Veriel's Tales: Night Warriors III, Page 6

  The next few comments went largely unnoticed. Pauwel found himself ordering the information unconsciously. The beast swept on her while she slept. He touched her, but her amulet drove him back. He fled rather than face Gawen’s wrath. The image of her that came unbidden at KlingeStütze’s description shook him. Regana huddled in her bed weeping was his undoing.

  “I stand with you, Gawen,” he decided. “We will hunt together. If he haunts your land, I will bring Kethe there, so she will not be unprotected in my home while we hunt.”

  Gawen looked at him in surprise and nodded slowly. “Thank you, Pauwel.”

  “I can do no less. You and yours are under attack. I am at your service in this matter.”

  “No one will hunt them,” Sibold decreed. “Gather to protect what is yours, but no one is to seek out confrontation until after the battle. That is my order.”

  “It is my duty to protect her. You taught me that yourself,” Gawen argued.

  “I did not order you to hunt. Guard her only.”

  Pauwel closed his eyes, pushing back the need to avenge his chosen mate. “Then, I will help you protect all that is yours,” he amended. Regana. I will help you protect Regana. Veriel will never touch her again, he vowed.

  * * * *

  They stood watch for Veriel together for the next three nights, but the beast never showed his face. Gawen watched Pauwel. The young warrior seemed to get more anxious and angry as the days wore on. Sibold finally collared him while he was pacing the edge of the training area. Gawen moved quickly, knowing the younger man’s concerns well.

  “Explain yourself,” Sibold demanded as Pauwel trained his gaze on the floor sheepishly. “The battle is upon us, KreuzStütze. I know you do not want to join the beasts, so what is your problem?”

  Gawen dropped a hand on the younger man’s shoulder. “He is worried about leaving the women unprotected,” he assured Sibold.

  “They’re playing with us,” Pauwel muttered. “Who will protect the women while we’re off in battle? We cannot leave them unguarded.”

  “Are you trying to claim that duty?” the master trainer asked archly.

  Pauwel looked at him in shock. “No. Of course not. I trained for battle. That is my place.”

  “You have a suggestion of a warrior to be left behind then?” he prodded.

  Pauwel looked around at his brothers, all training and trying studiously to ignore whatever censure Sibold was delivering. He shook his head slowly. “No, Sibold. We will need every man,” he decided.

  “I agree,” Sibold said in approval.

  Pauwel nodded miserably and started away.

  Sibold called him back. “I notice that there was one warrior you didn’t look at when you considered it, Pauwel,” he said evenly.

  Pauwel cast his eyes about in confusion. “There was?”

  Sibold nodded grimly. “Yes. You did it again,” he assured the young man.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You never met my eyes,” Sibold informed him.

  Pauwel looked at him in shock. “This is no duty for you,” he protested. “You are the greatest of us. Of course, you go to battle. Looking to you was unnecessary.”

  “No. I am an old man who has seen more than my share of battle. All of you were chosen for this battle. I’ve trained you well, and I am proud to say that you are all stronger than I ever hoped for you and than I ever hoped to be myself. I trained you to follow Gawen in battle. Never myself. Did it never occur to you that such a move would be unnecessary unless I had no intention of fighting in this battle?

  “I was trained as a solitary protector to the people here. That will be my duty while you do yours. Bring home glory to me, and stop worrying about your women. I will protect them with my life if that is what needs be. That is the duty I was trained for.”

  “Then, they will be well protected,” Pauwel assured him with a tight smile.

  “Now that it is settled, put your mind and arm into training so that you survive to the choosing ceremony,” he ordered gruffly but with a fond smile curling his lips.

  Chapter Four

  Pauwel sat his mount, watching the other lords commit their protected to Sibold at the training area. The open space was big enough to accommodate them all for as many nights as they required to end it. In addition, the building was designed for defense, with its reinforced walls, window slits, and metal doors unlike any building he had ever seen before. Any enemy, human or beast, would have a hard time breaching it if Sibold set his mind to the task. Finally, the stone would protect the space as well as any friendly being within that space.

