Witches, Wolves, & Warlords (Shifters of Bastion Keep #1)

Chapter Three

"Ey, it's the third witch," someone clamored loudly, standing up in her seat and pointing at Bruin as he and Russell entered the room. "Hullo, third witch! Grab a plate and join us!"

The Great Hall, located in the central part of the castle, was an expansive room with high ceilings and a number of thick wooden tables with long cushioned benches and the occasional chair for sitting. Decorating the walls were paintings of battles and mounted medieval weapons. No hunting trophies, like Bruin might have thought, but perhaps such things were offensive to residents that could take on animal form.

Despite the older appearance of the room, all the amenities seemed modern. The lights were electric albeit with flickering bulbs that resembled candles, Bruin could see A/C and heating vents, and the multiple trolleys with their dinner looked like any catering tray he'd seen at a hotel.

Russell gently nudged him, and he hurried forward to load up a plate full of ginger-sauced fish, mashed potatoes, asparagus, and sliced eggplant.

"What's your name, third witch?" another man asked him as Bruin took an empty seat next to Rosemary and Lux.

"It's Bruin."

"Hello, Bruin. Hey! Third witch says his name's Bruin!"

There was a cacophonous response from a number of growly voices, including a couple of acknowledging barks.

Bruin's fork hung idle over his food as he stared at the guardians of Bastion.

There were about twenty of them, congregated around just two of the room's eight long tables, but it seemed like so many more with their loud voices, and table pounding, and constant jostling of each other.

They were lean and fit on the whole, and most wore the red-and-gold kilts of Bastion. Two of them were even eating in their shifter forms! A trim greyhound was retelling a story for her friend with the vicious aid of a butter knife, and across from Bruin, a timber wolf had just finished downing a full mug of ale.

As the wolf shifter stood up from the table to an alarming height of seven or eight feet, his fluffy gray fur making his bulk seem even larger, Bruin realized that not everyone wore kilts. He leaned forward, watching the tail wagging lazily over the wolf's bare ass as the man went to fetch a refill.

"They can be distracting, yes," Rosemary said, indicating a topless thirty-something woman with what he assumed were nice breasts. "It seems that our shifter hosts are unabashed nudists. But eat. We meet with the Lady of the castle after dinner."

"We do?"

Russell squeezed himself next to Bruin, and once again the Green witch was unable to concentrate on eating the delicious-looking meal as the bigger man's leg pressed up against him warmly beneath the table.

"At seven o'clock, Da will present you to Lady Usenko," he said. Apparently done speaking, he then speared a hunk of fish.

"Ha, alright," Bruin said, then dove into his meal.

As he ate, he allowed the rambunctious sounds to wash over him, reminding him fondly of his own family and the regular communal meals they'd shared with others in his apartment building. Most nights had been rooftop potlucks, attended by extended family and neighbors, and it was a rule that no one was ever turned away hungry, even if it meant digging through sofas and coat pockets for enough loose change to make a dash to the corner store for more rice noodles.

Maybe he'd get used to being around this new family, too.

"…and then with the devil's own scythe, he severed its throat, clean as anything, haha!" The man who preferred his gray werewolf form was Yacob, Bruin had learned, and he swung a fork around as he spoke. "Sergiy was bleeding in ten different places, and had to hobble his way during the rout, but by the flagstone, he turned the tide that moment."

"To Lord Sergiy!" Marka declared, a rowdy guardian with a boxer's physique and a blonde crew cut.

Several other guardians raised their tankards with her, joining in the cheer.

Bruin patted Russell on the arm, and the big man looked down at him.

"Who's Sergiy?" he whispered.

"Oh, chaps!" Marka said, banging her tankard on the table. "The witches don't know who my brother is!"

Whoops, that's right. Shifters had excellent hearing and sense of smell, even when in human form. He'd have to watch for that.

"Oh, he ain't nobody much," Yacob growled. " Only the acting Lord of Bastion, and our battlefield commander."

"Aye, he's the son of Lady Galina Usenko, who led us her own masterful self just a few years back, but has passed the mantle on."

