The smell of blood was on the air, and wolves padded around the tree line, snuffling and pawing at the earth. They dared not go closer. The air trembled with a great, shuddering rasp. The great bear snored, rumbling like a volcano that might erupt at any moment.

The wolves could smell the deep musk of the silverpaw, the scent of an unfamiliar wolf, and another canine they could not recognize. Many wolves had died at this place. They knew well the twang of that bowstring, the shocked yelp of a wolf who’d gone down and would never rise again. Whining and growling, the pack dithered a little longer, and then decided it was not worth the danger, no matter their hunger. They headed to the river to drink.

Siyabros the wolf watched them go, his ears perked with interest. He leaned up against the side of the bear for warmth. Half of his fur was singed off, and the night was cold. Korak did not mind. The bear had had a long day of marching and slaying legionnaires.

Distant from them was the jet-black war dog, almost invisible in the dark. Siyabros watched her carefully, for she had the smell of the sïthur upon her. Overhead, clouds obscured the moon, and it became too dark to see anything but the faint glow at the cabin windows. For a few moments, Siyabros peered into the pitch-black, about to fall back to sleep, but then moonlight shone through a rent in the clouds, and he saw the black crystal mask rising into the air.

A low growl began in the wolf’s throat, and his hackles rose. He would not be taken again without a fight! But the mask was not headed his way, it lifted high into the air and flew over the roof of the cabin, and Siyabros could not see it any longer. He turned his head from side to side, listening for any sound of it, but there was nothing but the sighing of the wind in the pines and the snoring of the great bear. At last, he tucked his chin back against his unburnt side and tried once more to sleep.

* * *

Without a sound, the Asyndagrim slid down the chimney of Giselle’s cabin. Even if the hearthfire were blazing, the mask could have passed through unharmed. No mortal flame could harm it. But it was the deepest part of the night, and the fire was only embers.

The crystal mask floated into the cabin, and Lak’s red eyes blinked open in her sockets. Though the fire was low, the sïthur needed no light to see. All was revealed to her in a thousand shades of darkness. The woman and her two girls huddled in the single bed, the boy contorted on the other with a pillow propping up his injured knee, and then the one she sought, the ancient wizard, snoring with his legs jutting over the edge of the bed.

Lak drifted over to Charlot, trying to summon the courage to try and take him. She’d watched the widow carry him from the porch, seen him slumping in the saddle. He’d used a great deal of magic. She’d seen the flickering light of his staff.

With any luck, he had no more power left. She could take control of him, break him, force him to release the bonds of their pact. She gazed down at the white curls of his beard, the long nose, the deep webs of wrinkles about his sunken eyes and steeled herself for a fight. He would have a tremendous will, no matter how decrepit he appeared.

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Already, Lak could feel the bonds of their pact tightening around her. Until it was through, she could do him no harm. But the Asyndagrim would do no physical damage, it would only enslave him. Truly, she was keeping him from harm! He was an old man, venturing headlong into some mad quest that would likely be the death of him. With this reasoning, she slid closer, hovering just a yard away from his face.

“How is it, then, that I am the master?” she mouthed silently, her grin hidden behind the ebon mask.

Now!

The crystal mask darted toward the arcanist, spinning in the air so that it could settle onto his face. A foot away from him, it was repelled by an invisible force.

How did he have a ward? He’d been tapped, she was certain of it! Peering through the planes to hunt for magic, Lak saw the cause. Amidst the hundred gleaming bits of arcana he carried with him, there was a golden band around his finger humming in opposition to her. The ring!

A clever trick, but the ring’s power was nothing before the Asyndagrim. Hovering once more over his face, she lowered the mask, slowly overwhelming the simple band with raw power. She drew closer and in the godplane could watch the golden ring’s energies struggle and buckle against the crystal mask’s inexorable approach. She had all the time in the world. They were all soundly asleep.

Yet, the taste of silver dust rose in her mouth. High above them, she could hear a distant song, a note that cut through her like a blade. The finger of Audera wasn’t only on the boy! She saw streaks of silver at the corner of her vision, shooting stars no brighter than a firefly. The Star was making her play. It was now or never!

Lak channeled all her will into the mask, and it lurched in the air, just six inches away from Charlot’s face. She could feel the ring’s energies faltering. She was nearly there!

As the mask descended through the chimney, a single mote of soot had stuck to the sharp line of its chin. When Lak went for her final push, the mote dislodged and spiraled through the air until it was drawn in by an intake of the ancient wizard’s prodigious nose.

Charlot’s face twitched, and he exploded with a tremendous sneeze. His eyes shot open in the darkness, and at once they were aglow with magesight. He beheld the Asyndagrim poised above him. Lak tried a final desperate push, but she was undone, what a terrible blunder she’d made!

“Emymu,” Charlot invoked. His voice was just a hoarse whisper, but the power of her true name bound her like iron shackles. The Asyndagrim froze in the air. Just six inches from victory! Yet, now she was undone.

“Did you decide you wanted to be destroyed after all?” he asked, his voice low. He glanced over at the other beds but, in the dark, he could see nothing.

“With a single word, I can shatter you completely. You’ll be nothing but a thrall to the mask and, in time, I shall shatter it, too. What a fool you are to betray me!” Charlot’s voice rose, and there was a murmur from Henriq’s bed. The boy had been disturbed. The sound checked Charlot, and his unseeing eyes shot toward Henriq. In his face, she could see a change. A moment before he had been prepared to unmake her, but now he reconsidered.

“Go back to riding the bitch where you belong. Do not take another form until I give you leave,” Charlot hissed, banishing her with a wave of his hand.

She obeyed without thought, darting up the chimney, and she clattered against the sides, so afraid she could barely control the mask’s flight. Reclaiming the war dog, she slid deep into the shadowplane, curling into a tight ball of darkness and sobbing in that soundless void.

An instant from her doom! A word away from annihilation! What a fool she’d been, just as he’d said. How terrible his punishment would be! The clouds swallowed the moon again, and she vanished, a black dog against the night.