The men kept dying. Their screams echoed in the dark as the wolves brought them down. There must have been twenty at least! More than just Dion and Roman. But where had they come from? How had they known we needed help?
Unless that was why Dion had ridden ahead overnight?
The horses moved in careening bends, changing direction and jostling about. I could feel the horses closing in on one another, being herded by an unseen forces, then spreading back out. We were not leaving the way we’d come in.
My heart was racing, purging blood for me to breath. I was afraid that I was numb. Shocked. I felt like a stranger in my body.
Finally after what felt like hours, we began to slow, coming to a stop as the foothills. There was only a single lantern left bobbing along towards us.
A light flickered into life beside us and Agatha and I screamed. It was Roman. He was breathing calmly, topless and with a few bleeding wounds. His focus was on the light coming towards us however. As the lantern came closer the face of Dion emerged. He was dragging a man along with him.
It was the Inspector of the Guard.
He dropped the man, crying and pleading, at Roman’s feet. Dion was also topless and bleeding, and I couldn’t stop from staring. He was ripped. There was nothing to him but muscle and sinew. He caught me staring and I blushed.
“Please don’t kill me, please don’t,” the man cried. He was hyperventilating, tears spilling earnestly. Then wet himself.
Roman looked at him, disgusted. “So much for Lady Skol’s strength then.”
The man looked up. Surprise on his face. “You?” he whispered.
“Me,” Roman said, leaning down towards him. “Did I not tell you to stop coming out here?”
The man sputtered, eventually realizing he could say nothing. He resumed his begging and crying, now kissing Roman’s feet. But Roman pulled them away. “Don’t touch me. Don’t touch any of us. You will never return to these lands.” The man began thanking Roman. “But I’ll still keep my promise.”
The man looked horrified. He went white and hugged his hands to his body. “No! No please–”
But Dion grabbed him, took the large man’s hand easily from him and held it out to Roman. The man began screaming, writhing to get away. Roman searched his pockets and produced a leather cord. He tied one end around his wrist. The man was screaming. A wolf howled.
I looked at Agatha, horrified.
Roman took a knife from his pocket and the man bucked like crazy. Then he took the length of cord and tied it around the man’s bunched fist, pulling the cord tighter and tighter, breaking his fingers, and crushing the bones into each other. We heard the popping and cracking as the hand turned to dust. When he’d wrapped the cord around many times and tied it off, he cut it short with the knife.
Dion released the crying man and let him fall to the ground. “Find your way back to the village,” he said. “Beware the wolves though.”
Both Dion and Roman jumped onto their horses and whistled, we began moving. I was in shock. Who were we traveling with? One minute I was practically giving myself to this man, the next he was killing and torturing men. I was horrified. I was sickened. But at the same time—these men had wanted to capture us—to kill us…
No one spoke as we climbed the hill. The horses snorted among themselves. The wolves that must’ve been guiding us from the village were gone.
An hour or more passed like this. We climbed the low rise and began a long descent. The clouds moved in the night’s sky and soon a small trail was visible on the hard ground. My body was in shock, cold and shivering. The wind picked up and drove a chill through me. The adrenaline that had kept me going these last few hours was finally spent. I was too tired to even talk with Agatha. I knew she’d be as frightened as I was. How could we not be?
But when I looked back, she was head down and silent. She could either be asleep or in thought, and I didn’t want to disturb her. I turned back to the front and watched Dionand Roman. They rode in silence. Or appeared to. Occasionally one or the other would nod, so I guessed they were speaking.
I began to nod off. I didn’t know how long we were going to ride for but I had to stay up. But I was so exhausted. At some point, when I was watching my saddle, Dion or Roman slowed and draped rugs around us, then went forward again.
I fell asleep.
…My paws pounded along the pavement. I was sprinting through the narrow gorges and deep springs. Leaping from majestic balustrades to carved pools in the sheer rock faces.
I could hear him behind me, his paws crashing along the stone flooring.
I leapt, my fur whistling as I crossed the gap from the trail to our terrace.
I landed, shifting back to my human form, and turned.
His pursuit sounded through the gorge. His hulking form coming through the archways and–
Then he was flying through the air. The biggest wolf I’d ever seen. His fur shining in the half light of dusk, his muscles bulging as he came toward me…
