Shifting Shadows

EIGHT

Samuel

There was a moment when we were free of thrall, after the forest lord blew his horn the second time, after we topped the rise, so he could plainly see that what had come to his call was not his hounds. While he stood in shock, we were free. I had not realized until then that the witch had given up her hold upon us when he summoned us with his horn.

I was of free will for the first time since she’d knocked upon my door and turned my father and me into monsters. We stopped, looking down upon them. Dafydd whined, and the others shuffled around, but my father and I stood frozen.

The forest lord’s face twisted with anger, and he looked at us and closed his single fist. I felt his determination, his magic, roll over me. I snarled in protest, but we were his.

The forest lord turned his attention to the girl curled up on the ground in front of him. “You are of no further use to me.” Next to his bulk, she looked frail and helpless. I could not see her face, only a long fall of pale silver hair touched with lavender that could not have belonged to a human. He looked at us then, smiled savagely, and said, “Direwolves. I had heard the witch had such to serve her. You are not my hounds, but you will suffice for this. Hurt this woman for me. She is meant to die today, but I want her to suffer first.”

Slaved to his purpose, the pack ran to do his bidding. All except my father and I. Tantalized by that breath of freedom, I fought him, fought the magic that tried to hold me. And I failed. All I could do was slow my obedience so that the rest of them were already attacking the defenseless fae woman by the time I reached her, conscious that my father’s pace was just a little slower than mine.

I closed my fangs on the fae woman’s shoulder, biting deep, teeth scraping against bone. I had meant to crush her throat, and so to rebel against the fae lord’s command—and save her from her suffering as my da had saved Adda. But the fae lord’s magic was too strong for me.

Dafydd snarled at me and snapped his teeth in my direction. Maybe I was in his way, maybe he had seen what I tried to do. Dafydd believed in obedience. I released my grip and snarled back at him.

Which was why I saw Da attack the forest lord. Such a fae in his other form is a huge thing, heavier and taller than the biggest horse I’d ever seen. My father ran up the fae lord’s side, digging in with claws like a cat climbing a tree. His fangs sank deep into the fae lord’s neck—and the leash controlling us was no more.

I leaped away from the dying fae woman and dove to my father’s aid. Dafydd hesitated. His prey was bleeding and helpless—but there was no longer anything forcing him to continue to hurt the woman.

For a moment, it was only Da and I. The forest lord broke my father’s grip and tossed him to the ground. I leaped and got lucky, biting deep into the tendon behind his knee. The fae roared—and the forest answered. Magic, wild and painful, seared over my back like a swarm of angry bees.

But Da harried him from the other side, and the magic scattered as the forest lord lost concentration. He drew a bronze knife from his belt and swiped it at Da, who flowed away like water. Then he brought the blade back, so quickly I could tell it was an intentional strike, and I was the target he’d intended in the first place.

I could have dropped my hold, but I was close to crippling him. I wasn’t afraid of death, had been waiting for it since my wife and children had died. To die as Adda had would be a release. I hung on grimly, feeling the tendon start to tear, but it would not give way before his knife found me.

Before it could connect, Dafydd’s jaws closed on the fae lord’s wrist and dragged the knife off course. The forest lord staggered, pulled off balance by Dafydd’s unexpected weight and further off balance by the leg I’d damaged.

With a high-pitched scream that hurt my ears, he dropped the knife and grabbed Dafydd—and impaled him upon his sharp, pale ivory horns. One tine pierced Dafydd’s throat and came out his eye. As I saw him die, I felt it, too. Like a tear in my chest that opened me to the pain he’d felt as he died.

For a moment, my eyes quit working, blinded by Dafydd’s trauma. When I could see again, Pedr was dead. His head pulled off his body, and my own body convulsed as I felt that, too.

Adda had been my pack mate. But it had been his dying that had dwelt in us all, not his death, which had been a release. Dafydd’s death, Pedr’s death was no release. They had been vital and healthy, then dead, and their deaths rippled through bonds I had not realized were there until they hurt so.

This morning there had been seven of us—and now we were four—and our pack had no leader.

That last bothered my wolf, and if he had been in charge of our body, as he was during most battles I had engaged in since I was Changed, he would have disengaged and run. But neither witch, nor forest lord, nor wolf held my leash. I would not abandon my da to this creature.

My fangs severed the tendon, and I dropped to the ground, unable to keep hold where the fae’s flesh had given way. The forest lord’s leg collapsed, toppling him like a woodsman toppled an oak. Unlike an oak, he did not lie still when he landed. He rolled, grabbed his knife, and stuck it into a wolf too distracted by the other wolves’ deaths to get out of the way of the clumsy strike. Ieuan’s belly ripped upward, spilling intestines and soft organs on the ground. Though the initial strike had been luck, the fae lord adjusted his grip and pulled the knife in a twisted path that ended in a thrust into the wolf’s spinal column. So fast, Ieuan was dead, too.

This time, my pack mate’s death didn’t slow me down. It didn’t hurt any less—but the shock of it was gone. I knew what it felt like now when one of our pack died.

From first impact to death was less than a breath’s time. Ieuan was older than I and only a moment ago he was alive and unhurt. There had been times that I would have killed him myself if it had not been for the witch’s hold upon me. I would not have thought I would mourn his death.

The fae lord was quick. So quick. Even half-crippled and one-handed, he dealt out painful wounds and the three of us who were left, Da, Deiniol, and I, learned to be swift and wary, to hit and move. If my first attack had not been from behind him, I’d already have joined Dafydd and the others in death. But the fae lord was too wary to let any of us behind him so easily again.

I suppose that time lasted no more than a few minutes, but it seemed like a long time that we fought with none of us gaining advantage. Then he stuck the knife deep in my da’s hip. It caught there and he had to jerk to get it out. Deiniol dove to help Da—and I jumped and caught onto his mutilated right arm and ripped and tore with ferocity born of fear. He swung his arm, and I flew loose, my head hitting a tree like a smith hit an anvil. When I staggered to my feet, the forest lord was dead.