Page 136 of Tears of the Wolf
Cenric was here somewhere, he had to be. Brynn knew it with a desperate certainty that clawed at her like talons.
“You’re safe, lady,” one of the other men assured her. “Olfirth gave us orders to find and guard you if we found you. You’re in no—”
These men didn’t understand. Brynn wasn’t worried for herself at all. “Cenric.” She looked to Snapper, meeting the dog’s eyes.
Snapper whined, going rigid.
“Cenric.” Brynn repeated the name in a plea.
Snapper spun around, racing back into the trees.
Brynn tore after him.
“Lady Brynn! They’re fighting!”
Brynn was out of breath, coughing, and barefoot, but the thanes were fully armored and partially waterlogged.
She raced after Snapper back toward the river. Her mother would kill Cenric if she got the chance. Once again, the person Brynn loved most was in danger and she wasn’t there, couldn’t protect him.
Sticks and rocks lashed at her feet, but she kept running. The trees near the river had been bent back, as if forced by some great maelstrom. Silt and mud had been forced up, smearing the surrounding trees in what had once been the river bottom.
Snapper’s paws made a soft pattering sound as he led the way.
Brynn had never seen anything like this before. Even more shocking, she had been the one to make it happen. She could sense the figures along the riverbank, a cluster of bodies in two groups facing down one another.
Battle lines. A shield wall. Just like Aelfwynn.
She sensed Snapper had stopped beside a figure ahead and rushed toward it, thinking it might be Cenric or another of Olfirth’s thanes.
Neirin appeared around the tree, bleeding, covered in mud, and stumbling awkwardly on one foot. He grabbed her arm. “Lady Brynn, we must flee.”
Snapper woofed, seeming confused.
She pulled away from Neirin. “Let me go.”
“Lady Brynn, I beg you,” Neirin pleaded as both of them shivered with the cold.
“Release me,” Brynn growled. “Now.”
Neirin lunged for her, wrapping her in a bear hug.
Snapper nipped at Neirin in outrage, sensing Brynn’s distress.
Brynn slashed with her power, slicing across Neirin’s face.
Neirin caught part of it, reshaping her spell as it met his skin. Her attack left shallow scratches instead of deep cuts.
But Brynn had an advantage—he needed her alive.
She rammed her knee between his legs. Aelfwynn would have been proud.
Neirin cursed, but that gave her the opening to get in close. Brynn grabbed his neck. Neirin snapped up his own spell, trying to defend himself.
He might be able to overpower her body, but he was no match for her magic.
Brynn’s power sliced through him in a single, clean stroke. It had been a long time since she had been in the war, but the killing spells came to her as easily as a familiar song.
Neirin’s eyes went wide in shock and then his head tumbled back, followed by his body a moment later. The corpse collapsed against her, and she shoved it, scrambling away.
