The Blood Curse (52 page)

“Careful,” he called. “Don’t slip.”

She reached them half a minute later, panting, anxious. “What’s wrong?”

“I fell over and Petrus shifted shape to help me and he fell over, too, and got some snow in his mouth. His curse shadow started to change.”

He saw her horror, saw her face grow pale.

“He changed into a wolf,” Harkeld told her hurriedly. “Can’t have been cursed more than a second or two. It hadn’t got him properly. I think he’s all right. His behavior’s... he’s not insane or anything.”

Innis reached out to touch the wolf’s head. Her eyes were as anguished as Petrus’s.

“He’s all right,” Harkeld said again. “I’m pretty sure.” He released the wolf, stroked its flank. “I just... I don’t know what’s going to happen when he changes back into himself. Do you think... he’ll be all right?”

Innis blinked back tears. “I don’t know.”

“If he’s not... I can’t burn him, Innis.”

The tears spilled from Innis’s eyes. She shook her head, and hugged Petrus fiercely. “If he’s cursed, I’ll do it. It’s... better.”

The wolf whined and tried to lick her face.

Harkeld climbed to his feet. He walked back to the horses he’d been leading, found a blanket, brought it back to Innis and Petrus, and spread it on the ground. Snowflakes spiraled down. “Have him change on here.”

Innis released the wolf and wiped the tears from her face. Petrus stepped onto the blanket.

“Check him over first,” Harkeld said. “He stepped on something before he fell. Might have cut himself.”

Innis checked the wolf, then sat back on her heels. “He’s fine.”

Harkeld blew out a breath. He crouched on Petrus’s other side and stroked his head. “Don’t stand up, Petrus, once you’ve changed. Just... just wait until we know.”

Petrus glanced at Harkeld with golden, anxious wolf-eyes and nodded.

Innis laid her hand on the back of the wolf’s neck. “Ready?”

Petrus nodded again.

All-Mother, let him be all right. Please
.

“All right,” Innis said. “Do it.”

One moment, a silver-pelted wolf stood on the blanket, the next, Petrus was there on hands and knees.

Harkeld scrutinized the shapeshifter’s skin—tanned, covered with curse shadows. He stared at the shadows, willing them not to grow darker.

Snowflakes drifted down and landed on Petrus’s bare skin. Petrus shivered, the snowflakes melted, and still the shadows remained unchanged.

Harkeld glanced at Innis. “His curse shadow looks all right.”

“I can’t feel anything in his blood.” She removed her hand from the nape of Petrus’s neck, gave a shaky laugh.

Petrus raised up to kneel. His face was almost as pale as his hair. “I’m all right?”

Innis nodded. Tears shimmered in her eyes. “Yes,” she said, and hugged Petrus tightly.

H
ARKELD FETCHED A
cloak and a waterskin and a pouch of nuts. When he returned, Innis was still hugging Petrus. She released him, sniffed, and wiped her face with her sleeve. “Sorry, I can’t seem to stop crying.”

Petrus stood. Harkeld hugged him, too. “You scared the horseshit out of me.”

“Scared the horseshit out of myself,” Petrus said. He wrapped the cloak around himself. His face was still pale. “If you hadn’t told me to change shape... Thanks. I was too panicked to think of that.”

They ate and drank—not, Harkeld thought, because they were hungry or thirsty, but because they needed the normalcy of it. All around them lay cursed snow, but while they stood on the blanket and crunched nuts and swigged water, they could pretend everything was all right.

“How far to the bottom?” Harkeld asked.

“Maybe ten minutes,” Petrus said. “And then it’s two, three miles to the anchor stone.”

“The Fithian...?”

“He’s there.”

Harkeld’s stomach tied itself in a knot. He wasn’t sure what he dreaded most: the anchor stone or the assassin. He rammed the stopper into the waterskin. “Let’s go.”

CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY

“S
HAPESHIFTER,
” B
ENNICK SAID
. “Hawk.”

Jaumé held his breath and peered through the falling snow. Where?

He found the bird and watched it anxiously, hoping it had seen them. Was Bennick going to shoot it?

The hawk swung away and disappeared from view.

Bennick whistled a few bars of a tune. “The prince can’t be far.” Jaumé had to look twice to see him. He stood motionless beside a tree trunk, his cloak white with snow.

Jaumé crouched in the tent, in a state of agonized indecision. He looked at Bennick, and at the place in the sky where the hawk had been, and at the lump of the curse stone.

Da whispered in his ear,
You got to do something, son
.

Jaumé picked up his bow and quiver and crawled outside and went to crouch on the other side of the tree trunk from Bennick.

CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-ONE

A
T THE BOTTOM
of the hill, the larch trees straggled into what must be a meadow. It was flat, white, pristine. “Reckon they graze their goat herds here in summer,” Harkeld said. “Must be what the track’s for.”

Innis nodded.

They stayed in the trees, hugging the base of the hillside, heading up into the valley. Snow swirled down. The valley was less than half a mile wide, but the slope on the other side kept fading from view.

If we can’t see far, the Fithian can’t either
.

