My destiny was in the mountains.
I didn't have time to go chasing prophecies, but I kept the little figurine close, and thought about it, and it made me smile even now.
I pushed it back in a pouch on my belt. I really had no time for anything lately, least of all chasing some imaginary destiny. It felt like I had only gotten a few days of relative peace before I was off, terrified of all these disasters looming on this tiny location. Had the world always been on the brink of collapse and I had just been entirely ignorant to it because of what my life had been? I was just exchanging one stress for another.
The dwarves wanted to kill both dragons. Why hadn't I thought they would not ally with the silver dragon against the green one? I wouldn't allow that to happen.
I couldn't let harm come to Talia; she was good and kind, and I liked her besides. The dwarves and myself might be able to stand against the dragon on our own. It wasn't like the dragon was ancient. For a green dragon to be able to take a human form, it meant he was intelligent. Given what I had seen, I wondered if his ability to polymorph was more alchemical or magical.
We might not need Talia. If she could appear, to lure out the green, then escape before harm came to her—but then the green dragon would chase her; it had no reason to stay and fight the dwarves instead.
The alternative would be a siege on its lair and I did not see that going well for us.
Demons, dragons, cults. If I left it be, a lot of people would die, but eventually they'd fight one another. The loss of life that would lead to that wasn't worth it, and which was the victor hardly mattered.
The only thing I could reasonably do was fight both. I had to do it carefully, and I had to be smart about it.
I didn't see a way out of this that wouldn't end in the blood of innocents.
I had to find the werewolf. It was my fault that thing was free. And it was my fault what happened to Leeroy.
As if being trapped between a werewolf and a dragon was not perilous enough, I had made an enemy of a demon who was not likely to leave me be.
I needed help. I felt pulled in too many directions at once. For only a heartbeat, I thought of that incubus, before I immediately dismissed it. I wasn't that desperate, not yet.
I had to leave the issue with the green dragon to Talia's decisions, not mine.
I looked to the east, where the soothsayer said I would meet my destiny, and I turned from it and went southwest.
What is one man's destiny against the lives of all the people that werewolf, that evil thing, would destroy?
I was afraid. Of course I was afraid, but it didn't matter. I wasn't sure I stood any chance at all, but even if I could kill the guard that god now possessed, it would at least free him.
Malar was already further south than I liked.
I was barely to the bottom of the hill, on the south road, when a rider in a dark cloak galloped up to me. His spirited horse sidled up to mine. Our legs never brushed. I glared at Reyne. "What do you want?"
He inclined his head. "Fame? Fortune? Come on, there's got to be at least one of those in thwarting a god." He eyed me critically. "And I think my order will want to know what's happening either way."
Empty seats in the council house. A crown.
It took me a moment to remember that he was a noble. And one of the heroes who had saved the town. But probably still not enough clout to get him in a position of power. He wanted an in with Talia and thus Taervelaine to potentially win one of those empty seats for himself.
I wasn't sure what his end goal was, but he worshiped a tyrant, so I could guess.
For my part, I wanted to strangle him. I said, "I had been looking forward to a long silence on the road while I traveled alone, but I would be remiss to turn down another blade when the stakes are so high and my opponent is, well, Malar." I realized after I said it that some of the affectation was not mine, but the tracker whose skill I was borrowing.
I tried to tell myself it was another opportunity to demonstrate kindness. That if I could convince Reyne that he could be the cause of kindness instead of pain, I could do something worthwhile.
And if he never learned, that wasn't my fault, nor his. Maybe I just wasn't a very good teacher, or a poor example. It would be hard to learn how to be kind when everyone around you was cruel.
We rode in blessed silence for a while before he asked, "How are you feeling? You never let me heal you last night."
I glanced at him, a little perplexed that he was even asking. No one ever had before. Was I supposed to just give a generic response, the way you were supposed to when someone asked "how are you"? I must have been silent too long as I puzzled on the answer to the question, for he sighed and leaned over in the saddle. The leather groaned and his horse's ears laid back as he pulled her closer to me. His hand touched my arm and a tingle of healing energy eased the soreness. He straightened and his horse moved quickly ahead, nearly kicking Macha as she walked by. I rubbed Macha's neck reassuringly. To Reyne, I said, "Thanks."
"I would've done it yesterday too but you didn't let me."
I didn't respond. I wasn't sure what I could say, and I didn't want to talk about it. For his part, Reyne did not press me on it. He had a thousand flaws, but prying wasn't one of them.
Talia had shown me a couple destinations she thought were likely for Malar to do his own ritual at. It gave us a place to start.
