The Blaze Ignites (29 page)

“What’s wrong?”

“Evil is lurking about.”

I began to look around our little campground,
my heart pounding. Ortheldo was still asleep across from me, but
Cairikson was already mounted on Urylia. Addredoc, Meddyn and
Thrawyn were silently packing up the horses, looking frightfully
anxious.

“You walk softly like your kin,” Acalith
whispered, “so you can move about freely and help pack up. Ortheldo
and I will wait for aid to mount.”

I couldn’t help smiling. “So there are no
Sallybreath Flowers hidden under that tan hood of yours?”

“I didn’t say that.”

My brows went up. “So then there
are?
”

The corners of her eyes curved up in a smile.
“I didn’t say that either.”

I sighed and rolled my eyes playfully. “I
suppose by now I should know better than to try asking you
questions.”

We both laughed softly, then I quickly got to
my feet and began to help pack the horses. When Acalith had tiptoed
to Ortheldo and gotten him up, they both stood still in one spot,
waiting for us to finish packing. Then, one by one, they were
lifted off the ground by Meddyn’s red Salynn magic and placed on
top of their horses. I mounted Eleclya, who stood right next to
Ortheldo’s horse.

“What’s going on?” Ortheldo whispered.

“I don’t know. Acalith said something evil
was lurking around.”

“She didn’t say what it was?”

I shook my head.

He pursed his lips and looked thoughtful for
a moment. After seeming to make some silent decision, he closed his
eyes and took a deep breath through his nose. I watched him as his
entire body seemed to relax from his shoulders down to his feet. He
was still for a while, and then his head slowly began to turn. He
tilted his chin down slightly and he looked as if he was listening
to something behind us. Then his head switched directions and it
seemed that he was listening to something in front of us. Without
warning he gasped and his eyes snapped open.

“What? What is it?” I whispered. When he
turned to look at me, the expression on his face was enough to make
my entire body go as pale as he was. I felt my blood just rush to
my feet and I was breathing heavy. “Ortheldo, what is it?”

“Welptacks,” he breathed.

“Welp whats?”

“Addredoc,” he whispered, “can you silence
our horses’ tramping?”

“What is it, Ortheldo?” Addredoc asked.

“Can you?!”

“Yes, of course.”

“Do it then!” He whispered harshly. Addredoc
held his hand out, palm up towards the ground, and a moment later a
soft glowing red light formed around all the horse’s hooves.

I gripped Ortheldo’s upper arm. “What are
Welptacks?” I hissed, not meaning to sound angry, though I was.

“To put it simply, they are huge, deformed
wolves.”

“Wolves?”

“Worse than wolves. They’re bigger and more
vile.” He looked behind him, as if expecting to see one come out of
the bushes on the side of the road. “I’ve met some before.”

I looked out ahead as the horses slowly and
silently started moving forward.

“They can talk,” Ortheldo continued in a
whisper. “They can walk on all four legs or rise up on the back
legs and walk like us. Doing that makes them twice our height.” I
swallowed hard as Ortheldo kept glancing behind us over his
shoulder. “They are superb hunters, relying heavily on hearing and
smell because they can’t see very well, but that doesn’t mean we
have any kind of an advantage over them.”

“So what do we do?” I whispered.

He looked at me and swallowed, “Pray.”

My eyes bulged.

“Stay alert,” he gave me a meaningful look,
“and
always
look behind you!”

Sweat beaded my upper lip, and trying to
swallow was impossible. My throat burned and ached like sandpaper
set on fire. My eyes feverishly bounced around to every shadow we
neared. I tried to focus on the clearing, which was still a
half-mile away but close enough to see through the trees that were
beginning to thin out.

At every leaf and twig we approached, I
cringed and waited for a snap or a crunch to give us away, but
there was none. I trusted Addredoc with my life, and he was only
earning that trust more and more with every silent step our horses
took. It was nearly silent around us,
nearly
. The bird’s
usual merry chipping or fluttering was like thunder in my ears and
all of our breathing was like a low rumble.

Then I heard it. Above everything else that
seemed loud to me, I heard the clumsy snap of a twig from up ahead.
The horses stopped abruptly, as if knowing something was wrong. All
of us glanced at each other worriedly, particularly at Ortheldo,
who looked like he was forcibly reining in his fear.

