by J. Thorn
“Nothing. I just thought I heard something.”
“Heard what?” The red glow of the candle painted her face in bloody tones, lighting it from below and leaving her eyes in long shadows.
“Nothing. It was probably just a dream.”
“A nightmare?”
“Yes, a nightmare. Now put the candle out and go back to sleep. It will be morning soon.”
“Okay.”
As he turned to leave, he grabbed the edge of the door and pulled it shut. Thom hesitated and pushed it open again.
“Good night, Dad. I love you.”
He turned back toward the open door, the dancing light of the candle spilling into the hallway.
“I love you, too.”
When he returned to his bedroom, he saw the outline of Kira’s shape beneath the blanket. Sinking into the bed, he pulled the blanket up to his neck with the thrum of his heart filling his ears like continuous thunder.
I’m losing my mind, he thought, listening to the calming rise and fall of Kira’s breathing. He didn’t dare close his eyes, lest he hear the woman’s voice and see the house of human bones. Thom shivered.
He lay awake a long time, waiting for the purifying light of day, praying for the rising sun to deliver spring and banish the dread chill of winter. A faint, silvery light edged its way down the hallway to the bedroom threshold. With dawn’s arrival, he expected to hear the call of roosters coming from the village. Thom waited in silence. His fingers gripped the edge of the blanket that was pulled to his chin. The welcome call of the rooster did not come. Instead, he heard the chill song of the whippoorwill.
Chapter 7
“You’re just exhausted, lad”, Rowan said, laying a mug of ale in front of Thom.
The midday sun drifted misty through the front windows of the Fair Haven Inn. As Thom leaned back on the high-backed chair, he felt the heat radiate out of the fireplace like a hot bath. He thought if he closed his eyes he could almost see summer fields of green, splashes of color from flowers across the landscape promising long days and plentiful meals. But when he looked across the common room at the empty tables, he could sense the fire working double-time to fend off the cold wind groaning against the inn’s exterior. The fire crackled and sparked, a warning to the enemy cold creeping down the chimney.
“No,” Thom said, raising the mug to his lips. “Marik changed in front of me. It was frightening, if you must know.”
“But I was there the entire time and never once saw Marik come to you. One second he was whispering something to Gavin and the next you were running up the main road as though there were dread wolves at your heels.”
“He came to me, Rowan. The air changed and then the inn and everybody else disappeared. It was as though Marik and I were standing face-to-face in a tunnel.”
“And here I thought all this time you did not believe in magic. Sleight of hand and deception, I believe you used to say?”
Thom looked down at his hands, noticing they crumbled the peanut shells leftover from lunch. “Is it truly magic that allows for his crops to grow in this blasted cold?”
“I don’t know if it is magic or science. And I don’t give a damn. Marik Aldargon is a learned man who has well served the Mylan Kingdom for more than fifty years.”
“There are some who say he is over 200 years old.”
“Bah,” Rowan said, using his sleeve to wipe the foaming ale from his lips. “Now you are starting to sound like that damn fool, Dain Felcik.”
Thom shrugged and reached for Rowan’s hand. As they shook, Thom felt the fatigue of the long winter in his friend’s grip. Rowan handed Thom a wrapped package of winter lettuce and dried lamb. Thom stuffed it beneath his cloak. As uncomfortable as he felt accepting Rowan’s charity, he was as relieved his own supply of food was extended by a few days.
As he walked along the main road, keeping a swift pace to fend off the cold, he saw villagers in the fields struggling to turn the frozen soil. William Menlo was among them, tossing a spade aside in frustration as he found nothing but ice through the first few inches of dirt. Even the air was cold enough to freeze Thom’s nose hairs and color his ears tomato red.
He passed the Mylan Road branch and his eyes traveled down the earthen path, the air shimmering at the edge of his vision. He stopped and squinted, cupping his hands over his brow. He saw a ripple on the horizon where the sky swallowed the road. Was it men on horseback? At this distance, it was impossible to tell. He even allowed himself to believe a peddler or wagon approached from Mylan. But there was something unsettling about the distant mirage and he thought if his arms could reach the horizon, they would encounter razor sharp knives that would tear skin. He shuddered, a cold spasm invading his chest as though the ice caps of the distant mountains chilled his heart.
