Snarling, Rory sprang past me into the night. Two wolves dodged past him into the light shed by my sword. With a crosscut to the head, I sliced one hard across the muzzle and sidestepped with a turn to slash up under the belly of the second. Cold steel hit them like poison. They both collapsed. Snarls and growls punctuated a dirty fight farther out. I ran toward the sound to find Rory with his jaws at the throat of a third wolf, clamping down until the beast stopped thrashing and went limp.

“There’s one more,” I said.

Bee shouted a warning.

I bolted back in time to see the fourth wolf leap toward Bee as Amadou Barry jumped between them. I grabbed its tail and yanked it sideways with me as I fell. The animal landed square on top of me, punching the air from my lungs. It twisted, shaking up to its feet as its head swung around to bite my face.

Rory slammed into it, and they went rolling away into the darkness in a crash of noise, followed by a yelp. Rory paced back into view. He looked quite dreadfully powerful, muscles rippling beneath his dark flanks and shoulders. Facing into the darkness, he roared. His challenge shook through air and earth like a living thing. When he paused, the night had fallen as silent as if every creature near enough to hear thought it prudent to rethink its strategy.

“Cat?” Bee’s voice was remarkably level. “Are you hurt?”

“I’m not touched.” I was shaking, not with fear but with fight. I was ready to rip out the throat of the next creature that attacked Bee. “We need to move. Find a gate to get you and the legate back to the mortal world.”

“This is a constant nightmare of death!” cried Amadou Barry. “Have we truly crossed into Tartarus, where the ancestors bide? Where skulls are wreathed in the form of living heads? Where every monster seeks to kill?”

Ignoring him, I slung on the pack with Vai’s tools and started walking. “I’d call Rory’s pride to protect us, but we’ve no warded ground in sight where they can shelter if a tide rips through.”

I led with my sword, keeping my right shoulder next to the wall. Bee followed with the other two packs, slung on before and behind her, and the cacica’s head held out in front to guide us. Amadou Barry limped behind her, and Rory brought up the rear. The ground alongside the wall was stony, marked with patches of lichen. Eyes glowed in the night like pairs of fireflies, softly ominous.

“What is a tide?” Amadou Barry demanded. “Why is everything here attacking us?”