by Ben Wolf
Still nothing from Riley. He just stared back at her with emotionless blue eyes.
“I also want you to know that I’m not doing this to attack you or anything like that. I really like you and don’t want anything bad to happen to you, but at the same time, Condor needs our help.” Lilly bit her lip. This wasn’t going as well as she had hoped. “Aren’t you going to say something?”
Riley broke eye contact with her for the first time since she’d come over and looked at the ground. “No.”
Lilly exhaled a quiet sigh. “I understand. You know I’m still your friend, right?”
He muttered, “Yeah.”
When she reached to scratch Riley’s ears, she hesitated, but Riley still allowed her to do it. She smiled. “If there’s anything I can do to help allay your concerns, will you let me know?”
“Yeah,” he repeated, just as enthusiastically as the first time.
What more could Lilly do? Probably not much, if she were honest. She’d tried to make amends, and she wasn’t going to change her mind. She just hoped she’d done enough to restore Riley’s faith in her.
“Well, good night,” she said.
“Night.”
With another sigh, Lilly floated to her place near the campfire. Within minutes, exhaustion claimed her, and she drifted off to sleep.
Try as he might, Axel couldn’t sleep that night. The crickets chirped too loudly. The campfire crackled too loudly. Even Axel’s own breathing was too loud.
He wanted to blame it only on the ruckus of sounds all around him, but he couldn’t. Not if he wanted to be honest with himself—honest about the conflict churning in his heart.
For once, it wasn’t about Lilly. Rather, the fight with Oren had shown him something about himself. Something he hadn’t wanted to face. He’d wanted to ignore it, to push it aside, to pretend it had never happened, but it had.
Axel couldn’t do it any longer.
So he got up, careful not to wake anyone, and headed over to Riley’s spot, where he lay crouched among the trees and underbrush, mostly hidden.
Even as Axel walked over there, the conflict raged within his chest. His pride reminded him that he’d been doing the right thing in trying to avenge Lilly after Condor had hit her. At the same time, his conscience reminded him that doing so had almost gotten Riley killed.
His pride fired back that Riley was weak and frail. He’d run away instead of joining his friends in battle. He’d abandoned them in their time of need.
Axel’s conscience reminded him that he’d abandoned Riley in his time of need. He’d run away from fights and hid because of Axel’s reaction to Condor. He was weak and frail because he didn’t get the proper help soon enough, thanks to the frivolous delay that Axel had caused.
Axel groaned. It was all too much.
But despite the myriad of thoughts clunking back and forth in his mind, his legs continued to carry him toward Riley’s position.
When he reached the edge of the trees, he stopped and searched for Riley’s form amid the dark leaves and bushy branches, but he saw nothing.
A voice nearly scared him out of his armor. “If you’re gonna urinate, do it somewhere else.”
“What?” Axel squinted at the area where the voice had come from and spotted a vaguely wolflike shape among the plants. “No. I’m here to talk to you.”
“I think I would’ve preferred the urine.”
Axel bristled at the comment, not because he’d found it especially clever or biting, but because Riley had said it with absolute sincerity. He’d meant it.
“Well, say whatever stupid thing you came to say. Get it over with,” Riley said.
His tone tempted Axel to lay into him like he usually did, but his conscience made him resist that urge. Instead, he forced himself to say the two words he’d been avoiding ever since the incident had happened.
“I’m sorry.”
By the Overlord… Riley had been right. Axel had sounded stupid—exceptionally stupid—in saying that. Why had he even bothered to say it at all?
Riley didn’t move. Didn’t speak. Didn’t respond in any noticeable way at all.
Then his Wolf ears perked up, and he raised his head. He sniffed the air several times and stood up, his body rigid.
At first, Axel wondered how any of that could possibly relate to his apology. He quickly realized it was a heightened wariness on Riley’s part instead.
“What is it?” he asked, his voice low.
“Quiet,” Riley whispered so softly that Axel almost couldn’t make out what he’d said. His lupine head swiveled, and his light-blue eyes widened.
