After the obligatory attendance of the evening feast, the cobbled together companions all found themselves seeking an early night, driven hastily inside by the rain that had been released once lightening had torn the clouds asunder. Judd was sore, Caste was moody, Aalis was wary and everyone else agreed that the less drinking, the better, at least for one night.

  In a tent shared by eight people, there was endless breathing and snoring noises. Out of necessity they had all become accustomed to the sounds of others in the night. The rain struck the cloth of the tent, treated to repel downpours of everything but the heaviest kind. Aalis and Emeri had a place close together, as far away from the men who, without meaning to be so, were unavoidably smelly and loud. Aalis was curled up on her side when she heard Emeri sigh deeply. She twisted and saw the young woman’s eyes were open and staring at the ceiling of the tent.

  “Cannot sleep?” She whispered. Emeri shook her head. Aalis was distressed to see a tear escape her eye, wiping it away. “Emeri?”

  “It is nothing.” She shook her head, swallowing to repress the emotion.

  Aalis wrestled between wanting to reach out to the girl and also wanting to respect her boundaries.

  “Is it about what you said today?” Aalis breathed, Emeri’s jaw tightening in silent and subconscious confirmation. “About falling in love?”

  “It does no good to dwell…” Emeri refused to elaborate, rolling onto her side. Aalis’ heart ached for the girl, not affronted by her back but seeing it for what it was.

  Emeri protecting herself.

  Aalis sighed and rolled back into her original position, her upper hand resting naturally on the furs covering the ground they slept on. She closed her eyes and felt, as she always could, the hum of the earth. She could feel the heaviness in the air, the moisture all around, soaking into the ground and the trickles across rock and natural crevice, finding its way into streams and catchments. She allowed herself to drift with the flow, finding it an effective way to lull herself to sleep. Onwards she roamed, nudged by the natural contours of the land until she felt a heavy tread.

  Her brow furrowed and her drifting paused. She held fast, concentrating.

  There was another heavy blow, not quite metal on rock but a splintering sharpness, dulled by the rain to normal ears but striking Aalis’ mind like it was right next to her.

  A word…two words were spoken…

  Gone was her peaceful drift into sleep. She was awake, trying to make out what was being said. “Veshelt havak?” She mouthed, opening her eyes. “Veshelt havak?”

  “Aalis?” Emeri peered at her. “What is it?”

  “What is veshelt havak?”

  Emeri shook her head. “I don’t know.” She shrugged. “It sounds like ancient Terra but I’ve not heard it before.”

  Aalis tapped her teeth and scrambled across the furs to where Caste was sleeping, curled up in a ball. “Caste,” she shook him, “Caste!”

  “Hmm?” He opened one eye blearily. “What is it?” He mumbled.

  “Veshelt havak.” Aalis whispered. “What does it mean?”

  Caste grimaced and shook his head. “It doesn’t mean anything.”

  “In ancient Terra, I mean.”

  “Even then,” he muttered, “it’s a clan war cry.”

  “War cry?” He nodded. Aalis’ blood turned to ice. “You mean something shouted before going into battle?”

  “Yes…what…” Caste jolted upright when a loud, low horn filled the air. Immediately awake and concerned he looked at Aalis. “We’re under attack!”

  Only seconds later the stampede charged into the palisade around the campsite. The crisscrossed trunks might have taken out several of the charging creatures but in the end, they were no match for the brutality and self sacrifice of the assailants.

  By the time Judd scrambled out of the tent, only taking the time to buckle his breastplate over his nightshirt and tug his boots up over his trousers, bedlam had broken out. The palisade that was supposed to keep intruders away contained the violence. There were horses everywhere, whinnies of fury and flying hooves that could cave a man’s skull in without a second thought. The nomads were springing into action, no amount of ale preventing them from defending their families even if their swords waved about a little too freely. The rain poured down, causing every detail to blur and the ground became treacherous and slippery. Judd sprinted for one of the horses, still unable to make out the humans on the backs of them. It was too chaotic to know for certain and he was frightened of killing or even injuring one of his nomad allies.

  The horse, a black stallion, sensed his approach. Judd stood in the mud, still not sure what he was seeing. There wasn’t anyone on its back…was it just a stray out of the paddock?

  The horse lowered its head and something glimmered with the deadliness of a rapier.

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  “That’s…that’s a…”

  It charged at him, thundering across the short expanse and Judd barely flung himself out of its path, the horn piercing the air, catching his arm, slicing skin, blood soaking into his shirt. Judd staggered backwards, holding his sword out as the unicorn reared, turning on its hooves, charging him again. It was furious and deadly, its eyes glittering with an insane lust for blood. Judd had to time it just right, dodging the charge, bringing his sword up. The unicorn screamed murder, its horn cut from its forehead. Judd was so relieved he’d taken away its deadly weapon that he didn’t stop to consider that horses were well armed even before the mount of Maul had adorned them so. It bucked, its hooves catching Judd in the chest and he went flying into a tent, becoming tangled with the ropes and fabric.

  There were over a dozen unicorns charging about the campsite, the nomads unable to get close as they reared, bucked and charged. If dehorned, their thick, hard teeth clamped down on shoulders and arms, tearing and biting, blood thirsty like no mount of Terra should ever have been.

  “What do we do?” Giordi cried, the clamour overriding any common sense he had.

  The scream of unicorns was almost enough to pierce eardrums.