Staying on the roads was swifter, but Malar would be cutting cross-country. Fortunately, two werewolves consumed a great deal of food, and they left behind mauled and gnawed bones from their kills. Once we found the first, it was a little easier to identify the others, by the size of the paw prints, claw marks on trees, even tufts of fur. I measured the indentation on bone from a bite. Reyne shuddered looking at the size of it.
He said, "I'm glad I brought my hunting knives."
My eyes flicked upward. "You are not flaying a werewolf hide."
"Really? Just think, I could make an entire coat out of their hide and the tailor would barely make a stitch."
I felt ill just discussing it. "They're people. And that's disgusting."
He shrugged one shoulder, but chose not to debate the point.
#
I mostly slept outside of the tent. The weather was fair and the night chill did not seep past my internal furnace. Besides, it kept me away from Reyne. The last thing I wanted him to think is that we had any kind of relationship.
Talia still had not found us. Maybe it had taken her longer than I had realized. Then again, when you measure your lifetime in centuries, maybe you don't understand the pressing urgency of time the way the rest of us did.
I watched the fire of our camp, one of my hands idly making some of the fingering motions for a lyre, going over a few bars. It was something I did habitually while I was traveling; it was either that or play with my jewelry, and this didn't lead to me dropping rings in the dirt.
Reyne said, "What are you doing?"
I jerked. Most people didn't ask. My hand dropped. "Nothing. It's—" At his raised eyebrow, I flushed a little and said, "I just miss my lyre." I glanced away. "It was left where my master was setting up the embassy in Skullport." I sighed.
Reyne smiled. "I didn't know you played."
"I wasn't great at it." I looked back at him. "There's a lot we don't know about each other, though, I imagine."
He considered. "Well. We're traveling together. Ask me a question, and if I answer, I get to ask you one. Fair?"
I smiled. "All right." I struggled to think of a question. "Who is Bane?"
"The god of tyranny and strife. One of the Dead Three." He seemed a bit disappointed I had asked about his religion. "My question. How'd you learn to play the lyre?"
I squirmed under his scrutiny and shifted. "I should just be flippant and tell you by practicing," I said with a smirk, but it faded. "When I was a kid—I'm not sure how old, but I was going through puberty—I tried to walk off of my master's tower. I was good at climbing, and I climbed it often. One night, I just didn't fight the desire to leap." I made a face. "It was stupid. I was hurt badly, but I walked off at the one angle that had a tree, and I hit the branches on the way down. My master had me healed, but he knew I hadn't slipped." I smirked. "That's half the story. I get a question now."
He smiled. "Fair. Go on."
I considered. "Tell me about your first painting you were proud of."
Reyne looked up at the sky, thinking. "It was a robin. A whole winter cooped up indoors for the snow, and I was painting and watching the winter birds in the yard, and the first one that I didn't just paint over with white paint and reuse the canvas was a robin. The use of red on a snowy background, darker shades for the shadows. I had an entire notebook filled with thousands of birds I had sketched and was pleased with, but that was the first one I painted well." He glanced at me. "In your stupid white armor, you remind me of it; you match the color composition I used."
I realized I was smiling softly as I imagined him as an innocent child, absorbed in his paints. So quickly that had been taken away. My smile faded. "When I was healed after the fall, my master demanded to know what I was doing. Trying to destroy his property, I suppose." I made a face. "I confessed it was a suicide attempt, for which I was of course beaten." I sighed. "But my master decided, after some observation, that I needed a hobby, and to not be alone." I picked at some dirt under a nail. "So he gifted me the lyre, told me to learn it. And he sent me to the temple of Asmodeus. Pay homage to my heritage, I suppose, and maybe my abilities as an oracle would improve if I did."
"Did they?"
I smiled. "It's my question." I considered. "Did you ever have a pet?"
"I like cats," he said blandly. "But no. I never had the time for one. So, did they improve?"
I shook my head. "A little. Honestly, my adventures out here have made them stronger than they ever were at home."
The question game was something we could do idly on the road, when we stopped to make camp. Each of us tried to think of more and more strange and obscure questions for the other, and the more we played, the more I realized that Reyne was difficult not to like. Oh, he worshiped an evil god and had done terrible things, but he respected any boundaries I set; he did not press the matter of wanting to go to bed with me, though he occasionally hinted. No matter what Aela thought, or Leeroy had thought for that matter, I did not think Reyne was likely to kill me in my sleep. We had the same goals, and Reyne was still bound by a code of what I could loosely call laws.
Scratch marks on a tree had led us to the glade. I wasn't fool enough to think I could sneak up on a werewolf, but both of them were obviously distracted. From what we could tell, they had quarreled. Blood was spilled, then both had left in the same direction.
Reyne said aloud what I was thinking. "Malar is pushing to use van Umber as his host. Van Umber probably isn't willing." He traced parts of the scuffle, outlined the blood. "Submit or suffer."
