“I should thankyou!” I winced as its claws pierced his flesh. The green shirt was rapidly darkening with blood. I cast about for a better weapon than a pile of leaves—a rock, a fallen branch, anything.
Several other spider wolves were lying prone and bloodied nearby, most of them pincushioned with arrows. Two more masked men in green backed toward me, one with a sword at the ready and one with an arrow nocked in a bow. Both were as redheaded as my rescuer. Between the masks and the hair, I was having difficulty telling them apart. The swordsman walkedwith a slight limp. One leg of his breeches was streaked with fresh blood at the knee.
I picked up the biggest stick I could find. The remaining spider wolves—more than I would have liked—prowled in a wide circle around us, weaving between the trees. They slunk low, crawling in twitchy fits and starts in their unsettling insectile way.
“What are they doing?” I asked.
“Keekin’ at us till we bolt,” said the one with the bow.
“I’m sorry, what?”
“They’re waiting for us to break and run,” explained the one with the bloody knee. “We’ll be easier to pick off that way. We’ve seen them do this before.”
I bit my lower lip in worry. That wasn’t promising. It might mean the creatures were as intelligent as they were vicious.
Sam dropped the spider wolf he’d been throttling and joined our small group. “Where’s Harry?” he asked, his eyes on the circling monsters.
“He’s aff tae git th’ ithers,” his bow-wielding friend replied. “They’ll turn up soon. Mibbie.”
“No matter how fast he runs,” Sam said, “it’ll take too much time.”
“Do you have a weapon?” I asked, prepared to offer the stick I held clenched in my shaking hands. He was likely to do more good with it than I would.
He shook his head. “No. But I’m brilliant with my fists.”
“If you’re sure.” I was dubious. He was clearly strong—inhumanly strong if he was able to wrestle these monsters and win—but he wasn’t invulnerable. I glanced at his shredded, bloodied shirt, wondering how much longer he could last.
One of the spider wolves ventured closer and was nearly beheaded for its trouble when the swordsman took a swing at it. It retreated, growling.
“Should we try to pick off a few?” Bloody Knee asked, dropping into a readied stance.
The bowman—Clem if I’d heard right—grimaced. “If they git crabbit enough, they’ll a’ charge in at wance.”
“Maybe so,” Bloody Knee said. “But they’re going to do that soon either way.”
Sam turned to me. “Can you even the odds? That piece of wood—what can you do with it?”
“Hit them on the head?” I said, puzzled.
“Could you maybe…turn it into an enchanted spear?” he asked. “Or make it fly and fight on its own? Or transform it into a wooden man, with mighty oaken fists?”
I took a half step back in sheer surprise. The answers were, in order: no, definitely not, and maybe—if I had a year’s time and a lot more luck animating plant matter than I’d ever had before. I narrowed my eyes. “What makes you think I can do any of that?”
“You’re a sorceress, aren’t you?”
I was about to reply that I wasn’t a very good sorceress and ask how he knew I was a sorceress in the first place when I was cut off by the twanging of a bow. Another of the beasts had prowled closer. Clem’s arrow had pierced its vitals before I’d noticed it was coming.
Who were these people?
Clem took no more than a moment to survey his work. “Sam,” he said, “she cannae dae it. She’s nae th’ princess.”
“Of course she is,” Sam argued back. “Who else could she be?”
“Princesses dinnae travel alone, oan foot, wi’ thair locks a’ in a fankle.”
I wasn’t sure what a fankle was, but I didn’t think he was giving my hair a compliment. “I’ve been on the road a long time,” I muttered. “And it’s been a very hard day.”
“We can figure out who she is later,” Bloody Knee said tightly.“Although if she’s the savior who’s supposed to rescue Tailliz from peril, I’m guessing she’d have done more than throw a few wet leaves.”
