Sorrow's Peak (Serpent of Time Book 2) (20 page)

The smell he’d been advancing on was on the move, broken off and separated into two parts. It was still a couple miles south of him, reachable in no time at a steady run, but he could smell its separation, knew a part of it stayed behind while the other half moved westward, heading toward Lorelei and Brendolowyn.

It was a herd of some type, he told himself, but even he didn’t believe that. Instinct told him he should double back, steer his companions away from whatever marched toward them, but the mad and reckless part of Finn that earned him his name when he was so very young felt challenged.

He wanted to know what it was first, would have felt incredibly stupid if he’d rushed back to find his friends marveling over some animal that could be easily avoided, warded off with magic or ignored. But he didn’t need to see it to know it wasn’t just some animal. It was something with a mind of its own, something filled with harmful intent. He felt the intention almost as clearly as he smelled the stink of sweat on skin, and once more he broke off into a run, racing toward the part of it that stayed behind to see what it was.

Closing in on the shoreline, the wind was sharper. Blowing in off the water, there was a different kind of chill to it, not as sharp or cutting as the frigid winds they’d been enduring for days, but enough to cut through the thickness of his fur so he felt the cold. Even as he ran, the blood pumping furiously through his veins, the heat of his breath escaping in long puffs of hoary steam, the chill he felt took on a new sensation.

It mingled with the prickling stab of intuition still tingling along his spine.

Fear.

He was closing in on something dangerous, and even as it hadn’t sensed his coming, when it did finally realize he approached it would stand to face him with a vengeance unlike any he’d ever met with in an enemy before. Skidding to a halt, he lingered behind a wiry, barren bush sprouted among the rustling grasses that lined the shore. The sound of the ocean was fierce in his ears, its smell almost so overwhelming it took him a moment to hone in on the thing that brought him to that place. Sharp eyes scanning the craggy shoreline, he spotted something out of place.

Nestled beside a tall stone jutting from the sea was a narrow, four-oar boat guarded by a single being with his sights set out to sea. Black hair in a greasy, braided knot hung down its broad, bare back. Its skin was a dull, caesious color, more green than grey, that stood out against the black leather pauldron spiked across its wide shoulders.

The wolf searched its mind for memory of such a creature, finally settling on the only one that seemed to make sense.

Orc.

Finn sniffed the air again, leaning forward and narrowing eyes at the solitary figure guarding the boat. He’d never smelled an orc before, never seen one outside the crudely drawn pictures in books his brother kept on the shelf in his study. Slave-traders by nature, the U’lfer before his father’s time, before the War of Silence, often sold the women and children from the villages they raided to orc traders. Unfortunately, many of the images in those logs weren’t highly detailed.

Still, he knew what the thing standing in front of him was. He’d just always imagined orcs to be smaller, an only slightly larger, potentially cleverer version of goblins.

But the threat standing just a few feet from where Finn lingered behind the sparse cover of tall, dry grass and barren branch, was nothing like a goblin. Tall, well-muscled. The axes dangling from its belt looked as though they’d tasted plenty of blood in battle. A warrior the likes of which Finn had never seen.

Not that he was scared. Mad Finn feared nothing, but there was a moment when he found himself torn between attacking and retreating. The party that broke off from the guardian by their boat hadn’t been a large one, perhaps two, maybe three at most, but they were headed straight toward Lorelei and the mage.

On the other hand, if he left the boat guard, racing back to see to the safety of his mate, he would only have to face it again later.

It was better to act now, to remove a potential threat before it became an actual force.

Breath snorted through his nostrils, the sound perking the sharpened, twisted ears of the enemy by the shore. Before he even had a chance to turn around, Finn darted from the grass and charged forward. Startled by the sudden appearance of an unexpected enemy, the orc pivoted slowly. Both hands reaching for the twin axes dangling from his belt, he gripped and wrenched them free with a fierce, throaty growl Finn didn’t have time to take notice of. He dove, throwing all of his weight at the monstrous creature. The element of surprise was in his favor.

