Page 93 of The Source of Storms

Energy surged through me as the cold water hit my skin. It shocked me awake, shook me from my daze, from the half life I had lived trapped in this hell. My muscles ached and my head pounded.

Then I felt its power. Deep, ancient, and indifferent. Cleansing and purifying in the way that I had craved, the way I’d thought I would be saved by Zisorah’s god. But here was my salvation. The raging, roaring power of life, of magic, of Source. I stayed submerged as the sounds of the battle on the surface were muffled by the weight and cold of the water. I pulled it into me,that raging torrent of pent-up fury and wildness. I accepted it all, felt it all, awoke to the reality of what had been done to me.

I felt myself change. My body expanded, twisting, contorting. Bones cracked and reformed. Skin and sinew stretched. I was rebuilt, remade as something else, and I rose from the fountain as the transformation finished, dripping and snarling. I stretched my nose to the sky and howled in answer to my kin. Their howls joined mine and my heart soared. I sprang from the fountain, woman no more. Wolf in entirety.

My gaze met Zisorah’s as she began a slow, determined descent down the grand stairs of the Temple entrance toward me. My rage grew, and I did not wait for her. I flung myself into the chaos of the courtyard, charged straight through the fleeing citizens, the guards, the Keepers and Rangers. I would taste her blood. I would make her suffer.

I reached the foot of the stairs and leaped at her, jaws wide. She met my pounce with a wall of force, crackling with divine energy. I crumpled into it, tumbling painfully to the stairs, but rolled to my feet with a low growl. I paced, circling her as she angled her magic shield at me.

“Nothing but a feral monster after all,” she spat. “You fae are all the same. Tricky, dirty, bloodthirsty monsters!”

She dropped the barrier and flung a spear of pure blue light at me. I dodged and charged her again, this time connecting. I knocked her to the ground and she punched my face, scrambling desperately to stay away from my now deadly jaws. I felt the sharp clap of her power hit me again with her strike, like it had so many times before, wracking my body with pain. But I was used to this now, practiced in endurance. I did not let up. I caught her forearm in my jaw as she swung again, and the bones shattered beneath my teeth with ease. There was a satisfying crunch; blood ran hot into my mouth. I shook my head side toside and she screamed in earsplitting agony as the bones and muscles were pulverized between my teeth.

The flash of a dagger in the sunlight. I released her arm and leaped sideways, her flailing swing falling short. In my peripheral vision, I saw her guards surrounding me. Lances and pikes at the ready, they rushed in.

At the same moment, I heard a familiar voice.

“Halja!” El screamed. “Hal!”

My head shot up, and I searched for her in the chaos. There. Swirling flame and blinding flashes. She commanded a space in the crowd between me and the now wide open gates. I looked down at the High Priestess again, hate and rage filling my animal body to trembling. Barely containable. My instincts thirsted for her blood.

But El called again, and I took my chance to leap through the last gap in the closing ranks of the Temple guards between us. A spear tip dragged along my flank, tearing my thick dire wolf skin, but it did not stop me. I bolted for El and the path she had cleared, and there he was.

Byrgir.

Holding off a group of three Avanis city guards with confident parries and flashes of his long claymore. Quick, calculated, and devastating, he slashed into the chest of one, kicking him back into his comrades and clearing the path for me. I could smell his scent even from my distance as I sprinted toward him. Sweet, warm spice mingled with sweat and his adrenaline. Had I been in fae form, I would have collapsed at the smell of him alone.

I flew past him, my eyes fixed on the open gates. He and El closed ranks behind me. Other Keepers and Rangers fell into formation with them. Crow’s voice commanded the group, although I did not see him. Sharp orders and they were allmoving with me, falling back as we moved as one through the courtyard and finally, mercifully, through that heavy gate.

Howls from the forest behind the Temple beckoned me. We veered left, racing through the streets. People screamed and hid at my approach. Two guards sprinted from a side street into an intersection to make a stand against us. Their eyes widened beneath their helms at the sight of us, of me. A massive, bloodied dire wolf barreling toward them. I let out a feral snarl, rage and innate ferocity tearing from my throat with flecks of Zisorah’s blood. They turned and ran back down the side street they had come from.

