“I very nearly didn’t. If this wound were four claw marks instead of one—if there’d been any chance I was attacked by a wolf—they wouldn’t have let me survive.” Max took a deep breath, and I snatched my hand back, embarrassed to realize I was still touching him. Suddenly aware that beneath the healed wound, his flesh was . . . very well formed.
He let his tunic fall back into place, a spark of amusement shining in his eyes before his somber expression returned. “I know it isn’t fair of me to heap our burden upon you, Adele, but if you won’t come with me—if you won’t build a family with me in Ashborne—when my mother dies, our village will be completely defenseless against the wood.”
Thirteen
My mother’s instructions were for me to take Max straight to Gran’s cottage, and not to veer from the path. For the past week, she and I had been patrolling the forest every night, enforcing a well-established, largely uninhabited buffer zone just inside the woods. Because according to my mother, the deeper one went into the dark wood, the more numerous the threats became, and while the occasional beast came near Oakvale before backing away from the halo of light, the only creatures that regularly encroached upon the village—and the only ones willing to venture past the torches, on a very rare occasion—were whitewulf.
But seven days’ experience did not qualify me to go hunting without her, even with Maxime at my side. So we were only to visit my grandmother tonight.
“Adele,” Max said as we stepped through the tree line and into the woods. “I have a gift for you.”
I rolled my eyes. “My sister is putting ideas in your head.”
He laughed. “No, I brought this with me from Ashborne. And to be clear, it comes with no obligation. I’d like for you to keep it even if you choose not to marry me.”
He stopped just inside the forest, where moonlight and torchlight still penetrated, and hung our lantern on the branch of a tree. Then he swung his leather rucksack onto the ground. It was large and still oddly bulging, and when he opened it, I saw why.
“What is that?” I asked as he pulled out a strange device made of wood and metal. There were aspects of it that looked familiar: a thick, taut string and a frame similar to that of a bow.
“It’s called a crossbow. Have you ever seen one?”
I shook my head, and when he offered me the device, I took it, eager to examine it. I was surprised by its weight.
The weapon had a bow-shaped frame, attached to a wooden stock that ran perpendicular to the string. On top of the bow was an iron lever with two hooks that caught the string. Fascinated, I pulled back on the lever, grunting with the effort, and that placed tension on the hefty string like an archer pulling back the string of a longbow. Only this device, for all its heft, was shorter and more compact.
“Well, that didn’t take you long to figure out.” Max’s voice held a satisfaction that warmed my belly, deep inside.
I shoved that feeling aside before I could be forced to truly study it, choosing to focus on the new weapon instead. “This is . . . wondrous! Are there arrows?”
“Bolts. I can only fire a couple of them in a minute, but with your strength, you’ll probably be much faster, once you get the hang of it.”
“If I’m set upon by multiple monsters, there won’t be time to reload, but a single shot from this—if my aim were true—could take down one enemy so I could use my hatchet on another.” I finally looked up from the crossbow to see Max holding a length of wood about as big around as my finger. Its end was sharply pointed, and I could see several more of these “bolts” sticking up from his bag. “Where did you get this?”
“I made it,” he announced, with no small amount of pride. “With a little help from the Ashborne blacksmith, for the metal parts.”
“You made this?”
“Your skepticism feels like a bolt to the chest, Adele.”
“I’m sorry. I just . . . this is amazing! How did you explain this to your friend, the blacksmith?”
“We’d seen soldiers carrying them, and I thought we could fashion one of our own. He was up to the challenge, as long as I paid him for the work. My mother liked it so well that she asked me to make another for her. With any luck, the blacksmith will be done with his part by the time I get back. He thinks I’m using this first one to hunt, while I’m away.”
“Well, that could be true, I suppose. If this thing will take down a troll, it’ll probably take down a deer or a boar.”
“Yes, in a normal forest. But it would be dangerous for me to fire a crossbow in the dark wood, considering that I can’t see two feet beyond the glow of my lantern. Here. Let me show you how to load a bolt.”
