He brushed some loose dirt over the fire as he whispered to Hesseth, “Where?”
She shook her head. He saw her straining forward with her long, tufted ears, as if trying to focus on some distant sound. He listened as hard as he could himself, but heard nothing amiss. Which didn’t mean anything, of course. His human senses were considerably less acute than hers.
At least the rustlings and chirrupings which surrounded them hadn’t ceased. That meant that no large animal was prowling nearby, which might have frightened the forest’s smaller inhabitants into a wary silence. Damien took his sword in hand and tightened his fingers about the grip. If the smaller animals weren’t scared, that meant that nothing large was nearby . . . or that whatever was on the prowl had no flesh of its own for them to sense. How long had it been since they’d encountered anything demonic? The faeborn of this region had chosen to cluster about the city gates, leaving them thus far in peace. But there would come a time when they were far enough from the cities that whatever creatures man’s fear spawned might look closer to home for sustenance . . .
He drew in a deep breath and Worked his sight. For a moment the gray mist resisted, refusing to give way. Then the currents began to glow about him, the cool silver-gray of the earth-power-
And he cursed. Loudly. Rising to his feet with his sword in hand, feeling his fingers spasm fearfully about the grip. Hesseth rose beside him, and before she could ask what he had Seen, he told her, “Something very dark. Very hungry. It’s coming this way.” The last time he had sensed a power like this had been in Tarrant’s Forest, where the man’s own murderous instincts had tainted the earth-fae. Here the threat was more specific, but every bit as unwholesome. And as terrifying.
Speaking of Tarrant, where was he when you needed him?
“There.” He pointed to the south, where it seemed to him that the current was changing. Dark threads floated in the low-lying mist, pulsing as if in time to some inner heartbeat. He could smell its dark pollution, not with his nose but with his inner senses, and the reek of stale blood and rotting flesh made him want to vomit. He fought the sensation, even as he gathered himself to Work. Knowing as he did so that all his skill and Hesseth’s combined couldn’t stop something that powerful, not if it was truly intent upon devouring them.
They burst from the forest’s cover as the last words of the Shielding passed his lips, and by the time the earth-fae surrounding him had thickened in response, the first one was upon them. It was a horrible thing, a mockery of human shape with half its skull caved in and one arm dangling by a thread of flesh. He caught a glimpse of cracked bone as the creature came toward them, the green of rot rimming its many wounds. Damien reached out and pulled Hesseth toward him as the monster charged; the smaller his circle of influence was, the stronger he could make it. He heard her hiss as the creature charged, felt her stiffen against his side as it was caught in midair as if in gel, as it struggled to get through the thickening boundary to claw at the two of them. Behind it rushed others—so many others!—an army of horror, a veritable battalion of death incarnate that howled in anguish and hunger as it poured through the clearing, filling every inch of space within the trees. The horses squealed in terror as the faeborn creatures filled the clearing, but the monsters had no interest in equine souls; the stink of rotting flesh enveloped Damien as creature after creature thrust itself against the priest’s defensive Working, shredded flesh and maggot-ridden limbs scrabbling over the shell of earth-fae like so many insects. The priest had seen more frightening things in his life, but never anything more horrible; it took all his self-control not to close his eyes to shut the vision out.
There must have been hundreds of the creatures. Thousands. The sea of them seemed endless as it pounded against his hastily Worked defenses, each blow requiring one more bit of strength from him to balance it. He felt himself tiring, and fast. Could Hesseth help? he wondered. Was the power she used available at this moment, and could she Work it into some defensive pattern? If she could, then she would have, he told himself grimly. Streaks of blackened blood hung suspended in midair inches before his face, defining the limits of his power. Where had these things come from? What did they usually feed on, that would support so many? His sword-arm tensed as the wall of fae seemed to give before him, gritty claws raking the air no more than an inch from his face—and then he forced it back and it held, the black blood smoked and the monsters screamed and the reek of it, the terrible reek of it that came near to overwhelming him utterly, the stink that filled his nose and his mouth and burned his lungs when he breathed it in, so that it was all he could do not to gag and lose his concentration utterly . . .
“Look,” Hesseth said hoarsely. “They’re going!”
He dared a glance behind him in the direction she indicated. The creatures were indeed leaving the field of battle, disappearing among the trees on the far side of the clearing as quickly as they had arrived. Caught in the current of exodus, the ones who surrounded Damien and Hesseth screamed as they were swept away. In moments they, too, were past the tree line and into the forest, leaving only their blood and a fragment or two of flesh as a witness to their feverish attack.
For a long minute Damien stood still, his heart pounding against his rib cage, Hesseth pressed against his side. The warm musk of her scent, familiar to him after months of travel, helped clear his head. After a moment he dared to breathe deeply, and loosened his hold on her shoulder. After another moment—a very long, very tense moment—he dared to let his Shielding disperse. Bits of flesh and flakes of blood fell to the ground as the fae which he had shaped resumed its natural course. All demonic stuff, of course; he probably would cease to see it as soon as he let his special vision fade. But for now he needed all his senses. No telling when the creatures might return. No telling when something worse might follow.
They weren’t after us, he thought numbly. Or anyone in particular. We just happened to be in their way. He thought of the soldierfish of the Lower Arterac, the army spiders of the Cameroon Delta. It didn’t matter to either of those species what stood in their way, provided it was edible and stood in one place long enough to be eaten. But both those species lived in rich ecospheres, where food existed in abundance. What would thousands of demonlings do for sustenance in the wilderness, where human abodes were few and far between?
And what brought them into existence in the first place? he wondered.
A shadow fell over their campsite as something passed overhead. He didn’t have to look up to know what it was. Tarrant circled several times before coming to earth, as if he were uncertain about trusting his flesh to transformation. Or perhaps he was just scouting for enemies.
As soon as he had landed and regained his human form, Damien told him, “We were attacked—”
“I saw,” Tarrant assured him.
He pictured the Hunter soaring comfortably overhead while the creatures attacked them and glared. “You could have helped.”
“It’s no easy thing to Work the fae while in a nonhuman form, Reverend Vryce. Nor is there much earth-power to manipulate at that height. But rest assured, if your own defense had failed, I would have attempted . . . something.”
“What did you see?” Hesseth asked.
Tarrant considered for a moment. What the rakh-woman had asked for was not a recap of the obvious, but his interpretation of what had gone on. “They were newborn,” he said at last. “Still riding on the force of their creation, not yet accustomed to feeding off humankind. One night old, I would guess. If not younger than that.”