Chapter 8 - The Ride to the Citadel
The journey back to the northern citadel was a blur of flying mud, thundering hooves, and icy wind.
They rode double on Alistair’s massive warhorse—a coal-black stallion bred in the high peaks. Isolda sat in front, holding Finn tightly against her chest with one arm while her other hand gripped the pommel of the saddle. Behind her, Alistair’s broad chest was a solid wall of heat and power, his arms wrapping around both of them to shield them from the freezing gale.
Finn wasn't afraid anymore. As the giant horse surged forward, leading a column of three hundred elite lykan warriors at a dead sprint across the Silverpine bridge, the boy’s stormy gray eye was wide with fierce, unadulterated excitement. He could feel the raw, thrumming power of the pack beneath him, and for the first time in his life, he didn't duck his head or hide his left eye when a passing soldier glanced their way.
They crested the final rise before the valley.
There it stood—the Montgomery Citadel. Built from massive blocks of dark gray granite atop an unyielding pillar of black rock, its soaring towers pierced the stormy gray clouds like the spikes of a dragon’s spine. But even from a mile away, something was wrong.
banners flying from the high ramparts weren't the standard silver-and-black wolf crest of the Montgomery line. They were the crimson-and-gold standard of House Harrington.
"They barred the gates," one of the vanguard captains shouted, riding back to the king’s side. "Lord Harrington has placed archers along the parapets. He’s broadcasting through the town criers that the Alpha King has abandoned the throne!"
Alistair didn't slow his pace by a single heartbeat.
"Let him broadcast," Alistair’s voice boomed across the ranks, carrying the supernatural resonance of an Alpha king that made every horse in the column skitter nervously. "Sound the horns. Break the gates."
The massive brass horns of the northern guard sounded from the head of the column—a deep, vibrating roar that shook the very stones of the valley. Three hundred elite warriors let out a collective, blood-curdling howl that drowned out the thunder.
At the head of the charge, Alistair didn't draw a sword. He pulled his horse to a halt fifty paces from the massive iron-studded oak gates of the citadel, handed the reins to Isolda, and slid down from the saddle.
He walked alone toward the gate, his arms hanging loosely at his sides, his head tilted up toward the parapets where armed mercenaries in Harrington’s colors were nervously notching their crossbows.
"Lord Harrington!" Alistair’s voice rolled across the moat like a wave of physical pressure. "Come down and open the door, or I will feed your bones to my hounds before sunset!"
From atop the gatehouse, Lord Harrington’s bloated, panic-stricken face appeared over the stone crenellations. He was sweating despite the freezing wind, clutching a heavy iron crossbow in his trembling hands.
"You have no authority, Alistair!" Harrington screeched, his voice cracking with hysteria. "The council has declared you unfit! The southern lords back me! Shoot him! Kill the mad dog!"
A dozen crossbows snapped upward.
Before the bolts could leave their wooden grooves, Alistair shifted.
It wasn't a partial transformation; it was the terrifying, instantaneous change of an Alpha King at the height of his power. In a fraction of a second, his human form dissolved into a colossal dire wolf standing nearly eight feet at the shoulder, its fur the color of a winter storm, its eyes glowing with a brilliant, blinding golden light.
The dire wolf didn't roar. It simply leaped.
With a single, explosive bound that defied the laws of nature, the massive beast vaulted twenty feet into the air, crashing directly into the center of the heavy iron-studded oak gates.
CRASH!
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The sound of splintering timber echoed off the canyon walls like a thunderclap. The right half of the gate exploded inward, sending iron bolts and heavy oak beams flying across the inner courtyard.
Before the dust had even begun to settle, the entire pack of three hundred warriors surged through the broken gateway like a black tidal wave.
