Page 17 of All the Wandering Light

“You’re the only one without a weapon,” she said without breaking stride. Mara fell into step behind her. Swallowing hard, I followed, slinging the quiver over my shoulder.

Clouds thickened around the mountains as we walked, blotting out the sky entirely—at our elevation, the trailing edges swept over the ground, veiling our surroundings in white fleece. Snow swirled, tangling in our hair.

Mara paused. He gazed around at the suddenly unreadable landscape. Even Lusha looked confused.

“Camp’s this way,” I said, taking the lead.

“Are you sure?” Lusha said. She sounded uncharacteristically hesitant.

“Yes.” I didn’t have the energy to add a retort. Tem was already heading in the direction I had indicated, and Lusha shot him an irritated look. He gave me a small smile that I returned gratefully. After a moment, there came the satisfying crunch of Lusha’s and Mara’s boots behind us.

One of the kinnika rang out—a sudden, sharp sound that raised the hair on my neck. It took me a moment to realize why. Only one bell sounded like that.

The black one.

It chimed again—it wasn’t whispering now. My mind flashed back to the time I had last heard it sound like that. My eyes met Tem’s, and I saw the same realization reflected there.

“No,” I murmured.

“What is it?” Lusha said. Even as she spoke, she was lifting an arrow to her bow. Her gaze flicked from my face to Tem’s.

Neither of us answered. I felt again the storm in Winding Pass, the wind suffocating and sharp with snow. The figures who had loomed out of the mist, surrounding us—

“How much time do we have?” I asked Tem.

As if in response, the black bell rang out again, more insistently. Ching. Ching. Ching. The sound was dolorous, and cut through the moan of the wind, the muffling swirl of the snow.

“I don’t know.” Tem’s voice was uneven. In that moment, he seemed more like the old Tem—unsure, self-conscious. His hand shook as he brushed the bells.

I pulled an arrow from the quiver, but when I bent it to the bow, it felt ungainly. Father had taught me how to shoot, but the skill had never come naturally. “Can we make it back to camp?”

“Won’t matter.” Tem stood up straighter, and seemed to pull something into himself. He unclasped one of the bells and handed it to me. “This will be more useful than that bow.”

I stared at the talisman in disbelief. “You’re joking.”

“You know the incantation.” He unclasped another bell. “Besides, weapons won’t be any use against them.”

“We’ll see about that,” Lusha said. She tapped the obsidian point of her arrow.

“It isn’t witches,” I said. The black bell was sounding constantly now, and I had to raise my voice to be heard. “They don’t travel in storms, Lusha; it’s—”

In the distance there came a ghastly cry. It sounded like a bird, or rather, it sounded more like a bird than it did anything else. The sound seemed to float on the wind, eddying.

Lusha whirled. “I’ve heard that before.”

“With Mother.” I touched her arm. Lusha’s face was paler than I’d ever seen it. Her hand shook slightly on the bow. “The storm in the pass. We were attacked. You remember?”

She nodded. She looked thirteen again, her age when we accompanied our mother’s expedition in search of a new route through the Arya Mountains. “We never saw them,” she murmured. “We never saw what attacked us.”

“We’re about to.” I handed the bow and arrow to Mara. “Stay close to Tem. Whatever you do, don’t step beyond his shield.”

No one spoke. We formed a ragged circle, each facing a different direction. Tem sounded the stout bronze bell that usually hung in the middle of the chain. As he did, I felt a warmth spread over us and radiate out.

For a long while, there was nothing. Just the sweep, sweep of the wind, and our breath rising in clouds that were quickly funneled away.

They appeared slowly.

At first, as faint black shapes glimpsed through the snow, shapes that might not have been living at all, but the silhouettes of dead trees. A gust of wind tossed a veil of snow between us, and they were gone. When they appeared again, it was from another direction, closer than before.