Unleashed Fury (BloodRunes: Book 1) (30 page)

They led Fly and Charles’ mount a good
distance away - the horses’ nervousness was still quite evident.
Layna had no doubt that they would simply bolt when their foe faced
them again. Axe they kept with them due to his battle-steed
training, in hopes that he'd be able to get in another lucky
kick.

They found an outcropping of rock where they
would have a solid wall behind their backs. It was too overgrown on
the top to let the hounds move in behind and above them. They
arranged themselves in a semi-circle, so that one of them was
facing every possible direction that the creatures could come at
them from. Gryffon walked Layna through setting up a perimeter,
winding their magics throughout each others' like a braided rope.
Under Gryffon's instruction Layna was able to prepare herself for
the inevitable battle. They didn't have to wait long.

Layna sat holding her breath and straining
her ears for the sound of movement in the woods around them. The
first thing she noticed was the growing silence. Wind blew through
the trees, causing them to creak and groan, but there was no more
chattering of squirrels, chirruping of birds, or scurrying around
of various small woodland creatures. It was as though suddenly they
had all been given a silent command to be still. Layna's sharp ears
noticed the difference immediately and her muscles tensed
involuntarily. The creatures in the woods knew that something
dangerous was lurking, and Layna narrowed her eyes in an effort to
see through the dimming light of the forest for signs of where the
menace was coming from.

A twig snapped to her left and she whipped
her head around, holding both hands in front of her, her fingertips
tingling with readiness to seize the power should something emerge.
A dark shape flitted through the trees and she followed it with her
eyes.

A single hound seemed to materialize out of
the darkness and sat just out of reach of Gryffon's bow, which was
steadily trained on him. It looked at Layna through slits of
glowing red eyes and the creature
hissed
. It was a strange
noise to hear coming from the throat of a dog-like creature, but
there was no denying that it had indeed come from it as its neck
pulsated in a rhythmic pattern as the unnatural sound issued
forth.

Layna stared at it mesmerized, her fear
forgotten. Charles's urgent whisper woke her from her trance,
“Don't let it distract you with its flummery,” he said gruffly.
“This one is just to keep our attention while the others close in.
Start the spell Gryffon told you about and keep your eyes peeled
for the rest.”

Layna nodded pointlessly as the three of them
had their eyes glued to the landscape and she turned her attention
towards the power. She gathered it in her hands more to gather
herself in readiness than because it actually needed to coalesce
there before it could be utilized. Her arms nearly buzzed with the
magic pouring through them and Layna carefully sent out a
snake-like tendril towards the beast. It split as it advanced,
forming a web of searching fingers into the darkness while the main
flow moved towards the beast.

The hound eyed this unfamiliar anomaly
warily, the hissing growing louder as the light shed its warm glow
onto it. Layna could see out of the corner of her eye that Gryffon
had similar tendrils of different shades wandering out as well. She
noticed absently that hers seemed larger and more formed than the
ones that he sent. Her concentration snapped back to the problem at
hand, however, as her light touched the beast and he recoiled from
it.
He. It's a he.

Once her spell made contact, she sent out
another burst of energy to bind the creature in place. He froze as
the ball of light moved down the tendril and into his body. He
slowly turned his head with effort to look at her, and the red eyes
bore into her. She struggled to hold her grip on him and slowly,
ever so slowly, she gained the upper hand. He was forced to the
ground, one paw lifting and moving outwards in jerky motions,
followed by the other, until it was lying calmly on the ground.

As she felt her control solidify over the
beast she sent out a new probe. Through this probe she saw his
heart beating, pumping bright red blood through his organs, his
lungs gulping in huge breaths of air, panting in the effort of
resisting her. She felt as though if she applied pressure,
here
, these functions would stop. It was more than Gryffon
had described. He had said that she should be able to feel the
energy flowing in and sustaining it, not feel its very life-force.
She continued her questing until her gaze rested on the beast's
back.

Burned into the flesh and straight down into
the core of the being were runes, like the one on Gryffon's chest,
blood red. Layna could practically feel the pain that had shaped
them. She felt a surge of pity for the poor creature, pity which
quickly turned to rage at the woman who would inflict such pain on
any living thing. She made up her mind to undo what the real beast
had done.

Carefully tempering her anger so that it did
not rub off on her actions, she reached out to gather more power
onto herself, silently impressed that she was able to do so with no
problem, and shaped this raw energy into a healing globe of water
which she gently used to wash away the runes from the beast's back.
The creature shuddered, unable to move more than this small gesture
while under her bindings, and the red eyes closed. When they opened
several moments later, they glowed their red hue one final time,
and dimmed into a deep black.

At that same moment, two more of the hounds
burst forth from the undergrowth and simultaneously burst into
flame as Gryffon's tendrils found them and destroyed their shields,
arrows following a split second later to finish them off.

“No!” cried Layna but it was too late. Her
distraction caused her to lose her control over the hound she had
been holding and it leaped to its feet to disappear into the trees.
Charles and Gryffon started after it, but paused in confusion at
her unexpected outburst. She ran to the body of the nearest slain
beast and fell to her knees beside it, weeping at the loss. Gryffon
and Charles exchanged a confused look and Layna choked back more
tears, “It wasn't their fault,” she tried to explain to them, “I
saw it inside them, they are not evil, only controlled by one who
is.”

Charles grew silent and stared off into the
woods after the hound. Gryffon, however, was not as sympathetic.
“How can you say that when one just almost killed you?”

“Because I was there inside it, it didn’t
want to hurt us anymore than we wanted it to,” she answered. “I
felt it.” She shrugged, and raised her hands in a gesture of
futility. She didn't know how to properly explain to him what had
just occurred, and the bond that she had shared with the creature.
He still wore the odd look, but did not push the issue.

