by Harry Nix
If they couldn't leave now and be sure they would make it, he’d tell Lydia and Esme to take the children in the cars and escape. The rest of his pack he could spread out, working in groups of three or four, attacking and withdrawing, making their small force seem much larger.
Perhaps they’d be able to puncture a hole in the thousand mages, flank them, delay them enough to get some of the werewolves from the fortress here. Alex knew he didn't have to kill every mage, just enough of them to drive terror into their hearts.
“Call the fortress and tell them to bring everyone here, right now. Evacuate the children and arm everyone with the rings. In ten minutes we’re advancing,” Alex commanded. Jeremiah sprinted off, and began immediately shouting at werewolves, issuing commands. Alex grabbed the box of enchanted rings. He still had some of the wands that Ignis had left behind, so he took those too, including the one covered in question marks with just the single spell on it.
As he left the office, he saw April frantically grabbing bottles and passing them out to werewolves, who were gulping them down. She waved Alex and Nia over and gave them bottles of golden liquid that they drank without question. Alex felt nothing more than a slight warmth, and when he brought up his spell screen there were just question marks because he hadn't had the time to ask April what she'd given him.
The werewolves gathered, Alex passing out the last of the rings and a few of the wands, keeping just one for himself. Esme, Lydia and the children were gone, racing into town, taking two of the cars.
Alex, Nia, April, Juno, River, and Matilda piled into the other one, Nia driving. Alex didn’t know where Jacob was, so they left without him. They headed north, the rest of their pack jogging their way. The chatter in the car went all over the place. Alex could feel the bloodlust from the three werewolves with him. April was quiet, doing something on her spell screen. Sometimes Alex heard a chime of music.
Juno was in the passenger seat with her eyes closed, taking deep breaths, doing her best to control her chaos magic, but even so Alex saw frost was gathered around her legs. He realized he didn't know where Roma was. She’d been in one of the houses and Alex had been vaguely aware of her, but she'd kept to herself, staying in her room all day, only emerging at night to make herself food before returning.
“Does anyone know where Roma went?” he asked.
“Probably just slithered away somewhere,” Juno said bitterly. Then she took a breath and waved her hands in front of her like she was rubbing out what she just said. “I don't mean that. I take it back. I'm just angry. I don't know where she is,” she said in a singsong voice. It wasn't long before Nia pulled them to a stop, parking the car in an abandoned lot behind a large tree which didn’t do much to hide it, but was the best she could do. As soon as they got out of the car, Alex caught the faint tendril again, that feeling of an immense number of werewolves. It was to the north of them, growing stronger with every moment.
“Something is wrong. Did the scouts say there were werewolves in the force too? Maybe enslaved or something?” Alex asked.
Nia shook her head. “Just Corvus pain mages, weredogs and vampires,” she said. Alex’s body was still aching. He hadn't fully recovered, so now, as he stood under the tree, he tried to draw nature, filling the bar to the top, knowing that he would soon use it all. The feeling that there was an immense number of werewolves ahead of him to the north grew stronger, but it felt as though every time he glanced at the small tendril, it would dart away, tenuous and mist-like.
“Stay together. We’ll get close enough to scout them out. Juno, you can scry them if you get close enough,” Alex said.
“Yes, if my goddess-damned chaos magic gets its shit together,” Juno swore. She had an aura of cold around her and the car door was frosted over where she'd touched it.
They crept out of the abandoned lot, down the street, trying to stay off the sidewalk, going through front yards and past factories. Eventually they spotted a tall building, industrial and brutal with a smokestack sticking out the top of it. It had long been abandoned. Juno and April stayed on the ground as Alex and the werewolves shifted to hybrid and leaped atop empty fuel containers, then scaled their way to the roof. They reached the peak and, keeping low, took in the vista before them.
“That’s about seven hundred… so where are the other three hundred? I don't see all the weredogs either and zero vampires,” Nia said.
“This is crazy,” Matilda muttered, looking across the assembled mages and weredogs.
Alex looked over them, his heart sinking. This was only seven hundred or so and it was a stupidly large number of mages. The weredogs were snapping and growling, barely controlled by their handlers.
“They’re to the east of us. A separate group has broken off, and also another on the west side. It’s like they’re making a giant pincer,” Juno said. Alex turned but Juno wasn't there. It was just a voice emanating from empty air.
“Which is the smaller force?” Alex asked, hoping Juno could hear. Evidently, she could as a voice again whispered next to his ear.
“The one to the east. Fewer weredogs and fewer mages. I think we should attack them first,” she said.
Alex saw Nia, Matilda, and River looking at him with curious expressions and realized that they'd been unable to hear Juno. He quickly relayed to them what she had said. They climbed down from the roof and found Juno sitting cross-legged with her eyes closed. April was pacing nearby.
“Definitely the east,” Juno said. Alex saw she was still trying to calm her chaos magic but the ground was iced over around her.
The werewolves shifted to wolf form, Juno getting on Alex's back and April on Nia’s. They were aware the Great Barrier might hit them and make them shift back, which at high speed could be dangerous, but there was no time.
