The Cursewright's Vow

Chapter 22: The Princess's Hunt, Part 4

 The spirit's eye roved back to Carala-the-wolf. Faster and faster she loped, moving on all fours, pawed hands curling against the earth to lend her more speed. When she leapt she became a midnight blur, her lips skinning back to reveal vicious fangs, a lolling pink tongue. That tongue which had lapped at his hand so gently now lathered her jaws in anticipation, saliva dripping from her muzzle as the hunger consumed her. 

The spirit carried only images, so he did not hear her growls or snarls, but the mild night breeze carried to Ammas's ears the terrified, choking bugles of the deer as she caught its throat in her jaws; the strangled cries it made as she snuffed out its life. Broke its neck, perhaps, or simply tore out its throat, her hind paws working at its belly with razor efficiency, loosing its guts onto the ground, the easier for her to feed when she was ready.

Ammas did not run to catch up with her. He knew she would be busy for a long while, feasting on the kill. But he did move at some speed over the uneven ground and treacherous, twisted roots of the forest's suffocating trees, pushing beards of moss out of his face as he picked his way toward the distant light of the airy spirit. In his chest his heart pounded like a hammer against an anvil.

The creature he saw hunched over the freshly slain buck was difficult to reconcile with the sardonic, pretty young woman he had come to know over the last few weeks. Almost as difficult was remembering that this creature had gently lapped his hand and mournfully howled to be let out only a few hours ago. But that at least he could see, as one can see the wildness that lurks behind the brow of the tamest sheepdog. Curls of steam rose from the body, wreathing the midnight furred she-wolf in a misty halo, throwing back the light of the airy spirit in a way that made her feral silhouette look as though it had emerged through a door from another world.

 A shiver ran up and down Ammas's spine. It didn't bear thinking about the doors to the lands of the Dead right now, not when the spirit salve was safely tucked in his belt. Of all the tools he might use to deal with Carala in her wolf shape, that was one he would not touch. There were other worlds beyond the world -- countless ones, if you believed Othma Sulivar. Perhaps it was a wolf spirit before him now, one that could be taught to remain gentle rather than slake its bloodlust.

Slowly she peered over one shoulder, one eye concealed by her tumbled black mane, the other gleaming balefully, reflecting the light. The blood was imperceptible against the darkness of her fur, but by the airy spirit's light he could see her fangs were a uniform crimson. And he could see her fangs quite well, for she wrinkled her muzzle and snarled warningly at him, crouching jealously over the buck. Before his eyes she dove her snout into its flank and tore away a great strip of flesh, devouring it with animal noises Carala had certainly never uttered at the high table in the Chalcedony Palace. The muscles of her back rippled sleekly under her pelt as her tail whickered erratically from side to side, his presence clearly agitating her. Whether it was because she did not want him to see her in this state, or because she did not want to share her kill, Ammas could not say. Carefully he crouched a few yards away from her.

Amber eyes watched him, glowing eerily, fixed now on him. Perhaps she had eaten her fill, or else was too disturbed by his seeming refusal to leave her to her business that her focus was required on the human being in her domain. Not dropping his gaze, Ammas drew his dagger, showed her the flat of the blade, and threw it toward a fallen tree. The blade sank deep into the rotted wood and stayed there, quivering, out of easy reach. Carala-the-wolf's ears twitched curiously. Ammas showed her the palms of his hands, empty and defenseless.

"I'm not here to hurt you or take your kill," he said softly, almost a whisper. 

Of course she heard him perfectly, her eyes narrowing as her ears perked toward him. Lightly she tossed her mane, though whether to flick it out of her eyes or to make some coquettish gesture Ammas could not say. His heart still pounded, uncertainty flooding his veins. Despite the chill night air sweat plastered his clothes to his skin. 

There was no telling how the she-wolf would regard his refusal to draw a weapon. Not since Carala had begun to choke and sicken on the poison cure had he felt so at sea. All might end here, in this little forest clearing, over the body of a slain buck. Silence roared in his ears. The clean forest perfume of Carala's wolfish shape, tainted with the hot reek of deer blood, flooded his nostrils with a strength he could not recollect it ever possessing. Somewhere not too far off he could hear the slow chuckle of a forest stream, perhaps what had drawn the buck here in the first place.

When she leapt upon him, snarling, those amber eyes feverishly glowing, Ammas almost expected it. They crashed to the earth, Ammas grunting as all the wind was knocked from his lungs, his hat flying away from his head. Somehow he kept his gaze away from the useless skymetal blade buried in a tree and fixed instead on the she-wolf's eyes above him. That woodland scent seemed to permeate him now, like a perfume bottle that had exploded in a lady's boudoir, but overlaid with the lower stink of fresh animal blood. He could feel the latter soaking through his robes, trickling down his skin.

Yet all paled in comparison to the snarling wolf's visage above him, her breath hot on his mouth, her eyes blazing with a feral glare. As Denisius had before him, he struggled to perceive the woman concealed in that midnight fur and behind that ferocious muzzle. But she was there. Something indefinable in the angles of that animal face; something intelligent and warm and in such terrible pain in those wolfish eyes.

"Carala," he whispered, transfixed by that amber gaze. "Carala Deyn, tell me you are there." Try as he might to tell himself he must show her no fear, he could feel his pounding heartbeat and the icy chill of terror in his belly. He had not felt so helpless since he had been led to the Silverlamp Theatre by Varallo Thray, and even then the snarls and fangs had not been meant for him.

Slowly he became aware the snarls had subsided to a low rumble in her throat, and the glaring amber eyes were studying him not with hunger but with speculation. In her wolf shape her body threw off a great deal more heat, almost as if she were in the throes of a fever, and he could feel it radiating against him through his clothing. Something almost sensual seemed to arch through her body as she loomed above him. 

From his studies, Ammas knew that copulation was not just possible between a were-creature in its feral shape and a normal human, but at times was downright common. The forgotten tribes of the tundra had worshipped these creatures nearly as gods and considered such unions divinely blessed. Even the song Vos had sung in Autumnsgrove hinted at such forbidden dalliances, with its stanzas describing how beautiful Terille had found her husband Hath in his wolfish shape, how strong and virile. Why his thoughts should be going to such a place -- something any of the Ninefold faiths considered deepest blasphemy and which even his fellowships had regarded as perverse -- he didn't know, unless it was simply such thoughts were preferable to the far likelier possibility that Carala was about to lay open his throat and drown her muzzle in his blood.