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The wyre trotted toward them. They spread out but remained on the road.
The biggest wolfen was on Desora’s side. The Prime kept his head down as if nosing a trail—but those green-glowing eyes were on her, never wavering, never blinking. Ensorcelled, the Prime controlled the others through the pack bond. Off to the left was a slender wyre, smaller than the others. The female. Head high, she pranced a little. Her mouth stayed open, tongue lolling, as if weary, but her yellow eyes echoed the Prime’s intensity. The other two, one dun-colored, the other dark yet streaked with fawn, came easily, quickly, without the Prime’s stolid focus or the female’s swish of tail and light placement of her paws.
Teyja peeked around Dunstan’s wide shoulders. Her tears had vanished. Eagerness to see a battle flashed in her avid eyes. The apprentice would soon learn that battle was not to be eagerly anticipated.
Granny shook so hard that she juddered Desora. “Steady,” she told the healer.
“I’ve never fought wyre before. Magic doesn’t affect them.”
“Sorcery does. So does elemental power—which we have. And we have the rangers.” But they couldn’t fight the wyre on horseback. “We need to dismount. You first.”
As Granny thudded to the road, Desora watched the wyre. They moved easily, a ground-eating pace that looked deceptively slow. With Granny off the gelding, she swung over her leg then slid down.
Rearguard they may have been, but the two young rangers had stopped when they did, without needing a call. Brax and Challoch, Serre and Ferrac must be far on the road to Mulgrum. Ivhart dismounted slowly. Dunstan slid down. He caught her gelding’s reins and drew it away before handing the reins for her and Ivhart’s horse to Teyja. Thundering hoofbeats sounded, but Desora had time only to see the two rangers line up on her left. They set black-fletched arrows to their bowstrings.
Then Brax appeared on her right. He was out of breath, chest heaving. How he’d known to return and how he’d managed it so quickly she didn’t know. She only cared that he was beside her. Of Challoch there was no sigh. Nor were the two older rangers here. Sent on to Mulgrum, she reckoned.
She grazed his arm and caught his quick glance then focused on the wyre. The four trotted closer and closer, so close that she saw the markings on their faces. The fawn-streaked one kept his head cast a little to the left, as if his neck muscles were taut. The female remained laughing. The Prime had lifted his head. He barked once then twice more.
Is that a signal?
Brax’s drawn sword crossed defensively before her body. Desora shifted his arm, lowering it. “Where is Challoch?”
“Behind. No Lady Moon last night, but the sorcerer could still have worked magic to make more wyre. Or others could have waited at a camp.”
Fear etched her spine at the thought of fighting more wyre.
And the wyre continued to laugh.
“Keep them off balance, Granny. Knock them over with Air. As you did with the birds.”
Granny nodded. A vagrant breeze streamed through her white hair, lifting tendrils that had escaped her tight bun. Air, answering the healer’s call. A grey mist formed around her uplifted hands.
Desora wished for her stave. It had shielded her from the wyre at Horst’s forest palace. With it, she had opened the ground and killed the ogre with acidic mud. One strike of its knobby end would open the ground beneath the wyre. But the stave was lost, broken on Mount Selinnia’s hard Arch.
Granny braced herself then tossed her hands forward, an awkward throw of the Air she had gathered. She tipped forward, overbalancing with her thrust. Ivhart caught her, keeping her off the ground.
Desora watched the wyre. Granny had signalled her throw, and the wolfen had separated to dodge the elemental power. Three succeeded. The whole force hit the dun-colored one. It bowled backward, legs flopping like a rag poppet as the gust threw it back several feet.
She threw a rock sphere as it labored to rise. The Earth power struck, the sphere shattered; rocks pounded the shifter. He yelped and fell again. This time he didn’t rise. He whimpered. And Desora knew the rocks had injured him.
Dunstan’s arrow ended the shifter’s cries of pain.
The three wyre slowed. They had seen the sphere, the rocks breaking over the wolfen’s body. Heard the bones cracking. Saw the black-fletched arrow and knew he no longer breathed. Then their heads swung toward Desora. No longer did they laugh.
They didn’t re-group. They spread out more, the Prime and the fawn-streaked one slinking up the road, the female sliding into the green-gold wheat. The tall sheaves marked its snake-like passage.
Dunstan readied another arrow.
The other two came close, closer before they stopped. They crouched. Tails flicked once, twice. The ensorcelled green of the Prime’s eyes glowed fiercely. Then they leaped.
Granny’s thrust of Air struck one. It toppled to the ground then scrambled away. Ivhart’s arrow pierced dirt, not magicked flesh.
The Prime sprang for Desora. It landed short, inches from Brax’s thrusting sword.
