Dragonsbane (Book 3) (8 page)

A third hound had flown from the woods. Now it stood over Baird, towering on its hind legs. The knots in its throat bobbed up and down as it screamed. The second hound joined its song and rushed to meet it — a fleshy chunk of its brother still gripped in its jaws. The hound that stood over Baird snapped its head down for the feed.

And Kael’s arrow struck its throat.

The howl broke into a gasp. The second hound screamed and fell upon its dying brother. It ripped and tore, lapping at the gushing veins while its brother wriggled helplessly beneath it. Their massive bodies were between Kael and Baird. He couldn’t reach him with the hounds in the way.

So he fired again.

The last hound arched back as Kael’s arrow struck its side. It screamed in pain and spun, nostrils flared above its gaping mouth. Kael grabbed another arrow. He nocked it tightly. The hound leapt, its fleshy jaws bared around its teeth and claws curled for his throat — 

A burst of white light erupted in the clearing. The hound flew backwards as if it’d been struck. Kael shut his eyes tightly, grimacing as the ferocity of the light stabbed his lids. He could feel it in his ears, pressing against his skin. Just when he thought he could bear it no longer, the light vanished.

When Kael opened his eyes, he saw an astonishing sight: a forest man stood over the mangled body of the hound. Though he was past his middle age, thin cords of muscle stretched across his limbs. An animal’s hide knotted about his waist was his only clothing.

Around his neck he wore a wooden medallion. He held the medallion from his chest and the blinding light faded into its center, leaving nothing but silence in its wake.

“Sleep, Abomination,” the forest man rumbled. “I rid your body of its cursed soul.”

The hound flailed its limbs; its monstrous mouth froze in a silent howl. White light seeped from its eyes, its drooping ears. The light turned liquid as it slid across the hound’s skin and dulled, sinking into the ground. Then at last, its twisted body went still.

A familiar moldy smell struck Kael’s nose as the last of the light went out. It wasn’t as strong as the stench he was used to, but there was no denying what it was: magic.

Kael kept his bow drawn taught and the arrow aimed at the forest man’s back as he got to his feet. “Who are you?”

“Graymange, the wolf shaman,” he said without turning.

Shaman? Kael let the bow go slack. “You mean you’re one of the shapechangers?”

“Yes.”

It made sense. Baird mentioned that the shamans had given up the power of the mages. The spell he used must’ve been some sort of … earth magic, he supposed. At least it didn’t smell as foul as normal magic.

Graymange knelt before the body of the hound. His hand shot out quickly — prodding and snapping back, as if its skin was hot. “
Abomination
,” he hissed.

Perhaps Graymange had never seen one of Crevan’s monsters before. Kael took a cautious step forward. “The King does this to them. It’s some sort of spell —”

“No, this is different. These creatures aren’t shapechangers … they lust for
human
blood.” Graymange scowled at the twisted body of the hound. “Our land is ruled by order: things that were meant to be, traveling the paths they were meant to follow. But these creatures should’ve never been born. They have no paths to follow. They live only to interrupt our order. Their very existence is Abomination — they must be stopped.”

Those sounded an awful lot like the things the Tinnarkians used to say about Kael. He stepped away from Graymange quickly and went to check on Baird.

The beggar-bard must’ve cracked his head on a root: he was unconscious and snoring heavily through his beard, but otherwise unscathed. Things certainly could’ve been worse.

He heard a low grunt and turned in time to see Graymange tugging at the collar that was clamped around the hound’s throat. “Help me, Marked One.”

Kael took two steps before his legs froze. “Wait a moment — how did you know I was a whisperer?”

He grunted something that sounded like
Emberfang
, but that couldn’t have been it. “Why don’t you just spell it open?” Kael said as he leaned over the collar.

“Our magic isn’t like the magic of the mages. I command
order
, not power.”

Kael wasn’t sure what that meant, but he was focused too intently on the collar to ask. He’d expected it to look like all the others had. But instead of iron, this collar was made of solid gold.

He grasped it and wasn’t surprised to feel the familiar itch of magic. What
did
surprise him was that he didn’t see the milky white film of a spell wrapped around it. Instead, hairline ripples folded all along the metal — like the marks that wind left in the sand.

The ripples were a dull red and glowing. He supposed it must’ve be some sort of spell. He scratched at them, but they didn’t break. Even when he tore the collar into two, the ripples glowed on. It was as if the magic had somehow
melted
into the gold …

“Quickly, Marked One — we will gather the other collars. Then we must be gone,” Graymange barked. He scooped Baird’ knobby body effortlessly onto his shoulders and set off into the woods. Kael stuffed the collar into one of the rucksacks and followed at a trot.

*******

Something was chasing them.

