Chapter 8
We had barely walked forty feet before the snow drift exploded in a cloud of teeth and fury.
Snow blasted upward in a violent spray, and something huge tore free from beneath it, a mass of white and gray and snapping jaws.
Shit.
I didn’t hesitate. I turned and ran to the back of the line, where the horses were, as the soldiers surged forward.
“Down!” someone shouted.
I turned back just in time to see that it was too late. A soldier disappeared in the maw of one of the Hulgrim.
The second one rose behind it.
Shades. There were two.
They towered over the men — massive, hunched things with long, matted white fur clotted with ice and old blood. Their limbs were too long, too heavy, ending in claws that tore through snow and ice like it wasn’t there.
Their eyes were solid black, and I forced myself not to look too long. Their eyes may be black, but they were too human, and too aware.
I could fight. My brothers had taught me enough to survive, and I’d picked up more along the way. But I’d faced these monsters before. And I knew exactly how this ended for someone like me to get too close.
My magic wouldn’t help me here. The thought came sharp and fast, and even if I could, I would never let them see it.
I held the reins of the horses, edging them back, not away, just enough to keep them calm. Because if those beasts got spooked, I wouldn’t be able to calm them on my own.
In front of me, the soldiers fought, and steel met flesh. The sound felt wrong. Too thick, too wet, and too slow to deter the huge beasts.
The soldiers surged forward, shouting, forming a loose line as they tried to contain the first creature. Blades struck, glanced, and sank shallowly into fur that concealed more than it revealed.
One man was thrown. Another went down screaming, clutching his leg as blood spread fast across the snow.
The second creature moved differently. I watched it as it moved around its companion, and I instantly knew we were all fucked if we didn’t take this one down.
From the way it moved, I knew this one was faster… and smarter.
It didn’t charge into the fight. It circled, watching and waiting for an opening. Had the soldiers seen it? Did they realize it was baiting them? My heart was in my mouth.
“Keep them apart!” Captain Marson’s voice cut through the chaos.
He had good instincts, but his odds right now were bad. Epically bad.
The nearest horse reared, eyes rolling white, nostrils flaring.
“Easy!” I snapped, grabbing the reins and hauling him down before he could bolt. The wagon behind him jerked violently as he fought the harness.
“No, you don’t,” I muttered, bracing my weight. “You run, they’ll think it’s a hunt, and we all die.” He fought me for a second longer, then stilled just enough. “Thank you,” I whispered, though I wasn’t sure who I was thanking.
Behind me, a roar tore through the air. It wasn’t human, and I was almost afraid to look.
One of the creatures slammed into the line of soldiers, scattering them like they weighed nothing. A spear shattered, and a man hit the ground hard enough that I heard the crack of bone even over the chaos.
The mercenaries weren’t here. I twisted, searching the terrain… there. The three of them were racing across the snow.
They were at an angle, running toward the carnage created by the monsters.
I knew from his height that Baxley was in the lead, Nicco and Larana on either side. Their long legs covered the snow as if it were solid ground.
They approached the Hulgrim from behind, and I watched, transfixed, as Baxley stepped in first.
He showed no hesitation. He didn’t shout a warning. He was pure movement. He ducked under a wild swing of claws, closing the distance rather than retreating. His blade came up fast and precise, carving along the creature’s side, not deep but deliberate.
Testing. Finding a weak point.
The Hulgrim growled in anger, not pain. Larana followed a heartbeat later — not behind Baxley, but alongside him. She moved low and fast, cutting in where the soldiers had failed, targeting joints and movement rather than brute force. Her blade struck, withdrew, then struck again.
Her cut was efficient and ruthless. The creature turned on them as they drew its attention away from the soldiers, who were dealing with the other one.
It was the creature’s mistake. Baxley was already there, driving his weapon forward with enough force to make it stagger half a step.
That was all Larana needed. Steel flashed in the morning light, and a howl tore through the air.
The other creature cried out in response to the howl, and that was when I saw Nicco. Like the others, he didn’t rush in. He walked through the chaos, the shouting, the blood, and the panic, as if none of it touched him.
The second creature saw him, the clever one. It felt wrong.
Everything about that creature was wrong.
