I whipped around, trying to decipher which direction the screams were coming from. Out of nowhere, a loud expletive came from a male siltenite.
“What in the realm?” I whispered.
With a frantic command, I zoomed my carpet toward the commotion, making a beeline above the trees in the direction of the screaming that had turned ear-piercing. The noises grew, along with curses from the male. No wait, there weretwomales yelling and at least one screaming wildling.
Raucous laughter followed, and then the shrillness of the wildling’s screams came again.
My heart was racing just as a rustle in a tree’s leaves alerted me to their exact location. I stopped my carpet above it and peered below. More laughter filtered up from the males, then a pitiful wail rose from a wildling.
I stretched my mental magic out, assessing the situation more. Two streams of siltenite consciousnesses answered my magic’s questioning pulse. Then another that was smaller, less complex. It was the kind of consciousness I would expect from a being with a mind not as advanced as our kind.
“Look at it. It actually thinks we’ll let it live,” one of the males sneered.
I bristled at the male’s taunting words. Just as fast, a small dozen pulses of other consciousnesses, so tiny and barely formed that I’d almost missed them, strummed toward me. Fear bled from them.
My jaw dropped.Babies.
It hit me all at once what was happening. A dozen baby wildlings of a species I couldn’t determine were below, and their mother wildling was defending them against two siltenite males who no doubt decided to either torment them or simply kill them for fun.
“Bastards.” I clenched my teeth and carefully stepped off my carpet onto the tree’s tallest and sturdiest branch. It sagged beneath my weight but held.
I glanced at my belongings to ensure my map was still safely stowed on the carpet. Thankfully, it hadn’t budged despite my stepping off.
I returned my attention to the tree and crawled carefully along it. The branch was thick, but it still swayed, making me grip it tighter, but I climbed slowly and carefully downward. The males below continued their sadistic tormenting, none the wiser to my presence.
“Cut its ear off,” one said. “That’ll really make it scream.”
The other laughed. “After we’re done with the mother, we should carve up the babies.”
The first snickered. “I love how sick you are.”
My stomach heaved just as they both laughed again, and another painful cry rose from the wildling mother. Her chin tilted upward, tears shimmering in her eyes, and through the leaves, we made eye contact.
Her expression pleaded with me to help, and the scent of her blood drifted in the air. Another one of the males had just cut her anew.
My pulse thrummed with fury, and I quickly nodded that I was on my way, but then the male slashed her again, and she screamed in pain.
“Screw this,” I whispered. I was about to leap off the last branch and blast them both with psychic magic, paralyzing their minds and capturing their essences, when a third male’s voice droned through the trees. “Enjoying yourselves, I see?”
My hands nearly slipped.
That voice.I’d heard that voice before.
I peered through the remaining branches and leaves, trying to get a better view of the newcomer, but even with my sightsensory magic activated, too much foliage obscured my view. Not even my magic could see through objects.
Cursing, I climbed down another few feet, just as one of the bastard males replied, “Who in the realm are you?”
“Someone passing through. I couldn’t help but hear this wildling’s calls of distress.”
The second male growled just as my feet touched the last branch closest to the forest floor. I quickly dropped onto it, my movements silent, then lay flat.
Rough bark met my palms, and the tree’s rich scent flooded my nose. I clung tightly to the branch and peered around its thick width. A clear view of what was unfolding appeared before me, and my breath sucked in.
I was right. It washim.
A small clearing revealed a terrified and bleeding wildling mother standing defiant before her den hollowed out in the tree’s base. Quivering babies huddled behind her, and two siltenite males flanked her.
But across the clearing, another male had appeared.
