The Maelstrom

~ 10 ~ Knife, Spear, and Storm

The demon filled the eastern sky, so massive it seemed that one could touch her or trail their fingers through her nimbus of black vapors. Despite the fact that she was airborne, there was something uncannily dense and ponderous about the demon’s form and the slow-moving tendrils that protruded here and there like the hungry, searching arms of an anemone. Max wondered if the inky nebulae were the demon’s basic essence or if they shrouded something else within. It was a horrifying and alien creature whose amorphous shape and blind hunger reminded Max of the grylmhoch he’d encountered in the Arena. But the similarities ended there; millions of grylmhochs would not have equaled her appalling size. Yuga eclipsed anything Max had ever seen by such a stupefying margin that a mountain would have seemed infinitesimal by comparison. The demon was bigger than a small country, forever moaning as she devoured all life and energy in the lands beneath her. She was entropy itself.

Max glanced at Madam Petra and her daughter. Holding hands, they simply gaped at the far-off demon. There was not even fear stamped upon their faces, but rather a blank, uncomprehending emptiness. The mere spectacle of Yuga had overwhelmed their senses.

“D-dear God, what a monster!” stammered Toby, peering out from Max’s hood.

“Don’t look at her,” said Max gently. “Yuga’s far, far away yet.”

“Can she see us?” whispered Madam Petra, retreating back into the wood.

“I don’t think so,” replied Max, projecting a calm that he did not feel. “She is still very far from us, Petra. Miles and miles and miles. The sooner we go on, the sooner we find David’s tunnel and get away from her. Katarina?”

The girl only responded on the third call, tearing her attention away from the demon.

“Katarina, have you ever stared at an eclipse?”

The girl blinked. “No,” she muttered. “It would hurt my eyes.”

“That’s right,” said Max. “There’s something in the eastern sky right now that’s like an eclipse. It’s far away and it can’t hurt you unless you stare at it. You look at your mother instead, okay?”

When the girl nodded, Max turned to Petra. “Do you have any idea where we are relative to Bholevna?”

She scanned the land ahead, the fields and farms that had been trampled by Aamon’s armies. There were no landmarks, nothing but a few burned-out and abandoned farmhouses.

“I don’t know,” she confessed. “Bholevna may be farther north or perhaps east. I can’t say for certain.”

“Toby,” called Max. “How’s that ‘latissimus nub’ feeling? Could you become another bird?”

“A small one, perhaps,” replied the smee, wriggling like a grub. “Let’s see, let’s see.”

Seconds later, a sparrow hopped out of Max’s hood and tentatively fluttered its wings.

“Perfect,” said Max. “Can you fly up and have a look around for a landmark, a river, a road—anything that might give us a better sense of where we are?”

The smee zoomed from Max’s shoulder, spiraling up into the winter sky until he was almost lost from view. Once Toby was gone, Max checked on David.

His roommate was asleep, his cheeks flushed with fever, but his condition did not appear to be deteriorating. Peering beneath the bandage, Max saw that Katarina had done a good job cleaning the wounds, which were already mending.

“Can you hear me?” said Max, reapplying the bandage. “David?”

The sorcerer’s brow furrowed with irritation. He grunted.

“You can sleep again in a minute,” Max assured him. “Is the tunnel in Bholevna itself?”

The reply was so faint, it was little more than an exhale.

“East,” whispered David wearily. “A mile. Farmhouse … stream.”

“The tunnel is a mile east of Bholevna in a farmhouse by a stream?”

David nodded.

“Good,” said Max, patting his friend. “That’s good. We can’t be too far away.”

Toby returned a few minutes later, swooping down into the forest to settle onto Max’s shoulder.

“There’s a brayma’s palace perhaps ten miles to the north beyond that strip of forest,” he reported, gesturing with his wing. “Magnificent, really—reminds me of St. Basil’s Cathedral—but it looks like it’s been sacked. All the surrounding farms have been burned. It appears that Aamon’s armies have already been through this land.”