As they ran, Alex was doing calculations. How many miles had they driven? How fast was the rest of his pack?
They bolted away from the factory, April and Juno hanging on for dear life. The sun was blistering down on them, but Juno's body was chilled, like ice. He could feel her legs pressed against his back, her hands in his fur holding on, and through their connection he could sense her chaos magic was surging like the sea, sometimes powerful, and sometimes almost non-existent.
They ran, keeping rows of houses between them and the main force, sprinting to the east. They only felt the Great Barrier pull a few times, perhaps squatters living in some of the homes, but it quickly went away. Alex assumed the Great Barrier was pushing the normals to look in the other direction. He hoped any normals there would be safe. Given the mass of weredogs and mages advancing, this could soon become a bloody battlefield and they’d become collateral damage.
They soon approached the location in the east that Juno had identified. There were sixty mages and at least the same number of weredogs. Some of the Corvus mages wore robes, looking very traditional, while others were wearing more modern clothes, some in Army camouflage and carrying guns instead of wands.
The six of them crept up onto a house roof for a better vantage. The mages and weredogs were at the far end of the street, advancing. They were moving reasonably fast so Alex knew they only had minutes before they’d be surrounded.
“Let's hear all the ideas right now,” Alex growled. The wolf side of him was stupid and reckless, perhaps from the closeness of his mates, and the threat of enemies. The rage that had seemed under control somewhat was now bubbling away in his stomach. The times in the past that it had leaped up had been when Nia had been injured.
That was sure to happen again and Alex hoped he could stay himself. He needed to be the werewolf mage, not the vicious dumb animal pounding chunks of flesh into the sidewalk.
“Streets are cracked so there’s a lot of dirt. If I use most of my magic in one spell, I can raise enough vines and spikes to temporarily hold them in place. Then we fireball their asses, electric shock them before we bail and set up again, make them advance towards us,” April said.
“I like this idea,�
� River growled. Alex didn't have any better ones. He had spells and magic but right now they were dramatically outnumbered. Hitting the small group would at least stop them and then they would have to see what happened next. Perhaps reinforcements would arrive, splitting the main group, or they would change the direction of the whole mass. If that happened they’d have to move quick to get out of there, otherwise they would soon be swarmed.
They split their forces then, April going with River and Matilda, moving back a row of houses before crossing to the other side of the street. Alex, Nia, and Juno stayed where they were, watching as the weredogs and mages advanced up the road. As they came closer, the feeling of the werewolves being near grew stronger, but overlaid on top of it was the seductive lure of pain. The Corvus mages fed on pain to use their magic, and some of them had already injured themselves, cutting thin lines into their arms to cause injuries so they could draw more readily on their magic. Most of the sixty mages were already sporting wounds, small black dots of blood on their hands or cheeks. A few of them had wrapped barbed wire around their arms, the penetrating spikes providing a continuous dose of pain. As they walked small droplets of blood trailed in their path.
“Where are the vampires?” Alex murmured to himself, looking over the force, seeing only mages and weredogs.
The weredogs were a mix of sizes. Some quite small, terriers mutated by the exposure to werewolf blood and magic. There were a few larger ones, and one gigantic beast, easily the size of Alex when he was in wolf form.
As the faint tendril touched Alex he suddenly realized what it was he was sensing: the werewolf blood in their bodies. He knew without having to count that there were sixty weredogs.
As they came closer, he tried to reach for them, wondering if he could turn the weredogs back or at least push a dose of fear into them and have them turn tail. But the feeling of it was elusive. It wasn't quite the same as reaching for werewolves. Alex suspected it was the diluted blood. For a moment he had the wild idea to leap from the roof to land amongst them, but knew that would almost certainly end in death.
They waited until the mages and weredogs reached a large crack that ran through the road, like it had been made for this very moment. Alex heard April's magic, a high chiming followed by low notes, and evidently a few of the pain mages heard it too because they were instantly on the alert, but it was too late. Vines burst out of the earth, quickly growing, wrapping around any weredog or mage who was too close. They surrounded them, tearing up through the road in spots. As the vines thickened, they grew wickedly sharp thorns.
Some of the mages immediately cast fire at the vines using wands—they didn’t need a spell screen to do that. Before they could burn their way out, Alex and his pack attacked. They flung the shockballs first, which landed amongst the mages. Alex's first one missed, hitting the vines and discharging harmlessly, but the rest managed to hit, including one from Nia that landed dead center, shocking ten mages at once plus some of the weredogs.
In a moment at least half were on the ground. Alex saw flares of magic as panicked mages shot at their unseen enemies. The magic around them was stirred up, like the ocean before a storm. Alex and his pack quickly followed up with fireballs, hitting the prone mages, but already the response was coming. Shields sprang up and something heavy shot towards their position, some unknown spell that Alex only felt, that smashed into the house and shook it to its foundations.
Only two of the fireballs got through, but it was enough to catch some robes on fire, and even from where he was standing, Alex caught the sweet wave of pain rolling over them like honey. He saw some of the mages turning towards their burning brethren, pulling on the pain, drunk with it, but others were more disciplined, hunkering down and casting spells. The mages burned a hole in the vines, and through it, weredogs poured, rushing towards the two positions.
