lolling, as though to say, 'You see what you have missed all these years?' And Mika could not but agree.
They were cleaning the blood off their pelts when they heard the first yapping hyena howl. They leaped to their feet and listened carefully, pinpointing both the direction and the distance.
Taking hold of the stag, they began to drag it back toward camp, hoping that they could reach it in time, knowing that there were too many of the dangerous enemy to fight them off.
They were better than halfway back when Mika felt the peculiar tingling which he now recognized as the onset of the end of the spell. He sat down on his haunches and waited, realizing that it might be easier to carry the stag in his human form, and glad that he was on the ground and not in mid-air.
The transformation was less traumatic than the first time, since he now knew what to expect. He shivered and rubbed his hands over his arms as the cold night air raised bumps on his chilled flesh.
Tam stared at him with amusement and perhaps just a touch of pity.
'All right, all right,' said Mika, 'but at least I can carry the damn thing instead of dragging it in my teeth. So be quiet and let's get out of here!'
He heaved the stag to his shoulder, staggering under the great weight. Blood dripped down his chest and back, no longer raising the same emotions it had evoked when he was still a wolf.
Mika also regretted loss of the ease with which he had traversed the forest earlier, trudging along heavily over ground he had covered so effortlessly only a short time before.
They reached the spot where he had left his clothes and he changed into them quickly, also retrieving the precious book. The howls of the hyenas had faded into the distance and he wondered if they had perhaps found some other prey.
Shouldering the stag once more, he and Tam made their way back to the spruce. He paused outside, inhaling the cold night air, more than a little reluctant to enter, to rejoin the race of man, to let go of what he had been privileged to share with Tam if only for a short time.
Tam pawed his leg. Placing the stag on the ground, Mika pushed aside the branches of the spruce and entered.
Chapter 18
Hornsbuck and Redtail greeted the arrival of the stag with much happiness. RedTail gobbled the numerous scraps greedily as Mika and Hornsbuck butchered the animal quickly and efficiently at the edge of the stream.
'By the Great She Wolf, you look as though you've bathed in the blood,' Hornsbuck said with a laugh. 'You'd best wash off. Anyone seeing you would think you'd rolled in the thing before you brought it back.' Mika just smiled and did as he was told.
Hornsbuck could not understand Mika's refusal to partake of the stag, but lost no time in worrying about it, stuffing himself with great quantities of meat, barely waiting for it to sear over the tiny flame before he choked it down.
'Now that we have meat, can we leave?' Mika asked.
'Aye, we'll leave tomorrow,' said Hornsbuck.
'And the gnolls…' began Mika.
'They'll never find us. You'll see!' said Hornsbuck, and then there was no more talking as he addressed himself to his food in a serious fashion that precluded speech.
RedTail slobbered and growled over a leg bone, bits of flesh and gristle dotting his thick red pelt, and Mika could not help but observe that man and beast bore a strong resemblance to each other.
Tam and Mika lay down together and tried to ignore the sounds of crunching and slurping.
Mika looked at the princess, his eyelids heavy with fatigue, and in that foggy state, she looked quite lovely, almost as beautiful as she had when he first laid eyes on her. His half-closed lids filtered out the dirt and the smudges and the torn clothes and the snarled hair. In his mind's eye, she was fresh and clean and lovely.
He yearned to see her awake, with her eyes open, staring at him with love. He tried to picture what form her gratitude might take, for now it was he alone who would win that reward when the spell was lifted-now that the others were dead.
Of course, there was the small matter of finding out who had placed the spell, persuading him to lift it, and emerging alive in the bargain. But that was another matter… and one that he would think about later. Still thinking of the princess and his reward, he closed his eyes and slept.
'Time to go, Mika. Best be awakening,' said a loud voice, rupturing the pleasant dream into splinters.
Mika opened his eyes and stared up Wearily. Hornsbuck leaned over him, shaking his shoulder, a smile splitting the great beard.
Mika groaned and closed his eyes, trying to recapture his dreams. The princess had been just about to take off her dress.
'Go away, Hornsbuck. It's the middle of the night.'
'Pah!' snorted Hornsbuck. 'Get up lad, get up. Time's a wasting, the sun will be up any minute now. It's time to go!'
Mika opened his eyes and glowered at the ceiling of branches. The dream was gone and would not return. He turned his head and looked at the princess who lay scant inches from him, then closed his eyes and sighed. Sometimes dreams were far more preferable than reality.
He sat up and groaned. Mornings were not his favorite time of day. Hornsbuck handed him a stick, layered with grilled chunks of deer meat, singed and covered with a fine layer of ash. 'Eat up,' he advised. 'We won't be eating for a while to come.'
Mika closed his eyes and did as he was told, finding it strange indeed to compare this meal with his last and declare it far inferior. Being a wolf had its advantages.
They packed the meat in two bundles made from the hide of the deer. The meat, unsmoked, would last no more than two days without going bad. But Hornsbuck said that it would be more than adequate, although he still refused to give any explanation of where they were going.
Other than the meat, which they loaded on the roan at Hornsbuck's insistence, they took as much grass as they could gather. They cut the grass off at the roots and bound it in sheaves, and Mika was thankful that it was both lush and abundant or Hornsbuck would have left the roan behind. Lastly, they heaved the princess up into the saddle and tied her in place in front of the pile of pitch-soaked limbs Hornsbuck likewise deemed vital for some reason.
Mika took the opportunity to try and clean the princess up a bit, smoothing down her tangled hair and trying to wipe some of the dirt off her dress.
'Leave off,' growled Hornsbuck. 'It won't do any good, and the damn female probably won't approve no matter what you do. You can't ever please a woman. Why, once I brought back a whole bagful of hydra eyes for a woman… thought she could string 'em on a necklace, do something pretty with 'em. Almost got myself turned to stone getting 'em for her. And did she appreciate 'em? No, she did not! Threw them away! Said they made her sick! Can you imagine? Women. Pahhh!'
Hornsbuck eyed Mika critically. 'If you need to do something, braid your own hair. You look like a damned woman with it down on your shoulder like that!'
Mika sighed, refraining from mentioning the painful bruise that still covered much of his scalp, and he scraped his hair into a loose braid to appease the older nomad who had definite ideas of what was appropriate.
Hornsbuck grunted with approval, then, taking one last look to make certain that nothing was being forgotten, turned and began leading them in a northwesterly direction.
They walked for several hours, leading the horse by the reins. They met nothing living, although they found a number of gnoll and hyena corpses, all of which had been chewed upon by hyenas or hyena-dons, most forest dwellers being too choosy to eat such foul offerings.
Only once did they find humans, a driver and a nomad, or what little remained of them, made unrecognizable by the severity of their wounds and the teeth of predators. They quickly buried the pitiful remains, said a few words, and hurried on their way.
The forest was thinning now, the sablewood and roanwood trees giving way to smaller softwoods- white-
