Defiance (Rise of the Iliri Book 3) (3 page)

He nodded, her words breaking his trance.  Creeping to his partner's side, he spoke directly to the beast in Iliran.  "Sahna ast iliri.  Kierna edst iliri.  Dru nas vaun iliri.  Za ast dru?"  Pausing, he looked over to Sal and translated.  "We are iliri.  She is iliri.  You are not iliri.  What are you?"

"Savar vahn grauori.  Ayme.  Nee, Ayte e grru, vrrg zasht eene," the poor beast panted out.

"Fuck," Jase hissed, diving toward the bitch.  Sal drew her blade, her immediate reaction to protect him from the injured creature.  As he neared, the bitch lifted her head with a whimper, exposing the pups laying lethargic from the cold.  Jase grabbed the first, handing it back toward Sal.  It yelped, but nothing more than the mother's eyes moved, watching.

"Her babies are freezing," he explained, "and she's begging fer help."

Chapter 3

When his words registered, Sal let her weapon drop into the snow.  She grabbed the pup, freeing Jase to reach for the second.  Each one was as long as her arm and as cold as ice.  Their shivering bodies snuggled close to the warm iliri who held them. 

Sal wrapped hers, a white pup with grey points, inside her cloak against her chest.  Jase opened his shirt, his numb fingers fumbling with the buttons, and pushed the solid white form next to his skin.  He carefully cradled it against his belt, securing the pup with one arm as he reached back to lightly touch the mother's face.  Whispering to her in his native tongue, Sal could just follow the conversation.

"We won't let them freeze, mother.  Have no fear.  Now let us help you?"

The bitch managed to nod, a movement so sentient Sal couldn't explain the emotions running through her.  This wasn't a beast; it was a person.  One just like her. 

"I'm getting meds," she said.  "Tell her I
will
be back and that I'm not taking her child."  Then she turned for the horses. 

With the lump held tight to her chest, she ran through the snow, whistling for the mounts.  Arden heard her, and the mares begin trudging their way.  Sal grabbed a rein and hauled her horse back, trusting Jase's mare to follow placidly. 

The animal still bled onto the ice-encrusted snow.  Sal knew she had to help this creature even if she didn't know what it was.  The bitch might look like a common animal, but that didn't always mean anything.  Sal had been called that enough in her life.  It didn't make either of them any less deserving of help from a stranger.

Struggling to balance the squirming pup, she rummaged through their medical supplies.  The little guy let out an immature growl at being treated so unfairly.  Sal cooed to him but kept searching until she found a long acting antibiotic and the most potent painkiller they carried.  Hopefully, it would work on whatever this thing was as well as it did her kind.

"Jase, take this little guy.  I'm going to need two hands for this."  She offered the pup.  "Damn I wish we had Shift or Risk with us."

"Yeh, I know," he agreed.  "I told her yer gonna help, but warned her it'll hurt."  Since Sal was focused on arranging the medicines for easy access, he went on.  "I do na know what she is.  I do na know if she'll bite.  Maast, kitten, be careful."

Sal nodded and stepped around to the beast's back, her words for her partner.  "Tell her I'm going to stick her.  A painkiller first, then medicine."

Jase translated.  The bitch simply closed her eyes and nodded almost imperceptibly.  Hopefully, that really did mean yes.  Resting one hand against the creature's fur, on her shoulder, Sal felt for someplace that could handle the injection.  When her fingers found dense muscle, she gently pushed the needle deep inside.  The creature made no move to attack.  Repeating the process on another muscle, she injected the antibiotics.  In moments, the bitch's breathing began to ease.

"I hope I did that right.  Maast, I've never been trained on anything but us."  Sal looked up at her partner.  "Ok.  I have to cut these arrows out of her.  Toss me my knife?  I dropped it over by you."

His arms full of the babies, Jase tried to juggle the small creatures who'd warmed up enough to become active.  One began chewing on the edge of his cloak, obviously feeling better.  A pleased look crossed his face as he flipped her steel blade across the gap between them, aiming at the ground beside her. 

