Antrax (6 page)

No, she thought grimly, she would never be thought of like that. The Morgawr had trained her in the use of her magic, but she had trained herself in the art of survival. When he was gone, which was often, she tested herself in ways he did not know about, going out alone, into dangerous country, sometimes well beyond the Wilderun. She lived as an animal, tracking as they did, foraging, hunting, and always learning what they knew. Because she had the use of the wishsong, she could speak their language and gain their acceptance. She could make herself appear one with them. It took concentration and effort, and a single slip might have spelled disaster. She was powerful, but it required only a moment’s inattention to let a predator past her defenses. Moor cats and Kodens could strike you down before you thought to wonder what had happened. Werebeasts were quicker than that.

She had not gone far before she detected a second presence, one that overlapped the first. She slowed, suddenly cautious, reading the images, the traces of heat and movement, wary of a trap. But after a few moments she realized what she had discovered. The shape-shifter had backtracked to see if anyone was following, then
retraced his steps to where he had left the boy. It was likely he’d seen her. She had to assume as much. She already knew he was experienced and skilled, and he had been wise enough not to assume that after rescuing the boy he was clear of her. He had returned to check, then gone back to warn his charge.

She set off in pursuit, anxious to close the gap between them. If he had been close enough to detect her, he could not be all that far ahead now. The images revealed by her magic were unmistakable and strong. He was not even bothering to hide his trail. He was running, fleeing, frightened of her perhaps, realizing how little distance separated them. That made her smile. It was what she wanted. Frightened, panicked people made mistakes. The shape-shifter was not one of these under normal circumstances, but conditions had changed.

Down through ravines and along the crests of low hills studded with hardwoods and choked with brush she made her way, breaking into a lope in the open areas, so close she felt she could smell them. Overhead, the sun had crested midmorning and was moving toward noon, bright and clear in a cloudless blue sky. She breathed in the warmth and freshness of the forest, a sheen of perspiration coating her face and hands, seeping down her limbs inside her garments. She felt a wildness infuse her, familiar and welcome. It was like this sometimes when she was on a chase, that sense of being feral and untamed, dangerous. She wanted to cast aside her human garments and hunt as the animals did. She craved a taste of fresh blood.

In a broad clearing ringed tightly with old growth, images of the boy reappeared, joining with the shape-shifter. Excitement raced through her, spurring her anew. The images told her they were running now, racing to escape her. The boy would know she was coming. He would be wondering what he could do to save himself if she caught up to him. He would lie, of course. He would tell his story again. But he had to know already that it would be useless to
try to trick her a second time. He had to know what she would do to him.

Just another few hundred yards, perhaps. Not much more than that, and she would have them. They were right ahead.

But all of a sudden, as she entered a meadow filled with yellow and blue wildflowers that rolled like the surface of the sea in the wind, the trail she followed so eagerly disappeared. For a moment she could not believe it. She kept on, pushing ahead in disbelief, crossing the meadow to its far side, trying to make sense of what had happened. Then she stopped. The images were still there, still as discernible as ever, bright and clear. But they were everywhere, all across the meadow, all through the trees beyond, thousands of them, flickers of heat and light. It seemed as if the shape-shifter and the boy were everywhere at once, gone in all directions at the same time.

It wasn’t possible, of course.

It wasn’t real.

She took a deep breath to calm herself, then exhaled slowly. She reached within her hood to brush back a lock of her thick, dark hair and looked from one end of the meadow to the other, casting into the shadows beneath the trees beyond, searching. No one was there. The boy and his protector were elsewhere, safely clear and farther away from her with every passing second.

In spite of herself, she smiled. She had believed them panicked, but the shape-shifter and the boy were smarter than she’d thought. Realizing she would track them using her magic, they had retaliated by using their own. Or, more accurately, if she was reading things right, the boy had used his. He had used it to cast their images all about, to disperse them in all directions. She could sort them out, find the right set to see which way the pair had gone, but it would take time. They would do this again, farther on, and each time she was forced to unravel one of the confusing puzzles, she would lose ground.

