Empire of Storms
Page 22

Well, the girl was about to die. Either at the claws of whatever pursued them or at the end of Lorcan’s blade. He hadn’t yet decided.
Human—the cinnamon-and-elderberries scent of her was utterly human—and yet that other smell remained, that tinge of darkness fluttering about her like a hummingbird’s wings.
He might have suspected she’d summoned the beasts were it not for the tang of fear staining the air. And for the fact that he’d been tracking her for three days now, letting her lose herself in the tangled labyrinth of Oakwald, and had found little to indicate she was under Valg thrall.
Lorcan rose to his feet, and her dark eyes widened as she took in his towering height. She remained kneeling by the stream, a dirty hand reaching for the dagger she’d foolishly discarded in the grass. She wasn’t stupid or desperate enough to lift it against him. “Who are you?”
Her hoarse voice was low—not the sweet, high thing he’d expected from her delicate, fully curved frame. Low and cold and steady.
“If you want to die,” Lorcan said, “then go ahead: keep asking questions.” He turned away—northward.
And that was when the second set of snarling began. From the other direction.
Two packs, closing in. Grass and cloth rustled, and when he looked, the girl was on her feet, dagger angled, face sickly pale as she realized what was happening: they were being herded.
“East or west,” Lorcan said. In the five centuries he’d been slaughtering his way across the world, he’d never heard snarls like that from any manner of beast. He thumbed free his hatchet from where it was strapped at his side.
“East,” the girl breathed, eyes darting to either direction. “I—I was told to stay out of the mountains. Wyverns—large, winged beasts—patrol them.”
“I know what a wyvern is,” he said.
Some temper snapped in her dark eyes at his tone, but the fear washed it away. She began backing toward the direction she’d chosen. One of the creatures loosed a keening cry. Not a canine sound. No, this was high-pitched, screeching—like a bat. But deeper. Hungrier. “Run,” he said.
She did.
Lorcan had to give the girl credit: despite the still-injured leg, despite the exhaustion that had made her sloppy these past few days, she bolted like a doe through the trees, her terror likely leeching away any pain. Lorcan leaped the wide stream in an easy movement, closing the distance between them in mere heartbeats. Slow; these humans were so damned slow. Her breathing was already ragged as she hauled herself up a hill, making enough noise to alert their trackers.
Crashing from the brush behind them—from the south. Two or three from the sound of it. Big, from the snapping branches and thudding of footfalls.
The girl hit the top of the hill, stumbling. She stayed upright, and Lorcan eyed the leg again.
There was no point in having tracked her for so long if she died now. For a heartbeat, he contemplated the weight in his jacket—the Wyrdkey tucked away. His magic was strong, the strongest of any demi-Fae male in any kingdom, any realm. But if he used the key—
If he used the key, then he’d deserve the damnation it’d call down upon him.
So Lorcan flung out a net of his power behind them, an invisible barrier wafting black tendrils of wind. The girl stiffened, whipping her head to him as the power rippled away in a wave. Her skin blanched further, but she continued, half falling, half running down the hill.
The impact of four massive bodies against his magic struck a moment later.
The tang of her blood as she sliced herself open on rock and root shoved itself up his nose. She was nowhere near fast enough.
Lorcan opened his mouth to order her to hurry when the invisible wall snapped.
Not snapped, but cracked, as if those beasts had cleaved it.
Impossible. No one could get through those shields. Not even Rowan-rutting-Whitethorn.
But sure enough, the magic had been sundered.
The girl hit the gully at the bottom of the hill, near-sobbing at the flat expanse of forest sprawling ahead. She sprinted, dark braid thrashing, pack bouncing against her slim back. Lorcan moved after her, eyeing the trees to either side as the snarling and rustling began again.
They were being herded, but toward what? And if these things had ripped his magic apart…
It had been a long, long while since he’d had a new enemy to study, to break.
“Keep going,” he growled, and the girl didn’t so much as look over her shoulder as Lorcan slammed to a stop between two towering oaks. He’d been spiraling down into his magic for days, planning to use it on the human-but-not girl when he grew bored of stalking her. Now his body was rife with it, the power aching to get out.
Lorcan flipped his axe in his hand—once, twice, the metal singing through the dense forest. A chill wind edged in black mist danced between the fingers of his other hand.
Not wind like Whitethorn’s, and not light and flame like Whitethorn’s bitch-queen. Not even raw magic like the new King of Adarlan.
No, Lorcan’s magic was that of will—of death and thought and destruction. There was no name for it.
Not even his queen had known what it was, where it had come from. A gift from the dark god, from Hellas, Maeve had mused—a dark gift, for her dark warrior. And left it at that.
A wild smile danced on Lorcan’s lips as he let his magic rise to the surface, let its black roar fill his veins.
He had crumbled cities with this power.
He did not think these beasts, however fell, would fare much better.
They slowed as they closed in, sensing a predator was waiting—sizing him up.
For the first time in a damn long while, Lorcan had no words for what he saw.
Maybe he should have killed the girl. Death at his hand would be a mercy compared to what snarled before him, crouching low on massive, flesh-shredding claws. Not a Wyrdhound. No, these things were far worse.
Their skin was a mottled blue, so dark as to be almost black. Each long, lightly muscled limb had been ruthlessly crafted and honed. For the long claws at the end of their hands—five-fingered hands—now curled as if in anticipation of a strike.
But it was not their bodies that stunned him.
It was the way the creatures halted, smiling beneath their smashed in, bat-like noses to reveal double rows of needlelike teeth, and then stood on their hind legs.
Stood to their full height, as a crawling man might rise. They dwarfed him by a foot at least.
And the physical attributes that seemed unnervingly familiar were confirmed when the one closest to him opened its hideous mouth and said, “We have not tasted your kind’s flesh yet.”
Lorcan’s axe twitched up. “I can’t say I’ve had the pleasure, either.”
There were very, very few beasts who could speak in the tongues of mortal and Fae. Most had developed it through magic, ill-gained or blessed.
But there, slitted with pleasure in anticipation of violence, gleamed dark, human eyes.
Whitethorn had warned of what was occurring in Morath—had mentioned the Wyrdhounds might be the first of many awful things to be unleashed. Lorcan hadn’t realized those things would be nearly eight feet tall and part human, part whatever Erawan had done to turn it into this.
The closest one dared a step but hissed—hissed at the invisible line he’d drawn. Lorcan’s power flickered and throbbed at the poisoned claw-tips of the creature as it prodded the shield.