56

The Kiss of Hell-Fire

I’m not sure if I’m looking at men or monsters. Through the cloak of darkness and the trees, I catch glimpses of jagged teeth that look almost like a lion’s or a crocodile’s, designed to rend flesh from bone. Flashing yellow eyes. Fur-covered bodies but with tattooed skin around their faces and limbs. And the stench that rises from the ground makes me gag.

They hit the village at a dead sprint and hardly pause before bolting up the trees. The thump of feet pounding up the winding stairs is the only sound in my ears now. Movement below catches my attention. The soldiers I was expecting, white armor gleaming and winking at me through the woods like stars through clouds, march forward to line up in the trees. Archers nock their bows and let arrows fly over the heads of the throng of brutes coming at us from below.

I grab Tziah’s arm. “We need to hide.”

Again with the shaking of her head. She’s watching the stairs fiercely, but I don’t understand. Horror wants to drive me higher or into one of the rooms, but I can’t leave her.

“Tziah.” I’m yanking on her arm now.

She swats me away, then, still crouched, makes her way to the trunk, never once taking her gaze from the stairs. The sound of harsh breathing over the cadence of feet running up the stairs tells me how close they are, and terror steals any sound I might make.

Then a surprised shout comes from just around the bend, and one of the attackers on the ground sort of catapults into the air to slam against a nearby tree, then drop to a broken heap on the ground. Only by chance do I see the shadow slipping away.

Reven.

He’s out there alone.

Another man gets plucked off a nearby tree with a yelp, crashing through the branches. But there are too many for him to keep up with, and his control is weaker—thanks to me or them, it doesn’t matter.

They’re nearly on top of me and Tziah now, the putrid scent of them rising all around us, soiling the air. Goddess, they’re so close, running up this tree at us. Up all the trees. I pull my power forward, getting ready to defend us the only way I know how.

The first sighting of skin and fur rounds the bend right behind a ripping snarl, and I realize with a start that this is a man, not a beast. Human eyes, human torsos and hands. All the animal parts are a disguise to create fear.

It works.

In the same instant, Tziah leaps up and pulls what appears to be a lever built into the trunk of the tree itself. Hidden there.

That or I really need to pay better attention.

The second she yanks it down, a thunderous crash drowns out the barbarians. At the crack of a branch splitting, the man I can see jerks around and yells as a massive log, suspended by a series of ropes, swings directly at him so fast he can’t move. It smashes into the tree, pulverizing him and maybe one or two others and crushing an entire section of the staircase, cutting off access for anyone else trying to reach us.

The tree really does rock this time, and I white-knuckle the bark of the trunk, terrified that either this ancient sentinel is going to topple, taking us with it, or the platform we’re on will crumble from the violence of the strike.

I was right to be terrified of heights. It’s clearly how I’m going to die.

A series of similar crashes tells me other trees are losing their stairs, too. Then I look down and gasp.

Reven.

He materializes out of shadow to grab a boy who can’t be much older than thirteen—he must’ve gotten knocked out of his tree and survived the fall. Reven tosses him up onto the thatched roof of our meeting building. I jolt forward, hand outstretched and a cry surging up my throat as our attackers descend on Reven like a pack of feral raigus, the desert dogs whose bite the Wanderers believe traps a soul in the realm of the living. Tziah grabs my hand, and I lose sight of him as she drags me higher.

“What are those things?” I yell.

But she can’t answer and we’re both too busy climbing. A glance over my shoulder has me jerking us both to a stop.

Because the lights I see scattered through the forest floor are new. And they aren’t lanterns. “Look.” I point.

Horror can be slow to dawn and then come on in a rush. Which is what happens as a hundred little flames ignite in the night.

“Fire.” I breathe the word. They’re going to burn us out, and now we have no way to get down without a drop of at least thirty feet.

“Nock!” multiple voices shout below.

No, no, no.

“Draw!” comes the next order. The flickers of flame raise in a unified line.

Goddesses hear me. Don’t let us die here.

“Loose!”

A hundred flaming arrows release and sail through the air, higher this time.

Tziah and I duck as the swarm hits overhead with popping thuds followed by the instant spark of flame as the canopy catches and ignites. Cries and shouts of alarm and panic from the Vanished join the distinctive crackle of an inferno catching.

