Windwalker - Elaine Cunningham [116]
"Find her," snapped Gorlist, but he already knew that the effort would prove futile. He kicked in frustration at the fallen soldier.
"Drag him out under the sky and watch him until the moon rises," he commanded. "Perhaps adding a drow werewolf to our band will inspire the rest of you to act like hunters!"
Even as they reached for him, Chiss shuddered and died. They did as Gorlist commanded. Under the night sky they drew swords and waited, some with fascination and others with almost-concealed trepidation, for the transformation to come and their former comrade to rise.
Hours slipped by, marked only by the steady dripping of water in some nearby tunnel.
"The moon has long since risen," Brindlor said at last. "Bury or burn him or leave him to rot. It matters not."
"Not a werewolf, then," Gorlist mused. "What was she, to change like that? A druid? A sorceress?"
"Worse," the deathsinger said grimly. "The wench is a lythari."
The sky was thick with stars before Liriel finally made her way to her little hut. Fyodor was already there and was busy stirring herbs into a stew.
"You're cooking," she observed. "The domovoi isn't going to like this."
He looked up sharply. "You've spoken with one?"
"We came to an understanding." She shut the door and untied the mask from her belt, sighing with relief as she slipped back into her own form. Even more pleasant was the way Fyodor's eyes filled with the sight of her.
"Songs and stories claim that the Seven Sisters are the fairest among women," he said quietly. "Have the bards all gone mad, or are they merely blind?"
She ran into his arms. For a long moment they clung together, then she led him to the rumpled bed. They settled down side by side, her head nestled against his broad shoulder.
"Rashemen is an interesting place. I was undressed by a domovoi, inspected by a coven of witches, and attacked by a dragon-shaped water spirit and a muscle-bound Rusalka. How was your day?"
"Much the same."
"Hmmm."
She lifted her face to his, and for quite some time there was no need for other words. The stewpot scalded, the domovoi sighed, and neither warrior nor Windwalker cared in the slightest.
Much later, Fyodor took her into the courtyard and pointed to the stars. "Do you see that small cluster there, shaped like a crossroads? We call it the Guardians after the spirits who watch the four corners of the year. The bright star there is Mokosh, named for the spirit of the harvest. A similar star pattern marks each turning of the year. Soon we will celebrate the Autumn Sunset, the time when night and day stand in balance and the wheel of the year turns toward winter."
The drow pulled her cloak closer. "I have heard of this winter. Does it get colder than this?"
"Much, but there is a chill wind tonight. We should go inside."
She turned wistful eyes toward the forest. Fyodor caught her look and shook his head. "That is not wise. This is a haunted land, and the nights are filled with ghosts. More so in these days than in times past."
"Zofia said that I should get to know the land's spirits," Liriel argued. "What better way?"
He relented with a sigh. "We will break fast with Vastish and her children. Perhaps we could bring a rabbit or two for her pot."
"Or an uthraki," she said with a grin, referring to their recent misadventure.
Fyodor's eyes twinkled. "Why not? Everything Vastish cooks ends up tasting much the same."
They set a brisk pace down the rutted dirt road that wound through the fields. Liriel heard a faint rustle to her left. From the corner of her eye she noted a squat, malformed dwarf scuttling through the ripened grain, keeping pace with them. Strings of green hair sprouted from its head like tall meadow grass, and a thick green mustache bristled under a vast beak of a nose. Its large eyes were deeply set and shadowed by beetling green brows, but even at a glance Liriel could see that one was a light green shade and one a brilliant orange.
"A polevik," Fyodor said in