He squinted again and this time saw nothing on the horizon except the road and the harsh blue of midafternoon.
You’re making yourself crazy, he thought.
But as he continued down the main road and increased the distance between himself and the village, a new anxiety unfolded.
Thom believed the Felcik brothers would attempt to enact revenge on Rowan. As the Fair Haven Inn faded to an insignificant speck on the horizon behind him, he cursed himself for not sharing his concerns with the innkeeper. For a moment, he contemplated turning around and looking for Gavin Lambert. He would tell the retired soldier of the possibility of men on the Mylan Road. Lambert would know what to do.
But he continued to walk homeward, steadfast in the knowledge Rowan and Gavin were both able to defend themselves better than anyone in the village. What advice could a simple shepherd give to a pair of warriors? And Marik was always there to defend the village.
Marik.
Thom quickened his pace, pulling the cloak tight around his body.
Chapter 8
“Give it back to me.”
Thom heard Sarra’s voice before he cleared the trees. When the house came into view, he saw Krea and Jasmine tossing a crown of flowers between them. Sarra sprinted back and forth between her younger sisters trying to intercept the flowered crown.
“I think Bran wants me to have the crown,” Krea said, laughing, her long auburn hair like fire in the sunlight.
“The one with the crown gets to dance with Bran,” Jasmine said, catching the crown and tossing it back to Krea just as Sarra converged on her. Like her twin sister Krea, Jasmine had fiery locks. At fifteen, the twins were two years younger than Sarra and yet they were stronger. Sarra had learned over the years not to challenge either.
“What is the meaning of this?” Thom asked. He stepped between the girls, snatching the crown out of the air before Krea could catch it.
“We’re just playing, Daddy,” Jasmine said.
“It did not look like playing to me. And what is this business about Bran,” he said, turning to Sarra.
The twins giggled as Sarra’s cheeks turned to scarlet roses.
“Bran gave the crown to Sarra,” Krea said with a snicker.
“Bran Allador?”
“Yes. Sarra is in love,” Jasmine said, almost singing the last word.
“Sarra, Bran Allador is nearly twenty-five.”
Sarra, her hair blonde like her mother’s but loose in flowing locks, shifted her feet as Krea and Jasmine giggled and whispered.
“That’s enough from you two,” Thom said.
The twins lowered their heads.
“It was just a gift,” Sarra said.
Thom turned the crown over in his hands, studying the intricate weavings of lace and dried flowers that seemed to form a melody composed of soft, pink tones. Some of the flowers had fallen off while the twins tossed it back and forth. His eyes softened, thinking of a similar crown of flowers Kira wore on her wedding day. Handling the crown with care, he handed it back to his oldest daughter.
“As long as it was just a gift.”
The hint of a wink in Thom’s eye made Sarra smile wide as her two sisters glowered. “You
two,” he said, turning to the twins, “have earned yourselves an afternoon of wood stacking.”
“Oh. But Daddy—”
“I will do the chopping. You two will stack. And from now on maybe you will learn to mind your own business when it comes to who your older sister fancies.”
Thom winked at Sarra before heading for the wood pile.
The twins worked without protest for the next hour. As Thom admired the several cords of wood lined along the south wall of the house, he thought he would be able to keep their home warm even if winter lasted straight through summer. But the thought only disquieted him.
He sent the sisters inside and placed the ax along the wall when he caught movement on the northern horizon. With the westering sun behind him, he could better discern contours and shapes north and east. The dirt road stretched to his left like an elongated, ocher vein. With his vision locked on the northern branch road that ended in Mylan, some two days’ travel away, he steadied his breathing and focused on the horizon.
There.
He caught movement again where the sky met the land. It was just a hint of activity, like a whisper from the end of a long hall. Goosebumps rose along his arms. Thom worked the rest of the afternoon with one eye on the split logs and the other on the horizon.
