by Cheree Alsop
The wolves took turns running beside Andric’s horse during the day, but the dark gray one with blue eyes was his constant companion. He fed them scraps of his own food at our breaks, and they lounged beside him like he was one of them. It seemed more like they were friends than that they were under some spell, though the thought of humans and animals being friends on that level sent a strange chill up my spine.
I was lost in my thoughts when I heard a scream further up the column. They had just disappeared around a bend. Jagged rocks jutted up toward the sky like massive daggers thrust up by giants from below the earth, and we wove through them in single file on horseback. The scream sounded followed by high-pitched shrieking, and my heart skipped a beat.
Forgetting the wolves entirely, I jumped down from my horse and ran past Nyssa, Kenyen, and Danyen. I rounded the corner to find Kaerdra bent over her horse with tears rolling down her cheeks. Trevin, Andric, and the guards were around her still on their horses.
“What’s going on?” I demanded.
They all turned. Andric’s eyes widened slightly when he saw me. I glanced around and the sight made my heart stutter. Two wolves, the huge dark gray one and a smaller one with light gray fur, stood on either side of me. Their heads were low and their eyes on the Prince as if they waited for his cue to attack. Andric gave a slight shake of his head. Immediately, the wolves walked away as if my life hadn’t been hanging in the balance.
Kaerdra started to cry louder.
Andric’s brow creased. “She got stung by a blue wasp.”
“And it hurts so bad!” Kaerdra said with more tears.
I hesitated. “Can I help her?” I asked with a glance at the wolves who were hanging casually near.
I couldn’t read the expression on Andric’s face when he got my meaning. He turned his horse away, his words short. “They won’t hurt you.”
I hurried past the guards to where Trevin helped Kaerdra down from her horse. She held her arm close, careful not to touch the spot just below her wrist. Blue wasp stings hurt like crazy, but weren’t serious if treated quickly.
“I’m a healer,” one of the guards said as he dismounted from his horse next to me.
“Don’t touch me,” Kaerdra shouted.
She buried her head in Trevin’s shoulder. Her blond-haired brother looked up and met my eyes. I lifted my hands in a gesture of offered help and he nodded. “Please,” he mouthed. He whispered something to Kaerdra and she turned quickly toward me.
“Can you help me, Kit?” Her tone was pleading.
I nodded. “If the healer has some plantain leaves.”
He nodded and handed over the leaves he had already withdrawn from his pack. I fought back a smile at the relief on his face that someone else was prepared to take care of the shrill princess.
I took her hand and studied the stinger that stuck from the small, red spot on her arm. Before she could protest, I pinched the stinger close to her skin and pulled it free with a short, quick jerk. She let out a yelp, but breathed a sigh of relief when she saw that the stinger was gone. I chewed up some of the plantain leaves, added a peppermint one the guard gave me, put the pulp directly on the sting mark, and covered it in the cleanest snow I could find.
The guard handed me strips of white cloth. “Thanks,” I told him with a small smile.
“No, thank you,” he replied with a hint of a smile in return.
I wrapped the sting securely, then tied the ends of the cloth and wrapped them under the other strips so they wouldn’t snag on anything.
“You act like you’ve done this before,” the guard commented.
I nodded with an inward cringe. “I was more interested in learning how to heal than in being a princess.”
“It’s a worthy pursuit,” he replied.
I gave him a tired smile. “Thanks. There’re others who wanted me to pursue more sensible pastimes.”
“I’m glad you didn’t,” Kaerdra said softly.
I looked at her in surprise. She gave me a small smile, then her brother helped her back to her horse.
I stared after her for a minute, then walked back to my position in line. The others waited on their horses just in front of the corner of rock, wary of the wolves while they watched from what they assumed was safety. My horse, on the other hand, still stood obediently where I had left him. I walked around the corner to go to him when something below caught my eye.
We had worked our way up the foothills and entered the mouth of the mountain pass. At the edge of the forest that fronted the small hills we had ridden over just hours before, I saw riders.