“I know that palace,” said Madam Petra. “It belongs to Baron Hart—Katarina and I attended a hunt there last spring. Bholevna’s just another ten miles or so northeast of there.”

“Let’s make for the palace,” Max decided. “If the horses aren’t spent and we feel up to it, we can push on to Bholevna tonight. If not, we can take shelter and see if there’s any food about. Agreed?”

The Kosas nodded, and even David managed a weary grunt. Reminding them not to look east, Max swung back up into the saddle, checked to see that the pinlegs was secure, and led the ride north.

The moon had risen high by the time they neared the palace. The journey had been slow going, for the horses were exhausted and the land grew rough and rocky in places, requiring them to pick their way carefully amid the trees and outcroppings. To the west, Max heard the faint blare of war horns. Periodically, there was a flash in the western sky as though lightning rippled through the clouds.

But it was Yuga that occupied Max’s attention.

He had said nothing to the others and hoped they had not noticed, but the hollow moaning was growing louder. The demon was so enormous that it was difficult to gauge her direction or speed—her motions seemed as slow and deliberate as the Earth’s rotation. But she was moving, and it sounded as though she was moving west, drawn perhaps to the warring armies and the vast feast they represented. Despite the darkness, she was still visible—a gargantuan void among the stars as though a huge, ragged patch had been torn from the night sky. Max wondered if Bram, or even Astaroth, could destroy such an abomination.

The dismal truth was that they were caught between terrible forces. He prayed that David’s tunnel still existed. If not, they would have to flee north to the Baltic and rely on Ormenheid to carry them home.

“These horses will keel over if we don’t rest them,” panted Madam Petra, shivering in the cold. “And I’m falling asleep in my saddle. Do you think it’s safe in the palace? We can water the horses and see if there’s food. Just an hour or two of sleep,” she pleaded.

Toby flew off to scout. When he returned and pronounced the palace abandoned, they led their weary mounts across its trampled fields and orchards.

The smee had been correct; the place really did resemble St. Basil’s Cathedral with its painted towers and voluptuous domes glinting beneath the moon. Before its fall, it must have been a wonder. But much of the palace was damaged, its gatehouse a charred ruin while several of the towers had collapsed into the inner bailey, obliterating a handful of smaller buildings in the process.

Much had been destroyed, but there was an uncontaminated well. While the horses drank and the others rested, Max went searching for food. He wandered about the empty palace, stepping over fallen stones and peering into ashy chambers that had been stripped of tapestries and furniture and anything else of value. Crunching through broken pottery, Max climbed a spiral staircase to a rampart connecting two of the towers. Perhaps there would be food in a guardroom.

But the upper levels were little better. They had suffered less damage, but the wind was stronger at these heights and went whipping through the open corridors and broken windows like a troop of lost and lonely spirits. There was an oppressive emptiness to the place, reinforced by the surprising lack of bodies. Someone had either buried the dead or taken them for some other purpose. Max declined to speculate.

He climbed to the top of the tallest tower, an immense rounded structure capped by an onion dome. The doors to the uppermost chamber had been wrenched off their hinges, revealing what had been a luxuriant bedchamber or seraglio. The arched walls were adorned with charred frescoes and mosaics and windows set into the curving walls so that the tower commanded a view in every direction. Most of the windows had been broken, however, and the wind swept through, glittering with snowflakes that settled on the inlaid floor.

Stepping to one, Max gazed down at the central courtyard hundreds of feet below. Madam Petra had started a fire, a tiny flicker no bigger than a candle flame amid the shadowed wreckage. Max could not help but admire the woman’s spirit and resilience. She had just lost everything and already she was coping, adapting, surviving. He half hoped she would decide to settle at Rowan—they could use such a capable person.

Something flashed in the west, an enormous light that filled the sky with a sickly green light. The sound came after, a rumbling chorus of horns and drums that was soon eclipsed by something else … a keening, wailing sound akin to an air-raid siren. Max rushed to another window and gazed out.

