They were everywhere.
He thrust forward with the sword, trying to get to his companions, but the brutes dodged his blade, snapping at him with a sound like breaking timber. Cursing, he took a wild swing at the nearest and hit it on the side. He saw with strange clarity the chips and splinters of black wood that flew from the blow, and the animal buckled as the iron blade bit. It toppled to the surface of the churning water and sank out of sight with unreal swiftness.
One of its comrades sprang forward to snatch at Michael's arm, but it caught only the furs he was wearing and tore them from his forearm, unbalancing him. He yelped as another bit into his foot, and kicked out frantically as the teeth drew blood until it let go. He regained his balance and stabbed at another, but missed. There was a torrent of snarling and snapping, hollow sounding but carrying above the howl of the wind. Another creature leapt for his throat, but he threw up his free arm and smashed it back with a strength he never knew he had. The others rushed in. He swung the sword desperately but they came in quick, deft lunges to leave gashes in his flesh from which the blood flowed freely, staining the water.
He caught a glimpse of Cat fighting, a ravenhaired fury laying about her. Nennian was swinging a broken branch, thigh-deep in filthy water, his habit ripped from one shoulder and the blood pulsing from his neck. Then a great weight smashed into Michael from behind and toppled him forward. He went under, feeling the teeth rake the back of his neck, and in the ooze he lost his grip on the Ulfberht. It slipped from his fingers. His mouth filled with water and he fought to his feet, elbowing one of the beasts from his back. Another fastened on to his thigh where the old wound had been and that leg buckled, throwing him under again. His breath bubbled out of his nose and mouth and his face was pressed into the muck that underlay the churning water. He floundered to the surface, buffeted by hard bodies. A set of jaws closed round his wrist and he ripped it free, the teeth raking his flesh from the bone. He saw Cat fall, her stone knife splintered into shards, and the wolves Crowded in on her. Nennian screamed and went down with half a dozen of the beasts tearing at him. Michael was knocked to his knees again, a wolf lunging for his face. Incredibly, his fingers came upon the hard blade of his sword under the water. He gripped it and stabbed his attacker in the throat, then swept it through a hundred and eighty degrees with a wordless bellow, decapitating another, slicing the foreleg from a third. They drew back.
'Cat!'
He floundered forward like a maniac, cutting and thrusting, and beat off the pack that was attacking her. She was barely conscious, her face covered in blood. He grabbed her hair and pulled her head above the water, but he was tired and the shock of his wounds was setting in, weakening his limbs. Where Brother Nennian had been there was a crowd of the beasts tearing at something which was now submerged. Scraps of the brown habit were flung about, chunks of something unrecognizable, and the water was black with gore.
'Cat! The Wyr-fire!'
In his extremity he could feel it, simmering at the forefront of his mind. But it was trapped there. It was as though it was bulging behind the bone of his skull.
They closed in on him again. He was sobbing as he fought, Cat a dead weight dragging at his wounded arm, the sword becoming heavier and clumsier in the other. The wolves were implacable, fearless, and behind his immediate attackers he could see more explosions, more columns of spray and muck, as fresh foes rose out of the very earth to join them.
So this was how the tale would finish.
This land does not go out of its way to provide happy endings.
Indeed. But he would fight it to the end. He would die with his soul his own.
Cat was stirring, trying to sit up. He was too busy fighting off their enemies to spare her a glance but he felt her hand gripping his knee. She was trying to pull herself to her feet. Her fingers slipped into the open wound on his thigh and he screamed in agony but did not cease his efforts for a second. He spun round and the world began to flicker darkly in his sight. The wolves were black snarling shapes that crowded his ~ion and the wind beat unceasingly at his head, his eyes squinting against spray. He felt his life was trickling out of him, leaking away into the muddy water and being soaked up by the forest.
I'm dying, he thought.
Then Cat was standing at his shoulder, supporting him. The green fire was flaring out of her eyes, a flood of emerald.
'Wyr-fire, Michael. Use it.' And, unbelievably, she was smiling at him through her mask of blood and mud.
And it was there, ready and waiting for him. The world was a verdant brightness. The fire was glaring from his own eyes now, spilling out of his wounds like phosphorescent gore. The Wyr-fire was singing in his veins, steadying him. It formed a halo, a globe about the pair of them, and within it the wind dropped, the ceaseless roar diminished. Those wolves which were caught by it flared like struck matches, and the smell of burning scorched the air. They howled in pain and collapsed sizzling into the water. But the green fire continued to burn so that the lake round Michael's feet was a chiaroscuro of viridian, full of green flares. The rest of the beasts backed away, but the flames raced across the water as though the liquid were flammable and caught them also. It licked round their flanks and poured out of their maws and eyes, gutting them. They sank out of sight, shrieking.