by Gunhus, Jeff
“That’s a Black Guard cart,” Daniel said.
Eva nodded. She and Daniel communicated in a flurry of hand gestures. When it appeared they had agreed to something, Eva slinked off into the tree line. I crawled up to Daniel.
“Where’s she going?” I asked.
Daniel ignored me. “Stay here; this is a task for real hunters,” he said.
He crossed to the other side of the road and picked his way along the edge. I saw the glint of Eva’s sword through the trees. They were closing in on the cart from either side.
“We should do something,” Will whispered next to me.
“I think they would have asked if they needed our help,” T-Rex said.
“Just wait,” I said. This was all about the element of surprise. I held my breath as they closed in on the cart.
I lost sight of Daniel. He blended into the trees and shadows, but I knew he had to be close.
Then, perfectly timed, two black shadows darted from either side of the road and converged on the carriage. Daniel and Eva moved silently, their swords flashing in the moonlight.
Arrrhhhggg!
A large, black shape arose from the carriage, its arms flailing about. The horse whinnied and took off with a start. Daniel jumped out of the way as the horse stampeded forward, the carriage bouncing along the rough road behind the frightened horse. It was hurtling right for us. As it came closer, I saw the dark figure on the carriage pulling hard on the reins to bring the horse to a stop.
“Come on!” I exclaimed to Will.
I dragged Will into the road with me, right in the path of the approaching horse.
“This isn’t what I had in mind,” Will said.
“I’ll stay here,” T-Rex called out.
I raised my arms up and waved them so the horse could see me. Will followed suit. As the horse closed in on us, it didn’t look like it was slowing down. If anything, it was speeding up.
“Whoa!” I called out, arms waving.
“Whoa is right!” Will cried. “Whoa!”
The horse continued to charge at us. I was just wondering if getting in front of it was going to be the last stupid thing I did in my short life, when the animal dug its hooves into the soft snow and skidded to a stop. It reared back and churned its legs in the air, snorting wildly.
A low whistle from back down the road caught its attention. Its ears swiveled toward the sound and it lowered its hooves to the ground. Another low whistle echoed through the night and the horse jerked its head in its direction and swung the carriage around, trotting easily down the road. The figure, which I could now tell was a man in a heavy cloak and hat, pulled back on the reins, but the horse ignored him.
We followed behind the carriage and saw Eva standing in the center of the road, her arms spread wide. She whistled again and the horse grunted in recognition. It walked up to Eva and placed his muzzle in her chest, nibbling excitedly on her with his lips. Eva hugged the horse and kissed it on the nose.
As we walked up, we could hear Daniel talking to the person on the carriage in a low, angry voice. “Why weren’t you at the station, you Ratling grunt?”
“Begging your pardon. I know I shoulda been. I know it. When Master Aquinas picked me for this, I was so proud. But I was so tired, though. A day full o’ cooking, tendin’ the garden.” The man was almost in tears and speaking so fast I could barely understand him. “I cleaned over twenty rabbits today, I did. My eyes, they kept shuttin’ on me. So I thought, sleep for five minutes, then you’ll be fine.”
“I don’t know what Master Aquinas sees in you. You’re a disgrace,” Daniel said.
“That’s enough,” Eva said. “A mistake was made. Now it’s over.” She smiled and put a hand on the man’s shoulder. “I’ve missed you, Bacho. I’ve been craving your rabbit stew all these months I’ve been gone.”
Bacho’s face lit up. “An’ I made it jus’ for you tonight, Miss Eva. Truth be told, I had plenty of it myself before I left.”
Even dressed in a black, heavy cloak, it was clear Bacho never missed a meal. In fact, from his rather wide, thick waistline and his moonish face supported by no fewer than three chins, it was safe to say he probably had a few extra meals every day. I wondered how many of those rabbits he had eaten himself. He was older, maybe in his early thirties, but acted with deference to Daniel and Eva, like a servant around his masters. He obviously liked Eva and disliked Daniel. This made him a perfect fit for me.
