
The black Wolf ’s lips pulled back from bloody fangs, and his eyes met Wynter’s as he dug in and held firm. Wynter nodded, and the black Wolf shook his head, his teeth digging deep. Blood sprayed up. The Loup-Garou howled in pain. Its fierce claws gouged at the black Wolf ’s belly. Its teeth snapped at his shoulders in an effort to break free.
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Wynter advanced in a crouch, her dagger out. Sól, still struggling to pass Ozkar, shouted at her to stay back. At the sound of his voice, the Loup-Garou twisted, and Wynter saw terror rise in its eyes as it took in the blood-soaked warrior and his gigantic warhound.
Desperate, the Loup-Garou slammed the black Wolf against the bluff wall and tried to shake him from its throat. The black Wolf clung tenaciously on, but the Loup-Garou was bigger and stronger, and it once again slammed the black Wolf hard against the bluff. Blood scattered in big drops against the rocky walls. The black Wolf ’s frightened eyes met Wynter’s as the Loup-Garou shook him like a rag, and Wynter knew he could not last much longer.
She reared up and plunged her knife between the Loup-Garou’s shoulders. With a howl, it surged abruptly to its hind legs and shook its entire body, dragging the black Wolf and Wynter with it as it rose. The black Wolf fell away, taking a great chunk of his opponent’s throat with him. Wynter, her hands still clenched around the handle of her knife, felt the Loup-Garou’s muscles ripple beneath her. Then she was clinging to a man, tall and broad-shouldered and unbelievably strong. He flung himself backwards and slammed Wynter against the rocks, knocking the air from her. But it was the last desperate act of a dying man. The strength left his legs almost immediately, and he slid to the ground with a sigh, his throat gaping, his torso scarlet with blood.
Finally able to dodge past the horses, Boro flew for the black Wolf, his teeth bared. The Wolf sped past Wynter, yelping and crying in fear, and Wynter lurched from the rock and flung herself after them. Catching a handful of Boro’s fur, she clung on, trying to slow him down, but her weight made not one whit of difference. The warhound swerved beneath her, trying to get a grip on the black Wolf as it dodged and twisted to avoid his snapping teeth.
Behind her, there was a sing of metal on stone as Sólmundr separated the dead Loup-Garou from his head. Boro swerved beneath her again, doubling back on himself as the black Wolf made another attempt to bolt. Wynter screamed, ‘Sól! Call him off! Call him off!’ Boro’s huge jaws closed on flesh and fur, ripping a scarlet gash in the black Wolf ’s leg.
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‘Sól!’ screeched Wynter. ‘It’s Christopher! Call Boro off! Call him off!’
‘Frith an Domhain!’ Sól yelled. He called urgently to Boro. ‘Tar anseo!
’ The hound broke off immediately and Wynter fell to her hands and knees, face to face with the black Wolf, who was cowering by the base of the cliff wall. His hackles were raised in a spiky ruff around his snarling face, and his teeth and fur were red with blood. For one moment, staring into his slanting yellow eyes, Wynter was certain that she had made a mistake. Then the Wolf dropped to his belly with a whine, his eyes filled with pain, and he blinked around him in confusion and despair.
‘It’s all right, Christopher,’ she whispered, shuffling forward on her knees. ‘It’s all right.’ She put her arms around him, pulling him in. He trembled against her, and as if in echo to his trembling, Wynter’s entire body started to shake. Sólmundr staggered over, his bloody sword trailing in the dirt, and he sank to his knees by her side, all his strength gone.
Wynter felt the numbing blanket of shock settle down around her as she scanned the headless bodies, the gorespattered path, the quaking horses. In her arms, the black Wolf whined, and she felt his body shudder as his human nature struggled to the fore. As the changes began to take their toll, Sólmundr drew off his bloodstained cloak and laid it across their friend’s shivering body. Wynter held on while Christopher came back to them, and as she waited, her eyes fixed on the slope and the motionless patch of red at its base.
VIGIL
‘I NOT BE long,’ rasped Sól. ‘The mule will not to have gone far, then I ride to end of pass, try find good way down for to bring the horses.’
‘Yes, yes,’ said Wynter, her eyes on Razi’s body far below.
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Sólmundr glanced at Christopher, who was just finished buttoning his jacket. ‘You all right for slope, luichín?’
Christopher nodded and pulled his cloak around him, tying the stays with shaking hands.
Sól grunted uncertainly. ‘I be with you soon,’ he said. ‘You not do nothing till I with you, tá go maith? You not move him or nothing till I get there?’
Satisfied with their compliance, the warrior heaved himself painfully into the saddle and clucked Ozkar on. His own horse limped behind at the end of a lead line, and Boro ranged ahead, following the scattered trail of goods left by the fleeing pack mule.
Christopher pushed himself to unsteady feet. Wynter glanced back, then put her foot over the edge. ‘I’m going ahead,’ she said. ‘You take your time.’
