I have those words, he thought again, and they almost sprang to his lips of their own accord. He shouted the first word and ended it in a scream that shocked a flight of birds from the forest canopy below and to his left.

For a beat the creatures paused in their attack and looked up at him, clicking and hooting in shock or fear, or perhaps both.

Lulah turned and stared up at him also. Her dark skin had turned a sickly gray, blood drenched her clothing and she swayed where she stood, her eyelid drooping. The stud on her eye patch flashed in the sun. “I won't die like that!” she shouted into the silence.

Wait, Ramus wanted to say, but there was nothing to wait for.

Lulah turned and leapt from the step, sword raised, uttering a scream that surprised the two creatures below her into silence. She fell on them, her sword piercing a chest and slipping from her hand as she and the other creature started tumbling.

Ramus watched until he was sure she was dead. Then he drew in a huge breath, closed his eyes and screamed the words he should not know.

Chapter 21

Chapter 21

A DISTANT SOUND faded away to nothing and Nomi's skin crawled. The breath was squeezed from her, her flesh felt suddenly too expansive for her body and her skin contracted. She fell to her knees on a carpet of pine needles and ants, and as she leaned forward the ants reared up, preparing to fight something a million times their size with blind instinct.

She gasped at last, releasing some of the pressure, extending the sound into a drawn-out groan that seemed to bleed tension from her bones and muscles. Ants crawled on the stickiness of her leg wound and she flicked them off. The tree canopy above her grew silent. She clasped her hands to her stomach and wondered what was there, whether it was safe or dead, and for the first time she cared.

The silence was broken again by the thundering sound of rocks tumbling and rolling down a cliff. A landslide? Nomi could not feel the ground shaking, and the noise ended as suddenly as it had begun.

She stood and stumbled on, soon finding her pace again. To her left the forest was obscured by a low mist, and here and there she saw movement as though shapes were passing through. She paused and hid low several times, but the shapes never manifested into anything solid. If it were them, they'd have come at me by now, she thought, and the next time she saw movement she ignored it and hurried on.

The tree cover ended suddenly, and there was not only nature before her, but something beyond nature. The breath was knocked from her. Taller than any building she had ever seen, more intricate, terrifying in its mass and height, awe-inspiring in its ambition . . .

But there was something wrong.