He sank down beside her and held his hands out toward the fire, even though her spell had made warming them unnecessary.
Karrell reached out for his left hand and turned it, looking at his abbreviated little finger. "An accident?"
Arvin shook his head. "I was young and on my own and hungry. I made the mistake of stealing on someone else's turf. The Guild cut it off as a warning." He picked up his glove, which had dried, and started to pull the stiff leather over his hand, but Karrell stopped him. She raised his hand to her lips and kissed it.
"You have had a difficult life," she said.
Arvin eased his hand from hers. "No more difficult than some. I'm sure your life hasn't been easy."
"It became much more pleasant after I pledged myself to the K'aaxlaat. They helped set my feet on the path I was to follow through the maze of life. They have become like broodmates to me."
"Do you miss your home?" Arvin asked.
"Often," Karrell said. Then she smiled. "But not at the moment."
Tanglemane stood suddenly.
"What's wrong?" Arvin asked, reaching for his dagger.
"All is well," Tanglemane assure them. "I simply go to find more firewood." Without another word, he trotted into the woods.
Karrell gave a soft laugh. "He realizes we would rather be alone."
"Does he think we want to-"
Before he could finish the question, she kissed him, answering it.
Arvin could hear the sound of Tanglemane's footsteps growing fainter. Collecting firewood, indeed. As the fire crackled beside them, filling the air with the sharp tang of smoke, he returned Karrell's kiss, wrapping his arms around her. Before his meditations, he'd been exhausted. But now…
Easing her onto the ground, he kissed his way down her throat.
A rustling in the woods startled Arvin awake. It was dark, but the fire was burning brightly. Tanglemane must have stoked it while Arvin and Karrell slept. The centaur stood next to the fire, head lolling on his chest, fast asleep.
Karrell lay beside Arvin. Like him, she was still naked; they had fallen asleep, tangled together, after their lovemaking. She stirred, lost in a dream. It must have been an unpleasant one; she gasped and jerked her hand, as if trying to free it from something.
Arvin nudged her awake.
She blinked then sat up. "What is it?" she asked. "I'm not sure," Arvin said. "I heard something in the woods. I think it's-"
Eyes glinted at him from the edge of the clearing- eyes that were low to the ground and shone red from reflected firelight.
"A wolf," Arvin finished.
Tanglemane must have heard the word in his sleep. That, or he caught the wolf's scent. Instantly, his head was up, nostrils flaring. Tail flicking back and forth, he started to reach toward the empty sheath at his hip then changed his mind and turned his hindquarters to the wolf, lifting one massive hoof in readiness to kick.
Karrell sat up, fully awake now. "Tanglemane, wait. I will speak to it." She murmured something in her own language then gave a series of yips, half-barks, and growls. She was answered in kind by the wolf, which padded into the clearing. It proved to be an older animal, with a white muzzle and a lean, hungry-looking face.
"Has the wolf seen any satyrs?" Arvin asked. "Is there a camp nearby?"
"She does not know. She will ask her pack."
"Are they-" Before Arvin could complete the question, the wolf threw back its head and howled. A second wolf answered it from just inside the forest on the opposite side of the clearing. Then a third answered, from slightly deeper in the forest. Within moments, howls came from the woods on every side, both from close at hand and from a great distance. There must have been a dozen voices or more. The chorus lasted for several moments, rising and falling like a song, then one by one the wolves fell silent.
Arvin glanced at Tanglemane, who stood stiff-legged and trembling. He placed what he hoped was a reassuring hand on the centaur's flank. "Steady, Tanglemane," he told the centaur. "You were right; they're afraid of the fire. They're not going to come any closer."
The wolf who had answered Arvin's sending stared at Karrell and gave a series of yips and barks.
"A satyr camp lies to the east of here," Karrell translated, her voice tight with excitement. "There is a human in it. A female human."
"Tymora be praised," Arvin whispered. Touching the crystal at his throat, he whispered a quick prayer of thanks to the goddess of luck, promising to throw a hefty handful of coins in her cup-coins that would come from the baron's reward. "Can the wolves lead us there?" he asked Karrell.
She translated his question and received a reply. "They can. But they are hungry; the winter has been hard. They want something in return: meat. They want our "horse.'"
"Our horse?" Arvin echoed_
Tanglemane gave him a wild-eyed look.
"Tell them that's of the question," Arvin said, placing a protective arm across Tanglemane's broad back. He glanced at the rock behind them then spoke in a low voice to Karrell. "Too bad we didn't have a way to turn the rock back into a giant. We'd have enough meat to feed a dozen packs of wolves."
"Could you summon another animal for them to eat?" Karrell asked. "An elk, or…"
"Not without knowing how it 'talks,'" Arvin said. "A wolfs howl is the only animal sound I could imitate reliably. Other than a snake's hiss, of course."
Tanglemane's nostrils flared. His eyes were wide, with white showing around the edges as they darted back and forth, following the shapes that flitted through the darkness. "They're coming closer," he whinnied.
Arvin manifested his dagger into his glove. "Then we'll fight them," he said.
"Wait," Karrell said, laying a hand on Arvin's arm. "Let me try something else."
Abruptly, she transformed into her serpent form-a sleek reddish-brown snake with a band of gold scales around the tip of its tail. One moment she was standing in the firelight; the next, she was slithering along the ground, circling around the fire. Tanglemane startled, rearing up, and for several moments Arvin frantically tried to calm him, terrified that the centaur would crush Karrell under his hooves. By the time Arvin turned around, Karrell was between them and the wolves, swaying back and forth. She hissed softly, slit eyes turning to stare first at one patch of darkened forest, then another. Arvin found himself swaying slightly as he watched her and felt Tanglemane doing the same.
The first wolf-the one with the white muzzle- padded closer. It stopped several paces from Karrell and stared at her as if mesmerized. Then another wolf walked out of the woods, then two more. Within moments, six shaggy gray beasts were sitting in a circle, surrounding Karrell. All were thinner than they should have been: hungry.
Something flashed out of the darkness-a seventh wolf that hadn't succumbed to her trance. Releasing the near-panicked Tanglemane, Arvin raised his dagger, but before he could throw it, Karrell turned and confronted that wolf with a spitting hiss. The wolf immediately flattened on the ground, ears back and tail tucked between its legs. Whimpering, it crawled back to the woods. As soon as it reached the safety of the forest, it fled, crashing away through the undergrowth.
Karrell, meanwhile, had resumed her dance. The six remaining wolves continued to sit and stare at her, swaying in time with her motions. She drank in their scent with her flickering tongue then opened her mouth. What emerged wasn't a hiss, but a series of yips, followed by a long howl.
One by one, the wolves threw back their heads and howled with her.
Arvin felt a shiver run through him. It suddenly came home to him that Karrell was something utterly nonhuman. It hadn't fully struck him when he'd first seen her scales. But seeing her in serpent form-watching as she reduced one wolf to a quivering bundle of fear and ensnared the remaining wolves in her trance-was a different matter. He'd been thinking of her as a human with a hint of serpent about her. He'd refused to fully acknowledge that she was yuan-ti-and everything that came with it. Those charms she'd cast on him were only a small fraction of her powers.