by Krista Walsh
Jasmine’s expression softened into sympathy. “How are you holding up?”
Jeff raised a shoulder. “Like I have a noose around my heart that gets tighter as the days pass. I just wish we knew anything. Like where we go next to find her. Because that is our next move. My next move if no one plans to join me.”
It didn’t matter what the queen said. He refused to focus on anything else until they had made all possible effort at finding Cassie.
“I’m with you,” said Jasmine. “She’s our next priority.”
They lapsed into silence, and Jeff lost himself in the pattern of the snow to keep his thoughts away the ever-growing number of problems.
So intent on not thinking, he didn’t notice Jayden had stopped until Swish jerked to a halt, having almost run into him.
Jasmine’s eyes went wide, and instinctively she dropped her voice, eyes darting left to right as she took in their surroundings. “Jay? What is it?”
Venn and Brady at the front of the line realised their friends had stopped and came back to join the huddle.
“We’ve got trouble,” said Jayden.
Jeff groaned. “Not again.”
Venn’s lips twisted into a wicked grin as she reached for her knives. “Excellent.”
“Three riders on our left, coming up through the trees. I don’t know how many more might be behind us.”
“How can you tell?” Jeff asked, squinting through the squall.
Jasmine blew her hair out of her face, the wet strands sticking to her cheeks. “Why won’t these people learn?”
Jayden jerked his head to the left and reached for his sword. “Looks like we have a chance to give them another lesson.”
“Jeff,” said Jasmine.
Jeff looked to her. “What?”
She glanced at him and back to Jayden. “He can’t fight, and we don’t have enough people to protect him while we do.”
“So what should we do with him?” Jeff asked dryly.
“Get into the trees,” she said. “Hide. Brady, you go with him. And here.” She removed one dagger from her boot and handed it to Jeff, and another from her hip that she gave to Brady. “Hopefully you won’t need them.”
She leaned across to plant a kiss on Brady’s lips, and then gave his mare a swat. “Get going.”
Brady led the way off the road and into the trees. As soon as they were hidden behind a curtain of branches, Jeff dismounted and tied Swish to a branch, not wanting a repeat bolt. The gelding snorted, tossed his head, and Jeff patted his neck to shush him.
Brady grabbed Jeff’s shoulder and pulled him down, out of sight. Jeff was about to ask why when he picked up the faint thud of hooves crunching through snow coming from both directions, and he peered through the leaves at the road.
Venn, Jasmine, and Jayden waited for them, weapons drawn.
One day, thought Jeff. I would really like to go just one day without someone yelling at me or trying to kill me.
It made him wonder how many people would have attempted something similar against him in his world given the opportunity and lack of laws.
He made out ten riders, five on each side, blocking them in. The grey robes were pulled low over their faces, so Jeff could see nothing but the angry turns of their mouths. Arrows flew without any apparent aim, causing the three in the middle to scatter. Jeff clapped his hand over his mouth to stop from crying out.
They know what they’re doing, and these Robers aren’t trained. He repeated the words again and again as Jayden took the first swing. Swords clashed, the sound lost among the voices as Jasmine yelled directions at Venn and their attackers yelled for what seemed like the hell of it.
Venn threw a knife from her waist into a rider charging towards her. The blade lodged solidly in his eye. She let out a “Whoop!” like she’d just won the biggest stuffed animal at the fair.
Jasmine’s arrows flew until three riders pressed too close. Drawing her daggers, she stood in her stirrups to get more reach, swaying out of the way of her attackers’ swords. Jeff knew she had trained to fight from horseback since she was a child, and the enemy wasn’t nearly as graceful. Unable to find their balance, their strikes against Jasmine were weak and poorly timed.
Jayden faced five more riders that had come up through the trees. They had him surrounded, and Jeff held his breath as he watched. Jayden kept his mount turning, using his knees to guide him, to keep his right side guarded, always manoeuvring outside the circle. His sword never stopped moving. His attackers were all right-handed, but Jayden was better trained on taking the offensive, forcing them to adapt to his left-handed style.
