Wolfblade (55 page)

The beauty of Sanctuary had overwhelmed Wrayan at first. And it wasn’t just the impressive white-spired fortress, with its scores of beautifully crafted balconies and terraces. Inside, the settlement encompassed an entire valley with a rainbow-tinted cascade that supplied the settlement with water and tinkled musically across the valley in a fashion too perfect to be a mere accident of nature. Everything here was steeped in happiness, almost to the point that Wrayan sometimes wanted to run through the halls screaming at the top of his voice just to see if he could dent their inhuman calm.

He didn’t, of course. Instead, he anxiously awaited Brak’s return. Brak would take him out of the settlement for a while and let him breathe the air of the mountains, where he could scream and curse and get into a fight if he felt the need. It wasn’t that Wrayan actually felt the need. It was just the idea that he
could
that appealed to him, even if only for a short time.

“Did you feel it?”

Wrayan turned from the balcony. Princess Shananara stood by the door to his room in the elegant, loose white robes favoured by her people. He’d spent a great deal of his idle time over the past two years fantasising about Shananara té Ortyn. She was the most stunning creature Wrayan had ever laid eyes on. She was very tall, with a statuesque body and long dark red hair. Her eyes were her most startling feature, and the single most obvious trait that betrayed her inhuman ancestry. They were completely black with no white surrounding the pupil to relieve their piercing intensity. He had no idea how old Shananara was. She looked no more than twenty, perhaps twenty-five at a stretch but she was probably four or five hundred years old. Wrayan didn’t dare ask. He knew better than to question any lady about her age.

“Are we back in real time already?”

She nodded and crossed the airy, spacious room to stand with him on the
balcony overlooking the picturesque valley. “Perhaps your senses are not as refined as mine,” she suggested diplomatically. “My uncle released the spell about an hour ago.”

“I didn’t realise,” he admitted, thinking “refined” was a very polite way of saying “nowhere near as powerful”. In Wrayan’s muddled memories he heard a voice sometimes, telling him how powerful a magician he was. The disembodied voice was wrong, he knew now. Compared to even an average Harshini, Wrayan was like a day-old kitten—blind, deaf and completely helpless. And compared to Shananara, her brother and her uncle, even the average Harshini wasn’t much better off.

“Is Brak back yet?”

Shananara shook her head. “We’ve only been back in real time for an hour, Wrayan. It could be days before he gets here. He may not even be in the mountains yet.”

“Oh,” he said, trying to hide his disappointment. “Can’t the demons tell how far away he is?”

“Only if they feel like it,” she chuckled. “Besides, Brak tries to discourage the demons from following him around in the human world. They have been known to cause mischief on occasion.”

“I can imagine,” Wrayan agreed, wondering how Brak prevented the shape-shifting little creatures from trailing him. Here in Sanctuary they were everywhere, the counterbalance to the Harshini’s pacifist natures. The little grey demons were everything the Harshini were not, their mischievous spirits tempered by their blood bond with the Harshini. At first, Wrayan had thought the relationship between the Harshini and their demons to be that of master and slave. He realised eventually that it was more like different sides of the same coin.

“I hope he gets here soon.”

The princess took his hand in hers and smiled even wider. “Am I such terrible company, Wrayan?”

“Of course not!” he hurried to assure her, acutely conscious of her silky, seductive touch. “It’s just . . .”

“Brak is part human, like you?” she suggested with an arched brow. She let go of his hand, which allowed Wrayan to breathe a little easier. “I suppose you’re itching to get out of here and go do strange human things with a like-minded fellow of your own race. Or is it just a male thing?”

“A bit of both,” he admitted. “Brak promised the next time he was here we’d go—” He was going to say “hunting” but thought better of completing the sentence. Wrayan’s Harshini blood was diluted enough that their strict vegetarian diet left him craving meat; a craving he couldn’t give voice to without upsetting his hosts. The Harshini abhorred violence. To express a need or, worse, a desire to kill any animal (even if the carnivorous part-humans planned to eat it afterwards) would offend Shananara greatly.

