Aeryn’s face flushed. Was she going soft already? Reaching to put out the candle, she caught a glimpse of herself in the full-length mirror. Only, it was not her body her face sat on, but Mareen’s massive girth.
“No,” she said to herself, snuffing the candle with a vengeance, “I will not become one of them.”
Still, her body betrayed her as she snuggled into bed. She wondered how she could ever sleep on cold alleyway cobbles again. Blessedly, sleep came a bare moment later, shutting off that dismal train of thought.
Aeryn opened her eyes open a second later. Listening for whatever had woken her, she realized that based on the length of the shadows cast by the moonlight, it was more like two or three hours later. Eyes drooping, she wondered if the noise she had heard had not been her imagination.
No sooner had they shut and she snapped them back open again. There it was again. It sounded like the howling of a draven and the faint rustling of the tress.
Wait. A howling draven?
Aeryn bolted upright. She cocked her head to the side and listened. The howling came again. Jynx. There was no mistaking the draven.
Throwing off the covers, she dashed to the wardrobe and snatched up her trousers and shirt. Not sparing the time to step into the clothes, she opened the door to her room and ran out into the hall.
A single baying hound joined Jynx as she rounded the end of the first hallway. Hopping into her clothes, she careened through the house, passing groggy-eyed servants peeking their heads out of their rooms at the noise.
Reeve appeared in front of her, trim and crusty as always. “What in Nameless’ name is that draven of yours—“
“Out of my bloody way,” Aeryn said. She shouldered past the chamberlain. A second hound joined the first.
“I’ll see Lord Merek hears about your insolence, girl!” Reeve shouted at her back.
“Go sit on a knife,” Aeryn said, not slowing for an instant.
Even as Reeve’s voice faded, a third hound picked up the call. Then a fourth and a fifth. By the time she was outside, rounding the estate and angling toward the kennels, the remaining score of hounds had all joined in. The deafening chorus pushed her faster.
“Burn the hounds, boy,” Gerald’s voice boomed out into the night. “Get the bloody bows.”
Aeryn sprinted past the grizzly huntsman. She had to get to Jynx.
“Girl! Where the bloody hell are you going?” Gerald shouted after her. Of course, now he decided not to call her a Lady.
“Jynx. Getting—” panting, she spurt out the words, “—Jynx.”
“Leave him. Unless that kennel falls apart, he’ll be safer in there than out here with us.”
Aeryn picked up her pace. She did not know what was going on, but she did know that Jynx never howled without a reason. Short of knowing what that reason was, she would rather err on the safe side by getting to Jynx.
“Get back in the house you old coot. This ain’t no place for you,” Gerald said.
“How dare you! I demand that you tell me what is going on,” Reeve said.
Any other time, Aeryn would have laughed at Reeve’s spluttering protest. But not now; not when Jynx was in trouble.
Aeryn slid to a stop before the kennel’s wood door and fumbled with the latch.
“I don’t care if Nameless himself ran in front of you Reeve. Get your sorry ass back inside. And take them gawkers with you,” Gerald said. “It’s about to get bloody out here and I ain’t got time to babysit people too stupid to know when to tuck their tail between their legs and run.”
Aeryn flipped the hook free. The door burst open and a snarling Jynx, corded in powerful muscle and now nearly as large as her, streamed by, inches from her head.
“Behind you, girl,” the huntsman bellowed.
Spinning, Aeryn watched Jynx collide midair with a gray-black Shadow, half again his size. Reaching for her belt knife, Aeryn Drifted as both Jynx and the massive wolf fell to the ground in a withering mass of snapping teeth.
Her hand came up empty. Sparing a glance, she found no knife, not even the sheath. She had forgotten it in her haste.
Despite his rapidly growth in size and strength, Jynx was still a good deal smaller than its adversary. Unfortunately, being faster and more agile counted for little in this contest of strength.
The wolf growled. Its teeth flashed and came away with a tuft of fur. Jynx yelped and tried to wiggle away. The wolf rolled on top, its mouth closing about Jynx’s foreleg. His cry drove a stake into her heart.
