HALFWAY DOWN THE HILL, Tenn sent a surge of Earth into the branches of the tree beside the twins, making the limbs shudder. The first signal. A heartbeat later, chaos broke out in the encampment.
Devon’s work was quick and efficient, a vicious blend of calculated destruction and artistic flourishes. The dozen or so campfires blazed into life with a roar, searing the sky with pillars of flame. Fire spread in seconds, leaping to ignite flesh and canvas. It was beautiful, in a way, the smear of orange against the dark. Beautiful, save for the scent of burning Howls. Not that Tenn had any time to admire from afar. Even though the fires made sweat drip down his skin, he ran straight into the heart of the army. Everything was sound and heat, screams and cinders, and the madness slashed a grin across his face.
Finally, the monsters would know how it felt to fear the night.
Kravens swarmed past him, but they edged around his runes like water flowing around a stone. Up close, when he wasn’t trying to kill them or dodge their blows, he saw them for their true monstrosity—graying flesh sagging or peeling off, strands of fat and blood and pus dripping from every open sore and orifice, bones broken and twisted and reshaped as talons and spikes, spines horribly bent and arms and fingers elongated. Even worse was the smell, the cloying sweetness of rot and blood that seemed to crawl into the recesses of his throat. He wanted to gag. Wanted to strike out and end their putrid existence.
He didn’t.
He just ran, ducking and dodging and waiting for a monster to stumble past his runes, but they never did. The nightmares shoved around him unaware, and it wasn’t just the kravens that sought out prey, but the more humanoid Howls—the pale bloodlings and deceptively beautiful succubi. They stood out from the throng, both crazed and aloof. But even they were repelled by Tenn’s defenses, and he marveled at how well the runes were actually working. He just hoped he worked fast enough that Matthias couldn’t read his thoughts—hopefully, it was something that could only be done when sleeping or passed out.
His luck held. He reached the Witches without being discovered. As he’d hoped, they were barely guarded—why should they be when Matthias’s entire army surrounded them? Instead, there was a single necromancer, a man in an old ski coat and knit hat. Not exactly the most intimidating or dark choice in attire, but it was cold. The Sphere of Earth glowed bright in the man’s pelvis, and he held a stone covered in pulsating runes. So that was why the guard was so loose—Tenn could feel the strands of magic twisting from the necromancer, twining into the Spheres of the entire clan.
Each of their Earth Spheres were being drained. Just enough to make them weak and tired, enough to make using magic an impossible chore. He remembered the feeling of being tapped well.
The Witches themselves gathered in a tight knot near the bonfire, the only group in the entire camp that hadn’t moved. Only a few were dressed to be out in the cold; the rest had clearly been taken in their sleep. One man near the edge wore nothing but jeans, his feet bare and frostbitten, another kid—a few years younger than Tenn—was missing his arms. Just the sight made Tenn’s blood boil. All of the Witches had a sort of stoicism to them, though, one that said this wasn’t the worst they had undergone.
He didn’t see Rhiannon. Fear shot through his chest. Was she held captive elsewhere? He didn’t want to think of the alternative.
It was then that he noticed the smear of darkness on the ground by the fire, the few small mounds he wished he could mistake for rocks. But he knew precisely what those chunks were. The kravens had feasted, and they’d let the Witches watch. He wondered if they’d made the clan choose who died first.
That alone made Tenn want to prolong the necromancer’s pain, but another burst of fire nearby brought him to his senses. While he was here deliberating, the twins were weaving their destruction and keeping him safe. And the army was trying to hunt them down. He had to act fast.
Even if the man did deserve to suffer.
Tenn stepped over to the necromancer. Then, holding his staff like a spear, he stabbed forward, right through the man’s back. The necromancer yelled out, but Tenn was faster—he moved in as the man collapsed, so the man fell within the stones’ orbit, and gave the staff another wrench. Blood sprayed over him as the necromancer gave his final cry. No one heard it through the magic of the runes. He yanked out his staff and refrained from kicking the corpse.
Tenn reached out with Earth and snapped a branch from the twins’ tree.
Briefly, he stopped channeling Earth into the stones. Dreya responded to his signal, and the stones flew out another twenty feet, drawing the Witches into their orbit. Then he sent power to the stones once more, rendering them all invisible as the stones orbited the pack. Barely a murmur went through the Witches at his appearance.
“Where’s Rhiannon?” he asked.
She wasn’t there, and neither was Luke. He recognized a few of the faces from the camp, but none he’d spoken to. It was Rhiannon’s daughter—Mara—who stepped forward.
“My mother is dead,” she said.
It should have come as more of a shock than it did, but he’d already experienced too much death for it to register.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“We don’t have time for sorry,” she said. She looked out, to the necromancers and Howls that swarmed around them, clearly confused at the sudden disappearance. The runes might convince the lesser Howls to stay away, but if a necromancer took notice, they’d be screwed.
Tenn nodded. Swallowed hard.
“Stay close to me. If you can fight, stand to the outside. Let’s go. And leave the singing bowl behind.”
The fires ran wild now, and the world was a torrent of sparks and heat and chaos. Tenn and the Witches darted through the madness as fast as they could, which wasn’t nearly fast enough for his comfort. He held his breath. Every single step and he expected disaster.
They were nearly to the edge of the encampment—hard to discern, as even the countryside had been set ablaze—when his good luck turned south. A man stumbled through the edge of the circle, blinking and clearly in shock from the runes and the sudden appearance of fleeing prisoners. His shock didn’t last long. A moment later, his eyes narrowed, and he took a deep breath.
Immediately, the air was ripped from Tenn’s lungs. He nearly dropped to his knees, nearly lost hold on the stream of Earth that was keeping them all hidden and alive as the Breathless One attacked.
For a brief, blinding moment, Fire flashed in Mara’s chest. The Howl went up in flames, blazed bright as the sun. Then the light vanished. The man was gone in a puff of ash.
She caught Tenn’s shocked gaze and raised an eyebrow. He said nothing. Of all the Spheres he’d expected her to be attuned to, Fire was probably the last. He didn’t waste any more time. He ran. The clan followed at his heels.
They dodged the fires that spun out of control, or perhaps the fires dodged them, as they ran up the hill, the shouts and screams of the encampment fading behind them. Tenn kept the twins’ tracking runes firmly in mind, let them guide him forward like a beacon. He kept waiting for Matthias to jump from the shadows and attack him, for a group of kravens to lunge and rip out their throats, but there was no one. Devon kept them all occupied.
When they broke through the line of runes and found the twins, he nearly sighed with relief. He dropped the connection to Earth and their camouflage winked out. The moment he stopped running, the clan crowded around, hugging him and the twins, showering them with kisses and gratitude. Not one of them asked about Tori or blamed him for what had become of them, but the guilt still gaped in his heart like a wound.
For the first time, the twins didn’t look subdued, didn’t look like they were waiting for the ax to fall. Dreya’s back was straight, and even Devon seemed to soften under the hugs of the children that flocked around him. Tenn wondered if they felt they’d finally atoned for their sins.
But there was no time for congratulations; he looked to the twins and nodded.
“Be careful,” Dreya whispered.
Tenn opened to Earth as he brought the whirling stones into a closer orbit, circling only a foot from his body. Runes flashed, ensconcing him in misdirection. He didn’t offer any explanation to those he’d just saved.
He just ran, hunting down the man who would hunt him no more.