I took a breath. Didn't I know the truth of that. I sighed and went back to my horse. The leather creaked as I climbed into the saddle. "At least they aren't far now." For better or worse, the site Talia had said was the most likely was near. She had said, A grove sacred to Sylvanus. Hallowed ground, teeming with animals and plants. He'd want to desecrate it.
Reyne said, "Why so gloomy then?"
I looked around at the sunny forest. "I'm trying to decide how Malar is all that much different than any other god. You pray to a god of the harvest for crops, and maybe you miss a sacrifice, and you suffer." I snorted. "If they were really benevolent, they wouldn't demand the worship."
Reyne smirked. "Is my pessimism rubbing off on you?"
I shot him a glare. "I've always felt this way," I insisted. "None of them are kind and just, and the ones that claim to be are clearly lying, or else they wouldn't be able to bear all the suffering." How could anyone be good, see suffering, and do nothing? If the gods wouldn't help, why bother with them? If they couldn't, why bother? None of them were good enough for me. None of them lived up to the, apparently, impossibly high standards I had set.
He had a blank expression that probably won him a fair bit at poker. "I bet Aela would be just thrilled to hear your nihilistic speech."
That shamed me to silence and I looked away.
He said, "Does she know about you and I?"
I glanced at him. "There's nothing between you and I."
"I'll remember that, the next time I catch you staring at me." He shot me a grin, then pointed. "I couldn't tell you how long ago they passed, but they carved a trail in their wake."
I nodded. I started to go first, but he insisted. Farbeit from me to keep him from leading the way. Leaving me little choice but to stare at his broad back. The bastard.
We walked the horses in silence, then I smelled smoke. I called out in a harsh whisper to Reyne and we dismounted to lead the horses off the trail, through a thicket. I didn't hobble them. If the werewolves cut and ran, tried to kill the horses, the animals had a fighting chance if they could run. I left my pack under a blackberry bush, but kept the saddle on the horse, in case we needed to escape. I could live without the pack in that circumstance, but I wouldn't want the weight if we were running.
Reyne strung his bow. "No sign of Talia, hm?"
I sighed and shook my head. "We're on our own. Stay here. I'll try to sneak up to them and see what's happening."
"Scream if you need me."
I rolled my eyes and stalked past him. I followed the smoke more than the trail, worried they might be watching it. As big as they were, they couldn't move around in those forms without leaving marks, and they were so powerful, they didn't much care anyway.
The smell of smoke was strong, and that might have been why I was able to sneak up on the wolf and kill the thing before it noticed me. I pulled the knife back, swiping it on its fur. Likely a sentry, but a real wolf. I moved forward in a crawl. The scent of the smoke mingled with my own natural odors. My wolfskin cloak may have even helped me smell like wolf.
Pressed against a tree, I peered through the brush. It wasn't a clearing insomuch as that the werewolves had mutilated a small grove. Gods liked to take things from other gods, like children.
I wished I had talked to Talia more about what this long ritual entailed.
No wonder they had infiltrated the Gauntlet and the temple.
They had used a split tree as some kind of altar. The bodies of two hunters were impaled on the branches. They had stopped twitching long enough to attract flies, but it looked like it had taken a while. I grimaced.
Two werewolves loomed over them. One was smaller, disgruntled. Van Umber. The other one looked half-crazed. Desperate. His body was weakening. He needed to do this quickly. Unfortunately, van Umber's fealty to his god was stronger than his self-preservation instincts.
Such a grotesque scene on a bright sunny afternoon seemed paradoxical.
Running in a panic. Too dark to see. Branches like fingers. Hunters become hunted. The wolves.
They had ran the unfortunate hunters, herding them right here. Probably part of the ritual. They might have had to run them for miles. Their last hours, maybe even days, in blind terror.
I thought, And there are gods who would not take pity on them and condemn them even now, just for not recognizing them.
At temple once, I had confessed to one of the priests that I had trouble wanting to worship. I had been young at the time, and the priest had told me of the horror that awaited me if I did not worship any deity at all—that I would be punished for all time, my soul used as a building block in the afterlife along Myrkul's Wall of the Faithless, as an example to all who did not bend their knees to gods. And, if I were very lucky, eventually a fiend of some kind would eat me and end my suffering. So I had best find something to believe in and worship, or there was only damnation ahead of me.
I knew that was my future.
And still I would choose it, rather than worship any deity who condoned this.
I hated all of them for it.
Tensions between van Umber and "Leeroy" were high. If I tipped the scales, van Umber might turn on "Leeroy" in a desperate bid to not be the vessel. Or see me and recognize a viable vessel if he were able to infect me. It was better if we stayed out of sight, but that wasn't possible; we had to disrupt the ritual. How?
