The Raven Warrior (8 page)

Then something like a horse kick hit his back. That was terror, because his whole body went numb and he thought his spine had snapped and he didn’t know if even the change could heal that.

Then, at last, detachment, because he was sure he was going to die and rather belatedly understood that he would be dead before he could worry about it or even feel any pain. He saw his own muzzle with bubbles rising up from his mouth, forepaws drifting beside the dark nose.

Then the Weyvern appeared in the blue gloom, the giant dragon jaws picketed with teeth like spearheads. Reflex thrust him into the change, and he almost laughed. What the hell was wolf or man going to do against a thing like that?

A split second later, the claws on one foreleg closed around him like a cage, four claws around his back, one thumb claw across his chest. Up, up, up they flew. The Weyvern broached like a porpoise or a leaping whale, coming almost a full body length out of the water.

Black Leg vomited, then screamed.

A second later, he was free and the monster dove down, vanishing into the dark, hazy blueness at the foot of the roaring, storming falls.

Black Leg may have walked on water. He was never afterward sure how he got out of the river. The only thing, or things, he remembered about the next minute were the sight of a nearby shore made up of fallen slabs of stone tilted helter-skelter against one another and a seemingly unpleasantly long time span before he reached it.

Then a second later, he was standing well away from the water on one of the more horizontal rocks, looking down and watching “her,” the water spirit, rising from the depths with languid grace, swimming up toward the light. Every hair on Black Leg’s back, neck, and head stood straight up. She broke the surface and swam toward him.

“That was you!” he screeched. “You! What—do—you—really—look—like?”

She ducked under the water to protect her ears as echoes boomed out from all over the canyon.

“Jesus Christ! Son of God—Savior,” she added hurriedly. “Stop screeching. As for what I look like, you stupid asshole, what the hell do
you
look like? Wolf, human, human wolf? Holy and eternal God, I don’t know what to grab. I damn near killed you. I was just hoping you wouldn’t change again, you pinhead, while I was getting you up to air, and manage—in spite of my most earnest efforts—to drown yourself.”

“Why that thing?”

She looked deeply annoyed. Deeply annoyed.

“Bend an ear in my direction and listen . . . quietly.” She was speaking in a rather low tone of voice, but Black Leg backed up a few paces anyway.

“That thing—those things, I should say, once there were a lot of them—swims tremendously well. Once upon a time there was no river they couldn’t negotiate, though most of the time they lived in the sea. But they are long gone now, yet the shape is still encoded into my . . . my . . . God, you’re ignorant as dirt. Life substance, and I can be one, if the need arises. As—it—just—did. Satisfied?”

“I don’t think I want any more to do with you,” Black Leg said stiffly.

“Yeah, fine. How are you going to get home? Because I have a horrible feeling we’re both stranded.”

“Stranded?” he heard himself say dimly.

“Yeah! Stranded!” she said as she hauled herself out of the water onto another nearby flat rock.

Black Leg noticed she’d found herself another dress. It was a mass of round, green, succulent leaves, dotted with small, red flowers, blazing scarlet flowers, in fact. It fit rather like a loincloth on the bottom, but was more of a bustier at the top, surrounding and supporting her small but well-shaped breasts.

“New friend?” he asked, gesturing at it.

She nodded. “Grows on the rocks around the falls. It has problems, or maybe I should say
he
has problems. It’s a he. Well established vegetatively, but hasn’t seen a female in a long time. Believes there must be some downstream, though, because there’s a small bird thing comes around for nectar and will make deliveries if asked.”

“Dugald didn’t teach me about these things,” Black Leg complained.

“Probably thinks they’re beneath his notice,” she said.

“Why are we stranded?” he asked.

She pointed down to the water. “Remember the passage?”

Black Leg nodded.

“I can’t get back to it,” she said.

Black Leg had been squatting down on the rock. He stood and took stock of the situation.

To his left, the falls plunged down from what seemed an incredible height. On all sides, the canyon walls rose ever further up toward a blue sky. The pool he was looking at formed the widest spot in the canyon; ahead, the rock slide ran along one side of the river, forming a jumble of boulders at the foot of the wall.