Growls.

Growls came from up ahead, but I saw nothing.
In truth, I didn’t
want
to see them. I just wanted to ride
as fast as I could and get out of here. How many were there? Many?
Few?

“Dismount, two-leggers!” a voice demanded
from the path in front of us. The voice sounded evil and raspy,
like a growl with words.

I managed to look at Ortheldo and I flinched
when I saw how he was looking at me. His brows were drawn, and he
looked like he was about to scold me for showing my fear. With his
jaw set tight, he slowly shook his head at me. “They smell fear.
Don’t let them smell you, Rabryn, especially if this turns into a
battle.”

Battle? Battle!? I didn’t want this to turn
into a battle!

“Rabryn!” Ortheldo scolded softly but
harshly. “
Don’t
disappoint me.”

I swallowed hard and tried to slow my
breathing.

“I said dismount!”

Still looking at me firmly, Ortheldo
dismounted. I did, and then the rest of our company followed. Why
didn’t we just turn and ride the other way? Why couldn’t… I heard
the growling from behind us and spun around.

Ortheldo snatched my upper arm and jerked me
to look at him. “Rabryn, if you don’t seal off your fear right now,
you might as well run yourself through with your blade because what
they’ll do will be worse.”

I tried, I really did try to calm down, but
it wasn’t working.

Then Ortheldo smiled softly. “Just keep
thinking about the picnic at the waterfall with your mother and
Azrel.” The memory flashed in my mind, as did Azrel’s bravery and
the courage she displayed ever since I’d known her. I would be
brave now, like her. Finally I was able to set my jaw and nodded at
Ortheldo.

Suddenly a loud, nightmarish howling noise
roared up into the sky. All of us slapped our palms over our ears
to block out the painful sound. The horses were thrown into a panic
and galloped off in every direction. It was probably the purpose of
the howl, to make sure we couldn’t escape.

“Well, well, well,” the first voice said from
up ahead. Ten monstrous forms came out from the woods on all sides
of us making a half circle in our path.

I had to make a serious effort not to let my
face express my horror upon setting sight on the creatures. Dark
brown, black, and tan fur covered broad shoulders and chests that
could pass as nearly human, if much larger in comparison. Their
chests were bare skin and the same color as their fur, with
chiseled human-like abs carved out of each stomach. The hips and
pelvis were dog-like, as were the arms, legs and feet, all covered
in short coarse hair. Some had hateful red eyes, and others had
such pale blue they were almost white. Their snouts jutted out two
feet from their faces with two huge fangs that curled up from each
lower jaw and up well past their noses. They were as enormous as
they were frightening, standing only a head shorter than a
full-grown horse on all fours.

I looked at the apparent leader of the pack
as he neared us and realized he had a nasty scar over his left eye,
which seemed to be completely blind. He approached Ortheldo, who
stood with his arms crossed, and the two glared at each other. I
felt the air tingle between them with familiarity.

Finally Ortheldo spoke. “Imbrul, how nice to
see you again. Still bearing the mark of your last defeat, I
see.”

I couldn’t believe it! Ortheldo had given him
that ugly scar on his eye! Imbrul’s lips trembled with a fierce
growl, but Ortheldo had yet to even flinch. “Come to have your
right eye matched to it, or did you just come to say hello?”

Imbrul rose up onto his back legs, stretching
himself up over twice Ortheldo’s height. I held my breath as the
Welptack puffed out his chest and glared down at him. “I plan to
make you suffer immensely for what you did to me—after you give me
the Anarran Gem.”

Anarran Gem? That must be the name of the gem
on the necklace. Ortheldo and I exchanged worried glances,
realizing these Welptacks must have followed the aura of Goodness
the gem radiated, like Beldorn had warned.

“Anarran Gem?” Ortheldo asked, looking back
at the large Welptack.

Imbrul dropped to all fours again and snapped
his jaws dangerously close to Ortheldo’s male appendage. “Don’t
play coy with me. I know it’s in your pocket as we speak.” Imbrul’s
foggy pale blue eyes narrowed. “Your
right
pocket.”

I swallowed hard again as Imbrul brought his
hideous face so close to Ortheldo’s that his thin whiskers brushed
my cheek as I stood next to him.

