Of Bone and Thunder (44 page)

“That'll speed the bastard up,” Listowk said, turning and running toward the shield. Movement in the tree line slowed his steps. A volley of arrows burst through the jungle a few feet above head height. They sailed over the crouching shield, over the marching Sinte, and came straight at Listowk. He dove for the ground, crashing into the stump of a tree barely wider than he was. Arrows thunked into the stump and into the ground around him. He drew his knees up to his chest and wrapped his arms around his helm, tensing for the arrow that would puncture his spine.

A horn blew three sharp notes in rapid succession. High-pitched screams filled the air. Listowk uncurled and looked up over the stump as slyts poured out of the jungle, running toward the shield. Listowk counted forty, maybe fifty. They wore the same peasant garb as every slyt farmer he'd ever seen. Most held simple spears or swords in their hands. A few wore breastplates of bamboo stalks stitched together with palm frond. None wore a helm.

The distance from the tree line to the shield was barely seventy-five yards, but it was strewn with downed trees and shattered bamboo. Crossbows chattered as the shield fired. Bolts easily covered the short distance in a couple of flicks and sent the lead slyts tumbling to the ground. The bamboo armor proved no match for the bolts.

The lighter twang of bows now sang out as Wraith and his bowmen covered the shield while the crossbowmen frantically reloaded. More slyts fell, this time from arrows, often to the head. The charge faltered as the slyts farther behind began to step over the bodies of their comrades. Sinte continued his march, drawing his hewer as he did so.

Listowk jumped to his feet and began picking his way through the small forest of arrows around his position. He looked up as the horn sounded again, this time blowing two long notes. The slyts turned and began running back to the tree line. The bowmen took several more, dropping the slyts with studied precision.

A rumbling in the air sent a chill down Listowk's back. A voice roared from somewhere above him. “Get your heads down!”

He looked up as a pair of rags flying abreast flew overhead. They were no more than a hundred feet off the ground and still descending as they passed. It dawned on Listowk that they weren't yelling at him, but at the shield in front of him.

The sides of the rags glowed bright red and the air around them shimmered like water. Their heat washed over Listowk a moment later and he choked on the sulfur. Listowk crouched lower and continued running.

“Get down! Get down!” Listowk shouted, waving his left arm in the air as he charged after the rags. Sinte was now among the shield, but if he heard Listowk's cries or that of the driver of the rags, he gave no indication. He continued walking at a steady pace through the shield and several yards in front of them, straight toward the tree line.

Just when he thought Sinte would walk right into the jungle after the retreating slyts, Sinte stopped, half turned, and waved at the shield to follow him.
Holy fucking Druid! He's going to lead a charge!

“NO, NO, NO,
no, no!” Jawn shouted, fighting Breeze's tracings. They'd pinpointed the slyt thaum to an area of jungle no larger than six hundred yards square. It was a stunning accomplishment. They had located a thaum through the aethereal plane, but now that success threatened to kill them both.

“We . . . ve her, Black Star, what . . . you doing?” Breeze asked, her voice scratchy through the crystal. “She's trapped in plane. I'll keep her pinned while you develop a process.”

“We have to disengage and slide off!” Jawn said. He kept trying to untrace Breeze's patterns and allow the slyt thaum an escape, but Breeze was far more adept on plane than he was and closed every avenue as fast as he made it. He looked over his right shoulder, then back at the crystal. The sparker rags were approaching at almost treetop level, their sides glowing cherry red.

“Courage, Jawn, you can do this,” Rickets said.

“You should listen to her—she knows what she's about,” Rimsma added.

Jawn ignored both of them. “Breeze, listen to me. They're going to burn the jungle. Those other rags are going to breathe fire. If we're still engaged on plane with her, she could use that energy to channel a process.”

“Like Gremthyn?” Rickets asked.

“Worse,” Jawn said. “That thaum was working off of the base energy around him and look what he did. Those rags are going to provide a hundredfold more energy. Breeze, we have to slide!”

“I understa . . . Black Star, but we're deep in the plane. I can't . . .”

“Say again, Breeze. We need to slide now!”

