Wynter urged Ozkar forward, trying to pass Christopher’s maddened horse and get to Sól. She saw the warrior’s fist jerk back, and Sól punched the Wolf ’s head away from his throat. His knife flashed and there was a spray of scarlet as he stabbed at the creature’s neck. Boro leapt, snarling, and caught the Loup-Garou’s hind leg in his huge jaws. There was a bright snap of bone and the Wolf arched, screaming. Wolf and hound fell away from Sól. Tumbling to the ground in a growling frenzy of teeth and fur, they engaged each other in battle.
Sólmundr, dazed and painted with blood, slid sideways in his saddle. Wynter cried out to him, certain that he would slip to the ground, but at the last minute he righted himself. He clung blearily to his horse’s blood-drenched neck as Boro and the Wolf tore into each other on the ground at its feet.
In an effort to escape the savagery of Wolf and dog, Christopher’s horse launched itself off the edge of the path. It slid down the loose surface of the hill in a barely controlled panic of flying stones and grit, then tumbled head over heels on the unmanageable slope. Ozkar mindlessly tried to follow, and Wynter yanked him round and yelled, ‘Stay easy!’
Another Wolf breasted the hill, heading for Sólmundr. Wynter opened her mouth to shout a warning to the dazed warrior. A shadow crossed her, and as the fifth Wolf hit Sól, the sixth fell on Wynter from above.
Her sword flew from her hand as a Wolf ’s weight flung her back, and she sprawled, helpless, under the creature’s hot and reeking body. She twisted. The Wolf ’s teeth missed her throat by a fraction, snapping the air by her cheek. Ozkar went down on his haunches under their weight.
Still in the saddle, Wynter felt the Wolf ’s hind claws rake her belly as he tried to gut her. Her many layers of clothes saved her from immediate evisceration, but her jacket fell open with a gasp of torn fabric and she knew that the next raking pass of his feet would expose her guts to the air. She fumbled for her knife with one hand and shoved frantically with the other, trying to push him off. He reared back, half-wolf, half-man, and glared down at her with his not-quite-human eyes. He opened his distorted mouth for the killing bite. Then Ozkar began to struggle to his feet.
Wynter clung to the Wolf and the Wolf clung to her. Their eyes met for the briefest of moments, then they slid from the saddle and down Ozkar’s rounded backside in one sudden uncontrollable rush. All at once, Wynter was upside down and dangling, one foot caught in the stirrup, trailing headfirst down the treacherous slope.
The Wolf shot past her with a howl. He grabbed Wynter’s cloak to stop his fall, and swung to the end of it, dragging it tight. Wynter gagged. The fabric cinched closed around her neck, and she found herself completely incapable of drawing another breath. She turned bulging eyes to look back at the Loup-Garou. He grinned up at her and rolled in the gravel to twist the cloak tighter on her throat. Ozkar surged to his feet. Wynter was dragged up with him, her foot still caught in the stirrup. The world grew dark as she was stretched between Wolf and horse.
Wynter kicked and thrashed and scrabbled at her neck. She was horrified to feel her hands grow numb. Her arms grew weak. She was being strangled to death with her own cloak! Then the Wolf ’s weight lifted. The fabric loosened. Her lungs filled with cold air and she was jerked violently onto the rough path as Ozkar heaved her up.
Wynter’s foot fell free of the stirrup. She rolled to her side and lay gasping at the edge of the path. There was a storm of angry snarling on the slope below her; then a flurry of stinging shale blasted her in the face as the Loup-Garou flung himself back over the edge. Wynter groped blindly for her knife. The Wolf ’s weight squashed the air from her as he rolled across her body. Lashing out, she sliced him on his thigh. His weight left her. Then another Wolf scrabbled its way up the slope and lunged after the first.
Wynter swung at this second Loup-Garou, aiming for its eyes. But it dodged her, and to her amazement, it threw itself