Petrus swooped down from the snowy sky. Innis hurried to spread a blanket on the ground for him.

“Well?” Harkeld asked, handing Petrus another blanket to wrap himself in. “Did you see him?”

Petrus nodded. “He’s in the trees directly opposite the anchor stone. Got his bow ready.”

Harkeld rubbed the scar over his heart. “How far do you reckon he can shoot?”

“Further than the anchor stone. There’s no cover. It’s right out in the open. You’ll be in full view maybe two hundred yards before you get to the stone. The last fifty of that, you’ll be in range. Even with this snow, he’ll see you.”

Harkeld grimaced. “So, I’ll stop before I get in range and burn him.”
If I can see him
. “The boy?”

“He’s there, too.”

His stomach seemed to turn over.

“The Fithian... he saw me. Had to have known I was a shapeshifter. Hawks don’t hunt in this kind of weather.”

“So he knows we’re close.”

“At a guess, yes.”

Harkeld glanced at Innis, and forced a smile. “Don’t worry. I wager you a sword-weight in gold that I can throw fire further than he can shoot an arrow.”

T
HE VALLEY ENDED
in a natural amphitheater, ringed by larch-covered hillsides. They halted at the edge of the trees. Harkeld scanned the snowy ground. “Where’s the anchor stone?”

“There.” Innis pointed to the right.

“Where?” He squinted. “Ah... I see it.”

It seemed almost too easy, that the anchor stone should be in this lonely little valley. Surely it should be hidden deep in the Widow Makers? Surrounded by precipices and crevasses and howling snowstorms.
Ivek ran out of time
, Harkeld reminded himself.
For which we should thank the All-Mother
.

He studied the anchor stone. It wasn’t in the center of the clearing, but far off to one side, jutting up from the ground, waist-high, almost impossible to see in the snow. Thirty or so yards behind it, the larches started.

The larches where the assassin and the boy were.

Snow swirled in the air, drifting down, making everything indistinct. He couldn’t burn the Fithian from here. He could barely see the trees.

Harkeld inhaled a deep breath. “Let’s leave the horses here.” He beckoned Petrus down, held out his arm for the hawk to land on. “You’ll have to tell me where he is. Stop me before we get in range of his bow.”

The hawk nodded, spread its wings, took off again.

Harkeld gathered two blankets, slung them over his shoulder, and turned to Innis. “You should shift. You’ll be safer.”

She shook her head. “Right now, I’m a healer, not a shapeshifter.”

“But—”

“I can heal you or Petrus better if I’m dressed and not freezing to death.”

“Yes, but—”

“I can always change shape, if I need to.”

He sighed, and gave up. “Fine.”

Innis tucked her hand into his. “Ready?”

Harkeld stared down at her face, at her dark gray eyes, at the freckles on her nose.
I don’t want you to come. It’s too dangerous
. “Ready.”

T
HEY LEFT THE
safety of the trees, their boots squeaking in the snow. Harkeld kept his eyes on the larches behind the anchor stone, searching for movement. Where was the assassin? But he couldn’t make out the individual tree trunks through the falling snow, let alone see a man and a child.

The anchor stone grew closer, the trees became easier to distinguish, and he still couldn’t spot the assassin. Harkeld’s steps slowed. “We must almost be in range.”

Petrus swooped low in front of them. Harkeld hastily shrugged the two blankets from his shoulder and spread one on the ground.

Petrus landed and changed into himself.

Harkeld gave him the other blanket. “You know where he is?”

The shapeshifter nodded, hugging the blanket around himself. “You see that spindly little larch that’s furthest out into the clearing? Well, go back from it and left...”

It took five minutes before Harkeld was certain he was looking at the right tree. He still couldn’t see the assassin, but he trusted Petrus. “And the boy?”

“Crouched down low, on the other side of the trunk.”

“So I won’t burn him?”

“If he doesn’t move, and if you don’t burn the tree... he should be all right.”

Should
. Which meant he might burn the child.

Harkeld took a deep breath. He shook out his right hand, flexed his fingers. Dread was tight and uncomfortable in his belly.

“I reckon you’ve got another ten yards before you’re in range of his bow.”

“Ten?”

Harkeld walked forward half a dozen paces, his eyes fixed on the tree. Snow squeaked beneath his boots, snowflakes whirled into his face. Still, he couldn’t see the assassin. One more step—

His left boot sank deep in a hole. Harkeld staggered, fell, caught himself with his left hand, plunging elbow-deep in the snow. Something—rock or stick—stabbed the web of flesh between thumb and forefinger. “Ouch.” He reared back, jerked his hand free of the snow, saw blood.

I
NNIS LUNGED FORWARD
, grabbed his wrist, and squeezed it tightly between her fingers.

No one spoke. No one breathed.

The shadow covering Harkeld’s left hand thickened and grew dark. The rest of his curse shadow remained unchanged.

Harkeld swallowed, swallowed a second time, tried to find his voice. “Can you hold it back?” The words came out thin and high-pitched.

“I think so.”

Petrus dropped the blanket in the snow. “Get him to the stone. I’ll take the assassin. Hurry!”

CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-TWO