“What’s your name?” the woman asked, battering the soldier on the ground with her hammer. His face caved in; his chest cracked open.
“Ssss . . . Sssss . . .” He shook his head; tried again. “Samuel.”
“I’m Keeley,” she replied, stopping to give him a little smile before another soldier came running at her. She spun the hammer around and rammed it forward, the head battering the soldier in the gut. She quickly raised the weapon, bringing the soldier with it.
Samuel watched her lift the man up and over her head. The muscles in her arms and shoulders rippled with the effort before smashing him back to the ground, the head of her hammer now buried inside the soldier’s body.
When she yanked the hammer out, blood and gore spattered Samuel again, but he raised his arm to block his eyes this time.
Samuel had to admit . . . he was tired of getting hit with men’s insides.
Lowering his now gore-covered arm, Samuel watched as the people who’d taken it upon themselves to rescue him battled the brutal soldiers. Thankfully—for their own sakes more than his—they were all skilled at close-in battle and had handily taken down the soldiers in due course.
Samuel had just let out a relieved breath when Keeley’s head snapped up and she looked toward the nearby road. Just as she did, the Amichai woman crouched down and pressed her hand to the ground.
“More coming!” she called out.
“We should get the boy to safety,” one of the tribal males said.
“No time.” Keeley stalked across the forest toward the road. “I need an axe,” she ordered. “Now!”
Another Amichai pulled out a beautiful weapon. An axe that seemed to be one long piece of steel. Keeley held out her hand and he tossed it to her. She caught it easily without even stopping.
“What are you going to do?” one of them asked.
“Block this road.” She used the axe to motion behind her. “Over there. Now. Move.”
Samuel quickly followed her orders as, to his surprise, did the Amichais. Strange, since he’d been raised to believe they were barbarians that didn’t follow the orders of anyone.
Grasping the handle of the axe, Keeley raised the weapon high, her entire body tense, her muscles rippling. Then she brought it down, directly into the base of a large tree. She hit it once . . . twice . . . and the tree came down across the road.
“Gods, she’s strong,” one of the Amichais muttered behind Samuel.
Keeley moved across the road and attacked another tree. Now there were two very large trees blocking the road, but he could finally see what the others had felt. More mercenaries on horseback, riding hard toward them.
“Impressive,” the dark-haired male said, “but I don’t know what that’s supposed to do. We would have been better off running.”
The Amichai was probably right, although Keeley did manage to temporarily stop the riders. The ones in front pulled on the reins of their horses and halted their animals by the trees. The one in the lead laughed when he saw the roadblock.
“What is this?”
Keeley didn’t answer. She was too busy carrying the body of one of the soldiers’ compatriots toward them.
“You bitch!” one of the soldiers barked. “What have you—”
His question was cut off when that body and its insides hit him and several of the others. She then put two bloody fingers to her lips and whistled long and loud.
“You mad cow,” the leader said, pulling his sword from its sheath and—
Samuel stumbled back into the tribal female. He couldn’t help himself when a wolf appeared from seemingly nowhere, leaped over the soldier’s horse, and took down the leader with his fanged maw around the man’s throat.
More wolves came from the trees . . . or the ground . . . Samuel wasn’t sure. He really wasn’t. They seemed to come from everywhere. They weren’t larger than the forest wolves he’d seen in his travels but he’d never met any this bold, this bloodthirsty, or this mean.
Then one of those wolves turned toward him and Samuel immediately looked away, desperately chanting a protection spell at the same time. He had to.
Their eyes. Dear gods . . . their eyes!
But before Samuel could truly panic, Keeley came jogging toward him, carrying the axe and her hammer as if they weighed nothing. She tossed the axe back to its owner and said, as she ran past, “Now we run away. Run,” she cheerfully pushed. “Everyone run. Quick like bunnies!”
Shocked, confused, and unnerved by the death screams of the soldiers, Samuel and the others ran after Keeley.
Samuel whistled and the three horses he’d been traveling with appeared at the edge of the forest and followed their group, which made Samuel very grateful. He didn’t want to go back into that forest to find them and he didn’t want to tell his master that he’d lost the horses.
That would be a quick way to lose his head. And after he’d gone through so much to keep it on his shoulders . . .
