Coriano smiled back at him. “I have tracked you for a very long time, too long to waste my one chance on a wizard’s stupidity. Don’t worry, we’ll meet again very soon. Then, Mr. Liechten, I promise, I will make you draw the Heart of War.”
“Wait,” Josef called out, but Coriano was walking away through the falling dust. Josef hurled his knife into the dirt a finger’s width from the scarred man’s feet. “I said wait!”
But Coriano kept walking, disappearing like a shadow into the trees at the clearing’s edge. Josef ran after him for a few steps, but the pain was too much. Clutching his burning chest, he reached into his pocket with a grimace and pulled out one of the long strips of cloth he kept for occasions like this. He wrapped it around his chest, binding the wound as tight as he could. The angle was awkward, but it stemmed the bleeding for now. He could have Nico redo it later, if there was a later. The wound was quickly dropping down his list of priorities. There was a ringing growing in his ears, a high-pitched wail just out of his hearing. It reminded him of the dull buzzing he heard in Eli’s voice whenever the wizard talked to rocks or trees or whatever he wasted his time with—only this was more frantic, and it was getting louder.
As the dust cleared completely, he could see Nico on the other side of the circular clearing standing over a pile of groaning soldiers. She was looking away from him, watching something. He followed her gaze and saw Eli. Their thief was standing over the downed Spiritualist and her dog, who looked to be out of the fight, but Eli’s attention was on the tall, blond leader of the Mellinor troops, who was the only other person besides themselves still standing as the dust settled. The man was saying something, but all Josef could hear was that high-pitched whine, more like a pressure than a sound. Then the man opened his fist and everything went to hell.
The scream shot through her, driving everything else from Miranda’s mind. Only the sharp pain of her bruises and the feel of grit in her mouth told her she was writhing in the dirt. Still, her eyes were open, and she watched in horror as the screaming sphere broke apart completely, becoming a black cloud of glittering particles. A cloud that was growing.
“Miranda,” Eli said, his voice cutting cleanly through the panic. She barely felt his hands as he grabbed her shoulders and dragged her to her feet, but his voice was clear and commanding. Somewhere in her garbled mind, she realized that he was speaking to her like she was a spirit. “Leave right now.”
He let her go, and she nearly toppled over. Only Gin’s cold nose pressed into her back kept her from falling.
“He’s right,” the hound whined, ears flat. “That thing is insane. We leave now.”
Miranda opened her mouth to protest, but Gin didn’t give her a chance. He ran for the forest with Miranda clutched like a pup between his teeth and the still-unconscious king bouncing on his back. Miranda was screaming something about Eli, but the hound didn’t stop, and he never once looked back.
As soon as the ghosthound disappeared into the woods, Eli turned and ran as hard as he could in the other direction, nearly colliding with Josef and Nico.
“What are you doing?” Eli yelled, grabbing them both. “I told you to get to the boulder!” He did a double take when he saw the bloodstain across most of Josef’s shirt. “What happened to you?”
“Never mind that!” Josef shouted. “Where’s the gold?”
“I’ll explain later!” Eli shouted back, yanking them both toward the rock at the clearing’s edge. “Just run!”
Josef nodded and started running. If the situation was serious enough for Eli to abandon cash, then this was not the time to argue. They tore across the clearing, ignoring the growing roar behind them. Even Josef could hear it now, a high-pitched screaming that rubbed his nerves raw. It was like an injured child’s scream, but there was nothing human in this sound and it did not stop for breath. Josef shuddered and kept running.
Eli was shouting at the rock even before they reached the clearing’s edge. However, the rock didn’t seem to be answering, because Eli slid to a halt just in front of it and started to gesture frantically as a dark shadow fell across them.
Josef whirled around, grabbing one of his remaining knives just so he didn’t have to face whatever it was empty-handed. But even a blade in his hand didn’t make him feel better when he saw what was behind them. Across the clearing, an enormous tower of black cloud loomed over the blasted ground where Renaud had been standing only moments ago. Billows of dark dust, black and glistening like volcanic glass, spun impossibly fast in the windless sky, rising in great swirls that blotted out the sun. As if it had been waiting for him to turn around, the cloud’s wailing reached a frantic pitch, and it began to move forward.