The sorcerer blew Brigid and Fergal backwards before Maeve could clear another arrow from her quiver.

  He knew I was here, Maeve thought. How? Does he know about Brendan?

  The answer was imminent. Brendan unleashed a fireball from the other treeline at the man’s partner and they were less successful in deflecting the attack. The projectile struck their left shoulder and knocked them to the ground.

  The wolves stirred and stood. They sniffed the air in the general direction of both Maeve and Brendan but settled on the targets in front of them.

  Maeve didn’t want to risk another deflected arrow but knew her friends in the clearing were at a disadvantage. The beasts’ hides were as tough as any animal she had faced and she needed more than a scratch to grab their attention—her next shot had to sting. She burst from the woods and sprinted another twenty yards before loosing her next arrow.

  Hit a rib. Shite.

  True enough, a rib bone prevented the bolt from piercing something vital but it caused enough pain to pull the right wolf’s focus off of her comrades. The beast shook its head and growled at Maeve, ready to close the sixty yards between them with haste.

  Brigid and Fergal were up and had flanked their leader. The three combatants stood warily, each waiting for the others to make the first move.

  Brendan remained out of sight. Two more fireballs erupted from the forest, each from a different location than the first. He was running between his spells. It wasn’t a strategy that he could maintain for long but for now it did a fine job of distracting the second sorcerer and the left wolf from joining the main fight.

  That pause afforded Maeve her first true glimpse at the manner of creature she had chased halfway across Ulster, her first view unfettered by tree trunks or the night shade of a forest’s canopy. The wolf’s right front leg was longer than its left but the muscles on its left side were larger. The sinew extended from the left side of its body in odd directions, as if it were a clay figure shaped by a child from memory. Its over-inflated trapezius muscles loomed over the base of its neck. Its snout and cheekbones were larger and more pronounced, leaving deep, concave ridges where it met the lower regions of its skull.

  And then there were its teeth, bared for Maeve’s examination. They protruded farther from the wolf’s jaws than normal, curving outward before rising or dropping. The teeth were wider as well, crammed together like the branches in a new wattle fence.

  Brendan is the jammiest man alive to still have his leg attached, Maeve thought.

  Maeve regretted taking the opportunity to size up the beast. The wolf faced her head-on, presenting her with the smallest profile possible. Her target was mostly skull and legs from this angle. Given the toughness of its litter-mates’ hide, Maeve had little hope of dropping it with anything but multiple arrows in its chest. The distance would only allow for two shots at most; the second likely would land seconds before the beast would take her.

  She gripped at her belt, her mind straining to remember the last time she used the eight-inch scian strapped to it for anything other than cleaning or utility. An unfamiliar feeling radiated from her spine to her arms and forehead.

  This is bad.

  She inched an arrow from the quiver on the other side of her belt, hoping to raise her bow without—

  The wolf ahead of her lurched forward with a grunt. Maeve removed the rest of her arrow and nocked it to her bowstring.

  One shot, she thought, and it won’t be enough.

  The wolf had closed its mouth, exposing a bit more of its chest. It was there Maeve planted her first arrow, just left of center. The wolf’s front paws collapsed, sending its snout to the ground. Its momentum, however, bounced the creature back to all fours.

  The hitch in the beast’s gait provided Maeve with enough time to nock another arrow, but the beast was now ten yards away and closing fast. She squeezed the arrow against her bow with the index and middle fingers of her left hand and swatted at her hip for her knife. She bumbled the grip, denying any chance that she’d unsheathe her close-quarters weapon in time.

  Too late.

  The beast pushed its front paws off the ground, ready to wrap them around its prey. Maeve shifted her left foot and swung the right side of her body behind her allowing her to spin away from the lunge. The motion swung her bow hand around, and the arrowhead sliced the right side of its neck past the shoulder. The impact twisted the arrow and pried her hand open. Her bow fell to the ground.