I licked my dry lips as I thought. My eyes flicked to the trees, then I made my way back, careful and slow. We had time, but not a lot of it. I told Reyne my plan. He thought I was absolutely mad. I said, "We only have to spoil the ritual. We don't have to fight them now."
We gathered oil and made quick torches, saddled the horses and lashed our things to the saddles. He handed me a bottle of whisky grudgingly. I thanked him, then we were off. The inclination was for both of us to split, but with the extra wolves, that seemed unwise. Better to stay where we could help each other.
A wolf found us first, but being an animal, knew better than to attack on its own. It disappeared into the brush. I think werewolves could speak to wolves. We might have little time. I lit the rag in the bottle.
We broke from the trees, kicking the horses into a frantic gallop. My mare's eyes rolled with fright at the blood. I had to drop the reins to throw the bottle. The whisky ignited with a bang, inexpertly on one side of the ritual "altar".
The moss and dry bark caught but the blood slowed the fire's spread. We hurried it along, throwing torches that spooked the horses. I had to rely on my horse's sense of self-preservation and instinct to run with Reyne's warhorse.
The werewolves howled. The wolves, summoned to them, given some kind of yapping order. The horses broke through the other side of the clearing. I threw back my last burning torch. It landed in the grass. The fire frightened the wolves, but they were more afraid of Malar than the fire and they bunched into a hunting pack fast after us.
The two werewolves looked back at the ritual.
I heard Leeroy's voice say, "Put it out. Out! Use your damned hide if you must."
"You use it. You'll be in my hide soon enough. Better a fresh one."
Reyne laughed. "The audacity of arguing with your own deity. Shit!" His horse kicked back a wolf's snapping jaws. My lighter horse ran forward, crashing around underbrush. She leaped over an overgrown tree, thudded down the path, then raced up a crest in the hill. Reyne was a bit heavier, the horse slower, but he was keeping pace. The hesitation on the wolves' part cost them distance that would lose a hunt. And, being animals, they knew that, and fell behind once we were out of sight.
I suppose a god could command animals if they liked, but there was no impressing upon them the necessity of something all their instincts and knowledge of hunting told them was fruitless. In the end, animals didn't worship gods. They were the lucky ones.
We slowed, but didn't stop. I fully expected Malar or van Umber to come charging after us. It was not possible for them to let us get away with this without retribution.
I kept looking behind me, and my horse was so startled when the werewolf crashed down in front of her that she reared and threw me off her back. I landed in a shrub with a shower of leaves. She broke off into the brush, but the werewolf, contrary to a dog, was not tempted to chase her.
Its red eyes were all for me.
I said, "Leeroy. Listen. I know you've got to be in there—"
It lunged. Reyne's horse ran past. His greatsword swung, into the lunge. Leeroy could not avert its attack in time and its own weight carried it right into the blade. The silvered edge cleaved through fur and tough hide, scraped along bone, but did not break it. Radiant but wicked light flew down the sword and burst in the wound.
Reyne pulled back the sword, swung at its back as he passed. Seeing an opportunity, I rushed forward. My sword dipped into its thick side, with a grunt pushing past wiry muscle. I pulled back and danced out of the way of its claws.
Leeroy staggered. The host body was already falling apart, pushed to its endurance. It dropped to all fours, eyed us warily. Reyne wheeled the warhorse around and the big charger laid its ears back. My muscles bunched to spring.
For a moment, its body did not seem to coordinate. It half-snarled, half pulled back, limbs seemed to flail and stretch.
Leeroy was still locked in there. Trying to fight. Trying to give me a chance.
I ran at him. Reyne charged. Leeroy broke from position, leaping unexpectedly right over both of us, then tearing into the wood.
We waited, looked around, but Leeroy did not seem to be hiding nearby. We found my horse about twenty minutes later, on the other side of a stream, shaking with fear, but otherwise unharmed. By the tracks, she had been chased by wolves again, but they had given up. Nothing more than a scratch.
We put a salve over the scratch and sat on a rise, watching the smoke. At dawn after a night of poor attempts at sleep, we went to look, but there was no sign of either werewolf.
Reyne said, "Reckon that bought us some time. Good signal for Talia too."
I grimaced, then nodded. "Back to tracking them."
"I wish that had been it for them."
I shared the thought, but we both knew why that wasn't viable. Malar's shadow would still be loose. As Talia said, we needed to contain it.
Malar. I still couldn't believe it sometimes. He was worshiped in Thay.
This was so far beyond me. What chance did someone like me stand? But I could kill the vessel of a god. I could disembody it. It still possessed flesh and blood. I knew it ate. I knew it bled. What bled could bleed out.
