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And the shaman blew apart.
A deafening crack, like a clap of close thunder, echoed all around them, and the shaman burst into thousands of tiny pieces. Skin, and blood, and meat, and purple robe. The cracking sound splintered, and echoed, and continued, somehow, a cascade of fractures in the air, and where the shaman had been, the air boiled, and swelled, and a light flared, blindingly bright.
She shielded her eyes, and tugged on the reins, and Alpha executed a perfect barrel roll in midair. He righted himself, and beat furiously with his wings to gain height again, panic jittering through the bond, infecting her, so her hands shook on the reins, as the world stopped spinning and she got her bearings back.
The sword was gone, dropped in the roll. She braced a hand on the pommel and twisted around to look back.
There was a hole in the air. That was the only way to explain it. Flickering at its edges with purple light, its center black, and yawning, and endless. And there were things pouring out of it. Winged, and twisted, sinuous, serpentine creatures with white fangs flashing, and bat wings flapping. Drakes of a sort…with riders.
Reinforcements, Amelia realized with a cold, sinking dread in her belly. The Sels were sending in reinforcements through some sort of portal – and they kept pouring through, beast after beast, even men in foot, bearing spears, and swords, and bows.
She turned around, and tightened her reins, preparing for a retreat.
Pain ignited in her chest. A sudden, hot, terrible flare of it.
She looked down, and saw the head of a thrown spear protruding from her breastplate. Its tip was purple, glistening with her blood.
“Damn,” she murmured, and everything went black.
Amelia sucked in a deep breath and opened her eyes. Her vision was spotty, and swimming, worsened by the hectic racing of her pulse, but she knew the threat now. Knew it was far, far worse than she’d first thought.
Above her, Alpha wheeled, and screamed, and dove.
“Everyone get back!” she shouted.
At her knee, Leif said, “What–”
Just as the shaman had in Alpha’s memory, the girl flew apart. A crack that kept cracking, ripples of sharp, shattering thunder. And a wet showering of red droplets. Something hot and wet struck Amelia’s cheek; she smelled copper, and swiped it away with her glove; watched with mounting horror as the hideous, impossible spectacle of Selesee magic unfolded before her.
Reggie had been blown back as if thrown, and lay sprawled on his back in the road, arms flailing. His horse bolted. Connor’s shied hard, and he barely managed to keep it in check. His Strangers fanned around them, arrows nocked, aimed at the rapidly-expanding black hole that hovered now just above the road, where the girl had been.
“Leif!” Amelia shouted, but it was too late. With a flash, he transformed, shifted into his wolf shape, and went charging toward the growing portal.
“Fuck,” Ragnar said. “Fucking hell, what is that?”
Amelia didn’t get a chance to answer, before the first horror slithered out of it.
It was some sort of drake: long jaw full of sharp teeth, gleam of scales – amethyst, like in Alpha’s vision – but its shape longer, thinner, its legs stubby by comparison. Another’s head thrust through when it was halfway through, and then a gold-armored Sel soldier dropped to the road, and leveled his spear on Leif, who was galloping straight for him.
“Scatter!” Amelia shouted, and heard the men take up the call as well.
“Scatter!”
“Defensive positions!”
“Find cover!”
“To arms!”
A din of overlapping voices that didn’t manage to drown out the high-pitched screams of the purple drakes coming through the portal.
The wolves – in their wolf skins, now – converged on the hole from all sides, teeth bared, snarling, snapping. Leif leaped right at the soldier’s chest–
As two more crowded through the landed with a clank of armor.
Alpha came to a halt in the air above the hole, wings kicking up a windstorm as he snatched the first purple drake by the throat and shook it back and forth like a rat. Amelia heard the snap of its spine breaking, and the sound launched her into action.
She hauled Shadow’s head around and heeled him into a canter. He was snorting, blowing, neck bowed and legs lifting high on each stride; he wanted to fight, a warhorse through and through.