Axel tried to follow his line of sight, erratic as it was, into the trees around them, but he saw nothing.
A howl split the night, but it hadn’t come from the woods around them. It came from Riley.
“What in the Overlord’s name are you doing?” Axel hissed. “Everyone’s asleep!”
“We need to wake them up. Now.” He howled again, and Falcroné jerked upright, his sword in hand.
“What’s going on?” he slurred.
Calum popped up next, then Magnus, Condor, and Kanton. Along with Lilly, they surrounded Riley and Axel in seconds, all with questions on their lips.
Riley shushed them. “Listen.”
From the woods all around them, a cacophony of howls and yips sounded in varying tones and volumes.
“What is that?” Axel unsheathed his sword as he scanned the woods.
“Wolves,” Riley replied. “Thirty of them or more, and at least one Werewolf. We’re already surrounded.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
“What do we do?” Kanton asked.
Riley’s fur bristled. Thirty-plus Wolves against the eight of them. At night. And they had a Werewolf as their Alpha. What could they do?
“If you try to run, they’ll ambush you and kill you,” he said. “Stay together. Make them come to you. The nearer you are to the campfire, the less effectively they can hide in the shadows.”
Several weapons unsheathed around Riley, which only made his skin tingle more.
He glared at Condor. “And try not to kill me by accident. We all look similar in low light to the untrained eye.”
“That won’t be hard. You’re wearing that shoulder armor,” Axel said.
“No, I’m not.” Riley craned his head back toward the armor and bit the leather strap that held it on his body. In one yank, the whole apparatus loosened, and he pawed it over his head and off.
Now more than ever, they needed his stealth and his speed. If he wore the armor, he could employ neither.
Axel cursed. “Then how will we know it’s you?”
“I’ll be the only Wolf not attacking you,” Riley snapped. Axel reminded him of a walking brick sometimes. “Speaking of which, don’t chase any of the Wolves back into the woods. Stay near the fire, like I said. They’ll ambush you in the dark and rip you apart. Crystal?”
“Clear,” Calum said.
“Stay near me,” Magnus said. “Their teeth and claws won’t penetrate my scales.”
“The Werewolf’s can. Even so, watch your throat, Magnus. All of you, watch your throats. We learn at a young age that if we can get our prey by the throat, we’re all but guaranteed a kill.” Riley nodded toward the fire. “Come on. Get near the flames.”
A snarl sounded behind them as they took their first steps toward the fire. A blurred mass of fur and teeth launched at them out of the darkness, but Condor felled the Wolf from the air in one brutal swing of his sword. The Wolf landed next to a tree, dead.
Riley glared at him.
“What?” Condor shrugged. “At least it wasn’t you this time.”
“That’s not funny,” Lilly said.
“Look out!” Calum yelled.
A trio of Wolves dashed out of the woods and knocked Kanton off his feet. His spear clanged on the ground as the Wolves’ teeth and claws scraped against his armor. One of the Wolves latched onto his gauntleted right hand,
and he screamed.
Riley sprang forward and clamped his jaws around the ankle of one of the Wolves and yanked him away from Kanton, and Falcroné killed the one gnawing on Kanton’s right hand while Magnus batted the other away.
The Wolf whirled its head around and snapped at Riley, but Riley kept pulling back so it couldn’t reach him. Then a swift blow from Axel’s sword downed the Wolf.
Riley’s eyes met Axel’s, and they exchanged nods. For now, given his abrupt apology only moments earlier, that was good enough.
“I’m going out there,” Riley told the group. “I can run interference while they try to attack.”
“Wait! Don’t you think—” Calum’s voice trailed off as Riley bounded into the woods, but it was too late.
Riley had committed to this, and he’d see it through.
Lilly gripped her bow and drew back an arrow, but between the darkness and the Wolves’ speed, she had yet to fire even a single shot. No sense in wasting the arrows if she couldn’t hit anything. Thanks to the Wolves’ hit-and-run tactics, she couldn’t see her targets well enough.
