Catch a Wolf

by A. Katie Rose

  Arianne giggled, the sound engulfed by a loud rumble of thunder. Greenish lightning flashed in the near darkness, brightening the twilight with an evil jade glare. It silenced Arianne, who gathered her skirts and bolted indoors. Corwyn bowed, low and respectful, and followed on her heels.

  Ly’Tana blew red-gold hair off her brow in a frustrated sigh. “Like we don’t have enough problems,” she commented sourly.

  I sniffed the freshening breeze, my hackles rising. Something was out there. I peered in the direction of the forest where the mass exodus still emerged, relentless. I rubbed my neck, my head echoing with the big grey’s warning.

  “Well, we could have the Shekinah Tongu visit us,” I answered slowly.

  “What?” Ly’Tana wheeled around, whipping her sword from its sheath.

  A black arrow buzzed through the rapidly darkening air to hit the cobbles between us. Ricocheting high, it whined off into the rising wind to vanish into the trees.

  “Run,” I bellowed, pushing Ly’Tana toward the monastery door.

  Under a hail of singing arrows, Ly’Tana fled across the cobblestones, my huge body shielding her. Whether the wind played a part or their archers were not very good, none struck either of us. Rather they broke apart upon impact with the holy stones under our feet.

  From the candle of my eyes, I saw snarling hounds rushing from under the forest limbs, white teeth gleaming in the deepening shadows. Snarling silently, their chuffing voices lent an eerie music to the rising wind and guttural thunder.

  Behind them, their masters charged, swords in hand. Still many others fired their bows as they ran, but their marksmanship fell far short. I almost laughed as an arrow skipped between my ankles to sail, whining shrilly, beyond the rock wall.

  Kel’Ratan stood, gaping like an idiot, in the large, open doorway. I nipped through and past him, behind Ly’Tana, and shoved him out of my path. Under my strength, they both staggered and might have fallen had they been anyone but warriors who found balance a natural friend.

  They kept their feet, seizing their chosen weapons: Ly’Tana her bow with an arrow already nocked and Kel’Ratan drew his sword. As a team, they rejoined me, awaiting my signal as though accepting me as their commander. Ly’Tana hugged my right flank, her bow up and her arrow aimed. Kel’Ratan, sword in his fist, watched me with his fierce blue eyes, awaiting my order to fight.

  I didn’t bother to consider the implications.

  I led. They followed.

  I slammed the door shut. Our frantic entrance caught the attention of the warriors, Corwyn and Tor. No few called out questions while drawing weapons, running the short distance across the common hall. Kel’Ratan, his mustache bristling, took up a position on my left, on the far side of the door.

  In the former abbot’s chamber, Bar lay on his belly with his head, neck and eagle’s talons sticking through the door and watching us with wide eyes. As his neck filled the entire door, I knew his huge body encompassed the abbot’s bedroom fully. He may be sheltered from the storm’s wrath, yet without a great deal of effort, he could not turn around with ease or his usual cat-like speed. And without a wall behind him, his ass lay exposed to the enemy.

  Drawing the bar with a wooden clatter, I wheeled about, yelling. “Archers to the fore! Protect Bar!”

  Instantly, Alun, Rannon and Yuri seized bows and squeezed their bodies between the front half of the huge griffin and the doorway to the abbot’s room. Like mice into small holes, they vanished.

  Bar screeched, his voice deafening in the closed quarters. His tufted ears flat, he tried to back out, to face his enemies and fight. I knew very well that if he went out there, the Tongu would target him. That big boy would die under their arrows.

  “Bar, stay,” I yelled. “You fight, you’re dead. Stand down.”

  He screeched again, his fierce yellow eyes glaring. I had no clue what he said and didn’t much care. All I wanted was his obedience and I got it. He stilled, hissing furiously, and scraped long furrows in the monk’s pristine granite floor with his talons. At least he vented his frustrations on the floor and not me.

  “Who attacks?” Kel’Ratan bellowed, sheathing his sword. He nocked his own bowstring, realizing arrows might lend us the crucial edge. Enemies without died as easily under a bowshot as they did a razor-sharp swords.

