Free Moon Rise (Twilight Shifters Book 2) by Kate Danley Page A

nevertheless, as she took the horses’ reins and led the animals out.
    The swamp loomed before them and Aein was not sure if her unease was just the memories of what it once held or some form of actual malice that seemed to radiate from the darkness.  The horses’ hooves struck the wooden planked road.  The fog was crawling out from beneath the drowned trees.  Its white fingers crept towards them, lapping their legs, and tangling through their limbs. 
    There should have been the sound of birds or frogs, but the swamp was eerily quiet, as if everything was in hiding, smothered beneath a blanket of fear. And then there was a sound.
    "Do you hear that?" Aein whispered to Lars.  He glanced up at her with worried eyes, but continued walking.
    The sound became louder.  It was screams and cries.  The heavy breath of the monsters.  The last noises of the battalion as they had been slaughtered.  The fog replaying their final moments so that Aein would know the fate waiting for her if she stayed.
    But the fog had played this trick before, and this time, it just strengthened her resolve to not leave the border unprotected when more that caused this sort of destruction could get through.
    "It is just the fog," Aein stated for her own benefit.  Lars's body was rigid with tension.  Aein would have stopped to comfort him, but with the lantern in one hand and the reins of the horses in the other, all she could do was lean over and whisper, "Remember to breathe."
    He took in a great gulp of air and whined.
    "You are not alone," Aein reminded him.
    But then Lars looked straight out into the shadows of the trees and a growl replaced the whine.
    "We are not alone, are we?" Aein asked, realizing the fog was hiding something out there beyond just sound and fear.  She said a silent prayer that Finn had made his way out of the swamp, that she would not stumble and look down and see it was his body she had tripped over.
    Lars raised his mouth to the sky and let out a warning howl.  His voice quieted as he waited for a response.  Something large and lumberous shuffled through the branches and reeds.  She put down the lantern and ran to her saddle bags to pull out her arrows and bow, even as the horses danced around in circles.  There was no place to tie them up.
    "If you bolt," she swore at them, "I'll feed you to the darkness myself."
    Holding her spare arrows with her draw hand, she loaded the first onto the string.  She didn't know if there would be enough time to use it.  She unbuttoned the flap which kept her mace strapped to her side.
    Aein looked down at Lars and nodded that she was ready.  "Drive it away."
    At once, he was off, snarling and breathing heavy as he crashed into the waters of the swamp.  There was a yip of pain, but no sounds of struggle.  She hoped maybe he just landed on a sharp rock as opposed to something with claws and fangs.
    But then she heard the fight.  There was a roar which shook the ground and the sound of something falling, which seemed as big as a tree.  Whatever it was cried out in anger.  The creature was getting closer.  She aimed her arrow in the direction of the noise, trying to ignore the shooting pain from her old injury, trying to steady the shake of her weak arms.
    Suddenly, the monster came into view.
    It had the shape of a man, but seemed as tall as a mountain.  He had one eye, set in the middle of his forehead.  He was naked but covered in a thick pelt of his own fur.  Lars was unable to pierce his hide, even with his massive jaws.
    A cyclops. Aein swore.
    She had been warned of these creatures when she began training.  They were carnivores and happy to feast upon whatever meat they could crush in their fists.  He most likely had been tracking them from the moment they stepped outside of the camp.  Cyclops were not supposed to travel this close to the border.  They stayed deeper in the swamp.  Their hides were as tough as stone and they had few weaknesses - the tendon