Dinner featured lamb and the winter lettuce from Rowan.
The lettuce grown by Marik’s magic, Thom thought with a shiver.
As the family sat around the table for the meal, the twins appeared haggard and jilted from Thom’s choice of discipline. Sarra kept fingering the crown she wore in her hair. Delia was as talkative as ever, fluttering like a butterfly between Sarra’s crown, her desire to one day dance to minstrel songs at the inn and a hundred other subjects.
Kira was trying to convince her youngest daughter to focus on her plate, but Thom heard none of it. In his mind, he kept seeing the pinpricks of motion at the northern horizon.
Soldiers from the kingdom?
Not likely, though if war was in the lands, Droman Meadows would be the last to know. Whatever he saw, he swore the figures on the horizon increased in size, as though they were massing.
You’re making something out of nothing, he thought. It may have been a flock of birds.
No. It wasn’t birds. And it wasn’t the king’s army.
Thom peered out the window.
Shadows from the oaks grew long across the yard, reaching toward the little house like scraping talons. As the Wyvern Mountains pulled the sun toward them, it bathed the sky in variegated reds that bled through the front window of the Meeks’ home. The air outside calmed, yet the silence carried the tension of two armies about to collide. The stillness became deafening, drowning out the drone of conversation in the kitchen.
Thom heard shouting—a sharp cry rising out of the north that quickly ended, as though snuffed. The man’s cry sounded dry and desperate.
Something is wrong, Thom thought. Something is very wrong.
Kira and the girls were clearing the table of the dinner dishes when Thom pushed himself out of his chair. He hurried to the front window, craning his neck around the edge to steal a glimpse of the Mylan Road. The trees blocked his view, but he could make out wisps of snow rising off the road like clouds fallen from the sky, as though an army marched on Droman Meadows. Whatever was on the road would arrive in the village in minutes.
“I must go to the village,” he said, turning sideways as he dressed so Kira would not see the sword at his hip.
But Kira saw the weapon before he covered it with the cloak. Her face twisted as if she was ill. “Thom, is there trouble in the village?”
“There is nothing to worry about,” he said, seeing the lie leave his lips and perish in front of her. He put his hand on her shoulder and shook his head.
“Are the Felcik brothers causing trouble again?”
“No, not the Felciks. But I must see Rowan at once.”
And Gavin Lambert, too.
As he hurried out of the kitchen, the feeling that time was running out pushed him toward the doorway. Kira grabbed him by his shirtsleeve and whispered so as not to alarm the girls.
“I know something is wrong, Thom. You cannot lie to me. Promise me you will not do anything foolish. Promise me you will return to us.”
“I promise,” he said as she embraced him.
He rushed through the open door, ran down the trail and turned on to the main road.
I have to warn Rowan. I have to—
A howl swelled out of the north, wolf-like yet human. It paralyzed him at the edge of the main road. An unholy chorus responded from the east against the failing light.
Thom shivered and ran for the village.
Chapter 9
As Thom rushed eastward, the sun dropped low, stabbed by the twin peaks of the Wyvern Mountains. His lungs burned and his heart pounded as though it meant to break through his chest. From the village came baleful howls and the clang of metal on metal. Men screamed.
He smelled smoke coming out of the east—not the familiar scent of woodstoves but the acrid smell of houses ablaze. A plume of gray rose from the town center like a great worm pushing out of the earth. He could not yet see the flames, but he heard the wicked crackle of fires feeding on the evening wind.
His stomach lurched. Splashes of orange and red licked the roof of the Fair Haven Inn as black smoke billowed out of the second floor windows. His view of the village center was obscured by the farms and residences along the side of the road, but now the scene revealed the horrific detail with each step.
He stopped, mouth open and eyes staring at the carnage.
The creatures stood on two feet like humans, a full three heads taller than the biggest man in the village. Black fur covered their bodies, their heads jutting outward into snouts containing razor-sharp teeth. The monsters feasted on the fear and flesh of the villagers.
Dread wolves.
Just hearing the words echo in his head seemed utter lunacy. They didn’t exist except in a minstrel’s song or a child’s nightmare, or so Thom believed.
