Oliver nodded. With a single glance around at the furious battle, he spotted Kitsune and raced toward her. Though she surely would have been safer as a fox, she had remained in the shape of a woman, standing and fighting side by side with the gods of the Harvest.
He grabbed her wrist and she spun on him, teeth bared, jaws impossibly wide.
“Kit, stop! Konigen said to go. If they lose, we may not have another chance.”
The fox-woman hesitated, jade eyes flashing. Then she shook her wrist loose and ran for the circle of stones. Oliver heard the flap of heavy wings above him, the shadow of a dreadful, antlered thing falling over him, and felt an icy chill grip his heart.
“Fuck that,” he snarled, and ran for the circle of onyx stones that thrust up from the clearing, the entrance to the Winding Way, wondering if he would find himself alone amongst the stones, or if their magic would work for him.
“Kill them all, myths and Legend-Born alike!” the hag, Black Annis, screamed nearby.
Oliver glanced back and saw her, slashing at the rotting berry-men as they overwhelmed her. She was splashed with putrid fruit and blood, but they began to draw her down.
“Legend-Born?” he asked, calling after Kitsune as she darted between two towering black stones.
The fox-woman did not look back.
Oliver ran after her and twisted sideways, pushing himself through the narrow gap. He had just a moment to wonder how the battle they had left would end, and to regret abandoning those who had come to his aid, then he plunged into a cloud of thick, gray mist that pulsed and twisted and flowed around him, like something alive.
Ahead, through the mist, he could barely make out Kitsune’s presence and, beyond her, a road like a curved ribbon of black glass.
The Winding Way.
Blue Jay’s boots squelched in soft, damp earth and water dripped from the feathers tied in his hair as he stepped from the rain forest. The daylight had turned a golden hue, the promise of evening on the horizon. Below, the city of Palenque sprawled across several miles of Yucatazcan valley. He had never been to Palenque. In his mind’s eye he had pictured a city that was little more than a series of pyramids like the one where they’d been attacked by Hunters.
He had not expected this.
Already many of the buildings and homes in Palenque had lights burning within, and some of the streets were lined with oil lamps. Towers rose above the skyline, three or four times the height of the average structure. He did not know if they existed for industry or for worship, but they were formidable structures. Homes had been built into the side of a hill at the eastern end of town, rising one upon the other in terraces, each connected by steps and ladders.
The streets were designed in concentric circles, radiating out from the tallest of the towers, which thrust up from the center of Palenque, providing what must have been a breathtaking view of both the city and the hills surrounding it.
The architecture showed myriad influences. Blue Jay had never made a proper study of the subject, but the colors in the stone and the iconic statues that stood as monolithic sentinels at the far edges of the circular city hinted strongly at the Mayan and Aztec past of those who had founded the city and other ancient civilizations. There was a Palenque still in the human world, but Blue Jay felt sure it looked nothing like this.
Leicester Grindylow stepped out of the rain forest and came to stand beside him. The water bogie crossed his long arms and whistled in appreciation.
“She’s a beauty,” Grin said.
Cheval and Li emerged from the trees as well-each solitary in their grief-with Frost coming along last. The winter man despised the sweltering heat of the rain forest, but at least the moisture helped slow its effects. Now Frost paused on the edge of the hill, not wishing to leave the forest and come into the heat of the waning day. His features were sharp, his body a brittle razor. Blue Jay worried for him, for so many reasons.
Frost started out of the rain forest, beginning the final leg of their journey to Palenque. He moved down the hill toward the outskirts of the city, not even bothering to search the sky for Perytons or glance around for other enemies.
“Watch yourselves,” Cheval Bayard said, treading carefully, gliding down the hill, her wary gaze seeking out any sign of trouble.
Grin and Li followed her. The Guardian of Fire had been silent for hours, mourning his dead companion. Whatever physical loss he had suffered because of the tiger’s death, it appeared to be permanent. He was pale and thinner, the fire inside him burning through his skin in places, small flames licking across his flesh, unbidden. There was power in him still, but somehow the loss of his tiger had put something off balance inside of him, and the flames seemed to be slowly devouring him from within.
Blue Jay wondered how long it would take for the fire to consume Li completely.
The trickster came last in their procession. Perhaps that was why he was the first to notice the things that flew overhead, slipping out of the rain forest behind them and snaking through the air above them.
“Frost!” Blue Jay shouted.
They all looked up at the alarm in his voice and tracked the progress of the flying things above them. At first, Blue Jay thought the winged serpents were Jaculi, but these creatures were far larger than the one that had spied upon them near Twillig’s Gorge.
“Prepare yourselves,” Li snapped, opening his arms wide as though to embrace the sky, flickering fire running across his hands and arms all the way to the elbows. It churned in his grasp as though he might sculpt a sword of flame from the air. The patches of burning ember on his skin grew wider, spreading.
Grin took up position beside Li, awaiting an attack. Blue Jay had certainly not been expecting them to be able to enter the city without a fight, but he was tired of fighting, tired of death, tired of the twisted pleasure the Hunters took in their work.
He began to dance, the rhythm of his movements, the precise placement of his feet a gesture of respect to ancient traditions and ancient peoples. As he made his way down the slope, spinning and leaping in that dance, he felt the magic take hold, and the air blurred blue beneath his arms as his mystical wings formed. Whatever these new Hunters were, he would destroy them as quickly as possible, and then move on.
“They are not alone,” Cheval Bayard called, her silver hair gleaming in the day’s last light. Her eyes were narrow with grim resignation.
Dusk was almost upon them when Blue Jay looked to see what she was talking about. At the base of the hill, just at the outskirts of the city, three large figures slunk catlike along the ground. They raced toward Frost, and the winter man turned to face them.
They rose up on their hind legs twenty feet from where Frost stood. The creatures were jaguars: true jungle cats with black-spotted, golden-brown fur, with white muzzles. Yet they were not jaguars, really, for they stood on their hind legs. They were still built like cats-their faces had not altered and their tails still twitched behind them-but their forelegs were more like arms now, and their claws had lengthened.
“No!” Blue Jay cried.
He took flight, transforming into the bird in a blink. The winged serpents had begun to descend now and were also moving straight toward Frost. These Hunters were here for the winter man. Just as the Borderkind had come to slay Ty’Lis to disrupt their enemies, the Hunters had been sent to murder the leader of the Borderkind.
Li hurled a thin stream of fire into the air and it seared past the serpents. Grin and Cheval raced toward Frost. Blue Jay flew above them all, small wings propelling him forward. He sliced through the air and, just as he was about to reach Frost, prepared himself to change again. In his mind’s eye he could see it. Just before he touched ground, the mystical wings that his magic and his legend had given him would appear. He would dance.