  He and Kethe had said their farewells at home. Dropping her lightly to the ground by the doorway and watching her walk away had been a fairly painless thing for him, though Pauwel could see the hurt in her eyes when she glanced back at him from the threshold.

  What was painful was watching Gawen part from Regana. Pauwel tried to make it appear as if he wasn’t watching any family in particular, moving his eyes from person to person, but his eyes returned to his chosen wife often.

  Though her chin was raised proudly, Pauwel could see the fear in her dark eyes and the slight hitching of her breathing. It was obvious that her brother saw it, too. His hand brushed over her cheek and down the length of her long, black hair to her shoulder. Gawen murmured something to her before he wrapped Regana in his arms.

  Pauwel’s blood simmered uncomfortably, aching for the day when he could hold her like that. It seemed all he lived for, even more so since Veriel’s attack on her person. He was so intent that he didn’t realize most of the other lords had mounted up and joined him until Ger spoke.

  “What’s on your mind, KreuzStütze?” he asked pointedly.

  Pauwel smiled crookedly and raised an eyebrow at Ger. “I’m wondering how long the great Lord KlingeStütze is going to make us wait for him,” he called in a voice designed to cover the entire open space easily.

  Gawen turned suddenly and glared at the younger man, while the other lords laughed at his reaction. He sent Regana inside then mounted his horse and started toward them, looking decidedly dangerous. “Do you need to taste my blade to remember some respect, KreuzStütze?” he warned.

  “No, Gawen. After all, we don’t want to be late to the battle.” He smiled widely as he prodded his horse on. “Not to mention— Well, I wouldn’t want you in less than top form for the enemy,” he teased over his shoulder.

  Gawen matched his stride, raising an eyebrow at the young warrior. “Now, I will have to teach you who the first chosen was,” he warned.

  “Only because my mother wasn’t of marriageable age, old man,” he taunted.

  Gawen laughed heartily at that barb. “I will remember to take that comment out of what is left of your hide, KreuzStütze.”

  “I look forward to it,” Pauwel assured him.

  * * * *

  Gawen tapped Ger on the shoulder and pointed to the encampment below. As always, Gawen was their leader, unpartnered so he could move from team to team where he was needed most.

  After the others went to the stone, fighting partners had to be rearranged. Wil and Olbrecht had always been partnered, but Cunczel and Ditrich — now working together — had originally been paired with Dado and Geldric respectively. Ger was originally matched with Bertolf, while Tilbrand and Redulf — beast both — had been partnered. Now Ger and Pauwel were a pair.

  Gawen had always questioned the pairing of Pauwel and Jörg, but Sibold claimed that they balanced each other. Where Pauwel had a cool grace about his fighting, Jörg was more like the legendary berzerkers. Even before he went to the stone, there had been a bit of the beast in Jörg. He was their strongest warrior and the worst cursed, as his choice more than proved.

  Dusk was upon them and dark coming on fast. The fighters below were eating and preparing for sleep after a long day of travel. The warriors, on the other hand, were well rested. After finding the place the stone had foretold for their battle the evening before,
they had little to do but sleep, eat, and choose their places for the coming attack. As the sun set and the weary fighters settled next to their fires, Gawen gave the next signal.

  A large attacking force on horseback would have alerted them, but seven men on foot in dark clothing, coming silently from three different directions, were a greater danger to them. The sentries were slain without a sound. The horses were led away from dead guards and handlers without causing alarm. When the assault started, there was pandemonium in the camp.

  Gawen took them down one after the other. Still, they came. Though they carried swords, the warriors were faster, more skilled, and gripped by a stunning Blutjagd. Twice, Gawen saw Pauwel take down an enemy posing the danger of flanking Ger only to dance back to those attacking himself for another volley, smooth and patient as always.

  “Gawen,” Pauwel warned him.

  He threw his head around and took down two of the three sneaking up behind him, but the third fell on him and managed to knock Gawen to the ground. Grappling for the other man’s sword and pushing it back without much difficulty, Gawen started as the man above him stiffened and rose away with not one but four blades protruding through his chest. As the enemy fighter was tossed like a sack of roots to die far from Gawen, the warrior met the killer’s eyes.