They were hoping, of course, that she lacked a Tracker’s skills and could not pursue them through reading prints and signs if they foiled her magic. They were right. Her magic was all she had, and it would have to be enough.

She sat down, cross-legged with her back against an oak, looking out into the meadow, thinking things through. There was no need for hurry. She would catch them, of course. Nothing they tried would be enough to throw her off their trail for long. It was more important not to act in haste. She took a moment to consider where all this was leading. The boy and his protector were running, but to what? This was a strange land, and they knew nothing of its geography or inhabitants. The shape-shifter would have told the boy by now that their airship was under her control and outside their reach. The members of the landing party led by Walker were scattered or dead, and the Druid had disappeared. At best, running offered only a temporary solution to their problem. How did they intend to make use of it? Where would they try to go and to what end? Surely, they weren’t running blindly and toward nothing. The shape-shifter was too smart for that.

She stood slowly, her mind made up. Answers to questions like those would have to wait. It didn’t make any difference where they went or why if she couldn’t find them, and she intended to find them right now. If her magic couldn’t serve her one way, it would have to serve her another.

Standing at the edge of the meadow, she cupped her hands to her mouth and gave a long, low cry, eerie and chilling as it wafted into the distance and died away. She gave the cry three times, stood waiting awhile, then gave it three more.

Time slipped away, the meadow and the surrounding forest silent save for birdsong and the rustle of leaves in the wind. The Ilse Witch stood where she was, listening and watching everywhere at once.

Then something moved out of the trees and into the grasses
on the far side of the meadow, causing the flowers to ripple and part. The Ilse Witch waited patiently as the submerged creature made its way toward her, invisible beneath the bobbing coverlet of wildflowers, crouched low to the earth.

When it was a dozen yards away, too late for it to escape, it lifted its narrow muzzle slightly from the sea of brightness, testing the wind, searching for the source of the call that had summoned it. The wolf was not of a recognizable breed, bigger than the ones with which she was familiar, but it would do. It was an outcast, a renegade—she could sense that about it—not part of any pack, solitary by choice and nature, its face a mask of grizzled black hair and sharp features, its scarred gray body sinewy and muscular. A ferocious predator, the wolf possessed unmatchable tracking skills and instincts, which would serve her needs well, once the necessary adjustments had been made.

The wolf must have realized it was trapped, unable to break free of her magic, of her compelling voice, of the chains she had already wound about it as she hummed and sang softly. But it was not so stunned by what was happening that it did not try to escape. It bristled and snarled, thrashing against her attempts to exercise control, its hatred for her revealed in its baleful eyes and curled muzzle. She let it have its moment of rage, and then she bore down on it relentlessly. Bit by bit she overcame its resistance, harnessing its will, claiming its heart and mind, making its body and thoughts her own.

Then she began to reshape it. It was a dangerous brute, but she decided it needed to be more dangerous still; the shape-shifter would be more than a match for an ordinary wolf, no matter how ferocious, and she wanted the odds reversed. She wanted a caull, a beast of reshaped flesh and bone, a creature of magic molded by her hand and obedient only to her. Using the magic of the wishsong, she caused it to evolve in very specific ways, focusing her attention
on its predatory instincts, tracking skills, and resiliency. To enhance its intelligence was too difficult a task, too complex even for her. But its form could be changed to suit her needs, and she did not shrink from what was required, even when the beast screamed as if it were a human child.

Afterwards, it lay panting and feverish on the sun-dappled earth, the wildflowers ripped to shreds for fifteen or twenty feet in all directions, the ground torn and furrowed, the grasses coated with sprays of blood. She held the caull in check, then gave it sleep to calm and heal its re-formed body. Its yellow eyes closed, and its breathing slowed and deepened in response to the change in her song. In seconds, it slept.

