Wizard of the Grove (39 page)

Four wolves, two mountain cats, and a man stood between them and the sleigh. Jason, apparently ignoring the arrow, went to stand at the man's side, his injured leg tucked up, paw resting inches above the snow.

The man was naked and shivered slightly in the cold. In his hands he carried a rod almost two feet long crafted of amethyst wrapped in bronze wire. His hair grew like Jason's, proclaiming him kin, and his smile was feral and most unpleasant.

“We don't like wizards on our land.”

Kly's voice came out of the past again.
“The wer hate the wizards with an intensity hard to imagine. The names of the wizards are curses to them.”

The rod came up, its bronze tip pointed at Crystal.

Her thoughts ran out like water; the harder she tried to hold them the faster they moved. The void that remained wrapped her in warmth and comfort. Her vision fogged. She swayed, felt Raulin's arms go around her, felt herself slide to the ground. She heard Raulin's roar from a distance, heard an answering roar from one of the great cats, and saw a ginger colored blur go past. Her head refused to turn, so she watched the snow instead of the fight, deprived of the energy to care.

The fight finished before Jago had a chance to help. The great cat returned to its position on one flank of the group and Jago looked
down to where Raulin sprawled on the ground. He appeared winded more than hurt. The cat's front paws had slammed into his chest but done no real damage.

“We give only one warning, mortal. Move toward us again and you die.”

Jago forced his breathing to calm. Forced reason to win out over anger. “What do you want?” His voice sounded almost normal and only he knew what it took to keep it that way.

“The wizard.” The wer spat the word into the air.

Raulin struggled to his feet and tried to surge forward but Jago grabbed his arm and held him back. “Stop it, Raulin,” he commanded. “You can't help her if you get killed.”

The man's upper lip lifted to reveal his teeth and his eyes narrowed.

“You can't help her. You are no match for Hela alone,” the ginger cat looked smug, “and we bind the wizard's power.”

So that's what happened,
Crystal thought muzzily. She wondered vaguely if he bound the goddesses as well, but it really didn't matter much.

A gray-brown wolf, almost matching Jason in size, flowed into his manshape. “I will take her, Eli, as Jason is injured.”

Eli nodded, handing over the rod. “Hela, Gel, watch the mortals.” Then he returned to fur.

As the man and both great cats approached, Jago kept his hand on Raulin's arm, not for restraint, but for knowledge; Raulin was the fighter. When Raulin's arm tensed, he flung himself forward, hand grabbing for his dagger, seeing Raulin do the same only much less quietly.

Gel met aim in mid-leap. A forepaw hit Jago's head with the force of a club, driving him to the ground. His head rang. His vision exploded into orange and yellow lights. He couldn't see or hear, so he slashed out blindly at the musky smell. Claws ripped through his mitten and into his hand. He lost his grip on the dagger and barely felt the pain when another blow to his head plunged him into darkness.

Raulin rolled as he dove forward, coming up under the cat's attack, driving both feet into Hela's chest and throwing her to the ground.
Then he had his arms full of claws and teeth. His dagger went flying. Bringing her back legs up, Hela kicked, shredding his clothes. Raulin screamed as the claws tore into skin. He lost his grip on her jaw. Her teeth closed on his throat.

*   *   *

“Not good, not good.” The giant shook her head at the news the breeze had brought. She would have to hurry.

“Y
ou're lucky the inner pack wanted you alive, wizard.”

Alive.
Crystal caught hold of the word and used it to drag herself a little way out of the pain. She tried to open her eyes, but even so delicate an action was beyond her. Her arms dangled in air, her face bounced against bare skin, something hard dug into her stomach. She forced the information together. Carried over a shoulder.

The shoulder dipped and she dropped onto rock.

New pain and old pain reinforced almost washed her away once more, but she hung grimly onto awareness.

“Cap her,” husked a distant voice.

Again she tried to open her eyes. The lids trembled but wouldn't rise.

Rough hands yanked her into a sitting position. Ribs ground together. She whimpered and power flowed sluggishly, responding to the hurt. A smooth band, cold but too heavy to be metal, settled down around her head. Another of the same stuff curved under her chin and snicked into the first band just in front of each ear. She jerked at the sound; very loud, very sharp, and somehow very final.

The hands released her and she collapsed, the band chiming musically as it slammed against the stone. Her throat spasmed as she fought for air, sucking it through her half open mouth. No air got through the ruin of her nose. She tasted blood.

Slowly, very slowly, power began to smooth the jagged edges. Her breathing eased and her body relaxed enough to allow healing. She lay
on her side, knees up, arms pressed tight against her chest, and tried to remember.

What had happened to Raulin and Jago?
The wer, she remembered, and the rod, and the binding, but there her memories ended. Once over the gap, her thoughts seemed clear enough. Had the binding worn off? To test it she would have to reach for her power . . .

No. Best let the power continue repairing the damage her body had taken. It would do that without her interference and she didn't know what would happen if she attempted control. She was a little afraid to try.

The wer, the rod, the binding . . . and what then?

