Mrythdom: Game of Time (9 page)

Aurelius saw Gabrian’s smile turn abruptly to a deadly scowl. “What?” the old man demanded.

The chieftain regarded him with glittering eyes. “Well, what now, wizard? Will you release the wolf?”

Gabrian shrugged and raised his staff. The crystal in the tip stopped glowing and there came a vicious snarl followed by a thud as the wolf fell to the ground. Aurelius watched the wolf backing slowly away from a dozen spear points, but he was just about to back into another dozen. The beast was surrounded; he didn’t stand a chance. The wolf’s lips were shivering as it snarled menacingly, and the hackles were standing almost straight up on the back of its neck.

A few of the men raised their spears to throw them, and Aurelius screamed, “Wait!”

They hesitated briefly, but then they saw who had called to them, and they carried on. Aurelius gritted his teeth, took aim, and fired. His shot splintered a trio of spears before they could be thrown. The men’s attention was drawn away for a crucial instant and the wolf took instant advantage of their inattention to leap out of the circle of death and into the clear. He bounded over a giant root and began scrambling straight up the nearest tree. Aurelius watched with fascination. He’d never imagined a wolf that could climb trees, but to see the beast in action, it looked like wolves had been born to climb.

“You!” a man shouted accusingly, holding up the broken halves of his spear.

“Kill him,” the chieftain said, and suddenly sharpened spears points were being leveled at Aurelius from all sides.

Aurelius tried to aim everywhere at once, turning in a slow circle to impress upon his would be attackers that any one of them could be the random man he chose to shoot. They didn’t even flinch when the weapon’s barrel passed over them, and Aurelius realized that they didn’t understand the significance of a gun. They must have thought he’d been using magic to shatter their spears. Aurelius stopped and aimed his gun directly at the chieftain. The chieftain’s smile faded to a deadly scowl. At least he had made the connection.

“Wait,” the chieftain called, and the hunters stopped advancing on Aurelius. He seemed to deliberate for just a moment before he ground out, “You two are no longer welcome among us. Find your own way back, and do not return to Dagheim.”

Gabrian was still smiling. He inclined his head mock reverently, undaunted in the face of the glinting spears all around him. “As you wish.”

The chieftain turned away with disgust and the men slowly raised their spears and backed off. Aurelius frowned, keeping his pistol aimed at the chieftain just in case they had a change of heart, but none of them seemed willing to defy their leader’s orders.

“Come, elder,” Gabrian said, knocking him on the head with his staff.

Aurelius whirled around. “Would you
quit
that?” But Gabrian was already walking away. Aurelius caught up to him a moment later.

“Why did you save the wolf, Aurelius?”

He faltered for a reason. “I don’t know. . . .” They walked on in silence for a few minutes while Aurelius considered his motives. The sounds of the hunters grew dim and quiet in the distance, and the forest seemed to grow darker and more forbidding with every step, as though the hunters had picked the most brightly-illuminated path to travel and now that they were leaving the group at a tangent, they were leaving the warmth and illumination behind as well. “Pity, perhaps,” Aurelius decided.

“His path now lies entwined with ours, but for good or evil I cannot see. Perhaps it is now thus entwined because he is destined to kill you, elder.”

Aurelius felt ice form in his veins, and he shivered, drawing his coat more closely about his shoulders and burrowing his head into his scarf. “It seemed wrong to kill the wolf in cold blood. The battle was over. He was helpless against so many men. It wasn’t a fair fight.”

“Ah. So your sense of fairplay was at fault.”

Aurelius frowned.
“That was no mere beast. I saw something at the beginning of the battle, and now that I think back on it, I’m sure I saw that wolf transform from man to beast. I think . . .” Aurelius shook his head, unable to complete such an absurd thought.

“You think he’s a werewolf.”

“Yes.”

“Well, he is. That’s part of why he’s so dangerous. Werewolves are creatures of magic. Since they descended from a powerful wizard, all of them can use magic to some extent.”

“As much as you?”

Gabrian laughed. “Few can claim that degree of mastery.”

“What about Malgore?”

Aurelius saw the old man’s face wrinkle in a deep frown. “He is one of those few.”

“Can you defeat him?”

“I already have—once. He stole the relic and fled because he knew he could not prevail against me.”

Aurelius nodded slowly and kept a wary eye on the trees and hanging icicles looming around them. It was definitely much darker here, and most of the lichen and moss were glowing red as opposed to the green and blue from before.

“You seemed surprised to hear that Malgore had left the hunt. Couldn’t you sense him leave?” Gabrian gave no reply to that for a long time, and eventually Aurelius repeated his question.

“I heard you.”

“And?”

“I don’t know. . . .”

“Perhaps he is more powerful than you think.”

Gabrian snorted, but said nothing further.

“And now? Where are we going? Are we pursuing him?”

“Yes . . .” Gabrian whispered.

That whisper was a warning. Aurelius caught the hint. He felt a thrill of adrenaline and a sudden icy trickle of sweat prickle between his shoulder blades. His eyes skipped between the glittering curtains of ice, searching the red-tinted shadows for something moving between the trees.

“What is it?” Aurelius whispered as Gabrian quieted his steps and slowed his pace.

The ground shuddered underfoot, and a not-so-distant roar set Aurelius’s teeth on edge.

“That,” Gabrian whispered back.

*   *   *

 “Don’t move.”