The horses slipped and stumbled over the snow-packed road. One fell, his rider rolling off as the beast got back to his feet and sped away from the fight. Jayden’s blade struck the man in his neck. More red on white as his blood stained the ground, and Jeff didn’t think he’d ever see those two colours the same way after this trip.
A second rider came up behind Jayden, driving his sword towards Jayden’s side. His horse shifted just in time to save him from being gored, and Jayden twisted in his seat to return the strike, his own swift swing hitting home in the man’s gut.
Behind him, Jasmine dropped back into the saddle, grabbed the reins of the horse beside her and pulled him close. The rider struggled to regain control of her mount and in her distraction, Jasmine grabbed her hand, took the sword, and kicked her onto the road.
Now armed with a longer weapon, the other two riders stood no chance against her. One struggled to get his horse on her right side to trap her between them, but Jasmine reared Nalen up to turn and brought the blade down into the man’s shoulder, tugging the sword free to leave him bleeding in the snow.
Of the three, Venn appeared to be having the most fun. With a radiant smile, she toyed with her next foe. She had dismounted, leaving Corsa to walk in circles, pinning the rider between him and Venn. The rider looked smug, assumed she had the upperhand because she was on horseback with a sword against a short young woman with a knife.
As afraid as he was, Jeff had to smile with Venn. People always made the mistake of underestimating her.
In a quick dash, she darted forwards, cutting the cinch as she slid under the horse, leaving the rider to slide sideways out of the saddle. The horse bolted, and Venn stood over her stranded enemy with her wolfish grin. The woman on her back didn’t have time to scream before Venn sank the knife into her heart.
That part, Jeff did not enjoy. He had trouble putting together this bloodthirsty assassin with the adopted cousin who teased him and had a tendency to look so lost and forlorn. But she was good, he had to give her that.
Another yell drew his attention back to Jasmine as she fended off the strike of the third rider. For a brief moment, Jeff thought she had found an equal in the fight, but three strokes in, the rider’s arm weakened, and Jasmine drove the blade into his chest.
Only three riders remained, and other than some surface injuries and fatigue, Venn, Jayden, and Jasmine appeared unscathed.
Jeff’s breath came easier; the muscles in his shoulders relaxed. Three against three were far better odds. Three trained fighters against three amateurs practically guaranteed a victory. Whoever these people were, their mission would fail.
He was about to say as much to Brady when a twig snapped in the snow behind them and a low growl rolled through the silence of the woods.
Jeff’s blood froze at that growl as he slowly twisted his head to look behind him.
Six wolves, their thick fur clotted with dirt and blood, shadows of what they once were, stood staring at them. Waiting.
Then they leapt.
Chapter Twelve
Jeff yelled out as a massive grey timber wolf pinned him to the ground, jaws snapping as drool oozed over its lips and onto Jeff’s chest.
He writhed under the weight of the beast, doing what he could to shift it off, but his leg screamed with the effort, his muscles still too weak from the poison to find the strength.
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The whistle of an arrow cut through the snarls, and Jeff heard the sickly impact as the tip punched through the wolf’s shoulder. As he expected, the wolf barely flinched. It tossed its head in the direction of the archer and pulled its lips back further over blackened teeth, the stench of its breath worse than the taste of the hogglewort.
The wolf bounded away, and Jeff sat up in the snow to find himself surrounded. Venn and Brady stood on either side of him, fighting off the wolves as they approached. He counted fifteen now.
Just like the pack that had greeted him and Venn on their arrival, all of these creatures were in varying states of decomposition, ready to keep fighting no matter how porcupined they were with arrows.
Jeff scrambled to his feet as the rest of the wolves rushed them, and he had to reassess their situation. With three riders against his three friends, they’d stood a chance, but Robers and friends against fifteen pre-dead wolves?
