Runebinder (The Runebinder Chronicles #1)(3)

He was just tired. He was losing his grip.

Just tired, and Water was just angry at not being used for so long.

He focused on the cart, on ensuring no blood dripped from the back. He wouldn’t give the kravens a Hansel and Gretel–style bread-crumb trail. That, at least, he could control.

The highway cut a straight line through the fields and hills, sharp and bleak and dotted with abandoned cars. Outpost 37 was still a blur on the horizon, several miles and a few hours away. It wavered like a mirage in the rain, a smear of black-inked buildings on pale gray paper. Every step toward the city was a tick against Tenn’s nerves. The creaking cart was too loud, the rain too heavy. There was no way they could walk fast enough for his comfort. He wanted to be back and dry and warm, preferably pretending they weren’t waiting for battle. Maybe the Prophets were wrong, and the army would miss them entirely. Maybe there was no army. Maybe this was all a waste of time, and the worst thing that had happened was that he’d been bored.

Denial had never served him well, but out here, in the freezing cold with no comfort from the Spheres, it was better than reality.

Katherine stopped. She didn’t say anything, just stood with her eyes wide and a slight part to her lips.

Shit.

A second later, he heard it. A scream. A howl. It sliced through the fields like a scalpel, high-pitched and dragged from the depths of hell.

No living thing could make that noise.

Tenn shielded his eyes and tried to see farther out, but through the rain and the haze all he could see was shifting gray.

The scream was distant. Maybe, if they were lucky...

Michael lowered the cart handle to the ground, slowly, gently, making sure not a sound was made. His mace was in hand the moment he stood. Tenn looked over to Katherine, who had her katanas unsheathed.

“Stay very, very still,” Tenn whispered, his knuckles white on his staff. “Maybe they’ll pass us by.”

“Not likely,” Michael muttered, but he held his position.

Seconds passed in silence. Each raindrop froze into his skin, each heartbeat promised devastation.

There was a chance—a small chance—that it was a single kraven. Just one lowly, lonely monster seeking out its next meal. And there was a small chance that the kraven had found the deer’s head, taken the bait and was on the run for fear its brothers would discover the bounty.

It was a small chance. Delusional at best.

Silence stretched across Tenn’s nerves like a noose. Blood pooled against his gums from a fresh-bitten wound in his cheek. He tried to relax his jaw, tried to breathe slow and deep. In and out. In and out. The silence grew heavier. At least thirty seconds had passed. They would have known if they were spotted by now. He took another deep breath and started to relax his grip.

A second howl split the world, closer this time. And this one wasn’t alone. Another voice picked it up, as high and piercing as shattering glass and nails on a chalkboard. He knew the scream of a kraven as well as his own voice, but that didn’t mean there weren’t other types of Howls out there. The quiet ones were often the deadliest. Without magic or a clear line of sight, he also had no way to estimate how many there were. Could be dozens. Hundreds, even.

It didn’t matter. Without magic, even a handful of kravens could be deadly.

Blood thundered in his ears, louder than the rain. He counted his heartbeats in the back of his mind, wondering how many more he had left before his blood stilled. The Sphere of Water roiled in his gut. It could sense the upcoming battle, could feel it in the pulse of the rain—so much blood was about to be shed, and his Sphere yearned to be a part of it.

His Sphere wanted to cause it.

“We’re going to die,” Katherine said. Her voice was too calm for comfort. Like him, she had faced death a hundred times, and each time had probably felt as final as this. Unlike him, she seemed okay with it. “There are too many.”

“You know the orders,” Tenn said. No magic. Even if the orders get us killed. His eyes flickered to his right arm, to the tattoo he could practically feel burning against his skin. The Hunter’s mark—the tattoo that first bound him to Water and, more recently, to Earth. The mark that let him use the Spheres.

Katherine didn’t say anything in reply, but he could imagine her nodding her head and accepting her own approaching demise. He wasn’t willing to give up so easily. There were still too many lost souls on his conscience to avenge. Somehow, he was going to make it out of this alive. He owed the dead that much.

The first kraven broke through the field with a banshee’s scream, and all thoughts vanished in the heat of survival.

Like all the variations of Howls, the kraven had been human once, though the resemblance was minimal—two legs, two arms, a torso and head. The conversion process twisted the host into something beyond a nightmare. Bones jutted like talons from rotting gray flesh, its spine curved and twisted. Its eyes were bloodshot, red as meat, and its jaw had snapped and reformed like the maw of a piranha in a bulbous human head. The very sight should have been enough to send a sane man running. If not, the dozen others that appeared close behind it would have.

Before the first kraven even reached the road, Katherine ran forward, her blades a whirl of silver. Metal met flesh, and all the fear and anticipation from before washed away.

When he was younger, Tenn had immersed himself in books and movies of heroic battles. The tales were always gorgeous in a way—heart-pumping and engaging, filled with quick moves and dancing blows. Heroes dashed between villains with ease, always golden, always immortal. Always confident and brave and beautiful.