Chapter 12

12

When the stomach orders, the body obeys.

~ Elder Taybarri Seerathi

Kaylina waited until the unconscious beast transformed back into Vlerion before crawling out of the nook. Dirt and pebbles fell out of her hair, and her body ached from scraping against the stone slabs. Further, blisters were rising on her palms from her many futile hacks of the vines with Vlerion's sword.

He'd collapsed on his back, and she rested a hand on his chest, the leather torso armor slumped halfway off. He was naked from the waist down, with his shirt in tatters, the seams ripped. She hoped he had spare clothing in his pack and looked around, thinking of searching for it—and the taybarri—but she wouldn't leave him alone when he was vulnerable.

"Did you get all the Kar'ruk, I wonder?" she murmured, remembering how fast and powerful he'd been in the battle, too much for even the powerful warriors to handle. "If more show up while you're napping, we'll be in trouble." She smiled and patted him, hoping his eyelids would flutter.

As magnificent as the beast was, she wanted the man for company. She glanced at the torn earth, its scent lingering in the air, and attempted to forget about the beast digging, trying to reach her, to pull her out and mate with her. She had little doubt that he'd wanted that, and she shivered as she recalled Vlerion's mother warning her that women didn't always survive such encounters.

Uneasy, Kaylina drew her hand back, as if her simple touch might make the beast return. "Vlerion, I don't suppose you know where your underwear is."

A bird chirped at the edge of the ruins, and a frog in the lake answered. Hopefully, that meant the Kar'ruk in the area were all dead.

Kaylina rose to her feet and flexed her battered body. A few tentative whuffs came from the ruins.

Crenoch and Levitke padded into view, their heads held lower than their long bodies as they slinked forward. They eyed Vlerion warily before looking at Kaylina.

"I don't think he's dangerous anymore," she told them. "Thank you for your help and for coming back."

They looked at each other, heads still low as they continued toward her. For the first time since she'd met the taybarri, their whuffs sounded apologetic.

"It's not your fault," she assured them.

They would have been helpful against the Kar'ruk, but she couldn't blame them for not wanting to fight at the beast's side. In that form, Vlerion could have turned on them. No, he would have turned on them. She was positive. When he was the beast, he saw everyone as an enemy. Everyone except… his female. She swallowed, not relieved by having that designation.

Using his snout, Crenoch nudged Vlerion's shoulder.

"He'll be all right," Kaylina told them, glad Crenoch didn't seem to hold a grudge. He had to understand that Vlerion wasn't a threat in his normal form.

Crenoch stepped around him, then pointed his nose past the ruins and toward the lake. He swayed his tail, looked at Kaylina, and pointed his nose toward the lake again.

"Is there danger in that direction? More Kar'ruk?"

Crenoch shook his big head, then lifted one clawed forelimb as he pointed his snout toward the lake again. He reminded Kaylina of her Grandpa's hounds. A few of them also lifted one forelimb as they pointed into the brush at birds. Levitke watched Crenoch but didn't offer any indications of her own that she wanted to go that way. Maybe when they'd been scared by the shrieking flowers, they'd fled in different directions.

"Do you want me to see something in the lake? Or on the other side of it?"

Whuff.

"All right, uhm." Kaylina considered Vlerion. He hadn't yet stirred. He probably would soon if they waited, but she wouldn't mind getting out of the strange ruins, the strange ruins that more Kar'ruk might visit. She recalled the blowing of that war horn. The warriors might have been summoning allies. "Will you help me get him on your back, Crenoch?"

The taybarri returned to Vlerion's side and lay down, stretching his long body out. His back was still a few feet off the ground, but that was as low as he could get.

Kaylina grabbed Vlerion's wrist and lifted him enough to drape his arm over Crenoch's back, but the rest of him was heavier. Grunting and straining, she struggled to pull him up. She shifted to his leg and got that over, though the muscled limb wasn't light. Levitke stepped forward and used a paw to pin the leg in place so it wouldn't slip down again. She used her snout to anchor his arm over Crenoch's back.

"Thank you." Kaylina trotted to Vlerion's other side so she could shove, straining to heft him up. "I was… admiring your… nice muscles before… I realized how heavy they are." With a final shove, she pushed his body onto Crenoch's back. The taybarri waited patiently through the manhandling of his rider. "You're a good boy, Crenoch."

