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Authors: Valerie Douglas
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haunches bunched to spring…
Desperately, Morgan pulled his sword even as a bolt of silver shot across in front of him.
Fairy… and not just any Fairy…iridescent wings glittered, golden hair streamed behind her in the uncertain light.
Kyriay .
The wolf-thing snapped at her, a claw raked out even as Morgan drove his sword through the thing beneath its arm, piercing heart, blood and bone…
Kyriay turned in mid-air, nearly laying over on her wings in an incredible feat of flying, to send an arrow behind her into the one who leaped for Jacob.
Then she was gone into the night.
Jacob turned, his sword flashed and took the head from the thing.
Morgan had his own hands full. The wolf-thing impaled beneath his sword still fought, shrieked, howled as Morgan drove his sword deeper into flesh, muscle and bone, both hands on the hilt to ram it through, as it arched, writhed. Its clawed hands and feet scrabbled.
He rammed his weight down on the sword.
It convulsed, thrashing, and died.
Wrenching his sword free, neither he nor Jacob paused as another howl echoed from within the castle and others rose to answer it throughout the city.
They scrambled over the bodies and down the moat, the pair of them falling helter-skelter into the Arvon River to be swept into the sea beyond.
Morgan stroked, hard, through the water, seeking Jacob’s collar, shirt, anything – Jacob couldn’t swim – and found it, pulled.
They burst to the surface, the lights and lanterns of the docks close.
He would kill her when he saw her for taking such a risk.
Chapter Seven
With Caernarvon far behind them and all signs of pursuit fallen away, Morgan took the risk of setting camp. At last, he could find out what his people had learned.
And how high a price they’d paid for it.
Outside of swallowing some seawater, Jacob was fine.
As for the others…
A quick scan confirmed that only Walter was missing.
No one had seen or heard from him.
There’d been no sign, he simply hadn’t arrived at the rendezvous.
If he could have, Morgan knew Walter would have. So he’d been either killed or captured. Morgan’s contact in Caernarvon would get a message to Morgan one way or another and he would have to decide then what to do about it and how to do it.
Everyone else had made it, largely alive and unharmed.
“Report,” he said.
Mercenaries, conscripts and Northmen made up Haerold’s army. No surprise. The estimates and numbers came at him. Delaville’s men. Not as many as Delaville should have been able to raise as his levies, so some had stayed loyal to their King, but enough had not.
None of the others had seen these wolf-like men, but, added to the magic, they explained much about how the castle had fallen so quickly. Most men would have been ill-equipped to deal with anything like them. As it had been, it had been close even for Morgan and Jacob and they were both trained fighters.
And if Kyri hadn’t been there…?
Those things were definitely deadly fast.
Next time Morgan would be better prepared for them.
If they were to face them again he had to be faster, they all did.
With thanks, he sent his people to their bedrolls, save for the sentries.
He took no chances, remembering what that thing had said about losing Oryan’s scent. They’d tracked them as far as the Great Forest.
In the distance, dawn glimmered on the horizon. None of them would get much sleep this night. It would hardly be the first time. Or the last, perhaps, for a long time to come, now.
He needed to talk with Oryan, to tell him about Delaville. To do that he needed to call Kyri. Anger still burned in him at the risk she’d taken.
Had she been out of her mind?
From his bedroll, Jacob studied his old friend worriedly.
Morgan was every bit as exhausted as he was but something was clearly eating at him and had been since that last bit in that stinking, horrific moat…
He’d been too busy ducking the leap of the first thing and then something brilliant
Desperately, Morgan pulled his sword even as a bolt of silver shot across in front of him.
Fairy… and not just any Fairy…iridescent wings glittered, golden hair streamed behind her in the uncertain light.
Kyriay .
The wolf-thing snapped at her, a claw raked out even as Morgan drove his sword through the thing beneath its arm, piercing heart, blood and bone…
Kyriay turned in mid-air, nearly laying over on her wings in an incredible feat of flying, to send an arrow behind her into the one who leaped for Jacob.
Then she was gone into the night.
Jacob turned, his sword flashed and took the head from the thing.
Morgan had his own hands full. The wolf-thing impaled beneath his sword still fought, shrieked, howled as Morgan drove his sword deeper into flesh, muscle and bone, both hands on the hilt to ram it through, as it arched, writhed. Its clawed hands and feet scrabbled.
He rammed his weight down on the sword.
It convulsed, thrashing, and died.
Wrenching his sword free, neither he nor Jacob paused as another howl echoed from within the castle and others rose to answer it throughout the city.
They scrambled over the bodies and down the moat, the pair of them falling helter-skelter into the Arvon River to be swept into the sea beyond.
Morgan stroked, hard, through the water, seeking Jacob’s collar, shirt, anything – Jacob couldn’t swim – and found it, pulled.
They burst to the surface, the lights and lanterns of the docks close.
He would kill her when he saw her for taking such a risk.
Chapter Seven
With Caernarvon far behind them and all signs of pursuit fallen away, Morgan took the risk of setting camp. At last, he could find out what his people had learned.
And how high a price they’d paid for it.
Outside of swallowing some seawater, Jacob was fine.
As for the others…
A quick scan confirmed that only Walter was missing.
No one had seen or heard from him.
There’d been no sign, he simply hadn’t arrived at the rendezvous.
If he could have, Morgan knew Walter would have. So he’d been either killed or captured. Morgan’s contact in Caernarvon would get a message to Morgan one way or another and he would have to decide then what to do about it and how to do it.
Everyone else had made it, largely alive and unharmed.
“Report,” he said.
Mercenaries, conscripts and Northmen made up Haerold’s army. No surprise. The estimates and numbers came at him. Delaville’s men. Not as many as Delaville should have been able to raise as his levies, so some had stayed loyal to their King, but enough had not.
None of the others had seen these wolf-like men, but, added to the magic, they explained much about how the castle had fallen so quickly. Most men would have been ill-equipped to deal with anything like them. As it had been, it had been close even for Morgan and Jacob and they were both trained fighters.
And if Kyri hadn’t been there…?
Those things were definitely deadly fast.
Next time Morgan would be better prepared for them.
If they were to face them again he had to be faster, they all did.
With thanks, he sent his people to their bedrolls, save for the sentries.
He took no chances, remembering what that thing had said about losing Oryan’s scent. They’d tracked them as far as the Great Forest.
In the distance, dawn glimmered on the horizon. None of them would get much sleep this night. It would hardly be the first time. Or the last, perhaps, for a long time to come, now.
He needed to talk with Oryan, to tell him about Delaville. To do that he needed to call Kyri. Anger still burned in him at the risk she’d taken.
Had she been out of her mind?
From his bedroll, Jacob studied his old friend worriedly.
Morgan was every bit as exhausted as he was but something was clearly eating at him and had been since that last bit in that stinking, horrific moat…
He’d been too busy ducking the leap of the first thing and then something brilliant
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