Chapter 23 Rykr #2
A prickle of warning swept down my spine. Our horses suddenly balked, whinnying and rearing—trying to turn back.
I leaped from the saddle as my horse bucked, narrowly missing a kick from Tara’s mount.
Shouts rang through the group as the remaining riders fought to regain control. Those still in the saddle wheeled their horses around, bolting back the way we’d come. The rest of us—Amahle, Tara, Seth, and a Vangar man and woman I didn’t know—had all been thrown or forced to jump.
Each of us scrambled from the forest floor, covered in leaves and dirt as we took stock of who remained.
Not a single bird chirped above us.
A different sort of fear slithered through me. A dark premonition brought about by an eerie, unnatural silence.
“Something’s not right,” I said, squinting toward the encampment, still too distant to see clearly.
No movement.
Amahle met my gaze. “I smell something rotten.”
Fuck. What in Nyxva had happened here?
To his credit, rather than hesitating in the trees, Seth kept moving. He motioned to Tara. “Follow me.”
“I need a sword, Seth.” I followed him.
Seth gave me a wary look, then continued forward without offering one of the extra swords strapped to his back.
We followed Tara and Seth closer to the encampment, but no one emerged. A low rumble of thunder sounded, and the wind stirred, carrying with it the unmistakable stench of decay.
My stomach soured. Behind me, the Vangar man gagged. “What is that?” he asked.
“Death,” Seth answered flatly. He exchanged yet another glance with me.
Did he somehow think I had something to do with this?
Movement up ahead drew us to a halt.
A herd of bulls blocked the path to the encampment, their heads low to the ground, as though grazing. But not a single blade of grass grew in the forest there, the ground was rock and dust and leaves.
“What the fuck?” Tara asked. Her eyes narrowed as she peered closer at the bulls.
They weren’t chewing on grass, but bone.
“Those aren’t bulls.” The foul scent was stronger now. More familiar. I’d smelled it the other night, when Seren and I had been attacked.
One of them lifted its head.
Cold, dead eyes—human ones—stared at us. Flesh, rotting, hung from the skulls visible below their faces.
“Skinwraiths,” I said in a low voice.
The rest of the herd lifted their heads in unison.
“Skinwraiths?” Amahle asked, incredulous.
“They’ve shapeshifted,” Seth said, readying his sword.
“What the fuck?” The color drained from Tara’s face. She exchanged a look with me. “My gods. All our best soldiers are still back at the training field …”
Oh gods. She probably thinks I did this, too.
The bulls stood on their hind legs, shifting back into human form. Then, with bloodcurdling shrieks, they hurtled through the forest, sprinting straight toward us.
My horror grew as some of them veered toward the trees, scrambling up the trunks like spiders, moving unnaturally fast.
“We can’t stay here,” I yelled. “There are too many of them.”
We’d be overrun within seconds.
Fuck. One skinwraith had been enough of a challenge. But fifty or more?
We were dead.
I grabbed Tara by the back of her vest, then hurled her back. Seren would never forgive me if I let anything happen to her sister, no matter how brave she was. “Run,” I roared. “Get me a fucking sword, Seth!”
This time Seth didn’t hesitate. He yanked one free of its sheath, then tossed it toward me.
The Vangar man was the first to fall, the skinwraith dealing a savage bite to the back of his neck, then lifting the man’s body and crushing it against a tree. A swarm of others crowded the body.
“They’re going to kill every last one of us,” Tara growled, then stormed headfirst toward them.
Amahle released a battle cry and followed her, sword in hand.
Seth and I remained behind them, but the skinwraiths had already reached Seth, who plunged his sword into one of their chests.
The man might be my enemy, but right now we had to be allies. One more living soldier against the dead.
“Decapitate them,” I shouted, slicing the head clean off a skinwraith. The body exploded into that black mist I’d seen before. “It’s the only way to stop them.”
Seth didn’t question me, his sword cleaving off the head of the skinwraith he’d stabbed. No black mist followed, but the skinwraith’s body fell and stayed on the ground.
Amahle and Tara struggled though, trying and failing to protect the other Vangar woman as the skinwraiths grabbed her.
“We have to help them,” Seth called to me.
A blur of screeches and black mist, rotten body parts, snarling teeth and the clash of steel overtook every thought as Seth and I fought our way back toward Tara and Amahle, trying to reach them before they were fully surrounded.
“Don’t let them get between us,” I yelled at Amahle and Tara, who fought back to back. Maybe a Vangar technique, but most definitely a Pendaran one. Brogan Ragnall had trained his daughter well.
Sweat dripped into my eyes as Seth and I closed the distance. Four of us, versus the remaining skinwraiths.
A sudden scream cut through the forest. Behind us, where we’d come from, a small group of Vangar emerged—but these weren’t warriors. They were younger. Candidates.
The skinwraiths lifted their heads, their dead eyes locking on the weaker prey.
Not a chance they’d make it out alive.
We needed something more than our combined skills and strength.
Divine intervention. Magic. A protection spell.
If my gifts hadn’t been Sealed, I might have done something. Even the damned vuk’s powers from Seren’s oath wouldn’t be enough to help.
… but the vuk wasn’t the only one to give me power.
A mad kernel of an idea formed in my mind.
Seren had gifts—latent ones that Lucia had hinted more than once hadn’t been fully trained—and I had access to her through our bond. I knew how to open and close the pathway that allowed us to communicate now … but what about one of those other paths I’d visualized in that space we shared?
If I could find the one that held some of her innate abilities, I might channel them. Lucia had suggested it was possible when she’d trained me the last few days. Hell, before realizing the vuk’s blood had influenced the oath, she’d believed all my new gifts came from Seren.
But I needed to concentrate.
“Cover me,” I yelled at Seth.
Then I dropped low, couching between his and Tara’s legs.
Clammy, dead fingers reached for me, clawing at my face.
I ignored the scrapes of their broken, jagged fingernails raking against my cheek and forehead.
Concentrate.
My mind traveled to that shared space of our bond, the screams and hisses and stench fading away.
A twilit glade unfolds around me, the trees shadowed shapes, a liminal space devoid of color and light. Seren is here, the warmth of her, her every thought, humming through transparent leaves on grey branches.
I step forward. The ground beneath my feet shifts, sensing my intrusion, pushing me back. A crack forms in the earth.
I kneel, pressing my fingertips to the fissure. A pulse, below my fingertips.
“Seren, they’re going to die. I need your ice wielding, there’s no time to explain. Show me where to find it.”
“Rykr! We need you!” Tara’s cry shattered the quiet.
Another crack spread, the fissure widening like a stream. Shimmering strands, white and blue light rather than water, filter through my fingertips. Strands of power. Threads of fate.
Will there be consequences if I take from her like this?
“Fuck!” Seth yelled.
Waiting, questioning the consequences will kill us. And my death will mean hers, too.
I dive into the stream.