A scream knocked him back to his senses as he saw Kieran Phar fall in the main road. The monster standing over Phar reached out with its clawed hand, sharp talons protruding from its fingers. The holy man screamed and then his voice was cut off by gurgling. The dread wolf plunged its claws into Phar’s chest, cracking it open with a sound like brittle twigs snapping underfoot. The beast held Phar’s beating heart in the air, baying to the sky.
Before Thom could stop himself, he unsheathed the sword and ran into the slaughter. The dread wolf that killed the holy man had its back to Thom when he plunged the weapon into the monster. The sword went through cleanly, crimson flowing out of the wolf’s chest as Thom pushed the blade deeper. He felt the power of the monstrous beast as it thrashed on his sword, threatening to break free from his grip. Thom felt his muscles seize and his hold on the sword loosened. When the dread wolf dropped to its knees, Thom ripped his sword out and turned back into the frantic battle.
Bodies littered the road, some dread wolves but mostly men and women of the village. Blood soaked into the road, turning the clay and soil to a terrible scarlet. The bitter tang of blood hung in the air and Thom thought it was as much from the attacking dread wolves as the dead villagers. Though the men outnumbered the dread wolves five to one, the villagers were as effective as an army of hens against a ravenous fox.
The muscular blacksmith, Kereth Bowe, wielded a long sword in front of the burning inn. A dread wolf towered over him, its sharp claws tearing flesh from Bowe’s chest and arms. The blacksmith kept the monster at bay with the sword, but Thom saw the man’s strength waning. He rushed to the blacksmith’s aid, thrusting the sword into the dread wolf’s stomach. As the monster turned on Thom, Bowe swung the long sword, severing the monster’s head. It fell to the earth, jaws still snapping.
For a second, Bowe regarded Thom. He looked at his face and then his sword before charging back into the battle being waged at the center
of the village.
Screams of terror and dying men surrounded Thom, sounds broken only by the unholy howling. He saw William Menlo scrambling on his back below the hunched form of a gigantic dread wolf. It raked its claws across Menlo’s chest, sending torrents of blood into the air. Thom raced toward Menlo, dove into a forward roll to avoid another dread wolf and came to a stop on one knee. He plunged the sword upward into the dread wolf’s chest as Menlo lay twitching below the beast, the farmer’s eyes staring lifelessly into the growing twilight.
The humongous monster roared as Thom pulled the sword free and readied the weapon for another attack. Blood spurted from the dread wolf’s chest, yet the beast swung a thick arm into Thom, knocking him across the road, where he fell over a dead body. Eyes glassy and head spinning, Thom lost feeling in his arms. The dread wolf howled at the sky before leaping atop him. Thom looked into the monster’s eyes and saw a blackness deeper than a midnight sky. Thom closed his eyes as the monster swung at his neck.
Something cut off the dread wolf’s victorious howl. Thom felt drops of water on his face. He opened his eyes to the headless torso of the dread wolf, blood spurting into the air and raining down on Thom as the monster’s claws twitched and gripped for an invisible support. The dread wolf’s body fell away. Thom saw Gavin Lambert standing over him, blood-soaked broadsword at his side.
Gavin grasped Thom by the hand and pulled him to his feet. Thom nodded and Gavin charged back into the battle. As the feeling returned to his arms, Thom retrieved his fallen sword.
“Are you going to stand there like a bloody fool or are you going to help me kill these bastards?”
Thom spun around to see Rowan Sams battling two dread wolves at once. The innkeeper wielded the largest mace Thom had ever seen. Clumps of bloody, black fur stuck to the wicked spikes of the weapon like strips of meat hanging from fish hooks.
Rowan swung the mace at one of the dread wolves, the weapon’s points penetrating the side of the monster’s snout. The dread wolf howled in anguish yet Rowan could not dislodge the mace. The spikes dug deeper into the beast’s snout as its head thrashed and snarled. The second dread wolf leaped at Rowan and before the innkeeper could wrest his weapon free, the monster’s jaws closed on his arm.