Kerowyn's Ride

The mage held up his hand, and the dagger hit his palm—

—and bounced, clattering harmlessly to the ground.

Kero wanted to run, but the sword wouldn’t let her. She could only stand there, an easy target. The mage sneered, and raised his hands. They glowed for a moment, a sickly red, then the glow brightened and a spark arced between them. He brought them together over his head, and pointed—and sent a bolt of red lightning, not at her, but into the leech-cloud.

It writhed, but she somehow had the feeling it was not in pain. Then it solidified further—and doubled in size in a heartbeat, looming up over her.

The blade’s anger rose to consume her, and she shifted her grip from the hilt to the sword-blade itself. She balanced her sword for a moment that way, as if it was, impossibly, nothing more than a giant throwing knife. It didn’t seem to weigh any more than her dagger had at that moment.

Her arm came back, and she threw it, like a spear.

It flashed across the space between herself and the mage, arrow-straight and point-first. And as the mage stared in surprise, it thudded home in his belly, penetrating halfway to the quillons.

He gave a strangled cry, staggered forward two steps, and fell, driving it the rest of the way through his body.

The leech-cloud screamed, somehow inside her mind as well as with a real voice; it seemed to split her skull as completely as any ax-blade.

Kero dropped to her knees and covered her ears, the scream driving all thoughts except the pain of her head from her mind. But she couldn’t look away from the thing, her eyes held by the mesmerizing, pulsating lights within it. The light flickered frantically, wildly; the cloud stretched and thinned, reaching upward, and rose to a height of three men—

Then it exploded, vanishing, with a roar that dwarfed the explosions earlier.

Kero blinked dazzled eyes, shaken and numbed, and slowly took her hands away from her ears. There was only silence, the crackling of the fire, and the far-off drum of hoof beats.

She rose to her feet, shaking so hard she had trouble standing, her knees wobbly. Dear gods, what happened? I can’t have killed that thing, can I? She waited for what seemed like half the night, but nothing more happened. Finally she pulled herself together, gathered what was left of her wits, and staggered over to Dierna.

The girl lay quietly beside the rock, eyes wide and staring, face as white as cream. She blinked, but that was the only movement she made; for a moment Kero was afraid that she might have gone mad; or worse—not that she would have blamed her.

But when the older girl came into the failing light from the fire, there was sense in her eyes, and she took the hand that Kero offered in both her bound ones, and allowed Kero to pull her into a sitting position.

“K-K-Kerowyn?” the girl stuttered weakly after a long moment of silence. “Is it r-r-r-really you?”

“I think so,” Kero replied unsteadily, putting one hand to her temple as she looked vaguely around for something to free the girl’s wrists. Although the mage’s dagger lay nearby, she somehow couldn’t bear to touch it. Instead, she retrieved her own knife and used it to cut through the rawhide of Dierna’s bonds.

Once her hands were freed, Dierna clapped her sleeve to her still-bleeding cheek, and began to cry. Kero couldn’t tell if she was weeping out of pain, fear, or for her marred cheek.

Probably all three.

She started to look for something to use for a bandage, but when she turned around—

An old woman in a worn leather tunic and armor that fit her as well as the bandits’ had fitted poorly appeared out of nowhere between her and the fire.

Kero shrieked, and stumbled back, and turned to run—and shrieked again when she came face-to-face— literally—with the biggest wolf she’d ever seen in her life.

Its eyes glowed at her with reflection from the fire, as she groped frantically after weapons she no longer held.

“Stop that, you little idiot,” the old woman said in a grating voice from directly behind her. “We’re friends. Obviously.”