Shadowcloaks Page 2

  Lucinda grins at me. “I doubt it.” She winces because she’s spread her lips too wide. Lucinda might be right, but I’m not going to admit it.

  “I promised Carmen I’d come. I’d do anything to keep that promise. You, of all people, should understand that.”

  “You didn’t know they’d find her.”

  “We all knew it was a possibility. You should have put her in that trunk and followed on foot.” When we left Ector, Lucinda hadn’t wanted to argue with Magnus about coming to Fortrus. She had folded herself into our baggage in order to tag along.

  “If I’d followed on foot, you’d all have died in Flow-by-Downs.”

  There’s no arguing with that.

  A chill enters my bones, one that the fire can’t help. In the forest around us things are moving, quiet and stealthy. I feel the thump of heartbeats and the itch of paws on snow. Distant, but not distant enough, and approaching fast. There are definitely more than two.

  We might all die anyways.

  I loosen the cloak around my own neck so I can wriggle out of it if need be. That’s my reassurance. I don’t like being held too tightly. Some of my body heat escapes but it’s worth the sanity. I slip my hand into my pocket and put the ring back on, the one I now know that Pale Tom made for me. The clearing seems to come into focus, though I could see it just fine before.

  Lucinda looks at me sharply. “What is it?”

  “Visitors.”

  They don’t howl as they approach. They are silent, just outside the snow drift, but I can smell their winter fur and hear panting breath and the wheezing between too-skinny ribs.

  The snow begins to fall, impatient, but silent too, unwilling to be the first to break the silence with its frosted, windy voice.

  Lucinda’s eyes dart towards Halifax as he jerks suddenly against his tether, trying to get his head loose and shake his nosebag. His ears go flat against his head.

  I nod.

  She glides over, head turning from side to side, surveying the narrow pines surrounding our campsite. She pulls the nosebag from his muzzle and drops it in the snow, standing rigid before him. He knows this stance and mimics it. When he stills, Lucinda unfetters him.

  “Halifax. Fight.”

  He snorts once and bucks, demonstrating that he is ready.

  The wolves crest the snowbanks together, fanned out in a crescent shape that blocks us from the beaten road. Their coats are thick and full, mostly black, with white bands across the face and chest of one, and another that is as white as the new-fallen snow. She stands a hand taller at the shoulder than the others, big for a female.

  There are eight of them. They are almost lazy in their approach as Lucinda and I set our backs to the fire, each taking burning fire brands. Admittedly, hers is a bit thicker and more imposing than mine, and her sword, the one she earned on Deepwinter, is gripped tightly in her gloved hand. I fancy I can see her scar glowing through her heavy coat, right where Hawkwood struck her. She looks formidable, but I can see better.

  I can practically smell the wolves’ thoughts: Cull the little one from the herd.

  A black beast of a wolf darts in, backs out, testing, paws forward, head low.

  Neither of us reacts. Let them think we’re weak and slow.

  A few of them circle, creating motion for our eyes to follow while the darkest of them inches forward, in a crouch, ears raised and forward, noses puckered and pelts bristling, with lips lifted from their fangs.

  They begin dancing, darting in and out, never within reach, always seemingly closer. Halifax screams as the wolves worry him. He kicks backward, knocking one away.

  I keep myself compact and low, but now there are three wolves circling me and they are fast. I can barely keep my weapons pointed in their direction. Two come from in front and one from the side. Lucinda can’t help for fear of hitting me.

  Nothing in my ring seems to help with fighting wolves, except to see what they are doing and being able to do nothing about it. The two from the front draw my weapons while the one from the side peels me from the fire. I bait him once, showing him an undefended side until he lunges, and then swinging my stick at his head, but he’s ready for this. He whirls in the air, chasing his tail, and the thumping spreads the impact across his massive frame.

  He weighs more than me.

  Just like that I’m rolling, trying to avoid the teeth of the other two.

  Up again, twisting.

  And rolling again as one of them clamps powerful jaws on my burning brand and shatters it like matchsticks.

