Evelyn stopped again and clicked her tongue. The snuffling ceased and all was quiet, save for the timpani of Evelyn’s own heart.
“Here, girl,” she called to the horse. She moved forward a step, whistled low. “’Tis all right—I’m here now.” She crept around the edge of pine, stiff, brushy needles snagging her cloak and then springing free, sending fresh, powdery white down upon her. The green scent was so thick here, Evelyn’s empty stomach churned.
A flash of black through the boughs caught her eye and then danced away behind the needles. She penetrated the heart of the copse.
The blood would have been enough to stop Evelyn in her tracks. Red, steaming snow, melted into black mud. Fresh crimson starbursts exploded and splattered away from the crater where a short but deadly battle had been waged.
Evelyn had indeed found Minerva’s mare. Lying dead on its side, its mouth slack around square, bloodied teeth, as if in surprise. Its throat was torn away.
But beyond the mare’s barreled chest lay an even greater horror, and it now growled at Evelyn—a low, wet sound full of fresh death.
A black wolf crouched on its haunches, its blood-slicked muzzle still clamped around shiny entrails ripped from the horse’s belly like satiny ribbons. The animal was enormous—big-boned and wide of chest beneath matted, shaggy fur.
“Oh my God,” Evelyn croaked as wild yellow eyes locked onto her. The wolf’s sides heaved in and out with exertion and alarm, and even from this distance, Evelyn could see skeletal ribs and the lump of thick hipbone jutting through the beast’s matted fur. The animal was nearly starved.
It growled again, this time more insistently.
Stay away. Mine.
Evelyn swallowed, her eyes flicking to the saddlebag still tethered to the dead horse. “I’ll not hurt you,” she said in a low, quavering voice. Her mind raced, and she decided quickly that the best course of action was to back a fair distance away and leave the wolf to its meal. The horse was of little use to her any matter, now. When the wolf had eaten its fill, Evelyn would return and retrieve the satchel.
She began to back away.
The wolf sprang to its feet, dropping the entrails with a spray of bloody saliva as it lunged forward, barking, and skidded to a halt in the snow not ten feet from where Evelyn stood.
Had she any water in her bladder, she would have lost it in that moment.
“All right! All right,” she rushed. “I’ll not move.”
The wolf growled and backed up slowly until it was returned to the horse’s torn underbelly. Its eyes never left Evelyn’s, even as it began to feed once more.
After what seemed like an hour of watching the wolf gorge, Evelyn’s numb feet and legs would no longer support her and she slowly sank down to her bottom in the accumulating snow. The beast tensed at her movement.
“Just taking a rest,” she whispered.
It resumed its meal.
Evelyn ate a handful of snow.
She was covered in a blanket of powder and frozen to her core it seemed when, at last, the wolf stood. It stared at Evelyn, licking its muzzle noisily.
Evelyn swallowed. “Well. What are we to do now?” she asked lightly. The wolf cocked its head and Evelyn flicked her eyes to the saddle, blinking away the snowflakes clumped on her eyelashes.
The wolf shifted its weight and then sat down in the snow.
Evelyn drew a steadying breath. “I must have it, you understand.”
The beast stared at her a long moment and then stood once more and circled away from the carcass. It walked stiffly to the far edge of the copse and lay down with a grunt. It looked at Evelyn and yawned.
“All right, then.” Evelyn took another deep breath. “Just the satchel, I swear it.”
The wolf did not move.
She rolled to her feet so slowly it took her nearly a full minute before she stood upright. Creeping, she slid her feet through the snow, inching toward the horse, barely feeling the fiery cold burning the exposed skin above her worn leather slippers. Her heart felt swollen with ice and shuddered as if it would explode when she reached the mare and crouched down slowly. The smell of blood caused her to gag and her mouth to water, the fresh carcass still radiating a glowing heat.
The wolf lowered its head to its paws.
Evelyn slid a hand beneath the satchel’s ice-stiffened flap and grasped blindly until she felt the hilt of her blade, as cold as her own skin. She withdrew it from the bag slowly, slowly.
“’Tis not for you, lovely,” Evelyn crooned when the wolf’s ears pricked, praying the beast would not charge her before she had removed the satchel. She sawed clumsily through the strap holding the bag to the horse and dragged it to her, clutching the dagger to her bosom.
“There—that’s it. That’s all.” Evelyn stood, wanting to sob. Her salvation was in her own hands now. “The rest is yours, as I promised.” She began to back away.
The wolf raised its head with a low growl and Evelyn froze in place. But the animal was looking past her, deeper into the copse of pine.
Then Evelyn heard the soft crunch of snow behind her. She spun around.
No fewer than five more of the beasts ringed the copse—all gray in color and smaller than the black behind her, but still large and deadly. They watched her greedily, long tongues lolling out of their mouths and running with saliva.
Live meat. Fresh. Warm. Hungry, hungry…
Evelyn’s throat closed as images of her body being ripped open like the mare’s filled her mind. Fear unlike any she had ever known paralyzed her so that she could not have commanded her legs to move had she a place to flee.
She was trapped in the thick stand of trees.
The boldest of the newcomers hedged toward her in a swift, side-to-side motion and then stopped, as if taunting her. And this wolf had a different air about him—an awareness like a sinister fog that seemed to slither over the snow and swirl about Evelyn’s ankles. An old, old beast, grizzled and scarred, his bloody intent clear in his soulless eyes.
Run? Will you run?
The animals behind the leader began to whine and Evelyn heard her own wild squeal of fear squeeze past her throat. Oh, God, she prayed, at last able to address her maker now that she was mesmerized by the long fangs, the curled, quivering lips. Please make it quick.
The wolf leader pounced with a snarl and Evelyn closed her eyes.
She was knocked sideways with a cry, and the sounds of hellish screams filled her ears. But when no teeth sank into her flesh, her eyes snapped open.
The black wolf was entangled with the gray, their forelegs locked around each other in a writhing, blurry mass of teeth and fur.
Another gray leapt onto the black’s back, fangs bared, eliciting a bone-shuddering squeal from the larger animal.
Evelyn knew it would only be a matter of seconds before she, too, was attacked. She scrambled backward, her knuckles still clenched around her dagger and the satchel dragging through the snow, and then she was somehow off the ground and running—flying—through the forest away from the frenzy behind her, mumbled sobs bubbling at her lips as her breath roared in and out of her nose. Running, running for her life.
The life the black wolf had spared her. But why? Why? Yellow eyes glowed in her mind.
Evelyn ran for what seemed like hours before she saw the slope ahead—rounded, snow-covered ground that swelled away into a view of distant trees at midtrunk. How far was the drop? Two feet? A score? And what lay below? A forgiving bog? A frozen river, punctuated with jagged boulders?
Evelyn