The west was ablaze, its skies exploding in wild flashes of light and pluming fire as though the clouds themselves had ignited. Horns sounded from afar, and a tremor ran through the earth, shaking the tower. Down in the courtyard, Petra was calling his name.

“What’s happening?” she cried.

Max cupped his hands. “A battle!” he shouted. “The armies have met!”

More flashes and the earth shook again, the tremors as slow and rhythmic as a battering ram. Far off, there was an explosion, and then a brilliant fireball rose in a mushroom cloud against the night sky. The tremors continued.

Max watched, spellbound, as the battle raged on. The armies were too far away to make out many details. But for the incandescent flashes, it might have been a forest fire, a haze of flames and smoke that stretched all along the horizon. Occasionally he caught glimpses of the army columns gleaming like molten gold. The tremors continued, a percussive thump, thump, thump that shook the remaining shards free from the windows. They fell about the room’s perimeter, shattering like little icicles.

Something to the southwest caught Max’s eye.

He trained his glass on a number of small lights glimmering in the surrounding woods. At this distance, he could not be certain if the lights were torches or lanterns, but they were now converging swiftly on the palace.

Max ran from the room, leaping down the stairs and yelling for the others to pack up. He hoped the appearance of these horsemen was coincidence, that they were merely deserters or refugees seeking shelter. But in his heart, Max knew otherwise. These riders were hunting for them.

Arriving at the courtyard, Max saw the Kosas hastily gathering up their things. Over the din of the distant battle and Patient Yuga, Max could now hear the sound of galloping hooves. He ran to the gatehouse and peered outside.

The riders had passed the orchards and were now racing over the fields. Looking wildly about, Max saw that the outer gates had been broken, but one of the inner portcullises was still intact. Racing into the guardhouse, he found the winch that controlled its chains and spun it about as quickly as he could. With a reluctant groan, the heavy iron grill slid down its grooves and fell into position. From outside, there were several shouts and the hoofbeats slowed. Max ran to Madam Petra, who had hidden the others behind the ruins of a fallen tower.

“What are you doing?” she hissed. “We haven’t seen another way out—you’ll shut us in!”

“No,” he panted. “Sneak the others and the horses back into the keep. Go as far back as you can, as close to the eastern wall as possible. There must be some other exit, a postern gate or something. Start searching.”

“Yes, but how—”

“Just trust me. If I can deal with these riders on my own, I will. If not, the portcullis will delay them long enough so we can find the door and get away. If there is no exit, I’ll make one.”

“And what if they kill you and we’re still trapped inside?”

Max unsheathed the longsword and handed the weapon to the smuggler.

Taking the sword, Madam Petra lifted David and led the others into a dark archway that opened into the main keep. Stealing across the courtyard, Max saw the riders assembled beyond the portcullis, dark silhouettes against the moonlit countryside. Spurring his horse, one of the hooded figures approached the gatehouse, brandishing a torch.

“You can’t outrun the Fates!” the figure called out. “Cease this cowardice and show yourself. Embrace the death that comes for you.”

When Max heard that voice, his heart nearly stopped. From far off, the war horns blared and the western sky flashed with light. Another tremor shook the palace, knocking debris from the walls in little avalanches of rubble and broken masonry.

Smiling grimly, Max walked to the gates and unsheathed the Morrígan blade. He had been mistaken after all. That was no troop of Prusias’s soldiers waiting outside the gates.

The Atropos were here.

And the voice that challenged Max was his own.

The clone leaned forward in his stirrups and studied Max through the heavy bars of the portcullis. He might have been Max’s mirror image, but for his close-cropped hair and more powerful build. The Workshop had evidently tinkered with the source material, as though they had melted Max down and recast him into a form that was bigger and stronger than the original. Beneath his cloak, the clone was armored with a breastplate of polished black steel. Golden runes were traced upon the metal and gleamed like pale fire by the light of his torch. Behind him sat a dozen of Prusias’s malakhim. They formed a horseshoe around the gate, silent executioners whose faces were hidden behind darkly beautiful masks. One rode forward to take the clone’s torch and hand him a heavy, ancient-looking spear. The clone tested its weight and gazed across at Max. His handsome face was composed and cruel as he urged his horse toward the portcullis.