Charles broke the awkward silence. “I'm going
after it,” he said decisively. He cut off Gryffon's protest. “Plus,
this way we can keep an eye on it and make sure that it doesn't
decide to kill us anyway. I've never heard of anyone bein’ able to
change a hellbeast before. Avonmora is less than a day's ride from
here, you won't miss it and don't need me. My place is in the woods
anyway.” With that, he moved off to collect his belongings and
follow after the freed creature.

“How did you change it?” Gryffon asked her
quietly once he was gone.

“I don't know, I sent the tendril like you
said, and then I could just see it.”

“And you've never been taught anything other
than what Mila and I have been able to show you in the last few
weeks?”

Layna shook her head mutely.

“What have we gotten ourselves into?” Gryffon
mirrored Charles' earlier question.

*

Jezebel fought hard not to jump in her seat
as a wave of energy suddenly flowed into her. She closed her eyes
for a moment and took a deep breath, ordering her suddenly tense
muscles to relax. She opened her eyes again, and glanced around the
room to see if anyone had noticed her brief interruption in
concentration. No one seemed to be paying her any attention at the
moment, the Council members were all currently squabbling over a
proposal by the King to increase taxes and, of course, no one could
agree what type of tax it should be. She already had a perfect plan
which she would present to the King personally later, proving to
him that she was the smartest and most capable of the group - so
she had little interest in their inferior ideas. Hers really was
quite an ingenious plan too, the idea had just hit her the other
day whilst she had been reading another of her father's boring
letters.

She listened to their chatter for a moment,
to be sure that they were properly engrossed in the subject at
hand, and then turned her attention inward.
The energy had to
have come from somewhere, but where?
She wracked her brain for
possibilities when suddenly it dawned on her.
That was a
life-force from one of the hounds
, she thought, unable to stop
the sharp intake of breath. Death had ended the spell and the
energies had been returned to her.
What an interesting
prospect
. However, that particular line of thought was cut
short when she realized that if one of them were killed, it meant
that they had most likely caught up with their prey. Jezebel again
had to fight to sit still in her seat, this time twitching with
excitement. Perhaps the hounds had found them. Even if they had
gotten the better of one of the hounds, it was no big loss, and was
certainly worth it if the rest of the pack had indeed found what
they were after. Jezebel concentrated and tried to follow the line
of energy back to its source, but as with a ripple through water,
it was losing its form and becoming too distorted for her to track.
She could tell that it came from outside the city though, and to
the south. It was a shame that she could not scry the two
renegades, but every attempt she had made to do so had been
thwarted. It had frustrated her so badly that she had thrown the
bowl she had been using in her attempt across the room where it had
shattered into hundreds of little pieces. She suppressed a sigh at
the memory;
it was one of my mother's too
.

When the meeting was over, she immediately
rang for Devon, just in case his network had heard anything. She
was not disappointed.

“I have indeed received reports today, my
lady, that could be the ones we're looking for. A hunting party
came across a campground two days ago and the party was the only
one from anywhere nearby that were out, so they figure it must be
travelers passing through. The villagers then reported that they
heard the howling of dogs that night, unlike any they had heard
before. This of course fueled the rumors of the dark beasts
returning and the village could gossip about little else
afterwards.” He smiled grimly at her. “Funny how the common folk
grasp at these things and run with them. Perhaps it makes their
pathetic little lives seem more interesting and more worth
living.”

Jezebel shrugged and moved down the hallway,
impatient to get back to her suite. “Hmm. Come, walk with me.
Anything else?”

He fell into step besides her. “Nothing for
sure, my lady, but I have the operatives moving in on the travelers
so that they can give us a confirmed kill once your little pets
catch up to them.”

“Good,” she said curtly. She was somewhat
disappointed that there was no real news yet, but at least she
would get a detailed account of what happened when it did. The
other Council members were still in debate over what to do about
the traitors, and in their usual unorganized style, had come to no
conclusion yet.

Every meeting that Jezebel attended made her
more and more certain that something would have to be changed with
the current order of things.
Namely, this whole Council business
will have to go and I should be the sole ruler
.
Having to
have six people deciding on something and then having the King have
the final say just isn't going to work for me. First of all, the
six members can hardly agree on what type of tea service to have
with the meeting, much less what taxes to implement. It will be so
much easier when it is just me making these decisions
.

She suddenly gasped, and fell up against the
wall. She held out a hand to it to steady herself as first one wave
of energy and then another hit her hard, knocking her off balance.
Devon stepped forward quickly and raised a hand towards her, but
she waved off the unspoken offer, taking a deep breath.
They
killed two more of the hounds!
She took a few more steadying
breaths, and ordered Devon to fetch her some wine while she took a
seat in her suite, which she had luckily just reached. She relaxed
her mind and concentrated hard, searching for the final hound,
trying to get some glimpse of the fate of the others through it.
Frustratingly, the answer remained just out of reach. At least one
was still alive, though, and Jezebel kept a thin hope that perhaps
this one would succeed in its mission.

CHAPTER 25

Layna and Gryffon rode into the city of
Avonmora with trepidation. The guards nodded to them as they
passed, but gave no indication that they were watching for anyone,
and Layna relaxed somewhat. The two made their way through the
streets undisturbed. Apparently, either the news of their actions
back home had not yet reached here, or as they had assumed, it was
too large a city with such constant traffic that it was simply
impossible to ask the guards to watch for two specific people. They
rode to a tavern that Gryffon knew, and bartered with the inn-keep
for rooms. Once they had established their rates, they stashed
their belongings in the rooms, and Gryffon and Layna claimed an
unoccupied booth in the corner of the tavern.