hind its protective wall, a shimmer of buildings and towers amid
forest trees. In the mixed light of the city’s magic and the vol-
cano’s fire, Killeshan’s barren, ravaged slope was dotted with
islands of scrub and trees that had somehow escaped the initial
devastation and were now reduced to a slow suffocation from
the heat. Vog hung across the landscape in a ragged curtain, and
the monsters that hid within it passed through its ashen haze
like bore worms through earth.
A depression lay ahead, a continuation of the ravine they
had been following. The Owl had them hurrying toward it when
the demons attacked again. They flew at them from both sides
this time, materializing out of the gloom as if risen from the
earth. The Owl was knocked sprawling, and Wren went down
in a flurry of claws and teeth. Only Garth remained standing,
and there were demons all over him, clinging, tearing, trying to
bring him down. Wren kicked out violently and freed herself.
Faun had already disappeared, quick as a thought, back into the
night. Wren’s sword slashed blindly, cut into something, held
momentarily, then jerked free. She scrambled up and was borne
back again, hammered against the rock. She could feel gashes
open on the back of her head and neck. Pain brought tears to
her eyes. She rolled clear and came to her feet, demons circling
all about. Night and mist had swallowed up the Owl. Garth was
down, the demons atop him a writhing mass of black limbs. She
screamed and struggled to reach him, but crooked hands
clutched roughly at her and held her back.
The Elfstones seared her chest like fire.
Burdened by the weight of her attackers, she began to fall.
She knew instinctively that this time she would not be able to
get back up, that this was the end for all of them.
She could hear herself scream soundlessly somewhere deep
inside.
Reason fled before her need, and fear gave way to rage.
There were bodies all about her, claws and teeth ripping, and
fetid breath against her skin. Her fingers plunged into her tunic
and yanked the Stones free.
They flared to life instantly, an eruption of light and fire.
The leather bag disintegrated. The magic exploded through
cracks in the Rover girl’s fingers, too impatient and too willful
to wait for her hand to open. It swept the air like a scattering
of knives, cutting apart the black things, turning them to dust
almost before their screams died away. Wren was suddenly free
again. She stumbled to her feet, with the Elfstones stretched
forth now, the fire and the light racing from within her, joining
with the magic until there was no distinction. She threw back
her head as the power ripped through her-harsh, defiant, and
exhilarating. She was transformed, and her fears of what would
become of her in the wake of the magic’s use dissipated and
were lost. It made no difference who or what she had been or
how she had lived her life. The magic was everything. The
magic was all that mattered.
She turned its power on the mass of bodies atop Garth and
it hammered into them. In seconds, they disintegrated. Some
withstood the fury of the attack a few moments longer than the
others-those that were larger and more hardened-but in the
end they all died. Garth rose, bloodied, his clothes in tatters,
and his dark, bearded face ashen. What was he staring at? she
wondered vaguely. She marveled at the look on his face as she
used the power of the Stones to sweep the landscape clean.
The Owl reappeared out of the haze, and there was awe etched
on his leathery face as well. And fear. They were both so
afraid .
Suddenly she understood. She closed her fingers in shock,
and the magic was gone. The exhilaration and the fire left her,
draining away in an instant, and it was as if she had been stripped
naked and set out for everyone to see. Weariness flooded
through her. She felt ashamed. The magic had snared her, taken
her for its own, destroyed her resolution to withstand its lure,