“We need to get these furs off,” I say. “They’ll be a liability if it starts to rain.”
“Agreed.”
I lean low over Blackbird’s neck, spotting a small clearing in the forest below, still a safe distance from the city’s western wall. “Blackbird, take us down.”
I have no idea if he understood me, and I’m concerned he doesn’t, but then he alters his course slightly, dipping to the clearing like I hoped he would.
We jump off as soon as he lands, stripping off our coats and fur pants and quickly repositioning our harnesses and weapons. My satchel is unwieldy, and the toolbox is beyond problematic with its bulk, but there’s nothing I can do about it. I position it at my back, and Erik helps me adjust it so that it doesn’t impede my hammer.
Then we’re back on Blackbird and rising into the air again.
The bells continue ringing, the sound peeling out through the air.
The clanging grows louder as we near the city’s western wall, and now that we’re nearer to it, it looks like only the bells on the walls in the west and south are ringing.
The city streets appear deserted. So is the top of the wall in the north and east. There are no guards there.
As Blackbird angles to the left, now heading northward around the city wall, the status of the weapons I forged becomes visible.
Only the harpoon and the net launcher appear intact. Where the crossbow and the launcher for the weighted chains were installed, there is only rubble.
Whathasremained intact is the stone monolith of the last monster I fought. It was a giant wolf with black, onyx tusks protruding from its face. I used my power to turn it to stone near the city’s northern gate, where it has remained like a sentinel.
After turning it to stone, I broke off both of its tusks and used them to make a stretcher to carry Erik across the wasteland. Heused one of those tusks—half of it, to be precise—as the handle of my hammer.
Now, I focus on the heart of the storm that’s building over the northern wasteland.
It’s growing worse by the second.
The clouds are thicker there, heavy with rain that has yet to fall, and the lightning is at its brightest.
Lightning was never a good sign in a storm.
A monster that forms from lightning is always stronger and harder to kill. A fact that makes me now wonder…
Does it have something to do with the thunderbird that might have been buried here? Unlike the wolves and bears and birds and deer that were buried here, a thunderbird’s body already carries magic. Its strength and magical power could have leached into the soil, combined with Blacksmith magic, and influenced the strength of the monsters that formed.
I watch the flickers carefully, the way they sizzle through the clouds and snap at the air halfway between the sky and the ashen land.
Wherever the lightning strikes the ground, that is where the monster will rise.
Finally, we reach the edge of the city’s northern wall, where the scent of blood grows unbearably strong.
I remain focused on the clouds ahead, waiting for them to break.
Waiting for the blood-rain to fall.
I take a last deep breath as the energy in the air increases to the point where it feels like my chest is being compressed. I brace for the freezing cold water to fall, anticipating how cold it will be.
A second later, the downpour starts.
A moment after that, we fly into it.
But when we hit the rain, it’s like a trigger.
Lightning explodes across the sky directly above us, splitting into a myriad of strikes that spear down around us.
Blackbird darts left and right to avoid the deadly strikes while I try to keep my eye on as many of them as I can. I sense Erik’s tension behind me, catching the way he follows the path of each strike across the air.
