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She turned and ran three steps, then halted. If she escaped—
He would find her mother.
Nearly four years of protecting others from immortals fused with a lifetime of looking after Sarra. Weiryn was forgotten. Her frightened mind seized on one thing: If he didn’t get her, the tauros would go after her ma.
The tauros bellowed. Daine spun. She had to do something—in a minute he would be on her. Hands shaking, she dropped what she held. If only she had a bow! Even the sling she’d used as a girl—
The towels lay across her fallen clothes in a pair of clean white stripes.
She grabbed both, slinging one over her shoulder, keeping the other in hand. The brambles grew to the pond’s edge on her left. Even if she had seen ammunition there, it would be impossible to get. She’d have to go to her right, around the open edge of the water. Trotting around the cluster of rocks where she’d left her things, she scanned the ground. In a heap of stones and gravel, she saw five rocks the size of hen’s eggs.
The tauros moaned, a sound that made her own throat go tight. He was two-thirds of the way across the neck of water between them.
Daine seized a rock. Fumbling slightly—it had been years since she’d used a sling—she folded the towel into a sling and placed the stone in the cradle. Cloth and rock felt awkward, even wrong, as she began to twirl her makeshift weapon. Her body protested the large, strong movements required for a sling.
When she felt the best moment, when the weight of the stone and the speed of her arm seemed right, she released one end of the sling. The rock shot past the immortal’s head, skipped over the surface, then dropped from sight.
The tauros watched her missile sink. Horrified, Daine could see that he stood on the bottom. The water was up to his chest.
When I was little, I would’ve been glad to skip a rock four times! she thought, grabbing a new stone. She neatened the towel-sling, keeping an eye on the tauros. He decided that her first missile was not worth his interest. He ploughed into the shallows, drooling as he stared at her.
“Goddess, help me,” she whispered. Bringing the sling up higher, she twirled hard. The motion felt better. She let fly.
It struck the tauros on the shoulder, opening a large gash. He roared with pain and fury; silvery blood coursed over his chest. Frantically he scooped pond water to splash on the wound, flat nose running.
Daine seized two more stones—all she could hold—and backed up, putting the cluster of flat rocks between her and the immortal. It was hard to neaten the sling one-handed. Still retreating, she took the time to do it right; sloppy work now would kill her. When the tauros advanced, she loaded a rock and began to twirl. The circles of her wrist and elbow were broad now; her sense of when to release was exact. She let fly.
Her stone hit the tauros in the throat. His bellow was a strangled croak; he dropped to his knees with a splash, scrabbling at his neck. Dripping sweat, the girl flipped her sling into place and loaded her final rock.
The tauros lurched to his feet, wheezing. He stumbled forward, flat teeth bared.
“Don’t,” she called, lips quivering. She didn’t want to kill a beast who could no more help his nature than she could. “Give up, please!”
He roared and came on, the ground quivering under his weight. When he was six yards from her, she loosed her final shot with all her strength. It slammed between his eyes and stayed, embedded in his skull. The tauros gasped, flailed blindly, and toppled into the mud. There he thrashed, and choked, and died.
“I’m sorry,” she cried, eyes overflowing. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. . . .”
Broad Foot surfaced nearby, plainly upset. “What happened? If I’d known that a tauros was about, I wouldn’t have brought you here! Where did it come from?”
“It crossed between realms,” she replied, still trembling. “I think it may’ve been sent. I had a vision of Ozorne, anyway, right before it came.”
“But how did he know where you are?”
“I’ve no idea.”
“And why do you weep? You’ve killed before.”
“And I hate it!” she cried. “Especially when this poor, idiot thing couldn’t do no different!” She tried to gather her things, and dumped them into the mud. “Look at him—what else is he made for but to prey on females? Are there any lady tauroses?”
“No. No, there aren’t.”
“Wonderful! No one cared enough to give them mates of their own kind. All they know to do is grab two-legger females. They either kill them or get killed themselves. It’s wrong!” Pulling her belongings from the mud, she ran to her parents’ house.
Broad Foot eyed the dead tauros. “She has a point,” he told it. “Someone ought to bring the matter to the Great Gods’ attention—once things quiet down a bit.”
