36 Chapter Thirty-Six

Four days later the westering sun hung low on the crimson-stained horizon, scattering an orange-red mantle across the sky. Having run and walked all day, the big youth had stopped some hours earlier during the hottest part of the day to eat a light meal and rest. Soft crunching and rustling sounds, created by a white-tailed deer browsing a leafy meal nearby, woke Tarn. Through narrow slits he eyed the doe, watching her long tongue reach out and pull tasty leaves towards her lips. It would be no great undertaking for him to bring her down with a well-thrown dagger. As much as he might have enjoyed fresh venison, the waste would be too great. He sat up and stretched. The doe's head snapped forward. Her long, velvety ears twitched as she watched him inquisitively, unconcerned that he sat but three paces distant.

He stared at the doe curiously. Why hadn't she been startled and ran off? Any deer he hunted would have bolted at fifty paces from sudden movement, let alone at three. The doe should have fled the instant he moved a leg or an arm, yet she munched on tender shoots of spring grass not ten foot-lengths away.

"Ye be a very brave, or very stupid, little lady," Tarn said amicably.

The doe stopped foraging. Her tapered neck arched gracefully. Pellucid intelligence flashed through her chocolate-brown eyes. Tarn smiled with an amazed shake of his head and dug out his meal. The doe returned to her browsing, unconcerned. While chewing on the tough smoked meat, he watched her forage new buds from a young pine tree, absentmindedly speculating the reasons for her temerity. Perhaps the doe had once been someone's pet. She stopped eating and returned his gaze. He held an apple out to her experimentally. Approaching his outstretched hand with elegant, unhurried strides, she dipped her head to reach the apple. Delicate, velvet-soft lips grazed his palm as she accepted the offering.

"What brave heart accepts food from the hand of thy predator?" he queried, almost expecting a response from the intelligent eyes that met his.

Yet smiling at the absurdity of conversing with an animal, he rose to his feet and walked to the river where he lowered himself to his stomach, immersed his head in the gently purling water, and drank deeply. After drinking his fill, he stood up and shook the excess water out of his hair. The doe stood beside him with her black muzzle dipped in the water, drinking. He slid a hand down the doe's cinnamon coloured coat, petting the course-soft fur. Tarn walked toward his pack smiling to himself. A large black wolf sipped across his peripheral vision. It entered the glade from the far side, silently stalking the doe that yet quenched its thirst, unaware of the lupine's presence.

Tarn ran toward the wolf drawing his great broadsword along the way. The wolf raised its head at the sound of his approach, bared long white fangs, and growled fiercely, front paws place wide, head low to the ground, ready to leap or dodge. By Kalen's crown! this was a large wolf, its weight nearing an impossible two hundred pounds, bigger than any timber wolf back home, he thought, placing himself between the carnivore, and doe who had shared his supper. Its shoulders easily reached mid-thigh. Night black fur seemed to absorb the sunlight. With his sword held protectively out in front of him, he shouted, "Begone! ye black devil, for we have broken bread," hoping to frighten the animal off.

The black wolf lowered his head, ears laid back, preparing to launch itself at Tarn, fur bristling, and fangs bared. Tarn raised his sword and went up on the balls of his feet.

"No! Stop! Ye mustn't kill him. He's my brother," cried a female voice behind Tarn.

Despite the need to heed the dangerous lupine, Tarn glanced over his shoulder, caught unawares by the presence of the voice, by the presence of a woman, a young woman with brown hair and eyes to match. She stood in the place where the doe had drank. A male voice spoke from the opposite direction. Tarn's head whipped back forward.

"Apparently thou be acquainted with each other," announced a young male close to the age of the woman. "Introduce your friend Valna."

"We've only just met," said the woman.

The wolf was replaced by a man with black hair and blue eyes. Panicked Asgard eyes darted left and right.

"By Kalen's Sword! What kind of sorcery is this? I like it not. Be gone lest my steel ends it for all time," he warned, the superstitious hackles on the nape of his neck bristled as he backed away from the man and woman.

"Aye, 'tis sorcery of the vilest kind," agreed the man.

"The cruellest curse imaginable has been laid upon us, turning sibling love into predator and prey," the woman said walking toward the man.

"Curse? What is this curse which turns beast to man?" Tarn asked, overcome with curiosity, de his earlier fears, his feet arrested.

The lovely young woman joined her brother in the centre of the glade. They embraced fondly. She laid her head on his shoulder and wept softly as the man spoke, "I am called Barath, and this be my sister, Valna. Relax thy sword, friend, we are not sorcerers, but the victims of such slithering vipers. We mean you no harm. I will impart our tale of woe if thy heart be stout?" Barath offered, stroking his sister's hair comfortingly.

