“What happened?” Er’ril asked. “Mogweed came running. Something about rats—”
Kral fought to free his tongue, lifting his torn hand. “Not rats,” he muttered just before his consciousness fled him. “Demons.”
BENEATH THE TOWER of Rash’amon, Lord Torwren crouched over the ebon’stone sphere, his splayed nose almost touching its polished surface as it lay cradled in his wrinkled palms. The d’warf lord’s eyes were wide in the dim chamber as he stared deep into the black orb. Images of fire and shadowy figures danced in the ebon’stone heart.
As he watched, one of the prey escaped the Pack. Torwren hissed his irritation. Three others still lay under the thrall of despair upon the floor of the warehouse: a wolf, a man, and—if he was not mistaken—an og’re! He cared nothing for the dog, and though the og’re was a novelty, the misshapen creature was of no import. It was the silver-haired man who drew the d’warf’s attention.
A seeker for many centuries, Torwren recognized the white fire nestled near the heart of this thin man. Here was one of the elementals he had sensed in Shadowbrook in these last few days. The fire burned strong in this one, much stronger than in the foppish twins he used as tools in the city. This one could be forged into a potent ill’guard, perhaps one of the most powerful. Maybe even strong enough to withstand—no, he would not let that thought grow full in his mind, not while he was linked to the ebon’stone. His master listened often to these links, hanging like a spider above his web of talismans.
No, he dismissed his secret hope and concentrated on the Pack. He merged his will deeper into the stone talisman. The shadowy images became crisper as he delved for the minds of the twins.
Ryman. Mycof. Listen and obey.
Laughter answered his call. In the warehouse, the rats swept toward the fallen prey, ready to slake their blood lust.
No! The feast must wait. The town awakens. Bring me the man—unharmed!
The twins ignored his call, the scent of blood too strong in the flaming room.
Torwren frowned. As a seeker, he despised the ill’guard, even those he helped create. They were wild, twisted beasts hiding in the skin of men. He spat his orders out to them. The master commands! Disobey and I will rip the Sacrament from your hearts.
This gave the brothers pause. The rats stopped, tails slashing in agitation. Then slowly they backed away from their meal.
Bring the man to the tower.
He watched the rats converge around the silver-haired man. Thin of limb and features, the man’s inner fire burned that much brighter, almost as if his scant flesh was but a feeble excuse to house the elemental magick. He was truly a strong one. Lord Torwren’s lips spread into a hungry leer as he stared into the ebon’stone sphere.
Bring him to me!
The rats piled onto one another, becoming a squirming, hissing mound of fur and teeth. Forged of river mud and life force, the writhing bodies melded together, creating a living mass of raw flesh, the Pack in its pure form.
As the d’warf lord urged, the Pack transformed itself. Bone, fur, skin, teeth fought for form until a hulking creature arose from the fray—half rat, half man. Covered in black fur, it crouched on two thickly muscled legs and reached for the thin man with clawed arms. Its bestial head, snouted and covered in spiked whiskers, sniffed at its prey. Thick lips pulled back to reveal row after row of shredding teeth, and bloodfire raged behind its eyes.
Torwren sensed its rising lust. He drove his will into the stone. No! Harm him and suffer my wrath!
The beast raised its head and hissed at the flaming rafters, its claws digging at the empty air in frustration. It knew its master but fought against the restraint.
Obey!
With a final wicked swipe at the smoky air, it growled thickly and scooped up the thin man under one arm. Burdened, it loped across the burning warehouse toward the rear door.
A few of the demon rats stationed as guards had failed to merge to form the huge beast. As the creature passed, these stray rats shook, and leathery wings sprouted from their backs. They took flight after their leader, fluttering past its massive shoulders and into the foggy night. One rat, though, still dallied, working on something in its jaws.
Torwren looked closer. It was a finger. The prey who had escaped earlier had not gone uninjured. A spark of elemental fire marked the blood that seeped from the severed finger. Another elemental! The rat seemed to sense Torwren’s attention. Fearing the d’warf’s wrath, it dropped the finger and shook out its buried wings, ready to follow the others.