Beginning softly, an eerie harmonic discord rose in volume to bone shaking intensity. Not the wolves, this was a scream not a song. Shoulders hunched against the sound, Crystal brought her hands up and rubbed at her eyes. She had to see. Something sealed her lids shut. The upper layer crumbled under her touch. Most of the lower, gummy and warm, scrubbed away. Her lashes matted and stuck, but she managed to force her eyes open.

Blood. Smeared across her palms. She touched one eye again and the fingers came away red. Her blood then. Better than the alternative.

The undulating cry went on. And on. And on.

What had happened to Raulin and Jago?

Gathering her returning strength, she placed both bloody palms against the rock and pushed. Ignoring the protest of her body, she managed to almost sit up.

She lay against the wall of a large, roughly circular cavern. Flickering torches, jammed into random niches in the stone, barely lit the space. In the center of the cavern, a number of the great cats surrounded a flat topped boulder. Muzzles lifted, the cats wailed. On the boulder were two black . . . things.

Crystal remembered.

The wer had hoisted her up and bent to sling her over one shoulder, moving her line of sight to include, for the first time since she'd fallen under the rod, Raulin and Jago. She saw the cats attack. She saw the brothers go down. She heard Raulin scream. That had penetrated the
mists sifting through her mind. Still outwardly blank, still bound by the rod, deep within her head she'd raged and torn at the walls of her prison.

Something gave.

The cats had burned.

And not with an external flame that could be doused but from inside, with goddess fire. The cats had screamed and thrashed as they died, torment flicking them through change after change. The wolves had circled and snarled but found nothing to do until Jason had flowed into his manshape, hobbled forward to where Crystal lay limp and exulting and had beaten the wizard senseless.

In the cavern, the cats fell silent and began to move away. Two changed and lifted the bodies from the boulder. One followed his kin, the other approached Crystal, the charred remains held tenderly against his chest. A body-length away he stopped and stared down at her with topaz eyes.

“You killed my mate,” he said.

Crystal refused to let his grief throw her into guilt. Straightening as much as she could, she stared back at him. “She was killing mine.”

He hissed and spat, then turned his back on her and walked from the cavern.

Carefully, Crystal leaned back, easing her weight off her arms and letting the wall support her. She stretched out her legs, the movement hurting less than she'd anticipated. The worst of the pain seemed over, but the healing went on and would for some time. She saw that her feet were bare, and rubbed her cheek against the sweater's shoulder. The brothers lived, for their places within her were still filled, but they were also injured and she had no idea how badly.

If
they die because of you,
she vowed silently to the wer,
you shall see what wizardry is capable of.

*   *   *

“Mortal, wake! You cannot die if I refuse to take you!”

Jago stirred and regretted it. He opened his eyes and shut them instantly. The moonlight seemed to burn holes in his brain.

“You try my patience, mortal!”

Squinting, although the action hurt his head, Jago managed to focus on an auburn-haired man, whose amber eyes flashed with anger.

“Lord . . .” He swallowed and tried again. “Lord Death?”

“Jago?” Raulin's face pushed into his line of vision. He didn't look right somehow. “Jago, wake up!”

“S'what he said.”

“Who?”

“Lord Death.”

“You're not dead!”

Jago pulled in a shuddering breath. “I know. Hurts too much.” He figured out what bothered him about Raulin; the skin of his face seemed almost gray. “You don't look too good.”

Raulin's mouth twisted. “You should see the other guy.”

Jago rolled himself up on one elbow. The world spun, the insides of his head with it, and he spewed all over the snow. He felt Raulin's arm around his shoulders and when his guts stopped heaving, his brother lowered him gently back down.

“You think you can lie quietly for a few minutes?”

The stars began to whirl. “I don't think I've got a choice.” He refused to close his eyes, and concentrated on making the stars behave. Somewhere over to the left, he heard Raulin banging things together loudly. Very loudly. Much too loudly. The sound bounced about the inside of his skull setting the stars, which had just begun to calm down, jigging once more. He wondered where Lord Death had gotten to and . . .

“Crystal!”

“Take it easy. Let's try sitting again, I brought a pack for you to lean on.” As he spoke, Raulin eased his brother up, very slowly, until he reclined against the pack.

Jago clenched his teeth against the nausea and sucked in lungful after lungful of cold air. His head stopped spinning and settled into a steady, tormenting throb. Answered by a sharper throbbing . . . He raised his right hand and looked at a mangled ruin.

The throbbing turned to the brindle's roar, teeth dug into his legs and . . . No! He got control of himself, although his legs continued to ache in memory. He met Raulin's worried eyes, Raulin who no doubt suspected what he was thinking, and searched for something to say that would ease that look of strain.

“I guess,” he said at last, “I won't be playing the harp anymore.”

“You can't play the harp,” Raulin said gruffly.

“Then I guess I won't be playing it any less.”

Raulin's relieved smile was all Jago could've asked for and he managed a small one of his own.

“Here,” Raulin wrapped the fingers of Jago's good hand around a warm mug, “drink this while I bandage.”

Jago took a cautious sip, recognized the bitter brew as a painkiller from their emergency kit, and relaxed.