  After that we play a little game of slippery weasel. It’s not fun being the weasel. I slip underneath one and come out the back, but the other two are already diving in at me as they drive me away from the fire. Fur, blood, and sweat fan out in the air above as time slows for me, but it isn’t enough. I never have time to sink my knife more than a finger width before needing it somewhere else.

  I would prefer Nightshades, I realize. Wolves trust each other, work well together, like Lucinda and me.

  Only she’s no longer an arm-length away. There are too many shaggy heads between us, keeping her at bay, drawing me away. I feint and duck and dance for all I’m worth, but there is always one behind me, blocking my path back to the safety of the fire, and two more demanding my attention, always just out of reach.

  They’ve hunted humans before, it seems. One catches me by the cloak. I spin and fold, kicking out behind me with my boot as I duck out of it. My boot connects with fur and flesh, but nothing breaks as the fanged hunter dances away. I hear the third wolf coming. I dive sideways, slashing at him.

  He tucks his nose to protect his under-throat. Red splatters the ring of white fur on his chest. Not the fatal cut I was hoping for.

  Even worse, it makes them cautious. One of them savages my abandoned cloak for show, while the others circle. Then I have their undivided attention again.

  Lucinda is faring better. Her reach is long and she’s thumped one hard enough to make him draw back, limping. Halifax has taken up her flank.

  “Teacup!” she screams. “Teacup, they’re drawing you away!”

  “I know,” I squeak back.

  There isn’t anything I can do. The pack is content to fence Lucinda in while three of the bigger ones back me up the snowbank.

  Small as I am, my feet still bog down in the snow while the wolves’ paws seem to spread out, distributing their weight more evenly, allowing them to stay closer to the surface.

  They dart in at me in sequence, forcing me to turn, always turn, defending my heels and hamstrings, taking turns at wearing me down. No matter how fast I am, I am not fast enough to strike them, only fast enough to drive them back a little, my short knives flashing in the fading light.

  This isn’t a game I can win, certainly not with one dagger out and one leg sinking suddenly into the snowdrift.

  The largest lunges for my throat. I have a split second to lay back into the bank. As he sails over, my free hand flashes out on its own, catching the bushy tail with the intent to pull him into my dagger.

  Instead, he yanks me out of the drift and across an icy forest patch on my back. The impact to his hindquarters seems to surprise him, and instead of slowing down, he accelerates, pulling me along like a sled until I have the sense to let go. My foot stings and I realize I’ve left a boot behind.

  They surround me again. The large wolf’s tail no longer twitches. He holds it low, close to his legs as if he thinks I’ll catch it again.

  We continue our endurance game, drifting ever farther from the campfire, my foot leaving bloody prints in the snow.

  I can’t get free long enough to climb a tree. I can’t even get my back to one. They’re driving me toward the river. When they bait me, they present only the smallest target, low to the ground, a nose and the tips of their paws. But there is a way to even the odds.

  I falter, letting my whole frame sag as if I’m collapsing.

  I respond slowly to the first wolf and then, lightn
ing quick, uncoil toward him with all my strength. He’s already extended his neck, mouth open to tear at me. I miss his eye, but my dagger dives deep into his shoulder as he knocks me backward. I rip it out and slash his belly this time, tucking my bare foot as we slide onto the creaking ice. A jaw closes on my coat, tearing through insulation and shirt, wrenching my arm as it shakes me. Another wolf goes for my throat. I cover my neck with my arm, dagger in reverse grip, as the ice below us breaks.

  We’re floundering, snapping, and stabbing, thigh-deep in frigid river water. The wolves draw back into the shallows, wary of the deepening current. They eye me cautiously, watching me sway in the frigid water. One of them is bleeding from the mouth, the other from sliced ear and shoulder. The third wolf is nowhere to be seen.

  I pretend to stagger.

  They don’t move, content to watch me freeze, worried they might drive me too far from the bank and lose their meal. They’re as cruel and calculating as this ever-returning mountain winter.

  I fumble with my coat, finally remembering my other knife, but unable to get it out.

  The water is so cold, cold, cold.