She started down without waiting for him to join her, dropping almost immediately to her arse and angling her descent to try to maintain some control. It was hellishly unstable. She scrabbled crab-wise down the slope, digging her heels and hands into the harsh ground in an effort to control her speed. Rocks and loose pebbles showered down on her from above as Christopher began his own descent. Wynter forced her attention from Razi and scanned the narrow gully, looking for the horses, and the Loup-Garou that Christopher had felt certain he’d left wounded but still alive among the rocks.
The Wolf that had carried Razi over the edge lay sprawled and unmoving on the opposite side of the gully floor, its neck twisted unnaturally, its long dark hair covering its face. Even dead, even naked and vulnerably human, it frightened Wynter by its presence. She wished that Sól had gone down ahead of her with his sword and taken this Wolf ’s head from its shoulders, the way he had all the others. Her eyes kept switching anxiously between it and Razi.
Halfway down, there was an abrupt increase in the hail of rocks from above, and Christopher yelled as he lost control of his speed. He hurtled down the hill towards her, and Wynter turned her face away as he sped past in a stinging spray of stones, trailing dust and a fluid litany of curses behind him. He tumbled once, starfished frantically onto his belly, and spun a slow, lazy circle as he reached the lower slopes. Wynter scrambled after him, only slightly more in control of her descent, and they both slid to a halt in a drizzle of stones and dislodged soil.
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They got to their feet, sand and small rocks dribbling from every fold of their clothes, their bloodstained faces now white with dust. They stood stock-still for a moment, gazing at their friend’s motionless body. Then Wynter bolted for Razi.
Christopher ran to the Loup-Garou, drawing his katar as he went. He swung the sword above his head, and Wynter turned her back as he brought it down. She had had enough of blood for today, even Loup-Garou blood, and though she wanted the creature disposed of, she could not witness the deciding blow. As Christopher’s sword separated the Wolf ’s head from its shoulders, Wynter knelt at Razi’s side. He was breathing, but her heart squeezed at his lack of movement. She hesitated, desperately wanting to help but not knowing where to start.
‘Help me fix his cloak,’ she whispered as Christopher’s scuffed boots came into view. ‘It’s all twisted around his head.’
‘Is he alive?’ he said, his voice curiously flat.
At her nod, Christopher fell to his knees as if his legs were unhinged. He flung his sword onto the gravel behind him and knelt over their friend, his hands poised. ‘What do we do?’ he cried. ‘Sól said not to move him!’
Wynter tugged Razi’s cloak from its uncomfortable tangle around his neck and pulled it down to cover his body, tucking it in around him as if he were a child at bedtime. He was utterly limp, his dark face slack. Apart from some raw patches on his cheek and jaw, he seemed otherwise unharmed.
‘What do we do?’ cried Christopher again.
Wynter looked up at the empty path, praying for Sól’s return. ‘I don’t know,’ she whispered. Clenching her hands in the fabric at Razi’s chest, she forced herself not to say the words that sprang most easily to mind in such a situation: Get Razi. Call Razi. He’ll know how to fix it.
‘He not wake at all?’
Wynter shook her head, watching while Sólmundr pushed his fingers into Razi’s hair, palpated the back of Razi’s head, pressed Razi’s temples, squeezed his skull.
‘He not bring up sick?’ murmured the warrior. ‘He not move? He not make sound?’
Again, Wynter shook her head. Sólmundr ran his hands down Razi’s ribs, felt along his arms, squeezed the bones of Razi’s legs. Then he sat back, gazing down into Razi’s unresponsive face. ‘He not broken,’ he said quietly. ‘He seem good.’ He smiled reassuringly at Wynter. ‘You not to worry, a luch. We must just to wait. Soon Tabiyb will to wake.’
‘It’s getting on to dark,’ said Christopher. ‘We need to take shelter. I can’t find the other Loup-Garou body. I’m fair sure it’s dead, but still, it means there could be two of them out there.’
Sólmundr nodded gravely. ‘Come on,’ he said, rising to his feet. ‘You help for to carry him.’
Sól insisted on a fire. He insisted on hot food. He made antiseptic tea and washed out their wounds. They huddled together in the cramped space between leaning boulders as the wind moaned and growled its way down the pass and the light seeped from the sky. Razi did not so much as stir. He seemed dead, lying there swaddled in his cloak, and Christopher sat with his hand on his chest, staring out past the tiny circle of fragile light as the gritty dusk turned to night. Wynter sewed her jacket. Sólmundr bound the terrible bites on Boro’s legs.
‘Tomorrow you help me tie up the mare,’ he said softly, his face intent as he tended the hound. ‘I must try burn shut tear in her shoulder.’
‘It will abscess,’ murmured Christopher. ‘I’ll sew it up for you and we can pack it in mud to keep the flies off.’
Out in the restless night, something big came clattering down the rocky path, and the three of them froze, their hands reaching for their swords. The sound of hooves echoed from the gully walls and they heard Ozkar whinny in greeting as horses approached the camp. Wynter crawled to the edge of the firelight and peered around the rocks. Razi’s big mare came trotting from the shadows, Christopher’s sturdy little horse at her side. Their saddles sat crooked on their backs, their tack and equipment trailing behind. Wearily, they joined their herd-mates at the highline, their shapes merging in the semi-dark.
