Angus Wells - The Kingdoms 03 (59 page)

 
          
The
kyo looked to Brannoc then raised his eyes to Kedryn, brows arched in unspoken
question. Loath though he was to express such doubts, Kedryn told him what he
had seen, and what he had thought he saw. Tepshen grunted and moved to strip
the half-breed. Brannoc groaned as the bandages were unwound, opening sleepy
eyes, but offered no protest as his comrades examined his wounds. They appeared
to be well on the way to healing completely, the inflammation gone and the
gashes covered with healthy scabs. There was no sign of pus, and when Kedryn
passed the talisman over the cuts, Brannoc did no more than stiffen, clenching
his teeth. He remained silent as the strips were bound once more about his
chest and midriff and his tunic replaced. Then he asked for food.

 
          
It
seemed a healthy sign and Kedryn rummaged through the dwindling supplies,
passing the half-breed a thick slice of roasted pork and a chunk of somewhat
stale bread. Brannoc wolfed the meat and nibbled gingerly at the bread, finally
handing it uneaten back to Kedryn. He smiled, a semblance of his old self
returning, and said, “I feel better.”

 
          
Tepshen
said, “You no longer feel unclean?”

 
          
Brannoc
shook his head: “No.”

 
          
Kedryn
told him of the glow he had seen and Brannoc smiled again. “We approach
Taziel’s fiery mountains then.”

 
          
“And
you heal apace,” nodded Kedryn. “Praise the Lady.”

 
          
“Aye,”
Brannoc murmured, and closed his eyes, leaning back.

 
          
He
was rapidly asleep and Kedryn grinned at Tepshen, indicating the slumbering
form between them.

 
          
“It
seems our doubts were groundless: he appears to recover.”

 
          
“Mayhap.”
Tepshen stared somberly at the half-breed.

 
          
Doubt
lay heavy on his luteous features and Kedryn frowned. “You disagree?”

 
          
Tepshen
shrugged. “I do not know. The cuts heal, but I like not what you told me.”

 
          
With
the sun beaming down from a sky streaked with high cirrus Kedryn was prepared
to believe the night had played tricks on his eyes. “Surely, were he tainted by
some fell magic,” he argued, “
he
could not bear the
touch of the talisman.”

 
          
“It
appears to bum him still,” Tepshen murmured.

 
          
“With
a cauterizing fire,” Kedryn responded. “It must surely leech any venom
remaining.”

 
          
"Let
us hope so,” Tepshen said. “And watch him still.”

 
          
The
kyo’s suspicion soured the day somewhat: Kedryn recognized it as a doubt that
was, given their circumstances, healthy, but nonetheless felt it was a kind of
betrayal. He had shared much with the former wolf’s-head, both joy and sorrow,
danger and hardship, and to think that Brannoc was befouled by changeling
magic, a potential threat, seemed a renunciation of their comradeship. Yet he
knew that Tepshen shared the bond, finding in the half-breed a kindred spirit,
and that the kyo’s caution was bom solely of concern for him and their quest.
Still, he fell silent at the words, settling in the stem as the easterner
resumed his vantage point at the prow.

 
          
The
day passed much as before, save that fewer changelings appeared and Brannoc
slept, waking only when roused to eat. The dory drifted onward, held to the
center of the river by the current, the woodland unfolding tranquil along the
banks, interspersed with meadows and occasional tributary streams. Dusk fell,
the sun descending behind the timber to paint the horizon with crimson as the
shadows lengthened across the water, the rising moon bringing a return of the
therianthropes.

 
          
Brannoc
roused with the first screams, sitting upright on the thwarts, his head cocked.
Kedryn had dozed, waking as the ululation split the peace of twilight, and now
he felt his skin crawl, a hand fastening instinctively on the hilt of his dirk
as Brannoc’s face turned toward him.

 
          
The
half-breed’s eyes were wide, huge in the moon’s silver light, glowing with an
unnatural, fulvous excitement. He stared hard at Kedryn, his shoulders braced
and stretched as though he strained against himself, and his lips curled slowly
back to expose teeth that seemed elongated, become more canine than human. It
seemed to Kedryn, in that time-stilled moment, that Brannoc’s dark hair was
grown
more coarse
, his straight nose flattened and
spread, like a snout. He reached beneath his shirt with his left
hand,
the right still set about the dirk’s hilt, and drew
the talisman out. It was not yet full dark and the jewels effulgence was
consequently pale, yet still it outlined the nightmare transformation in horrid
detail.

 
          
Brannoc
moaned as the glow embraced him, his head arching back, tendons standing out
along his neck. Behind him Tepshen slid dirk from sheath, his lean body tensed.
Brannoc shook his head slowly, his shoulders trembling, and a voice that was
hoarse with the effort of speaking groaned a painful warning.

 
          
“She
has me! Beware, friends! I . . . cannot ... I cannot fight it!”

 
          
He
rose as the sentence ended, his body hunched, arms thrust out as if he sought
to embrace Kedryn. Or to rend him, for the fingers were hooked and the nails
grown long, curved and sharp as talons, and his words choked off into a savage
growling.