I thought of that werewolf who had infected me—most likely van Umber himself or maybe one of the nobles. I thought of the demon Shilset, who I had angered. The green dragon that wanted to rule and make me its servant.
Why did everything want to dominate and control me? Visatrax had mentioned, but I wasn't sure he would tell me all of it even if he understood it himself.
Oracle.
It was such a rare gift. What horrible uses could such creatures have of me?
I thought of Talia, who had only ever offered help to me, who wanted me to stand on my own and continue being a champion of good and justice.
I didn't see much use in worshiping a god. Every creature worshiped as a god I had seen, and everything I had seen of their followers, was that they and their followers alike were corrupt and cruel, petty, uncaring, unjust, or utterly blinded by dogma. But Talia was good. She was just a person; she might be a powerful and wise dragon, but she was a person, albeit one with scales. She wasn't worthy of worship, but I could see the appeal in worshiping a powerful creature you could see. Nothing I had seen was worthy of worship.
I pulled back on the bow. Using Reyne's longbow was different than a crossbow or a shortbow. The draw was so much more powerful and I could feel it on the tension long before I loosed the arrow at the target—a claw-marked tree trunk at the edge of the clearing we camped.
Reyne's voice was quiet, gentle. "Try not to drop it this time."
My tail twitched. "I just wasn't expecting it." I released the tension and the arrow flew, right into the dirt, and I laughed.
Reyne raised an eyebrow, a wisp of a smile on his lips. "You'll get it. Try again."
I sighed and reached for another arrow.
The clatter of hooves made me whirl toward it, started to notch the arrow, then I stopped. Talia, riding atop a hippogriff, just pulling its wings together. I was so tired I hadn't heard her approach. Reyne straightened. I lowered the weapon.
I was so glad to see her I started toward her, then stopped. I had been tricked before. My lips pursed. "Talia?"
She grinned, sliding from the back of her mount. "Yes. Back from my mission to the moon elves. They agreed to discuss terms with the dwarves about that green dragon—What is it?"
I sagged. "I'm just grateful you came. We didn't know what to do about—Well." I waved around the area.
She eyed the ruined grove, looked at the bodies with some sadness. I had wanted to at least pull them off of the altar, and had bullied Reyne into helping me. She said, "Saw your signal. I'm sorry about the grove though."
"Better than what Malar did to it," Reyne said. "He'll be after a new site soon."
She took a breath. "Unfortunately, he's got any number of them to choose from. There are so many shrines to gods in woods or mountains." She shook her head. "But I'm here now and I have what we need, so not to worry." She cast me a baleful grin. "You ever think about my offer? It still stands."
I lifted my hand to touch my collar. I made a face. "We've more important things right now."
She shrugged a shoulder. "True enough. I don't have the equipment to remove it with me anyway." She looked around the summer forest. "How far off is he?"
"He often toys with us when we track him," I admitted. "Sometimes we find a fresh kill, hours old. Then we won't find anything for days. Almost gave up once, then Reyne found claw marks." I rubbed the back of my neck absently.
She nodded. "Well, I'll have a look from above. We'll catch him." She clasped my arm. I jumped at her touch. "It'll be all right."
Looking at her silver eyes, I actually believed her.
#
Despite Talia's confidence, tracking something in a forest with a lot of tree cover from above was harder than she made it sound, but I noticed it wasn't toying with us anymore. Talia actually scared it.
It was running, and that was good. It meant Malar was still just a powerful being inhabiting a flawed vessel. Talia called it "the Essence of Malar", explaining to me that it wasn't actually the god or even an avatar exactly, but more a shadow of him, an aspect. "Which is bad enough," she said bluntly. "But we've a way to contain him again. You only need to keep him busy and draw his attention, so I can recite the incantation."
I groaned. "And is there a reason I can't do the incantation?"
"You don't speak Draconic and Elvish."
Good enough reason.
Talia glanced at Reyne. "I suppose I might as well tell you, then, that—"
He raised an eyebrow. "That you're the silver dragon Valac has been searching for?"
She looked positively shocked. "Pardon me?"
He sighed. "Valac was looking for a silver dragon. He went to talk to you and Taervelaine, then you left shortly after in a panic—but you left on foot. Then Valac commented that you were going to talk to the moon elves about mounting a defense against Visatrax." He raised an eyebrow. "A four day journey on horseback. Taervelaine has horses, so why would you go on foot, unless you intended to fly? And I know there were no hippogriffs in Bryn Shandor; it's too cold for them much of the year." He rolled his eyes. "You even have silver eyes and smell of rain and evergreen. You just admitted you speak Draconic. It wasn't difficult to piece together."
