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Arms crossed to shield her face, Orielle plowed through the spruces into which Grim and his horse had disappeared. In that labyrinth of evergreens, he had found a single entrance to another thready deer trail that wound up the slope.
She thought of the wyre heading for the ford, and she plunged into the trees.
At a switchback he waited. He silently pointed her along the slope, abandoning the beaten path for the maze of low-limbed spruces. “Hide,” he whispered. “Remember your scent.”
She swept heavy spruce over her cloak and headed into the trees. She glanced back when he slapped the horse’s rump. Tail flicking, Ruddy lunged along the deer trail.
And Grim dropped down, returning to the shore.
She bit her lip, wanting to help fight the wyre. He had experience, though; he had deliberately brought her into the trees and told her to hide.
Maybe she could ambush the wyre who tracked her. For some would come after her. Grim had warned her of that, the wyre habit of attacking on two fronts.
She threaded through the trees, easing her way past branches that didn’t want to give. The slope dictated when she had to climb up or down. She crossed downed trees. Several ells beyond she came upon a recent slide, tumbled earth with sun-baked clods creating a shallow bowl.
Crossing the slide would expose her to eager wolfish eyes. Kiting her skirts higher, she climbed to cross above the disrupted earth, going hands and toes when the slope angled sharply upward. She remembered Grim’s trick of using wind to carry scent ahead. The breeze cooled her. She climbed and climbed then began angling to the mud slip.
Poking her head past a jutting tree branch, she eyed her ascent. The top of the slip was still feet above her. She needed to climb higher, for she wanted undisturbed trees as a shield. She withdrew—then saw movement downslope. She froze, eyes above the branch.
A man jumped onto the slide. Dried dirt slipped and skittered under him. He stepped more cautiously until he reached a slender tree torn out by the slide, its root ball thin and scraggly, its pyramid top pointing downslope. He climbed atop the trunk. Bare toes gripped the bark. Hands on hips, he surveyed the slide’s descent. Then he turned and looked upslope. His chin lifted. His nostrils flared.
Orielle hastily mixed wet soil with her disguising scent of spruce.
The wyre continued to scan the upward slope.
She didn’t recognize him. His dark hair caught no gleam from the dreary light. His brow was thick, nearly meeting above a flat nose. His shirt was loose, flapping in a breeze contrary to hers. His fingers sprouted no claws, but she was certain he was a wyre.
He turned and spoke. She was too far away to hear, then his gaze returned to sweep the upward slope. He pointed. The angle was near to her.
Cautiously, she turned her head but saw nothing that should have caught his attention. The earth was a mix of dry and moist. A mundane creature had bounded across the dirt during the night. At the top of the slide, the forest litter dripped over the edge, tugged out of place but still clinging. Leafy trees above the released ground leaned precariously, downward roots exposed, yellow leaves shivering in the vagrant breeze.
Her vagrant breeze.
She sent the Wind drifting across the undamaged slope, let it play among the leaves, then released it.
And looked back at the wyre.
A wolf had joined him.
The creature’s body came to the man’s waist. It stood on the dirt, larger than any wolf she’d seen on trips to the deep north of Mont Nouris. A greyed pelt covered the barrel chest. Silvered eyes shined with greeny power.
A shifted wyre.
The wolf put his paws on the fallen tree, lifted its snout to the air. Ragged ears flicked forward.
Orielle added more dirt to her scent.
The wolf dropped back to the ground and started a cautious venture upslope.
A shout drifted up; a howl followed it. Two wyre.
Behind her, above her, came an answering howl and another shout. Two more. They had to be tracking Grim.
She froze, scarcely daring to breathe.
The grey wolf leaped to return to the trees. The soil it abandoned slid a little, tumbling down, exposing richly dark earth. The fallen tree rolled a little. The unshifted wyre rocked and flung out his arms to maintain his balance.
The wolf didn’t look back. With a flick of its hoary tail, it disappeared into the trees.
She listened, heard nothing, tried to snare Wind from behind her to catch whatever happened—and heard another shout. Two more followed it. Something crashed through the branches, snapping the ones that didn’t give. A high-pitched yelp broke. Then a howl lifted. The sound shivered down her spine. It sounded nothing like the wolves on that long-ago trip.
Snuffling behind her warned of an approach.
The wolf, on her trail.
She jerked magic—then remembered Grim’s brief account of Saithe’s death.
She stared at the orb of power, shaped for a spell and useless against a wyre.
But not against land.
The man still balanced on the fallen tree.
She flung the orb at the dislodged soil beneath the trunk. The power blasted over the ground.
The wyre leaped—but the ground had started a gradual slide, taking the breadth of the exposed dirt with it. He landed on slowly shifting earth. Then the slide gained speed. The tree slid past him. The dirt under him tumbled then collapsed, and no outspread arms saved his balance. He flailed then scrabbled at the dirt pouring around him.
And the slope above joined the slide, more dirt and rocks and the yellow-leaved trees crashing down with a glassy roar. He lost his balance and fell. The earth submerged him.
The slide poured downslope, reaching the old end and tumbling past, pushing trees ahead of it, heading for the shore.
Then the earth slowed. Rocks rolled across the top, but the soil piled and packed on itself. And she could see the river, stained with dirt.
The distant shouts came again, one then the next, a single howl, all farther away.
Turning to face the oncoming wolf, Orielle snared Air for her hands. It rushed through the trees, bending the branches around her, snatching her hair into a whirlwind.