His pack continued flinging fireballs until they had emptied their rings, and then it was just Alex, Juno, and April using their magic, the three of them frantically casting spells.
Although they’d started strong, the Corvus mages were disciplined. Fireballs were knocked away and the hole in the vines grew larger.
The weredogs were rushing towards them with startling speed and Alex quickly realized they were outnumbered, and there would be no way to retreat. Not without jumping directly into at least twenty weredogs that were snarling towards them.
Juno stood up, even as Alex shouted for her to keep her head down. He saw a spell scrolling above her head before an enormous flash erupted from her hands that was like ice and lightning together. It hit the mages and weredogs near the hole in April's barrier, snap freezing some of them, jolting others to the ground, and blocking up the hole for the time being.
Juno swayed, then fell to her knees, her magic temporarily exhausted. The weredogs were almost upon them. Alex looked behind them, desperately hoping he'd see the rest of his pack, but there was no one in sight. He looked down and saw the gigantic weredog readying for a leap which he knew would bring it up to them. Nia was crouched down with her claws ready, her fangs bared. He knew that between them, perhaps they could take on a few weredogs, but not twenty. The rest of the weredogs were racing towards April, River and Matilda.
* * *
Alex pulled up his spell screen, knowing that desperate times called for desperate measures, but he had no new combinations that leaped to mind. There was barely any space to do anything anyway. Vertigo and lightning? Have them fall over and get an electric shock, but perhaps it would only be one of them. Even if he folded the spells over on themselves multiple times, if he missed, he would use all of his magic and it would be utterly useless. He could feel the pain from the burning mages still down below and knew there was magic there to draw upon, but not enough to do much.
“Alex,” Nia said in a warning tone. Alex reached for that elusive thread, but it was still too far away.
There was nothing for it; he’d have to jump.
He leaped off the roof, into the midst of the weredogs. He heard Nia scream his name as he landed beside the largest weredog. He caught it off guard, and in that moment, knew he could slash up and underneath its ribs, disemboweling it if he wanted.
Now he was amongst them, he could feel the werewolf blood beating in their veins. The Corvus mages had been stupid too. It wasn't enough to draw on their own pain, so they'd hurt the weredogs too, cutting them, hitting them with spikes, so each one was injured in some way, the blood seeping out, providing a ready connection for Alex. He reached for it and it was slippery, threatening to come out from between his claws at any moment.
There was no time for subtlety; this could be no gentle push. He grasped the thread and heaved at it, opening his jaws and roaring to the sky a command for the weredogs to turn and attack their former masters. He felt the blood respond, and then the weredogs too. It was like pulling a ship, turning the wheel, heaving against the slow weight of it. The smallest weredogs went first, spinning about and attacking the nearest Corvus mage. Then, like a wave, it crashed over the rest of them and Alex roared at the sky again as the feeling of connection flooded through him. He could sense every weredog around him, he knew where all the enemies were. He pulled the force that had split off, heading towards April, and they turned back.
Alex ran, his claws out, Alpha of the pack as they surged towards the mages. April must've realized what was happening because the vines suddenly retreated, opening the way for them. He could feel Nia, River, and Matilda jumping down to join him, drawn by the force of his call.
The weredogs hit the mages like a vicious wave of blood. Alex's spell rings sparked and charged as he was shot at and attacked, and he felt a burst of pain in the side of his head as some spell took one of his ears clean off, but the mages hadn't expected their own dogs to turn on them. Snapping weredogs, designed for war against werewolves, chewed through the mages, ripping legs off, tearing guts out. The surge of pain that rose up turned some of them drunk and they became helpless in the face of it.
They crashed down and were torn to pieces which increased the wave. Alex tried to resist pulling on it, but the urge was too great, so he drew on their pain, casting vertigo over and over again, dropping the few remaining mages to the ground. The biting and crunching of it took just a moment, then Alex found himself sprinting, running with the weredogs, aware that Nia, Matilda, and River were running somewhere behind him.
He was aware in some small part of his mind that this was like a new kind of wild. He felt like he was surfing a wave, and if he was skillful enough, he could bring it to crash down upon the mages. As Alex ran, rushing towards the main body, he felt a faint awareness on the edge of his mind. His pack had arrived and not far behind them were the werewolves from the fortress. They were too far away to command, out of his reach, but he knew they could feel the lure of the battle and they were slowly approaching.
Alex leaped, springing from the ground to the top of a two-story house and from there to an adjoining factory roof, landing with a thud. He looked down upon the main body of the mages, at least seven hundred or so, and the remaining weredogs. His pack were flooding around the corner now, and the mages were gathering their defenses, wands raised, spell screens all over the place. Their weredogs rushed towards him, but as they did, the connection grew stronger and Alex pushed with his will, the surge going outward. The weredogs fell like dominoes, turning, perhaps snapping once or twice at each other before falling under his control. The mages erupted in a scream of magic as their own weredogs attacked them. Alex was about to leap from the roof to join the carnage when Juno was suddenly in front of him, hands icy cold, gripping his fur.