  “Drag the wounded from the danger of their hooves!” Verne yelled, sighting down an arrow and letting it fly. It caught a unicorn in the neck, passing straight through but rather than be dissuaded, it turned and glowered at him, pawed at the ground and charged. Verne, so busy grabbing another arrow that he didn’t think to get out of the way, was knocked sideways by Giordi. The unicorn skidded in the mud, raised itself up on its hind legs, flailing its hooves, ready to bring them down.

  Verne sat up and fired another arrow into its throat but even that couldn’t stop it. Giordi let out a yell of fright as the hooves came down upon them but before they could crush their bodies, Suvau slammed the full force of his body weight into the unicorn, shifting it sideways so that it collapsed to the ground, kicking spasmodically before becoming still.

  “On your feet,” Suvau barked, not wasting time on pleasantries, “there are plenty more!”

  Verne and Giordi grasped his outstretched hands and stood up, returning to the fray.

  Yolana, Emeri and Aalis watched from the flap of the tent after being told rather harshly not to stick their noses outside.

  “I can’t determine who is who!” Emeri cried.

  It was a mess, a dangerous, deadly, frantic mess.

  Aalis twisted her dreadlocks in her hands, her mind echoing with the sound of someone ordering the attack. She put her hands to the sides of her head and scrunched her eyes shut.

  “Where are you? Who are you? Why…ugh…” Her head pounded relentlessly. She didn’t know what had happened to her after she’d blacked out at the mountain lake. But she remembered the terrible lead up to it, the assault on her mind, the way her senses were overwhelmed as though they were able to be hit with hammers and cut with swords...just like now…it was happening again. She was being consumed by it.

  “Omnes interficere!”

  Aalis’s head lifted, her eyes opening.

  “Kill them all…” She gasped, the words like a dash of cold water on her face.

  She saw a young man with tawny dreadlocks driving his blade through a unicorn. But bearing down on him, its head lowered and its horn aimed directly at his chest, was another unicorn.

  “Run!” Aalis screamed, already sprinting from the tent, her bare feet slipping in the mud.

  The young man didn’t even have the chance to respond. His body was impaled upon the horn and to Aalis’ horror the unicorn immediately reared, tossing its head in a grotesque victory dance, the poor man’s body held aloft. Aalis didn’t think. She didn’t reason. She simply ran up to the unicorn who caught sight of her coming, eyes wild with an unnatural lust for blood.

  It screamed at her…which was the worst thing it could have done.

  Aalis planted her feet, raised her hands and screamed back at it.

  And the world…stopped. The unicorn was frozen in its rear, eyes wide, glaring at her, its nostrils flared and its teeth, barred. Aalis’ eyes were dark red as though they had filled with blood. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t think. She held its gaze and for a moment, a terrifying moment, the unicorn seemed to recognise her...

  “Aalis, look out!” Judd ran forward and thrust his sword into the unicorn’s chest, heaving sideways, causing the beast to topple, the body of the young man flung aside as the unicorn’s horn snapped off.

  Aalis sprinted to the fallen nomad, the terrible, hard twisted horn sticking out of his chest, coated with his blood.

  “No…no, no, no, no, no…” She whimpered. “I…I will fix this. I swear I will fix this!”

  He gulped incoherently and grasped her hand, his eyes not filled with tears but regret. One hand reached up to touch her cheek, blood smeared across her pale skin. Aalis put her hand over his and tried her best to smile. She was sure she looked maniacal, attempting to smile in the midst of battle, her eyebrows and forehead grieving and her lips resisting the smile. But it seemed it was enough for him to know she was trying. He smiled back at her then coughed and spasmed, blood splattering out of his mouth.

  “Please…just hold on…” Aalis tore off part of her dress to dab at his face, already seeing the light in his eyes go out. “No…no…no!”

  “Aalis, you’ve got to get out of here!”

  “No!” Aalis wept, her hands clutching at the body of the lifeless nomad. “I cannot just leave him!”

  Judd didn’t ask again. He grabbed her around the waist and threw her over his shoulder. She kicked and screamed, beating at his back but he didn’t stop until he reached their tent, putting her down and shoving her inside. He held up a warning finger to Yolana.

  “She is not to leave!” He didn’t wait to hear what Yolana or even Aalis had to say about that, plunging back into the fray.

  There came the sound, a voice shouting and the unicorns that had torn apart the nomad camp, turned like soldiers hearing the call to retreat and began to thunder towards the break in the fence.

  Verne followed them, making every arrow count, hitting the unicorns from behind, striking them down even as they fled. And not just the unicorns. The paddocks for the nomad’s horses had been broken and many of them, frenzied and hearing the call of the wild, were galloping out of the campsite, making Verne’s aim all that more important.

  Suvau grabbed one of the felled tree trunks, using it to try to block the gap in the palisade to stop any more horses from escaping. He was going back for another when a flash of lightening lit the steppelands with an almighty brilliance that outlined every blade of grass, rock, crevice and mound. And for a split second, Suvau caught sight of a figure on a hillock some ways away, astride a horse in a very familiar pose, an arrow in the cradle of a bow.

  The lightening was so bright that for a moment, Suvau was temporarily blinded yet he was already flinging himself towards Verne who hadn’t seen the archer. Suvau couldn’t reach Verne in time but he was able to throw himself in the path of the ugly black arrow.

  Verne cried out as Suvau crashed to the ground at his feet, crumpled and broken, a thick arrow protruding from his right shoulder.

  “Suvau!” Verne reached out to touch it but withdrew. “Giordi! Help me!”

  Even between them they struggled to lift Suvau. He tried to help himself but staggered badly, falling it his knees. “It burns…” He moaned. “Maul, it burns!”

  “It might have been tipped with poison.”

  “We need Aalis!”