Daughter of the Moon (The Moon People, Book Two) (59 page)

Netya felt Adel's fingers brush hers, but after a growl from Miral the touch was gone. Any words of hope the den mother might have gifted her apprentice remained unspoken. She pulled away, rising to her feet and leading the rest of her followers back toward the slope in silence. When they paused next to Caspian, Miral shook his head.

"He stays here for the beasts."

Another sob left Netya's chest. She tried to crawl forward, but Miral's heel pressed down until her neck ached.

"Be thankful," he said. "Your man met his end at the hands of a great alpha. Any true warrior would relish such a death."

Once Netya stopped resisting he removed his foot and limped forward to the edge of the slope, watching Adel lead her sombre procession of followers away. Once they had disappeared into the rain he glanced down at Caspian, nudging him with his foot. He did not move.

"Make ready to travel," he called back to the others. "Once the girl has bound my leg back up, we leave."

"She is in no state to do that. Look at her," Nekare said in a tone that bordered on distaste.

Miral seemed to either not notice or care about the dissent in his follower's voice, for he simply shrugged and wedged his toes beneath Caspian's side, rolling him over the edge of the slope.

Netya covered her ears, not wanting to hear the rustle of grass and the thud of flesh against earth as her love tumbled out of sight. She could not drive the image of his face from her mind. No longer was she haunted by Meadow and Selo's final moments. Instead, she had to relive something much worse.

Nekare was right; she could not have willed herself to tend anyone's wounds even if she had wanted to. It took the effort of two men to drag her upright and pry her fingers from the furrows she had clawed into the earth.

From that moment on, nothing seemed to matter. Sounds became a distant throb in her ears. Her eyes were wide open, but her mind and body seemed incapable of reacting to the things she saw. Someone tried to press food and water to her mouth, but her lips did not move. She felt like she was still lying there in the mud that now soaked her body. Everything was cold. The world had become numb. When she refused to eat, she felt nuts and roots being pressed into her cupped hands, but they spilled from her fingers and scattered into the grass at the edge of the cave wall.

After a time someone moved her, hefting her into their arms when she proved incapable of standing by herself. She did not know who it was, only that it was not Miral. They carried her back out into the rain and set her astride the wolf that had carried her the night before. She slumped down against his back, holding on to the beast's wet, matted coat.

When she thought of Adel and her friends, she wanted to weep. When she thought of Caspian, she began to wonder whether throwing herself from the wolf's back would be enough to silence her thoughts forever. When she remembered her daughter, she tried her best to think of nothing at all. It was easier to embrace the numbness than to accept that she had to go on. To consider that the world would still be there waiting for her tomorrow. Life would continue, but it would no longer be the life she knew and loved. Miral had made sure of that.

She was a feather lost in a storm once more, tossed here and there by the currents of fate, battered and made ragged, without the power or will to change her course. All she could do was accept that she still lived. Whether that was a gift or a curse, it was the truth. She had survived. For how long, she did not know. To what purpose, she barely cared. Even her duty to her unborn child seemed hollow and thin, like a shadow on the surface of a pond glimpsed only faintly from the quiet depths.

Netya withdrew into herself, detached even from her own senses. They travelled. The rain stopped. Night fell. The rain started again. At some point she was lifted from the back of the wolf, and she lay between the roots of a tree until she slept. If she dreamt, the dreams were too painful to remember. The men managed to make her drink a little, but she would not eat. The taste of food made her throat close up and her aching stomach tighten even further.

They were no longer travelling the grassy scrubland, but following the course of a broad river. Thick trees surrounded them on all sides. Netya could no longer tell in which direction they had travelled or for how long. She only knew that she was far from home. Days passed, but the trees and the river remained the same.

Whenever she could, she spent her time staring up at the sky. It was soothing to see the grey clouds. The pale blue. The deep night. Sometimes, when the trees thinned, she could almost imagine she was floating in the peaceful void of the heavens, far away from herself. It was like being in the spirit world.

But when she awoke one morning, the sky was gone. The aged poles of a tent held up a canopy of stitched hides above her. She could hear the voices of women nearby, and no matter how long she lay there no one tried to rouse her for the day's travel. Soft hands bathed the dirt from her body with warm water. She sipped tea that reminded her of home.

Without the sky there to soothe her, her thoughts began straying painfully close to the present, and when the world around her began to make sense again, she realised that she must have arrived in the place Miral's clan called home.

40—

Revenant

It was difficult to tell what time of day it was, for all he could see was grass and twigs. Night time, perhaps, or early morning. The dim light was either that of dawn or a faint moon. He dared not move. Not yet. His hold on life still seemed tenuous, and he knew enough of wounds to understand that the slightest movement might break his healing flesh and spill what little blood remained in his body.

Miral had likely saved his life, Caspian realised, as he lay there at the foot of the slope. He remembered Adel's voice telling him to press down as hard as he could, and the feeling of a scrap of her gown being forced into his hand. He had tried, willing his fingers to clench shut over the bleeding wound, but his grip had loosened as more and more blood poured from his neck.

The fool should have torn my throat out,
he mused, trying to think of anything that would take his mind off the pain of his injury and the immensely uncomfortable position he had come to rest in. Had he remained lying on his back at the top of the slope, he would have bled to death for sure. His consciousness had been fading fast by the time Miral kicked him over the edge, but he had remained cognisant enough to keep the scrap of wool pressed against the side of his neck with the last of his remaining strength as he rolled down.

The hard branch that had broken his fall dug painfully into his front, but it was a pain Caspian was thankful for. It seemed a small price to pay for the pressure the crooked piece of wood had applied to the back of his wrist, forcing his palm tight against his neck with the full weight of his body bearing down to pin it in place. He could hardly breathe, and the amount of crimson painting the grass before his eyes was sickening, but the fall had kept him alive. The strength of his resilient body had done the rest.

