“Gods of the Harvest—help me!”
The cry tore Kagen from sleep.
It was sharp and high and filled with terror.
And it was a woman’s cry.
He sprang awake and was on his feet, hands closed around the dagger handles. He crouched and listened, blades ready. All traces of drunkenness were gone, diluted by time and finally banished by that scream.
Kagen stepped toward the edge of the forest wall, head cocked to one side as he strained to remember where that scream had come from. Trying to catch an echo or the sound of struggle.
Nothing.
The forest seemed to hold its breath, and even the natural sounds were unnaturally stilled.
“Where are you?” Kagen said, but it was a whisper. With each second, he became less convinced the scream had been real. It was more likely a memory of one of the many, many terrible screams he’d heard on the Night of the Ravens.
Nothing …
Kagen began to relax, began to lower his knives, began to feel immensely foolish.
“Help me!”
The scream tore through the night. Not in the woods he faced … but behind him. Kagen spun, dropping into a combat crouch. Certain now. Ready now.
But not ready for what he saw.
A young woman burst from the far side of the clearing, running wild, casting terrified looks behind her. She was badly scratched and half naked, the shredded remnants of bodice and blouse fluttering behind her as she ran. Her arms and body and face were crisscrossed with cuts that bled freely. Her pale face was streaked with tears and her eyes were dark and bright and filled with awful awareness.
She ran toward the ring of fires—all of which had burned low—staring wildly, reaching first for one stick and then another and finally snatching up a four-foot length of pine that lay half in the flames. She whirled, shoving the burning end toward the shadows behind her.
“Gods, gods, gods,” she said, pleading, begging.
Kagen ran to her. “What is it, lass? What’s out there?”
Her head jerked around as if seeing Kagen for the first time. Those dark eyes were wild with new fear.
“Don’t touch me!” she cried.
He stopped six feet from her. “I won’t,” he said, looking past her. “Who’s chasing you? What happened?”
“They’re coming,” the woman said in a fierce whisper. Nervous tension rippled through her skin. She fumbled for her rags and tried to cover her breasts. “Gods of the Harvest, they … they …”
“I’ll protect you,” growled Kagen. “But who is coming? How many are there? Are they on foot or horse? Tell me so I can help.”
She searched him with her eyes.
“They’re coming …” she said again.
“Who, damn it?”
As if in answer, the black sky above them was torn by the long, hungry howls of a pack of wolves. Kagen felt his heart turn to a block of ice. Frigid water coursed through his veins and his mouth, already dry, turned to dust.
The howls were close.
So damned close.
And they were everywhere. The forest seemed alive with their calls. Above him, in the trees, the nightbirds cried out in alarm. Many hurled themselves from their branches and flew high and away, deserting him. Others—a scant few—remained, but even these shuffled back into the deepest shadows.
“They’re coming,” whimpered the woman.
Kagen squinted through the fading firelight and his breath caught in his throat as he saw hunched forms moving just outside the clearing. Firelight sparkled like molten gold on the tips of stiff hair. Red eyes flashed and vanished as the animals circled and circled.
Kagen knelt and snatched up a heavy hawthorn stick from the closest fire. One end was burning and the other end was hot to the touch. With a dagger in one hand and the torch in the other, he turned in a slow circle, letting the wolves see him. Letting them see steel and fire in a big man’s hands.
“If you want her,” he yelled, “then come and take her, you mangy bastards.”
The wolves moved with greater agitation, circling—always circling. Waiting for their attack was unnerving. The stress of it made fear-sweat boil from his pores to run in lines down his cheeks and pool in his eye sockets. His heart hammered painfully against the walls of his chest.
Then a new sound cut through the darkness. High and stertorous, sharp with fear.
It was a whinny.
“Jinx!” cried Kagen, and even as he said it, he both prayed for the animal to come racing into his camp and feared that it would only provide the wolves with an easy meal.
The howls faded for a moment as the pack, too, turned to listen.
Kagen took that moment to act. With blade and brand, he rushed toward the closest wolf. It was looking the wrong way and Kagen took a long step, made a longer swinging reach, and brought the flaming torch down on a furry, muscular shoulder.
The wolf shrieked in pain and flinched backwards, yelping and snarling. Kagen slashed at it with his dagger and opened a long red weal that parted pelt and flesh and muscle. But the animal lunged away, running with incredible speed into the woods.
Kagen turned sharply as another of the wolves ran toward him, eyes blazing, teeth bared as it leapt, but Kagen shifted to one side and struck a savage overhand blow with the torch. The flaming eye smashed into the side of the animal’s face and the creature twisted away, screeching with agony. It landed running and fled, but before it disappeared, Kagen caught a brief image of the left side of its face, mangled by the blow, one eye exploded and leaking bloody muck.
Then it was gone.
Kagen backed up several steps, turning this way and that, ready for another assault.
The woman crouched behind the fire, clutching her torn clothes and staring with absolute horror.
Jinx whinnied again, far off in the darkness.
The howls of the pack still filled the air—and there were new notes to their predatory symphony. Fury and surprise, pain and hatred.
But as Kagen waited for them to come for their revenge, he slowly realized that the howls were diminishing. Not in volume but in distance.
“I think they’re going away,” he said.
“No,” replied the woman in a hoarse whisper.
“They are,” said Kagen gently, lowering himself to one knee beside her. “Listen. The howls are far away now.”
She kept shaking her head, her eyes wide and wild.
Kagen thrust the torch back into the fire but did not sheathe his dagger. Jinx whinnied again, still far off but with less obvious panic.
“Hear that?” said Kagen, forcing a smile onto his mouth. “That’s my horse. There’s food and water in my saddlebags. And a bow with plenty of arrows. We need to find him and get the hell out of this part of the forest.”
The woman stared at him as if what he said was pure madness.
“Go … out … there?” she gasped.
“I’ll protect you,” Kagen assured her. “We have to try. We can’t stay here.”
It took a lot of convincing, and it was only after all sounds of the wolf pack had faded to silence that she even tried to get to her feet. Kagen removed his cloak and wrapped it around her, then stepped back to allow her to gather it to suit her modesty and find some measure of protection.
Jinx neighed once more, and Kagen was certain he knew from which direction now. It was in the general direction he had been heading earlier. Their trail through this part of the woods had been an old, abandoned coach road that had long since become a narrow game trail.
“Come on,” said Kagen, offering his hand to the woman. “I’ll keep you safe.”
There was nothing but terror in her large eyes, and several times she began to speak but the worlds faltered and died. Kagen was patient and did not try to force her. He stood waiting until she reached up very tentatively to take his proffered hand.