“I think I understand it.” I took the bolt he held out and laid it in the groove carved down the center of the wooden stock. Then I folded back the lever to pull the bow string. “This is the trigger?” My finger brushed a wooden protrusion on the underside of the device.
“Yes, but don’t pull that until you’re ready to—”
“I know.” The machine felt natural in my hands. Delightfully heavy and sturdy. It made sense, not just mechanically, but almost . . . spiritually. As if it were a part of me, like my own arm. “This is amazing. Thank you so much! I can’t wait to try it!”
Max’s smile seemed to be blooming from deep inside him. “Well, I know we’re supposed to stick to the path tonight, but I’m sure that tomorrow you’ll get that chance. With your mother.” He seemed disappointed that he wouldn’t be there.
“You deserve to see your creation in action. I promise I’ll come out here with you again,” I told him. “But for now, just . . . stick close to me, okay? For your own good.”
“Of course.” And for once, there was no sparkle in his eye. No crooked grin on his face. He was completely serious. “I don’t have your abilities, but my ears are pretty good, and I’m happy to lend them to the cause. To help you in any way I can, for as long as you’ll let me.”
I blinked up at him, puzzled by that thought. “You’re happy with that arrangement? With the idea of spending your life assisting a woman?” That wasn’t typically how marriage worked.
Max frowned. “Perhaps I haven’t been entirely clear about that. I don’t want to be your assistant, Adele. I want to be your partner. I may not have your extraordinary gifts, but I can contribute to this fight. And I look forward to the chance to prove myself.”
“You want to prove yourself to me?” Surprise echoed thick in my voice.
“Of course. The fate of an entire village depends upon me convincing you to come home with me. I won’t lie; that’s a lot of pressure. But I’m ready for the challenge.” His grin returned, an echo of the confidence he’d been emanating since the moment he’d arrived in Oakvale. But now I understood the source: Max was as dedicated to protecting his village as I was to protecting mine, and he seemed determined to attack that task with enthusiasm and a smile.
“Okay,” I said at last. “Let’s go, before the watch shows up again and sees our light.”
Max closed his rucksack and swung it over his shoulder, then he plucked our lantern from the branch he’d hung it on. I sucked in a deep breath and lifted the crossbow in both hands. Then, together, we headed down the path.
Despite my mother’s directive, I found myself fighting an urge to leave the path and venture deeper into the woods, as if the forest itself were tugging on a string tied to something deep inside me. The dark wood seemed determined to convince me that I was finally where I belonged. That I was . . . home.
That was a trick, of course. A chilling illusion intended to lure me to my death. So I swallowed the irrational urge. Max and I walked on in silence, ensconced in our bubble of light, a shield that had never felt so fragile to me before I’d seen for myself what dangers the forest had to offer. Fortunately, though the dark wood was a chorus of strange and unidentifiable sounds, most of those sounds seemed to be coming from a distance.
“I look forward to meeting your grandmother,” Max said softly, j
ust when the silence was becoming too much. “She truly is a legend, at least to my family. Choosing to live alone in the dark wood, among the beasts.”
“She’s definitely . . . unforgettable. She—”
A sharp hiss echoed from my right. I spun toward the sound, my pulse roaring in my ears, my new crossbow aimed and ready.
“Can you see it?” Max lifted the lantern to his right side, squinting in the direction the hiss had come from, but his gaze was unfocused. He couldn’t see past the light.
“Not yet. It’s probably just a snake.”
“It’s much bigger than an ordinary snake,” he whispered. “It only sounds small because it isn’t very close yet.”
“How do you know?”
“I can tell from the echo. You’re right about it being a serpent, though. There’s another noise along with the hiss. Sort of . . . beneath it. Do you hear that?”
I closed my eyes and stopped walking, in order to concentrate. “I hear a . . . slithering. Could that be vines? The vines out here have minds of their own.”
