"Inked" - читать интересную книгу автора (K K K, C C C, Liu Marjorie M, Galenorn Jasmine, Wilks Eileen)

Chapter 12

Two huge Weres in wolf form guarded the almost invisible path that served as an entrance to the meeting place of the Clan Council. One of them moved to intercept me, changing fluidly from Were to human without so much as missing a step. His ebony skin gleamed in the light of a torch that had been wedged into a crack in the wall behind him. A lantern would have been a more practical choice, or nothing at all since I was the only one here without decent night vision. I assumed it was for ambiance.

It did add to the overall mystery of the place, not that it needed it. A sheer rock face rose five or six stories high, striated in uneven bands of cinnamon and gold. It wasn’t raining here, and the black, clear sky with its pinprick stars and the sighing wind sliding over the cliff was beautiful and more than a little eerie.

The guard was doing his best to add to the effect. His skin melted into the night, leaving only the rippling muscles of his chest visible in the torchlight. His dark eyes gleamed, pricked with reflected flame. He might have been a creature out of legend, some mythical god of the desert.

And then he ruined it. He looked me over and one eyebrow went up. “Bad day?”

My clothes were streaked with mud, cobwebs and runoff, I smelled absolutely foul, and I had at least three pebbles in my boot courtesy of the hike here from my bike. I was in no mood to exchange banter with a naked guard. “Lia de Croissets, of Arnou.”

“I know who you are.” A slight smile crept over his face. “I thought you’d be taller.”

If he’d treated my mother that way, she’d have ripped his face off. “Are you issuing a challenge?” I snapped.

His eyes widened fractionally. “No, I—”

“Then get the hell out of my way!”

I brushed past him and through the entrance, an oblong gash in the rock. The sides of the passage were inches from my fingertips, with no way out except straight ahead. It was the perfect place for an ambush should any unwanted visitors be stupid enough to try to enter. I hadn’t asked Caleb and Jamie to back me up, because they’d have never made it past the guards. And Cyrus would have been killed on sight for daring to sully with his presence a place meant only for Clan.

Once Grayshadow passed into these walls, no one but another Clan member could touch him. So this was my fight. And, as exhausted as I was, I was glad of it. Some war mages specialized in the hunt, painstakingly piecing together clues, interviewing suspects, gathering evidence. I was a competent investigator, but I’d never pretended to enjoy it. I’d take a direct confrontation any day.

I just hoped I’d put the clues together right, or this was going to be a very short fight.

The passage twisted and curved, so I expected to hear the commotion before I saw it. But there was only the haunting sigh of the wind, a tendril of which reached down into the chasm to ruffle my hair. And then I was spilling out into open air and a wide expanse of hard-packed red sand.

The Clan Council met in a natural amphitheater, with jagged ledges of stone cascading down to a flat bottom. It was huge, maybe the size of a football field, and open to the sky. The wispy glitter of the Milky Way arced directly overhead, bowed along the curved surface of the heavens. Were elders stood on every side in ranked rows, torches flickering here and there to highlight craggy faces and brilliant eyes. Most were only a dark presence, a texture of shadow. I could feel them waiting.

I wasn’t sure for what.

And then I spied Grayshadow, striding across the sand, heading for the dais on which the Council sat. Any Clan member could attend a council meeting, but only the leaders were supposed to speak. It looked like Grayshadow wasn’t feeling much like following the rules tonight. Luckily, neither was I.

I put on a burst of speed and caught him just as he reached the dais. There was no time for subtlety—once issued, a challenge couldn’t be rescinded. Grayshadow was opening his mouth to speak when I arrived, so I put my fist in it.

He didn’t go down, but at least I had the pleasure of seeing him spit blood. Right before he lunged for me. It might have been over right there, but the flat side of a spear caught him in the chest, holding him back. It was in the hand of the Speaker, the elder charged with voicing the decisions of the Council. He also kept order when needed, as it often was.

The current Speaker was Night Wind of Maccon, a grizzled powerhouse more than a century old and still built like a Mack truck. His straight black hair, streaked with silver, sharp dark eyes and strong, hawklike nose revealed his mother’s Native American ancestry. But I wasn’t stupid enough to think that our shared human blood would bias him in my favor.

