Master of Whitestorm (12 page)

The taproom grew thick with pipe smoke as the afternoon progressed. Men drank, and their tongues loosened; one by one they related the horrors which beset their town and farmsteads. They told of children dragged from their beds, to be found mauled in the morning; of wives, cousins, and livestock savaged, and stout doors unhinged by razor claws. Korendir listened, intent, to accounts of death by venom. His beer tankard warmed, barely touched, while unseen beneath the table, the fist which rested between his knees slowly, dangerously clenched.

“The fields were abandoned before harvest,” the current speaker lamented. “Had to be, and no question. The hell-spawned creatures even kill during daylight, particularly just before rains.”

Korendir raised his tankard and took a sip. Sailors had told him similar tales. Two things a wereleopard could not tolerate: water, and changes in air pressure. Wetlands they avoided out of distaste; but the lows that brought in a storm, or the rarefied air of high altitudes, invariably drove the creatures to fits of bloodthirsty slaughter. Indigenous to the dry wastes of Ardmark, wereleopards seldom strayed. Routes into inhabited lands were protected by boglands, or to the east by the peaks of the Doriads. Given that Mel’s Bye suffered the worst attacks before rainfall, the creatures’ avoidance of altitude still held; which meant some other feature in the landscape must have changed.

“Where does the River Ellgol originate?” Korendir asked at last.

The folk of Mel’s Bye regarded him as if he had downed an imprudent quantity of beer. Yet the tankard at the mercenary’s elbow remained three quarters filled. His hand was steady on the table, and his eyes shone disturbingly sane. “Do I have to take a hike to find out?”

Across the trestle, a burly, black-haired fellow banged a fist on the boards. “Did we all beg loans from the merchants for this man to take air in the countryside?”

“Emmon, hold your tongue!” snapped Lain.

Korendir shifted his regard to the one who had called him from the cliff site that meant more to him than life. His voice went suddenly cold. “That doesn’t answer my question.”

“A jaunt upriver won’t kill wereleopards,” shouted Emmon in surly provocation. Wild-eyed, and muscled like a bull under his patched and faded doublet, he looked crazed enough to murder.

Under the table, Korendir’s fingers tightened on his sword hilt. His body angled forward, ready at an instant’s notice to kick clear of the table.

Only one in that tensioned atmosphere dared interference. Silent as a sprite, Carralin appeared at the huge man’s elbow. Up close, their resemblance was striking, and only possible between siblings. The girl murmured something, and Emmon subsided with a frown. The rest of the folk in the taproom sighed as one with relief.

Korendir waited still, his posture indicative of extreme impatience.

The innkeep was quick to speak up. “The River Ellgol springs from a fissure in the hills, my lord. Onmak Tarris raised sheep there, years ago, before his wife died of a fall. Nobody else ever settled that way. The path is steep, and very rough.”

“Not for a wereleopard,” Korendir said softly. Few in the room overheard him. With a swordsman’s disciplined grace, he rose and called out to Lain. “Find me a guide willing to walk this town until sunset. The autumn rains are not far off. Unless the wereleopards are confined to Ardmark before then, not one of your people will be safe.”

VII

WERELEOPARDS OF ARDMARK

BETWEEN
mid-afternoon and sundown, Korendir walked the breadth and length of the settlement of Mel’s Bye. He encountered doorways that had been clawed to wreckage, and the mangled bones of livestock. He saw graves. He listened to tales of assault and tales of loss, standing in the dooryards of weed-grown farmsteads, while those inhabitants bold enough to accompany him clustered at his heels and started in terror at shadows. No safety lay in numbers where the wereleopard prowled. The Master of Whitestorm had been told as much. Still, he strode the roads and fields with no other precaution than a hand left half-curled on his sword hilt.

At this Emmon Hillgate’s son shouted derision. The mercenary the town had hired was certainly a fool; or else he had no concept of the speed a wereleopard could charge. The rest of the farmers held their opinion. With winter closing in, they had no choice. The optimistic among them read the mercenary’s attitude as an expression of extreme confidence; the keenly perceptive saw differently: the man seemed fearless primarily because life mattered little to him.

As one who had arranged the loans for the mercenary’s fee, the chief councilman might have raised outcry over this, except that Korendir’s indifference did not extend to his job. When the party stumbled across a freshly slaughtered deerhound, the mercenary’s concentration was daunting to witness. He knelt in the spattered dirt and explored the still-warm corpse with bare hands. He measured the depth of the fang bites with his dagger, examined the ground for signs of struggle, and of course found none. The wereleopard was a creature of grace, lightfooted as wind itself; its venom worked with terrible speed. The torn grass, the claw marks in the sod, all had been carved by the hound’s own death throes.

The wereleopard proved to be finicky; it gorged on the choicer entrails and left what remained for the crows. Korendir straightened with a disturbed frown. He cleaned his dagger and sheathed the blade with hands still bloodied from the dog. Then, as the townsmen nervously inclined toward departure, he lingered to study the pad marks left by the cat-form demon. He marked off the sixteen paces of the beast’s closing spring, and its satiated stride as it departed. At the end, the onlookers who expected comment were disappointed. In absolute silence, Korendir vaulted a stile and strode back toward the town tavern.