  “Tongu,” Ly’Tana gasped, realizing as I did how truly vulnerable Bar was. She bolted toward him, intending to duck under his neck and join her boys beside the rock wall.

  I caught her arm and stopped her, earning myself a green scowl.

  “Our only weakness is the hole we made,” I told her, my tone sharp. “They can’t get in any other way.”

  “I’ll never let them hurt Bar,” she screamed, her hair swirling about her as she made to run to him again.

  “They won’t,” I said, spinning her back. “Three are enough to protect him. I need you and the rest of your people to guard the windows. I need you here.”

  Before she could answer me, Rygel bolted from the kitchens, Arianne behind him. “How in the bloody hell did they find us?”

  “Doesn’t matter,” I grated. “They’re here.”

  I raised my head and spoke to the remaining Kel’Hallans. “Check all the chambers,” I snapped. “Close all the shutters on all the windows. We won’t have to wait long.”

  “What do you mean?” Ly’Tana asked, her body still trying to escape my grip and go to her griffin. She yanked her arm from my grip, yet stood still, watching me, awaiting my answer. If I failed to grant the correct reply, she’d be off and running.

  I grinned down at her, a very nasty expression that did what my hand could not. It froze her in place.

  “The Wrath of Usa’a’mah, my princess.”

  “The storm,” she breathed. Comprehension spread across her angular features like the dawning of a new day. “It’ll kill them.”

  “All we have to do is sit tight,” Rygel said, sheathing his blade.

  Her warriors didn’t share his optimism, but obeyed me. They rushed into the monk’s cells to close any shutters and bar them, preventing any Tongu from climbing through to attack our rear. One by one they reappeared, awaiting new orders.

  “Tor,” I barked, catching the lad’s wax-white face. “Get over there by Bar. Report on the archers outside.”

  “What?” he asked, his voice quavering.

  Before I could snarl at him, Arianne bolted out from behind Rygel’s protective arm. She seized Tor by the hand and dragged him to a spot beside Bar’s immense head. Corwyn, not owning a hunter’s bow, swept his sword from his sheath and followed. As she knelt beside Bar’s beak, Tor crouching beside her, Corwyn stood behind her kneeling body. Ready to kill anything that might spring up to threaten her. His stance that of a disciplined soldier, he waited.

  “What goes?” Arianne called into the room beyond Bar’s lion shoulders and eagle wings. Cocking her head, she listened, then turned back to me.

  “The Tongu are in the forest,” she reported.

  Swiping her hair behind her ears, she listened again. “They hide from the warriors.”

  She cocked her head. “A few were killed and the others are keeping their distance.”

  “And my boys?” Ly’Tana asked, in half-panic. She danced in place, torn, needing to protect her Bar, yet hoping against hope he was as protected as we.

  Arianne relayed the question to those affected by the Tongu. Her pinched, sallow face intent, she listened to their response. Attentive, alert, she anchored a fearful Tor at her side in an unyielding grip.

  “All are well and covering Bar’s rear.” Her strained face, lined with taut expectation, tilted to the left as she listened to what the warriors told her from beyond the doorway. “They’re fine, for now.”

  “Good,” I said, gesturing toward the shuttered window next to the main doorway. “Mayhap you might point your arrow at that, my wild vixen?” I asked with a smile. “Kill anything that comes through.”

  Her feral grin lit
the room. “With pleasure.”

  “I don’t get it,” Witraz complained.

  The chill in the air had increased tenfold within the great hall, despite the blazing fire in the central hearth. Outside, the icy wind picked up, turning late summer into winter. Outside the monastery’s thick stone walls, I heard trees lashed from side to side under the evil onslaught of the Wrath of Usa’a’mah. Green lightning flashed through the shutters, flickering in a gruesome display that made my eyes squint.

  “Get what?” Kel’Ratan yelled, his body flat against the wall beside the door.

  “Surely they know they can’t get in here,” Witraz said, his bow nocked, his long brown hair flying as he sought an enemy to shoot. “Why wait to attack when they know we’re protected, behind solid walls?”

  “With us in here, they can control the situation,” Kel’Ratan explained, his voice loud against the rising wind. “They wanted us in here, unable to escape, where they think they can starve us until we give them what they want.”