Graymange never said it aloud, but Kael knew by the way he wove them around that he was trying to muddle their trail. He dragged them through thickets and past enormous trees, toting Baird easily across his shoulders. They circled the decaying body of a deer — and the smell was so potent that Kael could taste it in the back of his throat.

At one point, they stopped at a shallow cave. A great tree sat on the hill above it. The roots that stretched from its base hung over the cave’s mouth like a curtain. Graymange sat Baird on the ground
and went inside the cave. He rubbed his bare shoulders against the roots and his back against the rocky wall. Then he scooped Baird up and set off again without a word.

A wide river flowed just beyond the cave. Kael’s toes curled as he watched Graymange slip into the water, but he forced himself to follow. The current was fairly gentle; the murky waters were surprisingly warm. At its middle, the waves came up to Kael’s waist. He stepped carefully, keeping both packs raised over his head and out of the river’s reach.

Baird’s boots dragged a half-moon in the water as Graymange turned.

His face betrayed nothing, but Kael thought he could see the question in his eyes. “I’m all right. Keep going.”

The bottom of the river was covered in a thick layer of sand and grit. He concentrated hard on staying balanced while fighting against the current, and he was doing rather well. Then he stepped on a fish.

It must’ve been sleeping in the sand. The fish’s slippery body twisted violently beneath his boot and in his surprise, Kael leapt back. The moment his feet left the ground, the river tried to sweep him away. Luckily, he managed to hook his foot around a root before he got carried too far.

“I’m fine,” he said as he righted himself. “I even managed to keep the packs dry — well, mostly dry,” he amended, when he saw the dark stain on one of their bottoms.

A chorus of screams sounded off in the distance. Kael’s blood chilled the waters around him, but Graymange didn’t look at all worried. He closed his eyes as the howls continued.

“Further than before … their calls aren’t as sharp, the wails not as long. We’ve fooled them.” He opened his eyes and sloshed over to Kael. His sharp chin jutted over his shoulder. “Watch closely, mountain child.”

Kael could just make out the bank they’d left behind. His heart thudded worriedly as several hounds galloped up to the shallow cave. Their warped bodies disappeared beneath the shadow cast by the tree — but he could hear the snapping of wood as they tore at the root curtain.

From where Kael stood, it didn’t look as if they’d fooled the hounds at all. In fact, they were right on their trail. “We’ve got to move on.”

“Patience,” Graymange murmured.

“
Patience
? This is hardly the time for —”

“Sleep, Abominations!” a loud voice boomed.

Kael shut his eyes just in time to spare them from a burst of white light. Yelps cut through the air, fading to whines as the light raged on and then at last, to silence.

A tall man stood outside the shallow cave, a medallion hanging from his upraised hand. Kael only got a glimpse of him before the light went out. He couldn’t be sure, but it looked as if the man’s whole back was blanketed in a mat of hair.

“Come, Marked One.”

“Where are we going?”

“Why do humans waste so much breath on questions,” Graymange growled, “when their legs could easily carry them to their answers?”

Kael picked up his feet.

Chapter 8

Emberfang

It was near dawn when they finally stopped.

Baird had woken a mile or so beyond the river and began to loudly exclaim that something smelled like a wet dog. And because he’d seen absolutely no point in trying to reason with the beggar-bard, Kael had whispered him unconscious.

They’d trudged on silently for a mile more — or as silently as they could with Baird muttering in his sleep. Kael’s ears strained over the endless stream of his prattle and the noises of the woods, listening for the cries of the hounds. But he didn’t hear so much as a yelp.

At long last, Graymange led him through a line of trees grown so closely together that they’d nearly formed a wall. Their dark shadows draped over his head and their branches creaked grumpily as he squeezed between them. Kael was relieved when he finally made it to the other side.

But his relief didn’t last for long.

A large clearing stretched out in front of him. The moonlight kissed the rain-soaked ground and made it glitter; trees surrounded it in a blackened wall. He might’ve thought the clearing was a beautiful sight — had it not been for the bodies piled in its middle.

It must’ve been some sort of camp. There were tents set up near the edge of the clearing, and he could see the faint glow of fires. But now all of its armored residents lay in a bloody mound upon the grass.

Kael squinted and thought he could see a gold wolf’s head through the dark smears on one of their tunics. His stomach twisted into a worried knot. “What are the Earl’s men doing in the Grandforest?”

“I don’t know what an
Earl
is,” Graymange said as he passed by. “The world of men means little to me — my business is with the Abominations. These swordbearers stood in my path. Now, they have been dealt with.”

A hooded figure emerged from between the tents, hefting a soldier’s body across its shoulders. With a grunt and a mighty heave, it tossed the body onto the top of the pile. Then it turned to Graymange, crossed its arms and said:

“Well, it’s about blasted time.”

