“What do you see?” Eli demanded.
“Air magic. Lots of it. Probably a prepared offensive working, so all the Dwayyo had to do was speak or sing or whistle and…”
The wind roared. It was unbelievably loud. Air pressure changed. Her ears popped. She tucked her face and closed her eyes. Eli was at her back, one arm and one leg wrapped round her and as much of the tree as he could reach. The other leg fixed against the ground and his free hand held a shotgun, braced against his shoulder.
The noise rose. Her ears popped again.
The whirlwind churned through the trees. Twisting them. Splintering them. Ripping them off at head height. Poised at the top of the hill, it danced back and forth. And then slammed at them.
Liz closed her eyes and pinched the amulet that held the untested working. Shaping the chained power with her will, she spread it gently, to include the bottom twelve feet of tree, all of them and the gear, and yet leaving Eli’s gun barrel exposed and separate. She had no idea if it would work.
It was a new working, what she was calling ashapedhedge, and it would be the coolest thing since sliced bread—if it worked, and if she lived and got to tell anyone about it. It was a version of a protective ward devised by her family, one she had been working on alone, without Cia because her sister was too busy to help with workings these days. And—
The wind howled and roared. Branches, whole trees, birds, and a squirrel slammed against the tree and theshaped hedge. The tree they were tied to juddered and shook. Eli’s body shuddered, hard as a rock at her back.
Everything larger than air molecules stuck to the outside of the working.
Clung there. The debris cut off the wind, like a clogged filter on a vacuum cleaner.
She opened her eyes, but could see nothing except for the dead animals and the trees and leaves plastered there. One dead bird had been stripped of feathers and crushed into her working by a tree. But before it died, its throat had been sliced open. The storm had been called with a sacrifice. A blood magic ritual. Beyond the physical, herseeingworking showed her incredible energies, a maelstrom of directed force.
The tornado didn’t move on. It stayed on the crest of the hill. And it lasted. And lasted. More trees fell. The earth vibrated beneath her feet with the force of the destruction.
After what felt like an hour, but was likely only minutes, the violence and power of the air magic fell to a trickle. Herseeingworking showed the magic leaching away into nothing. Eli started to pull away but she gripped his am. Things began to fall from the sky. Branches. Animals. Trees.
The ground bounced beneath their feet as an entire tree landed nearby. The air felt strange. Waiting. Sharp as thorns. As if more was to come.
“Chewy?” Eli yelled, right into her ear, which was still deaf from the wind. “Chewy!”
“Aoowww. Stop yelling,” Liz said, elbowing him in the gut. “Son of a witch, that hurt.”
“Chewy’s not answering. Drop the damn ward.”
“When I let the working go, all this stuff is going to hit us. Hard.”
He cursed, a single hard word of fury. He restrung the harness to support a tree that was leaning on theshaped hedge. “Can you see Chewy?”
“No, but—”
Something roared as loud as the wind had been.
Gunfire sounded. Three shots. Three shots. Then the boom of a shotgun.
Chewy, shouting. It sounded like “Die, you fucker!”
Another shotgun blast shivered the weird air and the tree leaning against her working slid to the side and fell to the ground with a huge thump.
Eli released the harness holding them together. Yanked Liz to the side. “Drop the ward.”
She did.
Large branches and small trees and dead animals slid, fell, dropped, and smashed to the ground. Liz wasn’t hurt. Eli raced away. Fingers nimble, she prepared to cast three workings, finding the necessary amulets.
She stepped around the tree.
Chewy was on the ground. Arms straight up and braced. The Dwayyo was above him. Its much longer arms were clawing his face and neck. Eli was racing toward the two. His body between her working and them.Stupid man.As he sprinted, Eli fired in multiple three round bursts, which the Dwayyo didn’t even seem to notice. He slowed. Then three blasts of the shotgun.
Eli advanced. Firing. Firing. Five shots in total. Adding rounds, or slugs, or whatever they were called to the shotgun and firing some more.
