Chapter XXVI
XXVI
Saint-Julien-by-the-Stream
The chaos subsided for a few precious seconds after the explosion.
The massacre on the bridge ceased abruptly.
With half of the span collapsed, the hunters scrambled to get off the remaining structure to the surer footing of the riverbank.
At the same time, the wolves and the hounds began to flee, the Beast’s hold on them broken as he was buried under the collapsing bridge.
I was left alone and panting on the riverbed, surveying my handiwork.
You are the very worst kind of clever, grated Sarmodel. But he is still alive in there. What now?
We finish. Somehow.
I approached the mountain of rubble. My silver sword had quite literally just gone up in smoke, and conventional weapons would be useless.
But I had again forgotten about the Lieutenant of the Hunt.
“Remove yourself, Professor Grave!” barked Bauterne. He moved against the stampede, running nimbly along what remained of the bridge. He knelt at the shattered edge, reloading his musket with a practiced hand. “This kill is mine!”
I squinted up at him. The Archangel’s radiance almost completely obscured the man; I could barely stand to look at him in the Arcane spectrum.
Beneath the flashing blades of Michael’s wings, I caught ephemeral glimpses of the Lion’s bright mane and golden talons.
The Archangel was descending to claim his prize.
Sebastian—don’t let him, Sarmodel whimpered.
“Soeur! Hold!” called Bauterne.
I was astounded to see the huge hound crouching in the shallows, growling at the rubble.
I was shocked to see the state of her. She had somehow managed to leap clear before the bridge fell, but her savage engagement with the Beast had left its mark.
Her flanks were red and ragged where he had clawed at her, and one side of her face had been torn away, flapping loosely against her neck.
Though she was not looking in my direction, I was not foolhardy enough to believe she had forgotten me; a step toward the Beast would be a fatal mistake.
I considered a dash for my Arcane supplies, up on the bank in my saddlebag, but Bauterne would have made the kill before I reached my horse. I even thought about some last-ditch Tartaric Words—witnesses be damned—and quickly concluded that the attempt would kill me in my current condition.
So all I could do was swear impotently as the lieutenant knelt and took aim with his singing musket, waiting for the Beast to reappear. It seemed I was to be granted the pleasure of watching the Almighty steal the food from my plate.
“No more, you bastard!” A new voice tore through the stillness.
A huge figure rose over Bauterne, followed by a mighty splash.
The Lieutenant of the Hunt swore, nearly falling from his perch on the edge of the bridge as he was suddenly drenched in a deluge of dirty suds. Above him stood Enneval the Younger, holding a now-empty laundry tub from the lavoir in the circle of his arms.
“You dare?!” Bauterne gave a crazed, almost hysterical shriek. He tugged frantically at the lock of his musket, knowing as he must that the powder was irretrievably soaked. There was something disconcerting about seeing the urbane, courtly huntsman so incensed.
The rubble heaved, and heaved again. Soeur barked sharply.
He is coming! sobbed Sarmodel.
I drew my hunting knife, hoping valiantly to give the Beast something more than indigestion to remember me by.
“No! No!” Bauterne screamed again, desperately trying to reload his weapon. The Archangel was all but flogging him from the ether.
With a roar, the Beast burst free. Chunks of masonry tumbled into the shallows as he shrugged and kicked his way out of the rubble. Bloodied and covered in dust, he was incandescent with rage. Bone crunched as he swatted Soeur to the ground. She did not stand up again.
But Avstamet was also diminished. It had cost him much to preserve his mortal vessel beneath the tons of stone.
The monstrous, wolflike form was shedding its fur, and clear yellow plasma was beginning to drip from his flesh; pink, human skin showed beneath it.
Avstamet was losing his grip on the material plane.
He paused only a moment there, trembling on the riverbed. His eyes marked us all with a vengeful glare—me, Sarmodel, the Archangel, Bauterne, Enneval and Antoine.
Antoine.
He was still there, lying in the shallows where the Beast had cast him aside. The monster dragged himself over to the helpless young nobleman.
“This one,” the Beast said to me, his Latin derisive. “This is yours, as we agreed, is it not? Shall I show you what you have won with your bargain?”
The baron’s son was paralyzed where he lay. His eyes were wide as he was brought face-to-face with Gévaudan’s Beast for the second time. He raised a hand in terror as the monster loomed above him.
The Beast looked not at his victim, but directly at me as he closed his jaws, slick with blood and plasma, around Antoine’s hand. The young man screamed as the monster’s teeth sank slowly into his flesh.
But Avstamet had made his bargain; this sack of meat was not his to kill. With a bitter glare, he released Antoine’s hand and kicked him away.
“There are your spoils. We shall see, in time, if you still wish to call this a victory,” he said in Latin. “Draw up your Wards, Magician—and you, old Spirit; make a fortress of your impossible soul. It is mine already.”
