The Jewel of Turmish (16 page)

Haarn exhaled, saving a small, silent prayer to Silvanus to gather his attention and make his heart cold toward his opponent.

J kill you, lifekeeper, Stonefur taunted, then we take time with woman. Chase her, bite pieces off and eat them, and let her run till she can’t run anymore. Her death will be slow, painful.

Haarn had no doubt that Stonefur would make good on his promise, and the druid knew that no matter how skilled a warrior Druz Talimsir might be, she was no match for the wolf pack.

Stonefur raced by, cut back toward Haarn, and hoped to score another blow with his claws. Haarn chose to avoid the attack, stepping back and giving ground. Seeing the reaction as a weakness, Stonefur pressed his conceived advantage, racing forward again.

Haarn brought the club up and managed to jam it across the wolfs open jaws, fending his attacker off and keeping the saliva-covered fangs from his face and throat.

The druid teetered backward, off-balance. Before he could recover, the wolf dug his claws into the muddy ground and lunged forward.

The druid fell backward, trapped under the wolfs massive weight. The cold, greasy mud slapped against Haarn’s bare back with chilling intensity. His breath left his lungs in a rush. When he breathed in again, he smelled the wolfs fetid breath and the stench of wet fur. He struggled to keep the club in place in his opponent’s jaws and stay out of reach of Stonefur’s fangs. Sharp rocks dug into Haarn’s back, bruising and tearing the exposed flesh.

Broadfoot growled, sounding angry and fearful.

Stonefur turned his head, biting down on the club and seeking to tear it from Haarn’s grip. Lightning flashed and was reflected in the pitiless depths of the wolfs wide eyes.

“Haarn!” Druz called.

Drawing part of a breath, Haarn yelled, “Stay back!”

If she didn’t, she would bring the rest of the pack down on them. Even with Broadfoot and the spells Silvanus had placed at his disposal, the druid didn’t know if they could escape the whole pack alive. He didn’t trust the wolfs word either. Stonefur had learned to kill and lived for the bloody carnage he could cause. Haarn saw that, and his heart hardened. He remembered Druz’s story about the boy who had been attacked.

You’re a killer, Stonefur, Haarn accused.

Yes, the wolf replied, excitement in his voice. Human flesh taste good.

You hunt children.

Easy prey, the wolf countered.

He braced himself and butted Haarn in the face with his broad head. Haarn felt the wolfs teeth rattle along the club. He shifted bis weapon with the wolfs movements, desperate to keep his opponent’s jaws from his flesh.

You harder to kill, Stonefur said, but more fun. I kill you, too. Soon.

Haarn didn’t have the breath to make a reply. Hot saliva dripped from the wolfs muzzle onto his exposed neck, feeling

like freshly spilled blood. The stink of the wolf filled the druid’s nostrils. With his throat exposed the way it was, Haarn knew all the wolf had to do was bite the veins on either side and let him bleed out.

Gathering his strength, Haarn shoved up against the wolf, trying to throw Stonefur from him. The wolf growled in triumph and bowed his back, using his hold on the club to stay on top of the druid.

Kill lifekeeper, Stonefur, the female called.

“Haarn!” Druz yelled.

Stonefur’s orange eyes locked with Haarn’s and the wolf said, Your female calls out for you.

Haarn said nothing, desperate to find the leverage that would allow him to break the wolfs hold. He kicked, trying to find a foothold in the mud. The rain beat down on him, blinding him as he gazed up against it.

Maybe I only wound you, Stonefur said. I cripple you so that you can watch as we kill your female.

You promised you wouldn’t do that.

Haarn heaved his weight to one side, trying to slide from under the wolf.

I lied, howled the wolf.

Stonefur lunged at the druid’s face again.

Haarn jerked his head to one side. The wolfs wet fur grated against his wounded cheek, tracing liquid fire against his face. He stifled a groan of pain.

The wolf regrouped at once and attacked again.

Using the club to block the brunt of the animal’s fierce attack, Haarn drove his knife toward Stonefur’s chest. The blade caught a flash of lightning an instant before it struck the wolfs body. Instead of penetrating Stonefur’s ribcage as Haarn had hoped, the knife skidded along the wolfs shoulder bone and ripped through flesh to grate against the animal’s spine.

