Spellscribed: Conviction (2 page)

She scanned the snow one more time, and pulled back the bowstring. The horn bow reluctantly bent, her arms quivering with the effort. She took aim at a larger lump of snow near the horse.

A steel blade suddenly appeared at her throat, clumped snow dripping from the blade, as a wolfman rose out of the snow from directly behind her.

"Lower your weapon." the wolfman growled, his voice scratchy but understood. "Or the only thing you'll shoot is your blood across the snow."

Tanya gritted her teeth. How did they manage to hide so effectively? She must have literally walked over that one without knowing he was there. She slowly released the tension in her bow, letting the arrow drop to the ground.

"What now?" she asked. "Are you going to kill me?" she said, lowering her bow. Her other hand dropped to her side, where she had a dagger hidden on her belt under her coat. If he cut her throat, she'd have only a few seconds to take him out before she fell.

The wolfman made some kind of yipping noise, and seven more of his kind rose from the snow around the horse.

Tall, rangy, and lean, the wolfmen were human-like, with shaggy coats of black to white, with shades of gray and brown between. Their heads were like wolves and their furry hands had dark canine nails. These wolfmen wore bleached leather armor, reinforced with square black iron studs. Tanya didn't recognize the manufacture, but the black iron had to have come from a competent craftsman.

The wolfman took her bow from her, and they both stood, his knife ever at her throat. "Not if you listen." her captor said.

"What do you have to say then?" Tanya asked.

"We had tried to seek an audience with the Spengur." the wolfman replied. "But the horse had panicked at our scent and fled. We followed, but in the snow we didn't know that the Spengur had fallen off until we caught up to it."

They hadn't known that Endrance was injured, but she had no idea how would they react if they found he was incapacitated. Joven said there were some wolfmen that he had worked with, but she wasn't about to change her mind about them off of his story alone.

"Yeah." she said after a brief moment. "We've got him. He's fine."

"You speak the truth." the wolfman replied, withdrawing his knife. "But not all of it."

Tanya turned to look at him, and was surprised at how human the wolfman's eyes were. Clear blue, his eyes were more intense than most people she'd ever seen. The one who had caught her was light gray, with a splash of darker gray fur in a blaze on his face, that made it look like he had a mask on. His body was lean like the others, but the cut of his muscle could be seen under the fur and leather since she was within arm's reach.

He cleared his throat, a very human reaction. She realized she had been staring at him.

Tanya blinked, clearing her head. She'd never seen a wolfman up close before, at least one that wasn't rotted and trying to kill her.

"How do you know?" she asked.

The wolfman tilted his head. "I can smell it in your breath. I can hear the lie in your heartbeat."

The Draugnoa took note and tied to keep from panicking.

"The Spengur is alive, but he's unconscious." Tanya said, clarifying. "I was trying to track down his horse so we could continue our journey."

The wolfman's ear flicked. "We must see him." he said. "Our Alpha requires it of us."

Tanya shook her head. "He's not conscious, and he'd been bleeding. He won't be able to listen to you."

The wolfman turned his head and growled something, and the other seven took off the way she had come, one of them taking the horse's reins and leading it back.

He looked at her, determination in his eyes. "Then we will take him to a healer, and then speak with him." he said. "But we cannot let you leave without speaking to him."

Tanya sighed. "Fine, but I wonder how Joven's going to take this." she muttered.

"How are you so calm about this!" Tanya shouted, pacing back and forth on the packed earth floor.

Joven looked up from the block of wood he was whittling and shrugged. "Practice?" He offered, slicing off another sliver of the block.

They had been taken hours out of their way to the wolfmen's camp. They called it a pack, but to Tanya it looked like a small army of wolfmen were taking up residence in the snow  wastes. They had been taken to a tent made of bear skins and left to their own devices. The last Tanya saw of the wolfman that had captured her, he had been leading all of their horses elsewhere. Selene and Bridget were in a different tent, as were the messenger and his remaining escort.

She looked over to Joven and scowled. "I thought you were supposed to be his guardian?" she demanded.

Joven drew the knife across the wood in a suddenly hard stroke, the flake of wood flipping through the air and nearly hitting Tanya in the face. "Do not confuse my inaction for apathy!" he growled. Tanya blanched, realizing she had just challenged a fellow barbarian's honor.

"I've been training for this since before you were born, girl." Joven continued, the anger in his voice carrying a simmering heat one could boil water with. "You do not know everything that's happening here. I've worked with these wolfmen before, not even a month ago. Back then, I was willing to trust Endrance's life in their paws, and they lost several wolves keeping that trust intact. I will not dishonor their deaths by suddenly distrusting them now."

Tanya clenched her hands, swallowing her nervousness as he glared at her. She realized she needed to be more careful to not irritate the senior members of the group, especially Joven; who had been a veteran of more battles than many barbarians experienced in their life.

