other spells that didn't work?'
'Uh, well, uh…' stammered Mika, feeling sick inside and wondering how soon the feminine changes he anticipated would make themselves apparent.
'Never mind,' said Hornsbuck. 'Let's go and take a look at them and see what we've got here.'
Mika hung back as Hornsbuck and Lotus Blossom strode up the bank. He had no real interest in looking at the corpses of his victims. He did not really care that they were dead. After all, they had attacked him first and tried their best to kill him, hadn't they? Better they were dead than him! But he did care thai he'd been forced to use the stone not once, not twice, but three times in order to save their lives.
Had he not acted when he did, every one of them-he, Hornsbuck, Lotus Blossom, TamTur. RedTail, and Princess Julia-would be dead, smashed like bugs beneath a stone. He grew ill ai tbe thought and leaned his head back, drawing in deep breaths of air to clear his mind.
Slowly, things steadied around him and he ere' almost calm. Maybe the Great She-Wolf had nisr special plan for him. He could but put his faith in her and hope that this was not all a vast cosmic joke, with him as the final punch line.
As he raised his head, he saw the princess staring at him speculatively. He met her gaze squarely, and they looked into each other's eyes. Hers glinted in the pale starlight, with no hint of the usual hatred and cynicism. Instead, she bobbed her head in what might have been a nod of approval or thanks. Mika nodded in return, confused by her response, and they stared at each other a minute longer.
'Mika!' bawled Hornsbuck suddenly. Mika hurried up the bank, Tam at his side, breaking the tenuous bond with the princess. But his heart felt strangely light.
'Here they be in person, the little blue buggers,' growled Hornsbuck, gesturing at a pair of bodies that lay sprawled on the ground at their feet. 'Ever seen anything like them before?'
'No,' Mika said slowly, looking down on the result of his handiwork. The men were small, no more than four feet tall. They were all but naked, wearing only the merest of fur loincloths and nothing else but a thick layer of blue paint from head to toe. Their hair was thick, wiry, and daubed with the paint as well, then twisted into a myriad of snaky locks that hung down to their shoulders, forming a wild and barbaric headdress. Their brows were thick and straight, nearly meeting over the bridge of the nose, which was short and flat and wide of nostril. Their eyes, which were unfortunately still open, were a surprisingly soft shade of blue. Their teeth had been filed to sharp points.
The two blue men at Mika's feet still gripped their spears; one had strung his bow and appeared to have been ready to loose the arrow when the fumes struck him down. Their weapons were made of sablewood and were beautifully crafted.
The dead men were wiry, and their musculature was well-defined. On their chests, biceps, and thighs were rows of geometric cuts that had been limned with a darker shade of blue. The men appeared to be in excellent physical condition, albeit rather thin and dead.
'Flannae, you say?' asked Mika.
'Aye,' said Hornsbuck. 'Aborigines. Savages. Some say they were the very first to settle the Burneal Forest. You seldom see them any more and never in great numbers. I used to run into them often farther north, years ago. Wonder what they're doing this far south?'
The question seemed moot to Mika. They were a warrior party and, from the look of the now obvious setup, it was apparent that they had played out this same scenario often and with probable success.
They found this theory borne out on further examination of the remainder of the bodies. Many of them carried weapons of nomad design and wore bits of jewelry that spoke of travelers from other climates. Mika excused himself to tend the horses, leaving Lotus Blossom and Hornsbuck to accumulate the evidence, stripping the incriminating ornaments and weapons from the dead so that they might present them to the clan council.
In truth, while he enjoyed sparring with friends, he had no stomach for real fighting in which he might actually be injured, and he truly disliked killing, doing so only when all other avenues of escape had been closed to him. But Hornsbuck, grizzled veteran that he was, had no such objections and would regard Mika's qualms as cowardice, which, in fact, they were.
Mika patted and soothed the horses, calming their jangled nerves with soft-spoken words until they stood quiet with their heads bowed low.
With the horses tended to, Mika quickly broke camp, packing what little remained of the adventurers' supplies, viewing, with a shudder, his broken and splintered spear. Had Tam not wakened him when he did, Mika would now be lying alongside that spear, equally broken and splintered.
A sudden thought struck him, and he looked up to see the princess watching him. She turned aside, but not before Mika wondered whether it had been she, not Tam, who had wakened him… and saved his life.
The group packed their booty and mounted their horses, riding out even though it was still long before dawn, unwilling to spend another heartbeat in the pit that had almost become their grave.
They rode steadily, keeping watch in case those at the pit had been part of a larger whole, but they neither saw nor sensed any others. By first light, they had left the area far behind.
Hornsbuck dozed in the saddle, trusting to Red- Tail and Mika to warn him of danger. For once, Lotus Blossom was silent, wrapped in her cloak against the morning chill. But Mika's mind was on other thoughts. He found himself watching the slim flanks of the princess as she trotted ahead of the horses and wondering what she really felt… and for that matter, what it was he really felt, as well.
CHAPTER 13
Hornsbuck awakened with a number of snorts and loud sneezes. He glowered about him suspiciously as though suspecting that someone else was responsible for the noise. He scowled at Mika.
'What's the matter with your hair?' he asked, frowning angrily like a bear wakened from its winter sleep.
'My hair? Nothing. Why?' asked Mika, putting his hand to his head in confusion.
'It's all loose. Hanging down on your shoulders like a harridan's,' growled Hornsbuck, looking away as though he had seen something indecent. 'Fix yourself.'
It's happening! thought Mika, horrified that Hornsbuck had compared him to a woman. He hurriedly scraped his hair together and, brushing it thoroughly, worked it into the intricate braid that ran from the center of his forehead, down the middle of his skull, and ended at the nape of his neck; he tied it off with a strip of leather. The complicated procedure was made more difficult by the metal gauntlet, which caught on the hair itself and caused his motions to be awkward and clumsy. Mika was forced to work carefully, and it took him twice as long as usual to finish the braid.
It was nomad tradition for men to wear their hair in this fashion; the high, thick braid cushioned the skull from all but the hardest of blows. Men often wore their hair loose when in camp or in the safety of the clan, but Hornsbuck seemed to view it as a sign of personal laxity and would not permit it in his presence. Mika had never once seen Hornsbuck unbraid, or even comb or wash his hair, in all the time he had known him. He tried to avoid thinking about it.
'Quit yer fooling, Mika. You be worse than a woman with all this hair business!' grumbled Hornsbuck.
Mika was mortified and confused as well. What was he to do? He tried to finish the job, braiding his hair as quickly as possible, ignoring the painful catches as he drew the hair far tighter than normal, pulling it so hard that his eyes watered. But even the pain was a welcome antidote to the lurking curse.
The princess had listened to the exchange with interest and watched Mika with a look of cool amusement in her strange blue and green eyes.
Tam watched the interplay between Mika and the princess, and a strange, hostile look appeared in his eyes. What exactly was the relationship between the man he had followed since his earliest memories and this wolf who was no wolf? Tam did not know, but it seemed to him that Mika thought less and less of him and more and more of the princess. He had not even commended Tam for saving his life the night before. Tam looked away with obvious hurt in his eyes.
Mika took special care to watch his actions all that day, speaking in an extra deep voice and making decisions in a firm, masculine manner. When they made camp that evening, he strode about brusquely and hawked and spat
