Sanyare: The Winter Warrior (The Sanyare Chronicles Book 4) Page 11

  Stalemate.

  But how long could it last? The fuel would eventually run out. They all knew it. The wolves just had to wait.

  As if on cue, the largest wolf Rie had ever seen appeared. He stood on a boulder positioned higher on the mountain, where every creature in the area would see him. Gray around the muzzle, with a bare patch of skin visible in a circle around his neck, Rie assumed this was Fenrir himself, come to claim his prize.

  “Let go of the fire,” the wolf growled, his voice a deep rumble from vocal cords not designed for human speech. “You have lost, but you are not who we seek.”

  Daenor increased the blaze, his eyes burning with fierce intensity. “So you can tear us to shreds, as you did the barbegazi villagers? Not a chance.”

  The pack circling around the edge of the fire growled and snapped their teeth. Rie checked her flame. Already, weak spots were forming in the wall. It wouldn’t be long before the first of the bushes blew away as ash on the wind.

  “You cannot hold the fire forever,” the wolf replied. “But you may be more useful alive.”

  Rie reached out with her senses once more. Still, she could not See the auras of the wolves standing right in front of her. Not even a flicker. Not even a dimmed shadow as she’d seen from some of the fire sidhe in the Summer Realm. It was as if they didn’t exist, magically speaking. But even creatures without magic had an aura. Every living thing did. According to Garamaen, even the animated dead could be sensed. So what was different about the wolves?

  She shook her head, frustrated. She couldn’t pull their energy from them, couldn’t sense their soulstrings, couldn’t touch them with any kind of magical effort she could think of. Fire was their only hope.

  Rie stepped closer to Daenor, pressing her back to his. They’d opened the circle about a length out from their position, but as the bushes burned and died, they were going to have to bring the line in closer. Already the wolves were testing the barrier, pushing closer where the flames were weakest.

  “Useful? How?” Rie asked. Would it be possible to negotiate a deal?

  The wolf huffed a laugh, the lupine grin displaying a disconcerting number of sharp teeth.

  “You smell of the oathbreaker.”

  Rie wasn’t quite sure how to respond to that but opted for honesty. “I have no idea what you mean.”

  “My ancient enemy, once called friend, has returned. You will bring him to me.”

  “That will not happen,” Daenor drew his sword as the first section of the firewall fell. Wolves tore through the gap.

  Rie found her khukuris in her hands. They sang to her blood, anxious to be used.

  Daenor took the first strike. Flames burned across the steel in white-hot light. He swung up and across. Wolf fur flew, but the creature dodged out of the way without letting blood.

  Another wolf lunged at Rie. She sliced out. A puff of gray and black on the wind, this time with drops of blood. Not a deep wound, but the wolf squealed and rolled away. Another took its place.

  The wolves took turns lunging toward their prey. Rie and Daenor kept their backs pressed together, their weapons moving in tight circles to keep the predators at bay.

  Left, right, left. Rie’s knives carved patterns into the air. Into the fur. Into the flesh beneath. A wolf crept up to her right as she pushed back another on her left. Sidekick to the shoulder sent the wolf rolling into one of the few remaining burning bushes. The wolf squealed and whimpered, rolling on the ground to put out the flames.

  Gikl zipped into the fray, Niinka and Hiinto close behind. But the pixies were no match for the giant wolves. The best they could do was annoy their eyes and distract them from their purpose. The wolves snapped their teeth. One nearly grabbed Hiinto out of the air, but the tiny pixie was too fast. He escaped, but rose above the fight, his wings buzzing in a dragonfly’s hover.

  Rie couldn’t pause to watch. The first wolf was back. His tongue flicked out between exposed teeth, curling against raised lips. A wicked growl echoed from deep within his chest.

  “Die,” the wolf lunged forward and up, aiming for Rie’s throat.

  Rie blocked. Teeth pierced the skin of her elbow. The wolf kept his grip, shaking his head from side to side. Rie screamed as something tore deep within her shoulder. Daenor spun, the flaming sword slicing through the wolf’s neck in a bloodless but mortal wound. Rie kicked the dead body away.

