Lord of the Wolfyn and Twin Targets (17 page)

Then the noise before the beast crashed through the thin canopy of yellowed leaves and hit the ground, thrown off target by the attack. It landed hard, digging its claws into the earth for purchase and screeching again as branches fell from above and peppered it—and Dayn—with debris.

Then it folded its wings and legs flat against its body and whipped into an aggressive coil, becoming a giant snake that was poised to strike.

Dayn fell back into the trees, hoping to hell they would slow the beast’s attack. His heart and mind raced, bringing both fugue and clarity. There was no point in running; he would have to kill the Feiynd here and now. The eyes, he needed to go for the eyes. But they were smaller than he had realized, and set deep within scaly pits. He would have to make the shot of his life. Literally.

Deep within his soul, he whispered,
Father, if you can hear me, if you have any influence on this plane, please help me now.

As he whipped a second bolt into place, he thanked the gods that Reda wasn’t there, because there was no way in hell she could’ve gone up against the Feiynd. She would have tried, though, because that was who she was.

Aiming the loaded crossbow at one of those tiny, tiny eyes, he sighted. Fired.

The bolt glanced off the armor surrounding the Feiynd’s eye pits. It seemed that the creature laughed at him for a split second. Then it screamed at full volume and struck. And Dayn was suddenly fighting for his life, spurred by the knowledge that if he died now, Elden would die with him.

R
EDA SPUN BACK AT THE
sudden eruption of noise coming from the direction of the lake: roars, shrieks and the crashing of brush and trees. Her heart seized.
“Dayn!”

The second she heard those noises, it stopped mattering whether he’d used her, or if that had been the lie instead, designed to send her running.

At a second terrible clashing noise, MacEvoy spooked and bolted, yanking her clean off her feet. She went to her knees but hung on grimly, and within a few strides, her deadweight had pulled the horse’s head around and slowed him to a panting, eye-rolling stop.

“Don’t you dare, you pain in my ass.” Reda got to her feet, grabbed his bit and dragged his head around so she could glare into one of his white-ringed eyes and growl, “That. Is. Enough. I need you to man up, channel your inner beast-chaser, or whatever it takes, because bolting is not an option for us. Not anymore. Got it?”

She didn’t know if her words got through or if it was more her take-no-crap tone, but he subsided to a shuddering standstill and let her mount.

He propped up on his hind legs in protest, but when she growled he started forward as commanded, went where she pointed. “Good choice,” she said, giving his neck a quick pat.

Then, not stopping to think it through or question the logic or emotions, she kicked him toward the terrible noises, praying she wasn’t already too late.

D
AYN DUCKED AND SWERVED
from one tree to the next, scrambling to load his last crossbow bolt as the Feiynd screeched and snapped behind him.

The Dead Forest was the only thing keeping him alive at this point, slowing the dragon and forcing it to stay in snake form because there was no room for it to spread its limbs and bring its wickedly barbed tail into the attack. But that boon was also a hindrance, as the branches fouled his aim. And there was no way he could fight the creature up close. With a boar pike and a beast-chaser, he might have had a chance. With a short sword and no armor, he would be dead before he got in his first puny blow. His wolfyn form would be no improvement; he might be able to outrun the creature on the ground, but it could fly and the witch had linked it to his life essence.

There was no hope of escape. One of them had to die.

If he could just…
there!
Up ahead there was a large tree with low, sturdy branches, and what looked like a clearing beyond.

Putting on a burst of speed that sucked all but the last dregs of his energy, even with his secondary canines extended and his healing powers maxed, he raced for the tree, leaped and grabbed the low branch and clambered up. From there, he could fire down on the dragon with no interference, maybe even a better angle.

But when he turned back, the beast was gone.

“Abyss.”
That wasn’t good.

He was already turning toward the clearing when he heard the thousand-arrow whistle of the Feiynd plummeting from flight. The creature landed in the open meadow just short of the tree in full dragon form, with wings and limbs extended.

