Tam staggered to his feet and tried to join them. He took two uncertain steps and then lurched off drunkenly to the left. His momentum carried him for a short distance, whereupon he lost his balance and fell to the ground, whining.
There was only one thing to do. Mika trudged over to the wolfs side. Closing his eyes, he repeated the words to one of the few spells he knew by heart, a sleep spell. He had found it useful when meeting voung women. Awakening from unexpected naps, ihev found themselves cradled in his arms. Some- rimes they stayed there.
Tam stopped whining and began snoring, a peculiar snorting-wheezing-whistling sound, but anything was better than looking at his poor, crossed eyes. Mika picked the wolf up in his arms and, grunting under the weight, carried him over to the horse.
The roan shied and rolled its eyes as Mika neared, but it held fast. He draped the wolf over the horse's hindquarters, behind the saddle, and tied him securely like a sack of oatmeal.
Mika looked around the temple, checking to see if be had left anything. His leather pouch lay crumpled on the stones at the base of a pillar, the horns and vials, healing angents crushed and ruined. His sword and the Princess Julia's knife lay in the center of the room where the battle with the demi-demon, Iuz, had taken place. Mika lifted his hand and stroked the blue-green that hung from his neck. The princess. There was no avoiding it. He knew that he had to find her.
Mika scanned the temple, searching, but the princess was nowhere to be seen. Could she have left? For a moment his heart leapt within his breast and he hoped with all his being that it were true, that she had left and gone off on her own. But then he was overcome with worry that she might have done so. The princess was part of the mission and, like it or not, she was needed to unravel the mess and put things together right.
Mika crept around the edges of the temple as quietly as his swollen feet could manage, looking in all the darkened nooks and crannies where she might have hidden.
He found her at last, huddled beneath the great stone altar, her eyes, one green, one blue, glowing out at him from the darkness. As he held his hand out toward her, she growled and bared her teeth.
'I should have known,' Mika said with a sigh. 'Unpleasant as a woman, unpleasant as a wolf. Why would I expect anything different?' He turned aside as though to leave.
While Mika was fairly adept in dealing with women, he excelled at handling wolves. He was a Wolf Nomad, after all. And while the princess was familiar with being a woman, she had been a wolf for only a short time.
As Mika drew back, the princess lunged forward to bite him, the hatred glowing bright in her eyes. That was what Mika had been waiting for. In a motion almost too fast to follow, he seized the princess behind her neck and, pinching the skin at the base of her neck, lifted her clear of the altar as easily as if she were a small kitten.
Mika carried her, as she snapped futilely and snarled loudly, back across the temple to the patient roan. He rummaged in the saddlebags, whistling cheerfully through swollen lips, not allowing the princess the satisfaction of knowing how much his arms ached and how much he longed to set her down. Finally he found what he was looking for, a sturdy length of smoked rawhide. It would not last forever, but it would do for the time being. He tied it firmly around her neck and knotted the other end around the horn of the saddle. Try as she might, she could not free herself quickly. Everything was ready-well, almost everything. Mika removed Hornsbuck's cape from around his massive shoulders and fitted it around his own. It covered most of his body, having been made for a much larger man. Falling to his ankles, it hid his burned flesh and singed clothes from sight. But his boots were badly charred and tattered. Muttering an apoiogv to the bemused Hornsbuck, he removed the s boots as well and placed them on his own feet. They were so enormous, that he had difficulty keeping them on, but if he shuffled, it would be all right, His head and hands were another matter. His hair been burned away to mere stubble, and his face was puffy and peeling and scarlet red in color. And there was little matter of the demon finger.
Mika spread his arms wide and modeled his new headgear for the wolf. RedTail looked away and whined, seemingly embarrassed by the pink silk turban.
But Mika was pleased. There was little or nothing he could do about his hand except keep it hidden from view beneath the voluminous cloak, but now he was fit to go out in public.