Talia actually laughed.
With three of us, a watch rotation was much more comfortable. Talia took the middle watch, known as being the worst one, but she said she was the freshest and her eyes were the best. I didn't debate the issue.
Reyne tried to teach me how to use a longbow and Talia let me borrow her buckler so I could practice how to use a shield when we had the energy to spar. She only ever watched Reyne beat the shit out of me with a stout stick while I tried to defend, but sometimes she shouted something encouraging. Reyne, for his part, was always gracious about it. He had absolutely gone easy on me in the training circle; he often had to heal my bruises.
Talia ate with a voracious appetite that would have shocked me if I didn't know what she was. I sat and watched in awe as this lithe graceful elf fully devoured an entire flank of a deer, and very clearly could have eaten more.
I think I would have enjoyed traveling with her, in better circumstances. I liked her stories, her confidence, the way I felt in her presence. She set an example of justice and strength, and I wanted to follow it.
I had met so few people that I felt that way about. I was glad that I had met this one. I was glad that there were people like her in the world. And yes, I do see dragons as being people—flawed people with individual personalities and interests.
I was proud to have met her.
It started raining halfway through my watch, and was a storm by the end of it. Talia ushered me into the tent, saying, "You might be resistant to the cold, tiefling, but you aren't immune."
"It just sprang up out of nowhere," I complained.
She nodded and waved me into the tent. "Sorry. Problem of being a dragon—my presence effects… everything. Weather, terrain, the flora and the fauna." She shrugged helplessly. She scowled. "It's why the elves used High Magic against us. Couldn't rule otherwise." But she grinned. She wasn't bitter about it; she was too young to take it personally. "Go on."
With the downpour, I could not ask the hundred questions I wanted to, and I slipped inside. I yanked off my boots and pried my way out of the wet armor. I put them on one side of the tent to dry with my weapons. Reyne rolled over, watching me.
I wormed my way into the bedroll.
Reyne said, "It's a chill night."
"Go back to sleep, Reyne," I muttered, turning my back toward him.
He sat up. "It's a good way to warm the tent."
Annoyed, my hair damp, I let out a noisy sigh. I wanted to be petulant, but I clamped down on my whininess. I rolled back over to look at him. "I don't want a relationship with someone as cruel as you are," I said honestly. "I want someone who is a better person than I am, so I can aspire to be like them. That just isn't you, Reyne."
He tilted his head. "It doesn't have to be a relationship, Valac. I know you want something long-lasting and real. And maybe you'll find that. But this could just be sex."
I sunk down. "Talia is outside."
"Talia is a dragon and will not care." He rolled his eyes. "She already half thinks of us 'short-lived mortals' as being closer to animals."
"How can you say that?" I demanded in a hiss.
He smiled sadly. "You always see the best in people, Valac. I always see the worst." Always seeing the worst in a person was what let him kill people for his god without hesitation or turmoil; always justifying their death as "they probably did something to deserve it". The horrible thing was that, from my research on dragons, I had learned that bronze dragons, which I thought were good, did the same damned thing. Which gave me all kinds of questions about the nature of evil and complex matters of the nature of mortals. He said, "Can we try to meet in the middle?"
I frowned. "You see the worst in me?"
He leaned down, as if to kiss me. "The worst you could be is the best I could be."
My fingertips touched his jaw. "I don't believe that."
"That's why you've every right to push me away. And I have no right to want you." His hand cupped the side of my face.
I was supposed to kiss him here. I was supposed to sit up and close that gap between us. Instead, my hand fell away and I turned my head from his palm. He had done such terrible things. He worshiped such an evil god. "I'm just so tired, Reyne."
He withdrew his hand. "That's all right." He leaned back in his bed. "I am too. Maybe it was foolish." He rolled his back toward me.
I reached out to him and caught his arm. "It's not foolish." I pulled myself against his back. "I'm just exhausted and frightened."
"We almost bested him at the grove. We can do this, Valac." He relaxed.
I took a breath. He smelled like leather and old sweat, faintly of something it took me a while to recognize as feathers.
I closed my eyes. "What kind of aasimar are you? From what kind of angel did you descend?"
"Fuck angels. And the ideals of angels."
I could not agree more.
#
Malar's vessel was still only mortal, and had to sleep. Talia said that Malar was pushing it to its mortal limits, and likely headed to the nearest town if it succeeded. That sickened me. We had to reach him first, so we pressed on the hunt into the dark hours.
Two hours after full dark, we almost called it quits for the evening for our mounts' sake, when Talia cried out from above. I spurred my horse after her from below. She got there first.
A werewolf, even two, against a dragon should not have really even been a fight, but this thing held the shadow of a god. I burst through the brush to see her on her hippogriff dive down. She leaped off of it as one was mid-transformation to the hybrid form, rising up to meet her.
