AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Oh.”
Raider raised an eyebrow at Seth’s dismissive tone. “You’ve clearly never met a black-jawed jackal. Hopefully they’ll decide we’re not worth their trouble.”
It was too much to hope, of course, and it wasn’t long before the horses started to prance and snort.
Raider unwound his kaffiyeh and shrugged out of his kaftan, letting the silks drape Umae’s back. He drew his scimitar from its saddle scabbard. The curved dagger he’d lifted in il-Kemsa was good fun, but he preferred the scimitar’s range for black jaws.
When they neared a rocky outcropping, Raider leaped down from Umae and held the reins out to Seth. Instead of taking them, Seth demanded, “What are you doing?”
“I want to look around that outcropping. She’s not quiet enough, and neither are you.”
“Bullshit. Tell me—”
“Did you hire me simply for the perverse joy of ignoring everything I say? Take the goddamn reins and let me do my job.”
Seth snatched the reins from Raider’s hand.
Without a backward glance, Raider crept toward the outcropping. He peered around it, his arcane eye picking up movement along the rocky, quiva-studded slope overlooking the path on one side. Hills mounded high on the other side, funneling travelers and passing prey into this channel.
If Seth and Raider proceeded, the jackals would stalk along until chance opened the perfect angle for them to spring.
Even alert and ready to defend themselves, there would be injuries, either to them or the horses. Better to control the situation. Better to be the hunter than the hunted.
Raider slashed the scimitar’s curved blade across the inside of his left forearm, cutting deep enough to get the blood flowing. Then he headed up the craggy slope, scrambling from rock to rock, picking his way around the yellow-flowering quiva. He squeezed his arm to drip a trail of blood and ensure the jackals would choose him over Seth and the horses.
Raider worked his way toward a ledge of stone that would narrow the jackals’ path of attack. When he reached his destination, Raider lay down on his back, bloody arm extended and scimitar angled across his bare torso.
Black jaws were keen opportunists and highly aggressive, so it didn’t take long for them to move his way. Seth had no doubt been imagining jackals like the golden ones common in the west, but black jaws were twice the size of their more timid western cousins.
Two tawny-coated, black-faced jackals picked their way down the slope, sprinkling Raider with sand and pebbles. Several others followed in their wake.
The first two paused, sniffing. One snarled and snapped its jaws. When Raider didn’t react, the jackal leaped down—and met his scimitar.
The jackal yelped and thrashed, but Raider was already rolling, slinging the attacker off his blade and down the slope. He was on his feet to meet the second jackal as it lunged. An upward slash slit its throat.
Two more jackals leaped for Raider. His scimitar caught one across the shoulder. The other snapped at Raider’s bloody arm—and locked its jaws on quicksilver.
When the quicksilver responded like that, without his conscious thought, Raider was never sure if it was his own instincts triggering the armor’s emergence—or if the quicksilver had a mind of its own.
Whatever the case, the arcane metal had burst from Raider’s shoulder joint, slicing through his skin to form the ridged shoulder guard before cascading down his arm in an intricate pattern of shimmering ridges and gleaming studs.
It was beautiful. As much as Raider hated the quicksilver, he couldn’t deny that. His body was a work of art.
The jackal’s teeth screeched on the quicksilver as it slid off, but the brief grip on Raider’s arm had yanked him off balance. Before he could recover his footing, the remaining jackals leaped down on him.
As the pack slammed into him, they all went flying off the ledge. Raider tumbled with painful thumps down the rocky slope, crashing through the quiva and sending up clouds of yellow pollen.
Raider thudded to a stop. Coughing on pollen and dust, dizzy and lit up with pain, he made himself get up. He tried to anyway. He was only halfway there when a tawny shape leaped for him.
Unable to bring his scimitar around in time, he braced for slashing claws and snapping jaws. But the jackal crashed into him limply—with a distinctive circular weapon lodged in its skull.
Raider shoved the body off him and staggered to his feet, but the pack had had enough. The survivors took off, leaping from rock to rock, vanishing up the slope.
Ten feet away, Seth slammed his sword into its scabbard and shouted, “What the hell is wrong with you?”
CHAPTER 10
SETH HAD FOLLOWED Raider’s order at first, staying back with the horses while Raider scouted ahead. At least, that was what Raider had claimed he’d be doing. Where Seth had seen him fall from?
