The Red Rider (The Red Rider Saga Book 1)

by D. A. Randall

  Papa raised his fingers, summoning me to prepare.

  Those things didn’t matter. We weren’t here to protect animals or find pets or nurse wounds. We were hunting. To find food. To survive.

  I shouldered the crossbow.

  “Now,” he whispered.

  I fired the second he said it. My bolt struck the deer’s neck, bringing it down in a heap.

  I did it.

  We rushed at the carcass. The fawn struggled for its final breaths. I watched it with wonder and pity.

  Then shoved all pity aside.

  It was meat.

  “Well done, Helena,” Papa said.

  I stayed with the deer as Papa fetched the horses. I watched for the next few minutes as the fawn gasped, then slowed his breath, then finally stopped, his eyes remaining open as his body fell still.

  Papa brought the horses and we tied the carcass to the back of Royale’s saddle to drag it home. Papa said nothing more on the ride, but I noticed him sitting taller in his saddle.

  When we arrived home an hour later, I could hear the pride in his voice as he told Mama what I had done. “Bagged a young deer, her first day hunting,” he said.

  From her seat on the porch, Mama offered a small smile. Then she jumped to her feet, her hand flying to her mouth. “Helena! Where’s your other slipper? And what happened to your dress?”

  I had turned my attention from the fawn to look at my legs. At my calves, exposed beneath the frayed bottom of my ruined dress. At the dark red stain on the shred of fabric, wrapped tightly around my wounded foot.

  I had answered in a voice of steel. “I stopped the bleeding.”

  That was all that had mattered then.

  It was all that mattered now, as I watched the door of La Maison de Touraine from the roof of Focult le Tonnelier, the cooper’s shop across the street. Waiting for Grenault or one of his cronies to come out, like a hunter in the woods, eager for a deer to cross my sights.

  Except that Grenault wasn’t a deer, or even a natural wolf. The Lycanthru had dabbled in black magic to transform themselves into large wolves that could still think and fight like men. Grenault was bigger and stronger than the other Lycanthru wolves, and he had no fear of me.

  That would end tonight.

  Grenault emerged suddenly, his massive arms throwing the tavern doors open. He ducked beneath the overhang and lumbered from the porch, his arms hanging low like an ape. My breath caught in my throat. Not only at his sudden appearance, but at his seven-foot height, his effortless strength, his thick jaw beneath the tangled hair covering his dark eyes.

  There was no sense denying that I had begun to fear him.

  That didn’t matter. All that mattered was stopping him, fast. I raised my crossbow.

  Grenault took three easy strides and reached the center of the street, then stopped to look around. He peered in every direction, searching for something.

  An easy target.

  Then he looked up and met my gaze.

  I felt the blood drain from my body, but I kept my face hard and pulled back on the lever. No hesitation.

  He leaped aside, letting my bolt bounce off a cobblestone. Apparently he was also faster than most Lycanthru. I had hoped some of his bulk would slow him down.

  I dropped to one knee and peered over the roof’s edge to sight him again. He bounded up the wall in a flash, grabbing onto a window sill below and propelling himself straight at me. I never knew the Lycanthru could leap that high while still in their human form.

  Too late, I drew back from the ledge. He hung from the rooftop with one enormous arm, grabbing the close of my cloak with the other and yanking me down. My head struck some scattered pebbles on the terrace and I cried out, dropping my crossbow. He batted it away, to skitter across the roof.

  With my cheek against the roof’s jagged surface, I watched my weapon sail straight over the edge.

  I tried to tug myself away to retrieve it, but his fist closed around my throat like an iron manacle. He held me in place, one mighty arm supporting him, the other choking me. I pried at his giant fingers but they wouldn’t budge. My biceps trembled with the effort as he squeezed tighter.

  Tighter.

  “You killed Gregor and Thayer and Robillet easily enough with that crossbow, Mademoiselle,” he snarled. “Let’s see how you do without it.”

  I gasped and struggled in vain to free myself. He could snap my neck with the slightest increase of pressure. Yet he didn’t. He only firmed up his hold, squeezing just enough to keep me dangling like a fish on a hook.

