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A beam of magic shot out of me, straight as an arrow, dashing along NC-53, claiming a strip of land fifty feet wide. I pushed it for three miles, to where NC-53 made a slight turn and cut it short. I’d carved a path through the forest’s territory. A safe zone. I would need to do this again when we reached its end.
I slid my sword into the sheath on my back. Curran reached out, took my hand, and squeezed. I squeezed back.
He raised his voice. “Walk behind me and Kate and stay in formation. No straggling, no running off. You are in a fifty-foot-wide safe zone. Do not leave it.”
A chorus of “Yes, Alpha” answered him.
Curran grinned, his eyes sparking with feral gold light. “Time to hunt!”
Keelan stopped. Curran stopped too, half a second later. The entire column halted in the middle of the battered, crumbling road and stared at the woods beyond the pavement.
I listened.
Around us the forest was full of life. Leaves and pine needles shivered in the breeze, stretching over the road to grab every bit of light. Squirrels chased each other through the branches. A feral cat trailed them, sneaking by the tree roots. A faint whiff of old skunk musk lingered, emanating from somewhere to our left. Birds sang and chirped in the canopy.
No visible threat. No strange noises.
I glanced at Keelan. What?
He inhaled, sucking the air into his nostrils, then turned and leaned, looking down the length of the column.
“Come out slowly,” Curran said.
A shape emerged from the brush on our left, just behind the rear guard, their fatigues perfectly blending with the forest.
Da-Eun swore.
The person stepped into the light filtering through the gap in the branches and onto the old road.
Isaac. I should have known.
“The Order’s pathfinder,” I murmured.
We’d been walking for over two hours. About thirty minutes ago, we’d passed the remains of an old gas station swallowed up by magically boosted trees and made the turn onto US-421 North. I’d performed the claiming for the third time, taking over a chunk of that road. By now we were probably ten miles in.
Isaac had managed to sneak up on a pack of shapeshifters, and he had even evaded Keelan’s nose, which put most werewolves to shame. Had he followed us all the way from Penderton? No, probably not. If I were him, I would’ve waited for us at that gas station and then tagged along behind the column, keeping downwind.
“Don’t you think you’d do more good in the front?” Curran asked.
Isaac shrugged. “Not my party. I’m just tagging along. If you want me on point, though, I can do that.”
Curran waved him forward. The pathfinder nodded and moved through the column, completely silent. He took point and we kept moving.
That third claiming took a bit out of me. My body ached, fatigue adding a phantom weight to my legs.
The forest should have attacked us by this point, but so far Isaac was the only human we’d seen. Although, there was a hawk hanging above us. Hawks were territorial, and their range was about two square miles. This one had been with us since we left Penderton. I had noticed it when we set out and then again after the second claiming, and Curran and I had been watching it since.
He saw me looking.
“They’re letting us in,” I said. “We are vulnerable on the road, but they haven’t made a move.”
He nodded. “You took away their trump card by creating a safe zone for us. The priest-mages are powerful, but they take a while to cast their spells. Their spear-throwers would be at a disadvantage in the forest. Even if they managed to ambush us, which isn’t likely, they might get one volley off before we went in and took them apart. If they want to attack us on the way, they’d have to use their shapeshifters, and they must not have enough of them to overwhelm us with numbers. They attacked four shapeshifters and a human with a pack of seven and they lost. They would want a significant numerical advantage.”
“You think they have a spot picked out ahead? Somewhere with open ground?”
“I think they will let us walk all the way to their base. They can deploy the hunters and priest-mages in addition to the shapeshifters they have left. They’re counting on having more people than us and the home field advantage. All the better if we’re worn out by the time we reach them.”
“So it’s a last stand?”
“Looks that way. They are marshaling all their forces in one spot rather than risking losing them piecemeal by attacking us along the way.” Curran grinned. “Also, I think your claiming really freaked them out.”
He had a point. Whoever was in charge of the forest must have been accustomed to their claiming being the final word. Their ultimate move. Chances were that nobody had ever challenged them after that. Claiming gave you control and advance warning. It made you feel safe. It allowed you to kill your own people with fucked-up smoke.
