“Light the torches!”
Then, a languid, eerie sound rang out through the night.
Bastion pulled up.He looked into the bay as dreaded confirmation descended.
The tone started low and long, like gravel bouncing ahead of a stampede.It rose aggressively as it crossed the water, reverberating up the cliffs and walls until it reached his legs.From there, it clawed into his chest until it echoed in his head, as close as a wolfpack growling in synchronicity before a kill.Bastion covered his ears as it blanketed Moonwatch in a terror so wild he thought his heart would burst in his chest.It cut through all his training, all his logic, and his hands could do nothing to dampen it.
The sound shook Bastion to his very core.He might have screamed.
Then, his legs folded beneath him.
Chapter 16
The glow of dying fires cast a warmth throughout the dining hall.Shadows danced across the tapestries, making the ceilings feel higher, darker.Fear lay heavy over the townsfolk, as insistent as sand clinging to wet skin.They jerked every now and then, like a lead line pulled taut.
Families clustered together, each as oddly shaped as grapes on the vine.Their eyes watched the barricaded door with as much hope as terror.
Then, everyone stiffened and cocked their heads.
Listening.
Their eyes widened.Some hunched over their children, others covered their ears.The floor trembled, transferring a racking vibration up legs and spines.It crawled over skin with the same prickliness as beating rain.
As one, everyone collapsed.
Bastion stared, seeing the room as if through a pane of glass frosted at the edges.If he’d had any breath, the sudden stillness would have taken it.
The sea of bodies lay in a tangle, like puppets with severed strings, but among them, three men still stood.Their lips pulled back with leering laughter.
They scanned the room and spotted him instantly.
He bolted.
Irrational irritation bled into every fiber of his being as he clenched slippery skirts and leapt over townsfolk.He disappeared into the kitchen.
The cooks and scullery maids lay across the ground.He darted around them, desperate for space to maneuver.
Fast as a whip, he unsheathed the bone knife at his waist.Twilight skin and sharp claws startled him as he cut into the sea of satin, tearing it quickly to free knees and ankles.A moment later, the men burst into the kitchen.Muscle memory that wasn’t his shot through his arm as his knife hand drew back and threw.
The first man went down with the blade in his throat.
Rage tempered fear that rose like a tide.It washed over Bastion and unmoored him.
Everything went black.
He sank and struggled, grasping with blind panic for the thread he knew was there, tethering him to her consciousness.
When he caught it, it reeled him upwards and slammed him back into her mind.
Ulla staggered.
The remaining men glanced at each other with sordid smiles that made Bastion’s blood boil.
Ulla shook her head, righted herself, and snatched a cast-iron pan from the fireplace.She charged, swinging violently.The second man’s jaw shattered on impact and he crumpled to the ground.
The last backed away, eyes wide as he held a pendant close to his mouth and spoke.Bastion didn’t hear the words–he didn’t hear anything–but some distant knowledge recognized the shape of them on the man’s lips.
The Yvri woman is still awake.
