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Inside, there were bundles of clothes, parcels wrapped in paper, and various jugs and jars filled with sloshing liquids, some that smelled alcoholic to my heightened senses. The carriage came to a stop a little way down the road, and still Melina hadn’t done whatever she was going to do.
I heard voices, the guards calling out to the rider, demanding that he stop. They approached, two of them by my count, their heavy boots crunching the snow beneath them. The rider attempted to exchange pleasantries, but the guards weren’t having it. They barked for him to show them his paperwork, which he began to do… nervously.
I had to admit, my heart was starting to race. This wasn’t the Windhelm I was used to. It was an alien place, an oppressive place; not at all the home I had grown up in—and we hadn’t even gotten to the city itself.
Then I heard something, a voice calling out from somewhere nearby. It was Melina. “Help!” she yelled. “Please, somebody!”
“My wife is insane,” I heard Gullie mutter to herself.
“That was her plan?” I asked.
“She told me to trust her! So, I trusted her.”
“Please,” Melina continued, “There’s a beast in the woods, I need help!” She was coming closer, clearly making her way down the hill we had been hiding behind.
One of the guards barked to two of his men togo and see what that woman wants. When the two men broke off, they called out to her, asked her to explain herself. She told them her carriage had been attacked by a Souldirge, that she was wounded and needed healing.
Her plan may have been insane, but there were definitely only two guards by the carriage now, and the other two seemed to have bought her story—for now, at least.
“This won’t last,” said Gullie. “They’re going to realize she’s not bleeding the moment they reach her.”
I nodded. “So, we need to make sure they don’t reach her.”
By my estimation, the two guards who had broken off and were now demanding that Melina drop to her knees were about halfway to her. That left Valerian with more than enough room to charge them from the trees. It also meant they couldn’t help the two guards near the carriage after I leapt out from the cart I was hiding in.
The cart that was about to get inspected.
One guard moved into position behind the cart, placed his hand on the tarp, and began to pull. I was about to leap out, but it was Gullie who surged forth first, the little Pixie racing up toward the guard’s face. She stopped in front of him, then blew a handful of sparkling green Pixie dust into his helmet. In an instant, he began sneezing wildly.
This caused the second guard to draw his sword from his sheath. He hadn’t finished pulling his blade out before I was on top of him, my powerful paws bashing against his chest and unbalancing him. I made him topple to the floor, his clunky armor dragging him down to the ground.
Chaos erupted, then. Shouts, the sound of swords being unsheathed. The men who had gone to check on Melina had turned around and were starting to make their way toward me, so they hadn’t spotted Valerian and Colbolt as they came charging out of the tree line. By the time they did, Valerian bashed one of them with his sword hard enough to knock the guard’s helmet clean off and send him crashing to the ground.
The other guard turned around to go after Valerian, but Melina was behind him, with a swift kick delivered precisely to the back of his knee, where there was no armor to protect his tender ligaments from the heel of her foot. He went down with a grunt. With another shove, she dropped him fully, and when he turned his head up, Colbolt was there, ready to deliver a powerful knock to his head that sent him into unconsciousness.
That only left the two guards Gullie and I were dealing with. One of them was sneezing non-stop, while the other was scrambling to get up. I bit into his gloved hand with my fangs as he tried to reach his sword, dissuading him from trying it. He cried out in pain and drew his bleeding hand back, covering it with his other hand.
“You had better stay right where you are,” I growled. “Otherwise, you won’t live to see tomorrow.”
Gullie blew another handful of Pixie dust into the sneezing guard’s face, enough to send him flat on his ass, and then onto his back, unconscious.
“Fate’s hand,” she said to me, “That was absolutelyterrifying.”
“I know,” I said, “But I think that’s all of them.”
“No, not the fight—what you just said to that man!”
“Oh,” I realized he was still conscious and staring at me with wide eyes. I snapped him another harsh look. “I meant it, too.”
“D-don’t kill me,” he stuttered.
Gullie flew over to him. “She won’t kill you,” Gullie said. “But it’s time for you to go to sleep.” Another puff of Pixie dust sent this guard off for a nap, and then there were no guards left for us to dispatch.
Valerian hopped off Colbolt’s back and marched over to the carriage rider, who had his hands up. He looked like a totally normal Fae, a little round at the waist, a little long in the tooth. He wanted absolutely no trouble, and he was clearly going to cause none.
I shrugged out of my wolf form and ran up to him, putting myself between the rider and Valerian. “He’s okay,” I said, “He’s not the enemy.”
“We are in hostile territory,” said Valerian. “Everyone is an enemy.”
