Page 83 of The Fury She Holds
“I’ll bring back fresh water from the stream,” she offered in a sing-song voice.
He sighed. “Fine. Take my waterskin. It’s bigger.” He stepped into the stable and rested a hand on Pepper’s shoulder. “If you’re not back in four hours, I’m coming after you.”
“Good luck finding me.”
Eddard stepped back, shaking his head. “Faron is going to kill me,” he said under his breath.
Jens waited outside the stables. When Ed told him to let Tal go, he narrowed his eyes at her before wordlessly marching to the gate.
Tal gritted her teeth and kicked Pepper into a slow trot past the guards that watched her with apprehension in their eyes.
Once she allowed the mare to open up, a sense of release came over her, and she relaxed into the ride. Pepper, it seemed, was all too eager to be set loose. Tal’s recklessness gave her an adrenaline rush that eased some of the tension she’d been feeling. She’d purposefully chosen Madge’s bounty when Rainier listed off those remaining. He hadn’t questioned her judgement, and Tal appreciated the return to normalcy. The mountains were full of predators, animal or otherwise, and she welcomed the danger.
She leaned into the horse, smiling at the wind. It was a small jab at the man who had lied to her the whole summer, but Tal felt some satisfaction. She would return Pepper as soon as shefinished the job. Though, a part of her hoped Faron would fret over the missing horse for a little while.
The long ride to the mountainside required several stops to allow Pepper to rest and hydrate. Difficult terrain sometimes demanded a slower pace, and once or twice, the mare’s ears pricked up at something that caused her unease. Tal also felt the familiar chill on the back of her neck from being watched. But other than a mere feeling, they encountered no trouble on their journey.
They reached their destination, and Tal dismounted. She grabbed the horse’s lead and walked ahead as she scanned for the signs Madge mentioned. The first herb proved easy enough to spot. The tiny blue flowers grew on the western side of a cliff face. She dug up the plant, roots and all, and placed it carefully in the pouch Madge had insisted she use to transport the item.
The second herb grew on the edge of a stream. “Don’t go grabbing the first mossy rug you see. This one has gray hairs growing in it, like the hair of a woman a few years past her prime,” the healer had said.
Tal walked Pepper to the water and let her drink. She regarded the mare while she sat on a rock and indulged on bread and a bottle of ale. Tal found nothing but peace this far from home. The shouting of fishermen and sailors didn’t cover up the calls of the birds. The air here was crisp and clean, not muddled by garbage and filth. And the painted landscape displayed colors unlike anything Tal would find by the docks.
Life flourished in the misty mountain air—life ruled by a set of laws that man disobeyed. At the docks, the hierarchy constantly changed, creating danger everywhere she turned. While Tal’s fury could save her from almost any situation, she’d complicated things when she’d opened her heart. Without fury like hers, her friends were vulnerable. And Tal would be much happier with them far away from a kingdom like Meladair.
She finished her refreshment and searched for the hairy green moss, telling Pepper not to wander off. As she cut the moss away from a river rock, she noticed how eerily silent it had become. Pepper no longer grazed along the bank of the stream. Tal jumped to her feet and quickly searched the area to no avail. She cursed herself for getting so distracted. Quickly packing up the moss and tossing her satchel across her back, she pulled out a second dagger and went in search of the wandering mare.
The tracks were easy enough to follow. As the mud turned into grass, signs indicated something very heavy passed through. She found Pepper grazing on the other side of a rocky outcropping. Tal shook her head at the mare. “While I don’t think he’ll be too upset that I borrowed you.” Pepper lifted her head at Tal’s approach, “I’m not sure the man will forgive me if I lose y—”
Before Tal could finish her sentence, the horse let out a frightened whinny and took off toward her. She barely had time to jump out of Pepper’s path. She hit the ground and rolled, landing back on her feet. Not a moment later, a dark blur shot past, followed by several more. Tal swore and took off after them.
She sheathed her two daggers and reached inwardly for her fury, praying she had built up enough magic stores to avoid crashing out here by herself. She launched one fireball after another, missing all but one of the predators. It erupted in a column of flame as the others ran past.
A massive brown wolf circled back and turned its attention on her, snarling viciously. It leapt at Tal as she dropped to the ground. She thrust her dagger upwards as the wolf passed overhead. Its pained yowl died when it landed in a bloodied heap.
Tal jumped to her feet and followed the snarling wolves, holding onto hope with each of Pepper’s distressed whinnies. The mare found herself cornered against the high walls of a cliffface. Five wolves surrounded Pepper. The sixth, a smaller black wolf, lunged and received a hoof to the snout. It yelped and jumped back, shaking its head.
