Barb Hendee - Witches in Red

Graham dropped his spear and began running toward the flurry of sounds.

“Don’t!” he shouted. “It’s Saunders.”

Before Céline could move or react. Mariah picked up the spear and ran after Graham. With no idea what else to do, Céline turned back and found Marcus gone.

“Marcus!”

No one answered.

Céline ran after Mariah and soon rounded the back of the outer Móndyalítko wagon, reaching the west-side perimeter. The first thing she saw were two dead soldiers on the ground, bleeding from their throats. A spear and a loaded crossbow lay beside them. Any other soldiers who’d been here appeared to have run. She didn’t see Mariah.

Only two living creatures now occupied her line of sight in the darkness.

The farthest away was the same massive wolf that had attacked her and Amelie in their tent. Its red eyes glowed, and its jowls were pulled back, exposing its fangs.

A few paces closer to her, Graham was kneeling, facing the beast and holding one hand out in the air.

“Saunders. It’s me.”

The wolf snarled and charged. Céline wanted to shout, to wave her arms, to do something, anything, to distract it, but the sound caught in her throat, and she couldn’t seem to move.

In a blur, Mariah came running from the shadows behind the wagon, past Céline, and she swung with the butt of her spear, catching the wolf directly across the face. The blow barely seemed to stun it, but it faltered somewhat in its charge at Graham, and it only clipped him, knocking him off his feet.

As the beast struggled to halt and turn, a slender black wolf dashed in, smashing against its side and rolling it onto the ground. Two breaths later, Rurik came running up, carrying his drawn sword.

Mariah ran to Graham, kneeling beside him, weeping openly. “It’s not him anymore,” she cried. “He’s not in there.”

Then the roar of both wolves drowned out anything else she might have said, and Rurik stood watching the battle of teeth and claws in confusion.

“Help the black one,” Céline called to him. “It’s Marcus!”

Amelie had watched Jaromir run in, and she’d crawled along behind him without being seen, hoping to use her best and main strength—the element of surprise—against Quinn.

She could hear both men speaking, and then she heard a sword sliding from a scabbard.

“What did you do with her?” Jaromir asked, his voice full of anguish.

Amelie moved from behind a tall stack of crates and peered over the top of a barrel to see.

Before the sound of the words had died, Quinn swung with the butt of his spear and caught Jaromir across the face. Amelie wanted to scream. Jaromir would have expected a straight-on attack, for Quinn to come at him with the point of the spear.

With a cracking sound, Jaromir went down. His eyes were closed.

Quinn flipped the spear upward, gripping its haft up nearer the point, and then he raised it to drive it downward through Jaromir’s chest.

Amelie had no weapon but a dagger, and she was well aware that she was no match for Quinn. So she did the only thing possible. She shoved the tall stack of crates beside her, and they fell forward on top of both Jaromir and Quinn with a cascade of crashing sounds.

Darting forward, she ran over the tops of the fallen crates, hoping to reach Quinn and drive her dagger through his throat while he was still dazed. Reaching him in seconds as he lay on the ground, she struck downward with her blade.

But his hand snaked up and caught her wrist. The next thing she knew, he’d jerked her down and was up on top of her, pinning her arms with his knees. This time, he didn’t grab her jaw. Instead, his hand closed around her throat. Looking up, she could see anger in the back of his cold blue eyes. He wasn’t going to snap her neck. He wanted this to hurt.

His hand closed slowly, and she fought to take in air. The pain wasn’t terrible at first, but then it grew unbearable. He went on closing his hand, and the world began growing black.

Céline heard Marcus yelp as the larger wolf snapped its teeth on his shoulder.

Rurik dropped his sword and grabbed a fallen spear, moving closer to the fight and looking for an opening where he wouldn’t hit Marcus.

But his action of grabbing the weapon caused Céline to cast about as well, and her eyes fell upon the loaded crossbow lying just outside a dead soldier’s hand. The beast must have killed him before he had a chance to fire. Scrambling forward, Céline snatched it up and aimed it at the mass of claws and teeth and fur rolling on the ground. She didn’t take her eyes off them, and when the larger wolf suddenly rolled on top, she fired, catching it behind one ear. The creature roared and veered away from Marcus, shaking its head savagely.

As soon as it was off Marcus, Rurik darted in and used both hands to drive the spear downward through its throat, pinning it to the ground in a rush of blood. Rurik stomped down on its front shoulder with his boot and fought to hold the spear in place as the creature bled out and out . . . and finally stopped moving.

Marcus—the black wolf—tried struggling to his feet and then fell. By the time Céline reached him, he was in human form again, naked, panting, and bleeding. He didn’t speak as she pulled her cloak off and covered him, trying to check his wounds at the same time. The front of his left shoulder had a deep gouge.

Rurik took his boot off the massive dead wolf, walked over, and looked down at Marcus as if uncertain of what he was seeing. Céline turned her head up and met Rurik’s eyes. He was a teller of secrets. That much was known, but perhaps only where Anton’s success was concerned.

“He saved us,” she said flatly. “You’ll keep his secret?”

After a moment, Rurik nodded. Then, as if unsure what to say, he went over to check on Graham and Mariah.

Céline turned back to Marcus. “I need to make sure Amelie is safe. Then I’ll get my box and tend to these wounds. This shoulder might need stitching.”

He hadn’t seemed to hear her, and he was studying her face.

“What you said before . . . about knowing who was responsible, about being able to stop all this, that means you’re leaving soon, doesn’t it?”

The question threw her, and she wasn’t sure what he was trying to ask. “Yes. I have a shop, a life back home.”

If anything, his gaze grew more intense. “You mean you have someone back home?”

She flinched. Could he see how she was haunted by the trailing wisps of her unexplainable connection to Anton? Looking away, she couldn’t answer his question. There was no answer.

Amelie was in agony, and her world was going black.

Then, suddenly, the pressure on her throat was gone and she was sucking in air. Nothing made sense for a moment, but she could hear grunting and crashing sounds, and she tried to struggle up, squinting to see what was happening.

Jaromir and Quinn, both barehanded, were swinging at each other. Where was Jaromir’s sword?

Had he seen her being strangled and just rushed in without thinking in order to pull Quinn off?

Quinn struck Jaromir full force in the jaw, snapping his head back, but Jaromir came around and smashed his own fist into the side of Quinn’s face. Then, somehow, as Quinn stumbled, he managed to duck up behind Jaromir and make a grab for his head.

In panic, Amelie pushed herself up. She knew what Quinn was doing: trying to get a firm enough hold to break Jaromir’s neck. But Jaromir’s hand flashed downward toward something on top of a crate, and the next thing Amelie knew, he had slipped around behind Quinn, and Amelie saw what he’d grabbed: a thick piece of twine torn loose from a fallen crate.