He dropped the fire scry and cast a wind scry. As he expected, the trap was invisible as it was neither moving through the air nor blocking the natural flow of the wind. He only sensed Darkness’s gossamer moored above the work camp, waiting for the rest of their force to move out.
“The Stone Clan might have an easier time spotting these.” Wolf held out the trap to Wraith Arrow. “The others should be warned.”
A wave of tension went through Wolf’s guard. They shifted to face an incoming threat, their posture going from camp idle to possible combat. In this sea of heavily armed elves, the only possible conflict was with Stone clan domana.
The Wyverns had been clear that they would brook no aggression between the clans during the war with the oni, but there were no guarantees that the Stone Clan would honor that decree.
A moment later, Forest Moss with his borrowed Wyverns came plowing through the royal marines. Because of the Wyverns’ presence alone, his people allowed the incoming domana to close. Everyone knew that the Stone Clan should have already marched out as they had the greatest distance to travel. They knew Forest Moss shouldn’t be bearing down on Wolf; they were afraid of a fight. It did not help that the male’s unnaturally white hair hung in disarray and his ruined eye was clearly visible.
“Should you not be with Sunder?” Wolf asked cautiously. Forest Moss had fought bravely enough since arriving in Pittsburgh, but he’d been unhinged by the destruction of Ginger Wine’s enclave. Wolf was uncertain how stable the male was. He’d seemed fine at Station Square, but they had only interacted for a few minutes.
“He just suddenly hared off this direction,” one of the Wyverns reported to Wolf while tapping his temple, indicating that he thought that the domana was hopelessly mad.
“Is there a problem?” Wolf asked Forest Moss. “Do you not understand the plan?”
The Harbingers had sketched out a simple — but in Wolf’s opinion dangerous — plan. They wanted to attack the enemy forts, one at a time, from all directions. They hoped to pin down the oni within each fortification and wipe them out before moving on to the next fort. Wolf had pointed out that reinforcements coming from the other encampments could surround anyone between the forts. Cana Lily took it as cowardice on Wolf’s part. Sunder acknowledged the danger but brushed it off, saying that the bulk of the oni force were young creatures out of the whelping pens. They wouldn’t have the intelligence or experience to counter the Harbingers.
In the end, it was decided that Darkness and Cana Lily would take the eastern flank. Sunder and Forest Moss would attack from the south. It meant only the Stone Clan risked being surrounded. They paired up so that the Harbingers would handle offense while the younger Stone Clan domana provided defense.
Forest Moss should be someplace else, protecting Sunder.
The male seemed much less sane than he was at Station Square. He rocked in place, his hands fluttering as if he didn’t know what to do them. The Wyverns with him watched their charge closely, as if Forest Moss was more dangerous than an army of hidden oni. To be fair to the Wyverns, he was.
“How do you stand it?” Forest Moss asked Wolf. “Knowing that she is so small and helpless? That the city could be overrun in your absence?”
For a moment Wolf thought this was a jibe at him, that the female in question was Tinker. Then he remembered that Forest Moss had taken a human female as his domi. The Wyverns allowed it because the woman was heavy with another male’s child and her presence seemed to calm the mad domana.
Wolf could understand the fear. “You need to trust her. You love her for her strength. Let her be her own person. If she needs your help, she will tell you.”
“How would she tell me?” Forest Moss’s voice quavered with fear. “We are deep within the forest; Pittsburgh could be overrun and we would never know.”
Tinker wouldn’t have survived the summer thus far without being domana. She had been kidnapped, shot, bitten, and nearly killed multiple times. Elves had magic-based regeneration abilities that far exceeded a human’s natural healing. Being domana allowed Tinker take on sekasha Beholden and tap the power of the Spell Stones. It gave her instant access to powerful shields, multiple scrying spells, and an array of attacks. What’s more, Wolf had the comfort that he could tell if Tinker tapped the Wind or Fire Clan’s Spell Stones.
Forest Moss had linked his domi to the Stone Clan’s Spell Stones via a dau mark. While it made it simple for Forest Moss to find the woman within the sea of humans, she wouldn’t be able to pull power from the Spell Stones until after she was transformed into a domana-caste elf. She lacked the genetic key that allowed the initiation spell to set up a resonance between the domana and the Spell Stones. Nor could she be remade as an elf until after her child was born.
“Your domi has royal marines with her,” Wolf said. “They would know how to get word to you.”
This only made Forest Moss flail his hands more. “They are but children themselves! All of them are young! Some are still in their doubles! The old guard thinks that watching over her is the safest assignment for their plebes.”
“Oh, be quiet, mad one.” Sunder came drifting through the royal marines. There was something oddly ethereal about this warlord who was neither female nor male. Hir wore white face paint with a narrow strip of black across hir eyes. Wraith Arrow said it was an ancient custom of Sunder’s tribe, which had been wiped out hundreds of years before even Wraith Arrow had been born. A spell orb orbited hir; Wolf wasn’t sure of its function but unlike the ones that Jewel Tear used, it did not seem to do anything as mundane as cool or perfume the air around its owner. Hir wore a cloak over hir wyvern-scale vest; it was woven out of something lighter than fairy silk. It floated in the faintest of breeze like it was a living entity separate from the elf.
Death had been the greatest Stone Clan warlord of the Rebellion. The Harbingers had been his five subcommanders that he sent ahead of him; heralds of the upcoming destruction. Together they would lay waste to entire regions, killing anyone they deemed loyal to the Skin Clan until the streets ran with blood. When they were done, they would burn the city to the ground and salt the fields beyond it.
Wolf did not want the Harbingers in Pittsburgh. He was glad that the battle had taken them far away from the city limits.
Sundar waved languidly at Forest Moss’s fears. “As your domi is now, she’s no different from all the other human females in Pittsburgh. The oni will have no special interest in her. The one you should fear is Darkness; given a chance, he will tear out your heart in recompense for what you did to his beloved Blossom Spring. Bad enough he lost his niece, but to learn that Blossom Spring was endlessly raped before being drowned in a piss pot — time has not dulled his hate of you.”
Forest Moss nodded his head. “I would deserve any pain that he chose to rain down on me but that. My domi is innocent of any crime. Her great-grandmother had yet to be born when I blindly led Blossom Spring to Onihida.”
“Which Darkness knows,” Sunder said. “So far in this present mess, you are blameless. If you stray one step off that narrow path, though, he will crucify your entire household, however pitiful it may be.”
Forest Moss nodded. “I will be worthy of my domi.”
The male seemed calmer despite the implied threat. Perhaps he thought that Sunder was promising to shield Forest Moss if he stayed close and obedient.