Dockalfar (66 page)

He leaned against a twisted tree and pushed off the sodden remains of his cloak. Ruined now. It had been a fine thing once, a true garment of the night sidhe, attuned to his body’s chameleon shifts, made by the hands of a folk he had never dwelt with. They spawned Ciagenii, but never nurtured them. He looked down at his hurts and shuddered. His flesh was bruised and striped. Crisscrossed with welts and abrasions, burns and cuts. The flesh was healing, the bones took longer, and he had not the magic to quicken the process. Sighing, he rested his head against the smooth bark of the tree, letting the rain wash away the grime of sweat and travel dirt.

The slap of soaked branches being pushed aside brought him to instant awareness. He let his colors blend with those of the tree, stood still as death and waited for the originator of the sound to make itself known. A rustle of leaves by something that was in no wise being stealthy and a brief whiff of scent. There was a flavor of familiarity to it. He frowned over it, instincts quite clearly not warning of danger. He laid the cloak aside, wet and hindering as it was and slipped across the wood towards the disturbance.

Impact slammed into him from behind. He went down, skidding on wet leaves with arms wrapped around him and pain flaring with all the colors of the sun and moon combined behind his eyes. He did not cry out, refused to cry out, just twisted and tried to get leverage even though his limbs had gone rubbery and the strength faded with the cessation of the lights. He managed to turn far enough to get a knee in his assailant’s groin anyway, and wriggle out of the grasp before the magic snared him. It coursed through his body like cold ice, holding him terrifyingly immobile. Reason cut in then and he knew it was Alex a moment before the human put a knee in his stomach and crouched over him.

“Where the hell do you think you’re going?” The question was an angry hiss.

Alex pinned his wrists to the ground and a moment later the paralysis left his body.

He recalled the last time the two of them had been in a too similar situation. Only then his injuries had not been so incapacitating and Alex had not held his soul. Most certainly ‘not’ held his soul. It was a terribly distressing situation. One that made him wish to throw away all the control and calm he valued so highly.

“What were you doing?” Alex shook him. It hurt. The knee in his gut, pressing against ribs that the spriggan had none too gently bound sent fingers of agony up his side.

“What do you want of me?” he cried, too tired of the pain and confusion to care about anything but the cessation thereof.

Then something quite literally launched out of the brush and thudded into Alex’s chest with a high pitched, angry squawk. Alex tumbled over with a good seventy pounds of fur, claws and teeth on top of him. White and gray fur that boasted that same familiar smell.

Alex yelped in pain and the smell of blood crucified the air. Panic reared. If Alex died, the soul he held would most certainly find a similar fate. He launched himself for the cat and wrapped arms around her compact middle. He went backwards with her, she hissing and growling and raking him with her claws as she contorted in his grip. Alex scrambled back, clutching his chest, blood running down from a cut on his temple. His eyes were huge with surprise.

Dusk let the gulun go – she was more than he could easily handle. She remained where she was, crouching over him, her lengthening, youthful legs splayed to straddle him, growling low in her throat at Alex. And Alex stared back with growing horror on his face.

“Oh my God,” he muttered. “That’s her cat. And it’s protecting you.”

And it was. Most certainly was standing guard over him and he did not quite know how to dissuade it. He understood the look on Alex’s face. Felt a sum of grief for the human who held him in such disdain, because Alex truly loved Victoria and Victoria’s adopted feline child had sided against him. And Phoebe was not likely to protect anything Victoria did not love.

“It’s okay,” Dusk whispered, not certain who he was talking to. He stroked the wet fur trying to calm the growls. The gulun’s ears twitched, half rose, then fell back, then finally peaked upright. She shifted her position, with a disdainful look at Alex and proceeded to sniff Dusk’s face. He let her, not having much choice in the matter. Let her nose about the scratch she had made and wipe her rough tongue across it and finally, because she was taking so much care for him, wrapped his arms around her and buried his face in her thick pelt regardless of Alex watching or what might have been stirred by the noise the three of them had made in their struggles.

Alex got up, walked past them.

Phoebe lifted her head to watch him, ears trembling. Dusk did not wish that animosity. Alex had the power to harm her. Alex had every reason to. He wondered when he had changed so much that the life of a gulun kit suddenly meant that much to him.

