107: BATTLEFIELD DANCE

(Kihrin’s story)

As soon as the others left, I turned myself invisible. It meant less than nothing versus wizards of a certain power level or the Eight Immortals themselves. But against animals, monsters, demons, and the Black Brotherhood? Invisibility was effective. I made much better time through the battlefield.

Well, sort of.

As I said, the Eight Immortals could still see me just fine. I assumed Thaena had given the others strict instructions against letting anyone—but me in particular—near her son. Fortunately, I had three gods watching my back. When Ompher would try to smash me with boulders, Khored would disintegrate them. When Galava tried to trip me with vines, Taja made sure I was always just a little too fast for the plants to catch. If the ground opened up under my feet, Tya paved it over with fields of rainbow energy.

In the distance, Grizzst fought demons and humans alike with a thin wand in his hand, summoning up magical beams to freeze and shatter. Across the battlefield, Tya created fountains of multicolored lights, sending out scintillating waves that evaporated enemies as they passed over them.

The other side wasn’t exactly letting themselves be pushed over, however. Ompher opened cracks in the earth, crashed them closed on people who fell inside. Galava moved the entire forest and every animal in it against us, and that wasn’t counting her control over bodies. And Argas—

Actually, I wasn’t sure where Argas was or whether that was a good thing.

Then I tripped on a tree branch and nearly went sprawling. I paused, staring blankly at the offending branch. It wasn’t an animated branch, mind you. It hadn’t been reaching for me. I’d just tripped. Call it clumsiness.

Or bad luck.

I fought down a terrible feeling of dread.

“Taja,” I whispered, but if she was in any position to answer, she didn’t.

The whole world seemed to hold its breath. I kept running. Whatever had happened—and something must have—it had distracted the gods.

Twice while climbing I almost fell, and I felt a sense of … vulnerability … to which I was unaccustomed. As if luck might not always turn in my favor. I pushed down my panic. I reached the plateau and climbed to the top.

I found Teraeth.

He looked dazed, his eyes expressionless. He held a dagger. Occult markings were engraved into the floor, but I knew they wouldn’t be the same as the Ritual of Night. This was something new, something Thaena had devised. She’d used something familiar: her own holy rites. I knew the Maevanos well enough to recognize Teraeth was almost finished.

When he plunged that dagger into his chest, the vané people would die.