A Cast of Shadows: An Araneae Nation Story (3 page)

As the male scrambled to revive the canis, I gathered my spear and headed toward my camp. I had enjoyed my brief stay on Mimetidae lands, but I was done with the crazed male and his pet.

When the pair caught up to me, I had a spear in each hand, my tent packed and my supplies gathered. I inclined my head toward the male, then let him witness my slow retreat past the trees.

“I owe you for your help.” The male cast a pointed glance behind me. “Come to my camp. Let me honor our bargain.”

Soaked to the bone, worried for my sanity, palms itching for that gold, I knew I had wagered and lost with this male. I bit the inside of my cheek. “That’s unnecessary. As much as I enjoyed meeting you, I think it’s time I followed the river elsewhere.”

More riches awaited me. I had to believe that. Perhaps I would find my fortune around the next river bend.

My next step back pressed something cold and wet against my calf. I swallowed and turned.

Canis in colors ranging from dirty white to mud brown to black ringed the clearing.

And the one with its teeth a hairsbreadth from my leg growled.

Holding a hand out, Brynmor reached for Daraja. “Drop the spears and come to me.”

“Sorry, no.” Her grip tightened on her weapons. “I don’t see that ending well for me.”

“I won’t let them hurt you.” Not until he knew the truth. “Lower your weapons, please.”

Daraja’s laughter surprised him. “I seem to recall an incident involving a tree, a spear and a male who helped me to reach neither, who left me at the mercy of his canis. Why help me now?”

Brynmor set his jaw. “I couldn’t help you then.”

She angled a spear at him. “That’s my point exactly. Who’s to say you can help me now?”

“I give you my word—” he began.

“You offer me the word of a male with no name and no clan.” She scoffed at his audacity.

She had him there. Any vows he made hinged on the name and honor of a dead male.

Rubbing a hand across his chest, he warned her, “The canis will outlast you.”

“Of course you would think so.” She snorted. “They’re pets of yours? Did you train them to be so vicious? I’ve heard of hunt masters domesticating the beasts, but you didn’t seem the type.”

Grimacing, Brynmor wished his explanation was only so simple, so easy to dismiss.

Errol shook out his fur, eager to begin.
“Once she lowers her weapons—”

“No,” Brynmor snapped.

A throaty grumble told him what Errol thought of that.

“What do you mean
no
?” Daraja’s eyebrows rose. “What are you talking about?”

“I…” Brynmor clamped his mouth shut.

He was so used to being alone with Errol that he spoke aloud rather than through their bond. The other canis ignored him when he walked as an Araneaean, because he couldn’t communicate with the pack unless Brynmor’s spirit possessed Errol’s body and he became one with the canis.

Daraja, though, understood him and eyed him as if he was insane. Perhaps he was.

“Call off your canis,” Daraja demanded. “Let me cross onto Segestriidae clan lands.”

“No.”
Errol warned,
“I will not let her pass.”

Brynmor rubbed a hand down his face. “How did the carcass get here if it’s not yours?”

“I don’t know.” She scowled. “With the salmo spawning, I have no need to hunt game.”

He agreed with her there.

“If you are—
were
—Mimetidae, then you should be a fair tracker. Did you check the area for scent?” Her brows lifted as she waited for an answer. Brynmor’s gut tightened. No. He hadn’t.
They
hadn’t. At his delay, she said, “Ah. I see. I suggest you check the clearing, then. No one leaves nothing behind. There must be a scent trail.”

“She’s right,”
he projected at Errol.
“We never got around to investigating her things.”

“I don’t need to investigate.”
He stepped forward.
“She is a huntress, a murderer.”

Pointing out that they had far more blood on their hands than she did was a waste of breath.

“I won’t let you kill her in cold blood.”
Brynmor stepped between Daraja and Errol. Errol’s transformation was chilling. He flattened his ears flush against his skull and lowered his head.

“The others warned me not to trust an Araneaean, even a dead one, but I thought that meant you could do us no harm.”
He thrashed his tail.
“Now I begin to see the error in my judgment.”

“Please, brother.”
Brynmor exhaled through a budding headache.
“Leave the pack to guard the female. We will follow Scipio’s trail, find where he was killed and learn who is responsible.”

“And if the female is to blame?”
Doubt weighted Errol’s voice.

“If we find Scipio’s blood on her…”
Brynmor swallowed hard,
“…I will kill her myself.”

With a curt nod, Errol sidestepped Brynmor on his way to Daraja.
“I will examine her.”

“Shoo.” Daraja’s voice cracked. “Why is he coming over here?”

“He’s taking you up on your offer. He wants to check you for traces of Scipio’s blood.”

“Scipio… You mean the canis?” Her brow knitted. “You named them?”

“They already had names,” Brynmor said. “Most people can’t learn them.”

She gifted him with another look that questioned his sanity, then dropped her spears and let her hands fall to her sides. Her palms were open and her spine straight. She was confident, which made it easier to watch Errol sniff her feet and legs, hands and arms, anything within reach.

With a sneeze, he trotted back to Brynmor.
“The river might have washed away the blood.”

“Do you believe that?”
Brynmor snorted.
“Your nose is better than that, better than mine.”

Silence hung thick in the air as Errol sat on the ground.
“She might have an accomplice.”

“Did you smell another Araneaean on her?”
His fists clenched as he waited for an answer.

“No,”
the canis grumbled, and Brynmor relaxed his hands.

“Is he finished?” Daraja wiped her palms on her pants. “Does this mean I can go now?”

Brynmor shared a look with Errol.
“Well?”

“Release her,”
Errol snapped.
“Warn her never to return to these woods.”

