Without waiting for the other to respond, he reached in and took Grianne right out of his arms. Cradling her, he stepped away again. “She’s my sister, Truls. No matter what you say.”
Truls Rohk straightened and looked directly at Bek. “The wishsong is a powerful magic, Bek Ohmsford. But it isn’t enough here. You still haven’t mastered it. Your sister proved that to you already. That thing over there will be at your throat before you figure out what’s needed.”
Bek looked at the caull and went cold to the bone thinking of how it would feel to have those teeth and claws tearing into him. It would be over quickly, he guessed. The pain would be momentary. Then it would be Grianne’s turn.
“You could do something for me,” he said to the shape-shifter. “If you could draw its attention away, just for a moment, I might be able to catch it off guard.”
Truls Rohk stared at him. Bek couldn’t see the shape-shifter’s eyes within the dark confines of his cowl, but he could feel the weight of their gaze, hard and certain. For a long moment, Truls didn’t speak. He just kept looking at Bek.
“Don’t do this,” he said finally.
Bek shook his head. “I have to. You know that.”
“You won’t survive it.”
“Then you can do what you wish with my sister, Truls.” He gave the shape-shifter a defiant look. “I won’t be there to stop you.”
Another long silence stole away the seconds. Bek brushed at a stray lock of hair and felt a bead of sweat slide down his forehead. He was hot in spite of the chill in the air. He felt as if he might never be cool again.
The shape-shifter stood where he was a moment longer, still staring at Bek. “All right,” he said finally, his voice harsh and angry. “I’ve said what I needed to say. Staying with her is up to you.” He turned away. “I’ll try to draw its attention. Maybe that will help, but I doubt it. Good luck to you, boy.”
Bek watched as Truls Rohk angled down the gentle slope, moving with the grace and precision of a moor cat. Deformed and ill made, an aberration of nature, he was nevertheless beautiful to watch. Bek could not believe he was really leaving. They had been together since the beginning of the journey west out of the Wolfsktaag. Truls had saved him so many times Bek had lost count, had given him the insights he needed to come to terms with his heritage and his destiny. They had not always agreed on everything, and there had been a degree of mistrust and uncertainty between them, but the alliance had worked. It was shattering now to see that alliance end. Even watching the other go, Bek couldn’t believe it was happening. It felt as if the shape-shifter was taking a part of Bek with him. His confidence. His heart.
Truls, he wanted to call out. Don’t go.
The caull swung around to watch the shape-shifter, its powerful body flattened and tensed. Bek lowered Grianne to the ground, placing her carefully behind him before turning back to defend them. When the caull struck, it would do so swiftly. He would have only one chance to stop it.
He never got even that. Before he could prepare himself, the caull attacked, springing sideways with blinding speed and tearing across the stream and up the slope in a blur of churning legs and gaping jaws. Bek would have been dead an instant later but for Truls Rohk, who moved even faster. So quick that he seemed simply to leave one place and reappear at another, he intercepted the caull from the side, slammed into it, and knocked it sprawling.
Then he was on top of the beast, tearing at it like an animal himself, snarling with such ferocity that for an instant Bek wasn’t sure that it was Truls at all. The shape-shifter ripped at the caull using weapons that Bek couldn’t see—weapons he concealed beneath his cloak or perhaps just fashioned out of the mass of raw and jagged bone that comprised his ruined body. Whatever they were, they proved effective. Bits and pieces of the caull’s body flew into the air, and blood jetted in dark spurts of inky green. The fighters careened across the vale, locked in combat, joined in purpose, lost in their desperate struggle to kill each other.