When Raulin saw Jago actually drinking the potion, he turned his attention to the mangled hand. The great cat's claws had ripped through skin, and flesh, and hooked down into the tendons. Several of the small bones had been displaced and one knuckle barely remained attached. Shreds of tissue were white with frostbite for the hand had lain half buried in snow. Miraculously, most major blood vessels seemed intact. Ignoring Jago's groans, Raulin rebuilt what he could and wrapped the whole tightly in clean linen. It was a better field dressing than any he'd had time to do during the war. He appreciated the irony that experience gained in such wholesale slaughter had twice now come to Jago's aid. Not that this in any way compared to the brindle.

“You know,” he said, tying off the end, “when your head starts working again, this is going to hurt like Chaos.”

“It already does.”

“Good.”

“Good?”

“If it can hurt, it can heal. Can you move your fingers?”

The fingers moved a little although Jago turned gray with pain during the attempt.

“What happened?” he asked, just managing to keep the scream from breaking through.

Raulin laid Jago's hand gently in his lap. “Well, it's my guess, they didn't have Crystal bound as tightly as they thought 'cause when we went down those cats started to burn. Think you can stand? Your clothes get wet from sitting in melting snow and you're going to be a lot worse off.”

Jago remembered not to nod. “Yeah. I think so.”

With an arm around Raulin's shoulder, Jago got slowly to his feet and stood swaying until the world steadied, then the two of them made their way over to the sleigh.

“Probably a good thing you'd already gone out,” Raulin continued, “because the smell of those cats burning . . . Anyway, I flopped over and played dead.” His voice grew grim and much colder than the winter night. “I could still hear what they did to Crystal.”

“She lives.”

Jago turned to face Lord Death who walked at his other side. “I know.” The bond between Crystal and himself had not broken.

“They dragged her off. I saw where they entered the mountain.” Raulin had either not heard his brother or had assumed the words were directed to him. “And we're going after her as soon as you're steady on your feet.”

“The two of us against a mountain full of wer?” Jago asked as they reached the sleigh and Raulin released him.

“Yeah.”

“Should be interesting.”

The smiles they exchanged came from a lifetime of standing together. Some things got done regardless of the odds; this was one of them.

Raulin brushed the clinging snow off his brother's back and helped him into his huge fur overcoat. Jago, who'd just begun to notice a creeping chill, sighed thankfully and sank down on the front of the sleigh.

He watched Raulin strip their gear to bare essentials, his grip on the world not yet strong enough to help. “What about you?”

Raulin snorted and pulled his scarf down off his throat. Almost invisible in the beard stubble were four punctures, two on each side of his windpipe. “Teeth had hardly touched,” he said, “when the cat started to burn and lost interest. I got off light.”

“Only because he ignores the rest of the damage.”

“He what!”

Lord Death nodded and Jago whirled on Raulin who stared at his brother, completely confused by the sudden outburst.

“Open your coat!”

“Why?”

“Just do it!”

Raulin sighed and slowly unhooked the fasteners. Under his coat, the clothing he'd been wearing hung in tatters. Under his clothing, eight angry, red lines marked where Hela's claws had torn through to skin.

“Only scratches, I swear.” He tried to close the coat, but Jago glared it back open.

“Get me the emergency kit.”

“Look . . .”

“Get it!”

He got it, then stood almost still as, one-handed, Jago pulled bits of cloth from the cuts, all at least a quarter inch deep and most already looking pink and inflamed. Two started bleeding sluggishly again as the scab holding the remains of Raulin's shirt inside the wound came free.

“Cat scratches,” Lord Death said, as Jago reached for the roll of linen, “often become infected. You'd better disinfect those.”

Jago nodded thoughtfully and reached instead for the bottle of raw alcohol.

“Now hold it, what're you going to do with that?”

“What do you think?” Jago asked, pouring some of the liquid on a cloth balanced on his knee. “That mess has to be cleaned.'”

“Not with that stuff, it doesn't.” Raulin backed away, but Jago grabbed a corner of his coat.

“Knock me over,” he warned, “and I'll have a relapse.”

Raulin sullenly stopped moving.

Jago flipped the coat open again and wiped at the scoring with the alcohol laden cloth. “Stop squirming. Cat scratches often become infected.”

“Says . . . CHAOS! . . . who?”

“Lord Death.”

“When did he become a . . . DAMMIT JAGO! . . . healer?”

“I am the Great Healer,” said Lord Death quietly. “Mortals come to me when all other healers have failed.”

“What did he say?'” Raulin could tell by Jago's expression that the Mother's son had answered the question himself.

“He's expounding philosophy. If you'd stop dancing away, this'd go faster and we could start after Crystal.”

Raulin growled an inarticulate curse but stood motionless while Jago finished.

Lord Death watched Jago's ministrations with a number of emotions warring in his breast. He needed Raulin reasonably healthy to rescue Crystal, but he resented the time spent on healing when every moment Crystal stayed with the wer put her in greater danger. He hated the thought that these mortals could attack the wer without his help and he could do little without theirs. And a very small part of him enjoyed Raulin's pain.