  “Bloody control freaks,” Witraz commented sourly, taking up station next to a window facing east. He bent his single eye toward a shutter, his right hand dancing over the nocked and ready bow in his left.

  “They must know something we don’t,” Kel’Ratan said grimly, his blue eyes blazing.

  Like me, Kel’Ratan needed the facts, not the reasons behind them. Nothing stood in shades of grey. Either black or white, we both felt comfortable killing the enemy and adoring those we loved and protected. With us, it either died or lived.

  Kel’Ratan needed that same comfort zone. Once he killed something, he’d feel better.

  Those bizarre twins found windows to the south and north to guard. Yuri took up station at the hallway to the monk’s cells. Thunder growled outside, a deep-throated grumble that went on for several heartbeats. I estimated the storm breathed down the necks of the Tongu.

  “It’s me they want,” Rygel said, his sword in his hand. He loped to my side and flattened his body against the wall on the far side of the door, opposite Kel’Ratan.

  “Then they’ll have to come in and get you,” Ly’Tana answered, her emerald eyes flat and deadly as she waited for a Tongu, any Tongu, to enter.

  “Alun shot another one,” Arianne reported, her voice almost unheard over the crackling fire and the roaring wind.

  Kel’Ratan met my eyes. “Well, fearless leader? What now?”

  I grinned. “I think if we wait—”

  “Ho! In the house!”

  The voice rose above the howling gale and rumbling thunder to penetrate the thick walls of the monastery.

  “—they’ll try to negotiate,” I finished.

  I cracked open the door, holding it against the wind’s force with my foot. The icy wind blew my hair into my eyes, but I tossed it from my face. “You boys must have goat’s entrails for brains,” I called outside.

  “All we want is the wizard,” the voice yelled back. “Turn him over to us and we promise to spare your lives.”

  “Oh, please.” I didn’t halt my laughter. “I reckon you haven’t checked the weather lately. We’re safe in here and you’re about to be hit by an almighty temper tantrum.”

  Scorn heralded the voice. “We are not afraid of a little storm. We will sit here and await you to starve. As your friend starved our brothers. In the end, you’ll give us what we want. Or you’ll all die.”

  I laughed again. “All right, you keep thinking that way. On the morrow, we’ll walk out past your corpses.”

  Ly’Tana frowned. “They could not possibly have starved. It’s only been, what? A couple of days? And how could they possibly know?”

  “What do we care?” Kel’Ratan said. “They know. And their brothers are dead. Because of him.” His fierce blue eyes rested on Rygel.

  Rygel blanched, his mouth working soundlessly. Cat’s eyes wide, he tried again to get his voice working with no success. I suspected having one whom you thought a friend turn on you shorted out no few brain-to-mouth circuits.

  “Don’t even start with that crap,” Ly’Tana snapped, rising to point her arrow at her cousin. “Rygel acted to protect Raine and avenge me. He did what he had to do.”

  Kel’Ratan’s eyes widened. “You misunderstand me, Ly’Tana. I will fight to the death to defend him. For what he did that day.”

  “You’d better,” she snapped, returning to guard her window.

  Grumbling under his breath, Kel’Ratan nocked his bow and took a stand next to her, his back to Rygel and I.

  I glanced sidelong at Rygel. He breathed again, flicking imaginary sweat from his brow. He offered me a half-smile and a shrug, his amber eyes flicking between Kel’Ratan and me with a quick roll upwards.

  “No one’s tried to shoot Bar,” Arianne reported, her tiny voice hardly carrying across the room over the howling gale outside. “Their arrows fly away on the wind.”

  “Surrender now,” the voice yelled above the roaring tempest. “And we will spare all save the murderer.”

  “Are they serious?” Yuras gasped, his deep voice penetrating the growling thunder. “That storm will flatten them.”

  “I’m thinking they seriously underestimated this storm,” Kel’Ratan said, casting an evil grin over his shoulder. “They thought to lay siege to the monastery, force us to surrender Rygel or face a long slow death by starvation.”

  I laughed. Turning my head, I cupped my hands over my mouth so I’d be heard over the gale-force winds and barking thunder. Green lightning flashed in my eyes and made me blink. “We have food, water, and shelter in here. You fellows really picked a bad time to drop in. By the way, how’d your brothers die? We know bloody well they didn’t starve.”

