“Good,” Vaughn declared, shifting around to greet Maksohm, our team leader trotting up to us. “Agent Maksohm, I’ve reviewed every tale I know with these two as we ran here. There’s two things the cenebre were known to avoid. Sunlight, of course, and anything of a fiery nature. One tale I know of, from the very early days when our people first encountered them, holds that they used mirrors and torchlight in order to keep the beasts at bay during the night.”
Maksohm and I shared a look, because that sounded feasible, or would if we could pull enough mirrors together quickly. “You think it will work?”
“The angles of it will be tricky, but especially if you can spell light on the mirrors?” Vaughn shrugged his massive shoulders, a tendril of grey hair escaping the pony tail at the nape of his neck. “Even if it doesn’t work, we need to see them coming, and it will provide enough light for that. I think it will be our best option of riding this night out without many causalities.”
“Then let’s gather up some mirrors.” Turning to me, Maksohm ordered, “Go into Town Hall, I know there’s mirrors throughout the building, and have people gather them up and put them in front of every window and doorway. I’ll spell them when I can get there.”
“Have Emily help our building, you focus on the church,” I disagreed, afraid he was spreading himself too thin. “Wade can help us.”
He didn’t even think about it, just nodded. “Go.”
Dag turned and raced ahead of me, already calling for mirrors as he went. I hoped people would respond to him but realized it would come better from an adult’s mouth and jogged after him. Wade kept up by just stretching out his legs. The showoff.
“Elder Vaughn said that the cenebre were unleashed by Rena?” my giant friend queried with a doubtful look on his face.
“Not on purpose,” I assured him hastily. I didn’t want him to think we’d been reckless or brought trouble down on our own front stoop. “We didn’t know anything was up here. Rena was contracted by a railroad company to put a tunnel through the mountain as a bypass to the established line. We thought we were doing everyone in Gargan a favor.”
“Ahh,” he intoned darkly. “This makes more sense. The railroad corporations, they’ve talked about a bypass for years, tried to get our permission to build it. We refused every year. Sometimes we tried explaining, not that they wanted our explanations. Of course they’d go for the newest people in the country, the ones that don’t know better yet.”
“They actually approached the MISD first.”
“Who also didn’t know,” Wade grumbled darkly. “We had no proof to offer the outside world, just legends and stories, and nothing had touched us in living memory. But one of the hard rules of Gargan is to avoid that mountain. It’s nearly sacrosanct, in fact.”
That much? With good reason, as we now knew, but hearing that made me squirm uncomfortably. “So…how mad is everyone that this happened?”
“Not your fault,” Wade assured me and patted me reassuringly on the shoulder, hard enough I almost lost my balance and staggered into a beautiful faceplant. “And you called us the minute it went wrong. That means you’re not in trouble. You can’t be held accountable to a rule you didn’t know.”
I was perfectly okay with not being in trouble. It was a rare thing in my life. I chose to savor the moment while it lasted.
Dag burst through the main doors and yelled at the very top of his lungs, “WE NEED MIRRORS!”
“What for?” a voice called back, not in a tone of challenge, but hope.
Wade strode through, having to duck a lot to clear the doorway, and grinned at the people staring back at him. They looked alarmed, anxious, hopeful. “We’ve come to help,” Wade announced in a voice that echoed like a crack of thunder, vibrating and rolling down the long hallway. “Lit mirrors will repel the beasts. Gather up everyone in the building and set them in front of windows and doors. Quick-smart, now, we’ve no time left before the sun leaves us completely.”
As people leapt up, scrambling to obey, I issued a quick, silent prayer. I reeeally hoped that mirrors were effective. Better yet, make them be completely unnecessary. Let ancient legends be wrong sometimes, amen.
I heard them before I saw them. Sitting up in the bell tower of the church, Bannen on my right, Chi on my left, we had our eyes peeled toward the east and the mountain. Still, even with my eyes, I could hear them coming through the clouds before I actually saw them—the sound of wings cutting through the air, the slight hollow rush of it overlapping as many bodies flew toward us. Both men stayed poised at my sides, their attention on the sky, hands lingering on their weapons.
