The trunk hit him and sent his body tumbling through the air, striking his head on another tree and slumping into the mud several yards away. Red-eyed, the trol turned back to me, stepping forward threateningly. I retreated until my back hit the wall of the embankment, and I tensed as the huge trol loomed over me, raising its club over its head and smashing it down like a battering ram.
Something big and dark lunged between us with a booming snarl, and a monstrous shaggy thing slammed into the troll, teeth f lashing. The trol screeched and stumbled back, its arm clamped in the jaws of an enormous black wolf the size of a grizzly bear, who growled and shook his head, digging his fangs in farther. Howling, the trol f lailed and yanked back, trying desperately to dislodge the monster clinging to its arm, but the wolf wasn’t letting go. I caught my breath, recognizing the creature, knowing who it was, but there was no time to wonder why he was here.
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Dodging the wolf, I ducked beneath the trol ’s legs and turned, slashing the thick tendons behind its knees. With a shriek, the trol ’s legs buckled, and I leaped onto its back, much as Puck had done, as it went down. But this time, I raised my sword and drove it, point first, into the trol ’s head, right between the horns, burying the weapon to the hilt.
A shudder wracked the trol ’s body. It began to stiffen, its skin turning gray and hard. I yanked my sword free and vaulted off its back as the trol curled up on itself, much like a giant insect or spider, and turned to stone. In a few seconds, only a troll-shaped boulder sat in the mud at the edge of the village.
There was a deep chuckle beside me. “Not bad, little prince. Not bad.” Slowly, I turned, gripping my weapon, ready to unleash my glamour in one violent, chaotic burst. A few yards away, the enormous wolf of legend stared at me, eyes glowing yell owgreen in the gloom, fangs bared in a vicious smile.
“hello, prince,” rumbled the Big Bad Wolf. “I told you before. The next time we meet, you won’t ever see me coming.” I stared at the Wolf, keeping him in my sights as he circled me, fangs bared in a savage grin, huge paws sinking into the mud. Around and inside me, glamour f lared, cold and lethal, ready to be unleashed. I couldn’t hold anything back, not with him. This was possibly the most dangerous, ancient creature to ever walk the wilds of the Nevernever.
His stories outnumbered all the myths and legends ever told, and his power grew with every telling, every dire warning and fable that whispered his name. His legends were all born of fear; he was the con-summate vill ain, the creature that old wives warned their children about, a monster that consumed little girls and butchered entire herds 65/387
for no reason. His brethren in the mortal world had suffered terribly for the fears that birthed him—they had been gunned down, trapped, and slaughtered wholesale—but each death reinforced those fears and made him more powerful than before.
The immortal Big Bad Wolf. Meghan and I had met him once before, and he’d almost succeeded in killing me.
That wouldn’t happen again.
“Put that stick away.” The Wolf ’s voice, guttural and deep, held traces of amusement. “If I wanted you dead, I wouldn’t have bothered saving your sorry carcass from the swamp troll. That’s not to say I won’t kill you later, but your silly little toy won’t stop me then, either, so you might as well be civil about it.”
I kept my sword out, which I could see annoyed the Wolf, but I was certainly not going down without a fight. “What do you want?” I asked, keeping my voice cautiously civil, but letting the Wolf know I would defend myself if needed. I was going to walk away from this. It didn’t matter that the Wolf was immortal. It didn’t matter that he’d almost killed me last time we’d met. If it came down to a fight, I was determined to win this time, by any means necessary. I would not die here, on the banks of a gloomy lake, torn apart by the Big Bad Wolf. I would survive this encounter and keep going.
Meghan was waiting for me.
The Wolf smiled. “Mab sent me for you,” he said in a voice that was almost a purr.
I kept my expression neutral, though an icy fist grabbed my stomach and twisted. Not in surprise, or even fear, just the knowledge that, as she did with all her subjects, the Winter Queen had finally grown tired 66/387
of me. Perhaps she was insulted by my refusal to return to court. Perhaps she’d decided that a former Winter prince running around free was too volatile, a threat to her throne. The whys didn’t matter. Mab had sent the most feared hunter and assassin in the entire Nevernever to kill me.
I sighed, suddenly feeling very tired. “I suppose I should be honored,” I told him, and he cocked his enormous shaggy head, still grinning.
Taking a furtive breath, I calmed my mind, the glamour settling into a low, throbbing pulse. “We won’t get anywhere standing around looking at each other,” I told him, raising my sword. “Let’s get on with it, then.”