“Pretty sure you’d all rather starve than be alone together,” Rhonin says. “I can go in someone’s place, if you want. I’m no hunter, but these hands can kill just about anything if I can get close enough.”
“A Great Horn might be a challenge even for you, my friend,” I tell him. Quickly, I check the knives at my hips and the quiver across my back, and I drape the rope that ties four water flasks together across Mannus’s back. “Besides, there are more people to consider than ourselves. The three of us will survive.” I glance at my companions as Rhonin gives me his bow. “Won’t we?”
Joran’s only response is a huff of breath as he mounts his horse, cocks a silvery brow, and rides into the mist toward the tree line, leaving me and Finn to follow.
Half an hour later, guided by the frail light of dawn, we creep through the Gravenna Forest. Quietly, we fill the group’s flasks with fresh water from a spring, tie the horses, then Finn and I follow Joran as he takes the lead.
He weaves through the tall pine trees, soundless as a shadow. The mist looms, but it’s thin enough to see the forest floor. With a sharp eye, Joran studies the ground for tracks, droppings, and beds, eyeing the massive pines and cedars for rubs and nearby ground scrapes. He’s doing everything right, but I’m still not convinced this arrangement is best. To my knowledge, he’s never been this far south, and though he might be a talented bowyer, Gravenna territory is a stranger, its beasts foreign. Great Horns are different animals from the deer of the North, something I explained earlier only for him to turn his ear. They’re carnivorous and fast, a herd of predators that will take down anything that moves. Their heads are armed with a crown of antlers made to gore, their mouths loaded with two rows of razor-sharp teeth for ripping apart meat. This is their home. In this forest, we are the prey.
And yet Joran stalks onward with no fear, as though he designed this wood and its every inhabitant himself.
Finally, we hear water and move toward the sound, slipping across the wide stream, from rock to rock. Once we reach the other side, Joran points to what we all knew we’d find if we located a water source: a trail, worn and covered in hoof prints, a path traveled often. Not because the Great Horn doesn’t know that using the same trail is a giveaway to where they nest, but because they don’t care. They do not fear the humans that enter this wood.
The Icelander starts forward again, walking parallel to the path. And again, Finn and I follow with me bringing up the rear. We move on for a long while as the gray morning light turns the shade of a bruise. There are ten to fifteen paces between each of us, our steps careful and quiet as we duck under low-hanging boughs and lunge over fallen limbs. If we catch the beasts sleeping, we’ll have a slight advantage. Great Horns know how to protect themselves, and if they sense us in the least, we could already be walking into a trap.
Joran takes a left turn behind a giant boulder, still following the curve of the herd’s path. When I round the rock, I find Finn and the Icelander standing stock still, except Joran stands about thirty strides ahead, face to face with an enormous Great Horn.
And nine more beasts waiting behind it.
Finn reaches for an arrow, but I grab his wrist. These ten animals could be a distraction. I can feel more, can see their shapes taking form in the surrounding mist lurking between the trees. Watching. Closing in. Salivating.
Finn jerks from my grasp. “Don’t fucking touch me, you bastard.”
My blood rises. “If they attack us because of you, I’m letting you die this time, you little shit.”
So much for working past our differences.
A rough wind rushes through the wood, twisting around trees, whistling over the forest floor, rustling leaves. That wind is cold. Stinging cold. Like a northern wind. One we shouldn’t feel this far south. I glance down, only to spot a dusting of frost around me.
Neri. That bastard is still following us.
I scan the wood once more, searching for any sign of the northern god’s spirit, but there is none. Not even the usual tingle of awareness that drips down my spine when he’s near.
I summon energy from the wood, earth, and rising sun, as some of the Great Horns bristle and snort, bearing their teeth and pawing the ground as though they sense something wrong in the air too, other than our presence.
Power tingles in my hands. If these beasts do attack, I’m not certain that I can stop them all without harming Joran and Finn too.
Another wind blows, hard enough that Finn leans with the force of it, but after a few moments, the strangest thing happens. The beast standing before Joran turns sideways, standing still and perpendicular to us, vital organs vulnerable.
A second Great Horn moves from the back of the herd and joins the first beast, positioning itself the same way, almost as though volunteering to be an offering.
Joran takes three strides backwards and gives a slight, reverent bow. Before I can do anything to stop him, he whips an arrow free from his quiver, notches it, and lets it fly, the fletching whistling straight toward the first beast’s heart.
The arrow sinks into the leader’s massive body, a perfect, clean shot, and the Great Horn falls. I watch the other animals closely, power crackling in my hands like clenched lightning, waiting for nine Great Horns to rush us with those murderous horns. But instead, when Joran sinks the second arrow into the second beast, the rest of the herd lets out low, vibrating growls that morph into sorrowful groans, as though mourning the loss. The last thing I expect is for the animals to turn and leave, but that’s what they do, vanishing into the trees.
Finn blows out a long breath. “Neri. Raina told me what it was like when he’s near. I felt him, and I prayed to him. And he provided.”
Letting my gathered power dim back into the atmosphere, I look at Finn as though he’s dim. “Neri would never help feed us.”
Though it would explain why two Great Horns offered themselves as a sacrifice rather than burying their antlers in our guts.
“Maybe not you,” Finn says. “I don’t want to put food in your belly either, but I don’t really have a fucking choice since we’re all in this together.”
“Or perhaps you’re both wrong.” Joran unstrings his bow and rests it against a tree. Glaring at us from beneath his heavy brow, he unsheathes his hunting knife and stalks to the felled animals where he kneels, says a quiet prayer, and begins the unmaking of the animal. “Gods rarely do anything that isn’t self-serving, right? This could just be part of his plan.”
“Feeding us?” I join him, roll my sleeves, and begin dressing the second animal.
He opens his beast’s belly. “Keeping you alive so he can strike a deal for help once he gets to the City of Ruin.”
