Catch a Wolf

by A. Katie Rose

  Their horses, after witnessing the battle, weren’t stupid. They knew the oncoming wolves meant one thing: death. Even the flashy black stallion had smarts enough to obey the spurs. Brutal had no choice but to grip his pommel and hang on as his mount carried him down the far side of the hill. Sangar and the others galloped hard on his heels.

  Seeing him safely away, the Sins threw the fight to the wolves and ran to their own white-eyed mounts. The wolfish advance slowed, allowing the retreating Sins to vault into their saddles, lash their horses with their reins and ride after their master. The thunder of hooves vanished into the distance.

  Rising into my stirrups, I looked about. Those troopers on the hills to our left and rear curbed nervous horses, witnessing their supreme commander and liege lord decamping at high speed. Brutal abandoned them to their fate. The wolf army on the hillside, as one, turned about and galloped downhill.

  At the same instant, Raine jumped, as though a finger jabbed itself into his ribcage. “All right, all right, we’re going,” he muttered.

  “What?” I began.

  Raine turned at his waist, and shoved the whimpering pup into his saddlebags. “We ride now. For the river.”

  “No!” I cried. Not without Bar!”

  What happened to Bar?

  The soldiers who dragged him screeching, struggling and hissing in the net lay dead, their throats torn, their horses gone. Bar struggled, his front talons dragging the net from himself. Two wolves, with their teeth gripping the steel cables, held the rear portion of the net fast, their hind legs digging into the long grass. A second pair of wolves seized the long ropes the soldiers had tied around their pommels in their jaws. The net, created like a drawstring bag made of steel, opened at its mouth as the front pair scrambled backward, effectively opening the mouth of the net. The wolves holding the strong net in their even stronger jaws slipped the steel net over Bar’s feathered head.

  This supremely coordinated tactic prevented Bar from merely entangling himself further. My mind could not grasp the concept. It slipped from me like a wet eel in my hand. Wolves acting as an effective, intelligent unit helped Bar get free of the steel net?

  Bar slipped out from under the mesh. It collapsed behind him like a deflated bladder as the wolves let go and ran to join their fellows. His wild, eagle’s screech deepened into a lion’s roar of rage. His wings beat the air, subjugating the wind. Launching himself up and away from the ensnaring trees, he dove both out and down.

  The battalions of cavalry yet untouched by the wolf army, one on the western hill and another on the southern, higher up, sat their horses and watched. Made indecisive by Brutal’s abrupt and ignominious retreat, they had no standing orders, no supreme commander to answer to. Left suddenly adrift, they knew not what to do.

  Bar certainly did.

  Full of the indignity, the humiliation of being captured and helpless in the hands of his hated enemies, Bar winged in. He flew to exact his revenge, charging, his beak parted, his talons out. His pride was hurt. Neither eagles nor lions took too well to humiliation. He retained the rage, the sensitivities, and the fury, of both species.

  Bar made those on the west his target.

  He blasted past us, low overhead, the hurricane winds of his passing blowing my hair into my face. Dragging it from my eyes, I caught a quick glimpse of Raine, of Arianne, of Witraz, also tossing wild strands of their long hair out of their eyes to witness Bar winging into attack mode. My breath caught in my chest; I couldn’t draw another.

  The royal cavalry saw him coming, fingers pointing, orders shouted. Bows and crossbows lifted, aimed, waiting for their target to fly closer. While they made no move to attack us, they knew Bar was pissed. They saw it in his gaping beak, the fury of his wings. They heard it in his low guttural growl, the savage roar, of a lion stalking his hated rival for his harem and hunting grounds.

  To save my life, I couldn’t draw breath. He may be free, but they’d shoot him down. They’d done so once before.

  In a feat I’d never before witnessed, Bar snap-rolled to the left and down, a mere rod over the tall grass. His wings, his fore-limbs, and his hind legs folded tightly to his body created a smaller mark. The loosed arrows and cross-bow bolts, released the instant he came within range, shot past him, to vanish harmless into the grass behind him.

  He executed yet another tight barrel roll, this one to his right, in midair, still hugging the ground. Without his wingspan to use as a target, the troopers shot wildly. Their bolts and arrows flew wide, missing their goal by lengths. Like a snake hissing through the grass, he arrowed up from the earth, flying in from below the royals.

