“The Grandfather Yew.”Hróarr glanced around at the hacked and mutilated limbs of the tree.“This is…was sacred.”
“Ovrek?”Brynn wasn’t sure why she thought of the king first, but she knew that was wrong the moment her guess left her mouth.
“No,” Hróarr said hastily.“What Ovrek did wouldn’t have…”
Brynn waited for him to finish that sentence.“Ovrek did something?”
“No!”Hróarr seemed deeply upset by this, but he had a mission for his king.“It’s a holy place.”
“It’s an evil place,” Brynn shot back.Her heart raced as she searched their surroundings, trying to understand the source of this feeling.“There’s something wicked.Something old.”
Brynn knew none of these men had magic, but how could they not feel it?The sense of malice was a palpable thing, a weight that pressed around her.
“You’re a foreigner.You shouldn’t be here,” Hróarr growled.
“None of us should be here,” Brynn whispered.
Hróarr extended a hand, though his other rested on the hilt of his sword.“Let us take you back to Istra.”
Brynn searched around them frantically.It was irrational, but some deep-seated instinct told her they were being watched.
“We only come here to leave sacrifices, as the First of Fathers commanded.”
If that was true, then the First of Fathers must have been a sorcerer.An incredibly powerful one, at that.He’d created a prison held in place by the life force of the yew tree, but just what had he meant to imprison?
“Something is wrong,” Brynn whispered.
“This place is sacred and even the wild animals will not come here.”Hróarr pointed to Guin, even now writhing in Brynn’s grip.“Even your pup wants to leave.”
“If no animals come here,” Brynn choked down a lump in her throat, “what has been chewing on those bones?”With a shaking hand, she pointed to a large cow’s femur, cracked open with the marrow gnawed out.
Hróarr followed her gaze.His expression shifted, a flicker of what might have been fear before he turned back to her.“It’s time to go.”
“What lies here?”Brynn demanded.“Do you know?”
“The Grandfather Yew.”Hróarr sounded annoyed.
“Not the tree,” Brynn shot back.“What’sunderthe tree?”
Hróarr held out one hand, marching toward her as if he intended to seize and drag her back to the horses.
“It’s moving,” Brynn gasped.
Before Brynn could decide what to do, a shriek rang out from the direction of the horses.Brynn and the men looked up to see the horses gone as well as the men who had been left behind to watch them.Brynn’s heart beat faster and fear prickled the back of her neck.
One of Hróarr’s men said something in Valdari.Hróarr answered and then another man pointed back toward the trees.
Hróarr returned his attention to Brynn.
“What happened?”Brynn asked, though she doubted she’d get a straight answer.
“The horses must have fled, taking my men with them.”
Brynn looked down to Guin.The puppy’s full attention was on the stump of a tree across the clearing.She had gone quiet, her ears pricked and whole body rigid.Afraid of what she would see, Brynn followed the puppy’s line of sight.
She saw nothing at first, but then one of the shadows moved.The shape seemed to unfurl like a sail, limbs unfolding from around its body as it shambled out of the cover of the fallen trees.
The creature had brown fur, triangular ears, and a long snout.It seemed not so much a wolf, but the nightmare of a wolf.The creature was too big, rising to perhaps ten feet or more.Its front legs were much longer than its back legs, making the creature shamble awkwardly.Shaggy brown fur hung off the creature’s body, draping so that its forelegs almost seemed to have wings.