“Where are we?” he whispered.

She looked morosely out over the blue pool and said, “I don’t know.”

“How can you not know?” he snapped. “You know what’s along the passage. I swam into it with you.”

“Yeah, and you’d have been just fine if you had done what I told you. But no, you had to go exploring on your own. The opening in the passage is above the falls, and unless you can figure out a way to fly, we’re cut off until I can find another gateway back into it.”

“You can’t fly?” he asked rather weakly.

“No. It’s among the few things I can’t do. Mind you, I’m one of the most powerful supernatural beings you will ever meet—but flying is not one of my many accomplishments.”

“We’re in trouble,” Black Leg said.

“The boy is a genius. He finally figured something out.”

“I’m sick of you telling me how dumb I am,” Black Leg flared up at her.

“Then try using your head for something better than to hold your ears up,” she snapped back.

“What are we going to do?” He heard a sort of quiver in his own voice that frightened him.

Then he became a wolf. He found the shape consoling, and at the moment, he needed a little consolation.

He didn’t get it. The wolf informed him that he was hungry and that it was high time Black Leg did something about their mutual problem.

He returned to his human shape.

“We’re hungry,” he told her sullenly.

“Yeah—I forgot. When they’re not horny, they’re hungry. And they always turn to the nearest woman and expect her to do something about it. If not one, then it’s the other.”

“Why do you work at being nasty?” he snapped.

Her eyes closed. She put one finger at the top of her nose between the eyes, and food arrived.

The rock she was standing on was more or less level. A cloth appeared and covered part of it, the tail end hanging down toward the river. A platter of sliced meat, followed quickly by a bowl of gravy. A plate filled with fruit appeared, then a big loaf of bread, along with two wine jugs.

“Come on. Let’s eat,” she said. “I was hoping to serve this at home, but since we’re lost . . .”

“How . . .” Black Leg began.

“No!” It was a rather resounding
no
. “Shut up and eat. Start with the questions, we get into a fight . . . next thing you know, the food is cold, it’s sundown, and we’re still hungry. Eat! Questions later.”

Black Leg hopped across a bunch of slabs to the flat rock where she stood, and they fell on the food as though they were both starving. When they finished, both leaned back against the sun-warmed stone and tried to get a little glow on from the wine.

By now the sun had moved and the canyon was growing darker. The constant wind that flowed along the river was a little chilly on Black Leg’s bare skin. But he didn’t want to turn wolf; the slight buzz he was feeling would disappear. He knew this from a rather unpleasant experience when he’d gone drinking with Bain, the chief’s son, and some of his friends in the war band.

They hadn’t believed him about his wolf side—or they pretended not to believe him in order to get him to perform. He had been drunk enough to do so. He leaped into the air and made an idiot out of himself by getting tangled in his clothing and rolling all over the shingle beach, trying to free himself.

He hadn’t known his father was nearby until he saw his eyes glow behind Bain and his friends.

Maeniel launched himself at them with a roar so loud that several of the drunker ones nearly drowned in the incoming tide trying to escape him. Then—they were both still wolf—his father got him by the scruff of the neck and shook him until his teeth rattled and Black Leg yowled for mercy.

He ended up stone-cold sober, being dragged home by the ear by a very vile-tempered Maeniel. Wolf or human, Black Leg’s ear was tender and remained in the same place. His father was furious and had a good grip.

Maeniel wasn’t one to lecture, but his comments on the way home about drunken foolishness and the abuse of protective powers sank in and made a strong impression on Black Leg’s mind. And being sobered so quickly was rather like a hard kick in the stomach.

So Black Leg relaxed and concentrated on maintaining his mild level of intoxication.

“Nice, isn’t it?” she said, looking up at the falls and the shadowed river.

From time to time the eternal wind brought mist drifting down from the falls to further refresh them and please the little vine she was wearing. Or maybe almost wearing, because those beautiful smooth, creamy breasts remained bare, even though those brilliant red flowers and leaves surrounded and supported them.

“What are you thinking about?” she asked.

“I’ll bet,” he said, “I’m thinking about the same thing you are.”

She chuckled. “Men only think about two things, and the other one is food.”