Nicco’s hood was shoved back, his brown hair blowing faintly in the wind, and I saw him tilt his head slightly, as if considering it.
Then he moved, and my jaw dropped at how fast he was. One second, he was out of reach, and the next, he was closer than anyone else had managed.
His blade moved too fast for me to see, but the scream as it met the creature’s flesh was loud, and I knew he had made a clean cut. Not a desperate blow like the soldiers had landed, but a precise one.
He wasn’t panicking. None of the mercenaries were.
Nicco stepped back, swung his sword, and struck again. The creature convulsed, emitting a guttural sound that didn’t belong in this world.
Nicco jumped back as the creature swayed, moving clear of it, like he already knew where it would fall. Snow sprayed up in an arc as the beast collapsed, shaking the ground beneath us.
The other creature’s scream made me wince, sensing the pain and rage, and it started to swing wildly. Claws extended as it swiped through the air, hitting anything and nothing.
Baxley ran forward and leaped onto its leg.
I watched transfixed as he used the creature's own fur to climb it.
He clambered to the top, holding on grimly as the creature, in its grief over its mate's death, caused destruction, never realizing the soldiers in front of it were backing up not because of it, but because of the man it carried on its back.
Baxley lifted his sword, then drove it downward, right into the Hulgrim’s neck. As it fell, he rode it down. It landed on the ground in a heap, and he jumped off, grinning as Nicco reached out and clasped his arm, patting him on the back.
Silence followed.
No one moved as reality swooped back in, and I realized I was still gripping the reins hard enough to hurt. The horse trembled beneath my hand. Or my hand was shaking too much to calm it.
I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the scene before me. Amid the churned snow and blood, the soldiers who could still stand stared in disbelief, not at the creatures but at the mercenaries.
The silence didn’t last. A groan broke it first. Low and human. One of the soldiers was still alive beneath the wreckage of the fight. Then another voice, sharper, called for aid. Movement followed, and orders were barked. Panic trying to dress itself as control.
I didn’t move. My hand stayed on the horse’s neck, feeling the tremor still running through him. His sides heaved under my palm, breath coming fast and shallow.
“Easy,” I murmured, my voice breathless and shaking.
The wind pushed against us, weaker than I was used to, but enough to carry the scent of blood. Even from here, I could smell it, hot, thick, and strong against the cold.
The snow was ruined. What had been clean, untouched white was now churned into a mess of red and gray, trampled flat by boots and bodies and something far heavier.
One of the creatures lay twisted near me, its bulk half sunk into the drift. Even dead, it didn’t look still. The fur shifted with the wind, giving the illusion of breath.
I didn’t look at its face. I’d seen enough death to know what waited there.
The other lay farther out, closer to where the soldiers had first formed their line. Its fall had crushed something beneath it, and I couldn’t tell if it had been one man or two.
It didn’t really matter. Dead was dead.
I walked the horses forward slightly. If there were injured men, they’d need the wagon to carry them.
“Two down,” someone said as I got closer. “Shades…”
“Check the wounded,” Marson snapped. “Move!”
He’d recovered from the fight fast, which was good, as it would keep more of them alive.
I stepped forward, pulling one of the horses with me, letting them see I was there and that I had brought the wagons to them.
I moved along the edge of the fight, careful with my footing, eyes scanning — not the bodies, not the blood — but the ground.
Noting the marks and the way the snow had broken.
As I inched closer to the part of the land where they had come from, I peered at the tracks on the ground, noting where they had moved and where they hadn’t.
I looked into the hollowed-out cavern beneath the ground, seeing bones and what looked like shed fur.
The smell was strong, almost overpowering.
I sat back as I considered it. Could we take shelter there?
I looked up at the sky. There was no cover. They relied on their bulk and the fallen snow to cover them. There would be no shelter here.
Behind me, the soldiers worked quickly, dragging the injured back, pressing cloth to wounds that wouldn’t close fast enough in this cold.
Larana stood apart from them. I watched as she wiped her blade clean with a strip of cloth, her movements efficient and unbothered. No shaking hands. No wasted breath. As if the skirmish with monsters had been nothing. As if she hadn’t just seen monsters from children’s tales erupt from the ground.