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    TWENTY-NINE


    <h2 style="text-transform: uppercase">LANA</h2>


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    Lana arrived at the old Pyromancers’ guild house to find Thys with Emiril and Tvalfager.


    “Ready?” Lana asked.


    “No, but we don’t have the luxury of being ready,” Thys said.


    Tvalfager shifted uncomfortably. “Shouldn’t we bring more people with us?”


    “The tunnels down there are narrow, and we don’t know what we’ll face. It won’t just be priests, that’s for sure, but those priests will be able to transform anyone we bring down with us. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to have to kill allies to reach them. Also, we can move quicker if we keep the group small.”


    “Fine,” Tvalfager said.


    “What is the plan?” Emiril asked, glancing at the deserted building. The council assigned guards at its entrance for the first few days after the battle, but reassigned them when it became apparent that they were needed elsewhere.


    “We go in. We find the priests performing the ritual. We kill them.”


    “Simple enough,” Emiril said.


    “Yes, but it won’t be easy,” Lana said. “If you start feeling strange, let everyone know. It might mean you’re starting to transform.”


    Tvalfager visibly paled, but he made no comment as Lana pushed through the unlocked door and down the stairs and into the dark. The young pyromancer walked beside her, a small flame dancing above his head, giving them just enough light to see.


    The sewer-like entrance from the building’s cellar was how she remembered it. Dank, smelly, and ominous. No monsters raced to greet them and no purple eyes glittered in the dark. A thick silence hung in the air as the group made their way through the narrow tunnel that led to the antechamber where Lana and Thys fought a priest and a group of transformed soldiers.


    All the corpses were gone.


    “Did our people clean up in here?” Lana said. Despite whispering, her words echoed around the room.


    “Doubt it,” Thys replied.


    At the other end of the cellar, an enormous metal door yawned open into darkness. Splatters of blood covered both the rune-inscribed stone floor and the massive pillars holding up the high ceiling. They had arrived at the ritual site. No one was here but them.


    “Now what?” Tvalfager asked.


    Lana sat down on her raised heels and brushed her hand across the floor. “Look here. These lines are running from the door we entered through to this spot. More of them continue through that door.”


    “You didn’t search the entire chamber last time?” Emiril asked.


    “We didn’t,” Thys said.


    “We’ll do it now,” Lana said.


    Tvalfager held up a flame, steadily increasing its size. He examined the etchings on the ground. “The lines diverge. Which do we follow?”


    “Both,” Lana said.


    “You want to split up?” Thys asked, his voice filled with skepticism.


    “We don’t have much choice. Splitting up will let us find them faster. I’ll go with Tvalfager since I’m not carrying a torch. You and Emiril go that way,” Lana said, pointing to one of the lines snaking out into the dark. “Double back if you find anything. Do not engage them yourselves.”


    “Fine. Just be careful.”


    Thys and Emiril set off and were soon swallowed by the darkness. A moment later, even the flickering light from their torch disappeared.


    She turned to the young fire mage. “Let’s go.”


    “I don’t like this,” Tvalfager said, but he followed Lana.


    The two of them soon found themselves surrounded by an unnaturally oppressive darkness. Silence enveloped them. Lana diligently followed the inscriptions on the floor. With no sense of time in the dark, she felt that either minutes or hours had passed since she parted ways with Thys and Emiril.


    “This isn’t right,” Tvalfager finally said, breaking the silence. No matter how much he expanded the flame hovering in his hand, his firelight did not reveal more of their surroundings.


    Lana agreed with the young pyromancer. She turned to reply. Instead, she let out a yelp of surprise as she walked straight into a wall.


    They both knelt and examined the inscription.


    “It leads to nothing?” Tvalfager asked.


    Lana brushed her finger against the floor where it converged with the wall. She ran her hand along it, signaling for Tvalfager to follow, until she found another narrow tunnel.


    Then she heard a low grunt and a shuffling sound.


    Lana put a finger to her lips before she entered the tunnel. The tunnel was tight, forcing both her and Tvalfager to sidle into the space sideways.


    “Extinguish the light,” she whispered. “There is only one way forward now. We don’t want them to see or hear us.”


    The darkness enveloped them. Lana couldn’t see the hand before her face, no matter how near she held it. At least this also meant that their enemies couldn’t see them either.


    As they moved down the tunnel, a pungent odor assailed them, growing stronger with each step. It smelled of rot.


    The sounds grew more pronounced as well. An animal grunted and shuffled about in the darkness. Lana worried that it may be more than one.


