Kanthe followed, but he stumbled when an earsplitting chorus of savage cries erupted behind him. He ducked from the onslaught, cringing against its sharpness. He swore he could see the very air shiver with their fury.
He glanced over a shoulder to see the black wave crash atop the school. It shattered into a thousand wings. Into that dark chorus, new voices joined. Hundreds of screams full of blood and pain. Horns blared from out of the darkness, sounding bright but feeble against the horde’s assault. Nearer at hand, a pack of panicked townspeople surged toward the swamps.
“Kanthe!” Frell hollered, drawing back his attention. The alchymist struggled to push the flat-bottomed boat into the water.
Kanthe raced over and joined Frell. Together they shoved the punt off the strip of rock and into the water. As it floated away, they waded over to it and clambered aboard.
Panting hard, Kanthe dropped to the seat. He fumbled with the oars, while Frell found a long pole and pushed them farther from shore. With his back to the swamp, Kanthe rowed away from Brayk. He watched others along the beach seeking the same escape. People scrambled and spread, going for anything that might float. Some even simply took to the water, braving what might be lurking under the black mirror of the swamp. But he understood that decision: better the unknown below than the certainty above.
The point was made all too clear when a huge dark shape—twice the size of a horse—swept low over the panic. It dipped down. Claws snatched a man running toward a raft and plucked him high. The bat bunched around its captured prey, spinning and somersaulting through the air—then wings snapped wide, and it shot upward, raining blood, meat, and broken bones over those below.
Sard me …
Kanthe rowed harder. Frell abandoned his pole and dropped low. They crossed gazes, both their faces aghast. Past the alchymist’s shoulders, Kanthe watched the black, battering mass atop the school start to flow down its flanks. More winged shadows swept the beach.
At least we made it—
The punt burst upward with a loud splintering of wood as something struck them from below. They were tossed high into the air. Kanthe managed to keep hold of one oar. Frell tumbled the other direction. They both splashed heavily into the dark waters. The small boat crashed into a nearby tree and broke in half.
Kanthe sputtered up, coughing, his heart hammering hard—then lunged to the side as a large scaly back hunched out of the water, flaring a spiny fin, then vanished away. The beast ignored him and hurried toward the shelter of the deep swamp. Apparently, more than the townspeople were trying to escape the attack.
Frell kicked over to him, fighting his waterlogged robe. His friend’s face was a question easy to read. What now?
Kanthe spun to the shoreline again. He pointed down its bank, toward a set of bonfires clustered and smoking amidst a few planted banners bearing his family’s sigil. A knot of knights gathered in the center with pikes and raised swords. So far, the heat and steel seemed to be keeping the bats at bay. More of the king’s legion would likely rally there, too.
Though reluctant to return to his father’s men, Kanthe considered the situation and decided to take heed of an old adage.
Any port in a storm.
He began to swim in that direction. Still, he gazed one last time toward the deep swamp, wondering about the fate of the others and sending them a silent prayer.
I hope you’re all faring better than us.
23
NYX COWERED IN the rear of the sledge with Jace. She had her palms clamped to her ears. She winced as her head rang with the cries of the assault. She swore she could taste blood on her tongue. As she sat, guilt drove her knees close to her chest, as if her bones could shield her from what was happening back at the town.
Jace kept at her side, an arm around her. Both of them had their backs to the drover’s bench, where Bastan manned the reins next to her father. Gramblebuck’s long legs waded slowly through the water, drawing the floating sledge behind him. The craft’s bottom also had a pair of smooth ironwood runners for dragging the sledge through reed-choked shallows or across grassy hummocks. But this route from the marsh dock had been dredged of chokeweed, so the nearly empty sledge drafted easily behind the tired beast. They were traversing along the edge of the thousand yokes that made up their farm, heading toward the rearmost paddock to pick up her brother Ablen. From there, they would head even deeper, to the black expanse of Fellfire Scour and the homestead’s winter barn.
As the sledge was dragged deeper into the swamp, Nyx searched for what was happening back at the town and school. But the gnarled boles of trees and mossy branches blocked any view. All that reached her was the savage keening and distant screams. From the furious rage on the wind, she and the others knew the alchymist and the prince had failed to stop the dead bat from being burned.
She panted, trying to cast out her fear and shame.
This is all because of me.
Jace tightened his arm around her, as if sensing her distress, but it was not that. His face turned to the shadowy canopy overhead. It was dappled in lighter shades of emerald where the leaves thinned.
“It’s returned,” he said near her ear.
She followed his gaze and spotted a darker shape as it winged over the sledge. Her little brother fluttered, then circled back again. He did it over and over again, growing clearly more agitated, as if trying to signal her. He finally swept lower to reveal himself fully. His wingspan was the length of her arm, the leather so thin she could see the dapple of the canopy through it. The body cradled between the wings was a sleek black mass, fronted by two belled ears.
As if noting her attention, red eyes turned and gazed down at her. A sharper whistling sliced through the larger cacophony. Her vision went dark, and a new view opened in her mind’s eye.
—a woman runs before a diving shadow. Then sharp claws snatch and tangle into her flagging hair. The shadow sweeps over her, then wrenches upward. The crisp snap of neck bones follows the flight upward. A limp body is dropped in the shadow’s wake.
The image broke away as her brother flitted past. Then he tipped on a wing and returned, keening his way over to her.
—a young boy in the robes of a fifthyear cowers under a balcony. A shape sweeps past him under the shelter. The edge of a wing, tipped by a blade-sharp talon, grazes him, slicing his throat open. Blood sprays high as knees buckle.
Again, the world returned to Nyx, only to be taken away in the next breath with another pass of her brother overhead.
—a bat the size of a bullock calf struggles on its back, a wing broken. Men in gray mail and silver armor stab down with swords and hack savagely with axes.
She snapped back to the sledge, but she saw nothing. Her hands had moved from her ears to cover her face. It did not help. More and more, visions of the attack whelmed through her, one after the other, from scores of eyes, all frosted over with screams and scented by blood.
—a shape crashes to the steps, shattering the shafts of the arrows already peppered across its chest.
—another stalks a hall, wings tucked, crawling over the writhing bodies of the fang-torn and poisoned.
—a screaming knight, arms wheeling, drops from claws and crashes into the heart of a pyre.
—higher still, a sweeping view from on high as a section of Brayk burns amidst flames and smoke.
—then closer, a child weeps over a woman’s body in the street, tiny fists knotted in her shredded cloak.