"Brilliant and clever."

"Honest and brave."

There was a pause, and then Marka shouted out, "Devourer of pudding cups!"

"Ha! And the worst swimmer in the keep!"

"Don't forget the undefeated champion of the arcade's JetSki Master IV! "

There was a general round of laughter, and Bruin shared a look with Rosemary and Lux.

"He sounds interesting," Bruin said. "Is he not here?"

Marka gathered up her used flatware and cutlery, stacking them neatly on a designated cart. "Lord Sergiy is out hunting in the Umbral realm with the other packs. You didn't think this was all of us guardians, did you?"

Bruin saw Lux join her in putting away his used dishes. "Roland mentioned about fifty, or thereabouts?"

"Fifty-eight all told, broken up into five packs. I lead Steel Fang. Awoo!" There were answering calls and yips from half of the other guardians. "Yacob, the Flamewrights. You'll meet the other three packs when they return. Should be any time now, I expect, they've been out for two days already, and hunting has been fruitful."

"Finish eating before you get distracted again," Lux told him, interrupting. "We should probably all shower and change before meeting our hostess."

Bruin was about to comment back, but Lux and Rosemary were already heading off. There was a massive clock up on one of the walls, reminding him that if he did want to shower, he would need to hurry.

Which was a damn shame, because the food was just so good , maybe even better than his mom's seared salmon, though nothing compared to her pork-filled bao.

Regretfully, he started shoveling the food down, making up for the meager airport food he'd had earlier, and trying to remember if he'd packed anything nice to wear.

◆◆◆

"So how do we address Lady Usenko?" Lux asked as they strode down one of the many halls on the second floor. He wore something similar to what he'd had on during the conference two weeks ago, but now with an added wand sheathed at his hip, next to a charm bag that held different Sun working tools. Bruin's own garb was a much simpler shorts and T-shirt, which had caused Lux to make a single exasperated sigh, but at least it didn't have any visible holes or stains.

"Lady is the most appropriate form of address," Roland answered, pausing before a set of double-doors with a draconic relief on their surfaces. "If she permits you to call her anything else, do that instead. Bruin, lad, relax. She generally doesn't stand on ceremony, so she's not about to send you to the dungeons just because you make a slip of the tongue. Ready? Let's—"

Roland paused, cocked an ear, then skipped back from the doors a bare moment before one of them swung violently inwards. Out strode a tall, middle-aged woman wearing a tank top and torn jeans, her blonde hair cut short and spiky, and with multiple piercings in either ear. She looked like she was one guitar riff away from starting a mosh, and her muscles bulged as she adjusted her grip on what was apparently a man in a suit thrown casually over her shoulder.

"Hello, Roland," she said in a thick eastern European accent. "These are the three witches you told me about?"

"Yes, Galina."

"I like the look of them. Lux, Rosemary, Bruin.I am Galina Usenko. If there is anything I can do to help with your transition, and Roland is not around, feel free to stop by. Sorry to have to cut our meeting short, but I am taking this one downstairs. Gregory, say hello to the witches."

Lady Usenko turned around, and the fair-haired man lifted his head, adjusting his glasses as he said an embarrassed hello. He looked like a bewildered accountant whose boss has just given him a raise for simply adding two and two together, and Bruin managed a tentative wave before the lady turned back to face them.

"My husband has been whispering all kinds of dirty things to me since lunch, so I am taking him to the baths before I let him make good on his promises. I will be seeing you, and in the meantime, welcome to Bastion Keep."

Slapping her husband on his butt, the former warlord strode off down the hall to where a set of stairs lay.

Roland coughed politely."Ah.Well…"

"She's amazing," Bruin breathed. "I hope to be like her when I grow up."

"Right, well, meeting over, I suppose. Let me show you three back to your chambers, before anyone gets lost."

◆◆◆

Bruin couldn't have been asleep for more than an hour when he was awoken to a pounding at his door.

" Up, Green witch ! We have inbound in half-an-hour."

Holding a pillow up in front of his tattered boxers to hide the hard and leaking consequence of a very nice dream—a vanishing memory about rolling around in the grass with Russell, minus the kilt—he hurried to his door, opening it.