And then, snarling, the Beast fled. Up the wreckage of the bridge he bounded, and then along the road away from Saint-Julien as his bestial form began to deteriorate in earnest. He followed the wolves into the forest, leaving a trail of vital fluids.
I closed my eyes in profound relief.
Still alive in there, my love? I probed gently.
Barely, Sarmodel answered weakly. Sebastian, we are hanging in the breeze. Get us out of here.
He was right—the Beast was not the only danger we faced.
As though to emphasize the point, a scream of fury rose from the bridge.
“Shit-eating Norman!”1 raged Bauterne. He threw his musket to the flagstones and stood up in a liquid, twisting movement, drawing the dragons from his belt. “I had him! I had him!”
He faced Enneval the Younger with the pistols raised directly at his chest. I distinctly heard the twin clicks as the hammers dropped, a point-blank shot that should have blown apart the Norman’s rib cage.
But Bauterne was dripping wet from black wig to black boots. The dragons did not even smoke as their sodden charges failed. Enneval glowered at him and dropped the wooden laundry tub at his feet.
“You shot my dogs, pig,” said the Norman, spit flying from his mustache. Without another word, he turned his back on the fuming lieutenant and returned to his father’s side on the riverbank.
Bauterne stood there trembling dangerously. The Archangel’s blessing rippled off him in sheets, dissolving into nothing as the Lion departed. We had all been stymied, it seemed.
I took the opportunity to disappear.
Antoine had crawled far under the remaining arch of the bridge.
I spied him on a pebbly embankment. He sat in the shadows, shaking against the stone abutment, his eyes wide.
His clothes were wet from the shallows and he held his wounded hand strangely, as though cradling a child.
I feared the Beast’s bite was the least of his injuries; his arm was almost certainly broken.
“Sebastian, I lost the pork,” he said as I approached. We were both breathing hard. “I saw it fall out of my saddlebag, but it’s gone now.”
“Never fear. I will find it, my friend. I promised you petit salé and mushrooms, did I not?” I replied.
I knelt beside him. My heart was sprinting in my chest from my confrontation with the Beast, and my hands trembled.
“I could make a braise if you like, and we could share one of Monsieur Comtois’s fine cheeses afterward.
What do you say? Here, let me look at your arm. ”
Antoine’s eyes were glassy and his pupils wide. He stared at me as I examined his shoulder with my fingertips, following my face as though he had never seen me before.
“Shall we look for the horses?” he asked me, struggling weakly to rise. “You could whistle for them again. Will you teach that to me?”
“Later, later, my friend.” I held him down gently. “Later, Antoine. Rest here for a moment. Can you move your fingers?”
This close to him, I could smell the fear and excitement of the chase still rising from his skin, and the sweetness of apples on his breath. I tried to ignore the low instincts2 that thrilled at his closeness, at the feeling of the warm flesh beneath his wet clothes. At how he needed me.
He’s fine. He’s going to be fine.
The arm was not broken, thankfully. But Antoine’s hard landing had dislocated his shoulder, and perhaps cracked a few ribs.
“Antoine, may I see your hand?” I asked.
“Yes, of course,” he said courteously, as though I had asked to borrow his handkerchief. I gently took him by the wrist and he extended his arm. “Please, have a care. I cannot seem to—whoreson!”
With a single, rolling movement—and before he could protest—I leaned in and rotated Antoine’s shoulder outward. It snapped back into place with a dull pop. He looked at me, mouth open. His eyes shone with a naked mix of pain, gratitude and childlike betrayal.
“Is that better?” I asked softly.
He blinked, slowly flexing his fingers. Then he nodded and heaved in a long breath. “I think I would like you to take first watch tonight. I will cook if you like, but in truth I am not hungry.”
“I will manage, Antoine.”
I still had one hand on his shoulder and the other wrapped around his wrist; I could feel his chest rising with each breath and his wounded anima aching like liquid fire under my fingertips. He was still staring at me with his wide, black eyes.
“I saw you,” he said. “I saw what you did. How did you—”
“You are confused, Antoine,” I interrupted, feeling suddenly sick. “I don’t know what you saw, but you are safe now.”
“Sebastian . . . who are you?”
I don’t know!
“No.” I shook my head. “No, Antoine. Do not ask me. Not you.”
“It’s only . . . I’m . . . I am glad of you,” he said finally.
I would say I could not help it, but I’ve lived enough lifetimes to know that’s just a sweet lie we wrap around unpalatable acts. Temptation always offers a choice. He looked at me in silence, this young, wounded man, in need of my help and so completely at my mercy.
I raised my hand to his face, and to my shame, I kissed him.
1. What he actually said was “Norman shit-sausage,” though from his tone it was clear that he considered “Norman” the more offensive part of the phrase.
2. Unfortunately all mine, as much as I’d like to blame Sarmodel.