The first Rotting reaches up towards us, but it doesn’t even touch Elska’s flank before Kyor takes its arm clean off with a single, precise stroke. It’s a wound that should see any creature writhing on the ground, dying of blood loss. But no blood comes. And it doesn’t fall. It barely reacts. The limb on the ground twitches as if confused, fingers still flexing in the dirt.
I don’t have time to hesitate. I’m of limited use on Elska’s back – in Kyor’s way and slowing the dire wolf down – and as the Rottings are on foot, I can be as well. I glance down at the ring on my finger. That burst of energy that flooded through me when I placed it on my body hasn’t faded yet. I’m strong enough to fight. I know I am.
Without giving myself a moment’s hesitation, I slide from Elska’s back, boots hitting the ground hard.
‘Godsdamn it, Rose!’ Kyor shouts.
‘You’ll both be more effective without me, and I’ll be fine.’
He grimaces but lets Elska carry him away to a cluster of Rottings. It’s a small salve to my wounded pride. He trusts me to fight, at least.
Elska doesn’t hesitate, using her claws and teeth to rip and rendeven as Kyor’s sword spins in wide arcs, slicing and dicing limbs. Their movements are ferocious yet practised. How the fuck he stays on her is a work of art, and if it were possible, one I would happily study. But right now, I’ve got more important things at hand. Rotting things.
Given Kyor’s warning, I have no intention of getting close to them, but I shouldn’t need to. In fact, none of us should.
With a plan forming in my mind, I call to my green magic, ready to hold the Rottings in place the same way I did with Thessa and Stide, and yet as I reach out and grasp for the power, nothing happens.
Nothing comes.
Panic flares sharp and hot. I can’t feel my magic. That buzz between my ribs is utterly gone.
‘I don’t have my magic!’ I call out, in panic and warning. My green magic isn’t like the ice magic. Not once have I needed to fight to find it since Etta returned it to me.
A single further try is all I have time for. When my magic still does not rise, I draw my sword and dagger and advance on the Rotting thing in front of me.
Benny and Caz have joined me on the ground, fighting on foot, protecting Loch while he jabbers on astride his horse. As for the Quiet Ones, the Rottings barely seem to notice them.
We are their targets.
Three sweeping swings of my swords are all I use. Head first, then the two arms. There’s no chance this fucker is biting or scratching me.
And then I’m struck with a realisation.
Kyor has been training me to fight these exact creatures each evening. Training me to fight while keeping my distance. Motherfucker! We are going to have words.
I turn to look for the next nearest Rotting, only to pause.
‘Kyor!’ I yell at him.
But I have no need to finish my exclamation. Thessa does that for me.
‘Myrkr!’ she screams in warning, eyes wide in fear. The Sannings’ responses to the Rottings may have been to stay quiet and hope to go unnoticed, but they do not offer the same response now.
Stide jumps to the ground, wading into the fray and placing herselfhalf a step in front of Thessa and the horses. She seizes her spear, sliding one hand down the shaft, bringing the point level and steady.
The Myrkr is draped in a cloak so dark it swallows the light as he rides into view astride a black horse with eyes like pits, steam curling from its nostrils. I can’t see the Myrkr’s face; I don’t know whether thereisa face.
Crows spiral overhead, cawing in jagged, broken bursts. They land in the trees, on the ground, and on the Rottings themselves, black eyes gleaming with awful intelligence. Perhaps it was not ravenswe should have feared all this time but crows.
It certainly feels that way as I raise my sword to the Rotting staggering towards me. I guess the part about the Myrkr being siphons wasn’t just part of a fairy tale either. It would explain where the fuck my magic has gone and why Kyor hasn’t turned this entire forest to ash.
I fight defensively, just as Kyor has been drilling me to do. It was never the Issen and their ‘poisoned blades’ he was training me for, but the Rottings and whatever foulness infected them. They are the reason he didn’t want to go through the forest. The reason he told me Elska wished to avoid it.
When I am less full of fear, I will kick him hard in the balls for holding yet more lies between us, but now is not the moment.
A Rotting scrapes a hand towards my face, nails extended like a cat shoved into water, and I rear back just in time, slicing off the offending hand.
The air around us feels heavy, pressed flat. The Myrkr brings with him yet more Rottings, and we are desperately outnumbered with our magic gone, ripped away as if it never existed.
