“You have that disc-sword,” Kosar said. “It has a long reach. As long as you don’t let the Monk knock it out of your hands, you can hold the bastard away.”

“And you have that apple-picker?” Trey said, nodding at the sword in Kosar’s hand.

The blade thrummed, the handle was hot and steady in his grasp. “It’s tasted Monk blood before,” he said. “It’ll do.”

“Until the others come from the woods to join their friend,” Trey said.

Kosar did not answer.

“Come on!” Hope screamed behind them, slapping Rafe across the face. The unconscious boy’s fingers were fisted into the soil, delving into hidden roots and routes, holding him there as if the world was about to up-end.

A’Meer, Kosar thought, you must have fought hard. The Monk was close now, and there were several large areas of its cloak that gleamed with fresh blood.

“Not like this,” Hope said, her voice changing from challenging to forlorn. “Not like this, it can’t all end like this! It’s so pointless!”

The Monk was twenty heartbeats away.

Something began to growl. Kosar thought it was the Monk, but then he noticed the thing’s head turning slightly as it too searched for the source of this noise. It was a high, screeching whine, like two huge swords being ground together.

“What’s that?” Trey said.

From behind them, Hope gasped and whispered, “It’s happening.”

A few paces ahead, from where a flat machine lay all but smothered in a rich purple moss, a long limb slowly extended out across the ground. The movement was accompanied by a metallic growl as hinges, junctions and elbows that had been stiffened by three centuries of inactivity, rain, frost and sun began to move once more. It lifted painfully from the ground, rust the color of dried blood dropping away in a shower to speckle the moss below.

The Red Monk had paused in its advance and stood swaying unsteadily a few paces away from this new, strange, wondrous thing.

“Magic!” Hope called out, laughing viciously. “Magic! Do you like that, you red bastard?”

The Monk hissed at her words, stepped forward and struck out at the long metal appendage. Its sword glanced from the limb, throwing sparks and rust specks into the air, and it staggered back with its arm held tightly to its side. The thing continued to rise, bending in the middle like a human arm preparing to throw. And it seemed to be growing thicker.

“It’s changing,” Kosar said in disbelief. “Expanding. It’s—”

“Magic,” Hope said. She turned to Rafe, bent down and put her hand to his face. “He’s holding on to the ground as if he’s afraid he’ll fall off, but at least he’s cooled down. No fever. Whatever was building in him has been let loose.”