The responding whuff sounded like the equivalent of obviously .

Levitke issued a querying whuff.

"Yes, you're a good girl. Very helpful, thank you. Both of you."

The next whuffs sounded smug.

Kaylina no longer doubted that the intelligent taybarri understood everything humans said.

Once she had Vlerion's legs and arms astraddle, his chest and face smashed into blue fur, she climbed up behind him.

"I'll hold him up here," she told Levitke, lest she be upset that her rider was cheating on her with another taybarri.

Levitke trotted off into the ruins while Crenoch headed straight for the lake. As Kaylina gripped Vlerion's bare legs to hold him in place, she glanced at his pack strapped between Crenoch's shoulders, thinking of delving in for spare clothes. But it would be almost as hard to dress him as it was to lift him. Once he woke, he could handle that himself.

It concerned her that he hadn't woken yet. In the dungeon, it had taken several minutes, but more time than that had passed now. And she didn't think the battle against the Kar'ruk had lasted as long as the fight under the castle. Nor did he appear to have been injured as badly. A few shallow axe gouges bled here and there, but he'd been peppered with crossbow quarrels when he'd fought the Virts.

"If you're not conscious by the time Crenoch gets us wherever, I'll try waking you with a kiss." Kaylina patted Vlerion's thigh. "After I wash your face and mouth. You're nasty right now, my lord. " She smiled, half-expecting him to wake to tell her that her honorific had been sarcastic rather than properly respectful. He did not.

Levitke caught up to them, carrying Vlerion's sword, boots, and were those his torn clothes in her mouth?

"Thank you," Kaylina said. "I forgot. And he would have been crabby if we left his sword behind."

She was less certain he would want to put his underwear on after they'd been covered in saliva in a taybarri's mouth, but maybe she wouldn't mention that to him.

Crenoch padded through trees as they followed the shoreline of the lake, heading to the other side. More birds, insects, and other wildlife made noise, a sign that the forest had returned to normal.

Here and there, a few vines flicked, making Kaylina feel that she was being monitored, as if the altered plants had a sentience and the druids had left them to guard the preserve. Maybe they had. After all, the druids must have been alerted somehow during the famine when rangers had hunted within its borders. Were they still in the world somewhere, and would they be drawn to return if poaching happened again?

Kaylina eyed the brand on her skin. She wasn't eager to meet the people who'd animated the murdering vines in the castle.

When the taybarri reached a stream trickling into the lake, Crenoch turned to follow it inland. Through breaks in the trees, the mountains were visible, white peaks stretching toward the blue sky.

The forest thinned further as they entered a valley carpeted with lush green grass that rose a foot or two, spreading outward from either side of the stream. Numerous plants grew amid the grass, leaves and buds stretching above the blades, a few flowers starting to open. They dotted the verdant valley with blues, purples, oranges, and yellows and made the area vibrate with electricity. Or… with magic?

Kaylina picked up buzzes among the humming. Were those bees? Yes, she spotted a couple of plump black-and-yellow honeybees flitting among the flowers. Who could blame them for living in such a place? With the mountains visible in the backdrop, the valley was breathtakingly beautiful. As with the lake, it would be a wonderful scene to paint.

"You should wake up, Vlerion." Kaylina trusted that anyone who played an instrument and hummed to calm himself would appreciate the beauty of nature.

Levitke issued a questioning whuff, her tail swishing with interest. Kaylina sniffed but didn't catch the musky odor of the Kar'ruk. Crenoch looked toward one of several stone or maybe ceramic domes that dotted the verdant valley and headed toward it.

He shifted from walking to trotting. Eager to reach it?

Kaylina pressed her hands down on Vlerion's back to keep him from slipping sideways.

More bees buzzed around the ceramic dome, numerous slit openings all around its sides. The holes, as well as the structure itself, were time-worn, as if the dome had been there for centuries, but no moss or mildew grew on it.

"Are these… hives?" Kaylina wondered. "Built by the druids?"

Crenoch and Levitke slowed down, but their nostrils twitched with interest.

