The Skull Throne

She turned a slow circle, seeing the movement in the trees. Corelings. It was impossible to know how many. Half a dozen at least, with a mimic leading them. She was invisible to them in her Cloak of Unsight, but they could tighten the noose until she was caught, or broke and ran. The cloak would be scant protection if she were forced to move at speed.

Idiot, Leesha silently scolded herself as Renna’s words came back to her. Minds know who you are. Strike at you, they get the chance.

It was a compliment of sorts that the minds wanted her dead. A compliment, and a nightmare. She had thought herself safe between Wanings, but apparently the mimics did not share their masters’ intolerance of moonlight.

And they’re smarter than we gave them credit for, she admitted to herself. This one had played her for a fool, and she’d delivered herself right into its talons.

There was a squirming in her belly, and Leesha remembered it wasn’t just her at risk. She’d delivered two, and it was up to her to return them safely to succor.

She saw a small clearing and moved for it, unbuttoning a deep pocket in her dress. She reached within, clutching the long, thin bone she had taken from the mind demon’s arm, sharpening the tip and carving its length with wards before coating it in gold. Her hora wand.

With her free hand, she reached into a pouch on her belt, scattering warded klats at her back.

Come on then, corespawn, she thought, throwing open her cloak. You haven’t taken me yet.

They came. Two wood demons swung out of the trees, moving with terrifying speed.

But not faster than Leesha could draw a wood demon repulsion ward with her hora wand. The symbol hovered in midair, glowing in her wardsight, and when the demons struck it, their own magic was torn from them and used to fling them back into the trees. They shrieked and vanished with the sound of breaking branches.

If that was not enough to summon aid, Leesha pointed the wand straight up, drawing a light ward. Like a flutist changing notes, she moved her fingers over the wards, imparting more power to the symbol. It flared brightly, turning night into day.

A flame demon spat fire at her, but she drew a siphon in the air, and the power was absorbed. The wand warmed in her hand, and all that passed over her was the demon’s foul breath. She threw the power back as an impact ward, and the demon was crushed into the ground like a mouse under Gared’s boot.

There was a shriek behind her as a wood demon stepped on one of her klats. The sound was cut short as the coreling stopped moving, a thin coating of rime forming on its barklike armor. There was a high-pitched whine as the demon tried to force its limbs to move, and then a crack across its chest, the sound of an icicle falling from a porch awning. Leesha took aim at the crack, drawing another impact ward.

The demon shattered into countless pieces, but still others came on.

A field demon pounced from the trees, but Leesha’s ward threw it back so hard it broke through a trunk a foot thick. A blaze of flame demons scrambled into the clearing, but a moment later their talons were steaming and skidding on a sheet of ice. A moment after that they were frozen solid, the orange light in their eyes and mouths winking into a cold blue.

Leesha heard shouting as Cutters raced toward the flashes and sounds of combat, but it was distant, and still the mimic circled. Were they coming to her aid, or their own deaths? The mimic that tried to take Rojer had effortlessly clawed its way through Cutter and Sharum alike until Rojer, Amanvah, and Renna joined forces against it.

Leesha could see it in the trees, a sleek amorphous thing, moving fast. She pointed her wand and sent a blast of magic, heedless of the destruction if it would put the creature down. Trees shattered and the ground heaved, but like a snake, the mimic slithered away unharmed.

The distraction nearly proved her undoing. A copse of wood demons had surrounded her. One stepped on a ward klat and was immolated in flame as the heat ward activated. The others, four of them, found a clear path.

One took a vial of dissolvent in the face, eyes smoking as the demon clawed blindly at them, only adding to the damage.

She threw more klats, these with lectric wards that caught two of the demons, seizing up their muscles with jolts and shocks.

But the last one was on her, too close for her to draw a ward. She fell back, fumbling at the knife on her belt.

“Leesha!” Thamos roared, smashing into the demon’s side with his warded shield. The wards flared, and the coreling was thrown away. Thamos stood tall in his shining armor, and for an instant she felt safe again.

But then a great tentacle wrapped around him, flinging the count across the clearing to crash heavily into a tree. He crumpled, and did not rise.

Leesha sent another blast of magic at the mimic, but again it was too fast. She clipped it, knocking the creature sprawling, but the bulk of the power tore into the woods, reducing hundred-year-old trees to kindling.

Her ears were ringing, but Leesha could hear fighting all around now, as the Hollowers sought to break through the ring of demons and get to her.

She drew a mimic ward in the air over Thamos, then moved to begin a circle of them for her own protection.

She should have started with herself. The mimic lashed out with a thin tentacle, wrapping it around her wrist and pulling her from her feet, unable to draw. She fumbled at the pockets of her apron as it reeled her in close, but she was running out of tricks.

A warded arrow neatly severed the tentacle, and Leesha fell back on her bottom as the tension dropped. The tentacle began to twitch, glistening as it sweat a foul ichor. Leesha shook it off in horror.

Three more arrows struck the mimic’s center mass, crackling and jolting the creature more each second they remained embedded. The demon screamed, flesh melting away from the missiles. They dropped to the ground, but in that moment of distraction Wonda closed the distance, leaping almost twenty feet to land a heavy blow of her warded fist atop its head.

The demon was flattened, hitting the ground like a soft clay figure struck with a club. But the clay reformed as if under a skilled hand, rising more menacing than before, all spikes and sharp edges.

Wonda was ready for it. Her warded hands and forearms batted its blows aside, and the impact wards on her knuckles struck it like a case of thundersticks. A dozen tentacles, ridged like blades, swiped at her. But Wonda was faster than Leesha would ever have believed, almost as fast as Renna Bales.

And she fought like Arlen—twisting, tumbling, and leaping over tentacles like a fly avoiding the swatter. The demons’ head turned into that of a flame demon and it spat fire at her, but Wonda spread her fingers and the heat and magic were absorbed, giving added power to her blows.

She got in close, arms blurring like hummingbird wings as she pulled arrows from her quiver and buried them in the demon with no need for her bow. The creature’s scream was a cacophony of pain, a thousand horrors crying out at once.

A new tentacle thrust from its center mass, striking Wonda full-on and flowing around her to join with itself seamlessly. She was held tight, warded limbs pinned helplessly at her sides, but there was no grip to break.

Leesha raised her wand, but the mimic was wise to the movement, putting Wonda in between the two of them.

“Don’t you hold back, Mistress Leesha!” Wonda cried. “Kill it while you can!”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Leesha said. She kept her wand raised and ready, mind racing. The sounds of combat were all around them, but the mimic must have brought many corelings to the trap, because no other assistance reached the clearing.