Page 87 of With Fangs and Claws (The Wolf Queen 1)

Chapter 36

“Go with them,” I told the children. Her name was Jan and his was Del and they weren’t keen on the idea at all. I’d led them out of the garden, then hurried past the devastation in the house to bring them over to my horse and the rest of the men. “These are my mates. They are princes, sons of the king, sent here to help.”

“Like the fairy tales?” Jan asked in a small voice.

“Just like the fairy tales,” I replied.

“Hello to you, young warrior,” Dane said, thrusting out his hand for Del to take. The boy clasped arms, his fingers going white in an attempt to make a good show of it, to prove his strength. “You saved your sister.”

Del blinked then, his face locking down into a harsh scowl, a look which I knew well. When you needed to cry more than your next breath, but you didn’t dare do so, so you screwed your face up tight as a result.

“We’ll work out what happened here,” Weyland said, crouching down to his level. “But while my brothers do that, how about we get the two of you some food and water and then you can tell me a little bit about what you saw?”

Del looked at me, searching my face, as if I was the authority here.

“Weyland is a good man, and he always has the best snacks. Make sure he gives you some of those smoked almonds he has in his pockets,” I said.

“My smoked almond stash?” Weyland said, pretending to be offended. “Oh well, I guess I can share.” He pulled some out and then offered them to the children, each one trying a single almond, then, at the taste of them, going back for more.

“Darcy, you need to stay here,” Dane said, as the rest of us faced the wreckage of the village.

“No, I really don’t.” I replied, already questing forward. Whatever… sense had me finding the children, it was still twitching inside me. “Axe will come with me. He can take down anything that tries to hurt me.”

“Gladly, lass,” he said, hefting his axe.

And at that, I didn’t bother with my weapons. Somehow, I knew with him at my back that was all I needed. The next house was a burned-out ruin and I was ready to dismiss it when we heard a small faint moan. I crept over the sooty ruins, the remains of furniture still smouldering, the heat coming through the soles of my boot as I went. Roof trusses had collapsed everywhere, and I was forced to test my new strength, setting my shoulder to one and lifting it, before Axe came along and tossed it aside like a child’s toy.

“It’s… coming from the cellar?” he said and then the two of us worked as one. Tossing chunks of wood and warped metal to one side, some making my skin ache at the heat of them, but work we did, until finally we pulled back the trapdoor we found underneath. Several women quailed back at the sight of us, but a brave one dared to take a look and it seemed the fact I was a woman was somehow reassuring for her. When she moved closer to the bottom of the steps leading down, so did the others and it was then we saw there were three women and a baby that one was desperately trying to shush.

“You’re… You’re not Reavers?”

“What the hell is a Reaver?” I asked Axe over my shoulder.

“A myth,” he said with a frown. “Something I thought mothers used to scare their children straight.” He reached out a hand and helped each woman up and into the ruined house, one of the women’s hands going to her face when she saw the state of it.

“Oh my…” Her voice was little more than a breath, yet it was a pained one. “John? John!”

“They came like a wave,” another woman said, her eyes empty and staring and I knew then exactly what she saw. “A pack of wolves the like of which I’ve never seen.”

“Wolves, wolves, as far as the eye could see,” we both said and then she frowned at me.

“You’ve seen them?” she asked me. “We told ourselves it was the king’s men, but no man from the city has ever done what they did. They rode in here and…”

Her voice cracked and then stopped altogether, the last woman rushing to her and wrapping an arm around her.

“They weren’t two-souled,” she said as she consoled the other woman, then her mouth twisted in fury. “They were berserkers. They tore through here, killing and maiming everything they came across and even that wasn’t enough. Covered in our blood, they set the houses and the fields alight. Smashed everything they could and gutted our animals, leaving them to die in the paddocks. They destroyed… everything.”

She blinked, as if it was all finally sinking in.

“My Bill, he told us to hide down in the root cellar and not make a sound. Heather’s wee babe was starting to fuss and we had to keep him quiet. She kept him nursing the whole time, too scared to let him off the breast for fear of making a noise. Then we heard the house collapsing and Bill…”

“We’ve come from the capital,” I said hurriedly. “This is Prince Axe and his brothers have come to see what has happened here.”

“Princes?” The woman seemed stricken by that, smoothing her hands over her pinafore.

“What good would a prince do?” one of the other women said. “We sent word to the steward at his lordship’s estate when the attack began but…”

“No one came, until it was too late,” the woman with the baby said flatly. “My Zed, gone. Everyone and everything, gone. How will we get through the winter? How will I look after my baby?”

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