As short as the explanation had been, I’d had to raise my voice almost to a yell by the end of it. At the word Hunter, the stands had cascaded in one long ripple of fur and skin as hundreds of Weres rushed down the slope to the lower levels. None attempted to advance into the flat area, but they were as close as they could get. There was blood in the air, something no wolf could resist.
“She lies! The human lies!” Grayshadow was practically apoplectic. “I barely escaped alive from the clutches of the vargulf Cyrus, once of Arnou. He and this one conspired together to weaken the clans by killing our leading members! They care nothing for our ways, for our traditions! They think to use the war to destroy us, to dissipate our power and to allow the humans to enslave us!”
It wasn’t a bad story, playing to all the hot buttons for the clans: raging xenophobia, distaste for the human war, and fear of those who possessed a magic they didn’t understand. A rustling murmur came from the crowd, growing louder by the second, and I briefly wondered if I was about to be lynched. And then the Speaker’s spear struck the ground with three heavy knocks that I swear I could feel through the soles of my boots.
“Challenge has been issued.”
Grayshadow looked at him incredulously. “She is human! She has not accepted the Change! There is nothing in the tradition that defends it!”
“And nothing that prohibits. I say a second time, challenge has been issued against you, Grayshadow of Arnou. Do you accept?”
“This is outrageous! She and her human father killed four representatives of Lobizon! Her birth clan wants nothing to do with her! She is clearly—”
“For the third and last time. Challenge has been issued against you by a lawful member of the Clan. Do you accept?”
Grayshadow’s mouth compressed into a sharp line, a wince of anger and contempt. But I wasn’t worried. Clan law is remarkably simple in comparison to the human variety. If he wanted to clear his name, he had to fight me. To refuse would be an admission of guilt, and ringing us on all sides were members of the clans who had lost members to the Hunter. He’d never make it out of here alive.
Of course, if he accepted, I might not either.
He finally gave an abrupt nod, his eyes filled with not just pride but rage. It paled them out to silver, hardening a mouth shaped for smug, superior smiles and stiffening his walk to angry, snapping strides. I stood there, watching him move to the middle of the great space, unsure what happened now.
“Challenge has been issued,” the Speaker intoned. “Challenge is accepted.”
I started after Grayshadow, almost deafened by the renewed uproar of the crowd, only to be jerked back by an iron grip on my arm. I smelled the musky scent of woods and predation and looked up to see Sebastian. He was in human form, but his eyes were chartreuse and they didn’t look happy.
“I asked you to find my brother, not to issue challenge!” he hissed, so low I could barely hear him over the crowd.
“I did find him. He’s fine. Well, not fine,” I amended. “But he’ll live.”
“Then your job is done!”
“Not yet.” I tried to tug away, but got exactly nowhere. Sebastian might have been a column carved out of the surrounding rock.
“I’ll take the challenge for you,” he told me, his jaw tight.
“Like hell.”
“Lia! Don’t be a fool. I’ve seen Grayshadow fight! You can’t win!”
“I guess we’ll find out.” The death grip on my arm didn’t change. “Let me go, Sebastian.”
“I’ll repudiate you, dismiss you from the tribe! It will render your challenge meaningless.”
I blinked. He looked utterly serious. “And that would help how? Then they’d kill me for being here.”
“I will guarantee you safe passage.” He started pulling me away, toward the sidelines.
“Then Lobizon will kill me tomorrow!” I dug in my heels, which did nothing but carve furrows out of the dirt. “Sebastian! He came here to challenge you! As soon as I leave—”
He rounded on me, furious. “I can fight my own battles!”
“Not this time. You’re just going to have to trust me.”
“I am not going to tell my brother I let his mate die!”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
“You don’t understand. It would kill him! Our mother—” He stopped, a flash of pain cutting across those striking eyes. “She died in a contest much like this one.”
“She was the woman you told me about,” I realized. “The one who died defending her mate.”
“Yes. And I can’t watch that again!”
“You won’t.”
“You don’t know Grayshadow like I do. He will kill you.”
I looked over my shoulder, to where Grayshadow silently waited. Unlike me, he’d taken time to change clothes before approaching the Council. I could have picked him out as Arnou anywhere. It was in the shape of his long, dark cloak, cut from a template hundreds of years old that had been copied from one worn by their first clan leader. More obviously, it was in the peculiar mix of arrogance and elegance that no other clan quite managed, that calm conceit that said we are first because we are best.
My stomach clenched. “No,” I told Sebastian. “He won’t.”
“You’re afraid; I can see it on your face. Relinquish your challenge and let me get you out of here.”
“Fear isn’t a bad thing, if you use it right,” I told him, and wrenched away.
The Council’s servants had been busy lighting more torches, probably for the benefit of my lousy human eyesight. I wasn’t sure if I was grateful or not. A circle of them now ringed Grayshadow in fire, shedding sepia light over the sand and gilding his face, deepening the crags, highlighting the lines and making him look like what he was—a warrior with a hell of a lot more experience than me. He seemed to think so, too, because he wasn’t looking too worried.
“Tell me, human,” he called before I’d even reached him. “Do you remember the story of Red Riding Hood?”
“Let me guess. You aren’t the benevolent woodsman.”
Grayshadow laughed. “He only exists in the modern version. Today, the foolish little girl is saved by the woodsman who kills the wicked wolf. But in the original French story, she was given false instructions by the wolf when she asked the way to her grandmother’s house. She took his advice and ended up being eaten. And that was it. There was no woodsman and no grandmother, merely a well-fed wolf and a dead Red Riding Hood.”
“Guess we’re lucky it was only a fairy tale,” I said, stepping inside the ring of torch light.
“But it reflected reality. The original story is from a harsher time, when my ancestors fought with yours for territory, for food—for survival. The writer understood: you were our enemy, and we were yours.”
“Once, maybe. But we’re allies now, in case you haven’t—”
A clawed hand shot out and ripped through my shirt. I had shields up, or I’d have probably been bisected. As it was, talons like blades rattled across my ribs like a stick along a wrought iron fence.
Grayshadow rolled up his sleeve, exposing blistered flesh, while I fought to remain standing. “Now we’re even.”
I thought of the wolves he’d butchered, of the ruin he’d made of Cyrus, and my lip curled. “Not even close,” I hissed, and pushed a section of my shields outward in a band that wrapped around his throat. Something hit me in the side, and I could hear the crunch of shattered bone. I bit my lip on a scream and held on, until a burst of raw power exploded against my ragged shields like a firestorm.
I staggered back and he tore away. My shields had to be almost gone, because this felt like a direct hit, with every cell in my body screaming that it was dying. The only thing keeping me vertical was the memory of countless training sessions, stretching on until I was so tired I could have wept, and my father’s voice telling my mother “You underestimate her strength. Again, Accalia.” He’d wanted to be sure that, if I joined the Corps, I was as prepared as he could make me. And no matter how much it hurt, it had been less impossible to do what was asked than to prove him wrong.