Lycan Fallout: Rise Of The Werewolf (13 page)

She raised her hand to her mouth. “Impossible. You are lying! This is some sort of trick to make me leave,” she said, but she was still backing up and looked like she would bolt at any moment. “That is why you are so cold?” she asked, stopping.

I nodded.

“Your family…all of your family has passed?”

I nodded again, tears threatening to fall. “Most of my friends as well.”

“You poor man.” She came closer
, placing her hand against my cheek.

“I am no man.” I told her in a whisper; though I had meant to say it with force. “Lana, I am constantly in a whirlwind of destruction,
and those around me usually pay for my transgressions. Go be happy, live your life out. Forget the world outside, it is not a place for those with kind hearts.”

“How can you say Lycans threaten our very existence and
yet you wish me to sit by while they come for us? Will our walls hold?”

“No.”

“I must do what I can then to prevent that.”

“Yes, by going back and convincing your father his defenses are inadequate. That is the best thing you can do.”

“You would have me go back by myself, with all the hidden dangers lurking about?”

“It’s not that far.”

“What if I got lost? My death would be on your conscience.”

“Advanced degree in manipulation I take it?”

“It’s getting dark. I don’t think I’d make it back in time…being a silly little girl and all.”

“Let’s go.” I said, grabbing her arm, she tried to pull away. “We’re going back to your home.”

“I’ll tell father we kissed, Denarth laws dictate marriage.”

“What?” I asked, almost flinging her arm away as if it we ty as ifere on fire. “Now you’re lying.”

“Am I? What would you do then?”

“Run for the friggin’ hills, I suppose.”

“I do not wish to marry you Michael, but I will threaten you with Denarth laws.”

“So you would do something you do not wish to do just to spite the both of us? How is it that teens do not learn from those that went before them? Marriage would be horrible; you’d be talking about new hip
-hop bands and shoes you wanted to buy. You’d probably want to go out dancing every night. Folks would tell you how nice it is you caring for your grandfather.”

She laughed. “I don’t know what hip hop bands are, but I do like shoes.”

“Go figure. Let’s go.” I’ll take my chances with Denarth law.

“Do you hear that?”

“No, do you have bat ears?”

“Horses,” she said, ducking down.

I didn’t hear them, but I heard the braying of dogs. “Hounds. We’re being tracked. This your dad’s doing?”

“Yours is the first dog I’ve seen in five years. A trader came to our gates once, had this old gnarled thing that lay in the back of his cart most of the time. I
, at first, thought it was stuffed, it moved so little.”

“See, Lana, this is the kind of shit I’m talking about. I’m walking around minding my own business eating bread and cheese and I guarantee you these people
are chasing me – now us – and want to do us harm.”

“We
’d better get moving then.”

She was right, but we were going to have to move away from the area I had wanted to travel towards. For now I was stuck with Lana.

“Any idea who this is?” I asked her as we ducked behind some bushes. I was trying to get my bearings so we could get back to the general direction I needed to be going.

“I don’t,” she said, her eyes wide. I figured with fright,
but I would later learn it was excitement. I’d forgotten how adept at lying middlings were.

We had been moving at a good clip, and
, at times, the dogs’ barking sounded far distanced at other times it approached. The problem was, I could go a lot longer than Oggie, and Lana looked like she was already beginning to flag; youth or not, she had led a relatively sheltered life. Oggie was looking over at me from time to time, I think wondering when I was going to pick him up. In theory I could pick both of them up. I don’t know how much I’d be able to see at that point, or how comfortable a ride it would be for either of them. And with the thought of fresh blood being that closely pressed to me also had its own distaste.

“I’m exhausted,” Lana said, nearly stumbling.

“Having fun yet?” I asked with a sneer. “Told you it was a barrel of laughs out here.” The sun had set; the moon, which was at a little over three-quarters, shone brightly. “Whoever is chasing us is determined,” I said to her as we took a quick rpanok a quespite.

Oggie quickly laid down
, his eyes shutting. His ears would swivel when he heard barking, but he couldn’t be bothered enough to look up.

The next round of dog barks was within a football field away; we were sunk. I could not carry two and outdistance a hound. Then we scored a mild victory. I heard men talking –
only wisps as the wind would allow – but the retrieval of the dogs was clear enough, they were bedding down for the night. We could take a few more minutes to recover and then we would start out again. Oggie I would carry. Lana would have to make do. Maybe the harshness would send her back.

That tactic didn’t work out so well either, she was out. When I went to wake her, nothing short of dropping her in an ice cold bath was going to work. That and I felt somewhat guilty for the predicament she found herself in.

“I don’t even have a soul! Why the fuck do I need to be hampered down with morality?” I said as I shifted Oggie’s wriggling body around. I had each of them draped over a shoulder like sacks of potatoes. I walked throughout the night, not caring what sort of trail I was leaving. There wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it anyway.

“Where…where am I?” Lana asked.

I put her down and my back cracked in response. Oggie wasn’t quite ready to face the day. “You friggin’ lug,” I told him as I also set him down. I stretched and was rewarded with multiple pops and squeaks as I tried to realign myself.