Daniel spat on the ground at Bacho’s feet. “No one cares about your rabbit stew. You’re lucky you’re not dead. You know what’s in these woods, don’t you?” Daniel asked.
“Beggin’ your pardon,” Bacho said, his head hung low in shame. “Beggin’ your pardon.”
“Bah,” Daniel said. “Come on. Our things are scattered.”
Daniel jumped down while Bacho carefully climbed down the ladder hanging from the wagon. I stepped toward him and held out my hand. “Hi, I’m Jack,” I said.
Bacho’s eyes went wide and he stooped low in front of me, looking at the ground at my feet. “Beggin’ your pardon, sire.”
I still had my hand out so I reached out to grab his hand and shook it. He gasped and quickly withdrew his hand. He turned to help Daniel, but knocked into Eva, who was still petting the horse. “Beggin’ your pardon,” he mumbled as he finally stumbled away.
“That guy is totally weird,” Will said.
“He’s a Ratling,” Eva said. “One of the lower orders in the Black Guard. They mostly cook and clean. And kill the rats, which is how they got their name. Bacho’s been the Head Ratling since I was a little girl. He’s one of my favorite people in the world.” The horse whined and Eva turned her attention back to it, grinning. “I said he was one of my favorites, not my all-time favorite. That’s still you, boy.”
“Is this horse yours?” T-Rex asked.
“He belongs to the Black Guard and he’s considered a monster hunter in his own right,” Eva said. “But we have a bond. We’ve been through a lot, this horse and I.”
“What’s his name?” I asked.
“Saladin,” she said. The horse whinnied and tossed his mane at the sound.
“Pretty,” I said, reaching out to rub his nose. Saladin bared his teeth and snapped at my fingers. I pulled my hand back. “Hey.”
Eva grinned. “He’s very particular. I’m the only one he’ll let ride him. Isn’t that right, boy?” Saladin nuzzled back into her neck. “Is that why they have you pulling this nasty cart?” The horse made a soft gurgle that sounded like he was telling Eva all about the mistreatment he’d received since she’d been gone. “I’m back, now. Not to worry.”
“OK, I think we have everything,” Daniel said as he threw their bags into the back of the carriage. “We’d best be on our way. Our scent will have carried half a mile by now.” He took a whiff of Bacho and wrinkled his nose. “Maybe more.”
The insult seemed to slide right by Bacho. He climbed up to the driver’s bench and took the reins as the rest of us climbed into the back. Saladin snorted and pawed the ground, jostling us around. Eva climbed up next to Bacho and took the reins. Saladin immediately became still. Eva gave a click with her tongue and Saladin strained against his harness. The wagon wheel rolled forward through the heavy snow as we bumped our way down the road and into the forest.
Progress was slow. The cold air and repetitive forest scenery sliding by lulled all of us into a quiet trance. After a short while, a soft snore came from the front bench where Bacho was hunched over to one side, wrapped in a heavy blanket. Will also had wedged himself into the corner in the back and had fallen asleep with T-Rex snuggled up against him for a pillow. I looked over to Daniel to find him staring at me, a smirk on his face.
“Get enough sleep on the train, hero?”
“Do you have some kind of problem with me?” I asked. I was getting tired of his attitude.
“Hester was a good friend of mine. A top class hunter,” Daniel said.
I felt a pit form
in my stomach at the mention of the name. Assigned to protect me, Hester had hidden in plain sight as the school secretary at Sunnyvale Middle School. On that terrible night when Ren Lucre had come for me, she had appeared just in time to help us escape certain death. But she had paid for our escape with her own life. I had relived that moment so many times in my mind, always wondering if there was something else I could have done to save her. The words she uttered right before she slipped from my grasp and into the horde of zombies below continued to haunt me.
Just make it all worthwhile .
Do your duty, come what may, Jack Templar. You are the One. I know it.
I still didn’t know what she meant when she called me the One. I asked Eva once but she refused to talk about it. I wanted to make her sacrifice worthwhile, but I hadn’t a clue how to do it.
