Chapter 6
Belle
My mare clopped along the lonely road, each plodding step taking us deeper into the Dragon King’s domain.
Marcel had decided to split the party at dawn. He’d sent the porters and the second wagon on to the next village with a new hired guard, while the rest of us made for Castle Fellspire. We hadn’t seen any other travelers, but fresh sheep droppings let us know we weren’t the only ones on the road.
Silas and Ardyn rode in the lead, with Varos riding at the rear. Gregoire and I flanked the wagon as it lurched along, dropping into ruts and rattling over divots in the road.
“By the gods,” Marcel muttered as he yanked the reins to maneuver the wagon over a patch of churned earth. “This road is paved with the devil’s own bricks. Some fool must’ve driven a herd of cattle through here days after the rain. We’ll be lucky if we don’t break a wheel.”
“The villagers claim the king demands deliveries of sheep and cattle every month to feed his dragon,” I said over the grinding wheels.
I supposed it was better than eating maidens.
“Dragon.” The old man scoffed. “One thing you’ll learn about small towns is that myths and rumors breed like rabbits. If there were a dragon, no one would be living within a hundred miles of this place. Most likely, it’s nothing more than heraldry.”
“If there’s no dragon, why are they sending shipments of animals?” I asked.
Marcel shrugged. “To feed his army. Doubtless, that’s what keeps the beasts away from the towns and the road.”
Gregoire twisted in the saddle to look back at me. “You spend too much time reading fairytales, Belle.”
I turned back to the road, my fingers knotting the reins. Maybe the oaf should try cracking open a book sometime.
The trees loomed on either side, their leaves brown and limbs twisted as if in pain. It was nearly noon, but the mist had started creeping from the shadows of the forest and drifting over the edges of the road. The sun should’ve been at its brightest, but its light was weak, almost insubstantial.
I blew into my hands, fighting the cold and missing the laughter of the porters—they had always chased the gloom away.
A flock of screeching birds burst into the air ahead, and I jolted upright in the saddle as they soared off.
Silas raised his hand in warning. “Hold.”
Marcel pulled on the reins, and the cart ground to a halt, the sudden silence almost louder than the grinding of the wheels on the road.
The faint bleating of sheep came from around the bend ahead of us.
My horse skittered nervously.
“Just men and sheep ahead,” Ardyn said.
Silas didn’t move. “No, there’s more.”
He tilted his head to listen, and I caught myself holding my breath.
An unearthly howl ripped through the forest, followed by a crash and the terrified bleating of sheep and men shouting.
I knew that howl.
“Fuck!” Silas shouted, spurring his horse. “Stay here!”
He galloped forward, Varos and Ardyn on his flank, their weapons drawn. A dozen panicked sheep barreled around the corner toward us.
My horse danced, and I pulled hard, trying to get her under control.
Marcel dropped the wagon reins and grabbed his musket from the back of the cart, quickly pouring powder and ramming a bullet home. “Stay alert.”
A second roar echoed through the woods, this time directly behind us. I twisted back as a towering shape stirred within the shadows of the trees.
No, no, no.
The beast burst out of the forest, eviscerating one of the fleeing sheep in a single blow. Blood sprayed across the earth, and my stomach reeled.
The mules bolted, and the wagon lurched forward, careening ahead over the rutted road. Marcel clung on for dear life as it rounded the bend.
“Marcel!” I fumbled for my bow and urged my horse into a run.
Varos’s black gelding galloped past me in the opposite direction, riderless and frothing at the mouth. Where was he?
I rounded the bend and pulled my panicked mare to a stop as the wagon barreled ahead.
The bloody carcasses of sheep littered the ground, and towering over the carnage—a beast, its claws wet with blood.
The immortals had dismounted, weapons drawn, trying to flank the beast. Three shepherds with spears ran toward us, waving their hands. “Stop!”
The beast roared and lunged past the guards, straight for the mules as they ran by. They jerked sideways, and the wagon upended, crashing to the ground and taking the braying mules with it.
