They’d made it almost to the University, its beacon still blazing even in daylight, when they saw their first survivors.
They stumbled out of a side street, a woman helping a man along, his arm slung over her shoulder. Four others trailed behind them, all of them with makeshift weapons, all of them scrambling away from something behind them. The woman’s face was open and desperate, half dragging the man she held, heedless of his stifled cries of pain as his right leg snagged against debris. The muscles in his neck stood out in stark relief as he bore it. Kara didn’t understand what was wrong with him at first, but then she realized that her eyes weren’t blurry. The man’s right side was smeared, his flesh and the bones beneath slightly out of place, even the clothing that covered him stretched somehow.
But she didn’t have time to wonder why. As soon as the group appeared—the four fanned out protectively behind the other two, shouting orders to each other—Bryce brought Kara’s group to a halt with a hand gesture. He waved frantically for them to retreat, but he was too late. The woman saw him, hope infusing her face with a terrifying light.
“Help us!” she screamed, veering toward them, the man she held groaning as she slewed him about, his legs kicking dust up from the road. “Help us, please!” Her hope broke into choking sobs. “They’re following us! They’re right behind us!”
Bryce swore under his breath, shouted an order to the Dogs that Kara didn’t catch—
And then three black wolves appeared, the four other men with the woman and man backing away as the creatures loped down the street behind them. The men in the other group—three in their twenties, the fourth maybe fifteen—swerved their retreat toward Bryce. One of the wolves leaped onto a pile of stone from a collapsed wall, joined a moment later by another that skulked out of the shadows from the interior of the building. As it lowered its head, the lips of its muzzle pulled back in a silent snarl, Kara realized that Allan had been right: it wasn’t really a wolf. It was too large, as tall as a man, its limbs and hip movements subtly wrong, its face too flat. Its black fur glistened with a slight iridescence and its eyes were bloodshot and an odd shape.
None of them were wolves.
“Back up to the building,” Bryce ordered, the others still fleeing toward them. “Get back. Get back into the shadows! Move, move!”
He grabbed Artras’ arm and shoved her toward the building behind them, but Kara stood transfixed, her breath coming in short gasps, her mouth dry. Three more of the wolves had appeared, one or two with streaks of gray or brown in their fur. She thought she caught more shadows moving in the recesses of the buildings beyond. “There’s so many of them,” she murmured.
Allan snatched at her arm and hauled her back, snapping her out of her trance. She tripped on the cracked stone of the street, hissing as she scuffed her hands on the dirt, but swallowed back the pain and sprinted in Allan’s wake. He was shoving Morrell before him, thrusting her into the room beyond and then spinning, his sword already drawn. Kara caught his gaze as she skidded past him, but then his focus shifted toward the street outside. “Check the back for other entrances,” he said, his voice unnaturally calm. He stepped back out the door.
“Artras,” Kara said, turning.
“Already on it,” the older Wielder muttered, and Kara saw her hurrying into the depths of the room, ordering some of the other Wielders in the opposite direction. Morrell stood in the middle of the room, uncertain, but then she hardened, stepped up to Kara’s side, and looked out one of the windows.
A moment later, the woman carrying the man burst through the door, breath ragged. Sobbing, she staggered to the side wall and dropped the man unceremoniously to the ground, then collapsed herself. She raised herself onto one knee and her hands reached for the man’s face. “Devitt. Devitt, can you hear me? Are you all right?”
“Of course I can,” Devitt spat, swatting away her hands. “And I’m not all right.” Grimacing, he hauled himself back and propped himself up against the wall with his left arm. His right remained twisted, shaking uncontrollably, as if in seizure. He cursed and caught it with his left, trying to force it down by his side. “Where are the others?”
“Outside,” the woman said. “We found someone who can protect us.”
Devitt’s eyes latched onto Kara’s.
“What happened?” Kara asked.
Devitt didn’t pretend she wasn’t asking about his arm. “I got caught in one of those lights. I was lucky. It just nicked me. Trev, my son—” His face grew pinched, but he didn’t finish.
