Dread wormed through Lovina.
Bill picked Lovina up. For the sake of the littlings, she didn’t struggle. He threw her out the window and jumped to the ground beside her. Stuffing a gag in her mouth and yanking her rope hard, he led her toward the trees by the river.
Turning Point
Panting, Tomaaz stopped outside Lofty’s house, putting his hands on his knees to catch his breath. Ana and Ernst were tending the wounded where they lay. Others were still fighting tharuks in the neighboring fields.
“Where’s Lovina?” he called.
“Safe inside,” Ana answered, cleansing a gash in a man’s shoulder.
“Did you fight Bill off?”
“Bill?” Ernst’s shaggy eyebrows drew into a frown, as he cut a strip of bandage with his knife. “He’s in jail, not here.”
Tomaaz burst into Lofty’s home and snatched up a candle. Muffled sobs came from Lovina’s bedroom—the littlings’ room. He dashed down the hallway and pulled the door open.
A dead tharuk lay on its side, in pooling blood. The bed was rumpled and a chair was overturned. A window flapped in the breeze. Maybe the sobbing had come from the next room. About to close the door, Tomaaz heard someone choking back a gasp.
He scrambled to his knees and lifted the bedding. Under the bed, Lofty’s three littling brothers were squeezed hard against the wall, faces tear-streaked. “Hey,” he called, setting the candle on the floor. “Come here, boys.” He reached under and pulled them out.
Wait, blood on the bed frame. Long strands of brown hair on the floor. Tomaaz picked up some hair, and then more. “Where’s Lovina?” His words were strangled. “Where is she?”
“Over there,” said Deano, the eldest of the littlings. “I watched out the window.”
Tomaaz rushed him to the open window. “Where did the man take Lovina, Deano?”
“By those trees,” the boy said, pointing toward the swimming hole. “He tied her up.”
No, while he’d searched for Pa, Bill had been snatching Lovina.
“Into the living room. Wait for your ma there.”
He leaped through the window and sped across the field.
“Hey, Maaz!” Lofty yelled. “Where are you going?”
“Bill’s got Lovina,” Tomaaz panted, running toward the trees.
§
Blood slicked the pommel of Hans’ sword, making it hard to grip, but he hacked into the beast. It dropped. Another surged forward to take its place. Feint, thrust, drive and sidestep. Lunge, deflect and aim … his sword hit home, piercing the soft skin under the tharuk’s chin. The beast tottered and fell on its side.
With a screech, the cooper next to him fell, leaving his young son unprotected.
Hans swung to deflect the claws of a beast. He pushed past a furry back to pierce the armpit of a small tharuk with its claws raised over Paolo’s head. The tharuk faced Hans, eyes blazing, angling its tusks at his face. Hans ducked, driving his sword into the beast’s gut. With two hands and all his bodyweight, he pushed, feeling the pop as he pierced the tharuk’s tough hide, but before he could drive the sword deeper, the brute grabbed him.
Hans dropped his sword, his arms pinned to his sides, helpless.
Then Klaus was there, ramming his knife into the tharuk’s throat.
In a gush of stinking dark blood, the beast went limp. Hans kicked it backward, knocking another tharuk down. He yanked his sword from the tharuk’s belly and nodded at Klaus. “Thanks.”
“Back to the square, Paolo,” he yelled to the boy. Then he and Klaus turned to keep fighting.
§
The sky was waning to pre-dawn gray when Tomaaz heard Lovina scream. Sword drawn, he ran through the trees.
“No, I won’t come with you!” she yelled.
“Which bone shall I break next?” Bill laughed.
Tomaaz ran. There, through those trees.
Bill kicked Lovina in the stomach. She dropped to her knees, clutching her belly. Bill backhanded her. Her head snapped back, smashing against a tree trunk.
White-hot rage surged through Tomaaz. He pounded across the forest floor.
Lovina rolled out of the way as Bill aimed another kick.
Then, seeing Tomaaz racing toward him, Bill gave a guttural yell and leaped into the air toward Lovina.
“No!” Tomaaz’s shriek cut the air. He was too slow.
Too slow to stop the full weight of Bill landing on Lovina’s arm, boots first.
There was a crack. Bone jabbed through skin. Her face turned the white of solstice bread, and her eyes rolled back in her head.
Then, Bill was gone, dashing away through the bushes.
“Lovina.” Tomaaz reached her, dropping his sword and falling to his knees.
Her eyes flitted to him, beyond and back, breathing shallow. She murmured.
“What is it?”
“Behind you,” she gasped.
Tomaaz turned.
“May I introduce you to my friends?” said Bill.
Four tharuks stood at his back, tusks gleaming in the sunrise.
§
Hans dragged his sword from a tharuk’s throat and lifted it to swing again. His legs were faltering, dog-tired. Usually at sunrise, even in battle, he felt a new surge of hope, but this was different.
Beside him, Klaus held the brutes at bay with a spear, jabbing them when they got too close. They were part of a ragged line, trying to hold back the flood of tharuks. Jammed between two rows of buildings edging the street, with archers positioned above, he’d thought they had a fair chance of repelling the beasts and securing the street, but he’d been wrong.
An arrow whistled past him, hitting a tharuk in the eye. It collapsed, knocking a fighter down. The boy lay there, trapped beneath the beast, too tired to move. Klaus swung his spear in an arc, allowing Hans time to get to the boy. He rolled the tharuk’s body over and the boy dragged himself to his feet.
“Paolo, it’s you! I told you to go back to the square.”
“They
