The underbrush grew thickly along the bank, dense shrubbery and viney growths winding their way underfoot, until Kain was forced further away from the stream's edge in order to prevent the whelp from being scraped from his back. The boy was surprisingly silent, hanging on with tenacious strength without so much as a yelp or a whimper, his fear evident only in the slightly quickened breaths that puffed against the coarse fur of his neck and the drumming of the heart within that birdboned chest. Despite himself, Kain could not prevent a small spark of approval-perhaps the creature was not as worthless as he had feared.
Turning to avoid a wickedly-thorned tangle of vines, Kain came across a trampled down deer track-and following it, found it led down to a wide and shallow ford in the stream, the water slowing in a broad eddy. Kain's lupine nose told him this eddy was a favorite for the beasts of the forest-but even though the water was shallow enough here to allow both deer and other, lesser beasts to cross without any trouble, it was still an impassible and deadly expanse to a vampire. Kain snarled a little, lips curling back from fangs in frustration. It was tempting just to leap across this obstacle-but the awkward burden he bore probably made that impossible.
There was a tree, however, that lay askew across the eddy's mouth. It was certainly no forest giant-in truth, it was not much bigger than the timber that grew near human villages. But the bulk of its trunk lay above that deadly waterline, and it stretched almost across to the other shore.
Kain considered it. Then, with an impatient huff, decided it was worth the risk. Setting first one clawed forepaw upon the fallen tree, he tested its solidity-and when the trunk bowed slightly, but did not break, he eased the rest of his weight upon it. In this, his unnatural size was not to his advantage, and he was forced to creep, one slow step after another, over the rushing water as the trunk narrowed to a precarious ribbon of wood beneath his paws. One more step, two-and then a hind foot slipped. Scrabbling for purchase, his flailing foot splashed into the water with a hiss and the sizzle of scorched flesh. Growling, Kain lunged, throwing himself forward in a muscular leap, the whelp letting out a desperate yelp of fear for the first time, fingers clutching painfully tight upon his fur-
-and then they were on the other side, scrabbling up the embankment until they were far enough for Kain to recover his composure. He shook his hind foot, bending his head around to look at it, growling low in his throat. A superficial wound, nothing more, but it would hamper him somewhat until enough time had passed for it to heal.
The boy stirred, his death-grip relaxing minutely. "Are are you hurt, Lord Wolf?" he asked hesitantly.
Kain growled in curt reply and started moving, his long-legged trot a little slower now and not quite so smooth, each placing of clawed hindpaw leaving behind a few drops of thick black vitae or a tuft of half-melted fur. The injuries seared by water were persistent on his kind, comparatively slow to close - and the misstep had sunk his leg in the stream nearly to the hock. Even still, Kain could feel skin spread rapidly over raw muscle, an itching, crawling sensation that overlaid the pain of the burn.
He could not stop to attend more closely to the wound. To judge by the shift of weight and the mortal's bizarre inquiry - how in the abyss would it matter if Kain took injury? Perhaps the boy had meant to ask something important, like if Kain could still run, or fight - the boy intended to dismount. And that could not be permitted. Few creatures took injury from water and of these, vampires were the most common. If Kain were branded truthfully... well. The boy took fear of warlocks; discovering himself a vampire's charge might stop his heart.
Given a little time, the burn sealed over, healing without scar or mark. As it did, the great wolf gradually lengthened his stride, old trees flashing by, every hour at such pace consuming five leagues or more as the sun rose higher. Recalling how cleverly Rahab had clung to his makeshift harness before, Kain chanced a few more jumps when circumstances demanded - short ones only, over shallow ravines and streamlets - which permitted him to run a truer course, due west. No creatures chanced crossing Kain's path, but their scents spoke of their recent presence - reclusive giant deer, squat-legged forest hydras with their many spreading hoods, huge aurochs like mountains of lumbering meat, rooting boar and northern tapir. There were other, more acrid scents, too. Cave wrights nested somewhere to the north. In places, skeletons slumbered uneasily beneath the leaves, and some of them would walk with nightfall. A freshened breeze brought the musk tang of common wyvern to the wolf's nose, and he slowed momentarily, then adjusted his route to avoid an outcrop of crags where such creatures might perch. Common wyverns were more stupid even than basilisks, and fiercer.
Eventually, the boy on his back began to squirm. Not twenty minutes - and two leagues - later, Kain was loping through a dry pine forest, his tread silent on the thick bed of needles. An impertinent hand worked its way from under the twist of the makeshift harness, and patted hesitantly at the back of Kain's head. "Uhm. Lord Wolf. I need to... uh."
The wolf snarled, ears laid flat against his skull. But what had he expected? The creature was but mortal, after all, encumbered with all the same weaknesses that Kain s own kind overcame upon raising. Teeth bared in evidence of his displeasure with the delay, Kain permitted himself to trot to a halt, paws crunching in the fallen leaves. He held himself quite still, whilst the boy worked his limbs from under the harness and slid from Kain's side. Alighting, Rahab caught himself with one hand on Kain s stone-hard shoulder, patting the wiry fur a few times. Then he tottered for the nearest tree, bow-legged and stiff as an old man, though he'd been riding but a handful of hours.