The effort had exhausted her, and she sat down to rest. The day lengthened from morning to afternoon. She dozed in the sunlight, wrapped within her hood and robes, a small dark shape at the edge of the savaged patch of earth and sleeping beast. Time drifted, and she dreamed of a tiny baby boy with a shock of dark hair and startling blue eyes, staring back at her from an enfolding darkness as she closed a hidden door on it forever.

She awoke before the caull, alerted by the rustle of its legs as it stirred from its own sleep. Her wishsong already coming into play, she rose and waited for its eyes to open. When its head lifted, she ordered it to rise. It did so, lurching to its feet, big and menacing in the fading light. It was twice the size it had been, with a thickened neck and huge shoulders, its body re-formed for fighting and running. Its head was a broad, flat shelf of bone, wedge-shaped from pointed ears to snout. Its muzzle split as it panted, revealing a double row of razor-sharp teeth made for rending and tearing. Its legs had shortened to give it a splay-footed stance, and the digits of its paws had lengthened and spread like fingers to end in hooked claws. Sleek gray hair layered its body, less fur than skin, a tough coarse hide that even brambles could
not scratch. It wheeled this way and that, as if anxious to test its newfound strength, and in its maddened eyes glittered an unmistakable bloodlust.

She watched it carefully, pleased with her handiwork, certain that with this creature to aid her, she would be more than a match for the wiles of the shape-shifter and his young accomplice. She had learned to fashion caulls while practicing her magic with the Morgawr. But she had discovered the shape of this one on her own. Hundreds of years ago, there had been another, a monster out of Faerie called a Jachyra that had stalked and killed a Druid. She didn’t need the real thing. A close approximation would be sufficient to serve her needs.

“Relentless,” she hissed at the caull. It swung its flat, heavy head toward her watchfully. “That is what you will be for me in your search for those I hunt. Unstoppable.”

The jaws split in what might have been a smile if the beast had been capable of understanding what a smile was. It was enough to satisfy the Ilse Witch. If it accomplished what she wished, she would do the smiling for them both.

B
ek trailed Truls Rohk as they entered a meadow filled with blue and yellow wildflowers. He was already beginning to tire from the pace the shape-shifter was setting, sweat coating his face and drenching his tunic. The sun was high in the midday sky and the air warm. Truls Rohk loped to the center of the meadow and stopped, looking back.

“Far enough,” he said, his ravaged face a shadow within his cowl, barely seen even in the bright midday sun. He looked back in the direction from which they had come. “We can’t outrun her forever. Sooner or later, she’ll wear us down. Something else is needed.”

Bek blew out his breath wearily and took a fresh gulp, swallowing against the dryness in his throat. “Maybe she’ll give up if we keep going.”

“Not likely. Think about it. She put aside her hunt for the Druid, her mortal enemy, to come in search of you. She put everything aside, the whole of her purpose in coming on this voyage, because of you. You think you didn’t reach her with your words and arguments, but I think maybe you did. Enough at least to make her wonder.”

Bek shook his head. “It didn’t feel like it at the time.” Truls Rohk didn’t even seem to be breathing hard, his body still and composed within his cloak, not a ripple of movement, not a stir.

“She’s tracking us with her magic, reading our passing with it. I saw the way she walked, head up, eyes forward. She wasn’t studying signs or searching for prints.” He cast about for a moment, looking off into the distance in all directions, taking in the lay of the land. “We have to throw her off, boy. Now, before this gets any tighter, before she’s so close nothing will slow her.”

He faced the boy squarely, broad-shouldered and threatening. “Time to take some responsibility for yourself. Your magic against hers—that might be the answer. It lacks power and subtlety both, but it has its uses even so. Listen to me. She’s probably reading our body heat, our movement from place to place. See if you can do the same. Watch me closely. When I disappear, track me. Use your voice, like you did on Mephitic.”

In an instant, he disappeared, right from in front of Bek, vanishing as if into vapor. The boy called up his magic and cast it about wildly, searching. Nothing happened.

The shape-shifter reappeared, right where he had been an instant before. Bek gasped at the suddenness, then shook his head angrily. “It didn’t work!” Frustration colored his words. “I can’t make it do anything!”