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

rolled in a look of surprise. It spun onto its back and lay on the ground.

It did not move.

The forest fell quiet.

The other wolves gaped at it. Not with anger or fear, but a look of actual shock.

They turned toward me and I shuddered. I raised the crossbow with its pitiful three bolts 206

remaining. As I wondered how it would feel to be torn apart and eaten.

Instead of attacking, the pack stared at me with wide eyes, as if frightened. Or awestruck.

They backed away. I turned Crimson to face the two wolves behind me, expecting them to pounce. But at my sudden turn, they skittered backward. So did the wolves on either side.

I turned Crimson again to face them, measuring their reactions. They turned and ran off in all directions, howling and scrambling as if I had set them on fire.

The leader’s carcass remained still on the damp ground. Rain dripped like a drum from the tree leaves, as I felt the wild pounding of my heart.

Crimson shuffled his hooves in the mud, looking from one side of the dark forest to the other as though he shared my relief and confusion.

One bolt – one single bolt – had killed this beast, when every other one failed.

What sort of monsters were these?

I waited for a few seconds. Resting in the quiet and calm and the cooling breeze from the dissipating rain. I dismounted and touched down carefully on the ground, as though I expected it to swallow me up.

But nothing happened. No wolves returned.

The gray wolf leader didn’t rise to attack. Its mouth hung open with no breath, no movement.

The beast was dead as a fallen log. As any wolf should be after being shot seven times.

But why didn’t the first six bolts kill it?

Why only the seventh? And why only this wolf?

207

I recalled the wolves from the clearing.

This first one entered and was shot by Monsieur Favreau. Four more joined it, and this gray wolf rose up to attack alongside them. But only four of them followed us from the farm.

I grabbed hold of the bolt lodged in the wolf’s forehead and pulled. I pressed my boot heel over its open eye and tugged, but it wouldn’t budge. I flicked out one of Pierre’s blades and cut into the forehead around the bolt, sawing until I made a wide bloody hole. The quieting rain turned the fresh blood even fouler. I swallowed back the bile rising in my throat and spat on the ground. I seized the bolt with both fists, pressed my boot against the animal’s face and yanked hard. The bolt came free all at once. I fell onto my rump holding the shaft, its end covered with blood and bits of bone and flesh.

I shut my eyes and quieted my soul a moment. Then I stared at the mess of flesh and fur matted with blood. Underneath it, the bolt looked the same as every other one. What made it so powerful?

I stood and shoved it into the pouch hanging from Crimson’s saddle. He flinched slightly. His stomach seemed stronger than mine, but not much stronger.

I mounted and returned to the Favreau farm. I drove Crimson hard, but he needed little encouragement. He seemed just as eager to escape the forest and find shelter before the wolves returned. Favreau’s farm was the last place I wanted to be, but we had to go back.

208

It took little over a minute to reach the clearing. A dim lantern still burned within the house. Favreau might be watching us from inside or rocking his daughter back to sleep, or both. Near the house, a single brown wolf lay still, unmoving.

Dead.

We trotted up to it and I swung down from the saddle, landing on both feet. I ran to the carcass and rolled it onto its back. Two bolts stuck out from its belly. But blood surrounded only