“It took him,” the woman said viciously. “It took our Trev and transformed him. Into one of those things.”
Kara stilled a breath in shock, then spun to face the window, suddenly realizing why the wolves’ movements were off. Their legs . . . they were too long for a wolf, too narrow.
Because they used to be human arms and legs.
Outside, Allan had joined Bryce, the Dogs, and the four others in a rough circle around the entrance to their building. The unnatural wolves were pacing back and forth a short distance away, loping from side to side, lips drawn back from jagged teeth. Their breath puffed in the air before them, hotter than the surrounding late autumn air.
Kara counted thirteen of them and felt her stomach twist. “We can’t beat them,” she muttered to herself. But Morrell heard and spun toward her, her jaw jutted forward in anger.
Kara pushed back from the window. “Artras,” she shouted into the building’s depths, “what have you found?”
The older Wielder cursed as Kara heard her returning through the dark. “Not much. But I think we can escape through the back. It leads to what must have been a garden before the explosion, trapped between the surrounding buildings. One building has collapsed completely. There’s no way we can get through that, but the Wielders are checking out the others.”
“We’re going to need it. Take these two and head through to the far street if you can. The Dogs won’t be able to hold the wolves long. We’ll have to run for it.”
Artras nodded grimly.
“Leave me—” the man began, but Artras cut him off.
“Don’t be stupid. Now get up, both of you, and move!”
Kara turned back to the window, one hand settling on Morrell’s shoulder. The girl jerked back from her with a glare. “I won’t leave my Da.”
Kara pressed her lips together, but movement outside drew her attention away. “To the right,” she barked, her fear nearly choking off her warning.
The men guarding the right spun, but they were too late. The wolves who had bolted from the vacant windows of the building next door hit two of the Dogs and one of the new men from the side. A Dog screamed as the wolf’s teeth clamped down hard on his rising sword arm. The other grunted as he was driven to the ground, his blade slicing up into the wolf’s torso, the animal shrieking with an eerily deep and penetrating growl even as its jaws closed down on the Dog’s throat. The third man never made a sound as he fell beneath the onslaught of two wolves at once.
At the same time, the rest of the wolves charged the remaining men, two of them distracted by the attack to the right.
The fifteen year old spun and bolted toward the building at his back, the rest cursing as they braced for the wolves’ charge. Bryce shouted orders. As the two groups met, Kara reached for Morrell’s arm and gripped it, dragging her back. “We’re not staying here,” Kara snapped. “Now move!”
Morrell resisted for another breath, then whimpered and ran for the interior of the building, Kara at her heels. Screams and howls rose from the street outside, cutting through the bark of orders and curses from the Dogs. As Kara ducked from the room, she heard Bryce roar to retreat.
And then she was plunged into the muted darkness of the interior building. One hand on Morrell’s back before her, the sounds of both of their gasps filling her ears, she called out, “Artras! Artras, where are you!”
“Head straight back.” The older Wielder’s voice came from a distance. “Ignore the stairs and any intersecting hallways. Once you reach the back garden, angle right.”
The sound of men entering the hallway echoed from behind and Kara shouted, “Straight back! Head for the garden behind the building!”
Kara’s heart shuddered as the growls of the wolves filled the hall.
Morrell suddenly spilled out the back door, sunlight slanting down in a blinding glare, but even as she blinked, Kara caught sight of Artras and Nathen motioning frantically to one side. She steered Morrell in their direction, turned back to see two Dogs, two of the other men, Bryce, and Allan fleeing down the hall behind her, the wolves black shadows behind.
“Go, go, go,” the nearest Dog snarled, blood dripping down one side of his jaw. His eyes were feral.
Kara leaped from the door and across the dead garden, past Artras and Nathen, who fell in behind her with a calm, “Straight, then left, then right.”