“Well, I’m sure he’ll be here soon. In the meantime, if you need to get out of Sanctuary that badly, my uncle is planning a foray into the mountains shortly. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind if you joined him.”

Wrayan smiled. The suggestion he accompany Lorandranek into the mountains had more to do with keeping an eye on the king than Shananara’s desire to allow Wrayan a chance to stretch his legs. Lorandranek had a tendency to wander off. Last spring he’d announced he was going out for a walk in the mountains and didn’t come back for several weeks, and even then he only returned because Korandellen sent Brak after him to bring him home.

The Harshini king was a tormented man, torn between the need to preserve the last of his own people by hiding them out of time and mourning the human lives he knew had been lost as the world tumbled slowly but inexorably into anarchy, because the Harshini were no longer there to guide them down the path of peace. He maintained a jovial exterior, but everybody from the newest demon to the oldest Harshini in Sanctuary knew that the irresolvable conflict was tearing Lorandranek apart.

“Perhaps I will join him,” Wrayan agreed, pushing off the balcony. “If you’re sure he won’t mind.”

“Of course he won’t mind,” Shananara assured him. “He’ll enjoy your company.”

“I’d better go then. I don’t want to miss him.”

“Don’t let him wander too far.”

“I won’t.”

She smiled, and touched his face lightly with her hand. The intimate gesture sent a shiver down his spine. And alarmed Wrayan a great deal. He was suddenly afraid she had read his thoughts. But even if she knew how he felt about her, until that moment Wrayan had been convinced there was no chance of the princess ever looking at him as anything other than a novelty, because he had far too much human blood in him for safety.

“I’ll miss you,” she told him softly.

Breathe, damn it! Just keep breathing!

“I . . . really,
really
. . . should be going, your highness.”

With a hint of regret, she lowered her hand and stepped away from him. Even from that distance Wrayan could sense her desire radiating off her like heat from a small sun. There were legends about the Harshini and the effect they had on humans. If you believed the rumours, the Sisters of the Blade cult had started because a few Medalonian women had been afraid of the effect Harshini lovers had on their menfolk. Some people believed the purges the Sisterhood periodically launched to wipe out the Harshini were prompted by jealousy as much as a grab for power. Fighting back the almost irresistible urge to take Shananara in his arms, Wrayan thought he understood what the Sisters of the Blade were afraid of.

The princess took a deep breath and another step back from him. “Yes, Wrayan,” she said with a rueful smile. “I think perhaps you should go.”

Without another word, Wrayan bowed hastily and fled the room, thinking he didn’t need a walk in the mountains right at that moment so much as a very cold shower.

T
he air in the Sanctuary Mountains was crisp. Winter might be officially over, but the season clung tenaciously to the slopes, reluctant to relinquish its grip. The higher peaks remained covered in snow and even on the lower slopes only a few brave trees dared show their spring foliage yet. The evergreens were still weighed down by their winter dressing of ice, too, but the air smelled like spring in some indefinable way that Brak could not explain.

The Halfbreed stopped for a moment and smiled as he felt Sanctuary return. The pull towards home was always there, but when Sanctuary was out of time it was muted and dull. The moment Lorandranek let go of the spell that kept the settlement hidden, however, Sanctuary blazed like a beacon in Brak’s mind, calling him home with an irresistible compulsion.
Lorandranek must be feeling particularly restless this year
, Brak thought as he trudged upward through the snow-covered trail.
It is barely the first day of spring and already Sanctuary is back. The king must be itching to escape his self-imposed imprisonment so he can roam his beloved mountains again
.