“They’ve found us,” I said in surprise.
I must have said it louder than I thought because Andric appeared around the bend on his horse followed closely by the others.
“Father!” Brynna shouted and waved her hand above her head.
“Shhh,” Andric warned her sharply. “Do you want to start an avalanche?”
She glared at him. “Wouldn’t be worse than what you’ve put us through.”
“Yeah,” Trevin snapped. “I wouldn’t want to see what our fathers do to you when they get here.”
The Antoran Prince stayed calm. “We won’t be here when they arrive.”
“You’ve lost,” Danyen said, incredulous. “Give up!”
Andric merely turned his horse. His wolves stalked closer than usual. The rest of the horses followed the Prince, carrying their unwilling captives. My horse took an uncertain step forward, then looked back at me.
It would be easy to run. The wolves were there, but Andric had already promised that they wouldn’t harm me. I looked back at him and saw that he regretted the statement. His regret made me more certain that the wolves wouldn’t follow if I ran. A glance at the line of soldiers that rode from the forest line into the open clearing below showed more of them than I had thought there would be. I could escape. My heart began to race with the implications.
I looked back. The others watched me as if they realized what I contemplated. Tisha, more alert now than she had been through the last day, shook her head, her eyes pleading for me not to risk it. Nyssa and Brynna both nodded encouragingly, while Trevin, Landis, and Kaerdra waited for me to make my own choice. Andric’s guards looked to him for his command. He merely watched me, his expression guarded and eyes calculating. I realized then that he expected me to go.
For some reason, that made up my mind. I kicked the snow from my boots and stepped back into the saddle. My horse snorted and took the few hurried steps needed to catch up to the rest. Andric threw me a last, puzzled look before he turned his horse to lead us into the heart of the mountain.
“Why didn’t you go?” Tisha whispered.
“I don’t know,” I whispered back, but I did know. I didn’t want Andric to be right. I wasn’t going to run and leave the others to whatever fate he had set for them. If I could fight, I would. I wouldn’t run away like a coward.
Chapter 4
We rode on in silence. Andric hurried us to faster paces whenever possible. The thick snowdrifts, up to the horses’ knees in some places, covered layers of ice above the slate. The treacherous footing required the horses’ full attention along the snow-covered path. Walls of stone rose to dizzying heights around us as we followed a gash in the mountain that stood out bare amid the fir-spotted, snow covered sides.
The walls closed in, creating a channel with only one direction to go, up. I fought off claustrophobia as we continued to rise. We sweated as much as our horses while they braved the trail.
After hours of riding, we finally reached a clearing near the top of the path. The walls spread out and created a sheltered cove in the mountain’s height. We stopped to give the horses a much-needed breather. Drade and two of the other guards made a small fire to thaw snow for the horses to drink. I removed my horse’s saddle and rubbed him with a handful of stubborn snow grass to help him dry.
“You take good care of him,” a voice said.
I turned to find Drade beh
ind me, a small pouch of grain in his hand.
“He’s a good horse, and he’s worked hard,” I replied, embarrassed. He wasn’t my horse; I wondered if I had overstepped a line tending to him.
“Trae’s one of my favorites.” He winked at me and lowered his voice. “Just don’t tell the others.”
“Trae,” I repeated. The horse responded by bumping my shoulder with his nose. I turned and rubbed his forehead. “I like that name.”
Drade smiled and handed me the grain sack. “Give him just a bit. It’ll help him have energy for the trip down.”
I nodded and took the sack. Trae sniffed impatiently at my fingers, then took an eager mouthful when I opened it for him. He munched happily and bits of barley fell off his whiskery nose to the snow below.
Drade checked Trae’s hooves for rocks, re-saddled him, then took the grain sack and moved on to Tisha’s horse. Trae bent and snuffed up the few remaining kernels on the ground, then sniffed me thoroughly for more. When he found none, he shook himself, then stamped a hoof, eager to begin our journey once more.