Screeching, it reared up on its hindquarters to tower over Dayn’s position, taller even than the trees. He couldn’t see its eyes, couldn’t get a bead on the flexible armpit zone that was often a weakness of armored creatures. All he could see was its scaled underbelly and wide, sweeping wings as it stayed upright for nearly a full second, screaming.

Then, suddenly, it crashed down to all fours atop the tree, tearing through the branches and sending the trunk skewing wildly for a second before it fell, uprooted by the creature’s great force.

Dayn tried to fling himself free, but landed just ahead of the outer branches, which came down atop him, pinning him. He ripped free, scrambled to his feet and—

A huge black mass blurred from the side as the Feiynd struck, clamping its jaws on his upper arm and partway across his chest. Its curving, barbed teeth dug in, sending white-hot pain lashing through him.

“No!” His perceptions wrenched and a terrible sense of wrongness washed over him, warning that he was badly hurt. He could smell his own blood over the creature’s brimstone breath, could taste it in his mouth and feel it coming from his nose. But at the same time his focus narrowed to two crucial points: he still had his crossbow, and those tiny red eyes were suddenly very close.

He twisted his body and felt more pain, more wrongness, but that didn’t stop him from bringing the crossbow up.

Without warning, he was heaved up into the air, still clamped in the dragon’s powerful jaws as the beast whipped its neck. Then it let go.

Dayn’s inertia tore him from the barbed teeth and he went flying. For a second he was weightless, in a state of almost-pleasure as the old pain of being chomped disappeared and the new pain of being torn up and spit out hadn’t yet hit. Then he crashed into the dusty meadow and skidded several feet on the hard ground with the
boom
of impact ringing in his ears.

He tried to get up, but couldn’t. Tried to raise the crossbow he still held clutched in one hand, his fingers cramped around the stock, but he couldn’t do that, either. All he could do was lie there as the Feiynd reared back on its haunches again, spread its wings and roared its triumph. Then it thudded back to the ground and came toward him, swaggering in dragon form. Its piggish red eyes locked on him and its mouth split wide to show those awful barbed teeth, now stained with his blood.

It took its time, but there was no question what would come next. The stories all said the same thing, after all: the Feiynd never left its target alive.

As it closed to within a dozen of its huge paces, Dayn sought his healing magic, but it was spent. His wolfyn magic, too. He was too far gone, too depleted. His mind raced, but his thoughts were scattered and dull, his plans nonexistent.
I’m sorry, Father.
He had failed, after all. He had come so close, yet was still falling short. And in the end, he was more the man than the prince, anyway, because his last thought as the Feiynd closed to striking range wasn’t of his family or Elden, but of his lover.
Goodbye, sweet Reda,
he thought, glad to know that she, at least, was safe.

But as the beast reared up over him, its eyes glittering, mouth gaping wide, he heard the thunder of hoofbeats and her voice screaming, “No!”

An arrow sang, burying itself in the Feiynd’s armpit.

The dragon screeched and scissored sideways, which sent it crashing aside, away from Dayn. He simultaneously cursed Reda and blessed her, wanted to—

The Feiynd’s tail lashed out, whistled through the air and came down hard on Dayn’s battered body.

Darkness.

“N
O
!”
R
EDA STOOD
in the stirrups and sent another arrow flying at the dragon as it regained its feet. “Get away from him, you bastard!” Beneath her, MacEvoy stayed steady and galloped his heart out, even though his ears were flat to his skull and his body shook with fear.

The arrow bounced, but got the dragon’s attention. The thing’s head whipped around and it hissed when it locked on her. It was too close to Dayn; there was no way she could get to him with the monster practically standing over his body. Worse, as they closed on the fight, she saw to her horror that Dayn was still and limp, his clothing blood-soaked, his wounds horrific. Far worse than what Kenar had done.

“No,” she whispered.

In the moment between one gallop stride and the next, she flashed hard on the sight of Benz behind the counter, the gunman spinning to level his weapon at her and the plan she never executed. Divert and then attack.

A diversion!

Reda didn’t stop to think or plan, there was no time, no point. She just kicked free of her stirrups, leaned close to MacEvoy’s neck and said, “When I bail, get your ass out of here.”

