Masques (Sianim #1)(41)

He left when he was able to do so, but he didn't go very far. Aralorn fascinated him; he'd never met anyone so content. On impulse he'd returned to her - though the attraction he felt for her made him nervous.

Absently Wolf moved his bedroll with the toe of his boot. He made a sound that was not humorous enough to be a laugh. He'd been running away from and to Aralorn for a long time. She had caught him in a spell, and he hadn't even known that she was weaving one.

He'd told himself that he was a disinterested observer at first. It was a woeful attempt. No one, but no one, could be objective around Aralorn. She was always doing something; and somehow she managed it so that everyone else was involved too. She had a way of finding the ridiculous in everything. It had been a long time since laughter had made Wolf feel anything but repulsed - the ae'Magi laughed so easily.

Needing someone made him very uncomfortable. He didn't remember ever needing someone before. It wasn't until he'd found out that Aralorn was spying on the ae'Magi that he knew how much she meant to him. Even the thought of her there made him shake with remembered rage and fear.

He wasn't quite certain when his interest had turned to need. He needed her to let him laugh, to be human and not a flawed creation of the ae'Magi. He needed her trust so that he could trust himself. Most of all he needed her touch. Even more than laughter, he associated touch with the ae'Magi - a warm hand on his shoulder (cut it so, child), an affectionate hug (it won't hurt so much next time ...) - Aralorn was a tactile person too, but her touch didn't lie. It made him uncomfortable to feel her hands on him, but he craved it anyway.

He picked up the bedroll and finished his descent into the valley, since it was the shortest way to the caves. When he arrived at the valley floor, even his dulled human nose caught the scent. Uriah.

Alert now, he looked around him and noticed the signs of hasty packing as well as the fact that the tents (including the one that Myr had worked so hard to get finished) were torn into pieces by something other than the wind. He jogged into the main camp to get a closer took. Here the scent was stronger and everywhere were signs of anger vented on inanimate objects.

Human bones were conspicuously absent, and he felt a faint sense of relief. Myr must have had enough warning to get the camp into the caves. As long as the Uriah hadn't been within sight when the people entered the caves, the wards would keep the entrances hidden from the Uriah.

Wolf started once more for the caves when he saw something white in the drying mud. Curious, he investigated and found a horse's skeleton. To his relief, it was too small to be Sheen.

It was picked clean, with only a wisp of mane to distinguish it. The leg bones had been cracked so that all the marrow could be sucked out. It wasn't until he noticed the distinctive patterns on the silver bit that lay nearby that he knew that Aralorn had been riding the horse.

He found another pile of bones, also picked clean, fifteen or twenty paces away. They all had the peculiar twists of the Uriah. He found three skulls - she'd accounted for three of them. He had hoped that if he looked long enough, he would find her among the dead - something inside him laughed mockingly at the thought.

He left his bedroll forgotten among the ruins of the camp and took wolf shape to run toward the caves. On the way there he found the pitiful remains of a small child; a dirty battered dolt lay nearby. Astrid - he remembered the doll. He knew then why Aralorn had confronted the Uriah. Rage sang in his blood. He restrained it with a pale sense of duty and the faint hope that Myr would know something to help his search, and continued rapidly to the caves.

He planned quickly as he ran so that he wouldn't think too much on other things. He was conscious of a numbness that crept over him, covering hot rage with a thin coating of ice.

The furious arguments were audible even before he entered the darkness of the cave.

"Silence!" Myr's voice cracked with tiredness, but its power was still enough that it stopped the bickering. "There is nothing that we can do. Aralorn and Astrid are gone. I will not send out parties to be picked off two at a time by the Uriah. We will wait here until I am satisfied that they are gone. Even if Aralorn and Astrid were still alive, even if our whole party went down to the camp and found them prisoners of the Uriah, it wouldn't matter. We could not take them."

Wolf stopped in the shadows of the entrance to the great cavern. Myr stood in front of him, facing the main room so that Wolf had a clear view of Myr's profile. The light from the torch revealed the tired lines of his face. "It wouldn't matter because four Uriah could destroy all of us, however we were armed. They would kill us and we'd be lucky if we killed one of them. Aralorn knew that when she went out looking for Astrid. She stood a better chance than any of us because she has dealt with them before. Had I known what she was doing, I would have stopped her, but I didn't. I will, however, stop any of you who try to leave now. When the sun comes up I will look."

"Afraid of the dark, princeling?" A swarthy man stepped out of the crowd. His face was unfamiliar, so he must have arrived after Wolf left. He was an aristocrat, from his clothes - less impressed with the boy-king than the peasants were.

Wolf spoke then from the darkness of the entryway. "As you should be. If I were him, I would send you out on your own to find out what happens to fools in the dark." Wolf stepped to the left of Myr, clearly revealed in the light of the torch. When he was sure that all eyes were upon him, he took his human form with all the theatrics that even the ae'Magi could have used. Masked and cloaked, he stood with a hand on his glowing staff that made Myr's torch look like a candle. "As it happens, it is unnecessary for anyone to go out.