“I will do as you ask.”
Brynmor conveyed the warning to Daraja.

After retrieving her spears, she gave him a stiff smile. “I hope you find the one responsible.”

“We will, I promise you that.” He indicated she was free to leave.

Daraja sidestepped the canis, taking care to avoid Errol as she headed for the river. Her song began the moment he lost sight of her. Her voice lulled him a step forward before Errol placed a paw on Brynmor’s boot. The canis kept it there until the only sounds they heard were the rush of water and the call of night birds. Long after Daraja was nothing more than a whiff of perfume on a hot breeze, Errol kept an eye on Brynmor. When at last the pack became restless, Errol yipped.

He flung his head back and swore his vengeance to the moon.
“Let the hunt begin.”

Chapter Three

As I picked my way along the riverbank, an orange and pink sunrise blossomed in the sky.

Once I crossed onto Segestriidae clan lands, I sat on a rock and waited for my heart to calm. Gnarled trees stretched their limbs toward the river, and their leaves lent me shade. I slid onto the damp ground, reclined with my arms folded behind my head and rested one ankle over my knee.

Who was that strange male? Why was he loyal to a clan he claimed to no longer belong to? Better yet, why did he tend the canis for the Mimetidae paladin if he himself was no longer part of the Mimetidae clan? Why had the stark fear in his eyes compelled me to— I muttered a curse.

The male and his secrets were no problem of mine. I had done what was expected of me.

I had shown the male kindness, hadn’t I? His canis tried to kill me, but I had spared its life.

I did for them what they would not have done for me. My shores should be littered with their gratitude, though I wouldn’t hold my breath for their thanks. I was lucky to have escaped alive.

“This is far enough.”

I jolted at the sound of a male’s voice behind my resting place. Could I never find peace?

“Are you sure?” a second male asked.

“Would you rather start digging?”

“No.”

“Then stop asking questions and lift your end.”

The males grunted in unison and water splashed as if they had tossed something heavy in the river. I used the noise as cover to tuck myself tighter against the rock and angle my spears at the side exposed to the shore. I held my breath and waited while sweat and fear dampened my palms.

The menace in the males’ tones kept me from peering out of my hiding place.

My judgment had been proven lacking last night, and I dared not tempt fate for a second day. Better for me if I waited until they finished splashing about before I risked coming out of hiding.

“Come on,” the first urged. “We should have been home before daybreak.”

The second male grunted agreement, and they tromped through the woods. Slumping against the stone, I waited until my back lodged a complaint before rolling to my knees. About the time I decided it was safe for me to leave, a reedy howl startled me. I held still, hoping whatever it was would leave. A moment later, a cold nose bumped my elbow, and I glanced down very slowly.

Staring up at me was a canis pup. Its black eyes reminded me of the male I’d left upriver, the one responsible for the singularly most bizarre night of my life, the one who would have allowed his canis to kill me, maybe, I wasn’t quite sure. He had, after all, protected me there at the end.

The pup yipped at me and pounced on my leg, its claws scraping down my bare calf.

“Get.” I shoved it back. “Go on.”

The last thing I wanted was for its mother to catch me near one of her pups.

“I said
shoo
.”

It lunged and bit the hem of my pants, tugging until fabric tore.

“Hey, stop that.” I pushed it back, and this time the force rolled it onto its side.

The pup thought that was great fun, so it barked and charged again.

“Fine.” I stood and gathered my things. “You’ll tire of following me eventually.”

I hoped.

Curiosity lured me down to where the males’ footprints cluttered the sandbar. Blood soaked the ground, mixed with yellow grains and turned them orange. Straining my eyes, I searched for clues. What I spotted was a tuft of fur bobbing in the water as the current swept it away. As loud as the splash had been, there must be a body. Could it be…? I glanced at the pup gnawing on the heel of my boot, and my gut churned with certainty. Two canis killed and butchered in one night.

One pup left with no mother to guide it home come morning.

Guilt nibbled at my conscience. The pack would hear the pup and claim it. Wouldn’t they? It had fled Mimetidae land, no doubt thanks to the hunters, but did such boundaries matter to canis?

I wasn’t sure.

I was less sure I wanted to encounter those hunters while traveling alone.

The serenity I had experienced up until I was discovered on Mimetidae land vanished. In its place was the cold certainty my father was right. I should have stayed home. Not because I was a female. Plenty of females took care of themselves fine. I, however, had no skills not meant to put food in my stomach, clothes on my back, or to provide shelter. If I had stayed home, not forever, but long enough to learn how to use my spears and nets as weapons, I wouldn’t be so anxious now.

Chilled despite the sun beating down on me, I slipped into the forest. Trees gave me cover to wander as I considered my options. Returning home was out of the question. I had no wealth and no husband to show for my trials, yet, and I would not face my father or my clan empty-handed.

I relished the eventuality of saying to Father
I was right
too much to be proven wrong.

If I traveled west, I would intersect the Salticidae clan’s lands, and they were allied with my people. Their clan home would be a welcome sight. I could visit friends in the city and forget about the peculiar Mimetidae and his canis.

Urgent barks made me pause. The pup bounded toward me with its tongue lolling and its tail wagging, happy to have made a friend. For reasons I couldn’t fathom, I let it catch up to me, scooped it up and stared into its eyes. It rested its paws over my heart, and I swear it smiled when I scratched under its chin. My resolve softened, but it didn’t melt. I couldn’t raise this pup.

But I knew someone who could.

Grief made Brynmor’s steps heavy as he returned to the den after an unsuccessful hunt. The area swarmed with pack members, all clustered near Errol with their ears perked and expressions alert. Dread urged Brynmor to pick his way closer to the center as he waited for Errol’s attention.