The Betrayal (20 page)

Reacting without thought, Shalár blocked with her arm and felt the shock of a blow against her forearm. Glancing down, she saw the black blade biting into her leather brace.

She swung her sword down, across, up, cutting deep into her attacker's arm as she lifted it away from her. The knife, dislodged, fell to the ground. A moment later the pain came.

Blood, sharp on the air. Hot blood, and she hungered so!

The catamount shrieked along with the pack. The cat sounded near, too near. Shalár looked up and saw
it descending a tumble of rock at one side of the recess.

Kobalen coming at her. She freed her sword and this time used the blade to block. A glass knife shattered against it. Splinters flew. Shalár flinched, guarding her eyes.

The catamount leapt from a boulder onto the nearest kobalen, a smaller male. Claws sank into the creature's chest and shoulder. The kobalen's scream was cut off as the cat locked massive jaws on its throat, then tore it open with one powerful shake. Blood flew in an arc, pumping from the mangled flesh.

The kobalen cowering at the back of the recess screamed in terror. Those still fighting wavered.

Shalár summoned khi, drawing ruthlessly on the pack's remaining strength. Even as her hunters gasped, she flung their vitality against the kobalen.

The kobalen dropped their weapons. They fell to their knees.

Shalár released her pack and took hold of all the catch with the last of her strength. Those hunters who could do so lent their khi to the effort. She tightened her grip.

She made the resisters lie down on their faces. Some among them were clever ones—the ones she wanted to save—but she had no strength to search for them.

She strode forward, summoning the pack to follow with a gesture of her wounded arm. Her flesh ached in protest. She was too weary to wipe her sword and sheathe it, so she dropped it and drew her dagger.

Hunger tore at her gut, but she did not forget those behind her. Standing over the kobalen that had defied the pack, she glanced back at her hunters.

“Ten of you. Take one apiece.”

Unable to wait any longer, she crouched and reached for the nearest kobalen. Her left hand was sticky with
blood—her own—and her arm ached as she grasped the creature's scalp by the hair to pull up its head. The creature was unconscious; its good fortune. Shalár set her knife to its throat, then drank deeply, salt stinging her lips and the rich blood coating her parched tongue.

The catch shrieked in horror. She made certain the pack had them controlled, then ignored them.

She drank greedily, devouring the khi of her feeder even faster than she drained its veins. Bright pricks of relief in her awareness told her of the others who had started to feed. She breathed hard through her nose between swallows.

Her senses began to sharpen again. She became dimly aware of the frightened breathing of the catch and of the catamount calmly ripping bites of flesh from its kill. She snaked a tendril of khi around the cat's mind once more but let it feed.

When the edge was off her hunger enough that she could think again, she paused and summoned Ciris. He strode forward eagerly and knelt beside her, a strip of cloth in his hands.

She offered him the feeder. “Finish it.”

Instead he cut the laces of her leather brace and wrapped the cloth around the long gash in her arm, tying it tightly to stem the bleeding. He looked up at her, his face wrought with hunger and concern. She had blood on her mouth—she could feel it—and suddenly she wanted to share it with Ciris.

With her free hand she caught the back of his neck and pulled him to her. She kissed him deeply and felt the fire of his response wash through her.

The pack's khi tensed with arousal. Those who were feeding paused.

Shalár pushed Ciris away.

“Feed.”

His eyes were nearly mad with conflicting needs. His chest rose and fell with swift breaths, then with a snarl he turned to the feeder and took hold of it.

Shalár got to her feet, unsteady with the intensity of lust and hunger reeling through the pack's khi. She stepped away from Ciris.

There were wounded. At least two, perhaps more. She turned her attention to the pain she had shut from her senses and found it easily. One was nearby, breathing shallowly and silently enduring the bright anguish of a glass splinter lodged in a shoulder.