  Shooting down rather than up seemed to cause them no end of confusion. Below the flights of the feathered death, he came on, an avenging angel on swift wings. Wooden shafts tipped with steel screamed harmlessly past, lost in the infinite expanse of the grasslands. His wings snapped out to ensnare the wind. Talons bared, he screamed his challenge.

  A unit of a hundred horses and armed cavalrymen, armed, armored, well-trained in the art of battle waited. A platoon of the Federation’s finest readied themselves, bows and swords up, for his flight to greet them.

  His humiliation added to his fury and, dead on target, he blasted into the cavalry’s right flank.

  Not a glancing blow where he could slash, bank around and slash again. This attack was a full on strike with talons, beak and lion claws. He hit them broadside, before their center could wheel about right and face him with raised shields.

  No horse could withstand him. No soldier marked him. If I thought the wolves made chaos out of the order of the Khalidian army, Bar’s sweeping fury created a living hell on earth.

  “Glory,” Tor muttered, his huge brown eyes wide within his pale face.

  Commanders shouted orders; troopers aimed their crossbows at the winged avenger screaming in for the kill. Wolves, running hard, crossed the basin and galloped past us, running westward, clearly intent on assisting Bar. Most of the soldiers looked up, not down. The pack fell upon the unguarded flanks of cavalry, snarling, snapping, drawing blood. Under the wolves swift attack, knots of horses exploded in all directions. Men fell, screaming, to the ground, sucked under by the furry wave.

  Any who tried to shoot Bar down died a bloody death. Horses fell, their throats ripped open, their riders dumped at the mercy of the wolf horde. Bar and the wolves wreaked more havoc than any Wrath of Usa’a’mah. Men died, slashed to ribbons under his full armament, or cut down by a supporting wolf.

  Orders be damned, healthy, uninjured troopers set spurs to silky hides. Dropping weapons to lighten the load and free their hands, Brutal’s western battalion collapsed. Troopers unhorsed and unharmed by either Bar or the wolf army fled on foot, and were allowed to depart. Most fled south, toward the last surviving unit of cavalry that once surrounded us.

  Swiping my hair from my face, I wheeled Mikk, staring uphill in shock.

  “Well, well,” Raine commented dryly. “Someone in charge has some brains.”

  Horns sounded the retreat. Like smoke drawing up inside a chimney, the southern regiment recoiled upon itself. Wheeling their horses, they managed an orderly, if fearful, withdrawal. Survivors from the devastated western battalion joined them, while the soldiers on foot screamed for them to wait.

  Showing amazing courage, many mounted Khalidians turned back and galloped to the rescue. Grabbing extended arms, they helped those afoot mount behind them. Lashing reins across rumps, they forced their doubly-laden horses to gallop hard uphill.

  Up into the trees, the last cavalry vanished down the far hillside, outside my vision. The wolf army, not satisfied, loped on their heels, making sure their retreat was in fact a retreat and not a feint. I didn’t need a wolfish interpreter to know they intended to make sure no human remained alive to threaten our own escape

  My irritated griffin still swept up and over, diving upon any luckless soldiers who remained in the vicinity. He banked around for another charge, shrieking his
rage, stooping on any soldier who failed to gallop or run fast enough. Bar’s anger took a great deal of blood to dissipate.

  In the span of three or four minutes, more than half of Brutal’s army lay dead, the other half on their feet, alive and stunned as their panicked horses fled toward stable and safety. Brutal himself had vanished. The hills no longer sprouted green, but dripped red with the blood of hundreds of men, horses and Tongu hounds.

  Corwyn seized the mare’s reins from Arianne, snubbing her head close to his knee. She may have learned to ride, but he was taking no chances. She was his liege’s royal sister after all. And the heir apparent to the throne of Connacht should Raine die.

  “I know, I know,” Raine muttered. “I’m trying.”

  “Who are you talking to?” I demanded.

  I slung my bow across my back, returning my arrow to its quiver. I never even had to use it, I thought, haphazard. Brutal’s army fled, defeated, and I never fired one shot.

  “Doesn’t matter,” he said tersely. “We ride, like now.”