Maybe, this time, he wouldn’t wander too far, although it was probably an idle hope. Lorandranek hated being locked in Sanctuary for most of the year, even though he knew it was the only way to protect his people until the reign of the Sisterhood was at an end. For that matter, none of the Harshini was really thrilled with the idea, with the possible exception of the King’s nephew and heir, Korandellen, who seemed to have no trouble at all with his enforced confinement. Brak was lucky he had a choice, but for his full-blooded cousins it wasn’t as easy. So many had been killed in the purges over the last two hundred years, and since they lacked the ability to defend themselves, they had little choice but to hide.

The trouble was, Brak thought as he continued on his way, over the past hundred years, as humans cleared ever more land for farming, the logging villages in the mountains had been moving higher and higher until there
were now several human settlements within a few days of Sanctuary. It was an alarming trend that Brak often wondered if he should try to reverse. Rumours abounded among the humans in Medalon about the haunted Sanctuary Mountains. With a bit of magic, it wouldn’t take much to scare the settlers off. On the other hand, if news reached the Citadel that the villagers had seen or heard anything that might indicate there were Harshini in the vicinity, the Sisterhood would send the Defenders to investigate.

Perhaps it was safer to leave well enough alone
.

“Brak is back!” a high-pitched voice suddenly squealed delightedly. Before he had a chance to react, a small missile launched itself at him from the concealment of the trees, followed by another creature who threw itself at him so hard that, together, they knocked him off his feet.

“You’re back! You’re back! You’re back!” one of the little demons shrieked, jumping up and down on his chest.

“Eyan! Elebran! Get off him at once!” a stern female voice commanded.

The demons jumped off Brak hurriedly, fortunately before they broke any ribs, and allowed him a chance to sit up. An elegant hawk stood on the path in front of him. It stared at him for a moment then began to change form until it was replaced by a small grey demon.

“Lady Elarnymire,” Brak said with a smile.

“Lord Brakandaran.”

“You didn’t have to come and meet me.”

“I didn’t,” the little demon informed him curtly. “I was after these two fools. Eyan and Elebran are the ones who thought you deserving of a welcoming party.”

The little demons stared at him cautiously as he climbed to his feet, dusting off the snow he was now covered with before it could melt and soak his clothes. “Next time, warn me before you do that,” he ordered crossly.

Elebran’s ears drooped and Eyan’s bottom lip trembled. Brak took pity on them and smiled. The little demons shrieked with glee when they realised he wasn’t really mad at them and threw themselves into his arms, almost choking him with the strength of their embrace.

“All right! Enough!” he cried, pushing them off. “Here, carry my pack. That should keep you out of trouble for a while.” He unshouldered his heavy pack and tossed it on the ground. It was bigger than both demons put together and they immediately began squabbling about the best way to lift it. Brak ignored them and turned back to Lady Elarnymire, the matriarch of his family’s demon brethren.

“Sanctuary is back early this year,” he remarked.

“It’s spring.”

“Only just.”

“I am not responsible for the actions of the Harshini king, Brakandaran.”

“If you were, he’d be much more organised, I’m sure,” Brak replied with a smile.

The demon grinned and turned to the squabbling pair who still hadn’t figured out how they were going to lift Brak’s pack off the ground. “Oh, for the gods’ sake, you two!” she snapped impatiently. “One of you must change into a sleigh and the other can drag it!” She shook her wrinkled grey head in frustration. “This happens every year. The young demons spend too much time cooped up in Sanctuary, and then when they do get a chance to escape they’re too ignorant to do anything. We don’t meld often enough any more,” she lamented. “Not into the really big melds. We can do the small things while Sanctuary is out of time, but some of these younger demons are only a hundred years old. They’ve never even seen a dragon meld, let alone taken part in one. There’s just no way for them to learn what they need to know.”

“Maybe we can meld a dragon while I’m here?” he suggested.

The little demon sighed wistfully and began walking back up the path. Brak fell into step beside her. Behind them, Elebran had managed to change into a rather lopsided-looking sleigh onto which Eyan was pushing Brak’s pack with a great deal of grunting and groaning and quite a few protests coming from the sleigh.