  Veriel smiled. “Good evening, Lord KlingeStütze. The other half of your forces have arrived to do battle for you,” he reported smartly. He reached his hand down, as if to help Gawen to his feet.

  Gawen sliced at his outstretched arm and drove him back.

  Veriel’s smile disappeared, and his eyes glittered red-tinged silver in the firelight. “We’re here to keep our word, Gawen. Use us to kill the enemy or die trying to fight us both. The choice is yours, of course.”

  For a moment, Gawen couldn’t find his voice. He nodded stiffly. “If you’re here to fight, go fight,” he ordered. “You know what to do.”

  Veriel’s head snapped up, and he disappeared like a tendril of smoke as Pauwel pounced on his previous position.

  “Are you all right?” the young lord demanded of Gawen, dragging him back to his feet.

  He nodded. “Yes. He didn’t touch me.”

  “Trying to kill off Regana’s protector?” he asked acidly as he took down another enemy barreling at them.

  Gawen scanned the battle. “They are doing the duty they agreed to. There is Draden,” he motioned as he took an enemy’s throat without taking his eyes from the center of the battle, “and there is Veriel. He says they are all here to fight as agreed.”

  “Why?”

  Gawen shrugged as he strode into the mass of frightened fighters and started to take them on. “I have no idea, but I have a feeling we’re going to find out.”

  * * * *

  Jörg stuck mostly to killing with his blade-like claws, feeling most like the style of fighting that he had trained for. The killing styles of the other beasts sickened him.

  Cerran and Lorian were ripping out the throats of the panicked fighters with their fangs. Carstol preferred using his great strength to break their necks or crush their chests in. Draden had learned to change his form of a fashion. His face was elongated into the snout of a great hairless wolf, his skin stretched grotesquely over the new shape of his face while he mauled whatever came into range. Resten, the beast Tilbrand, had come up with the most disturbing way to kill of all. With his vicious nature, he was ripping the hearts from the chests of the enemy fighters and piercing them with his teeth for the blood inside before the men even fell.

  Overall, the strategy worked well enough. The beasts were in the center and the warriors around the outside. That kept a buffer zone between the new enemies who were once brothers, but it afforded another advantage. Fighters attempting to escape the beasts were driven into the warriors and vice versa. It worked so well that the entire battle — seven warriors and six beasts facing nearly two hundred men — was over in little more than an hour.

  The allies faced each other warily across the sea of dead and dying foes. Having not learned how to clean themselves, the other beasts were bathed in blood, both the enemy’s and their own. It stained their faces, necks, and teeth in addition to their clothing and hands. The warriors looked at them in sick distaste before settling their stares on Jörg. As fresh as if he had just bathed, he was in startling contrast to beast and warrior alike.

  “What now, Veriel?” Gawen called out.

  Resten interrupted before Jörg could speak. “We go back together,” he asserted as if it were a foregone conclusion.

  “Back?” Pauwel demanded.

  “We were promised—” Resten began.

  “He knows nothing of the false promises,” Jörg boomed out, closing on Resten. “Ask them. We’ve done our duty, but as I warned you, the promises were a lie.”

  “He wouldn’t dare,” Carstol exclaimed.

  “Of course, he would.”

  “What promises?” Gawen exploded.

  Resten shook his head in disbelief. “We were promised all our rights as warriors, all our property— As long as we fought as beasts and won, we were promised—” He looked at Jörg hopelessly. “Tell them,” he roared.

  “He lied,” Jörg replied smoothly. “I told you, but you refused to believe me.”

  “What can we do?” Draden asked.

  “To get what you were promised? Nothing, just like I told you. To get revenge?” He smiled a cold, calculating smile. “He is mine alone.”

  “Who is yours?” Ditrich asked quietly.

  “Marclef. His life is forfeit only to me.” Jörg glared at Resten. “Only one of the lives I intend to take. Would you care to come with me to prove his deceit to our brothers?”