The other was feeble, dangerously weakened. Shalár sought that one first, stepping over fallen kobalen and a scattered tangle of nets and weapons as she crossed the fighting ground. She found him sprawled on his back, eyes open and staring at the stars, blood from a wound on his thigh soaking into the ground in a wide pool beneath him.

Shalár dropped to her knees beside him, laying a hand to his cheek. His eyes flickered but did not fix on her.

“Gæleph! Stay with us!”

She looked up at the pack, a staggered remnant of its former line. “Who has bandages? Bring them!”

Two came forward, Thanir and Ranad. Ranad stumbled, and Shalár recalled that this was his first hunt.

“Bind that wound.”

Thanir took two long cloths from her pouch and went quickly to work. Shalár stood up and glanced over the kobalen lying nearby. She chose a large one and nudged it with a toe. It flinched.

She made it stand up and walk over to where Gæleph lay, then sit down behind Gæleph's head. She directed Ranad to lift the wounded hunter's shoulders
and make the kobalen slide its folded legs beneath him. She took the kobalen's wrist and sliced it open, then pressed it to Gæleph's mouth.

It took a moment, then hunger seemed to wake Gæleph, and his eyes sharpened into a desperate frown. He sucked greedily at the blood, lunging, almost chewing at the creature's wrist. Ranad held the food to his mouth, a swallow betraying his own hunger.

Shalár brought another feeder over and gave it to Thanir, who had finished bandaging Gæleph's leg. She drank briefly, then passed the feeder to Ranad and took his place. Gæleph's strength was starting to return. Shalár would not lose him; she could sense his keenness to live. She breathed relief.

Turning her attention to the other wounded hunter, she now saw that it was Namir, who had fought beside her through most of the struggle. One of the first to feed had given his feeder to Namir and now was removing the glass splinter. Blood slid down Namir's shoulder as he pulled the wicked shard from her flesh.

Shalár winced and glanced at her own wound, saw the bandage dark with slowly oozing blood. Ebon-glass knives were evilly sharp and made cuts that bled freely.

She went back to find her sword near where Ciris still fed. Kobalen blood had dried on the blade, a dark, sticky stain, gritty with dirt. She would have to clean it before sheathing it again.

She set it against the cliff wall. The catamount lay nearby, lazily picking over its mangled kobalen. It raised its great pale head to watch her pass. The fur around its jaws was dark with blood.

This had been a hard night's hunt, the hardest she could remember. She glanced skyward to judge how
much darkness was left and was surprised to see that Saharis was still high and the fattening moon was just setting. Early yet, only half the night gone. She felt as if they had fought all through the darkness.

She must feed again. She had lost blood and spent khi lavishly. She was weak still, and needed strength to keep the catch under control.

Turning back to the ruined campsite, she reached for the kobalen lying nearest to her. It was dead, its blood wasted, drunk by the ungrateful earth.

A flash of anger went through her. Her hunger flared brightly again, and she strode to the next creature, a cowering female cradling a broken arm to its chest. Shalár seized its mind and knelt to it, opening a vein beneath its ear with a flick of her dagger. She fed, ignoring all but her hunger and her grip on the catch.

When her hunger abated, she raised her head and found Ciris beside her, patiently watching with dark eyes that were now warm where before they had been sharp with need. A breeze stirred his hair, silver against the star-scattered night.

Shalár thought of the danger of self-indulgence in this place, with a mere handful of hunters to control a large catch and the possibility of another kobalen band coming along at any moment. Thought of the journey they must make before dawn, taking their catch up the cliff and driving them to the nearest shelter, a wood that was some five leagues distant.

She smiled. Feeding was not the only act to which fear added spice.

She bent to her feeder once more, took a mouthful of blood, then shared it with Ciris in a kiss. His arms went around her in a strong embrace.

They were still for a moment, sharing relief that the hunt had succeeded, sharing a silent, growing elation.
At her movement he released her, and they both began pulling off their leathers.