Stonefur growled in pain and rage. Jerking his head, he turned and seized the offending hand before Haarn could withdraw it. The movement left the club free, and Haarn wasted no time in smashing his weapon into the wolfs side. As close as he was, the club did little more than

bruise the wolf.

Haarn distanced himself from the pain in his savaged arm. He knew Stonefur worried at his wrist with the deliberate intent to sever the tendons. A wolfs attack, like that of feline predators, was designed to break down its prey piece by piece until it was helpless.

Levering himself over, Haarn used his opponent’s displaced weight and the lock on his wrist against him. Before Stonefur could fight back, Haarn was on top of him. Struggling to straddle the great beast, Haarn drew the club back and bashed the wolf in the side of the neck.

Stonefur gave a painful howl and released his hold on Haarn’s wrist. Blood matted the lighter colored fur under the wolfs muzzle.

Haarn felt light-headed from blood loss and exertion. He’d given too much away to the battle. Perhaps if he’d kept the scimitar they’d have been better matched, but he wasn’t sure, and the balance had to be maintained. He drew the fighting club back and prepared to smash it against Stonefur’s skull.

Lightning rent the air, and cracking thunder followed on its heels.

Haarn’s breath came in ragged gasps. His chest heaved, causing his wounds to echo with dulled pain. Gazing down into the wolfs eyes, he hesitated.

To kill an opponent, his mother had told him, you must be willing to look him in the eyes, know that you will have his blood on your hands and maybe in your mouth, and accept that there is no other way. If you hesitate, you are lost.

She had been a warrior, a Harper, and had often been called away for unknown missions. Her views and those of Haarn’s father had often clashed, causing for great arguments. Even though his father and mother cared about many of the same things, the paths they took to arrive at the same destination were always different.

The wolf struck as the memories tumbled through Haarn’s mind, as the druid was torn between giving life and taking life. Stonefur bowed his back, bringing his hind

legs up and clawing with frantic effort.

Cold fire burned through Haarn’s stomach and thighs. The claws ripped through his flesh and clothing. Knowing he was exposed in his present position, he abandoned it, throwing himself to the side. He felt blood coursing down his body and hammering at his temples as his heart thudded in his chest. He pushed his hands against the ground in an effort to get to his feet. The mud gave way, though, and he fell, bumping his face against a sharp-edged stone. When he lifted his head, he saw blood on the stone, then Stonefur’s body blotted out a jagged fork of lightning that cut through the night sky. Before Haarn could shift, the wolf was on him.

Stonefur snarled and howled, throwing his weight across Haarn’s body. His fangs snapped at the back of the druid’s head, gouging deep cuts in his skull. Releasing the club, Haarn reached up with flagging strength and hooked his fingers into the wolfs fur.

I kill you, lifekeeper, the wolf snarled. J drink your blood. I eat of your flesh. I continue to hunt where I want— what I want.

Haarn levered his arm, trapping the wolf, then he used the animal’s attempt to pull away and gain another attack to shift his own weight. The druid rolled, dizziness spinning in his head, feeling like he was trapped in a waking dream and moving in slow motion. He struck with the knife, grazing the huge wolfs flanks. On his knees now, he braced to meet Stonefur’s attack. His fingers knotted in the wolfs fur felt the shift of muscles and weight that let him know the animal was coming again.

Stonefur’s head slammed into Haarn’s blood-streaked chest. For a moment, the druid thought the wolfs great strength and weight had broken his ribs. The air rushed from his lungs at the contact. Black spots swam in his vision, threatening blindness. His consciousness teetered on the edge of slipping away.

Broadfoot roared a thunderous challenge.

Haarn fought his own body. If he was lost, so were the bear and the woman. He drew another breath, staving off

the waiting blackness, and focused on the wolf. His grip wasn’t strong enough to control Stonefur. The wolf lunged at his throat. Haarn pulled the wolf to him then, catching the creature off-guard.

Clasping the wolf to him, Haarn fell backward. He hooked his knife hand behind the wolfs back, afraid that if he didn’t hold the wolf close that Stonefur would rip his throat out. The ground came up hard against his back, ripping into his flesh despite the mud. Keeping his fingers hooked into the wolfs thick coat, Haarn rammed his forearm into the animal’s side again and again, seeking to drive the breath from his attacker.

