Scion of the Wood (Southwind Knights #3) *SAMPLE*

Chapter One, Part 1

Chapter I: The Spring

Asher stooped over his garden, yanking weeds and singing softly to the few blooming white buds around the healing shack. He discarded his spade and patted down the loose earth. Winter had been unkind. Many of the herbs and tubers he’d tried to raise were shriveled or dead. He sought to revive them now, and his father’s old ditty came to mind, from Asher’s first spring harvest in Southwind.

Spring brings life!

It is rife

With blisters and sores.

Farmer had never been good with songs. Asher smiled as the wind gentled, and his ear caught a distant tramping to the west.

He thought at first that it was Galen returning, but no, the Healer was incapable of making such a racket. As the feet crunched closer, Asher stood.

Two men appeared, hauling themselves into the clearing. One was doubled over like a hunchback, and on his shoulders he supported the limp, iron-plated bulk of the other, whose armor bore a blue tree—the Queen’s emblem, marking him as a Knight. Both men were stained in dark blood.

The bent figure fell to his knees, rolling the Knight over and collapsing, exhausted.

Asher sprang forward. “Finn?” He dropped over his friend, who lay back heaving. Finn’s cotton tunic was tainted red, but a quick inspection revealed that the blood wasn’t his. It came from the Knight, whose armor had been pierced by a black barb, sticking into his ribs. The man’s body was stiff and still, though his eyes were open and active. They cried for help.

“Get Galen,” Finn breathed.

Galen was off on one of his forays into the Wood, and there was no telling how long he would be. Asher shot his eyes in the direction Finn had come. “What happened?”

“Monster. Killed Devin.”

“Monster?”

They could have been followed. Asher rose and stepped to the edge of the clearing, closing his eyes and straining his ears. He heard Finn’s panting behind him and the rustling of branches all around. There was the gentle grazing of his mule, Harriet, to the south. And then he heard it: slow but heavy steps to the west—and not those of a man. An easterly wind swept through the clearing.

“Get him inside!” Asher said. The steps came heavier and faster.

Finn looked confused, as though he couldn’t hear them. “Wha—”

“Now!”

As Finn clambered up and took hold of the Knight’s legs, a sound boomed around them like a deep trumpet. The forest shook. Asher backpedaled, blood rushing. The surrounding foliage obscured his vision.

“Go!”

The heavy steps became a crashing thunder, and a monster leapt through the trees.

Asher’s mind instinctively classified it. Feline but massive—the size of a great bear. The face appeared human except for the multiple, wide-stretching rows of knife-like teeth. Blood-tipped horns poked through a shaggy red mane, and though its hide was of golden fur, a hard, segmented tail snaked from the creature’s rear.

It surveyed the area with an intelligent gaze, locking pitiless eyes on Finn as he hauled the wounded Knight toward the shack.

Asher threw up his hands. “Hey!”

He was already running as the monster’s face spun his way and the creature pounced, claws first. Bee-lining to the nearest climbable tree—a tall, twisting yew—he ran two strides up-trunk before launching himself to the lowest branch. His hands caught, and he swung over, away from the monster’s swipe.