“How do we get down?” I ask, searching frantically around us for some way I might have missed.

To my left, a swell of water appears, rising like the glass walls of Aryd, well above the canopy. It douses one of the trees before receding, leaving the forest dripping.

Cain.

Another wave doesn’t come, though. He only managed to put out the fire on one side of the village, the side farthest away from where I am, and the burning bearing down on me from above is growing more intense.

Sand. Sand smothers fire.

I should have thought of this from my days in the desert. Hands aglow, a smidge brighter than a moment ago, I raise them to the smoke-smothered sky, directing the sand I’d gathered below to shoot up and then drop over us. Except it’s not the eruption I was hoping for. All I get are a few grains in my eyes, and the flames directly above me hiss like they are laughing at my feeble attempt.

Hells.

I’ve made giant glass spears that took down boats. I’ve moved heavy metal cages. And yet, I can’t even make it rain sand.

My failure drapes over me like a weighted train, dragging me down. Still struggling with my disappointment in myself, I allow Tziah to yank me upward—closer to the fire, I’d like to point out.

The screaming from the Vanished gets worse, growing in panic and hopelessness, suffocating terror filling the air until it rings in my ears and makes it hard to breathe. The smoke doesn’t help.

The horrible sound swells and rises—a heartrending noise I’m sure I’ll hear in my nightmares for years if I survive this.

Damn Eidolon. Damn him. Damn his army. Damn everything about this.

In that instant, I choose to die fighting.

We get to the second balcony, higher up, and Tziah skirts the girth of the tree to the other side. From around a smaller limb, she unwinds a thick rope with a loop at the bottom. When she shows me how to step a foot into the loop and hold on, then points, understanding sinks in along with a wave of nausea.

This is, apparently, the way down. “Um… You first.”

She shakes her head and points at me.

But no way am I leaving her. Vos would kill me if something happened to her. I haven’t known him long, but I know that much. Besides, I’m not sure I could handle it if one more person died because of me.

The blaze is bearing down on us now, the flames seeming to lunge and skulk across the treetops and down the trunk in our direction.

“Together,” I say.

After a small hesitation, during which I’m guessing she’s calculating our combined weight, she nods. In seconds, I find my foot in the loop beside hers, my hands on the rope clinging for dear life. Before I can balk, she pushes us away from the platform and we’re dropping.

Forget leaping into my throat—my heart shrinks and shrivels as the trunk speeds by too fast. We’re dropping through thick smoke below that teems with those terrifying half-beast, half-man fighters the Tyndrans have brought down on our peaceful, quiet sanctuary.

I take it back. Falling to a quick, sharp death might be better.

Through tumult, I see others dropping from the trees to escape the fires. They are going to need help. Reven, Cain, Vos, Horus, Bina, and the children…they’re all out there. The only way out of this is to fight.

I free up a hand to slip one knife out of my bodice and hand it to Tziah, who I think takes it because she’s too surprised not to. Then I pull out the knife strapped to my leg.

“Aim for one and slit his throat,” I say.

Rather than wait for the rope system to lower me into the fray, where they can see me coming, I pick one out as he sprints in our direction.

Ten feet up, I jump.

The impact with him knocks the breath from my body, but I manage to get in several sharp stabs. He’s limp by the time I hit the ground.

Cain would be proud. Reven would probably be impressed, given what he’s seen of my skills so far.

I struggle to my feet and come up looking for Tziah, but all I see are bodies and fighting and blood spray. The unmistakable metallic scent of death lines the stench of body odor and smoke as the fires rage above us, decimating this ancient forest and the homes of the Shadowood.

“A portal.” Reven’s voice sounds in my ear, but as I whip around to find him, he’s nowhere to be seen.

“I can’t. You know I can’t.” But I’m talking to air.

A barbarian runs right at me, and I’m ready with my knife, but a long arm of shadow slices right through him, and two halves of a man fall dead at my feet.

Holy hells. Reven can do that? I have no idea if I’m terrified or turned on. In the middle of this chaos is not the place to be either.

“Now.”

I get the message. Our only hope is for me to do the impossible.