The enemy was still reaching when Finn tackled, the force of his body driving the orc backward into the water. The orc didn’t lose balance, the thick trunks of his legs firmly keeping him upright, but the reach for his weapons was interrupted and as gravity began to draw Finn back to the sloshing, icy water below, he dug the claws of his front paws into its bare chest and wrenched downward.

Blood flooded to the surface of his pale green skin, rushing down the rippled muscles of his stomach and dripping with chunks of torn flesh into the water just seconds before Finn himself touched ground with a splash. Rising to his full height, even in beast form the orc was taller than he was, broader of chest and thicker around the waist. Finn never considered himself lithe; he moved in battle with purpose comparable to a battering ram, but against this new enemy he needed to be quick.

The orc gripped his axes, the dulled iron blades glinting briefly in the pale silver light of the midday sun as they lifted to cross and block on instinct. For the first time since he turned around, Finn got a good look at his face. Wide-jawed, he had two tusk-like teeth driving upward, edging over his upper-lip, not unlike a boar. He growled, snarling a taunt through flecks of spittle Finn barely understood because the words were rough, guttural and jumbled.

Hunkered down, one long arm draped between bent knees, Finn stared up at his enemy, watched large, black eyes widen just seconds before he nodded his head upward in taunt and snarled again.

“Come on!” He battered a forearm against his thick chest, blood flecking in a spray from the wound Finn dealt him.

Arms shot out, uncurling axes and brandishing them in an arc that forced Finn back two steps, his spine stretching his body away from their dangerous reach. In a fluid movement, he shot one leg out, foot connecting with the center of the orc’s thigh. There was enough force behind that kick to stagger the balance of his foe, who lifted his other leg and unexpectedly moved forward with a raging roar. The pivotal, movement loosened the orc’s footing enough that he wavered, foot slipping on the sinking sand beneath it.

A great splash of water followed, rising between them like an icy curtain. In a moment of disarray, Finn charged forward again while his enemy’s arms wavered in an attempt to hold his position. He failed. Finn’s heavy body launched into his exposed chest. Sharp claws sliced across thick throat, digging deep and widening the orc’s eyes in surprise. One ax dropped into the water, the other came swinging inward. The blade struck Finn across the shoulder, jolting him enough to expose the closed fist rising on his right. He dropped before it connected, barreling into the trunk-like midsection and temporarily stealing the orc’s breath.

The pain fueled his building rage. Coupled with thoughts of Lorelei in danger, he saw only red as the fury reached its pinnacle.

Throwing every bit of his weight into the movement, he rolled forward with his arms clenched tight around its thick waste, sending the orc flailing backward into the water behind it. The beast followed through, pressing his body down hard to hold his thrashing enemy under.

The orc was strong. Stronger than any foe he’d ever faced before.

Determined and motivated by his own surprise as he railed arms and kicked legs to try and throw the wolf from his chest, several heavy punches landed, slightly off the mark, but enough to dizzy Finn’s mind. His head swam with stars; he shook them off and pushed himself beyond the next level of rage. He felt no pain. No reasonable thought coursed through his mind. There was only the fury of his attack, the salted metallic smell of blood spilling into the frigid water.

In a windmill attack, arms swinging left and right, left and right, he raked the sharpness of his claws across skin and muscle, dug them deep into the chest of his enemy. The waves frothed red, the foam sweeping toward the shore, staining the sanded, stony banks with its color before retreating and carrying their battling bodies further out to sea.

There was no time for fear. That part of his mind shut down completely, driven solely by the need to exterminate anyone, anything that might bring harm to his mate. The wretched, pitiless thing in his grasp would do unspeakable things to something as fair as Lorelei.

Claws dug deep, wrapping tight around the thick muscle of the orc’s throat again, squeezing, piercing, tearing until the slickness of gushing blood made it impossible to hold on. The orc faltered, weakened and twitched beneath the wolf’s rage. It wasn’t until the last hint of life fled that monstrous creature’s body Finn realized he was still battering at the pulpy, lifeless mass, battling against the pull of the sea to hold it in place.

Dead.

