The Cursewright's Vow

Chapter 10: The Veil of Ravens, Part 3

 Casimir was huddled against Carala, and he was glad she was clean and warm and soft. A little bony from her journey, maybe, but the arm around his shoulder and the softness of her side was immensely comforting. He knew Ammas had told him that he was to protect her, but he hardly saw how that could be possible. When the howls began, and the sound of some monstrous crash in the temple above reverberated down the catacomb stairs, Casimir shuddered and hid his face against the girl's body, trying very hard not to weep. That had already happened too many times today, if not under circumstances quite as dire as these. But he couldn't help himself. There was nothing he could imagine that sound to mean other than some monster tearing Ammas apart.

For her own part, Carala did not think Ammas would be taken so easily. The stories she had heard of cursewrights and others from the fellowships, stories she had studied despite her tutors' disapproving frowns, spoke of cursewrights commanding some of the most dangerous forces known to all the arcane colleges. Such things were spoken of in all the fellowships -- astrologers and their abilities to summon the storms, seer-magistrates and their skill at confounding the mind, forgewrights and the terrible weapons of war they could build in their workshops -- but there was a darkness around the edges of the cursewrights' tales that she had always found unsettling. Some of those stories felt as though the writers themselves had been afraid to record their own thoughts on the matter.

"It's all right, Casimir," she whispered in his ear, gazing fearfully up the stair. The sounds were not encouraging, but at least they had not heard Ammas scream. Even now the seemingly endless black pit which loomed beyond the cheery light of the caged spirit was far more frightening than whatever she heard rumbling from the temple's hall. Carala's fingers eased through the boy's tightly kinked hair to knead his scalp comfortingly. "You know your master, you know he can handle himself." She wished she knew more than she did about him, but she didn't doubt Ammas's knowledge at least was extensive. As to his combat skills . . . well, she hoped the old legends and tavern fire tales had a modicum of truth to them.

Another howl vibrated through the air. The spirit trapped in the silver cage pulsed and fluttered against its fetters, almost frantic, brightening and dimming as if it were crying out. Whatever dread was affecting the spirit was something the princess also could not ignore, for Carala felt a deep shiver working through her spine, so deep it made her teeth ache.

"Oh gods, no," she whispered. A rank, loathsome woodland scent was invading her nostrils.

And her body was reacting to it. The hand in Casimir's hair, normally pale but healthy looking, was beginning to darken, silken black hair sprouting just above her knuckles. A compelling and delicious urge struck her: to rip off her modest clothing and leap up those stairs. To add her own howl to the song of wolfish voices.

"Oh gods no," she moaned again, clutching Casimir to her all the more tightly.

*

They were rolling back and forth, Ammas with one arm wrapped around the wolf's head, keeping its fangs buried in his shoulder. With his dagger he had scrawled savage injuries across its free arm, repelling the paw which he knew was powerful enough to take a man's head off at a blow. The fresh robes Casimir had provided him were soaked in blood, both wolfish and human. The beast had not expected such fierce resistance, and it seemed to have lost its speech, only  making violent noises from somewhere deep in its throat. Ammas was completely unconcerned. The wolf's fate was sealed the moment the cursewright had not kept his eyes studiously fixed upon the floor.

Ammas looked over the wolf's head, to the temple around him. The spirit salve had reached its full potency, and now he could peer beyond the Veil of Ravens into the realms of the Dead.