CHAPTER ELEVEN

IN his darkest imaginings and fears, he had not foreseen this: to be cast as a traitor. Yet here he was, hands bound like a common criminal, blood dripping unattended from his nose. Hardly the welcome he had expected.

Derkh had known the true tale of his stay in Verdeau would be beyond belief in Greffier. He had planned instead to say he had been taken prisoner and then escaped. But he had not anticipated a hostile interrogation, so he had not worried overly about the details of his story as he approached his countrymen’s camp.

“Prisoner, eh? And I suppose your clothes were piled neatly at the door, waiting for you?”

“I kept my clothes the whole time.”

“Oh, aye. They must have had a nice washing and mending service for the prisoners of war. Three squares and complimentary haircuts too, I don’t doubt.” The burly soldier eyed Derkh with suspicion. “You’re uncommon healthy-looking for a jailbird, boy.”

Derkh remembered too well the one time he had accompanied Col to the military prisons: the filth, the prisoners’ sores and matted hair, the smell, the constant coughing. It had been a place of utter misery. He tried a new tack.

Summoning to his mind his father’s confident authority, Derkh stood straight, looking his interrogator directly in the eye. “Do you not wish to know who I am?” he asked quietly. “Captain, is it?” he added, noting the small pin on the right shoulder. Doubt entered the man’s hard eyes. The young man had a compelling dignity for a scrawny coward-traitor.

“Well? Identify yourself.”

“I am the eldest son of Commander Col, head of the Greffaire armed forces. I fought nearly to my own death at the first battle of the invasion, and if I am now treated with dishonor for returning to my own country, I assure you the displeasure of the High Command will be worse than any Verdeau prison.”

The shock on their faces was gratifying, at least. Most of the soldiers snapped to attention and made to bow their heads. But the captain, better informed than his strike force, broke the tension with a derisive snigger.

“Col’s son! Now here’s a lad who’s in for a sad surprise. I have news for you, boy. Your daddy’s no longer the big cheese in Greffier. He’s the man as botched the war, he is, and the Emperor’s in a right rage against anyone whose name even rhymes with ‘Col.’ You’d do better not to go advertising your bloodline, you would.”

Derkh could not hide his dismay. But as laughter swelled among the men, a hot anger rose in him.

“Is this how the emperor repays loyal service? My father laid down his life for the emperor’s so-called glory. I would die rather than deny his blood.” The truth of his own words came to him with a relief so deep it overrode, for a moment, his danger: he was not ashamed of his father, after all. He was not ashamed of himself.

“Ah, you’ll have your chance soon enough, I’ll warrant.” The captain shrugged and turned away. “Keep him bound and watch him close,” he ordered. “They’ll want to question this one real thorough-like.”

A tall balding soldier ambled over and shoved Derkh to the ground, tying his ankles together so that any kind of comfortable sleep was impossible. The man hawked and spat before speaking: “You’ll be watched through the night, so lie quiet. Bother anyone’s sleep and you’ll pay—get it?”

Derkh got it, all right. He got that he had made a terrible mistake. There would be nothing for him in Greffier. Worse than nothing: humiliation and poverty at best, with death the more likely outcome. He had been a fool. Shivering in the biting mountain air, Derkh stared up at the stars and thought how strange it was that the Elves were so entranced with starlight. To him, they looked as bitter and cold as the bleakness in his own heart.

THROUGH THE LONG chill night Gabrielle worked, while Féolan and the great creature at her side kept vigil.

She didn’t dare, at first, attempt anything that would cause pain to the fallen seskeesh. So she began with her mind, sinking into the concentration that washed away all fear and distraction. Three wounds there were altogether, the ugliest with the spear-point still embedded deep in the flesh. This she left—she could do little before the weapon was drawn. The long slash along his rib cage looked dramatic, but the strong bones beneath had prevented the spear from penetrating farther. It would heal on its own, if need be. Gabrielle’s hands hovered over the neck wound. Small but gaping, it had formed a sticky pool of blood under her patient. And still it bled. In her mind’s eye she saw the torn blood vessels, felt the powerful throb of a huge heart pumping the creature’s blood out onto the rocks. Almost miraculous, it was, that the two great blood vessels bonemenders called the “heart paths” had been missed. She bent her head and felt the warm light flood into the wound through her hands. She sent it to ripped veins and arteries, surrounding them with light, and clamped down with her mind to seal the frail walls together.

For two hours, man and beast watched and saw nothing. The fallen seskeesh lay in uneasy sleep. The wound, outwardly, remained unchanged, for Gabrielle worked deep in the tissues where the true danger lay. Bleeding controlled, she searched for the dark particles that signaled dirt or infection, making of the light a barrier against them. Under her hands, damaged flesh began to regenerate and rejoin, becoming whole again.