  Resten looked at him uncertainly.

  “Tonight is not your night to die,” Jörg assured him.

  “I suppose I have your word on that,” the other beast noted acidly.

  “You would do well to remember that I always keep my word,” he countered.

  Resten nodded. “I want to hear the truth for myself.” He looked around. “Is one of your gifts controlling a horse?” he asked hopefully.

  Jörg smiled widely and shook his head. He grabbed Resten by the arm roughly and pulled him into his sadistic smile. “Try this,” he invited, as he forced Resten to dematerialize in his hands. Resten screamed in shock and fear as Jörg dragged his essence over the countryside. The beast’s terror and confusion were even more satisfying than the shock evident on the warrior’s faces.

  Resten’s terror stemmed only partly from not knowing — not knowing how Jörg was forcing his will on him this way, not knowing how he was accomplishing this feat of flying, and not knowing what the younger man’s intentions were. The rest was even more satisfying. Resten feared dematerializing. Better, he loathed the sensation. Even if he survived longer than Jörg planned for him, Resten would never master flight. His beast still forced the process on him before every dawn, having tired of waiting for the burning to distract Resten before completing its task.

  When he forced Resten back into his solid form, the man lunged at him with wild eyes. Jörg dematerialized while Resten barreled through him and reappeared as the madman turned to glare at him. “You cannot touch me unless I wish it,” Jörg informed him patiently. “Come with me while I collect Marclef.”

  “Collect? I thought—”

  “Sibold will know why I am doing this. Perhaps, if the warriors know what you were promised, it will go easier on you.”

  “You don’t believe that,” Resten whispered.

  “No, I don’t,” he admitted.

  * * * *

  Gawen turned his eyes from the space where the two beasts once stood, as Pauwel turned and tore off for the trees. “Pauwel! What are you doing?” he barked.

  The younger man stopped and looked at him in disbelief. “They are going to the village to exercise their rights. Regana, Kethe, Riberta, Anabilia—” He threw up his hands in frustration, as Gawen’s eyes widened in understanding. />
  “And all those who don’t have amulets.” Bavin doesn’t have an amulet. “He’s right. We have to go now. We can’t waste time—” Gawen broke off as he realized that the beasts had gone to ground to protect themselves, until the warriors left them to finish off the half-dead of the enemy in a healing feeding frenzy. “We go,” he ordered, struggling to catch up with Pauwel as the warrior sprinted to the trees where their horses were sheltered.

  They rode as hard as they dared push their horses. If only they had the time to spare to find the horses they drove off before the battle, this wouldn’t be necessary, but they didn’t. As it was, the warriors were on the edges of self-control every time they had to slow or stop to keep from losing their mounts. Common sense told them that travelling on foot was not an option, but the idea of driving the horses to death on the chance of reaching the village sooner seemed strangely attractive in their desperation.

  It was daybreak before they reached the training area. The foul smell assaulted their senses first, the same smell that wafted over the battlefield from the injured beasts.

  “Beast blood,” Gawen noted as he strode toward the doorway in the gray half-light with his weapons up, unsure of how much light was required to send a beast to ground.

  “Where is Sibold?” Wil asked him, as Gawen crouched to examine a dark stain on the packed earth.

  “Inside. Dragged inside,” he assured them after confirming to himself that the track he was examining was human blood and not beast.

  Pauwel strode to the doors and pushed one back in annoyance, obviously tired of playing at hiding with the beasts. Too late to stop him, Gawen launched after the headstrong young warrior. As Pauwel ducked into the darkness beyond the door, Gawen saw the attack coming. He grasped the wrist that held the blade headed for Pauwel firmly as the other man spun away.

  Gawen swung one of his own blades for the unseen enemy’s throat. The feminine cry of fear stopped him in his tracks, and he dragged the woman into the soft light in the doorway, as her cry set off sobs and screams from the far reaches of the pitch black room. Her eyes met his and widened in surprise as Gawen dropped his blade and dragged her to his chest.