Maybe I couldn’t kill the damned beast, but I could wound it.
As though he’d read my thoughts, Haldron leaned forward on the parapet. “We wouldn’t want to have a repeat of Seren’s display of anger toward me, though, would we?” With a wave of his hand, all the Skorn weapons vanished from sight.
“Curpiss,” Amahle breathed, her eyes going wide.
I had to get Seren to safety. Without waiting for the vuk to come closer, I hoisted her over my shoulder, hooking my arm around her legs as I searched for any place that I could set her down while I fought the vuk. “Help me,” I called to Amahle.
Grabbing the biggest rock I could find with my other hand, I backed up slowly, only to hear another gate screech open. Another hungry, snarling vuk emerged.
Haldron intended to let us be ripped to shreds and eaten alive here.
The second vuk was closest to me, but the first seemed to sense the threat to his meal. He pounced, charging toward us at full speed.
We were going to die here tonight if I didn’t get moving. I ran for the tallest place in the Havamal—a large boulder near the center. Scaling it as quickly as I could, I flung Seren onto the top, setting her down just as teeth dug into my calf, excoriating my skin.
I cried out, then kicked the vuk that had bitten me with my undamaged leg. Amahle clambered up beside me as the vuk fell, but it jumped back to its feet immediately. “Stay here. Together,” I instructed them.
I didn’t have time to wonder whether they would listen. Seren hadn’t done the best job of that already, but I’d never seen her so unleashed, either. If I hadn’t been busy fighting for my own life, I would have wanted to watch her, marvel in the fluid, graceful way she’d taken on the Skorn, despite being wounded so terribly.
No time to think about that now, though.
I hopped down from the boulder away from the vuk. I had to draw it away from Seren.
A blur of teeth and scales approached, and I readied myself. Just when the vuk drew near, I rolled to the side of it, then reached out, hooking my fingers into the scales of its back. I swung my body onto its back, then mounted it.
The beast was more unwieldy than any horse I’d ever ridden, yet the scales provided a natural hold. The vuk bellowed and snapped below me, furious at the intrusion. The second vuk came closer, thick spittle dripping from its mouth as it assessed both me and his rival.
What the fuck am I supposed to do now?
The beasts could be killed, but without my sword I couldn’t hope to stab them. As the second vuk pounced, I yanked back on the scales, as though the vuk under me was a horse and the scales were its reins. It howled and reared backward and the two vuks clashed on their back legs, a tangle of teeth and paws.
I dropped off the back of the vuk and landed on my feet, then ran for another boulder. With any luck, the two beasts would at least injure each other.
Scaling the boulder with a speed born of desperation, I dragged one foot, then the other to the top and stood straight. The vuks, realizing their meal had run out on them, turned toward me. Those glowing eyes caught the light of the full moon above us, casting a pale silvery glow amid the torches.
The torches.
My body went stiff. They weren’t much, but they were the closest thing to a weapon here.
The fire itself might keep the animals at bay momentarily, but the torches themselves could help.
But I’d need to get to the outer edges of the basin to grab a torch, and I doubted I could outrun two vuks.
I might have to take a ride on one of them again.
My hands grew slick as they neared, encircling the boulder as they tried to get to me. One of them leaped and I braced myself, then caught the damn thing with a strength I hadn’t expected.
I threw the beast toward the ground, and it landed with a heavy thud that shook the earth and then it rolled, yelping as it got back up again.
I didn’t have time to think about how I’d managed that—the other vuk charged me. I jumped, then landed on its back.
Maybe it was the same one I’d mounted before, but this vuk didn’t react and kept running instead. The torches glowed in the distance. I dropped onto my knees and dug my hand between the scales again, holding on as I tried to direct the vuk toward the gate.
If I hadn’t been riding the vuk, the torches would have been out of reach—twice my height off the ground. But I got my feet under me, crouching as we drew closer. When we’d nearly reached it, I sprang from the vuk’s back, my hands grasping the torch. I wrenched it free from its metal bracket, then lowered myself to the ground.
The heat from the flames singed my face, the smell of burning hair greeting me as I turned it in my hands.
The vuk I’d ridden over here doubled back. The other still thrashed on the ground, yelping. Maybe I’d hurt it after all.