Max shook his head. “Can you hear how that slithering is . . . heavier? Thicker-sounding than the vines?”
“Yes.” Now that he’d mentioned it.
I opened my eyes to frown at him in the glow from the lantern. “How are you doing that? How can you hear such specific details?”
His grin radiated satisfaction, his face shadowed in every dip and crevice from the low angle of the light. “I’ve had a lot of practice.”
But there was clearly more to it than that. “You’re being modest.”
He chuckled softly. “I’m not often accused of that. But yes. I’ve spent the past three years focusing on my hearing to compensate for the crippling darkness.”
I frowned up at him, trying to understand. “You listen, in the dark wood? For what?”
Max shrugged. “Footsteps. Exhalations distinctive enough to be identified. Slithering. Growling. Huffing. Sometimes even an eerie silence. I’ve trained myself to identify many of the monsters that live in the dark wood by the sounds they make. As I said, I wouldn’t fire a crossbow into the dark, but I can help you. I can tell you what’s coming and from which direction. And how many of them there are.”
“And that’s what you were doing, when you were injured?”
The light of pride dimmed in his eyes. “Yes. My ears can be a help to you, but they aren’t enough on their own. I can’t do for Ashborne what you can.”
Yet, as reluctant as I was to admit it, he was better equipped to be out here than anyone from the village watch. And his skill was the result of years of practice and dedication, even though he’d been under no obligation to take such risks.
“So, it’s a very big snake?” I said, when I couldn’t think of how else to respond.
“Yes.” That glint in his eye was back. “It’s huge, with a row of spikes that lie flat along its spine until it’s threatened. I’ve only seen glimpses of it, because they don’t come into the light intentionally. But my mother has described it in detail.”
“And it’s little threat, as long as we have the lantern?” I whispered as I took another step, bowing to the demands from my legs to keep moving.
He nodded. “I only know of one creature that isn’t thwarted by firelight.”
“Whitewulf?”
“No. They aren’t bothered by daylight, which is why they’re the biggest threat to any village. And they’ll occasionally sneak through the halo, but they won’t go near someone carrying a flame. I only know of one beast that will.”
“What beast is that?” I suddenly felt embarrassed by my own ignorance—despite the fact that I’d only been a guardian for a week—and envious of his three years of experience in the dark wood, even if he couldn’t see the creatures he’d been learning about.
Was Max jealous of my vision? My speed and strength? I couldn’t help wondering how he really felt about the fact that even if he trained for a lifetime, he would never be able to see the monsters he fought.
“Fear liath,” he replied. “My mother says they come from far north of here, but the rampant spread of the dark wood across the landscape has let creatures from many different places mingle in the cursed forest.”
“What is this fear liath?” I whispered as the light from the lantern bobbed around us, casting harsh shadows behind every tree branch.
“They never come close enough for me to see more than a human like silhouette, but they’re one and a half times the height of a man. They bring on an uncontrollable feeling of dread. Of panic. The closer they come, the more hopeless your task begins to feel. The more inevitable your death. The first time I saw one, my fear became so overwhelming that, had my mother not been there to steady me, I might have run screaming into the woods, my lantern abandoned and forgotten, just to escape that feeling. To reclaim some hope.”
“You would have run off alone into the dark wood? Without your light?” My voice sounded thick with skepticism, but Max only nodded. “Wouldn’t that just put you at the mercy of whichever beast finds you first?”
“It certainly would. I know it makes no sense if you’ve never felt it, but that’s how strong the fear laith’s influence is. Hasn’t anyone from Oakvale ever just . . . disappeared? Have you ever lost an entire party in the dark wood, with no explanation?”
I nodded slowly. Twice, in my lifetime, we’d lost an entire merchant party when the village grew desperate enough, in the depths of winter, to brave a journey through the dark wood for supplies from a neighboring village. We hadn’t found so much as a single body.
“Chances are good that when people abandon the path and leave behind their light, it’s because they’ve panicked under the influence of the fear liath.”
