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Asterion didn't release me, even as I swung the arrow quiver over my shoulder, checking my reach and loading a bolt. I looked up and found Hywel smiling down at me.
"Look at her, Asterion. Laszlo will keep her safe, and her aim is the great success of her training so far," Hywel said, surprisingly gentle.
Conall tugged off his coat, revealing a holster ready with knives. He wheeled his horse around in the tight space of the path and then swatted it swiftly on the rear, sending it eagerly back down the way we'd come. All the horses were growing restless, aware of the tension or startled by the howls now calling once more.
"I'm going ahead to speak to the werewolves," Conall snarled, rolling his shoulders. His hair seemed to be thicker, eyes wilder and more vivid, almost yellow. "Give me one chance to convince them to stand down before you attack."
"Surely if they're here, they're aligned with Birsha," I murmured, frowning at Conall. "Wouldn't it be better if you didn't give them the chance to attackyoufirst?"
His smile was crooked and fierce, and his claws were out as he reached to grip my jaw in his hand, pulling me close with a rough tug and slanting his mouth over mine. His fangs dragged against my bottom lip, and I was torn between irritation at him wasting time when we had enemies around the corner, and the urge to wrap myself around him and keep him fastened to me.
"I am King of Clans,mo chroí," Conall said, voice gritty and growling, his body halfway shifted already, cheekbones sharper and chest broader. "When I speak, they are bound to listen, even if they do not heed me."
He stepped away, jogging up the mountain, back hunching and tail growing thick and full. Laszlo had shifted back to his gryphon form, and he was moving restlessly.
"No more earnest partings, I beg of you all," Rolant said dryly as Hywel ushered me toward Laszlo. "They may already have someone in the cave to retrieve the sword."
Laszlo was huge like this, his back as high as my chest. He had to kneel for Hywel to lift me to my seat, tucked between Laszlo's enormous wings with my legs folded around their roots.
"It's been a long time since he accepted a passenger," Hywel told me, winking. "Try not to pull his feathers."
Laszlo let out a piercing screech of objection, and I tightened the grip of my thighs and found a safe ruff of dense fur to hold onto instead of the long feathers at the back of his head. His wings began to beat, his entire body flexing and shifting beneath me, and my breath caught in my chest, eyes growing wide.
"Don't do any silly flying tricks, Laz. If you drop her, we'll all be very cross," Hywel teased.
I leaned down as Laszlo screamed once more at Hywel and then leapt up from the ground. My body slid against his thick coat, but my arms wrapped around his shoulders, my thighs squeezing desperately, and I held my seat on Laszlo's back as he soared almost vertically up into the air.
As if flying on a dragon is any easier than me, Laszlo thought to me, his voice heavier in my head but very welcome in the moment.Let's keep an eye on our Red Wolf, yes?
"Please," I gasped out, tucking my face into Laszlo's feathers as we continued to careen through the air, higher and higher, turning with the mountain.
Snarls and barks and growls grew louder as we rose.
How well can you see, dear one?
I sucked in a deep lungful of Laszlo's sweet, clean scent before braving a glance down. We were very high. I stifled the yelp in my throat, and Laszlo chuckled in my head as I tried to fasten myself even more closely to his back. His body steadied, circling and bobbing slightly above the mountain. I bit my lip and leaned to the right, staring down over his shoulder. The sun was sinking fast, but there was a slight glow on a large plateau of the mountain, where a flicker of figures could be made out. At the edge of the path, facing all of them, was a huge and blazing red form.
"I see Conall! They are…they're holding still. Listening. He's…"
Magnificent, Laszlo finished for me, and I nodded in agreement. The other werewolves were circling, stirring in slow patterns, but none lunged for Conall yet.
He's reminding them that he's challenged every pack leader within three thousand miles and is always the victor, Laszlo told me.
My eyes widened. "Is that true?"
He's boastful but not a liar.
I licked my lips. I'd known Conall was strong, powerful, and by the accounts of those I'd asked, a significant figure in the werewolf population. But this meant he was, by rights, the head of all those packs he'd challenged, and yet he traveled alone or with Asterion.
Oh dear, Laszlo murmured.
More figures were crawling out of the soft glow of the cave, one dozen now becoming two.
They're all new, recently bitten. They know their fate by fighting Conall, but they're taking the chance on—
"Him being outnumbered," I finished. "Laszlo, fly down. I want to be ready."
Later I would thank Laszlo for listening to me, for swooping closer to the growing crowd of werewolves, for not insisting on keeping me as far from the danger as possible. But for now, I turned the quiver of arrows to my front and took aim.