Roland glanced down at him, sniffed, then gave him an apologetic tilt of his head before continuing brusquely. "Lord Sergiy has just returned from the Umbral realm, successfully I might add. Several guardians are heading out right now in the humvees to pick them up and return, but he reported ten injured enough to need attention. It's all light injuries, nothing worse than broken bones and shredded flesh. Ready yourself promptly."

With that, Roland turned away to knock at Rosemary's door, repeating his announcement.

Bruin hurried to his shelf, now decorated with chalk-drawn Hallow glyphs to keep out negative energies. Grabbing his witch's bag, he started putting gemstone after gemstone into their designated pouches, careful to make sure he didn't bang opposing elements together. The different quartz gems were friendly enough to get along with most any, but it wouldn't do to stick a water-charged lapis lazuli alongside a fire agate.

A jade lion charged with white light went into its own pocket. Then his mortar and pestle, select healing herbs, and then, hmm… better take both drum and pipes.

Once he had his bag ready, he made a quick stop to piss, made much easier now that he was more weeping willow than standing oak. Then he donned a pair of cargo shorts, slipped a few more crystals into his pockets, grabbed his bulging witch's bag, and rushed to the hallway.

Lux was just emerging from his own room, two wands carried in one hand, and his silver-embossed satchel carried in his other. The Celestial witch gave him a nod before addressing Roland, asking about location and supplies. Beside his dad was Russell, standing there impassively with his arms crossed. Bruin couldn't tell if the man had gone to bed or not, since he had on the same kilt, and his hair was the same wild mess it had been earlier in the day.

Bruin turned to the side, and went to Rosemary's room. He gave it a polite rap before opening the door, eyes averted.

"Need help?"

"Yes, thank you. Come."

Lifting his head, he stepped into her room. She was at her altar, itself covered in a black cloth and decorated with dried rose petals. With the help of light from a black candle, she was using an ornate mirror to apply a bare minimum of makeup; black lipstick, black eyeliner, and a touch of rouge on her brown cheeks.

Bruin immediately saw what she needed. Stepping behind her, he tightened the laces of her corset, tying it properly.

"Thank you," she said once he was done. Grabbing a shawl to put around her shoulders, she picked up her witch's bag, stepped into a pair of quick-don knee-high boots that only required a zipper—the six buckles were merely decorative—then followed him back into the hall.

"We all here?" Roland asked, checking over the three of them with a critical eye. "Not a bad reaction time, for your first alert. Follow."

Leading the way down the hall with Russell and the three witches following, Roland went down to the first floor, then towards and past the Great Hall.

"Normally there's more notice than this, but this Umbral incursion was only a few miles away. Doesn't take as long to fetch 'em. Still, as you can see, it would be good to set aside some of your tools for quick access."

"I concur," Lux said, pausing to tap his wands against the moonlight streaming through one of the windows and setting them aglow. "I shall endeavor to at least have an emergency bag prepared for next time."

"Good on you, lad. It always pays to be vigilant and prepared! Bruin, that will go double for you, as a healer. Perhaps you should follow Lux's example."

Bruin huffed.

Roland led them down a broad hall, then past a common sitting room and into a long infirmary with about twenty beds. Four older men and women in nursing scrubs were busy getting out trays full of supplies.

To Bruin and his bare feet, the stone floor looked clean but felt bloody, and he had to consciously dispel the idea that his next step would find him sinking into a crimson mire.

One of the women came to meet them, a mouse of a woman with bronze skin, jet-black hair in a bun, and an old-style nurse's cap. Roland dipped his head.

"Teresa, these three are our new witches, Celestial, Hearth, and Green. The Green witch is—"

"The barefooted one that smells like plants and sounds like he's carrying rocks in his pants, yes," she said dryly. "I have eyes, ears, and goodness me, a nose, too. Well, let me give you three a quick run down. First! Rule one, nobody dies. If someone's about to, and you can stop it with magic, you do whatever you have to, and call for whatever assistance you need. But if nobody's dying, rule two is to stay out of the way. The four of us here tonight have over a hundred combined years of nursing experience involving shifters."

