The Crescent Hour ✓

Chapter 17. Death's Embrace

Clara went back inside and shut the door to the balcony. She clamped Tamer’s arm, waking him up. They were in great danger.

A hand grabbed her wrist, twisted it and pushed her off balance. She fell on her knees and winced.

Tamer sat up, confusion crossing his face. Muttering a curse, he freed her. “Forgive me. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I thought you were—”

“Never mind that. They’re coming for us!” She pointed at the window. “A whole lot of them!”

He threw the covers away and strode to the balcony. His knuckles were white as he gripped the railing. “How many do you see?”

“I’m not sure but I’d say between fifty to one hundred. My God, why would they send an army?” she said, her voice sounding weaker than she would have liked.

He closed the door, stood over the nightstand and wore his weapon gear. Clara put on her boots and a coat, taking deep breaths to calm her nerves. She picked up her bag but Tamer stopped her.

“No, leave them. We’re not running away,” Tamer said. “We’re going to fight them.”

 “Are you mad? We can’t defeat them!”

He took her hand and led her out of the room, past the hallway and into an empty bar. They saw the tavern master cleaning the bar top and mumbling to himself. The man stopped his task and raised an eyebrow in suspicion.

“Barricade the doors and windows. The village is under attack,” Tamer said.

They were out of the tavern before she could see the man’s reaction. She wrenched her hand from Tamer’s and stopped walking. They couldn’t take out a whole army. They had to retreat. It would draw them away from the village, leaving it safe.

“What do you think you’re doing, Tamer?”

Frowning, he said, “I know what you’re thinking. They are after the seal but they won’t leave until this village is destroyed. No warlord would send an army just to hunt down two people.”

Who could be so cruel as to obliterate a simple village? Who would want to doom the fate of millions of lives by unleashing the unspeakable army of Ghilan? Whoever was behind the attacks was someone so vile and despicable that Clara was repulsed by the thought of it.

 “Do you see that bell?” Tamer pointed at a large bell perched above a tower. “I need you to ring it. We have to alert the villagers to stay indoors. The men will come out to aid us.”

“I’ll go,” she said.

“Wait.” He pinned her with his stare. “Whatever you did to spark off your magic, you must do that again. With your power, we can defeat them.”

A lump grew in her throat. She nodded and took off into the streets. Her leg ached but she endured it. Heavy clouds glided over the sky, preventing the stars from shedding their light. In the stillness of the night, the wind growled like a dying beast.

As she dragged her aching foot, she thought about the two times she had released her magic, the events in the plains and in the sanctuary of the seal speeding through her mind in fractured pieces.

Both times, I had a strong desire to do something. To protect. To destroy.

She stopped and ducked behind a stack of crates. A few feet from her, a figure clothed in a dark cloak hissed. A guttural cry reverberated in the air.

Bones cracked.

Flesh sizzled.

Clara rushed across and peered from a building. In the center of the street was a pale creature with the head and torso of a man, and the hands and legs of a spider. The cloak had been reduced to pieces of tattered rags that hang over its transformed body. Its eyes were midnight black, its mouth a vertical slit with sharp fangs protruding out of its lips. The creature brought its hands together in tapping noises, long pincers covered in black platings meeting at the sharp ends.