The Third Oath I
A glut of bodies choked the river.
Black robed corpses bubbled from the mountain’s sodden heart, twisted from their struggle through the underground current. They rushed through the rapids, tumbling over each other - kicking up spray, cracking bone and tearing dead sinew - until coming to rest in a growing heap where water at last slowed to ice.
The cultists might have become their god’s hunters or simply his meal in the afterworld, but here, they were nothing more than bird-food. Crows swarmed from their roosts in the surrounding pines while white scaled fish with bulging eyes emerged from mud-beds below. Carrion-feeders of all kindred gathered for a grisly banquet, gorging themselves before the flesh fully froze. In a strange irony, even a pair of lean wolves slinked from between the darkened trunks to pull a body into the nearby forest.
The cyclops proved especially tantalizing, and one could scarcely see its corpse for the swarm of winter scavengers above and below. As the broken remains of his oaken club drifted toward his carcass, the feasters suddenly stilled. Eyes grew wide as instinct overwhelmed hunger, and they scattered in all directions.
All avoided the scarred oak; more precisely, they avoided that which clung to it. Limp tendrils capped by hooks of pointed bone dug into tree bark, while below the battered oak and freezing current floated a squamous mash of flesh. It drifted along, bobbing like another ruined piece of meat in the wash, but twitched with faint stirrings of life.
The tendrils shuddered, ripping free of the wood, allowing the twitching mass of muscle to drift toward the river bank.
At last, it slid onto the moonlit shore.
Spllssssh!
It sprayed water from sodden tissues as though it were a sponge squeezed by a giant’s hand. Then it began to swell. In rhythmic pulses it grew, drawing in sweet air after a great stretch of time. Its heart and breath quickened now that its sojourn through the frigid waters beneath the mountain had ended; they had slowed to prevent suffocation. It breathed its fill.
It began its work.
Shuddering, the mass shifted upon the shore. Flesh split and joined. Crumbled bone twisted together. The shapeless thing began to take a shape, writhing through the formation of maws, claws, and tangles of limbs. At last, it recovered the form with which it was most familiar.
Schhlllch.
It resumed the form of a man; one powerfully built and panting his misting breath before a reddening face. Milos of Crotonia rolled onto his bare back with arms and legs splayed and, as his eyes met the moon, his strained voice emerged from taut lips.
“Well, Milos,” he whispered. “You have had a bad couple of days.”
The cult leader…well, former cult leader, could only chuckle in the night breeze at the absurdity of it all. He had lost everything. Everything save for his own life, out of foolish arrogance. If he made it back to the Council of Twelve, and if they deigned to keep him alive, he would ask to be demoted from the position of Sacred Alpha immediately. He would work beneath a younger wolf until he learned some damned humility again, and if hesaw Wurhi the Rat or either of her compatriots, he would…
…flee with all the speed he could muster.
There would be a time for reckoning with those that destroyed his pack, but only when he was strong and they were weak. Only when victory was assured and he could gut them before their own horrified eyes.
There would come a time when he would find opportunity.
He was sure of this.
His body slowly rose to his hands and knees. “But if I ever see that Haldrych Ameldan…” he paused. “Oh, I would do what? The damage is done, and the boy does not matter anymore.”
Giving a defeated groan, his form shifted as though water were cascading over it. A breath later, the man was gone. In his stead was a beautiful silver wolf whose coat gleamed in the moonlight, and he lifted his muzzle for a mournful howl.
He paused, breaking off the pained cry and glancing about furtively. Were his enemies close? Would they find him from the noise? Were they waiting somewhere in the trees with their fire and silver and vitriol? His muzzle shut quickly; he would howl when it was safe, perhaps when he was three days away at a run.
Shaking the frost from his coat, Milos of Crotonia bounded into the trees.
His final thought was to his own treacherous cat: ‘At the least, I slew him.’
Hale and unslain, the sabre-toothed tiger sat upon his haunches atop a snow-crusted hill. His golden eyes scanned the camp, watching the forms of the humans silhouetted by light of fire and moon. The humans that fought beside him were tired. The new humans - the ones in shiny shirts - were not.
His gaze shifted to a large fire in the distance, where the bad humans were piled and burning in the snow.
Good.
Long had he waited to see that sight.
Long had he waited to see the monster that caged him - that killed his mother - dead. He had watched him be crushed beneath the big stone wolf that the humans had carved and now he was gone. His bad humans were gone, and the human that smelled of sourness and sweetness had saved his life. It was a life that was - for the first time in his short existence - all his own.
He had come to freedom.
The cat turned from the camp and toward the trees and mountains under moonlight. The brisk breeze stroked his fur, the scent of wild tickled his nostrils and the snow melted against his warm paws. He closed his eyes and drank deep of the midnight air. Only a single bound separated him from the glorious wilderness. He would be its king: larger, mightier and faster than nearly anything in the mountains. He could go where he wished and do as he wished from now until his fur turned grey. And what he wished to do was…
Was…
The cat’s thoughts paused.
He had never thought this far before.
What did he wish to do in the wild?
