Kent stalked the perimeter and then grabbed the hilt of a sword. It too was crusted, and the blade had been snapped in the middle. “It’s rusted,” he said. “Flakes of it. I have never seen a battlefield like this before. How many do you think there were?”
Captain Rawlt kicked part of the wreckage and muttered something under his breath before he spoke up. “. . . and easily five thousand dead. See how they are mounded up near the waymarker? Probably even more dead over there. This place . . . by the Blood, you can still feel it.” He had his sword out and ready, yet rubbed his arm as if chilled. “Almost like . . . you can hear them still screaming.” He looked intensely at Maia. “Study the waymarker, Lady. Hurry now. Find out where the next one is if you can. I do not like the look. Where is the sun? This mist has not left since morning.”
Maia stared at the chasm made up of the dead. The past days she had pretended to decipher the carved sigils on the stones to give her an excuse to touch them. The whispers had always come, coaxing her in the direction they should go next. This time, she could hear voices in her mind even before nearing the waymarker. No one had survived the battle that had happened here hundreds of years ago. Not one man had been left to bury the dead or claim their blades or armor. The tunics had all dissolved, revealing nothing about the loyalties of the combatants.
“Go on, Lady! We cannot dwell here long. It . . . it feels not right being here.”
Maia bit her lip and stepped onto the field of carnage. The footing was treacherous. It took all her concentration to keep from stumbling upon the hordes of dead. Verrick wandered the perimeter and returned with several weapons. The hilts had corroded, but the blades had been trapped inside the scabbards and were still good.
“Look at these, Captain,” Verrick said. “Still got an edge to them. I’ve never seen this kind of forge pattern, though. Ripples. Is not that strange?”
Maia listened to his voice as she crossed the remaining steps to the waymarker. Like the others, its face was nearly worn away. As she reached out to touch it, something heavy in the woods made the trees shudder and drew their attention. Limbs snapped and crashed, and a heavy cough and snuffling sound boomed in the stillness. Maia froze, staring at the spot behind them. Her eyes widened with fear. She noticed mist descending from the branches above.
“Captain! Over there!”
A blur of gray hide and claws smashed through the woods, bigger around than an oak tree and taller than two horses. One of the beast’s paws slammed into Kent, sending him sailing into a tree with a sickening sound. The thing let out a roar before snatching up the man’s body with hooked claws and disappearing back into the woodlands. The mist continued to thicken around them, blurring their vision and closing in like crushing walls.
Rawlt sounded desperate. “Verrick! Take that flank! Hsop! You go that way. I got the middle. Adler? Where are you, man? Adler!” The soldier was nowhere to be seen. “Kishion! Get over there. You go around behind it if you can. A Fear Liath, I think. I want everyone—”
The instructions were useless. The thing bounded from the woods and fog again without even a growl and came up on Rawlt like a charging bull. Maia screamed as the captain took a blow to the chest that flung him halfway across the field of the dead. The kishion was like a blur himself, two knives in his hands as he slipped up to the creature and stabbed beneath its hairy limbs. Hsop struck at its flank, hacking at it with his sword to no effect. An angry bark came from the beast, and it rounded on Hsop and trampled him. Maia thought she would faint at the sounds it made doing so. Rawlt struggled to his feet, his face full of blood, and tried to find his fallen sword. The stench of the creature filled the air. Maia’s mind went blank with sheer terror.
“Kill it! Get it off Hsop!” Verrick shouted, stabbing at its other flank. The creature was incredibly strong and cunning. It took the sword thrusts and barked, whipping its huge limbs around and staggering them. Nothing seemed to injure it. As if suffering a mere annoyance, the beast grabbed Verrick and bit down on his side with huge yellow teeth. The kishion stabbed at it again and again before he was struck by a whipping paw and tossed to the earth.
Maia knew the battle would only last for a few more seconds before they were all dead and it came for her. The kystrel needed little more than that thought to act on its own. The magic of the Medium surged up within her, bringing her to her feet. It struck the beast with a blast of fear and made the wind howl through the trees, driving away the mist. Shafts of sunlight slanted into the grove, exposing the creature’s pale gray fur. Thunder crackled overhead as Maia unleashed the kystrel’s power again. The pendant could not resist her thoughts . . . and her fear . . . as she focused them on the hulking monster. Four short barks came out of its gnarled snout and it fled back into the thick woodlands.