Page 93 of Blood of Wolves

He turned his horse. “I’m going around the back wall and up the ridge. I need a good vantage point, and the trees will provide cover.”

“But, your grace–”

“Hold the line here until the horn sounds. When the outer wall is breached, fall back to the bailey.” Another earth-shattering boom sounded above them; the horses danced and flung up their heads. “I have to go and go now,” Rune said. “Before it’s too late.”

The snow was deep in the shadowed lee of the palace walls, but the horses, fueled by nerves, plunged along at a quick canter, eating up the distance. Rune’s pulse drummed in his ears, and he could do nothing but lean low over his mount’s withers and send up prayers, again and again, that the gods might somehow watch over his family and his people.

They hugged the wall, and turned left to find the snow shallower, the going easier. Through the trees, amidst a dazzle of sinking sunlight on snow and coastal waters, he glimpsed purple sails, and felt a jolt. Not all of the ships had anchored in the harbor; at least one had continued down the coast, and, somehow, men had managed to scale the steep cliff face and approached the palace on foot from behind, undetected until it was too late.

The postern gate was closed, when they passed. Smoke curled up in faint streamers from the hollow that marked the entrance to the secret tunnels, but Rune could see neither bodies, nor live men, nothing but tracks in the snow. He swallowed with difficulty and steered his horse into the shade of the pines, and headed up the ridge.

It was a low one, narrow, but densely-forested, save the place where a road had been cleared leading north – the same road Erik and Leif and the others had set off down on their way to the festival. The same road Leif and he had led Tessa down on the day of their doomed ride.

Don’t think of that now.

He dodged one branch, felt another flick a scratch across his cheek. Ducked low as his horse vaulted a felled log, just visible beneath a hump of snow.

The trees thinned, and he could see the gap of the road ahead; could hear the din of an army, and all that it entailed.

Another sound reached him, as his horse plunged through a deep bank and down into the road. A shrill scream, high overhead, piercing and inhuman. He’d never heard any hawk or falcon make such a noise, and his horse shied, dancing sideways, trying to unseat him, muscles bunched and ready to bolt.

Rune dragged the gelding’s head around, and looked up, as the other horses weaved and danced around them. The shapes he saw stamped against the deep blue of a late afternoon sky made no sense at all – but were undeniable, all the same. Wings: smooth, and white, scalloped, and translucent. Long, serpent-like bodies, with narrow heads, and tails that swung like rudders, as the three creatures, so high up, banked, and swooped toward the palace.

Drakes. Cold-drakes.

“By the gods,” he breathed.

In response, there came a low, dark growl.

Rune whipped his head around, and came face-to-face with the largest wolf he’d ever seen.

~*~

Tessa floated in a sea of blue. Bright, pearlescent blue. It was cold, but not biting, foreign, but not frightening. A sense of safety touched her. The idea that help was coming, thatfamilywas coming.

What…?

A flash, and the blue became the blue of the afternoon sky, clear and bright; clouds like spun sugar streamed around her, and she saw the palace from high above, its smoking craters, the sprawl of the army in the field. Worry, loss, premature mourning.

The want to protect, to seek out and find, shield.

A boy’s voice, frantic: “…stupid, bloody beast. Why won’t you…”

The view changed, and there wasOliver. A strange, tailed helmet on his head, his shoulders covered with armor. Oliver riding a great whitedragon.

Fight, a voice encouraged in the back of her mind.It’s time to fight, little sister.

Sister?

It feltright, though.

The blue rushed back in, swelling, so bright it hurt.

Flash.

And she sat on a cold, hard floor, while metal chimed above her. Beside her, a lump of golden armor. She startled away from it – from the crumpled Sel – only to realize that she was attached to it. In a way. She still gripped her sword in one hand, the point sunk deep in the gap of his armor, at the inside of his thigh. The blade had hit the big artery there, and blood pooled all around him – and her, shiny over her boots, soaking into the hem of her skirt.

Had – had she done this? Was it even possible?

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