  But she knew the fight was nearly over. The wolf had torn through skin. Blood dripped down her useless arm, coating her bracer in slick wet heat. Her shoulder was dislocated, or worse. And if his descendants carried his poison, the magic in her system would slowly, inextricably, be eaten away, like the barbegazi village girl.

  Daenor, forced to protect her injured side as well as his own body, was losing steam. Rie couldn’t give up yet. For his sake, if not her own. She kept her right hand tucked into her waist, her grip tight on her belt. She was still a better than decent fighter with the left arm—her non-dominant arm—but she was flagging fast.

  Fenrir chuckled, the sound of a bass drum filled with gravel. He hadn’t yet moved. Hadn’t needed to. Wouldn’t need to.

  Rie couldn’t buffer Daenor’s aura—or her own—since she couldn’t seem to find any creatures with sufficient reserves to drain. Even if her magic was still active, she didn’t have access to the wolves’ energy. The rodents had gone to ground at the first sign of the pinnacle predators, and wouldn’t have provided much help, anyway.

  Daenor’s sword thrust out and up, came down in an overhead strike. The recovery was too slow. The smallest wolf lunged inside his defense, biting Daenor’s shoulder through the bear hide coat, finding skin beneath the layers.

  Daenor shouted. The wolf released, eyes wide and rolling. It looked like she hadn’t expected to connect, hadn’t known what to do once she had flesh between her teeth.

  “Enough,” Fenrir roared. A sly expression accompanied the word. “We’ve made our point. You are no match for us. Lay down your weapons. You will come.”

  “I said . . . it before . . . ,” Daenor panted. “Not a chance.”

  Rie had never seen Daenor so winded. Was it the pain? The altitude? The effort of trying to protect her weak side while fending off the wolves at his own throat?

  “You are a fool if you think you can win. I can scent your blood on the air.”

  The fire on Daenor’s blade dimmed. The burning bushes were all but dead. They’d run out of fuel, both physical and magical.

  Rie placed her hand on Daenor’s forearm. She met his gaze, glanced up at the sky and back. “We’ll never make it out of here alive.” But she hoped the pixies would. More, she hoped Daenor understood her message.

  If the pixies were free and could fly, they could bring help. The only question was if that was exactly what Fenrir had in mind.

  “We’ll go,” Rie said. Unable to do anything else.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  “LEAVE YOUR WEAPONS on the ground,” Fenrir commanded. “Do it now, or death is your choice.”

  Rie grimaced, unwilling to part with the blades that had become as much a part of her as her own two hands. Exposure to the elements would dull their blades. Not to mention, they were irreplaceable. Rie’s knives and Daenor’s sword were custom-made and enchanted to fit their hands, and their hands alone. Leaving them behind felt like killing a piece of her own soul.

  But. She wasn’t actually dead. Not yet, anyway. If she left them here, there was a chance she could come back for them at some point.

  Rie lovingly caressed the steel one last time before stepping away. She gazed out over the surrounding landscape, doing her best to memorize every inch of scenery in an effort to mark the spot in her mind. She held her injured arm close to her chest, feeling naked and exposed without her weapons.

  One of the larger wolves—though still significantly smaller than Fenrir’s hulking form—with a single patch of black fur around his right eye nosed at the near decapitated body of Rie’s attacker. The corpse shift
ed and fell to the side, exposing the cauterized wound that had taken the wolf’s life. Though the skin was sealed, Daenor had sliced through the carotid. The wolf had died within heartbeats after the blood no longer reached his brain.

  Eye-patch tilted his head to the sky and howled, the sound an eerie mourning that sent chills down Rie’s spine. One by one, the other pack members took up the call, the melody cascading around and down the mountainside. Rie briefly closed her eyes, letting the sound wash over her. She keenly felt their pain, understanding what it meant to lose a comrade in battle.

  Fenrir approached, taking slow, deliberate steps toward them. The mottled gray and black fur shifted and blew in the wind. He kept his mouth closed, but his eyes were narrowed to thin, accusatory slits. As he moved, Rie realized just how big he truly was. His position on the mountain had been deceiving. The top of Rie’s head only barely reached the wolf’s shoulder.