She didn’t know if the bay got the message or not, but as they blew past Dayn’s body and the huge, glistening black dragon oriented hungrily on what it probably considered horsemeat-on-the-hoof, she screamed, “Go!” And then she flung herself out of the saddle.

The ground was hard, the impact crushing. She tucked and rolled, but by the time she came to a stop, her head was ringing and her right wrist hurt from being jammed, or worse.

She didn’t have time to worry about that, though. As she lunged to her feet, she saw that MacEvoy had done his job—intentionally or not—drawing the dragon away. But the monstrous creature only followed the horse for a few strides before it stopped, turned back and reoriented.

Reda fell to her knees beside Dayn, horrified by the ragged, gaping wounds she could see through his torn shirt and the blood that trickled from his mouth. He was breathing shallowly, his eyes rolled back in his head. Sobs backed up in her chest, but she didn’t have time for them now. She shook him slightly, hoping for a groan, but got nothing. “Dayn, wake up. We need to go!”

She couldn’t carry him and MacEvoy was long gone. Worse, the ground rolled beneath her as the big black dragon headed back toward them, its beady red eyes burning with hunger and hatred.

Moving behind Dayn, she tried to lever him up, but he was deadweight. Worse, she was hurting him, probably doing more damage to his injuries, but what other choice did she have? “Dayn, please,
wake up!
”

All rationality in the world said for her to leave him and run, that the creature wanted him, not her. But logic didn’t stand a chance against her feelings for him, so she stayed put, trying desperately to rouse him. His head lolled and his mouth opened slightly, revealing his fully extended secondary canines.

The sight stirred a one-two punch of heat and understanding. She didn’t let herself think about it, didn’t let herself hesitate. She opened his mouth, set her wrist against those two scalpel-sharp points and pushed.

She cried out at the pain, but then sucked in a breath at the wash of heat that followed, flowing through her body as he moved slightly against her, rousing. Backing her wrist off his fangs, she turned her arm so the bloody spots hit his tongue, which moved, fitfully at first and then with purpose, lapping two strong strokes and then a third.

Doing her best to ignore for now the pleasure-pain of his feeding, she leaned in and said, “Wake up. I need you.”

Her heart hammered and despair threatened as the dragon reached them and reared up, shrieking and beating at the air with its wings. Then it slammed back down and snaked its vicious triangle of a head toward them, moving in for the kill, gaping its jaws wide and—

Dayn moved convulsively, jerking upright, yanking the crossbow into position and putting his bolt straight into one fiery red eye.

The dragon bellowed and yanked back, wings flailing so hard that it lifted off the ground and hung for a moment, suspended as it writhed and keened, contorting into impossible-seeming shapes in the sky. Seconds later, it went limp and plummeted to the ground.

It vanished when it hit, sent back to whatever magic had summoned it.

Suddenly, the meadow was entirely silent.

Reda stared at the place where it had been, and blew out a long breath. “Okay. We made it. That was…okay.” She wasn’t okay, though, because she was far too aware of the deep ache in her wrist and the echo of mingled pleasure-pain within her.

Dayn, too, was far from okay. He groaned as he tried to sit up away from her, then fell back weakly. A muscle pulsed at the corner of his jaw. “We need to get out of here. Moragh will know we killed her creature. She’ll send men to find us, or come herself, and I’m in no shape to fight.”

That was an understatement. It took all her effort to get him on his feet and keep him there, and he leaned heavily against her. More, as they left the meadow and headed back into the forest, he slid into and out of lucidity, his mumbled thoughts fragmented. “Don’t know who I am, he says? I’ll show… Wish I could’ve gone with you, my sweet Reda, wish you hadn’t come back… Don’t know where they are…”

The “wish you hadn’t come back” was a theme. And where before she had told herself he had sent her away to keep her safe, now she wondered whether she was kidding herself. But for a change, instead of immediately assuming the worst, she decided she would wait and see. First and foremost, she needed to get him back on his feet. And although she thought she knew how to do it, the prospect wasn’t appealing.