Meanwhile, Condor helped Kanton to his feet. Blood dripped from his right hand—his dominant hand—and instead of holding his spear he wielded his short sword in his left hand.
“Are you alright?” Lilly floated down next to him.
Kanton shook his head. “I can’t use my right hand. It’s bad.”
“Condor, stay with Kanton. Keep him safe.”
The campfire’s reflection flickered in Condor’s piercing blue eyes, and he nodded. “I’ve got him.”
“Lilly, watch out!” Falcroné’s voice cut through Wolves’ barking and howling.
She whirled around in time to see a mass of gray fur charging toward her with Falcroné chasing it through the air. Lilly drew her arrow back, but the Wolf had already leaped at her. No chance of bringing it down in time.
Instead, Condor’s sword leveled the Wolf in one swift blow, and he darted back to Kanton’s side before Lilly fully comprehended what had happened.
“Looks like I’ve got you, too.” Condor gave her a wink then continued to scan the woods around them.
“I would’ve had him,” Falcroné hissed as he drifted to a stop near them.
Enough of this. Lilly slung her bow over her back, dropped the arrow into her quiver, and drew her sword instead. If these Wolves wouldn’t give her a decent shot, she’d bring the fight to them.
“Stay together, like Riley said.” Calum shouted from the other side of Magnus, who occupied the spot just to Lilly’s right. Falcroné covered her left side and stood next to Condor, who still guarded Kanton. Axel rounded out the circle between Kanton and Calum. “We’ll wear them down, one by one.”
The moment after he said it, at least a dozen sets of eyes appeared in the woods around them, illuminated by the campfire.
Lilly wished she’d kept her bow out after all.
The first Wolf padded right past Riley’s hiding spot, then two more. Just hours earlier, he’d hid so as to avoid the fight, but now he was hiding with the hope of accelerating it to its end.
As the fourth Wolf trotted past, Riley lunged out of the underbrush at him and used his full body weight to slam the Wolf into a thick tree. The impact roused a dull pain in Riley’s old wound, but a loud crack sounded from the Wolf’s body and he yelped.
The Wolf slumped to the ground, and Riley latched onto his throat and finished him off in silence.
As Riley released his grasp on the Wolf’s throat, a new scent reached his nose. It was similar to something he’d smelled before, but not since he’d been around Rhaza and the rest of the desert Wolves. He turned around in time to see a massive brown hand swinging at him.
The blow sent him careening through the underbrush where he’d just hidden, and he landed on his injured side, facing away from his assailant. The old wound throbbed with fresh pain. Riley pushed himself up to his feet and scanned the woods for his attacker, but he was nowhere in sight.
Another swipe hurled Riley across the ground, and his body smacked against a tree. The throbbing in his wound accelerated and intensified. He couldn’t take much more of this.
This time, instead of just standing up and searching, he darted away from the tree and zigzagged through the woods, weaving around trees.
Even though he hadn’t gotten a good look at his attacker, it had to be the Alpha. And if Riley could find a way to kill the Alpha before the rest of the Wolves closed in on his friends, then he could save them.
But killing an Alpha wasn’t an easy thing. The more Riley thought about it, the more he regretted ever having run off to face the Alpha alone.
It was too late now, though. And no one else would ever be able to find it. Either Riley succeeded, or they’d all die. There were far too many Wolves in the pack to overcome.
Riley couldn’t let that happen. He was their only chance. As long as he still drew breath, he wouldn’t let any more harm come to his friends.
And that even included Axel.
As Riley ran, claws slashed his face, but Riley recoiled a step. When he opened his eyes, the Alpha Werewolf stood before him at its full height and snarled.
The next slash came before Riley could get out of the way, this time to the other side of his face. Pain streaked across his snout, and he couldn’t stifle the whimper that squeezed out of his lungs as he staggered away from the Werewolf’s hulking bipedal form.
