Ivy's Tangle (Legend of the White Sword - Book 1)

Chapter 17 - White Sword (Part 2)

I looked back at the gap we'd both arrived through. A set of red eyes now filled it. The wolves had taken the time we'd spent talking to surround us. There weren't enough of them to block all the gaps, but more than enough to stop any real chance of escape. Ivy shot at the wolf without hesitation, and it sidestepped her arrow easily.

"This bow is a toy," Ivy said. "Not suitable for hunting rabbits."

I wanted to tell her to run for it, while I distracted our attackers, but the chance never came.

The pack attacked us together from all sides, and the first wolf fell to my practice sword. A lucky blow to its head, as it lunged for my throat, dropped the creature at my feet. The sword didn't have had an edge, but it was still three feet of steel bar. Another fell to my dull blade as it tried to wrench the bow from Ivy's hands. My swing hit it just in front of the shoulder with a sickening crack, and it dropped, twitching on the ground. Powerful jaws had already snapped Ivy's bow in half at the handle.

Snarls filled the night, and my world narrowed to one filled with shadows, eyes, and teeth as the pack swarmed around us.

Somewhere in the madness, fangs tore into the meat of my shoulder. I swear I felt every tooth as it punctured skin and drove through muscle. If I'd been a fraction of a second slower, that wolf would have had my throat, finishing me quickly. Its hot breath tickled my ear, which created a bizarre contrast to the stabbing pain. I struggled to keep my feet as two hundred pounds of growling beast ripped at my shoulder. The three feet of steel in my hand, that had seemed pitifully short a moment before, now proved awkwardly long as I fought to defend myself. The wolf scraped its claws down my left arm and the side of my chest as I struck ineffectual blows to its head. I had to shake it loose and fast—it wasn't alone.

The wolf's weight took a toll on my already tired and injured body. If I didn't break free of its grip soon, another member of the pack was certain to come in for the kill. A tiny, exhausted part of me wanted to give up.

JACK!

I heard Ivy scream behind me, and I remembered that I wasn't alone—but that if I fell—she would be. A new strength flowed into my arms, and I attacked the wolf with berserk fury. Our angry growls blended until I couldn't tell where the wolf's began and mine ended. Again and again, I struck head and muzzle. My left hand pushed, punched, and scratched at the coarse fur of its underbelly. Finally, it released my shoulder and backed away. Ivy had driven one of her arrows between its ribs leaving the rest of the broken shaft clenched in her blood-covered fist. We only had time for a shared glance before the next attack came.

My fear gave me strength, and I no longer noticed the weight of the practice sword. I drove the wolves back a few paces, swinging around us in careless arcs. Four big and extremely angry animals remained. Luck, such as we'd had, couldn't possibly continue, and now the wolves attacked with more caution and purpose.

As one distracted me to my front, another lunged at my rear and ripped into the back of my leg. Ivy attacked it with an arrow in each hand, and the wolf danced back out of reach. My leg burned, and I felt warm blood running down my pant leg, filling my shoe.

I still stood, but I wondered for how long.

The wolves harried us for what felt an eternity, but were likely only minutes. They mostly focused on me. Blood ran into one of my eyes from a cut on my head, and sharp teeth had torn deep gashes into my left shoulder. All I'd accomplished was crippling the front leg of one of the remaining wolves, and loss of blood was making me feel woozy.

Amid the snarling, screaming, and blood I failed to see the woman arrive.

Ivy screamed, and I spun about. She was on her back, desperately fighting to keep sharp teeth from her throat, each tiny hand was full of black fur. The wolf had size and gravity on its side, and Ivy was losing the battle. Unsure if I could hit the wolf without hitting Ivy, my now slow-responding brain hesitated as darkness crept in at the edges of my vision. Behind me, I heard snarls and squeals, followed by silence. You should do something Jack, part of my brain said. Before I figured out what that was... a new impossibility appeared.

Between one blink of my eye and the next, a woman stood behind the wolf ravaging Ivy. With casual ease, she reached down her left hand and grabbed the wolf by the scruff of its neck. Then she picked the huge animal up and tossed it like a sack of garbage. The wolf flew a good twenty feet; its flight cut short by one of the standing stones. A wet crunch was followed by a bloody slide down the face of the stone, and the image of a bug on a car window flashed through my mind. A quick glance back told me the rest of the wolves were likewise dead. Two lay in pieces, cut clean in half, but I couldn't tell how the last one had died. I shuffled to Ivy's side. She still hadn't risen from the ground. As the last clouds obscuring the full moon were swept away, I got my first good look at the woman. I didn't know what she was... but definitely not human.

A regular woman could have dressed up to look like her, with a Hollywood makeup team to help, but looking at her, I knew. Not human. She was a slim woman about my height, which is tall for a lady, and she had long, straight hair that fell almost to her knees. That hair was silver. Not grey, or white from age, or lack of pigmentation. Silver. It looked as if you could melt it down for jewellery or fancy cutlery. Her skin had a silvery sheen too, and her eyes had a distinctive slant. Minus those eyes she might have been an Asian lady in full-on cosplay. Her eyes made the difference. They were glowing golden in the moonlight, like a cat's, and the pupils were slit like a reptile's. Old was the first word that came to mind when I looked into those eyes. The second word was dragon.

It sounds crazy I know, but you had to be there. Subconsciously, I noted a few other things in that first glance: she was inhumanly beautiful, in a cold, distant way, dark scale armour covered her like a short dress, leaving arms and legs bare, and the longer I looked at her eyes the more fascinating they became.

After her eyes, I mostly noticed her sword. She had a really big sword. It was a long broadsword and completely white, possibly carved from the rib of a whale or something. Even the cross guard was white, and the whole thing had been etched with symbols that I couldn't discern in the moonlight. Did I mention it was big? The sword was almost as long as the woman was tall. Something about the blade drew my eye and briefly held me mesmerised. Then my thoughts turned back to Ivy who huddled on the ground at my feet.

"Thank you for saving us," I said. What else do you say to a dragon lady when you're all hanging out at mini-Stonehenge?

"Move out of the way, boy," the woman said. Her voice was low and husky. "I'm here for the girl."

"What?" I asked. I wasn't feeling too great.

"Jack, you must run," Ivy whispered.

I saw renewed terror in her eyes. My slow-moving brain was having trouble putting two and two together, but my body knew what to do. I stepped up between the woman and Ivy, painfully raising my practice sword to the ready position as the woman brought the white blade around in a slashing arc. She was so fast I couldn't have reacted on my best day. The practice sword flew from my grip, and I was knocked back onto Ivy.

I heard my weapon land with a dull thud somewhere in the distance.