Halfway to her parents’ home, the girl paused: A Stormwing awaited her there. She hesitated only for a moment, then re-formed her towel-sling and grabbed stones for ammunition. If that Stormwing was an enemy, he or she had a surprise coming!
Emerging from the cover of the trees, she saw that her father and Numair were seated on the slab of rock that served the cottage as a doorstep. The immortal she had detected stood on the ground before them. He turned as she approached, his movement setting the bones that were braided into his long, blond hair to clicking.
Daine relaxed and tossed her rocks aside. She wouldn’t need them for Rikash Moonsword.
“What happened to you?” asked the green-eyed Stormwing as Broad Foot appeared on the path between him and the men. Numair got to his feet, frowning.
“Broad Foot will explain,” Daine said, weaving between the mage and her father. “I need to clean up.”
She scrubbed, then pulled on clean garments with hands that still trembled. As she was combing out her hair, Sarra knocked on the door. “We’re having lunch in the garden,” she called. “If you’re decent, come take a perch out for your Stormwing friend to sit on.”
Quickly the girl finished. Feeling calmer now, she did as she was told. Once she’d set up the perch by the outdoor table, Rikash glided down from the rooftop and took his place. For the moment they were alone. Numair and Weiryn were nowhere in sight.
“You let me down,” the girl told the Stormwing. “We thought your Queen Barzha would finish Ozorne once he was a Stormwing. Instead, he shows up in the spring with our enemies, and hundreds of Stormwings at his back.”
“Two hundred and forty-eight Stormwings to be exact,” Rikash said bitterly. “Those who did not care that he held a queen and her mate captive. Those who ignore the fact that he took his Stormwing crown by killing Jokhun from behind. Those without regard for Stormwing law. They are the army that followed him to the mortal realms.” He laughed. “Queen Barzha and her followers are fugitives, Daine. We stayed in the Divine Realms when the barriers fell. Here, at least, we are partly safe from Ozorne and his flock.”
Ignoring his pronounced odor, Daine put a comforting hand on the Stormwing’s shoulder. “I’m sorry to hear it. How are Queen Barzha and Lord Hebakh?”
“Tired,” replied the immortal. “As am I. Ozorne sends groups back to harry us. It is not enough to have most of us as followers—those who will not follow, he wants dead.”
“How many are on your side of it?”
Rikash shook his head, making the bones in his hair clatter. “Sixty-three, in all.” He tried a smile; it was half bitter. “Don’t take us to task for not killing him. We’ve tried our best.”
Daine sighed. “We humans haven’t done so well at it, ourselves.”
Sarra, Weiryn, and Numair came out, carrying their lunch, as the three animal gods materialized at their places by the table. With Rikash positioned downwind so that his odor wouldn’t spoil their dinner, the plates and bowls were passed.
“Has anyone thought of a way that we can go home?” asked Numair.
“There is none,” growled Weiryn. “The Great Gods are speaking to no one as long as Uusoae fights them.”
D
aine moved the food on her plate. “What about the animal gods? I came here last fall, while I was in Carthak. You took me back to the mortal realms then, Badger.”
“Not possible,” replied the great animal. “You were dead then. All I had to do was put you back into your mortal body. With both of you still alive, not all of the animal gods together could move you between the realms.”
“You are far better off here with your mother,” said Weiryn. “If you insist on leaving, then wait until the fall equinox, when the gates open for the likes of us and you. And there’s one of those things again!” he cried as the darking oozed onto the table, having climbed up Daine’s leg.
“Leave it be, Da,” she told him. “It’s not hurting anyone.”
Stretching to make itself taller, the darking changed. Up came a serpentlike neck, supporting a wedge-shaped head. The body the darking made was long and slender, with powerful hindquarters and long forepaws that were as nimble as hands. Two great wings unfurled out of the blot’s shoulders.
“Dragons,” Rikash said. “This creature is right, whatever it is. They might very well take you back. You have been looking after their young one.”
“You mean for my daughter to journey to the Dragonlands? Absolutely not,” Weiryn snapped. “It’s too risky.”
“They might refuse to help,” Queenclaw pointed out. “I never met a dragon that wasn’t perverse—they’re worse than we cats. Even the Great Gods can’t force a dragon to do anything it doesn’t wish to.”