The pain reminded him of the futility of what he’d set out to do. He couldn’t outrun the Werewolf. Couldn’t hide from it, either. As good as Riley’s hearing, sight, and sense of smell were, even in the dark, the Werewolf’s were better.
What options did he even have?
Only one, he realized.
And if he failed, it would absolutely cost him his life.
Ten Wolves hit the group in quick succession. Calum swung at the first of four Wolves who charged him, but it eluded his sword and nipped at his legs. Alone, their nips proved harmless, but as soon as Calum hacked at the Wolf at his legs, another leaped at his head.
The Wolf’s claws scratched Calum’s left cheek, and his arm absorbed most of the Wolf’s mass, but the impact knocked him to his back nonetheless. The Wolf weighed close to a hundred pounds, and before Calum could try to push it away, the three other Wolves swarmed him. They chomped at his limbs as he covered his face and flailed his sword, but they didn’t stop.
A sharp yip sounded above him, and one of the Wolves was gone, followed by the other three. He glanced up.
Magnus stepped over Calum and rumbled toward the four Wolves, who ran off. Magnus followed them a few strides away from the circle.
Calum started to call for him when a set of hands yanked him to his feet.
“Back at it, Calum.” Axel smacked his armored shoulder.
“Thanks.” He refocused on Magnus, who now stood separate from the circle and hissed at the woods around them. Calum cupped his hand on the side of his mouth. “Magnus, come back over here!”
“No.” Magnus shook his head. “We must end this now. Let them come.”
The howling intensified from among the trees, and the remaining Wolves who had engaged in the attack disappeared into the darkness again. Only ten of them had attacked the first time, and the group had managed to kill three of them.
Except for the campfire, silence reigned in and around the campsite
Then dozens of Wolves poured out of the shadows and flooded toward them.
Calum tightened his grip on his sword.
Riley dodged the next attack before it ever came. It was a risk, but a calculated one.
He’d endured enough blows from the Werewolf by now to figure out a pattern, and he knew that unless he dodged early and timed things just right, the Werewolf would hit him again.
When Riley dodged, the Werewolf’s slash missed.
And when the Werewolf missed, it left him exposed.
Too fast for his own good.
Riley sprang at the Wer
ewolf from the side and aimed his jaws for the Werewolf’s neck. To his great surprise, they connected. He dug his teeth into the Werewolf’s throat with what little strength remained in his body after the thrashing he’d suffered to learn the correct timing.
The Werewolf howled, but Riley clamped his teeth tighter around its neck and pushed against the Werewolf’s chest with his paws. He was trying to use his body weight to tear the Werewolf’s throat out of its neck or at least drag him to the ground, but the Werewolf refused to go down.
Instead, it grabbed Riley by his sides and dug his claws into Riley’s fur, then into his skin.
Then through his skin.
Pain pierced into Riley’s body, just like when Condor had stabbed him, only much, much worse.
Riley just bit down harder. Regardless of whatever happened to him, he had to hold on. He had to kill this thing, or the Wolves would overwhelm his friends.
The Wolves swarmed the group. Everywhere Axel turned, he found another Wolf to fight, to kick, to slay. He’d cut down at least four of them so far—or maybe three—but they just kept coming.
Definitely more than thirty. Possibly even more than fifty.
Around him, Condor and Falcroné zipped through the air and dodged most of the Wolves’ attacks, but their faces showed signs of strain with each new swing. Lilly hung just above the fracas and again launched arrows at the Wolves, but nothing stopped them from attacking.
Something heavy collided with the back of Axel’s left knee. It hadn’t hurt much, but he still went down.
Another Wolf barreled into him from the side and knocked him to the ground. Three sets of canine eyes darted toward him accompanied by three sets of teeth.
He lashed his sword at them and felled one, but the other two pounced on top of him. They started biting and scratching at his face, then at his arms when he tried to shield himself from them. Had it not been for his armor they would have shredded his forearms.