Chapter 139: A Desperate Rescue Decision

It pulled again.

One of the wolves turned its head toward the sound.

The Thunderhoof screamed, a high furious sound, and reared, and brought both forelegs down. The rope snapped.

For an instant it stood there, sides heaving, white around the eyes. Then a wolf lunged, and the Thunderhoof wheeled and kicked, and lightning split the grass where it had been standing. The wolf yelped and fell back, smoking.

The Thunderhoof ran.

It tore across the edge of the clearing and into the trees, and the wolves went after it in a snarling knot. Ashe heard them for a long time, crashing through the undergrowth, and then he heard nothing.

Go, he thought. Go, you beautiful fool. Go home.

The clearing was quiet again.

Brokk’s eyes were fixed on Ashe’s. They were the only part of the dwarf that could move, and they were wet. He looked ashamed.

Ashe couldn’t speak. He couldn’t nod.

He held the dwarf’s gaze for as long as he could, and tried to make it say what he meant.

Not your fault.

The courier was late.

Emeric stood on the gatehouse wall with Pip beside him and watched the road go dark. The report was due by evening. The sun had touched the western hills, then slipped behind them, and nothing had come down the road but a farmer’s cart and a pair of crows.

"Maybe it’s just slow," Pip said.

"Thunderhooves aren’t slow."

"Maybe the lieutenant held it back to add more."

"Ashe doesn’t pad a report." Emeric kept his eyes on the treeline, a black seam far out where the fields ended. "He wrote four lines last time."

Pip stopped talking.

The lanterns came on along the courtyard. Gaius climbed the stairs behind them, still in his armor, and stopped at Emeric’s shoulder.

"Nothing?"

"Nothing."

"A day’s delay is not unusual on a first survey."

"Not for Ashe."

Gaius didn’t argue. He was quiet for a moment, and then he said, "I’ll have horses ready at first light."

"Not first light. Now."

"Into that forest, at night, with no scouts?" Gaius turned to face him. "My lord, if the team is in trouble, I’d rather reach them at dawn with rested men than at midnight with a broken leg. And if they are not, you will have dragged eight people into the dark for a late courier."

Emeric clenched his hand on the stone. Gaius was right, and he hated it.

"First light," he said.

He asked the system anyway, silently, the way he had learned to.

[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION]

TEAM STATUS: UNKNOWN

POSSIBLE DANGER ENCOUNTERED

He groaned under his breath. Just when things were finally going right.

No use in overthinking it, he reminded himself.

Dorn was waiting in the hall.

He held a lantern in one hand and had clearly been there some time. When Emeric came down the stairs, the dwarf stepped out from beside the wall and fell into step without a greeting.

"I heard the courier is late."

"Who told you?"

"Everyone, my lord. The stable boys, the kitchen girls. A late courier is the only thing anyone has talked about since supper." Dorn lowered his voice. "Which is why I wanted a word."

They stopped in the corridor outside the study.

"A forest no one has walked in two hundred years. A team that goes quiet on the first long leg. Whatever is out there is either hunting or guarding." Dorn held the lantern steady. "If you go, take few men and tell nobody why. The village has more ears than you’d like. The Guild still has people here, and I would not give them a reason to wonder what we are looking for."

"We’re looking for our own people."

"Yes, my lord. But if that is all they hear, they will ask what else is in the forest." Dorn paused. "I would rather they didn’t."

Emeric looked at him. The dwarf’s face gave away nothing.

"Small team," Emeric said. "Quiet."

"Thank you, my lord."

The study clock struck eleven. Emeric went upstairs and did not sleep.

The pounding came just after midnight.

"My lord! My lord, the courier!"

Pip’s voice cracked on the second word. Emeric was across the room and through the door before the boy could knock again, the stairs flying beneath his feet, the cold air of the courtyard hitting his face like a slap.

The torches were already lit. A ring of stable hands stood in a half-circle around something on the cobbles. Corin was on his knees in the center of it, his hands flat against a heaving flank.

The Thunderhoof lay on its side.

Its mane was matted dark. Three gashes ran across its shoulder, and the hair around one of them had gone white and brittle, as if burned by frost. Lightning flickered across its hooves, died, and flickered again.

The saddle was empty. The leather tube was gone.

"It’s been running since dawn," Corin said. His voice was rough. "No stops. I can feel its heart from here, my lord. It won’t last the hour."

Emeric dropped beside it.

"Everyone back."

They moved. He put one hand on the wound and the other on the animal’s neck. The warmth rose in his palms before he finished asking for it.

EMERGENCY HEAL (C)

[Moderate wounds. Moderate mana. Cooldown: 5 minutes.]

[The frost damage is not ordinary. Close the bite first.]

The gashes began to seal. The white rot around them stayed. Emeric pushed harder, and the Thunderhoof shuddered and let out a long, ragged breath.

Its eye rolled toward him, white-rimmed and terrified.

He didn’t think. He reached for it with the other skill, the one that let him feel what someone else felt.

The images hit like a thrown bucket of water.

A clearing, silver with dew. Four stakes wrapped in bone. A figure in a grey cloak tapping a staff against the ground. Men standing in the grass, mid-stride, mid-shout, not moving. Ashe’s face, locked in place, eyes fixed on the animal. A dwarf weeping without a sound.