We continued down the path for another couple of minutes in silence, while I considered the threat this fear liath represented. Did it have less influence on a guardian, or was it just Max’s mother’s experience that let her keep her head when he would have panicked?
Finally, I spotted the fork in the path that would lead to my grandmother’s clearing. “Do you still hear the snake creature?” I could discern the occasional slithering sounds, but they were faint, and I couldn’t be certain I wasn’t hearing vines.
Max nodded. “It’s following at a distance.”
“Gran’s cabin is only a few minutes from here. Soon, we’ll see the light from the torches she keeps lit.”
He stopped at my side, his eyes glowing with excitement in the flickering light from the lantern he held. “You want to hunt the serpent, don’t you?”
I lifted my gift. “I am eager to try this out,” I admitted. And not just out of a sense of duty to protect my village. It was exhilarating to think of the power I’d be wielding with such a weapon. “But we’re not supposed to leave the path, which means we’d have to lure the beast to us. And if we’re going to do that, this is the best place.” Because if I were unable to kill it, we could flee toward the safety of my grandmother’s clearing.
His grin swelled into a true smile. “I’m ready whenever you are.”
“Is there anything else you can tell me about this serpent?”
He thought for a moment, his hazel-eyed gaze holding mine in the lamplight. “It’ll be fast. Faster than one would expect from a creature so large. Stay in motion so it can’t strike at you. Aim for its head. After you’ve fired one shot, if it isn’t dead, hand me the crossbow, and I’ll load another bolt for you.” Max set the lantern in the center of the dirt path, then he swung his rucksack onto the ground next to it and pulled out a second bolt. “Ready?”
“Yes.” No.
Fighting monsters was my destiny. My obligation to the world. Yet intentionally attracting a beast from the dark wood without my mother by my side still seemed foolish, even if Gran’s cabin were close enough to run to in an emergency.
“Okay. Here goes.” Max lifted the lantern toward his face, and his gaze held mine for a second, as if he were giving me a chance to change my mi
nd. When I didn’t, he winked at me. Then he blew out the flame.
“Listen.” Max’s eyes were closed. His knuckles creaked as his hand tightened around the bolt in his fist. And all at once, it occurred to me what incredible—what unreasonable—trust he was putting in me.
“Why?” I whispered, as we waited in the dark.
“Why what?” His breathing was deep and even. There was no sign he was the least bit worried.
“Why would you assume I can do this? Why would you trust me with your life, when you hardly know me?”
Silence settled between us, and I realized his eyes were open, as if he were trying to look at me. “You are Emelina Chastain’s granddaughter. Celeste Duval’s daughter. This is in your blood, and you passed the trial. Beyond that, your mother has spoken about how capable you are,” he said at last. “And, Adele, I’m not just trusting you with my life. I’m hoping to trust you with the lives of every man, woman, and child in my village. And there isn’t a doubt in my mind that you’re up to the challenge.”
My eyes narrowed as I scanned the darkened landscape, determined not to let him down.
Suddenly the slithering grew noticeably louder, and it was punctuated by a hiss. I spun toward the sound just as a huge, shadowy shape wriggled out of the darkness, traveling in a sideways S-shaped motion, just like an ordinary snake would. It slithered rapidly toward me, dead leaves crunching beneath its weight, an arrangement of thin, spiky quills cascading over the top of its head to lie flat along the length of its spine. Even with most of the serpent’s body on the ground, its head was as high as my waist.
My heart pounding, I raised the crossbow and aimed it at the serpent’s wide, triangular skull. The beast rose until it towered over me, hissing, its mouth open to reveal a set of massive, sharply pointed fangs, as well as several rows of sharp teeth and a long, forked tongue.
I pulled the trigger.
The force of the bolt firing echoed up my arm and into my shoulder, as if I’d slammed into the broad side of a barn. The serpent hissed as the bolt bit deeply into the flesh just below its jaw.
Red Wolf Page 14