Day was fading. Shadows striped the lanes with purple and the western sky blazed red. Korendir set a brisk pace, and the short-legged chief councilman had to strain to keep up. After a time it became more than plain that no information would be offered. Gathering his nerve, the plump official ventured inquiry. “What will you do?”

“Kill wereleopards.” As if unwilling to be bothered, the mercenary’s stride increased.

Frustrated as much by his brevity, the chief councilman broke into a trot. Unaccustomed exertion caused his tunic to ruck above the belt; his belly jiggled, and his face turned redder. He would not yield to indignity, but gasped between puffs to Korendir, “How will you do this? Wereleopards have outrun the postrider’s horses. One snapped the spine of a bullock in a single bite.”

The Master of Whitestorm glanced aside, that moment aware of the councilman’s discomfort. He slowed at once. “Tomorrow, when I’ve explored the river in the hills, I’ll tell you.”

The chief councilman frowned, absorbed by the need to tug his tunic straight. This answer was far from satisfactory, not when every man in Mel’s Bye had pledged his next harvest to borrow gold. If the mercenary hired with the sum failed to rout the wereleopard, there would be no crops, and no hands left to sow seed. The farmers and their families would be ruined. Breathless, sweating, and badly in need of reassurance, the chief councilman surrendered to rumpled dignity with a sigh. He regarded the taciturn man at his side, and something indefinable warned him against pressing with further questions.

An adventurer who had singlehandedly lifted the Blight of Torresdyr, then freed the cliffs of Whitestorm from a weather elemental could not be expected to welcome the chore of justifying his intentions with talk.

* * *

Night fell over the settlement of Mel’s Bye. Townsmen and farmers crowded the taproom in the tavern until chairs and stools ran short. Latecomers perched upon trestles. When every available space had been taken, others stood or leaned against the walls, some of them mothers with infants in their arms, others commandeering floor space for toddlers asleep in blankets. Every cranny in between became filled with boisterous children. A few elderly denizens drank themselves senseless to escape the pandemonium. The young men chose other options. Emmon Hillgate’s son climbed a joist and lounged in the roof beams, which were smoke-stained and dusty, but broad enough to accommodate even his muscled bulk. From there he surveyed the scene with dark, mad eyes, and observed the one place in the tavern that was not jammed with townsfolk.

The corner where Korendir of Whitestorm sat was empty for a yard on either side.

Earlier, while the mercenary sharpened his sword, the reach of the blade had forced would-be bystanders to a distance. Now finished with his steel, his whetstone laid aside, the space around him remained. In solitary, Korendir settled before the trencher brought to him by the tavernmaid. Nobody else intruded on his presence. He ate his meal without inviting conversation. Even Lain, who had shared his company on the road for six weeks, hesitated to renew the acquaintanceship.

The evening progressed. Carralin cleared away the crockery, and closed the tap for the night. Despite her bulky frame and square jaw, her kindly endowed figure and honest manner had attracted a string of suitors who outdid each other to win her attentions. But tonight, as she made her rounds with bucket and cloth, it was the mercenary’s table she lingered over.

Her brother noticed, and frowned from his perch in the rafters.

When finally the beer mugs stood emptied, the talk among the townsmen faltered. The silence and the darkness beyond the inn’s shuttered windows seemed to weigh upon everyone; except Korendir, who sat at the trestle pushing breadcrumbs into patterns with his thumb.

“He’s considering strategy,” ventured someone, but at a whisper that the mercenary would not hear.

Emmon Hillgate’s son held no such restraint. He called loudly from the eaves, and asked how a wereleopard could be intimidated by the arrangement of a banquet suited for mice. The nearer of the townsfolk shifted in embarrassment, but the insult failed to provoke a response.

Korendir raised eyes like northern ocean and announced his intention to retire.

Carralin showed him to his chamber, the inn’s best, situated at the end of a gabled corridor on the second floor. The furnishings included hand-sewn rugs, chests fashioned of cedar, and a bedstead tasseled in scarlet, green, and turquoise, more tailored to the tastes of Southengard merchants than to the comfort of a hired sword. Korendir tossed the pillows against the footboard without compunction. He followed by reversing the blankets and quilted coverlet.

Carralin watched his movements with huge eyes as she lit the candle on the nightstand. Diffident, almost wistful, she gathered her courage and asked, “Would my lord like his boots removed? The lad downstairs could oil and polish them.”

“Thank you, no.” The Master of Whitestorm lifted the candle from under her chapped hands and moved to the window. There he became engrossed in the study of catches, latches, and hinges. Carralin lingered, absorbed by a longing quite at odds with her brother’s provocations. Aware of her worshipful presence, Korendir said pointedly, “Your inn has seen to my needs well enough.”

