Chapters (45)
- Title Page
- Copyright Page
- Dedication
- Acknowledgements
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- THIRTY-FIVE
- THIRTY-SIX
- THIRTY-SEVEN
- THIRTY-EIGHT
- THIRTY-NINE
- FORTY
- FORTY-ONE
A warrior screamed somewhere behind her and the hairs pricked up on her neck. More spiders came boiling up out of the ground and shambled forth. So many! She visioned a hasty spell for light as she leapt and dodged them, trying to keep clear of the sly filaments of web stretched from tree to tree. She heard another faerie cry out.
This would never do! The faeries couldn’t possibly dodge all these spiders and the Blackbringer too once he showed himself, and that was sure to be soon. . . .
He rose.
This time he came as no slow fume. He jetted from the earth in a dark spew, churning through the air and sucking his skin into the shape of a horned beast. It was but a mockery of the Magruwen’s form, a pathetic imitation by a creature with no dreams of his own. He landed crouched, his darkness pooling and shifting. Squinting, Magpie could just detect the dense thatch of traceries alive over the skin of him, tightly woven of many, many glyphs. It was a calculus of magic such as she had never dreamed, a prison wrought of the Djinns’ highest craft.
He turned to Magpie, fixing her with savage eyes. “You,” he purred, “I’ve been hunting for you.”
“And I for you, Blackbringer,” she returned, then bellowed, “Warriors! Now!” and the Rathersting leapt, whooping their war cries, veering in the air, slashing down spiders and web as they drew round to encircle the Blackbringer.
He laughed at them. “Do you think you can slay me, faeries? Or have you come to spare me the trouble of hunting this night?”
“We’ll spare you the trouble of hunting ever again!” spat Magpie.
He laughed once more, and from within him his ghastly tongue suddenly unspooled and shot at her. She leapt against the side of a tree just as a spider rappelled down it. Its fangs missed her face by a hair’s breadth. She flung it to the ground. The Blackbringer drew his tongue back and hurled it again. An old warrior heaved himself clear of it and fell within reach of a spider. The spider reared and struck, and the warrior screamed.
Magpie knew it was time to conjure the champion’s glyph and dive into the darkness, but she hesitated. She couldn’t leave the Rathersting like this! She glanced back at Talon, who held a knife in one hand and her tether tight in the other, leaping and slashing as more spiders came at him and more. There were just too many!