Page 153 of Dragon Slayer

Cicero yelped, and whirled, dropped his sword, and shifted.

“No!” Vlad shouted, but it was too late, and the two wolves fell to the ground in a seething, growling tangle. Impossible to attack without hurting or killing his own Familiar.

Footsteps.

Vlad spun, muscles bunched, ready. “Stay on your feet!” he called to Fenrir. “That axe will do far more damage than your fangs.”

Fen chuckled, and the axe sang as he twirled it expertly; Vlad could feel the breeze it made as the edge sliced through the air. “Don’t you worry, young prince. I can keep my wits about me.”

Vlad snorted. “When have you ever?”

And then a man stood up, just on the other side of the hedge.

Vlad had an impression of dark, snarled hair, a dirty face, and a strong body clothed in rags. Then Fenrir roared and leaped at him, axe already swinging.

Strong, but fast, it turned out; the strange wolf danced back, and Fen gave chase, laughing wildly.

“Crazy fool,” Vlad muttered, and turned, knowing what would happen now.

It did, predictably.

Vlad sensed him, scented him, before he’d gone a quarter of a revolution, and he blocked the swing of his opponent’s sword with his own. The blades came together with a shining sound like the ringing of a bell.

The third wolf was broad, and tangled, and dirt-smeared, but his moth-eaten clothes were finer. A uniform, one from an age Vlad didn’t recognize right away. Slavic bone structure, and fixed, sightless eyes. A puppet.

That didn’t mean he couldn’t fight, though.

Vlad spun, and ducked, angled his next swing at the wolf’s wrist, wanting to take off his sword hand.

The wolf parried, and then advanced.

Vlad met him, and looked for his next opening.

He could still hear Cicero tussling with the wolf who’d bitten him; heard Fenrir shouting, too loud, determined to wake the whole palace, apparently. But his focus narrowed to his own fight, to his footwork, and the strength of his arms, and on everything every sword master had taught him in his seventeen years.

He blocked, and parried, and he kept stepping back, retreating beneath his larger opponent’s swings. He clenched his teeth and snarled, hands white-knuckled on his sword, fingers numb with the effort. Relentless, emotionless, the wolf kept attacking.

What if he lost?

The idea formed as his boots skidded on pebbles and his sweat-slick grip shifted. All his training, all his hatred, all his big talk of savagery and revenge – what if that all boiled down to this moment, here and now? He was still young, still untested on the battlefield. And he was a vampire, yes, but this was a wolf, and a wolf would know how to kill a vampire.

Just like he’d known how to kill Father…

An image filled his mind: Father held down. The knife. The blood…rivers of it.

He heard another yelp. Cicero.

If he and the family wolves died here, now, Val would be the only one left. A sultan’s plaything, but alive. Which was worse? He–

He caught the scent the same time his opponent did.

No, Val wouldn’t be the last one.

His opponent reared back, surprised, but not quickly enough.

A flash, as Eira drove her sword between two of the wolf’s ribs. A sound like a sigh; she’d punctured his lung.

With one hard swing, Vlad took the creature’s sword arm off just above the wrist; his blade clattered to the ground. And then Vlad ran him through, a clean stab, right into the heart. The body shuddered, and toppled. Vlad held his sword tight, and it pulled out as the wolf fell back, a gush of blood and gore following.

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