My horse reared, bucking me free of the saddle.
For a moment, everything slowed. Then my breath burst from my lungs as I hit the ground and rolled.
Pain lanced my shoulder, and bolts of agony screamed up my leg.
I managed to flip onto my belly and sucked in a labored breath, tasting the metallic tang of blood.
The wagon lay tipped on its side, no sign of Marcel. Men screamed, horses and sheep fled in all directions, and blood and viscera littered the ground. Nausea burned my throat. A beast towered over it all.
“Kill it,” Silas bellowed from my left.
My bow lay ten paces away, surrounded by arrows that had fallen from my quiver. I scrambled forward on hands and knees, desperately grasping at the weapon and scattered arrows.
“Get Belle!” Marcel shouted, and my head jerked right. He’d taken up a position at the edge of the road, his musket braced on an overturned crate.
A wet thud spattered beside me, and warmth streaked across my cheek. I stared at the mass of wool and blood.
A strong hand gripped my leather vest and plucked me off the ground like I weighed nothing.
“I told you to stay put, fool woman,” Silas barked, hurling me down behind the overturned wagon. A hulking shadow rose before us on two powerful legs, eight or nine feet tall. Its eyes were as red as the blood that coated its jaws.
Scrambling up, I fumbled to nock an arrow.
The beast bared its fangs and swept its powerful arm forward, raking at Silas with its saber-like claws.
The immortal twisted free of the attack and slashed at the creature with his sword, but the long laceration left by his blade seemed little more than a scratch.
Varos and Ardyn charged in from the flank, driving their blades into the creature’s back.
The beast spun, and its claws ripped through Ardyn’s belly. Blood poured from his mouth, and he collapsed into the dust.
The terror of it should’ve driven me to my knees, but the familiar feel of the tattered grip in my hand gave me an eerie sense of calm.
I raised the bow and pulled the string taut, the smooth wood and soft creak eliciting a familiar sense of control.
I sucked in a breath and anchored my shot, keeping the monster in my sight, waiting for Silas to give me an opening.
Now.
My arrow shot past Silas’s shoulder and sank between the creature’s ribs. The beast roared and slammed the immortal out of the way. It turned toward me, its body coiled to strike.
A musket thundered. The creature’s head kicked back, and for a moment it teetered, then stumbled forward and crashed into the earth.
It lay still, gaze distant, a dribble of blood seeping from the bullet hole in its forehead.
A spear poked from its back, while deep cuts and gashes matted its fur with blood.
I twisted, finding Marcel. He was already ramming home another bullet.
My breaths came fast. There was a second beast. I spun around, searching the road, then the trees. Where was it? And where in the hells was Gregoire?
A pair of shepherds raced toward us from the tree line, hands wrapped around their spears and their faces taut. “Why in the name of the g—”
Boughs cracked as the second beast crashed out of the trees and seized one of the men. Its jaws snapped shut around the poor bastard’s skull. His body jerked once and then went still before dropping to the ground. Blood poured from the creature’s mouth as it snarled.
The other man screamed and drove his spear into its leg, but the beast swatted him away, sending his body tumbling across the dirt.
I pulled and released. My arrow sank into the beast’s shoulder instead of its throat, but I was already drawing another arrow.
A pair of gunshots echoed, and the creature staggered back, snarling. Then it yanked the spear from its thigh in an almost human-like manner and, instead of attacking, tipped its head back and let out a single haunting howl before seizing the corpse of a sheep and charging into the trees.
It was gone.
I lowered my bow, staring at the place it had been, the headless body of the man it had left behind.
Then I snapped out of the trance.
Marcel and Varos remained untouched. Gregoire emerged from behind a tree, musket held close, still smoking. Two of the shepherds were dead, the other on his knees, trembling.
Silas roared, dropping beside Ardyn’s body.
I limped forward, unable to look away. The creature had torn his chest open.
Marcel approached, breathing hard. “Is he—”
His voice cut off, the truth evident. Immortals could heal most wounds, but there was no coming back from this.
