Free That Frigid Fargin Witch (The Legend of Vanx Malic) by M. R. Mathias Page B

separated them from Saint Elm’s Deep. The midafternoon sky was a whirl of steel and ash. They had lost a day already to the heavy snowfall and low visibility, and it was still snowing light, dusty flakes. The wind had picked up, too. Darl stopped his ramma and was squinting under a stiff-armed salute at something not far away from him.
    “What?” Xavian asked rather loudly. “We’re being what?”
    “Peaced. Paced.” Darl strained the accent out of his words. “Followed, tracked, stalked.” He urged his ramma back into its slow, steady pace before Xavian could ask another question.
    “By what?” Gallarael eased her ramma up. The natural switchback ledge they were ascending was wide enough for them to ride two abreast, but Gallarael had no intention of taking another tumble. She worked her reins to keep her ramma’s head right to the tail of Xavian’s mount. The fall from here wasn’t even close to sheer, but it was fairly steep, and where the hearty pines and furs weren’t grasping the mountainside, there were all sorts of upthrusts and outcroppings of icy, snow-covered rock. She would have had more confidence if she were on foot and in her more dexterous form. As she waited to hear Darl’s answer to her question, she contemplated the consequences of having to suddenly shapeshift if they were attacked. It occurred to her then that there was no real need to wait on whatever was out there to come to them.
    “A peer of welves, I think,” Darl told them. “They’re not coming closer. They’re just keeping peace.”
    “Watching us?” Xavian asked, trying to mask his fear with contempt.
    “Leading us, more like,” Darl replied under his breath.
    “Here!” a raspy voice hissed right into Darl’s ear, startling both him and his ramma mount. “Take them.”
    Gallarael, in her dark-skinned, ember-eyed beast form, hissed. She was offering the reins of her terrified ramma to him. “I’ll meet you at the ridge.”
    “Be careful, Gal,” Xavian urged.
    “Be ready, mage,” she returned.
    She then tore off her fur coat, threw it to Xavian and scrabbled on all fours off into the blustery wind.
    Darl kept the procession moving while speaking soothing words to the rammas. It was clear that what he was saying was as much for his own sake as it was for the animals.
    After the animals had somewhat calmed, Darl tied the lead line from Gallarael’s mount to his saddle and pulled his bow from over his shoulder to string it up.
    “If trouble breaks out,” said Darl. “Don’t you catch me afire, mage.”
    “What?” Xavian asked nervously.
    “Don’t… Bah! Nevermind.”

    Gallarael spotted the two creatures padding along the slope just as soon as her eyes shifted. One was dark of fur and slightly larger than the other, nearly invisible, white-furred creature. Both of them were of a size comparable to the timber wolves Gallarael had seen roaming the forests of her youth. These were nothing like the wolf monster Kegger had described to them.
    The wind was coming up the grade so it was unlikely that they would be able to smell her or the others; nor could she catch the beast’s scent, and she was certain that her sense of smell was just as keen as theirs. She could use this to her advantage, but she would have to stay above them.
    Gallarael clawed and loped like some feral quadrupedal creature, right up the mountainside. She ducked limbs and darted over the tricky terrain as if she had lived there forever. After a bit she paused and watched. It was hard to say, for the fluttering snow made the visibility bad, but it appeared that she had made a clean break away from the others. Neither of the wolfen seemed to be paying any attention to anything other than Darl and Xavian moving slowly along a few hundred feet below their position.
    Gallarael gauged Darl’s intended path, which was fairly obvious because of the limited possibilities available, and she saw what Darl had seen earlier.
    The wolfen beasts were