Authors: Blake Charlton
Spellbound (32 page)
Shannon invited Nicodemus into his cabin. The old man had a fire going and set to boiling water. Nicodemus sat on his sleeping cot and watched the flames. Neither of them spoke. A quarter hour later the cries of Jasp made both men hurry outside. The young kobold came running down from the promontory yelling about lofting kites flying over the city. One kite had crashed into the savanna, where the lycanthropes had been waiting.
Before anything else, Francesca became aware of the hot, musty air. It pressed down on her skin and dragged in her throat and lungs. She opened her eyes and found it difficult to understand what she was seeing. A faint light shone from far away. Something massive moved near her. Above her loomed a face, snouted and furry, with eyes like black plums.
She stared at it without comprehension. The creature drew in a sniff so voluminous it made her loose hair dance. She put her head back down. The ground spun. She remembered running through the grass and then some kind of explosion.
The creature sniffed her again and then withdrew into the dark. Francesca closed her eyes. Somewhere a man was talking. The voice seemed familiar. The ground continued to spin â¦
Flickering dreams: swimming in Port Mercy Harbor, the stink of a gangrenous foot, suturing an eyebrow laceration, the thrum of distant guitar music â¦
“Well, isn't this just a heartwarming little scene?”
Francesca woke. “What happened? What patient?” she asked automatically.
Someone laughed. “You and Windbag, I guess. You're cuddling cute as puppies in a basket while the city's in chaos, thanks to you. But never you mind about people dying. You want me to get a blanket? Pillows maybe, hmmm?”
“Luro?” she asked, recognizing the voice. She sat up. “What's happened? Where are we?” She could make out the old man's diminutive form. “And, Los in hell, but why are you here?”
“Not because I want to be. Trust me; I'd hoped never to have to return to this homestead. But you made a hot hash out of that.”
Francesca tried to forge a flamefly spell but found that no golden text formed in her arms. “I'm censored,” she realized with shock. “I can'tâ” she started to touch her head to search for a censoring text. But as she did so, the massive unseen creature moved beside her.
“Don't,” Luro commanded. “No mumbo jumbo. It was enough of a pain to keep them from eating you when you were as floppy as dead fish. Toss around some magic and you'll get intimate with a lycanthrope belly.”
Francesca lowered her hand. “We're in a lycanthrope den?”
“Something like that.”
“And you talk with the beasts?” She asked. “Or are you a lycanthrope?” She laughed. “You got enough hair growing out of your ears to be at least part lupine.”
The old man cleared his throat.
“YOU'RE A GOD-OF-GODS DAMNED LYCANTHROPE?”
The unseen creature growled so low that it made Francesca's chest vibrate as if it were the skin of a drum. Beside her a man moaned. It sounded like Cyrus.
“All right, physician, calm down,” Luro grumbled. “No, I'm not a proper lycanthrope. I never fully changed the second time.”
“When did you change the first God-of-gods damned time?”
Cyrus grabbed her hand. “Fran, where areâ”
“We're safe,” she interrupted and squeezed his hand. “I think.”
“You are safe,” Luro confirmed. “For now at least. But it's time to be on your feet.”
On tremulous legs, Francesca stood while explaining to Cyrus what she knew. Luro spoke to the unseen creature. It responded in a language that sounded like growling and yipping had been put into a bag and then kicked until they acquired grammar and syntax.
Luro told Francesca and Cyrus to follow the sound of his voice. As they did, the massive creature moved behind them. Francesca looked warily in the thing's direction but distinguished little more than a massive silhouette. After a while, they reached the tunnel's mouth and emerged onto a brief plateau that looked out on what Francesca initially mistook for an amphitheater.
It was, in fact, an embankment that ran a wide circle and was crowned by crenellated walls. The interior of the earthworks had been leveled into concentric rings of tiled plateaus connected by cobbled ramps. Into the vertical walls of each plateau stood arched entryways leading into tunnels. At every level stood thick redwood spars that rose high above the embankments to suspend a mesh of woven grass, above which shone a clear sky dimming into evening.
“We're in a lycanthrope warren,” Cyrus said.
“Homestead, Windbag,” Luro snapped from the tunnel mouth.
Cyrus ignored this. “That grass screen is to protect their water. Without
it, our pilots would drop poison into it.” He gestured down to the embankment's center. Francesca started as she realized that the dark, smooth surface at the bottom of the embankment was a small reservoir.
it, our pilots would drop poison into it.” He gestured down to the embankment's center. Francesca started as she realized that the dark, smooth surface at the bottom of the embankment was a small reservoir.
“Don't talk too loudly about how windbags kill our people,” Luro growled from behind Francesca. “Bad for your health.”
Francesca turned, expecting to see the old man standing in front of a massive wolf. She saw only the old Canic with the dark tunnel behind him. Something was moving in there. One large creature and several smaller ones.
Cyrus, his green robes torn and his turban and veil missing, was studying Luro. “So the Canics formed an alliance with the lycanthropes?”
“Don't be stupid,” Luro grumbled while walking toward them. “Standing here, you should figure it out.”
Francesca noticed more movement in the tunnel. Again the single large creature and several smaller ones. For an instant one of the lesser creatures ventured close enough for Francesca to glimpse a â¦
She frowned and narrowed her eyes. Perhaps she had been mistaken. But then it came again: a large but otherwise normal dog. In fact, it was one of the same breed that the Canics kept in the North Gate District.
“You keep the same dogs here as you do in the city?” she asked.
Luro sniffed. “Not dogs.”
“Oh,” Francesca said in a flash of understanding. “They're your children!”
Luro nudged Cyrus. “How's it feel being the stupid one of the pair, eh?”
Cyrus was massaging his temples. “Grand. But it'd feel a lot grander if consorting with her didn't require consorting with idiots like you.”
