The Fifth Knight(57)
“Not yet.” He kept going, kept her with him.
Then she saw it. Bright flames beneath a tree. The crackle of burning sticks. A plume of smoke.
A shadow skulked through the trees to their left. Then another, and another. The howls again.
With speed fed by terror, she ran with Benedict to the fire.
He yanked a stout burning branch from it and thrust it to her. “Keep it before you.” He pulled out a second for himself.
The shadows emerged from the woods, emboldened that their quarry had stopped. Four. Five. Seven. They prowled forward with low growls that reverberated in one awful sound.
“There’s so many, they keep coming.” Theodosia held out her branch and waved it from one side to another, frantic to keep count.
“Just keep the flames moving.”
The animals paused about six feet away. They continued to thread in and out amongst each other.
Quercus whinnied in terror, eyes rolling and straining at his tied reins.
The biggest wolf’s head whipped round to the source of the noise. It broke from the pack and jumped toward Quercus.
Not their horse.
Quercus spun and kicked out hard with his hind legs. With a loud crack, the wolf soared through the air and landed with a yelp in a shower of drifted snow. The pack grumbled loud and long, turning their snarling muzzles back to face Theodosia and Benedict.
A second, smaller wolf surged forward with a savage snarl. It leapt for Benedict as Theodosia screamed, but the knight slashed it away with a sweep of flame.
“Have it, you devil!”
The animal fell to one side and whimpered, the acrid stench of burning fur wafting in the air. The wolf retreated back to its pack, and another licked its burned face.
The others settled into a regular rhythm of passing one another, back and forth, in and out.
Transfixed with fright, Theodosia didn’t dare shift her gaze, the scene livid, hellish through her branch’s flare. “What are they doing?”
“Waiting,” came Benedict’s terse reply.
“Waiting? For what?”
“They’ve tried Quercus. Tried us. Both of us are a bit too much to handle at the moment. So they’ll wait. Wait for one of us to weaken.”
Her voice cracked. “And then?”
“Then they’ll move in for the kill.”
Gray-brown fur gleamed in the light as the wolves continued to circle. “What are we going to do?”
“We have to try and make for Quercus. Get on him and outride the beasts.”
He couldn’t mean it. “But he’s on the other side of them.” Her quick glance at his set jaw told her he could.
A sudden hiss. “Forcurse it.”
She looked again. Benedict’s flames were dying, losing their battle with the snow. He shook his torch hard, but it fizzled out.
Theodosia prayed, willed hers to keep alight, holding it out before her as Benedict grabbed at another.
“How many are left alight?”
Branches snapped from the undergrowth stopped his answer. The wolves turned as one to look.
With a terrific snarl, the burned one took off toward the source of the noise. The bushes moved in abrupt movement, then a wheezing thump ended in a whine.
The dense growth parted. The monstrous form of le Bret emerged, a dead wolf impaled on his huge broadsword, Fitzurse and de Tracy close behind.
“You look like you need our aid, Sir Palmer,” said Fitzurse.
Theodosia’s breath stalled. How? How?
Le Bret heaved the dead wolf off his blade, and it thudded into the fallen snow and rolled over, blood seeping from its side.
The pack converged on the strangers. Their snarls and howls of rage echoed through the woods.
Le Bret swung his sword again and caught another wolf’s ear. With a yelp it scuttled backward, the others close around it.
“Forgive the delay. We won’t be long.” Fitzurse’s blue gaze locked on hers through the curtain of falling snow, worse, far worse, than the wolves’ orange eyes.
She looked to Benedict.
He wasn’t there.
“Hey!” De Tracy’s yell told her he’d found him.
She looked in the direction of his pointed sword. Dear God, no.
Benedict ran for Quercus, the distraction of the wolves momentary but enough. He leapt into the saddle and yanked the reins free. With a shake of his head to Theodosia, he kicked hard at the horse’s sides. Quercus took off through the trees.
He’d left her to them. She swayed on her feet, sounds blurred. She fought her faint, clinging to her branch.
“Leave him!”
She turned, stumbling, at Fitzurse’s clipped order to the knights. They stopped, watching their leader.
He raised his weapon to the leading wolf. “I’m sorry, my beauty,” he said, “but you leave me no choice.” He raised his sword in both hands and sideswiped. With a sickening crunch, he sliced through the animal’s neck and took its head clean off.