She struck out with a silvered sword. It howled.
Then the wolves. I vaulted from the saddle and smacked the horse to get it to run from the horse needed little convincing.
They had gathered more regular wolves and they spread from the trees, fangs bared and fur bristled. I had to always be faster. The wolves had the advantage in the thicket and it was all I could do to try to keep a tree to my back.
Talia said, "Valac, I need you up here."
Reyne said, "I can do this. Go." His horse kicked a wolf in the jaw. He swung his sword.
I pulled back my bow. A wolf yelped as the arrow hit home and I ducked back behind a tree, narrowly avoiding a two hundred pound canine slamming into my chest. "Not a lot I can do."
"I have to recite the litany! I can't do it like this." She cursed in Draconic, turning to split open a wolf skull before she threw herself back at the werewolves.
I could not bear to think of it as the guardsman I had almost been friends with.
We had to kill him to free him from this. There were just so many wolves. I had never seen so many wolves. I couldn't seem to get away.
"Well, I need—"
"Oh, to the Abyss with it!" The groaning of trees and breaking branches drowned the growls and yelps, frightened some of the wolves away as a full-grown silver dragon sprang from her previous form. I felt the displacement of air as her body just appeared. I stared in awe. She was like living quicksilver, fast, fearsome. The moonlight reflected off of her shimmering scales. The werewolves howled, trying to rally their terrified pack.
The dragon shrieked in answer, drowning its voice in her own.
For a moment, I was only stunned, unable to move, to blink, to breathe. Then I let fly a bullet from my sling. The missile took one of the werewolves in the right hip, nearest to me. The only reason I could tell it was van Umber was because "Leeroy" tended to stagger and its fur was matted as the heart of the god broke poor Leeroy's body with every beat.
It fumbled and I grinned, glad I'd used the silver.
Somewhere behind me, Reyne and his horse cleaved into the wolves, drawing them away as best he was able, running them down if they tried to split to help the werewolves. I loaded another silver sling bullet. It looked at the dragon, then to me. Its muscles coiled to spring. I tensed, ready to throw myself back. The dragon's wings spread, as if in challenge of the gods themselves, she blocked the light and the moon.
But when Talia lifted her head, it was not to breathe ice and freeze the creature in its place, but to recite the litany in her own tongue.
Van Umber turned from me and threw himself at Talia with a growl of command from his master. Thundering out of nowhere was Reyne. The big warhorse and the blood-splattered rider met the werewolf with a clash. Say what you will about his cult; he was handy to have in a fight.
It was just me and Malar now, and I put all my effort not only in keeping his attention, but dodging claw and fang. I did not try to engage, or wound it, only in keeping it back. I kited it, as best I could, around the small clearing. I was fast, but not as fast as a werewolf. At best, I could stay a few steps ahead of it. Better to keep my eyes on it and dodge around it, duck under claws, try to keep a tree or a tangle of blackberries between us than turn my back to it and run.
I was not always fast enough. Leather tore under its claws. Blood blossomed and stained the white leather. If I lived, that beautiful armor was going to be utterly destroyed. But I dodged its fangs, having to step into the claw. Better a claw than a fang.
It burst right through the thorns, its hide unimpeded by it. It was furious, fangs dripping. Eyes maddenned. I was terrified.
"I'm sorry, Leeroy," I said, hoping he could hear me even if he was unable to fight the god enough to respond.
"It's your fault," the creature said, snapping its teeth toward me. I dove to one side and it caught only empty air. "You broke the vessel. You brought him down to his doom." It spoke in Leeroy's voice. It felt cruel. It should have at least used its own and it wounded my heart and my conscience.
I hadn't realized what the vessel did. I just knew that I should not let that acolyte escape with it, and I was not able to outrun the acolyte at the time. I was such a fool and my ignorance had doomed a good man. All I wanted to do was help people, and I had destroyed his future and his life, and how many innocents that Malar had hunted since I had freed him?
All my fault.
"It should've been you under my control now. You are the superior vessel." Its fur bristled, moving down to all fours to stalk around me. I kept my eyes upon it, ready to get out of its reach. "You rejected the gift of lycanthropy."
I sneered, but I could not waste energy trying to mentally spar with it. It was a god; it had the upper hand at that anyway and it would only distract me.
It lunged forward. I could smell its fur and its foul breath, feel the heat of its body as it came near.
I tried to throw myself to one side, but I tripped over a broken tangle of thorns. It went past me when I went down, but its hind paw smacked against my back. Claws tore open the white leather. Its weight crunched on my arrows. I heard something wooden snap. I rolled. It turned, mouth open as if it were grinning.