    Tvalfager gagged behind Lana, and she turned to shush him when something grabbed a fistful of hair at the top of her head. Before she even had a chance to react, her head was smashed into the wall. The darkness spun. Motes of light filled her vision as she forced herself to conjure a dagger.


    “Duck!” Tvalfager shouted. “You’re in the way. I can’t?—”


    Lana’s head smashed against the rock again and all thoughts of using her power fled out of her mind. Her arms slackened and her legs buckled. She hung limp from whatever held her. Her head struck the wall and Lana’s consciousness winked away.


    Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    When she finally woke, it was no longer dark. Neither was it silent. Her head felt like it was about to burst from a relentless, throbbing pain. Opening her eyes made everything spin and a powerful nausea made her eyes tear up.


    “Lana,” someone groaned.


    A low humming rose around her, and Lana found she could not move her head. Neither could she move her arms or legs. Not understanding, she blinked, her unfocused gaze finally settling on a target.


    “Tvalfager?” she asked, her mouth dry like cotton.


    “Please kill me.”


    His eyes shone purple where he stood, face impassive like he was dreaming.


    Tvalfager was on fire. Bright flames engulfed him.


    Lana struggled against her invisible bonds, searching for water. Her mind was foggy, but she knew that being on fire was not good. She’d better put it out. That’s what you did with fire, after all.


    She saw shimmery orbs of purple. Eyes. She knew those eyes from somewhere, but remembering didn’t come easy.


    Huge animals Lana didn’t know the name of stood waiting beyond the ring of purple-eyed men. The animals looked strange, unlike any species she’d ever seen before.


    “Water,” Lana rasped. “Tvalfager needs water.”


    “Lana,” Tvalfager whimpered.


    She blinked several times, then frowned. Reality came crashing back.


    “Tvalfager!” she shouted, her tongue thick in her mouth. The blinding headache threatened to make her pass out, but she gritted her teeth, trying to free herself from the invisible bonds keeping her in place. Monsters stirred behind the unbroken ring of chanting priests. She saw them now for what they were.


    Heat burst from Tvalfager as more and more of him was consumed by his own fire. Lana recalled how this had happened with the pyromancer in the previous ritual.


    “Stop this!” Lana yelled, throwing her weight around in another futile attempt to free herself. “Help!”


    Thys and Emiril couldn’t be far. Tvalfager’s flesh melted and dripped, sizzling as it touched the cold floor. Lana couldn’t look away from the horror.


    It was her fault. She brought him here. The least she could do was put an end to Tvalfager’s suffering.


    Lana focused and slowly pushed past her headache. She almost wept tears of joy when her magic responded to her touch and she had just begun forming the image of a dagger in her mind when her hold of the conjuring slipped away. She screamed in frustration and grabbed for it again, only to find nothing. It was gone. Denied to her.


    “No!” she screamed, her voice sounding off. A haze of purple swam across her vision. Excruciating pain wracked her limbs and back as they cracked and popped, her entire frame growing taller and wider, her arms elongating and her hands changing into viciously clawed paws. The invisible restraints dropped, but it did her little good as her body transformed into the image of some horrible creature. Lana’s face extended and her jaw forced itself forward and down to accommodate a maw full of razor-sharp teeth. A short fur grew to cover her entire body, and she fell to all fours, no longer able to stand upright. She wanted to scream out in horror, but all that left her twisted mouth was a confused roar. She needed to run, needed to escape.


    No, not escape. She needed to obey, to kill.


    A voice broke away from the humming. “Find the others. Kill them, little pet.”


    The purple in Lana’s eyes flashed as she set off running on all fours, like some twisted half-wolf hunting for her prey.


    The stench of her quarry permeated the huge chamber and her claws clattered against the stone floor as she turned and followed, saliva dripping from her mouth. Lana hungered. She craved blood and meat. She wanted to tear into flesh and gorge herself.


    Oh, how sweet it would be.


    Her prey appeared in the dark before her, far too slow to defend itself as she leapt silently into the air. She opened her mouth in anticipation, already dreaming of closing her jaw around her enemy’s fragile little neck.


    As she snapped her jaws closed, her prey disappeared. Confused, she landed and spun. A second enemy turned up in the darkness and Lana lunged for the strange smelling human.


    Something crashed into her and a burning pain washed over her right foreleg. She stumbled and roared in defiance.


    One of them spoke words she did not understand. “Where did that monster come from?”


    “I don’t know, stand back. I’ll deal with it. Make sure we’re not surprised again,” the tall one with the large eyes replied.


