Targon stopped, and cast a quick spell. Sizzling blue streaks leapt from his pointed fingers, not at the undead, but at the wood planking just in front of them. Loud thumping divots were shattered out of the wood, sending shrapnel-like splinters, and chunks, tearing through the decaying flesh of the undead. It slowed the foul things, but didn’t stop them completely.
Vaegon, with Targon on his heels, reached the ramp just before the enemy did. They charged headlong down the slope, but it was too late. Halfway down the grade, a hammer blow had already struck the pins that held the wooden section of ramp in place. The man who had knocked out the pin, looked up with regret as the section fell away. It was all Targon could do to keep Vaegon from charging into the now empty space before him. As Vaegon teetered on the edge of a thirty-foot dead fall, the thick, palpable smell of the undead came washing up over them from behind.
Hyden Hawk was brought awake by needle sharp teeth clamping down on his hand. He opened his eyes in a jolt of sheer terror. He felt hot, wet breath breathing down his neck, and he saw a skull face before him. With a scream, he jumped to his feet. His heart fluttered around his chest crazily.
Excitedly, Talon fluttered down from the tree above, the hawkling’s wing beats adding to the thrumming sensation in Hyden’s breast. He nearly bolted off into the endless expanse of grassy hills that surrounded the tree and all its dead visitors. Only the merry laughter of two young wolf pups prancing at his feet stopped him. He recognized them immediately, but it took him a few minutes to calm himself, and wrench himself free of the terror that had overcome him. He had healed their mother in the ravine the same day that Loudin had been torn apart by the hellcat. With his breath finally under control, and his heartbeat steadied, he smiled down and greeted them.
“Where is she?” asked Hyden.
“At the door,” one of the pups answered.
“Waiting for us,” added the other.
They didn’t quite speak with words like the squirrels had, yet what they said was perfectly clear to Hyden. And the differences in them radiated with each of their personalities. They were both boys, young adolescent male Ridge Wolves, healthier than most, and fearlessly sure of themselves.
“The Great Mother of the forest said you needed a guide,” the one called Rurran said.
“We didn’t have to come,” his brother Arrah added. “But we wanted to, because you saved our mother.”
“We would’ve gone hungry without her.” Rurran nuzzled against Hyden’s leg. “So you saved us too.”
“It looks like nobody came for them.” Arrah nodded towards all the skeletons that ringed the base of the great tree.
“Come, Hyden Hawk, follow us.”
“What’s that bird’s name?”
“Talon,” Hyden answered, with a hint of amazement and his voice.
Hyden tried to recite the riddle as he followed the two frisky wolf pups, but it was impossible. The two curious youths told him excitedly how they had chased, and killed a field mouse, and had chased a badger into its burrow. They wouldn’t let his attention wander too far from them. Rurran made fun of Arrah for getting scared, but admitted that the badger had turned on them fiercely, and had scared him a little as well.
Not long after he had healed her, the mother had led them to a cave up on the ridge. They said it had been full of the stink of men, but since they smelled that Hyden had been there, they knew they would be safe.
Their mother had taken a doe, and they had gotten their first taste of red meat, and oh, how they loved meat. It was what they lived for now; they were on an eternal quest for meat. Hyden couldn’t help but laugh at them, laugh with them. They were sly, imaginative, and so full of life, that the joy that radiated from them was contagious.
It took some time, an hour, half the day maybe, Hyden wasn’t sure. The only disruption of the landscape was a small stream-formed pond they came upon. Leaning against a boulder at its bank, was another skeleton, this one still garbed in a tattered scarlet robe. The pups only stopped long enough to drink, and then bounded off again. Hyden didn’t stop. There was nothing there that he wanted to see.
In between the casual banter, and excited bursts of thought from the curious young wolves, Hyden pondered why the kingdom folk all called the lovely and polite Queen of Highwander, Willa the Witch Queen. She didn’t seem like a witch to him at all. The old crone who had told him and Gerard their fortunes: now that was witchy woman.
He didn’t want think about how much he missed Gerard, it would only serve to spoil the fantastic mood the wolf pups had put him in, but he couldn’t help it. Luckily, they came upon the mother wolf, and his sadness didn’t get a chance to take root.
She was lazing beside an ivory door that was set in a golden frame, and standing alone on a hilltop in the midst of the sea of rolling hills.