Exhaling hard in impatience, Kain took a moment to gather his bearings, to the extent he could. The thick trees made it difficult to take a line of slight. But, crossing a dry ravine some leagues back, he d spotted a familiar, flat-topped upthrust looming huge amidst the surrounding mountain peaks to the north. Malak's bastion would rise there, carved stone by stone from the granite cliff faces, probably soon. The pattern of the hills seemed right, the terrain growing steadily steeper as they neared the ragged divide that separated Coorhagen s deep valleys and the sea from the rest of the teeming continent.
For the first time in a handful of minutes, Kain drew a deep breath, tasting the air, seeking out some scent that might provide a nearer hint at location. Leaf litter and decay, insects and small animals, the boy... and a powdery, subtle scent, like talcum or dust, so natural to Kain's experience that for a moment, he could not place it.
Then there was a short, terrified cry from the boy-trousers half-undone, he stumbled backward and fell among the gnarled roots of the tree. In the corner of Kain's view, a pallid and starved creature leaped from the darkness of the forest. Movement came before thought-and Kain lunged. Before the starving vampire, intent upon its prey, could do more than turn, the wolf's fangs sank deep into undead flesh. Taloned paws dug deep into the loam as Kain turned, flinging his victim away from the whelp with a savage twist of his head, his teeth tearing muscle away from bone. The vampire-in this age, undoubtedly one of Vorador's pathetic get-hissed in defiance as it rolled to its feet, either too desperate or too immature to understand the truth of what it faced. The creature charged, fangs bared, black-clawed hands ready to rip and tear-and with a snarl Kain met him, blocking him bodily from the cowering boy and closing jaws about the vampire s unarmored throat. In a welter of blood and gore he bit through that pallid neck, bones crunching beneath his teeth; the vampire thrashed, clawing at the gray-furred form as thin, dark blood spilled upon the forest floor.
It did not take long for the creature to die a second time; within moments the vampire had bled out, and another savage bite of Kain's jaws separated the head fully from the body. True death set in, and the body crumpled beneath his paws, dissolving into ash adorned by bits of leathered skin and bone.
Licking the vampire's blood from his jaws-thin, unsavory stuff, hardly worthy of his consumption, really-Kain turned to inspect his charge. He did not think the vampire had managed to injure the boy, but given all else that had happened over the past night, it would be just his luck to have the whelp break yet another of those bird-bones ...
Huddled small and still amidst the gnarled coils of ancient roots, the boy panted in shallow breaths. But his undamaged right hand clutched the little dagger he'd found, bent tip wavering but ready. Kain huffed shortly, nosing at the boy's tunic, scenting for pain or the smell of fresh blood. He would have to obtain an enchanted silver blade and suitable training for the whelp, if the creature insisted on attempting to defend himself so.
Moving slowly, shivering, Rahab tucked his little eating knife back into his makeshift belt. He patted hesitantly at the bloodied fur across Kain's chest. The fight had been so brief, over in a flash, but that ragged man... had been no man, he was certain of it. Dry dust, scraps of skin, and bones were all that remained now. The bare skull was intact, and the howling gape of its jaw housed fangs. Bards spun tales of it, soldiers breathed stories of it - daywalker, dead-kin, cutter of life, alp, greatest necrophage. Vampire. "Better than a pony. A lot, lot more better," Rahab whispered, thin fingers worming through the wolf's thick mat of guardhairs, stroking over the skin beneath, searching for the places that the doomed and desperate fledgling had scored in its brief struggle. The minor gouges had closed within moments after being carved.
It was a strange sensation, being stroked in this form, one utterly novel in all Kain s long existence. Satisfied that the boy had sustained no further damage, the vampire lord stepped back, watching carefully as the mortal levered himself slowly to his feet, apparently still stiff, but in no worse condition than before the attack. Kain had given little thought to the other hunters of this forest - but in this deep country, the things which fed upon mankind were nothing short of desperate, evidently willing to risk crossing even Kain. And it was the height of the day, now. Come nightfall...
The boy scrabbled for a handful of fabric as his purloined trousers threatened to slip down his thin hips. "Is e ... Is e dead?" Rahab asked after a moment, curiosity clearly piqued, as he bound up his breeches as well as he could with but one hand. The boy leaned down and picked up a thin stick.
At least, Kain decided, the boy was rather more resistant to mental trauma than to physical. He was half-minded to let the whelp poke and explore as he pleased; Kain had little regard for fledglings not his own, and even less for the starving thing that had dared to attack Kain himself. But with such solid proof of the dangers of the wildcountry before him, Kain could not permit Rahab to waste precious minutes in the pursuit of mere curiosity. With a low growl, he paced forward, agility belying his size, to interpose himself between the mortal and his object of interest.