A flurry of movement on her left, but Desora dared not take her eyes from the Prime. It timed its second leap and launched at her as Brax drew back for another thrust. She staggered back.
Brax flung himself before the Prime. The wolfen hit his body. Jaws snapped. Claws ripped at his leather tabard. He dropped his sword and used both hands to keep those jaws from closing on his throat.
Desora thrust her Earth-shrouded hand around Brax and touched the wyre. Earthy green shuddered over its body, and the eldritch green in its eyes faded. The yellow of wolf glowed. It yelped—but the yelp changed to a yell. The wolfen body fell away, to the ground. It growled. Bones crunched, hair receded—then a man crouched on the ground. He sprang at Brax, hands reaching for his throat. And Brax thrust a long knife into the man’s stomach.
The Prime growled and grabbed Brax’s hand and the knife. He pulled the blade from his body. Blood poured from the wound, soaking their hands. Knife free of flesh, he shoved Brax away then scrambled to put several feet between them.
Desora threw another rock sphere. It struck square in the Prime’s chest, and he toppled back, to the ground. Brax darted to him, reddened knife gripped for an overhand thrust.
A high-pitched scream jerked Desora and Granny around. Teyja.
Then thundering hooves.
She pushed the healer back. “Help Ivhart.” Brax and the Prime grappled on the ground, the belly wound not slowing the shifter.
Dunstan stood square, arrow aimed behind him, but he didn’t loose it.
For the female had leaped and brought Teyja down on the other side of the horses. Two horses had fled up the road, toward Mulgrum. Another had galloped into the field. Brax’s warhorse stood square on the trail, straining back, blocking Dunstan’s aim ... for Teyja hadn’t released his reins.
Through the destrier’s planted legs, they saw the girl on her belly, kicking backward at the wolf straddling her. Both her hands protected her nape. The wolf worried at the hand from which the reins led.
Desora picked up her skirts and ran, and Dunstan followed, thudding heavily. She didn’t try to evoke power. She fell to her knees beside Teyja and thrust at the wolf. Except to increase her growling, the female ignored her.
Then Dunstan punched down with a belt knife, straight into the wyre’s back. The blade sank in beside the bony spine.
The wyre released Teyja’s hand and whipped around to fight the source of pain. Dunstan punched the female in the jaw. It knocked her sideways, half-off Teyja, and another shove from Desora pushed her entirely off the girl.
Dunstan’s arrow, shot from tight angle, buried in the wyre’s throat. Blood spurted immediately. In minutes the female was dead. By then, Desora had Teyja on her feet to examine that fang-ripped hand.
Granny pushed her away and bent over Teyja’s hand. “Hush, girl, you know I can help it.”
“Granny,” she whimpered then began bawling.
They heard more thundering hoofbeats, coming from behind. Desora and Dunstan turned back to the fight.
The Prime lay dead along with the first-killed wyre. The fourth wyre had disappeared. Brax and Ivhart had come with Granny, but as the hoofbeats grew louder, they turned with Desora and Dunstan and created a barrier across the road.
She recognized those black steeds with their deceptively slow motion first. Lord Horst’s magical horses. Then she recognized the Dark Fae himself, riding in the fore of his much-reduced troop. Knights and dames rode with him, the nine that had survived.
But there was a tenth additional rider, a man she didn’t recognize, one who wore faded blue clothing that stood out in the midst of riders who wore Horst’s preferred oxblood leathers. Blue clothing, long white hair and beard.
Brax swore, recognizing the man before Desora did. Then his image clicked. Once again she saw him standing before the Wind Arch, casting a spell to open the portal and bring more monsters into this realm.
The sorcerer.
As the troop neared, the wyre emerged from the field. He ran beside the horses—and the horses never flinched.
And Dunstan cried out. Ivhart had swung toward his fellow ranger. A knife glinted in his upraised hand. Dunstan punched his hand away and pushed the younger ranger.
“Get the girl away,” Brax snapped.
The ranger didn’t answer, just ran for Granny and Teyja and the warhorse, still captured by its reins, held now in Teyja’s other hand. He boosted the girl into the saddle then whacked the horse’s rump. The offended horse galloped toward the village.
Desora turned back to Horst, his riders, and the sorcerer. “Join them, Ivhart,” she ordered.
“I am a ranger.”
“Who somehow is now bound to Lord Horst, not to Maorn Harte. Join them.”
“Go,” Brax added. “We won’t have you at our backs. And drop that bow.”