"I'm sorry." she replied. She waited to see his response with a held breath. Maybe he'd just shout at her some more.

Joven instead turned back to his woodwork. "You'll figure it out." he said, none of the tension or anger he had been expressing before seemed to remain in his speech, "But from here on, I want you to watch and listen before you open your mouth."

"Yes, sir." she replied, sitting down.

"And none of that 'sir' shit." Joven added, a smirk on his face. "You're confusing me for my brother."

Joven went back to his whittling, and Tanya thought over the two weeks that had passed since she had joined them. They were nearing the Crystal River, which fed from the mountains that separated Balator from Ironsoul. They were supposed to follow the river for two more weeks on horseback, then several more days on the mountain paths. Once through there, they could head almost straight towards Ironsoul's capitol through the Ivory Satrap.

She didn't know what they would be doing, now that the wolfmen had them. They were overall not that far off course, but she wanted to get this trip over with. Over the last two weeks, they hardly had time to talk because Endrance had been pushing the horses hard. The little bits of conversation that she had been a party to, were the other three catching her up on the events leading up to her joining them, while Endrance did some kind of meditation. He said it was his library, but Tanya didn't get it; and hadn't really been interested in him elaborating.

Maybe being able to meditate would be a good idea. She had become a patient person from learning her bow; one could not rush a perfect shot, and she had gotten good at making perfect shots.

She instead spent her time waiting, taking care of her bow. She had unstrung it when the group had 'escorted' them, so that the bow could be kept in optimal condition. Now, she carefully examined the horns, grip, and tips for any damage that could have occurred from the snow. She disliked firing when it was exceptionally cold; she'd broken a pair of longbows that way.

The horns that made her bow were from a Elkbrinir, a rare breed that towered a few feet over the rest of their kind and were very resilient. The Elkbrinir had been hard to hunt down, and it took five arrows and four hours for it to bleed out, but the Ergkinoa had eaten well for weeks. She had taken the horns to the eldest and was given permission to have them made into the bow she currently used.

She took out her oils and cloth for polishing, she settled down to spend some more time taking care of her gear.

* * *

Endrance sneezed, waking himself up. The first thing he saw was several canine noses sniffing his face; above which, several young quizzical eyes perched. His vision cleared, and he realized he was being sniffed over by half a dozen children.

"Please back up." Endrance said in their language, rubbing his temples. To his surprise, the children scattered, backing to the edges of the tent where they muttered to each other excitedly. Endrance looked around before sitting up.

The tent was a simple one, but he could tell it was one that the cubs played in regularly; there was damage that looked all too similar to what human children would do when left unsupervised. The ground was hard packed dirt, but otherwise, there weren't many other features to the tent.

"What am I doing here?" Endrance asked, still using Ulfreau, their tongue. The biggest of the children, whose age Endrance was incapable of estimating, stepped closer.

"Our father brought you and told us to watch you." he said. "Are you a hairless wolfman?"

Endrance blinked. "No." he replied.

"Oh." the cub sighed. "You speak our language, but you're still confusing."

Endrance thought for a moment. "Maybe it's because my ears don't move, and I have no tail to wag?" he said. He had learned almost the entire wolfman language when he had absorbed the memories of three ancient wolfmen weeks before. He still had holes in his understanding of Ulfreau; after all, the three wolfmen had been undead echoes of their former selves.

The cub's ears flicked. "I guess. It's weird."

"Who is your father?" Endrance asked.

The tent flap opened and an unfamiliar wolfman poked his head in. "I am." the newcomer said in the common tongue, stepping into the firelight. He had a splash of dark fur around his eyes that gave Endrance the impression he was wearing a mask. "You may call me Lucian. You are Endrance." he declared.

"Lucian?" Endrance asked.

"It is the closest way to pronounce my name." Lucian answered. "Some of it is too low pitch for your ears to hear."

"Are you part of Gnaeus' pack?" Endrance asked. "Or who is in charge now?"

Lucian tilted his head to the side. "Gnaeus is still the Alpha."

Endrance tried to sit up. Pain shot through him, and he clutched his gut with a grunt. "How on earth did he survive getting impaled on more than one of those swords?" he muttered, propping himself up.

Lucian blinked at him. "He got better." he said, kneeling down next to the mage. "Why haven't you?"

Endrance could smell the wolfman had been out in the snow. "I... don't know." he admitted. "I used my healing spell, but it seems it isn't working on me anymore."

Lucian shrugged. "Well, maybe you are more resistant to magic now that you've become different."

Endrance felt a trickle of cold down his spine that wasn't from the drafty tent. "What do you mean, different?"

"You smell more like a mage than you did before." Lucian observed. "And it's only been a few weeks since I last saw you."

Something clicked in Endrance's head. "You were a part of Gnaeus' pack when he came to help me." Endrance said, thinking back. He could remember that Lucian had been there, but he hadn't talked with him then. He had a lot more on his mind that day.

