Anna von Wessen by Mae Ronan Read Free Book Online

there was the sound of crashing footsteps in the forest all around.
    “Brace yourself, my boy,” Ephram whispered to Valo.
    “Get ready,” Valo said to Anna.
    “Don’t be afraid,” Anna said to Greyson, who looked indeed as if he would faint from fear. Never before had he faced such an onslaught. Never – unlike Anna – had he wished to.
    “Dirty dogs,” hissed Adrian Ilo. “Why don’t they come?”
    “Because they are ignorant beasts,” returned Valo.
    “Do not underestimate them,” warned Ephram.
    “You are right in that, my lord,” whispered Evin Osha (who was on some occasions Valo’s duelling second; though Valo did not always favour either his presence or his opinion, and seemed sometimes to find definite enjoyment in abusing him) with a somewhat terrified look upon his face. Three months previous he had had his right arm torn off by a Narkul, and had lain screaming in his chamber for rather more than two weeks while it grew back.
    Valo clapped him on the shoulder, and grinned. “Good man, Evin.”
    After this brief string of exchanges, all the party was silent once again, and fell to searching the tree-lines, with eyes that glowed yellow in the dark. It was Droya, of the house of Ephram, who spotted the first wolf bounding from the North-hand wood. Immediately after him came a long, thick line of beasts, pouring like angry bees from a hive.
    An array of swords, glinting in the silver moonlight, whipped forth from Lumarian belts. Wolfen paws could be seen, being severed from furry arms the size of tree trunks, as they reached to descend upon the soldiers. Heads of both Narkul and Lumarian went rolling, before the Lumaria shifted suddenly from the spot, and dragged with them into the lake all the wolves they could lay their hands upon. Some were drowned; some had their throats ripped away; some were skewered by swords.
    In the middle of the fray were Ephram, Adrian Ilo, Anna and Valo, swords swishing left and right, felling a wolf with every chop. Greyson huddled near to Anna, relying on her to save him from his own poor swordsmanship, each time his aim missed the mark, or proved not strong enough to sever the thick neck of a Narkul. Ari fought near to Valo, just as she somehow always managed to do, usurping the place which was rightfully Evin Osha’s.
    Ephram’s plan proved successful; and a mere half hour after the battle had begun, it ceased, as all the Narken who survived wrestled themselves from the grip of their enemies, and fled the lake. Several were felled by Adrian Ilo’s gunners (this, indeed, was the first instance thus far in the evening that firearms had been made use of – the encounter had been too close, and Anna herself had never even taken her bolt-gun from its holster) as they ran for the trees, but a considerable host managed nonetheless to escape.
    “Should we follow them?” Anna asked abruptly, as she slayed her last wolf.
    “Do you wish us to go, Father?” inquired Valo.
    “No,” said Ephram. “No – let them go. We have lost enough. They’ll not come back.”
    He placed a hand on the shoulder of Adrian Ilo; and together they two led their clans from the water. The slain were gathered up into arms and onto shoulders, and carried back to the house whither they had probably expected to return in a much different fashion.
     
     

VI:
    The Proclamation
     
    S traightaway Ephram went with Adrian Ilo, and they closeted themselves in that latter fellow’s study, while all those who were already home, wearied from fighting and shocked by their losses, made their way up to bed. Before he went, Ephram ordered Valo to take their people back to Thayer Street, and there to wait up for him. Nine-and-twenty shifted from the front hall, to the vestibule below the staircase in their own home. Anna looked down with tired eyes, and saw that the checkered floor beneath her feet had been replaced with familiar, perfectly white tiles. 
    “All right, Greyson?” she asked.
    “Right