Vee and Vaughn stayed below at the ground level, with Maksohm, Wade, and Hugo at Town Hall to help there. I’d chosen the church just because it had a higher vantage point and I knew that I’d need it. I’d had to wash the sill of bird droppings first, which had given my anxious nerves something to do while we waited for the sun to set. It seemed a silly thing to do now that they were coming for us.
“Darn, I hate using my ‘I’m right’ so early in the day,” Chi lamented with a sigh that sounded as if it came from his soul. “I know Vaughn said that they’d follow our scent train and come after us, but geez. We left their territory and didn’t kill anything, doesn’t that count for something?”
“Apparently not.” I looked at the cenebre rushing toward us, becoming clearer in my vision every second, with a sort of grim resolve. We had low odds of this night ending in our favor.
His head tilted up toward us, Vaughn called out in his deep, mountainous voice, “Rena, you see them?”
“I do!” I called back, straining to be heard, “but they’re barely more than shadows! They’ll have to be closer!”
He grunted, not surprised, and went back to staring intently at the sky.
As loud as we were, I knew everyone inside the building had likely heard us. They’d opened all of the windows, partially for air circulation, partially because of the mirrors. Maksohm wanted a way to run around the building and renew or tweak the light spells on the mirrors, and leaving them in an open window was the easiest way to do that. He’d lose too much time if he tried crawling over people inside. Plus, this way people could tilt the mirrors as necessary. It worked better all around. And it wasn’t like the windows were any kind of detriment anyway.
I heard the townspeople murmur, the stink of fear rising. I tried to ignore it as best as I could, as I didn’t need the distraction, nor did they.
Bannen leaned in closer to my side, kissing my temple in an absent gesture of comfort and affection. “You’re fine. The wards will stop them long enough to give you time to cast.”
“I know.” And I did, but I still liked hearing those words. They relieved some of the pressure.
No one was quite sure of the physical makeup of the cenebre, and because of that, Maksohm had used his strongest barriers around both buildings. I prayed it worked. Giant’s magic worked so different from modern magic that the giant ancestors who had last fought the cenebre didn’t try to use any sort of magical shielding. We had no basis to judge from.
“Seriously, why are they attacking?” Chi grumbled. “We left.”
Vaughn apparently heard him, as he answered in a dark rumble, “Not the right way to look at it, Chinny. Say a man stormed into your house and broke something—perhaps he broke all of the windows—would you just let him leave again? Or would you chase after him and extract some vengeance?”
That unfortunately made sense. “So by tunneling in, I broke their windows.”
“More or less, not that our Rena can be blamed for that. You didn’t know better.” Vaughn’s tone suggested he knew exactly who to blame for this snafu and he would address his grievances with the appropriate party as soon—and as loudly—as possible.
The cenebre drew closer, turning from mere splotches against the dark clouds to the size of bats. I couldn’t make out anything but generic lines at this distance, yet I still stared resolutely upwards, ready to form a
spell to take them down the very minute I had enough information to do so. My plan, rough as it might be, was to delete all carbon and water from their bodies. Every mammal had that in common, and I knew from the brief glance I’d had at one earlier in the tunnel that they were mammals, so I hoped this plan would work. It would be the easiest thing to cast, the quickest, and I needed speed now like I never had before.
Closer, now, more the size of cats than bats. Lines of energy grew visible but not close enough for numbers. Maksohm had the barriers set as close to the building as he could get, only giving himself three feet of room on all sides. I knew the cenebre could get in my face if they chose. If I let them. I really didn’t want them that close, honestly, because I had no desire to test the barrier’s integrity.
My heart sped up, its beat almost a war drum in my ears. The air felt warm and sticky against my skin up here at this elevation, the night air not giving any coolness, but I didn’t really feel it. The adrenaline surging through my body shoved such details to the background.
