Return of the Guardian-King Read online

  “If it’s so safe,” Trinley asked him, “why aren’t the people in the monastery coming to help us? Why aren’t they at least telling us it’s safe?”

  “Maybe they don’t know that it is,” Abramm said.

  “But if they made it—’

  ’ “I don’t think they made it. I think the luima made it.”

  And that damped every further word for a long moment.

  “We saw no tracks leading away from it,” Abramm said. “And it’s too freshly broken for us not to have seen the men who did it heading back up to the monastery. Not to mention the question of why they’d come all the way out here to make it for us and then not wait for us to get to it. In fact, I believe I saw the men who did it, right before we left the trees. But they vanished before we got here.”

  He fell silent, bearing their incredulous and terrified scrutiny. No one had any answers for him.

  With the wolves’ howls approaching rapidly now, Abramm backed up the path a bit, then said, “You know I was right about the hut and the wolves. You know sometimes I can see things the rest of you don’t. For all those reasons you trusted me to lead you down here; I beg you to trust me on this, as well. If we don’t go now . . . it will only get harder.”

  He eyed the depths of the ravine again, still empty for the moment. . . . He turned his gaze to Rolland, standing on the far side of the bridge and staring back at him in horror. Of all the men here, Rolland was the one Abramm thought he had a chance of convincing first. But it would be hard. The man had three children and a wife, all of whom he’d be putting at risk if he went with Abramm’s suggestion. He could see the big man’s eyes drop to his wife, who had turned back to face him when she saw where Abramm’s gaze had fixed.

  In the end, it wasn’t Rolland he convinced first.

  “I’ll go,” Marta Brackleford said, stepping forward from the group. Immediately Kitrenna shrieked and threw herself on her sister, forbidding her to do so. Marta pushed her off. “If you wish to spend the night out here shivering to death on that ledge, that is your choice. If you die because of it, it is still your choice. But it is not mine, and I think Alaric is right when he says that trail is Eidon’s protection for us.”

  “You see the light on the trail, too?”

  “No. But I believe he can, and I have made my choice.” She shook her sister off and started toward Abramm, stopping in front of him a few steps later, since he stood blocking the path. “I’ll see if I can get them to open the gate,” she told him.

  He shook his head in unabashed admiration. “You shame us all with your courage, my lady.”

  She smiled. “We walk in Eidon’s Light, sir. Why should I not be courageous?”

  She set off up the path at a brisk walk, boot soles squeaking against the snow.

  When Abramm turned back, he saw Rolland had pressed through the gathering to meet his wife midspan. He was speaking to her softly. She looked up at him, eyes wide with fear, her face pale within the ice-clotted edge of her hood. But when he swung his middle son into his arms, then took hold of the shoulder of his eldest and pressed him forward through the group toward Abramm, she followed, clutching the bundle that was their toddler to her chest. The dark-haired shepherd Cedric Ashvelt and his elderly father followed next, then young Galen and Jania Gault, and that was enough to decide the rest of them. Though she held out until the end, even Kitrenna at last bowed to the majority, and soon they were all hastening up the path.

  Abramm brought up the rear. He’d gone barely a dozen steps when the volume of the wolves’ howls and yips escalated to an ear-piercing din. He turned to see seven dark forms bounding up the drainage’s edge, heading for the line of people hurrying toward the monastery. Marta was just reaching the monastery gates, with still no sign of anyone there to open them.

  All they needed to do was keep moving, but of course they did not. The wolves’ howls coming up on them so rapidly drew them all around, and all stopped to point and shriek. Abramm bellowed for them to stay on the path, but already a handful had blundered off of it in their agitation.

  With a curse he charged across the snowy slope, hoping to head the predators off, his staff ablaze with Light.

  He heard Rolland, then Trinley, echo his command for the others to stay on the path, then realized with a jolt that he had left its protection himself. As if in tune with his thoughts, the wolves wheeled as a unit and raced toward him. Stopping well within leaping range, they fanned out in a semicircle before him. The six that looked most like wolves—if abnormally large—kept their heads turned away from the Light of his staff and he knew, without knowing how, that the Light hurt them.