  When I drop to my knees, the smaller one is so hungry he can’t resist. I bring my knee up at the last second, and leap toward it, slashing paws and chest. The second takes me from the side mid-air, but I sink my knife deep into its flank as I tuck my chin to protect my throat. The momentum carries us through more ice and into deeper water.

  The older wolf falls below the surface of the ice, taking my dagger with it. The remaining wolf, the youngest, backs from the river slowly, growling and baring its teeth.

  I stumble in the deeper water, fighting the current, weighing twice as much as water soaks my clothes and bits of shattered ice begin to cling to shirt and trousers. I flounder, cracking more of the surface ice as I go, until I can finally get a foothold on the slippery rocks.

  I fumble for my other dagger, and finally get it free, but it won’t matter. Our fire is out and I’m too cold to make another. But I won’t die here for this wolf to eat me. This is a matter of pride. I’ll find Lucinda first.

  I stumble from the river and take a few sodden steps toward the remaining wolf, growling and showing my own fangs.

  He sniffs the blood in the air. He isn’t experienced enough to know that I am middling-old and all used up. He can only smell my hatred for being hunted and the blood of his pack on my hands.

  To him I smell like a predator.

  To him I smell like Tom.

  When I howl, he tucks his tail and runs.

  My teeth are rattling in my head so loudly that I hope Magnus can hear me suffer all the way back in Solange. It’s his fault that Carmen’s in danger, and I’m stuck in the mountains running from wolves and freezing to death.

  I crane my head as I stumble back toward the camp, retracing my own bloody tracks and the trail of disturbed snow. The moonlight beats down angry and cold.

  Through a gap in the pines I can see moonlight on the mountainside below. The top of a low cloudbank pushes against it, ghostly waves against a white-sand shore. The cloudbank swirls and roils as it climbs up the mountainside and promises to tell its secrets just as soon as we are firmly in its grasp. But this ghostly tide hasn’t caught us yet.

  The sky above is clear. I can see moon and stars, and the occasional snowflake shaken loose from the pines drifting down, a feather cut from some goblin’s dart.

  With the trees all heaped in snow and the warm feeling in my foot, the scene should be beautiful, but it is not. There are howls in it, and I know what they signify because there are now more than I can count.

  I crest the snowbank and despair. A second pack has joined the hunt. The tent has been ripped apart, and they are chewing on each other’s carcasses in a frenzy of hunger. Halifax is nowhere to be seen. Lucinda is all alone, standing in the middle of what used to be our fire. She’s kicked it about so that the coals litter the snow around her like little demons, burning the paws of the wolves that approach, but this isn’t enough. Just like me, the culled embers cool fast, and the wolves are starting to ignore them.

  True, there are at least three corpses, and other trails of blood, but she’s down to just her sword and the rusty, old Ralfian dagger I once taught her to use. Her pants are tattered and torn. There are great, red furrows on her legs beneath. Blood covers her weapons, gloves, and face. Every turn she makes brings one wolf closer to her without driving another sufficiently away.

  I yell, but the wolves ignore me. My voice is hoarse and weak, my fury spent. It does her no good.

  One of them pulls Lucinda down from behind by the cloak. Another closes its mouth on her boot. She kicks hard, but her neck, arms, and legs are unprotected.

  Gathering a bit of strength, I rear up on the snowbank and throw my dagger. My arm feels stiff and slow, but I force it to release on time, feeling the hint of frozen combat in the ring to draw upon. Someone else who wore my ring has felt this.

  The dagger and wolf arrive at the same time, and the blade sticks where neck joins the skull. The wolf dies.

  I miss my footing as I struggle forward, sinking once again into the snowbank. Buried branches wrap me up. They catch my trousers and hold me in place like frozen, icy fingers. I watch as the last of the fire goes out. I don’t want Lucinda to die alone, but I’m too far away to even look her in the eyes.

  Around us, the forest shakes.

  The wolves hesitate, hair rising on their haunches as they sniff the air. The furious wind ceases for a moment, the trees themselves stealing it away as if taking one giant breath. Moon-shadows stretch from silent trees to fall across the motionless wolves.