“Accalia of Arnou, why have you broken the sanctity of Council?” he asked, in a voice loud enough to carry to every corner of the vast space.

“To challenge,” I said quickly, before Grayshadow could cut me off. And before I could talk myself out of it.

“Whom would you challenge?”

I thought that was kind of obvious, considering I’d just punched him in the mouth. But for once I bit my tongue. “Grayshadow of Arnou.”

As soon as the words were out, I almost felt relieved. The die was cast now, one way or the other. To back out of a formal challenge meant death.

“Until this moment, Grayshadow was presumed to be dead,” the Speaker said, his sharp black eyes flicking between us.

“As he arranged. He killed a vargulf and mutilated the body to make certain it would be mistaken for his.”

“This is ridiculous!” Grayshadow hissed. “She can’t issue challenge. She is human!”

“The challenger speaks first, by Clan law,” the Speaker informed him.

Grayshadow sucked in a breath. “You would put the claims of this creature before mine?”

“She is Arnou. It is her right.”

“She isn’t Arnou! She isn’t anything! And even if you accept that ridiculous adoption, I am Third. I outrank her and I will speak!”

I rubbed my fingers together, trying to get rid of the tacky feel of Cyrus’s blood drying between them. Some of it had settled into the lines of my palms and left a dark stripe underneath my nails. And suddenly I was so angry I could hardly see. “I am the daughter of Laurentia of Lobizon, wolf born, Clan reared. And an adopted daughter of Sebastian of Arnou. You do not outrank me!”

Grayshadow started for me again, but the Speaker’s spear point was back against his chest. “She is allowed to speak.”

I made it fast, but not because I feared another interruption. I was afraid I’d go for his throat and get killed before I ever found out if my theory was right. “There is no Hunter; there never was. Grayshadow killed four wolves—three High Clan and one vargulf—to pave the way to the bardric’s position. With White Sun out of the way, he could challenge Sebastian and take it all. He killed the others as camouflage.”

As short as the explanation had been, I’d had to raise my voice almost to a yell by the end of it. At the word Hunter, the stands had cascaded in one long ripple of fur and skin as hundreds of Weres rushed down the slope to the lower levels. None attempted to advance into the flat area, but they were as close as they could get. There was blood in the air, something no wolf could resist.

“She lies! The human lies!” Grayshadow was practically apoplectic. “I barely escaped alive from the clutches of the vargulf Cyrus, once of Arnou. He and this one conspired together to weaken the clans by killing our leading members! They care nothing for our ways, for our traditions! They think to use the war to destroy us, to dissipate our power and to allow the humans to enslave us!”

It wasn’t a bad story, playing to all the hot buttons for the clans: raging xenophobia, distaste for the human war, and fear of those who possessed a magic they didn’t understand. A rustling murmur came from the crowd, growing louder by the second, and I briefly wondered if I was about to be lynched. And then the Speaker’s spear struck the ground with three heavy knocks that I swear I could feel through the soles of my boots.

“Challenge has been issued.”

Grayshadow looked at him incredulously. “She is human! She has not accepted the Change! There is nothing in the tradition that defends it!”

“And nothing that prohibits. I say a second time, challenge has been issued against you, Grayshadow of Arnou. Do you accept?”

“This is outrageous! She and her human father killed four representatives of Lobizon! Her birth clan wants nothing to do with her! She is clearly—”

“For the third and last time. Challenge has been issued against you by a lawful member of the Clan. Do you accept?”

Grayshadow’s mouth compressed into a sharp line, a wince of anger and contempt. But I wasn’t worried. Clan law is remarkably simple in comparison to the human variety. If he wanted to clear his name, he had to fight me. To refuse would be an admission of guilt, and ringing us on all sides were members of the clans who had lost members to the Hunter. He’d never make it out of here alive.

Of course, if he accepted, I might not either.

He finally gave an abrupt nod, his eyes filled with not just pride but rage. It paled them out to silver, hardening a mouth shaped for smug, superior smiles and stiffening his walk to angry, snapping strides. I stood there, watching him move to the middle of the great space, unsure what happened now.

“Challenge has been issued,” the Speaker intoned. “Challenge is accepted.”

