A wild rush of nervous energy flooded her limbs from that brief touch and filled her up with its intensity.
Magiere jerked her hand away, rolling to her feet. Sgaile struggled under Chap's assault, but the dog wheeled around, charging the other way.
He was hunting-like her-and Magiere's hungry gaze traced the path to his target.
A dark-furred dog rushed at her, its gray-peppered jowls pulled back from yellowed teeth.
Leesil heard Magiere's feral screech as she reached for one Anmaglahk with Sgaile coming at her from behind. Chap took Sgaile down but not before Magiere toppled. When she rose, shuddering as she snatched her hand from a tree, Leesil saw her face.
Her teeth… the tears… her irises so full black they nearly blotted out the whites of her eyes. He started to run for her.
Brot'an stepped in his way, and Leesil threw himself at the tall elf.
"Leesil… no!" his mother shouted.
Brot'an's palm slammed against Leesil's chest, driving the air from his lungs. But it wasn't enough to stop him.
Leesil fell on Brot'an, and they both hit the ground. He tumbled away as Brot'an tried to grab him.When he reached his feet, Wynn raced by him, clutching something in her arms. She threw it, and only then Leesil saw the large, grizzled majay-hi charge Magiere.
Bits of fluffy white nodules spun from the basket Wynn had thrown. It hit the charging dog in the shoulder. The impact startled the dark majay-hi. It spun away, and Chap barreled into the dog. Both wheeled around each other in snapping growls.
Osha finally flew into motion, running after Wynn.
Leesil sidled around Brot'an, trying to reach Magiere, but he backed into someone else.
He pivoted, cutting upward with a fist at whichever Anmaglahk was behind him. He saw a flash of shimmering white before his wrist was snatched.
His mother twisted his swing aside, throwing him off balance. Leesil righted himself in panic at what he'd almost done.
Nein'a glared at him. "What have you brought among us?"
Leesil floundered in confusion until his mother raised her head. Her gaze fixed upon Magiere.
Most Aged Father's awareness flitted around the clearing from one tree to the next. Watching from within an elm, all he perceived left him overwhelmed, including the strange majay-hi assaulting his treasured Frethfare. Then his awareness fell upon Magiere.
Far from the glade and deep within his massive oak, Most Aged Father curled into a twitching ball. No one heard his whimper.
He saw the pale woman with her bestial face slap a hand against one tree. He felt the forest's life shudder under that touch. It hurt, as if a piece of him had been bitten away.
Ancient memory writhed in the back of his mind. In sickening fear, he slipped his awareness around the clearing toward the pale monster.
All of Magiere's rage turned on Sgaile.
"Undead!" he hissed, and a blade appeared in his hand.
She saw only one more obstacle to reaching Leesil. Her jaws widened but no words came out. A rustle of movement sounded in the brush behind her at the clearing's edge.
Sgaile held up his hand, but not at her, and he snapped some command in Elvish. He never took his eyes off her, and his horror fed Magiere's hunger.
"Stop!All of you.Stop this now!"
Brot'an's deep voice carried through the glade. Magiere twisted her head around, tensing at the threat. Behind the tall elf stood Leesil, his wrist gripped tightly in his mother's hand.
Osha had Wynn pinned in his arms.
"Magiere… enough," the sage shouted. "Please… get control of yourself."
Freth knelt nearby, mouth ajar at the white majay-hi blocking her off. Just short of them, Chap crouched in the way of the larger dark dog. The rest of the pack began to circle in.
Magiere's head began to ache as the hunger shrank into the pit of her stomach. The more it receded, the more she started to shake. As if she'd swallowed too much drink… too much of Wynn's tea… or too much food, too much… life.
She stumbled back, and her heel caught in a bush. She toppled, falling against a tree trunk, and slapped her hand against its bark to steadyherself.
Another shock ran deep into Magiere.
The world went black before her eyes. In that sudden darkness, strange sounds and sights erupted in Magiere's head.
Chapter Thirteen
Curled in his tree's bower, Most Aged Father gaped in pain. The pale-skinned monster touched the birch the instant his awareness slipped into it.
He felt the tree's life slipping away into her flesh. He felt it as if she touched his skin, feeding upon him, and memory welled up to wrap him in suffering.
Another like her had come for him in the dark… long, long ago…
Sorhkafare-Light upon the Grass. That was his true name back then.
He had dropped weary and beaten upon a stained wool blanket, filthy from moons of forced marches. He did not even care to have his wounds tended and lay in the darkness of his tent.
Only two of his commanders had survived the day. He had lost more officers upon that field than duringall of the last moon. Someone called to him from outside his tent but he did not answer. Hesitantly, the voice came again.
"The human and dwarven ranks are too depleted for another engagement. They must fall back."
The enemy's condition was unknown. With his eyes closed, Sorhkafare saw nothing but the sea of dead he had left on the rolling plains. The fragile alliance had been outnumbered nearly five to one on this day.
Again he did not answer. He could not look at the faces of the living, and even if he opened his eyes, he couldn't stop seeing those of the dead.
The enemy's horde had pressed north along the eastern coast of the central continent. At dawn, he had received word that Baalale Seatt had fallen to an unknown catastrophe. The dwarven mother-city in the mountains bordering theSumanDesert had long been under siege. Scattered reports hinted that neither side had survived whatever had happened there.
The enemy's numbers seemed endless. And all that remained in the west to stop them were Sorhkafare's forces, the last to keep the enemy from turning inland toward Aonnis Lhoin'n-First Glade-the refuge and home of his people.
He heard the footsteps outside fade away. Finally they left him alone.
Sleep would not come, and he did not want it. He still saw thousands slaughtering each other under the hot sun. He had lost all reckoning of whose cries were those of his enemies or his allies. He lost fury and even fear this day upon the plain.
Countless furred, scaled, or dark- to light-skinned faces fell before his spear and arrows, and yet they kept coming. One mutilated body blurred into another… except for the last rabid goblin, dead at his feet when it all ended. Its long tongue dangled from its canine mouth into the blood-soaked mud.
Sorhkafare heard a shout and then a moan somewhere outside in the camp, and then another.
The wounded and dying were given what aid could be rendered, but they only suffered the more for it. Who would want to live another day like this one?
More shouts.Running feet.A brief clatter of steel.
Someone fumbled at the canvas flap of his tent.
"Leave me," he said tiredly and did not get up.
The tent ripped open.
Camp bonfires outside cast an orange glow around the shadowed figure of a human male.Sorhkafare could not make out the man's face. The light glinted dully upon the edges of his steel-scaled carapace. His skin seemed dark, like that of a Suman.
Sorhkafare's senses sharpened.
By proportions, there had been as many humans among the enemy's horde as among his alliance forces. Most with the enemy had been Suman. Had one slipped into camp unseen? He sat up quickly.
The man's arm holding aside the tent flap was severed off above the wrist. His other hand was empty.
No one walked about with such a wound. Sorhkafare heard another cry somewhere out in the camp.