“Seriously,” he said. “How do we get out of here?”

“Seriously,” she answered, “I don’t know. Are you anxious to leave?”

He had one hand on her leg. As with the water lily, the red-flowered vine made music. It didn’t sing, but in the distance, Black Leg could hear a stringed instrument being plucked one note at a time as it rippled through a melody that managed to be alien and yet hauntingly familiar at the same time. His hand moved up and his fingers brushed the dark smooth leaves and the satin-soft flower petals at her groin.

“Gentle friend!” she whispered.

Black Leg felt it withdraw and saw from the corner of his eye that it had taken residence among the fissures of the stone around them. She was warm and the rock they lay on still held the sun’s heat. Then he remembered the Weyvern.

“Not that it matters,” he said, “but what do you really look like?”

She laughed a little and he felt her lips on his. “I don’t really look like anything. I’m mostly water.” She snorted softly. “So are you. Didn’t that Druid who brought you up teach you anything?”

She blew into his ear softly, very softly, and chewed gently on his earlobe with her teeth.

“Yeah!” Black Leg said as the small love bite took full effect.

“God, but you’re easy,” she said. “Want to see if it still fits?”

“Oh, yes!” This was fervent.

“Mummmoo. Ah,”
she said. “It does. Fancy that. Oh, yes, you’re a big boy. A very big boy. I could forgive you for anything.”

He thought that was nice to know. But for a short time, they were very busy and he forgot what she’d said.

When they finished, he lay for a time with his head pillowed on her arm, studying her profile silhouetted against the warm orange rock walls on the other side of the canyon.

“Where did you get the food?” he asked. “And what was that meat? It was good.”

“In the shape we were in, anything would taste good,” she said. “But . . . the meat was probably horse and the food was an offering. So since it was offered, I control it. I brought it here so we could snack. He’s a good cook and his people are old friends of mine.”

“He?” Black Leg asked.

“Cregan,” she supplied the name. “He’s probably the best warrior in the world.”

“You know about things like this?”

She nodded. “I get around and I hear things.”

“Think he would take a . . . pupil?” Black Leg asked.

She sighed deeply. “Damn! You have aspirations in that direction?”

“Yes!”

She cuddled him a little with her arm. He kissed the curve of her breast above the nipple.

“Nice. Nice. Why don’t you just stay with me?”

Black Leg immediately pulled away. She sighed again.

“I forgot,” she said. “You’re young. Got to get it out of your system. Am I right?”

“Probably,” he answered. “Besides . . .” His voice trailed off. He didn’t want to offend her and was also a little afraid of her. She had shown a rather casual use of what were probably immense powers.

“I know. I know. You don’t love me,” she finished the sentence for him. “I’m good for a tumble in the hay—maybe a lot more than just one tumble—but your heart belongs to that bitchy blonde who dumped you for some jackass she saw all of three times in her life. Oh! But—he’s a king!”

Black Leg went wolf and tried to jump up. But with casual ease, she got him by the scruff of the neck and pulled him back down.

“Quit it! And listen.”

Black Leg decided it might be the better part of valor to do so. He lay quietly, head against her arm, human again. The ability she’d just demonstrated to change him back from wolf to man was far beyond his comprehension.

“Are you a . . . are you ‘Her’?”

She began laughing. “No, I’m not a goddess. I’m mortal, just like you. And like the Faun your little blond friend killed.”

“How do you know about that?” he asked.

“How do I know? The whole world rang with the pity and terror of it.”

Suddenly he was afraid for Guinevere. “She . . . didn’t . . .”

“I know, I know.”

His head was still resting on her left shoulder. She waved her right hand in a dismissive gesture.

“She—the Child of Light, because that’s what her name means—she did what she was told. The great goddess had condemned him to death. The little one just carried out the sentence. But we mortals are entitled to our opinions. He, the Faun, was of my kind. There are very few of us left. The Fauns ruled the forests; we the waters; the dragons the seas.

“Since he was one of my kind, I find myself even more devastated by his death than I thought I would be. Though he was guilty of great evil, it was hard to see him slip away. Though he forgave your friend when she set him free.