  He grinned beneath the dark canopy of disheveled hair. “You’re nothing at all, are you?” he said. “The fearsome ‘Red Rider’ is just a frightened little girl. Who’s run out of tricks.”

  I considered using one of my blades, but whenever I eased my grip on his hand, he tightened his hold, forcing me to keep clutching at him.

  “I’m going to squeeze until you suffocate,” he said. “After you pass out, I’ll string you up like a piece of meat, to show the Lycanthru how fragile you really are. Then I’ll kill you – slowly – in front of the entire order. And declare myself the new Prime.”

  My vision started to fade. The world grew darker as I fought to keep my eyes open. To stay alive.

  “Grenault! What’re you doing up there?”

  I blinked twice as he relaxed his grip on my throat. Grenault peered down at the unseen man who had called him. “Just dealing with a troublesome animal,” he said. “Nothing to worry about. I’ll handle it.”

  “What is it?” asked another voice below. “A possum? A large rat?”

  “I hope you don’t have a wolf by the tail up there, Grenault!” hooted a third man, prompting the other two to explode in laughter.

  Grenault narrowed his eyes at me. Then smiled. “Another evening, sweet child. A special night reserved just for you and me.”

  He released me and scrabbled back down the wall. I could hear him climbing slower this time, to hide his true supernatural strength from the witnesses below. “It got away,” he told them, once on the ground. “I didn’t get a good look at it. But trust me, it’s scared. I’ll kill it soon enough.”

  I lay on my back, keeping myself hidden. Gathering my breath, I massaged my throat. I couldn’t let anyone spot me, least of all Grenault. He couldn’t be allowed to see how much he had affected me. His rapid scaling of the wall – even without his wolf form – was like re-living one of my childhood nightmares.

  “Come back inside, Grenault. I’ll buy you a drink,” one man offered. I heard Grenault’s giant boots crossing the cobblestones back to La Maison. A wave of relief flooded me as the heavy double doors shut.

  I waited another few seconds before scrambling to the other edge to peer over it. Too dark to see anything at the bottom of the alley. I secured my grappling hook and lowered myself into the blackness until I found the bottom. Then I felt around for my fallen crossbow and slung it over my shoulder.

  I waited there for another half minute, listening to my own heavy breaths. I peeked out at the closed double doors of La Maison, keeping myself hidden in the passage.

  Pushing myself from the alley, I scurried to the opposite building, then quickly made my way to the stable. Crimson stood at the back of it, beside the bag of oats I had hung on the rear stable wall. After a final survey of my surroundings, I mounted him and slipped away into the night, escaping into the forest, my heart pounding with every hoofbeat. I had to get off the streets.

  We finally arrived at the secret longhouse in the woods, where I checked the area once more. Then I tugged the double doors open and led Crimson down the ramp. I bounded across the room to light a candle, then hurried back to secure the overhead doors.

  I stared at the ramp leading to the surface above, my heart pounding like a hammer on an anvil. If any of the Lycanthru happened to find those doors, they would shred us in our sleep.

  I watched for another thirty minutes, well after Crimson had retired. Then I lay down on the cot,
blew out the candle, and forced my eyes shut, still trembling at the memory of Grenault’s grip.

  MY MONSTER

  6.

  The boy had been seven years old, the same age as me, and he smiled beneath his mess of blond hair as he continued beating me to death. I lay in a puddle of mud that soaked into my cotton dress. I couldn’t rise, pinned by Jacque Denue and his three friends, all pummeling my every limb. Until one of their blows had punctured my gut, sinking deep between my cracked ribs. I felt blood seep from the wound. I somehow managed to look down at my body, as their fists dug into my thighs, my upper arms, my stomach. Opening more holes, drawing more blood. But they wouldn’t stop. They kept hitting harder and harder until I found myself sinking deep into the mud, away from them, away from the pain. Burying myself in a bottomless pit of earth.

  Then I had sat upright in my blackened room, listening to the heavy sound of my breath as I rustled in the sheets. Mama and Papa had not stirred, so I must not have screamed. Perhaps I had only screamed on the nights I dreamed about the wolf. Nightmares about Jacque Denue weren’t quite as frightening. But they were still nightmares.