He needn’t have said anything. Aurelius was frozen with terror. A massive shadow was lumbering toward them, its every step was shaking the ground like an earthquake. Here and there Aurelius saw icicles falling with a crack and subsequent glass-like shattering upon the frozen ground.

“He hasn’t seen us yet,”
Gabrian said, the words echoing in a way that told him the old man hadn’t spoken aloud.

“Why is he coming this way, then?”
Aurelius thought back. His heart was hammering in his chest, and his palms were slick with sweat beneath his flight gloves.

“He’s tracking something.”

“Us!?”

“I don’t believe so. . . .”

“I’m going to run for it.”

“Don’t you dare! If you move, he will see you.”

“He’ll smell us either way!”

“Yes, but a leviathan’s instincts are triggered by movement, not smell.”

With a great force of will, Aurelius stayed still. The shuddering in the ground grew more and more intense as the monster’s booming footsteps drew near. In the bloody red light the creature looked even more terrifying than it had before. And this time, Aurelius was beginning to get a sense of scale. The monster’s head was the size of an airocar; its breath came out in giant clouds of condensing moisture that sounded like someone breathing heavily in his ear; and a deadly glint of razor-sharp teeth told Aurelius all he needed to know about the monster’s diet—those jagged rows of ivory were made for ripping and tearing, not for mulching plants.

Aurelius watched the monster’s giant, three-toed feet plodding steadily toward them, mesmerized. It didn’t seem real. As the creature drew nearer, a fetid stench like rotting meat began wafting through the pine-scented air. He felt an overwhelming urge to throw up, to run, to hide . . .

To wake up.

Boom.
The ground shook under Aurelius’s feet. He tried not to look up lest he see the leviathan’s jaws swooping down on him. The giant foot slowly rose for another step; he followed it with his eyes until it was straight above his head. Aurelius realized with a start that he was about to be crushed. He jerked into motion, diving to one side.

Boom!

One of the monster’s claws dug a searing furrow in his calf, and Aurelius screamed. He quickly clamped down on it, but it was too late. He heard a mighty snort of air and a shudder as it was slowly released. He tried to scramble to his feet, but collapsed with a sharp cry. His leg was useless to support his weight. Aurelius began crawling away as fast as he could.

Something nudged his foot. Feeling his flesh crawling with terror, he turned to look over his shoulder—

Only to find himself gazing straight into a giant red eye the size of his head. He carefully reached for the pistol at his hip and drew the weapon as slowly as he could. The eye flicked down to watch his hand, as though the monster understood the significance of a gun. Suddenly that horrid head turned to face him and its massive jaws opened in a furious roar.

“Gabrian! Gabriaaan!” Aurelius was screaming, but he couldn’t even hear his own voice. The monster reared. Aurelius took aim and fired. His shot glanced along the creature’s cheek, digging a pathetic gouge in its tough hide. It didn’t even seem to notice. Suddenly its jaws rushed toward him. Aurelius scrambled away, but with his injured leg he couldn’t move fast enough.

Then, a split second before those glistening teeth could reach him, he felt himself being lifted bodily from the ground and flying through the air. Then came the thump of an impact and he lost his grip on his pistol. “Wait!” he cried. The flying sensation was replaced by that of riding a horse.

A frustrated roar sounded out behind him as the leviathan’s jaws closed on empty air. Aurelius twisted around to see who or what was carrying him, and then he saw that he was dangling by his coat from a very different set of jaws. The wolf’s lustrous coat of black fur and clear green eyes were by now familiar.

But why had the wolf saved his life?

Aurelius heard Gabrian shout something in that strange language, and the leviathan’s roars abruptly quieted. Then he heard a rapid swishing of robes and pounding of feet as the old man ran up beside them. He was keeping an impossible pace with the wolf.

“That will not hold him for long,” Gabrian said. “We must find shelter before he breaks my hold on him. Now that he has scented us, he will be like a wolf with a bone.” Gabrian shot a belatedly apologetic look to Aurelius’s rescuer. “No offense.”

The wolf’s only reply was to offer a quiet snarl between his panting breaths.

*   *   *

Boom, boom, boom. . . .

The sound was gaining on them. The wolf's panting was a steady noise in Aurelius's ears. His injured leg felt numb and cold where his suit's insulation had been torn, and he felt weak, like he’d lost a lot of blood, but treatment would have to wait.

Boom, boom, boom, boom. . . .

BOOM.

A shuddering roar sounded, and Aurelius twisted his head to look. The monster had just rounded a massive tree and now it was right behind them, gaining fast. Its jaws were open and it was leaning low to the ground in anticipation of the kill.

Aurelius paled and looked away. The wolf had stopped to rather let him ride on its back and now he was holding on to its sleek black fur with white-knuckled hands.

“What now?!” he yelled.

“There!” Gabrian pointed dead ahead to another massive tree trunk.

Aurelius blinked stupidly at it, not understanding. “You want us to climb the tree? We’ll never make it in time!”

“Look closer, elder!”

Aurelius still saw nothing. He cast a desperate look behind them and saw that it was only a matter of seconds before the leviathan reached them. He watched the beast burst through a thick wall of icicles, sending great chunks of ice flying in all directions.

“Use some magic on it or something! We’re not going to make it!”

“I cannot! I would have to stop running, and the leviathan would kill me before I could weave another spell powerful enough to stop it. Run faster, wolf!”

Aurelius watched with astonishment as the wizard pulled ahead of them by leaps and bounds, his legs blurring with the speed they were moving. The wolf carrying him grunted and pulled even with the wizard, but its panting had turned to ragged gasping for air.