It said, "And you're quick."
I said, "Oracle. Sometimes I can guess which way you jump before you do it." I shouldn't have said it, but I couldn't help it when false bravado could give it pause. Visatrax had known that, but the dragon had studied me a bit more than Malar had bothered to, had countered my ability before I even knew the dragon was there. Magic was not something Malar was known for.
It did pause, but not for the reason I had hoped. "From your bloodline. A gift from Asmodeus I assume." Spit dribbled from its maw. "I will take it."
Gods most delighted in stealing things meant for other deities, the way a cut of meat stolen from my master's larder had tasted better.
It came toward me, aiming low for my legs this time. I pushed backwards, but its big paw swiped my knee. I was knocked bodily onto my back and it pounced. I yelped in alarm. Its mouth came down and I barely got the stave of my bow between us, in its teeth. I clenched my jaw, all the strength of my body put into keeping its teeth from me, a test of wills between me and this werewolf shadow.
Sweat dribbled down my back. I strained. I had to get up. I had to throw it off me and get to my feet, or I was done. My bow cracked, then shattered in its jaws.
Then Talia's voice, in a language I did not know, loud and clear and vibrant as the dawn. The werewolf shrieked, repelled backwards. I saw something, like eyes within its eyes, being pulled forcibly from the body, yanked toward the dragon, then spiraling, as if it sought to possess her too. She raised her head, confident, shrinking down to her elf form and raising not a glass vial, but a blank scroll. The red pinpricks like eyes splatted against the scroll like wet paint. She rolled it and stuffed it into a silver scroll case. She screwed it shut tightly, pleased.
Van Umber turned to flee. Talia lifted her head and raised a hand. I at first thought the spell was wind, but it froze the earth. Ice crystals formed in the air and whisked around the werewolf. It froze solid to the ground, brittle. Icicles clung to its fur. Once she stopped, Reyne ran after it. Ice cracked under his boots. Snow spiraled down around him. His sword cleaved right through the brittle ice, to the frozen werewolf. The creature was so cold, it did not even spray blood.
I sagged, dropping down to the dirt. I gestured to the scroll case. "How long does that last?" I rolled, to look at Leeroy. He was dead, his skin sunken and hollow. And, sadly, still in werewolf form. The stories of them transforming back were not true.
She said, "Long enough. I must take it quickly somewhere it can lie dormant." She whistled and her hippogriff flew reluctantly back down, landing primly on a bare spot around the destroyed clearing.
"We need to figure out that green dragon," I said. I pulled myself to my feet through sheer determination. I hadn't realized how much the wolves had battered me, how many times I had banged up my legs or my torso throwing myself to one side or the other to avoid the werewolf.
Reyne busily cleaned his sword, by all appearances ignoring us.
She nodded. "We will. I will find you in Bryn Shandor. We will discuss our means of attack." She grinned wickedly. "Taervelaine wanted to host a ball, in honor of the city reclaimed and our victory. You will have to save a dance for me, Valac." My eyes went wide. "You will be the guest of honor."
Reyne glanced up at me, saw my stricken face, and grinned. "What, you didn't think the Hero of Bryn Shandor, werewolf slayer, the Falling Blade, Savior of Easthaven, and by all accounts one of the victors over Malar wouldn't be the guest of honor?"
Blood heated my face. I wanted to run, but with both of them looking at me and grinning, I felt as pinned in place as I had been with Malar's teeth inches from me. "Oh, Asmodeus's balls, you've got to be joking."
They laughed. Reyne clapped me on the back and Talia only beamed. Reyne smiled. "And of course—?"
She knew exactly what he meant and looked at him sourly. "We won't be stingy with our accolades. I cannot deny the risks you've taken nor the work you've dedicated to this, paladin." The inflection she put upon it denoted that it came with distaste. She knew, but she was a dragon, and they had a different idea of justice and right or wrong than people, and especially a different idea of gods.
"Pleased to hear it."
She mounted the hippogriff and kicked it into the air.
I smiled as I watched her go, looked at the space her draconic body had left in the trees, the deep gouges from her claws.
Reyne stepped from me to inspect his horse.
He was going to use this to leverage for things in Bryn Shandor and Ten Towns. Given his cult, I worried what those things were. At their most benign, a position of power, I imagined.
Only when Talia was a speck against the sky did I drop down and lean my back against a tree. I could have slept for a year. I was tired and aching, covered in blood, but I wasn't feverish. I didn't have lycanthropy. Not again anyway.
I closed my eyes and drained my waterskin. I swiped at my mouth as I pulled it back. Malar had bigger issues than me now. He might hunt me again in the future, but I had at least bought myself some time.
Victory smelled like blood.
