Chapter 6 - THE SILVER TIDE
The attack didn't come from the front. It came from the shadows.
Before the southern soldiers could raise their shields, massive shapes bounded over the wooden palisade of the village square—creatures twice the size of warhorses, their fur the color of midnight, their eyes burning with an unholy silver and gold light. They moved with terrifying, unnatural speed, a blur of muscle, teeth, and raw, unrestrained rage.
Sir Harold lunged forward, swinging his broadsword at a massive black wolf lunging toward him. The wolf caught the blade in its jaws, snapping the heavy steel as if it were dry pine, and sent Harold flying backward into a stack of empty crates with a sickening crunch of armor.
Chaos erupted in the square. Soldiers scattered, screaming, their torches tumbling into the snow and hissing out in the drifts. The villagers slammed their shutters shut, cowering beneath their tables as the battle for Oak Haven exploded outside their windows.
And right in the center of the square, standing tall amidst the howling snow and flying ice, was a man.
He wore no armor. His dark tunic was torn open across his broad chest, revealing the faint, fading scars of a silver spear wound. His silver hair whipped around his face in the gale, and his eyes burned with the absolute, blinding brilliance of an ancient king reclaiming his throne.
Akira walked steadily through the carnage, ignoring the fleeing soldiers who scrambled out of his path like rats. He stopped directly in front of the wooden pillory where Rosalind hung limp and unresponsive.
With a single, effortless motion of his bare hands, Akira gripped the heavy oak crossbeam of the pillory and wrenched it apart as if it were rotten driftwood. Wood splintered with a deafening crack. Rosalind fell forward, but she never hit the frozen ground.
Strong, searingly hot arms caught her, pulling her against a chest that burned like a winter forge.
"I told you," Akira murmured, his voice a low, vibrating growl of fierce protection as he brushed the frozen hair from her pale, bloodless face, "I do not leave my healers behind."
Rosalind forced her heavy eyelids open, her vision swimming with silver light. "You... you shouldn't have come back... the poison..."
"The poison is gone," Akira said, his lips curving into a rare, fierce smile that held no mockery, only absolute devotion. "My pack is whole again. And Charles Kelly is waiting for me at the southern border."
Before Rosalind could answer, a ragged cough echoed from the snow nearby. Sir Harold dragged himself out from beneath the broken crates, blood streaming from his forehead, his hand clawing blindly toward his dropped dagger in the snow.
"Traitor..." Harold spat, blood bubbling from his lip. "Kelly... Kelly will burn every tree in this valley..."
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Akira didn't even look down at him. He simply raised his hand, and a massive silver-eyed wolf stepped out of the shadows, planting a heavy paw squarely across Harold’s chest, pinning the lieutenant to the frozen mud without a sound.
"Tell Kelly," Akira said, his voice carrying across the silent, smoking ruins of the village square, "that the North remembers. And the king has returned to collect his debt."
