And then, just as Damien managed to get his hands free, the children stopped. Not all at once, but in a wave, as if each took the cue from his neighbor. Within a minute the screaming circle was silent, and all eyes were fixed on the child in its center.
It was a girl. Screaming. She must have just had her hands on the statue, for even now they gripped the edge of its base. “No!” she screamed. “Not me! Not me!” A strange rippling seemed to course though her flesh, something Damien felt more than saw; her outline became fuzzy, difficult to focus upon. “Not me!” she begged, as she tumbled to a heap amidst the scattered offerings. “Please, no!”
She was beginning to change. It was hard to make out the details as she thrashed about in her terror, but Damien thought that her body was growing longer. Bending. The spine hunched up behind her shoulder blades, and twisted in its lower portion so that her hips were wildly canted. Her arms and legs grew longer and then thinned, the flesh drawing tight about her bones until she looked like a living skeleton. Her eyes had sunk deep into her skull, and the screaming mouth was no more than a gash in a creased-parchment face, her white skin mottled by brown spots that ranged from the size of freckles to the livid swell of a fertile tumor just beneath her jaw. Another tumor just beneath it had broken open, and dark fluid glistened in its surface.
And then the children moved. Yelling and screaming they fell upon her, their weapons raised. He could no longer hear her cries at all, nor see her, but as the weapons were thrust downward one after the other he could imagine her pain. Her terror. For a moment he was frozen, as the full horror of the situation struck him like a blow to the face; then, more desperate than ever, he slipped himself free of the restraining rope. Spear after spear was thrust down into that trembling, magicked flesh as he freed himself from the noose about his neck; he tried not to think about her, but it was impossible. What had Calesta done? Aged her? His brain felt numb as he ran to where Hesseth stood, and slipped the noose up over her head. Too much horror. Too many questions. He had to get them both free before the children turned on them. He had seen killing frenzies before, knew just how dangerous such a mob could be. Even children, he thought, as he worked loose the knots that bound her hands. No; especially children.
Then at last they were both free to move, and just in time. The tallest of the children had broken free of the group, and as he scanned his tribe his eyes fell upon the visitors. A shout brought several of the other children around, though most were far too involved with their grisly slaughter to acknowledge any stimulus outside their own circle. The gray fog drew in close, like a cocoon, as face after bloody face turned toward Damien and Hesseth. Spears were lowered; knives were flourished. For a split second Damien wondered if it might not be better to stay and fight than to run—which was their only other option as he saw it—but he never had time to make a decision. Even as the children began to move, a cold wind swept down on them. The mist itself seemed to darken over their heads, like a stormcloud about to deluge the earth with rain. Bloodthirsty children looked up from their kill, small eyes wide with fear, faces streaked with blood.
And then it came. Not a fae-wraith, though at first it seemed to be. Broad white wings beat back the mist, fanning it into fevered twisters about the border of the clearing. Diamondine claws reached for the statue’s shoulder, then shut closed about it; obsidian crumbled like ash at the contact. It was an immense creature, and though it wore a bird’s form it was clearly much more than a bird. Its white feathers smoked as it sat on the statue, their tips turning black and then crumbling to ash as it fanned the gray mist with its wings. At times Damien thought he could see the faint spark of golden flames between the snow-white layers.
And maybe that was what gave it away. Maybe it was the image of burning, so deeply rooted in his memory, that awakened him to who and what the great bird was.
“Tarrant,” he whispered. Gazing at him in awe. He couldn’t even imagine what kind of courage it must take for the Hunter to leave his shelter while the sun was still high in the sky. The mist might help, but it was only temporary; a few gusts of wind, from the right direction and the Neocount would be totally exposed.
As if in answer to his thoughts the great bird screeched out its challenge, and more of Calesta’s statue crumbled beneath his grip. Coldfire began to pour down the black surface, spurts of unflame that fell from its shoulders like tears. The children began to draw back, and Damien could just make out the form of their prey on the ground. A shapeless mass of flesh, now, with half a dozen spears embedded in it. The coldfire reached the corpse, sizzling as it consumed both flesh and blood. A few of the children started to move away. One of them turned to run. Damien himself took a step back, and saw that Hesseth moved with him. Whatever power Tarrant was conjuring here, it was nothing he wanted to mess with.
And then the silver-blue power shot out like a tongue of flame, licking at the face of one of the children. Whatever scream the girl might have voiced was frozen in her throat as she went down, and she died in eerie silence. The unflames licked at another, then another, and bodies began to fall about the circle. Some children screamed. Some turned to run. Damien wanted to turn his eyes and look away, but his conscience wouldn’t permit him to do it. You brought this man here, he told himself harshly. Forcing himself to watch. Never forget what he is. Never forget what he can and will do. As all about them children screamed, children ran, children tripped over piles of bodies and struggled for balance as the silver-blue flames licked out at them, consuming the very heat of their lives in an instant. All about lay the dead, the fallen, their lips a cold blue, their eyes frozen and empty.
Then the last of the living children had fled, and the circle was lifeless. With a vast stroke of its wings the great bird came down to land. No sooner had it touched down than the coldfire flared up and consumed it, but the power was far from pure; looking closely, Damien could see the sparkle of golden flames—true fire—polluting its substance. Damn. That must hurt. When the Hunter was human once more, he quickly drew a fold of his cloak over his head like a hood, but not before Damien caught a glimpse of what the filtered sunlight had done to him.
“You know where the horses are?” Tarrant demanded. Scanning the clearing as he approached them. Studying the dead.
It was Hesseth who answered him. “No.”
He was still for a moment, then he pointed. The finger that poked out from under the cloak was sun-reddened and peeling; it seemed to Damien that its condition worsened even as the motion was completed. “That way. Get them and then keep going, to the end of the island. I’ll meet you there.”
Then it seemed from his posture that his eyes fell on something behind them. Damien whirled about, only to find that the girl from their prison was still with them. Too frozen with fear to move, she was cowering behind the inadequate shelter of a tree trunk, her dark eyes wide with terror. Even without Working the fae Damien could sense her slipping under, giving way at last to a barrage of fear too terrible for a mere child to resist.
It was Hesseth who moved first, covering the ground between them even as Tarrant began to react. “No!” she cried. She pulled the child to her and wrapped her arms about her. “Not this one! Not like that.”