"So you do remember me." Lucian replied. "We waited for the masked man and his minions to leave the cavern before we scaled back up to recover our dead. Fortunately, he had not raised their bodies to serve him."

Endrance searched his memory. Images of the mage Lucian mentioned flipped through the forefront of his thoughts. He clamped down before he became cognizant of any of it, tucking it away. He had not yet taken the time to sort through what knowledge the man had, but Endrance was quite aware that the time after the man had been captured was nothing but pain and barely recognizable images.

"We found that Gnaeus was badly injured, but the wounds had already started to heal." Lucian finished. "He climbed down out of the cavern on his own."

Endrance stared at him. "Seriously?" he asked. "He healed multiple sword wounds that fast?" he shook his head. "I wish I could do that."

"Well you can't." Lucian replied. "So now what will you do?"

Endrance examined his torso. Clean bandages wrapped around his stomach and the wound had not bled into them. "Did you do this?" he asked.

Lucian nodded. "I had to redo what your second did, though. His work was good to stop you from bleeding, but it would leave a nasty scar his way."

"Redo?" Endrance felt a glimmer of understanding. "So, they did find me."

"Yes." Lucian replied with a canine smile. "Stuffed you full of weeds, too."

"They stuffed me full of what?"

"Joven called it bloodroot. It's a helpful little plant leaf that soaks up blood, but left in the wound, it can lead to scarring and festering." Lucian sniffed him over, something that Endrance would have found offensive if he hadn't known better. "You seem to be free of infection now, and we removed all of the plant. With our stitches and salve, you should heal with minimal scarring."

Endrance patted his stomach. "Thank you." he said, tilting his head up and exposing his neck to the wolfman. Lucian tilted his head up slightly less than Endrance, his eyes showing his amusement.

"You've got manners for a furless one." Lucian admitted.

"Thank you, I learned a bit about your people when you helped me with those mages." he said, smiling without showing teeth.

Lucian flicked his ear. "I was supposed to take you to Gnaeus, if you are feeling well enough to walk." he said, standing.

Endrance rose unsteadily, but the pain in his stomach was far less than it had been before. "Lead the way." he declared.

Lucian led him out of the tent, and Endrance was surprised to see he was in a huge camp. Dozens of tents were set up in clusters, and wolfmen of every age and gender were going about their business as Lucian walked him towards the back of the camp. Endrance was finally able to compare males and females, and realized that they didn't look all that different to his eyes. The females had smoother shoulders and sleeker heads than the males, but fur made both their silhouettes look the same.

"I have a question." Endrance asked. "Why do you only send your males out to fight?"

Lucian glanced back at him. "Because they're expendable." he replied. "Our females are the lifeblood of our pack, and they're the fiercest defenders in the pack. No one would want to find a female of ours between them and her pups. We do hunt together for our food."

Endrance filed away that information for later. It made some sense, considering their relation to wolves and their instincts.

"Are you all carnivores?" Endrance asked.

"What?"

"Can you only eat meat?" he clarified.

Lucian shrugged. "We sometimes eat plants, but we eat so little that what grows on its own is enough. We don't farm like you furless ones do. There are some greens that help with stomach sicknesses, and we make our salves from plants."

"Well, that's good to know." Endrance stated. "Thank you for answering the question. How is Wrach doing?"

Lucian's ear flicked. "He's... doing well." he answered curtly.

Endrance raised an eyebrow. "You sound irritated."

"His newest whelp is a handful." His escort replied. "Hard to understand."

Endrance nodded. "She's a human child, Lucian. That alone bears some difficulty. Would you be willing to let a human raise one of your children?"

Lucian's fur along his neck and shoulders prickled, it was all the answer Endrance needed.

"See?" Endrance observed. "His ability to successfully raise the child will make great strides to ensure there is a lasting peace between your peoples."

"Peace?" Lucian grumbled. "What peace can there be?"

It was interesting to hear the wolves' thoughts when their alpha was not around. "Is this what you feel then, that we cannot get along?" Endrance asked, his concern rising.

Lucian turned his head to look at him. "I mean you no offense, mage." Lucian replied. "But our people have been fighting with the barbarians for longer than anyone can remember. I don't think there's a chance we can change our ways."

Endrance sighed. "684 years." He replied.

"What?"

"Seven months, 14 days, and..." he looked up at the sky, measuring the time. "5 hours."

Lucian had stopped walking. "I say again. What?" he demanded.

Endrance flashed him a close-lipped smile. "It's been six hundred and eighty four years, seven months, fourteen days and five hours since the first time wolves and men fought each other. Up until that point, they lived together relatively peacefully."

"How can you know any of that?" Lucian demanded, his temper rising. "That can't be true."

"It is true," Endrance replied, tapping his temple with a finger. "You were there when we killed the three mages. I inherited their powers and memories."