Blood Red (9781101637890) (28 page)

This was easy country for a gallop; the hills weren't so steep as to strain the horses going either up or down. The fences were more of a suggestion than anything, being as they were made mostly of sticks and old boards nailed to a support. They weren't even waist-high, most of them, and the horses didn't hesitate to jump them.

Rosa didn't often ride bareback, but it was in the nature of an Earth Master to be able to work well instinctively with almost any animal. She settled her shields about her and her horse and settled loosely into the gelding's mind, until she was moving with him as closely as if she was his other half. He accepted her in his mind stoically; he noticed her there, but it didn't trouble him. She could even see through his eyes if she cared to, but that would be far too disorienting for both of them; being able to move with him, encourage him over jumps, and calm him at need was quite enough.

Markos' trail led straight over these hay meadows, past weathered old storage barns gray with age, toward meadows where sheep, goats, and cattle grazed, and beyond that to steeper, thickly forested hills, with some sheer rock faces showing above the trees.

The sheep scattered before them, but quickly formed back into a flock under the wise eyes of the goats when no one chased them. The cattle just looked up, then went back to grazing.

He did say . . . the shifter was holed up in a den.
There would be caves there, and dens dug by badgers, wild wolves, and bears. The shifter could have taken any of those. She hoped it was a cave, or a bear den. If he was holed up in a badger- or wolf-dug den, getting him
out . . .
that could be tricky. And hazardous. There wouldn't be any room for a human to move in there, and Markos in wolf form was the only one who would be able to get in.
I have to get there when Markos does. We can't try and dig him out of a wolf den. We'll have to smoke him out, or use some other ploy, and I am not sure Markos is thinking clearly enough to realize that.

She urged more speed out of the horse. She didn't think Markos would attack before they arrived, but his blood was probably up, and she knew he was angry. Both his human and wolf sides were angry, and of the two, the wolf was going to be the most reckless. If the wolf took over—

Wasn't that what that little
alvar
said? He would be in danger if the wolf won?
It was impossible to tell when the
alvar
were talking in general, or making actual predictions about the future. She had the feeling that time wasn't quite the same for them. She bent down over the horse's thick neck and dug her heels into his sides. He was barely damp; after pulling a wagon all day, a gallop with a single human on his back probably wasn't a lot of work for him.

The tree line loomed, and it was clear, even at a distance, that these were “wild” hills, hills the local villagers and farmers never went to except to hunt. And this was very foreign territory for a horse who traveled open roads all the time. The horse didn't want to go in there; instinctively he knew he would be at a disadvantage in there, that predators like wolves and bears could ambush him and his one advantage, speed, would be gone. She sensed his resistance, and overrode it. He wasn't like her faithful hunter back in the Schwarzwald; he was a creature of open meadows and open skies—and the occasional comfortable barn and stable. He didn't at all like this thing they were riding toward, which was not like a stand of two or three trees in a meadow that provided shade in summer. This was . . . a green wall. He didn't
like
it, and he didn't want any part of it.

He didn't have to like it. He just had to go in, following Markos' trail, and ruthlessly, she guided him in.

He immediately dropped from a gallop to a reluctant walk, even though Markos had found a relatively clear game trail for them to follow. There were
things
too close on either side of him. He hated it, and if there had been room to shy sideways, he would have! She had to fight him until he finally understood he had no choice but to do as she demanded, and he finally moved into a stiff, jouncing trot, determined to make things as uncomfortable for her as they were for him. But shortly he realized that since there was no saddle to cushion his back,
he
was being punished as much as she was, and gave over.

She couldn't get him to gallop on this trail, no matter what she did, but then again, that would be a very dangerous thing to do. There was a lot of leaf litter, and no telling what was under it. She would do Markos no good by driving the horse until he fell and broke both their necks. So they moved along at what was not quite a trot, and not quite a canter, with her staying low on his neck to avoid the branches that lashed at them, his hooves thudding dully on the ground. She kept her arm up to shield the side of her face from all the
other
branches they pushed past, and was very glad of her thick wool jacket and moleskin skirt, both of which could shrug off such punishment. Unlike her skin.

She sensed Dominik close behind, so at least he was having as much luck with his horse as she was with hers.

The trail led into a steep, rocky defile, and she tensed, for she could feel Markos up ahead, not very far at all. It was cool and damp in here, cool enough she was glad of that jacket, and the defile was entirely in shadow, with the gray walls standing stark and unforgiving, and the undergrowth limited to spindly trees and stringy grass. This was both a good and a bad place to meet the shifter. Good, because they could easily pen him here and he couldn't get away, not with sheer rock walls on either side of them. Bad, because there wasn't a lot of room to fight—

And the moment she thought that, she felt the magic around Markos flare.

“He's attacking!” she cried out, and dug her heels into her horse's sides. Startled, he leapt forward, with Dominik's horse's nose in his tail, giving him further encouragement to move.

They broke into a tiny, open area, sloping downward, with a rocky scree in front of them, slippery and treacherous, and a rough cave entrance at the back of it. The entrance was at least as tall as two men and wide enough to admit the horse. Two wolves were fighting in the middle of the open space, and if it had not been for Markos' clear, golden aura of Earth power, she would not have been able to tell them apart. Their snarls echoed off the rock walls, and the loose stones rattled and cascaded under their feet.

They charged and broke apart, charged and broke apart, each of them trying to get a lethal hold on the other, leg or throat. Their snarls echoed off the rock walls as Rosa launched herself off her horse's back and pulled her coach gun. But they were too close; she couldn't hit the shifter without hitting Markos too—

Her horse screamed in fear at the raw wolf-scent and the shifter's head moved in their direction. The horse bolted toward the cave's entrance; it didn't matter. She could either find him later and persuade him to come back or—it wouldn't matter, and the villagers would find him wandering back alone, like the gypsy pony.

