Kate screamed.
The Guide had raised a hand, and before Laysia could stand, a bolt of electricity sizzled through the air. A streak of fire shot from him up and over the children and across an open space, through the tents to where a woman, running along the border of the receding mist, was charging toward them, waving a tall pole, soldiers behind her. It hit with a flash, and the woman screamed, her clothes aflame.
“Attend!” the man shouted at the boy. “This is what you were made for!”
With a shriek, Ker hurtled over the hollow, aflame. Don’t look! Jean told herself. Then the scream broke. She glanced up. Twisted at odd angles, her clothes smoldering, the woman dangled from the high branch of a tree, arms flapping in the wind.
Cringing, Jean looked to the Genius. What vengeance would he take now? But the man barely glanced in Ker’s direction. Below him, the mist was suddenly retreating, leaving behind the bent figures of the soldiers and the captives it had swallowed. As it left, they reared up, screeching. Wild, changed, they turned on the soldiers who had driven them into the darkness, and attacked.
“What use is it?” Liyla sobbed, watching. “What use?”
The Genius never lost his vicious smile. “Yes, they’ve become like savage dogs, haven’t they?” He tilted his head toward the girls. “But I know something of savage dogs. They respond to power.” He watched the new-made slashers tear at the soldiers another moment before he added, “And they can smell fear.”
He nodded to the guards behind the corral, and they heaved open the barn doors. Huddled in the dim space were more than two dozen children, who blinked now in the sudden light. Fire pendants glittered in heaps beside them, and every neck was adorned with a deadly orb.
Jean could not at first drag her eyes from the fire orbs. Mountains of them glinted among the unfortunate children, taller than some of the smallest of them. And seeing this, she at last looked at their faces. A dark-haired girl with a bald spot at her chin stared out at her, the collar of her shirt blackened and burned.
“Omet!”
The girl said nothing. Stomach churning, Jean looked from face to face. There was Sefi, the girl who’d sung songs about the useless to put the others to sleep at night. Nearby sat Yali, who’d been so gentle with Kate. She saw the boy from the sleeper shed, Espin, sitting with hands shielding his chest, and Modo, who’d helped hide them under the floor. Child after child, all were there, and many more.
“Go! Go!” the soldiers shouted, rousting the dazed children from the barn. Chained wrist to ankle, the children couldn’t lift their arms above their shoulders, but they grabbed the pendants and held them away from their chests as they staggered out into the sunlight, trying not to fall.
“Wait! Please don’t!” Jean saw Yali stumble and catch herself, the fire pendant still in her hand.
“Omet!” Jean cried again. And as if she’d been speaking to him, the Genius nodded.
“Resourceful girl,” he said as he watched Omet stumble toward the ridge. “She’d built quite a nest there, infesting the buildings. Pity she was useless.” He gazed for another second at Omet, running toward the battle, driven by the soldiers and their dogs.
“Of course, I’ve found a use for her now.”
And as the children descended into the hollow, the wild-eyed slashers raised their heads, turning, and leaped to pursue them like wolves to the hunt.
The old man shook the ground. Gentle, the scholars had been once, but not now! All the rage Laysia could feel in the air flowed into the wind and fire that raced from him out toward the red cloaks. And still the far wood poured forth the enemy, a hemorrhage that would not end. They came and came, red as a gash in the mountain, and even the shaking of the foundation could not stanch it.
Then from the east, soft at first, a new wind came whistling. Shadows striped the ground, and Laysia saw a mass of watchers soar overhead and alight in the clearing. The first of them turned, and she saw a familiar profile, a well-remembered face.
Lan.
There was pain, very sharp, very sudden. All the loss that had been dulled with the years, the joy and sadness put away, came shattering now the barriers built of patience and time. And yet there was no space to feel it. This new company of watchers looked skyward, and branches snapped from the trees to rain down upon the coming warriors, knocking the weapons from their hands.
Then, from Kate, a jolt of panic, and the boy yelled, “Stop!”
“Look!” Kate shouted. “Look at the children!”
Children poured over the western ridge, propelled by red cloaks and dogs. Hobbled by chains, they lurched down the slope while, like jackals roused by the scent of blood, the lost ones bounded after them.
Stumbling, awkward, the children made easy prey. A maddened slasher snatched at the neck of a redheaded girl; a dog yanked a boy to the ground. To Laysia’s shock, fire spat from the first child, throwing the slasher off. Around the boy, the grass flared. Laysia had almost reached them when she stopped. What was happening?
Nell charged past her. “Make a path for them!” she yelled. And stones jumped from the grass to knock the dog from the boy; dust flew up to blind a soldier hurrying their way. His shirt in flaming tatters, the boy rolled to his feet and ran, the girl at his heels, their wild fear blaring in Laysia’s ears.
But if she could hear the children, the old man had gone deaf. He paid no heed to the small figures running amid the chaos. He raised a hand, and lightning slammed into the ground, throwing soldiers to the dirt and heaving a curly-haired