“I was afraid you wouldn’t answer,” he said calmly. “The buyer said you were a coward, that you’d run again and again until we finally caught you. But I told him you were better than that. You and I come from the same place, after all. And I don’t run.”

“So what now?” asked Max.

“I kill you.”

The response was chillingly flat, no emotion.

“We’ll see.” Max shrugged. “Did you murder those people at Piter’s Folly, too?”

The clone’s eyes glittered like dark jewels. “The world’s at war. There is no such thing as murder. Just obstacles and accidents.”

“I’m sorry you think so.”

The clone smiled and steadied his horse. “Prusias said you were weak,” he sneered. “Said his imp had to make up stories about your Arena opponents so you’d fight angry. Pathetic. You’re lucky you fought Myrmidon. I’d have had your head, brother.”

Walking closer to the portcullis, Max stared through the bars at the brazen youth sitting astride his coal-black courser. “You’re not my brother,” he remarked. “I don’t know what to call you. You’re just an experiment that didn’t work … a Workshop castoff scooped up by the Atropos to nip at my heels.”

In unison, the malakhim drew their swords, red-hot blades that smoked like hearth irons. The clone merely gave a venomous smile and laid the spear across his saddle.

“I don’t nip at heels. I bite at throats. Open the gate and find out.”

Max recalled his battle with Myrmidon. At several points, he’d overwhelmed his clone and struck what should have been a conclusive blow. And yet Myrmidon always recovered; the gladiator had advanced again and again as though nothing could hurt him. The encounter was seared into Max’s memory, its imprint as painful and poisonous as anything he’d experienced. This clone was far larger than Myrmidon had been. The Workshop must have conducted different experiments on each of its three prototypes. The assassin sitting astride the courser looked as though he could tear through the portcullis with his bare hands. Max wondered why he didn’t. Perhaps the clone was curious—intrigued about the original from which he’d stemmed. That curiosity might give Petra enough time to find another exit. Assuming there was one.

“Do you have memories?” Max wondered. “Or do they implant false ones?”

Talk of pasts and memories apparently displeased the clone. His face darkened momentarily before relaxing into a faint smile.

“There is no past; there’s only now. Memories are nostalgia, and nostalgia is for the weak.”

“The Workshop took my blood three years ago,” Max reflected. “You’re awfully big for a three-year-old. Did they grow you in a little tube or some giant machine? Did they have to train you, or did you just pop out, ready, willing, and able to kill?”

The clone’s smile became dangerous. “No big machines,” he replied. “Just a cozy little incubator with nanobots, accelerants, and neural feeds. It didn’t sing me lullabies, but it did make me strong … far stronger than you, brother. I’ve fought a million hyperbattles in the simulations and I’ve never lost. You want to think of me as a copy, as a cheap imitation. But you’re wrong. I’m an original. And you can stall or run for as long as you like, but you can never escape us.…”

As he said this, the clone held up something tucked inside his breastplate. At first glance, Max thought it was simply an ornament on the chain that fastened his cloak. But as the torchlight danced upon its gleaming case, Max recognized the object.

It was a magic compass.

Cooper had used the very same device to locate Max when he’d been imprisoned deep in Prusias’s dungeons. David had made it. Instead of pointing toward magnetic north, its needle always pointed toward Max.

“So that’s how you tracked us,” he said heavily.

The clone slipped the compass back inside his armor. “Your name has been written into the Grey Book,” he said. “Your life is over. Submit and we might spare your companions before Yuga devours them. Do you submit?”

As he said this, the sky rippled with a wash of incandescent light. Its brilliance cast a host of shadows that stretched through the gatehouse tunnel. Max glimpsed shadows of torches and chains … and a figure stealing up behind him. He whirled to face the assassin. When the sky flashed again, it revealed a familiar face.