He grabbed the roan's reins firmly and, making certain that the princess could not reach him, he made his way through the carved set of double doors and left the temple of Iuz.
CHAPTER 5
The sun was high in its passage, blazing down on the strange little caravan as they picked their way over the multitude of broken steps that had once streamed with worshippers of the dark one, Iuz. Now. nothing remained but broken stones and bleak memories.
Mika led his charges across the broad, flat plain raa: separated the temple from the great walled city of Eru- Tovar, the capital city of the Wolf Nomads, wondering how quickly he would be able to find what he wanted and leave.
As he trudged across the barren plain, clenching his toes inside the large, over-sized boots in an effort so keep them on, he began to wonder if he mightn't be able to undo some of the damage to Hornsbuck's 'idled brain. It could scarcely get worse. Digging in hcs pouch with his free hand, he pulled the spell book tree and began to leaf through it, looking for an appropriate spell.
So involved was he in studying the book that he failed to notice another Wolf Nomad caravan on its way out of the city until it was nearly beneath his nose.
The caravan master, a pompous man of advanced years, was taken aback by the strange sight that greeted him: a man, oddly muffled in a red cloak large enough for one twice his size, shuffling in too- large shoes, and wearing a bulbous pink silk turban on his swollen, hairless head, leading the strangest entourage imaginable.
An enormous fellow rode atop the single horse, his bare feet dangling nearly to the ground. Tied behind him was a wolf with a lolling tongue who snored loud enough to wake the dead. And dragging behind the horse on the end of a leash was another wolf, with one green eye and one blue eye, that snapped and snarled and fought the rawhide restrainer. The only normal member of the party was a stocky wolf with reddish blond fur and a short, scarred muzzle who trotted off to one side as though trying to appear unconnected with the rest of the group.
'Ho!' said the caravan master, Wolf Nomad protocol overcoming his misgivings.
'Huh?' said Mika, shoving the turban back from his eyes with a cloak-wrapped hand, allowing the spell book to cover as much of his face as possible. 'Oh, uh, no! No!' he replied, unable to see clearly because of the sunlight glaring in his eyes, yet recognizing the ancient wolf clan greeting. To not respond would be an insult and a breach of acceptable conduct which could result in a challenge, and, perhaps, even a duel.
'Whartan of the Wolf Nomads, born to the Blue Forest Wanderers, out of the Pine Lodge clan,' said the caravan master, reciting his lineage and demanding. without so saying, Mika's credentials.
'Mika of the Wolf Nomads, born to the Burneal Forest Hunters, out of the Far Fringe clan,' replied Mika, knowing full well that the man was correct in asking his identity, for no one was allowed within distance of Eru- Tovar unless he could account for himself either by birth or by business.
'Who is your companion?' asked the man, still highly doubtful of Mika.
'One Hornsbuck by name, a mighty warrior,' answered Mika, pushing back the turban which had once more slid forward over his eyes. 'Also of the Far Fringe clan.'
'Success be your reward,' said the man after a long pause, unable to think of what else to say.
'And peaceful be your journey,' replied Mika, relieved that he had not been forced to fight. He nodded at the man, holding his turban on with the spell book.
The man gave him one last penetrating look and aenaled his caravan to continue. Mika stood ст. as all twenty wagons passed by, trying to ¦ d›e curious looks of the outriders. Just then the approached, a great burly monster of a ropelike muscles and two long blond straightened in the saddle and ' Locus Blossom!' he cried joyous- K. he bhc eves brightening visibly. The braided ¦ Цж. producing a long, vulgar kiss- rode on. Hornsbuck attempted to leap down Ьсм tbe saddle and follow the rider, and it was all Mika could do to subdue him.
Finally, Mika was able to persuade Hornsbuck to stay where he was, but not before the princess darted in and delivered a painful bite to Mika's heel. Fortunately, the immense boot protected him from serious injury so that he merely limped a little bit more than he had before.
