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Curran flipped in midair and bounced off the wall. A man had started the leap, but what hit Bran was a hashish-induced nightmare of lion and human.
The beast smashed Bran off his feet. Curran snarled, his gold eyes luminescent with rage. His huge, prehistoric maw gaped open and three-inch fangs nearly sheared Bran’s nose from his face. The Beast Lord was pissed.
Bran kicked Curran off with two enormous legs, and leaped upright. “Come on, princess! Show me what you’ve got.”
Curran lunged. Bran swung a meaty hand, missed, and took razored claws to his ribs, slicing him like a pear. The wounds bled and closed.
People scattered. Bran swiped the loup cage that once held the reeve and smashed at Curran with it.
The Pack King caught the cage. The wound on his arm bled, the bandage long gone. Mammoth muscles bulged across Curran’s back and he ripped the cage from Bran’s hands and tossed it aside. “Still second best,” he growled, his eyes drowning in gold.
They hammered each other, swiping, kicking, caught in a savage contest. Bran managed to land a kick, batting Curran across the yard. The Beast Lord’s rebound took Bran off his feet and slammed him into a wooden shed sitting against the wall. The wall gave, and Bran fell through in an explosion of splinters.
Curran dived after him. A moment later another section of the wall exploded, pelting the ground with fragments and Bran’s warped body stumbled back into the open. He bled from a half dozen places but didn’t seem to notice.
“Is that all you got?” When no answer came, he stuck his head into the hole. “Where are you…”
The blow sent him hurtling across the yard. As he slid past, I had to jump aside to keep from being crushed. He hit the loup cage with his head and bounced off.
Curran appeared in the gap. Half-lion, half-man, gray mane flaring around his head, his eyes on fire, huge teeth dripping spit, he looked demonic. His roar shook the air.
Bran surged to his feet and charged. Curran caught his lunge, slid back, and ground to a halt. They strained, clenching each other’s arms, muscles bulging, teeth bared.
I turned away. I could kill one of them with relative ease, given that they were otherwise occupied, but there wasn’t a force on this Earth that would make them stop. I could scream myself hoarse, but until they tired enough to see reason, neither of them would notice my existence. They’d beat on each other until they got tired. They both seemed to be dealing with damage just fine.
If Jim and Andrea were alive, they would be in a medward.
WHEN NOT SURE WHERE TO GO, BARREL FORWARDon pure determination. It was a good motto and it led me to the door of the medward after ten minutes of squeezing my memory dry and wandering through the Keep’s maze of hallways and stairs. It took me only a minute to find the right room.