Closer still, the distance no longer skewing my perception of their actual size. I could almost make out numbers—there! Now I could see them. Carbon 12, water 20 liters. They moved so quickly, with such speed as they dove straight for us, that I didn’t think I had the time to get a full incantation off before they hit that barrier. I spoke quickly, the words tumbling and ramming into each other, nearly tangling my own tongue. This time, at least, I could give a general direction instead of pinpoint precision. I told my magic to attack anything in the sky.
With a purr of delight, I felt my magic warm in my chest and fly out in response, as eager to destroy as a bloodhound after prey. I watched it wing forward, beautiful and destructive, obeying my command. Good, good, get all of them—
I barely had the thought half-formed when something slammed into the right side of the building, all along the roof. An audible screech rent the night air, then a cracking sound that put chills up and down my spine.
Bannen whirled, throwing knives in between each finger in his right hand, ready to defend me. He blocked my view of the roof so I couldn’t see what had happened, and that nearly panicked me. “Bannen, what?!”
He swore viciously for a moment before shifting enough that I could duck around him and see for myself. “Now, I’m not an expert, but that looks all kinds of bad.”
Oh. Yeah. That rather did. A cenebre stretched along the spine of the roof, its narrow snout open in a snarl, the slitted pupils of the eyes gleaming in the darkness like a cat’s. It had both bat-like wings spread in a threatening manner, claws digging into the slate tiles underneath its paws. Bannen flicked his daggers at the thing, each landing in a slightly different spot in its bared throat, and it died in a gurgled screech of pain.
“That,” Chi observed with false calm, “is just going to ruin my whole night.”
Swearing, I lurched for the front of the tower and screamed, “DAH’LIL! THE BARRIER ISN’T WORKING!”
“How do you know—?!” he called back, cutting himself short as something impacted the building down below at an angle that I couldn’t see. Then he started swearing.
“That’s a good indication,” Vaughn observed tightly. “The mirrors aren’t deterring them either. Maksohm, drop the barriers. Time to do this Giant style.”
I didn’t know what that meant and had no time to question it. If the barriers didn’t work on these things, that meant I had no safety net, and I needed to cast as quickly and often as possible. The barrier abruptly dropped as Maksohm released his grip on it, and even though I knew it wouldn’t help to keep it up, my stomach dropped out when it did. I hated it when those foreboding feelings came back with smug I told you so’s. Dastards.
Vee’s voice rose as she casted a variety of fire spells, Maksohm joining her, although I couldn’t see anything from this angle. The fire blazed through the night sky like fireworks, hitting their quarry with stunning accuracy. I didn’t have a precise headcount but it sounded as if they were clearing out what remained of the first wave. Spying another flock coming in at us hard from the northeast, I went back to spell casting as fast as my mouth could move. As I spoke, I could hear the boys talking to each other, both of them closing in like living shields at my sides.
“Well, mother hugger, I don’t think I brought enough arrows for this party. You, Bannen?”
“Definitely did not bring enough daggers for this, no. It’s embarrassing, not having enough party favors.”
“Right? We’ll have to make sure we’re properly packing next time. Sards, it’s hard to see until they’re right on top of you. Where’s Dag when I need him?”
“Vee stole him. Whoops, take that back, Hugo’s got him.”
I resisted the urge to glance down to see what they meant by that. I needed to keep an eye on Dag, as much as I could, but I had to trust the others to help me do that in situations like this. When I got the last word out, only then did I glance down and found Dag sitting on Hugo’s shoulder like a giant parrot, one of the big man’s hands wrapped around his thighs to keep him in place, the other wielding earth magic as he stomped, moved, and gestured to a beat. His magic flared up and sent small chunks of cobblestones whistling through the air as swift and deadly as arrows. I’d never really seen much earth magic in motion, perhaps a handful of times, and they’d always moved massive amounts of dirt at a time. I’d thought of giant’s magic as strong and bulky, but this put paid to that impression. Apparently, giant’s magic meant they could move earth as they wished, and in whatever size and quantity they deemed necessary.
