Red Rider RIsing: Book 2 of the Red Rider Saga by D.A. Randall (ebook e reader .txt) 📕

Favreau as his gun whirled in my direction. Its barrel aimed squarely at my hooded forehead.

I sat frozen in the mud and darkness.

The bearded Favreau stood rigid, squinting through rain at the pigpen. Watching for any movement, listening for any strange sounds. I made none.

He finally relented and turned slowly back to the trees, while rain pelted the surrounding leaves. I felt my heart start beating again.

“Lucille, go back to bed,” he called over his shoulder, still watching the forest.

“I’m not sleepy, Papa,” the girl

complained, rubbing her eyes.

I estimated her to be four years old. A year younger than Suzette, but just as lively, just as playful. Just as innocent. “Get back inside,” I muttered in a violent whisper.

“Into bed,” he repeated. “Your mother wouldn’t have wanted you out in this cold, God rest her soul. Now go on.”

I swallowed. He was a widower, raising little Lucille on his own. Just the two of them.

“Papa, what’re you doing? Did you hear the wolf?”

I felt my breath through my teeth. I alternated between my study of the trees and of the light from Favreau’s house, shining on little Lucille’s white gown. “Get back inside,” I murmured again.

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“I heard something,” Favreau said over his shoulder. “Might be that wolf, so go on inside, like I told you.”

“Yes, Papa,” she said. The rising irritation in his voice finally convinced her.

My shoulders relaxed.

“Look, Papa! There it is!”

Blood flooded my temples as I sat higher.

Lucille was right. Striding forth from the forest was a gray wolf – taller and larger than a normal wolf. It grinned, showing no fear of the musket. Perhaps it had never seen one.

Or simply didn’t fear it.

The rain fell harder as I raised Pierre’s crossbow. If the wolf didn’t fear a bullet, it certainly wouldn’t fear a bolt. Until I sank enough of them into its belly.

At least, that’s what I hoped.

It padded through the muddy field toward Favreau. As if daring him to shoot.

“Get inside, Lucille,” Favreau ordered.

“Kill it, Papa. Kill it before it takes another pig!”

“Inside, I said!”

Favreau couldn’t escort his daughter to safety and face down the wolf at the same time. He leaned his head to one side and sighted the animal patiently. Letting it draw closer into range, he waited for the right shot and pulled the trigger.

A beautiful shot, right to its face. It sent the beast spinning backward to the slippery ground, dead.

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Favreau lifted his head as Lucille jumped up and down on the porch, her fists raised in victory.

“You did it, Papa, you did it!”

The clearing fell quiet. The creature was dead.

It was over. I was never even needed. I felt relieved and strangely cheated. But I couldn’t help but feel grateful over the huge wolf carcass lying still on the soaked grass.

Then four more wolves padded into the clearing. They emerged at once, from four different positions, like an organized battalion.

Grinning, they marched at Monsieur Favreau like soldiers, each as large as the first one.

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21.

Favreau stood gaping at the gathering wolves, his fingers loosening and tightening on his gun. The wolves moved closer, ignoring their fallen companion as the mounting rain pelted his carcass.

“Papa, there’s more of them!”

“… get back inside,” he said quietly. He started to back away slowly.

The wolves picked up their pace.

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Favreau continued to back up. He lifted his musket to a firing position, but abandoned the effort as the wolves kept coming, kept grinning.

They weren’t rushing at the pigs, or even at Favreau. They focused their attention beyond him, at the porch.

At Lucille.

My head pounded with terror. They had planned this, waited for this opportunity. They stole a pig every couple of nights to draw the family out into the open, until they found an opportunity to attack Favreau’s daughter. Then they all emerged at once, the same way they must have attacked Francois at his home.

Favreau would never get Lucille inside before the beasts devoured them both.

I flicked out one of Pierre’s blades and sliced into the side of a pig. It squealed and ran to the other side of the pen.

The wolves jerked toward the commotion as the pigs began to rush back and forth, thumping and sliding