Wait, he sent to this quivering fragment of the Pack. Bring me your meal!
Hesitant, the demon creature retrieved its prize.
Good, good . . . Now follow the others.
With a small squeak, the rat spread its wings with renewed confidence and took to the air, carrying the prized object in its tiny jaws. A whisper of elemental fire traced its path out into the night.
Torwren watched the progression of the Pack through the back alleys and byways of Shadowbrook.
Satisfied that his orders would be obeyed, Torwren allowed his eyes to close. He settled the ebon’stone talisman into the mud of the tower cellar and removed his hands from the sphere. One finger traced an arc of silver along its smooth surface.
If only his people had never discovered the vein of ebon’stone under the mountains of their Gul’gothal homeland, then maybe . . .
Torwren shook his head. Foolish, idle thoughts. His people had made their choices—just as he had himself.
He lifted his finger from the stone and sighed. He pictured again the strength of the magick in the prisoner caught this night. And what of the one who had escaped? If he was just as strong? If Torwren could forge both to his will?
Torwren pictured two ill’guard with the brutality of potent magick.
Dare he hope?
ELENA WATCHED WITH a hand over her heart as Er’ril examined Kral.
Er’ril wrapped a tight bandage around the mountain man’s bloody fist. “He’ll live,” Er’ril said, pushing to his feet. He glanced at the huge war charger standing guard over its fallen master. “We don’t have time to move the man, but Rorshaf will watch over him.”
Er’ril tossed a copper coin to a boy gawking at the flames of the burning warehouse. “Keep a hand on our mare,” he told the child, taking Mist’s lead from Elena and holding it out toward the boy, “and you’ll get another copper for your trouble.”
“Y-yes, sir!” The boy stared at the shiny copper in his palm as he blindly accepted the lead.
Around them, the square now bustled with men bearing buckets and women manning the two pumps in the square. A chandlery and a cobbler’s shop to either side of the warehouse were being soaked to protect them from the spreading flames and embers.
A large bearded man ran up to their group. It was the man who had rented the warehouse to them. “What happened?” His eyes were fixed on the burning structure.
Er’ril straightened and drew his sword. “That’s what we are about to find out.” Er’ril turned his back on the man and led the way toward the warehouse.
The front of the building still resisted the fire, but from the roof, flames spat high into the night air, and smoke billowed out from the open doorway. The warehouse would not stand much longer.
“Hurry,” Er’ril urged.
Mycelle followed, hovering beside Elena.
Short of breath from both smoke and fear, Elena gasped as she ran. The heat coming from the building swelled like a sudden breeze off a raging bonfire. Her cheeks grew ruddy from the heat, and her eyes watered.
Er’ril stopped a man in an apron who had been hurrying by with a bucket. “Douse us!” he ordered.
The man, sweat and soot marring his face, stared at him as if he were mad, but the sword at his belly kept his tongue silent.
“We have friends inside,” Er’ril urged. “We must help them.”
The man’s eyes grew wide, and he waved a heavyset woman over to him. She bore a buc
ket in each hand. “Help us, Mab’el!” he called. “These folks are gonna try and see if anyone is alive inside.”
The woman shambled to them, a frown on her lips. “Daft idea. They’re just gonna git themselves killed, too.”
“Hush, Mab’el!” The man took his bucket and dumped it over Er’ril’s head. “What if it were me in there?” he said.
The woman soaked down Mycelle. “I’d let you burn,” she said. “Be rid of your lollygagging ways, I would!” Still her eyes shone with concern for them all.
“The boy, too,” Er’ril instructed, indicating Elena.
The heavyset woman glanced in surprise.
Mycelle answered her unspoken question. “He’s a firebrand,” she said, naming Elena as an elemental who could control flames. “If our friends yet live, we will need his skill.”
Mab’el nodded knowingly and poured her second bucket over Elena’s head. Elena shuddered at its frigid touch, but the well water instantly washed away the fire’s heat.