“Are they still after us?” Lana asked, looking around. “None of this is familiar.”

“We’re about twenty miles from your city.”

“Tw-twenty miles? How is that possible?”

“We traveled throughout the night. And we’re going to have to keep traveling. Dogs and horses are going to be a lot faster than we are. They’ll make up most of this ground before dusk.”

Lana absently scratched behind Oggie’s ears.

“I should have known,” I told her.

“Known what?”

“That you were lying. How would someone who’d never been exposed to dogs know to scratch behind the ears?”

“It just seems—”

“Stop, just stop. My bullshit meter is pegged.”

“Meter?”

“The dogs are your dad’s?”

“The finest hunting dogs. They’re used to round up meat for the winter.”

“You tricked me. I carried you for miles to keep you from danger, and instead I brought you into it. This is no fucking game!” I raged at her. “I’m not some knight come to rescue you from your castle like in a fairy tale.”

“A lot of people die in those fairy tales,” she said. “I knew what I was getting into.”

“But I didn’t. I don’t have the time or the inclination to babysit you.”

“I’m nearly an adult, I can do everything you can.”

“You can carry me and Oggie? That would be fantastic. Walking without socks sucks.”

She continued on without waiting for me.

“Stop! This has gone on long enough,” I told her. “We will wait here for your father, I figure he’ll be here around noon or so.” I sat down.

She turned to look at me. “Have you ever heard of the Right of Affiance?”

“No.” I broke a small piece of cheese off for Oggie and myself.

“If my father catches us he will use it.”

“What lies are you spewing now?” I asked, trying to get comfortable – a rock under my ass making that nearly impossible.

“If a couple lies together for the night the Right of Affiance is invoked.”

“Invoked? Sounds like something Azile would do. What are you getting at?”

“He will make us wed,” she said, a whimsical smile on her lips.

“Wed? Why?” I stood up quickly. “Wait…lie the night? We did no such thing!” I said hotly.

“My honor is at stake. He may detest you, but he will not allow his only daughter’s virtue to be sullied.” She was still smiling.

“This is another trick,” I told her, although I wasn’t so sure.

“Do you want to hang around and find out if I’m telling the truth?”

“What if I just tie you to a tree?” I asked. “Dad ‘rescues’ you.” I said with air quotes, her face took on one of confusion. I’m going with she’d never seen the gesture before. “And then I can be on my merry little way.”

“He will keep hunting for you, Michael Talbot. We are betrothed now.”

“I am not marrying you, Lana.”

“Then we’d better get moving,” she said, walking down the roadway.

“Son of a bitch,” I said, following her.

We had walked for about a mile before I asked her a question. “This isn’t another ploy?”

She smiled and kept going. Women have been beguiling men since the dawn of man, why should she be any different. Now it was imperative we caught up with the others, maybe Azile could fix this and
then
I’d exact my revenge on her.

When the wind shifted the right way, we could just make out the dogs barking. They had regained our scent, although I’m positive they’d never lost it. We hadn’t done anything to throw them off of us. Speed was going to be our only weapon. I had no real clue as to where Azile and Tommy had gone, there were tracks on the roadway, but they were far from the only travelers that used it. If they left the road at any pathway, I’d never know. How far would the chancellor chase his daughter? To the ends of the world would be my answer.

“If I knew how much this food and clothing was going to cost I would have stayed naked and hungry,” I told her.

She blushed.

“Sorry, wrong visual. I would have kept my old clothes. Here…take some cheese. We’ve got to find water soon or we’re all going to be in trouble soon.”

“You’re not a very prepared traveler.”

“I’ve run into a bit of a rough patch on this trip.”

“How far ahead are the friends that abandoned you?” she asked later that afternoon. I noticed that her steps were beginning to falter. She was exhausted, hungry, and most likely on the verge of dehydration.

The braying was getting louder. The dogs had an inkling of how close they were getting.

“Plan B it is,” I told her as I snatched her up into my arms. She gasped in surprise. “Oggie…water,” I said. We hadn’t yet established that he knew my words exactly, and I was unsure as to how he would react. For all I know he heard. ‘Oggie, blah-blah.’

Anything not immediately followed by the word ‘treat’ was generally ignored by him. He looked at me and the parcel I had strewn across my shoulder. He looked to the direction the dogs were barking, and then he immediately headed off the road. The traveling was extremely difficult, more than once we had to backtrack due to the underbrush becoming so dense. Lana periodically would protest her position, but it was weakly done. We both needed to replenish, but her even more so.

“I’m sorry, Michael,” she whispered in my ear as we moved. “I should not have done what I did. It was impetuous.”

“Wow…humility, took you long enough. How about a little honesty? The Rights of Affiance?”

“Is no lie.”

“Son of a bitch,” I said, pressing through a dense area of mulberry bushes. I momentarily lost sight of Oggie, I wasn’t overly worried we would lose him; Lana and I were about as stealthy as a drunken rhino.