She frantically searched for some kind of weapon. Only, there was not even a fat branch lying at hand. All she found was the rusted shovel just inside the kennel. Jynx yelped. It would have to do. Aeryn seized the wooden handle and whirled to face the snarling pair.
Focusing, she Drifted even deeper into the Etheric Plane, lightening the night’s gray hues. Winding up, she waited as long as she dared. If she swung too soon and hit Jynx, she would only make matters worse. Waiting too long would be equally deadly.
On his back now, Jynx snapped and clawed in a desperate maneuver to keep the wolf’s powerful jaw at bay. The wolf pulled its head back out of reach and prepared for the killing strike at the draven’s throat.
Aeryn was ready. She brought the shovel’s metal end around with all the rage she could muster. It connected with sickening crack against the side of the wolf’s head. The force of the impact sent vibrations racking through the shovel’s handle and into her arms.
Her hands went numb and she lost her grip. The shovel clanged to the ground at the same time as the wolf, which fell to the side, tongue lolling from its mouth. The pressing weight gone, Jynx pushed himself to his feet, body listing to the side when he put weight on his foreleg.
Aeryn let out a sigh of relief. Jynx could stand; that meant the wound was not too serious. She knew she would not have been able to say the same if the wolf’s jaw had closed on her leg instead.
The huntsman’s voice shook the night. “Don’t just stand there like a deer in lantern light, girl! Get bloody moving!”
What is he so worried about? Aeryn wondered. Even if the wolf were not dead, after the blow it had sustained, it would not be biting anyone anytime soon.
Jynx growled. Hair on his back forming a razor line from neck to tail, his eyes locked onto the treeline fifty paces distant.
Drifting even further, Aeryn followed his gaze. Twenty sets of ice-blue irises glared back. Lips pulled tight over wicked fangs, the smallest wolf was easily the size of the one she had just downed. The largest was as big as a small horse. One of the wolves dropped its head back and yowled into the night.
Aeryn felt her jaw unhinge. Holy bloody flaming—
A formless streak whizzed by her face, so close she could feel the wind from its passing. The arrow took the howling target in dead center of its massive chest. The force of the blow sounded like a splitting axe coming down into a quartered tree trunk. The wolf tumbled in the air as it flew back a pace.
It landed. The night took a deep breath.
The silence was every bit as deafening as the chorus of baying hounds had been a minute ago. Then as one, the wolves howled, raising the hairs on the back of Aeryn’s neck.
“Aeryn, run!” The order came from Merek this time.
Aeryn took his advice and ran like the wind. Jynx, favoring one foreleg leg more than the other, followed on her heels.
The very ground itself trembled as the wolves charged.
“Duck,” Gerald called out before she had gone ten paces.
Aeryn bent at the waist. An arrow whizzed through the space her head had just occupied. A heartbeat later, a hot mass of fur slammed into her side, sending her spinning as it drove her to the ground. Aeryn struggled to draw a breath as its weight compressed her chest.
Jynx jumped atop the wolf. His added bulk crushed the remaining bit of air from Aeryn’s lungs. His jaw closed around the wolf’s throat. The draven shook his head viciously, tearing free a bloodied mess of muscle and
sinew. Heaving with all her might, Aeryn managed to open enough of a gap to slide free.
Rising to a tense crouch, she faced the oncoming horde. A few of the smaller wolves streamed by her sides while arrows from Gerald and Hedy tore into them. The more massive wolves lumbered behind, picking up momentum with every step.
Aeryn knew she did not have a prayer of making the house. The smaller ones were easily three times as fast as her. The larger. . .well, if one of the larger wolves hit her full on, she would stand as much a chance against it as an egg on an anvil waiting for the blacksmith’s hammer to fall.
She ripped free the arrow buried in the dead wolf’s shoulder. She turned and waited, muscles tense.
“I thought I told you to get back in the house,” Gerald’s heated voice echoed through the clearing.
“But Lord Merek—“ Reeve protested.
“Merek can take care of himself,” Gerald snapped back. “Now get back in the house and take them screaming women with you or the next arrow I loose is for you.”