Now she paused, considering. The spear must be pulled. She could feel the flesh around its point starting to fester. But though the female seskeesh seemed confident now that Gabrielle and Féolan meant no harm, she did not yet trust in Gabrielle’s skill. She needed to see some improvement in her mate before she could allow Gabrielle to do what must be done. And so Gabrielle worked on, an hour more, hoping her patient’s innate strength would keep infection from the spear at bay. She worked until the neck wound was no more than a shallow nick, and then she opened her eyes to the world.

It was fully dark now. The moon, nearly full in a clear sky, would be a bright beacon over the earth, but it was not high enough to penetrate their sheltered corner. Gabrielle sensed, rather than saw, the four eyes trained upon her, alert and protective. His mate and my mate, she thought. We are not so different after all.

“I need water now, and light, and a fire before I freeze solid,” she said to Féolan. The night had seeped right into her bones while she worked. He looked doubtful. “Water and light I can do,” he said. Slowly, so as not to alarm their companion, he rose to his feet and shrugged out of his pack, then unhooked the water skin. “Is it enough?” he asked, handing it to Gabrielle.

“For now,” she replied. “Oh, and I guess one of our blankets will have to go.” The seskeesh tensed as Féolan drew his knife, but allowed them to cut the blanket into quarters unhindered. Gabrielle trickled water from the skin onto one piece, and rinsed the bloody, matted neck fur around the wound. “Now the candles,” she murmured.

Féolan had just finished fitting the two stubby travel candles into their copper holder. She heard the scratch of the striker and felt the seskeesh start. As the tiny flame caught hold, the big female barked in alarm and drew up on her haunches. Afraid of fire, realized Gabrielle. She reached out a reassuring hand, encountered coarse hair covering a limb like a tree trunk.

“Put it out!” In a single moment of panic, Féolan could be killed. Gabrielle waited until she felt the great muscles ease and sink back, and then sent her thoughts out through her fingers. Images of harmless light—moonlight, sunlight—and above all the need to see her patient’s injuries. She had no doubt the creature’s night vision was better than hers, better even than Féolan’s, but she wanted a really clear view. No harm, no hurt, she promised. How under the stars could such things be conveyed, without words? It took long, precious minutes, but at last Gabrielle felt it safe for Féolan to try again. This time, though the seskeesh bristled under Gabrielle’s hand, she allowed Féolan to approach with the little lamp. When the small pool of light fell directly on her patient’s wound, Gabrielle drew back, and gestured for the seskeesh to look.

The creature’s amazed delight touched her deeply, but there was no time to bask.

“Féolan, that spear must be drawn,” she murmured.

His troubled eyes, dark in the wavering candlelight, met hers. “I know it,” he replied. “It’s been on my mind this past hour.”

DERKH WAS CATAPULTED from a thin sleep, heart pounding as though it would burst. Eyes wide in the inky blackness, he struggled to grasp what had wakened him. All around him men cursed and leapt to their feet, but the inhuman roar that had rent the night had already faded away. The dark silence covered it, and it was as though it had never been.

For long moments they strained their ears against the dark. Silence. Their leader slumped back to his blankets. “It’s that ill-whelped monster,” he snarled. “I bloody hope those were its death throes. It sounds like the very Hound of Hell.”

Derkh pulled himself into a ball and tucked his hands between his knees in a useless attempt to generate some heat. The constant shivering was making his bound limbs cramp painfully. The Hound of Hell might be a welcome change, he thought. Though the dawn would bring warmth, it was unlikely to bring relief.

IT WAS THE fire, not the spear, the seskeesh could not accept. As soon as Féolan had moved the lamp to reveal the broken shaft protruding from her mate’s body, it was clear she understood. Indeed she made to grab hold of the shaft herself, and Gabrielle had to intervene quickly to stop her from pulling on it. Gently Gabrielle laid her hand over the powerful fingers, marveling at the tough smoothness of the leathery undersides, and reached out with her mind. She showed the seskeesh how deep the spear had thrust, the heavy bleeding that was sure to come when it was removed. She painted the image of her fear: that the injured one, roused by the sudden fierce pain, would lash out unknowing and kill her. Last, Gabrielle showed her how it must be done: Féolan to draw the weapon, Gabrielle to control the bleeding and the seskeesh herself to restrain her mate and reassure him.

And so it was done. And though the great creature’s maddened roar of pain as the notched blade bit against him left them weak with fear, though he bucked and writhed against the weight as Féolan pressed the wadded blanket against the gushing blood, still his mate held him and crooned to him, until at last he lay still.

Working feverishly to stem the tide of blood, Gabrielle was only dimly aware that her motionless body shook now with cold. She did not see Féolan lay out the firewood or the seskeesh’s tense attention on his flint, his patient attempts to explain the need or her final panicky scattering of his wood. What she did feel was the female’s sudden presence looming behind her, the strong enveloping musk of her animal scent. Slowly the great creature lowered herself behind Gabrielle, pressed her great soft belly against Gabrielle’s back, wrapped her shaggy arms about Gabrielle’s shoulders and chest. Heat bloomed against her. Gabrielle sighed, leaned back into a wall of warmth, and sank deeper into the healing trance.