It was dead, and as Finn began taking gaping, backward steps from the body he watched it float and rise on the crests of the waves like a doll tossed into the current. He gasped, wheezing to catch his breath and that was when the doubts began to settle back into his mind.

More. The beast always wanted more, but somewhere in the tangle of his thoughts the man within knew he didn’t have enough in him to face much more.

He was a strong warrior; he fought plenty of beasts and the occasional troll in the Edgelands, but what did he know of real battle? Against seasoned enemies who’d faced far fiercer than him? Why hadn’t his brother put up a bigger fight when he said he needed to go? How could he possibly have believed he had what it took to protect his princess on the dangerous road ahead?

The sea was dark with blood, the color spreading and thinning into the pale water. He watched the ax still clenched in a dead hand floating atop the crimson waves, bobbing and dipping alongside the body that once held it.

The wolf stood over the corpse, withering and rocking as the waves swept in again and began to draw the body back from the shore. He could feel his feet sinking deeper into the sand, chunks of ice battering around his ankles.

In that same moment, his thoughts doubled back on him, pushing him beyond the limits of his own rage.

There was no time for doubt. There were others, just like the corpse the sea was carrying away, and they were headed straight toward Lorelei.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Brendolowyn watched the pale grey of the mid-afternoon sky yawn above the dark endlessness of the sea. It took them nearly an hour after Finn disappeared to reach the shoreline, the thick crust of snow becoming slush as it yielded to pebbled, rocky sand peppered white with patches of ice. It was still a hike to the water’s edge, but Lorelei was anxious, anticipating her first glimpse of the sea. She was giddy, excitement flushing her cheeks a pale shade of pink that made her look so alive.

He made the trip to Port Felar often enough to know the route like the back of his hand. At least once each year he traveled to the eastern edge of Rimian, to the very place he first landed after her hand reached out of the darkness to pluck him from death and lay him on the cold shoreline.

At Hodon’s behest, he made the journey to Port Felar to gather intelligence from sailors and keep the lines of communication open with the elves of Nua Duaan, the city below the city. The King Under the City, Jonolov Silver-Tongue, made it a point to never be in Nua Duaan when Brendolowyn arrived, but the Alvarii always welcomed him, albeit boorishly. He wondered if the self-proclaimed king of the Alvarii Underground would be in Nua Duaan when they arrived, and if he would finally grant him audience to discuss terms of an alliance with the people of Dunvarak.

Shielding his eyes from the dull silver light of the sun, he watched Hrafn spiral in between two gulls before turning back against the wind, wings fluttering before he flapped them and dove down to land on his shoulder. The bird’s thoughts flashed a series of images in his mind, their shared memory of the first time they’d landed on those shores, and then he tilted the soft feather of his head in to rest against Bren’s cheek in comfort.

“Here we are again, old friend,” Bren murmured, a slow, weary smile drawing at the corner of his mouth. “Back at the beginning. Or is this the end?”

Hrafn croaked low, a deep gurgling cluck that flowed from the back of his throat, and then he drew away from the warm comfort of his companion’s cheek to stare out into the distance with longing.

“Fly then,” Bren laughed. “Go on, off with you.”

The raven didn’t have to be told twice. He pushed off in a flurry of snapping black wings and climbed toward the sky until he was little more than a black spot against the grey.

“Where does he go?” Lorelei’s horse sauntered up beside his, the girl’s long gaze following the bird’s flight path as she shaded her eyes with her hand.

“Wherever he likes,” he chuckled. “He loves it when we come here.” He refrained from adding, a
nd so do I
, knowing she would want to know why.

A secret he could never tell her, not if he planned to do what needed to be done. Yovenna begged him before she died, bid him keep his emotions and the memories never meant to become his to himself. Lorelei could never know he brought her to the very place he first knew what it was to love another; the place he first met her.

Lowering the hood of his robes, he let it rest slack over his shoulders and lifted his face into the cold, salt smell of the sea. That scent, combined with the constant hushing call of waves crashing and receding from the shore always made his heart speed up, a sense of hope rising inside that nothing in the world could damper. He was in his safe haven, the one place in all the world where he felt completely at peace.