I started after Grayshadow, almost deafened by the renewed uproar of the crowd, only to be jerked back by an iron grip on my arm. I smelled the musky scent of woods and predation and looked up to see Sebastian. He was in human form, but his eyes were chartreuse and they didn’t look happy.

“I asked you to find my brother, not to issue challenge!” he hissed, so low I could barely hear him over the crowd.

“I did find him. He’s fine. Well, not fine,” I amended. “But he’ll live.”

“Then your job is done!”

“Not yet.” I tried to tug away, but got exactly nowhere. Sebastian might have been a column carved out of the surrounding rock.

“I’ll take the challenge for you,” he told me, his jaw tight.

“Like hell.”

“Lia! Don’t be a fool. I’ve seen Grayshadow fight! You can’t win!”

“I guess we’ll find out.” The death grip on my arm didn’t change. “Let me go, Sebastian.”

“I’ll repudiate you, dismiss you from the tribe! It will render your challenge meaningless.”

I blinked. He looked utterly serious. “And that would help how? Then they’d kill me for being here.”

“I will guarantee you safe passage.” He started pulling me away, toward the sidelines.

“Then Lobizon will kill me tomorrow!” I dug in my heels, which did nothing but carve furrows out of the dirt. “Sebastian! He came here to challenge you! As soon as I leave—”

He rounded on me, furious. “I can fight my own battles!”

“Not this time. You’re just going to have to trust me.”

“I am not going to tell my brother I let his mate die!”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

“You don’t understand. It would kill him! Our mother—” He stopped, a flash of pain cutting across those striking eyes. “She died in a contest much like this one.”

“She was the woman you told me about,” I realized. “The one who died defending her mate.”

“Yes. And I can’t watch that again!”

“You won’t.”

“You don’t know Grayshadow like I do. He will kill you.”

I looked over my shoulder, to where Grayshadow silently waited. Unlike me, he’d taken time to change clothes before approaching the Council. I could have picked him out as Arnou anywhere. It was in the shape of his long, dark cloak, cut from a template hundreds of years old that had been copied from one worn by their first clan leader. More obviously, it was in the peculiar mix of arrogance and elegance that no other clan quite managed, that calm conceit that said we are first because we are best.

My stomach clenched. “No,” I told Sebastian. “He won’t.”

“You’re afraid; I can see it on your face. Relinquish your challenge and let me get you out of here.”

“Fear isn’t a bad thing, if you use it right,” I told him, and wrenched away.

The Council’s servants had been busy lighting more torches, probably for the benefit of my lousy human eyesight. I wasn’t sure if I was grateful or not. A circle of them now ringed Grayshadow in fire, shedding sepia light over the sand and gilding his face, deepening the crags, highlighting the lines and making him look like what he was—a warrior with a hell of a lot more experience than me. He seemed to think so, too, because he wasn’t looking too worried.

“Tell me, human,” he called before I’d even reached him. “Do you remember the story of Red Riding Hood?”

“Let me guess. You aren’t the benevolent woodsman.”

Grayshadow laughed. “He only exists in the modern version. Today, the foolish little girl is saved by the woodsman who kills the wicked wolf. But in the original French story, she was given false instructions by the wolf when she asked the way to her grandmother’s house. She took his advice and ended up being eaten. And that was it. There was no woodsman and no grandmother, merely a well-fed wolf and a dead Red Riding Hood.”

“Guess we’re lucky it was only a fairy tale,” I said, stepping inside the ring of torch light.

“But it reflected reality. The original story is from a harsher time, when my ancestors fought with yours for territory, for food—for survival. The writer understood: you were our enemy, and we were yours.”

“Once, maybe. But we’re allies now, in case you haven’t—”

A clawed hand shot out and ripped through my shirt. I had shields up, or I’d have probably been bisected. As it was, talons like blades rattled across my ribs like a stick along a wrought iron fence.

Grayshadow rolled up his sleeve, exposing blistered flesh, while I fought to remain standing. “Now we’re even.”

I thought of the wolves he’d butchered, of the ruin he’d made of Cyrus, and my lip curled. “Not even close,” I hissed, and pushed a section of my shields outward in a band that wrapped around his throat. Something hit me in the side, and I could hear the crunch of shattered bone. I bit my lip on a scream and held on, until a burst of raw power exploded against my ragged shields like a firestorm.

