Chapter XXIII
XXIII
We were overwhelmed in seconds. The wolves poured out of the forest and across the bridge.
They left a twitching red wake. The hunters sounded their horns and realized too late that many of their own hounds were answering the Beast’s call instead.
The Gascon trapper was torn apart by his dogs in front of me, his nine fingers gripping the gold collar of his favorite as the animal chewed through his face.
The hunters on the bank behind me were sorely beset. Horses screamed as they were dragged to the ground by hounds and wolves alike. The carnage was indiscriminate, and above it all, the howling Beast presided.
He advanced through the massacre, soaking up fresh anima from the corpses on the bridge. Where he found a human body, he twisted out its heart and devoured it. Always his eyes were on the capering baboon, now screaming obscenities over the bedlam.
Sarmodel, come back! I called, panicked. My Guest’s Projection was immaterial, but he was still vulnerable to Arcane injury.
The mandrill ignored me, devoting all his attention to committing the ultimate affront to the proud, ancient Spirit.
As the anima of wolves, dogs and horses rose up around us, the baboon Projection snatched it from the air, sucking it into himself like breath.
It was only the leavings from Avstamet’s table, but it was enough of an insult to draw his anger.
The Beast lunged toward the mandrill, but the bodiless Projection flickered away. He reappeared on Soeur’s brindled back, raising his inflamed pink rump to the monster.
Soeur, one of the few hounds who had not succumbed to savagery, saw her opportunity and leaped for the Beast’s flank. It barely deflected her, and she pressed her advantage with a vicious bite to his forelimb. Again, the baboon flickered away to safety.
Now! The Yoke, you cretin! Sarmodel boomed in my mind. While he is busy!
Oh, very well! It was perhaps the best chance I would get. The Projection had drawn the Beast within range and Soeur had indeed provided a valuable distraction.
I raised my sword, using its straight line to focus the Crippling Yoke through the chaos.
But no sooner had I opened my mouth than Antoine cried out in distress.
“No! Back!”
A huge timber wolf leaped at him. Antoine dodged awkwardly in the saddle and—bizarrely—began to laugh, as though he were rollicking with one of the chateau dogs.
“Whoreson!” He made a swing with his sword, but the animal was already too close. The momentum of the attack carried Antoine off his horse and they were both—man and wolf—dragged scrabbling over the side of the bridge.
“Antoine!”
There was no decision to be made. I went after him.
It took only moments to beat my way back along the bridge. My horse was on the verge of bolting, but I barely registered the carnage happening all around me; my eyes were on the riverbed far below, searching for Antoine.
I reached the poplars on the promenade and dismounted in haste, scrambling down the steep bank.
Down on the riverbed, the chaos of the melee above was muted and distant. The twin arches of the bridge cast a long shadow and I was suddenly very cold. A few animals limped out of the trickling flow. The rest were corpses.
The timber wolf lay in a wide puddle. The wretched animal had broken Antoine’s fall, and its blood was slowly clouding the water.
“Antoine!” I called out. “Where are you?”
To my relief, he was crawling toward the shelter of the bridge. He flailed through the stony shallows, tangled in his own clothing. His movements were ungainly and lopsided; I suspected he had been injured in the fall.
“Sebastian!” he gasped. “Here!” He drew in another sharp lungful of air and made a strange hooting sound. In his shock, Antoine was still laughing like a lunatic.
“Cretin!” Sarmodel-child appeared, fists clenched, not far from me. “What are you doing down here?”
Following my instincts—on your advice! I snapped back, pointing at the wounded young nobleman.
For a rare moment, his confusion rendered him speechless. He looked at Antoine, and then back to me.
“You’re going to fuck him now?!”
I was robbed of my response by a tremendous splash and a primeval roar. I recoiled, falling back among the pebbles of the riverbed.
The Beast had descended.
The monster landed in the water near Antoine and the flow turned red around him.
He was covered in a slick of blood; it dripped from his jaw, his shaggy shoulders and the tip of his lurid, erect member.
The Beast was afire with the darkest passions; Arcane heat rippled off him in waves.
His too-human eyes found the young nobleman struggling in the shallows. He smiled with crimson teeth.
“Antoine, get up!” I yelled, panicked. I struggled to my feet, babbling incantations.
The monster shrugged off my blinding Extirpation and kicked aside the corpse of a horse. One step closer, then another.
There was no other choice.
“Parley!” I yelled in Latin. “Avstamet, attend!”
1. If I recall correctly, this configuration deconstructed matter at the molecular level, producing an effect not dissimilar to a bandsaw.