Page 166 of The Shadow Wand

“Deflection runes cause wand magic or sorcery to double back and attack the person who cast it,” he explains, poking at the green design. “They take years to charge. It’s very complicated rune sorcery.” His brow tightens as he looks to Chi Nam, a suspicious glint in his eyes. “Quite a lot of runic fabrication going on in the Western Realm when there’s only one Council Light Mage.”

“Are you thinking Vogel possesses light magery?” Valasca asks, one black brow raised.

“Possibly,” Lukas answers as he studies the creature. “In addition to possessing a wand that can amplify it.” Lukas slides his wand’s tip over one of the shadowy runes emblazoned on the thing’s huge thorax. Tendrils of smoke still twist up from those runes. Lukas looks to Chi Nam. “I haven’t seen runes like this before.”

“They must be based in demonic magery.” Chi Nam studies the runes alongside Lukas. “They triggered Elloren’s rune.” She places the tip of her rune staff on one of the Shadow runes. Wraithlike smoke trails up her rune staff, momentarily turning all the blue Noi runes a smoking gray, their internal designs morphing to spiraling shapes that give the illusion of tunneling down into some dark infinity.

Chi Nam pulls her staff away, seeming uncharacteristically thrown. “These runes are filled with odd elementals.” The runes on Chi Nam’s rune staff snap back to Noi blue and begin to flash out changeable shapes, as if pulsing a complicated warning. Chi Nam sets her dark gaze directly on Lukas. “I think we’re dealing with something new.”

“Or something very old,” Valasca amends grimly as she eyes the scorpio with heightened alarm. “Cast by the Shadow Wand. Like in the myths.”

An animalistic shriek sounds in the distance, and all our heads whip toward the sound.

“Thehorses,” Valasca rasps out, eyes widened.

More heart-wrenching shrieks are followed by a chorus of tinny, insectile screeching as a hard sting lights on my abdomen and my gaze whips toward Lukas. “There’re more. They’re coming.”

Lukas hoists his sword and slides in front of me as Chi Nam moves closer to the portal and I hastily grab more stones, shoving some in my pocket. Valasca pulls a second blade and tightens her grip on both of the weapons, slowly stepping backward toward me as a multi-eyed, rune-covered scorpio slides into the clearing, teeth chattering, its head jerking this way and that.

Then another.

And another.

And another.

All of them with deflection runes marked on their huge abdomens. All of them bizarrely elongated.

The creatures pause as they loom over Lukas and Valasca, tilting their heads jerkily as they study them. Lukas and Valasca lower themselves into fighting stances before me, their sword and blades raised.

“Chi,” Lukas says calmly. Too calmly. “We need that portal to be readynow.”

“It’s almost fully charged,” Chi Nam says with Lukas’s same unnerving calm, her rune-marked hand, held to the portal’s frame, taking on a blue glow as the ripple of silver in the portal’s center gains strength and begins to streak with gold.

Strangely, the scorpios all wait, limbs twitching, as they stare Lukas down, stingers raised and quivering.

Three more of the horrific things slip into the clearing and my pulse ratchets higher.

Valasca’s gaze darts toward the portal as she takes a step backward, her hand closing tight around my arm, as if she’s ready to hurl me through the portal the second it sets.

The things are chattering now, their horrible jaws making rapid-fire clicking sounds. I notice the one nearest Lukas, the most stretched-out one, has the biggest swarm of eyes, spread clear down its neck. Two more eyes dot the thing’s forelimb like a disease.

It turns, a pale green eye in the center of its head riveting onto me.

I take one small, faltering step back as all the beasts swivel their heads and set their countless eyes on me.

Terror explodes as they all lunge for me in a unified stampede.

Valasca yanks me backward, and the largest one knocks Lukas sideways with the blunt side of its forelimb, stingers lashing forward like whips. A cursing Valasca wrenches me farther to the side then releases me and springs forward in a whirlwind of slicing blades as Lukas battles three of the beasts, his sword whirling as he lops off limbs and venomous tails, creatures shrieking and falling as they descend into an unfocused, scuttling attack.

I pull back my arm to hurl my rock at an advancing scorpio just as its huge pointed forelimb slams down through my cloak and tunic, grazing my shoulder to impale the edge of the cloth, pinning me against the stone wall behind me. I frantically struggle to beat back its forelimb with my rock and pull my arm free as the largest scorpio closes in to peer down at me and I’m overtaken with a horror.

It’s the most hideous one, with eyes clear down its neck.

The insect monster slinks its head forward only a hand’s length from mine as every one of its eyes pivot forward to stare hard at me.

I stare back into the single pale green eye in the center of the thing’s head as recognition blasts through my mind.

A Vogel eye.

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