She called one of the hunters over to take what was left of her feeder. No sense wasting it. She abandoned the creature and reached for Ciris.

The pack's khi rose in an eager, anxious hum. Those who were fed now turned to one another, seeking partners, frantic to couple. Those who were hungry left the line to take the feeders the others had deserted. Shalár gave her wordless approval of all in a rush of hot khi that swept through the pack even as Ciris thrust into her.

She took him deep, shivering with plea sure. A moaning rose from the pack, and ripples of delight washed through their khi. Shalár reserved a small, hard knot of her will to keep hold of the catch and the catamount and abandoned the rest to the rapture of coupling.

She felt echoes of Ciris's plea sure and changed how she moved to enhance them. Together they rolled over so that she could straddle him. She sank onto him, feeling him push against the knot of flesh within her, her second privacy that must open to him if she were to conceive. With each stroke she willed it to happen, willed her flesh to receive him, take him deeper inside her than any male had ever been.

She willed it, she wished it. She should have it, she who could control flesh more than any other, who could command hundreds if she chose! She should be able to command her own flesh to open to a mate and conceive. She beat herself against Ciris, howling her anguished desire to the night sky.

Others gave voice, and the catamount loosed a throaty yowl. Shalár felt the shimmer of someone's release wash through the pack, triggering others. She held off, still striving to open herself to Ciris.

He gave a grunt and pushed himself upright, thrusting hard into her, leaning on one hand while the other gripped her hips. She kissed him greedily, a storm of ecstasy singing through her khi as more of the others peaked.

Ciris gasped, and she felt the heat of his seed flood her, battering uselessly against her closed inner self. With a cry of frustration she let her flesh follow his into climax. A few more thrusts, then he lay back, spent.

Shalár drew a deep breath and let it out slowly as she lowered herself onto his chest. They lay still, their bodies throbbing.

She gave her attention to her surroundings long enough to reassert that the catch was still hers. Movement made her lift her head and glance back toward the mass of kobalen huddled against the cliff. Yes, many of them were coupling, their frenzy tinged with fear, their mating clumsy compared with the pack's.

She laughed softly. She had not seen that before; even the catch succumbing to her need. There would be a crop of young in the pens three seasons hence, she thought with a pang of senseless envy.

She turned back to Ciris and found him gazing up at her, his eyes tinged with regret. She kissed him to show she did not fault him, then rested her head on his shoulder.

Not his fault, nor hers. Perhaps some devious ældar had made their kind this way, able to breed only rarely. A cruel enough fate for the ælven but disastrous for Darkshore, who bore the added burden of their hunger.

Shalár wanted to stay there in Ciris's embrace, with the night breeze cooling her back. Instead she pulled away from him and stood up, looking toward the cliff. He reached out and caught her left wrist, gently turning
her arm. A wide smear of blood had soaked through the bandage.

“Can you climb?”

“Would you carry me if I could not?”

“Yes, Bright Lady.”

She smiled slightly and actually felt her cheek grow warm. “Luckily for you, I can climb.”

She bent to pick up a piece of clothing, determined it was Ciris's, and dropped it across his legs. By the time she had dressed in her own clothes and leathers, the rest of the pack was stirring.

Now she took the time to look over the kobalen, and picked a few that seemed to have the wit she was seeking. She separated them from the others and charged Ranad with their special keeping, then selected a couple more.

She set the hunters to the task of sorting the captured kobalen from the dead and the dying feeders. Feeders that yet breathed were given the mercy stroke and added to the piles of dead. Kobalen spears, axes, and knives were first smashed, then thrown on the pyre. Shalár kept one of the knives for herself, a memento, to go with the scar she would bear.

Two of the spear staves were kept back to make a litter for Gæleph. He was strapped to it, swathed in cloaks, and carefully taken up the cliff, with ropes tied to the litter from above to protect it from falling. Shalár watched the pyres being set, then urged her pack up the cliff with their catch, eager to find shelter before dawn.