Kara ran. She didn’t think, didn’t plan, just moved. Within moments, she caught up to Morrell, the young girl sprinting down the hall, but slowed by uncertainty until Kara came up behind her. They followed the shouts of the Wielders who’d scouted out ahead, hitting the end of the hall and bearing left, then right a short time later, the Wielders’ shouts growing louder.
They spilled out of the building and down a short set of steps into another street, the University’s wall visible below them, still blocks away, the beacon of ley light shimmering high on one of its walls. The remaining Wielders were strung out down the road and Morrell and Kara headed straight for them, air burning in Kara’s lungs now, her legs beginning to ache with exertion. A stitch began to form in her side, but she ignored it. Bryce issued new orders behind her as the guards spilled from the building. The woman and the man, Devitt, were scrambling as fast as they could go, far ahead on the street, heading straight for the University gates still hidden beyond a turn in the road.
Halfway down the street, Morrell screamed and pointed off to the right. The Wielder they were approaching turned—
And a wolf streamed out of a cross street and struck him hard, throwing him to the ground in a splash of blood, tearing into the Wielder’s torso as the man shrieked. Morrell slowed, but Kara shoved her from behind with a harsh, “Keep moving,” and they charged past the struggling pair, Kara trying not to listen to the sounds of tearing flesh and gurgling blood. The Wielder beyond—Dylan, Kara thought—stared at the carnage in shock until Kara snapped him out of it with a sharp jab to his chest as she passed. He stumbled back with a grunt, then spun and followed them.
They were quickly catching up to Devitt and his wife. Ahead, on the University wall, she saw movement—men were pointing down at them, shouting in the direction of the gate. But the wall was too far away for Kara to catch anything. Listening to the sounds of retreat from behind, Kara felt a hand clench her heart and squeeze.
They weren’t going to make it. The gate was too far.
Devitt and his wife reached the corner and vanished from sight. Kara slowed as they came up to the turn, let Morrell outpace her and shoved Dylan after her. She spun to look behind—
And found the guards charging toward her, no longer even attempting to keep the wolves at bay. They were flat-out sprinting, Bryce and Allan at the back, their faces flushed red with effort. The wolves were spilling from the building they’d retreated through, scrambling out of doors and windows and tearing after them. A few raised their muzzles to the sky and howled. Kara shuddered.
Then something pressed down against her on the Tapestry from above and she glanced skyward, eyes opening wide. A sheet of the coruscating light, like that seen in the north, wavered over them, pulsing between green and yellow, tendrils streaking across the sky. Kara reached instinctively upward with her power to protect herself as it pushed down on her, thinking about what Devitt had said about the lights transforming him, taking his son. The light reacted, flowing away from her, and with sudden desperation she shoved it toward the street. It was unwieldy, her control limited, the light resistant, so she cupped her hands over her mouth and screamed, “Run, you bastards! Run!” even as she heaved against the light’s pressure, forcing it down the street, above the guards’ heads. But it was too heavy. She swore as it dipped, both Bryce and Allan glancing up as it roiled toward them.
A moment later, it swept downward, Kara’s control lost.
Both Bryce and Allan flung themselves forward, hitting the stone of the street and rolling beneath the wave of light. It struck the ground behind them and rebounded into the wolves slavering on the guards’ heels. Those in the lead yelped and twisted back, but they were too late. The light caught them and through the haze of green and streaks of yellow Kara saw their bodies contorting, smearing and changing into impossible configurations. Legs bent and fur shifted from wolf to human skin and back again. Bones cracked and popped. Howls rose, then changed to whimpers and snarls. The wolves behind pulled back from the shimmering light and paced, snapping at the air in frustration as Bryce and Allan both scrambled to their feet and lurched toward Kara with the rest of the guards.
Before anyone reached her, though, a piercing whistle cut through the air, and the wolves beyond the veil of light fell silent, ears pricked. Kara watched as they halted their pacing and bounded toward a man emerging from the confines of the buildings beyond, circling him in excitement. He was dressed in armor, his body distorted like Devitt’s, his face twisted into a snarl, half human, half wolf. He glared at the retreating guards, one hand held out to the wolves that capered about his feet. His eyes were locked on Allan.
