Rob Scott - The Larion Senators

‘Yes, it did,’ Hoyt agreed. ‘All right, Pepperweed, take me back – but not back to the inn, I have to get Alen.’

‘He’s coming back, too. I already talked to him. He’s waiting for you. He was in someplace else, Durram or somewhere. I don’t know where that is, but the lady with him was very sad. They had to leave the baby behind. Alen was sad, too.’

‘But the Seron, and the Malakasian guards – how can we-?’

‘I’ll scare them off for you,’ Milla said, stealing another piece of gravy-dipped bread. ‘But they won’t stay away for long so you two have to hurry.’

‘What a negative outlook on human emotion,’ Ramella went on, now staring into the space left empty when Hoyt rose to follow the little girl back to reality.

‘How are you doing this?’ Hoyt asked. ‘How is this possible?’

‘Some things I can just do,’ Milla said. With that, Hoyt felt a band wrap around his chest. It tightened, hardening to iron and threatening to suffocate him.

‘Not too tight, Pepperweed,’ he warned.

‘Sorry,’ Milla grinned, her hair an endearing scribble.

‘Is this how you kept Gilmour from falling?’

‘Uh huh,’ the little magician said smugly, proud of her work.

‘Good job.’ Hoyt stroked her curls, and said, ‘Let’s go.’

‘One moment, I have to chase the Seron away first.’

On the highway south of Pellia, with three wagons in flames, most of their cargo lost and more than a few of their number dead or dying in the fire, Prince Malagon’s Seron warriors were undeterred; no one fled, no one wept and no one dallied over the bodies of fallen comrades. They formed ranks around the final wagon, salvaged what they could from the burning carts and resumed their journey towards Welstar Palace. When the aerial firestorm slowed, they conducted a search of the fields, but they found no sign of terrorist archers, no Resistance army, and no reason to dig in or to return to Pellia.

Their lieutenant, a big female with a grisly burn on her forearm, climbed to the driver’s bench and barked orders at what remained of her platoon. The others fell in step and the wagon rolled on, quickly leaving the fiery devastation behind. Soon the burning wagons – and bodies – were little more than flickering lights in the distance.

The woman checked the perimeter, checked the sentry lines, checked the squad assigned to the wagon itself, and then settled on the bench beside the driver. ‘Welstar,’ she growled.

The driver, shook out the reins and the team started off while the last of the Seron took up their positions. He shouted at those Malakasians in his way; they had emerged from their homes, still in their nightclothes, to view the carnage. This bunch ought to get back inside, he thought, they don’t know what these Seron might do. ‘Go on now!’ he cried, ‘back to bed with you all!’

A few complied, but others, possibly unaware they were risking death, continued to watch the Seron monsters, some snarling with smouldering rage, as they marched towards Malagon’s legendary keep.

When the first of the dogs howled, he squinted into the darkness. ‘Now that’s a big dog,’ he said. ‘A herder, that one, and with a bull’s set of pipes on him, too.’

The Seron lieutenant ignored him as she bound the wound on her arm with a strip of cloth torn from a blanket beneath the bench.

‘You know, you ought to-’ the driver began.

‘Welstar!’ the Seron repeated, cutting him off.

‘All right, all right. I’ll shut up, but you’re going to get some kind of nasty infec-’

Another dog howled, this one from across the highway, a lingering wail, an unnatural sound sustained too long in a shrill, threatening cry. It was answered almost immediately by a macabre echo, this from the south, somewhere ahead of the wagon team.

‘Now that’s not something you hear every day,’ he said shakily, but a withering glance from the lieutenant silenced him again.

She stood and shouted a quick string of orders to her platoon: Stand fast! Don’t be drawn into the fields.

The howls and barks came from all around them now. Some were low and resonant, rumbling deep in broad, powerful chests; others were like screams, pitched high and wailing, dangerous even from far away. ‘I don’t like this,’ the driver said, trying unsuccessfully to quieten the horses. He peered left and right, trying to move only his eyes, as if sitting still might keep danger from spotting him.

Something moved, low and fast, just out of sight, crunching through frost and brittle cornstalks.

‘Oi! What’s that then?’ He jumped, and cried out, ‘Rutting whores, there must be fifty of them – gods, but I wish they’d stop yelping so. What could have them so fired-?’

‘Shutap!’ The lieutenant cuffed him on the temple, nearly knocking him from the bench. She grunted more orders to her platoon: Look sharp! Be ready!

A dog appeared in the highway, its eyes glowing red, even in the dim light of the torches carried by the Malakasian guards. It was a wolfhound, the biggest the driver had ever seen. Its mane bristled as it growled through clenched teeth, its jowls dripping froth.

‘Great whoring-’ The driver drew his sword and twisted the reins around his free wrist as the wolfhound charged the horses, snarling and biting at their forelegs. The lieutenant gestured to a Seron guard, urging him forward to kill the animal, but before he could comply, the roiling din of barking, growling, yelping and shrieking choked to a sudden, unnerving silence. Only the dog attacking the horse team continued to bark.

The lieutenant shouted down at the soldier, ‘Ahat dog! Ahat!’ Her voice carried over the snowy field like a thunderclap.

The Seron came abreast of the rearing horses. The driver tried to calm the animals, keeping a steady grip on the reins, as the Seron moved in for the kill, raising his knife and then leaping for the dog.

As if the Seron’s action was a cue, wolfhounds similar to their leader attacked from all sides, materialising out of the darkness. One sprang onto the attacking Seron’s back, biting first at his neck and then at the hand holding the knife. Another, an ebony copy of the first two, used the struggling Seron as a springboard, leaping from his back onto the first horse in the wagon team. It snarled at the driver, then sank its fangs into the horse’s neck. The animal screamed, reared in terror, kicked the Seron warrior in the head and then bolted, dragging its teammates and the cart through the ditch into the cornfield.

‘Whoring mothers!’ the driver shouted, slashing at a dog trying to climb the side of the wagon. The animal fell away, its jaws snapping audibly, and the frightened driver hauled back on the reins until the wagon crashed through a plough rut and he was jounced from the bench, landing with a bone-jarring thud in the frozen soil. He dropped his sword but kept a grip on the reins, which was a mistake, for no amount of tugging slowed the horses and he was dragged halfway across the field until he finally let go and fell face-down in the snow.

Back on the road, what remained of the Seron platoon was engaged in an epic battle with a seemingly endless number of inky-black wolfhounds. For every dog they slashed, stabbed or clubbed to death, another appeared, hurtling out of the darkness like a phantom. They stood their ground, hacking and stabbing to all points of the compass; any that fell were soon covered with snarling beasts; three and four at a time climbed onto the fallen warriors, snapping at arms, necks, ankles and faces, until the Seron, exhausted or dead, finally lay still.

As the wagon thundered across the cornfield Hoyt pushed his way through the canvas bags, then cleared several more for Alen.

‘What just happened?’ he shouted. ‘What was that?’