With morning came more rain. It was unnatural, so long a storm. There were powers about stirring up the weather.

Sooner or later the reasons would become apparent, for despite what Alex and Bashru clandestinely planned among themselves, there was no escaping the great hunt. Not for the human and the spriggan and not for him while he had no immunity against magic. He tried to remember how long it had been since he had taken the last of the poisonous wine, but the days blurred. How long before his system could finally cleanse itself of the impurity? He had been very young the first and last time the chemical balance of his body had been so thrown off. He thought perhaps the incapacity had lasted a quarter moon, but that memory too was dim. The immunity to magic would come back, unlike the reflexive talents of a Ciagenii.

Then it would only be a matter of the soul Alex held over him.

They rode again, heading vaguely south east. He mounted under his own power, feeling better this morning than he had for no few mornings past. The gulun cub made a brief appearance, bloodied about the face and licking her chops. The spriggan was none too happy with her presence. Alex told him to endure it, sounding sullen and irritated himself. He cast a few dark glances at Dusk, but otherwise made no other motions.

Down a steep slope covered in wet leaves and soggy branches, the spriggan’s mount slipped. It lost its footing and crashed down the incline in a spray of long equine limbs and trailing, cursing ball of spriggan. Between the horse’s squeals and Bashru’s protests and complaints, those forest denizens bold enough to risk the rain stopped their comforting chorus of chirping, croaking and rustling. Silence followed and after the silence something else. A crash of something heavy to the east and the overwhelming sense of suddenly too much company where there should have been none.

Alex was off his horse, and half way down the slope to ascertain the damage by the time Dusk was fully aware of the imminent approach. There was nothing to do but spur his animal down the hill after and hiss out a warning. Bashru stopped cursing, stopped shaking off mud and leaves and stared in the direction of the noise that was loud enough for even the human to hear.

“Are you shielding?” The assassin asked the human from the vantage of his mount. Alex looked up, aghast. Shook his head.

“Then there is no hiding,” Dusk assured him, tilted his head to listen closer to the sounds. “Small party. Perhaps half a dozen riders. Huntsmen or sidhe. No ogres.”

“As if half a dozen huntsmen or sidhe ain’t problem enough?” Bashru hissed, thick dagger already in hand. His horse was ponderously gaining its feet. It was shaking and wild eyed. In no wise ready for a mad dash through the wood. Alex had a dagger in his belt. He ignored it in favor of the sword in his saddle sheath.

He handled it awkwardly. Dusk slipped down from his mount, slapped its withers to chase it away. The riders were closer.

Almost upon them.

“Can you use that?” he asked Alex.

Alex stared at him, ashen-faced, but determined. “I’ll manage.”

“Use the knife,” Dusk suggested. “And shield me.”

“What?”

“Shield me if you value your life, Alexander, for I have no defense against sidhe magic. And give me the sword.”

“The hell!”

Riders broke through the trees to the east. Bendithy huntsmen on plainly geared horses and behind them at least a pair of sidhe in gilded armor. There were a few more than half a dozen. Bashru squealed and pounced on Alex’s sword arm.

“Give him the damned sword!”

Alex swore and almost threw the blade at Dusk even as the fastest of the huntsmen crossed the distance, war blade lifted, battle cry upon his lips. The human and spriggan threw themselves out of the way and Dusk just melted to one side and sliced the rider open above the hips. He was out of the way before the blood splattered, in the lee of one tree then another before the second riders was close enough to take out. He did so with an upthrust blade that lodged between ribs and was yanked ungently from his hands.

The rider toppled the other way, howling in pain from a punctured lung. Messy.

Two kills that would take a long time in dying. It unnerved him to find his victims still trashing after a strike.

He went for the closest huntsman.

Jerked the sword out of the ribs and snatched a belt knife in the process. His thoughts faltered. Vision grayed and he knelt there, swaying as magic closed over his mind. Then he came back to himself suddenly with a horse thundering towards him and an ax swinging at his head. He rolled and threw the dagger. It embedded itself in the soft flesh under a bendithy huntsman’s jaw. The roll hurt. His ribs protested.