  Brendan dropped his hands to his knees as he gasped for air. He had spent the past two minutes in a dead sprint, pausing only to hurl three fireballs from different locations.

  His gambit worked. He toppled the henchman with his first spell, wounded the wolf with the second and sent that sorcerer scrambling for cover with his third.

  I wish I could keep this up, he thought to himself.

  He couldn’t, though. Eventually the wolf would sniff him out or the sorcerer would realize there was just one person attacking them and learn his attack pattern.

  Or he could simply collapse from the exertion and the throbbing pain in his left leg.

  He scanned the field in front of him. Maeve forsook her cover to prevent the larger of the two wolves from joining the leader against Brigid and Fergal. No sooner did Fergal help Brigid to her feet than she shoved him back to the ground to avoid a fireball from the leader. Brigid hopped up and charged the man. She swung and cued her spear at her foe, prioritizing speed over form.

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  Brendan understood her plan. The leader did too, apparently. He shouted a single word and another purple light prevented her spear from piercing him. A jerk of his free hand flung another fireball at Fergal. The porter swung his club and batted parts of the fire back toward the sorcerer.

  The stranger summoned a gust of wind to deflect the return but it wasn’t in time. A fireball fragment caught him in his left hand. He cried out and yelled two words. Lightning arced from his right hand to Brigid, driving her to her knees. The leader jumped back and turned away to examine his injured hand as Fergal ran to Brigid.

  I have to do everything, Brendan thought, and they still will give me nothing but slag afterwards.

  Brendan looked back to confirm the limping wolf was searching elsewhere. Not that it would matter after his next move.

  “Brig!” he yelled. “Give me room!”

  He blew his cover. The necks of both sorcerers and Fergal whipped their heads in his direction. Brigid, however, pushed herself up by her spear and used its handle to herd Fergal away from the leader.

  They’re a brave distance away, he thought. I hope this works.

  He stretched his arms forward and them pulled them all the way back. His right arm pointed behind him and his left hand was now behind his right armpit. He held that pose until his hands shook, at which point he swung them both forward.

  “Múr teine!” he yelled.

  A stretch of turf between the sorcerer and his friends thirty feet long darkened. Little curls of glowing red light appeared in it and within seconds a wall of fire five feet tall divided the two parties in the field.

  He stared at the center of the fire and squinted his eyes. His hands rotated around each other in a counter-clockwise motion with only a slight flick of his right hand every time it came full circle.

  “Cáemnaid,” he said.

  The flames settled into a uniform height from one end to the other and it widened by another two feet. After a few more circles, Brendan was confident the spell would hold so long as he kept the circle going.

  His eyes returned to the left side of the flames. The second wolf recoiled at the fire. The second sorcerer jumped from cover and removed their hood.

  She’s lovely, Brendan said. Shame.

  It was clear the woman knew the trick to walled spells: for best results and accuracy, one must cast a walled spell either straight ahead or in a line perpendicular from where one stands. Since she stood closer to the latter location, the woman’s eyes trailed the line of conflagration toward his side of the forest. She had him.

  Brendan had bought Maeve and Brigid time but he would need their help soon.

  For all her teasing and insults, Maeve knew Brendan’s magical prowess was no joke. Still, he wasn’t above surprising her from time to time. Her eyes lingered on the flames too long; the wolf behind her stirred as it overcame its primal fear of fire.

  She picked her bow up from the ground and turned to face the beast. Its fresh wound was on full display in the firelight. It started no wider than a hair under its chin and widened as it ran down the right side of its neck. A hole at the end of the sixteen-inch slice marked the spot where the arrow snagged and forced Maeve’s hand open.

  Blood flowed down from its neck. The amount signaled a deep cut with no damage to the major arteries within. An arrow was still lodged in its chest and she had no reason to suspect the one on the left side of its ribs had fallen out. The creature approached with labored steps and a rumble in its larynx.

