The Hamrammr alpha went limp in his grip as a surge of power ripped outward from the settlement’s warding lines. It left Thordin’s head ringing and his eyes stinging, but he redoubled his efforts.
The alpha was no longer resisting. He stared up at Thordin, his eyes wide with terror, jaw slack.
Thordin could understand why. The surge of power was unexpected and heavy with more power than he could ever remember Phelan wielding.
Someone was shouting above them—Thom, he thought, though he couldn’t be sure. A second pulse of power rolled out from the warding lines and the alpha jerked in Thordin’s hands, then went limp again. He glanced down and snarled in disgust. The creature was dead, impossibly, inexplicably so.
Maybe not inexplicably… Thordin dropped the corpse, looking back toward the lip of the ravine. What the hell did you do, Phelan?
Thom shouted his name and Thordin scrambled up the hill, past the prone corpses of the enemy and toward the leading edge of the ravine. Behind him, from the bridge, he could hear Cariocecus’s voice echoing as well—something about getting someone to bring him across the lines before whatever Phelan was doing tore half the world asunder.
“Valkyrie’s teats,” he muttered. “What have you managed to do this time, Phelan?”
Cameron grasped his hand and helped him clear the edge of the ravine and as Thordin stumbled a few steps forward and caught his balance, he realized that his assumption that it was something that Phelan had done might actually have been a bit hasty.
“What happened up here?” Thordin asked.
“We’re not even sure,” Thom said, blade plunging through one of the Hamrammr bodies to ensure that it was, in fact, quite deceased. “But that’s par for the course lately when it comes to them.”
The normally invisible walls of energy that were the ward lines were the green of holly leaves and pine needles, and that same green mingled with bright sliver wrapped around Marin and Phelan, who both leaned against Phelan’s staff. Blood dripped to the snow-crusted ground alongside Phelan, down the shaft of a spear that was still shoved deep into the flesh of his side.
The energy that the pair had called had either slain their enemies or rendered them unconscious for now—and probably won them the day this time.
But they’ll not be able to keep this up forever. Thordin grasped Thom’s arm. “Help me.”
“Right.” Thom’s brows knit. “What am I helping you with?”
“Pulling them apart before they tear the ley lines around here wide open and spill raw energy into the world. You thought this place was a beacon already. It just got worse.”
Setting his jaw, Thordin strode toward his friend and one of the most powerful Seers left in the world.
This story is so freakin’ Awesome!!!