“Then I bid you goodnight, my lord.” Carralin retreated quietly; and because she turned down her wick to save oil, her disappointment was lost in the shadows.

While her step faded down the stair, Korendir left the window. He snuffed the candle and settled against the footboard with his boots still on. The tasteless dangle of the tassels never influenced his decision; he had simply selected the position that offered the only clear view through the casement. That left him vulnerable through the door at his back, but the folk at the inn were no threat. Danger in Mel’s Bye came from wereleopards changed to man-form at nightfall, and well able to climb mortared stone, or cross the sloping shingles shared in common with the inn yard stables.

Poised between vigilance and sleep, Korendir reflected upon the deerhound’s corpse lying disembowelled by one long swipe of claws. The animal had known no chance to turn, fight, or flee. The carnage had happened faster than reflex, swifter even than thought. One glance had confirmed to Korendir how pitifully inadequate mortal resource would be against the golden killers from Ardmark. Yet if the prospect of ridding Mel’s Bye of their predations daunted him, he fretted not at all. He rested motionless, thinking, his hand settled loosely on his sword. Sometime after midnight, he dozed. A half moon rose in the east and glazed the mullioned windowpanes in light.

Sound roused him, a furtive scrape followed by the creak of a floorboard. Korendir’s fingers clenched to his weapon the same instant he opened his eyes.

A shadow eclipsed one square of the casements. Driven by explosive reflex, Korendir shot from repose.

Barely had his feet struck the carpet when sword steel sang from his sheath and flashed, point first, to kill.

Yet his adversary was no wereleopard, nor even a thief come for plunder. Draft from the opened door wafted an odor of perfume, a cheap scent similar to ones worn by women who traded their favors for coin. Korendir registered this at the last second. He recoiled in midlunge and turned his blade, just barely. The flat, not the edge, grazed the importunate female across the throat. Momentum was never so easily bridled. His followthrough hammered one quillon against her collarbone and jarred her back on her heels.

Korendir caught her left-handed as she tottered. He spun his own body with the last of his control, and managed to cushion her fall. The hard edge of a clothes chest bashed his ribs and his sword pommel clanged on the basin which rested on top. Wash water flooded in a sheet over his shoulders, soaking his dark tunic, and the hair of the doxie, which was silky, long, and sweetened with the smell of cherry blossoms.

With the girl’s soft breasts against his chest, Korendir leaned forward to ease his bruised side. The slight shift of weight exposed her square jaw to the moonlight.

Recognition caused him to drop his steel as if burned. “Carralin!”

She twisted against his neck, hoarsely gasping for air.

Korendir pushed aside her collar and explored her throat. He felt no cuts, no smashed cartilage, only inflamed skin. She would show a bruise by the morning, a small enough penalty. Neth alone knew how close she had come to being skewered. Korendir expelled a quivering breath.

“Why did you come here?”

The words came out harshly. Carralin collapsed against his shoulder, weeping. Convulsed by the aftermath of shock and fear, she could not answer. Kneeling with her young body pressed to his chest and flank, Korendir was aware how scantily she was clothed. Draft from the doorway chilled her flesh, and her small, hardened nipples thrust against the thin muslin of her shift. Even the abundance of perfume could not mask the healthy, female attraction of her.

Korendir moved as if goaded. He gathered his scattered composure, adjusted his legs, and rose with the girl cradled in his arms. Two steps saw him across the floor. Then, as if her flesh might scald him, he shed her clinging weight onto the coverlet of his bed.

Carralin snuggled into the still warm hollow left by his body. Her weeping eased slightly and she reached for him, plain in her need for comfort. But lightly as shadow, Korendir evaded her. Moonlight revealed him; across the room, he bent and recovered his sword from the floor. Then, with barely a creak of floorboards, he returned and sat upon the mattress by the tavern girl’s knee. The sword, gripped in too-white knuckles, rested point downward against the scrubbed boards of the floor.

“You shouldn’t have come here, Carralin.”

His tone was hoarse, as if he had been running and fought to control his breathing. Carralin extended her hand, but the dark of his tunic lay just beyond reach of her fingertips. Frustration, and the memory of the blade that had attacked out of nowhere crumbled her fragile composure. She fought her voice steady. “Lord, I wanted comfort. I wanted to give comfort. My father, my younger brother, my sister, my mother-all are dead. Emmon is the last of my family that were leopards haven’t slaughtered, and he is mad with grief. Now you’ll go out, and also be killed—”

Korendir stopped her words with a curt shake of his head. “That isn’t what your councilmen are paying me for. Not to come here and die.”

Carralin did not argue, but gulped in a spasm that rocked her body. “My lord, you must listen! They are murderous and fey, those creatures. The dark is their time of terror, and I can’t sleep for the nightmares.”

Korendir sucked in a ragged breath. He rose and trod briskly to the casement; for a long time he stood staring out over fields where the wheat lay rotting like mudflats sheared by a storm tide. “Fey they may be, but the wereleopards aren’t invincible. They can be made to bleed and die like any man.”