Reven snarled and darted away from a pair of glinting spears. He was being pushed farther and farther from his goal. The man with the lumpy face and the crooked, bleeding nose had already recovered. He’d reset his own nose without so much as a whimper, and the blood had by now stopped flowing out between his fingers. Now that man joined the festering masses of humans chasing Reven and his pack deeper into the forest.
They were outnumbered ten to one. Two packs had joined the battle, Reven’s and their sister pack, but now that they’d lost the element of surprise, they were losing ground fast. Tortured howls and whimpers made Reven’s blood boil with rage. His pack was dying, and if he didn’t do something soon, they’d all be dead. As their alpha, they would follow him even if it meant their deaths. It was a matter of honor. It was up to Reven to retreat or stay and fight. He knew that now the wise thing would be to retreat, but every time he caught a whiff of his mate’s fur mingled with the sweaty stench of human fear, a fresh snarl tore past trembling lips and he renewed his attacks.
Without warning, Reven leapt over the hunters before him and landed behind them. With a mighty swipe of his claws, he almost decapitated one man and sent another stumbling backward as his dead comrade fell upon him. Reven whirled around, his claws dripping with blood, and found the lumpy-faced man. He bounded toward the miserable human on all fours. Why hadn’t he ripped the man’s throat out when he’d had the chance?
But he knew why. He wanted revenge. He wanted the man to suffer. Reven saw the man’s spear drop to eye level, and that man gave a toothy grin. Reven’s green eyes narrowed in concentration. When he was almost an arms’ length from the gleaming point of that spear, Reven launched himself straight up with all his might. He flew high above the spear and the man holding it and landed on a tree branch overhead. His landing knocked a giant icicle loose which clipped the lumpy-faced man on his shoulder as it fell. The man wobbled uncertainly on his feet, momentarily set off balance by the impact.
Reven saw this as his opportunity and he dropped straight down from the branch. He landed on the man’s back. Barely managing to restrain himself, he clawed the man’s neck and mauled his head, still trying not to kill, only to injure grievously.
The man screamed horribly, and Reven dug his claws in deeper. Suddenly the man’s screams died with a gurgle. Reven released him with disgust and tossed him to the ground. He wrestled his mate’s pelt off the corpse; then he saw the foul human bloodstains marring her lustrous blue fur, and he threw his head back and howled. Furious, he picked up the man’s corpse in his jaws and tossed it with all his might into the still raging battle. He watched with dismay as the corpse fell heavily on an unsuspecting member of his pack. Gregerr fell beneath the sudden weight with a barely discernible grunt of surprise. He shook it off with surprising speed, but the midget of a man standing before him aimed a strange black stick at him, and then the air was suddenly rent with a loud screech and a bright red flash of light. The light connected with Gregerr’s body, briefly illuminating his furry gray bulk. Reven watched in horror as his packmate’s front leg flew off in a spray of blood and fur. Gregerr collapsed with a horrid howl, and then came another sickening screech and flash of light, and the howl was cut off abruptly as Gregerr’s head became a smoking ruin of melted flesh and bone.
Reven howled in outrage and bounded toward the puny man. His green eyes narrowed in on the kill. His jaws slavered with anticipation. The man was still gazing at the Gregerr’s smoking remains, oblivious and gloating over his kill, when Reven snarled and pounced. Suddenly that man spun toward him, his stick raised to defend himself, but it was too late.
* * *
Aurelius frowned miserably at the gruesome remains of the wolf. Yes, the beast had tried to kill him, but it seemed cruel to have slain the monster so unfairly, with a weapon so much more powerful than any that creature might have faced before. Seeing the smoking ruin of the beast’s mighty head and smelling the stench of burnt fur and meat was making him dizzy with nausea.
He heard a sudden snarl and Aurelius spun away from the dead monster only to find himself face to face with another one. This one was different—larger, its fur an inky black, its eyes a wild and burning green—and it was headed straight for him. He raised his pistol for another shot and pulled the trigger, but a sullen click sounded from the weapon, reminding him that he’d overheated it by firing two maximum power shots back to back. It would be minutes before it was ready to fire again.
Aurelius felt a stab of dread and then watched, helpless, with a sense of numb, disbelieving terror as the wolf pounced. He’d expected to face his death some day in front of a Dominion firing squad or perhaps in a roiling explosion in the middle of deep space, but not like this, not torn apart and eaten by a monster he couldn’t have imagined in his worst nightmares. . . .
He closed his eyes and waited to feel the searing stab of pain as his throat was torn out by teeth as long as his fingers.
But nothing happened.
He heard vicious snarling in his ears, but felt no pain. Confused, Aurelius opened his eyes and saw the wolf’s mighty jaws snapping impotently at the air bare inches from his nose. He jerked back with a sudden fright and saw Gabrian advancing on the creature, his staff outstretched, its focusing crystal glowing an icy blue. The old man’s lips were moving, but Aurelius couldn’t hear what he was saying over the wolf’s snarls. When Aurelius looked back at the wolf, he saw that the monster’s feet were kicking uselessly in the air as it hovered several feet above the ground. He blinked stupidly at the impossible sight, though he should have known better by now than to consider anything in this strange world
impossible
.
Gabrian came to his side and set a hand upon the wolf’s mighty shoulders. The wolf turned its slavering fangs on him, trying desperately to reach his arm. Yet even as it stretched its neck to the limit, Gabrian’s wrinkled flesh was just a few inches out of reach. Aurelius marveled that the old man could be so calm with the wolf so close to reaching him.
