paw had on the way up, digging in and holding tight in awkward and dangerous spots where a man might easily fail. For the very first time he actually found himself appreciating the demon hand, and that in itself was scary!
The moon was hidden by heavy clouds that released their contents direcdy over Mika's head. The storm intensified; thunder crashed and echoed from side to side in the steep ravine, and lightning bolts flung themselves at him as though they were spears and he the quarry.
Mika reached the cave as the last of the storm crossed the peak and drifted away, as though it had no further reason for staying once he was out of reach.
He looked to see if his absence had been noticed, but neither Hornsbuck nor Lotus Blossom had moved from the spot where Mika had left them. It seemed entirely likely that they had slept through the entire deluge. Their rumbling, baritone snores filled the cave with a thunderous discord rivaled only by the storm.
RedTail opened his eyes as Mika limped into the cave and tottered over to his bedroll. He dried his cold, aching limbs and tried to rub some warmth back into his body as he stood next to the remains of the fire. He wrapped himself in his blanket and laid down beside the glowing embers, too tired to care about anything anymore. 'No more fun,' he mumbled to himself. 'Another fun night like this would kill me.' He was asleep almost before he closed his eyes.
CHAPTER 21
'What in Hades happened to you?' roared Hornsbuck all too early the next morning. 'And where are Tam and the princess?'
Mika rolled over, and memory came flooding back along with the pain. He groaned. He moaned, feeling sick. Every single bit of his body either throbbed, burned, or just plain hurt. He raised his hand to his aching head and saw that his fingernails were all broken and the tips of his fingers were ripped and torn. He moaned some more. Only the demon fingers were undamaged. He slipped the gauntlet back on, unwilling to look at the awful hand.
Using his other hand, he felt his face gingerly and discovered a long, deep cut across the bridge of his nose. A second slash had ripped across one of his eyebrows and stopped just short of the eye itself. A piece was missing from the the tip of one ear, and the base of his tailbone hurt where Tam had clamped down on his tail… when he still had one.
Mika slowly crawled out of his blanket, groaning constantly, and discovered that the back of his neck was stiff and bruised where Tam had gripped it in his powerful jaws. His entire ribcage was tender to the touch, and it hurt to breathe. Further, his feet were swollen, and the soles were cut and torn from heel to toe.
'What on Oerth!' exclaimed Lotus Blossom. 'Hornsbuck, this boy's a mess! Mika, how did you get in this shape?'
As Mika attempted to hobble toward the fire, she scooped him up in her immense arms as though he were a child and deposited him gently in front of the blaze.
'Best fix you up or you'll be dyin', and then that demon would come looking for us,' muttered Lotus Blossom. 'What've you got in that there pouch?'
Fumbling in Mika's pouch proved too much for Blossom's thick fingers, and in the end she emptied it out on the floor of the cave.
'How about this?' she asked, holding up a vial of clear green fluid.
'No, that's for removing warts,' Mika mumbled between cracked and swollen lips. 'This'll do,' he said, reaching for a stoppered horn filled with a thick, healing salve made from mullein flowers, powdered golden seal, ground gentian root, oil of hemlock spruce, and thick, yellow bear fat.
'Gimme,' said Blossom, grabbing the horn out of Mika's stiff fingers. There was no point in arguing with the huge woman, as she could easily ignore his futile protests and have her way with him. Sighing deeply, he gave himself over to her ministrations, determined to suffer through them as a form of added penalty for his stupidity.
Blossom slathered the stuff everywhere, even on places that showed no signs of injury. Surprisingly enough, her immense hands were both deft and gentle, and Mika felt strangely soothed by her touch as well as by her gruff concern. And she only pinched him once.
'Well, now,' said Blossom after she was finished. 'It seems as though we missed something last night. Care to fill us in? And for starters, where are Tam and the princess?'
'I only wanted to have a little fun,' Mike mumbled defensively. 'You have Hornsbuck, and the wolves have each other, and all I have is this horrible hand. I thought that maybe if I were a wolf, just for a little while, I could have some fun, too. But it didn't work out like I thought it would. Tam was mad at me tor some reason. The princess liked me, but that only made matters worse. They left, and I followed them. Tam and I fought, and then he and the princess ran off. I don't know where they are now.'
'I should have known,' rumbled Hornsbuck, more to himself than to Mika. 'I should have recognized it. Tried to stop them, did you, lad? Not a wise move. Looks like you fell down the mountain while you were at it.'
'It felt like two mountains,' Mika said ruefully, trying to find a comfortable position. A thought suddenly came to him. 'What did you mean, 'you should have recognized it'? Recognized what?'
'It's her time, Mika. Couldn't you see it com- mg?'
'See what coming?' asked Mika, feeling rather stupid.
'She's in heat, boy,' Blossom interrupted, annoyed at Mika's denseness. 'In heat. Her and Tam are off together, and unless we can think of a way to find them and separate them, your little miss princess will be having a litter of pups before long.'
'Pups! Oh, no! That can't be!' said Mika, sitting up straight on his blanket. 'What will we tell her father the king, and what about the demon? How can I possibly explain a litter of wolf pups? Hornsbuck! Lotus! What will they look like? Will they be human or wolves, or-or both?' he asked in a strangled voice.
'I don't know, lad,' Hornsbuck said heavily. 'Only time will tell us that.'
'Could be kinda interesting,' Blossom said brightly. 'And I don't see what you two are carrying on like this for, anyhow. Why would her father care? Way I understand it, this guy traded his own daughter to a demi-demon. I don't think I'd worry too much about his opinion. And why should the demon care? You told me his business was with the king, not the daughter. Seems like it's her problem now. Stop worrying.'
Mika groaned and sank back down on his blanket, suddenly too miserable to think about the dilemma any more. He didn't know how it mattered to the king or to the demon, but with his luck they would probably both be furious.
Blossom started to say something, but Hornsbuck, realizing that there was nothing that they could do or say, rose and took Blossom with him, leaving Mika to his own miserable thoughts.
Tam and the princess were gone for mate tkaa few- days and nights. By then Mika had become mac ar less resigned to the situation, realizing that there was nothing else he could do.
As a matter of fact, the union of Tam and the princess was perhaps preferable to what might have occurred had Mika emerged the victor. The wide variety of physical possibilities of the future offspring simply boggled his mind. The mere thought frightened Mika so much that he broke out in a nervous sweat.
It was possible that their offspring would be born all wolf. Or all human. Or multiple combinations of both. Or werewolves, appearing as human most of the time and turning into wolves periodically. Or wolven most of the time and turning human periodically. Mika found himself sighing a lot.
Tam and the princess were curled around each other, sleeping soundly, when Mika, Hornsbuck, and Blossom wakened on the morning of the fifth day.
The two lovers' paws and legs were muddy, and their pelts were streaked with dirt and leaves, and they slept, deeply exhausted. Neither even twitched a whisker when RedTail inspected them from head to frazzled tail with widespread nostrils and great, snuffling breaths.
The three humans did not need RedTail's heightened sense of smell to know what Tam and the princess had been up to.
When the two wolves finally woke, they ate the last of the antelope and then looked for more. Satisfying their hunger with chunks of mealybread, they curled up and went back to sleep again.