  His heavy hand on Mikk’s rump caused Mikk to rear, his front legs boxing the air. I kneed him the instant his front hooves hit the ground. Side by side with Raine and his Rufus, with Kel’Ratan behind me leading Rygel’s black and my boys flanking me, I galloped headlong down the shallow basin.

  “This way!” Alun yelled, waving his arms. “A safe crossing!”

  A glint of silver and motion between huge boulders bespoke the river, half hidden behind a curve of a steep hillock.

  Raine’s laugh caught my attention. I turned my head slightly, glancing askance at him.

  “Now that we’re not going to die,” he yelled, “do you still love me?”

  “Look at my face,” I answered. “Do I look like I still love you?”

  With a guffaw, he leaned across his saddlebow and kissed my neck.

  A shout from behind caught our attention. Arianne argued heatedly with Corwyn. She reined in the grey mare, despite his hand on her bridle, to a jangling halt. I heard a few words, wolves being the first and foremost of them.

  “I better see what’s going on,” Raine said, reining his bay in. “I suspect she’s pitching a fit. Go on, we’ll catch up.”

  Nodding, I urged Mikk on Alun’s heels, Left and Right behind me. Yuri and Yuras, not willing to leave Tor, also slowed their mounts. Rannon and Witraz also reined in, taking upon themselves the position of rearguard without orders. A fleet glance over my shoulder showed me no enemies, and no wolves, either.

  That was odd. They fight for us, then vanish as though they’d never been. A worm of disquiet wiggled into my gut. I reined Mikk to the left, around the hill, following the river upstream in Alun’s wake.

  “How’d you get free?” I asked.

  Alun’s face appeared over his shoulder, with the toothy grin I hadn’t seen since Sele died. “The damndest thing,” he said. “A wolf knocked me from my horse.”

  “Uh,” I said, confused. “Whatever for?”

  Alun grinned. “I don’t understand it, but I do,” he said. “The fall knocked the wind from me. Before I could get it back, his fangs untied the knots. When I stood up I was free and the wolf was gone.”

  He held up the aforementioned appendages, gazing at them closely. “Bugger didn’t even scratch me, either.’

  Laughing, I followed hard on his horse’s rear, dodging clumps of low bushes that grew along the cliff top. I slowed Mikk’s headlong gallop and looked around.

  We rode along what I guessed to be a game trail at the top of the cliff. Behind me lay the hills we had just ridden across. On the far side of the river lay long-grassed green Plains, dotted here and there with pockets of trees breaking up the distant horizon. The boiling river ran about ten rods below us, running swift and deep. Not a safe crossing at all.

  Now that the noise of the battle had ceased and nature’s quiet descended, I, too, heard the rapids just downriver, past a bend and out of my sight. Along the trail, less than a half mile ahead, the ground dipped down steeply, to the river. There it flowed quiet, with sharply rising cliffs to either side. The natural trail broke between the rocks and the cliffs, allowing passage across the river, past a tiny beach, up the far side to the grassy plains. The safe ford Alun mentioned earlier.

  “Your Highness?”

  I glanced at Alun’s confused face.

  “Just what the hell is going on?” he asked. “With the wolves and all.”

  I smiled and quoted Raine. “Damned if I know.”

  He laughed. Launching his horse into the river, he waded through. The water, shoulder high on his mount, parted in a small rivulet around them both. His legs disappeared into the grey-blue depths. While the river was wide, it was not very deep and the bottom beneath seemed smooth. Alun crossed with little difficulty. He cantered his horse up the steep bank of the other side, his horse’s legs and tail streaming water.

  I reined Mikk in, on the bank, looking around for the others. While I saw no sign of them, I heard voices. I waited a moment, twisting in my saddle, my right hand on my cantle.

  They turned a corner atop the cliff, in a bunch. Left and Right walked their horses several rods behind me, with Raine, Arianne and Corwyn right behind. Yuri and Yuras emerged next, talking animatedly, with gestures, laughing about their experience as hostages. I saw no sign of Rannon and Witraz for a long space. Then, they, too, appeared round the bend, less vivacious than the two young brothers. More guarded, casting watchful glances over their shoulders for any of Brutal’s soldiers.

