“Blood wraiths!” Face lined with horror, Banek lurched up from his seat on the ledge and shouted across the distance. “Run this way, girl! Run!”
The fog rolled slowly enough that she could outrace it—but when Yvenne turned to look at the encroaching mist, fear must have paralyzed her, for she moved not at all.
By Temra’s fist. A blood wraith’s touch was death. Worse than death. Heart hammering, Maddek sprinted for his mare.
“To the road, my lady!” Kelir thundered from behind him. “Run!”
Fassad’s sharp whistle joined the shouts, and either that awoke Yvenne from her terrified stupor or the wolves did. While Steel snapped sharp teeth close at her ankles, Bone snagged her robe in his jaws and hauled back, as if the dog intended to drag her to the road.
She stumbled, nearly fell, then righted herself again. Maddek caught a glimpse of her bloodbare face when she looked toward the road. Relief eased the clutching fear upon his chest.
Now she would run.
But she did not. Instead she looked back toward the fog, as if measuring its speed—then limped quickly toward a broken column that lay half embedded in the mud, not unlike the ledge where she had sat before.
“No, my lady! To the road!” Toric called to her—for the column was high enough that she would be above the mist, but when it overtook the ledge, she would be trapped there.
Unless Maddek reached her first. Shouting “Fly!” he vaulted onto the mare’s bare back. Her powerful muscles bunched as she sprang forward, racing headlong toward his bride and the befouled fog. It swept toward her and macabre dread gripped Maddek’s heart, for he could see what crawled within the thick mist—the twisted gray visages with gaping sharp-toothed maws, the long grasping claws. The scuttling withered husks were all that remained of the men and women they’d once been before their blood had been corrupted and their souls trapped by perverse magics.
With the wolves at her heels, Yvenne scrambled atop the ledge on hands and knees. Gaining her feet, her frantic gaze clashed with his across the distance before she glanced desperately at the encroaching fog—and when she faced him again, he knew that she’d made the same realization he had.
He would not reach her before the blood wraiths surrounded the ledge. Already the fog was at the far end of the broken column.
“Fassad!” Her shout carried over the pounding of the mare’s hooves. “Call them back!”
The dogs. No whistle came—Fassad would not leave her alone.
Her chest heaved, gaze darting wildly behind her. The fog had spread along half the column’s length. Both she and the dogs moved to the end nearest the road, where there was still muddied ground visible at its base. Once it was covered, there would be no escape that way.
Maddek held up his fist and Fassad’s whistle sounded, short and shrill. The wolves hesitated only a moment before bounding to the ground and racing toward the road.
Never would Maddek forget Yvenne’s face in the moment the dogs abandoned her. Her relief, her terror—and the lift of her chin as she met his eyes again. Before the mare had taken three more strides, the fog closed around the base of her column. Gray fingers reached up out of the mist, crawling up the shadowed side of the ledge, then at the sunlit edge shriveling and drawing back from the glare of Enam’s yellow eye.
If a cloud shielded that eye, there would be nothing to hold them back.
Maddek looked over his shoulder to where Kelir rode not far behind him, his big body crouched low over his mount’s neck.
“Fall back to the road!” Maddek shouted, and for an instant, the warrior seemed as if he would refuse the order. Then Kelir sat upright in his saddle and his horse slowed, veering toward the ruins in a wide curve that would take them back to safety.
His heart like lead, Maddek urged his mare faster even as realization dawned on Yvenne’s face. His bride shook her head wildly and shouted something at him, probably that he was a fool, but her voice was drowned out by the pounding of his blood and the thundering of hooves. Without hesitation his mare plunged into the ground-crawling fog, her powerful legs churning the mist. A chorus of unholy screeching seemed to rise from the earth itself, reverberating through mud and stone, the odor of rot thick in the air.
Just before reaching the column he felt the mare’s stride falter, then catch pace again. Barely slowing, Maddek swept Yvenne from the ledge with an elbow hooked around her waist, and heard the impact knock away her breath even as she wound her arms desperately around his neck.
Holding her shaking form securely against his chest, Maddek wheeled the mare around. “Fly,” he said from a roughened throat, and she did, her great heart carrying them out of the mist and her stride never slowing until they reached the road.
There he drew her to a halt with his voice. His warriors surrounded him and he looked down into Yvenne’s bloodbare face. Her trembling arms still clung tightly around his neck, as if she would never let him go.
“Were you touched?” he asked gruffly.
“No.” Her voice was a strained whisper, her pale gaze searching his features. “You did not have to come for me. Thank you.”
With a stiff nod, he handed her down into Banek’s arms and slid from the mare’s back. She stood calmly, the only sign of her exertion the faint sheen of sweat glistening on her coat and her flaring nostrils, but when he laid his palm against her shoulder he felt the quivering tension through her heavy muscles. Grimly he examined her legs. Blood seeped from shallow, parallel slashes down their lengths.
“We need to stop the bleeding,” Banek said quietly.
Because a few drops of Danoh’s blood had been enough to feed the foul magics that had thickened the fog and drawn the wraiths from the ground. They could not know how much faster and stronger the wraiths would be if the mare’s blood fed it, too.
“I have more linens in my satchel.” Yvenne’s moonstone eyes were huge in her thin face. “They could wrap her legs. If you wish, I will fetch them.”
Maddek nodded but said, “Toric will fetch your satchel. For I know he will run when told.”
She sucked in a sharp breath, but silence was her only response.
For what response could she have? That she had not heard them shouting for her to run? That her legs were too sore from riding? That she had not wanted to muddy her feet?
Maddek had no desire to hear any of her excuses. Neither did his warriors, for they had barely even glanced at her since Maddek had set her down. Instead they regarded his mare, their expressions grave.
Looking away from Yvenne, he addressed Banek again. “How long?”
“Nightfall,” the older warrior said.
“Then we continue on to the next village.” He paused as Toric returned with Yvenne’s embroidered satchel and she began digging through it. Behind them, the fog seemed to have slowed but had not yet dissipated. “Ardyl and Toric, ride to warn the soldiers who travel this way, then catch up to us again.”