Runebinder

Chills raced across his skin as he peered deeper through the curtains of rain. It wasn’t the cold—it was the expectation. The fields appeared devoid of life, corn drooping and swaying in the wind and rain. At least, he thought they were empty.

The storm might have been hiding him and his comrades, but it could also be hiding those he was sworn to kill. Without magic, there was no way to tell. There would be no way to know. A kraven could be out there, hidden in the stalks, just out of sight. Just within arm’s reach.

Water sang to him.

Water wanted to help.

Tenn gritted his teeth and focused on the bit of nylon between his palms. The Sphere of Water couldn’t want things, no more than his kidneys could. It was all in his head. It was stress. They were so close to being done with this damned mission, so close, and that’s why Tenn’s nerves were on edge. That, and that alone.

He grabbed his bladed staff when they reached the road. Years ago, this would have been like any other quaint Midwestern highway, but now the road leading back was far from pastoral. Cars lay scattered and broken like some kid played God with his Hot Wheels. Shattered glass littered the ground, shards jutting from windows like open jaws. Rust splattered across trucks and semis like bloody stains. Everything, everything, was quiet and empty, the only sound coming from the rain and the occasional moan of wind through hollowed cars—a cacophony of and for the dead. No movement. No life.

No bodies.

There were never any bodies. Not in the desecrated cities, not in the wild. Not when there were myriads of creatures to gobble them up, bones and blood and all. Tenn shivered again and looked out to the field.

They unceremoniously dropped the deer atop the small red wagon—the same type he’d dragged around as a kid. The sick sound of flesh thumping on metal was a noise Tenn had grown accustomed to, which almost made it worse. He didn’t like relating corpses to his childhood.

How easy it is to get used to dead things.

Tenn nodded to Katherine.

She withdrew one of her katanas and raised it high above her. Then, with a quick slice, she lopped off the deer’s head. It fell to the pavement and rolled away, settling in a pool of its own steaming ichor. Tenn turned; its eyes were trained straight on him, and he’d had enough postmortem glares for a lifetime.

“Still seems like a waste to me,” Michael said. He threw his bow beside the carcass, not caring if the string got bloody, and picked up the handle. That was the problem with food-scavenging missions—no cars, unless you wanted to scare off prey or attract predators. “I thought the tongue was supposed to be a delicacy.”

If not for Michael’s usefulness as a pack mule, Tenn would have cursed Derrick for sending him along. The world might have turned on its head in the three years since the Resurrection, when monsters ripped the modern world apart, but Michael was still the same brain-dead jock. Some stereotypes, apparently, were never outgrown.

“What, and risk being followed?” Katherine asked, cleaning her blade with a spare bit of cloth. “Are you a complete fucking moron or just dense?”

Michael shrugged and began pulling the cart down the highway. Tenn bit back his smirk. At least Katherine was willing to say what he himself was thinking.

“I’m just saying, kravens aren’t known for their big brains,” Michael said.

Who are you to talk about big brains? Tenn thought. “They think like animals. If they find blood and no body, they’ll search for one until they either find a meal or die. And we already have enough on our plate.”

They’ll search forever. Forever...

Water surged at the thought.

Monsters tear through the city, ripping humans from cars, crashing through houses. Blood puddles like rainwater. He hides behind a hedge, fingers white-knuckled on the gun, blood splattered on his jeans. Not all of it monster blood. How can you tell, when some creatures wear human faces? There’s no chance to ask, no chance... He clutches the gun. The useless gun. He opens to Water. He drowns out the screams in the hum of power. This was his home. Once. Now the houses are on fire and the streets are red and black with bloodied bodies and char and I know those bodies, I know those faces. He pushes deeper through Water, lets the Sphere consume him. I have to save them. I have to—

Tenn snapped back, Water’s magic crashing from his limbs and back into his gut, where the angry Sphere rested and raged.

“What the hell?” he gasped, his heart hammering in his chest.

“What?” Katherine asked. “Did you see something?”

Tenn shook his head. His thoughts swam from the aftershock of Water and he had no idea how to answer. Water couldn’t just dredge up memories like that. Not on its own. Not when he wasn’t utilizing it. The Spheres didn’t act on their own accord—they were energy centers and nothing more. So how had Water done that? Opened up and dredged up his past... He shook his head again, tried to push down the memories, the screams.