Everything fell silent. Before, the sounds of horses shifting their weight from hoof to hoof, people talking in low voices, packs creaking, and the occasional snort scattered through the air; but within the space of a few seconds, all sounds stopped.
I looked up to see that Andric had called his guards together. They talked in low voices, punctuated by gestures from his captain. “What’s going on?” I whispered to Landis.
He shrugged, his eyes on Andric’s back. “The guard said he saw Breizans.”
“Breizans!” My heart slowed. All Denbrians are told stories of Breizans since we were little children. Mothers told warning stories about the ice men who wore the skins of savage beasts like their flesh to scare children so they didn’t wander off at night.
The adults told horror stories on late winter evenings to frighten each other when they thought their children were asleep. I wasn’t the only one who snuck in to listen to the stories, frightened but reassured by the thought that the Breizans weren’t real.
“There’s no such thing as Breizans,” Brynna said with a snort; she flicked a strand of auburn hair behind her shoulder.
“They’re just made-up monsters to scare children into obeying their parents,” Trevin agreed loudly. “We’re too old to believe in them now.”
“He’s just trying to scare us, right Nyssa?” Kenyen asked with a grin.
But Nyssa didn’t smile back. She looked at the ground instead, the toe of one foot tracing a pattern on the snow. “I saw one once, close the castle,” she said, her voice quiet. Her tone sent a chill down my spine. I knew I wasn’t the only one who wished she wouldn’t continue speaking and shatter the bubble of safety we thought we lived in.
She took a small breath and let it out to cloud the air. “It was winter and a friend and I sat on the wall throwing snowballs. I remember something separating from one of the trees. It stared at us with wild eyes, and didn’t look human at all, but it stood on two feet and bared its teeth at us. It had on a mask made of a goat’s head, with the eyes cleared out so that it could see through.” She shuddered. “My parents said they didn’t believe me when we ran back and told them, but they didn’t let us near the wall anymore.” The truth to her words sent another shudder through my skin.
When Andric turned back around, the whiteness of his face and the hardness of his eyes confirmed Nyssa’s words. “We’ve got to ride. Now!”
Danyen shook his head. “Our fathers will make it with their soldiers. They’ll stop the threat.”
Andric shook his head. “They won’t make it in time. We’ve got to ride through the pass. There’s a clearing with a wall; we’ve used it before.”
When he turned to give orders to his men, I looked back down at the soldiers who made their way into the foothills. They were little black dots in the white snow, not even close enough to distinguish the colors of their uniforms. Andric was right. If we were in danger, they wouldn’t make it in time.
The stories danced through my mind. If Breizans were real, I wasn’t going to sit around helpless while we were killed by flesh-eating, savage humans. “Give us some swords,” I said; the authority in my voice surprised me.
Everyone turned and stared. I swallowed and kept my eyes on the Antoran Prince. “Andric, we can help.”
He gave me a calculating look, then nodded to one of his guards. The man retrieved spare swords from one of the saddle packs and handed them out. The princes all took one, and the guard offered the final sword to me with a slight smile on his face that I assumed meant he was joking. His eyes widened when I accepted the weapon and swung onto Trae’s back.
Andric commanded, “Jashe, guard our left flank, and Falen, your team to the right. My pack will cover our backs. Let’s ride.”
The horses leaped into a gallop after the Prince. I held on tight with my knees like Andric had instructed, and attempted to keep my heavy sword steady in one hand while my other knotted in Trae’s mane. The horses ran at a breakneck speed over the dangerous footing of snow and ice. The mountains closed around us as we charged into the pass.
I saw them a few seconds later. Men flanked us through the trees and kept pace with our horses. I call them men because I don’t know what other term to use. Like Nyssa’s description, they ran on two legs and were the size of men, but if they had been on all fours, I would have considered them beasts too foul for a name.
They wore skins stained rust brown from the blood of the creatures from which they had been taken. The same blood tainted what I could see of their flesh, brownish red around their mouths, dark red fingers that looked more like claws. They held jagged-edged knives and other weapons made to injure, not for a clean kill. The sight of them sent a cold pit of fear in my stomach.
