“Look out!” Amaranthe fired the crossbow one-handed.
The quarrel took the wolf in the lung, but she dared not trust it to die promptly. She tossed the crossbow into the bed and scrambled after, sword still in hand.
“What the-” Maldynado leaped over the other side, hitting the ground in a roll.
The injured wolf landed an inch from Akstyr, claws screeching on metal. It spun toward Amaranthe. She stabbed at its eyes with the short sword, but it whipped its head to the side, and her blade only clipped its snout. The wolf leaped back, hurdling Akstyr.
He lay so still, she feared him under some spell-or worse.
The wolf wheezed and gurgled. That lung shot ought to have killed it. Its lips rippled as it snarled, and blood dripped from its fangs.
Before Amaranthe could decide if she wanted to attack over Akstyr, the wolf lunged for her. A paw landed on Akstyr’s gut, and he sat up with a grunt. The motion distracted her, and snapping jaws almost clamped onto her arm.
She sidestepped and drove the short sword into the wolf’s ribcage with all her strength. Bone crunched and gave. Her blade sunk so deep, the falling body pulled the weapon out of her hand.
Akstyr was scrambling to his feet, but the wolf slumped against him. He staggered back under its weight, then heaved the dying beast over the side.
“Akstyr,” Amaranthe groaned.
“What?”
“My sword was in that body.”
A rifle cracked nearby, drowning his reply and reminding her they still had work to do. Three wolves snapped at Books and Basilard, who stood back-to-back in the center of camp. No one had had a chance to build up the fire. Beside the lorry, Maldynado clubbed another wolf with the butt of a rifle. She did not see Sicarius. Shapes darted through the shadows all around the camp.
“Help Maldynado.” Amaranthe picked up her crossbow.
She launched her remaining three quarrels at the wolves harrying Books and Basilard. Each thunked home. Again, the wolves seemed not to notice. She had to trust the poison on the tips would slow the beasts somewhat.
She started to repeat her order to Akstyr, who was still in the lorry, but he had his eyes closed, hands lifted. He clenched them, and the campfire roared to life. Orange light threw back shadows, improving the illumination all around.
“Thanks,” Amaranthe said. She spotted Maldynado’s sword lying next to his blanket and handed it to Akstyr after he dug his own blade out. “He’ll need this.”
Amaranthe hopped down, leaving her crossbow to retrieve her sword. She planted a foot on the dead wolf to yank the weapon free.
The improved lighting showed Sicarius battling with the three wolves on the road. Though he had a dagger for each hand, he was out of throwing knives. The wolves attacked together, trying to surround him and bring him down like a wounded elk. He moved as quickly as they did, darting and dodging to stay on the outside where he only had to fight one at a time. Dagger blurring, he eviscerated one wolf as it leaped for him. Two remained.
She hesitated, wondering if she should join him. With his style of fighting, she might get in his way. More wolves lurked on the outskirts of the camp, though, and she would rather have him at her back than risk being surrounded herself.
One wolf slipped around Sicarius. It and the other timed a strike, leaping at him simultaneously.
Amaranthe sprinted for the road, thinking he might need help after all. He angled past the one jumping at his throat and opened its jugular with a dagger. It crashed into the second wolf, midair. Sicarius sprang back, blade slashing again. The second creature fell.
She lurched to a stop at the edge of the road, her sword raised. He lifted his eyebrows.
“I thought you might need a footstool to throw at them,” she said sheepishly, lowering her weapon.
He grunted and headed off to retrieve his throwing knives.
Dead wolves littered the road and the camp. None remained standing, nor were any slinking away. If all they had wanted was a meal, they never would have fought to the death; they would have fled as soon as the odds turned against them.
“Is everyone all right?” Amaranthe called. “Any wounds?” She peered up and down the road as she cleaned her blade, half-expecting some shamanic beast-master to be lurking along the wayside. If such a person existed, he was not considerate enough to show himself.
“Books jabbed me in the ribs with an elbow,” Maldynado said.
“I thought you were a wolf,” Books said.
“Then I guess I’m lucky you don’t know the pointy thing is supposed to go into the enemy.” Maldynado waved at Books’s sword.
Akstyr laughed and Basilard grinned.
“They’re all right.” Amaranthe smiled to herself.
Sicarius returned to her side. She tucked loose strands of hair behind her ears and waited, expecting a chastisement for being so slow to wake everyone. Nobody should have been caught sleeping when the attack came. If she hadn’t been worried about losing face…
“Good fighting,” Sicarius said.
“Huh?” she blurted before something more intelligent could form in her thoughts.
“Your accuracy with the crossbow was pinpoint, your sword skills adequate.”
“Oh. Thanks.” From him, “adequate” was high praise, and she’d never heard him use the word pinpoint to describe any of her maneuvers. He must not have seen her get her sword stuck between that wolf’s ribs.
He prodded the nearest corpse with a muddy boot. “These were more difficult to kill than wolves should be.”
“Wolves don’t generally attack people either.” Maldynado strolled up. “Also, in case it wasn’t mentioned, that glowing-eye effect was a mite odd.”
“Magic?” Amaranthe assumed.
Akstyr knelt beside one of the wolves. “Not that I can tell.”
“Er,” Amaranthe said. “What else could it be?”
“I suppose it’s possible something has been done to them,” Akstyr said, “but the wolves themselves don’t feel crafted by a Maker. Not like the soul construct from this winter.”
“Bas?” Amaranthe asked. “Your people live up north in these mountains. Any ideas what we’re dealing with?”
Basilard shook his head.
“They appear to be simple eastern timber wolves,” Books said, “native to these mountains, but hunted nearly to extinction in the last century by farmers and shepherds concerned for their stock animals. Though carnivorous by nature, these creatures are a smaller, less aggressive offshoot of the giant frontier wolves. Attacks upon humans are rare. Most incidents have involved individuals, not groups, and the wolves were starved from a harsh winter.”
Maldynado made a show of yawning. “It’s bad enough I had to get up in the middle of the night; I didn’t think lectures would be involved.”
Books opened his mouth to respond.
“What could explain this behavior?” Amaranthe blurted, hoping to head off a verbal sparring match.
“Maybe the professor can dissect one and let us know,” Maldynado said. “What do you think, Booksie?”
“I was a history professor, you simian twit. Not a biologist.”
“So…no dissections?” Maldynado asked.
Amaranthe lifted a hand to end the discussion. “Let’s…” She considered the carnage, crinkling her nose at the butcher-house scent. Even if they moved the bodies out of camp, the blood would attract scavengers that would keep her team up the rest of the night. “Pack and get back on the road.”
“Who has to drive and stoke the firebox, and who gets to sleep?” Maldynado asked, eyes narrowed.
Books, Akstyr, and Basilard stepped back. That left Maldynado in the front.
“I believe you’ve been volunteered,” Amaranthe said.
Maldynado groaned. “This trip is off to a horrible start. When I agreed to help you so I could become famous and have someone make a statue of me, I thought my tasks would involve bad-man thumping by day and soft beds by night.”
Amaranthe patted him on the back. “Statues don’t come easily, my friend.”