Close-in fighting had to be quick and vicious, no quarter given or asked. Haarn’s mother had taught him that despite his father’s protests. According to his father, druids were never to get that close. Haarn’s mother had taken part in a number of battles, though she never talked of them, and was of a different opinion. Sometimes the only way to kill an enemy was to look him in the eye and slip a blade home.

Haarn panted, striving to even his breath out and ease the harsh burning in his lungs. The wolfs dander, though muted by the wet coat, filled Haarn’s mouth and nose. Fear touched the druid, but the immediacy of the situation kept it at bay. Still, despite Haarn’s best efforts, Stonefur bit into his back.

Blinded by pain and fury, blood still seeping into his eye, Haarn tightened his grip around the wolfs neck, hoping to shut the animal’s breath off. One of Stonefur’s leathery ears raked against Haarn’s face. Seized by impulse and the desire to live, the druid opened his mouth and took the ear in as the wolf began to rake his midsection with his claws again.

Haarn bit down, plunging his teeth through the wolfs ear.

Stonefur squalled in pain and changed his tactics. No longer interested in attacking, the wolf sought escape. Instead of raking Haarn with his claws, he pushed against the druid.

Unable to hold his opponent with his flagging strength,

Haarn felt the wolf squirm from his grip. Stonefur shook his head, helping Haarn finish sawing the ear off. The leathery piece of flesh remained in Haarn’s mouth, which was filled with blood.

Panting, eyes only half open and threatening to close out of exhaustion, Haarn swallowed the wolfs blood and forced himself to his feet. He swayed in the storm winds, searching the muddy ground for the club. His breath puffed out in gray patches before him, burning as it entered and as it left his body.

Druz stood where he’d left her, but her sword was naked in her fist. Concern marked her features beneath rain-matted hair. Broadfoot roared again, filling the night with his challenge.

Stonefur trotted back and forth only a few feet away. The bloody stump of his shorn ear thrust up from his head, no longer cocked at an angle the way the other ear was. The wolf shook his head several times, slinging blood over himself and the ground.

You will die, lifekeeper.

Then come slay me, Haarn said. You already know Tm no boy to be stalked without fear of injury. Fve marked you, and even if I let you live after this, everyone will know you.

You were lucky.

Haarn spotted the club only a few feet away. He strode toward it, watehing the haunted lights in the wolfs eyes. Hunger showed in those orange eyes and hate as well, something Haarn had seldom seen in the eyes of an animal. He’d only found it in the eyes of those beasts that had spent time in the company of humans, and he wondered at Stonefur’s background.

Standing in the cascading rain as the storm raged around them, Haarn prayed to Silvanus. Steeped in two schools of thought, Haarn had often found himself conflicted. He didn’t know what he might have chosen had his mother not stopped coming to the forest years before, but that conflict was fading. The outcome of the battle before him resided in the sphere of his mother’s teachings, not his father’s. His father’s skills had brought him to the wolf,

but they couldn’t save him.

The druid gripped the club and knife as the driving rain sluiced blood down his body. His stomach, back, and thighs bled profusely, but the muscle walls holding his internal organs remained intact. Liquid fire ran through his shoulder and neck where Stonefur’s fangs had torn into him. He kept his feet apart in the manner his mother had taught him, left foot forward and right foot back, perpendicular to his forward foot. He kept his knees slightly bent, weight balanced. It was the most basic martial arts stance, the position everything else evolved from.

Haarn breathed out in slow deliberation, focusing his thoughts and quelling his fears. In doing that, he lost some of the perspective his father would have wanted him to keep. The wolf was no longer a part of the forest or of the world Haarn had sworn to protect as a druid.

The wolf was an enemy.

Perhaps, Stonefur said, I should let you live.

No, Haarn said, standing his ground and no longer mirroring the wolf’s movements. He became the center of the world—as his mother had taught him. As the center, all things would come to him. That kind of thinking was foreign to druids, who believed they wove through the cycles of nature without creating ripples of their own. If it doesn’t end here, Stonefur, I will track you down, and I won’t hold back the powers that are mine to command.

You might not see me coming.

I’ll see you. Haarn raised his voice so that the other wolves could hear over the din of crashing thunder tearing through the heavens so hard it seemed to shake the ground. I swear to you by Silvanus’s blessed eyes that I will kill all that run with you.