Beckoning, the nurse moved with purpose down the rows of beds, pointing out supplies that were on the wall behind each one. The last four beds had many more items, more like something Bruin would expect to see in an operating room.

"That room over there's surgery," Teresa was saying. "When the on-call doctor gets here from Town, he'll be stationed there. Do not block the door, and if he's mid-operation, only interrupt in a life-or-death emergency. That door leads to supplies and laundry. And this large area is our triage zone, which is where they'll gather when they arrive. Don't block this area, either."

She put her hands in the front pockets of her scrubs, staring up at them like a grandma who's just discovered that her delinquent grandnieces and nephews were crashing at her place for a week, and had already raided the fridge without permission.

"This is your first time here, and we're only expecting minor injuries tonight. Hang back, stay out from underfoot, and learn by watching. Ask a nurse if you're intending to do a charm, or let us come to you. It's not personal, understand?Once you've had a few more visits, earned some trust, and better understand how shifters heal, you'll have more freedom. Now, what kind of medical experience do you have?"

"I've occasionally cleaned up friends after fist fights," Lux said, "but to my discredit, not much more than that."

Rosemary adjusted her shawl. "I spent about a year helping in an assisted living facility, and saw two pass away, but no actual trauma."

The mousey nurse made an imperceptible shrug. "That'll still help during recovery, and I can teach you to change bandages. Bedridden guardians behave just like bedridden crotchety old folk. And you?"

"Six months as a medical assistant in an urgent care, and two more in an actual ER. Didn't do much more than a Gentle Healing charm, except for one time…"

Bruin trailed off.

"Mmm, I recognize that look, young man. Bunch of kids or something, right? Yeah. It's all just shit sometimes, isn't it? Well, no worries. Remember, no matter how bad they look, most everyone who comes in is a shifter. If they've survived until they get here, they'll survive, period. I don't think we've lost more than two in this room in the thirty years I've been here. Alright, look alive, I need to get back to prepping some hard casts."

Bruin pulled back to the edge of the triage area, alongside Lux and Rosemary. Lux looked around the room, then up at Bruin.

"Broken bones and shredded flesh, Roland says. I suppose you'll be doing the Boneknitting charm for the former, and Alia's Spreading Branches for the rest?"

Bruin shook his head. "Yes to Boneknitting , but no Alia's . I'm imagining something like a wild animal's deep lacerations. If the flesh is still present, even just hanging by sinew, I find that Body's Mending works better. If the flesh is lost, Body's Regrowth ."

Lux gave him a too-patient look. " Alia's charm is more efficient in both of those cases, since it targets one specific body part instead of the whole body at once."

"If your only intent is to get someone back in the fight in a hurry, then yes, I would agree. Alia's was crafted when witches needed bodyguards, and if they lost an arm or a leg to a foe, the witch could get them back on their feet. But the Body charms reduce pain, remove infection, and heal the body faster overall ."

Bruin fought to keep a smug expression off of his face. For once, he knew something Lux didn't!

Unfortunately, Lux had the good grace to apologize. "I didn't consider that. Yes, Alia's charm was meant for active combat, wasn't it. I'm sorry for doubting your skill."

Way to take the fun out of it. Then something Teresa had said clicked, and he remembered some things the ER nurses had told him in passing about treating some of the mythic races.

"Except that these are shifters we'll be helping, aren't they. They have enhanced stamina, and they don't really need the normal benefits of a Body charm. On the other hand, Alia's would set the injured flesh faster and encourage their natural healing." Bruin heaved a sigh, then gritted out, "And I don't actually know all the steps to Alia's . Grr… do you, Lux?"

"I'm afraid not," Lux said, as annoyingly gracious in victory as he was in defeat. "And even if I did, I don't have any real connection to Green magic. Rosemary?"

Bruin saw her fiddling with a knotted length of string, the kind used to play Cat's Cradle, but she shook her head and put it back into her bag. "I can manage a few limited Healing charms, but I believe our best recourse is to simply support Bruin. A coven circle?"

