Allowing my wolfish nature to enter my voice for the first time, I growl a command. “Yield, and take me to your chieftain!”
I’m certain he isn’t going to comply. I’m compressing his throat too hard for him to speak, but he gives no sign of yielding. If he intended to give in, he would have let his body weight drop already.
Worse, the sapphire glow around him is growing stronger, a dangerous sign that he’s going to choose to burn out his light.
“Don’t do it,” I warn him, my grip tightening even further, enough to knock him unconscious if I have to. “Don’t fucking do it!”
A loud voice shouts from the side of the clearing. “Son! You willnotjoin the Vandawolf’s father before I do.”
I don’t know who the newcomer is—and it’s difficult to see him because he has cleverly chosen to stand right at the corner of my vision—but he clearly has authority.
Those men who are still standing all shuffle backward as the newcomer approaches, finally stepping into view.
He has startlingly blue eyes and hints of gray hair at his temples, although he can’t be more than forty years old.
He doesn’t carry a weapon, and his hands are turned palms-up in a sign of peace.
He keeps his eyes on me. “Vandawolf, if you wanted to kill my son, you would have done so already. Just as you would have killed every other man here. Yet you have not. This tells me you are here for reasons other than revenge, and I’m curious as to what they could be.”
He inclines his head at the man I’m subduing. “That is my son, Eyolf. It would be a great honor for him to be killed by you, but it would be an insult to me if he were to meet your father in the Hall of Warriors before I could.”
At that, the fight drains out of Eyolf, and the threatening sapphire light disperses from around him.
I release him immediately, stepping back from both men.
Eyolf jumps to his feet. It must be taking everything he’s got not to press his hand to his lacerated throat, but he raises himself upright and glares back at me.
“It is an honor to fight the Vandawolf,” the chieftain announces to his clan before he turns to me and lowers his voice. “Do you know my name, Vandawolf?”
“No,” I say honestly.
I suspect that he was the man who challenged my father in the fight that led to our departure from this clan. But I don’t know that man’s name.
“Pity,” he replies without enlightening me. “This way. We will talk.”
I glance back at the warriors before following him, taking a quick look at the carnage I’m leaving behind.
Damn, I may not have succeeded in mydon’t maimgoal.
But nobody has any limbs missing, only badly broken bones, and I’m certain they will be able to heal themselves with their deep light.
As the groans behind me fade, a hush seems to fall around the village again. I follow the chieftain along the path to the main hall—a longhouse similar to the one my father built on the mountain.
Despite the way the other buildings appear shuttered, I make out the turrets in the roofs from which arrows are pointed my way.
“Your timing has placed me in a dilemma,” the chieftain says as we reach the door to the longhouse. “I would not dishonor you by making you speak with me out here in the cold. Yet inside my home are two of the most important people to me in this world. My son took it upon himself to defend them, and I’m proud of him for doing so.”
The chieftain pushes the door open and I’m met by the spilling warmth of a hearth fire and the scent of herbs, along with the aroma of a cooked meal that makes me aware of how empty my stomach is.
“You’ve met my son,” the chieftain says. “Now, you will meet my newborn daughter.”
He gestures me inside first, which is an overly trusting action for him to take if I were intending to attack his family.
Up ahead, a woman sits on the hearth rug, a baby swaddled in a sling that wraps across her right shoulder, leaving her arms free. It’s difficult to predict how tall she is while she’s sitting down, but she has lustrous, hazel eyes while masses of wavy, dark-brown hair frame her shoulders.
She appears far more relaxed than I was expecting, taking a look at me before returning her attention to her baby.
I very slowly unclip my harness at the door, leaving my sword within its sheath and placing it against the wall. “I’m not here to harm you.”