He was just tired. He was losing his grip.

Just tired, and Water was just angry at not being used for so long.

He focused on the cart, on ensuring no blood dripped from the back. He wouldn’t give the kravens a Hansel and Gretel–style bread-crumb trail. That, at least, he could control.

The highway cut a straight line through the fields and hills, sharp and bleak and dotted with abandoned cars. Outpost 37 was still a blur on the horizon, several miles and a few hours away. It wavered like a mirage in the rain, a smear of black-inked buildings on pale gray paper. Every step toward the city was a tick against Tenn’s nerves. The creaking cart was too loud, the rain too heavy. There was no way they could walk fast enough for his comfort. He wanted to be back and dry and warm, preferably pretending they weren’t waiting for battle. Maybe the Prophets were wrong, and the army would miss them entirely. Maybe there was no army. Maybe this was all a waste of time, and the worst thing that had happened was that he’d been bored.

Denial had never served him well, but out here, in the freezing cold with no comfort from the Spheres, it was better than reality.

Katherine stopped. She didn’t say anything, just stood with her eyes wide and a slight part to her lips.

Shit.

A second later, he heard it. A scream. A howl. It sliced through the fields like a scalpel, high-pitched and dragged from the depths of hell.

No living thing could make that noise.

Tenn shielded his eyes and tried to see farther out, but through the rain and the haze all he could see was shifting gray.

The scream was distant. Maybe, if they were lucky...

Michael lowered the cart handle to the ground, slowly, gently, making sure not a sound was made. His mace was in hand the moment he stood. Tenn looked over to Katherine, who had her katanas unsheathed.

“Stay very, very still,” Tenn whispered, his knuckles white on his staff. “Maybe they’ll pass us by.”

“Not likely,” Michael muttered, but he held his position.

Seconds passed in silence. Each raindrop froze into his skin, each heartbeat promised devastation.

There was a chance—a small chance—that it was a single kraven. Just one lowly, lonely monster seeking out its next meal. And there was a small chance that the kraven had found the deer’s head, taken the bait and was on the run for fear its brothers would discover the bounty.

It was a small chance. Delusional at best.

Silence stretched across Tenn’s nerves like a noose. Blood pooled against his gums from a fresh-bitten wound in his cheek. He tried to relax his jaw, tried to breathe slow and deep. In and out. In and out. The silence grew heavier. At least thirty seconds had passed. They would have known if they were spotted by now. He took another deep breath and started to relax his grip.

A second howl split the world, closer this time. And this one wasn’t alone. Another voice picked it up, as high and piercing as shattering glass and nails on a chalkboard. He knew the scream of a kraven as well as his own voice, but that didn’t mean there weren’t other types of Howls out there. The quiet ones were often the deadliest. Without magic or a clear line of sight, he also had no way to estimate how many there were. Could be dozens. Hundreds, even.

It didn’t matter. Without magic, even a handful of kravens could be deadly.

Blood thundered in his ears, louder than the rain. He counted his heartbeats in the back of his mind, wondering how many more he had left before his blood stilled. The Sphere of Water roiled in his gut. It could sense the upcoming battle, could feel it in the pulse of the rain—so much blood was about to be shed, and his Sphere yearned to be a part of it.

His Sphere wanted to cause it.

“We’re going to die,” Katherine said. Her voice was too calm for comfort. Like him, she had faced death a hundred times, and each time had probably felt as final as this. Unlike him, she seemed okay with it. “There are too many.”

“You know the orders,” Tenn said. No magic. Even if the orders get us killed. His eyes flickered to his right arm, to the tattoo he could practically feel burning against his skin. The Hunter’s mark—the tattoo that first bound him to Water and, more recently, to Earth. The mark that let him use the Spheres.

Katherine didn’t say anything in reply, but he could imagine her nodding her head and accepting her own approaching demise. He wasn’t willing to give up so easily. There were still too many lost souls on his conscience to avenge. Somehow, he was going to make it out of this alive. He owed the dead that much.