  I had gathered my breath slowly to calm myself. I would run into Jacque and his friends again one day. And they would beat me into the ground, the same way they had done a few months ago.

  Or at least, they would try to.

  I continued to exhale slowly. Once I could breathe easily again, I laid my head down on the pillow. And for the first time ever, after having a nightmare, I had smiled as I closed my eyes. The next time Jacque Denue threatened me, things would be different.

  Because the very next morning, I would see Francois.

  “Hello, Francois,” I had called as I trudged through the snow around the corner of his shed. It still hurt to walk, after the beating I had taken three months earlier, but I no longer hobbled.

  “Helena,” Francois had said, sinking his hatchet into the wood block he had been chopping. The icy mid-morning air had already scattered scents of his wood shavings around the yard. He rose to his full height in his woolen overcoat, almost as tall as Papa, though his broad shoulders and belly had made him seem bigger. “What’re you doin’ here in this weather?”

  “I want another lesson,” I said brightly.

  He sighed a deep, frosty breath. “Helena. You can’t keep coming and asking me to teach you to fight every time your Papa goes off to hunt.”

  I fidgeted with my dress and my own wool coat that Mama had sewn. “Well, it’s not as if Papa will ever let me hunt. And anyway, I have to know,” I said. “I have to be ready.”

  “Ready for what?”

  “For – those boys. When they try to beat me again.”

  He snorted an angry puff of white air. “Just stay away from them. You don’t need to go into the village. Stay home.”

  “I can’t stay home forever. And what if they come there?”

  He shook his head. “They won’t do that.”

  “They will, someday,” I insisted. But I wasn’t talking about Jacque and his friends any longer. I started to gasp, and forced myself to take slow, steady breaths. “Someone has to protect us, Francois. But no one can. I need to know how to fight. I’m scared.”

  He heaved another great sigh as he stared at me, his eyes softening. “I don’t want you to be scared.”

  He opened his arms wide and I rushed into them, letting him surround me like a warm grizzly bear with its cub. Then he released me and leaned into my face. “All right, let’s have another lesson. A quick one, so you can get out of this cold,” he said. “Now look. I’ll teach you, so they can never beat you like that again. But I don’t want you to go picking a fight, you hear me? Fastest way to get beat worse than before is to go looking for a fight.”

  I thought of the wolf that loomed over me, before it had struck my face. After it had killed Grand’Mere. “What about the wolf?” I asked. “What if another one comes back?”

  “There’s no other wolf like that one, believe me,” he insisted. “But we’re talking about those boys. Promise me you won’t go after them, starting a fight.”

  “All right,” I said. “I promise I won’t go after Jacque or the other boys.”

  “And we’ll have to come up with something better to tell your folks, if you’re gonna keep coming back. There’s only so many chores I could need a little girl to help me with.”

  I giggled. “All right.”

  “All right. Stand here in front of the carving table.” I stood still as he stepped away.

  Hearing Francois’ new foal whinny from the stable, I fidgeted. He had introduced me to Crimson three months ago, right after Jacque Denue and his friends beat me into the mud. We had connected instantly, and Francois told me I could come see Crimson whenever I wanted. Now I desperately wanted to pet his fiery red flanks again, especially when he had to be cooped up in the barn. I hoped I could do so after our lesson.

  I brightened suddenly, realizing that seeing Crimson would make a better excuse to give Mama and Papa for my frequent visits to Francois!

  He returned from his shed two minutes later, brushing snow off the table with a sweep of his giant arm, then tossing a thick rope onto its surface. He looked around his yard, found a heavy branch and a large rock, shook the snow off them, and set them beside it. “Here’s a rock, a big stick, and a rope. Stuff you could find to use for a weapon if somebody’s bothering you. So which one would you choose?”

  I studied the three objects. Even the rope seemed heavy. “Can’t I use my fists?”

  “Sure you can,” he said. “But your fists are smaller than theirs, and can’t hit as hard. So if you don’t want those boys to get up again, you need to hit them with something harder than your girl-fists.” He cleared his throat. “No offense.”