  It didn’t hurt the seventh, however. But that one was no wolf. Closer in size to a horse, its shimmering fur, silver mottling white, shifted and moved independently of the muscles beneath. A dark, wolflike snout gave way to fine silver scaling that ran to blue across its muzzle and the bridge of its nose, then to purple around the eyes, transforming to coarse fur at the top of the forehead and along the cheeks and neck. Tufted ears dangled silver tassels, and a thick ruff of fur accentuated already humped shoulders that brought images of the morwhol to mind.

  The eyes, though, startled him most, for they were human eyes: round pupils in black irises on white, with long curling lashes. They held him riveted, peering straight into his skull, and the essence behind them was neither spawn, nor animal, nor rhu’ema, nor even human—it was all of those and more. And very definitely female.

  She advanced beyond the line of her attendants, stopping some five strides away from him, tasseled ears pricked forward, tail curled up, jaws parted around sharp white teeth, almost as if she were smiling. Her breath curled out in a white plume that reached seductively toward him in the suddenly still air.

  Her laughter echoed in his head: “Come out to fight us, have you, O great slayer of shadowspawn? We feared you would lack the courage. Or perhaps the wit.”

  A chill crawled up his back. She knew who he was. Suddenly he felt as horribly vulnerable as if he stood here in the snow naked.

  She laughed again. “Come and take me, pup. If you can. . . .”

  In the wind’s sudden absence, fat snowflakes fluttered thickly around them, a wonderland of light and movement. Through them came the white tendrils of her exhalation, reaching closer and closer as he stood there watching them with pounding heart but making no move to escape them. Then the first of them wafted into his face. It tasted vaguely sweet and musky. He inhaled convulsively, though he’d meant to hold his breath and turn away. Fear quivered through him, followed by the warmth of unexpected arousal. Then wooziness made the world warp and shift.

  Behind him a man said they were all in and Abramm could come back, but the words held no meaning. Never had he seen anything so fascinating as this . . . this . . .

  “Tanniym. I am one of the tanniym, handsome one. My name is Tapheina.”

  Part of his mind reeled in horror with this knowledge. Another, greater part held him where he was. Tanniym were mythical creatures, shapeshifters—part human, part beast—known for their seductive powers, for their great physical strength, and for their brutality. She wanted him for something, and the longer he stood here, the more he fell under her spell, but he could not turn away, for she fascinated him as no other. . . .

  Stepping toward him, she blew another plume of her breath across his face. It was sweeter now, tingling on his face. Again the world blurred and shivered. Her eyes were magnificent . . . deep dark pools that recalled to him Shettai, his first love . . . and then his wife, as she looked sometimes in the darkness of the night, lit only by the bedside kelistar when he had—

  He shut off the thought at once, aghast at how the thing in his mind had pulled it out of his memory—still sought it, in fact—eager to absorb it.

  A throaty chuckle echoed in his head, and the insistent prying eased, gave way to a warm, soporific pleasure.

  “Alaric?”

  That was Rolland. He seemed quite near. Wha
t did he want now?

  “Can you hear me, Alaric? Everyone’s inside the monastery. You can come back to the path.”

  Irritation ate at the dreamlike lassitude. Why is Rolland intruding when he must see that I am occupied with important matters?

  “If you want to pass, little pup, you must do so according to the old way, when dragons ruled the skies and only those warriors most worthy in heart and mind and flesh could fight them for the right to pass.”

  But you are not a dragon, Abramm thought at it.

  “Are you sure? Try me and see. Much of my father is in me. How much of yours is in you?”

  Her answer befuddled him and she knew it, laughing at the pleasure of his confusion. “Surely a great warrior-king as you can handle one as lowly as I. Come and meet me. Show my sons your true strength. . . .”

  He was tempted, though he had only a stick. Part of him knew the notion that he could win was ridiculous. Part of him thought it might be his destiny. He carried the Light of Eidon in his heart and flesh, after all, and nothing was stronger than that. Moreover, his command of it was mature now, advanced as few others ever achieved. If anyone could face this creature, it was he. . . .