Markos took immediate advantage of the momentary distraction, dashing in and getting his jaws on the shifter's foreleg. A shake of his head, a wet-sounding
snap,
and he leapt away, leaving the shifter with a broken leg. His legs fought for purchase on the treacherous scree, and stones rattled down the hill.

The shifter snarled, made a three-legged leap backward—

And his whole body writhed, obscenely, nauseatingly, as he reared up on his hind legs. He howled in pain, and the injured leg twisted and straightened, then hind and forelegs both flexed in an unnatural way and become distorted parodies of human arms and legs. The head bulged, the muzzle shortened—

And Dominik charged before he could close in on Markos again, in this more powerful form. In the interval between when he'd jumped off his horse and now, Dominik had snapped the boar spear together, and now he ran straight at the shifter, shouting hysterically at the top of his lungs.

The shifter recognized the silver spearhead for what it was, instinctively perhaps, for he leapt backward, and Dominik skidded to a halt on the stone, barely managing to keep from plunging down the slope and into the cave.

But that gave Rosa all the opening—and range—she needed. The coach gun was in her hands without even thinking about it, and as Dominik scrambled backward, she emptied the gun into the shifter, broke the breech as he staggered back, reloaded, and emptied it into him again. She was so keyed up she didn't even register the kick of the gun against her shoulder.

The first took him in the chest, the second in the stomach. He uttered a strangled gurgle and fell, sliding down the slope, leaving a trail of blood on the rocks as he slid. He stopped sliding a few feet short of the entrance.

Markos dropped to the ground, panting, and licking his front paws. Dominik approached the body, warily, boar spear at the ready.

“Make sure of him!” Rosa called, reloading again, and making her way carefully down the scree. Nothing loath, as soon as he got within reach of the body, Dominik stabbed the spear down into the remains of the chest. She presumed that, as a healer
and
a doctor, he would know where the heart was. . . .

And she didn't want to waste another of her precious shells. Making them wasn't easy
or
cheap.

“It's dead,” Dominik said flatly. “I'm going to see what's in the cave.”

He left the spear sticking out of the carcass, and edged his way down the loose rock. She holstered her gun on her back, making sure it was safe first, then scrambled up the loose rock and went to check on Markos.

There were some gashes on his neck and legs that he allowed her to examine gingerly, but they were healing even as she poked at them. “Do we have to worry about you being bitten by him?” she asked.

He shook his head in the negative. Presumably he would know if it was possible to be infected by the bite of a shifter.

“I've found what's left of the gypsy boy!” Dominik called from inside the cave, his voice sounding strange and hollow, as if he was calling from the Underworld. Well, in a way, he was. “It's ugly, but it's definitely him.”

Dominik emerged from the cave, looking shaken, but not ill. Well, he was a doctor. Presumably he had seen dead bodies before, even mutilated ones. “Do you think you'd be able to run back to the village?” she asked Markos, who looked at her with his head to one side, puzzled, but nodded.

Dominik slipped and slid his way up the slope and joined them. By this time she already had her plan in mind. There was no point in pretending they were anything other than what they actually were—not after the way those old men had reacted to the
alvar.
She could use that to their advantage.

Well . . . except for Markos. He had better not be known as a shifter. But there was no reason why he could not reveal he was also an Elemental Magician. “I'd like you two to go back to the village where Markos left his clothing,” she said. “The villagers all know we went tearing out of there, and they're going to be wild with questions—and a couple of the old men at the inn
saw
that
haus-alvar
you sent for me, Dominik. So they know, or some of them do anyway, that we're not just folklorists. Markos, you shift back and make sure they don't see you until you do, and then the two of you get the gypsies and any of the villagers that want to come. I'll stay here and see what I can learn until you return.”

Dominik nodded, and after a moment, so did Markos. “How do we explain—” Dominik began. She cut him off.

“We explain nothing. If they ask questions about how we knew where the beast was, we look inscrutable and say that's a secret we can't divulge.” The long tradition of the Bruderschaft in keeping the curious from getting
too
curious stood her in good stead, now. “If they had a Master, or even a magician here, we'd have sensed him, and
they
would have known where to send for help when these killings started forty years ago. All they have are sensitives, maybe some hedge-wizards and herb-witches. So any time they start to ask a question that we don't want to answer, that's what we say. We're not at liberty to divulge that information.”

“But how do we explain why we're here?” Dominik asked—then before she could reply, she saw him come up with the answer himself. “Of course! The truth! We passed this way, found out about the killings, and sought out a monster-slayer: you.”

She nodded. “Exactly. And we don't have to be too exact about where you found me, or how. Just say that because you are magicians, you know monsters exist, and you know how to find people that can kill them.”

“And our motive?” Dominik persisted.

“To please the Good God,” she said firmly. “As the properly pious knights of old did. That's one motive they won't ever question. And it has the added value of being true as well. The Bruderschaft was originally a small order of knights who were also Masters. We found we could move about more easily, and do more good, if we left off the knightly trappings and became foresters.”

Markos stood up, and shook himself all over; from all that Rosa could see, his wounds were completely healed now. The foolish horses, too stupid to find the game trail in their state of panic, had crowded together into a little side passage. They had at least jammed themselves in with their rears to the rock wall, and they seemed relieved to see Dominik and Rosa. Both of them were foaming with nervous sweat, but were otherwise all right. Dominik got the reins of his without any problem; Rosa saw the horse calm instantly when he touched its nose, so he was using his own Earth powers on it. Rosa imposed a firm mental control on hers, despite some resistance. Once it was tractable, she led hers over to a tree where she tied it, taking no chances on its running off in case the silly thing decided to take fright again.