  The silence shatters in a bestial roar, half-growl, half-throaty-wheeze, and all boulders-tumbling-down-a-mountain. It is unlike anything I’ve heard before, and I feel it in my chest. The force of it shakes snow from the trees. Ears flatten and tails drop between legs as the pack flinches in unison.

  Something enormous thunders into the clearing.

  Holy hell.

  I’ve heard stories of the stone bears terrorizing outlying farms. They say a stone bear can drag a horse carcass for 60 miles when it wants to, or bite a man completely in two. But this? It’s a cottage with legs! The muzzle alone is bigger than some of the wolves. If I wanted to crawl into its stomach and hide, that would be no problem, assuming he didn’t chew me on the way down.

  It’s a testament to the harsh winter that the pack doesn’t break when he charges. Instead they dance away, yipping and snarling, unwilling to relinquish the prey they so dearly paid for. They dart in at his flanks, trying to worry him away from Lucinda.

  The stone bear crouches low to the ground over her, grey mane jumping and sagging as he whirls to meet the wolves, spraying saliva with each thunderous roar. Lucinda tries to curl up, but is kicked in the head and goes limp.

  The wolves gather back, all focused on the interloper. While two worry him from the front, six or seven take turns at his flanks and haunches. They bite at his fur and come away with bloody noses, yelping.

  Something . . .

  Another tremor shakes the cold forest around us, followed by another wheezy-roar. This one sounds decidedly less ferocious. Almost . . . irritated.

  “Idiota!” screams a squeaky voice. “Ri-yi-yi-yi-yiiiiiiiight!”

  Another stone bear explodes into the clearing, plowing straight through the snowdrift to my left. He’s smaller but not by much. Two rag-piles cling frantically to ropes tied to a leather harness around the bear’s shoulders. Another strap flies out behind him, towing a small pile of rags, green skin, and dart fletching. The pile of rags is trying to yell, but very little sound is coming through the pile of snow mounding on his face.

  When I struggle, the drift below me collapses, sucking me deeper into the snow.

  TWO

  Everything is muffled and dark in this drift I’m buried in. My own thoughts are muffled too, like footsteps in a snowy forest, wandering, wandering, aimlessly searching for a f
orgotten trinket.

  The snow is cold, but only on my face. The rest of my body doesn’t care anymore. Instead, it feels slightly warm, unwilling to move, unable to struggle. This is dumb. I’d rather die doing something, like stabbing a ‘Shade, or getting eaten by a giant bear.

  I regret having paid the tax collectors from Magnus’s “sacred” funds. I could have done something useful with that money. Like buy some wolf traps. The tax man could have at least warned us about the wolves.

  It’s dark and warm. I try not to feel comfortable, but I am.

  “I’m sorry, Carmen.”

  Darkness.

  #

  I’m dreaming, like I do sometimes when I’m close to death, like I’ve done ever since I accidentally stole Tom’s ring.

  This time there’s a warm fire in a grate.

  Black boots on a footrest.

  A leather-bound book propped open in pale, white hands.

  A rug against my face.

  A red rug.

  A bleeding rug.

  Am I bleeding on it?

  No.

  That’s just the color of its wool.

  “Oh. It’s you again,” says a sarcastic voice. “At least you have an excuse this time.”

  “What?” I say.

  The pale man does not respond. He turns a page.

  Then another.

  He glances up, as if he’d forgotten me. “What are you doing here?”

  “Dying in a snowdrift.”

  “Carry on,” the pale man sniggers.

  #

  The stars are blurry.

  I can see them when I open my eyes.

  I close my eyes, trying to forget about stars.

  Something is tugging at me. I try to ignore it, wondering how Lucinda managed to survive, wondering how she has the strength to drag me from the snowbank and across the ground. The wet sandpaper on my face is different though. It feels like half my face is being torn away.

  “Lucinda, stop,” I say weakly.

  I open my eyes, slowly. There’s a mountain of grey fur looming over me. It chuffs and sits back on grey haunches when I gasp in fright, but quickly goes back to rasping my face with its enormous, hot and smelly tongue.