“Come on, let’s go!” Jasmine shouted when more growls came from down the road. They wouldn’t be able to kill them all on their own. “If we can make it to the gates, we can bring down the queensguard.”
She twisted Nalen towards the capital, Venn running up to mount Corsa as Jeff made a grab for Swish. The gelding bucked, reared up as his eyes rolled, the scent of the dead wolves pushing him over the edge. But Jeff got him still long enough to untie him and climb on, and they galloped down the road.
Jayden, holding the Robers back, broke away and tore after them. The three Robers pursued, but whether for safety from the wolves or to continue the fight with the Feldallians remained to be seen.
Jeff heard teeth snapping at Swish’s legs, and he turned his head to see three beasts behind him. Pushing Swish to go faster, they tore through the snow, once in a while the horse’s hooves meeting with a wolf’s face so the creature yelped and fell back, only to catch his grip on the road and come at them again.
Jasmine shot arrow after arrow as they went, most of them hitting the mark, but none of them felling her foe. Eventually she gave up to spare what arrows she could.
The gates appeared ahead with its looming towers on either side of the massive doors. Jeff saw movement from the top as the sentries saw the approaching train, and he crossed his fingers they would come down to ask questions before they started shooting. Last time, Jeff had been arrested at the gate. This time, he prayed the guards would help first.
Arrows fell from the tops of the towers, aimed at the wolves, while the doors at the bottom of the towers opened and a dozen guards spilled out, all in the queen’s colours of blue and silver.
With the reinforcements now in place, Jasmine, Jayden, and Venn turned their horses around to face the enemy. Venn flung herself from Corsa’s back to tumble with one wolf, thrusting her dagger into its throat up to the hilt.
The three robed assassins had dismounted, swords ready, as the wolves snapped at the horses’ legs, spooking them so they danced in the snow, ready to flee.
Swallowing hard, Jeff pulled his borrowed knife and slid from the saddle, knowing he was next to useless but feeling the need to help where he could. He spun on his good leg to keep out of the way of snapping teeth and sweeping paws, knife ready.
“Tear off the heads!” shouted Venn. “These fuckers won’t die any other way.”
“Where are these things coming from?” Jasmine demanded, twisting her sword to catch a wolf on the side so it sagged into the snow before she lobbed off its head.
“We haven’t figured that part out yet.” Jeff stabbed his dagger into the eye of an approaching blind beast. “But these aren’t Raul’s mutated pets. They aren’t controlled.”
A blood-curdling scream cut through the woods before one of the wolves tore the throat out of a Rober, jaws dripping blood and saliva around the skin of her larynx.
The other two Robers flailed their swords at the circling wolves, not sure how to move or how to attack creatures who couldn’t die. Jeff imagined how out of their depth they must feel—sent to kill humans they knew they stood no chance of beating, and now faced with zombie animals.
He had no more time to sympathise with them as two wolves switched their attention to Jeff. Knife in hand he edged backwards towards the road, catching himself as he tripped over a corpse.
One wolf charged, and Jeff had only a few seconds to grab one of the fallen swords and hold it out in front of him as the beast leapt. The blade passed through the wolf’s chest, but the dog continued to writhe and growl, pushing himself farther up the blade to get closer to Jeff’s face.
Jeff dropped the weapon with the wolf still impaled upon it when a guard appeared at his side, sword in hand, to drop his blade down over the wolf’s head. Jeff freed his sword and both men turned to the second beast, Jeff swinging at its legs while the guard aimed for its neck.
Once it was dead, Jeff looked around to gauge the rest of the fight. Another Rober had fallen, the last trying to fend off three wolves and doing even more poorly than Jeff.
Two more creatures had pressed Jayden back against a tower. Blood seeped through his torn pants where he’d been bitten. Venn stood in a circle of five re-dead canines, chest heaving as she held a dagger in one hand, a sword in the other, and checked to see where she was needed next.