The Dogs and remaining men from Devitt’s group tore past, Bryce and Allan slowing as they reached Kara.
“Did you do that?” Bryce demanded, chest heaving as he gasped and tried to recover from his run. His hand waved toward the shimmering wall of light.
Kara shook her head. “I didn’t cause it, but I did push it a little. It was too strong for anything more.”
Bryce broke into a hacking cough and leaned forward onto his knees; Allan also sucked in huge gulps of air. The ex-Dog she’d rescued shook his head and said hoarsely, “Doesn’t matter. You used it. Saved us all.”
Kara didn’t respond to the praise, merely nodded toward the far figure. “Who is he?”
Allan turned with a frown, still recovering—
And then he stilled, his entire body going tense. Kara saw him consider lying, the muscles of his jaw twitching, but then he said grudgingly, “His name was Hagger. I don’t know what he is now.”
Then the ex-Dog headed toward the open gates of the University with a tight, “Where’s my daughter?”
Twenty-Seven
“WHAT’S HAPPENED?” Bryce demanded. “What in living hells happened?”
The mentors and students who had rushed them through the gates of the University walls had led them to a room deep inside the main buildings on University grounds, where Kara and all of the rest collapsed. Of the fourteen people who had stumbled from the Amber Tower with Kara, one had vanished on the way here and three had died at the hands of the wolves. Two of the six survivors they’d met had fallen. Everyone else had collapsed into chairs in exhaustion, accepting water and food brought by the students at the mentors’ orders. Blankets and clothes appeared. The Wielder Kara had found sobbing in her cell in the tower, and who had remained in shock the entire trek to the University, finally broke, rocking back and forth with the blanket clutched tight to her shoulders, her expression lost. A few of the University people were attempting to soothe her.
As she drank from her own cup, Kara had searched the people entering and leaving, but she had not seen Cory or Hernande. After a while, she stopped looking, and noticed that not everyone was a student or a mentor. Some of those helping them settle in had obviously found sanctuary at the University, just like Kara and the others. Men and wo
men, even some children, drawn to the beacon. All of them appeared haggard.
At Bryce’s sharp words, a few of the helpers looked up. But it was one of the mentors in dun-colored robes who answered, handing off a bowl of soup to Devitt’s wife before standing and facing the Dog.
“We don’t know the particulars, but I think it’s safe to say that it was a catastrophic failure of the ley system.”
Bryce’s anger shifted toward the mentor. “And who are you?”
The man’s brow furrowed. “I am Sovaan, mentor here at the University.”
“Are you the one in charge?”
Sovaan bristled. “I am one of those in charge here on University grounds, yes.”
Before Bryce could respond, Artras said briskly, “I think what the Dog is trying to say is thank you.” She shot Bryce a glare. “For bringing us into the safety of your walls. And I believe, like all of us, he’s shaken by what’s happened and would like to have any information you have about . . . about Erenthrall.”
Sovaan appeared mollified, even if Bryce did not. The Dog remained silent, though.
“We likely know as little as you. The explosion destroyed nearly the entire city, only the outskirts spared as far as we can tell from our walls. Those outside the radius of destruction appear to have fled into the surrounding lands. Those who survived inside the city have been struggling to leave, even as they become victims of the chaos the ley network has unleashed. Once we realized that the survivors were being attacked and needed shelter and food, we set up the beacon in hopes they would come here. So far, it appears to be working. We have brought hundreds behind the walls, although it is obvious that many, many more are simply abandoning the city. We’ve seen thousands leaving by wagon or horse, in groups as large as a hundred, most of them farther away from the center of the explosion and not inclined to head deeper into the devastation. And those were during daylight. Who knows how many left in the dead of night? Who knows how many more are simply hiding in the ruins, afraid to move at all?”
Shattering the Ley Page 52