Timothy shakes his head. “Every predator in the Eldergrove is looking for you. I think I’ll take my chances with?—”
His refusal transforms into a blood-curdling scream as a báshound bursts through the trees and snaps its jaws around his leg, knocking him to the ground. It rakes a clawed paw acrosshis stomach, then dips its head down, eating him as he bats uselessly against its snout.
I clap a hand over my mouth, and Aowen pulls us up behind the trees on the other bank. I squint, noticing something on the opposite side.
“Wait,” I whisper-shout. “Wait!”
She snarls, but stops pulling.
“Look.” I point toward the underbrush where a pair of glowing green eyes watches the báshound devour poor Timothy Hopnell. A meal is a meal, apparently. Even in the midst of a hunt for a different quarry.
I take a step backward and?—
Snap.
The báshound’s head whips over its shoulder. It’s Anguis again—no scar. His hairless muzzle is coated with blood, and viscera dangles between his enormous teeth.
I choke back an urge to vomit as Anguis burbles a warning growl, scanning for us. His mist-and-ink eyes land on me with the force of a physical blow. The bellowing roar he unleashes shakes the trees, the stones, the very ground beneath my feet.
Aowen grapples at my shoulders, stutteringrun run runover and over, like her brain is caught in a petrified loop.
The báshound crouches backward, poised to spring for us, and my stupor breaks.
His massive paws crash down on our side of the bank as I turn Aowen around and shove her in the back.
We barrel around thin white trunks, leap over fallen branches and slip on wet leaves, but even in the harsh daylight, the woods are full of unseen obstacles and we fall at least four times and the báshound snarls behind us and his hammering footfalls are growing so close that I swear I can feel the heat of his breath on my?—
An enormous shadow bursts through the trees. I scream and pull Aowen to the ground.
Skadi soars over us, then slams into Anguis’s side, throwing him across a clearing into a stiff birch.
A figure leaps down from Skadi’s back, and my heart catches in my throat.
Lachlan.
He’s the brightest object beneath the dappled green canopy, his white armour gleaming as he prowls toward the báshound and arcs the tip of his sword through the air.
Skadi stalks behind him, her tongue lolling out of her panting, skeletal mouth. Rotted flesh flakes from her chest, and the bared, sinewy muscles of her right flank bunch and flex as she walks.
Anguis pushes himself up, shaking off leaves and twigs, then snarls at his advancing enemies.
I can barely watch, hands flat on my face, peeking through spread fingers as a vicious battle breaks out. Blood and fur flies, jaws snap, and metal thunks into flesh.
I train my gaze on the blur of white, Lachlan dancing through the fray, stabbing and slicing with such precision it’s like he’s choreographed the entire fight. Aowen is as transfixed as I am.
Soon, Anguis is a swaying, snapping mess of dark red wounds against wrinkled grey skin. He releases a pitiful wail, collapsing to the forest floor as his misty eyes slip closed.
Lachlan plunges the tip of his sword into the dirt, then leans down on the pommel, sucking in heaving breaths. Skadi comes over, bumping him with her two-toned snout as he scratches behind her good ear. There’s a slash on his neck, blood seeping beneath his chest plate. Another crimson bloom seeps through the mail at his ribs.
I want to comfort him. Hold him and clean him and bandage his wounds.
But my wants stopped mattering the second the last blast of the Bannrhorn faded. Maybe even sooner than that.
Aowen does not share my hesitations; she runs over to Lachlan and wraps him in a deep hug that spikes my envy so high, my eyes sting.
Next to them, Skadi rolls onto her back, her bony paws flicking through the air. Aowen laughs, then crouches down to pet her belly.
My eyes collide with Lachlan’s and the rest of the world falls away.