There might have been three more huntsmen, but they were insignificant. The sidhe were the ones who could decimate their little party once they got past Alex’s untrained magic. Let the spriggan deal with the bendithy, he needed to take care of the sidhe.

If he could. If he could get past their magical defenses, and if he could kill them outright without the benefit of his Ciagenii instincts.

The spriggan let out a shrill war cry and charged towards the thundering bulk of the nighthorse bearing down on his and Alex’s position. The little man slashed out at thick equine legs with the wicked edge of his blade and the animal screamed, stumbled and seemed to crumble in a slow motion tumble that the spriggan was in no wise fleet enough to avoid. He merely curled into a knot and endured the thrashing of metal shod hooves as the horse faltered over him. It went down in a great slid of wet leaves and debris, its rider tossed clear. The bendithy huntsman came to a skidding halt feet from Alex and despite the fall, recovered more rapidly than the stunned human. The only thing that saved Alex was the fact that the rider had lost his sword in the fall, and had nothing more to attack with than his callused hands. He went at Alex with those in a fury, face twisted into a snarl that had little to do with rational thought. Alex stumbled back with fingers clutching his throat. He got his feet under him with an effort and brought a knee up savagely. His attacker twisted and got the blow to the hip rather than the groin. They both went down after than, slipping on wet leaves.

Unfortunately Alex was underneath. He was having a hard time getting breath. He got an elbow across the jaw that sent sparks to dancing before his eyes. Then the bendithy was after the knife in his fist.

They grappled over it and in the back of Alex’s mind he could feel the tingle of magic being used.

Damn. The sidhe. He remembered he had a reserve of magic of his own and lashed out with a whip of mind-numbing force. The bendithy blinked, loosened his hold somewhat, but did not succumb. He either had shields of his own or the sidhe were protecting him. Which was what he was supposed to be doing for Dusk and had forgotten in the melee. He hoped to hell the sidhe had not taken advantage of his lapse, for Dusk had done damn well in that first charge. Very, very good, considering the shape he was in. Better than Alex could have done, even though he loathed to admit it.

But he could not shield Dusk, attack the bendithy magically and physically protect himself at the same time.

Something had to give. He lashed out once more, fiercely, blindingly, and the huntsman screamed, releasing his hold on Alex to clutch at his head. Alex slammed the knife around in an arc. The blade sliced through leather and skin. Blood spurted down on Alex. He kicked hard and rolled away to his knees, searching the area for friend and foe. The spriggan was not far away, facing the last of the huntsmen whose horse also lay shivering and whinnying pitifully, its front legs crippled. The sidhe were at the bottom of the slope. Alex vaguely recognized one of them. A member of the court. A sidhe he had spoken to on many occasions, partaken of games with. God, he did not wish for this fight.

He searched for Dusk. There was some difficulty locating him. Visually he was nowhere to be seen – magically, there was a whisper of a presence. He was functioning, not hampered by the sidhe.

Alex held a shield ready just in case, even as he covered himself with one. They were staring up the incline at him. One lifted his hand, almost in greeting.

Something flared in the gray, rain laden air. Something that blossomed into a oval of dense white light, roughly his height and twice that in width. It shot forward, crisping wet leaves and brush as it went, leaving a charred path behind it. It hit the bodies Dusk had left first and flesh melted. When it passed there were blackened bones in its wake.

Alex scrambled backwards and screamed at Bashru. The spriggan and his adversary paused, staring at the oncoming apparition. The huntsman cried out and ran. The spriggan ran in the other direction, up the hill towards Alex. The ball of destruction passed over the crippled horse and stilled its cries of pain.

He did not know how to defend against the physical magic. He could manage the mental shields adeptly, he had no experience with tangible ones. Bashru was not waiting to find out whether he could or not, but was scrambling up the hill in a flurry of gnarled limbs. Alex tried to formulate a barrier of force, flung it against the oncoming death. It collided and simmered, throwing back a lash of pain as it was destroyed. He cried out, stumbled to one knee at the shock. All right. In a war of magics, the losing spell did not just fizzle out painlessly. It hurt like hell.