  “Yes,” Tapheina said, her voice rough and husky in his mind. “You are a warrior of the Light who need not be bound by a path prepared for those of lesser status. Come, show me your strength, my beautiful pup. . . .”

  Snow drifted across his boots, powdery and light, and the flakes continued to fall, big and wet and fluttering. The will to close with her mounted. He would take her, rid the valley of her and her offspring, make the way safe for others. . . . He could do it. Had he not slain the morwhol and the kraggin and Beltha’adi himself?

  Someone was yelling at him from up the hill. A deep voice, calling his name and harping on that wretched path again. It was Rolland, of course. Why couldn’t he see that Abramm had all in hand? Rolland and the others might need the path, but why didn’t he understand that Abramm did not?

  “I taste your strength, my king. You are worthy of me, as few of your kind have ever been. Join with me in combat, show them all who you really are. . . .”

  Tapheina stepped closer. Another veil of her breath curled into his mouth and nose.

  The dizziness was delicious this time. He could almost see her human form, could almost see the shape of her hips and her—

  Someone seized him from behind and jerked him around. He thought to defend himself, but the staff with which he intended to whack his attacker moved with shocking sluggishness. He heard Tapheina’s outraged snarl, had a split-second glimpse of Rolland’s bearded face before the big man hoisted him onto his shoulder and sprinted through the snow. Behind them the wolves exploded with shrieks of fury, and Abramm felt them leap to attack. Something tugged on his arm, something hard dug into his middle, and suddenly he sprawled facedown in the snow. The wolves closed, snarling viciously. He braced for attack—

  It did not come, though he had no idea why, for he felt their outrage and even shared it. She had wanted him, and now someone was stealing him away and he felt bitterly disappointed. A wave of nausea shuddered through him. His head hurt and he had a horrible taste in his mouth. He wanted to sit up or even roll to his side, but he felt so weak. . . .

  His stomach cramped again. He almost felt sporesick.

  Something shifted in his mind at that, and he realized he’d been enspelled. It was the breath . . . her breath. Revulsion roared through him as he shoved up onto hands and knees, vomiting into the snow. Then, shaking and gasping, without even stopping to consider the advisability of doing a purge under such circumstances, he turned toward the Light, desperate to get all trace of her out of him. White fire rushed through him in an instant of blinding, breathtaking brilliance, cleansing the active spore and driving back the Shadow within him.

  He found himself lying on his back at the middle of the broken trail, Rolland bending over him, the wolves snarling hysterically around them. The big man grabbed Abramm’s arm and hauled him upright as if he intended to reshoulder him again and carry him up to the monastery.

  Abramm stopped him. “I’m all right.”

  Rolland regarded him suspiciously. “Ye’re sure?”

  “I’m sure,” Abramm said, rolling to one side and gaining his feet. He had a few moments’ unsteadiness, during which Rolland clutched his arm and watched him narrowly. Then Abramm shook him off and hurried up the path. In moments he’d gained the ramp leading up to the monastery’s gate: a tall, double-paneled portal with a much smaller opening beside. As they drew near, the smaller door squealed open to admit them. Just before he stepped inside, though, Abramm turned back to see that the wolves remained where he’d left them, standing in the penumbra between the light cast by the monastery and the path, and the darkness of the night. Tapheina’s eyes gleamed with a golden fire, and he knew it would not be the last time he saw her. . . .

  “This storm won’t be letting up any time soon, you know,” she said. “If you don’t keep moving now, you’ll be stuck up here for the winter. It’s already been six months. How long do you think she can wait for you?”

  A wild terror wailed up in him. He quenched it savagely, refusing to believe it, refusing to let this creature get to him. Turning his back on her, he stepped through the door into an arched stone tunnel lit with kelistars in wall-mounted wire baskets. At his back, the elderly gatekeeper shut the door with a whump and swung the big iron bar down into the holding brackets. And out on the plateau, Tapheina and her sons broke into a chattering of yelps and howls that sounded far too much like laughter.