Ivhart didn’t argue. He dropped the bow and quiver in the road’s dust and headed for the approaching troop. The riders slowed as they saw him near. Before Ivhart had taken seven steps, they had stopped. The sorcerer pushed up beside Horst. The captains Morcain and Ranulf drew abreast of their lord. The other riders milled behind, sorting themselves. The wyre sat on its haunches on the verge of the road, tongue lolling, the yellow glow in its eyes clear even from this distance.
Dunstan scooped up the quiver then nocked an arrow.
Desora glanced back and saw Teyja heading for Mulgrum. Granny came slowly to stand beside Dunstan. “Wait,” Desora ordered the ranger.
“I can take out the sorcerer.”
“He will have a shield,” Brax said. “As will Horst. You can only hit the riders.”
“They outnumber us.”
“What should I do?” Granny asked.
“The same that you’ve done. If you can focus on Horst, that will help.” Desora would focus on the sorcerer, but she didn’t know what she could do against him.
“You have Earth. Use it,” Brax suggested.
And Desora shook herself. Indeed, she had Earth. Why was she setting herself up for a battle similar to the ones she had fought at the Citadel, throwing power against power, with the more puissant magic wielder the winner? I wield Earth, and it was a vow.
The eleven riders filled the road, side to side, three deep. Horst hadn’t seen her open the ground under the ogre; he’d been off attacking the trolls on Trantorr Mountain. He wouldn’t anticipate that attack.
Nor would the sorcerer. They might have shields against thrown power. Would they have shields when their horses fell into acid?
She winced for the poor animals. They obeyed their master Horst. They hadn’t chosen to betray anyone.
Ivhart had reached them. The captains had split to admit him into their column. A dame in the second rank offered a hand to help him mount behind her.
“I need a stave.”
Dunstan scooped up Ivhart’s discarded bow and thrust it at her. “Here.”
She took it, hefted it, then evoked Earth.
Green covered her hands, spread from her to the bow, lighting it brightly. She considered how she wanted the ground to open. Not a straight line this time, but one that opened out.
The road would be destroyed when she—.
The sorcerer threw a blast of power.
Brax caught it with the flat of his blade. The steel shown bright before it flashed brighter. Then it melted everywhere the magic had touched. The steel dripped onto the road, almost to the hilt of the sword.
Desora stopped hesitating. She remembered her anger, her terror, and jerked those emotions into the growing Earth. The power brightened. She whacked down with the bow.
Elemental Earth sank into the road, tunneled under it. The power coursed to the riders. The ground mounded up with its passage, then began opening as the power sank deep, deeper, deeper still. Steam wafted up from the split-open ground.
Another blast of power from the sorcerer, aimed at the burrowing Earth. The sorcery blasted across the ground but didn’t enter the road.
Two riders, dames, tried to edge their horses away, but they were in second rank, blocked by the knights behind them. Ivhart had mounted behind one of the women. He slid off and ran into the field. The dames’ horses rebelled against the use of spurs and bucked. The riders fell. The horses pushed through the ones blocking and galloped away from the danger. Two knights helped the dames mount behind them.
And the opened split widened, crossing to the verge. More steam poured up. With it came the odor of sulphur. The sorcerer cast a barrier before the troop. It shimmered before them, sickly green like the myst that had veiled the monster.
And the road continued to open.
Then elemental Earth dove deeper, well underneath the road.
For long seconds they saw nothing. Horst and the sorcerer appeared to laugh and start forward, the sorcerer waving his hands and the barrier staying ahead of them.
Then the ground shuddered.
The riders began backing their horses. Ranulf shouted to his lord. Morcain spurred his horse, trying to drive it forward, but the horse refused. It reared, hooves pawing the air, while the captain clung.
The road gave way, sinking.
Only then did Horst and the sorcerer realize the danger. The barrier winked out. Their horses bucked. The sorcerer fell to the collapsing ground, then his horse fell on him, thrashing to escape. The Kyrgy’s horse leaped, seemed to clear the ground, then it stumbled to its knees, and the acidic mud opened that ground. He sprang from the horse’s back. He teetered on the edge of the crumpling road then jumped again. He landed on solid ground. From the road’s verge, Ivhart grabbed the lord’s flailing arm and hauled him away from the sinking Earth.
Then the whole road disintegrated. Liquid bubbled up, and horses and riders began screaming. Horst and Ivhart ran away from them.
“Far enough,” Brax shouted. They stopped abruptly and stayed there, caught only a few feet from the muddy acid eating the riders, the magical horses, and the sorcerer.
“Goddess,” Granny breathed.
Dunstan turned away.
Brax stayed beside her through the whole. When she faltered and nearly sank at the deaths she had caused, his arm wrapped around her waist and kept her tightly pressed to his sturdy body.
