Stepping through puddles of blood, she made her way downhill, moving back toward the place where she'd left Sena's body. When she reached the oak, she froze and sucked in breath. A cluster of the octopus spawn still lived. They were piled together, feasting, guzzling down meat.

Laira shifted into a dragon, roared, and raced toward them. She whipped her tail, knocking the demonic brood aside. They slammed into tree trunks, hissing, blood on their mouths, gobbets of Laira's brother stuck between their teeth. When Laira leaped toward the place where Sena's body had lain, she found it gone. Nothing but blood remained.

She howled. The sound tore through her throat, tore through her soul, a cry of more mourning than she'd felt since her mother had died.

She blew her flames.

She torched the octopus spawn.

They burned, squealing, tumbling over, reaching out their flaming tentacles toward her. They seemed almost to beg.

She could not bury her brother; she would give him a funeral in fire.

By the time the other Vir Requis joined her, the creatures lay as charred clumps, and Laira knelt in the burnt grass, shaking and too hurt to weep.

Goodbye, my brother, she thought. Fly to our mother and be at peace . . . a peace I've never felt.

She looked back at the others. They stood together in human forms, watching her, hesitating.

"He will send more demons," Laira said, her voice sounding hollow to her ears. "My father will never stop hunting us. With blood and flame, we forged a kingdom among the birches. Now our war of independence begins."

DORVIN

 
DORVIN

Dorvin stood above the creature's corpse, spat on it, and kicked the diseased flesh.

"Arse-biting, mammoth-shagging piece of shite." Dorvin gave the beast another kick, his foot sinking into rotted flesh. "What the Abyss is this son of a whore?"

He stared down at the creature, disgust swirling through him. Dorvin was only twenty-two winters old, but he'd fought hundreds of beasts already—mammoths, saber-toothed cats, the cannibals of the east, and even wild rocs. Back in his tribe, the fabled Clan of Stonespear, he'd slaughtered more beasts than even the chieftain. Yet he'd never seen a creature like this.

He brushed flecks of its flesh off his fur tunic. "By the Sky Mother, it's an ugly piss-drinker, it is."

The creature was large as a dragon, and four wings grew from its back, each covered with a rug of human fingers—thousands of fingers that grew like grass. Even in death, those fingers twitched as if trying to grasp him. The creature's body was lank and tumors covered its face, some of them leaking. This was no animal. This was an unholy terror from another world.

A soft voice rose behind him. "A demon. A demon from the Abyss."