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They never travel alone.
My heartbeat hammers in my throat. Would it be a stupid idea to unleash a pack of dire wolves upon my enemies? These monsters would be a formidable threat even for fully armored knights and a sorceress.
And the dire wolves can’t hurt me so long as I stay within this cage. And I can try to escape after they have killed my captors.
I lock stares with the dire wolf, which is how these beasts challenge each other to a fight.
A growl like thunder rumbles from the dire wolf’s throat. I would be lying if I said it didn’t turn my insides into liquid fear. My legs tense with a primal urge to run far, far away, but of course I’m locked within this cage, tied up with these damned aellurium chains.
I whistle to the dire wolf as if commanding a dog to come here, which provokes the beast. It snarls at me, eyes flashing in the moonlight, before it lunges into a run.
“Dire wolf!” shouts the night watch.
The knights jolt awake and jerk out their swords. Zin scrambles to her feet, still clinging to her bearskin pelt as if she has any hope of hiding herself.
It’s too late for the night watch. The dire wolf charges at him, dodges his sword, and knocks him flat on his back. The wolf’s jaws close upon the man’s throat. He’s wearing plate armor, so there’s a terrible screech of fangs across steel.
The other knights rush toward their fallen companion. The dire wolf shakes him by the neck until both armor and flesh yield beneath its crushing teeth. The man claws at his neck as he struggles to breathe. His legs jerk and kick uselessly until they go limp.
A knight grips his bastard sword in both hands and brings it down upon the dire wolf, but the wolf leaps out of the way. The blade lands with a glancing hit to the dire wolf’s neck. It fails to cut the thick pelt of fur. The dire wolf isn’t even bleeding.
Of course, it brought its pack.
More wolves flash between the trees, passing through the shadows like quicksilver ghosts. Their red eyes gleam closer and closer. They rush at the prey foolish enough to enter their territory. With ferocious intelligence, they work together to take down the knights.
One dire wolf charges a knight, who turns his back upon another wolf. The second wolf knocks him facedown in the dirt. They bite his arms, yanking him back and forth, fighting over him like a scrap of meat. The man’s screams split the night.
A dire wolf stalks behind Zin. She whirls around and flings violet magic at the beast, who freezes and skids across the ground. Frost glitters on its fur. The wolf’s packmates dance away from this danger. They keep to the shadows while circling the sorceress, no doubt waiting for a chance to attack.
A knight manages to stab a dire wolf through the eye. Gore splatters his armor. The wolf scrambles away with a shrill whimper.
Now only two knights have survived. The rest are sprawled out in puddles of blood, nothing more than meat for the wolves.
“Zin!” I cling to the cage with both hands. “Free me! I can help you fight.”
The sorceress forces out a laugh. “Like hell you will.”
“You won’t survive the dire wolves without me. You need a dragon on your side.”
“You’re not on my side.”
Shit. Well, that trick worked the first time.
When the next dire wolf attacks, it bites a knight by the ankle and drags him off his feet. No armor protects the back of his legs. The dire wolf savages his thigh and hits an artery. Blood soaks the beast’s pale fur. The knight bleeds out within a few heartbeats.
Only Fallan remains. The faithful knight rushes over to defend Zin.
She grips him by the hand and screams, “Don’t let go!”
With a slice of her arm, the sorceress tears open a portal in the air. A moonlit field of wheat shimmers like a mirage. Zin drags Fallan through the portal before it collapses in a rain of sparks.
I’m left alone in the cage, surrounded by a pack of hungry dire wolves.
CHAPTERSEVENTEEN
Adire wolf jams its bloodstained muzzle between the bars and sniffs my scent. I back away and hug myself to fight a shiver.
Zin and Fallan took the key with them, didn’t they? How the hell am I supposed to get out of this cage now?