Tarn lowered his sword but did not sheathe it. Superstitious fears of sorcery made him wary and uncomfortable. "I will listen," he temporized, mastering his unease.

"It began five seasons past," Barath began. "Our father was a nobleman in Lower Mycenar when a new religion called Mahnaz beset him with a request to build a temple on our land. He refused to sell land or to grant permission for a temple to be built. Shortly thereafter strange occurrences began. A two-headed calf was born, our mother died of henbane poisoning, fertile land refused to yield crops, and bandits preyed upon our tenants. After each catastrophe, a temple priest called upon our father to grant their request."

"Our father declined, too late discerning the pattern. Before the next full moon, he succumbed to an ambush as he returned home. It was never his habit to ride with more than a handful of retainers. One week to the day a sorcerer, garbed in priest's robes, beseeched me with a similar request to raise a temple of worship. I, too, refused, honouring our father's wishes," Barath paused, gathering his memories.

"Through bribery and deceit, our household cooks were bought, our food poisoned. We awoke tied to chairs in our own home. Our loyal household staff were gone, slain to the last person, even those who had been bribed were slain. The priest who had visited us so often stood waiting. The priests of Mahnaz are no priests, but sorcerers! He laid a heartless curse on my sister and me. We become the forms ye saw except during the twilight hour between day and night. Not only do we transform into those animals, but we are bound to their primitive instincts. I dare not linger near my sister in wolf form lest I kill that which I love. She has become my prey. Each day it becomes more difficult not to hunt her. Each passing day takes us further from our humanity," shared Barath, lifting Valna's chin and looking into her eyes as though to imprint a new memory—a fleeting memory to be stolen by the curse of Mahnaz in weeks, or maybe months.

"Our land and holdings were stolen by Mahnaz," he continued. "A temple now stands beside our ancestral home. By day a cohort of guards protect the temple. By night unnatural creatures prowl the grounds. I am the last of my father's line. No heirs exist to challenge the temple's claim. All have been slain. The king himself granted our lands to Mahnaz," he finished, his voice a morose merging of regret and sadness.

Valna looked up from her brother's shoulder, her head held high and proud. Conviction burned bright in her narrowed eyes. Undeniable strength teemed forth when she added to her brother's words, "As the animal instinct strengthens, it becomes ever more difficult to revert to our natural form. One day we will forever be cursed to walk the land as animals, knowing forever who we were, unable to change. Lest that happen, lest Barath stalks my scent trail, I shall first give myself to a hunter, as I tried today, with ye."

Speechless, his questions about the apparent docility of the doe answered, Tarn held his peace. A calm exterior belied the anger he felt toward Mahnaz, and the empathy he shared with the loss of his sister and his village's children. Valna's silent tears stained her brother's tunic. While Valna wept and Barath comforted her, gently chastising her for the attempted suicide, Tarn appraised the pair, guessing their ages to be somewhere in their early twenties. Although Barath stood a full head shorter than him, he was evenly muscled with slightly bowed legs from many hours spent in the saddle. Telltale scars covered Barath's forearms and hands, and his shoulders and arms were heavily muscled as if he had carried sword and shield on horseback for many hours.

Valna stood close to her brother's height. Long brown curly hair framed her eyes and high cheekbones. Her lithe body was well proportioned but slender. Tarn noted that, despite their plight, Valna's eyes blazed fortitude. Eyes that said to she would never allow her brother to suffer the memory of hunting her, that she would never allow Mahnaz to inflict that form of emotional cruelty upon them. Not while she had a choice. Witnessing the two of them together rekindled his sibling loyalty to Shaurii.

"I, too, claim vengeance against Mahnaz," Tarn said hesitantly. When he had their attention, when brother and sister looked to him, his words came slowly at first, rolling out of him at an ever-increasing fervency, becoming hard and choppy when he described his village and the beasts that had feasted upon the dead. As he finished with Torrocka's death, his emerald-green eyes flamed cold fury, his words short and terse. A fierce countenance pinched his face as he vowed, "I am Tarn, son of Connor, and I shall claim my rite of vengeance, perish trying!"

"Then let us become two," Barath offered without preamble, disengaging himself from Valna. "As a wolf, I can be of no small assistance with its superior hearing, sight and smell. In my natural form, I am not unknown as a swordsman. I pledge my life to thy purpose, son of Connor, and the destruction of Mahnaz," vowed Barath in steely tones, deadly intent replacing his grief of a moment ago.

Without hesitation, Tarn walked over to Barath and held out his arm. When Barath clasped his wrist, sealing their oath, Tarn said, "Henceforth I pledge thee sword-brother, to live in victory or a shared death. "

"Aye, well-spoken. To the brotherhood of the sword. Victory or death," Barath replied solemnly.

