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The emperor broke their gaze, searching for the source of the noise, and Oliver snapped back to himself just as a hulking gray-gold blur threw itself at the emperor’s side.
A wolf. It was a wolf. A big one, and it slammed the emperor in the shoulder with both forepaws, and sent him tumbling to the ground. It bore down on top of him, snarling, snapping, and Oliver stood, utterly stupid, and watched it happen, fighting to take a deep breath.
His pulse, sluggish before, had leaped to action; his vision had refocused, his head light, and clear, and the sudden shift had left him dizzy.
On the ground, the emperor growled something in Selesee, kicked and flailed, and one white hand latched into the wolf’s ruff and twisted hard.
The wolf yelped, and leaped free, but his teeth were bared and bloody, and he circled fast, head tucked low, moving in for a second attack.
Blood stained the emperor’s white throat, his golden breastplate, a vast red swath of it, like the wide strokes from a paintbrush. But he pushed himself upright as though unhurt, and drew his sword the same moment the wolf dove for him.
Something warm and soft brushed Oliver’s side, and it was a second wolf, slipping in low from behind the emperor, a two-sided assault.
Oliver gasped.
Faster than should have been possible, given the length of the blade, the emperor executed a fierce swipe that looked set to lodge itself in the wolf’s shoulder. It ducked away at the last moment, growling.
The second wolf lunged – and the emperor’s hand snapped up, and caught the beast by the throat.
The wolf squealed, and writhed, and the first wolf attacked again. A white hand was snatched between white fangs, spurt of crimson blood.
But Romanus didn’t let go of the sword.
The second wolf wriggled free, whimpering, and lunged again, as the first one’s fangs sank deep into the emperor’s hand.
Percy roared – out loud, and in Oliver’s head.
He jumped. Right. Time to make a run for it.
But the emperor’s head whipped around, white hair flaring dramatically, and he caught Oliver’s gaze before he could flee, even while the wolves closed in tighter, and savaged him. He was utterly expressionless: no grimace, no sneer, no smile. Nothing. But his eyes burned.
And then, in the span of a blink, he was gone.
The wolves tipped off balance, with nothing to tear at, and tumbled together into a heap on the bloodied grass.
Something shoved Oliver in the shoulder. Percy, making urgent noises, wanting to leave.
Oliver turned his head, and saw that the emperor’s drake had disappeared along with its master.
The wolves, he found, as he watched them scramble back to their feet, didn’t frighten him.
He patted Percy’s nose. “It’s all right, now. I think.”
Both wolves were a similar gray shot with gold, both much larger than your average, winter-starved wolf, one two shades darker than the other.
The lighter of the two, the first one to appear, went to the second, sniffed at its throat, its bloodied snout – and then licked it, there, fast, cleaning licks until the second one sneezed and shook its head, shook its packmate away.
Oliver said, “Do I know you?”
Two heads snapped his direction. One raised high, the other tucked low, uncertain…submissive. Both of them had blue eyes. Not that awful, burning lilac shade of the emperor, but a true, freshwater blue, reminiscent of cold, Northern skies.
The same shade, in fact, as Erik’s eyes.
Recognition dawned with a spark of excitement. “Leif?” Oliver asked. “Is that you? And that would mean…” His gaze slid to the second wolf, looking up at him, hackles half-raised, shoulders tucked like he meant to bolt. “Ragnar, then,” Oliver said on a sigh. “Yes?”
The first wolf blurred, rippled; there was a sound like rent cloth, a surge of light, and Leif stood in the wolf’s place, thinly dressed in a sleeveless leather tunic with furred collar, his hair tangled, his mouth red and wet with blood.
Oliver grinned…and then froze. His breath caught. It was Leif, yes, recognizably so, with his mother’s blue eyes, and his strong, clean-lined face, his golden spill of hair.
