Excerpt: Pearl of Alba

Mairea was still laughing when the squeal of the charging boar pierced her awareness. She wheeled, and saw the evil beast bearing down on Cristina. Without thinking, she pushed her sister aside, placing herself in the path of the angry, hairy thing.

The rest of the children harvesting berries had scattered, taking cover. She saw some of them, eyes white in their smudged faces, before her whole world shrank to the brown bristles and powerful muscles of the boar and its wicked sharp tusks.

She heard the impact before she felt it, knocking her from her feet and throwing her into a patch of brambles. The boar slid to a stop beside her, its breath foul in her face.

Then all was stillness.

Mairea squinted open one eye, and took in the site of the boar, its open eyes sightless, the fearsome jaw slack.

I'm not dead. The silence was broken by the sound of Christina's weeping and the quieter sounds of frightened children. Pain lanced through her leg, which was twisted beneath the beast. Mairea began to whimper.

The pounding of running feet quieted all but Christina, and a young man in traveling clothes came into view, a bow and quiver slung across his back. He knelt next to Mairea and spoke. Though she didn't understand a word, she thought she understood his meaning. How are you hurt?

Mairea answered, hoping he would be able to understand. "My leg." She pointed, wincing.

Pain flared briefly, as a young man hauled the boar's body off of her. In a trace he had the boar tied up in a tree slitting the throat of letting the blood tumble out. Then he returned to Margaret.