  CHAPTER

  3

  Madeleine Abigail Clarice Donavan Kalladorne gave the wooden sideboard a mighty heave, sliding it into place against the closed door of their tiny sleeping chamber. In the hallway outside of it, the wolves growled, scratching and pushing to get in, the door shivering with their efforts. Behind her, wind pelted snow crystals against the single second-story window while in the street outside the rest of the wolf pack barked and yelped in eagerness. How their brethren had gotten into the palace, she didn’t know, but they had.

  Within her massively swollen belly, Maddie’s unborn baby kicked hard against her back, and her right leg went out from under her so fast she lurched against the sideboard. One of the creatures outside the door wriggled the latch.

  She staggered back and took up the spear, glancing over her shoulder at Simon and Ian cowering together against the wall beside the bed. “Get under the bed, boys,” she said to them, trying to keep her voice calm.

  Simon dropped to his knees and pulled Ian down with him. “There’ll be a bunny hole,” he whispered as he fell onto his elbows and wriggled under the bed.

  Maddie turned back to the door, which was now banging against the sideboard. Somehow the latch had come undone, and each new hit inched the hulking piece of furniture backward. She tightened her grip on the spear haft, feeling Abramm’s presence strongly now and knowing he was on his way.

  Just don’t look into their eyes.

  The door rapped hard against the sideboard, hopping it back another inch. Toothy, foam-flecked muzzles protruded between door and doorjamb. She pointed the spear’s iron head toward them, dismayed to find it wasn’t a spear, after all, but a rope with a large knot at its end. She’d been able to hold it rigid only so long as she believed it was a spear. Now that she saw the truth, it collapsed limply to the floor.

  She glanced over her shoulder to check on the boys, but they were gone, the bed with them, a small doorway gaping in the empty wall, much too small for her to fit through. Just as well, she thought. Now we don’t have to worry about the Esurhites getting them.

  The sideboard shrieked as it slid backward several feet, and she whirled to see the first of the wolves bull its way through the crack and leap onto the chest. The creature towered over her, jaws gaping, black mane swirling around a narrow, gold-scaled face with a serpent’s split tongue and eyes like burning coals.

  Don’
t look at their eyes!

  Too late. The beast had skewered her gaze with his own and red fire roared around her. “I have her!” the creature crowed triumphantly. “And now nothing of his shall remain.”

  She lifted the useless rope and screamed—

  The rasping, hoarse croak that came from her throat jarred her from the nightmare, and reality eclipsed the phantom images. She lay gasping in her big canopied bed—alone, save for the maid who stirred on her pallet nearby, rolling over and going still again. The tiny kelistar on her bedside table cast a dim illumination through the great bedchamber. She could just make out the heavy sideboard against the wall to her left, laden with its three bowls of artistically arranged staffid-warding onions amidst sprays of wheat. Outside, a dog moaned a forlorn lament, and the wind chime on her balcony tinkled faintly, touched by an errant breeze. Beyond that she heard nothing. No wolves, no shrieking gale, no snow crystals.

  She let out a long, low sigh that held as much regret as relief. It was just a dream. Of course—it rarely snowed in Fannath Rill, and any wolves that had once prowled the surrounding fields and forests had been pushed into the higher lands of the north centuries ago. And while the city had recently seen an influx of jackals on its eastern fringes, that was far from the palace itself.

  He wasn’t really here. She slid her palm over the modest mound that was her womb, nowhere near the size she’d dreamed it but swelling daily with the seed her husband had sown there six months ago. The only thing she had left of him now.

  Her throat tightened with grief and longing, for the sense of him had been so strong it seemed he was in the next room and would any moment burst through the door to take her in his arms. And oh, she wanted to feel those arms so very, very badly, to lay her head against the broad chest and listen to the powerful beat of his heart. . . .

  And their boys . . . their beautiful boys . . .

  Tears welled in her eyes as the tightening in her throat turned to a painful lump, and she began to weep—as she did so often these days, her dreams tormenting her with hope when she knew better than anyone that her boys were lost to her and her husband wasn’t coming back.