CHAPTER 2
Keeley Smythe had to admit, she hadn’t expected her day to go like this. Not when she’d woken up this morning, forced her siblings out of bed so they could begin their chores while their mum slept until the new baby woke her up with her delightful squalling. Helped her father feed the horses, helped her younger brother turn those horses out into the east fields, and stopped a fistfight between two of her siblings.
All a normal early morning for her on her father’s farm. Then, as the two suns rose in the sky, she’d picked up her favorite hammer, kissed her mum and da good-bye, and headed out to her favorite place, the Iorwerth Forests. A vast, dense, treed expanse that Keeley had been exploring since she was a little girl. It was in Iorwerth that she saw her first wild horses. Several herds that had made the forest their home. She would go by every day and spend time watching them. She did it for so long, never bothering any of the animals, that they eventually came to her. The foals first, making their wobbly way over to her spot by a tree. Then the yearlings. Finally the beautiful gray lead mare sauntered over, stared at Keeley for a bit, and then went about her own business. After that, the other horses let Keeley get close, offer them treats or help them when they were hurt. But her best friend, her most favorite was the gray mare’s son. A gray stallion that always watched out for her, made her laugh, and warned her when her younger siblings were about to do something they would all regret.
She should have known something was wrong with the day when she went to make her morning check on the herd and found no animal in sight except for three domesticated horses she didn’t recognize. Then she’d heard the raucous laughter of men. Keeley knew that sound rarely meant anything good out in the middle of the woods. And she’d been right—a small unit of soldiers were hanging a boy from a tree for their amusement.
Keeley was very glad she’d stepped in when she had. And was even gladder that the Amichais had come along. Could she have handled that entire unit by herself? Probably. Could she have outlasted them all? Most likely. Could she have done that and kept all her important bits and pieces? Like her arms, legs, and eyes? Probably not.
So she would forever be grateful to the outsiders who’d come to her aid, which was why she was rushing them through the forest.
They’d just made it into the valley when screams from behind them had Keeley spinning around. One of the soldiers was running out of the forest but he suddenly pitched forward and went down, a wolf on his back.
“Shit,” she mumbled to herself.
Two more wolves came out of the forest. One grabbed the calf of the soldier and began to drag him back, inch by slow inch. The wolf that was already on his back swiped at his spine, tearing flesh, sending pieces of bone flying.
The soldier screamed, reached out for Keeley.
“Help me! Please!”
Keeley went down on her knees and opened her arms. The black wolf she’d known since she’d found him in the forest—alone, crying, and about to be killed by three religious zealots in the garb of Peace Monks—ran to her. He jumped on her, licked her face, and Keeley dug her fingers into his thick fur and wrestled him to the ground.
She laughed until she heard a sword being drawn. Keeley picked up her hammer and turned on her knees, faced the sound. The black wolf stood next to her, baring his fangs, blood-flecked drool dripping down his jaws.
It was the female Amichai who now brandished her sword, gaze locked on the wolves.
“I appreciate that you helped out in the forest,” Keeley told the female as she got to her feet, holding her hammer in both hands. “But I won’t like it if you insist on threatening my friends.”
“Your friends? Those things are your friends?”
“Those things saved our lives.”
“Those things had a meal.”
Keeley smirked. “A hearty one, too.”
“They were called from some hell pit. Demons. You called demons to help you. That doesn’t bother you? That they’re evil?”
“Evil? What makes you think they’re evil?” Keeley asked, truly confused.
She pointed her sword. “Flames. They all have flames instead of eyes! That doesn’t bother you?”
“As long as I don’t put my hands right on their faces, I—”
“That’s not what I mean!”
The dark-haired Amichai approached the female. “Give us a moment,” he said before pulling the female away.
Keeley shrugged and looked down at the black wolf, his eyes of flame gazing back at her.
“Moody bitch, eh?” she asked and her friend “muffed” in agreement.
* * *
Caid of the Scarred Earth Clan looked down at his sister and asked, “What the fuck are you doing?”
“Eyes of flame!”
“I know. I can see them.” Hard not to really with their eyes burning bright as the two suns above his head. “But you seem to have forgotten why we’re here.”
“I forget nothing, Brother. But I do ask what kind of people we are dealing with.”