I’d never seen an immortal die. Never even thought they could die, not really. Not like this.
The world swayed, and my stomach came up.
Varos sneered, but I just wiped my mouth and righted, staring straight back at him. He looked away first.
Footsteps scuffed on the hard-packed road, and I turned, a twinge of pain shooting up my leg. The shepherd. His face was pale, his gaze distant.
“Why?” he said, voice faint. “Why did you do this?”
Marcel stared aghast. “You should be thanking us. We lost everything to save your hides. Perhaps we should’ve left you to fend for yourselves.”
The man shook his head, his expression stricken. “They came for the animals. They wouldn’t have harmed us.” His fists tightened around his spear. “Now my brothers are dead, and they’ll never stop hunting us. This is your fault.”
He took a step forward.
Silas turned away from Ardyn’s body and rose, leveling his bloody blade at the man. “What the fuck are you talking about, peasant?”
The man dropped instantly onto his hands and knees. “I beg your forgiveness, my lord. Please, let me live.”
Silas lowered his sword and glared at the shepherd with contempt. “Why would you think the beasts wouldn’t harm you? Are you blind? Did you not see what they just did?”
The herdsman looked up, trembling and his face drawn. “It’s the king’s law. We’re forbidden to harm the beasts, and they’re not to harm us—unless we attack them first.”
My breathing grew shallow. Surely this man was mistaken. The beasts were nothing more than bloodthirsty monsters. And yet…the wounded beast had howled not in rage, but almost in grief. It had fled with a sheep, not a man’s body.
“Why would the king’s laws protect the beasts?” I asked.
“They belong to him,” the man said, exhaustion weighing on him. “They obey him.”
Erasmus had said just as much, but could the king truly value their lives above men?
“No king, immortal or not, could command those things,” Marcel whispered.
The shepherd rested his forehead against the ground, his hands entwined in his hair.
“You don’t know this king. He’s more beast than man—and he’ll make us all pay the price for what you’ve done today.
If the beast you wounded doesn’t come back to finish the job, the king surely will once it reaches him. ”
“Then we need to hunt the thing down before it finds the king,” Silas said. He wiped his blade and shoved it into his scabbard. “There’s no time to waste.”
“It’s wounded and limping,” Varos said. “That will make it easier to track.”
“Are you both mad?” Gregoire asked, looking helplessly between the immortals and Marcel. “Did you not see what just happened?”
“Of course I saw!” Silas snarled. “It killed one of my soldiers. I don’t care what the laws are here—in the Bloodvale, to wound an immortal carries a sentence of death. I mean to enforce it.”
Marcel held his musket close. “If what the shepherd says is true, we have to hunt it down before it comes for us in the night or warns the king.”
Gregoire slung his gun over his shoulder. “This is madness.”
Silas seized him by his shirt. “You’re a godsdamned huntsman, and yet it was the old man who brought down the creature. Prove your worth, or I’ve half a mind to snap your leg and leave you to the beasts.”
He released Gregoire, and the huntsman stumbled back, shocked.
The shepherd slowly rose. “I have to get back to my family. Please, let me go.”
Silas spat. “You’d better run, then. Because I need a fucking drink.”
The man turned and fled down the road, Silas watching with predatory intent.
The creature’s claws had ripped through the captain’s armor, and blood seeped from a wound in his side.
If he were a man, he’d be dead, but the immortals healed quickly—as long as they had recently fed or had a source of blood.
My fingers drifted to the hilt of my father’s hunting knife. I’d kill him if he tried to feed from me.
“We should go back to Harrowick, Silas,” I said as calmly as I could manage. “You’re hurt. You want revenge, and you’re not thinking clearly.”
He touched his tattered cuirass and stared at the blood that came away on his fingers.
Then he clenched his hand into a fist. “I’m done taking orders from your kind.
We’re going to hunt that son of a bitch down and kill it.
Then—yes—we are going to leave this gods-cursed place.
And if you die on the way…” His eyes narrowed on me.
“I couldn’t care less. This is your fucking fault. ”