Bright orange light erupted in the jungle below. Jawn tore his gaze from the crystal sheet in time to see the rags' fire plunge into the tree line.

“They just fired!” Breeze shouted.

Jawn knew there was no more time. He drew in a deep breath and focused all his thought on the aethereal plane he and Breeze were navigating. He found the weak spot he was looking for. Grunting with the effort, he plunged his mind through that plane and into the next one, binding them together in a surge of power. This would work, or he'd have his terminal blaze of glory.

The deep cold of the aethereal abyss latched on to Jawn's fingertips, driving unseen needles of black ice into his hands. Jawn's ass puckered as every vein was shot through with ice water. Bands of searing pain spread from his temples to the back of his skull. He gasped. The agony was exquisite.

He heard his name being called, but it was somewhere distant. He was in the aether now.

Black Star, what have you done?

That was Breeze. Her thoughts moved seamlessly into his mind. The other thaums on plane grew to a chorus of thoughts screaming in his head.

Jawn worked the rift, leaving the thaums' cries far behind. All his concentration was needed to maintain the connection between the two planes. If he lost focus and drifted between planes, his mind would be lost forever in the aether. The academy drilled them over and over on the dangers of cross-planing, but where there was danger, there was also reward. Straddling two planes gave a thaum access to two sources of power. Thaumic processes conducted in two planes were that much more powerful. And he needed that power now to kill the slyt thaum and disengage Breeze and himself before the rags found her.

Jawn tapped the energy, letting it flow through him. His body began shaking as its force coursed through him. It was too much, too fast. He couldn't control a process this powerful. He let go, tumbling between the planes without anything to latch on to.

Black Star, use me. Find me in the aether.

Jawn focused on Breeze, searching for her among the vastness. Slowly, he found his balance and brought the planes back into focus. He realized he was shivering, but that was his body. His mind was clear.

The force of a punch hit Jawn in the chest. The pain radiated into his back and down his left arm. He gasped, breathing in but finding no relief.

I'm suffocating.

Another mind entered his. It was saying gibberish, but he realized it had to be the enemy thaum. She had attacked him first.

Jawn dug deep into his training, directing everything that he was into a single point. He'd always pictured the very peak of a mountain, and on it, the very highest crystal of ice. That was his clarity, and he found his focus again. His body was faltering. He had time to find the slyt thaum and kill her and return to the world, but he had to do it fast.

A numbing pain crept into Jawn, but he ignored it. The thaum had
revealed herself in attacking him. Because she hadn't killed him, she was now vulnerable, but only if Jawn got to her before she tapped the fire.

Jawn reestablished his connection with the two planes, driving himself into the energy and channeling all of it through the single shimmering point of light that he was. The surge was beyond measure. For a flicker he saw everything—the enemy thaum, Breeze, the rags, Rickets . . .
Wait, something about Rick
—The crystal point fractured. Energy flew into the aether. Jawn marshaled his strength and directed what he could at the thaum.

There was light, a searing pain, and then the roaring sound of wind in his ears. The image of the slyt thaum disintegrated, her presence on plane ruptured beyond repair. He'd done it. He'd killed her.

“Fuck!” Jawn shouted, folding in on himself.

Hands grabbed him and pulled him backward, laying him out on his back. The world around him was movement and pain and noise. He was off plane.

“Easy, Jawn, easy. I've got you,” Rickets said from somewhere above him.

Jawn tried to open his eyes, but a wet cloth was placed over his head. He struggled to remove it, but his left arm wouldn't respond, and his right was pinned.

He grunted, searching his body for parts that moved, but he may as well have still been on plane. Nothing worked.

“I got her, Rickets, I got her,” Jawn said. He needed to say it out loud. It wasn't pride; it wasn't even duty. It was survival. He'd done what had to be done, what no one else could do.

“You got her,” Rickets said. “Now lie still and try not to move.”

The sound of beating wings vibrated in his chest. He took comfort in that. He realized his heart no longer felt like it was being crushed, and his breathing was improving.

Warm, coppery liquid trickled into his mouth. He spit, but more came in. In a rush of senses his entire body jerked and he felt pain over and through every inch of it.

