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The roof!
Before I could let my emotions catch up with me and render my legs completely useless, I ran out to the back porch and hoofed it up the ladder. Once on the flat area of the roof, I aimed myself towards the front of the property, leaning my body against the roof that angled up at the front of the house.
It was hard to spot Tarion in the churn of dust, since he was the same reddish colour as the land. But Silar’s bright teal hair streaming out from beneath his hat became my visual anchor. Once I saw that, I could make sense of the scene.
Silar and the other male were trotting at a much slower pace, moving in circles around a tightly packed fist of bracku. The beasts were already moving even slower than before, a shuffle of inertia that was close to dying out. The animal moving the fastest now seemed to be the manic, blurry one doing all the barking.
For the first time in what felt like forever, I took in a full, deep breath and let it out.
Silar was safe. I didn’t get turned into Cherry jam. The bracku had nearly stopped and now the other man was approaching Silar on his mount.
Everything was OK. Everything was going to be just –
Shit.
Everything was going to be just shit.
Because as soon as the other man was in range…
Silar’s tail shot out and wrapped tightly ’round his orange throat.
20
SILAR
Fallon jerked as my tail seized upon his throat.
I had not felt rage like this since… since…
Since I’d killed that man on Zabria.
Fallon’s white eyes bulged, his claws sinking deep into my tail. I barely felt it. His hound snapped feral jaws in defense of his master, circling Tarion, but I paid the creature little mind. If Tarion felt threatened, he could deliver a single, skull-smashing kick.
No. All my attention was focused upon Fallon. Fallon, whose stampeding herd had almost killed my wife.
Thoughts about how Fallon was the youngest and likely the best among us were torn asunder, mashed up by memories. Memories of hearing the stampede and racing across my property, calling Cherry’s name but not finding her. Memories of spine-sheering panic as I’d rounded the house on Tarion’s back and saw my wife, trapped and disoriented, while Fallon’s cattle hurtled towards her like a storm.
I almost hadn’t reached her in time. It had been far too cursedly close.
And I had to do something with the frenetic friction of that fear. I had to do something before it strangled me.
So I would strangle Fallon instead.
“Silar!”
Clear as a note of music, Cherry’s voice called to me. I held Fallon in place and cranked my head to the side, searching the house’s doorway but not seeing her. But when she called my name again, I found her. She was on the roof, standing atop the flat portion of it at the back of the house and staring over the angled part near the front.
Fallon burbled. My tail burned and bled as he clawed me.
“Silar!” my wife cried for a third time. “You let him go! This instant!”
My body obeyed her immediately. Clearly, it was more devoted to her than it was to me. My tail loosened around Fallon’s throat and then entirely slipped away. The other man coughed and gagged, shooting white-eyed looks my way that I ignored as I watched my wife disappear from the roof only to reappear on the ground at the side of the house a moment later.
“Get inside!” I ordered her, turning my wary attention back to the bracku. Luckily, they had calmed now. They milled aimlessly around the flat pasture Fallon and I had forced them into.
Cherry sucked in a breath, looking like she was going to refuse. But then she, too, looked at the bracku, her face paler than usual. Giving me one of her human head-motions that I’d learned meant that she was in agreement, she hurried into the kitchen and slammed the door.
“Is she alright? Your wife?”
