The Bonds of Blood (2 page)

“That will do, Angelica. It would be
best to remember that he was a dalua, and that the form he showed
was not his true form, but only a form used to trick others into
lusting for him.” Grace opened the window, the topic made her feel
as though she needed the comfort of the sun. “Very good; very good
indeed. I think that will do for history today. Now if you would
all take out your Carlosos and flip to the verses on moon phases,
we will continue there where we left off yesterday.”

Grace traipsed back to the front of the
room, pushed the sleeves of her grey robe higher on her plump arms,
and sat down with her Holy Book open as well. “Angelica, if you
would like to start at ‘Mark my passage’?”

“It only seems to be getting thicker,”
Alhamar indicated the ever thickening fog. Jovian’s father had
announced earlier if the fog didn’t let up, they would have to
return home from the hunt.

“Yes, it does. I wager that
we will be turning around tomorrow to head home.”
At least I hope
. Jovian
eased his bow from his back and crouched down where he peered
through the fog at the shadows beyond.

“Your father is telling a lot of
stories back there; I wouldn’t be surprised if he got the men all
riled up for a hunt, and then couldn’t get them to turn around.”
Alhamar knelt down beside Jovian, curious as to what he was looking
at.

“Alhamar, my good friend, have you ever
noticed how strange the fog dances and swirls around?” Alhamar only
grunted. “Or how off in the distance, just out of the range of
light, shadows seem to drift in the fog?”

“Well, Jovian, I don’t think it is odd.
After all, fog is the bringer of evil. You did know that it
originates in the Shadow Realm, right? It is the mantle those vile
people use to creep into the Holy Realm each night.”

“Alhamar, don’t be absurd. Fog is
nothing more than the ground being warmer than the air.” Jovian
began to rise, but then his eyes spotted something on the ground.
Stooping back down, Jovian traced his fingers around a soft print
in the dirt.

“What did you find? Bison tracks?”
Alhamar asked.

“No, it looks like hooves, live boar’s
hooves.” Jovian’s eyebrows knitted together.

“Great, we didn’t come prepared for
boar hunting.” Alhamar sighed, but Jovian shushed him.

“I don’t think we will have to worry
about boar hunting. These hooves are slightly different, more
pointed. See the marking before each indentation? It looks like
there are claws attached to those hooves.” Jovian was completely
confused.

Alhamar snickered. “Now it is you who
are being absurd, Jovian. It must be something else that has made
that mark; there are no creatures that fit that
description.”

Jovian once more shushed Alhamar, not
because he was concentrating on the mark, but because his ears had
quirked at a noise he had heard not far off.

“Did you hear that?” His emerald eyes
cut through the night in search of what had made the
noise.

“What?” Alhamar whispered, looking
around. He hated fog, and he hated night, and he hated when someone
was acting the way Jovian was now on a foggy night. Alhamar didn’t
think of himself as a coward, but the truth was, though he didn’t
see himself as a coward, others did.

“What are we looking at?” a loud voice
boomed behind them as Micah sprung out of the shadows.

“Nothing,” Jovian said
matter-of-factly, scuffing out the track. He turned to look at the
pale man behind him. “What is going on?”

“Just wondering if you were taking
first watch?”

Jovian nodded.

“Good night then,” and Micah turned
back to camp.

Alhamar took his bow from his back and
stepped a few feet from Jovian, where he, too, kept watch. “So what
was the noise you heard?” he asked after a few moments, peering out
into the darkness after a beast he was not sure existed yet his
fear made him believe in.

“I thought it sounded like laughter,”
Jovian said.

“Well,” Alhamar half laughed, half
sighed in relief, “that was the men from the camp.”

“No, I don’t think it was.” Jovian
looked off in the other direction. “It came from over there.”
Pointing to the north, Jovian’s outstretched arm signaled some
far-off destination enveloped in the dense cloud.

“Jovian, now you have to be reasonable.
The fog can make strange things seem to happen. It was most likely
an echo from camp.” It was apparent that Alhamar was grasping at
straws.

“No, Alhamar, it wasn’t.” The sarcasm
in Jovian’s voice was unmistakable. Getting fed up with all this
useless jabbering, he returned his thoughts to the sound. “Fog
muffles sound, remember?”

“What do you think it was
then?”

“I don’t know, Alhamar. Look, if you
want to go to bed, I can carry out this watch myself.”

Alhamar snuffed, “I am not a
coward.”

It was mid-afternoon the next day when
the hunting party stopped for lunch. The fog was now thinning the
farther from home they got. The line of men had already split into
groups of three, and in due time arrows would be flying at their
prey. Only a few more miles until they reached their hunting
spot.

All day Jovian had been
contemplating the tracks from the night before, but he didn’t say
much about it. There was slight conversation between Alhamar and
Micah, but Jovian was too intent on his thoughts to join in. As
luck would have it, Dauin paired Jovian with Alhamar.
Dear Goddess, why?

They had all been traveling a few hours
in their current groups when Micah pulled up short.

“What is—?”

“Shut up, Alhamar,” Micah hissed,
listening intently. Jovian perked his ears and cocked his head. He
hadn’t heard anything, but obviously Micah had. He sat like that
for several minutes, listening to nothing, but then as he was just
about to turn back to the path before him, Jovian heard
it.

The laughter was far off at first, but
then seemed to rapidly approach behind them, before quickly
retreating. Jovian stopped dead, reminding himself every now and
then to breathe. Again he strained his ears, but heard
nothing.