"You make a cute dad, Jase."  She reached for her weapon with a smile.  From the corner of her eye, she saw his body twitch in surprise but ignored it.  "Does she have a name?"

"Dru vau kanna?" he called to the animal, avoiding Sal's comment.

The bitch answered, "Ya, vahn Worau," with her tongue lolling from her mouth.

Sal could understand that much.  "Worau."  She rested her hand next to one of the shafts and spoke in heavily accented Iliran.  "This is going to hurt, and I make sorry."

"Nee," the female, Worau, growled. 
Please.

Turning the sharp edge away, Sal bent over the first shaft.  Steel was the sharpest and most consistent material she'd ever used, but it was so rare that it was considered a myth to some people.  Hopefully, it'd make this hurt just a bit less.  She made a cut with a quick twist of her wrist.  Worau whimpered once but didn't move more than the expected flinch from pain.  Sal reached for the next, repeating the process on all four arrow wounds. 

"And here I thought learning my own language was just to get in touch with my history," she grumbled before switching to Iliran.  "Ok, be strength, I need to pluck these from you."

"She means be strong, she needs to pull the arrows out," Jase corrected. 

Sal grasped the arrow near the skin.  Pulling with all her might, the head cut as it came free, and Worau whined.  Sal moved to the next, refusing to dawdle and leave the creature in pain.  After pulling them all, she returned to staunch the blood from the wounds.  The beast never made an aggressive move.  She was as willing as any patient Sal had worked on – which wasn't many.

"I'm going to need more material to stop this.  Worau, are you still with me?"

"Ya," the bitch said as Jase made his way to the horses. 

Rummaging in the packs, he struggled to balance the pups at the same time.  It didn't take long for him to return, but when he stopped before her, his eyes shifted over her shoulder.  The bandages hung forgotten in his hand.  Sal knew he was watching something, but the bitch still needed her.  Still, Jase wasn't the kind to be paranoid.  Something was out there.  Carefully, she reached down and grabbed her knife, sliding it into the top of her boot before taking the gauze.  Only then did she glance over her shoulder. 

A pale line of forms moved in the trees.  She couldn't get a count, but there was definitely more than one. 

"Worau," she asked the bitch, "What is in these woods?"

"Grauori," Worau panted. 

Sal pressed the material to the wounds, binding it tightly.  "Jase?  Are those friends or foes back there?" she asked in Glish.

"I do na know," he whispered.  "The horses are fine, but they've been fine the whole time."

Normally their mounts would react to the presence of a predator, but they were trained to carry injured iliri.  The thought made her glance down.  Injured.  Her hands were covered with blood.

"How do you feel?" she asked him, holding her palms up. Deep maroon blood coated them.

His eyes widened.  Staring at the strange red of the blood across her palms, he pulled the pups to his chest.  Slowly, his head began to rock from side to side.  "Sal, I'm fine.  I'm completely fine."

"Me, too." 

She didn't feel the stirring of desire blood usually caused.  Even the sight of her fellow soldiers' blood had some effect on her, but Sal couldn't think of a time her friends had ever been hurt that she hadn't been in the midst of battle.  Blood didn't exactly cause the reaction in her.  It was the feel of cutting skin or unexpected pain that did it, yet she'd cut the beast to remove the arrows.

Sal stood, thinking over that as she rinsed her hands in the snow.  Once clean, she moved to her partner's side and offered to share his burden.  He passed her the white pup; it was female.  Looking at the little face, Sal caressed the child's head, amazed at how close the features were to her own. 

"She's lovely, Worau."  Wanting to keep the creature calm, Sal sat in the snow beside the mother and held out the child.  Her grasp if Iliran was weak, so she kept to simple words.  "It's going to be a bit before we can move you and there's something in the trees behind us."

"It's my pack," Worau whispered.  "Can you call to them?"

"And say what?" Jase asked.