‘Jesu Christi,’ she whispered and crept out to check their condition.
Christopher came out to guard her, his eyes on the shadows, his sword in his hand.
‘They are in rude health,’ breathed Wynter in awe, releasing the poor creatures from their tangled burdens. ‘They have hardly a scratch!’
Christopher nodded tightly and gestured that she hurry up. The wind had died to a gusting breeze and a narrow moon cast ink-well shadows from rock and crevasse. His eyes roamed this darkness constantly, his bruised face grim.
As Wynter hoisted the saddles from the horses’ tired shoulders, a howl rose up from the rocks above them. Long, protracted, filled with loss, it was the lonely call of the remaining Loup-Garou. There was no threat in the sound, only sorrow, only pain, and as Wynter laid the saddles on the ground and backed carefully to Christopher’s side, the Wolf ’s voice fell to a sobbing moan and died away. The horses trembled and huddled a little closer but showed no greater signs of fear than that. Boro did not even growl.
Christopher took Wynter’s arm, tugging her backwards, and they edged their way slowly to the fire. The howl rose up again, moaning its hurt to the moon.
‘It’s wounded,’ whispered Christopher. ‘It won’t attack.’ And he pulled her back down between the leaning rocks and into the warm radiance of the firelight.
The night turned to morning. The morning spun towards noon.
Sólmundr hunkered down in the opening between the rocks and laid his sword across his knees. He squinted against the midday sun as he scanned the bluff above, the breeze tousling at his loose hair and tugging his cloak. ‘We not find them,’ he rasped. ‘There is signs of at least one, moving about in the rocks, but I not find body of other. It might to be still alive but I doubt it. It fall very far.’
‘It likely fell down between the rocks,’ said Wynter dully. ‘It’s nothing but meat for crows by now.’
Sólmundr ceased his restless scanning of the skyline and peered in at her. He didn’t ask how Razi was; any fool could tell that the young man’s condition hadn’t changed. Sucking his teeth, the warrior met Wynter’s eyes, the obvious question clear in his face. She sat beside her motionless friend and stared back at him.
‘We wait,’ she said.
Sólmundr sighed, and his eyes dropped to the diplomatic folder lying across Wynter’s knee. For a moment Wynter thought he would speak; that he would be the one to say the very thing she was thinking. But the warrior just nodded, rose to his feet and went to help Christopher tend to the horses. Wynter frowned in misery and squeezed her eyes shut, her hands closing around the leather covers of the folder.
This was day six of their ten-day journey. Alberon was at this very moment travelling the lower slopes somewhere with his entourage of men, already five days into his own trek home. Every moment that they delayed here was a moment stolen from Alberon. Regardless of their circumstances, the unheeding clock of their plan ticked relentlessly on. If Razi did not get to the castle in time to appease the King, if Alberon turned up in advance of his brother – the consequences would be catastrophic.
We can afford one or two days’ delay, thought Wynter bleakly. Certainly we can afford that! Even if Razi took two full days to recover, they would still make it home three days ahead of Alberon. Three days would be plenty of time for a man like Razi to persuade the King. Wouldn’t it?
Beside her, Razi breathed on, the steady rise and fall of his chest the only indication that he was alive. Wynter clutched the diplomatic folder to her chest and willed him to wake.
Noon passed. The sun set. Night crept in once again.
‘It’s just a suggestion,’ said Christopher softly. ‘I think you should consider it.’
‘No.’
‘But it makes perfect sense! Why must you be so damned exasperating?’
‘In what way does it make sense, Christopher Garron? Tell me how, by any stretch of anyone’s fertile imagination, does it make sense for you to turn up at the castle bearing papers from the Rebel Prince?’
Presumably in some kind of effort to prevent his brain exploding, Christopher clutched his head between his hands and squeezed. ‘I will explain that the Lord Razi is wounded in the hills and that I am speaking on his behalf,’ he grated. ‘Sól and Boro will protect you and Raz until the soldiers come to find you. It’s. Perfectly. Reasonable.
’ ‘The Wolves will kill you.’
‘Oh, don’t be ridiculous!’
‘The Wolves will kill you, and if they do not, the King’s men will.’
Christopher scrubbed his face with his hands and muttered darkly in Hadrish. Sól sighed and threw some dried horse dung onto the fire. The moon was dark, the sky heavy with clouds. Beyond their little ring of firelight, the night pressed thick and impenetrable, the air made unbearably cold by the wind.
The Loup-Garou howled low and mournful in the rocks above, and Sólmundr grimaced out into the darkness. ‘I going to kill that cac!’ he hissed.
The damnable creature had remained hidden all through the daylight hours, but as soon as darkness had fallen, it had resumed its melancholy song. Boro growled, but Sólmundr refused to let the big dog be drawn out into the rocks. He did not trust that the Loup-Garou really was alone.
‘Iseult,’ persisted Christopher, ‘look at me. Lass, look at me!’
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