 
          
Tepshen
rose in the same instant, springing forward with dirk raised. Horrified, Kedryn
could only stare as the kyo’s hand came down, once and then again, driving the
pommel of the dirk hard against Brannoc’s neck, where it joined the shoulder.
The changed half-breed yelped like a struck dog and slumped to his knees. The
dory rocked wildly. Tepshen struck again, this time with the edge of his left
hand, against the base of Brannoc’s neck. The motion of the boat threatened to
pitch him overboard and he fell across the half-breed, bearing the body down
beneath him. Kedryn shook off his paralysis, lurching
forward,
ready to strike Brannoc, but Tepshen rose, clutching at the starboard gunwale,
his face grim.

 
          
“Quickly,”
he snapped. “We must bind him.”

 
          
They
found cord and belts, lashing the fallen man’s wrists firmly behind his back,
securing his ankles.

 
          
“I
thought you had killed him,” Kedryn said when they were done.

 
          
“No,”
Tepshen grunted, heaving Brannoc onto his side. “I would not—unless I must.”

 
          
They
studied the unconscious man, horrified by what they saw.

 
          
Whatever
foul poison the succuba had planted in Brannoc’s veins had not—likely, Kedryn
thought, thanks to the talisman—transformed him completely. He was not become a
changeling for he retained his human form, though altered, as if he were become
a were-beast, his natural shape distorted. His features were flattened, the jaw
thrust forward over lengthened, fanglike teeth, his ears grown small and
pointed,
his
dark hair coarse as a pelt. His shoulders
were spread, stretched back, his arms thickened, the hands bristling ragged
fur, the nails become claws. He seemed poised at some transitional point
between man and animal, and Kedryn felt a great sorrow as he studied the supine
form.

 
          
“He
tried to warn me,” he said, his voice harsh with grief.

 
          
“Aye,”
agreed Tepshen, “and for that alone he deserves to live.”

 
          
“Perchance
the talisman will
effect
a cure,” Kedryn offered.

 
          
“Mayhap,”
Tepshen allowed. “But the bonds remain.”

 
          
Kedryn
nodded and went down on his knees beside Brannoc. He removed the talisman from
his neck and held it to the wolfish face. Brannoc twitched, groaning, but there
was no change in his shifted shape.

 
          
“Perchance
in time,” Kedryn said sadly as he regained his seat.

 
          
“Perchance,”
said Tepshen; no less miserably.

 
          
“By
day’s light,” Kedryn said.

 
          
Tepshen
ducked his head in agreement. Or resignation, Kedryn could not decipher which.

 
          
Brannoc
awoke during the night and struggled against his bonds, snarling furiously, but
the cords were strong and the knots
tight,
and he
could not free himself. His actions set the dory to rocking again and when
water splashed over the gunwales he howled and fell still, confirming Kedryn’s
belief that running water was anathema to the changelings. As the darkness
dulled into the misty gray abstraction preceding dawn he quietened, curling in
a fetal ball. The hoary light brightened, the banks becoming visible again, and
the sun climbed into the sky, roseate light spreading steadily upward, driving back
the night, becoming gold, and with it Brannoc resumed his human form.

 
          
He
lay silent in the scuppers, then groaned, shaking his head as does a man waking
from a bad dream.

 
          
“I
dreamt,” he began, then halted, gasping, his voice rising to a wail as he became
aware of his bonds.
“Oh, by the Lady!
It was not a
dream.”

 
          
“No,”
Kedryn said, not knowing what else there was to say.

 
          
Brannoc
ground his face against the boards of the dory, his body heaving as he wept.
Kedryn moved closer, setting a hand to a shoulder. Brannoc twisted, turning his
face up. “Why did you not slay me? It would be kinder to slay me.

 
          
‘Tepshen
stunned you,” Kedryn said, “and we bound you tight. We would not kill you.”

 
          
Brannoc
shook his head, in mute denial now. “I am befouled,” he whispered. “I would not
become as Taron’s creatures.”

 
          
“You
shall not!” Kedryn answered fiercely, but Brannoc ignored him craning round to
fix his haunted eyes on Tepshen. “You are made of harder stuff, kyo. Will you
not end this misery?”

 
          
Tepshen
shook his head. “Mayhap there is a cure.
Ifnot. . .”

 
          
“If
not,” Brannoc said harshly, “I ask you in the name of friendship to destroy me.
Do you grant me that boon?”

 
          
Tepshen
glanced at Kedryn and nodded. Brannoc sighed, a soul-deep sound, and let his
head sink.

 
          
“It
seems that by day you are safe,” Kedryn murmured, his hand still firm on the
half-breed’s shoulder. “By night you . . . change. I think that if we secure
you ere the sun sets we shall be safe.”

 
          
“Better
to slay me now,” Brannoc muttered; dismally.

 
          
“No
, ”
said Kedryn, “not whilst some chance of cure remains. ”

 
          
He
stooped to the fastenings about the half-breed’s wrists then, aware that
Tepshen drew his dirk, ready to strike, and tugged the knots loose. Brannoc
eased his arms from their cramped position and chaffed his wrists, not
attempting to rise. Kedryn unloosened the bonds about his ankles and took a
hand, lifting it to the talisman.

 
          
‘Touch
Kyrie’s stone, my friend,” he suggested. “If you
are
become one
of.
. . those creatures ...
I doubt you can bear that contact.”

 
          
Brannoc
licked his lips, allowing Kedryn to place his hand upon the jewel. He closed
his eyes, as if anticipating awful hurt, but when his fingers closed around the
talisman he sighed and whispered, “I feel ... a calm.
As when
Gerat worked her magics upon me.”