The wolf came, nose to ground. He heard the Air. His head lifted; those greeny silver eyes narrowed. His mouth opened, almost like a grin.
The Air thrust him backwards. He reared up, pawing at the palpable force. She twisted her hands, and the Air spiraled, twisting the wolf in a vortex. The grey-fuzzed muzzle lifted. He tried to howl, but the spiraling wind gusts whipped his head around.
Over the wind’s rush came the sharp crack of breaking bones.
The wolf stopped flailing. His head lolled.
She pulled the Air back, half afraid the wolf would spring, half afraid she had killed him.
The shifted wyre fell to the ground. He lay limp, a child’s discarded toy on the forest litter. As she watched, his form blurred, fuzzed. She blinked. He changed, returning to his man-shape.
Orielle climbed from the protecting spruce branches. When she straightened, the wyre was wholly man—and wholly dead, his head canted severely over.
Wind teased her as she ventured closer. When she stood over the wyre, she saw his eyes rolled back. He lay naked on the needles and leaves discarded by the trees for years. He was old, a grey-haired man still in his prime.
She bent and pushed his shoulders, not quite believing he was dead. He lolled to his back, but his head didn’t move.
Bile rose in her throat.
She turned and vomited. When her stomach emptied and her gut stopped heaving, she felt shaky and sweaty.
And he was just as dead.
As Grim would be.
The shouts, the howls no longer came. The wyre had tracked their prey and found him. Two and two. Four against Grim, two of those shifted.
And the gobbers, if they had dared to follow.
Her stomach heaved again as she recalled what the stunted creatures had done to Ghost and would do to the next prey they brought down.
That would not happen to Grim.
Orielle sped downslope, using the Air to push branches out of her way. When the slant became too steep for a safe descent, she angled for the trail. And then she ran.
Four against him. She had the Air, just as Grim did. While the wind teased around her, it lacked the force of what she’d whorled around the dead wyre. She would have to be clever, the way she’d been with the unshifted Wyre. Grim had his sword. He always threw a readied spell before using steel. Did he not wield the Air with ease?
Four against two. They needed better odds.
Sangrior—but Volk claimed the Sword Knight would not come if she called.
She slid the last feet of the trail and burst upon the shore. And saw nothing.
But heard steel.
And growls.
She ran upshore and found the slide.
The dirt had tumbled into the river, partially damming the water even as the water eroded the fresh soil blocking its progress.
She glanced upslope.
The bulk of the slide had crushed the laurel then stopped. Large rocks peppered the richly brown soil, the color of Grim’s clothes.
Orielle scrambled over the piled-up mud nearest the water. Clods slipped under her, but momentum carried her up.
And she saw the battle beyond. A knot of fighting, with a center that flashed metal. Two men leaped back from the sweep of steel while a wolf lunged in to attack Grim’s back. The wolf went tumbling as the two other wyre sprang in, attacking with claws.
A white-shirted man crawled over the pebbly sand, trying to reach the water.
From the top of the mud slide, she pushed Air at the shifted wolf. It gusted over him. The wolf flattened against the ground. When it swept past, brilliant blue eyes turned her way. He sprang up. And barked.
One of Grim’s attackers fell back. Following that barked order, he turned toward her.
She glanced at the shifted Prime, for those blue eyes could only belong to him. Then she jumped from the muddy heap to the shore, pebbles grinding under her boots.
When she straightened, the half-shifted wyre was nearly on her. His eyes were greeny silver, like the wyre she had killed. Eldritch green tipped his claws, giving them a poisonous tint. He snarled. His face blurred, his snout lengthened, then the shift vanished, but she’d glimpsed the wolf he would become.
Thrusting both hands, she threw Air. He staggered then grinned. “Lost hold of Air, little wizard?”
“I killed two of your friends,” she retorted. “I’ll kill you.”
The fighting around Grim became fiercer, the men grunting, the wolf snarling. He half-turned—and she saw the Prime leap for Grim’s back.
The wyre missed his leap for the Rho’s neck. His teeth snagged his shoulder and clung, worrying at the leather jack and the chain mail that protected flesh and tendons and bone. The other wyre drove past Grim’s distracted guard. They fell to the shore, Grim underneath, a tangle of leather, flesh, and fur.
The wyre turned back to her and laughed. “Ready to die, little wizard?”
She flung her one Fire spell, designed to light fuel in a hearth. The flames exploded on his nose. The spell had no force and all wyre knew that wizardry couldn’t harm them. But he recoiled from the searing heat. It blasted over him and winked out.
Orielle dove in a bare second behind the spell. She jabbed her belt knife into the side of his neck. The sharp blade of good Fae steel slipped past the ringed esophagus. Blood spurted then gushed as she twisted the blade.
He swiped, claws tangling in her spelled cloak.
She sprang back, her knife embedded in his neck. And the wyre dropped to his knees, the eldritch sorcery in his eyes fading, his claws receding.
She darted in to jerk her blade free. It stuck. She worked it loose while his clawless hands fumbled at her. Once her knife was free, she headed for Grim.
He was on his knees. The Prime wolf circled him, kept at bay by a dagger of gleaming Fae steel. The other wyre lay motionless.
The wounded one had reached the river, but he lay face-down in the swift water.
The wolf darted in. Grim jabbed with the dagger. Then he twisted, screamed, and the dagger dropped from his hand.
But the wyre didn’t leap upon him. He turned to Orielle.
And his shape blurred.
