Assassin's Quest

I don't recall how I got to my feet. I heard dogs scrabbling up the cliff behind me. Nighteyes stood back from the edge and met them as they came. up. His jaws tore them open and he flung their bodies back down on the rest of the pack. When the curly-backed mongrel fell, there was a sudden lessening in the yelping below. We both knew his agony, and heard the screams of the man below as his bond-animal bled to death in the snow. The other huntsman was calling his dogs off; angrily telling the others it would do no good to send them up to be slaughtered. I could hear the men yelling and cursing as they turned their weary horses and started back down the ravine, to try and find a place where they could get up and after us, to try and pick up our trail again.

Run! Nighteyes told me. We would not speak of what we had just done. There was a sensation of terrible warmth running down my back that was also a spreading coldness. I put my hand to my chest, almost expecting to feel the arrowhead and shaft sticking out there. But no, it was buried deep. I staggered after Nighteyes, my consciousness awash in too much sensation, too many kinds of pain. My shirt and cloak tugged against the arrow shaft as I moved, a tiny wiggling of the wood that was echoed by the arrowhead deep inside me. I. wondered how much further damage it was doing. I thought of the times I had butchered arrow-slain deer, of the black puddingy flesh full of blood that one found around such a wound. I wondered if he'd got my lung. A lung-shot deer didn't go far. Did I taste blood in the back of my throat … ?

Don't think about it! Nighteyes commanded me savagely. You weaken us both. Just walk. Walk and keep walking.

So he knew as well as I did that I could not run. I walked and he walked at my side. For a time. Then I was walking blindly forward in the dark, not even caring in which direction I went, and he was not there. I groped for him, but could not find him. Somewhere afar I heard the yelping of dogs again. I walked on. I blundered into trees. Branches scratched my face but it was all right because my face was numb. The shirt on my back was a slushy sheet of frozen blood that moved chafingly against my skin.

I tried to pull my cloak more closely around me, but the sudden pain nearly drove me to my knees. Silly me. I had forgotten it would drag against the arrow shaft. Silly me. Keep walking, boy. I walked on.

I bumped into another tree. It released a shower of snow on me. I staggered clear and kept on walking. For a long time. Then I was sitting in the snow, getting colder and colder. I had to get up. I had to keep moving.

I walked again. Not for very long, I don't think. Under the shelter of some great evergreens where the snow was shallow, I sank to my knees. "Please," I said. I had not the strength to weep for mercy. "Please." I could not think whom I was asking.

I saw a hollow between two thick roots. Pine needles were thick on the ground there. I huddled into the small space. I could not lie down for the arrow sticking out of my back. But I could lean my forehead against the friendly tree and cross my arms on my chest. I made myself small, folding my legs under me and sinking into the space between the roots. I would have been cold save I was too tired. I sank into sleep. When I woke up, I'd build a fire and get warm. I could imagine how warm I'd be, could almost feel it.

My brother!

I'm here, I told him calmly. Right here. I quested out to touch him reassuringly. He was coming. The ruff around his throat was spiky with frozen saliva, but not a tooth had got through. He had one slash down the side of his muzzle but it was not bad. He'd led them in circles and then harried their horses from behind before leaving them plunging through a snow-covered swale of deep grass in the dark. Only two of their dogs were left alive and one of the horses was limping so badly the rider had doubled up with another.

Now he came to find me, surging up the snowy slopes easily. He was tired, yes, but the energy of triumph surged through him. The night was crisp and clean around him. He caught the scent and then the tiny eye flicker of the hare that crouched beneath a bush, hoping he'd pass by. We did not. A single, sudden sideways pounce and the hare was in his jaws. We clutched it by its bony head and snapped its spine with one shake. We trotted on, the meat a welcome dangling weight from his jaws. We would eat well. The night forest was silver and black around us.

Stop. My brother, do not do this.

Do what?

I love you. But I do not wish to be you.

I hovered where I was. His lungs working so strongly, drawing in the cold night air past the hare's head in his mouth. The slight sting of the slash down his muzzle, his powerful legs carrying his lean body so well.

You do not wish to be me, either, Changer. Not really.