“Reeve, I haven’t time to coddle—“ Merek’s voice cut off with a grunt.
A moment later, a wolf as tall as a deer and twice as thick launched itself at Aeryn. Jynx was already in the air, soaring over her as she jumped aside.
Falling into a gasping roll, Aeryn clenched her teeth as pain flared to life in two sets of four razor straight lines that had torn through her clothing and into her skin.
Above, Jynx collided with the wolf to send them both tumbling away. They landed and sprung to their feet. The faster of the pair, Jynx lunged in, latching onto a shoulder when the wolf’s head dropped to protect its neck. The wolf shook the draven free with ease.
Darting in, Aeryn plunged the arrowhead into and quickly out of the now-exposed neck. The wolf yelped and swiveled to snap at Aeryn. Jynx hopped back in, teeth flashing.
Back and forth, Aeryn and Jynx harried the wolf from opposing sides, neither letting up for a second. Between their continual strikes, each slowed the wolf until it collapsed.
“Mind the left, boy. The left,” Gerald said. “Merek—behind you.”
A weight crashed into Aeryn from behind. Claws like knifes sunk into her flesh and she screamed. Knees buckling, she went down hard, the force of the impact momentarily overwhelming the pain that lanced down her spine.
“Jynx.” Aeryn moaned, pinned to the ground and unable to move. The wolf on her back reared and snarled, its movements ripping deep fissures into her back. “Jynx, help.”
She managed to raise her head just enough to see the draven embroiled in his own fight against a foe twice his size, which despite being stuck with three arrows, fought on as if they were but pine needles.
The wolf’s jaws came down and tore into Aeryn’s shoulder. A loud grunt and the weight vanished with a sickening tearing of flesh and muscle. A plain, smooth-handled knife landed on the ground next to her.
Through teary eyes and searing, red-hot pain, Aeryn scooped up the knife. She had to help Jynx. And Merek, who wrestled a pace away, desperately struggling to keep the wicked claws that had just left her back from raking across his chest and face.
A deep, throaty rumble stopped Aeryn before she could decide who to help first. A massive beast, more bear than wolf, let out a blood-curdling howl. It stood over the form of the first wolf Aeryn and Jynx had dropped together. It lowered its head and locked its frozen blue eyes with Aeryn’s.
It leapt forward. Aeryn could swear she saw her own terrified stare reflected back off the beast’s gleaming fangs.
Just before it hit, Jynx landed against its side, driving it just far enough away that the beast’s jaws clamped closed with bone shattering force on the sleeve of Aeryn’s shirt rather than around her chest. The beast snarled and batted Jynx away with contemptuous ease with a paw the size of Aeryn’s hand.
“Jynx!” Aeryn shouted. She reached out as the draven tumbled away. He came to rest at the base of the wolf it had been fighting mere moments ago, who was now pin-cushioned with arrows. The massive beast turned back to regard Aeryn.
Filled with white-hot rage, the furrows in Aeryn’s back faded to a dull throb. Gerald’s booming orders and the baying hounds all but vanished. Aeryn jumped back from a deadly swipe of a claw that would have taken her head as easily as a headsman’s axe. The beast could knock a horse over with that paw. She would not survive a single hit.
Knife held ready at her side, her other hand outstretched for balance, Aeryn circled the beast. Ripped bloody and ragged, she had one advantage left: Drifting. Without thought, focusing, yet at the same time letting go, everything but this fight ceased to exist. The night flooded with color, washing away the dull grays. She barely noticed the blue-yellow blood dripping down her arm, the pitch-black moon, or the blood-red leaves atop blue-barked trunks.
Dancing in and out, she avoided one swipe and snap after another. She carefully bided her time, only jumping in to strike or slash across the beast’s neck and flank when it was recovering for its next attack, only moving when it would not be able to end the fight with a single blow.
In, out, roll to the left, dance back, then back in, knife up to force away snapping jaws, time slowed, like it was suspended in syrup. Duck, twist to the side, an arrow slammed home—now!—she dove in, knife leading the way. Letting go of the blade, she hopped away as a clawed swipe followed a bestial roar.
