Different than the Manwaring strike team. Why is that?
He circled, dodging the slashing knife strikes that told him the Eldritch didn’t see as well in the dark. A blue lightning arc crackled in the dark and the second target juddered in place, then dropped his weapon. The stench of charred flesh and burning hair filled the tunnel, so he hacked a breath and backed off. He saw it clearly when Thalia finished her opponent with a knife, a quick thrust and twist to the kidney.
“I think that’s all of them,” she whispered. “At least the ones who came in the tunnel. There are probably more outside.”
A reasonable assessment. For obvious reasons, he stayed quiet.
She switched on the torch and said, “I won’t leave this on, but I need to ask some questions. Reply with a nod or a shake of the head. Shall we continue?”
Raff nodded.
“Do you want to lead?”
Another nod.
“All right then. I don’t like leaving the bodies here, but we can’t take them with us. They’ll slow us down and we’ll probably need to fight again.”
That seemed likely to him, too. He trotted off, setting a pace she could keep up with.
Her whisper reached him a few seconds later. “They’re not used to fighting Animari. It almost seems unfair, how fast we killed them.”
It’s kill or be killed, princess. And I won’t let them hurt you.
Raff couldn’t say that, of course, and maybe that was just as well. Her regret was natural. If harming her own people didn’t trouble her, she shouldn’t rule them. Something he’d read in old history books came to him, along the lines of ‘those who seek power are not worthy of it’.
The tunnel sloped downward and stretched on for quite a while. There was no further opposition, and eventually, the darkness diffused with a trickle of daylight. A cold wind blew through his fur, and Raff rushed toward the promise of freedom. Caution reined him in at the last minute as he recalled there were probably more Eldritch hunting for them. Their recourse now depended on why they’d collapsed the tunnel. Was it meant as an attack on Thalia or an attempt to cover someone’s tracks? Without knowing that, it was tough to be sure how to proceed.
He waited for Thalia to catch up. She stepped out of the cave mouth to shade her eyes against the winter-pale sun. To Raff, it looked like they had tapped into a natural cavern system with that secret passage into Daruvar.
“Let me get my bearings,” she said.
As she fiddled with her phone, he oriented himself by scent. Mountains to the west, forest to the south. There was rain or snow in the air, a heavy storm threatening. He tipped his head back to study the clouds. It will hit soon. We don’t have much time.
“We’re farther from Daruvar than I realized…”
With a bad storm threatening and an Eldritch hunting party on the move, they couldn’t linger. He growled and pawed her leg.
Thalia glanced at him, one fine brow arching. “What is it?”
Like I can answer. Shifting to reply would burn energy he couldn’t spare, so he stared at her, ran a few paces south, and growled again.
“You know the way back?” she asked.
He nodded. Not exactly, but we can’t stand in the open like this. It was a miracle that they didn’t have to fight as soon as they left the cave.
To his vast relief, she fell in behind him and even increased her pace to a graceful lope when he ran faster. There was old smoke this way, the remnants of a fire, and that probably meant shelter. The precipitation he’d scented earlier dropped on them in a wet wave, half-rain, half-sleet, and it iced the ground. He had less trouble than Thalia, who slid and cursed behind him.
“I don’t think this is right,” she called as a tree branch slashed her cheek.
Raff snarled.
Nearly there.
From the forest proper, he ran into a clearing that held a small hunting cabin. There was no visible smoke, but he could smell the remnants of the fire, doused a few hours ago or so. He dropped out of wolf form, and the shift left him shivering, between the sudden cold on naked skin and the expenditure of energy. Raff didn’t expect to find a lock and he was right; the door opened easily.
“I thought we were going back,” Thalia snapped.
Before answering, he got his clothes on. “My concern was getting us out of the weather. Don’t you see that ice?”
“I do, but—”
“It will kill us, Lady Silver. Freeze us to death before we reach Daruvar. We don’t have winter gear with us or the necessary provisions. We have to wait it out and hope that Eldritch strike team doesn’t find us before I recover fully.”
“But Ferith will think we’re dead!”
He sighed at her outrage. “Better than being actually dead. Help me get a fire started and see what the last tenant left us to eat.”
15.
Thalia was pissed off.
Mostly because Raff had a point. The hail had turned into sleet, slush when it hit the ground, and the ice was sticking, enough that the ground was half-covered in white, as far as she could see. The cabin was rustic, at best. Primitive would be a better word. There were no indoor hygiene facilities; a shack out back had a hole excavated for such a purpose.
Inside, everything was built of unfinished wood, a few shelves with random tins, a rag braid rug on the floor—even the furniture looked handmade, from the bed stand to the rough-edged mattress and table and chairs. The lack of trophies made her think this was no normal hunter’s retreat. As she thought that, Raff built a fire efficiently from the wood that was stacked against the wall near the hearth. Even the stones that had been placed were asymmetrical, found rather than quarried.
“This is an Animari hideaway,” he said then.
She asked, “How do you know?” before