The city wall loomed up in front of us, and I hesitated. Rangers and Keepers split around me, flowing forward to the wall like water. Perfectly on cue, thick rope ladders dropped from the wall, dark clad Rangers atop it rising from their concealed prone positions. Keepers and Rangers climbed the ladders, vanishing over the other side.

I caught the scent of brimstone and heard explosions. I turned to see El throwing balls of flame at our pursuers, setting carts and buildings ablaze to slow the city and Temple guards’ advance. But there were hundreds of them here, and only thirty or so of us. I could not stay here, but I had no hands, no human legs. I couldn’t climb. And I did not think I could shed my wolf form now. It had possessed me. The fury and adrenaline that ripped through me made it impossible to let go.

Fear and intense frustration bubbled up within me. I could not, would not, be a prisoner again. Would not be detained here. I would die defending myself at this wall before I went back to that glorified tomb.

Byrgir’s large hand met my shoulder. Even through my thick wolf fur, it electrified me. My heart hammered and swelled at his touch.

“Quickly, Hal, this way,” he said.

He dashed down the street to our right and then turned left into a tight alley. A small crew of Rangers had stacked crates and barrels beneath the eaves of a building, forming a makeshift ramp for me. Two more Rangers waited on its rooftop.

I turned to Byrgir, wishing I could speak, wanting to tell him to go first so I could help him in case he couldn’t make the leap, but he shoved me forward without hesitation. I followed his order, trusting him as I had since the beginning, since that day we had fled Eilith’s together. I ran at the stacks of crates and leaped, cleared the gap from them to the roof, and bounded to its peak. Byrgir was right behind me, but the distance was a large one for a human. He crashed painfully into the edge of the roof; I heard him grunt as it knocked the wind from him. But the other two Rangers pulled him up, and then pulled up the last Rangers behind us.

I hesitated at the rooftop’s peak. The gap between the building and the city wall was considerable. They had chosen a crossing place where the wall had a walkway atop it for patrolling guard, but it was still too narrow for something of my size to land without colliding with the opposite side.

Shouts echoed from the alleyway below us, followed by the clatter of heavy boots on wooden crates. The Rangers leaped across to the city wall in a nimble flash. Yet Byrgir stood by my side, one hand on his sword, his attention toward the oncoming guard as I hesitated. I knew he would not go until I did. Fear pushed me on, and I ran for the edge.

I sailed across the gap and crumpled painfully into the stone floor and battlements of the platform. Byrgir was right behind me, stumbling into me on his landing. The Rangers had raced along the wall and descended dangling ropes. I could see them and the Keepers vanishing into the trees. There was no easy way down for me, only a steep wall and a dirt landing.

Familiar howls sounded from the dense forest. They ignited something primal in me, and my fear of the fall abated. I was being summoned to the forest, and I must go. With a less than graceful hop, I flung my huge wolf body over the edge and fell, crashing into the soft dirt and grass below. I rolled as I hit the ground, but something popped in my knee.

Byrgir descended a rope behind me and then we were sprinting, bruised and bleeding, for the tree line. My wolf heart hammered in my cavernous chest as I heard the unmistakable whistle of arrows following us. They pierced the space around us, planting themselves like mock seedlings in the open ground.

I heard a cry, and a Ranger ahead of me and to my left was flung to the ground, an arrow protruding from his back. Another Ranger ahead of him turned back to help, and Byrgir and I veered their way. When we arrived, the helping Ranger had rolled the wounded to his side and was trying to drag him to the safety of the trees as he coughed and gurgled blood. He sputtered as Byrgir grabbed his ankles, the Ranger lifted his shoulders, and they carried him into the dark shelter of the woods.

The wounded man choked as they set him down, his chest rattling as he tried to suck in wheezing breaths. The head of the arrow bulged beneath the leather armor across his chest. It had gone clean through, stopped by the armor on the other side. The rescuing Ranger grabbed the arrow shaft at his back and snapped it off. The wounded man shivered in pain.

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