Scooping up a handful of dirt, she avoided a quick succession of attacks then loosed the earth into the beast’s eyes, blinding it long enough for her to hop forward to the knife.
An eternity later, she stood panting as the beast’s lifeblood seeped out from her knife, now lodged firmly in its throat. Its chest rose and fell for the final time. Sensations—exhaustion, aching muscles, a pounding headache, the screaming, blazing pain from gouges scored across her back—rushed back.
Aeryn lost concentration. The colors vanished like swirling smoke, replaced by a black night lit by a waning crescent moon. She took in the clearing, now littered with indistinct forms, a half-dozen hounds among them. So focused on the fight, she had not even noticed the huntsman’s hounds joining the fray. Gerald stalked among the bodies, his steel tooth held tight in his hand.
Lighted windows of the estate tightly shuttered, Aeryn could barely make out Merek push himself to his feet. His locked on her, then Jynx, who was lying on his side, his breath coming in shallow rasps. She took a step towards the draven.
“Hedy! Fetch Reeve, have him send a rider to Whitespring for Emeline. Then get a. . .”
Eyes rolling up, Aeryn’s legs gave way. She collapsed and the night became complete.
Shifting a letter from one pile to another on the cluttered desk, Merek sighed. He had been putting this off for far too long. For the last few weeks, he had been blissfully content in his daily activities. Teaching and training Aeryn had occupied most his time. He had forgotten how comforting it was to go about life manner without constantly looking over your shoulder. Occasionally however, Gerald called that assumption into question by being too straightforward; the huntsman knew his place in the world and was not hesitant to let everyone know if they encroached on his territory.
For a few days, Merek had actually considered calling the entire thing off. But with the latest wagon of supplies had come a letter he could not ignore. A letter that had reminded him that much more was at stake than solely his life.
Merek picked up the quill, wincing at the sharp pain in his shoulder. Despite the heavy bandages, tight wraps, and sling, his right arm throbbed with each beat of his heart. His hand still worked, but he would not be picking up anything heavier than a quill for quite some time.
Half way into a carefully worded response, a soft knock came at the door. Before he could look up and give permission to enter, the door swung open and slammed against the far wall. Gerald strode in, followed by Reeve, whose face was scrunched up in an ever-so-familiar scowl.
“My lord, the Master Huntsman is here to see you as requested.” Reeve said bobbed
a hasty bow, then promptly turned his scowl back on the huntsman.
“Merek has eyes, don’t he? He can see I’m here,” Gerald said to Reeve in that deep, rumbling voice of his. “And I ain’t no Master. Best get that straight in that tiny head of yours.” Towering over the desk, beard swaying as he spoke, he faced Merek. “Why did you send for me? I’ve got things to do. We may have scared off them bloody wolves, but that doesn’t mean we’re out of the woods yet.”
Reeve glared daggers at the huntsman. “You will not speak to Lord Merek so disrespectfully.” It was actually quite amusing, like a turtle snapping at a grizzly bear.
“Disrespectfully? If the man can’t bear the truth without it being all gussied up in frilly lace, then—“
Merek held up his hand. Or tried to before pain shot up his arm, through his shoulder, and stopped the motion short. His curse drew both sets of eyes and cut off their spat.
“My lord, are you alright?” Reeve asked. “I can send for the healer—“
Merek held up his hand—his left hand this time. “No, I’m fine.” It was a poor lie, but simply put, he was tired of people fussing over him. Especially by Emeline; though she was the best healer within a hundred leagues, she was every bit as bull-headed as Gerald.
“But, my lord—“ Reeve began.
“It’s just a scratch, leave off,” Gerald said. He waved a hand as though he meant exactly that.
Merek grimaced. If scores of deep furrows raked across his arms and shoulders over massing purple lumps was “just a scratch,” he would not want to find out what the huntsman considered a real wound. His grimace turned around at the thought of Gerald wrestling one of the wolves bare-handed, blood streaming down his hairy chest from where the beast’s claws had torn through his leather tunic, all while laughing and shouting “is that all you got?”
“What are you grinning about?” Gerald asked.
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