"Tell them I need Grauf."  Her voice was obviously too weak to make it that far.

Jase passed his pup to Sal, catching her eyes with a warning glance, then brushed his hands across his back to check his weapons.  She nodded.  Once they were ready for anything, he called out to the trees in clear Iliran. 

"Our friend Worau needs Grauf.  She's been shot and her children are cold."

His words snapped across the winter air.  The beasts in the tree line stopped, listening for a moment before pushing out as a group.  Each of them was a shade of white.  As they neared, Sal revised her impression.  They weren't
just
beasts.  This was a very organized pack of predators. 

At least nine large creatures walked toward her on four legs.  Each foot had a thumb and fingers splayed against the snow.  So many pale eyes looked at them, their pupils slit.  One male -- or at least Sal thought it was a male -- moved ahead of the others.  He glared into Jase's eyes.

"Look away," Sal whispered in Glish, the sound of her voice causing the beast to turn his attention to her.

Their eyes met – and held.  Sal casually petted the pup in her lap but could not force herself to break the gaze.

"Sal," Jase whispered.

She said nothing, merely stared.  Less than two meters away, the beast tensed, still moving closer.  His lip began to curl, his long teeth showing, and a rumble came from deep in his throat.  Sal's own lips lifted in response. 

Shifting the pups to the ground beside their mother, she rolled to her feet.  Her eyes never left the male's and her ears locked back against her head.  When he leaned toward her, she tensed, ready for a true confrontation.  Her instincts demanded that this male show his submission. 

"Umso!" he barked in his language.

"I. Am. Iliri."  She growled each word in her own tongue.  "I do not submit."

The spell was broken.  The male took a step back, his muscles relaxing, and let his eyes fall to the ground.  "That's my mate," he whined in the same twisted form of Iliran Worau used, "and my children."

Sal just stepped back, leaving the pups beside their mother.  Once out of reach, she grabbed Jase's arm and pulled him with her.  The iliri kept their steps slow, never taking their eyes off the strange beasts, but the male rushed in.  Sal was shocked to see him squat, not sit.  With one paw, he reached up to caress his mate's face.  They looked like hands.  His fingers and thumb were short but still more iliri than she'd expected.  All but ignoring the strange creatures beside him – Cyno and her – he began to speak softly, grabbing his children and pulling them close. 

"They do na move like wolves, but they do na look quite like us.  Sal?  What are they?"

"I have no idea," she admitted.  "There's no mention of them in those histories you were reading?"

He shook his head.  "Na that I know of, but that stuff is so old, half of it does na make a lot of sense."

Sal wasn't really surprised.  "They seem as, well, human?  Iliri?  As we are.  They just, I dunno..."

His eyes were on the male.  "They're built more like a predator.  Somethan between a dog and a cat, I think."

"But look at their faces.  Their noses are broad versions of our own.  Their lips aren't split.  Laying like that, I would never have expected her to use hands.  They call themselves grauori?  That's what Worau said?"

"Yeh."

Finally, something sparked in her mind.  "And the quartermaster warned us about the grauor wolves.  I'll bet my blade that it's the same thing."

Jase laughed, startling the male.  "Sal, I can na match that, and I do na wanna lose.  Strange thing is they know a' us. She knew what iliri are."

"Did you see the pups?" she asked.

"They're cute, but what do ya mean?"

"The female is white.  Pure white.  The male?  He's dark on the points.  Looks like his sire is, too.  Except for your blue eyes, you and he could be a match."

"Maast," Jase breathed.  "I saw but did na think a it like that."

From the line of trees, yet another beast approached.  This one loped across the snow easily on his large hands and feet.  He too was pure white like the female laying before them.  With his tongue lolling from the side of his mouth, he yipped a string of words too fast for Sal to translate and rushed to Worau's side. 

Politely, neither of the iliri moved, not wanting to concern the grauori.  Considering the beasts looked like they could rend a man apart, they didn't want to make the strange creatures any more nervous than they already were.