Page 3 of Lake of Sorrow

“That girl has druid blood?” Skepticism dripped from the guard’s voice.

Jankarr chuckled easily. “Maybe, maybe not. Who knows how much faith to put in the old stories. All I know is that the taybarri all like her and won’t turn against her.”

“Fantastic. Then you’ll have to step aside so we can capture her. Your taybarri is blocking our hounds.”

Too bad the dogs didn’t mind turning against Kaylina. Though it was possible that once they found her, they would jump on her and lick her.

A concerned whine suggested the hounds weren’t so much blocked as intimidated by the much larger beast. The taybarri might have soft blue fur and floppy ears, but their powerful muscles, rows of fangs, and sharp claws made them fearsome predators.

“Is he?” Jankarr asked. “Not by my choice, but as I said…”

Frayvar poked Kaylina in the shoulder and pointed toward the preserve.

Right, they needed to use this time to put more distance between them and their pursuers. As badly as Kaylina wanted to hear the rest of the conversation, she continued upstream as it curved, following the terrain toward the forest.

They were almost to the first trees when Jankarr called, “Best of luck to you on the hunt, but be careful in the preserve. The animals in there may aid an anrokk.”

“They can aid her all they want,” the guard called back, “after we’ve peppered her with crossbow quarrels.”

Kaylina glanced back. The horseback riders crested the bridge and headed toward the preserve.

Jankarr must have continued downstream because he wasn’t in view. The rangers might help Kaylina in small ways, but they wouldn’t openly attack the guards, not for her. Probably not for anyone. After all, they all served the king and were on the same side.

A feline screech came from the forest, and Kaylina whirled toward the trees, images of panthers and tigers from the south springing to mind. There were even larger and more dangerous predators up here in the north. She remembered Vlerion battling a yekizar and had heard of powerful crag cougars.

Something moved in the shadows to the side of the stream. Kaylina yanked out the only weapon she had, a sling that her grandfather had given her.

From the dark trees, yellow eyes glinted as they looked toward her. They disappeared before she could take aim, and a faint rustling sounded as the creature sprang away.

A moment later, a horse shrieked in fear.

“Malikar!” a rider cried, naming an animal Kaylina had only read about, a shaggy sabertooth cat larger than a tiger.

Hounds barked, and branches snapped as some creature ran away. A blunderbuss fired, the boom drowning out everything else.

Kaylina didn’t know if the great cat was attacking the hunters—it sounded that way—but she gripped her brother’s arm and led him deeper into the forest. Though she hoped none of the dogs or horses would be hurt—she was more ambivalent about the men who wanted to pepper her with quarrels—she intended to take advantage of the distraction.

She and Frayvar left the stream behind so they could travel faster. They pushed through the undergrowth in the direction the malikar had seemed to come from. Hopefully, its appearance would rattle the hounds, and they would shy away from traveling deeper into the preserve.

Men shouted, and the blunderbuss fired again. The twangs of crossbows were too soft to hear, but Kaylina trusted the guards were unleashing all their weapons. She was surprised the malikar was sticking around to be shot at. Or did it think it could best them all and feast on the flesh of men?

She shuddered at the idea but didn’t stop moving until the sounds dwindled and her breathing grew ragged. Her leg that had been bitten weeks earlier throbbed, a reminder that the deep wounds would take a long time to heal fully.

Frayvar tripped over a root and rasped, “I need to stop.”

“Me too.”

They put their backs to trees and listened. They could see little, the darkness in the forest deep, no hint of the waning daylight filtering through the thick canopy. The attack must have alarmed whatever creatures lived nearby—Kaylina’s and Frayvar’s breathing was the only sound. Conscious of that, she did her best to quiet hers.

“Maybe you are an anrokk,” Frayvar said.

“Because that cat attacked the men?” Kaylina wasn’t as skeptical as she would have been a couple of weeks ago when she’d argued that the taybarri only liked her because she had honey. Too many weird things had happened since then for her to dismiss the possibility that something about her attracted animals. That great cat had looked right at her, a far easier target than the hunters, before springing into the middle of all those armed men and dogs.

“Among other things.”

Kaylina eyed her brother in the dark, but she could barely see him much less consider his expression. She hoped he wasn’t implying anything about Vlerion—and the beast curse. She’d promised Vlerion that she wouldn’t share his secret with Frayvar, but her smart brother figured a lot out for himself.

“I don’t see why, if it’s about blood, I would be an anrokk and you wouldn’t,” she pointed out.

---