“I owe Hester my life,” I said to Daniel. “In more ways than one.” I fingered the medallion that hung around my neck. Hester had given it to me. It cloaked me from monsters being able to sense me. I was pretty sure that without it I would have be monster meat weeks ago.
“You’re right about that,” Daniel said, the anger in his voice clear. “And so far, I don’t see anything that says her life was worth trading for yours.”
I saw a flash of movement parallel to us in the trees. It was barely discernible, like a shadow inside a shadow.
“Did you see that?” I whispered to Daniel.
“Am I making you uncomfortable?” Daniel asked.
“No. There was something in the woods. Moving fast.”
Daniel strained his eyes in the direction I pointed, but shook his head. “There’s nothing there. If there were, I would have seen it before you. Trust me.”
I ignored the comment and fixed my eyes on the woods. I saw it again. A shadow had moved between the trees, and then disappeared. Only this time I saw two of them. I looked to the other side of the road and saw more of them.
I reached over and tugged at Eva’s arm. “Do you see that? In the woods?”
“I told you,” Daniel said. “There’s nothing…”
With a snarl, a massive black wolf broke from the tree line and ran at Saladin’s legs.
Saladin erupted in a high-pitched whine, reared back and delivered a blow to the wolf’s rib cage with his hoof. The wolf yelped and tumbled backward. Saladin bolted forward at full-speed, dragging the wagon behind him like it was no more than a toy.
Bacho, wide-awake now, clung onto the side rail for dear life. T-Rex yelled and hung onto the side. Will lost his grip and tumbled down the length of the wagon, hitting the wood gate at the back end. That seemed to stop him for a second, but then the gate broke open and he fell backward.
At the last second, Daniel grabbed his arm and held onto him. Will was half out of the wagon, his legs dragging on the ground.
Two wolves fell in behind us, running hard. They closed in on Will’s legs.
I crawled forward and grabbed Daniel. T-Rex tugged the back of my jacket to try to help pull us back on. Together, we heaved Will back into the wagon, the nearest wolf snapping at his heels as we hauled him on board.
The forest was now alive with wolves. Black shadows on both sides of the road hurtled through the trees, keeping pace with Saladin’s manic sprint.
Daniel pulled his sword. Will and I followed suit. Bacho grabbed T-Rex with one of his huge hands and dragged him forward onto the front bench by him.
“Are they werewolves?” I shouted.
“No. Not this lot anyway,” Daniel said. “If they were, we’d already be dead. There is one among them, though. A giant black wolf with a white cross on his chest. Watch for him.”
In the front, Bacho pulled out a crossbow and a quiver of bolts from under his seat. He took aim at one of the wolves and fired. The bolt flew harmlessly above the animal. Not even close.
Eva leaned over. “Bacho, give me the crossbow,” she called.
“Careful, Miss,” Bacho said. “Them’s poisoned bolts on there.”
Bacho handed her the bow just as two wolves sped past the wagon, drawing even with Saladin. They nipped at his long legs, biting at his haunches.
With one smooth motion, Eva plucked out a bolt, slid it into position, cocked the crossbow and took aim at the nearest wolf.
Thwack.
The bolt caught him in the side and he rolled up in a ball with a yelp.
The other wolves pulled back into the tree line, but still kept pace with the wagon.
I looked up ahead and saw what they were waiting for. The road was about to get very narrow. Worse, the path had been cut into a hill so that the ground on either side rose up just a bit higher than the top of the wagon. The wolves tore through the trees and up the hill.
“Get ready!” Daniel cried.
As we entered the cut, the wolves were suddenly above us. One from each side jumped into the wagon. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Daniel fend off the snarling wolf on his side with his sword. I felt the wagon sag from the weight of the creature as it landed. But my eyes were firmly fixed on the wolf heading my way. I raised my sword just as Eva spun in her seat and fired the crossbow. But a second wolf, twice as large as the first, jumped in front of the shot and took the bolt in its side in mid-jump.
The wolf’s momentum carried it through the air and it smacked into me, a wrecking ball of fur and claws.
One second I was in the back of the wagon, my feet firmly planted in place and ready for battle. The next I was flying through the air, tangled up with the wolf.