Jasmine had crept up behind one of the three going after the Rober, and although Jeff wanted to shout at her to wait until the wolves had done away with one more enemy, he knew she wouldn’t stand by to let a human be mauled to death by the undead. She’d kill the assassin with her own blade.
The guards had taken Venn’s instructions to heart, beheading each wolf with a trained precision Jeff could only admire. A handful of wolves remained standing, and so many furred corpses lay in the road that he lost count when he tried to tally them up. Whoever had brought these creatures back to life had realised they wouldn’t be able to control them and sought to counter their ineffectiveness with numbers. He wondered how many more deadly packs lay in the woods between the capital and Feldall’s Keep, and how many more times he and his friends would have to face them.
Next time, they couldn’t be sure of having an army to back them up.
Head spinning with the idea and from his recent exertion, the adrenaline beginning to ebb, Jeff leaned back against Corsa’s white frame and took a few slow, deep breaths.
What a mess.
He hadn’t realised he’d said it aloud until Brady, appearing at his side, replied, “Never any lack of excitement these days. I almost remember a time when nothing worse happened than a flood in the cellar or a threat to a national trade agreement. What I wouldn’t give some days for mundane trouble like that.”
“And on the other days?” Jeff asked.
Brady grinned. “Mundane is boring. I’ll live for the memories.”
Jeff smiled back, and together they watched as the last wolf fell. He turned his attention to Jasmine, waited to see what she would do with the last standing Rober, and felt almost disappointed when she hit him over the head with the hilt of her blade, sending him face first into the snow.
“You think this one will tell us more than the last?” asked Venn, her tone as full of skepticism as Jeff’s thoughts.
Jasmine frowned, moving slowly as she knelt next to the unconscious man to tie his hands with a length of rope. “Better than killing off our chance to get some answers.”
One of the guards stepped forward, pushing the visor up on his helmet. “I was informed you would arrive today, Lady Feldall,” he said. “But I had no idea your arrival would come with such an entourage.”
Jasmine forced a smile. “We aim to be unpredictable. To whom do I owe thanks for the assistance?”
“Gerald Morris. New captain of the queensguard,” he said.
“A pleasure,” Jasmine replied. And then, keeping Gerald within the circle of conversation, she turned to the others. “What do we know about these wolves?”
“This is the second time we’ve seen them,” said Jayden. “The first was when I found these
two wandering in the middle of the field. It’s like they’re tracking you.”
Jeff scowled. “Then they’re not the only ones. Between these Robers and the wolves, I’ll be lucky to survive the week.”
“You’re in good hands now,” said Morris. “We’ve been instructed to escort you to the best accommodations and keep you safe.”
Venn raised an eyebrow. “Accommodations? We’re here to see the queen. At her request.”
Morris smiled warmly, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “And you shall see her when she becomes available. The first counsellor informed me you should be shown to your rooms until then. He knows you had a long journey and might appreciate the opportunity to freshen up and take a meal.”
Jasmine frowned. “We heard from Her Majesty yesterday that we should arrive without delay. Now he wants us to enjoy our dinner? There must be some mistake.”
Morris shook his head, the smile still there but with a touch less warmth. “No mistake, my Lady. Our instructions were clear.”
Jasmine and Jayden exchanged a glance and some silent communication, and then she nodded. “Very well.”
Jeff wanted to argue further, his mind on Cassie and how any delay in the capital would put off his search for her, but he knew he wouldn’t win. When he saw Venn straining under a similar urge, he rested his hand on her shoulder.
She shrugged him off, but pressed her lips together, staying quiet.
They followed two guards inside and up the red velvet stairs Jeff remembered from his last visit, two more guards taking the prisoner in another direction. It didn’t feel like an official escort until they were shown into a large drawing room and the door closed behind them. They heard the lock fall into place.
Jayden’s face flushed red, and he slammed his fist against the wood. “I demand an explanation!”
When none came, he hit the door again.
“I don’t think your anger will change their minds,” said Brady, sitting down on one of the blue sofas. “There’s obviously more going on here than we assumed.”