“Ohhh, fuck. Druid fucking fire!”

“Easy, Jawn, you're going to be fine. Just drink some of this.”

A small glass bottle was placed against his lips and the contents poured
into his mouth. The liquid was ice-cold and stung, but wherever it touched the pain receded. He swallowed, tasting more of the coppery liquid as he did.

He realized he was flexing the fingers on his right hand and brought his hand up to his face. He had to get that damn cloth off his eyes.

“Just leave it there,” Rickets said, placing his hand on Jawn's.

Jawn pushed it aside and pulled the cloth off. It was soaking wet. He reached up to his eyes. More wet, but now he knew.

“Blood,” Jawn said, feeling it covering his face.

“You'll be all right,” Rickets said. “That Breeze girl and the flock commander look like ghouls, but otherwise they're hale and healthy. You will be too.”

Jawn blinked and turned his face toward the sun. He felt its heat on his cheeks, but his vision remained pitch-black.

“No, Rickets,” Jawn said, his world shattering around him. “I won't.”

LISTOWK DIDN'T UNDERSTAND
time. It was a witchcraft all its own. It was even different from thaumics. Changing time was something almost anyone could do, though how remained a mystery. It wasn't like you could alter it in a big way, but enough so you noticed. He himself had felt it speed up, often on the very occasions when he wished it would slow down. Now, when he desperately wanted it to slow so that he could reach Sinte and the shield, it did, but it was already too late.

Sinte was still half turned, his left arm high in the air. He was bathed in a shimmering orange light, his helm a gleaming beacon against the dark green of the tree line. It reminded Listowk of the stained glass he'd seen in a Holy Grove depicting the High Druid ascending the Sacred Tree to the Eternal Forest of Salvation. Except that light had been soft and yellow, almost white.

The tree line wilted, its outline fading in the intensity of the light. Sinte's shape wavered, its edges softening, even as the gleam of his helm grew. Listowk squinted, trying to keep him in focus.

Flame chased the light, pouring out of the rags in a torrent. The tree line swayed and buckled. Gouts of fire bounced off trunks like waves
crashing against the rocks. The gleam from Sinte's helm surged, then flew apart, leaving nothing for Listowk to focus on.

A wave of heat rolled over Listowk, driving him to his knees to cover his face. A roaring, rushing noise like a waterfall descended around him. He stayed down, keeping his eyes closed, but the sound told him everything. The roar was gone, replaced by a crackling, spitting noise as everything in the jungle succumbed to the flame.

Something hit Listowk in the shoulder. He pushed himself up and opened his eyes.

“Move!” Wraith shouted, pointing back toward the jungle.

A wall of fire eighty feet tall engulfed the tree line. Heavy brown smoke blotted out the sky to the west. The shield was running toward him, some still holding their crossbows, others without their weapon or helm. Behind them, small pillars of fire dotted the clearing where the slyts burned.

“We need to back up,” Wraith said, an uncharacteristic restating of his point.

Listowk looked at him. The foliage he'd so painstakingly arranged on his uniform was little more than ash. Wisps of smoke curled lazily from the flights of his arrows, the feather edges wilted and frayed. Wraith was breathing heavily, something else Listowk had rarely seen the soldier do, even after hiking up the mountain on the coast.

Listowk heard Sinte's voice in his head, complete with sneer.
Soldiers of the Kingdom don't retreat.

“We need to regroup,” Listowk said, saying it loud enough that it carried. The running soldiers slowed to a walk.

Wraith shrugged. Listowk knew none of the military bullshit mattered to Wraith. He was out here to hunt. It made him a first-class killer but a less-than-ideal leader.

“The slyts?” Listowk asked, realizing he could answer that himself. No one in that chunk of jungle was alive.

“Charked,” Wraith said.

Listowk got to his feet, taking Wraith's offered hand. The man's skin was desert dry and warm enough to bake bread on.

“Drink some water,” Listowk said.

“Lost my water skin,” Wraith said.

Listowk reached for his own water skin and handed it to Wraith. Wraith took it and drank three gulps before handing it back.