The assassin was the second clone.

While Max had been speaking to one, the other must have scaled the high walls. Silent as a wraith, the nimble clone bore down on Max with a long dagger in each hand. Sparks flew as Max caught one blade on his cross-guard. But the other blade struck home, piercing his mail shirt and cutting along his ribs as he twisted aside. Seizing the clone’s wrist, Max turned and hurled him against the portcullis.

The clone crashed into it, his knees buckling from the impact and bending several bars. Backing away, Max saw him clearly for the first time. This clone barely resembled the one outside the gate. He was a good fifty pounds lighter, as gaunt as a week-old corpse, with tangles of black hair that hung past his shoulders. Like the witches, every inch of his pale skin was covered in tattoos. But the runes and hieroglyphs were not made with any ink; they were carved into his flesh by a knife or scalpel. The clone was panting, handling each blade with terrifying expertise. Gazing at Max, he grinned and revealed a row of razor-sharp teeth.

Max gasped. “What the hell did they do to you?”

The clone began sniggering like a madman. “Everything,” he whispered. “Everything … EVERYTHING!”

The clone was a blur as he leaped, a frenzied assault of knives

and teeth as he lunged at Max like a rabid animal. Driving Max back into the courtyard, he gave a primal howl as the pair circled one another beneath the flickering sky. The clone was a quick-twitch nightmare with animal instincts far superior to anything human. Every time Max thought he had an opportunity to strike, the clone sprang away or slipped just out of reach. It was like trying to stab smoke. Even worse, the gae bolga felt heavy and leaden in Max’s hand. It was uncharacteristically silent and seemed little more than an unwieldy length of metal. Perhaps the blade was reluctant—even unwilling—to harm its own flesh and blood.

Blood trickled into Max’s eyes from a cut across his forehead. Backing away, he feigned a stumble over a fallen block. As the clone lunged in, Max twisted aside and cracked his opponent’s cheekbone with the gae bolga’s heavy pommel. Howling, the clone bounded away on all fours, leaping onto one of the squat guard towers and scuttling sideways into the tunnel like a great black spider. A moment later, Max heard the winch being spun as the clone raised the portcullis.

An eerie dance took place as the malakhim galloped through the gate and rode about the courtyard’s perimeter with their torches and swords. They hemmed Max in, surrounding him and drawing the noose ever tighter as they leaned from their saddles and swept their swords in long, lethal arcs. Max fought defensively, careful to vary his patterns and keep an eye out for the clones. His only hope was to whittle down the odds and capitalize on rare opportunities.

And while such opportunities were rare, they did exist. The Morrígan’s blade might have balked at the clones, but it had no misgivings about the malakhim. The weapon roared back to life, keening for the cloaked spirits and cleaving through their swords and mail with frightful ease whenever one ventured too close.

Four of the malakhim had fallen when a fist-sized rock struck the back of Max’s head. He stumbled forward, catching himself on one knee. Another smashed into the base of his skull and he crumpled onto the snow-swept courtyard. Blood now trickled from a dozen wounds, stinging his eyes and fingers, hissing whenever it touched the gae bolga. Dazed, Max scrambled to his feet and staggered sideways, tripping over icy stones at the base of a fallen tower. With a jubilant howl, the savage-looking clone dropped the rock and rushed forward with his knives.

The other joined him, leaping down from his saddle and racing at Max with his spear. The gae bolga fell silent as they closed the gap, leaping over scattered stones and converging like a pair of hounds closing on a wounded quarry.

The spear struck first, a screeching blow aimed right at the heart. Max turned the point aside, but the blunt force of the collision cracked his collarbone and sent him staggering back against the well. Turning, he evaded another thrust and just managed to duck as the other clone came leaping after him, brandishing his knives.

As Max battled the clones, the remaining malakhim cut off any escape. The fighting was the most frenzied and brutal Max had ever experienced, skills and strategy devolving into a desperate, savage contest of wills.