I leaned down on Trae’s back. He responded by lowering his head to gallop faster. Gratitude washed through me for his sure feet on the uneven ground. The clearing rose ahead. The wall was there; I estimated it was at least six feet tall at the side that faced us.
Andric reached the clearing, two guards behind him. He spun his horse, his sword raised. Before he could escape, Breizans rose out of the snow around him, the wild, human beasts crashing up through the snow. The air shattered with high-pitched screams that froze my blood. Trae’s steps faltered. Andric swung his sword and took out the two nearest creatures. The remaining Breizans sliced at his horse’s legs in an attempt to bring them both down. The horse kicked out and caught one in the chest; the force of the impact smashed the Breizan into the wall. Andric’s guards leaped their horses into the fight; swords flashed against the winter sunlight. We slowed our horses.
“Jump the wall!” Andric shouted back at us. He turned in time to slice down a spear thrown at his back.
Trevin sat near the mouth of the clearing; he looked back at us and his eyes went wide. “Behind you!” he yelled.
I turned to see Breizans rush out of the trees toward us. Andric’s wolves leaped at them, pulling them down from all sides, but it was obvious the five animals wouldn’t be enough to stop them. My heart thundered in my chest.
Trevin tightened his knees and his horse jumped into the clearing at almost a full gallop. The horse flew across the ground, barreling over the Breizans who stood in the way. Trevin blocked an axe flung at his head, and then bent down when his horse gathered his legs and leaped. They disappeared behind the wall.
“Let’s go,” Kaerdra said, her voice unsteady. Her horse ran forward and made for the clearing. Before she could reach the wall, one of the Breizans jumped in her way and swung. The sword sliced across her horse’s chest. He whinnied and reared. Kaerdra tumbled in an ungraceful heap to the ground.
My heart slowed. “No!” I shouted. Trae leaped forward as if the very wind flowed through his veins. He galloped toward Kaerdra, then veered to one side when three Breizans with serrated swords barred the way. They grinned at me, their teeth bloodstained a dull rust color. Two more ran past to attack
the others who waited behind me. Trae danced away from a spear point; I leaned down and chopped off the end of the spear with a quick slice of the sword. I had to hold on tight to keep from falling off the horse’s back with the weight of the blade.
I looked up, expecting to see Kaerdra dead in the snow. I almost cried in relief at the sight of Andric standing horseless in front of her; he fought the Breizans with ruthless efficiency. His horse stood behind them and lashed out with his front hooves to stop a Breizan who ran toward the pair. Andric stabbed one in the stomach, then spun and sliced across the chest of another.
Kaerdra shrieked when one of the creatures escaped past the horse and ran toward them. Andric turned just in time, and his sword was driven deep into the Breizan’s body by the beast’s momentum. Three more creatures rushed them from the other side. Andric tried to jerk his sword free, but it was stuck in the Breizan’s chest. I turned Trae to make a run for them, but two more ice men came at me from either side. I slashed at one and he jumped back; the other ducked in time to avoid Trae’s bared teeth. I looked back at the pair in front of the wall.
Andric picked up a short sword from the ground and threw it. The point sunk deep into one attacker’s stomach. The other two Breizans charged at them. The Prince pulled out a knife, parried one sword, then turned and shielded Kaerdra with his body. The other Breizan’s sword sliced down the back of Andric’s shoulder. The Prince’s face was twisted with pain when he turned back, but he kicked before the Breizan could bring his sword down for another slice. Andric’s boot connected with the ice man’s hand; the sword flew from his grasp. Before the creature could retaliate, Andric ended his life with a quick slice across the throat with his knife. One of his guards broke free and lopped off the head of the other Breizan.
Relief filled me as Andric helped Kaerdra to the wall and hoisted her up to her brother; Trevin pulled her to the top, his face white and eyes tight.