"Well said, let the predators of Mahnaz have become the hunted." As Valna turned to walk back to her brother, he asked, "Do ye have weapons or supplies cached?"

"No. Only the items on my body at the time of my curse return unto me when I transform back into a man. I may carry nothing else into my wolf form."

"Ye may use my hip sword in thy natural state. Say thy fond farewells," Tarn said, and turned to retrieve his pack, granting Barath and Valna privacy to say farewell.

"Barath," Valna appealed, "be it not wiser to search for a way to lift our curse than to risk certain death by pitting thyself against all? We are not the only victims of Mahnaz. What are two against so many?"

Barath returned to his sister, held her at arm's length, and spoke in a gentle voice, "I would rather face my death fighting, than waiting for the day when I am no longer able to resist the urge to hunt thee. Such a fate I could not endure. If possible, I shall seek Pentath. With Tarn's help, I will force him to lift our curse. Grant thy honest blessings, sister. Gift thy tender permission. I act for both of us and carry thy loving spirit with me," he beseeched.

"Very well," Valna agreed. "Now leave us. Do not return until just before we assume our animal forms."

"Why? What do you—"

"Please, brother. I have granted thy request. Grant me like courtesy. There are things I must discuss with Tarn," she answered, begging him with her eyes. "Not much time is left to us."

"Very well," replied Barath. "Farewell. Until later, Tarn."

Valna hugged her brother fiercely, bequeathing Barath his release. Long minutes passed while Tarn waited for Valna to speak. Once she was certain that Barath had left the area, she looked to the sky. So little time was left to her in this form. Already half of her time had slipped away. Each night the twilight hour seemed to get shorter. Of course, this was not true, for summer approached and the period between night and day increased until the summer solstice arrived and the days shortened as winter approached.

Finally, as Tarn began to speak, Valna stepped closer, saying, "As Barath has said, the priest who laid this curse calls himself Pentath. Should ye live and my brother not, would ye pledge thyself avenger?"

"Aye. Brotherhood we swore. Brotherhood I'll uphold," he answered.

Emboldened, she said, "I haven't any money or jewels to offer, but if any part of me pleases ye, I offer it freely and without regret." At the end of her words, Valna stepped forward, letting her garment fall from her shoulders to gather around her ankles. She stood unashamed, ramrod straight, while Tarn's eyes remained on hers. Stepping up close to Tarn, close enough to share the same air, Valna said, "We have less than an hour left to us. Spread out thy cloak, Tarn."

The sincerity in her voice, her willingness to give herself for her brother's sake, brought the tender feelings he held for Shaurii to the surface. Just as he refused to look upon her nakedness, neither did he hesitate to give his reply, "Valna, so long as I draw breath, Barath be my sword-brother. We have pledged it so. Though I be named barbarian in this land, not a civilized man by thy noble standard, no amount of gold may purchase what I allot in pledge. A sword-oath demands its own duties of honour."

"No Tarn," Valna said, smiling at him, unashamed of her nakedness or of her offer. She wore her brotherly love like a mantle, proud and true. "Few people practise such principles when it is not in their interest. Pray, forgive me. I offended thy honour with my ignorance," she said, stepping back and clothing herself.

"I am not easily smitten with offence," said Tarn. "Barath has a devoted and loyal sister. There be no offence in that, only praise. Thee be brave as well as beautiful."

Valna smiled gratefully at his words and closed the distance between them. She stood up on her tiptoes and kissed him on the cheek. "I am in thy debt Tarn. As surely as Barath be thy brother, then I, too, am thy sister and bid thee a hunter's swift success."

"Aye, well. That's settled, then. I'd no like to be tested like that again and hope to win," he teased, hugging her briefly. "Being sword-brothers does not prohibit joining. Under different conditions, I'd willingly become thy prey."

Stepping back, Valna met his eyes and saw that he was attracted to her. She felt herself blush. What she had offered freely a moment ago, offered on behalf of her brother, now made her feel warm and anxious when she let herself feel Tarn's honest attraction. An attraction that she shared. At another time, in different circumstances, she would have enjoyed his company and friendship. Strange as it seemed, she thought, the very same reasons that prompted her to offer herself to Tarn now stopped both of them from acknowledging and accepting a legitimate motive.

Not long afterwards, Barath returned to find Tarn and his sister sitting and talking. Tarn nodded to Barath, rose, and went to the stream to fill his waterskin with fresh water. In truth, he left the area to give brother and sister time to say farewell. For all they knew this might well be the last time they had to speak. By the time he shouldered his heavy pack, Barath was ready to depart. Without further words, the newly pledged companions loped into the verdure folds of the plush forest. Valna stood in the clearing anointing the ground with hot, silent tears.