“And how is that different from everyday life in the Wittenhame?”
“There are more attentive spectators,” Grosbeak grinned. He was preening. “And we dress up.”
“What did Grosbeak wear?” I asked as Frost and Yarrow rode circles around the flailing Hound, keeping it pinned. I wasn’t worried now about the outcome of this battle. The Wittenbrand were winning easily and when they were finished, I would beg an audience with Wittentree. I simply had to be patient.
Patience,Bluebeard agreed.
“Why do you ask what he wore?” Sparrow seemed to be suppressing amusement.
“I wore the greatest costume the world has ever seen,” Grosbeak said. “It fit me to perfection, flawless in every way, unblemished, unmarred, perfectly balanced, and colored.”
I rolled my eyes but I was following the fight still, waiting to time my greeting until the last head fell. “Of course it was. Tell me, did you dress as a creature of the sea, or as a pouncing lion?”
And then, out of nowhere, one of the Hound’s heads snapped, catching Wittentree in its jaws and shaking her savagely. I felt the air whoosh from my lungs as I froze, unable to do anything to stop it. Klopfen smashed her axe one final time, severing the spine, and the creature collapsed, a broken Wittentree still in one jaw. I could not seem to close my mouth or to swallow the horror of what I was seeing.
“I was entirely in my own skin, obviously,” Grosbeak said. “No other costume could be so lovely.”
“Pity you lost it, then,” I quipped quietly, but horror was rushing through me. Wittentree could have helped. Wittentree could have told me where to go!
I scrambled forward over the rocks, rushing toward where she lay torn and bloody, still half pinned by the jaws of the mighty Hound. Klopfen collapsed, exhausted, on its neck, her breath heaving in her lungs. As I drew near to Wittentree, Frost and Yarrow continued to circle, as if they thought the threat was not yet passed. I hoped they were wrong. I hoped that this was safe, because safe or not I was going in.
I hurried forward, careful of my footing on the rocks. Before me, the Hound of Heaven stank of death and wet dog. Its heavy jowls were thick with bloody fur and when I edged by its paw — as large as a small cow — I trembled.
The Hound bled out across the stone and who would have thought one creature could have so much steaming blood in it? That was three of them I’d seen killed now. How many more could there be?
“Why do they call them Heaven’s Hounds,” I muttered, “when they seem like denizens of hell?”
“I thought you knew, mortal menace.” Grosbeak snickered. “The Wittenhameishell. Anything that comes here to rip us apart must be heaven-sent.”
“Then I suppose I am an angel,” I said.
Drift from heaven, fall to ground, make my breath catch, my heart pound.
You should have been a poet, husband.I say in my mind, with a sigh.When they cut you, you bleed poetry.
“An angel of death, perhaps,” Grosbeak said, his voice thick with scorn. “Where you go, misery follows. Dismemberment, terror, and death are your vanguard, and a sickening sense of misery your rearguard.”
“Always with the flattery,” I murmured, but I did not mind. His verbal sparing kept me sharp as I eased myself down around the still twitching corpse of the massive Hound to where Wittentree was pinned.
The teeth of the Hound clamped firmly around her torso, impaling her three times across the waist and hip. The jaw was locked in death, pinning her in place. Blood swelled in blackening bubbles from around the teeth embedded in her. She drew in a pained breath and the blood bubbled more, seeming almost to boil.
“I find my body loathes this trap and pains me as consequence,” she said, her breath rattling in her chest.
That was unsurprising.
She still had the beauty she’d bargained for from me and it softened her lips and cheeks, but could not soften the sharp knowing in her golden eye or the glassy blindness of the pearl one. Her face was so pale it nearly matched that iridescent orb, and blood leaked harsh and scarlet from her ears.
“I do not favor death by dog bite. It has little to recommend it.”
I crouched down beside her and she held out a hand to me. I took it before I realized it was my hand she was offering me — my living, flesh hand.
“Bargain with me, now at the end,” she said grimly.
“How is this the end?” I asked, taking the wiggling hand in my skeletal one. It felt so foreign that it was strange to think it had ever been mine. “Are you not Wittenbrand? Can you not heal from this as you heal from all else.”
She snorted. “Your perspective is wrong. Look up over your shoulder.”
I turned and looked behind me just in time to see Yarrow skewer Klopfen on the end of his lance. Her mouth formed a silent scream as Frost took her head with a single swipe of his razor-sharp sword. Oh. So theywereenemies, then.