At last Max saw an opening. With a roar, he downed the knife-wielding clone, striking him a blow to the temple with the gae bolga’s pommel. But when he made to finish him, the other clone darted in, dropping his spear and seizing hold of Max from behind. Before he could counter, Max’s feet were wrenched off the flagstones.

With appalling strength, the clone squeezed tighter and tighter, driving the steel rings of Max’s hauberk clear through the tunic to bite the flesh beneath. Max nearly lost consciousness. He was only dimly aware of his captor’s voice shouting above Yuga’s incessant moan and the din of the distant armies: “You fought well. But your time has come.”

Rising on unsteady legs, the other clone pushed his long hair back from his face. One eye was swollen shut and his jaw appeared broken. Spitting blood through a jigsaw of shattered teeth, he nevertheless grinned at Max and offered a soldier’s salute. The grisly smile remained, but the clone’s eyes went as cold and dead as a shark’s. Stepping forward, he raised the knife high and brought it screaming down.

But no blade struck Max.

Instead of a dagger, the clone now held a wriggling asp by the tail. Its body thrashed wildly about, but its fangs were sunk deep into the other clone’s cheek. Howling with pain, he released Max and scrabbled at his face, prying the venomous snake free and flinging it away. For a surreal instant, the three looked from one to the other in stunned confusion. Across the courtyard, Max glimpsed a small figure on horseback steadying his frail form against the keep’s great archway.

David!

Rowan’s sorcerer was trembling with anger. The night grew colder as he rode from the keep, the atmosphere twitching and crackling with an electric charge. As David approached, Max felt energies emanating from him, sluggish ripples of Old Magic that seemed to warp and buckle the air. The remaining malakhim and even Max’s clones backed away from the boy as if he were radioactive.

Crack!

The masks of the malakhim shattered.

They fell in a tinkling shower of obsidian shards, revealing the ghastly faces beneath. In the moonlight, they were milky and translucent, a swirl of features that bubbled like melted wax, ever seeking to assume a beautiful visage. But as soon as one was formed, it instantly liquefied and curdled into something grotesque. The spirits turned away, covering their naked faces as though each held some secret of their shame and fall.

The sorcerer’s attention locked onto the clones. They were rooted in place, but every muscle and vein now shone as though they each were straining furiously against some invisible binding. Trembling uncontrollably, the larger one managed to raise his spear. Glowering, he spoke through clenched teeth.

“You’re not strong en—”

With a backhanded gesture, David blasted the clones off their feet. They flew as if they’d been shot from a cannon, somersaulting through the air like rag dolls until they struck the courtyard wall in an explosion of stone and debris that knocked the malakhim from their horses. From the palace wall, there was a groan. A moment later, a vast section collapsed inward, sending a cloud of dust rolling across the dark courtyard. The clones were entombed.

David turned to Max, his face weary and spent.

“Can you ride?”

When Max nodded, David called out for Madam Petra. The smuggler emerged cautiously from the keep, leading the other horse by its bridle. Katarina was ashen-faced, clutching the reins as she stared at the broken malakhim. Slumping against his saddle’s pommel, the sorcerer gestured toward the eastern sky. He struggled to make himself heard over the coming storm.

“Max and I are hurt—we have to make for Bholevna. Yuga is getting closer; it might be very dangerous. Do you understand? You can come with us or go your own way.”

Mother and daughter gazed into the east, at the consuming blackness that blotted out the stars. Then they looked at each other and reached a silent agreement. Handing the smee back to Max, the smuggler swung up into the saddle behind her daughter.

“We’re wasting time.”

The group fled northeast beneath the moon, cutting across sparse forests and empty homesteads as they raced toward Bholevna. Max rode with David, holding the reins as the exhausted sorcerer struggled to remain conscious. He slumped back against Max, holding his injured shoulder and wincing whenever the horse jumped over a ditch or clambered up a hill. Max tried to keep his friend awake, but he was having difficulty himself. He was badly wounded, and despite his remarkable powers of recovery, he’d lost a tremendous amount of blood.

