Chapter 6 - The Blood-Price of the North
The impact shook the snow from the crags above like an avalanche.
The first of the Winterfang beasts—a massive brute with a scarred flank and yellow foam dripping from its lower jaw—lunged straight for Alister’s throat.
Alister didn't duck. He didn't parry. He simply caught the creature by its thick neck-fur mid-air, his fingers sinking deep into the muscle with a sickening crunch of bone. With a single, casual twist of his wrist, he hurled the four-hundred-pound beast over the edge of the cliff into the three-thousand-foot drop below.
The other Winterfangs hesitated—just for a heartbeat—their red eyes darting from the glittering armor of the high crag enforcers to the tall, dark-haired man standing alone in the snow.
"Kill them!" Boran roared, his broadsword flashing in the gray light as he cleaved the skull of the second beast to reach the line.
The battle became a blur of red blood and gray fur against white snow.
Isabel pressed herself flat against the granite wall, her breath pluming white in the freezing air, her fingers cold around the heavy wool of her cloak. She watched Alister move through the pack of beasts like a reaper through wheat. He didn't use technique or formal swordplay; he moved with the raw, terrifying efficiency of a force of nature. Every strike was absolute. Every step broke a line.
A large, dark-furred beast—smaller than the others, but moving with the unnatural speed of a scout—broke through the flank of the crag warriors and headed straight for Isabel, its red eyes locked on her throat.
Isabel didn't scream. She reached down, her fingers closing around the hilt of a small iron dagger she had taken from her father’s desk before they left the vaults.
The beast leaped, its jaws wide, stinking of old blood and raw meat.
Before it could touch her, a heavy iron boot struck the creature square in the ribs.
The beast went sideways, crashing into the snow-drift with a heavy, wheezing thud.
Alister stood over it, his silver eyes cold as winter ice. He didn't look down. He simply brought his heel down hard upon the creature’s skull.
The crunch was dry and final.
He turned to Isabel, his chest heaving slightly, a single drop of dark blood staining the silver plate of his left shoulder guard.
"Are you hurt?" he asked, his voice low and urgent beneath the roar of the wind.
"I'm fine," Isabel said, her voice steady despite the trembling in her knees. She looked past him down the pass.
The last of the Winterfangs were turning tail, scrambling back up the snowy slopes toward the high ridge as the fifty enforcers of the crags pressed their advantage with wild, victorious howls that echoed off the stone walls.
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Alister reached out, his large, calloused hand gently touching her cheek, wiping a smudge of soot from her skin with surprising tenderness.
"The border is secured," Alister said, his silver eyes softening as he looked down at her. "And the pack knows who holds the gate."