“I can smell your fear, human,” Imbrul said,
even though Ortheldo hadn’t retreated an inch. “I know you have
it.”

Ortheldo rolled his eyes, “I don’t have
anything. If I did, I would kindly give it to you. Maybe a few
accessories would take the focus off your eye.”

Imbrul growled again, fog coming out of the
sides of his mouth from the crisp morning air. “Give it to me now
or I’ll rip your throat out!”

I watched him, wondering what he was going to
do. I debated whether to draw my weapon, wondering how many I could
actually kill before I was killed.

Ortheldo eyed Imbrul curiously. “Speaking of
ripping throats out, why haven’t you attacked yet?” He sounded
genuinely confused, as if he were flabbergasted that they were
conversing at all.

“Give me the gem!” Imbrul screamed.

Ortheldo started glaring at him a little
suspiciously. “I have nothing to give, but if you insist I do,”
suddenly Ortheldo pulled out his sword. A split second later all of
us were armed. “Come and get it.”

Imbrul’s eyes went wide, and for the first
time since this encounter began, I felt courage seep into my heart.
I realized Imbrul was afraid to attack us for some reason…but that
didn’t stop him from ordering his pack to.

“Attack!” Imbrul cried out.

An explosion of Addredoc’s red wizard fire
filled my vision, blinding me for a moment. When my vision
returned, I saw on the ground a short ring of pulsating red light
surrounding us. All of us turned to Addredoc, but he just looked at
the Welptacks defiantly. Then one of his eyebrows went up in what
seemed like a challenge to the deformed wolves.

Something caught my eye in the surrounding
woodlands. When I realized what it was, my knees nearly collapsed;
an army of Welptacks completely filled the woods in every
direction, surrounding us. There had to be a thousand of them. They
stood among the trees around us, gazing hungrily.

“Uh, Addredoc?” I said. “Would you mind
closing up the magic ring around us? I think we’d be safer.”

Rabryn! Came his scolding voice in my head.
Now they’re going to know there’s a reason I didn’t enclose us
entirely!

Well, why don’t you? I fired back.

What if Azrel meets up with us today? She’ll
be trapped outside and left to the wolves. I need to make sure I
leave a way for her to get inside with us, without letting them
know she could be nearby.

I looked around at the ring of Welptacks.
She’s not going to get near us anyway with this many Welptacks
around.

His brows dropped in consideration as he
examined the army surrounding us.
That’s a good point. I guess
we’d better kill a few then.

Addredoc must have spoken in everyone’s head
because we all took a battle stance at the same time. Suddenly the
Welptacks leaped over the red ring of light to get to us. As soon
as their abdomens passed over the red ring on the ground, rays of
magic shot straight up from it, stabbing each one in the chest or
stomach. All the Welptacks in the first wave fell dead on the
ground. Not one made it past Addredoc’s powerful magic.

The Welptacks were taken aback, but only for
a moment. Then Imbrul growled at us before screaming, “Full
charge!”

In that instant my world became nothing but
flashing red light and fur.

Welptack bodies fell by the dozen to
Addredoc’s magic red ring, but some jumped on top of those dead
bodies and managed to get inside. I fired one arrow, which was all
it took for me to realize my bad choice in weapons for this enemy.
I killed one wolf, but another was after me so fast I couldn’t load
my bow again in time. I dropped it and pulled out my sword just in
time to slice the throat of my new attacker.

Always look behind you!

Ortheldo’s warning filled my ears suddenly. I
spun around just in time to see another Welptack in mid-lunge. I
didn’t have the time or the room to maneuver, so I just thrust my
sword forward and prayed I’d hit its heart. Both of us fell, me on
my back, the Welptack on top of me. I waited anxiously for a bite
or scratch, but the monster lay limp. With a breath of relief I
rolled it off, only to be immediately under attack from another
beast before I could even stand! I sliced that one across the
throat from my back.

I had to get to Ortheldo! He had the
necklace, so the whole pack was probably on top of him. But in this
flurry of attacks I couldn’t take my eyes off the wolves long
enough to search for him.

I managed to jump to my feet and hewed off a
wolfish head as a beast flew through the air at me. Three more
stood behind that one, drooling and eyeing me hungrily. I had just
enough time to suck in a small gasp of air before all three leaped
at me.