Page 123 of Starside

The bone is smooth beneath my fingers, as if well and truly licked clean, and I resist the urge to vomit. I haul myself up, groaning—

Just as a jaw snaps an inch shy of my foot.

Heart in my throat, I scramble higher, then turn. I brandish my sword.

And curse.

Saberwolves. I read about them in the immortal’s text. They’re three times as large as normal wolves, with two fangs that curl out of their mouths like curved daggers, sharp enough to shred their prey to ribbons and containing immobilizing poison.

Before I can even think about forming a plan, one of them leaps, and I jerk back, barely missing the brush of its fang. I cling to the trunk, my feet settling on a different branch. They can’t climb. But I can’t stay in this tree forever.

The saberwolves seem to know that … and their hunger makes them restless. Foam spills down their jaws. Their eyes are black. They snarl, revealing the full size of those massive teeth.

Shreds. I would be ripped to unrecognizable shreds by those fangs, by this pack. I wouldn’t even become part of this forest; I have a feeling they would grind my bones to no more than powder.

There’s nowhere to go. Nothing to do but hold my sword out in front of me—which is all these days of training have really added up to—and try to plan some sort of distraction. But there’s no time.

One of the beasts takes a few steps back, then lunges. But not toward me. No.

Toward the trunk.

I hold on to the closest branch for dear life as the tree lurches to the side. If they can’t reach me, they are going to bring me to them.

FUCK.

The wolf slams into the tree over and over and over, and I remember Raker’s sword doing the same thing, how the leaves all came down. How he cut them in half. I am at risk of a similar fate as I cling to the trunk, my head banging against bone, my hands slick with sweat.

The wolf pulls back to go again. And the other two saberwolves glance at each other. That look is far too knowing, far too intelligent. One of them breaks from the group. It runs in the opposite direction, turns around—then rushes toward the tree. It jumps.

And uses the other one’s back to launch off, right toward me.

I barely leap out of the way in time, clinging to another branch as the tree sways again. But this branch is lower. The third wolf leaps. I rush to pull my legs up—but not before its fang grazes my calf.

It’s the simplest brush. But it cuts right through fabric and skin.

And burns like an inferno.

I scream, the sound echoing through the forest—before the pain is muted. And that’s worse. Because I feel its venom slinking through my blood, until I can’t feel my leg at all.

I’m so fucked.

Especially when the other wolf slams against the tree again, and I fall out of it.

22

I hit the ground with a sickening crack, and there’s no time to run. Those saberwolf fangs are in my face a half second later, ready to rip me apart, rancid breath hot against my mouth, drool sputtering everywhere.

My mind is still spinning from the drop. I can’t think. But I don’t need to. The movement is instinct. I force my blade up, an echo of the memory of Raker’s training.

Right through the wolf’s neck.

Then the other wolves are on me. Shredding, ripping, feasting. Blood spraying, puddling, staining the woods. The smell of it pierces even the mists.

But it’s not mine. They are eating their own, even as it’s still taking its last breaths. Right atop me.

Are they that hungry? That quick to turn on one another when given the opportunity?

Arms shaking, face covered in blood, it takes everything in me to rip my sword from the saberwolf’s throat and roll from beneath its corpse, before it crushes me.