“Don’t nod off!” cried Toby, nestled once again in Max’s hood. “You’ve got to keep riding, boy. There’s medicine and good food and soft beds at Rowan. We’ve got to get that pinlegs to the Director! We’ve come all this way and now we’re going home, so stay with me. Both of you!”

Max was dangerously dizzy by the time they glimpsed Bholevna. The demon city was a sprawl of Gothic buildings and small palaces that straddled a wide river and was knit together by a series of bridges and causeways. In the moonlight, the river looked like polished silver, but the city itself was dark. No lights peered from windows; no smoke trickled from chimneys. In the path of Yuga, Bholevna had been utterly abandoned.

Riding down a series of shallow hills, they merged with the main road that fed into the city. There were no guards posted at the western wall. They galloped through the open gates and onto cobbled streets where freezing gusts whipped papers and debris about in little windstorms. The main avenue through the city led directly east toward where Yuga filled the sky like a spreading pool of ink. Her moaning was deafening now; it filled the air and shook the very earth. Max shouted to David, but he couldn’t even hear his own voice. A flock of birds sped past, fleeing the ravenous demon.

Riding out the opposite gate, they veered off the road, galloping over snowy wheat fields and open country toward several farms that bordered a fir wood. In the east, the landscape had become a churning vortex of dust, soil, and trees that swirled about in gargantuan funnel clouds that rose thousands of feet before disappearing into the demon’s roiling bulk.

When viewed from a safe distance, Yuga was truly frightening. Up close, her presence simply overwhelmed all sense and sanity. Max had never experienced such terror. Every instinct screamed frantically at him to turn around, to flee, to hide, to pray, to beg, to do anything that might spare him from such a monster.

It was far too much for the horses. They shied at the same instant, as if they’d crossed some invisible threshold that broke the poor creatures’ minds. Max managed to roll from the saddle, pulling David with him before their mount sidestepped and collapsed. It stared dully ahead, steam rising from its flanks as it lay in the snow. From what Max could tell, the animal wasn’t injured; some insidious force or perhaps sheer horror had compelled the horse to succumb, to lie still and wait for the demon to devour it.

Madam Petra was huddled on the ground, shielding Katarina as the wind and snow whipped about them. Max yelled to her, but she did not hear him. Lifting David onto his shoulder, Max grabbed the pinlegs tube and stumbled over to the smuggler. He screamed and tugged at her arm, but the woman could hardly respond. She merely gaped at him as he gestured furiously at the distant cabin. The entire earth was shaking. Max feared his eardrums might rupture.

Pulling the Kosas to their feet, Max seized Madam Petra’s wrist and started running, half dragging the woman and her daughter toward the cabin. Their first steps were mechanical, as if the pair were drugged. But soon they came to and began running on their own, sprinting ahead as Max staggered behind with David and Toby.

The cabin was some two hundred yards away and set on a little hill. Glancing east, Max saw no stars—only a wall of darkness that stretched to the horizons. He ran harder, tapping every last reserve of energy and will. Petra reached the cabin first and tried the door before using his sword to smash through a nearby window. As her mother scrambled inside, Katarina reached the porch and turned back to look for them. Glancing east, the girl’s knees nearly buckled. She screamed at them to run, but Max could only see her mouth moving, frantically forming the word over and over.

Max refused to look east or heed any pain as he stumbled along. Petra flung open the door, and soon mother and daughter were exhorting them, pleading for Max to run faster. Spots appeared before his eyes, teasing lights that danced in his peripheral vision. Was he dying? He’d lost so much blood; his entire body felt like ice. Just a little farther … just a little faster.

Staggering toward the cabin door, Max practically tackled the Kosas, knocking the entire group down to the floor. He was losing consciousness, clutching the pinlegs to his chest. David’s face was anxious but calm as he took Petra’s hand and she took Katarina’s. Max could no longer hear; he stared at the ceiling while the others huddled close. The cabin was shaking violently, but he felt strangely peaceful. When the windows blew in, he closed his eyes and waited for the stinging shards to fall.