Dag, at least, seemed to have the time of his life. Even over the roar of the cenebre, the screams of alarm from the people below us as they used mirrors to deflect the monsters, the shouts of the giants as they coordinated with each other, I could hear our boy apprentice yelling out directions to fire in. He clearly played in his element, as he had giants as allies and monsters to battle—the stuff of little boys’ dreams.
He was seriously another Bannen. I might need to pay Mary to raise that one.
That two seconds was all I could spare and I focused again on the sky. The flock ahead of me—twenty-three to be precise—had come in close enough that I feared they’d go right through the building in the next few seconds. Six of them dove down, heading straight for the building, and I focused on them because there was no way for me to catch all of them. They veered, going every possible direction, some of them already escaping my line of sight. My magic flared, determined to get to the ones right in front of me first, and barely made it by the skin of my teeth. They poofed out in a cloud of fine dust, scattering in the wind.
Chi’s bow sang as he quickly took out three headed for us. I didn’t duck, although instinct nearly sent me down to my knees. I latched onto the stone sill in front of me to keep my feet.
“Chi, are the arrows working?” I demanded. It was the one question I hadn’t been able to ask, fearing the answer.
“Not a hundred percent,” he answered tautly, the strain visible in the tense way he held himself. “If they see it coming, they can sometimes phase through it. But most of the time, they’re focused on the fire spells, or on the mirrors, and I can get ’em.”
That was something. I’d been afraid conventional weapons wouldn’t work at all. It had to be frustrating him, though, that he didn’t always hit what he aimed for. Chi hadn’t had to worry about hitting a target in decades. I was grateful he could at least hit some of them, as I couldn’t catch them all, no matter how hard I tried. They just moved too fast.
Head turning, I panned the area, feeling my mouth dry out slowly from speaking so much and all of the yelling I’d been doing. I had a canteen of water at my waist but I didn’t dare uncap it at the moment. There was another flock of them, I could hear them in the wind, but with the storm clouds rolling in, I couldn’t get a visual of them.
Where…where? Anxiety clenched my gut tightly, a sick, twisting feeling. I knew they were here, somewhere off to my right, I just
couldn’t lay eyes on them. What I couldn’t see, I couldn’t destroy.
“South-east, four o’clock,” Bannen directed me sharply.
Head turning, I spotted them. Someone pointed a mirror in that general direction, which helped for a brief second, then they jerked the mirror another way. I couldn’t see from this angle well enough to protect the sides of the building, but from the sounds of it, Maksohm, Vee, and Vaughn had things well in hand. Or at least I hoped so. We had our hands full up here.
Several screams sounded below us, and I could feel the building shiver as if something had passed through it. Sards, they’d gotten past our guard somehow and through the building itself?! The giants bellowed orders at each other, and I heard the inhuman cries of the creatures as they were killed, but I heard other human sounds of pain and the cries of the dying mixed in. I just knew that we had casualties in that moment and my heart broke. Even doing everything I could, it didn’t mean we’d get through this unscathed.
I cast again, taking out that flock, then again as another approached due east. How many were there? The nest of them had been unmolested for centuries before we came along. With no natural predators and a whole mountain to claim as their own, how many of them existed in the flock? How many would they send against us? All questions I needed answers to, but there was no one who knew.
The air abruptly went still, all sounds of combat dying. I could hear a few screams and cries of pain, Emily’s voice calling for people to help her move someone. We hadn’t come through that wave of attack unscathed, although I prayed no one had died because of it. I wasn’t naïve enough to believe that prayer would be answered, though. It rarely was.
The absolute silence of the rooftop felt like a graveyard. Or the beginning of a haunted story. I saw nothing, no hint of movement in the clouds, nor did I hear the beat of wings on the wind. The question stayed poised on the tip of my tongue: Is it over? I didn’t ask it. I felt like it would break the moment and invite trouble on my head if I did.
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