    She leapt at the tall one. Both of them tumbled to the floor. Her leg buckled under her, and they went to the floor together in a heap. Her jaws snapped at his neck, but he held her back. Suddenly, they were face to face.


    His eyes widened, and he spoke. “Lana?”


    She roared and redoubled her efforts, the purple sheen over her eyes intensifying.


    Kill. She needed to kill. This bag of meat before her needed to die.


    “Emiril, I think it’s Lana! Don’t kill her!”


    A subdued voice sounded from somewhere nearby. “Then what do we do?”


    “We need to find the priest that did this to her! Wait here.”


    The world shifted around Lana. Suddenly, she found herself near a large metal door, then in a narrow corridor, then a sewer of some sort.


    Before she knew what was happening, the sun burned her eyes, and the cold air sent a shiver through her bent and twisted body. They moved again, this time up to some tall place, and then beyond it. Trees surrounded the two of them. Silence.


    Her prey weakened. The arteries in his neck throbbed. Lana was stronger. It was finally time for this man to die at the end of her pointed teeth. She closed her jaw around her prey’s neck, her body trembling with the anticipation of having warm blood fill her mouth. She broke skin, but then her jaw snapped shut on nothing but air. Her prey was gone!


    She shook her head, confused. Her instincts screamed that she would be attacked again, but nothing happened. Lana’s vision flashed purple and the desire to find and kill her prey exploded in her chest. Nothing else existed.


    She set off running, speeding across the forest, ignoring branches whipping into her face. She was a pointed arrow with only one target. However long it took, she would find her prey and kill him.


    In the distance, a huge stone wall blocked her way forward. Between her and it, thousands of her brethren stood in her way. Power flared in her chest and Lana jumped on instinct to find the wind carrying her over the obstacles.


    Lana’s tongue lolled in a lupine grin. Her master truly blessed her hunt.


    The wall was tall, but not tall enough and a mighty gust carried her to the top of the parapet. She grasped at the stone with her claws and pulled herself over with ease.


    Terrified creatures screamed and thrust spears at her, but they were slow. Dodging, she snapped her jaws at them. Something burned in her side, and she yelped, throwing herself at the human who’d skewered her. Lana wanted blood but found that she could not taste the one who’d injured her. They were not her prey.


    Instead, she leapt down onto a roof and ran. She knew where she needed to go. Her masters needed Lana to come to their aid. Her prey would be waiting.


    She ran, following the horrid stench of her prey. A house appeared before her. Lana was about to throw herself against the door when she collapsed.


    Indescribable pain surged through her. Clouds opened up and rain drenched the city.


    Lana barely noticed the chill against her bare skin. She was dying. There was no surviving the pain as her body tore itself apart and knitted itself back together. Her fingers popped and cracked as the bone and flesh rearranged itself. Pain flashed through her side where the spear had cut into her.


    Lana screamed a human scream before passing out, her consciousness finally buckling under the immense pain.


    When she woke, Thys was wrapping her nakedness with his jacket. She blinked and held up her hands before her face. They trembled from the cold and the wet, but they were human. “What happened?”


    “It doesn’t matter, you’re back now,” Thys said.


    Lana struggled to a sitting position. Thys bled from multiple wounds, and his clothes were torn to shreds. A long gash crossed his face diagonally, taking a chunk of his nose and some of his hair. He bled profusely.


    “You look like shit,” Lana said, wincing. She couldn’t look much better. The wound in her side was serious. She’d bleed out soon if someone didn’t close her up, and if she didn’t freeze to death first.


    “The priests are dead,” Thys said.


    “They made Tvalfager burn himself to death,” Lana said, her voice trembling as she accepted his hand fand struggled to her feet. “What about Emiril?”


    Emiril stepped out from within the house, a priest’s robe over his head for protection from the rain. “I’m fine.” He looked it, too. Not a scratch on him.


    “The shadow man is brutally effective,” Thys said, eyeing Emiril.


    “Let’s find a healer,” Lana said.


    In the distance, horns sounded. The rain obscured the top of the wall, but Lana knew red warning flags were waving. Fyrie was once again under attack.


    “We’ll have to be quick about it,” Thys said.


    Emiril sighed and stepped in between them, lending his shoulders to both Thys and Lana. “Once I dump you at the healers, I’ll be at the wall.”


    “Thank you, Emiril,” Lana murmured, focusing on taking one step at a time. In this state, she would not be able to fight off a child, much less an invasion. They needed healing, and they needed it now. She gritted her teeth and took a step, then another.


    A few more, that’s all she’d need. Just a few more steps.