Luro looked at Francesca. “Touchy, isn't he?”
She ignored the men and pointed at the tunnel opening. “The dogs are the same ones we saw all over North Gate.”
Cyrus looked at her. “Fran, what are you talking about?”
“You noticed the Canics have an abundance of children and elderly with hardly any souls between. That's because all the Canics in the middle years aren't in the city; they're out here in the savanna.”
Luro looked as if he were tasting something sour. “Not all of us change the second time.”
“You're born as humanoids and become lupine?” she asked.
“Other way around. We're born on the savanna as pups and then spend childhood in the city or one of the towns. Some of the Deep Savanna tribes keep their two-legs home, but most of us prefer to live in a human settlement. Comfortable. Plus, we keep an eye on your tribe. We come back to our homesteads sometimes, do things the four-legs can't: building walls, raising spars, mending nets, that stuff.”
Francesca felt a pang for Luro. “But you didn't change?”
“Maybe one in eight of us don't. So we go back to the city and become the adult Canics.”
“But the lycanthropes run amuck in the North Gate,” Cyrus exclaimed. “How could you ⦠I mean, are they killing their own kind?”
“No Canic ever died in those âattacks,' as you call them. Mostly they're attempts to bring the outer wall down so we can move freely between the city and the savanna.”
Cyrus shook his head. “But there are reports of the wolves going wild and devouring whole families.”
“Reports don't mean truth, Windbag. Yeah, whole families disappear, but they're not eaten; they're moved out here. Easiest way to disappear before the children make their second change.”
Francesca spoke up. “So the story you told me earlier about the Savanna Walker and the lycanthropes attacking your caravan?”
“All true. Human clans feud, so do our clans. We were being harassed by some northern wolves with no love for my family. So we weren't so broken up when the Walker tore them to strips.”
“When was that?” Francesca asked.
“Maybe thirty years ago. Why do you ask?”
“I'm trying to imagine what the Walker could be.”
“Well, imagine it somewhere else. You've managed to get yourself into a hot mess, and my brother has pulled me out here to deal with it. If you'd like to live to the next midnight, I need you to answer one key question, and answer it fully and honestly.”
“Wait,” Cyrus said. “Your brother?”
“The male in the breeding pair for this homestead. Don't ask what all that means. Just think of him as the wolf most likely to gnash your head into something resembling sausage filling if you screw this up any more than you already have.” The old man began walking up a ramp.
Francesca followed. “I'm a little curious why we're not sausage filling already.”
“It's got to do with my question,” Luro grunted. “No one has seen a windbag chase another into the savanna since the Civil War. They want to know if there's to be another one of those. Some are always planning how to knock down the walls. They think a war will help them with that. If you ask me, another civil war would go poorly for us in the city. When food gets rationed, my people starve first. The hotheads need to cool. But enough of my fussing. You still have to answer the question.”
Francesca cleared her throat. “Luro, what question?”
“Is there gonna be a blasted Second Civil War?” he nearly shouted.
Cyrus replied hotly: “We'll have nothing to do with helping lycanthropes knowâ”
“There might be,” Francesca interrupted. “And you're right, Luro, the Canics in Avel would be the first to suffer. So help us prevent that war. Stopping hostilities will depend on several things, one of which involves Lornish metal being smuggled into Avel.”
The old man raised his eyebrows. “Solved that one already, eh?”
“Lornish highsmiths are in Avel, among other foreign spellwrights. They've come to find Nicodemus Weal, whom we found despite your little diversion back in the North District.”
He scowled. “Tried to protect you from that. But nooo, you had to go and bring a whole lycanthrope hunt down on the district. Every Canic knew there wasn't a four-legs in the city. Consequently, the next morning, I went around asking if anyone had seen you. I wouldn't wander around the North Gate anytime soon. People have become suspicious of your name.”
“Helpful, Luro, very helpful,” Francesca muttered. “We had nothing to do with the hunt ⦠or at least, nothing directly. But unless you get us out of here via something other than a lycanthrope digestive tract, the highsmiths will keep using Canics to smuggle Lornish steel. You want the city finding out your people are helping a foreign power threaten their sovereignty?”
“All right,” Luro groused. “I take your point. Now stop trying to talk my ear off.” He turned and started back up the embankment.
Cyrus scowled at Francesca, no doubt upset she had admitted that a Second Civil War was possible. Not meeting his gaze, she hurried after Luro.
“What's going to happen to us?” Francesca asked.
“If I get my way, we sell you off. If I don't, they eat you. Either way, I get back to the city before breakfast.”
“You're going to sell us?” Francesca squawked. “Luro, you owe us for discovering the steel smuggling, not to mention my work in the North District as a physician. We can help stop this war fromâ”
“Ha! Back in the city, you said you wouldn't start trouble when trying to find Nicodemus. Admirable job you did there.”
“To whom are you going to sell us?” Cyrus asked. “Another lycanthrope tribe?”
He chuckled. “Something like that.”
Just then they crested the embankment and discovered a horizontal world of deep green and dark blue. The grass ocean stretched out before them in long, rolling waves. Far off in the distance, a herd of white-furred and long-necked creatures was moving steadily through the grass.
When Francesca had traveled in a caravan from Dar to Avel, a guard who had been flirting with her let her climb atop a wagon to see a distant herd of katabeasts: they had seemed like small islands of thick gray hide without head, neck, or tail. The guard had explained to her that a family of birds lived on the back of each beast.
She had never heard of such pale long-necked creatures as she now saw, but she knew there were many types of beasts that migrated through the Deep Savanna during the rainy season. They avoided Avel, fearful of being hunted by hierophants; their hides and meat fetched high prices in the city's markets.
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