Free Hers to Claim by Patricia A. Knight Page B

snort.
    “It’ s the rider. Your hands are like stumps. I’ve seen bricks with more feeling.” Ramsey leaned back, released his kill, then swung his leg over the neck of his horse and jumped, landing on both feet. He handed a rein to Steffania. “Should have taken you, Vixen. You’re a better shot and don’t whine when you miss.” Ram dragged his kill toward the packhorse and didn’t see the baleful glance Hel threw at him.
    Hel handed his reins to Adonia , and she watched him as he dragged the second chital carcass toward the packhorse.
    “ Your hunt was successful,” she said.
    Hel looked up. “Yes. I hated to spend the time but we need the food. Mount up. I want us out of this valley.”
    S omething aberrant lurked nearby. His horse’s behavior was a dead giveaway. The normally dependable animal had been easily spooked, snorting and blowing at insignificant nothings all morning—the flight of some autumn leaves or an off-colored rock on the trail. He had blamed it on DeKieran, but Hel knew better—and so did DeKieran.
    “ Keep your eyes open.” Hel caught Steffania and Adonia’s gaze. “Something out there left enormous clawed footprints. Make certain your crossbows are to hand and your quiver flaps open.”
    As they mounted, Steffania asked, “How big?”
    “ Think the size of a fell wolf.” The quiet warning in Ramsey’s voice alarmed more than a shout.
    “Was it? A fell wolf?” Adonia asked Hel quietly.
    He l shook his head. He wished it had been. He knew how to kill a fell wolf. “No. I’ve never seen a track like it.”
    This time when they set out, Hel didn’t tie the packhorse to his mount’s tail. His horse was simply too fractious. Instead, he tied the lead line around the pack animal’s neck. The horse’s desire to stay with the others would keep him from straying.
    As they climbed out of the valley, Hel’s eyes tracked the horizon while his horse curveted and sidled beneath him. Nothing he did calmed the animal. That, more than anything, kept him alert. Something lurked, unseen, its smell enough to unsettle his horse.
    In spite of their vigilance, they were taken by surprise.
    Ramsey’s hoarse shout , “Hel! Behind you!” broke the quiet.
    From waist-high grass, a mammoth creature leapt at the trailing packhorse and took it down. The monster’s hind claws raked massive gouges in the horse’s underbelly, exposing viscera and bowels. A front claw laid the defenseless animal’s neck open from throat to shoulder while the creature’s slavering jaws closed on the doomed horse’s head and worried it back and forth. After that, all Hel could see was flailing legs and a mass of muddy gray fur. All he could hear were the screams of the dying horse and Ramsey shouting at Steffania to get back.
    Before Ram could maneuver for a shot, Adonia slid from her horse and launched a cascade of arrows, nocking and firing in a continuous flow of movement. The misshapen monstrosity rose up on its hind legs, towering over the downed horse and turned its blood-red eyes to Adonia. It sprang. Adonia continued to place arrow after arrow in the creature.
    “No! Nia!” Hel spurred his horse forward but the hysterical animal reared and refused to close.
    With a shudder and a trailing snarl, the grotesque hulk fell dead, its shoulders and face a quill of arrows sunk deep. A pale but composed Adonia stood and looked at the dead monstrosity splayed at her feet. “What is it?”
    “Fine shooting, H ealer.” After his clipped words, Hel dismounted. He’d had a gut-wrenching moment when the grotesque creature had sprung at Adonia. Everything had happened in a split second that lasted a lifetime, and his fear morphed to outrage. He suppressed it. “It started life as a dervish-devil or a wolvertine, but it mutated. I have never seen anything quite like this.”
    They both looked down at the monster . Hel could not cleanse from his mind the picture of a disemboweled woman lying dead near the moaning