The boy stumbled backwards a few steps, suddenly apprehensive-then recovered, dropping the stick to clutch at the ties to his trousers. He extended a hand to pat one gray-furred shoulder. "I-uh, I understand, Lord Wolf." Kain had to suppress a very unwolflike snort-it seemed the boy thought his motives were spurred by protectiveness, not impatience-damn his inability to speak in this form! Or for that matter, the wretch's inability to Whisper.
"I'll just, uh-" Losing what little mastery of the language he had possessed, the boy waved vaguely at a nearby tree, and headed toward it after a last glance over his shoulder. Once there, he did his business-Kain wrinkled his nose at the sharp, unpleasant scent of human urine-then did up his trousers once more, eyeing the shadowed forest with no small amount of trepidation.
Kain gave another impatient snarl, and the boy jumped, then scurried back to the wolf s side. The vampire stoically endured the inevitably clumsy fumbling as the boy clambered up upon a nearby root and from there, to his back. Then he set off once again, ignoring the whelp's yelp and frantic clutch at the makeshift harness, irritated by the time he had wasted playing nursemaid to human frailties.
Despite their dallying, however, they made good time through the remainder of the day. The forest had thinned, the trees more windblown and twisted as the land became more broken beneath his paws, tumbled boulders adorning hillsides and turning their path into a winding progress. At this pace, Kain thought they might make Coorhagen by the end of another day. He looked forward to being able to shed this form; wolf-shape might have its uses, but it was sorely lacking in many ways. Such as hands, for instance.
Night had fallen, with a slivered moon on the rise, before Kain realized that something was wrong. His burden had been silent ever since the clearing, with only the boy's puffed exhalations evidence that he still breathed. But now-those breaths were a great deal more rapid, and the body pressed along his spine was trembling, shivering with cold. Damnation! Kain paused, orienting himself. Coorhagen was still too distant-there was no chance they would make it there this night. But upon the wind was the scent of woodsmoke, and horses, and spices? Such things meant a human encampment-and it was becoming clear that if he wished this whelp to survive, Kain would require the services of the boy s own kind.
Growling low in his throat, he changed course, nose in the air to track that elusive scent. He did not think they were far off; and most likely near water, as humans always were.
Rahab shivered harder with each passing minute as Kain picked his way along the crest of a rocky cliffside, the ground here rugged and irregular. The wolf's body was cold, nearly the temperature of the cool night air, though thick fur provided some insulation to keep the boy warm. And Kain's crimson clandrape, voluminous though it was, bore no particular enchantments to preserve warmth - a vampire needed no such luxuries, after all.
A prickle across Kain's skin made him pause, lift his head. His ability to sense fine degrees of temperature variation was poor in general, but he felt suddenly as if he had stepped into a pocket of colder air. Much colder, to judge by the way the little mortal shifted his weight, shivers becoming full-body tremors. And then, pressed close between Kain's shoulder blades, the coin around the boy s neck began to vibrate, its clamor felt in the ancient vampire's mind as well as against his skin.
With a vile and very unwolflike hiss, Kain turned, fangs bared - but only a swirl of mist amongst wind-tortured trees greeted his sight. Nor did his sense of smell indicate any enemy. Yet even in the few seconds that Kain searched with his natural senses, the medallion's klaxon warning intensified. No nightwraith or common specter would hunt a vampire: any enchanted weapon or minor spell could defeat such incorporeal spirits easily. And other undead had no nourishment for these lesser ghosts to steal, for they devoured the living heat of weakened creatures. But Kain was bearing bait upon his back. And in this form, possessing neither hands nor voice, Kain had no magical defenses.
Turning tightly, the wolf fled. The boy's grip was lax, too loose, and only the child's light weight and the manner in which he'd wedged bare feet and good arm under the makeshift harness kept him in place as the wolf vaulted tangles of branches and rockfalls. The night streaked by in a blur, each full running stride covering ten feet or more, the wolf skidding down a debris-strewn slide, leaping a quartz-glittering ravine, flashing across a barren hilltop like a massive grey ghost.
The real ghosts were faster, so close that Kain could feel them now, could sense the spectral presence, insubstantial and tattered hands reaching for his prize, pawing at the cloak that covered the boy. Subaudibly howling things, wisps and shades, the nightwraiths phased directly through barriers that Kain was forced to vault or circumscribe.
Lashing paws carried Kain around the next bend of a narrow-snaking valley and there, just ahead - fire. Campfires, glowing between the bulk of several encircled wagons, upon which elaborate paint and gilding gleamed in the firelight. Alerted by their own warning magics, humans scrambled for weapons, their shadows darting, utensils overturned in the chaos. Scarcely changing course and never slowing, Kain shouldered aside a startled sentry, the slender man caught mid-yawn, struck flat to the ground. A prickle of energy whispered over Kain's fur, and then directly ahead, in a huge scintillating ring around the wagons -
- flames ignited midair, wards meant to repel undead and monster alike.
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Cowrite with the amazing, beautiful HopeofDawn. Thanks also to you super reviewers - I appreciate your time and your help and your ideas! If you've got PM enabled, check your inbox - I try to write back.