Son of Thunder - Murray J. D. Leeder [101]
The Thunderbeast party fanned out and drew weapons. I am a werebeast of sorts, too, Vell realized for the first time.
Keirkrad advanced in slow steps, his wings dragging on the ground. His eyes locked on the axe in Thluna's hands.
"How is this?" he asked. "The axe reclaimed? Sungar's folly undone?"
"There is much to be explained, Keirkrad," said Thluna. "We Thunderbeasts have been misled and manipulated. Let us explain."
"There is no reasoning with a werebeast," Kellin warned.
Keirkrad let out a throaty chuckle. "For once, the southland whore and I agree. You are weak creatures, all. I have borne witness to the fickleness of your kind all my long life." He scanned the assembled Uthgardt. "The child chief, the traitor druid of Silvanus, an orc infiltrator, and warriors of no particular distinction. You disappoint even so minor and weak a god as Uthgar. Only one among you is worthy of the transformation, of Malar's blessing, and that is purely for the power that resides in you. A repository, the treant called you. Just what is a reservoir, if not a power waiting to be tapped?"
A new kind of anger awakened in Vell.
"You wanted to groom me as your champion to challenge Sungar's chiefdom!" he shouted. "And when I wouldn't, you slandered me instead, told me that I was not worthy of Uthgar's blessing. You openly schemed against the chief to whom you swore fealty-what behavior is this for a shaman? "What actions are these for a favored son of Uthgar? I did not betray Uthgar-you did."
The composure drained from Keirkrad's batface, and Vell counted that as a victory. He went on. "And now you would make me a monster? Perhaps I am a monster already." Lanaal's lessons in transformation, which he had resisted, suddenly struck home. When he shed his human form, he largely kept his own mind and volition.
* * * * *
Vell's transformation into a brown-scaled behemoth was more shocking than the first incident. In Sungar's Camp, it had happened so quickly amid such confusion and in the dark of night-it had seemed like a strange dream. Now, in the daylight amid a tranquil setting, it bore a new reality. Vell was gone, or what the warriors knew as Vell, and in his place stood a creature of legend, a creature the Thunderbeasts had been taught to revere. No glimpse of the bones of the beast hovering above Morgur's Mound could have prepared them for the flesh and blood behemoth before them.
Vell stood as tall as the treetops. He felt a strange rush of embarrassment as he looked down on the disbelieving faces of his friends and allies as they rushed to keep clear.
Hissing, snarling, Keirkrad sprang from the ground into the air. His physical weakness was erased by his bat-form, and he landed on Vell's vast face, clamping on with his claws and wrapping his huge wings over Vell's eyes. Vell charged, partly to keep Keirkrad away from the others, and partly to disturb Keirkrad's grip, the ground trembling as he did so. He blindly strode into the River Delimbiyr. A massive splash drenched the river's banks, and Vell waded into the middle of the river.
Vell felt the shocking coldness of the water rush up his massive limbs, reaching his brain with the intensity of a thunder strike. He dunked his head into the water, dousing Keirkrad. All around them, currents and eddies swirled, formed by the sudden intrusion of Vell's bulk. The werebat clung, squeezing more and more tightly on Vell's face; but he could not maintain his grip, and drifted away in the rapids.
Vell watched Keirkrad's huge wings vainly struggling against the water, their fine bones and leathery covering inadequate against the Delimbiyr's onrush. Then the water swirled around him, forming a whirlpool and a wall that protected him, and Keirkrad magically lifted above the Delimbiyr's surface. Beating his wings steadily to dry himself and stay aloft, he looked toward Vell with a perverse grin as he faced the lizard in the middle of