  “Go on,” Raine boomed down to me. “We’re coming.”

  I waved to him. Nudging Mikk into the river, I found the current swift but not exceedingly strong. First my boots then my legs disappeared into the cold stream, and surprisingly the chill felt good. Mikk breasted the water, snorting, his head angled downward, trying in vain to see the bottom before he put his foot there.

  “Big coward,” I commented affectionately.

  Instantly, the earth shook.

  Mikk ceased his forward motion, halted in the center of the big river. I felt his legs splay wide, to maintain his balance as the river, and the ground around us, undulated in an up and down motion. The river itself surged up, sweeping more powerfully against Mikk’s big body. He braced himself against it.

  I felt his fear, his panic, grow. I set my hand against his neck, hoping to keep him calm, and muttered soothing words.

  Earthquake, I thought.

  Upriver, the cliff wall toppled outwards and down in a cascade of boulders, dirt, trees and tons of loose soil. The earth shook itself, as a dog shakes water from its wet fur. On the plains side of the river, the cliff exploded, sending a shower of boulders and rocks cascading into the water.

  Only so much earth, rock and water could occupy the same space without one giving way before the other. Water, based on its natural elements, followed the path of least resistance. The huge expulsion of rock into the stream sent a tidal wave of river water sliding into the narrow gorge below.

  Mikk and I, caught between the two, could only stand helpless as a wall of water struck with all the power of an avalanche. Mikk was a big and strong horse, but not even he could withstand the power of the river unleashed.

  Mikk went down, toppling me from his saddle. Rushing water closed over my head, swept my body into a helpless tumble. My warhorse rolled over me, pinning me down beneath his thrashing weight. Blinded by water, unable to see, hear, think or breathe, I fought. I fought the river as I never fought any enemy. Breaking free of Mikk, I stroked for the surface. I stroked for the life giving air above. I stroked upward to survive.

  Mikk’s solid weight hit me again. Tangled within his thrashing legs, I tried to kick away from him. He fought to turn himself upright and swim, but the crushing strength of the river bowled him out of control. The earth trembled in the wake of the quake, quickening the river’s slow pulse, keeping us both beneath its surface.

  Water pulled me down. Down. I couldn’t breathe. I opened my eye
s. Sunlight glimmered and dripped off the surface of the river. I beat upward, straining, ignoring the rocks that bashed into my body. I beat them off, kicked against them, fighting to reach that surface so close and yet so far.

  I caught a quick flash of motion before Mikk’s hoof struck.

  Chapter 6

  Children of the Sh’azhar

  Ly’Tana went down.

  The earth undulated in a rolling up and down motion, forcing Rufus to brace his hooves to prevent the soil beneath him from flipping him arse over nostrils. I seized my pommel, prepared to kick my way from the saddle should Rufus be thrown hard to the ground. Behind me, I heard sharp curses, neighs of fear and a short scream from Arianne.

  “Earthquake!” Corwyn yelled over the roar of the demented river.

  No shit, I half-thought.

  “Ly’Tana!" Kel’Ratan shrieked her name, his voice high and womanish.

  I peered down, into the canyon.

  Her buckskin stallion rolled over, his hooves, kicking and thrashing, hit the air for a fleet moment before the river’s swift current struck him again. Tumbling over and over, caught in the cascading river, his head emerged long enough for him to gasp a quick lungful of air. The powerful surge then washed him sideways and down. Ly’Tana’s hair breached the surface, an arm broke through to air when the stallion rolled her under again.

  Beside me, Kel’Ratan cursed, a choking sound deep in his throat. He made to push his horse past Rufus, but both horses were too big for the narrow space. He couldn’t get his horse past mine. Cursing again, he reined his stallion back to perhaps kick him straight over the cliff edge. His bay scrambled to keep his feet under him as the earth shook herself, a cat killing the mouse in its teeth. That most effectively halted his foolish notion.

  I don’t know if it was a rock or a hoof that struck her head. Ly’Tana went instantly still. The river tossed her about like a child’s toy, cascading down around and over her. Her limp body showed at the surface for a fleet instant, then disappeared into the churning, roiling water. Whitecaps closed over the spot where she’d been.