He knew little of it, and he had never been free. His mind was sharp enough to know that he was anything but natural. He knew the words that the humans spoke and, from observing the other beasts that Milos kept, knew that they did not. In the wilderness he would be alone, at the pinnacle of his kind.
Did he truly want that?
Perhaps…
His thoughts drifted back to the little, rodent-smelling woman that had helped him gain his freedom and his life.
Perhaps not.
He could bide his time to decide - he was used to biding his time - and he could change his mind once decided.
His eyes focused on the cold wilds once more, pressing them into memory.
After all, he was free.
Crackle.
“For someone at last tasting freedom, you are strangely sombre, Wurhi,” Cristabel stirred the bonfire with a long stick.
Others hunched about the flame, blowing misting breath into their hands.
“Near-death does that.” Merrick’s teeth chattered. The hawk-faced man rubbed his reddened hands near the popping, crackling heat. “That and freezing. Bloody piss, wish we could be gone already, and not wait until morning. I want a real hearth, a cupa wine, and a roof over my head.”
“Not I.” Agron hugged himself and trembled, but the squat man bore an elated smile. He stared into the sky; he had hardly torn his gaze from it since the clouds had cleared to uncover the stars. “If I never have stone around me for the rest of my life, I’ll die the happiest man in the world. …but it’s a shame Crixus didn’t get to make it out.”
Gannicus troubled the bandage swaddling his arm. “I’m more worried about us. Some of us have homes to return to. Some don’t.”
“Anything’s better than those pits, Gan. We’re all good in a fight: at least we can try and make a go of things now.” Saxa massaged a pulled thew in her leg. Her orange-red hair hung limply around her shoulders as she glanced up to Wurhi. “I’ve gotta thank you, Rat. We all do. If it weren’t for you, we’d all be wolf food.”
Wurhi glanced at her. “Yeah…thanks.”
Her eyes drifted back to Kyembe and Jeva’s lean figures standing between the fires. The two men exchanged quiet words in the shadows with a relaxed manner. They had been speaking for some time now, and the Zabyallan wished in a way they would never stop. In all the whirl of blood and snow, she had not yet had the chance to tell Kyembe of her fault in all this: her theft of the Eye of Radiin, undertaken without his knowledge.
The secret hung from her neck like the jewel itself, biting into her throat. She wanted to be rid of it, and yet feared what its telling would bring. If he abandoned her now, she could little blame him: she would have if she stood where he did. Yet, he had proved more forgiving and softer than she had ever been in her life.
With any hope, he would be now.
She grimaced as the Sengezian clasped forearms with the seneschal and turned to draw toward their fire. Rising to her feet, she dusted the frost from herself. If she did not do it now, she never would. “Cristabel, could you come with me?”
The knight looked at her curiously. “…very well.”
Wurhi trudged through the snow with the saint close behind. Her eyes caught those of Jeva and he paused, watching her for a long moment. The old man gave her a short bow before turning to join the rest of the cult of steel. The hard-eyed people of his sect watched all about with a strange, cold removal.
“Kyembe,” she called to the Sengezian. “There’s something I want to tell you.”
An odd looked passed through his crimson eyes, but he showed no surprise. “Can we speak by the fire? Or is this something only for friendly ears?”
“Friendly ears.” Wurhi jerked her head toward the outskirts of the encampment, just outside the firelight. She could only hope they would stay friendly. “W-walk with me.”
Cristabel and Kyembe looked to each other. “Lead the way,” he said.
The little thief could hardly feel her own body as they followed her through the snow, save for the cold tension gripping her chest and belly. When the trio were at last out of the circle of light and none stood near, she turned to them.
Expectant eyes waited. She took a breath.
It had come time to lay out all of her cards.
This was it.
…or was it?
A wild, desperate urge struck her. Why not lie? The wolves were dead, and that left only her and the Hawk to know the truth of things. He had no reason to tell anybody - especially since it might come out that he tried to kill her. Even if she did not lie, she could simply say nothing. The matter was done.
It was all over. All she had to do was let it go and-
“This was all my fault,” she drove the words out. Balling her tiny fists, she forced herself to hold their gazes. Her body trembled, but she knew that if she did not tell them now, then the secret would hang from her neck until it one day strangled her.
In a sense, she would never leave the pit if she lied.
“I…I took that big jewel that Thesiliea and Ippolyte warned us about. It was stupid. Stupid! But I thought it would be easy. Thought you wouldn’t ever have to know.” She trembled. “But its owner knew those wolves, and they came into Paradise looking for the jewel and me. All the things that happened, it was because of me…I’m…” She drew a deep, tremulous breath. “I’m so, so sorry. I should’ve told you I was going to steal i-no.” She shook her head vigorously. “You said no, and so I shouldn’t have done it unless we both agreed. That was our oath…”
‘…and I broke it,’ she finished in her mind, as she could not bear to say those words aloud.
As she spoke, she had watched Kyembe and Cristabel carefully, but the warriors had remained as impenetrable as a stone wall. The silence drew on until she thought she’d tremble out of her own skin.
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