Whatever Stranger had been planning to do to aid him never happened. A huge white wolf big as a horse sprang from the gloom with its mane flaring. It charged her, teeth bared, a growl in its throat.
‘Hoo boy,’ Loup muttered, ‘still dancing, these two. Far Gaze, that’s the wolf. Now what’s she? Fox, rabbit, or a bigger wolf yet?’
Stranger didn’t seem to see the wolf, even as it sprang for her. Then came a flash of green motion and she was gone, the wolf’s jaws closing on nothing, the clack of its clashing teeth loud even from the porch. It circled back around ominously, its size making it seem slow despite the ground it covered with paws thumping hard on the turf. It leaped at some further point, seeing something the rest of them couldn’t, jaws snapping on air. Then again it leaped and bit, and again. Stranger, hidden, kept evading it. She did not seem to fight back. The pillar of light, pouring like a fountain from the ground, remained where she had stood.
Sharfy unsheathed his knives and stepped uncertainly into the yard as the Invia carefully took positions around Anfen. They circled well above his head, cautious of one so Marked, though he seemed just a normal man, easily enough dispatched with one swift fist. One sister had mistaken him for such already and flown back wounded; he had cunning tricks, this one. This kill would be as certain as any ever made. They would take great care.
Anfen stood poised beneath them, army-issue sword angled backwards. There was suddenly something unlocked and liberated about him; his movements were smooth and easy, more than just resigned to his fate; rather, relishing it. The beating wings ruffled his hair. Suddenly he dropped his sword to the ground, laughed, and fell to his knees, offering his throat.
One of the Invia experimentally swept down, just a blur of white speed. She came up higher than the others, fearing some counterattack, but the man lay flat on his back, dazed. The others waited; to feign death was an old trick in the wild. Into what trap was he luring them? Dropping the sword had thrown them into slight confusion, and a series of quick whistles exchanged between them too high-pitched for the humans to hear — that was a strange move! Sophisticated, this warrior. A shame about the Marks, for he was worth a long life. Oh well.
Another of them swept down then back, feinting to strike.
Boom. Boom. Eric’s gun fired twice. The noise of it was shocking and, in the background, Faul’s snoring ceased at last.
The Invia ignored the foreign sounds, assuming it to be something done by the duelling mages. The shots had missed. Eric seemed to be watching from above: someone who looked just like him ran down the steps, out into the yard, fired again three times. One of the Invia screamed and fell writhing to the ground, the tallest and thinnest, with flowing cobalt black hair. The others scattered, flying higher, the deadly trap they’d feared now revealed.
Eric shot as the one with scarlet hair dived at him. A puff of feathers blew and a column of light beamed in the dark night through the hole in her wing. He hit her body with another shot. She screamed loud and spun in the air. Click went the empty chamber of the gun. But they fled. It looked like they were divers plunging towards an ocean of dark sky, filling it with their cries, inhuman and beautifully mournful. Blood pattered down from the wounded one and landed like raindrops in the dust.
The pillar of light from Stranger’s spell had slowly withered to a trickle, writhing like a thin snake. Anfen rolled to his feet, picked up his sword. The Invia staggered up also, blood beginning to thread down its torso, one wing stretched rigid, the other limp and flopping. She cried out in confusion, trying to understand how and why she was hurt. She made a clumsy lunge at Anfen. He swung his sword at her, the blade flashing fast but missing as the Invia fell, sprawling, away from him. She lay shuddering. ‘It’s too late, Eric,’ Anfen said. His voice was incredibly tired, as though he’d have preferred the rest of death. ‘You’re Marked. You hurt her on the day of her death. Doesn’t matter which of us makes the last blow.’
The Invia darted forwards, summoning some last reserve of that incredible speed, a fizz of motion. Anfen’s eye hadn’t left her. He swirled on his feet like a matador, spinning, wrists cocked, the blade angled behind him and held still. The Invia nearly decapitated herself on his sword, then fell, a burst of light pouring from the fatal wound, a shriek in her death that, despite her cut throat, spread as far through Levaal as there were ears to hear it.
For what seemed a long time, everything was still and calm. The light from Stranger’s spell had faded to a flickering ghostliness and kept dimming, the twisting shape of it no longer distinct. The huge white wolf, Far Gaze, had run back the way he had come, every so often leaping high, jaws snapping at what seemed just air. Stranger, still hidden, fled from him. The wolf chased her until he had bounded from their sight and into the trees. Neither of the mages returned.
Siel got back to her feet and gazed at Case with her teeth bared. Sharfy had seen that look in her eye once before and remembered what her curved knife had done to the last poor bastard on the other end of it. He ran back up the steps and stood between her and the old man.
Case did not know his peril; his eyes were on the yard, where he’d seen something slip from Anfen’s pocket. The charm lay in the dirt, and he carefully marked the place, his heart pounding as he watched Anfen to see if he’d remember it.
Eric crouched by the Invia’s corpse. He felt sick and numb, his mouth so dry he could hardly peel his lips apart. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, not to himself, not to Anfen.
Anfen’s slanted eyes caught and held his. ‘I know what you’re feeling. But it wasn’t murder. They aren’t as human as they seem.’
Eric swallowed. ‘They don’t seem human at all. They seem better than us.’
Anfen put a hand on his shoulder. ‘This is our world, not theirs any more. The Dragon cleared this world of the dragon-youth, of which this is a servant, so that we could dwell here. Remember that.’ Anfen stood. ‘We’re all birds in a cage anyway. We must talk later. You are now Marked. You should learn what that means. And I must know all you can tell of that weapon you used. I wish you’d told me of it earlier.’
Later, when Eric would look back on this moment, on Anfen’s words and the look in his eye when he spoke, he would think: I know why you didn’t say thank you. I’m pretty sure you seemed happier when you were walking out to die, dropping your sword, offering your throat. Like you’d been waiting for that moment a long time. Like it’s why you chose to camp on the hilltop, knowing the Invia would see you, and come for you …
Right now, with the Invia’s corpse beneath him, and the sound of her death wail still ringing in his ears, such desolation was a feeling Eric could understand too well. Anfen headed wearily back towards the house.
Suddenly in the doorway stood Faul, and she surveyed the sights of the yard in the fading light of Stranger’s spell. Her huge face was suddenly ferocious with rage. She stared at the Invia’s corpse. ‘WHO?’ she boomed. ‘WHO SLEW THIS ON MY LAND?’
Its blood still dripped from Anfen’s blade. His pained smile said it alclass="underline" And now this …
Faul moved with speed impossible for something her size. All those on the porch were picked up and hurled towards the yard, the last of them airborne before the first had landed. Case luckily (unless Faul had intended it) landed on Sharfy, not the bare rocky turf. Only Lalie remained, squirming in fear on the end of her rope. Faul loomed over her.