“Kyleigh!” Kael didn’t know whether to be furious or relieved. So he marched towards her at a half-stomp. “Where in Kingdom’s name have you been?”

She waved a hand at the mound of bodies. “Here, mostly. It takes a long while to stack them this neatly.”

He pulled her hood away so he could glare at her properly, and saw she was grinning. Something must’ve been horribly wrong with him — either that, or he’d been more relieved than he’d thought. For though he tried desperately to hold it down, his mouth seemed to have a mind of its own: it bent upwards before he had a chance to stop it.

Kyleigh’s grin broke into a laugh.

“I’m still angry with you,” he insisted. “It isn’t fair for you to go running off on secret errands all the time —”

“Secret errands?”

“Well, you might at least tell me where you’re going,” he grouched when she laughed again. “One of these days I’m going to get entirely fed up with your nonsense, then you’ll be sorry.”

He was rather surprised when she grabbed him by the collar. Her fingers burned the skin beneath his throat and made his blood run hot. Her eyes blazed with something that wasn’t quite anger — but still every bit as dangerous.

His ears trembled against her voice as she growled: “Is that so?”

“Yes,” he managed to choke.

She smirked. “I’ll take my chances.”

Her hand twisted tighter in his shirt. The fires nearly overwhelmed him. She shoved him away and for a moment, the heat faded. But then the smile she gave him brought the flames roaring back.

It happened in a blink, a breath — one spark that fluttered down his shirt and seared his flesh. She tucked it away quickly, but that smile left a mark. He felt a raw patch in his mind as it burned itself into his memory.

He just wasn’t sure why.

“You had nothing to worry about. You know very well that I can take care of myself. And I left you in excellent hands,” she said.

Kael snorted. “If you’re talking about Silas, then I —”

“Silas?” Her brows arched high. “When did you see Silas?”

Kael was confused. “He turned up at the shelter a while after you left. Granted, he ran off just when things started to get thick. But had he not called us out when he did, those hounds would’ve found us.”

“
Hounds
?” Kyleigh growled.

“I’d been watching them closely, just as you asked,” Graymange said when she glared at him. “The Abominations came too near, so I led them away. But then Blackbeak spotted the light of a fire. He called them back. I returned as swiftly as I could, Emberfang.”

Now it was Kael’s turn to be shocked. “
You’re
Emberfang?” When he saw how pink she’d gotten, he suddenly understood. “That’s your shapechanger name, isn’t it?”

“She belonged to the Fang pack, and so she was named as one,” Graymange said in answer. “Long ago, three pups were born to the Mother Wolf: Fang, Mange, and Howl. We are their descendents.”

“This is no time for stories,” Kyleigh snapped when she saw the question forming on Kael’s lips. “Graymange — take that human back to the den.”

He scooped Baird up and jogged off in the direction she’d pointed, leaving them on their own.

“Did you manage to find me a collar?”

The sharpness hadn’t quite left her voice. Kael dug through the rucksack until he came across a twisted strip of gold. He held it out to her, but she didn’t take it.

She stumbled backwards and a curse hissed between her lips. The way she stared at the collar made him wonder if one of the spirits of the dead had just floated down from the trees. “What is it?”

“Dragonsbane,” she whispered, her eyes still wide.

“What —?”

“Don’t,” she said sharply, when he took a step forward. “Don’t bring it any closer.”

He stood still while she paced. She swiped the loose strands of hair from across her eyes and her face was far paler than usual. He couldn’t hear the things she muttered, but he could see how worried she was.

If Kyleigh was worried over something, it meant he ought to have been terrified. But he wasn’t. For some reason, her fear forced him to be calm. He supposed one of them had to be. “What’s dragonsbane?” he said quietly.

“Gold forged with mage blood — an ancient metal with impossible power.”

“What power?”

“An everlasting spell: the essence of magic bound in gold. It’s especially useful against dragonscales — which is why it’s called
dragonsbane
.” She scratched absently at her armor, as if she could feel the metal’s bite. “I’ve only ever seen it forged into weapons and armor … but Titus seems to have found a new use for it.”

Kael felt as if the whole earth had just fallen out from under him. “These collars — those monsters — they belong to
Titus
? How can you be sure?”

“The only place I’ve ever seen dragonsbane is in the Unforgivable Mountains.”

And Titus rules the mountains
, Kael thought.

He remembered what Graymange had said about the hounds — how they hunted human blood. They’d had armor melded into their skin; they took the shape of dogs. Then all at once, it struck him:

“Bloodtraitors,” he moaned. His stomach dropped when Kyleigh nodded. “Mercy’s sake … Titus is turning his army into shapechangers.”

“It was bad enough before,” Kyleigh said quietly. She stared down at the collar. “But this is worse. This changes everything.”