  Rie took a step back, unsure of his intent. She bent her legs, ready to at least make an attempt to defend herself. Her left hand automatically dropped to the space where her knives would be, but they were on the ground, out of reach. Daenor kept close, his solid presence an emotional support. Not that he could do much to help. If the wolves decided to attack, Rie and Daenor would die.

  As if reading her thoughts, the wolves around her growled, their heads lowered and bodies shifting in agitation. They weren’t going to let any further harm come to their long-imprisoned leader.

  Rie lifted her good hand in surrender. There was no getting out of this, no getting away.

  Fenrir sniffed, his nose coming within inches of her own. Teeth showed between curled lips. The smell of meat and blood wafted over her as Fenrir blew out a noisy breath. Rie leaned her head back without stepping away. A lupine smirk pulled at the wolf’s lips. He knew he had her cornered and powerless. He sniffed again, then dropped his head to smell around her person.

  “You wear many blades, many weapons,” Fenrir said. “They all must be removed. Not just the most obvious ones.” His eyes glinted with angry expectation.

  Rie gritted her teeth but bent to remove the two needle-thin daggers she’d worn in her boots. When Fenrir leveled another piercing gaze on her, she pulled the throwing knives out of the hidden pockets on her left bracer.

  “I need help with these,” Rie said, holding out her left forearm for Fenrir’s inspection. “I can’t do anything with my right hand.”

  “Is it broken?” Daenor asked, worry lacing his tone even as he added to the armory on the frozen ground. Daggers and short blades, several throwing knives, they all went into a pile.

  “Just dislocated, I think. It’ll need to be popped back into place.”

  “I can do that.”

  “After you arrive in the den, you will have time to tend your wounds. We must go.” Fenrir glanced up at the horizon, the sun already setting beneath the mountain peaks. “You take the knives from her. Leave everything here.”

  The wolves snapped their teeth and growled, herding Rie and Daenor toward the pass after they were satisfied the metal was gone. A headache began to build behind her eyes, the pain creeping into her brain with mind-numbing tendrils. She glanced around, looking for the pixies, but the masters of camouflage couldn’t be seen anywhere. She hoped they were all right. They wouldn’t last long outside at night in the cold. Silently, she urged them to go back to the mountain tunnel, find a safe place to rest and stay warm, then return to Garamaen as soon as the sun was up the next day. That was a lot of ask of inquisitive creatures who didn’t have telepathy, but she prayed the gods would watch over her friends.

  “Move,” the smallest wolf commanded. Her fur was more white than gray, her body shorter and leaner than her male brethren. Still, she was bigger than the horses Rie had learned to ride as a child, and her teeth snapped with as much ferocity as any of the others.

  Rie realized she was going to have to give these wolves names, if only to use in her head.

  Eyeing her guard, Rie decided Lil would be the perfect moniker for the small female wolf.

  Careful to watch her step, Rie couldn’t help trying to strike up a conversation.

  “Where did you learn to speak our language?”

  “Keep moving. No talking,” Lil replied.

  “Why not? We have nothing else to do on this journey.”

  Lil snarled, her teeth bared. Rie wasn’t going to let that dissuade her. If they’d wanted her dead, they would have killed her on the mountain. And though Lil was fierce and could probably tear her arm the rest of the way off her shoulder, she didn’t seem like she particularly wanted to.

  “You speak it quite well, especially for a creature not designed for human speech.”

  Daenor glanced at Rie out of the corner of his eye, asking without words what she was doing. What she was thinking. She gave him a quick tilt of her head. She didn’t know if this would work, didn’t know if a bond could be created with the wolves, but if they were going to have any chance of long-term survival, they wouldn’t be able to fight their way out. They needed another solution.

  “We are as intelligent as any of the races,” the she-wolf said. “Do not think us beasts.”

  “Believe me, I don’t.” Rie lifted her good hand with a self-deprecating shrug. “After all, I’m the one who’s been captured.”

  “Remember that.”

  “Does your whole pack speak as well as you do? Or were just a few chosen to learn?”