"Is there honey inside?" she guessed.

It was early in the season for there to be much, but the taybarri must have caught the scent. A bee buzzed toward Crenoch's face, and he backed away with a mournful clucking sound and looked over his shoulder at Kaylina.

"Did you get stung when you were here earlier?"

He whuffed and shook his head, gazing with longing at the hive but not moving closer.

Since the taybarri had thick fur, she was surprised Crenoch would have noticed a sting, but maybe a bee had targeted his nose or eyes. The druids might also have embedded magic in the nearby plants or the hives themselves that helped the bees defend their territory.

As if to demonstrate, Crenoch lifted a paw, reached toward the hive, then jerked it back.

"Did the dome zap you?" Kaylina remembered touching the soil of the plant in the castle tower and receiving a shock that had knocked her on her ass.

Crenoch gave an affirmative whuff.

"I can share some of my honey if we can't get in, but… I wonder if that plant would enjoy this even more than my honey from back home."

Her family's honey was delicious, the best she'd ever tasted, but if these bees were taking pollen from altered flowers, what they stored here might be its equivalent. Further, it might be exactly what the plant would have received from the druids who'd placed it there, assuming they'd also made a fertilizer from honey.

"What are the odds that I could get a sample without being zapped, stung, or mutilated in any way?"

The taybarri looked at her intently, both swishing their tails and rustling the grass.

"You guys want honey. I don't trust you as good resources on the odds of my mutilation." Thinking of the castle curse, Kaylina slid off Crenoch's back anyway. "It's too bad I don't have one of my grandpa's smokers with me."

Levitke tilted her head.

"Smoke puts bees to sleep. Well, not to sleep exactly, but it masks the alarm pheromones that they put out to warn the hive, so you're less likely to get stung. But, as my brother recently pointed out, I've had good luck taking honey from hives without smoking them. He was trying to tell me that's evidence that I'm an anrokk. "

The taybarri swished their tails encouragingly.

Kaylina crept forward, hands out and open, and attempted to stay calm and do nothing to alarm the bees. As she approached the hive, the hum of magic she'd felt since entering the valley grew stronger. She probably had to worry more about alarming it than the bees.

Not sure how to open the lid—did it even have a lid?—she circled the dome. Then she halted and stared, for there was a mark on the weathered ceramic. Though faint, it was distinct. A star-shaped leaf had been carved into one side. She looked at her hand, but she already knew it matched.

"If that isn't a sign that I should get some honey to try on that plant, I don't know what would be."

The comment received a chorus of whuffs.

"It's so great to have spectators."

Bees buzzed past her head on the way in and out of the hive but didn't react to her presence. Kaylina slowly stretched her fingers toward the dome but shifted before touching it, instead turning her hand over to press the brand against the larger leaf on the side.

Warmth flowed from her skin as it touched, followed by a soothing coolness.

A faint click reverberated through the dome, and the top opened, revealing slats partially full of honeycomb and covered in bees.

"I don't have any tools or empty jars with me for collecting this stuff." She had the jar of honey in her pack but was hesitant to mix the two substances. She wanted to isolate this to try on the plant.

The taybarri whuffed and lolled their tongues out.

Kaylina snorted. "Yeah, we're not collecting anything with those."

Carefully, she removed one of the slats. The bees flew off in a huff, but none stung her. It was almost eerie how easy it was to take their prized honey, and she wondered if the plant in the castle had somehow orchestrated this, marking her so that she could gain access and get honey for it. But how could it have known she would go to the preserve and find this place? She believed its magic instilled it with intelligence, but this much?

Levitke made a distressed noise and backed farther away. A few bees had been circling her head, buzzing aggressively. The hum from the dome intensified.

With the slat in hand, Kaylina backed slowly away. She hoped none of the flowers in the valley would start shrieking.

She patted Levitke and removed her pack, poking inside for something she could use to collect some of the comb. Other than food and a change of clothes, there wasn't much. She was on the verge of using the half-empty jar of honey when her knuckles bumped the ranger handbook.

"You can be useful again," she murmured to it and tore a page out of the back.

As she wiped some comb into it, Vlerion spoke.

"That is the most blasphemous thing I've seen you do, ranger trainee."