Er’ril studied her for a moment, as if judging Elena’s fortitude.
She stared him straight in the eye until he nodded and turned toward the warehouse.
Soaked and dripping, they ran toward the warehouse door. Smoke stung the eye and burned the nose, but the summer storm that had threatened at sunset finally arrived. A stiff breeze blew the smoke across the square, thinning it enough to breathe, and a crack of thunder split the sky.
Rain began pelting the cobbles. Behind Elena, cheers arose from the townsfolk.
With her back to the commotion, Elena slipped her glove from her right hand and exposed her ruby stain to the flames. It took her a moment to free her wit’ch’s dagger from its sheath at her belt, the rose-carved pommel catching on the mossy strands that bound her left hand. Once free, she notched her thumb and used the blood to mark her eyes.
Mycelle noticed her action. “Elena, what are you doing?”
“The blood allows me to see the weaves of magick around me,” she answered.
Satisfied, Mycelle nodded, as if this were a common statement for a young woman to utter.
As they arrived at the shattered doorway to the warehouse, Elena reached for the well of power in her heart. She felt the familiar surge of rich energies, her skin tingling. Ahead of her, Er’ril entered the warehouse, crouching low to avoid the worst of the smoke. Elena followed with Mycelle, who watched their rear, both swords in hand.
Coughing, Elena waved smoke from her face, the heat drying her cheeks to a burn in only a few breaths. She looked around her.
The inside of the warehouse was a smoldering battlefield. Flaming sections of roof and rafters lit the chamber, and smoke curled like a living creature through the room. A portion of the rear wall had fallen in and crushed their wagon. It was a ruin. What had not been smashed had caught flame and burned.
But the loss of their supplies was the least of their concerns.
“Over there!” Er’ril pointed to the large form collapsed on the far side of the building. “Tol’chuk,” he said. “And I think that’s the wolf beside him.”
Elena stared, willing her magick to grow in her fist. Her right hand began to glow with a nimbus of energy. Elena’s vision shifted as the magick suddenly tinged her sight. Mycelle, beside her, bloomed like a white candle in the night, her elemental flame strong and clear. The seeker’s skill was strong in her.
Glancing across the chamber, Elena’s spell-cast vision seemed unaffected by the smoke and sting. “It is them,” she said, confirming Er’ril’s statement, “but I don’t see Meric.” Swinging in a slow circle, she scanned the room.
Nearby, she could make out faint areas of a reddish fire—not the red of a clean flame, but something more sickly. She crossed to one spot and discovered the remains of what looked like a huge rat, a hoofprint smashed clearly into its black flesh. But this was no ordinary rat. She leaned closer. Like an ember in a dying hearth, a foul fire glowed out from it. A part of her knew its name. “Bloodfire,” she whispered.
“Get back from that,” Mycelle warned. She sheathed one of her swords and pulled Elena away, her nose curling in distaste. With her elemental skills, Mycelle must have also sensed the corruption here.
Elena straightened, remembering Kral’s words. Not rats. Demons.
“They’re gone,” Elena said, glancing about the smoldering room as she followed Er’ril. Rain began pelting through several new holes in the roof. Where the cool rain met the flames, sizzling steam arose around them as the fires were doused. The bloodfire also began to fade from the chamber. “They’ve fled.”
“Who?” Er’ril asked as he cautiously led them around piles of smoking debris. He had his sword raised, ready for a sudden attack.
Elena pushed past him, shrugging off even Mycelle’s restraining grasp. “The creatures of the ill’guard. They’ve fled from here. It’s clear.”
“Are you certain?” Er’ril asked.
“Yes.”
“I, too, sense their presence has faded,” Mycelle added. “They end their hunt this night. But by tomorrow’s light we must be gone.”
No longer fearing demons, the trio hurried to Tol’chuk and Fardale. Their companions lay sprawled on the dirt floor, eyes open but unaware. Quick attempts to revive them failed.
Er’ril grabbed one of Tol’chuk’s legs and nodded for Mycelle to grab the other. “Can you drag the wolf by yourself, Elena?”