  “Great-grandfather made sure we were prepared for his freedom.”

  “Stop.” One of the larger males snapped his teeth at the female. She dodged out of the way, avoiding the nip, but not the reprimand. “No talking.”

  The young female fell back, the male taking her place.

  “So, Fenrir is your great-grandfather?”

  The wolf glared at Rie, his hackles rising. He clearly wasn’t interested in talking, and unlike the female, Rie didn’t think she should push her luck with him. Second only to Fenrir in size, he didn’t seem like he would mind taking a chunk out of her hide, no matter what the pack leader said. She decided she would call this one Brute.

  Daenor bumped her good shoulder and gave a quick shake of his head. Apparently, he agreed that she should be quiet. But then he nodded his chin toward their destination.

  A dark hole opened into the mountain. Snow covered a peaked overhang, while two stands of piled rocks marked the entrance. Rie, unable to see more than a few feet inside, had no idea what awaited. What worried her more were the half dozen giant wolves lounging around the entrance, each lifting their lips in a snarl that rumbled through the air and into Rie’s bones.

  “Inside,” Fenrir growled.

  Brute shoved Rie forward, sending her careening into one of the rock piles. She hit her dislocated shoulder on the stone. Pain sliced through her arm and back. She swallowed another scream, but tears sprang to her eyes and she slid to the ground.

  “I said, inside,” Fenrir stepped forward, his teeth bared.

  Daenor positioned himself between them. He held his hand out, a length of straw on his palm. A flicker of smoke, then nothing. His face scrunched into pained concentration. Not even a spark answered his call.

  Fenrir chuffed a laugh. “Already your magic is fading. Your kind thought to keep me contained forever, thought the wolves weak and easily manipulated. Who is stronger now?”

  Daenor’s jaw clenched. He kept his position between Rie and the wolves, hands slightly raised in a defensive crouch. He might not have his magic, but Rie knew he was more than capable of doing physical damage with just his hands and feet. However, they were too outnumbered. She couldn’t let this end in violence. She stood, using her good arm and the rocks behind her to pull herself upright.

  “I’m up,” she said. “You can stand down.”

  “Take your mate inside the cave,” Fenrir ordered.

  Whether he was speaking to Rie or Daenor, she didn’t know, didn’t care. She took hold of his forearm and led him into the dark.
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  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  THANKING ALL THE gods for the depth and warmth of her feathers, Judith touched down in the courtyard of the village of Bjergtopp. Though the heavy coat had helped break the wind, Judith’s mad dash from the frost sidhe portal up to this tiny village in the mountain had nearly frozen her to the bone. Wrapping her wings around herself now, and spreading the cloak over the top, the chattering of her teeth finally began to calm.

  She’d made it up the mountain in just over a bell, flying at full speed. She wasn’t as fast here as she was in the Daemon Realm, likely due to the high altitude and decreased air pressure, but she thought it had to be much faster than hiking up the treacherous mountain.

  She hadn’t seen any sign of Sanyaro and his party, but it may have snowed since their arrival. However, landing in the courtyard of the village, Judith’s stomach turned.

  Burnt and dismembered bodies littered the area around the cave openings where—she’d been told—the native fae species lived. Doors had been torn off hinges. Old dark blood painted the walls in a spray of physical destruction.

  She swallowed hard. Whatever had attacked them, these people hadn’t had a chance. Judith hoped Apprentice Sanyare and the others weren’t included in the death toll.

  She reassured herself with the knowledge that Sanyaro’s death, or even Apprentice Sanyare, would have been big news in the Daemon Realm. If their souls had arrived at the gates, every guardian and daemon in the realm would have known it within a bell. Garamaen’s was one of the oldest living souls still in existence across the nine. His reclamation would be epic.

  The sound of a baby’s cry drew Judith away from the pain of the death in front of her and toward the only closed door in the mountain. She approached the low wood threshold and knocked.

  A resonant shushing sound and the baby quieted.

  Judith knocked again.

  At first she thought whoever was inside wouldn’t answer, but after a few heartbeats, the door opened a crack. Sanyaro’s drawn face appeared in the gap.