If the harpoon hits him, it will end him.
No!
My left hand flies out into the path of the oncoming harpoon and my right knee slips beneath the Vandawolf’s left shoulder so he doesn’t drop to the ground.
My palm is raised to meet the harpoon’s barbed tip, a defensive move that is pure instinct and defies the weapon’s deadly nature.
The harpoon will tear through my hand before it rips apart my upper body and spears through the Vandawolf’s chest, binding us together before it plants its barb into the rain-soaked earth.
I count my remaining time in this world in the space of a heartbeat, but I can’t regret my actions.
The Vandawolf and I were bound from the moment we first met. Our end should be the same.
The harpoon’s tip hits my hand.
Power blasts from my palm, through the medallion resting against it, and outward into the harpoon.
I sense the rush of energy through my body, down my arm, and into the oncoming metal.
The melodicclangof metal meeting metal rings in my ears as clearly as the sound of my hammer when I forged the iron that made this harpoon and bent it to my will.
It happens so fast that the command I mentally scream doesn’t register within my thoughts until the harpoon transforms in an explosion of movement.
Shield.
The harpoon’s tip wraps around my hand, a wide band folding over the top of the medallion, taking the shape of a handle. At the same time, the harpoon’s shaft bursts outward, as if the metal is water and I stomped my foot into a puddle of it.
Within a blink, it evens out and extends into a shield that stretches all the way up past my face and all the way down to the ground where I kneel. It’s wide enough to cover my width, along with part of the Vandawolf’s body where the metal curves outward.
The impact of the movement jolts me backward through the muck, but my right hand tightens reflexively around the Vandawolf’s shoulder and my leg digs into the ground beneath him, keeping him elevated.
I’m now on one knee in the ash, the metal shield held upward in my left hand.
I gasp for breath, my eyes wide, my heartbeat erratic.
Relief courses through me—along with disbelief—but when I close my eyes for the briefest moment, I sense the tingle of magic within the metal handle I’m now gripping.
I forged the harpoon. I heated the iron in crimson coal and spent hours hammering my power into it before fashioning it into the shaft and barb.
My only explanation is that the metal remembered me.
Another Blacksmith may well have been more successful at setting the metal’s final form into the harpoon’s shape, but it was my first time forging anything.
It seems my inexperience has saved my life.
I don’t second-guess it.
Ramming the shield into the open ground so hard that the metal twangs, I use it to cover my final steps to the monolith, hurriedly catching hold of the Vandawolf’s left shoulder once more and wrenching him behind the stone barrier before the men can get another shot off.
They still have another crossbow bolt, along with the net and chains, but it seems they’re smart enough not to waste them on our disappearing forms. Once fired, they have to come down here to retrieve them.
The giant wolf came to rest in such a position that its front legs and paws are curved in front of it, leaving a wide gap between them, but also forming two thigh-high barriers on each side. Anyone who comes after us will have to travel around the wolf and its front legs to get to us.
In the distance, Braddock gives a frustrated roar, which mingles with the shouts from Nero, Vincent, and the other men.
Pulling the Vandawolf the final steps into the shelter provided by the wolf’s body, I maneuver him carefully onto his right side to keep the bolt from doing any further damage. It’s a difficult task one-handed and I only achieve it by using my knees to keep him elevated.
Finally crouching at his back, I position myself facing outward, just as he is, so I can see any threats coming our way.