“Did you hear it?” Micah asked after
the laughter ceased.

“Yes,” Alhamar quavered. “You guys and
your damn laughing. Next time I am riding with Alec and Melvin;
they don’t try to scare themselves.”

“Be still, you coward,” Micah spat.
“That was a hyena.”

“What?” Jovian asked,
astonished.

“A hyena; it is a wild animal, damn
good hunter, too.”

“I know what the Otherworld a hyena is.
What is it doing in the Holy Realm? They are native to the Realm of
Fire.”

“I know they are, but believe me, my
hunting troop was stalked by a herd of them the whole time we were
in the Realm of Fire hunting. That was a hyena we heard just now,”
Micah said matter-of-factly.

“Isn’t that a little strange though?”
Alhamar asked. “That there is only one?”

Micah shrugged and spat on the ground.
“Not really. It could be off on its own for several reasons. I am a
little more alarmed that it is this far north than I am that it is
alone.”

A few moments of silence passed over
them, and when they heard nothing else, the threesome nudged their
horses forward. It wasn’t long before a horn blew off in the
distance, sounding mournful and eerie in the renewed fog descending
on them as if wyrded.

At the sound of the horn, the three
exchanged a worried glance, for they had not even gotten to the
hunting grounds yet. All the men around them nudged their horses
into a gallop, and the thunder of horse hooves shook the earth as
the hunting party launched themselves to the right, where the horn
blast pierced the air.

Jovian also nudged his horse into a
gallop, but somehow the other men outpaced him, and he was left
bringing up the rear. He galloped for what seemed like hours when
he heard the horn blast behind him, very far off behind him.
Slowing his horse’s gait, he tried to figure out where he was. He
had been traveling east when he heard the horn blow to his left,
and then turned for the horn that would put him facing north. If he
kept traveling north, that would take him …

Jovian stopped dead in his tracks, his
breath wheezing loudly and painfully to his ears even as his
heartbeat threatened to drown out all other noise. A growing unease
surrounded him as he realized if he had traveled much farther he
would have found himself entering the accursed Shadow
Realm.

With a grimace at his ill luck, Jovian
turned Methos back and headed for the main hunting party, or at
least where he thought the group should be. He traveled for a time,
and when he heard the horn blow again—for they obviously missed
Jovian—he realized this time it was on his left, which would mean
he was traveling south.

“What the Otherworld?” Jovian cursed
under his breath as he brought the horse to heel. The fog was
growing thicker. He figured the best way to fix this problem was to
let the men find him.

Lifting his horn to his lips, Jovian
took in a deep breath … and stopped. Right behind him came the
haunting laughter again. All of the hair on his body stood on end
as he froze too terrified to turn or blow his horn.

Motionless, Jovian reminded himself to
breath, with eyes tightly closed. When he found the strength to
open them, he thought for sure he could see two glowing green orbs
pacing beside him, stalking him. The horse stomped a few times and
blew nervously. Suddenly Jovian had to grab the reigns as Methos
reared, and he lost hold of his horn.

The second time the stallion reared,
Jovian was tossed from its back, and the crash to the ground sent
pain lancing up his arm as it snapped his wrist. He let out a sharp
cry as the horn blew again, still farther away than
before.

With his good hand, Jovian pushed
himself upright, his brown trousers damp from the wet earth and his
golden hair matted to his head with sweat. He cradled his wrist to
his chest as more pain shot up the bone. Sucking the air in through
his teeth, Jovian winced.

The laughter came again, but Jovian was
defenseless against it. His body trembled. He looked around
frantically for his horn, but he couldn’t find it. Retracing his
fall, he tried to determine where he was when he lost it, but
decided to move forward. He stopped. Forward—wasn’t that the way
the laughter was coming from? Instead he turned, and when he did he
found himself eye to eye with glowing green eyes, level with his
own.

He stumbled back, breaking his fall
with his dominant yet broken hand. A surge of pain sent black spots
to cloud his vision. On the way down, his head thumped against
something hard, hard enough that he heard the thing crack. He would
have reached back for it, but just then a huge shape bounded out of
the fog and pinned him to the ground. All the ways he had landed up
until now had protected his bow and quiver, but with the large
shape landing on him, the weapon stood no chance. It splintered,
driving part of the quiver case into his side.

Jovian looked up into the poisonous
green eyes. Unnatural putrid eyes that glowed like hot embers, yet
seethed as if made of smoke. The creature let out a hyena cackle;
this creature was anything but a hyena. Part of its body took the
form of a hyena, but the face was large and ape-like, a slightly
deformed ape with large tusks that protruded from its bottom jaw up
the sides of its skull to frame its temples. The creature opened
its mouth, and Jovian saw a forked tongue lick the air before his
face.

He felt something pierce his shoulders
then, and when he looked down he saw cloven hooves that came down
to a sharp point, like claws. Jovian’s attention was quickly
brought back to the beast’s face when it let out a series of noises
that sounded for the entire world a mixture of a cough and a
bark.

The boy didn’t know what to do. He
couldn’t reach his weapon, and even if he could it was now
splintered, not to mention it would do him no good at this close
proximity. He was in pain from the quiver, which continuously dug
itself deeper into his back, and furthermore, now there was an
agonizing pressure in his lower right leg where the large beast
pierced its clawed feet into Jovian.