She nodded, distracted. With her blood-tinged vision, she saw the brilliant glow shining forth from the og’re’s thigh pouch. Its light shone in tiny piercing rays through the stitching in the pouch’s hide: the magick of Tol’chuk’s heartstone talisman, she guessed.
“Elena?” Er’ril asked, noticing her pause. He and Mycelle had the og’re’s legs already in hand.
Elena straightened and swung in a circle. If her blood-tinged eyes could see all forms of magick—from Mycelle’s elemental fire to the glow of Tol’chuk’s heartstone—then why didn’t she see Meric’s fire? The shattering realization took hold of her. “He’s gone,” she said, her voice trembling and cracking.
“What are you talking about?”
“Meric. His elemental magick should be a beacon in here. I don’t see it!”
“Maybe he’s hidden behind one of these mounds of debris,” Er’ril offered. “The smoldering fires might be masking him.”
“Or he could be dead,” Mycelle said, coldly practical.
Er’ril glanced sourly at her. “We’ll search for the elv’in after we get these others out of here.” He began to drag the og’re across the dirt.
“We won’t find Meric here!” Elena suddenly declared. Somehow she knew this was true. “He’s been captured!”
A section of roof suddenly crashed off to the side, startling them all. Though the fire seemed to be losing its battle to the rain, the flames had weakened the supports to the warehouse. Posts groaned, and the roof bowed ominously.
“Captured or not, we need to get out of here!” Er’ril said fiercely.
Elena glanced one last time around her, grabbed Fardale’s rear legs, and struggled to haul him after the others. The wolf was heavier than she had suspected. Groaning and straining, she fought his limp weight across the floor.
“Are you all right?” Er’ril called back to her.
“I’ll manage!” she spat back at him. At least her burden kept her distracted from their missing companion.
By the time they neared the door, a few townsmen had braved the dwindling flames and pushed into the warehouse, led by the aproned man who had doused them with water. “Give ’em a hand, gents!”
The men helped haul Tol’chuk and Fardale out to the cobbled streets of the square. Elena slipped her ruby hand back into her glove and reined in her magick. Her vision returned to normal.
“What manner of beast is this?” one of them mumbled who handled the og’re.
“Some misbirth,” another hissed at him. “Poor creature’s only fit to be a carnival freak.”
; “Maybe it were best if we’d left him to the fire.”
No one spoke against these sad words.
Once out in the clear air, Er’ril directed the men in hauling their injured to the Painted Pony.
“I’ll fetch a healer,” one of them offered.
“No need,” Er’ril said. “All they need is a day or two in a warm bed.”
Er’ril then left with a few other men to search the warehouse for Meric. Elena did not follow. She knew it was useless. She and Mycelle guided the men, burdened with her fallen comrades, to their rooms.
The innkeeper of the Painted Pony watched the parade of men with wide eyes. “If they be sick, I don’t want them in my inn!” he hollered at the men. “I won’t have no contagion in my establishment!”
“As if you’re concerned, Heran, about the health of your patrons!” scolded the aproned man, shoving crusts of bread from underfoot. Elena had learned the bold man was the town’s cobbler. He owned the shop next to the warehouse.
As the innkeeper grumbled, they continued up the stairs.
Mogweed met Elena at the door to their rooms. “I finished packing both—” His eyes grew wide at the number of men and their burden. His eyes settled on the limp form of his brother in the huge arms of the town’s blacksmith. The emotions that warred across the shape-shifter’s face made it seem almost as if he had regained his shifting skills. He backed to let them all in.
Once settled in their rooms, Elena thanked the men and offered them a handful of coppers from the troupe’s reserve.
The cobbler shook his head at her fistful of coins. “Here in Shadowbrook, kindness does not have to be bought with coppers.”
The other men mumbled their agreement, then left.
Directed by Mycelle, Mogweed went to fetch hot water.
Alone now, Mycelle stepped up to Elena. “You should get out of those soaking clothes before a chill sets into you.”
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