"Agreed," Lux said. "We'll provide you with white light, and any elemental energy you might need for your crystals."

Reaching into his pocket, Bruin fingered a few amethyst and quartz gemstones, and nodded. Nothing left to do but wait.

It didn't take long, and the arrival of the guardians was easy to notice. Apart from the sounds of several trucks, there were dozens of voices in all ranges singing… sea shanties? Or the land equivalent?

Bruin jumped when the back door was kicked open by a furry paw, and then thirty dirty, smelly, bloody, and oddly jubilant guardians crowded in.

"O, rough the land, and smite the hand," a panther shifter was singing, carrying a human with an oddly bent elbow in his arms. "And curse the—oy! Where's this one going, Mouse? Got a bed fit for someone who doesn't know their left dodge from their right dodge?"

The human laughed. "Oh, fuck off!"

Teresa came over, looking the patient over. "Just the elbow? Green zone."

"Please, ma'am, I'll be fine! Can't you just twist the elbow back into place?"

"How long ago?"

"Yesterday."

"No. Green. "

The panther leaned down to lick his fellow guardian's forehead. "You heard her. Looks like you're sleeping here tonight, haha!"

The other three nurses were doing similar assessments, asking questions and sending them off to different colored zones. And they were all so unflappable! Even when a large black bear shifter carried in a woman with tattered, blood-soaked clothing and a half-dozen sets of lacerations from a wild beast, Teresa just took the woman's pulse, then sent the pair off before moving to a whiteboard and marking another name on it.

A dark-haired man at last strolled in, closing the double doors behind himself. The surrounding shifters, whether they were in human or werebeast form, gave him a respectable distance.

"That is all of us back," the man said to Teresa, his accent thick like Lady Usenko's. "Do you need anything else from me?"

"No, Lord. This'll be as easy as taking a piss. On top of which, Roland's witches finally arrived, so we've got that, too."

"Good. It is these three, then?"

The man took a single step towards them before going stock still.

Lord Sergiy, assuming Bruin had it right, was arresting. He was younger than Bruin would have thought, mid twenties or so, but he had to peer past the solemn face and raptor's gaze to see it. The man was brawny to the point where his veins were visible, like ivy climbing a thick tree, and moved like a gladiator in an arena, light on his feet and relaxed, but appeared as if he could turn any step into a sudden spear. In spite of a presence that made Bruin want to kneel for multiple reasons, he was surprised to find that the lord was shorter than he was. As Sergiy took another step closer, it seemed as if the whole room had gone silent, giving him this moment.

Bruin blinked, glancing around. No, wait. It actually had gotten quiet. None of the shifters were singing anymore, and several of the nearby uninjured guardians had gone from human form to giant beast, forming up around Lord Sergiy like a squad of furry secret service agents, studying the room and the witches with their hackles raised.

"Ser?" one of the human guardians asked, a light-haired man with scars on his neck and shoulders. "You smell spooked."

Looking pained, Sergiy studied Bruin—yes, the lord was staring at him —and then snarled, ducking under the concerned guardian's arms and storming down the infirmary hall, dipping behind one of the dividing screens where one of his men was being evaluated. At his departure, the other guardians seemed to relax, and resumed their ribbing of their injured fellows.

"Bruin," Lux said, "Have you two met before? Exes, maybe?"

Bruin started, then spun around. "What? No! I've never seen him before in my life. Maybe I reminded him of someone else? Or… maybe I forgot I had some wolfsbane in my bag? No, I couldn't have."

"It's something more than that," Rosemary said confidently, and made to pull out her Tarot deck before seemingly changing her mind. "The best magic, sometimes, is no magic at all. Just ask him, Bruin. But if you can't, I'll see about doing a read for you later."

"Green witch!" Teresa called. "Move your feet, I need to show you to the injured. We can discuss charms, if appropriate."

"Right!Coming, ma'am."

Putting the golden-eyed man behind him, or at least pretending that he wasn't just twenty feet away, he gripped his witch's bag and followed the nurse around as she made introductions.