“You have learned nothing, Justis Fearsson,” she said. “I do not believe he will be coming. I have told you before, the runemystes are more concerned with their own safety and their precious rules than they are with the lives of those who serve them. I warned you of this when first we met.”
“I remember. I refused to believe you then, and I still do.”
“And again I tell you that you are a fool.” She opened her arms wide. “Where is he? Where is your precious Namid’skemu? You have asked him to help you. You did so just now, and I have no doubt you have done so several times before. But where is he?”
“Here.”
She and I turned as one. Namid stood on a low rise to the west of the trailer, sunlight shining through him as if he were made of glass. Two figures flanked him. One, a woman, had an odd, mottled appearance. It took a moment to realize that she was made of stone, granite perhaps. She was beautiful and yet as severe and remote as a mountain top. On Namid’s other side stood a slight man who appeared to waver and dance, even as he remained still. He was even less substantial than Namid in his clearest form. But somehow I knew that this was illusion. In his own way he must have been every bit as powerful as my runemyste.
“You are well, Ohanko?”
“Feeling better now.”
“You cannot interfere!” Saorla said. “I know you cannot! You were punished for what you did to Cahors.”
Namid’s waters riffled, making the sunlight passing through him waver. “I was, because I did not have the permission of my kind to act. This time I do. At Ohanko’s urging, I have convinced the other runemystes that you are a threat to us, and to the world we are sworn to protect.” He indicated the two mystes standing with him. “They have sent the three of us to keep you from taking additional lives.”
“I do not believe you!”
“Believe what you will. We shall not interfere with them,” the runemyste said with a small gesture that somehow encompassed every human on my father’s land. “But you shall not help your friends, nor will you harm mine.”
She spun toward me both hands held before her. Flames leaped from her fingers. I threw my arms up in a vain attempt to protect myself. I needn’t have bothered. The fire never reached me; it never even came close. Nor was it the shield I had conjured to protect my father and me from the coyote that stopped her spell. The flames simply vanished, swallowed, it seemed, by the air before me.
Saorla screeched her frustration.
Patty whispered something to Witcombe, and an instant later one of Amaya’s guards was thrown into the air. He somersaulted toward the dark sorcerers and landed on his back at Patty’s feet. She stabbed down with the knife, but the man managed to roll out away from the blow.
I pulled the Glock from my jacket pocket and fired off a shot. I aimed for her blade hand, but missed. She gaped at me-maybe she hadn’t considered that I might still have my weapon even after Saorla had disarmed Amaya’s men. And that moment’s hesitation gave Amaya’s man time enough to find his feet. He braced himself to throw a punch, but another spell fell upon him. His head snapped to the side, and he collapsed like a puppet whose strings had been cut. I had a feeling he was dead before he hit the ground.
Hain grinned.
I fired again, this time at Hain’s head. But in the span of a few seconds between my first shot and my second the weremancers had warded themselves against gunfire. The shot ricocheted back at me, missing my dad and me by inches and gauging a hole in the side of the trailer.
That shot was like the report of a starter’s gun. Abruptly spells were flying in all directions. Luis went down, as did Witcombe and Patty. But in moments all of them were up again, casting as fast they could, trying to find a spell that would overcome their opponents’ wardings. Hain threw spell after spell at my father and me, each one landing like a fist. Our wardings held, but the force of his attacks was enough to leave me dazed; I couldn’t image how my father stayed on his feet.
“Are you-?”
“Don’t worry about me,” he said through clenched teeth. “Just get the bastard.”
Sometimes I thought that weremystes of all sorts were too enamored of fancy spells. Namid had taught me to think in simpler terms. I aimed two spells in quick succession at Hain. With the first I pulled his foot out from under him as I had done to Patty at Witcombe’s house. And as soon as he hit the ground, I cast again.
Hain, the ground beneath him, and a large chasm in the desert dirt.
The crack opened and he let out a cry of surprise and alarm. He teetered on the edge trying to swing himself free, and then toppled into it.
The crack, Hain, and the dirt covering him once more. The spell hummed in the air and I heard another cry, more desperate this time. His arm flailed above ground; I didn’t know how much air he had down there, but for the moment at least I had other concerns.
“That was well done,” Dad said.
“Thank-”
He shoved me aside and cast at the same time. At least I thought the magic came from him. It played along my skin like a summer wind and met the oncoming spell with enough force to shake the ground beneath my feet. The great coyote that had continued to growl and bare its teeth at us all this time flattened its ears and let out a soft whine.
I stared at him. “What the hell.”
“I saw her cast,” Dad said, pointing at Patty. “I don’t know what it was, but she aimed it at you. I met it with a warding of my own, a wall spell, I used to call it.”
“Seemed to work.”
The ground opened again near Patty and Witcombe, and Hain scrabbled out like an insect, his clothes covered with dirt. He nodded once to Patty and they pivoted in unison toward my father and me.
“Ward yourself!” I said.
But they had learned. I felt the spell course in our direction and then pass over us. Stone shattered behind me.
“What was-”
“Crap!” my father said. “Move!” He shoved me again, this time following right on my heels.
I heard a deep metallic groan. Another spell skimmed over us, and more stone broke. Not stone, cinder block. The supports holding up the trailer.
The groan crescendoed, tipped over into a grating shriek. From within the trailer came a frenzy of shattering glass: windows, plates, glasses, picture frames. If it was fragile and my father owned it, it was smashed in those few seconds. And then the trailer fell over, crashing to the ground where my father and I had been standing seconds before.
I conjured fragments of broken cinder block into the air and hurled them at Patty, Hain, and Witcombe, hoping that their warding had been specific to bullets. Surely they hadn’t anticipated that I might throw rock at them.
I think my dad must thought the same thing, because chunks of cinder block rained down on them, opening wounds on their faces and necks, battering them to the ground.
Saorla growled again, her body going rigid as she strained against the magical constraints placed upon her by Namid and his companions. For good measure, I hit her with a piece of cinder block, too.
We threw another volley of stone at the weremancers, but by now they had warded themselves. The fragments fell to the ground in front of them; a few hurtled back our way, but missed us.
My eyes flicked westward. The sun hung just above the horizon, fiery orange and enormous. Looking to the east, I saw the first glimmer of moon glow touching the sky. We had no more than a few minutes before the phasing began. If what Patty said was true, while our minds were at the mercy of the moon, hers and those of her dark sorcerer friends would remain clear. And all would be lost.
You have little time, Ohanko, I heard in my mind.
Did he really think I needed to be told?
Hain and Witcombe had aimed their spells at Jacinto, Rolon, and the others, pounding them with attack after attack. Amaya’s wardings held, but they were falling back step by step. Hain and Witcombe had only to keep them occupied for a while longer.