At first it was easy to remain still, but as the hours passed and the grogginess began to clear from Caspian's head, the memory of Netya's voice came back to him. Her cry of anguish when he fell. Her sobs of despair as he lay there bleeding. She must surely believe him dead by now. His wound would have killed one of her kind without a doubt. It was rare even for one of the Moon People to survive such harm. But Miral had been too confident in his bite, and his teeth had not dug as deep as they should have.

Yet despite his miraculous good fortune, Caspian was no fool. Waking up after receiving such a wound was no guarantee that he would still be alive a day from now. He had bled much of his life essence away, and his body was still dying. If he closed his eyes again, they might never re-open. If he could not put the last of his fading strength to good use, he would lapse back into slumber and die where he lay.

The soreness in Caspian's throat was not just from his healing injury, he realised, but also the raging thirst that had dragged him back to consciousness. How long had he lain there while his wound healed? He was fortunate that no wild scavengers had happened upon him. It was not the necessities of survival that ultimately forced him to move, however, but the realisation that Netya was still with Miral and his pack, victim to whatever torments they subjected her to. The thought was unbearable, and it almost drew a groan of anguish from Caspian before he felt the throb of his throat commanding his rumbling voice to stop.

He tried to move his arm, but half of his body had gone numb after being pinned in place for so long. With an effort he managed to roll over, trying to keep his tingling fingers pressed against his throat as he hauled himself off the branch and on to his back. He ached, but the surge of pain rushing through his body was only from the release of pressure on his cramped muscles. As gently as he could, he moved his hand away from his neck and tried a careful swallow. It was dry and difficult, but only a little pain followed. He could not taste any blood in his mouth. That was good.

The scrap of Adel's gown was still pressed to the wound, stuck to his skin where the blood had clotted. As meagre of a dressing as it was, perhaps it had been enough to preserve his life. He silently thanked the den mother, rolling his joints until his body woke back up. He needed water urgently, and food soon after. Even though he had mended a little, he could tell that the healing process had consumed all but the last dregs of his strength. A feverish haze surrounded his thoughts, and his hands trembled as he began a painstaking crawl along the dip in the land he had fallen into. There had been a half-dry riverbed nearby, he remembered. There would be water there, if only he could find it again.

The journey would have been much easier in the body of his wolf, but he was not willing to risk his mending flesh by making the change. Not only that, but a lingering sense of anger and disappointment visited him whenever he brushed the submerged part of his animal consciousness. It had grown mercifully dormant in his time spent away from the waking world, allowing his bestial impulses to cool and his thoughts to clear. The things he had done while his wolf was in control barely made sense to him any more.

You fool.
He grit his teeth as he crawled through the grass.
He could have killed everyone, and you led them straight to him.

Perhaps, had Miral not tricked him, he could have won the challenge and brought Netya back. But why had he expected the alpha to fight with honour? Had they themselves not just driven him from their valley using the kinds of tricks and deceptions that were anathema to any proud warrior? He had not been thinking. Reckless and stupid, driven by the beast.

Yet even as he thought it, he could feel the same restless impulse building within him again, as if he was being driven slowly mad by the knowledge that Netya was at the mercy of their enemies. He could not go back to the valley. His wolf would not let him.

Then what? Was he to track Miral and challenge him again? His wound might still kill him before he so much as crawled out of this ditch. He needed to hunt and regain his strength. The rival alpha and his pack would be leagues distant by now.

It does not matter. I cannot go back.

As the realisation dawned, a veil of grim acceptance fell over Caspian. When he first set out with Adel he had grown unsure of his place, unsettled and confused as to his purpose in the world once he was no longer his alpha's advisor. He had needed conviction. A sign to bind him to something new. He had made that bond on the night of the summer fires, when he reminded himself that Netya was his purpose now. Her above all else.

Wolves were simple creatures, and he realised now that his had bound him to Netya so firmly that nothing else mattered to him. The news of their child had only strengthened that connection. Regardless of his wisdom, his good sense, and his willingness to think before acting, his wolf cared only for one thing. And it would drag him to the ends of the world in pursuit of her, even if he knew it would mean his death.

Perhaps it is just the fever. My thoughts are not my own.

It was difficult for him to accept, but the bestial fury stirring within him was no illusion. The more foolish choice would have been to try and deny the power it held over him. But for the time being, he could at least focus on the one thing both he and his bestial half agreed on: he had to survive.

The rain had let up, and in the absence of its continual patter he was starting to make out the sound of running water nearby. His body shook as he crawled toward the noise, partly from weakness, but mostly from the cold. It was yet another blessing that he had not frozen as he lay soaked through with rain for so long. He had no way to make fire, and no way to dry his clothing. Everything he touched was wet and muddy. Perhaps if he could make his way back to the nearby forest he could find shelter and warmth, but sooner or later he would need his wolf's fur coat to insulate him. If the wind picked up, the chill left by the rain would become as cold as ice.

The old riverbed, now swollen to a shallow stream, eventually snaked down the southern slope into the hollow where Caspian crawled, just as he had suspected. He dragged himself over the muddy bank and slid down on his hip into the water, barely aware of the silty, brackish taste as he submerged his face and drank until he ran out of breath.

Gasping with relief, he slumped back against the riverbank, closing his eyes as he caught his breath. A ginger touch to the scrap of wool told him that his throat was still tender, but he needed to eat soon. The longer he waited, the weaker he would get, and the thin blood in his veins would grow still long before he mustered the strength to hunt.