Page 21 of Homeward for a Spell

“Stay away from the barbs on its back!” Sage calls out. “They’re tipped with poison!”

The wolf lunges at her, and Sage dances away from its snapping jaws. Her daggers flash as she stabs for one great yellow eye. She finds her target, and the creature goes down with a scream that rips through the forest. The ground shakes as it falls, splintering the arrow shafts still buried in its flesh beneath it.

How in the world did these wolves get so big? What must they eat? Whole adventuring parties? Also, why do they have six-inch poisonous spikes along their backs? That seems redundant. Gods, this is not what I signed up for…Before Araphi can voice any of the flood of questions in her head, the second wolf—a gray one with a patch of white fur above its eyes—darts toward Sage. Araphi opens her mouth around another scream, but she shouldn’t have worried. Ever competent, Sage leaps out of the way easily, and her blades carve a long line across the creature’s flank, drawing blood. The wolf howls in pain.

I like your sword. Or daggers, in this case.

Araphi glances around for any sort of weapon. Not her lute case, or her discarded metal dinner plate, but…there! She grabs a long stick that’s half in and half out of the fire. Embers fly from the burnt end as Araphi waves it around, yelling at the wolf and making sparks circle her head.

The creature’s yellow eyes fall onto Araphi. At its glance, goosebumps rise on her arms. All right, this wasn’t her smartest idea. Cold, leaden terror settles in her stomach as the wolf steps closer.

“What are you doing?” Sage bellows, lashing out again at the wolf with her daggers to draw its attention back. It gnashes its enormous teeth, and she darts away from them, just barely.

“Saving you!” Araphi waves the burning stick again, her bravado undermined by the terrified tremble in her voice.

“I don’t need your help!”

As if ensorcelled rather than repulsed by the glow of her makeshift torch, the wolf pads forward again, catching the hem of Araphi’s dress with its claws as it swipes at her. She stumbles as she tears it away, tripping over the log behind her to land just shy of the campfire. At least she didn’t land on her lute. Her relief fades as she watches the wolf prepare to advance, to bite out her throat or gore her with its barbs where she sits.

Sage runs for it, plunging a dagger desperately toward its throat, but the beast sees her coming. It stops her charge with the meat of its shoulder and the full force of its massive, sinewed body, sending the ranger flying backward. She hits an oak tree on the far side of the fire with a sickening thud—a sound that shreds Araphi’s insides as surely as the barbed wolf’s claws will. As Sage crumples to the forest floor and the wolf snarls, its full attention turned back to Araphi, time seems to slow.

Somewhere, the horses whinny in fear.

Somewhere, Nura is shouting, returned from foraging for firewood at last.

Somewhere, Bramble and Tea must be fending off wolves of their own, or failing to. None of it helps Araphi in the moment as the gray wolf coils to pounce, its front paws leaving the ground—

Only to land in the campfire when Araphi rolls away at the last second. As it howls in pain, she scrambles to her feet to drive the burning stick into its flank. Embers shower her as she does, and it rains fire around her.

There’s a thought for a song: fire raining down, an impossible foe, a trapped bard.

A hint of the chords comes to her before the wolf yowls murderously. It limps from the fire, fur singed and flesh scalded (judging from the horrible smell), spinning to face Araphi again. All thoughts of music flee as she considers its terrible teeth and the ribbons of drool hanging from its mouth.

“Get out of here, Phi!” Sage shouts, her voice laced with pain. “Run for the horses!”

“I will not!” she shouts back, sounding far braver than she feels. If only her family or her fashionable friends could see her now, deep in the woods, waving a flaming stick at a monster. What would they say?

Probably they’d make some snide comment about how she never should have left the city; how she had no business trying to make it in the world without the comforts and protections afforded by the Clauneck name. The thought makes Araphi grip the stick tighter and take a steadying breath.

From behind the wolf, she watches Sage get to her feet and wobble a bit. Her daggers are still steady in her hand. “Run!” Sage shouts again. “Let me handle it!”

Araphi would love to run, but as she takes another step back, she realizes there’s nowhere to go. She’s pressed up against the campfire, which she certainly can’t leap over backward. Out of the corner of her eye, she can see three more wolves prowling closer, dark shapes silhouetted by the campfire. She’s not sure where the sixth wolf is, but the rest of the party is suddenly there all at once too.

“Careful, Phi,” Nura calls out. “Don’t fall in the fire yourself! I’ll distract him.”

Araphi glances around at the shout. Beyond the wolf menacing Araphi, Nura holds a wood-chopping ax in one hand, her walking stick in the other, and whirls around the wolf in a blur of blade and staff to engage it. Tea stands beside the tents, an armful of books clutched to her chest and her eyes wide. Bramble throws rocks at one of the wolves as Remy runs into the clearing.

“Use magic, Wizard!” shouts Remy from across the fire. “What are you here for?”

“Right, magic!” Tea calls out shakily. “A tremendously good idea!” Shoving her glasses up her nose, she starts flipping through her books as the wolf closest to her snarls and steps forward. “I just need to find the perfect spell. I’ve nothing prepared, but something in this chapter should do it…”

Her wolf darts forward right as Tea bellows out an incantation.

Whatever this perfect spell was supposed to accomplish, Araphi assumes Tea didn’t intend to grow the wolf to three times its size. Now it looms above them.

Araphi swears under her breath. They were in trouble before, but as peril stares them down on four towering legs, she’s fairly certain they’re fucked.

“What the devil, Tea?” Sage calls out.