  Maeve unsheathed her knife and held her bow by one of its tips. She was loathe to ruin it by using it as a martial weapon. The beast was strong and likely would crack the bow with one twist of its neck if it clamped down on it.

  The firelight behind her contracted the wolf’s pupils. The far end of Maeve’s bow was nearly six feet in front of her face. She hoped that combination would mess with creature’s depth perception. She needed any advantage she could scrounge from the situation.

  The wolf bared its teeth and snapped at the bow tip.

  How am I going to bring this thing down with just a knife? she asked herself. If it breaks my bow, I’ll be of no use the rest of the fight. What I wouldn’t give to have Siobhan here to bless this bow.

  The truth is Maeve could do something about it—her rust notwithstanding. Her mother knew several sílrad spells of benefit to hunters and archers. The magic didn’t come as easily for Maeve. She eventually learned most of the spells, but it took months of frustration and cursing. She fell out of practice several years ago and her pride prevented her from undergoing that ordeal once more. Instead, she relied on her father’s training in both stealth and tracking to take care of things from afar and an inscrutable face to handle matters that were up close.

  But, yes, there was a spell that could help her right now. She even remembered the word of invocation.

  Shouts from Fergal and Brigid behind her rang in her ears. She dared not close her eyes but took a deep breath. And then another. She pulled both arms backward, searching with her nerves for any sense of energy from Mag Airthech, the same otherworldly plane from which her mother’s ancestors drew power. She found none.

  She took another breath and brought back her arms one more time. This time she felt it in her forearms. A warm tingle traveled both up her arms and down her fingers. It filled her chest and wrapped around her back. “Nertaid,” she said.

  The warmth in her hands spread down her bow and knife as she brought them forward. A faint green glow traveled with it. She pulled the weapons back and turned them for examination.

  Feck off. It worked!

  The wolf was less impressed by the action and seized on Maeve’s bewilderment. It jogged toward Maeve but made the mistake of barking as it started to run.

  The sound shook Maeve from her own thoughts. She rapped the wolf on its snout with her bow, forcing the beast to leap back. Instead of retreating, however, it lunged at her again with its head down this time. Maeve’s next swing was too awkward to strike its target. The wolf twisted its head and clamped down on her left thigh.

  Maeve screamed as the pain of a dozen dull knife blades on either side of her leg vibrated up her back. The wolf pulled on her leg and straightened its head, twisting Maeve to the ground. The knife flew out of her hand as she hit the turf. It landed several yards beyond her.

  Maeve placed both hands on her bow and swung it at the wolf until it relinquished her leg. It reached for her neck but caught the middle of her bow in its jaws instead. She pushed with all the strength she could summon to keep the beast’s teeth, now stained red by her own blood, from her face.

  She twisted her head in several directions until she located the knife above her head. Grunting through clenched teeth, she pushed down with both legs and bridged her back, causing her to slide several inches away from the wolf. She repeated the maneuver when she was certain she had the wolf’s jaws were secured once more. Again and again, inches at a time, until she felt the knife against her scalp.

  With her left hand Maeve torqued the bow into the wolf’s jaw. She grabbed the knife with her right hand and thrust the knife into the center of the wolf’s throat. She gripped the bow and knife as long as she could. The wolf’s thrashing against the knife worsened its injury until it finally released the bow and attempted to pull away.

  Maeve kept the knife in place, raising up to follow the wolf’s attempted escape. The accumulation of injuries were too much for the creature and it wavered. Maeve pushed on the knife and twisted her body to keep the beast from landing on her.

  The attempt nearly worked but was miles from a success. The wolf fell into a heap, leaving just one part of Maeve’s body covered: her injured leg. She yelled as she twisted and pushed her way out from under it.

  She sat upright and examined her bow. No cracks or scratches—not even a single tooth mark. She used it and the knife to push herself up onto a stoop and wobbled her way into a standing position.

  Now what?