Without a moment to catch her breath, Tal threw a flame high above and sent a prowling predator crashing into the stone behind it. It fell to the ground with a sickening thud. Ten eyes snapped to Tal and a chorus of answering growls filled the area. She grabbed her axes off her back as the pack stalked around her. Her chest heaved with each breath, her fury pulsing with each thunderous heartbeat.
A rusty orange wolf lunged and forced Tal into the path of another. She pivoted and sunk an axe into the black furry neck. A third wolf’s brown muzzle clamped down on her arm, pulling a shriek from Tal. She shot off a blast of fury into the wolf’s face. It released her, and Tal wasted no time pulling her axe out of the black wolf. She swung her weapon into the beast again for good measure and turned in time to ram it up into the brown wolf’s jaw. Its head and snout displayed a gruesome series of burned fur and flesh. With a fierce cry, Tal spun and hefted her attacker over her shoulder. The sight of the dead animal did little to soothe the searing pain in her arm or the tightness of her lungs.
Growling behind Tal precluded a sharp pain at her shoulder. She cried out and her knees buckled. The animal thrashed Tal around. The orange wolf joined the fray and latched onto her ankle, pulling her in the other direction. In a desperate attempt, she concentrated her fury on her shoulder where stinking fur brushed her cheek and teeth ground into bone. She recalled the training sessions in the tunnel with Faron not so long ago and willed her magic to burst from her shoulder. It pulled painfully at the fury within her chest. A short stream of flame exploded into the wolf’s face, blasting it backward. Melted fur and flesh overpowered the mountain air as flames engulfed the unmoving body.
The orange wolf dragged Tal backward, spears of pain blinding her every time it tugged. She swung her axe, but the beast dodged her attack. A snarl from the cliff wall above had Tal throwing her axe in front of her face. Black fur appeared by Tal’s head when a fierce roar drowned the wolf’s snarls, and Pepper stampeded into the fight. The snarling wolf could only turn before being trampled by the mare’s hooves. Pepper continued her battle cry as she stomped and kicked her would-be attacker until it was good and dead.
Jaws corrected their grip on her leg, and Tal cried out. The orange wolf took Tal’s distraction to jump on top of her. It lunged for her neck and latched onto her axe’s handle. Her shoulder wanted to give out. Her fury pulsed weakly in her chest. She searched for her magic stores and screamed at the wolf as it snapped and snarled around her weapon. A painful itch in her throat reminded Tal of the night so many weeks ago by the water with her friends cheering her on. With her hands barely holding the wolf at bay against her axe, she took a deep breath and released her remaining hold on her fury as she exhaled. The magic warmed Tal as it exited her body, and a stream of flame shot into the wolf’s mouth and down its throat. Several moments passed before the animal realized, only too late, it had made a grave error. It stumbled backwards, snapping at nothing, and then dropped dead onto the ground.
Tal lay bleeding, gasping for breath, and exhausted from the fight. Her chest hollow, her fury quieted. Pepper nuzzled her head. “Thanks for the help.” When the mare nudged her harder, Tal reached up a hand and rubbed her snout. “I’m okay.”
She groaned as she sat up, the sight of the shredded flesh along her leg enough to send a wave of nausea washing over her. She would need an elixir if she wanted it to heal at all. The wound would turn green before it ever healed properly on its own. The injury to her shoulder appeared less gruesome, but bythe amount of blood seeping through the bite marks, the wound must have been deeper.
Thanks to her earlier drink, Tal’s pain dulled slightly, but that also meant she would bleed more and couldn’t take any elixir to heal quickly. She cursed herself and the damn ale.
She wrapped her wounds slowly, using her axes to cut her favorite jacket. It was a waste of a perfectly good jacket, and Madge would call it a shoddy job, but it helped to stem the blood flow.
Getting on the horse proved a task in and of itself even when Pepper bent down to help her into the saddle. Reluctantly, Tal went back through the woods to retrieve the satchel she had dropped at some point in her pursuit as well as the remaining herb for Madge. She would have abandoned the bounty if she thought the old woman would still help her, but the healer was spiteful. She would let Tal bleed out on her doorstep if she returned without those herbs.
By the time she turned Pepper homeward, she’d bled through her makeshift bandages and swayed in the saddle, too dizzy to stay upright. Tal found the clear summer sky and asked the gods to give her a little help just this once. She needed a miracle if she hoped to survive the amount of blood she would lose over the next few hours.