With a thud, I landed in snowdrift with the wolf on top of me. Between the force of my fall and the weight of the beast, I sank deep into the snow, completely covered by the stinking body. This had probably saved my life.
All around me, I could hear the howls of the wolf pack racing past me, their paws scattering the snow around me. I silently thanked Hester again for the cloaking medallion she had given me. Without it I was certain that the wolves would have been able to sense my presence. A single, soulful howl seemed to come from right over me, perhaps a quick eulogy for the fallen comrade that lay on top of me.
I lay as still as I could, trying to slow down my frantic breathing. Even though I still had my sword with me, it sounded like there were dozens of wolves in the pack. If they discovered me, I was dead.
Luckily, Saladin’s fast pace quickly drew the pack away from me and I soon found myself alone in the silent night. Silent, that is, except for the ragged breathing coming from above me. In the commotion, I thought for sure the wolf was dead, but I suddenly realized he was very much alive.
The wolf seemed to have the same revelation at the same exact time. I felt his body grow tense as a growl snarled from deep within his throat. He rolled back and forth to get out of the deep snowdrift we were in and scrambled to his feet.
I grasped my sword and clawed my way out of the hole as fast as I could. Before long I found myself in the open stretch of the road, facing the wolf. He was a giant black wolf with white fur on his chest that formed a perfect cross.
The wolf Daniel had warned me about.
One of Eva’s crossbow bolts stuck out from the beast’s front left shoulder. Not very deep, but firmly stuck there as if lodged into the bone. The wolf kept its weight off that paw, but seemed just as lethal balanced on the other three.
We circled one another in the middle of the snow-covered road, the distant sounds of the chase echoing from a distance deeper in the forest.
Close up, I saw details in the wolf I hadn’t noticed before. He was larger than any wolf I’d ever seen, every bit as large as the devil-wolf form that my Aunt Sophie took the first night I became a monster hunter. He was stocky and muscled with thick tufts of black fur, except for the mark on his chest.
Under different circumstances, I might have marveled at how impressive a creature he was. However, since I expected an attack at any second and a fight to the death to follow, I found it hard to appreciate his good looks. He looked hungry, and, unfortunately, it appe
ared that I was on the menu.
But then I noticed the heavy trail of blood on the snow behind him as we circled one another. Soon, his other front foot gave out and he put pressure on his injured leg to keep from falling. He let out a yelp and nearly fell. He licked the wound, in turns whimpering and then growling at me.
Finally, whether too weak from the loss of all that blood or giving into the pain from the bolt, the wolf’s legs gave way and he crumpled to a pile.
Sword raised, I edged up closer to him, careful that it might be a ploy to get me to lower my guard. But after a few steps toward him, he didn’t even raise his head to look at me. He lay there, taking short, labored gasps of air.
I raised my sword over my head and prepared to strike a finishing blow.
This movement caught the wolf’s attention and he tilted his head with all his might. He looked at me with enormous brown eyes and I saw an intelligence there that I hadn’t expected. Even though it seemed like he knew what I was about to do, he just lay his massive head back on the ground and closed his eyes.
There was something about this simple gesture that took me off guard. I knew what I should do. Strike hard and fast, then move on to find the others.
But I couldn’t.
I thought of what my Aunt Sophie had looked like in her devil-wolf form, waiting for death at the hands of Ren Lucre. Was I to be no better than him? Suddenly, I didn’t have the stomach to kill the wolf.
I lowered my sword to the ground and put both hands out in front of me so the wolf could see them.
“All right, my furry friend,” I said. “Don’t make me regret this.”
The wolf looked up at me with renewed interest. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he looked genuinely surprised.
“Shhhh,” I said. “The bolt is poisoned. We need to take it out.” I eased closer, ready to jump back if the wolf made a lunge for me. But he didn’t. He cocked his head on the ground so as to get a good look at me, but he stayed still. “That’s it. Now, I’m working on the assumption that if I help you, you’re not going to jump up and bite me. Can we agree on that?”