“Do you hate us, wolf?” Gabrian said, with a mocking lilt to his voice.
Aurelius smirked in spite of the situation. That the creature hated them was obvious, though it seemed ridiculous for Gabrian to ask it as though it could understand.
“We are not the ones who slew your mate.” The wolf stopped snapping its jaws and turned to glare at Gabrian intensely.
Aurelius frowned as he realized that the old man was somehow able to read the wolf’s thoughts. But how was that possible? Were wolves even capable of complex thoughts and emotions?
“Those men,” Gabrian gestured vaguely over his shoulder with his glowing staff, “are the ones you hate, but now is not the time for revenge. Bide your time and let your hatred grow as you watch as your brothers and sisters slaughtered before your eyes.”
Aurelius gaped at Gabrian, hoping desperately that the wolf couldn’t understand what he’d just said. That hope was abruptly shattered as the wolf’s bared its teeth in a furious snarl. Flecks of blood and saliva sprayed from the beast’s jaws. Aurelius felt droplets of moisture landing hotly on his face and watched with disgust as Gabrian met the barrage with a blissful smile, as though he took some perverse pleasure in the wolf’s ragged fury. After just a few seconds he turned away from the beast and wrapped an arm around Aurelius’s shoulder to guide him away.
“Come, let us watch the rest of the battle from a safe distance.”
Aurelius felt a sick kind of horror crawling around in his belly as he trudged across the bloody, dirty snow. The fluorescent lichen lit the scene in concealing shades of blue and green, so the crimson stains appeared only as dark patches upon the snow.
He and Gabrian stopped when they reached a massive tree and turned to watch the battle with a knobby root guarding their backs. Aurelius found his eyes skipping between the wolves still fighting for their lives and the massive, shuddering black monster watching the battle impotently to one side. The men had reformed into half a dozen smaller phalanxes, presenting impenetrable walls of steel to the remaining wolves. Those few wolves circled the formations restlessly until they grew impatient and pounced with random fury. There was no strategy or synchrony to their attacks, and with every wolf that pounced there came a stab and thud of steel against flesh, followed by a sharp squeal of pain or a strangled whimper. With every death and cry of animal pain, the black wolf—still frozen and hovering in the air—howled raggedly, sending chills down Aurelius’s spine. He felt horrible and shot Gabrian an accusing glare. The old man returned his look with a smug grin.
“How can you be so cruel?”
The old man raised his bushy gray eyebrows. “Cruel?”
“You left him there to watch his pack die.”
“Yes.”
“And you don’t see how that’s cruel?”
“Would it be better to let him die?” A bright flash of light caught Aurelius’s eye and Gabrian pointed to it. “Look.”
Aurelius followed Gabrian’s crooked finger to where a giant man stood gaping at the black wolf hovering above the ground, his spear lying shattered at the wolf’s feet. Even as they watched, the man snapped out of his disbelief, drew his sword and raised it over his head for a mighty two-handed swing. Aurelius grimaced as the sword came down on the wolf’s neck.
Another flash of light came, accompanied by a ringing shriek of metal as the sword shattered into a thousand jagged shards. A few of the shards caught the man in the throat and blood began gushing from his neck. He stumbled backward a few steps, dropping the useless hilt of his sword, and clutching both hands to his neck as though he couldn’t breathe. He fell backward with a soundless thud and lay twitching on the ground. The wolf glared at the man until he lay still.
“You’re protecting him?” Aurelius asked. “Why?”
“We need him.”
“For what?”
Gabrian turned to him with inky black eyes glowing green beneath the lichen overhead. “You will see.”
Aurelius frowned and looked away. The sounds of battle were fading. Here a stifled whimper broke the silence, there a shuffle of armor, and everywhere the crunch of booted feet. The whimper was silenced with a thud, and the mighty black wolf let loose a long, mournful howl. There were no more of his kind circling among the ranks of men. The ground was littered with bodies; more than fifty men and half as many wolves lay in broken, bloody heaps. The giant black wolf’s howling went on almost endlessly, and finally a man raised his voice.
“Silence that beast! It’s going to bring every wolf in this forest down upon us!”
A group of men split away from their phalanx to regard the impossibly hovering wolf. One of them tried experimentally poking the wolf in his ribs with his spear, but his arm bounced back with another flash of light. Gabrian came forward from the shadows, and the men turned to glare at him as he approached.
The man who’d jabbed the wolf with his spear eyed Gabrian’s staff a moment and then said, “This is your doing, sorcerer. Release the wolf so we may kill him.”
“No.”
“No?” a familiar voice boomed out behind them. Aurelius turned to look and saw the chieftain and an entire phalanx standing there. “Pray tell why not,
dear
wizard.”
Gabrian spun slowly around. “I wish to trade. His life, for that of Marcus Thescapian, the sorcerer who earlier bested one of your men in an honor duel.”
The chieftain’s upper lip twisted in contempt. “The cowardly champion? What business have you with him?”
“My business is my own.”
“Very well.” Turning to one of his men, he said, “Let the sorcerers settle their differences among themselves. Bring me the one who calls himself Marcus Thescapian.”
The man hesitated. “Your pardon, my lord, but he was part of my phalanx, and we have not seen him since we entered the forest. He left the formation without a word, and we thought it best to let him.”