  My goad worked. A howl of rage that rivaled the wolves at their best rose loud, outlasting the barking thunder. “What are you afraid of?” I yelled. “Come in and get us.”

  “You will pay!”

  “How about a silver half-crown? That enough?”

  Ly’Tana choked, her eyes flashing brighter than the lightning.

  “We’ll burn you out. You’ll all die horrible deaths.”

  “Um, hello?” I called, my glance taking in Ly’Tana’s green eye roll. “Have you looked at this place? Solid rock. Unless I’m mistaken, stone doesn’t burn.”

  “It will under naphtha.”

  I gaped like a fish, meeting Rygel’s incredulous glance. “Are you boys for real?”

  Kel’Ratan shook his head grimly. “That stuff can choke us out for sure. The smoke alone can kill us.”

  “No offense, Kel’Ratan,” Rygel said, smiling gently. “But—under that wind? Even if they could get it lit, any smoke will be pulled away from here.”

  Blinking, Kel’Ratan slowly grinned. “Imagine that.”

  I put my face to the crack in the door, ready to shout. A black arrow struck the jamb an inch from my nose and stuck there, quivering.

  “Hey, now,” I called. “That wasn’t very nice.”

  “Come out! This is your last warning.”

  “I think not,” I yelled back, laughing. “You’re letting your rage be your master. Not a good thing, mate. Not a good thing at all.”

  “Then we’ll burn you alive.”

  “Be careful with that stuff,” I offered helpfully. “In this wind, its splash will strike you full in the face. Setting yourselves on fire isn’t a really good option, you know.”

  I drew back as several shadows ran forward from beyond the stone wall of the courtyard, yet I didn’t close the door entirely. I wanted to see what they were up to. In the rapid-fire green lightning, they showed up clearly. Men with heads shaved bald and long greasy hair from their ears to their shoulders charged into my view, huge hounds galloping at their flanks. A single Tongu carrying a torch followed on their heels.

  Ducking, crouching low as they ran, they carried heavy buckets. Fanning out, they disappeared from sight. I heard the distinct sound of splashing and scented the strong stench of naphtha. Tossing the fuel for the fire,
I surmised.

  A straggler, his teeth bared in a fearful grimace, ran forward, aiming to toss his bucket at the door where I yet stood. Perhaps he thought he might be fast enough to dump it on me and inside the door before I could shut it.

  Beside my ear, an arrow flew malevolently past, hissing softly. The approaching Tongu gurgled, staggering as the arrow struck him just below his throat. He went down, his full bucket of naphtha splashing harmlessly across the courtyard. The fellow with the torch hesitated a fraction, glancing down at his fallen brother.

  From my ribcage, under the arm I had raised to hold the door open, another bow twanged. The torch-bearer stumbled backward, falling, the arrow through his left eye. He died before he struck the cobbles.

  His flaming torch dropped from stiffened fingers.

  Recoiling backwards, I slammed the door.

  A half-instant later, the world exploded.

  The ancient building shook to its foundations, trembling from roots to rafters like a frightened terrier. A deeply resonating, coughing roar blasted over the crashing of the thunder. Behind the closed shutters, red, orange and yellow light fought for supremacy over the green lightning.

  Throwing the bar, I stumbled back and all but tripped over Ly’Tana. Catching her, I shoved her away from the door, bellowing, running, pushing her toward safety. Kel’Ratan dropped flat to the tiles, his hands over his head. Rygel went down, rolling away from the solid oak door. Scrambling across the slate floor like a crab, keeping his head down, he fell across Arianne and Tor, protecting them with his body.

  Dragging Ly’Tana down with me, I covered her slender frame with my own, in case the solid oak door didn’t hold under the assault and blew apart, whipping in the wind-driven flames. Her devoted twins crouched to either side of us, their solid builds protecting both of us. Only Yuras still stood upright, his eyes on the door, his bow nocked and aimed as though the Tongu might yet kick it in and invade.

  The stench of naphtha overwhelmed the chamber. Peeking over my shoulder, I saw black, oily smoke boiling among the heavy oak beams of the ceiling. No flames yet, but I wasn’t sure if that was a good sign or not.