The Heralds of Valdemar (A Valdemar Omnibus) by Mercedes Lackey

Author:Mercedes Lackey
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Titan Books

8

Kris pursued an icy apparition through the storm-torn forest, a creature that was now wolf, now wind, now an unholy amalgam of both. It glared back over its shoulder at him through snow-swirls that half obscured it, baring icicle fangs and radiating cold and evil. He shivered, unable to control the trembling of his hands, though he clenched them on his weapons to still their shaking…

His weapons—he looked down, surprised to see that his bow was in his hands, an arrow nocked and ready. The beast ahead of him snarled, dissolved into a spin of air and sleet with hell-dark eyes, then transformed back into a leaping vulpine snow-drift. He sighted on it, and more than once, but the thing never gave him a clear target.

Talia was somewhere ahead of him, he could hear her weeping brokenly above the wailing of the wind and the howling of the wind-wolf, and when he looked down he could see her tracks—but he could not seem to spot her through the curtains of snow that swirled around him. He realized then that the wind-wolf was stalking her—

He quickened his pace, but the wind fought against him, throwing daggers of ice and blinding snow-swarms into his eyes. The thing ahead of him howled, a long note of triumph and insatiable hunger. It was outdistancing and outmaneuvering him—and it would have Talia before he could reach her. He tried to shout a warning—

And woke with a start. Outside the wind howled like a demented monster. Talia touched his shoulder, and he jumped involuntarily.

“Sorry,” she said. “You—you were dreaming, I think.”

He shook his head to clear it of the last shreds of nightmare. “Lord! I guess I was. Did I wake you?”

“Not really. I wasn’t sleeping very well.”

He tried to settle himself, and found that he couldn’t. A vague sense of apprehension had him in its grip, and would not loose its hold on him. It had nothing to do with Talia’s problems; a quick exchange of thought with Tantris confirmed that she was not at fault.

“Kris, do you think maybe we should move the supplies?” Talia said in a voice soft and full of hesitation.

“That doesn’t sound like a bad idea,” he replied, feeling at once that somehow his uneasiness was connected with just that. “Why? What made you think of that?”

“I kept dreaming about it, except I couldn’t shift anything. It was all too heavy for me, and you wouldn’t help. You just stood there staring at me.”

“Well, I won’t just stand and stare at you now.” He began unwinding himself from the blankets. “I don’t know why, but I think we’d better follow up on your dream.”

They moved everything from behind the Station to either side of the door on the front. Rather than diminishing, the sense of urgency kept growing as they worked, as if they had very little time. It was hard, chilling, bitter work, to manhandle the clumsy bundles of hay and straw through the snow, but neither of them made any move to give up until the last stick and bale was in place.

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