I staggered back and he tore away. My shields had to be almost gone, because this felt like a direct hit, with every cell in my body screaming that it was dying. The only thing keeping me vertical was the memory of countless training sessions, stretching on until I was so tired I could have wept, and my father’s voice telling my mother “You underestimate her strength. Again, Accalia.” He’d wanted to be sure that, if I joined the Corps, I was as prepared as he could make me. And no matter how much it hurt, it had been less impossible to do what was asked than to prove him wrong.

It still was.

The fire abruptly cut out and I staggered, gulping for air that wouldn’t come. And when it finally did, it filled my lungs like ice water. I glanced around and realized that the last of my shields had dissipated along with the flames. Instead of protecting me, what remained of my magical ability was going haywire.

The desert floor, which hadn’t seen a drop of water, was suddenly wet with an icy sludge. Cold bit at my face and hands as the moisture in the air began to crystallize. The water around my feet solidified as ice crawled across the sand, tracing delicate patterns in the muck. My feet went numb, my skin started to ache and there was frost in my hair and on my eyelashes. And still the temperature dropped, until I was gasping, trying to draw enough oxygen out of the thinning air.

Grayshadow was backing up from the approaching frost, uncertainty in his eyes. It couldn’t hurt him—it was only ice. But he wasn’t experienced enough with magic to know that.

“You’ll never defeat me with wild magic,” I taunted, as he hit a torch and jumped in a very undignified way. “You have power but no precision. Any war mage worth his salt could tear you apart.”

“Feel free to try,” he growled, whirling back at me.

So I threw a lasso around his feet and jerked. He hit the ground on his back and went sliding on the ice, an expression of almost comic surprise on his face. His feet were held immobile by the spell, and his arms were thrashing about in a vain attempt to stop himself. It didn’t work, and he crashed into the torches on the other side of the ring, obliterating them.

The abrupt movement tore something in my wounded shoulder, and the pain was blinding. I gasped and had to fight not to let it turn into a cough, abruptly aware of a liquid, unpleasant sensation in my lungs. Wetness was spreading across my lacerated stomach, warm at first but chilling fast against my skin. I was running out of time.

“You know,” I rasped, as Grayshadow threw off the spell and stumbled back to his feet. “I’ve often wondered how that story would have turned out, had Red been a mage.”

“You’re not the only one with tricks, human!” he snarled, and four flashes of gold spilled into his palm.

I barely had time to recognize them as the missing wolf wards before they sank into his skin and changed, showing their true colors. They were beautiful; easily the best wards I’d ever seen, crystal clear and glowing with power. One was a rich dark brown with white streaks, another a beautiful russet and a third a blinding white, like the sun at midday.

The last was smaller and dimmer than the others, a slightly bedraggled gray with a white streak on his nose. The vargulf, I realized, and a new rage burned in my stomach. It wasn’t bad enough that Grayshadow had stolen his life just because he needed a doppelganger; he was now planning to use what remained of him to kill me.

Only it looked like the tats had other ideas.

As soon as they touched him, Grayshadow started trembling like a fever had gripped him. He tried to brush them off, but they’d already taken hold, becoming part of him. They sprang up his body, and wherever they went, great gashes opened up in his flesh. He clawed more furrows out of his skin, trying to tear them off, but they stayed one step ahead. He screamed beneath their careful savagery, because it couldn’t be borne and had to be; because there was no bracing to meet it and no escape.

He crouched a few yards away from me, hissing. I knew what was coming before he snarled and sprang, but there was no time to get out of the way. The air around him flared and his body came apart, more violently than any change I’d ever seen. I braced myself, even knowing it was useless. My shields were gone, and no way could I stand against an assault like that. But instead of being struck by a four-hundred-pound wolf, a wave of blood and raw, red flesh hit me like a fist.

I swiped my arm across my face, smearing the gore but not caring, staring around wildly. I didn’t see anyone and went into a crouch, expecting another attack. But it didn’t come, and slowly the truth dawned. The wards made from the wolves Grayshadow butchered had been thorough in their revenge. The only thing they’d left of him was a spreading pattern of blood on the ice.

Okay, I thought dizzily. Now we’re even.