Kael didn’t understand why things should’ve been any worse. These collars might’ve had magic in them, but they’d broken easily enough. He tested a bit of the golden skin with an edge of his dagger and a thick strip peeled off. They weren’t even as strong as the iron collars.

When he said as much, Kyleigh sighed. “Dragonsbane wouldn’t be any good against stronger metals — the gold weakens it. No, it works best against flesh … and scales.” She scratched uncomfortably at her elbow. “You don’t have to be a mage in order to wield dragonsbane, which means Titus won’t have to rely on anybody else. His army will be bound directly to him. Blazes …
blazes
…” Her eyes darted wildly as she paced, as if she stood before a ravine she had no way to cross.

Kael thought furiously. “What if we destroyed it? I know it would take a while, but if we could break it piece by piece —”

“Dragonsbane is
immortal
magic. It can be melted down, but never destroyed.”

Kael wasn’t so sure. There wasn’t a thing in the Kingdom that was truly unbreakable — even the winds chewed at the mountains. Dragonsbane must have a weakness … and he had to find it.

He held the collar in his hands for a moment, trying to ignore the itch long enough to get a good feel of it. The red, glowing ripples seemed to slosh around when he tilted the collar. It was as if the ripples were still liquid — as if the gold had soaked them up …

That was it. That was exactly what had happened: the gold had soaked up the mage blood like water into a rag.

Kael held this thought firmly in his head as he grasped either end of the collar. He squeezed the dragonsbane between his fingers and had to hold his breath as the blood began trickling out. He twisted it, wringed it until every last ripple had been drained from the gold. Then he tossed it away.

“Gah!” He flung an arm over his mouth and concentrated on breathing in the sweat-stiffened cloth of his shirt. “Did that do it?”

Kyleigh picked up the now-misshapen lump of gold and turned it over in her hands, her mouth agape. “What a strange creature you are, Kael the Wright, to solve great problems with such simple answers.”

His face burned hot under her look. He wanted to say that it wasn’t all
that
— he just hadn’t wanted her to have to worry anymore. He didn’t want her to be afraid. But his tongue was too swollen to form the words.

Kyleigh hurled the gold into the pile of bodies and said: “Let’s finish this.”

“Finish what, exactly?”

She waved, and he followed her back to the soldiers’ camp. Stacked inside one of the tents was a large number of clay jars. They were small and squat, but surprisingly heavy.

He lifted one of their lids and his nose was immediately flooded by a horrible stench. It was a bitter, far-too-flowery smell — like the milky sap of an enormous weed. He coughed violently as the scent itched his throat. “Ugh! What
is
this?”

“Sap from swamp trees,” Kyleigh said.

The liquid inside the jar moved slowly as he tilted it. “It looks like honey.”

She smiled in amusement when he coughed again. “Yes, and it’ll stick like honey, too — which allows it to melt flesh rather nicely.”

He choked on his coughs. “Come again?”

“You said you’re tired of me leaving you out of things. So come on, then.” She bent and hoisted a jar in either hand. “Let’s make some mischief.”

They emptied the small tent in a matter of minutes, hauling the jars out and hurling them onto the pile of bodies. Amber liquid oozed from among the shattered clay, slowly drenching every crevice. When they’d thrown the last of the jars Kyleigh grabbed a branch from one of the smoldering fires and led him into the trees.

Kael peered through the shadows.
“Where’s Baird and Graymange?”

Kyleigh pulled an arrow from his quiver. “We’ll meet up with them in a bit. Hold this for me, will you?”

He took the branch warily, careful not to touch its glowing end. “What are you —? Hey!”

She ripped a good amount of material from the bottom of his tunic and began knotting it onto the arrow’s head. “Sorry, I needed kindling.”

“Well, I happened to like this shirt,” he muttered, tugging on its ragged hem. “I’d just finally got it broken in.”

“Is that what you call it when you never wash something?
Breaking it in
?”

She grinned when he glared.

Once she’d finished her knot, she grabbed the smoldering branch from his hand and brought it to the arrow’s head. She worked gently — coaxing the embers with soft, steady breaths. Kael watched as the ragged material caught with flame and the fire’s light spread across her skin …

“Kael?”

His face burned when he realized she was staring at him. “What?”

“I asked if you would do the honors,” she said, holding out the flaming arrow. “Aim right for the middle of the pile.”

He did. And the sap caught so furiously with orange-blue light that it made the trees rattle. Kael’s hair blew back from his forehead and he watched in shock as the fires roared. “I thought you didn’t want to be noticed! What was the point of doing all that?”

“Payback,” Kyleigh growled.

Her eyes shone so fiercely in the angry light that he was afraid to ask her what she’d meant.