  I considered the “weapons” again. “All right. Then I’ll pick the rock. That’ll hit hard.”

  “Sure it will. So pick it up.”

  I reached for it with one hand, like Francois had done. I could roll it but couldn’t pick it up. I lifted it with both hands. It was freezing. “It’s heavy.”

  “Right. It weighs a lot. That’s why it hurts so bad when it hits somebody’s head or gut. But if you pick up a heavy weapon, you’ve got to be strong enough to lift it and swing it. But you can use a rock for something else, too. What if one of those boys tries to pick up a stick like this?”

  He lifted the branch and swung at my face.

  I hung my head, cradling the rock.

  “No, no. Don’t look down and don’t back away. Look ‘em square in the eye. Don’t take your eyes off of ‘em for a second or they’ll flatten you. You look up and watch what they’re doing. Watch them swing that stick at you and see where it goes. Then what you do is –.” He set the branch on the table and lifted my arms as I held the rock. Then he picked up the branch in one hand and swung again slowly, as he moved my rock to meet it. He flicked his wrist, striking the branch against the rock, its blow echoing in the chilly quiet of the barnyard. “See? You just blocked it. And if some kid tries to punch you while you’re holding a rock – Crack! You shielded yourself with that rock, plus you stopped him from using that fist again anytime soon.”

  “You mean – break his fingers?”

  “Yeah,” he said, breathing a frosty cloud through clenched teeth. “Break his fingers.”

  I swallowed. “I don’t want to hurt them that bad.”

  “I know you don’t. Because you’re a good kid.” He bent down, his snow-flecked beard so close I could see the wrinkles and cracks in his cheeks. “But those boys’re not,” he said. “Don’t worry about whether they’re hurt. Make sure they are. Or they’ll hurt you.”

  I had never seen him so hard, so stony-eyed. “All right,” I squeaked.

  “I know you don’t want to harm anyone, Helena. I hope you never have to. But if you do – if someone starts a fight with you and they won’t stop – you stop them. Got me? ‘cause I don’t want you getting hurt anymore.”


  I stared into his fierce eyes. He was like an ageless giant, able to survive forever through wind and ice and snow. I wished I could be that brave and strong. I vowed to learn how. “I’ll make sure they don’t,” I said, feeling the chill in my teeth.

  “Good, make sure,” he said, rising back up. “Now put the rock back.”

  I set the freezing stone back on the table and turned. His giant face snarled at mine as he lunged at me. I screamed, falling into the snow on my behind. “Francois! You scared me!”

  “Yeah, I did it on purpose. The way those bullies try to scare you. So what are you gonna do to stop them? Are you gonna sit there and cry?”

  I sniffled, my cheeks wet with tears. “But you scared me!”

  “No, I didn’t. I jumped in your face. You don’t have to be scared by it. Soon as you let yourself get scared, the fight’s over. They count on you being scared and backing down, every time. But if you don’t show it, and they can’t figure out how to scare you, you’ve won half the fight. So don’t cry. Understand? Don’t – cry.”

  I took a deep breath, shivering in the cold, telling myself the wet snow didn’t have to bother me. That Francois and his enormous face didn’t have to frighten me. That I didn’t have to be upset over him tricking me. That I was stronger than Jacque Denue and his cruel friends.

  Even stronger than the wolf.

  “All right,” I said, stiffening. Sighing. Rising to my feet. “I’m done crying.”

  “Good,” he said. “So that’s the rock. What else can you use?”

  I put a finger to my lips. “The stick. I can swing it.”

  “Good idea. Here you go.”

  I took the stick. It wasn’t nearly as cold or heavy as the rock.

  “All right, swing at me.”

  I swung it hard. He grabbed it and yanked it from my tiny hands. “Hey, no fair!”

  “This is a fight. I don’t have to be fair,” he said. “I’m bigger than you and I can pound you into the ground. So what are you gonna do about it?”

  I stared up at his huge frame. Jacque Denue and his buddies were only eight years old, like me. What did Francois expect me to do?