I examined the marks, where they showed, the mottled pink stark against the olive green of his skin. He was watching me, so carefully that I felt like he was the one who’d read my thoughts. “These are the wounds that brought us together, are they not?” I stepped closer, brushed my lips against an upraised mark. He was very still again. I looked at him. “I think I’ll just keep falling in love with every piece of you.”
He closed his eyes again. “Rowena, they’re going to open the door soon.”
“Why? Is this something they shouldn’t see?” I stepped a little closer, my heart rioting. And-
Power hummed against my consciousness, the runes around the door glowing as the rock bloomed open, white sunlight spilling in. Late morning sunlight. But it wasn’t the old woman elder, or any assembly. It was Tyralk, leaning hard on the crutch, his eyes desperate. “Khal, Rowena!” he gasped. “The beasts. We can’t?—"
Screams tore in the distance.
Khal, who’d been stoically walking all of yesterday, wincing against his wounds, grabbed up his swords from where he'd left them and lurched into a run, past Tyralk, into that pale light. I stumbled after him.
In the clearing chaos reigned, people fleeing.
“It’sscralghir!”Tyralk shouted behind us.
“We need a perimeter!” Khal roared. I loped after him down the slope, keeping pace with his labored gait. Massive, mottled dog-beasts with slavering jaws were cutting in and out among the tents, as if they were separating people out, herding and culling. One rose on its back legs. They had arms. Somehow it was worse that they had arms.
It lifted an old woman, the ale wife, in its massive hand.
I couldn’t roast the ale wife. Khal glanced at me, a split second.
“Go!” I bleated.
He took off, lurching forwards to cut the thing down.
And drew the attention of three more.
“Khal, get down!”I screamed, and he threw himself and the old woman to the earth, right under their claws.
I blasted the fire over his head, dropping all three of them in a charred, twitching mass.
He rose, helping the old woman up, urging her back towards the stones.
There were tents in every direction, more screams. Khal ran for the far edge, still limping, and I followed. Every face he saw he shouted “To the stones, get to the stones!” I couldn’t use fire so close to the tents, couldn’t risk burning stragglers, of which there were many. One of the young women from before had a baby in her arms, scrambled away from two of them and slipped.
I needed to be close enough to angle fire. Without letting myself think, I dodged around Khal’s blade-reach, and skidded to a stop directly in front of her.
“Roe—"
A blast straight up enveloped this one’s face in flame.
It keened and fell over, but before I could turn and get another one a green blur hit it at the throat, the gut, sending it down, writhing. Vrathgar trotted to put his shoulder to Khal’s. “Perimeter?” he shouted.
“We have too many vulnerable!”
The young woman was up and running from us.
“So just fight?”
“I needa clear shot!” I barked. I knew, solidly knew, with the power from the stones humming through me, that I could do more than I’d done before, whether from me growing stronger or only the power of this place.
Vrathgar nodded, and the three of us ran.
So many of the orcs were fighters, their old, their young. I saw elderly wielding weapons, their men and their women forming circles around the injured. Those short spears were popular, but Khal and his friends’ swords flashed, again and again, taking the slavering horde to the ground. Soon Krashal, Gernaz and several more were alongside us, spreading the line, creating the pockets of safety to let others flee. The crowd oforcs was thinning as we pushed through. Khal’s movements slowed.
“Drazha’s-son!” a shout from behind us, Gnarlak. “They breached the other side! They reached the stones?—"
Cursing, Khal streaked back.
